Monica's Travels 09

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Travels 08)

Chapter Nine – Chapel of Horrors – Monica’s Story

I assumed it was some time in the morning when the door opened, but I had no way of knowing.  My sense of time was shot to pieces because of jet lag, lack of sleep and the utter darkness in which we had been imprisoned.  I could make out the silhouette of Leon against the backlight.

“You – Leila – get up and come with me.”

Leila blinked in the light.  She looked tired, her hair mussed and of course her arms still in surrender position trapped in the iron yoke around her neck.  She had been lying on her back and struggled into an upright position only with the greatest of difficulty.  Leon half dragged her out of the cell, ignoring her protests as she remained bent over in the corridor, held by the neck chain.  Leon reached in and picked up Leila’s ball gag that lay in the straw where it had fallen after I had managed to undo it.  He turned to her and she pleaded for him not to gag her.

“You don’t have to use that – I’ll be quiet, honest – I-urgh! Mmmpfh!”  The man buckled the strap over the dishevelled blonde hair and Leila rolled her eyes at me.

“Where are you taking her?” I demanded, as Leon made as if to close the door.  “What are you going to do, you bastard?”

It was perhaps not a wise move, since Leon then came into the cell again and proceeded to repeat the process with my ball gag.  I tried to fight, but it was a pathetic attempt in my chains, as he forced my head back and jammed the rubber ball between my teeth, buckling the strap unnecessarily tight behind my head.  I glared at him, but he only laughed.

“That should teach you to remember your new position, Mistress Monica,” he smirked with undisguised relish.  “On your back with your legs in the air.  How appropriate.  But don’t worry, we’ll be back for you shortly.”

The door slammed and I heard the thump of a heavy bolt rammed home.  I lay in the darkness and counted the aches and pains in my body.  I wondered how long they would keep us here and what would be our ultimate fate.  The fact that they had made no secret about where we were worried me, and I had the feeling that this was not our ultimate destination.  The Earl was obviously a prominent person, owning such a place, and could not afford to be caught in any sort of scandal, so presumably he thought he would have only a passing role with little risk.  Jade Wong and Warren made a formidably powerful pairing in regard to resources, and coupled with the local knowledge of the Earl and the brawn, if not the brains of Leon, I was very concerned.  The fact that they had removed Leila left me even more worried, for I hated us being split up. 

Such were the depressing thoughts that occupied me until the door opened again and Warren squatted down with an amused look on his face.

“My my, how the mighty are fallen,” he said.  “I’ve come to take you to breakfast.”

I found out at that point how difficult it was to get to your feet from a position lying on your back in a yoke, with your feet chained.  Warren made no effort to help as I grunted and finally managed to worm my way into a sitting position, with my muscles that had been restrained all night protesting even more.  I finally got into a stooped position outside the cell, where Warren unlocked the bottom end of the neck-to-ankle chain and I slowly straightened up, easing the tension within my aching back muscles. 

Holding the loose end of the chain he towed me back along the passage and up another set of stairs, past the first we had come down.  This set ended in a door that opened into what looked like the utility area – I could see a kitchen and other doors that might have been storage or laundry rooms.

“I expect you want to go to the loo,” said Warren.  I nodded vigorously.  He knew me of old, and I followed him to a cavernous bathroom with white-tiled walls and a huge old fashioned claw bathtub.  Warren pulled a small spanner from his pocket and undid the bolts on the yoke at my neck and wrists.  As the weight was lifted from my shoulders I realised how much my muscles had been guarding against the load.  I pointed to the gag.

“Urmm?”

“Very well, you may take it out,” he said brusquely.  “I’ll give you five minutes to make yourself presentable – you look a wreck.  I’ll be outside.”  He picked up the yoke and left.

Gee thanks, Warren.  I’ve been shackled up in an iron yoke all night, naked in a tiny cell… I’ve been beaten, had bugger-all sleep, I’m jet-lagged, disoriented… I wonder why I look a wreck?  Bastard!

When the door closed after him, I quickly assessed the room for any chance of escape, but there were no windows or other doors.  The escape idea lasted about two seconds, and after that I decided I would be better off doing what I had come there for.  Afterwards, with the gag removed, I took the opportunity to wash my face and looking in the mirror I decided that I really did look like shit, with dark smudges under my eyes.  I managed to get a peek at my bottom, and was not surprised at the livid purple and black bruising that criss-crossed my cheeks.

I tidied my hair as best I could and washed other parts that needed to be washed, before the door banged open revealing Warren obviously impatient to get going.  I hurried out past him with a rattling of my hobble chain, and of course he couldn’t resist a slap at my rump.  The blow caught me squarely on top of the bruises and I barely suppressed a scream.  Warren would keep, I thought, through gritted teeth.

He steered me back down the corridors to emerge into a dining room. 

Leon, Pearson and Jade Wong were seated at the end of a long table, with the delicious smell of an English fried breakfast filling the room.  In the centre of the group were several silver platters that undoubtedly held the source of the aroma.  My mouth began to water and I realised I was ravenous.

“My dear Monica,” said Pearson, rising from his chair like a true gentleman when a lady enters a room, albeit naked and manacled.  I noticed Leon didn’t move.  “Would you like some breakfast?  You must be very hungry.” 

I was unsure how to react.  I didn’t yet know what they wanted of me, or how they expected me to behave.  Did they want me to kneel and be subservient?  Trust your instincts, Monica.

“Thank you. I – “  Warren caught me by the arm as I was about to grasp the back of a chair.  This time Leon did stand up, at a gesture from Pearson.  It was evident who was running things here.  Leon grabbed my other arm and I found myself abruptly with my wrists ratcheted into handcuffs in front of me, with a half metre length of chain dangling from the joining link. 

It was perhaps a moment when I could have finally expressed my outrage at what was happening, demanding to be released, demanding to know where the others were, but I had been down this road before, and too much protest usually meant something being stuffed in one’s mouth and that was the end of it.  The mouth was a weapon, if used properly, and I knew I was in no position at that moment to call the shots.  I would be told whatever they wanted me to hear, when it suited them.  Exhibitions of indignation would get me nowhere, right then.

“Perhaps you may eat shortly,” said Pearson, leaving his chair, to be joined by Jade Wong.  Today she was immaculately attired in a tight cream-coloured leather catsuit that accentuated her trim and compact figure.  She smiled thinly at my discomfort.  Warren and Leon let go of my arms and left the room through a door on the right, while the other two stood in front of me.  Pearson looked at once both serious and concerned.

“Monica, before we begin the planned day’s activities, Jade has received some disconcerting news.  It seems the rest of your group in Hong Kong has perpetrated a very unfortunate and embarrassing act on two members of Jade’s staff, one of whom, Portia Tang, is known to you, I believe?”  My interest quickened at these words.  So Portia was up to her old tricks in Hong Kong!  And it sounded like she had come off worst from the encounter.

“Your rabble left my Portia in an extremely humiliating situation,” Jade said, her eyes narrowing with displeasure.  “I will not give you further satisfaction by describing it, other than to say that Portia is extremely unhappy and sore, and has lost great face in the local community.  And she has had to buy a new mobile phone.  I gather the other is not working now, which is why I had not heard from her.”

“More importantly, it appears your friends have slipped out of Hong Kong,” said Pearson, “without the local spies being aware of it.”  It sounded like a cheap point scoring statement from Pearson, directed at Jade, but my heart exulted that they had got away and were now on the trail – if indeed that was the case.  How would they ever find us here, though?  What did Portia know?  Had they beaten something out of her?  Despite these thoughts racing head over heels through my brain, I remained impassive for the benefit of my interrogators.

“What we would like to know, Monica,” Pearson continued, “is what their plans are, and what you have arranged with them?”

“How the hell should I know?” I said.  “You’ve had me tied or chained up since we arrived in England.

“Ah.  Not quite.  You were in the airport terminal collecting your luggage, then in the car drinking that delicious champagne that I had specially brewed.  I know how you women love to gossip on mobile phones…” Jade Wong shot him a withering sideways glance which he ignored.  “I think it would be most likely that you got in touch.  You don’t seem very surprised at anything I’ve just told you.”

“I’m not.  You people bring these things on yourselves, usually by your own incompetence.  It’s hardly surprising when you get your arses kicked.”

It was not a very diplomatic response, but I couldn’t help myself in this instance.  Inside I was elated that Steven and the others were on their way – to somewhere – and I saw a momentary flicker of annoyance in Pearson’s eyes as the shot hit home.  He let out a soft sigh and licked his lips.

“A shame,” he said. “Very well.  But I would ask you to reconsider your answer, Monica.  It is very important to my – our plans.  I am a civilised person by nature, but I do get just a little peeved with people who are stubborn in the face of the obvious and who disrupt my programme.  It is evident that a little persuasion is required – quite unnecessary, in my view, and able to be reversed if you simply tell us what you know.”

“I’ve just told you,” I retorted.  “Everything you’ve said is news to me.”

“If only we could be sure,” he mused sadly.  “Please come with us.  Perhaps a visit to the chapel, with its more serene and contemplative atmosphere may be conducive to your thought processes.  This way.”

I followed him across to the door through which Leon and Warren had exited previously, feeling butterflies start to grow in my empty stomach.

“This is the Chapel,” he said, as we entered a lovely intimate vaulted space, the stained roof timbers supported by intricate timber buttresses, from which hung wrought iron lamp holders that each had perhaps a dozen candelabra-type bulbs.  We had come in through a side door, and it took a moment to take in the full scene.  The long wall opposite us was an outside wall, and featured four stained glass windows by some macabre-minded artisan.  He obviously thought that the gory deaths of saints was an appropriate theme to get people focussing their thoughts the choice between heaven and hell.

To our right was an altar flanked by two pulpits raised up to provide a good view over the assembled congregation.  In this instance, though, the plain wooden pews had been turned at right angles and pushed back to the sides of the chapel, leaving a long open space in the centre.  Here, like some sort of concealed display, a big table-like object occupied centre stage, covered by a large dust sheet.  Towards the rear, a much taller object was likewise covered, while a bigger, more rotund object was concealed at the front, close to the altar.  Leon and Warren were standing near the middle object with the look of expectant schoolboys waiting for a playground fight to begin.

“Lovely, isn’t it,” said Pearson.  “It was added in the early seventeen hundreds.  Early Georgian, I think.  It’s become a second stage of my display of inquisitorial devices.  I’d like you to have a good view of this, dear Monica.  Perhaps you’d be so kind as to follow me up to the pulpit over there.”

Feeling an increasing element of foreboding, I climbed the polished and worn wooden steps to the pulpit, feeling exposed and vulnerable as though the chapel was filled with people.  I wondered what other dramas the building had witnessed in the space of three hundred years, and what it was now about to see.  Pearson took the short chain attached to the handcuffs and locked it to an eyebolt just below the top of the pulpit rail, forcing me to stand against it, looking down on the three sinister draped objects.

“Now, Monica,” Pearson continued in a voice that oozed reasonability and politeness, “I’d like to ask you again what you know about the whereabouts of your friends, and when they are due in the country.  What can you tell me?”

“Nothing.”  I kept my answer short.  I didn’t trust myself not to tell him to do something physically and anatomically impossible with himself and his nearest kin.  There was another almost inaudible sigh, and he made a slight motion of his head towards where Warren and Leon stood beside the most distant, tallest shrouded object.  The pair grasped the bottom of the dust sheet and pulled it away, revealing Leila, stretched naked on a kind of ladder.

It was perhaps the size of an upended single bed, with rungs about a foot apart, between heavy side timbers.  The whole device leaned backwards slightly, like a step ladder.  Leila was suspended by her wrists, which were wrapped in multiple turns of heavy rope and tied to the topmost rung by two short lengths. Her ankles were similarly trapped by several turns of rope, perhaps half a metre above the floor, and attached to each of the ropes was an iron hook hanging just below the feet.  Leila’s eyes were wide and fearful above a red ball gag strapped in her mouth.

“Doesn’t she make a gorgeous picture?” Pearson said softly beside me.  “”Now, Monica, have you ever heard of squassation?”  Without waiting for me to reply, he continued.  “It’s a form of the rack, in which gravity is used instead of manpower for tightening the ropes.  Poor Leila is about to experience it now.  Of course, she need not, if you only tell me what you know.”

“Leave her be,” I said through gritted teeth.  “I don’t know anything!  None of us do!”

“Let’s try two bags, Leon,” said Pearson, raising his voice so that it carried, echoing slightly off the hard timber walls and roof.  Leon picked up what I took to be two sandbags from a nearby pew.  “They weigh about five pounds each,” Pearson continued conversationally.  “I do find it hard to equate to the metric system, you know.  Pounds are so much more… traditional.”

The bags must have had rings sewn in them, for they slipped neatly on to the hooks below Leila’s feet.  Leila squirmed briefly as the slack was taken out of her legs, then moaned at the load that came on.  Pearson looked at me and raised his eyebrow interrogatively.  I felt suddenly hot and perspiration at once seemed to break out.  Pearson nodded again, and Leon produced too more bags that got looped on to the hooks.  Leila moaned again, and as a further two went on, Leila shook her head and began to make mmphing noises into the gag.

“Look,” I said, “you can’t just keep doing this!  None of us have heard anything!  You’ll dislocate her arms!”

“You’d be surprised what a person can bear,” Pearson replied casually.  “I’ve studied these things.  It takes a lot before that happens.  Look, the fourth pair are on already.  I’m sure she can take five easily.”  Leila was looking very agitated, her lithe body stretched taut and her breasts uplifted to their full perkiness, which probably attracted Warren, as he picked up a multi-tailed flogger from another pew and looked questioningly at Pearson.

“Leila is a lovely child,” Pearson murmured.  “Quite delightful.  Those breasts – firm and youthful.  And – so far – unmarked.  I hear Warren is very good with the cat,” he said, leaving the implication hanging there.

“Leave her be,” I said urgently, in a low voice.  “Don’t you dare whip her!”

The first strike of leather on flesh sounded terrifyingly loud in the echoing chapel, as the thongs caught Leila across the breasts.  Even with forty pounds stretching her young body, she managed a jerk and twitch, screaming into the gag.  The next blow landed across her exposed midriff, and the one after it across her crotch. Warren worked his way up and down as Leila fought the gag and her bonds and the chapel rang with her muffled cries.

By that time it rang my own cries as well, as I tugged on the chain securing me to the pulpit and pleaded with Pearson to cease.  After a couple of minutes of the flogging, he motioned to Warren, and a silence – broken only by Leila’s strangled sobs – descended on the hall.

At a sign which I didn’t see, Leon moved to the shrouded object in the centre of the hall and pulled the sheet away.  I had had a nasty feeling what was underneath this, and my worst fears were realised.  Beneath the dust cover was an ancient rack – one of the original designs, not one of your modern ones with the padded benches.  This one was a museum piece made from ancient timber dark with age and notched and scarred from a thousand tortures inflicted on its victims.  The pale figure of Jillian was stretched immovably in the centre of the bench, her arms over her head, the ropes on them attached to a wooden roller at the top of the bench, her feet roped to a board at the bottom.  Her breasts were rising and falling in panic at the obvious fate that was in store for her.  Like Leila, her features were distorted by a large rubber ball strapped in her mouth.  She turned her head to either side, trying to see what was about to happen, making mmming sounds of fear.

“While Leila is growing just a tad longer, perhaps we will see what can be done with Jill,” suggested Pearson.

“No!  Let her go, you bastard!  Warren!  Don’t you dare!”

Predictably, I was ignored.  Warren went about his work with a zeal equal to that of Leon, as he fetched an odd looking device that I recognised as being a tit-puller, as we sometimes called them.  He placed an hour-glass shaped piece of wood on Jill’s chest fitting it neatly between her breasts.  A thin metal bolt stood up vertically from this, a handspan high, with a cross bar that stretched out over each breast.  A small clamp dangled from each end of the bar, and it was these that Warren released on to Jill’s erect nipples, wiggling them to ensure the jaws were gripping properly.  Not content with this, he slipped a small cable tie around each jaw to ensure it remained fastened on its victim.  Jill moaned with the pain, but I knew it was just beginning, for with the clips anchored, Warren began to turn the large butterfly nut under the bar, slowly forcing it to rise up the bolt, lifting the jaws attached to Jill’s nipples.  Jill whined and protested, her pleas rising in pitch as he breasts were stretched up into two pointed cones,

“Are we sure we haven’t had any communication at all?” Pearson asked insidiously in my ear.

“You little fucker – Warren, don’t you touch that bar!”

Warren had taken a bar and inserted it in the end of the roller around which Jill’s wrist ropes were wrapped.  The bar was like a big lever, and with the narrow diameter of the roller it could provide immense torque with which to stretch a victim.  Jill was turning her head in panic as the load came on her arms and body, transferring down to her legs.  A quick writhing and her body was taut as a tow wire, her gagged keening rising an octave as Warren leaned on the bar.  There was an audible clicking as the ratchet on the roller dropped over each notch while the rope tightened.  Jill screamed into the gag and I screamed at Pearson, becoming conscious for the first time of the tears streaming down my cheeks.  I rattled and tugged at my chains in desperation.

“Anything to say?” my tormentor asked politely.

“Nothing happened, damn you!  Why can’t you understand?  What can I do to prove it?  Oh God, please stop!” I lurched between pleading to abuse, totally losing it and calling Pearson all the foul names I could think of.  He merely tut-tutted and produced another gag from a shelf beside the pulpit.  Before I was aware of it, his arm was around my throat.  He was surprisingly strong, and in a moment I was dragged to my knees, my wrists pulled out in front of me.  Then one hand grasped my hair and the other was thrusting something into my mouth.  I tried to fight it, to turn my head away, but could not.  It was big and unyielding, and tasted somehow metallic, but with the texture of leather.  I gasped as it went in, prising my jaws apart, then allowing them to close somewhat as the device slipped through,

“Glurrgh!” I spluttered.

“Another little toy from the Middle Ages, though this one was actually made for me – or for you,” he said with a smile.  “I do object to that language, Monica.  You really must keep a better control on that tongue.  The object is known as a pear, and a form of it can be used in the vagina, the anus, or – in your case – the mouth.  You see, there is a threaded rod poking out of your mouth, and as I start to wind this little butterfly nut, you will find the thing begins to expand in your mouth.  It is especially designed to fit the open mouth, and taken too far will dislocate, or even break your jaw.

I felt the thing starting to open out like a pear splitting down the middle into three equal segments.  The pressure exerted by the expanding rods was irresistible.  My tongue was compressed and the segments were prising my jaw open and pushing out my cheeks.

“Urrrngh!” I managed, starting to panic at what was happening and fluttering my manacled hands in an attempt to reach it.  Just when I thought my jaw was going to break, Pearson stopped, and slipped a tiny padlock through some sort of hole in the rod.  He let me go and I scrabbled forward, my hands reaching up to the awful metal apparatus protruding from my mouth.  His hands came down under my shoulders and hoisted me to my feet.  The chapel was echoing with the hoarse gasps of the three of us – Leila, Jill, and myself, as we fought to deal with the cruel stretches imposed on our bodies.

“But we’re not done yet, Monica.  You friend Emma has still to make an appearance.  Have you ever heard of the Iron Maiden of Nuremburg?” I made a gurgling sound, drool running down my chin and dripping on to my breasts. 

“I have a replica of it here, which Jade will now show you.”  On cue, Jade Wong pulled the last dust sheet away, and I looked with horror on poor Emma bound inside the great barrel-like container with the bizarre female face painted on it.  In this instance the body of the device stood upright, the front open in the form of two doors, each making up a quarter of the main body.  When closed they would imprison the occupant in the thing, like a Darlek swallowing a victim.

Emma was bound tightly inside the casing, gagged and staring frantically up at me, her eyes darting between my own plight and the set of awful stakes protruding from the inside of the doors. 

“It’s very ingenious,” Pearson was saying.  “The stakes are of iron and are designed to miss vital organs.  That way, the pain is intense, the bleeding is reduced, and the agony lasts a long, long time.  Jade wanted to have something special for Emma.  I think it’s a Chinese female thing.”  He turned to me and said earnestly,  “this is your last chance.”

I was barely given time to react.  I knew I had to say something, invent something – anything to stop the awful act that was about to take place. 

“Hnnn!  Hnnn!” I said nodding my head furiously, but Madam Wong seemed blissfully unaware of my decision, and was closing the two doors!  She looped a rope around the casing which rested on several spikes around the perimeter, then began to haul the doors closed.  Emma’s gagged screams were matched by own, and those of Jill and Leila, as we all strained in our bonds and pleaded for the life of our dear Emma.  But Madam Wong now had her goal in sight, as she put a booted foot against the doors and heaved on the rope.  There was a further scream from Emma, then the doors shut tight and Madam Wong dropped a bolt in place to hold them there as the chapel echoed with our heartbroken sobs.

*   *   *

20.03.04

story continues in Monica's Travels 10

o0o