Doragon
Tribune
Great story. But apparently I am a horrible person, because I am disappointed the torture didn't resume.
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Tulip and Orchid
- Thread starter dommmu
- Start date
twonines
LIMERICUS
Hear. Hear.
dommmu
Governor
Don't worry. There are still many chapters to come. And Anouk is not going to spend her time having a cup of tea with her captors
dommmu
Governor
Capter 11
The hours of being tortured in harsh bondage had taken their toll on her. When she was put down on the ground and the leather cuffs were removed, Anouk could hardly hold herself on her feet. The handcuffs that the two soldiers tied her hands behind her back with would have been completely unnecessary. She could not even walk straight, so how could she attempt to escape?
Camilo and Diego had to support her on the way back. When she was pushed through the cell door, she saw the tray with her lunch that was waiting for her on the floor. Processed meat and potatoes. What a surprise! But she was hungry as hell and would celebrate the bland lunch like it was a gourmet meal. The two soldiers however had different plans with her.
They both accompanied her into her cell. After locking the door from the inside, Diego kicked the tray with the food, making the meat and the potatoes scatter across the floor.
"Get down!", Camilo ordered and kicked her legs from behind before Anouk got the chance to comply.
She landed on the conrete floor on her knees, grunting from the new pain. Desperately trying to keep her balance, she felt herself fall over. She would have crashed face-first against the frame of her bed if it had not been for Camilo, who grabbed her hair and stopped her fall.
"Go on, eat your food!", he commanded, pulling on her hair to drag her face towards the first potato.
Anouk wept while she chewed. Not from the pain of having her hair brutally pulled or her bare knees chafing over the concrete as Camilo navigated her around the room, ensuring she picked up every last bit of her lunch. What brought the tears into her eyes was the degradation of being made to eat from the floor like an animal and being forced to swallow the food it down, together with the dust and the dirt that stuck to it. But it got worse.
"You did well", Diego praised her and patted her butt cheeks, which were arched high in the air from her crawling position. Then he pushed his finger between her labia.
Anouk flinched and cried out in protest. "No, please don't!"
"Come on", Diego laughed. "We watched your tight little ass dance and your nice titties bounce all day long. You have received so much attention from us. Now it is time for you to return the favor!"
They picked her up by her arms and threw her down on her bed. While landing on her back, Anouk felt the fabric of her prison uniform, untouched since she had stripped it off to wash herself this morning. The rustling she heard came from another fabric, though. Alarmed, she discovered that Diego had stripped off his pants and his undershorts and now presented his noteworthy erection.
"No, you can't do this", she objected, trying to fend him off by kicking her legs and him as he climbed on the bed.
A stroke with the cane onto her left breast, administered by Camilo, reprimanded her. A second one, just as vicous as the first one, hit her right breast. And a third one was laid across both breasts at once. Anouk howled. Those were stronger than the strokes she had received for her 'warm up' when they had her strung up in the interrogation room.
"Do you want more of these?", Camilo jeered, poking her left cheek with the tip of the cane.
Anouk wailed and shook her head.
"Then be a good girl and let us fuck you", Diego instructed, grabbing her knees and pushing them apart. "If you resist, you will only make it more painful for yourself."
Not wanting to get beaten anymore, Anouk ceased to resist. She let her legs slack and allowed Diego to push them apart, so that her feet hung down over the edges of the bed. What else could she do? She was alone in her cell, handcuffed and overpowered by two soldiers. Screaming for help was pointless. During the past few days, she had found out that the walls and the door were so thick that they made the cell practically soundproof. Not that anyone would help her if they heard her. It would probably only earn her more cane strokes.
Letting down her resistance did not mean that Anouk was any less tensed. She reared up when Diego spat on his fingers and smacked his hand against her labia, rubbing in his spittle for lubrication. On her elbows, she crawled up towards the headboard of the bed to escape his invading fingers. It needed another fierce cane stroke from Camilo, this time on her stomach, right across her navel, to get her back in line.
Diego had followed her on her way up across the matress and now that she had reached the end of it, there was no other place to go for her. Anouk trembled with anxiety when he pressed the tip of his stiff penis against her glistening opening. Then he started penetrating her. The lubrication he had applied had been anything but sufficient. It hurt badly when he entered and then persisted invading her with deeper and longer thrusts.
His friend Camilo did not idle as well. He also stripped off his pants and took his position next to the bed. Then he grabbed her hair and twisted her face towards his crotch. His intention was clear, but he still amplified it with his command.
"Suck it! But don't bite! If you do anything stupid, I will bang your face against the toilet until all of your theeth are smashed out."
Anouk doubted that he was bluffing. And so she opened her mouth to accept Camilos swollen member. She retched and almost threw up when the stench of urine crept into her nose and her tongue sensed some soft bits of smegma coming loose from his glans.
The two comrades continued the vigorous rape of their helpless victim. While Diego's approach was anything but gentle, it was the more serene one. He was happy with fondling Anouk's boobs occastionally or caressing her flat belly to feel it bulge from his intruding member.
Camilo on the other hand was more vicious with her. He kept burying his erection all the way into her mouth until it pressed against the back of her throat and made her gag and cough. Then he pulled it out and slapped her with it before forcing his way back in. All of her face was soon smeared with her own saliva. Anouk noticed his pace getting quicker and his penis starting to throb. Next, she felt his semen shooting into her throat. She wanted to escape this unsettling sensation, but he held on to the back of her head and only retreated when the pumping had stopped, leaving her gasping for air and spitting out the white goo.
His friend Diego came a few moments later. For his final few thrusts, he actually slapped his flat hand against Anouk's belly, right where his penis was slightly protruding under her skin, to increase his stimulation. He did not care about the fact that he hurt her by doing so. When his time to orgasm had come, he pulled out and began masturbating himself with his hand. Aiming right between her breasts, he shot his ejaculate against her front, leaving behind a sticky film on her.
"Wow, that was good one", he concluded, exchanging a high five with Camilo.
Before abandoning her in her cell, they made Anouk stand against the wall, her forehead pressed against the flaking off paint, while they removed the handcuffs.
"See you tomorrow", Camilo said as he gave her hair a final hard tug and her left nipple a last mean pinch.
To be continued.
The hours of being tortured in harsh bondage had taken their toll on her. When she was put down on the ground and the leather cuffs were removed, Anouk could hardly hold herself on her feet. The handcuffs that the two soldiers tied her hands behind her back with would have been completely unnecessary. She could not even walk straight, so how could she attempt to escape?
Camilo and Diego had to support her on the way back. When she was pushed through the cell door, she saw the tray with her lunch that was waiting for her on the floor. Processed meat and potatoes. What a surprise! But she was hungry as hell and would celebrate the bland lunch like it was a gourmet meal. The two soldiers however had different plans with her.
They both accompanied her into her cell. After locking the door from the inside, Diego kicked the tray with the food, making the meat and the potatoes scatter across the floor.
"Get down!", Camilo ordered and kicked her legs from behind before Anouk got the chance to comply.
She landed on the conrete floor on her knees, grunting from the new pain. Desperately trying to keep her balance, she felt herself fall over. She would have crashed face-first against the frame of her bed if it had not been for Camilo, who grabbed her hair and stopped her fall.
"Go on, eat your food!", he commanded, pulling on her hair to drag her face towards the first potato.
Anouk wept while she chewed. Not from the pain of having her hair brutally pulled or her bare knees chafing over the concrete as Camilo navigated her around the room, ensuring she picked up every last bit of her lunch. What brought the tears into her eyes was the degradation of being made to eat from the floor like an animal and being forced to swallow the food it down, together with the dust and the dirt that stuck to it. But it got worse.
"You did well", Diego praised her and patted her butt cheeks, which were arched high in the air from her crawling position. Then he pushed his finger between her labia.
Anouk flinched and cried out in protest. "No, please don't!"
"Come on", Diego laughed. "We watched your tight little ass dance and your nice titties bounce all day long. You have received so much attention from us. Now it is time for you to return the favor!"
They picked her up by her arms and threw her down on her bed. While landing on her back, Anouk felt the fabric of her prison uniform, untouched since she had stripped it off to wash herself this morning. The rustling she heard came from another fabric, though. Alarmed, she discovered that Diego had stripped off his pants and his undershorts and now presented his noteworthy erection.
"No, you can't do this", she objected, trying to fend him off by kicking her legs and him as he climbed on the bed.
A stroke with the cane onto her left breast, administered by Camilo, reprimanded her. A second one, just as vicous as the first one, hit her right breast. And a third one was laid across both breasts at once. Anouk howled. Those were stronger than the strokes she had received for her 'warm up' when they had her strung up in the interrogation room.
"Do you want more of these?", Camilo jeered, poking her left cheek with the tip of the cane.
Anouk wailed and shook her head.
"Then be a good girl and let us fuck you", Diego instructed, grabbing her knees and pushing them apart. "If you resist, you will only make it more painful for yourself."
Not wanting to get beaten anymore, Anouk ceased to resist. She let her legs slack and allowed Diego to push them apart, so that her feet hung down over the edges of the bed. What else could she do? She was alone in her cell, handcuffed and overpowered by two soldiers. Screaming for help was pointless. During the past few days, she had found out that the walls and the door were so thick that they made the cell practically soundproof. Not that anyone would help her if they heard her. It would probably only earn her more cane strokes.
Letting down her resistance did not mean that Anouk was any less tensed. She reared up when Diego spat on his fingers and smacked his hand against her labia, rubbing in his spittle for lubrication. On her elbows, she crawled up towards the headboard of the bed to escape his invading fingers. It needed another fierce cane stroke from Camilo, this time on her stomach, right across her navel, to get her back in line.
Diego had followed her on her way up across the matress and now that she had reached the end of it, there was no other place to go for her. Anouk trembled with anxiety when he pressed the tip of his stiff penis against her glistening opening. Then he started penetrating her. The lubrication he had applied had been anything but sufficient. It hurt badly when he entered and then persisted invading her with deeper and longer thrusts.
His friend Camilo did not idle as well. He also stripped off his pants and took his position next to the bed. Then he grabbed her hair and twisted her face towards his crotch. His intention was clear, but he still amplified it with his command.
"Suck it! But don't bite! If you do anything stupid, I will bang your face against the toilet until all of your theeth are smashed out."
Anouk doubted that he was bluffing. And so she opened her mouth to accept Camilos swollen member. She retched and almost threw up when the stench of urine crept into her nose and her tongue sensed some soft bits of smegma coming loose from his glans.
The two comrades continued the vigorous rape of their helpless victim. While Diego's approach was anything but gentle, it was the more serene one. He was happy with fondling Anouk's boobs occastionally or caressing her flat belly to feel it bulge from his intruding member.
Camilo on the other hand was more vicious with her. He kept burying his erection all the way into her mouth until it pressed against the back of her throat and made her gag and cough. Then he pulled it out and slapped her with it before forcing his way back in. All of her face was soon smeared with her own saliva. Anouk noticed his pace getting quicker and his penis starting to throb. Next, she felt his semen shooting into her throat. She wanted to escape this unsettling sensation, but he held on to the back of her head and only retreated when the pumping had stopped, leaving her gasping for air and spitting out the white goo.
His friend Diego came a few moments later. For his final few thrusts, he actually slapped his flat hand against Anouk's belly, right where his penis was slightly protruding under her skin, to increase his stimulation. He did not care about the fact that he hurt her by doing so. When his time to orgasm had come, he pulled out and began masturbating himself with his hand. Aiming right between her breasts, he shot his ejaculate against her front, leaving behind a sticky film on her.
"Wow, that was good one", he concluded, exchanging a high five with Camilo.
Before abandoning her in her cell, they made Anouk stand against the wall, her forehead pressed against the flaking off paint, while they removed the handcuffs.
"See you tomorrow", Camilo said as he gave her hair a final hard tug and her left nipple a last mean pinch.
To be continued.
Doragon
Tribune
This was really hot!
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 12
Merely seconds after her rapists had left her alone, Anouk rushed towards the sink. Washing off the filth from her body that the day of torture and her following defilement had left on her skin was all that was mattered for her now. Shaken by the nervous breakdown that suddenly overcame her, she clumsily scrubbed herself and splashed most of the water across the room. Like on her first day in custody, she quickly found herself standing in a soapy puddle. She did not care.
When she had finished her frantic bath and dried herself off with the small towel, she slipped back into her prison uniform. It was nasty, soiled and smeared with sweat and various body fluids from the ravaging that had taken place atop of it. But it was the only thing she could put on. After redressing, Anouk laid down in her bed, rolled herself up in a fetal position and pulled the blanket over her head.
The events of the past days, and especially the last few hours, took hold of her mind. She wanted to blame Annika for her misery, because it had been her who had sent her on this crazy mission. But could she? No, Anouk had accepted the mission knowing the risk she was taking. Annika's warning words had been honest and clear. And sadly, her warnings had not been exaggerated.
Could she blame 'Orchid', or Valentina as her real name was? Technically, yes. It was her who had gotten her ass arrested the day before the planned handing over of the devastating SD card. And she had babbled out everything about the secret meeting during her interrogation, leading to Anouk's arrest. But having experienced first hand what the Ascuan authorities were ready to do if they wanted to extract information from someone, Anouk could hardly be mad at her for breaking under torture.
Feeling the vile taste of Camilo's urine and semen lingering in her mouth, she wondered if Valentina had been raped, too? Was it standard procedure for accused females? Anouk remembered Annika's remark that the interrogators were supposed to be especially rough with women.
In her apathy, Anouk did not notice her cell door being opened for her dinner to be delivered. It needed a couple of blows with the guard's baton to get her up from her bed and into the requested position.
"Greetings from Camilo and Diego", the guard said as he spat on Anouk's food and then flipped the tray, making her dinner fall down on the floor.
---
The infernal duo returned for her the next morning after breakfast. Anouk was glad that they did not caught her washing herself naked this time and that she was also allowed to keep on her clothes as they put the handcuffs on her to lead her away.
She was taken into the interrogation room again, but this time she found a third chair on the table, opposite of the ones were Fonseca and Tafalla had sat the day before. She understood that the third chair was meant for her when the two soldiers made her sit down on it. A couple of minutes later, Fonseca and his assistant entered.
After a short emotionless greeting, the agent opened his briefcase, pulled out some papers and handed them over to Anouk.
"This is your confession", he explained. "Read it attentively and then sign it."
Since Anouk was not from Ascua, her confession was written in both Nabano and English. Without a doubt, the accusations she was supposed to admit were far-fetched and downright preposterous. It stated that she had entered the Republic of Ascua with the intention to bring harm to it and its people by collaborating with public enemies in an attempt to leak confidential information to the outside. In one word: Espionage. Another allegation was that Anouk worked on behalf of the Orange Hand, which was classified as a terrorist organization in Ascua. She could hardly dispute working for the Orange Hand, although she did not agree with being a terrorist.
After first reading the document, she thought about denying her signature. But remembering the iron bar that hung from the ceiling right behind her, she figured that it would only earn her another ride on it. So she relucantly reached for the pen that Tafalla handed her and signed every single page in the designated bottom corner.
"Do you know what the usual prison sentence is for spies and terrorists?", Fonseca asked after Tafalla had recovered the signed confession from Anouk and safeguarded it in his briefcase. "They get life sentences. And due to their dangerous and manipulative nature, solitary confinement on top. You will spend the rest of your life in a tiny cell, Ms. De Vries, without yard excercise or contact to other inmates, let alone the outside world."
Anouk sobbed. By signing the confession, she had doomed herself to a life where she would be the only person aware of her existence. The isolation during her recent days in custody had been bad enough already. How could she stand an eternity of this? She thought about home and her family and friends who lived there. She would never be allowed to see them or speak to them ever again. Would anyone notify them? Or would she just vanish from their lives without them ever learning the reason? While she tried to remain calm on the outside, grief, anger and desparation took hold of her. She began to cry.
Fonseca reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and produced a little plastic bag from it. The cyanide pill Anouk had smuggled was inside.
"If I gave this to you now, would you take it?"
Anouk blinked away her tears, then shook her head. She was unable to find reasons for her decision, though. She had made it subconsciously.
"I knew it", Fonseca smiled. "You value your life and would not throw it away just like that. A life sentence does not have to be the final verdict, Ms. De Vries. If you cooperate with us, it will leave you standing in a good light in front of the judge. You might get a milder sentence. Maybe fifteen years with the last five out on parole, if you agree to participate in your government's re-education program?"
"How?", Anouk sniveled.
Fonseca's smile grew wider. "Do you know this person?"
He opened his briefcase again and took out another picture. When she recognized who the person in the picture was, she was instantly glad that it was not another mugshot, but a photo presumably having been taken in secret, showing the person walking down a crowded street, carrying two heavy bags and a rucksack.
"This Annika Blomsteen", Fonseca preempted Anouk's answer. "She is the leader of the local Orange Hand terrorist cell. I can tell that you know her by your reaction when you saw the picture. And I guess that you know her well, don't you?"
"What do you want from her?", she asked with an uncomfortable feeling growing in her stomach.
"We want to put an end to her terrorist business and bring her to justice. Unfortunately, we do not know her current whereabouts. The agent we had put on her trail has deserted from the Republic and it is likely that he also warned her about the operation we were preparing. The Orange Hand must have moved their headquarters, since our special unit found the trailer park to be abandoned when they tried to arrest her."
So that was the real reason why the Orange Hand was now accommodated in the municipal hotel? Anouk wondered why Annika had not told her. Weren't they best friends? Did Annika not trust her enough to share this information with her?
"So you want abduct her?", Anouk snarled. "And then? Are you going to lock her up and torture her? Like you did with me?"
"Anything that is necessary to ensure the well-being of the Republic", Fonseca replied drily. "You have been to the new headquarters, haven't you? Here is what I am offering you: You will get a milder sentence, if you can give us the information that will lead to Ms. Blomsteen's arrest."
"No", Anouk refused. "I won't do that!"
"I see. She is your friend and you would do anything to protect her. Even let yourself be locked up for eternity. That is not very smart from you. To Ms. Blomsteen, you are nothing but a pawn to sacrifice if necessary. Do you really want to give up on your life for her?"
Anouk closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you for the offer, Mr. Fonseca. But I am not willing to cooperate."
To be continued.
Merely seconds after her rapists had left her alone, Anouk rushed towards the sink. Washing off the filth from her body that the day of torture and her following defilement had left on her skin was all that was mattered for her now. Shaken by the nervous breakdown that suddenly overcame her, she clumsily scrubbed herself and splashed most of the water across the room. Like on her first day in custody, she quickly found herself standing in a soapy puddle. She did not care.
When she had finished her frantic bath and dried herself off with the small towel, she slipped back into her prison uniform. It was nasty, soiled and smeared with sweat and various body fluids from the ravaging that had taken place atop of it. But it was the only thing she could put on. After redressing, Anouk laid down in her bed, rolled herself up in a fetal position and pulled the blanket over her head.
The events of the past days, and especially the last few hours, took hold of her mind. She wanted to blame Annika for her misery, because it had been her who had sent her on this crazy mission. But could she? No, Anouk had accepted the mission knowing the risk she was taking. Annika's warning words had been honest and clear. And sadly, her warnings had not been exaggerated.
Could she blame 'Orchid', or Valentina as her real name was? Technically, yes. It was her who had gotten her ass arrested the day before the planned handing over of the devastating SD card. And she had babbled out everything about the secret meeting during her interrogation, leading to Anouk's arrest. But having experienced first hand what the Ascuan authorities were ready to do if they wanted to extract information from someone, Anouk could hardly be mad at her for breaking under torture.
Feeling the vile taste of Camilo's urine and semen lingering in her mouth, she wondered if Valentina had been raped, too? Was it standard procedure for accused females? Anouk remembered Annika's remark that the interrogators were supposed to be especially rough with women.
In her apathy, Anouk did not notice her cell door being opened for her dinner to be delivered. It needed a couple of blows with the guard's baton to get her up from her bed and into the requested position.
"Greetings from Camilo and Diego", the guard said as he spat on Anouk's food and then flipped the tray, making her dinner fall down on the floor.
---
The infernal duo returned for her the next morning after breakfast. Anouk was glad that they did not caught her washing herself naked this time and that she was also allowed to keep on her clothes as they put the handcuffs on her to lead her away.
She was taken into the interrogation room again, but this time she found a third chair on the table, opposite of the ones were Fonseca and Tafalla had sat the day before. She understood that the third chair was meant for her when the two soldiers made her sit down on it. A couple of minutes later, Fonseca and his assistant entered.
After a short emotionless greeting, the agent opened his briefcase, pulled out some papers and handed them over to Anouk.
"This is your confession", he explained. "Read it attentively and then sign it."
Since Anouk was not from Ascua, her confession was written in both Nabano and English. Without a doubt, the accusations she was supposed to admit were far-fetched and downright preposterous. It stated that she had entered the Republic of Ascua with the intention to bring harm to it and its people by collaborating with public enemies in an attempt to leak confidential information to the outside. In one word: Espionage. Another allegation was that Anouk worked on behalf of the Orange Hand, which was classified as a terrorist organization in Ascua. She could hardly dispute working for the Orange Hand, although she did not agree with being a terrorist.
After first reading the document, she thought about denying her signature. But remembering the iron bar that hung from the ceiling right behind her, she figured that it would only earn her another ride on it. So she relucantly reached for the pen that Tafalla handed her and signed every single page in the designated bottom corner.
"Do you know what the usual prison sentence is for spies and terrorists?", Fonseca asked after Tafalla had recovered the signed confession from Anouk and safeguarded it in his briefcase. "They get life sentences. And due to their dangerous and manipulative nature, solitary confinement on top. You will spend the rest of your life in a tiny cell, Ms. De Vries, without yard excercise or contact to other inmates, let alone the outside world."
Anouk sobbed. By signing the confession, she had doomed herself to a life where she would be the only person aware of her existence. The isolation during her recent days in custody had been bad enough already. How could she stand an eternity of this? She thought about home and her family and friends who lived there. She would never be allowed to see them or speak to them ever again. Would anyone notify them? Or would she just vanish from their lives without them ever learning the reason? While she tried to remain calm on the outside, grief, anger and desparation took hold of her. She began to cry.
Fonseca reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and produced a little plastic bag from it. The cyanide pill Anouk had smuggled was inside.
"If I gave this to you now, would you take it?"
Anouk blinked away her tears, then shook her head. She was unable to find reasons for her decision, though. She had made it subconsciously.
"I knew it", Fonseca smiled. "You value your life and would not throw it away just like that. A life sentence does not have to be the final verdict, Ms. De Vries. If you cooperate with us, it will leave you standing in a good light in front of the judge. You might get a milder sentence. Maybe fifteen years with the last five out on parole, if you agree to participate in your government's re-education program?"
"How?", Anouk sniveled.
Fonseca's smile grew wider. "Do you know this person?"
He opened his briefcase again and took out another picture. When she recognized who the person in the picture was, she was instantly glad that it was not another mugshot, but a photo presumably having been taken in secret, showing the person walking down a crowded street, carrying two heavy bags and a rucksack.
"This Annika Blomsteen", Fonseca preempted Anouk's answer. "She is the leader of the local Orange Hand terrorist cell. I can tell that you know her by your reaction when you saw the picture. And I guess that you know her well, don't you?"
"What do you want from her?", she asked with an uncomfortable feeling growing in her stomach.
"We want to put an end to her terrorist business and bring her to justice. Unfortunately, we do not know her current whereabouts. The agent we had put on her trail has deserted from the Republic and it is likely that he also warned her about the operation we were preparing. The Orange Hand must have moved their headquarters, since our special unit found the trailer park to be abandoned when they tried to arrest her."
So that was the real reason why the Orange Hand was now accommodated in the municipal hotel? Anouk wondered why Annika had not told her. Weren't they best friends? Did Annika not trust her enough to share this information with her?
"So you want abduct her?", Anouk snarled. "And then? Are you going to lock her up and torture her? Like you did with me?"
"Anything that is necessary to ensure the well-being of the Republic", Fonseca replied drily. "You have been to the new headquarters, haven't you? Here is what I am offering you: You will get a milder sentence, if you can give us the information that will lead to Ms. Blomsteen's arrest."
"No", Anouk refused. "I won't do that!"
"I see. She is your friend and you would do anything to protect her. Even let yourself be locked up for eternity. That is not very smart from you. To Ms. Blomsteen, you are nothing but a pawn to sacrifice if necessary. Do you really want to give up on your life for her?"
Anouk closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you for the offer, Mr. Fonseca. But I am not willing to cooperate."
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 13
"You do have my respect, Ms. De Vries. Not everyone would be willing to make such a sacrifice for their friends."
Fonseca gestured towards Camilo and Diego who had been waiting in readiness. When they approached her from behind, she expected them to escort her back to her cell. But she was wrong.
"Cooperating with us would not only have been beneficial for you", the agent said with a frown. "It would also have saved you from further interrogations. I still want the information that you are withholding, Ms. De Vries. And since you are not going to reveal it willingly, we will have to make you do it."
Diego tucked on her shirt. "Come on, striptease time."
"No", Anouk said startled. "Please don't torture me again!"
"It is up to you, Ms. De Vries. You can avoid this, if you tell us where to find Ms. Blomsteen."
Fonseca gave her a resolute look, but Anouk was determined not to betray her friend. She would not deliver Annika into the hands of these monsters. Hence, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, begrudgingly tossing it on the table in front of her. Her pants joined the shirt soon. Stripping in front of these men did not make Anouk feel ashamed anymore. They already had seen everything that was to see on her the day before.
"What do you want us to do to her today?", Camilo inquired. "Electricity again?"
Fonseca waved off. "No. I think she needs something that leaves a more lasting impression. I thought about a caning on the parrot perch."
Anouk guessed that the reason they kept talking to each other in English was to make sure she was aware of everything they were going to do to her. And while she tried to appear tough on the outside, she was terrified on the inside. The smoke from Fonseca's freshly lit cigarette that he blew into her face was a harbinger of her impending suffering.
In order to get her into the 'parrot perch', they made her sit down on the ground and lowered the iron bar that she had hung from the yesterday until it was only about a feet in the air. Then they made her put her legs over the bar on each side of the steel cable in its center. They were tied together with a coarse rope that was wrapped around her ankles several times before being knotted tightly. The last part of the setup was directing her arms through under the iron bar so that her wrists would meet in front of her shins on the other side. They were tied together with a second rope.
Then it was time to lift her up. Anouk felt the pressure that her own body weight put on the insides of her knees and her upper calves when the bar was slowly pulled up by the winch. After a couple of seconds, every part of her slouching body had left the ground and was hovering in the air.
Her head was the last thing to lose contact with the tiles. Not daring to move a muscle, fearing it would only increase the pain, she let it hang upside down. This position made the blood rush down into her head, since it was the lowest point of her body now. That, combined with the light swinging and turning of the perch, made her feel dizzy quickly. She had to do something against that.
Anouk tensed her muscles of her upper body, lifting her head up until her forehead pressed against her knees and her breasts made contact with her tighs. This introduced her to another mean aspect of the torture: The muscles in her arms, midriff, shoulders and neck soon started to quake under the effort. And the pain in her wrists and shoulders that accompanied the strain was also substantial.
The agent and his henchman left her hanging for a couple of minutes to let her take in and understand every last bit of the exhausting and agonizing predicament. Fonseca waited for her to go through several circles of letting herself hang loose from the parrot perch before rolling herself up into a ball again to keep her head up. Then he made another attempt to get her to talk.
"Ms. De Vries, is there anything that you want to share with me?"
"No!", Anouk grunted while pulling herself up yet again.
She was so busy coping with her anguish that she missed the signal Fonseca gave to the two soldiers. The next thing she felt was one of their canes biting into her left butt cheek, delivered by Camilo, more ferociously and destructively than any of the ones she had received before. Anouk threw her head back and screamed. Another stroke by Diego followed, hitting her right butt cheek.
"The strokes you got from us yesterday have been nothing compared to these", Camilo threatened. "They will not vanish after a couple of hours. We will crack open your skin and make you bleed!"
Fonseca's predicition from yesterday had been quite accurate. Now, 24 hours later, barely anything could be seen from the flicks Camilo and Diego had given her for her 'warm up' before the actual interrogation had started. Only the harder strokes she had received in her cell for discipline when she had tried to resist her rape were still showing with bright red lines on her skin. But the ones she received now? Anouk did not have the slightest doubt that they would stay with her for quite a while longer.
Camilo and Diego kept beating her. Her butt, the back of her thighs and her labia, a popular target especially for Diego, soon were on fire. Her predicament left her crotch exposed and accessible for the cane. After twenty or so hits, Camilo came up to her face and proudly showed her the small drop of blood hanging down from the tip of his cane. He had broken her skin. That was Fonseca's cue to call for a small pause.
"This will continue, Ms. De Vries, if you refuse to talk. Do not think that you just have to hold on long enough for us to lose interest in your information. We will go on, for hours if necessary. And you will break. Everyone breaks eventually. It his your choice how long you want us to go on. And how badly you want your body to be damaged."
Anouk howled and let her head sink. She looked around in the room, upside down from her perspective, swinging and turning around with the uncontrolled movements of the parrot perch. She felt nauseous, from the motions and the pain alike, ready to vomit all around the interrogation chamber.
The questioning continued. Anouk went through the same cycle of tightening her muscles or letting her body slouch again and again. Camilo and Diego continued to hit her with their canes. Between each stroke, they waited for about a minute to increase their excruciating effect. After each set of twenty strokes, they would pause for a couple of minutes to give her a chance to finally answer or to dread the next set.
Anouk lasted through exactly sixty strokes until the discomfort of her bondage, the burning of her shredded skin of her butt, crotch and thighs and the terror caused by the reassurance that there would be no end to this unless she talked, cracked her.
Just when Camilo was about to open the fourth set of her caning, Anouk cried out for them to stop. Then she gave them what they wanted: The location of the new Orange Hand headquarters. The address of the hotel, even Annika's room number and the times when you would most likely meet her there.
"See? We made you talk after all", the agent taunted after his assistant had quickly written down everything she told them. "All of your suffering has been in vain."
On his signal, Diego operated the winch and lowered Anouk, until her back touched the ground. That took the worst stress off her sore and tired body. But she was not freed from her bondage. Instead, Diego grabbed a bottle with disinfectant and sprayed a good number of splashes over the places where they had hit her. Anouk thought she was about to go crazy from the pain when she felt the stinking liquid burn her ruined skin. Then she fainted. A few slaps from Camilo brought her back to into reality.
"I think our little spy needs a rest", he determined.
Fonseca agreed and announced that it was time for their lunch break. Anouk was left on the floor as she was. They informed her that they would be back in an hour with more questions. The last thing she heard before the lights were turned off and she was left alone in the dark interrogation room were the agent's orders for the two soldiers to assemble the 'special interrogation team'.
To be continued.
"You do have my respect, Ms. De Vries. Not everyone would be willing to make such a sacrifice for their friends."
Fonseca gestured towards Camilo and Diego who had been waiting in readiness. When they approached her from behind, she expected them to escort her back to her cell. But she was wrong.
"Cooperating with us would not only have been beneficial for you", the agent said with a frown. "It would also have saved you from further interrogations. I still want the information that you are withholding, Ms. De Vries. And since you are not going to reveal it willingly, we will have to make you do it."
Diego tucked on her shirt. "Come on, striptease time."
"No", Anouk said startled. "Please don't torture me again!"
"It is up to you, Ms. De Vries. You can avoid this, if you tell us where to find Ms. Blomsteen."
Fonseca gave her a resolute look, but Anouk was determined not to betray her friend. She would not deliver Annika into the hands of these monsters. Hence, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, begrudgingly tossing it on the table in front of her. Her pants joined the shirt soon. Stripping in front of these men did not make Anouk feel ashamed anymore. They already had seen everything that was to see on her the day before.
"What do you want us to do to her today?", Camilo inquired. "Electricity again?"
Fonseca waved off. "No. I think she needs something that leaves a more lasting impression. I thought about a caning on the parrot perch."
Anouk guessed that the reason they kept talking to each other in English was to make sure she was aware of everything they were going to do to her. And while she tried to appear tough on the outside, she was terrified on the inside. The smoke from Fonseca's freshly lit cigarette that he blew into her face was a harbinger of her impending suffering.
In order to get her into the 'parrot perch', they made her sit down on the ground and lowered the iron bar that she had hung from the yesterday until it was only about a feet in the air. Then they made her put her legs over the bar on each side of the steel cable in its center. They were tied together with a coarse rope that was wrapped around her ankles several times before being knotted tightly. The last part of the setup was directing her arms through under the iron bar so that her wrists would meet in front of her shins on the other side. They were tied together with a second rope.
Then it was time to lift her up. Anouk felt the pressure that her own body weight put on the insides of her knees and her upper calves when the bar was slowly pulled up by the winch. After a couple of seconds, every part of her slouching body had left the ground and was hovering in the air.
Her head was the last thing to lose contact with the tiles. Not daring to move a muscle, fearing it would only increase the pain, she let it hang upside down. This position made the blood rush down into her head, since it was the lowest point of her body now. That, combined with the light swinging and turning of the perch, made her feel dizzy quickly. She had to do something against that.
Anouk tensed her muscles of her upper body, lifting her head up until her forehead pressed against her knees and her breasts made contact with her tighs. This introduced her to another mean aspect of the torture: The muscles in her arms, midriff, shoulders and neck soon started to quake under the effort. And the pain in her wrists and shoulders that accompanied the strain was also substantial.
The agent and his henchman left her hanging for a couple of minutes to let her take in and understand every last bit of the exhausting and agonizing predicament. Fonseca waited for her to go through several circles of letting herself hang loose from the parrot perch before rolling herself up into a ball again to keep her head up. Then he made another attempt to get her to talk.
"Ms. De Vries, is there anything that you want to share with me?"
"No!", Anouk grunted while pulling herself up yet again.
She was so busy coping with her anguish that she missed the signal Fonseca gave to the two soldiers. The next thing she felt was one of their canes biting into her left butt cheek, delivered by Camilo, more ferociously and destructively than any of the ones she had received before. Anouk threw her head back and screamed. Another stroke by Diego followed, hitting her right butt cheek.
"The strokes you got from us yesterday have been nothing compared to these", Camilo threatened. "They will not vanish after a couple of hours. We will crack open your skin and make you bleed!"
Fonseca's predicition from yesterday had been quite accurate. Now, 24 hours later, barely anything could be seen from the flicks Camilo and Diego had given her for her 'warm up' before the actual interrogation had started. Only the harder strokes she had received in her cell for discipline when she had tried to resist her rape were still showing with bright red lines on her skin. But the ones she received now? Anouk did not have the slightest doubt that they would stay with her for quite a while longer.
Camilo and Diego kept beating her. Her butt, the back of her thighs and her labia, a popular target especially for Diego, soon were on fire. Her predicament left her crotch exposed and accessible for the cane. After twenty or so hits, Camilo came up to her face and proudly showed her the small drop of blood hanging down from the tip of his cane. He had broken her skin. That was Fonseca's cue to call for a small pause.
"This will continue, Ms. De Vries, if you refuse to talk. Do not think that you just have to hold on long enough for us to lose interest in your information. We will go on, for hours if necessary. And you will break. Everyone breaks eventually. It his your choice how long you want us to go on. And how badly you want your body to be damaged."
Anouk howled and let her head sink. She looked around in the room, upside down from her perspective, swinging and turning around with the uncontrolled movements of the parrot perch. She felt nauseous, from the motions and the pain alike, ready to vomit all around the interrogation chamber.
The questioning continued. Anouk went through the same cycle of tightening her muscles or letting her body slouch again and again. Camilo and Diego continued to hit her with their canes. Between each stroke, they waited for about a minute to increase their excruciating effect. After each set of twenty strokes, they would pause for a couple of minutes to give her a chance to finally answer or to dread the next set.
Anouk lasted through exactly sixty strokes until the discomfort of her bondage, the burning of her shredded skin of her butt, crotch and thighs and the terror caused by the reassurance that there would be no end to this unless she talked, cracked her.
Just when Camilo was about to open the fourth set of her caning, Anouk cried out for them to stop. Then she gave them what they wanted: The location of the new Orange Hand headquarters. The address of the hotel, even Annika's room number and the times when you would most likely meet her there.
"See? We made you talk after all", the agent taunted after his assistant had quickly written down everything she told them. "All of your suffering has been in vain."
On his signal, Diego operated the winch and lowered Anouk, until her back touched the ground. That took the worst stress off her sore and tired body. But she was not freed from her bondage. Instead, Diego grabbed a bottle with disinfectant and sprayed a good number of splashes over the places where they had hit her. Anouk thought she was about to go crazy from the pain when she felt the stinking liquid burn her ruined skin. Then she fainted. A few slaps from Camilo brought her back to into reality.
"I think our little spy needs a rest", he determined.
Fonseca agreed and announced that it was time for their lunch break. Anouk was left on the floor as she was. They informed her that they would be back in an hour with more questions. The last thing she heard before the lights were turned off and she was left alone in the dark interrogation room were the agent's orders for the two soldiers to assemble the 'special interrogation team'.
To be continued.
old slave
FELIS RESPICIENS
So this was just the standard, run-of-the-mill, interrogation? 'Special' sounds interesting......
dommmu
Governor
Thank you!
At this point, I would like to give credit to @Lucia whose 2020 post in the thread "Parrot Perch/pau D'arara" gave me an excellent reference for writing about this torture.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 14
She lay on the ground, weeping. Her weakness had made her fail and betray her childhood friend. Soon, they would get their hands on Annika and then she would be subjected to a row of merciless interrogations, too. Anouk's own torture had been bad already, but she was just a pawn in the eyes of the Ascuan agent. Annika was a terrorist leader to them! What kind of ordeal would she have to face? Left alone to suffer in the darkness, Anouk's situation encouraged her mind to come up with many of vile things they might have in store for her friend.
These grim thoughts and the guilt she felt made her feel sick again. The nausea that had accomanpied her when she had swung from the parrot perch moments ago returned so suddenly, that she could not hold it back anymore. Quickly turning her head to the side to avoid soiling herself, she puked the undigested remains of her breakfast out. The tart smell of her vomit crawled into her nose and her mouth and throat burned from the sour slime shooting through it.
Not a word was uttered about her little mishap when her interrogators returned and switched the lights back on to find her in her disgrace. Diego left and returned seconds later with a water bucket and a rag, which he used to clean the floor. Without rinsing it out, the rag was wiped across Anouk's face after that, to remove the last tiny specks that stuck to her lips. Standing back up to take the bucket away, Diego announced that they were ready to continue.
"Your ass looks bad", Camilo mocked. "You should see the prison doctor. But not yet. There will be time to do so later. For now, let's get you ready again."
The bruised nerves in Anouk's knees and calves screamed in pain as they were pressed into the iron bar anew by her body weight when she was lifted back up. Her overworked joints stung and her weakened muscles revolted as she tried to get back into the position that would keep her head from hanging upside down.
"What do you still want from me?", she wailed.
"To tell us anything else you might know about the Orange Hand's plot with the resistance in Ascua", Fonseca demanded. "For example, how did you make contact to organize the meeting?"
"But I have already told you everything I know. Please, you have to believe me!", Anouk begged.
The agent did not answer. Instead, he opened the door of the interrogation room and waved three men in. All of them wore prison uniforms and were looking just as despicable as you would expect someone having been sent to prison for something really vile.
"This are Ernesto, Jorge and Ricardo", Fonseca introduced the three inmates. "Four years ago, they kidnapped a 19 year old girl and raped and tortured her for a whole week before finally showing the mercy to kill her. They were sentenced to life in prison and share a cell since. Another part of their sentence, castration, was suspended if they agreed to help us with with unruly female suspects."
Fonseca's description left no room for interpretation: They were here to gang rape her! On official order of the secret service! Without shame, the trio stripped and presented their erections to Anouk. They did not talk to her. Apparently, you could not expect Ascuan sex offenders to be fluent in Dutch or even English. But there was no talking necessary.
Anouk did not need any orders when the first one, Jorge, approached her, grabbed her hair to pull her head back and pushed his stiff cock against her lips. Just like yesterday in her cell, she knew that there was no way of escape and that any attempt to fend off the assaults would only make them worse. So she obeyed the unspoken command and took it into her mouth, fearing to be treated a lot worse if she resisted. At least he did not smell and taste as foul as Camilo when she had been forced to give him a blowjob yesterday. What could you tell about the Ascuan military when a convicted prisoner kept a better intimate hygiene than an elite soldier working for a government agent?
While Anouk lubricated Jorge's member with her saliva, his two fellow inmates joined him, groping her boobs, squeezing and twisting her nipples and testng her orifices with their fingers. Their filthy hands touching her broken and sweaty skin made her moan in degradation.
A couple of moments later, Jorge felt like the lubrication would suffice. He withdrew himself from her mouth and positioned his member in front of her pussy. Looking past her tied legs and hands, Anouk first saw, then felt him begin his penetration. He was quite gentle to her and took his time, certainly not for her sake, but for his own amusement. Ernesto and Ricardo held on to the ends of the parrot perch to prevent it from swinging too much.
Jorge's gentleness was over when he had buried the entire length of his prick inside her and his sweaty groin and his scratchy pubic hair slapped against the flayed skin of Anouk's crotch and butt. He fell into a rapid pace, hammering himself into her, which rocked her body hanging from the iron bar. When Ernesto let go of the iron bar to let himself get readied by her mouth, the swinging, and with it the agony, was increased further.
Before long, Jorge came and pumped his semen into her with a loud triumphant roar. A slap on the rear after he had performed his final thrust sent her spinning. The rotation was stopped by Ernesto grabbing and squeezing one of her maltreated butt cheeks to align her pussy with his cock. While he invaded her, it was Ricardo's turn to get himself hard and blown before he would follow his two friends.
After a little while, each of the three had had their way with her. Their loins and tighs were smeared with her blood, which did not seem to bother them in any way. Anouk felt herself filled and dripping with the spunk of three men she knew nothing about but their first names and the fact that they all were convicted rapists and murderers.
Fonseca encouraged them for a second round, but they insisted that their balls needed a short break for reloading. Although the conversation between the agent and his 'special interrogation team' was not held in English, Anouk's basic Nabano skills were enough to make out what they were saying.
To help the rape gang getting ready and aroused again, Camilo and Diego used the electric anal probe on Anouk they had threatened her with the day before, utilizing the semen leaking from her gaping labia as lubrication before pushing the rounded tip of the metal rod past her sphincter. One of the metal clamps, attached to one of her pinky toes, closed the circuit and soon she was writhing under the agonizing electricity again.
Anouk hoped to stop the torture by making up a theory that the defective agent might have helped the Orange Hand to communicate with the Ascuan resistance. But that was not enough for Fonseca. He wanted details. Details that she could not give him, because she did not know them.
As soon as Jorge, Ernesto and Ricardo, exited and stimulated by the view of a young woman suffering, were ready for the second round, the wires were removed and the soldiers left her to the mercy of the rapist trio. This time they used her rear. Anouk howled and begged them to stop, but they were unmoved her lamentations.
Still not happy with Anouk's answers, Fonseca demanded a third performance. In return for their steadfastness and their endurance, he promised Jorge, Ernesto and Ricardo that each of them would receive a can of cold beer for dinner tonight. That was enough motivation to get them going again. But even the third consecutive gang rape did not make Anouk to come up with better answers.
"Should we get them some aphrodisiac drugs for a fourth round?", Diego suggested.
"No", Fonseca declined. "I think she really does not know anymore than what she has already told us. And by the way, it is getting late and I have dinner plans for tonight. The in-laws are coming over and I promised my wife that I would be home by six to help her with the preparations. Mr. Tafalla, we can clear Ms. De Vries for court now."
"Don't you want to rape me first, too?", Anouk shouted sarcastically. "You and your scribbler are the only ones in the room who have not fucked me yet!"
Fonseca raised his eyebrows and shot the two soldiers a questioning glance. Camilo and Diego only shrugged their shoulders and gave him a silly smile in return, which made the agent close his eyes and shake his head with an overacted sigh before standing up and approaching Anouk.
"I am loyal to my wife and do not need filthy scum like you to fulfill my desires", he clarified. "Who knows what kind of deseases I would catch from you. You have proven to be such a slutty whore today that I do not even want to know how many guards have had you already."
Anouk felt new tears pressing against the back of her eyes. This asshole really was a master with mind games. Fonseca knelt down next to her head, moved his mouth close to her right ear and lowered his voice, so that only she could hear him whisper.
"Do not mistake my loyalty for prudeness, Anouk. I have gotten my appetite watching your tight young body squirm under the torture. And once the in-laws have left the house tonight, I will claim my reward for being a good husband and fuck my wife's brains out."
To be continued.
She lay on the ground, weeping. Her weakness had made her fail and betray her childhood friend. Soon, they would get their hands on Annika and then she would be subjected to a row of merciless interrogations, too. Anouk's own torture had been bad already, but she was just a pawn in the eyes of the Ascuan agent. Annika was a terrorist leader to them! What kind of ordeal would she have to face? Left alone to suffer in the darkness, Anouk's situation encouraged her mind to come up with many of vile things they might have in store for her friend.
These grim thoughts and the guilt she felt made her feel sick again. The nausea that had accomanpied her when she had swung from the parrot perch moments ago returned so suddenly, that she could not hold it back anymore. Quickly turning her head to the side to avoid soiling herself, she puked the undigested remains of her breakfast out. The tart smell of her vomit crawled into her nose and her mouth and throat burned from the sour slime shooting through it.
Not a word was uttered about her little mishap when her interrogators returned and switched the lights back on to find her in her disgrace. Diego left and returned seconds later with a water bucket and a rag, which he used to clean the floor. Without rinsing it out, the rag was wiped across Anouk's face after that, to remove the last tiny specks that stuck to her lips. Standing back up to take the bucket away, Diego announced that they were ready to continue.
"Your ass looks bad", Camilo mocked. "You should see the prison doctor. But not yet. There will be time to do so later. For now, let's get you ready again."
The bruised nerves in Anouk's knees and calves screamed in pain as they were pressed into the iron bar anew by her body weight when she was lifted back up. Her overworked joints stung and her weakened muscles revolted as she tried to get back into the position that would keep her head from hanging upside down.
"What do you still want from me?", she wailed.
"To tell us anything else you might know about the Orange Hand's plot with the resistance in Ascua", Fonseca demanded. "For example, how did you make contact to organize the meeting?"
"But I have already told you everything I know. Please, you have to believe me!", Anouk begged.
The agent did not answer. Instead, he opened the door of the interrogation room and waved three men in. All of them wore prison uniforms and were looking just as despicable as you would expect someone having been sent to prison for something really vile.
"This are Ernesto, Jorge and Ricardo", Fonseca introduced the three inmates. "Four years ago, they kidnapped a 19 year old girl and raped and tortured her for a whole week before finally showing the mercy to kill her. They were sentenced to life in prison and share a cell since. Another part of their sentence, castration, was suspended if they agreed to help us with with unruly female suspects."
Fonseca's description left no room for interpretation: They were here to gang rape her! On official order of the secret service! Without shame, the trio stripped and presented their erections to Anouk. They did not talk to her. Apparently, you could not expect Ascuan sex offenders to be fluent in Dutch or even English. But there was no talking necessary.
Anouk did not need any orders when the first one, Jorge, approached her, grabbed her hair to pull her head back and pushed his stiff cock against her lips. Just like yesterday in her cell, she knew that there was no way of escape and that any attempt to fend off the assaults would only make them worse. So she obeyed the unspoken command and took it into her mouth, fearing to be treated a lot worse if she resisted. At least he did not smell and taste as foul as Camilo when she had been forced to give him a blowjob yesterday. What could you tell about the Ascuan military when a convicted prisoner kept a better intimate hygiene than an elite soldier working for a government agent?
While Anouk lubricated Jorge's member with her saliva, his two fellow inmates joined him, groping her boobs, squeezing and twisting her nipples and testng her orifices with their fingers. Their filthy hands touching her broken and sweaty skin made her moan in degradation.
A couple of moments later, Jorge felt like the lubrication would suffice. He withdrew himself from her mouth and positioned his member in front of her pussy. Looking past her tied legs and hands, Anouk first saw, then felt him begin his penetration. He was quite gentle to her and took his time, certainly not for her sake, but for his own amusement. Ernesto and Ricardo held on to the ends of the parrot perch to prevent it from swinging too much.
Jorge's gentleness was over when he had buried the entire length of his prick inside her and his sweaty groin and his scratchy pubic hair slapped against the flayed skin of Anouk's crotch and butt. He fell into a rapid pace, hammering himself into her, which rocked her body hanging from the iron bar. When Ernesto let go of the iron bar to let himself get readied by her mouth, the swinging, and with it the agony, was increased further.
Before long, Jorge came and pumped his semen into her with a loud triumphant roar. A slap on the rear after he had performed his final thrust sent her spinning. The rotation was stopped by Ernesto grabbing and squeezing one of her maltreated butt cheeks to align her pussy with his cock. While he invaded her, it was Ricardo's turn to get himself hard and blown before he would follow his two friends.
After a little while, each of the three had had their way with her. Their loins and tighs were smeared with her blood, which did not seem to bother them in any way. Anouk felt herself filled and dripping with the spunk of three men she knew nothing about but their first names and the fact that they all were convicted rapists and murderers.
Fonseca encouraged them for a second round, but they insisted that their balls needed a short break for reloading. Although the conversation between the agent and his 'special interrogation team' was not held in English, Anouk's basic Nabano skills were enough to make out what they were saying.
To help the rape gang getting ready and aroused again, Camilo and Diego used the electric anal probe on Anouk they had threatened her with the day before, utilizing the semen leaking from her gaping labia as lubrication before pushing the rounded tip of the metal rod past her sphincter. One of the metal clamps, attached to one of her pinky toes, closed the circuit and soon she was writhing under the agonizing electricity again.
Anouk hoped to stop the torture by making up a theory that the defective agent might have helped the Orange Hand to communicate with the Ascuan resistance. But that was not enough for Fonseca. He wanted details. Details that she could not give him, because she did not know them.
As soon as Jorge, Ernesto and Ricardo, exited and stimulated by the view of a young woman suffering, were ready for the second round, the wires were removed and the soldiers left her to the mercy of the rapist trio. This time they used her rear. Anouk howled and begged them to stop, but they were unmoved her lamentations.
Still not happy with Anouk's answers, Fonseca demanded a third performance. In return for their steadfastness and their endurance, he promised Jorge, Ernesto and Ricardo that each of them would receive a can of cold beer for dinner tonight. That was enough motivation to get them going again. But even the third consecutive gang rape did not make Anouk to come up with better answers.
"Should we get them some aphrodisiac drugs for a fourth round?", Diego suggested.
"No", Fonseca declined. "I think she really does not know anymore than what she has already told us. And by the way, it is getting late and I have dinner plans for tonight. The in-laws are coming over and I promised my wife that I would be home by six to help her with the preparations. Mr. Tafalla, we can clear Ms. De Vries for court now."
"Don't you want to rape me first, too?", Anouk shouted sarcastically. "You and your scribbler are the only ones in the room who have not fucked me yet!"
Fonseca raised his eyebrows and shot the two soldiers a questioning glance. Camilo and Diego only shrugged their shoulders and gave him a silly smile in return, which made the agent close his eyes and shake his head with an overacted sigh before standing up and approaching Anouk.
"I am loyal to my wife and do not need filthy scum like you to fulfill my desires", he clarified. "Who knows what kind of deseases I would catch from you. You have proven to be such a slutty whore today that I do not even want to know how many guards have had you already."
Anouk felt new tears pressing against the back of her eyes. This asshole really was a master with mind games. Fonseca knelt down next to her head, moved his mouth close to her right ear and lowered his voice, so that only she could hear him whisper.
"Do not mistake my loyalty for prudeness, Anouk. I have gotten my appetite watching your tight young body squirm under the torture. And once the in-laws have left the house tonight, I will claim my reward for being a good husband and fuck my wife's brains out."
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 15
After two days of hard torture, Anouk was unable to walk by herself. She did not even manage to get back on her feet after having been lowered down and untied from the parrot perch. When the two soldiers realized that the additional cane strokes they gave her for motivation did not help either, Diego picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Camilo followed him, bringing along her prison uniform. Back in her cell, Diego simply threw her on the bed. Her clothes landed on top of her. At least, they did not rape her today before they left her alone.
The prison doctor came by later in the evening to assess the damages the torture had left on Anouk. She received no reassurance from him, only the indifferent diagnosis that none of the cane strokes had damaged her skin to a worrying level and that they would heal within a couple of weeks. Bawling and biting into her blanket, she lay on her stomach while he applied some ointment that would prevent infections and help to stop the bleeding. He also gave her an adult diaper to wear for the night, saying this would be better than applying bandages to that region of her body and would make it easier for her if she had to use the toilet.
Nothing happened for the next few days. Who knew how quick or slow the legal system in Ascua was working? Maybe she would spent weeks or even months in custody before she was even brought in front of a judge.
There was a slight relief for her however: Her concern that the rapes might have gotten her pregnant fell apart the next morning when she found a good amount of period blood in her diaper. Counting her days in captivity, Anouk calculated the date and determined that her period was still on schedule.
The prison doctor, who stopped by for daily checkups to monitor the healing of her welts, nevertheless insisted on checking the inside of her vagina with a speculum. He said that he just wanted to be sure that the 'lengthy penetration', as he euphemized the gang rape, had not caused any serious injuries. It had not. Still, it had made her crotch raw and Anouk spent most of her time in bed, waiting out her period and the soreness. It had never really bothered her before, but following her abuse, she somehow felt extra delicate.
---
Uneventful days came and passed. On the third day after her last interrogation, the doctor concluded that all of the welts where the skin had been broken had now closed and posed no risk for an infection anymore. From that day on, Anouk did not have to wear the diaper anymore.
It was well over two weeks after her torture when she was awoken in the middle of the night by a loud bang somewhere in the distance. It sounded like a shot. Not from a gun, but from a really big cannon. Artillery fire? Another, similar bang followed.
This continued over the next three days. Every now and then, distant shots and even more distant explosions could be heard. The buzzing of helicopters passing by somewhere near joined them. What was happening? Had one of the parties broken the ceasefire?
The guns fell silent after the third day. Strangely, the sudden quietness was not calming Anouk down. There was something ominous about it. And her gut feeling did not lead her astray.
It was sometime in the late afternoon when the cell door was opened out of schedule. Anouk routinely took her submissive pose on the wall, like she was required to do everytime someone else entered the cell.
"Turn around, Ms. De Vries."
She recognized the voice. It belonged to Oscar Tafalla, the scribbler who had assisted agent Fonseca during Anouk's interrogation. When she turned around, she found him standing in the door frame, clasping his obligatory briefcase.
"Ms. De Vries, I am here to inform you that your trial was held this morning and your sentence has been spoken."
"What? My trial is already over? But I did not even had the chance to testify!", Anouk protested.
"There was no need for you to do so. You already testified in the interrogation room when you signed your confession. That is sufficient for the Ascuan court martial."
"Court martial?" Now Anouk was on high alert. "You said that my trial would be held by the criminal court!"
"That was before the Republic of Ascua declared war on Estoria", he corrected her, giving a meaningful nod towards the small window of the cell while the artillery fire outside started again. "When the country is in a state of war, cases like yours are processed by the court martial."
"No, this cannot be happening", Anouk objected. "This is wrong!"
"I assure you that everything has been proceeded according to our laws. I am now going to inform you about your sentence." He fumbled about in his briefcase and took out an officially looking document, which he began translate for her. "You have been found guilty of attempted espionage and being a member of a terrorist organization. Both offenses are punishable by death, which is why you have been sentenced to be shot by a firing squad."
"But the death penalty was abolished by both Ascua and Estoria! Please tell me that this is just another one of your mind tricks!"
Anouk raised her hands and covered the lower part of her face with it to hide her mouth, which was wide open in shock.
"No, Ms. De Vries. This is the truth", Tafalla replied, unmoved. "The death penalty was never abolished, only suspended for the time of the truce. Your sentence will be carried out as soon as possible. But we have to prepare an execution room and arrange a detail for the firing squad first. There have been no executions in the Republic of Ascua since the last war. And now we have... a lot of them to handle. But you can expect to be dead by this time tomorrow."
To be continued.
After two days of hard torture, Anouk was unable to walk by herself. She did not even manage to get back on her feet after having been lowered down and untied from the parrot perch. When the two soldiers realized that the additional cane strokes they gave her for motivation did not help either, Diego picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Camilo followed him, bringing along her prison uniform. Back in her cell, Diego simply threw her on the bed. Her clothes landed on top of her. At least, they did not rape her today before they left her alone.
The prison doctor came by later in the evening to assess the damages the torture had left on Anouk. She received no reassurance from him, only the indifferent diagnosis that none of the cane strokes had damaged her skin to a worrying level and that they would heal within a couple of weeks. Bawling and biting into her blanket, she lay on her stomach while he applied some ointment that would prevent infections and help to stop the bleeding. He also gave her an adult diaper to wear for the night, saying this would be better than applying bandages to that region of her body and would make it easier for her if she had to use the toilet.
Nothing happened for the next few days. Who knew how quick or slow the legal system in Ascua was working? Maybe she would spent weeks or even months in custody before she was even brought in front of a judge.
There was a slight relief for her however: Her concern that the rapes might have gotten her pregnant fell apart the next morning when she found a good amount of period blood in her diaper. Counting her days in captivity, Anouk calculated the date and determined that her period was still on schedule.
The prison doctor, who stopped by for daily checkups to monitor the healing of her welts, nevertheless insisted on checking the inside of her vagina with a speculum. He said that he just wanted to be sure that the 'lengthy penetration', as he euphemized the gang rape, had not caused any serious injuries. It had not. Still, it had made her crotch raw and Anouk spent most of her time in bed, waiting out her period and the soreness. It had never really bothered her before, but following her abuse, she somehow felt extra delicate.
---
Uneventful days came and passed. On the third day after her last interrogation, the doctor concluded that all of the welts where the skin had been broken had now closed and posed no risk for an infection anymore. From that day on, Anouk did not have to wear the diaper anymore.
It was well over two weeks after her torture when she was awoken in the middle of the night by a loud bang somewhere in the distance. It sounded like a shot. Not from a gun, but from a really big cannon. Artillery fire? Another, similar bang followed.
This continued over the next three days. Every now and then, distant shots and even more distant explosions could be heard. The buzzing of helicopters passing by somewhere near joined them. What was happening? Had one of the parties broken the ceasefire?
The guns fell silent after the third day. Strangely, the sudden quietness was not calming Anouk down. There was something ominous about it. And her gut feeling did not lead her astray.
It was sometime in the late afternoon when the cell door was opened out of schedule. Anouk routinely took her submissive pose on the wall, like she was required to do everytime someone else entered the cell.
"Turn around, Ms. De Vries."
She recognized the voice. It belonged to Oscar Tafalla, the scribbler who had assisted agent Fonseca during Anouk's interrogation. When she turned around, she found him standing in the door frame, clasping his obligatory briefcase.
"Ms. De Vries, I am here to inform you that your trial was held this morning and your sentence has been spoken."
"What? My trial is already over? But I did not even had the chance to testify!", Anouk protested.
"There was no need for you to do so. You already testified in the interrogation room when you signed your confession. That is sufficient for the Ascuan court martial."
"Court martial?" Now Anouk was on high alert. "You said that my trial would be held by the criminal court!"
"That was before the Republic of Ascua declared war on Estoria", he corrected her, giving a meaningful nod towards the small window of the cell while the artillery fire outside started again. "When the country is in a state of war, cases like yours are processed by the court martial."
"No, this cannot be happening", Anouk objected. "This is wrong!"
"I assure you that everything has been proceeded according to our laws. I am now going to inform you about your sentence." He fumbled about in his briefcase and took out an officially looking document, which he began translate for her. "You have been found guilty of attempted espionage and being a member of a terrorist organization. Both offenses are punishable by death, which is why you have been sentenced to be shot by a firing squad."
"But the death penalty was abolished by both Ascua and Estoria! Please tell me that this is just another one of your mind tricks!"
Anouk raised her hands and covered the lower part of her face with it to hide her mouth, which was wide open in shock.
"No, Ms. De Vries. This is the truth", Tafalla replied, unmoved. "The death penalty was never abolished, only suspended for the time of the truce. Your sentence will be carried out as soon as possible. But we have to prepare an execution room and arrange a detail for the firing squad first. There have been no executions in the Republic of Ascua since the last war. And now we have... a lot of them to handle. But you can expect to be dead by this time tomorrow."
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 16
They were going to kill her. They really were going to kill her! Some part of Anouk's mind refused to believe the news while the other part realized in horror what it meant: Her young life was going to end soon. She was only 26 years old and kow she was going to die in some shithole of a prison, by the order of a judge she had never even seen, let alone talked to. He had sentenced her to the worst punishment possible without even giving her a chance to defend herself. And what kind of country accepted a confession extracted under torture as testimony for a trial?
Evening came and her dinner was brought. She did not touch it. There was no point in eating anymore. Darkness came over the prison and the ghostly light of the moon fell through the small window, forming a bright rectangle on the cell floor. Anouk rolled around on her bed uneasily. Like on her first night of imprisonment, the edgy uncertainty of what was going to happen next denied her a restful sleep. She eventually ate her food defiantly to silence her annoying stomach growling that played a part in keeping her awake. But it did not really help.
At the end of the sleepless night, her breakfast was brought. Anouk had a feeling that it would be her last meal. Although the food was not different than usual (bread and cheese), she knew when the prison staff asked her for her mug and poured a dark steaming liquid into it. Coffee!
They also offered her a cigarette. For her entire life, Anouk had resisted the temptation of the nicotine. But knowing that she would be dead by the end of the day anyways, she accepted it and let the guard light it for her. The unknown sensation in her mouth and throat after the first puff took her by surprise and made her cough and retch. She tried a second puff, but found that smoking was definately not her thing when her reaction to it was equally violent than after the first one. So she decided to quit smoking for good before even really starting with it an put out the cigarette in the sink.
The coffee brought more joy to her. Before her arrest, Anouk had been kind of a caffeine junky, drinking at least two cups of coffe in the morning and usually another cup or an energy drink after lunch. The sudden withdrawal had troubled her during her first days in custody, giving her headaches. The coffee she had been served this morning was so weak, that it actually was nothing more than brown water. Under normal circumstances, she would have emptied her mug out into the sink with a yuck. But after drinking nothing but water during the last weeks, she was happy for any different taste. And the short delight was a welcome distraction from the thing that awaited her next.
Two guards came for her around the time when lunch would usually be served. Like on the day when she had been taken away for her first interrogation, Anouk felt a strange mix of anxiousness about what was going to happen and relief about the grueling wait finally coming to end. She took her position against the wall and passively let her arms be handcuffed behind her back before being led away.
Their way took them through many hallways with countless cell doors to their left and right. Every now an then, they passed a security gate or took a turn. One corner looked like the other to Anouk, but the guards never gave her the impression that they had lost their way through this labyrinth of concrete walls and metal doorts. She was impressed, but also intimidated at the actual size of the prison. During her weeks in custody, she had never gotten to know more than her tiny cell, the interrogation room and the short way down the stairs that connected the two.
At one point, Anouk and her escort even had to change the building. They led her out on a yard. It was the first time in more than three weeks that Anouk was outside again. The scorching noon sun beat down on her. Walking over the heated cobblestone hurt her bare feet. And there was the smell of something burning in the air. But nothing of that did bother her. She was outside again!
The joy quickly faded when they entered the other building and Anouk understood that she just had felt the warmth of the sun for the last time in her life. The tile floor she walked on now had a strange coldness.
They arrived at their destination eventually and Anouk was directed into some kind of locker room. The name tags on the lockers told her that this room was not usually used by prisoners, but probably by the staff. The three were alone in the room for now.
Unsettling noises come from behind another door of the room that bore a shower symbol. Another person, a woman judging from the voice, was crying behind the door. Out of nowhere, a gun shot echoed through the premises and startled Anouk. If her hands had not been cuffed behind her back, she would have used them to instinctively cover her ears. The crying from the other side of the door stopped at once and was replaced by a short slumping sound. A long eerie silence followed and was only interrupted by a few muffled voices. Then Anouk realized in shock: A person had just been killed in the showers! And it would be her turn next.
Two men entered the locker room a short while later through the shower door. It were the prison doctor and another guy in a suit, whom she had not seen before. The suit quickly traced his finger down the list on the clipboard he was carrying.
"Anouk De Vries?", he asked her. She nodded hesitantly.
"My name is Slavador Cazalla", he introduced himself. Like many of the Ascuan officials, he spoke perfect English. "I was appointed by the Republic of Ascua to oversee your execution, which will be carried out instantaneously. In a moment, you will be taken into the execution room next door, where you will meet the firing squad. You will be shot into the heart. For the unlikely case that you are not dead within thirty seconds, a second shot will be administered to your head. Your body will then be taken to the prison morgue to be cremated. Your personal belongings, which were seized upon your arrest, will be burned along with it."
Anouk wanted to cry. But she had cried so much over the last three weeks, that she thought it to be pointless now. They would not spare her if she begged for her life. 'No more tears until it's over', she swore to herself. If she had to die today, she would do it with poise and dignity and not as a sobbing coward like the woman before her. She would not grant her captors that triumph.
"I believe you have already met Dr. Jesus Romero", Cazalla said, waving his hands towards the prison doctor next to him. "He will oversee your execution from the medical point of view and proclaim your death when it was carried out. Now disrobe. The prison uniform is not your property and must be returned."
Of course! They wanted her to strip again. Nothing new about that. But stripping naked in front of these total strangers (well, apart from Dr. Romero who had already seen everything on her when he had examined her after the torture) was going to be the last degradation she would ever have to endure.
Anouk took off her uniform, carefully calculating every single movement. She did not want them to notice her reluctance, but she also did not want to suggest any lasciviousness. She simply stripped in a down-to-business manner like if she was changing her clothes back at home.
Home. The thoughts overcame her. Of course she had thought about a lot at home during her captivity. She had thought about seeing her family and her friends again. Returning to her small but cozy apartment in Leeuwarden. Going on the hunt for the handsome guys who were waiting to be picked up by her at some party. Sitting down at the table in one of the many roadside cafes to meet Annika, who had finally been convinced to take a timeout for a home leave. All of this was never going to happen but in her fantasy.
She tossed the shirt and the pants into a laundry cart, which was quite full already. How many people had died behind the door since dawn?
After she had been refitted with the handcuffs locking her wrists behind her back, the doctor approached her with a stethoscope. Saying that the purpose for this last examination was to determine the exact location of her heart, he pushed the cold metal against the bare skin over her ribcage. When he had found the spot he had been looking for, he took out a marker and drew a small X on it, right below her left breast, between two of her ribs.
This was where the bullet was going to enter her and put an end to her life.
To be continued.
They were going to kill her. They really were going to kill her! Some part of Anouk's mind refused to believe the news while the other part realized in horror what it meant: Her young life was going to end soon. She was only 26 years old and kow she was going to die in some shithole of a prison, by the order of a judge she had never even seen, let alone talked to. He had sentenced her to the worst punishment possible without even giving her a chance to defend herself. And what kind of country accepted a confession extracted under torture as testimony for a trial?
Evening came and her dinner was brought. She did not touch it. There was no point in eating anymore. Darkness came over the prison and the ghostly light of the moon fell through the small window, forming a bright rectangle on the cell floor. Anouk rolled around on her bed uneasily. Like on her first night of imprisonment, the edgy uncertainty of what was going to happen next denied her a restful sleep. She eventually ate her food defiantly to silence her annoying stomach growling that played a part in keeping her awake. But it did not really help.
At the end of the sleepless night, her breakfast was brought. Anouk had a feeling that it would be her last meal. Although the food was not different than usual (bread and cheese), she knew when the prison staff asked her for her mug and poured a dark steaming liquid into it. Coffee!
They also offered her a cigarette. For her entire life, Anouk had resisted the temptation of the nicotine. But knowing that she would be dead by the end of the day anyways, she accepted it and let the guard light it for her. The unknown sensation in her mouth and throat after the first puff took her by surprise and made her cough and retch. She tried a second puff, but found that smoking was definately not her thing when her reaction to it was equally violent than after the first one. So she decided to quit smoking for good before even really starting with it an put out the cigarette in the sink.
The coffee brought more joy to her. Before her arrest, Anouk had been kind of a caffeine junky, drinking at least two cups of coffe in the morning and usually another cup or an energy drink after lunch. The sudden withdrawal had troubled her during her first days in custody, giving her headaches. The coffee she had been served this morning was so weak, that it actually was nothing more than brown water. Under normal circumstances, she would have emptied her mug out into the sink with a yuck. But after drinking nothing but water during the last weeks, she was happy for any different taste. And the short delight was a welcome distraction from the thing that awaited her next.
Two guards came for her around the time when lunch would usually be served. Like on the day when she had been taken away for her first interrogation, Anouk felt a strange mix of anxiousness about what was going to happen and relief about the grueling wait finally coming to end. She took her position against the wall and passively let her arms be handcuffed behind her back before being led away.
Their way took them through many hallways with countless cell doors to their left and right. Every now an then, they passed a security gate or took a turn. One corner looked like the other to Anouk, but the guards never gave her the impression that they had lost their way through this labyrinth of concrete walls and metal doorts. She was impressed, but also intimidated at the actual size of the prison. During her weeks in custody, she had never gotten to know more than her tiny cell, the interrogation room and the short way down the stairs that connected the two.
At one point, Anouk and her escort even had to change the building. They led her out on a yard. It was the first time in more than three weeks that Anouk was outside again. The scorching noon sun beat down on her. Walking over the heated cobblestone hurt her bare feet. And there was the smell of something burning in the air. But nothing of that did bother her. She was outside again!
The joy quickly faded when they entered the other building and Anouk understood that she just had felt the warmth of the sun for the last time in her life. The tile floor she walked on now had a strange coldness.
They arrived at their destination eventually and Anouk was directed into some kind of locker room. The name tags on the lockers told her that this room was not usually used by prisoners, but probably by the staff. The three were alone in the room for now.
Unsettling noises come from behind another door of the room that bore a shower symbol. Another person, a woman judging from the voice, was crying behind the door. Out of nowhere, a gun shot echoed through the premises and startled Anouk. If her hands had not been cuffed behind her back, she would have used them to instinctively cover her ears. The crying from the other side of the door stopped at once and was replaced by a short slumping sound. A long eerie silence followed and was only interrupted by a few muffled voices. Then Anouk realized in shock: A person had just been killed in the showers! And it would be her turn next.
Two men entered the locker room a short while later through the shower door. It were the prison doctor and another guy in a suit, whom she had not seen before. The suit quickly traced his finger down the list on the clipboard he was carrying.
"Anouk De Vries?", he asked her. She nodded hesitantly.
"My name is Slavador Cazalla", he introduced himself. Like many of the Ascuan officials, he spoke perfect English. "I was appointed by the Republic of Ascua to oversee your execution, which will be carried out instantaneously. In a moment, you will be taken into the execution room next door, where you will meet the firing squad. You will be shot into the heart. For the unlikely case that you are not dead within thirty seconds, a second shot will be administered to your head. Your body will then be taken to the prison morgue to be cremated. Your personal belongings, which were seized upon your arrest, will be burned along with it."
Anouk wanted to cry. But she had cried so much over the last three weeks, that she thought it to be pointless now. They would not spare her if she begged for her life. 'No more tears until it's over', she swore to herself. If she had to die today, she would do it with poise and dignity and not as a sobbing coward like the woman before her. She would not grant her captors that triumph.
"I believe you have already met Dr. Jesus Romero", Cazalla said, waving his hands towards the prison doctor next to him. "He will oversee your execution from the medical point of view and proclaim your death when it was carried out. Now disrobe. The prison uniform is not your property and must be returned."
Of course! They wanted her to strip again. Nothing new about that. But stripping naked in front of these total strangers (well, apart from Dr. Romero who had already seen everything on her when he had examined her after the torture) was going to be the last degradation she would ever have to endure.
Anouk took off her uniform, carefully calculating every single movement. She did not want them to notice her reluctance, but she also did not want to suggest any lasciviousness. She simply stripped in a down-to-business manner like if she was changing her clothes back at home.
Home. The thoughts overcame her. Of course she had thought about a lot at home during her captivity. She had thought about seeing her family and her friends again. Returning to her small but cozy apartment in Leeuwarden. Going on the hunt for the handsome guys who were waiting to be picked up by her at some party. Sitting down at the table in one of the many roadside cafes to meet Annika, who had finally been convinced to take a timeout for a home leave. All of this was never going to happen but in her fantasy.
She tossed the shirt and the pants into a laundry cart, which was quite full already. How many people had died behind the door since dawn?
After she had been refitted with the handcuffs locking her wrists behind her back, the doctor approached her with a stethoscope. Saying that the purpose for this last examination was to determine the exact location of her heart, he pushed the cold metal against the bare skin over her ribcage. When he had found the spot he had been looking for, he took out a marker and drew a small X on it, right below her left breast, between two of her ribs.
This was where the bullet was going to enter her and put an end to her life.
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 17
For the execution room, they had repurposed the adjoining group showers. The most apparent reason for this was, that the tiled floor and walls would be easy to clean from the blood of their victims. Indeed, a soldier just finished rinsing the remaing blood of the previous condemned with a water hose and made it disappear in a drain. Only the sandbags that had been stacked against the wall under the shower heads told the truth: The dark stains on their front ends were the remains of the many lifes that had ended in here today.
Anouk was directed to stand over the drainage cover, about two feet away from the sandbags, with her back turned to them. Cazalla and Dr. Romero positioned themselves in a corner opposite to her behind a provisionally installed acrylic glass shield.
Another door leading to a second locker room opened and the soldier who had cleaned the execution room a minute ago re-entered, pushing a cart that had a flat metal tub welded onto its load area. 'They are going to dump me into this to take my body away', she immediately figured out. The ghastly contraption intimidated her.
But the cart was not nearly as frightening as the firing squad, which entered the group showers next. It consisted of three soldiers, wearing plastic suits over their uniforms. Their faces were hidden under black ski masks that left only their eyes free, although they where covered with plastic goggles. It appeared that they were fine with shooting helpless naked people, but shyed away from being sprinkled with the blood of their victims.
There was no big ceremony like you would usually see in a movie. No big speech, no squad of drummers dramatically beating their drums, no asking for any last words or prayers. Her execution detail simply pulled their handguns from under their plastic bags and pointed them downwards while releasing the safety mechanism and loading them with clicking mechanical sounds.
A gunshot echoed through the room. It had happened faster than Anouk had thought. But she did not feel herself being ripped backwards by the bullet entering her. She did not stumble into the sandbags. And she did not fall down on the cold tile floor. What had happened?
When she looked down on her front, there was no hole in her chest. But her right leg was bleeding on the shin. One soldier from the firing squad was uttering wild curses in Nabano. Spotting the broken tile on the ground, Anouk began to understand what had just happened: One of the guns had gone off too early, hitting and breaking the tile and sent the flying debris against her leg.
This was too much for her. She had prepared herself to die, not having made her peace with that unjust fate, but still accepted it. Knowing that there was no hope for a turn of events, she had wanted it to be over. The anxious idleness in the morning, the long walk through the prison, the wait in the locker room while the execution room was cleaned from the remains of the previous victim, it had been a new form of torture for her. The tension had grown to an unbearable level. And now the liberating end of it was postponed further, because her firing squad either had shitty equipment or was too stupid to handle it.
Anouk leaned forward and fell down on her knees, letting out a long and loud scream of madness. Snot was dripping from her nose and drool ran out of her mouth, joining the tears streaming down her face. So much about poise and dignity. The soldiers started barking commands at her.
"Stand up, Ms. De Vries", Cazalla translated them for her from behind the plastic shield. "The protocol demands that the deliquent must be shot while standing."
But Anouk did not react. The hysterical overload had made her slip into an apathetic trance within seconds. As she kept ignoring the shouts from the soldiers, the one with the malfunctioning gun threw away his weapon and came up to her, pulling her back up in her feet by her hair. A couple of slaps into the face helped her waking up. She tasted blood in her mouth, coming from a cut in her upper lip.
The soldier had just retrieved his gun from the ground and took position next to his comrades when the door was thrown open and a man stormed into the room, gesturing the firing squad to hold their fire. It was Tafalla. Irritated and outraged by the disruption, Cazalla stepped from behind the shield and demanded an explanation. The two had a quick discussion in Nabano, which ended with Tafalla pushing another officially looking document into Cazalla's face, who accepted the news by shrugging his shoulders and waving off towards Anouk.
"It looks like I came just in the right moment, Ms. De Vries", Tafalla cheered as he turned around to face Anouk, who had been reduced to a picture of misery now. "Your execution was put on hold and your case is reopened. The hearing will take place this afternoon and this time, you will be present. Come with me now."
Tafalla turned back to Cazalla and showed him two other documents, which looked identical to the first one and asked him something. The overseer checked the list on his clipboard and shook his head. That made Tafalla smile.
The dumbfounded Anouk was dragged out of the group showers and back into the locker room. They removed her handcuffs so that she could redress. Guessing which of the clothes belonged to her uniform, she grabbed a shirt and pants from the laundry cart and put them on. Dr. Romero insisted on having a look on her leg, but decided that a simple band aid would do. Her handcuffs were refitted and the two guards who had brought her here from her cell earlier grabbed her arms and led her back into the hallway. Tafalla followed them.
Their way was not long, since they only followed the corridor a bit further down and entered another locker room and through it another group shower. There were no sandbags in this one, though. Without instructions or any explanations, Anouk was left alone and locked in. Slowly recovering from her recent breakdown, she was startled when she heard a new gunshot from the other showers. The executions continued.
The wait was not long. It was probably just a couple of minutes until the door opened. And another prisoner was pushed into the showers, stumbling and falling from the shove. The door was locked again. Anouk carefully approached the other woman who was struggeling to get back on her feet, which was quite challenging with her hands chained behind her back.
When the two looked at each other, each of them inititally froze in shock. The other prisoner was Annika! But she did not look like the Annika that Anouk remembered. Her face was pale and her hair was messy. Her eyes looked tired, mirroring remains of discomfort and desparation. And there also was something else, something that Anouk had never seen in them before: fear.
Reading Annika's expression, Anouk guessed that she did not look much better herself.
The two friends scanned each other with their eyes. They did not know what to say, but it was obvious that each of them was equally relieved and sad to meet the other under this circumstances. If it had not been for the handcuffs, they would have fallen into a long hug right now, comforting each other. Instead, they just stood as close together as possible, gently rubbing their cheeks against each other end resting their chins on their friend's shoulder.
"Annika, I am so sorry", Anouk finally broke the silence. "I failed you."
"Don't!", Annika countered. There was a strain in her voice telling Anouk that her friend must have gone through a lot recently. "They told me that it was you who gave away the location of our headquarters. But I am not mad at you, Anouk. I have seen and experienced what they can do if they want to make someone talk. Shit, I don't even want to think about what they got out of me, how many people I have gotten into trouble!"
Anouk and Annika remained in their position for a moment, weeping together. Then they parted. Another shot resounding through the wall told them that the next life had just ended in the adjoining room.
To be continued.
For the execution room, they had repurposed the adjoining group showers. The most apparent reason for this was, that the tiled floor and walls would be easy to clean from the blood of their victims. Indeed, a soldier just finished rinsing the remaing blood of the previous condemned with a water hose and made it disappear in a drain. Only the sandbags that had been stacked against the wall under the shower heads told the truth: The dark stains on their front ends were the remains of the many lifes that had ended in here today.
Anouk was directed to stand over the drainage cover, about two feet away from the sandbags, with her back turned to them. Cazalla and Dr. Romero positioned themselves in a corner opposite to her behind a provisionally installed acrylic glass shield.
Another door leading to a second locker room opened and the soldier who had cleaned the execution room a minute ago re-entered, pushing a cart that had a flat metal tub welded onto its load area. 'They are going to dump me into this to take my body away', she immediately figured out. The ghastly contraption intimidated her.
But the cart was not nearly as frightening as the firing squad, which entered the group showers next. It consisted of three soldiers, wearing plastic suits over their uniforms. Their faces were hidden under black ski masks that left only their eyes free, although they where covered with plastic goggles. It appeared that they were fine with shooting helpless naked people, but shyed away from being sprinkled with the blood of their victims.
There was no big ceremony like you would usually see in a movie. No big speech, no squad of drummers dramatically beating their drums, no asking for any last words or prayers. Her execution detail simply pulled their handguns from under their plastic bags and pointed them downwards while releasing the safety mechanism and loading them with clicking mechanical sounds.
A gunshot echoed through the room. It had happened faster than Anouk had thought. But she did not feel herself being ripped backwards by the bullet entering her. She did not stumble into the sandbags. And she did not fall down on the cold tile floor. What had happened?
When she looked down on her front, there was no hole in her chest. But her right leg was bleeding on the shin. One soldier from the firing squad was uttering wild curses in Nabano. Spotting the broken tile on the ground, Anouk began to understand what had just happened: One of the guns had gone off too early, hitting and breaking the tile and sent the flying debris against her leg.
This was too much for her. She had prepared herself to die, not having made her peace with that unjust fate, but still accepted it. Knowing that there was no hope for a turn of events, she had wanted it to be over. The anxious idleness in the morning, the long walk through the prison, the wait in the locker room while the execution room was cleaned from the remains of the previous victim, it had been a new form of torture for her. The tension had grown to an unbearable level. And now the liberating end of it was postponed further, because her firing squad either had shitty equipment or was too stupid to handle it.
Anouk leaned forward and fell down on her knees, letting out a long and loud scream of madness. Snot was dripping from her nose and drool ran out of her mouth, joining the tears streaming down her face. So much about poise and dignity. The soldiers started barking commands at her.
"Stand up, Ms. De Vries", Cazalla translated them for her from behind the plastic shield. "The protocol demands that the deliquent must be shot while standing."
But Anouk did not react. The hysterical overload had made her slip into an apathetic trance within seconds. As she kept ignoring the shouts from the soldiers, the one with the malfunctioning gun threw away his weapon and came up to her, pulling her back up in her feet by her hair. A couple of slaps into the face helped her waking up. She tasted blood in her mouth, coming from a cut in her upper lip.
The soldier had just retrieved his gun from the ground and took position next to his comrades when the door was thrown open and a man stormed into the room, gesturing the firing squad to hold their fire. It was Tafalla. Irritated and outraged by the disruption, Cazalla stepped from behind the shield and demanded an explanation. The two had a quick discussion in Nabano, which ended with Tafalla pushing another officially looking document into Cazalla's face, who accepted the news by shrugging his shoulders and waving off towards Anouk.
"It looks like I came just in the right moment, Ms. De Vries", Tafalla cheered as he turned around to face Anouk, who had been reduced to a picture of misery now. "Your execution was put on hold and your case is reopened. The hearing will take place this afternoon and this time, you will be present. Come with me now."
Tafalla turned back to Cazalla and showed him two other documents, which looked identical to the first one and asked him something. The overseer checked the list on his clipboard and shook his head. That made Tafalla smile.
The dumbfounded Anouk was dragged out of the group showers and back into the locker room. They removed her handcuffs so that she could redress. Guessing which of the clothes belonged to her uniform, she grabbed a shirt and pants from the laundry cart and put them on. Dr. Romero insisted on having a look on her leg, but decided that a simple band aid would do. Her handcuffs were refitted and the two guards who had brought her here from her cell earlier grabbed her arms and led her back into the hallway. Tafalla followed them.
Their way was not long, since they only followed the corridor a bit further down and entered another locker room and through it another group shower. There were no sandbags in this one, though. Without instructions or any explanations, Anouk was left alone and locked in. Slowly recovering from her recent breakdown, she was startled when she heard a new gunshot from the other showers. The executions continued.
The wait was not long. It was probably just a couple of minutes until the door opened. And another prisoner was pushed into the showers, stumbling and falling from the shove. The door was locked again. Anouk carefully approached the other woman who was struggeling to get back on her feet, which was quite challenging with her hands chained behind her back.
When the two looked at each other, each of them inititally froze in shock. The other prisoner was Annika! But she did not look like the Annika that Anouk remembered. Her face was pale and her hair was messy. Her eyes looked tired, mirroring remains of discomfort and desparation. And there also was something else, something that Anouk had never seen in them before: fear.
Reading Annika's expression, Anouk guessed that she did not look much better herself.
The two friends scanned each other with their eyes. They did not know what to say, but it was obvious that each of them was equally relieved and sad to meet the other under this circumstances. If it had not been for the handcuffs, they would have fallen into a long hug right now, comforting each other. Instead, they just stood as close together as possible, gently rubbing their cheeks against each other end resting their chins on their friend's shoulder.
"Annika, I am so sorry", Anouk finally broke the silence. "I failed you."
"Don't!", Annika countered. There was a strain in her voice telling Anouk that her friend must have gone through a lot recently. "They told me that it was you who gave away the location of our headquarters. But I am not mad at you, Anouk. I have seen and experienced what they can do if they want to make someone talk. Shit, I don't even want to think about what they got out of me, how many people I have gotten into trouble!"
Anouk and Annika remained in their position for a moment, weeping together. Then they parted. Another shot resounding through the wall told them that the next life had just ended in the adjoining room.
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 18
"Was that what I think it was", Annika asked.
"Yes." Anouk somehow managed to twist her cuffed hands around her side and lifted the hem of her shirt to show Annika the target that had been drawn on her ribcage. "They already had me lined up against the wall. This guy Tafalla pulled me out last-minute."
There was a short moment of silence as both friends brooded about how close Anouk had come to death today.
"It is you who should hate me for getting us into this", Annika snivelled. "I should never have accepted the deal with the Ascuan resistance. I had a feeling that it was too risky, but went for it anways."
"Which deal?", Anouk requested.
"The SD card you were supposed to recover", Annika sighed. "The Ascuan resistance has offered us a crazy sum of money if we got the SD card to their contact person in Estoria."
"I do not understand. Why do you make deals with the Ascuan resistance? Isn't the Orange Hand supposed to stay out of political affairs?"
"It was my last resort, really. Anouk... I want to be honest with you. The fundings for the Orange Hand have been bad lately. Many companies and celebrities who used to support us have turned to other, more famous organizations to boost their reputation in the public. Without the money from the resistance, we would have only lasted another couple of months before we would have been forced to discontinue our operations. Not that it matters now. The hotel, and with it our headquarters, is in ruins. And those of us who were not killed or arrested are somewhere in hiding. Our Orange Hand branch is history."
Their talk was interrupted by the door opening yet again and another prisoner being pushed through it. Anouk recognized her immediately: It was Valentina Moya, 'Orchid', the dissident she had been supposed to meet. Valentina's looks had improved compared to the mugshot Fonseca had shown her earlier. The black eye had faded and the cut in her lip had healed as well. Her wide open brown eyes told a different story, though. They revealed Valentina to be on high alert, like a doe being surrounded by a pack of wolves.
It was understandable why signs of new concern appeared on Valentina's face. While neither Anouk nor Annika had ever met her in person, it was still obvious that they were the two members of the Orange Hand involved in the failed smuggling of the SD card. Technically, it was Valentina's fault that they found themselves here, since she had gotten herself arrested and then had broken under the torture during her interrogation. But knowing what she must have been through, both Anouk and Annika signaled her that they had no hard feelings for her and that she did not have to fear further hostilities from them by giving her a calming and reassuring nod.
The assembly seemed to be complete, since this time Tafalla and the two guards stayed with them. Tafalla began to speak to Valentina in Nabano, surely explaining her the purpose of this unusual get-together. Then he repeated his instructions for the two foreign prisoners (although Annika had probably understood everything the first time, since she was fluent in the local language).
"Ms. Blomsteen, Ms. De Vries, as you were already told, your cases have been reopened and you both, together with Ms. Moya, are expected to testify in front of the judge this afternoon. Since the public has a large interest in this trial, we are going to prepare you for this now. You will now strip, get a haircut, wash yourselves and then be given fresh uniforms. Do you understand?"
All three women agreed and reluctantly started taking off their clothes after beeing freed from the handcuffs. Anouk noticed that this was going to be the first time that she and Annika would see each other naked, at least in their adult lives. Despite their attempts to keep up their modesty, they could not resist the urge to assess the marks the torture had left on the naked bodies of the others. Unlike Anouk, Annika had no swollen welts from her buttocks being caned to show. Instead, there was a strange pattern repeating on her skin, like some sort of coil having left behind bright red imprints.
"They used an immersion heater on me", Annika whispered in reply of Anouk's unspoken question.
Valentina left her wounds uncommented, although it was obvious that she still was in pain. Her body was covered all over with cuts and bruises, suggesting that she had been subjected to further brutal interrogations recently. Sure, if the government agents got their hands on an actual member of the resistance, they would not stop the torment until they had squeezed out every last bit of information from their captive. Who knew what this unfortunate girl had been through since her arrest? She was not even twenty years old and only stood at just a little over five feet of height. Anouk wondered how much pain this little body of hers had been made to endure.
One of the guards approached them, pulling a trolley behind, quite similar to the one from the interrogation chamber where the unit for the electric torture had been installed on. This one however was harmless, since it only held dairdresser tools. He set up a folding chair next to it and gestured Valentina to sit down on it, who complied shudderingly.
The guard produced an electrical shaver from the trolley and began to transform Valentina's long black curls into a short buzzcut. The humming sounds of the device were drowned out by her sobbing. It was almost like she felt physical pain. When Anouk gave Annika a questioning look about the scene, her friend explained to her that the Ascuan and Estorian customs saw cutting your hair short by yourself as a sign of strength and determination. Having your hair cut off by force by someone else though was regarded as a sign of shame and weakness. Like the short private talk they had had before, Annika did her explaining in Dutch, knowing that Valentina did not understand it, avoiding to upset her even more. Anouk wondered how anyone could tell if the hair had been cut by oneself or if someone else had done it. Maybe the local people had their ways to recognize it.
When Valentina's black curls lay in a small heap at her feet, the guard commanded her to sit at the edge of the chair and spread her legs while keeping her arms up, hands locked behind her head. He smeared shaving cream into the debased girl's crotch and waited a short time before removing her pubic hair with a wet razor. Then he repeated the procedure on both of her armpits. He eventually signaled the young resistance fighter that he was done and commanded her to take her place under one of the shower heads.
Now he called for Anouk. Having the hair shaved off from her head felt strange. On the one hand, it was kind of a relief, since she had been unable to wash it probably during her captivity and it had turned into a tangled, greasy and scratchy mess. But on the other hand, she had never worn her hair shorter than shoulder length. Being turned almost bald-headed now made her feel a new dimension of nakedness. Having her crotch and her armpits shaved by a stranger who touched her in her most intimate places with his razor blade was no delight either. But she had been through worse.
While Annika took over her place after the procedure was done, Anouk joined Valentina under the shower heads. The Ascuan girl was still trembling and crying, palpating her bald head with her hands in disbelief while covering her face with her arms to hide her shame. Anouk felt pity for her. This was not a hardened resistance fighter. Valentina was nothing but an idealistic girl who had been naive enough to agree on a mission that was more than a number too big for her. Just like Anouk. In an act of compassion, she hugged her, trying to comfort her.
The guard who stood on watch did not like this. He jumped at them and began beating them up with his baton, driving them apart. And while Anouk took most of the blows, Valentina also got her fair share, although she was not at fault for angering him.
The three captive women eventually found themselves lined up under the shower heads. Upon the guards' command, they turned on the water and adjusted the temperature until it fit them. The guard who had shaved them went down the line with a shampoo bottle, giving each woman a genereous splash into their open hands. Taking an actual shower again felt great! It was a small respite to have the very human odor her body had developed over the last weeks finally be washed away. Anouk did not even care anymore about the men leering at her naked body, glistening with soapy water. While Annika to her right seemed to feel the same, Valentina to her left was still fighting to get herself under control again, trembling with humiliation and cleaning her body with clumsy movements.
After a couple of minutes, Tafalla became impatient and told them to get done. When the water was turned off, each of them was handed one of the small towels they already knew from their cells. By the time they were finished with drying themselves off, the towels were damp. Their used and stinking prison uniforms were replaced with new ones. Anouk could even still smell the faint remains of laundry detergent on hers.
The handcuffs came back on, but this time their hands were tied in front. A second set of shackles, connected by a slightly longer chain, was closed around their ankles. They had to be careful not to stumble while they were walked outside the building into the prison yard, where an armored transport vehicle waited for them. Anouk and her two fellow inmates were locked in a small compartment in the back. The cabin had no windows and no lights, so they sat in darkness. Tafalla and the two guards entered the vehicle in the front. With a dull chug, the old engine of the truck started and their journey towards the courthouse began.
To be continued.
"Was that what I think it was", Annika asked.
"Yes." Anouk somehow managed to twist her cuffed hands around her side and lifted the hem of her shirt to show Annika the target that had been drawn on her ribcage. "They already had me lined up against the wall. This guy Tafalla pulled me out last-minute."
There was a short moment of silence as both friends brooded about how close Anouk had come to death today.
"It is you who should hate me for getting us into this", Annika snivelled. "I should never have accepted the deal with the Ascuan resistance. I had a feeling that it was too risky, but went for it anways."
"Which deal?", Anouk requested.
"The SD card you were supposed to recover", Annika sighed. "The Ascuan resistance has offered us a crazy sum of money if we got the SD card to their contact person in Estoria."
"I do not understand. Why do you make deals with the Ascuan resistance? Isn't the Orange Hand supposed to stay out of political affairs?"
"It was my last resort, really. Anouk... I want to be honest with you. The fundings for the Orange Hand have been bad lately. Many companies and celebrities who used to support us have turned to other, more famous organizations to boost their reputation in the public. Without the money from the resistance, we would have only lasted another couple of months before we would have been forced to discontinue our operations. Not that it matters now. The hotel, and with it our headquarters, is in ruins. And those of us who were not killed or arrested are somewhere in hiding. Our Orange Hand branch is history."
Their talk was interrupted by the door opening yet again and another prisoner being pushed through it. Anouk recognized her immediately: It was Valentina Moya, 'Orchid', the dissident she had been supposed to meet. Valentina's looks had improved compared to the mugshot Fonseca had shown her earlier. The black eye had faded and the cut in her lip had healed as well. Her wide open brown eyes told a different story, though. They revealed Valentina to be on high alert, like a doe being surrounded by a pack of wolves.
It was understandable why signs of new concern appeared on Valentina's face. While neither Anouk nor Annika had ever met her in person, it was still obvious that they were the two members of the Orange Hand involved in the failed smuggling of the SD card. Technically, it was Valentina's fault that they found themselves here, since she had gotten herself arrested and then had broken under the torture during her interrogation. But knowing what she must have been through, both Anouk and Annika signaled her that they had no hard feelings for her and that she did not have to fear further hostilities from them by giving her a calming and reassuring nod.
The assembly seemed to be complete, since this time Tafalla and the two guards stayed with them. Tafalla began to speak to Valentina in Nabano, surely explaining her the purpose of this unusual get-together. Then he repeated his instructions for the two foreign prisoners (although Annika had probably understood everything the first time, since she was fluent in the local language).
"Ms. Blomsteen, Ms. De Vries, as you were already told, your cases have been reopened and you both, together with Ms. Moya, are expected to testify in front of the judge this afternoon. Since the public has a large interest in this trial, we are going to prepare you for this now. You will now strip, get a haircut, wash yourselves and then be given fresh uniforms. Do you understand?"
All three women agreed and reluctantly started taking off their clothes after beeing freed from the handcuffs. Anouk noticed that this was going to be the first time that she and Annika would see each other naked, at least in their adult lives. Despite their attempts to keep up their modesty, they could not resist the urge to assess the marks the torture had left on the naked bodies of the others. Unlike Anouk, Annika had no swollen welts from her buttocks being caned to show. Instead, there was a strange pattern repeating on her skin, like some sort of coil having left behind bright red imprints.
"They used an immersion heater on me", Annika whispered in reply of Anouk's unspoken question.
Valentina left her wounds uncommented, although it was obvious that she still was in pain. Her body was covered all over with cuts and bruises, suggesting that she had been subjected to further brutal interrogations recently. Sure, if the government agents got their hands on an actual member of the resistance, they would not stop the torment until they had squeezed out every last bit of information from their captive. Who knew what this unfortunate girl had been through since her arrest? She was not even twenty years old and only stood at just a little over five feet of height. Anouk wondered how much pain this little body of hers had been made to endure.
One of the guards approached them, pulling a trolley behind, quite similar to the one from the interrogation chamber where the unit for the electric torture had been installed on. This one however was harmless, since it only held dairdresser tools. He set up a folding chair next to it and gestured Valentina to sit down on it, who complied shudderingly.
The guard produced an electrical shaver from the trolley and began to transform Valentina's long black curls into a short buzzcut. The humming sounds of the device were drowned out by her sobbing. It was almost like she felt physical pain. When Anouk gave Annika a questioning look about the scene, her friend explained to her that the Ascuan and Estorian customs saw cutting your hair short by yourself as a sign of strength and determination. Having your hair cut off by force by someone else though was regarded as a sign of shame and weakness. Like the short private talk they had had before, Annika did her explaining in Dutch, knowing that Valentina did not understand it, avoiding to upset her even more. Anouk wondered how anyone could tell if the hair had been cut by oneself or if someone else had done it. Maybe the local people had their ways to recognize it.
When Valentina's black curls lay in a small heap at her feet, the guard commanded her to sit at the edge of the chair and spread her legs while keeping her arms up, hands locked behind her head. He smeared shaving cream into the debased girl's crotch and waited a short time before removing her pubic hair with a wet razor. Then he repeated the procedure on both of her armpits. He eventually signaled the young resistance fighter that he was done and commanded her to take her place under one of the shower heads.
Now he called for Anouk. Having the hair shaved off from her head felt strange. On the one hand, it was kind of a relief, since she had been unable to wash it probably during her captivity and it had turned into a tangled, greasy and scratchy mess. But on the other hand, she had never worn her hair shorter than shoulder length. Being turned almost bald-headed now made her feel a new dimension of nakedness. Having her crotch and her armpits shaved by a stranger who touched her in her most intimate places with his razor blade was no delight either. But she had been through worse.
While Annika took over her place after the procedure was done, Anouk joined Valentina under the shower heads. The Ascuan girl was still trembling and crying, palpating her bald head with her hands in disbelief while covering her face with her arms to hide her shame. Anouk felt pity for her. This was not a hardened resistance fighter. Valentina was nothing but an idealistic girl who had been naive enough to agree on a mission that was more than a number too big for her. Just like Anouk. In an act of compassion, she hugged her, trying to comfort her.
The guard who stood on watch did not like this. He jumped at them and began beating them up with his baton, driving them apart. And while Anouk took most of the blows, Valentina also got her fair share, although she was not at fault for angering him.
The three captive women eventually found themselves lined up under the shower heads. Upon the guards' command, they turned on the water and adjusted the temperature until it fit them. The guard who had shaved them went down the line with a shampoo bottle, giving each woman a genereous splash into their open hands. Taking an actual shower again felt great! It was a small respite to have the very human odor her body had developed over the last weeks finally be washed away. Anouk did not even care anymore about the men leering at her naked body, glistening with soapy water. While Annika to her right seemed to feel the same, Valentina to her left was still fighting to get herself under control again, trembling with humiliation and cleaning her body with clumsy movements.
After a couple of minutes, Tafalla became impatient and told them to get done. When the water was turned off, each of them was handed one of the small towels they already knew from their cells. By the time they were finished with drying themselves off, the towels were damp. Their used and stinking prison uniforms were replaced with new ones. Anouk could even still smell the faint remains of laundry detergent on hers.
The handcuffs came back on, but this time their hands were tied in front. A second set of shackles, connected by a slightly longer chain, was closed around their ankles. They had to be careful not to stumble while they were walked outside the building into the prison yard, where an armored transport vehicle waited for them. Anouk and her two fellow inmates were locked in a small compartment in the back. The cabin had no windows and no lights, so they sat in darkness. Tafalla and the two guards entered the vehicle in the front. With a dull chug, the old engine of the truck started and their journey towards the courthouse began.
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 19
The courthouse looked just as shabby and decrepit as most of the other buildings in the Ascuan part of Libria. Judging by its crumbling sandstone front, once bright tan, now eroded into a dark brown, it had been built sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s when Libria's trade relations with the European and South American countries had been at their peak. Anouk only got a short glimpse at the building's backside when she, Annika and Valentina were unloaded from the prisoner transport in an enclosed parking lot and then pushed inside through a backdoor.
After being marched down a short corridor, they were released from the handcuffs and shown through a side entrance into the courtroom where their trial would be held. It took them directly into a glass box that was barely large enough for the three of them plus an uncomfortable looking bench without a backrest to fit in. Located in a corner of the room, windows on the other two sides of the box separated them from the court officials and the audience.
Unlike the sordid outside of the building, the courtroom was quite shiny, with renewed bright furniture. It looked nothing like Anouk would have imagined a courtroom, more like a lecture hall back at the university. On a center stage right next to their vitreous cage, where you would expect the professor to hold his class, there was a row of large desks with comfortable looking seats behind them. They were certainly reserved for the judge and the other officials, who were not yet present. On the opposite, long ascending rows of foldable seats provided room for the audience. They were already filled to the last place. When Anouk and the other two accused entered, the audience, easily 200 people, broke into excited chatter, looking and pointing at them or whispering to their neighbors with their mouth hidden behind their raised hands. Anouk felt on display like an animal in a zoo.
"What do you think is going to happen to us?", she asked her two companions. Ever since they had left the prison about an hour earlier, none of them had spoken a word. The uncertainty had made them fall into an unnerving silence.
"What do you expect?", Annika mumbled grimly and pointed at the TV cameras that were mounted on tripods set up all across the room. "This so-called 'trial' is going to be nothing but a sham. A show for their propaganda. Whatever happens, they won't let us go unpunished. If they don't sentence us to death, they will send us to prison or put us into their 're-education program'."
"I rather take bullet in chest than re-education", Valentina murmured in broken English. It was the first time that she actually spoke to Anouk and Annika. "I have seen pictures and interview on SD card. Re-education is work camp in desert. Work from morning until evening. After work, brain-washing. Disobey, get tortured. Until you are broken. And you never know how long until you are set free."
Anouk had no time to reflect on that information, since Valentina's explanations were interruped by the arrival of the judge and the other officials. The cameras were manned, too. A bailiff approached Anouk and Annika asked them through some little holes in the glass if they required an interpreter. While Annika rejected the offer, Anouk affirmed, finding that her basic Nabano skills were hardly sufficient to follow the trial and to understand all of the complicated juridical run-on sentences they would be throwing around.
A minute later, the bailiff returned, handing Anouk a wireless headset through a small shutter. A noticeably unmotivated clerk, wearing a simliar headset, followed him. He was seated behind a small side table next to the glass box. Showing his obvious repulsion of having to sit so close to the charged women, he demonstratively kept his back turned towards them the whole time.
The interpreter was pretty much useless during most of the trial, since he only did his job when the judge or an attorney adressed Anouk directly. The rest of the time, he remained silent, leaving Anouk wondering about what was currently being discussed. Whenever Annika next to her noticed that the headphones remained silent for a longer time, she whispered the most important points to her in Dutch. This earned her a reprimand from the judge when he noticed it. Not wanting to test her luck by upsetting him even more, Annika refrained from her ad-hoc summaries from then.
Anouk tried her best to give her answers in Nabano, hoping it would gain her sympathy from the jury. Envying her friend for being fluent in the local language and spreaking it so effortlessly, Anouk though that maybe she should have invested more of her free time in practising it instead of reading those silly love tearjerkers on her tablet. For her more complex answers, the interpreter had to jump in. She could only pray that he would translate her statements accurately.
When the judge was done with questioning first Valentina, then Annika and finally Anouk, he called for a witness: Guillermo Fonseca, the government agent who had conducted the previous interrogations of all three of them. He kept talking for a long time and the judge only interrupted him now and then for short intermediate questions. What was that asshole telling them? Did he describe to the jury and the audience in detail how he had tortured each of them until they could not take it anymore and had told him everything he wanted to hear just to make it stop? Certainly not! He probably left those parts out and made up all kind of bullshit of how he had convinced them to confess.
Their hearing was surprisingly short. The clock on the wall told Anouk that it had been only about one and a half hours until the judge and the jury retreated to discuss their verdict. It only took them another ten minutes to decide. They read Valentina's sentence first. Anouk did not understand most of it and tried to estimate from her companions' reactions how bad it was. While Annika turned around to Valentina, her face white with shock and terror, the Ascuan girl accepted her fate with an uninterpretable expression. Whatever the sentence was, Anouk thought, it was not the re-education program.
Annika's sentence was next. The words of the judge sounded strangely familiar to the ones he had spoken to Valentina, only with some slight variations. Anouk still did not understand a bit, but when her friend collapsed in tears, she knew that it had to be horrifying. Wrapping her arms around Annika, trying her best to comfort her, she dreaded to hear her own sentence.
"Anouk De Vries", the interpreter translated the words of the judge. "You have been found guilty of espionage and being a member of a terrorist organization. Your punishment will be this: You are to be hanged until you are dead. Before your life ends, to set an example and to deter any potential emulators, you will receive corporal punishment and suffer public humiliation to a degree that the executioners see as sufficient. Your sentence will be carried out tomorrow."
Anouk could not believe the words she heard and just sat there, apathetic. A part of her wanted to scream and protest against the unfair trial and the unnaturally cruel penalty while the other part of her just wanted to lament about her terrible fate. She noticed how most of the TV cameras were pointed at her and the other two, catching their reactions from every possible angle. Another camera was panning over the audience, who favored the sentences with applause. With what kind of propaganda bullshit had they been injected to make them approve with such a barbaric punishment?
Just moments later, the side entrance was opened and the guards pulled them out of the courtroom. They were informed, that they would not be taken back to prison, but stay in the holding cells of the courthouse. Just like in custody at the prison, the holding cells were designed for solitary confinement, isolating the unfortunate women from each other. But they were even worse than the prison cells they had spent their recent time in. Hardly larger than a broom closet, they were little, windowless holes somewhere in the basement. The only light in Anouk's cell came from a flickering neon light. There was no bed and no toilet, just an old rusty bucket. And the dimensions of the place were so cramped that she could not even lay down or stretch her legs out.
Not that she would have gotten any sleep though. Anouk spent her evening sitting against the bare concrete wall, bawling her eyes out in despair. The events that waited for her in the morning haunted her. When she had been dragged away from the firing squad earlier today, she had considered herself to be lucky. Now she wished that her life had ended just there. A young woman's life being ended behind closed doors in a matter of seconds, her body discarded anonymously. That would have saved her from the indignity of being publicly tortured and humiliated for the entertainment of the mob. What kind of heinous things were they plotting for her, Annika and Valentina at this very moment? The judge had not been very specific and the guesswork that tormented Anouk's mind might as well have already been a part of the punishment.
The light went out with a clicking sound and she was engulfed in darkness. Just like the evening before, Anouk knew that this was going to be the last night of her life. For real, this time.
To be continued.
The courthouse looked just as shabby and decrepit as most of the other buildings in the Ascuan part of Libria. Judging by its crumbling sandstone front, once bright tan, now eroded into a dark brown, it had been built sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s when Libria's trade relations with the European and South American countries had been at their peak. Anouk only got a short glimpse at the building's backside when she, Annika and Valentina were unloaded from the prisoner transport in an enclosed parking lot and then pushed inside through a backdoor.
After being marched down a short corridor, they were released from the handcuffs and shown through a side entrance into the courtroom where their trial would be held. It took them directly into a glass box that was barely large enough for the three of them plus an uncomfortable looking bench without a backrest to fit in. Located in a corner of the room, windows on the other two sides of the box separated them from the court officials and the audience.
Unlike the sordid outside of the building, the courtroom was quite shiny, with renewed bright furniture. It looked nothing like Anouk would have imagined a courtroom, more like a lecture hall back at the university. On a center stage right next to their vitreous cage, where you would expect the professor to hold his class, there was a row of large desks with comfortable looking seats behind them. They were certainly reserved for the judge and the other officials, who were not yet present. On the opposite, long ascending rows of foldable seats provided room for the audience. They were already filled to the last place. When Anouk and the other two accused entered, the audience, easily 200 people, broke into excited chatter, looking and pointing at them or whispering to their neighbors with their mouth hidden behind their raised hands. Anouk felt on display like an animal in a zoo.
"What do you think is going to happen to us?", she asked her two companions. Ever since they had left the prison about an hour earlier, none of them had spoken a word. The uncertainty had made them fall into an unnerving silence.
"What do you expect?", Annika mumbled grimly and pointed at the TV cameras that were mounted on tripods set up all across the room. "This so-called 'trial' is going to be nothing but a sham. A show for their propaganda. Whatever happens, they won't let us go unpunished. If they don't sentence us to death, they will send us to prison or put us into their 're-education program'."
"I rather take bullet in chest than re-education", Valentina murmured in broken English. It was the first time that she actually spoke to Anouk and Annika. "I have seen pictures and interview on SD card. Re-education is work camp in desert. Work from morning until evening. After work, brain-washing. Disobey, get tortured. Until you are broken. And you never know how long until you are set free."
Anouk had no time to reflect on that information, since Valentina's explanations were interruped by the arrival of the judge and the other officials. The cameras were manned, too. A bailiff approached Anouk and Annika asked them through some little holes in the glass if they required an interpreter. While Annika rejected the offer, Anouk affirmed, finding that her basic Nabano skills were hardly sufficient to follow the trial and to understand all of the complicated juridical run-on sentences they would be throwing around.
A minute later, the bailiff returned, handing Anouk a wireless headset through a small shutter. A noticeably unmotivated clerk, wearing a simliar headset, followed him. He was seated behind a small side table next to the glass box. Showing his obvious repulsion of having to sit so close to the charged women, he demonstratively kept his back turned towards them the whole time.
The interpreter was pretty much useless during most of the trial, since he only did his job when the judge or an attorney adressed Anouk directly. The rest of the time, he remained silent, leaving Anouk wondering about what was currently being discussed. Whenever Annika next to her noticed that the headphones remained silent for a longer time, she whispered the most important points to her in Dutch. This earned her a reprimand from the judge when he noticed it. Not wanting to test her luck by upsetting him even more, Annika refrained from her ad-hoc summaries from then.
Anouk tried her best to give her answers in Nabano, hoping it would gain her sympathy from the jury. Envying her friend for being fluent in the local language and spreaking it so effortlessly, Anouk though that maybe she should have invested more of her free time in practising it instead of reading those silly love tearjerkers on her tablet. For her more complex answers, the interpreter had to jump in. She could only pray that he would translate her statements accurately.
When the judge was done with questioning first Valentina, then Annika and finally Anouk, he called for a witness: Guillermo Fonseca, the government agent who had conducted the previous interrogations of all three of them. He kept talking for a long time and the judge only interrupted him now and then for short intermediate questions. What was that asshole telling them? Did he describe to the jury and the audience in detail how he had tortured each of them until they could not take it anymore and had told him everything he wanted to hear just to make it stop? Certainly not! He probably left those parts out and made up all kind of bullshit of how he had convinced them to confess.
Their hearing was surprisingly short. The clock on the wall told Anouk that it had been only about one and a half hours until the judge and the jury retreated to discuss their verdict. It only took them another ten minutes to decide. They read Valentina's sentence first. Anouk did not understand most of it and tried to estimate from her companions' reactions how bad it was. While Annika turned around to Valentina, her face white with shock and terror, the Ascuan girl accepted her fate with an uninterpretable expression. Whatever the sentence was, Anouk thought, it was not the re-education program.
Annika's sentence was next. The words of the judge sounded strangely familiar to the ones he had spoken to Valentina, only with some slight variations. Anouk still did not understand a bit, but when her friend collapsed in tears, she knew that it had to be horrifying. Wrapping her arms around Annika, trying her best to comfort her, she dreaded to hear her own sentence.
"Anouk De Vries", the interpreter translated the words of the judge. "You have been found guilty of espionage and being a member of a terrorist organization. Your punishment will be this: You are to be hanged until you are dead. Before your life ends, to set an example and to deter any potential emulators, you will receive corporal punishment and suffer public humiliation to a degree that the executioners see as sufficient. Your sentence will be carried out tomorrow."
Anouk could not believe the words she heard and just sat there, apathetic. A part of her wanted to scream and protest against the unfair trial and the unnaturally cruel penalty while the other part of her just wanted to lament about her terrible fate. She noticed how most of the TV cameras were pointed at her and the other two, catching their reactions from every possible angle. Another camera was panning over the audience, who favored the sentences with applause. With what kind of propaganda bullshit had they been injected to make them approve with such a barbaric punishment?
Just moments later, the side entrance was opened and the guards pulled them out of the courtroom. They were informed, that they would not be taken back to prison, but stay in the holding cells of the courthouse. Just like in custody at the prison, the holding cells were designed for solitary confinement, isolating the unfortunate women from each other. But they were even worse than the prison cells they had spent their recent time in. Hardly larger than a broom closet, they were little, windowless holes somewhere in the basement. The only light in Anouk's cell came from a flickering neon light. There was no bed and no toilet, just an old rusty bucket. And the dimensions of the place were so cramped that she could not even lay down or stretch her legs out.
Not that she would have gotten any sleep though. Anouk spent her evening sitting against the bare concrete wall, bawling her eyes out in despair. The events that waited for her in the morning haunted her. When she had been dragged away from the firing squad earlier today, she had considered herself to be lucky. Now she wished that her life had ended just there. A young woman's life being ended behind closed doors in a matter of seconds, her body discarded anonymously. That would have saved her from the indignity of being publicly tortured and humiliated for the entertainment of the mob. What kind of heinous things were they plotting for her, Annika and Valentina at this very moment? The judge had not been very specific and the guesswork that tormented Anouk's mind might as well have already been a part of the punishment.
The light went out with a clicking sound and she was engulfed in darkness. Just like the evening before, Anouk knew that this was going to be the last night of her life. For real, this time.
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 20
A loud bang on her cell door and the artifical light flashing with a brightness that hurt her eyes woke Anouk up. To her own surprise, she had actually managed to doze off for a couple of hours. Still dazed, she sluggishly followed the commands of the guard to get her ass out of the cell. Her body was tense and hurt from the uncomfortable sitting position she had slept in.
Outside in the hallway, she met Annika and Valentina, who looked just as tired and battered as she felt. The three women exchanged reassuring looks, understanding that they were the only ones whose support they could count on.
They were brought upstairs into a small conference room, where three identical trays with breakfast waited for them. Unlike in prison, their meal here could actually be considered as food. For each of them, there was a generous serving of heavily sugared porridge, a small bowl of freshly cut fruit, a big mug of very strong coffee and a glass of super sweet orange juice. Anouk almost got a guilty conscience, knowing that the Republic of Ascua was still ridden by poverty and most civilians here could only dream of a meal like this.
Of course, this breakfast was not intended to be a courtesy from their captors, but to give them the strength to last through the tortures during the day until they were hanged in the evening. Still, each of them enjoyed the small respite. Anouk felt like she was going to burst with energy when the coffee warmed her from the inside and, joined by Annika, actually fell into a hysteric giggeling when the rush from the sugar overdose overcame her.
After finishing their breakfast, one of the guards came to the table and offered them cigrattes again. While Annika and Valentina gladly accepted, Anouk rejected the offer. She asked the guard if she could pass her cigarette to Annika, doing her friend a last favor. The guard shook his head and instead lit the leftover cigarette for himself.
The door was opened and Tafalla entered, followed by Camilo and Diego.
"What are you doing here?", Annika blurted out angrily. "Our trial is over, there is no need for further interrogations."
"Good morning, Ms. Blomsteen", Tafalla replied in his trademark bored and formal tone. "Ms. De Vries, Ms. Moya. We are your execution detail. This honor was appointed to us, since our boss, Mr. Fonseca, will be rewarded with a medal today. His investigations have led to the arrest and the disposal of three dangerous subjects. You."
Anouk suddenly felt a lump in her throat. Being called a 'subject' to be 'disposed of' was dehumanizing and reinforced her anxiety about the execution. Tafalla did not see her as a person, able to feel pain and emotions, just as some disruptive element that had to be removed.
"I will be the formal witness and overseer." He pointed his right thumb at his chest before turning to the side and waving towards Camilo and Diego with his left hand. "Mr. Aguinaldo and Mr. Munoz will be responsible for the application of the corporal punishment. And your hanging."
"Alright, enough of the formalities", Diego said, putting a cardboard box on the table. "Get naked and let us prepare you! We would love to have some more fun with you, but today's schedule is tight. The sun is already up and the streets are getting busy. A lot of eyes wanting to see your walk of shame to the stadium."
'Some more fun'! These two bastards had certainly assaulted Annika and Valentina back at the prison too, just like they had done with Anouk. Defiantly, she took off her prison uniform and threw it on the floor. The others followed her lead, knowing that there was no point in further delaying the inevitable.
After the obligatory handcuffs had been put on them, locking their wrists behind their backs and preventing them from covering their nakedness, each woman was fitted with the second pair of cuffs around their ankles, just like yesterday on their way from the prison to the courthouse. But their bondage was not complete yet. Leather collars were closed around their fragile necks, thightened down to the last hole. Then they were lined up, Anouk in the front, Valentina in the middle and Annika in the back. Their collars were connected with a chain, which was threaded through small metal rings on their fronts and secured with padlocks. Since Anouk was the leader of the chain gang, they also clipped a dog leash on hers which they would later use to drag them around.
As a last mean twist, Camilo and Diego produced three wooden signs from the box, each approximately as large as a sheet of letter paper. Their crimes were written on them. On the signs intended for Anouk and Annika, the Nabano words for 'Spy' and 'Terrorist' were spelled out in large letters branded into the wood. Valentina's sign just said 'Traitor'. They were supposed to wear these signs during their public shaming, but the signs were not going to hang on cords around their necks, like one would expect. Instead, each of the two upper corners of the signs were connected to a vicious looking alligator clamp with a short chain. The signs were going to dangle from their nipples and tug on them while moving around! Anouk wailed when hers was installed on her, feeling the relentless bite of the metal teeth on her areolas and the weight of the wood pulling her young and firm breasts down. Similar sounds were heard from Valentina and Annika.
"Come on, bitches! Move!", Camilo ordered, swinging a flogger and giving a lash to each of them.
The doomed trio began to march. Diego pulled them along on the leash while Camilo followed, whipping them with the flogger whenever he felt like it. When they stepped out of the courthouse, Anouk felt the morning sun. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead just seconds after leaving the courthouse. The warmth of the early sun promised a scorching hot day.
Their punishment would take place in the stadium that was fequently used for the government's party congresses, military parades or other propaganda events. Like the torture and execution of three public enemies, for example.
The destination was not far, only about half a mile down the main road leading away from the courthouse. But taking the direct path was not what the executioners had in mind. They wanted everyone to get a good look at the condemned and to see their shame. Anouk and her companions where paraded through all kinds of small alleys and pedestrian zones in the city center. Although it was still early in the morning, the streets were already busy. Despite the omnipresent sounds of the ongoing war, the daily life in Libria continued and the people kept going about their daily business as usual.
Needles to say, three naked women on the way to their death were anything but usual. They earned a lot of looks, some curios, some gloating, some even lecherous. After reading the signs decorating them, a few people spat at their faces. Others made nasty sounding remarks. For a change, Anouk was glad that she was not fluent in Nabano and could not understand all of their insults.
At a certain point of their march, Anouk noticed that they were approaching the train station where she had once passed the border. She recognized the building from afar by the massive dome on its top. It was burned down and had partly collapsed. The hole where it had been struck by a missile from the Ascuan side was still clearly visible, though.
The procession arrived at the park where Anouk once was supposed to meet Valentina. She noticed the bench she had sat on while she had waited in vain for 'Orchid' to show up. It felt like this had been an eternity ago. The park was especially busy, since a weekly market had been set up on it. Camilo made his prisoners climb up on the edge of the destroyed fountain, so that they stood a good two feet above the heads of the crowd, where everyone could see their nude and bruised bodies.
Just like on their walk here, Tafalla swung around a megaphone and exclaimed that this condemned subjects were about to receive corporal punishment and would later be executed in the stadium and that everyone was invited to watch. Anouk had heard his repeating little speech so often by now, that she had figured out its meaning long since. And indeed, the group of civilians that followed them while they continued along their way grew larger by the minute.
When they finally arrived at the stadium, Anouk noticed that her feet were bleeding. That was not surprising, given that she had been forced to run across gravel roads, brittle tarmac and sharp cobblestone over the past hour or so. While the crowd stormed the entrance gates of the stadium, hoping to get the best seats, Anouk and the others were taken into the arena through a side entrance.
The stadium was built in the style of an amphitheater from the old times. The grandstands were arranged in a semicircle around an oval space in the center. There was a small fenced off area right in the middle of the grandstands, covered by a white tarp roof that shielded the steats below from the unforgiving sun. It was probably something like a VIP area, reserved for high-ranking audience and guests of honor. Apart from this area, the rest of the seats were already filled to the top. Anouk guessed that at least 15,000 people had gathered here to watch her suffer. And to watch her die.
To be continued.
A loud bang on her cell door and the artifical light flashing with a brightness that hurt her eyes woke Anouk up. To her own surprise, she had actually managed to doze off for a couple of hours. Still dazed, she sluggishly followed the commands of the guard to get her ass out of the cell. Her body was tense and hurt from the uncomfortable sitting position she had slept in.
Outside in the hallway, she met Annika and Valentina, who looked just as tired and battered as she felt. The three women exchanged reassuring looks, understanding that they were the only ones whose support they could count on.
They were brought upstairs into a small conference room, where three identical trays with breakfast waited for them. Unlike in prison, their meal here could actually be considered as food. For each of them, there was a generous serving of heavily sugared porridge, a small bowl of freshly cut fruit, a big mug of very strong coffee and a glass of super sweet orange juice. Anouk almost got a guilty conscience, knowing that the Republic of Ascua was still ridden by poverty and most civilians here could only dream of a meal like this.
Of course, this breakfast was not intended to be a courtesy from their captors, but to give them the strength to last through the tortures during the day until they were hanged in the evening. Still, each of them enjoyed the small respite. Anouk felt like she was going to burst with energy when the coffee warmed her from the inside and, joined by Annika, actually fell into a hysteric giggeling when the rush from the sugar overdose overcame her.
After finishing their breakfast, one of the guards came to the table and offered them cigrattes again. While Annika and Valentina gladly accepted, Anouk rejected the offer. She asked the guard if she could pass her cigarette to Annika, doing her friend a last favor. The guard shook his head and instead lit the leftover cigarette for himself.
The door was opened and Tafalla entered, followed by Camilo and Diego.
"What are you doing here?", Annika blurted out angrily. "Our trial is over, there is no need for further interrogations."
"Good morning, Ms. Blomsteen", Tafalla replied in his trademark bored and formal tone. "Ms. De Vries, Ms. Moya. We are your execution detail. This honor was appointed to us, since our boss, Mr. Fonseca, will be rewarded with a medal today. His investigations have led to the arrest and the disposal of three dangerous subjects. You."
Anouk suddenly felt a lump in her throat. Being called a 'subject' to be 'disposed of' was dehumanizing and reinforced her anxiety about the execution. Tafalla did not see her as a person, able to feel pain and emotions, just as some disruptive element that had to be removed.
"I will be the formal witness and overseer." He pointed his right thumb at his chest before turning to the side and waving towards Camilo and Diego with his left hand. "Mr. Aguinaldo and Mr. Munoz will be responsible for the application of the corporal punishment. And your hanging."
"Alright, enough of the formalities", Diego said, putting a cardboard box on the table. "Get naked and let us prepare you! We would love to have some more fun with you, but today's schedule is tight. The sun is already up and the streets are getting busy. A lot of eyes wanting to see your walk of shame to the stadium."
'Some more fun'! These two bastards had certainly assaulted Annika and Valentina back at the prison too, just like they had done with Anouk. Defiantly, she took off her prison uniform and threw it on the floor. The others followed her lead, knowing that there was no point in further delaying the inevitable.
After the obligatory handcuffs had been put on them, locking their wrists behind their backs and preventing them from covering their nakedness, each woman was fitted with the second pair of cuffs around their ankles, just like yesterday on their way from the prison to the courthouse. But their bondage was not complete yet. Leather collars were closed around their fragile necks, thightened down to the last hole. Then they were lined up, Anouk in the front, Valentina in the middle and Annika in the back. Their collars were connected with a chain, which was threaded through small metal rings on their fronts and secured with padlocks. Since Anouk was the leader of the chain gang, they also clipped a dog leash on hers which they would later use to drag them around.
As a last mean twist, Camilo and Diego produced three wooden signs from the box, each approximately as large as a sheet of letter paper. Their crimes were written on them. On the signs intended for Anouk and Annika, the Nabano words for 'Spy' and 'Terrorist' were spelled out in large letters branded into the wood. Valentina's sign just said 'Traitor'. They were supposed to wear these signs during their public shaming, but the signs were not going to hang on cords around their necks, like one would expect. Instead, each of the two upper corners of the signs were connected to a vicious looking alligator clamp with a short chain. The signs were going to dangle from their nipples and tug on them while moving around! Anouk wailed when hers was installed on her, feeling the relentless bite of the metal teeth on her areolas and the weight of the wood pulling her young and firm breasts down. Similar sounds were heard from Valentina and Annika.
"Come on, bitches! Move!", Camilo ordered, swinging a flogger and giving a lash to each of them.
The doomed trio began to march. Diego pulled them along on the leash while Camilo followed, whipping them with the flogger whenever he felt like it. When they stepped out of the courthouse, Anouk felt the morning sun. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead just seconds after leaving the courthouse. The warmth of the early sun promised a scorching hot day.
Their punishment would take place in the stadium that was fequently used for the government's party congresses, military parades or other propaganda events. Like the torture and execution of three public enemies, for example.
The destination was not far, only about half a mile down the main road leading away from the courthouse. But taking the direct path was not what the executioners had in mind. They wanted everyone to get a good look at the condemned and to see their shame. Anouk and her companions where paraded through all kinds of small alleys and pedestrian zones in the city center. Although it was still early in the morning, the streets were already busy. Despite the omnipresent sounds of the ongoing war, the daily life in Libria continued and the people kept going about their daily business as usual.
Needles to say, three naked women on the way to their death were anything but usual. They earned a lot of looks, some curios, some gloating, some even lecherous. After reading the signs decorating them, a few people spat at their faces. Others made nasty sounding remarks. For a change, Anouk was glad that she was not fluent in Nabano and could not understand all of their insults.
At a certain point of their march, Anouk noticed that they were approaching the train station where she had once passed the border. She recognized the building from afar by the massive dome on its top. It was burned down and had partly collapsed. The hole where it had been struck by a missile from the Ascuan side was still clearly visible, though.
The procession arrived at the park where Anouk once was supposed to meet Valentina. She noticed the bench she had sat on while she had waited in vain for 'Orchid' to show up. It felt like this had been an eternity ago. The park was especially busy, since a weekly market had been set up on it. Camilo made his prisoners climb up on the edge of the destroyed fountain, so that they stood a good two feet above the heads of the crowd, where everyone could see their nude and bruised bodies.
Just like on their walk here, Tafalla swung around a megaphone and exclaimed that this condemned subjects were about to receive corporal punishment and would later be executed in the stadium and that everyone was invited to watch. Anouk had heard his repeating little speech so often by now, that she had figured out its meaning long since. And indeed, the group of civilians that followed them while they continued along their way grew larger by the minute.
When they finally arrived at the stadium, Anouk noticed that her feet were bleeding. That was not surprising, given that she had been forced to run across gravel roads, brittle tarmac and sharp cobblestone over the past hour or so. While the crowd stormed the entrance gates of the stadium, hoping to get the best seats, Anouk and the others were taken into the arena through a side entrance.
The stadium was built in the style of an amphitheater from the old times. The grandstands were arranged in a semicircle around an oval space in the center. There was a small fenced off area right in the middle of the grandstands, covered by a white tarp roof that shielded the steats below from the unforgiving sun. It was probably something like a VIP area, reserved for high-ranking audience and guests of honor. Apart from this area, the rest of the seats were already filled to the top. Anouk guessed that at least 15,000 people had gathered here to watch her suffer. And to watch her die.
To be continued.
dommmu
Governor
Chapter 21
The crowd on the grandstands erupted into cheering and applause when the condemned women were lead out of the catacombs into the arena and were pushed towards the three identical contraptions that had been placed in its center. After wondering for a moment about what she saw, Anouk understood: It were wooden St. Andrews crosses, each mounted on an apparatus that allowed them to be tilted either into a vertical or a horizontal position. At the moment, they were all laid down, probably because it would be easier to tie someone down on them this way.
Diego approached Anouk and released her from the chains and the collar before gently placing his hand between her shoulder blades, prompting her to climb onto the first cross. He did not need to be rough to her. Several armed soldiers had been lined up behind the crosses to make sure that any ill-advised attempt to resist the proceedings was nipped in the bud.
Anouk complied and laid down on the cross, feeling its rough wooden surface scratch her back. Despite its intimadating robustness, the torture device looked old and worn when she gave it a closer look. Without doubt, it was a remnant from the dark old times hundreds of years ago when barbarous events like this happened once every week or so.
While stretching out her arms and legs along the beams of the cross to allow Diego to secure them with ropes, Anouk let her head hang down backwards over its edge. From her upside down perspective, she saw the two large video walls that had been set up on either side of the crosses. Cameras from everywhere in the stadium filmed the spectacle, bringing close-up images to the audience. Right now, the image came from a camera that hung from a small remote controlled cable car and filmed the scene from above. She was shocked when she saw her body stretched out on the cross, emacinated from the terrible prison food with her ribs and hip bones protruding clearly under her skin. The image cut to another angle, a camera at ground level filming right up between her legs, displaying her freshly shaven pussy. Anouk silently scolded herself for presenting her pudenda in such a revealing pose and tried to close her legs, but Diego just finished wrapping the ropes around her knees and ankles, forcing her to keep her legs open.
"You don't have to do this", she appealed to Diego, whispering, so that only he could hear it. From the two tortures, he seemed like the one who could be reasoned with. "Don't you see that this is madness?"
"What are you suggesting?", he scoffed. "Do you expect me to untie you and let you go? If I did that, I could get myself ready to take your place right away."
He opened the metal clamps that held her shaming sign and tossed it to the side, uncovering her midriff. Anouk flinched and wailed when the sharp biting sensation from the clamps on her nipples disappeared and was replaced with an alternating stinging and throbbing, caused by the blood rushing back into the squeezed tissue. She did not like the deformed way her nipples looked, red and bleeding.
"And after all", Diego continued as he wrapped several layers of rope over her flat stomach, securing her midsection to the cross. "I would not want to miss the chance to get my hands on you again. I had so much fun playing with you back in the interrogation room."
Frustration and hopelessness crushed Anouk when she realized that there was nothing she could do to get herself out of this. Diego operated the mechanism of the device and brought the cross in its upright position, presenting her to the audience, ready to be tortured and degraded for the sport of the crowd and the vengeance of the Ascuan regime. Anouk felt the ropes cutting into her skin as they held her up in the air, leaving her feet dangling some inches above the ground. Aghast, she let her gaze wander across the packed grandstands, filled with people lusting for blood, lusting for revenge for the wrong that Anouk had done to them. At least according to their propaganda. She paused from time to time to look directly into the lenses of the many TV cameras that were going to document her suffering.
She heard the panting and the squeals from Valentina and Annika as they were tied to their crosses in the same fashion. Valentina had been crucified in the middle, Anouk to her right, Annika to her left. The two outer crosses where slightly rotated along the vertical axis so that the three women could see each other and observe the cruelties they would be subjected to.
Once the executioners had finished their job tying their victims to their crosses, a short orchestral march started playing over the loudspeakers of the stadium. Anouk assumed it to be the Ascuan national anthem, since the chattering from the stands died instantly and everyone raised from their seats. When the short anthem had ended, movement could be seen in the area under the tarp roof. Some of the cameras turned around to capture the dignitaries arriving. Against the gleaming light of the sun, Anouk had troubles making out any faces. All that she saw were people wearing either expensive looking suits or flawlessy ironed uniforms, decorated with all kinds of badges and medals. One of the newly arrived guests made a gesture with his hand towards the cameras, signalling everyone to sit down. Then it was showtime for Tafalla.
The execution overseer positioned himself between the crosses and the audience, holding a microphone and giving a lengthy speech. Anouk could only make out fragments, but guessed that he was babbling all kinds of propaganda bullshit and reminded everyone of the preposterous charges Anouk and the other two had been sentenced for. When he was done, he gave a signal towards Diego and Camilo to get ready.
Tafalla turned back towards the audience and informed them about the procedure. Knowing that Anouk would probably not understand him but still wanting her to know (and dread) what was coming for her, Diego placed himself next to her and translated the explanations: They were going to start with the corporal punishment. After that, a short break was planned for Fonseca's ceremony. A big humiliation was to follow. He left it unspecified though, how the condemned women would be punished and humiliated. Between the punishment show and the execution in the evening, they would be put on display for everyone to see and take as a cautionary example not to undermine the Ascuan government. Ever.
On their cue, Camilo and Diego stepped forward and presented the instruments they would use for the corporal punishment: Two long single tail whips. Diego borrowed the microphone from Tafalla and announced that they would begin with the two spies and leave the traitor for last. Then they positoined themselves on either side of Anouk's cross.
Before being able to brace herself, Camilo gave her the first whiplash, over her leaft breast, less than an inch away from her nipple. Anouk grunted and writhed in her bondage, or at least as much as the ropes allowed her two. The whip was different from the flogger he had worked on her back, buttocks and tighs while driving her on to march trough the streets. The individual strands of the flogger had been thinner and lighter and had also spread their force across a wider area. The places where the flogger had hit her felt like they were on fire, but apart from a few cuts, the skin had not been damaged too badly there. It was a different story with the bullwhip, though.
"You will get 73 of these, bitch!", Camilo sneered. "Count out loud!"
From her culture lessons Annika had given her in the past, Anouk remembered that the 73 was considered to be an unlucky number in Ascua and Estoria. It was all too fitting that they would work it into their corporal punishment.
"One!", she gasped.
Now Diego took a swing with his whip, identical to Camilo's, from the other side. He hit her diagonally across the chest, laying down the leather in a line from the lower right corner of her ribcage to her left collarbone.
"Two!" Anouk took deep and long breaths to cope with the pain. She looked down on her chest. Both whiplashes she had received so far at already left nasty looking bright red welts on her. The skin had broken on the spot where the two traces met.
"Three!", she pressed out, almost choking when the third blow hit her across her convexed stomach. That bastard Camilo had waited for the exact moment when she exhaled and the muscles in that area of her body had the least tension, for the effect of a maximal impact. It was the first time during her whipping she actually lost her grip on herself and let out a little sob.
It only got worse from the start. Stroke number "four" already had her yelping, by the time they reached "twelve" she was howling and everything that came after "thirty" made her scream like crazy.
There was no mercy for her. Not that Anouk ever had the time or the breath to beg for it, though. Her two abusers delivered the whiplashes in a rapid succession, leaving only a couple of seconds between them. Unlike the cane strokes in the torture chamber, these lashes were not meant to break her spirit. Her captors had already achieved that. The whipping she received now was meant to destroy her. That was evident from the many places on her chest, her stomach and the fronts of her tighs where the whips were drawing little trickles of blood.
Unintentionally, Anouk stopped counting out loud at a certain point. Screaming and crying had made her hoarse and the pain had taken a hold of her mind that made it impossible for her to utter intelligable words. She threw her head around, desparately looking up into the bright noon sky, not caring about the world around her anymore. The whiplashes suddendly stopped. She noticed the two executioners moving away from her. A couple of seconds later, she heard the sounds of leather crashing down on sweaty skin again and heard her friend Annika yell out "One!". Then she faded away into darkness.
To be continued.
The crowd on the grandstands erupted into cheering and applause when the condemned women were lead out of the catacombs into the arena and were pushed towards the three identical contraptions that had been placed in its center. After wondering for a moment about what she saw, Anouk understood: It were wooden St. Andrews crosses, each mounted on an apparatus that allowed them to be tilted either into a vertical or a horizontal position. At the moment, they were all laid down, probably because it would be easier to tie someone down on them this way.
Diego approached Anouk and released her from the chains and the collar before gently placing his hand between her shoulder blades, prompting her to climb onto the first cross. He did not need to be rough to her. Several armed soldiers had been lined up behind the crosses to make sure that any ill-advised attempt to resist the proceedings was nipped in the bud.
Anouk complied and laid down on the cross, feeling its rough wooden surface scratch her back. Despite its intimadating robustness, the torture device looked old and worn when she gave it a closer look. Without doubt, it was a remnant from the dark old times hundreds of years ago when barbarous events like this happened once every week or so.
While stretching out her arms and legs along the beams of the cross to allow Diego to secure them with ropes, Anouk let her head hang down backwards over its edge. From her upside down perspective, she saw the two large video walls that had been set up on either side of the crosses. Cameras from everywhere in the stadium filmed the spectacle, bringing close-up images to the audience. Right now, the image came from a camera that hung from a small remote controlled cable car and filmed the scene from above. She was shocked when she saw her body stretched out on the cross, emacinated from the terrible prison food with her ribs and hip bones protruding clearly under her skin. The image cut to another angle, a camera at ground level filming right up between her legs, displaying her freshly shaven pussy. Anouk silently scolded herself for presenting her pudenda in such a revealing pose and tried to close her legs, but Diego just finished wrapping the ropes around her knees and ankles, forcing her to keep her legs open.
"You don't have to do this", she appealed to Diego, whispering, so that only he could hear it. From the two tortures, he seemed like the one who could be reasoned with. "Don't you see that this is madness?"
"What are you suggesting?", he scoffed. "Do you expect me to untie you and let you go? If I did that, I could get myself ready to take your place right away."
He opened the metal clamps that held her shaming sign and tossed it to the side, uncovering her midriff. Anouk flinched and wailed when the sharp biting sensation from the clamps on her nipples disappeared and was replaced with an alternating stinging and throbbing, caused by the blood rushing back into the squeezed tissue. She did not like the deformed way her nipples looked, red and bleeding.
"And after all", Diego continued as he wrapped several layers of rope over her flat stomach, securing her midsection to the cross. "I would not want to miss the chance to get my hands on you again. I had so much fun playing with you back in the interrogation room."
Frustration and hopelessness crushed Anouk when she realized that there was nothing she could do to get herself out of this. Diego operated the mechanism of the device and brought the cross in its upright position, presenting her to the audience, ready to be tortured and degraded for the sport of the crowd and the vengeance of the Ascuan regime. Anouk felt the ropes cutting into her skin as they held her up in the air, leaving her feet dangling some inches above the ground. Aghast, she let her gaze wander across the packed grandstands, filled with people lusting for blood, lusting for revenge for the wrong that Anouk had done to them. At least according to their propaganda. She paused from time to time to look directly into the lenses of the many TV cameras that were going to document her suffering.
She heard the panting and the squeals from Valentina and Annika as they were tied to their crosses in the same fashion. Valentina had been crucified in the middle, Anouk to her right, Annika to her left. The two outer crosses where slightly rotated along the vertical axis so that the three women could see each other and observe the cruelties they would be subjected to.
Once the executioners had finished their job tying their victims to their crosses, a short orchestral march started playing over the loudspeakers of the stadium. Anouk assumed it to be the Ascuan national anthem, since the chattering from the stands died instantly and everyone raised from their seats. When the short anthem had ended, movement could be seen in the area under the tarp roof. Some of the cameras turned around to capture the dignitaries arriving. Against the gleaming light of the sun, Anouk had troubles making out any faces. All that she saw were people wearing either expensive looking suits or flawlessy ironed uniforms, decorated with all kinds of badges and medals. One of the newly arrived guests made a gesture with his hand towards the cameras, signalling everyone to sit down. Then it was showtime for Tafalla.
The execution overseer positioned himself between the crosses and the audience, holding a microphone and giving a lengthy speech. Anouk could only make out fragments, but guessed that he was babbling all kinds of propaganda bullshit and reminded everyone of the preposterous charges Anouk and the other two had been sentenced for. When he was done, he gave a signal towards Diego and Camilo to get ready.
Tafalla turned back towards the audience and informed them about the procedure. Knowing that Anouk would probably not understand him but still wanting her to know (and dread) what was coming for her, Diego placed himself next to her and translated the explanations: They were going to start with the corporal punishment. After that, a short break was planned for Fonseca's ceremony. A big humiliation was to follow. He left it unspecified though, how the condemned women would be punished and humiliated. Between the punishment show and the execution in the evening, they would be put on display for everyone to see and take as a cautionary example not to undermine the Ascuan government. Ever.
On their cue, Camilo and Diego stepped forward and presented the instruments they would use for the corporal punishment: Two long single tail whips. Diego borrowed the microphone from Tafalla and announced that they would begin with the two spies and leave the traitor for last. Then they positoined themselves on either side of Anouk's cross.
Before being able to brace herself, Camilo gave her the first whiplash, over her leaft breast, less than an inch away from her nipple. Anouk grunted and writhed in her bondage, or at least as much as the ropes allowed her two. The whip was different from the flogger he had worked on her back, buttocks and tighs while driving her on to march trough the streets. The individual strands of the flogger had been thinner and lighter and had also spread their force across a wider area. The places where the flogger had hit her felt like they were on fire, but apart from a few cuts, the skin had not been damaged too badly there. It was a different story with the bullwhip, though.
"You will get 73 of these, bitch!", Camilo sneered. "Count out loud!"
From her culture lessons Annika had given her in the past, Anouk remembered that the 73 was considered to be an unlucky number in Ascua and Estoria. It was all too fitting that they would work it into their corporal punishment.
"One!", she gasped.
Now Diego took a swing with his whip, identical to Camilo's, from the other side. He hit her diagonally across the chest, laying down the leather in a line from the lower right corner of her ribcage to her left collarbone.
"Two!" Anouk took deep and long breaths to cope with the pain. She looked down on her chest. Both whiplashes she had received so far at already left nasty looking bright red welts on her. The skin had broken on the spot where the two traces met.
"Three!", she pressed out, almost choking when the third blow hit her across her convexed stomach. That bastard Camilo had waited for the exact moment when she exhaled and the muscles in that area of her body had the least tension, for the effect of a maximal impact. It was the first time during her whipping she actually lost her grip on herself and let out a little sob.
It only got worse from the start. Stroke number "four" already had her yelping, by the time they reached "twelve" she was howling and everything that came after "thirty" made her scream like crazy.
There was no mercy for her. Not that Anouk ever had the time or the breath to beg for it, though. Her two abusers delivered the whiplashes in a rapid succession, leaving only a couple of seconds between them. Unlike the cane strokes in the torture chamber, these lashes were not meant to break her spirit. Her captors had already achieved that. The whipping she received now was meant to destroy her. That was evident from the many places on her chest, her stomach and the fronts of her tighs where the whips were drawing little trickles of blood.
Unintentionally, Anouk stopped counting out loud at a certain point. Screaming and crying had made her hoarse and the pain had taken a hold of her mind that made it impossible for her to utter intelligable words. She threw her head around, desparately looking up into the bright noon sky, not caring about the world around her anymore. The whiplashes suddendly stopped. She noticed the two executioners moving away from her. A couple of seconds later, she heard the sounds of leather crashing down on sweaty skin again and heard her friend Annika yell out "One!". Then she faded away into darkness.
To be continued.