EXTREME WARNING. This is intended for persons of 18 years of age or above. If you are not 18 then go away.

EXTREME WARNING. This story contains descriptions of violence, torture, and sexual acts. References to certain historical events might also offend. If in doubt, then do not read.

EXTREME WARNING. This is an erotic fantasy, not to be confused with reality.

Please do not reproduce in any form for profit without permission from author.

Solitary Confinement

By Grim Williams

Gw@NO SPAM.grimwilliams.co.uk

"If you scream," he said, moving towards her. "I'll kill you. No reminders; no second chances. If you scream, you die. That's the way it is."

"Yes, master."

"You understand me? You grasp what I'm saying?"

"Yes, master. I mustn't scream."

Everything was painful. Sandy's whole body was hurting, her arms as well as her legs. She couldn't move, couldn't relax, for the ropes were tightening, breaking her in two.

She didn't know who he was, a demon perhaps, or even a ghost. Or maybe he was just an illusion, the product of an overactive mind.

All she knew was that her body was in pain.

He'd come as he'd always come, at night, just as her eyelids were drooping and her consciousness merging with sleep. How he entered her room, Sandy had no idea. Down a clandestine passage perhaps, or through a secret door. Maybe he lived in a neighbouring house and had clambered through the vacant loft spaces, descending covertly into her terrace at night.

All she knew was that he stalked her incessantly and wouldn't leave her alone. She couldn't escape him although she'd tried to often, drifting from place to place as a vagrant, from town to town, hiding in the recesses of university campuses or dossing in dusty attic rooms. She was constantly on the move, running away, changing her appearance, growing her hair, cutting it, changing its colour. None of it worked.

Over the years she'd assumed all the aliases of a spy: Greta Hanson, Elizabeth Bonner, Alida Schroeder, Judy Keane. All these identities had been invented and then subsequently destroyed. Nowadays she called herself plain, simple Sandy Smith. It was a name she'd plucked from a telephone directory: down-to-earth, uncomplicated.

Even so, despite all these precautions, he'd found her. He'd entered her room in the dead the night. He'd pulled back the covers and then he'd raped her.

That's the way life was now. That's the way it is when a woman is possessed by a master. He had tracked her down and now he would wreak his revenge. He would do it repeatedly, night after night, forcing himself upon her body and taking control of her mind. It was always the same. However many times he found her, it was always that same. There was the horror, the panic, waking up, seeing him, knowing what he wanted. It never got better. There he would be, waiting, towering above her, looking down, clasping that thin deadly knife and aiming for her throat.

Sandy lifted her arms, stretching them lazily towards her rusted head board of her bed in the way that he wanted, opening herself to his inspection. It was an act of submission, that of a woman who knows that she's vulnerable and what it's like to be the possession of a man.

This was the way it was now.

He wouldn't hurry. He wouldn't panic. He might torture her a little, cut her ass or stub his cigarettes upon her gorgeous white flesh. It might take him an hour, perhaps two. The precise agenda would depend upon his temper, whether he was tired, or horny, or just plain mad.

He might fool about first, mock the state of her breasts. Sandy had grown used to such games, the psychological skirmishes that preceded each battle. They were his forte, all intended to unbalance her mind

Only when she was broken and bleeding would he do it. He'd take her. He'd fuck her. He'd ram this thick cock into one of her holes. Eventually it would come: the pain, the attack.

It always did. Eventually.

"I'm going to screw you tonight," he might say, lifting the covers, peeling them from her body and tossing them to the floor.

She'd be shaking, stupidly wearing her frayed knickers, for that's how he liked her.

He'd glance at her breasts and then lower to her hips, his eyes wandering across the baggy wisp he'd told her to wear. Neither would speak for it wouldn't be necessary. They'd know. He'd come to rape her, to torment her. He was her karma. He'd come to rip off her panties and then fuck her, for hour after hour until morning - his hairy he-thing tearing her to pieces. He'd do it repeatedly, day after day without letup, without end.

The pattern would continue forever, no light at the end of the tunnel, as futile and pointless as life itself. Hers was a treadmill, a struggle for an exit that didn't exist, running from his crazed asylum only to be returned back to it as surely as night follows day.

The strange thing was, he never seemed to mind that she'd run. He punished her for it, of course, but only in the conventional ways. He'd never demanded his full pound of flesh. "You think I should be angry that you try to escape?" he'd once asked over a shared glass of red champagne, as he'd dripped the boiling liquid over her blistering skin. "Well, I'm not so small minded. For after the fun of the chase comes the ecstasy of conquest, tasting your disgust, knowing you'd prefer the filthiest tramp to a night in with me."

It was all part of the game, the psychological battles he fought with her mind, being able to humiliate her by bringing her back. He'd force her to stand in front of the inmates and then strip her naked so he could touch her wetter parts. That was his victory: forcing her to recoil from his hand as it gripped her secret places, and making her cum as he raped her.

"So you're not pleased to see me, my dear?" he'd hiss with his sly smirk, fondling her tits with the tip of his knife. He'd sniff her aroma, slowly tracing a line across each of her breasts. "You smell delicious, my dear," he'd sigh, savouring her perfume. It was like she were champagne and he wanted her bouquet.

Sandy didn't move. He was teasing her tonight, playing his games, preparing her for the assault. But he'd brought his knife. He had it: that long, sharp, deadly shaft of cold steel. He didn't always bring it, but he had tonight. He was touching her, using it to prise apart her legs. "Don't be frightened," he whispered dishonestly. "I never mind that you scream. After all, you've had your freedom and now you must pay my price."

Sandy couldn't breathe. She followed the blade along every inch of its way. What was he planning to do? She was afraid, unnerved. Her hands had become fists, each of her long nails sinking deeply into her palms. "Please don't…" she whimpered, knowing he loved to make to beg. She forced her legs apart, hoping this might be enough to please him, trading dignity for the possibility of reprieve. "Please master… I'll do anything. Anything. But please… don't hurt me…not… not down there…"

"But that would spoil the fun, my love," he replied, touching the wetness between her legs and lifting his finger to his nose. "You know I enjoy your pain, watching you suffer, seeing the way your beautiful flesh twitches. For then I yearn to bury my knife in your pussy and my cock up your ass, to stretch your oily cunt and make you cum. Don't you want that, my beauty, me inside you, so thick and beastly, filling your womanly holes?"

What could she say? What could she do? How could she say that no, she wanted none of such things? Sandy fought back her tears. It was part of the contest, these sly reminders of who he was and what would happen if she continued with his game.

But that's what she would have to do. Nothing else was an option. She arched her back and rubbed her thigh seductively against his robe, teasing him, playing the part of the whore. "Screw me!" her motions cried. "Fuck me, master! I need your cock hitting my pussy. Please, master! Make your woman howl and retch from her fucking, but please, oh please, please, spare me the knife!"

It was the only alternative she had now, her only way of staying alive. She was a whore, without dignity, silently pleading that he torture her more, if only to spare her the knife.

And he would torture her more. He would humiliate and rape her. He would beat her breasts and bruise her ass. He would do all of these things.

Eventually.

He smiled. "You want me to hurt you?" he teased, playing with the knife.

Sandy knew what she must do. Her heart was weeping but it would be the end of her if she refused to play his game. "Yes master!" she implored. "I beg you! Punish me!"

This was it then. The master was back. She couldn't say that she'd missed him, not in the least. Nothing had changed. His long black hair still hung like a hooded shroud across his face, cloaking him in shadow, hiding him in mystery.

His heavy robe still fell from his shoulders, sweeping to the floor in a single long curve, and underneath… underneath… There it was, his manhood. It was still there.

"You accept me as your master?"

Sandy fought to keep her hands above her head, stretched in the way he liked, stretched towards the corners of the bed. She daren't move, daren't protest, for he had the knife between her legs, tickling her asshole.

She grunted in unladylike fashion. "Yes, sir."

What else could she say?

"You accept the punishments I choose to inflict, whatever they are?"

She was trapped. She'd seen him with his knife, had watched him use it to skin a woman while she was still alive. He was mad, totally insane. She'd seen him cut ladies to ribbons just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. The man was a psychopath and he was in charge of the asylum. "Yes, sir. I do. I accept you as master."

"Even if I torture you? Even then?"

"Yes, sir, even then…"

He liked that. It was music to his ears, and so, to verify her acceptance, he etched his name upon her chest, drawing thin rubies that glistened upon her skin. It hurt, but she had no option but to endure it. After all, she'd agreed to serve him.

"Well done, Sandy," he said, once he'd signed his name, speaking with undisguised admiration. "You're improving and I'm impressed. But then, you've been playing this game a long time now. You fought hard, ran well."

"Thank you, master."

He bent across her and licked the blood from her wounds, tasting the foaming champagne with which it was now mixed. "I have you," he said transferring the blood from his tongue to her mouth, poking it between her parched lips. "I have full ownership and I intend to make the most of it."

She could smell his aggression, his need for sex. His arms were forcing her down, pinning her to the mattress. "I have this weird fantasy," he told her. "I keep thinking of you in bed. You're with this woman. Can you believe that, my love, when I've told you so often what would happen if you ever did that?"

What was he saying? Did he know? Had he seen? He set the rules and expected her to keep them. The strictest of these was that she should never sleep with any of the inmates, with a woman. "But you want to, my love," he insisted calmly. "You have the desire. You can't deny it."

God. He did know. He must do. "Master?"

Sandy was scared, for this sin merited the worst punishment of all.

"Be truthful Sandy. You cannot lie, not to me. Admit the truth. Nothing's changed. It never could. Admit it Sandy. You're as fond of women as ever you were."

"But master!"

His face darkened. He wasn't prepared to be argued with, not about this. "Admit it, bitch!" he thundered, sliding his knife across her torso and into her side. "That's what I'm after. Admit that you've been having a liaison!"

"No, master!"

It was the one thing to which she could never admit.

"One last chance, Sandy. Need I remind you of the merchant of Venice?"

"No master. Please! It's not true!"

He was staring at Sandy's breasts the way a carnivore eyes its next meal. "I'll have my pound of flesh," he warned, deliberately brushing Sandy's bosoms with his hand, the hardness of his claws sending shivers down her spine.

Sandy turned away, tears blistering her eyes. He was inside her, probing her mind. She could feel him searching for the truth.

This was his way of playing the game, of tormenting her soul.

"Who have you been sleeping with, Sandy?" he persisted, unrelentingly playing with her breasts, squeezing them, not giving her a moment's relief. He was taunting her, making her think about what would happen if he discovered she was lying. "Give me a name, an identity. Watch out, Sandy, for if your mind slips, even for a moment I'll get you both. You'll sacrifice a full pound of flesh and your mistress will pay me double."

Sandy daren't catch his eyes, daren't betray herself. He was inside her head, planting his thoughts. She knew what he was doing because she was now wearing a silk nightdress and she hadn't before. Suddenly she was standing against a wooden post with her legs bound from ankles to knees and her arms from elbows to wrists. Her arms were above her head, just as he liked them. "Oh yes," he said, untying the strings of her nightdress, lifting them from her shoulders. "I want your nipples, to own them. I'll keep them as treasures, my little mementoes. Remember the Merchant of Venice? You'll be my Portia. Our play will have the ending Shakespeare was too timid to write."

Sandy felt faint. Portia? There was nothing she feared more than a knife. This one was ten inches, double edged, with a razor edged blade. He knew how the knife would frighten her.

He let go of the nightdress and it slithered down her body, all the way to her feet.

"Who is she, Sandy?"

He was wandering through her memories now, searching for clues. Fifteen women in a room, all undressing and putting on baggy knickers. They were being lined up, most of them crying, called to attention like soldiers, naked apart from their knickers.

"I can smell her, Sandy. She's on you, her tongue, her aroma. The perfume is wild roses. I'm getting closer. I can almost see her now. Just tell me her name…"

Sandy hesitated, unsure, but then her eyes opened in pain and she wailed aloud, heartbroken, realizing that he'd got to her. He could see the little bottle of perfume and a face in the mirror. He'd caught her out, for a woman's name had sprung unbidden to her mind, and he'd read it.

Oh God. He'd looked into her head and read her mind.

She cursed herself, howling piteously because the secret was out. He knew. He'd discovered what she'd buried so well.

"Please, master," she begged, lifting herself suicidally into his knife, stretching out, praying it would kill her, panting in pain as the steel penetrated her skin. "If you want fresh meat: take mine! Hurt me, sir! Cut my breasts. I understand! I broke the rules and I deserve to be punished. But for mercy's sake, not her! Please, master! I'll bring you a model, a movie star, a centrefold: whatever you fancy. But please don't make me… betray… my friend!"

"But you both betrayed me, Sandy. Both of you broke the commandment. So now I must take from you a full pound of your best flesh."

It… was rancid! Sandy daren't think, daren't breathe. The knife had cut into her body like it might through butter. She was bleeding, the blood oozing from her breast, dripping down her side and seeping into her bed sheet. But so what? She no longer cared.

What concerned her was Gillian.

He was the surgeon, she the patient. He was cutting her body the way he'd so often cut open her mind. He was lifting the lower half of her breast, rotating it, separating it from her rib cage. Maybe he'd put it back later, if she pleased him and screamed in all the right places. Maybe he'd stick it back crooked, or upside down, or not at all. Maybe he'd slice it and fry it with eggs.

Nothing was certain.

She'd been so foolish, had made such an elementary mistake, a crass blunder. She'd betrayed her lover.

"You're teasing me," he griped, twisting his knife into the base of her breast, doing it to hurt her, not wanting to remove it just yet. "You ran away and now that I've found you, you don't want to play the game."

He yanked at her tit, pulling at the fat and the underlying muscle. She screamed, fighting desperately to hold her legs where they were, knowing that if she moved them her position would become infinitely worse. The rules were to be obeyed. No one could dodge them. She must keep her position. She must always, always live by the rules.

"Please master!" she screamed, convulsing with pain, her breast meat flapping involuntarily upon her bleeding chest. "Please sir. I'll find someone better, someone younger! Please master! Not Gillian!"

"Aha!" he nodded, playing now with her breast meat, getting ready to weigh it on his scales. "Gillian, eh? I did wonder!"

Oh bugger! The misery of Sandy's tortured tit had just got worse. The dam had burst and now everything was flooding. How could she have told him? How could she have let down her guard again?

"That is what I so love about you, Sandy," he said, kissing her blood flow, tasting it, savouring the salt. He knelt astride her and withdrew the knife from her wounded breast, replacing it with his tongue. He could still smell the intoxicating aroma of champagne. "You know how to tease, my beauty. You tell me of Gillian so that I'll punish her with the knife. You pretend submission but you yearn for me to do it."

Sandy was crying from pain and exhaustion. Her emotions were beyond control. She was losing it, failing to cope, weakening, and he was in prime position to take advantage, loving her terror. It was turning him on. She could see by the size of his lump.

Her fear was his aphrodisiac.

He kissed her, his mouth demanding her lips and his tongue caressing the moisture swirling about her face.

He was going to rape her soon, she knew it. Despite her torn bleeding breast he was going to force himself into her.

And she would let him because he was the master and this was her punishment.

She'd broken the rules and now she must pay. Gillian would pay too: double he'd said.

"Oh my God!"

Sandy watched the master pull his bulbous cock from under his robe and point it at the gaping virginity now exposed upon her chest. It was a patchwork of torn gristle and crimson paint daubed upon her natural canvas. Some day an enterprising young artist might win a prize for such an attention-grabbing exhibit, but not now, not yet.

First, the model must be fucked. She must be punished, and then, later, the artist would decide what to do with his tit meat.

Sandy Smith awoke with a jolt.

She was sweating, shaking. Every last inch of her glistened with perspiration.

What had happened?

She was alone in bed. Breathless.

Her sheet was tied about her thighs and her pillow was distraught upon the floor.

Had she drifted off? God. She must have done.

Sandy sat up and reached for her clock, wiping perspiration into her bloodshot eyes. Shit. How she hated the night! Where had it gone, the clock?

Oh here! Thank God. Two fifty eight. Nearly three o'clock.

She sighed, and then gingerly climbed out of bed, unwrapping the sheet from around her sweaty thighs and allowing it to slip along her curvaceous white legs. The window was barred, and so was the door.

It had been a dream then? Nothing but a dream?

She laughed at that. Then abruptly she cried, finally settling into something part way between the two. All her tethered emotions were on show, raw and naked, mimicking the crazy cocktail of the madhouse. Oh Christ! It hadn't been real! Shit! It had been a dream.

She repeated the words over and over, thinking perhaps that unless she held on to them they might evaporate and be gone. It had been a dream, only a dream. The intruder wasn't real, neither was the knife. He hadn't cut a hole in her breast or forced his way into her bedroom. Neither had he raped her. He hadn't threatened to kill Gillian. None of it had happened. It hadn't been true!

Sandy Smith inhaled deeply, recovering her cool. Okay, so it was done, over. What next? What now? The logical part of her mind told her to get back into bed, to get some sleep for a day's work beckoned in the morning. She must get up and drive to the hospital, there to cope with leering patients and doctors more interested in helping her out of her uniform than in doing her job.

Shit.

Why is it men have such a fetish about nurses in uniform?

If Gillian were here, she'd help make it all right. Gillian knew what it was to work in that jungle. Gillian would wrap her in her matronly bosom and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. They'd lie in each other's embrace and hug each another to sleep.

Gillian had the knack of helping Sandy keep her perspective. For each night once the intruder had gone and Sandy was screaming and shaking, Gillian would calm and comfort her. Gillian was a true nurse. She'd sense Sandy's need for reassurance and knew how to provide it.

But tonight Gillian was away. Gillian was walking the wards. It was her turn to be summoned to the dispensary by a panel of junior doctors for the infamous uniform inspection. She'd be good, though. In addition to her slinky apron, Gillian was wearing Agent Provocateur underwear.

"Oh shit!"

Sandy wandered downstairs, uncertain, confused, with her hair sticking to her skin, and her breasts stained with stale perspiration.

In her mind she could see Gillian prancing around the dispensary, her front undone, peeling away her clothes… For any nurse that resisted the uniform inspection would find herself on some trumped up disciplinary charge and out of a job.

Sandy shuffled towards the kitchen. It was cooler down here and she was thankful to be away from the bedroom. It was easier to think and the air soothed her skin.

She was topless, of course, wearing nothing but that old pair of blue panties. These were loose, baggy, and constantly falling down, often to her hips, sometimes all the way to the floor. Sandy wouldn't dream of changing them. She couldn't cover herself or pull on a robe for that would be breaking the master's commandment, and she would never so that.

Not that he existed, of course.

Now that Sandy was awake that much was obvious. She remembered what the doctors had told her. The master was a figment of her stupid imagination, a fantasy, a weird, perverted sexual reverie, no more, no less.

"So why should I keep having these fantasies about a man?" Sandy had whined one morning, gripping Gillian's bare arm until she'd bruised it. She'd been confused and overwhelmed, shaking with terror. "Does he turn me on? Does he excite me? Of course not. I hate him! So why do I keep having these dreams?"

They'd been in Sandy's bed, naked, their bodies entwined, their baggy panties discarded upon the floor. Gillian's fingers had been calm but insistent, burrowing themselves into Sandy's hole. She hadn't said much. Instead, she'd allowed her fingers to do the talking. Soon the women had been making love, Gillian taking the lead, lifting Sandy from the depths of despair and leading her to the oblivion of ecstasy. Finally, once they were done, she'd laid Sandy's soul into the blissful joy of undisturbed sleep.

Sandy's fantasies no longer ruffled or worried her. Why should they? For some time she'd been having plenty of her own. If it gave Sandy perverse enjoyment to believe that she was under her master's thumb, then it would give Gillian a proportionately greater pleasure to provide her with consolation. The greater the master's torture, the more intense was Gillian's balsam.

And so, rather than dismissing the idea of an intruder as the work of a sick, overactive mind, Gillian also accepted him as real.

"What does he want you to do tonight?" she'd ask, well accustomed to his many strange rituals.

Sandy would whimper and blush bright red. She still found it difficult to talk of the master to Gillian: confusing. "He said that when he comes tonight my breasts should be bathed in the blood of a freshly slaughtered chicken."

Gillian clicked her tongue and shook her head. "My poor dear! A chicken? Wherever will we get a chicken?"

"Oh Gillian, I can't… I mean… I couldn't kill a chicken. So I wondered… I was thinking… would you…? I mean… the master brought it and said it must be freshly done… what I'm trying to say… would you kill it for me?"

Gillian hadn't enjoyed the experience either, but she'd done it, just to ingratiate herself upon Sandy, as part of her scheme to get between her and her master. Gillian had done it. Gillian had killed the chicken, draining its blood into a bowl and then bathing Sandy's breasts so that they glistened bright red.

Where was the harm? After all, the chicken was destined for the table. It was to be eaten. What did it matter if it died a ritual death?

"Thank you, Gillian," Sandy had sobbed once Gillian had done it, falling to her knees and kissing Gillian's bloodied hand. Her breasts had already begun to dry and the stain to deepen. "I need you! I need you so much! What would I do in this madhouse without you here to comfort me?"

It was a good question. 'Not very well', was the honest, truthful answer.

For instance, there was the dress code. Gillian knew it backwards, better than Sandy, for it controlled their lives the way a diet controls a diabetic. "During the hours of daylight you may dress as you please," the master had apparently decreed. "Come the hours of darkness you're mine. You'll wear these panties, nothing less, nothing more. This is your uniform now. That's the first rule. Do you understand?"

"Yes master. I understand."

Sandy had never really worked out why he wanted her to wear them, not fully. Maybe it was his fetish, the kind of reasoning that makes men go for women in stockings, or in leather…

Or nurses in uniform.

Or maybe it was his way of asserting his dominance. He was master now, the authority figure, in charge of the asylum. She was his patient. Her will was no longer her own. If she wanted to live, then she must also learn to obey.

She poured herself some water, holding tightly to her panties as they drifted to her hips. She did it instinctively now, for after so many years she remembered no other way.

If only Gillian were home. Gillian had the knack of finding the right thing to say, of helping Sandy to relax.

"Would you like to dance?" Gillian had called above the steady beat of the music. It had been the first time they'd met. Sandy could remember it well. She'd nodded, a little uncertainly, a little nervously. Yes, she'd wanted to dance, to be held, to feel a woman's love. She'd wanted to feel what it was to be alive.

It had been before… while they were both nurses. Sandy had been looking to rediscover her life. Gillian had simply been looking to get laid.

Gillian had looked wonderful in a semi transparent blouse, no bra. Sandy had gawked at the full moons hiding behind Gillian's bulges and had become dizzy from them, for they'd reawakened both memory and desire.

Others had been around, nurses too, knocking against them, pushing them together, squeezing past, but Sandy hadn't noticed. "Relax," Gillian had whispered. "You're so tense, my love. Calm down and allow yourself to breathe. Allow your mind to wander where it wants. Don't lock it up. Unwind. Let yourself drift."

They'd smooched, Gillian caressing Sandy's hair, stroking it softly with the back to her knuckles, helping her to relax. Soon they'd been cuddling, and then kissing, their bodies melting one against the other…

Sandy had lost track of time. Perhaps she had let her mind freewheel, or maybe it was an over exuberance of wine. Whichever, somehow she'd found herself in Gillian's room, lying on Gillian's bed, a flute of champagne perched in her hand.

It was two fifty eight, almost three o'clock. There had been a clock hanging upon the wall. Gillian had been sipping a drink and smelling of freshly applied body mist. It was the aroma of wild roses. Her blouse had been torn and her hair dishevelled.

"We're alike," she'd fussed, bending down and unbuckling Sandy's shoes. She'd swayed ominously from side to side as on a ship with a storm raging beneath her. "We're fed up with men, with their dirt and their perverted ways. It takes a woman to understand a woman, don't you think so? We know that, you and I. We know what we are and where we intend eventually to be."

She'd dropped Sandy's clogs to the floor and had teetered sideways, sliding her hands beneath Sandy's skirt.

There'd been greed on her face and hunger in her eyes. She'd been steamed up; heavy with need. Hastily, she'd unbuttoned Sandy's skirt, kissing her the whole time upon the thighs, her knees, those long luscious calves.

When she'd spoken her words had been slurred. "Who needs their dim wits and ugly hoses?" she'd asked. "My parents want me to make babies, but why should I when I can have an enchantress like you?"

She'd unfastened Sandy's top, kissing and caressing her skin. "I want you, Sandy!" she'd moaned, sliding the straps of Sandy's bra from her shoulders, pulling them clumsily down Sandy's arms. Her eyes had fallen automatically to Sandy's breasts, opening greedily with anticipation. "Oh God, Sandy, I'm so wet, so impossibly, implausibly wet!"

She'd lowered the cups and Sandy, frightened, self conscious, had allowed her to do it, knowing that behind them lay her dark secret. She'd been frozen and uncertain, wondering what Gillian would think, what she would say, knowing that she was about to break the master's great commandment.

But Gillian hadn't cared. "It's okay," she'd whispered, sensing Sandy's confusion and doubt. "Relax. Unwind. It's not a sin. Let yourself drift!"

Sandy had frequently allowed men to look – there were the many friends of the master, for instance - but never a woman, not since her breast had been so brutally butchered. Men could be aroused by such things. Men found beauty in desecrated breasts, in the destruction of a woman's body, sensing how much the loss hurt and degraded her. But where was the attraction to a woman?

Gillian had been shocked, of course, when she'd seen, but not disgusted. She'd reached for Sandy's injured fruit, laying a tentative finger to that blackened hollow where a woman's nipple should have been.

It had been an act of compassion, of empathy, not of judgement.

"Does it hurt?" Gillian had asked, her eyes lighting up with childlike awe. Her little finger had traced the edges of the mighty crater, following each jagged ridge wherever it took her.

Sandy had grimaced, hiding her torture. "Yes," she'd nodded shortly. "It hurts, but I don't want you to stop. Please don't stop."

Greater than the pain had been the need to be understood, and Gillian did understand. Here was a woman who knew what it was to be lost and alone.

Gillian's finger had ventured hesitantly inside the damaged morass. "You're very beautiful," she'd said, curbing her natural inquisitiveness and instead kissing what remained of Sandy's soft tit.

Then, feeding an impulse she'd quickly, decisively slipped out of her clothes - her top, her skirt and her panties. She'd dropped them to the floor in a rumpled heap. "I'm sorry, Sandy, but I can't stop myself. I've got to… I'm so hot. I've got to fuck you."

She'd clambered amorously between Sandy's legs and had finished stripping her, calming her with soft perfume and the promise of her gently swaying tits.

Then, lying there upon Gillian's bed, they'd done it. Sandy had been fucked, not brutally as the master would have done it, but lovingly, gently.

That had been the first time, the beginning. But now the master was back, demanding Gillian's flesh too.

Sandy awoke from her fretful contemplation, and stared nervously across the sink towards the window, and then through it at the young woman looking in. It was her own reflection she saw looking back at her from the glass.

"Oh my God," she spluttered. She could see the other woman's breasts clearly now. They were angular rather than curved, womanly, with a small black dot stamped across the top of one and an ugly burnt crater blurring the summit of the other.

The sight filled her with repugnance. She hated the way she looked.

But her eyes automatically became those of her master, that man she knew now so intimately. They wandered down the lines of that woman's young neck, bloating with lust.

She reached down and grabbed her scarred orbs, squeezing them hard, leaning back and catching her breath, knowing it was the hands of a man handling her – her intruder - and a red spark lit up in her core.

She swayed silently, lost in emotion, sweet but sour, one breast consumed by pleasure, whilst the other, even now, was riddled with pain.

"A woman has empathy," Gillian had once reassured her, interrupting Sandy's thoughts. She'd been planting kisses upon Sandy's breast, licking around the blackened hole. "Every time I see you, I imagine that the master is punishing me, not you. I'm lying naked and helpless, screaming and calling for help. Then I see a furnace, the coals white hot, the heat intense. The master is stoking it, raking the coals, blowing with his bellows, and then he pulls this terrible steel claw from the flames. It's evil and glowing and I know what he wants to do, that he's about to use it on my flesh. He'll poke out my nipple and plunge it in my breast. Sandy, I have no idea why, it's madness I know, but I dream this dream night after night, and each time it's stronger and more intense. You've no idea how aroused it makes me: so exposed, frightened, waiting for him to do his worst. Is that madness, do you think?"

Sandy had shaken her head. She couldn't believe that Gillian had such feelings "You're teasing," she'd declared. "You're saying it to make me feel better."

But Gillian had been adamant. "He's doing it to me because I love you, because he's jealous. It's his only way of breaking our love…"

Almost at once a broom fell and woke Sandy from her reverie. The noise came from outside. Who was it? Was someone in the yard, watching? A man? Him?

A cat meowed in answer to the question and ran scampering over a wall.

Once again, all was quiet.

Sandy didn't move. Slowly her fingers moved from her breasts to the sweaty waistband of her panties. They'd fallen and were now limply strung to her hips, half concealing, half revealing a narrow swathe of neatly trimmed hair.

There her fingers paused, trembling, waiting.

A moth flapped against the window, attracted by the light, hoping to get in.

Was he back? Was he here?

Her fingers were shaking. Sandy couldn't keep still. It was like she was being held by a power she couldn't defy. She was the puppet; it was the master. His nails were long and they slid effortlessly beneath the sagging elastic, across her lightly haired mound searching for a hole.

He was out there in the darkness, invisible but watching her. Sandy knew it and wanted to hide, to run, to become invisible herself, but she couldn't move, couldn't hide.

He was controlling her thoughts, her actions. She could see him now, his silhouette outlined against the gently billowing trees. His face was hollow, hidden in shadow. His expression was avaricious with lust. He wanted to screw her, but far more than that, he wanted to humiliate her.

Sandy was desperate to flee but she couldn't, neither could she scream. Her feet wouldn't obey, neither would her lungs.

Only her fingers kept moving, in and out, faster and faster, beyond her control, her painted nails repeatedly striking the tiny hood that covered her clit. He was making her do it, forcing her to fuck herself. He was telling her fingers what to do and how they should move, forcing her to humiliate herself to satisfy his whim. He was out there, staring at her tits and her ugly black scar.

And thinking of Gillian.

Sandy could have wept. Shit. The master had been reading her thoughts again. He'd seen. He'd planted that final idea.

He knew about Gillian's secret fantasy, of being tied up in front of a furnace, her naked body glistening with sweat, staring with morbid fascination at the hot pincers approaching her breasts.

What should she do? She couldn't hide her thoughts, not without running. She needed to protect Gillian but how could she now? It was as much a sin for her to close her mind as it was for her to close her legs.

Her fingers moved faster, becoming increasingly frantic.

There had been the time he'd made her strip in the middle of a crowded mall. Sandy had been shopping when she'd spotted him leaning against a date palm.

"I'm going to make you dance," he'd said, placing a soundblaster in the middle of the mall. People had walked around it, looking inquisitively over their shoulders. "I'm going to make you dance like the girls in the clubs, or like the young Jewess for her minder."

"Sir?"

He'd turned on the soundblaster and had shown her his power. There had been shouts of derision and hoots of encouragement. There had been nothing she could do. He was forcing her to disrobe.

Gillian had been incandescent. "What are you doing?" she'd shrieked, trying vainly to hold Sandy back, to stop her from embarrassing them both.

People had gathered, men and women alike, mouths aghast, all jostling for space.

He was in her mind, grinning, leading her on. "There's a young Jewess of Polish descent, seventeen years of age," he'd said. "It's been a week now since she's eaten. She's emaciated and starving to death."

He'd skipped around her, not stopping.

"She's wearing the striped pyjamas of the camps and has been told to undress. Everything, they say. If she pleases the SS they'll give her some food, as much as she can eat. If not her sister is destined for the chimney. It's her choice. Undress nicely, they say. Sit on your chair and spread your legs. Show us your hole, right inside. Obey your SS masters!"

Sandy had been mortified, imploring her hands to stop, to wait. She'd been crying, upset, degraded at having to undress for the young SS officers. She'd been a virgin. No one had seen her naked before, not like this.

Her father had been brought in, her brother too, just so they could ridicule her more.

Gillian had tried to stop her, to cover her, but with zero success. The master had been smart, keeping Sandy at a distance, continually skipping away, her movements evading those of her lover.

The people in the mall had become vocal as people inevitably will. "Make her suck her father's dick, and her brother's too. Make her swallow it, every last drop!"

The master had proved that he could. He could convince her of anything, even that she was a terrified Jewess in Auschwitz.

"What are you wearing?" he'd whispered into her ear. "Tell me, you Jewish slut!"

"My uniform," she'd sobbed, casting a horrified glance in the direction of her terrified young brother. "And the yellow star of the Jew."

"And underneath? What are you wearing underneath, slut?"

"Nothing," she'd declared, hanging her head in shame. "I have nothing but this uniform."

"Show us," he'd ordered. "Show us all. Strip. Take off your uniform. Do it nicely, slowly. You may sing while you undress, an uplifting song in honour of the fatherland. Then, when you're finished, you'll go to your relatives and suck each of their cocks. Do you understand, slut? "

"Oh my God… I've never… I mean… never…"

What she'd been trying to say was that she'd never sucked a man's cock and had no idea what to do. But the master hadn't cared. He would enjoy seeing her work out the mechanics. "If you refuse then your sister will do it instead, and after that your mother, and then when they're finished we'll escort them to the crematorium. Is that what you want?"

The master had been dressed in his black SS uniform, standing above her and looking at her sternly. Sandy's head had fallen to her breast, her spirit crushed and bleeding. "No, sir! I'll do what you want! Leave my mother! My sister! Please! Not that!"

Once Sandy had sung a patriotic anthem, the master had made her kneel in the mall offering herself to whoever came by. Finally, the police had come and she'd been arrested and led away in handcuffs, an officer's jacket covering her nakedness. Gillian at her side offering excuses.

The master had done it. He could make her do whatever he willed. Sandy knew that now.

He smiled, aware of what she'd concluded, deliberately directing her finger, speeding it up, slowing it down, taunting her, playing his games.

He was proving his mastery. She'd run and he was punishing her, and enjoying it too. Sandy's knees sank under the pressure building inside her pussy. Her thighs turned to jelly, unable.to bear their own weight.

Oh God.

She couldn't take much more of this. What was he doing to her? "Please!" she begged. "Let me…let me finish!"

He made her beg some more. He forced her to tell him what she wanted.

"Please sir, allow me to cum. I need… Oh master. I need to cum!"

He made her cry then by getting her to squeeze her tits, especially the bruised one. He liked that. He liked to watch her in pain. And then, once she was in tears and weeping and hurting, it came, her climax, her orgasm, wave after wave of it.

She couldn't stop, not once it started, and indeed, she didn't want to. Suddenly, she was weeping with delight.

"Oh thank you master," she moaned, writhing in front of him without care or dignity. "Oh thank you so very much."

She was like a porn star in front of the camera, only her emotions weren't faked, they were one hundred percent genuine. And through it all he watched her, not moving, not reacting, just as he'd watched her cum so often before.

When it was over and he'd finally released his mental hold of her, she fell back, clutching her tits and weeping from the pain. "Thank you," she panted, comforting her tortured breasts. "Oh master. Thank you."

Then, as she became more aware of herself, she blushed, conscious of being naked in front of a clothed man. He made her feel worse, too, aggravating her embarrassment by whispering from outside, teasing her, reminding her of what a slut she was to cum in front of an uncurtained window.

She couldn't bear it. Not any more! Not night after night of such torture. She had to escape.

She spun on her heels and ran upstairs, weeping uncontrollably, chased both by the reflection in the glass and the malicious spirit beyond.

She couldn't bear to face him and so she didn't. She hid in the shower and tried to forget what she'd done, but very careful not to remove the tatty blue panties now laden with juice. For it was still night, and the rules were there to be obeyed.

Neither of them spoke. They didn't have to. They both knew. This was her fate. He was her karma and tonight he was going to rape her. He would cut her beautiful flesh.

And she would let him do it because he was her master, the man she'd promised to obey.

Somehow he was in her room again, sitting on the floor with his back to the locked door. He was fingering a Victorian corset and talking of old times. Sandy recognized the garment at once, even by the soft glow of the street lamp outside. It was hers, a Valentine's gift from long ago.

Obviously, he'd been rummaging through her drawers, picking through her lingerie. "Do you remember this?" he asked, casually slipping a hand inside the gusset, touching where Sandy's naked lips had once kissed. "It was William's. Remember? He gave it you that last time you ran. Do you recall? He said it made you look like a slut, with your boobs stuck out and your waist tucked in. That's why he loved it."

The intruder wistfully lifted the garment to his nose and smelt its bouquet, recalling the strange scent of imported champagne sweetened with honey. Tonight, however, the aroma was less intimate. It was soap combined with conditioner. The heady days of dressing dangerously ended that terrible day William set sail for the Crimea.

Those days could never return and neither would William. He'd been buried in a parade of scarlet uniforms and steel muskets, with only the pomp of bugles and the mud of ignominy to mourn him. Not one of the scarlet ladies he'd so admired had been upon that bleak hillside to bid him farewell.

Sandy remembered the corset with fondness. It was all she had left of an insatiable lover.

The intruder lifted it up, himself recalling the clandestine entertainments hosted by William and his friends, the cut upon Sandy's thigh, the plunging cleavage as she'd bowed to her patrons, the faint down of womanly hair peeping from between her legs. These were all such distant memories now.

Their minds clicked forward a gear.

"Gillian would look good in this," he asserted, climbing to his feet and clearing the past from his throat. "After all, you refuse to wear it any more."

Gillian?

Mention of that name dismissed William to his grave and buried him with weeds. Sandy's heart missed a beat. The master had been spying again, intruding upon her private thoughts.

"Master. That's not fair!"

He walked across to the window and pulled back the curtain. "Life's not fair," he said, looking idly through the bars. "They end up the same, you know: that nice Lord Latherstock, William, the Count of Azheny, Franz. Everyone is equal come the end. Gillian is no different. The grave will claim her too. Some might last a little longer, but come the final accounting, the maggot is the victor."

Sandy strained her neck, wanting to see his face, but inevitably she couldn't. All that she could determine was the back of his cloak. "Master?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he continued in the same sombre tones. "Your beautiful companion is but a kid in the coils of a constrictor, candy in the rain. She appears young and vivacious, but her days are being counted down, one by one, whereas yours, my beauty… are like a river…"

He turned, clasping her corset, his fingers inside and caressing, working steadily to the centre of the cups. For an instant Sandy could make out his features, his face: unaltered, unchanged, just as it had been in the days when she'd nursed him. "We're alike, you and I," he said, stepping away from the radiance of the street lamp, back into the comfort of the shadows. But his fingers kept moving, continually searching for the spot where her nipple had once touched.

"We're bound together, rotating upon the same axis, apart and yet together. You hate me and yet, without me, you're doomed to wander through life alone."

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it?"

He stepped out of the shadow, approaching her bed. "You think you have Gillian? Well, maybe you do. But for how long? She'll die, just as all the others died, and then you'll be alone again."

Sandy opened her mouth but there were no words for her heart was empty.

"Which is better?" he mocked. "Would you rather live in a cage with me or outside with the rabid dogs? This is the sane world, Sandy, not the one out there. Out there you're a freak, a numbskull. In here everyone accepts you as you are."

He bent down and pulled at her top, tugging at it urgently, lifting it across the swell of her breasts. "I used to envy William whenever he tied you," he whispered. "I would watch from my cell whenever he fastened you to his posts, unable to get to you or interfere. I would see his friends jerking off and would think what a waste it all was. You were never meant for those boys."

He pulled the top over her head, dropping it to the floor. Underneath she was wearing a black bra. She'd put it on especially for him. It was the one she'd been wearing the night she'd met Gillian. "You're right, master," she mumbled, lowering her troubled eyes. "I've been bad, very bad. So punish me. Don't spare me. You're right. I could never face a future alone."

He turned to her panties. They were sodden, saturated with piss. He was going to cut her. She knew it.

Sandy opened her mouth and then abruptly shut it again. She wanted to argue, to fight him but something was restraining her. She knew what it was. He and she were kindred spirits rotating upon a single axis. She couldn't escape him.

He unfastened her bra and pulled it from her breasts. "I didn't mind about William. Even watching you with Franz was entertaining."

"Thank you, master."

His finger reached forward, hovering above the blackened crater of her ruined breast. "It was a stroke of genius, I have to admit. I would never have thought to look for you in Auschwitz."

"I'm pleased you found my performance entertaining."

"I did."

"Thank you, sir. I knew you'd be around somewhere, watching and enjoying my pain."

"But this time, with Gillian, you went too far. You went with a woman."

"Yes, sir. I'm s-sorry, sir."

He hauled her wet panties down her legs and drew them from her feet.

She could have fought him, could have fled. But instead she lay and let him do as he'd determined, careful to keep her hands above her head.

In the final analysis, the greater torture was to face his censure.

She didn't question him; she didn't protest. She wasn't a nurse anymore. She was plain, simple Sandy Smith. He was the master, and so it was good and proper that he deposit his thoughts in her head.

"I see that my knife frightens you, my love," he contended, dangling her wet panties gingerly between two fingers, drawing them deliberately across her face.

"Yes, master," she gasped, twisting her head from the strong acrid smell. "I keep thinking you might ruin my looks, the way you did to Samantha and Susan. That's why I'm scared."

"I could make you so hideous no one would dream of looking at you. Maybe I yet will."

He looped coils of rope around her wrists and then about her ankles, round and around, tying the knots, methodically fastening her to the corners of her bed. She didn't fight.

"It would stop you going with women."

"Oh God, sir. There must be another way! Please! Not that!"

She was becoming panicky now.

"Please sir. I beg you!"

He leaned back, stretching the ropes. "Spread your legs," he commanded. She moaned but obediently did so, feeling th touch of his fingers on her ankles, binding them, pulling them even further apart.

She knew she was exposed to him. Cold air was tickling her spread pussy. "Maybe I'll cut you down here," he said, playing with his knife, touching her weeping folds. "I don't know. What do you think? Do you think that I should?"

She could barely endure it.

"Whatever you think, master," she grimaced, for there was nothing else she could say.

She was terrified now, so thankful he was tying her tightly. For when the knife sliced her flesh and her screams split the room, how else would she keep her limbs from flailing? How else would she keep her mask of innocence in place?

For when a woman is cut and in agony, then she is truly naked. Her final skin is unmasked. No thought remains inviolate, no secret her own. Everything is raw and exposed. Even the most intimate lover will not know her as the man who has tormented her body with his cold steel.

Oh shit. This was it. He was going to do it now.

He was working fast, his long black hair swinging like a hooded shroud as he hurried about his occupation. His robes fell from his shoulders, sweeping to the floor in a single long curve.

And underneath he was naked, his muscles hard, his stomach flat.

His cock like iron.

He was going to make her scream and her pain would make him cum.

He tested her bonds, his face inert, gripping her wrists. Then he tested the ropes around her ankles, tickling her feet to see how far she could kick.

Sandy recalled a long distant day, a long time ago: another lifetime, another age.

He'd been cuffed to an iron bed, his nostrils flared and his eyes hot and steaming. Sandy – although her name had been different back then - had been at his side. She'd been wearing a white linen dress, that of a nurse, with nothing underneath.

It had been noon and the sun had been out, shining through the little window of the tiny cell, burning through her dress and revealing the silhouette of her figure in perfect profile.

The crease of her ass had bulged and jerked to the rhythm of her administrations. The curve of her breast had risen with the intensity of her struggle.

The master had been desperate, wrestling and kicking, his feet lashing at whosoever came close. "Let me go, you bastards, I'll get you. I'll see you in hell for this!"

"You're the one with the free ticket to hell," someone had mocked.

Sandy had had a pair of electrodes. She'd fastened them securely to the master's temples in the way she'd been taught. "It's for your own good," she'd said, not even thinking about the words, too intent on doing her job.

Sandy closed her eyes, torn to pieces and hating herself. This was horrible. She could feel him inside her, enjoying her confusion, smiling at her despair. The tables were turned. Now it was his turn to play doctor; her role to lay naked upon the bed, helpless and vulnerable.

"And once I'm done with you, my dear, Gillian will be next." He fastened the electrodes to her head, one to each temple. "What would you rather I do with her when I have her tied to your bed? Would you rather I strangle her? Or should I use the guillotine?"

She couldn't think. Nothing was real. She was dreaming again. Everything was confused. Was it on? Was her body jerking to the electrical shocks?

She shook her head hoping to clear her tangled thoughts. Was this real, this horror she was experiencing? Or were her thoughts planted and not to be trusted?

"Sir. Don't kill Gillian! I'm the disobedient one! Where would be the justice in that?"

He nodded begrudgingly. "That's true."

"So, please. I'm the one who should be punished! Please, sir!"

"But I am punishing you, Sandy. You're the one making love to my knife."

Sandy opened her eyes and stared at his shadowy face, blinking back tears. Oh God how she despised him! He was a fiend, a monster. Her sobs were heavier now, God. And what did he have in mind for poor Gillian?

He opened the top drawer of her bedside cabinet and pulled out a purse. It was pink, with a zip, designed for the discreet containment of contraceptives.

"I want you to prove that I mean more to you than Gillian does."

Sandy blushed at the sight of the purse, knowing what was inside. "Sir? What are you asking me to do?"

He slid the zip open, tilting his head to the side. "Relax, Sandy. Close your eyes and I'll show you."

He opened the purse and pulled out one of the contraceptives.

God.

She felt herself lubricating. Was he going to rape her now? Was this the end? She wanted to ask but knew that she daren't.

"Close your eyes!"

He tore open the packet and extracted its contents, rolling the sheath over the blade of his knife. "For your protection," he said.

Sandy quivered, thankful that she'd allowed herself to be tied. He'd ordered her to close her eyes but how could she? This would hurt. The condom wouldn't help much with that, not much at all.

"Do you love her?" he asked. "Gillian, I mean."

Sandy groaned, suffocating a strangled cry. "Yes, master."

He wiped the knife across her chest, dragging it across each of her sweaty breasts in turn. "Then you'll fuck her pussy with my knife. Do you understand? If you love her then you'll do it."

Her thoughts were as naked as her body. He could see them, sense them. They were raw and exposed. That was the effect of the shocks. He could feel her despair, her hatred, her inner turmoil. She cried, fighting the ropes that held her to her bed. "Please master! I love you: I do. But don't make me hurt her. Please!"

She lay trembling, slightly off centre upon her bed. He was stroking her foot, stretching it, pulling her toes. "You'll dress her in your corset and then bring her so I can watch. You'll tie her to this bed, just as I've tied you. Do you understand?"

How Sandy wished she could close her legs. Poor, poor Gillian! How she would hate to be manhandled!

"Sir, what if I won't do it?"

He tickled Sandy's tummy with the knife, rolling it across her pubic thatch. "Then it's simple. I'll make you. Remember what it's like in solitary confinement? The skull? We'll eat her, ounce by ounce, pound by pound, limb by limb, morsel by morsel. We'll do it slowly, day after day, week after week. Gillian will see herself being consumed. Is that really what you want??"

"N-no, sir."

He was parting her lips, easing them each in turn with his condom covered weapon. Sandy's skin had gone numb. She felt a knot in her stomach.

Oh shit. Never mind Gillian. This was her now. He was going to stick the knife up her pussy. She could feel it sliding inside. She fought desperately to prevent her muscles from gripping and holding on to it, knowing that if they did, the steel would cut her to pieces.

"Many years ago," he pursued, relentlessly pushing the knife into her hole. "I knew this Chinese woman. She was slim with a boyish body and plum like breasts. She had the kind of act that was popular back then, a variant on the old sword swallowing act, only this one was different. She came on stage naked and she had these two swords. I watched, incredulous and unbelieving, as she picked the first one up and swallowed it to the hilt. It engorged and puffed her throat as it moved along her gullet. I could see its shape bloating her windpipe. She was like a snake slowly digesting its prey. But then: more. She reached for the second sword, a dagger and opened her legs, inserting it into her tiny hole. This wasn't trickery, neither was it illusion. That dagger wasn't covered with a condom like this knife of mine. It was bare naked steel. Inch after inch it went up, until again, only the hilt protruded. She had perfect control – she was a master - resisting the urge to choke or to gag, holding both blades inside. Then, slowly, methodically, she reached for the handle of the dagger and began to push it in and out. The bitch was bringing herself off. She was masturbating! I hadn't thought it possible, but now I knew. I've seen it. A woman can be fucked by a knife. So now, with your help, Gillian will learn how to make love to a knife. Do you understand?"

Sandy wept, not knowing what to tell him, pleading for him to find someone else, for it not to be Gillian. She begged him to bestow his Damocles elsewhere. "Please, master!" she implored. "I won't betray you. Not again. Please. Not her! Not like that! You'll destroy her! Not her pussy!"

But Sandy knew even as she begged him that her pleas would be ignored. He'd warned her long ago that she must never again go with a woman.

Those were the rules of his shitty asylum.

Sandy Smith was not in a police cell. She was in a cave. The woman sitting on the chair by the door was not a nurse, she was a fellow captive. Her name was Gillian. She was wearing a pair of baggy knickers, nothing else.

Sandy sat motionless with her hands and ankles cuffed as the master would like. The ambulance had gone now, returned to a world where time didn't stand still and where people had lovers and went about their daily business.

The time was two fifty eight.

"What happened?" Gillian asked. "Who did it? Was it you? Did you kill her, Sandy?"

Sandy nodded, her dull grey eyes staring bleakly into the blackness. "The master told me that I must. He gave me no choice. He made me do it."

A policeman glanced at her askance. "What are we talking about Sandy? Who told you to do it?"

For the first time since getting into the ambulance, Sandy smiled, her lips puckering into a manic grin. She was naked apart from a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She wished she could be free of it. "You'll never find him, you know," she declared, wondering whether it would be the man or the woman who would touch her first. "He's within my head. That's where he lives. He won't come out. Not now. This time it's him that's done the runner."

She wriggled awkwardly because the master's hands were under the blanket squeezing her breasts and his finger was toying with her clit. He was here, present with her, just as he'd always been, listening to her conversation, confusing her thoughts.

Sandy turned towards the barred window and sucked in her breath, looking blackly towards the painted brick wall.

"It's just a game," she explained. "With the master it's always a game. But now he's made me kill her. He's won and it's finally over."

Again she smiled, a coy beam lighting her face, for the finger inside her pussy had begun working and she knew where it was going. He wanted to embarrass her in front of the nice police officers. He wanted to make her cum.

"Well that's a game I'm up for," Sandy decided with a sly contented smirk. "Try me, master. Give me your best. This time I can beat you. This time I've all the time in the world."

"Sandy? Are you listening to us, Sandy?"

He'd taken hold of her hand and was leading her into the darkness. He was going to rape her now. She knew that.

"Keep going," he ordered, forcing her on. They were in a dark tunnel that was becoming narrower with every step they took. He was going to rape her. That's what awaited her at the end of this tunnel. There was no light, no hope. Every step brought her closer to abuse. Down and down they went, deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss.

Sandy's whole world was closing in. The rocks were getting blacker, harder, darker. They were like solidified cordite laced with anthracite. They jumped out from the wall and struck her. They bent down and slapped her upon the hips and her arms. They knocked against her knees. She was stumbling without vision in the chaotic world of the criminally insane.

"Ouch! That hurt! Where are we going, master? I can't see!"

He was just inches behind, pressing forward, forcing her on. "Can you hear me, Sandy? And you can feel my cock prodding your back?"

His voice was deep and gruff, heavy with sex.

"Yes, sir. I feel it. Are you going to rape me now?"

There were tears staining her cheeks and dust in her tears. He was taking her somewhere out of the way, somewhere where he could more easily rape her, and she had no way of stopping him. Whatever she did, however much she fought, the result would be the same. She would be raped. It was inevitable, like the turning of the tide or the setting of the sun.

Her hands cloyed nervously to her breasts, protecting them, hiding them.

"You're very attractive," he declared. "Have I ever told you that?"

"Yes, sir," she sobbed. "You tell me every night, before… before… you use my body."

She stumbled forward, scraping her thigh upon a loose crag. She cried out but he didn't hear. He wasn't even aware. "There are women who incite men to sin," he snarled, shoving her on. "I've looked at you, Sandy. I've looked at you often. I've admired you in the shower and I've ached for you as you've cuddled your girl friends."

"Sir? I don't understand!"

The tunnel opened and they found themselves in a cave. It was called 'Solitary Confinement'. That's what it said on the sign above the door.

There were lamps perched high up upon its wall that cast shadows across the rocks. These flittered to and fro like carnivorous moths, hovering, waiting to pounce.

Sandy held her hands fussily across her private parts, hoping to conceal them, frightened of the light.

The master stepped forward, pushing her into the cave.

There was a pit, a hole. It was ten to twelve feet deep. Sandy couldn't see properly but there was something at the bottom, moving, scurrying across the dusty floor.

"Oh my God!"

She stumbled again, this time scraping her arm.

She'd seen rats. And there was a snake down there too.

She could also make out whitened bones, clothes too: torn skirts and bloodied tops, a frayed bra - cut between the cups - panties, and a woman's stiletto shoe.

"Welcome to your new home," the stranger said, pushing her towards the edge.

"No, master! Please!"

Sandy couldn't believe that anybody could survive down here.

She reached for a jagged rock, fighting to hold her balance. But her fingers slipped through, bouncing from rock to rock until they found something solid to cling to.

She was teetering over the edge, naked, at the top of the pit, wobbling, fighting to pull herself back.

Below she made out the shape of a woman's skull cocked upon a small spike.

"Oh my God," she muttered, feeling an icy sense of doom and the wind sucked from her lungs. She was staring at her own future. She knew it. Here was her karma: life after rape, when eventually he grew tired of her.

She swayed on the edge of the precipice, the empty eyes following her, grinning, the white teeth naked and withdrawn. "I danced the seven veils," they said. "Seven times they jeered as my silks slid from my skin. Seven times I sucked cock and let the master bugger my ass. But what he preferred, what he liked best was to chomp upon my womanly flesh, week after week, chewing me up, muscle by muscle, limb by limb, pound by pound, until finally I was gone."

Sandy could see it in her mind, the beginning. All the inmates were lined up, twenty young women wearing nothing but loose, baggy panties. In front of them was a woman, a cell mate. She was cuffed hand and foot to an old iron bed. The master was between her legs, his long tongue buried in the woman's wet pussy, so deep, almost touching her womb. His teeth were coaxing her pearl, cradling it, preparing to bite.

Sandy was willing him on, demanding that he do it. "Bite her!" she screamed, feeling him in her head, knowing he was playing with her desires and her memory. All the other women were crying out too, combining to form one single voice. "Punish her! Tear her pearl and rip it from her pussy!"

Sandy was wetting herself now, sensing that soon it would be her. Piss dribbled along her crack and dripped unseen into the pit below. All she could think of was that long deadly tongue sinking into a young woman's guts and the master with her bloody pearl between his teeth.

Oh God. He was going to do it. No doubts now. None.

Sandy screamed, her back arching, her body lifting from her bed. Her demeanour was broken, her tranquillity truly shattered. The master roared at the top of its voice and lifted his head, blood running down its chin and matting his fur.

He had a small piece of meat between its teeth, a womanly secret. Sandy could hear the echoes from outside, the mighty roar and the screams of her friend and lover.

He was doing it. He was eating her. This was the beginning; the skull would be the end.

He chewed and swallowed, and then the screams faded to black. Sandy could make out nothing now but the shriek of wild rats and the tinkle of her running water still dribbling to the moist black earth below.

Her teeth were chattering from the cold. She was dirty. She'd wet herself.

"You're mine," he said, opening his mouth and licking her teats. She could still see the marks where the electrodes had pressed against his temples.

Her nurse's uniform lay in a hundred disintegrated fragments around her feet.

His teeth were upon her breast, gently fondling it. The knife was digging into her side, pressing against her.

"Yes, sir."

"You'll always be mine. No one else wants you now. Even the police, when you run, bring you back. You're insane. No one is interested in the insane. Don't you see, whatever you do to escape, even if you run, you'll be brought back. This is your home now, here with me in the asylum."

He forced himself down, caressing Sandy's breasts with the teeth, placing the steel blade between her legs, then levering it against her slit and forcing it open. "I want you to relax," he said, flicking her nipples with his tongue until they'd hardened into rocks. "If you do that, it won't be too bad. I can make your life a happy one. You just need to keep to my rules. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"I don't want you fucking any of the other nurses. You're to keep away from them, and they're not to fuck you. I don't care what crap goes on in your head but you'll keep your hands to yourself. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. It's clear."

"You can dress as you like during the day, but at night you'll only wear panties, standard issue, nothing else, just like the other girls. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay, now lie on your bed. We're going to play the game where you're the virgin and I'm the wild beast. Assume the position."

She did so, kneeling on all fours and spreading her ass, presenting herself like a bitch to her mate.

The beast looked down at her, its nostrils open and its huge sex erect. It was thoughtful, like it couldn't decide whether Sandy were meat for its dinner or crumpet for its bed.

"Oh my God!" Sandy spluttered, her voice trembling, her knees rattling.

And then, suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, the dream was over and she was being fucked by the master. He was inside, lying upon her, not moving. What happened to her hymen, she never found out. Suddenly it was gone and he was inside her, stretching her, playing with her mind and her soul, and she knew that for this she'd been born, to serve him, to please and service his cock.

She was his property; to do with as he willed, to be raped, night after night for as long as he wanted her.

He placed her breast into his mouth. It was a sign, like the ring on a woman's finger, an everlasting symbol of their binding contract. She took a deep breath and arched her back, gripping him tightly.

She could hear the screams of the other women, the frenzied rattling of their cages. Some were being beaten; others were being raped.

The master's tongue flicked across her teat one or two times, and then she screamed because he'd bitten and in his mouth, perched between his teeth, she could see the swollen lump of her quivering teat.

In that moment she had a flickering vision of herself as she'd once been, a qualified psychiatric nurse, alone with the master. He was lying upon his bed with electrodes fastened to his temples, twisting and turning and the juice surging through his body.

Then, suddenly, he'd broken free and the tables were turned. He was the master and she the patient. He was fastening the electrodes to her and cauterizing the wound. Once again, Sandy had screamed.

Was she mad or was she sane?

She no longer had the capacity to judge.

But at least she wasn't alone.

THE END