9
The VIPs retired for a hearty breakfast in the Officers' Mess in the Castle Barracks, and the café in the visitors' centre did good business. It was surprising how the crowds on this second morning seemed even greater than the first day, although we girls on our Crosses were much more passive, much less mobile in struggling with our pain. The television coverage had evidently aroused excitement, the citizens of defeated Elclud – especially the male portion – seemed to be coming round to the view that a régime that lays on circuses of female crucifixion has something to be said in its favour.
The sun was blazing in a clear sky, last night's storm had cleared the clammy air, our naked, ravaged skins were burning. Now frequent opportunities to suck at the urine-soaked rag kept us hydrated, conscious, cynically extending our tortured lives, stretching out our agony. My arms were numb now, continuous pain located in my shoulders and painfully labouring chest. My lower body, with the Spike now firmly lodged in my birth-passage, my buttocks impaled on the nails from the hub of the Wheel, I held as motionless as I could manage, the least movement of my hips, the smallest tilt of he Wheel, brought pangs of intense torment to my entrails. And my wide-stretched legs ached cruelly with the continuous effort of pressing on my nailed feet to steady the Wheel.
By the time the dignitaries returned, there was a packed crowd eagerly awaiting. There was a brief round of flag raising and national anthems – I noticed the President of Elclud and the Security Secretary from the UCS had joined the MSC heavyweights again. Then the Mutilator and his slave approached me.
His first move was to have the Wheel turned so I hung upside-down once more, an operation that was itself now excruciatingly painful, so strained and weakened were my muscles. I watched resigned, as he took ropes of plaited barbed wire and wrapped them around my chest as he'd done on Barbara and Lucia. The jabbing of the barbs and cutting of the wire into my sore flesh drew yelps.
Now he ordered the Wheel to swing back upright, the jolt of the Spike in my genitals drew a spurt of blood and a howl of pain. The cherry-picker came into operation, the Mutilator rose to stand with his fierce eyes inches from mine. Nothing passed between us, no words, no meaningful facial gestures – he was totally impassive, I was utterly resigned. Silently, he took a wire wreath and pressed it onto my brows – strange, I thought, in all my long sojourn in the hell of the IPCG, all my visits to the several Torture Chambers and Places of Punishment, the one and only part of my body that has never suffered torture up to now has been the top of my head. The tightening of the strands and bite of the barbs made up for that omission, I heard myself scream, more loud and clear than a thought my burning lungs could manage.
As there was no wooden upright behind my upper body and head on my X-cross, the wire bonds were pulled back and tightened around the spoke of the Wheel. My torso had already been bent back by the wires around my chest, now my head was tugged back sharply and fixed with a cruel tight twist so I was gazing up into the brilliant blue sky. Blood meandered down my cheeks and soaked into my long dark locks.
I braced myself for the red-hot spear through my breasts that my friends had suffered before me, but it was not a rod that the slavegirl was heating. It was a claw knife that the Mutilator took and fitted over his fingers, equipping himself with five razor-sharp talons. These he applied to my right breast, prompting another echoing scream. Slowly he drew it down, slicing fiery incisions from the top, round the nipple, to the swelling base forced up by the wire bondage, and back round the aureole to the top.
He handed back the weapon, and was offered an open case of surgeon's scalpels. He selected one, the slavegirl heated the blade with the flamegun, the Mutilator began to flay me alive – yes, like he was peeling an apple, strip by strip, my breast was cleared of its skin.
With my head held back by the wire crown, I could barely see, and could not bear to look, I just howled piteously. When the breast was wholly stripped of its skin, he put away the scalpel and watched for a minute or two. He'd done the job so skilfully there was no rush of blood or juices, just a general gory ooze across the throbbing crimson mound. The slave handed him the flamegun, he played it over the raw flesh, I shrieked as the wound was cauterised.
Now he repeated the procedure on my left breast, I was moaning deliriously, God knows what anguished nonsense poured from my lips. The audience was quiet, awe-struck at this tour de force of cruelty. When it was complete, there was a general murmur of admiration that gave way to a burst of spontaneous applause. No regimented cheering this, the crowd were on his side – woe to the victim!
And what special mutilation was reserved for my face? Not the tongue-torture that Gaby and Lucia were now experiencing, but something much, much worse. Again he drew a scalpel from its case, did no heat this one, but lifted it towards my face. "Oh no!" I shrieked, guessing its destination, "Oh no, not that, please! Not my ...."
Grasping my already helpless head by my blood-wet hair in his left hand, he slipped the scalpel blade under my top right eyelid, and neatly sliced it away. Blood flooded across my eyeball, the sky turned hazy crimson, as he slit off the lower lid too. He paused, I felt the horror my sister had endured once, and Marie twice, already the unprotected eye was beginning to be burnt by the relentless brightness of the sky.
I was to lose both eyes. The left eyelids likewise cut off, the pain redoubled. But that was not sufficient to satisfy these monsters' sadism. I suddenly felt some irritating powder, like fine sand or seeds, sprinkled on the blood-dimmed surfaces, and my pain was multiplied, I was shrieking, crazed by the horror and the hurt.
My shrieks were lost among the cheering of the excited rabble, loud military music was blasting through the loudspeakers, I was no longer conscious of where I was, who I was, why I was there – I was just thrashing in a maelstrom of pain, living a waking nightmare.
By the time I became sufficiently lucid in my mind to recall my situation, all light had been burnt from my eyes, a dense blackness took its place, though my brain was still tormented with crazing after-images of blinding flashes, a dance of lightning mocking my blindness.
And my body was burning, especially my skin-stripped breasts. When a piss-wet rag was pressed to my lips, I sucked at it, my gullet burnt as the liquid sought my stomach. With my eyes destroyed, I heard more acutely, sounds of the city, ceaseless buzzingof flies, excited chatter among the crowds commenting eagerly on my bruise-streaked body, but especially on my glowing breasts and blank staring eyes.
But loudest of all were the bird, gulls and crows, wheeling above my upturned face, settling with scratching claws on the Wheel-rim, fluttering their wings close. Then the first one dared, a knife-like jab at my blinded left eye. I yelled as he flapped off triumphantly, his companions' cries mocked in polyphony. Emboldened, they all soon took their pick – spiced eyeball's a rare delicacy, barbecued breast's a tasty bite .