This short story is an entry in the 2002 Soc.Sexuality.Spanking Summer Short Story Contest and is copyright by the author and commercial use is prohibited without permission. Personal/private copies are permitted only if complete including the copyright notice. The author would appreciate your comments
Category: Period
Dissolve
By
Mara Maharakshasa <MaraMahaRakshasa@aol.com>
This is a damn fine time to be thinking about Le Chatelier's Principle, Nernst, Arrhenius or van t'Hoff, Annelise thought.
The platinum key is embedded in a billet of iron, hung by a thread, immersed in aqua regia. How quickly will it be freed? It depends on the acid's concentration, and if there's enough to dissolve the metal. But there's no mixing! Will there be a stagnant boundary layer, slowing it down? What about insoluble salts forming a protective layer?
Her eyes stare at the tube above her hand, watching the steady bubbling. The liquid has a greenish tinge, and she can't see how much iron remains.
How much longer?
The Tormentor had imprisoned her in this dungeon, spreadeagled naked between vertical posts. Her wrists and ankles are securely locked in manacles. She is gagged. Behind her he'd positioned his devilish machine.
A long vertical shaft rotates slowly, with leather straps whirring through the air. He'd moved it closer, until the tips of the straps began to slap harshly against her buttocks.
"When the acid eats the iron," he'd gloated, "the key will fall to the bottom of the tube, into this narrow part. This switch will be triggered, and the spent acid will drain off. You can break the tube, and if you're lucky, you'll catch the key. If you do, it'll open the manacle on that wrist. The others are around your neck, Annelise. If I find you free when I return, in thirty minutes, then I'll spare you more severe punishment.
Do you understand?"
She'd nodded.
"But I hope you're quick, or that my calculations are wrong, in your favor. Because you're going to be whipped raw, otherwise." Then, he'd turned and left her, slamming the heavy door shut.
First order reaction? How can I speed it up? She anguished.
Perhaps if I slap the tube gently, and provoke some vibration, some mixing?
It can't hurt to try. And the pain in her backside is becoming unbearable. Two harsh slaps every second, constantly, remorselessly, searing.
An age seems to have passed. The liquid is opaque, smoking.
Suddenly, there's a clunk. The key has fallen. How? She realizes nitric acid fumes must have weakened the thread, even though its knot was not immersed. She bends the thin neck of the tube until it snaps and hot acid gushes from it, arcing past her head as she twists her face away. There, the key is in her palm, but soapy and crystal-coated from its corrosive bath. She holds it tight, and slides it home. The lock springs open. And she pulls her hand free.
Now, which of these keys is which? She fumbles, and drops one with a musical tinkle. Please, don't let that be the one for my other wrist!
The door creaks open. The Tormentor reappears, smiling cruelly.
"Poor Annelise." He imprisons her wrist again, kissing her forehead.
"Your bottom looks very sore," he mocks. "But that's just a warm up, dear girl."
The chemistsd duel continues.
The End
© This story is copyrighted (c) by Mara Maharakshasa, 2002. All rights are reserved by the author. Do not retransmit, store (except for personal use) or publish without permission.
Reviews
Tami <tamishy(at)webtv(dot)net>
Sounds like something right out of James Bond. Have you been watching too much Sci-Fi? I have to admit Period is not my favorite category, but you got my attention with this story. Maybe I'll have to take another look over the stories I passed over. Thanks for the encouragement.
John <johnb(at)ssec(dot)wisc(dot)edu>
A fiendish if implausable form of torture, part physical and part chemical. And part psychological, of course, as is all good torture. I should not like to be this woman. If there were just the right amount of acid to react with the iron, the reaction would become asymtotically slow towards its endopint. And if there is considerable excess, there is considerable acid to be had by handling that key. Nitric acid particularly has a particular affinity for flesh, which it reacts with to form a xanthroproteic acid whose two main characteristics are that it is 1) quite yellow, and 2) quite dead.
MollyB <mollyb(at)newsguy(dot)com>
Presumably there are people for whom this is a hot story. The only voice we hear is the Tormentor's, and I don't like him, sort of a Rube Goldberg gone terribly bad. Good job of creating an atmosphere. Presumably there are people for whom this is a hot story.
Pablo Stubbs <Pablo.Stubbs(at)newsguy(dot)com>
This works rather nicely, with echoes of the impractically elaborate and fiendish mechanisms from which Batman would always escape at the last moment. The detailed construction builds a vividness into the story. In the end, it doesn't really matter that we don't know the context - though the last line gives an intriguing glimpse.