Suffer the Flesh (5 page)

On Zoey’s left, Marie puffed out her cheeks, eyes rolling, exposing only the whites. Breasts mashed to the leather surface of the horse. Her eyes then shut so tightly Zoey saw tiny veins popping out on the lids.

Behind her, the guard massaged his cock, worked it, the tip glistening with spit or lubricant. He reached between her legs, and Marie gripped the pommel horse with stark white fingers.

Lisa stared vacantly ahead, oblivious to the vibrator violating her. Tongue jutting, eyes squinting, waiting for the attack to end. Long brown hair dusted the surface of the horse, her body moving in concert with his.

So engrossed by what was happening beside her, Zoey was unprepared for the first stinging crack of the whip across her ass. She screamed, tried to turn around.

“Don’t move, Zoey.” He grunted, struck again.

Biting pain enraged her, and she tried to protect herself with her hands. Unrelenting blow after blow, like a swarm of stinging hornets. Tears streamed down her face. The women beside her sobbing, moaning.

The beating stopped. His hands roamed her inflamed ass, massaged her, as if trying to drive the whip marks into her skin. Fingers prodded, separated her folds, pried her open, drove the digits inside. His cock followed his fingers, and he fucked her hard, rammed her into the pommel horse. Every thrust anguish, every movement slicing her deeper.

He grunted, pulled out, slapped her on her ass, told her not to move.

Marie had paled, looked like she would pass out. Her attacker didn’t seem to be losing speed and fucked her harder, yelled with each thrust, grabbed her hair and yanked her head back.

“Oh, God!” Marie screamed, her mouth thrown open, jaw locked in pain. She clutched at the pommel horse as if trying to scale it. Zoey reached back, clutched Marie’s hands but received a whip crack across her wrists for the effort.

Finally Marie succumbed, silently endured the rape. It wasn’t as if she had a choice.

The guards finished and walked away. Zoey exchanged a glance with the women, a look of futility and desperation.

Tony returned, stood with arms folded. Shook his head, clicked his tongue. “What’s the first rule of fight club?”

The women looked perplexed, but Zoey’s heart sank.

“Anyone?” Tony asked. “Feel free to blurt out the right answer.”

“No talking,” Zoey whispered. “That’s the first rule.”

“Ding ding ding! Give that lady the Cracker Jack prize.” He leaned into the edge of the pommel horse and stared into Marie’s eyes. “Care to guess who broke the rule?”

The sorrowful wail that poured out of Marie made the hair on the back of Zoey’s neck bristle.

“Go now,” he said. “Those nice men by the door are waiting to take you to Room Four.”

Zoey caught her breath, wanted to scream but her lungs seized up.

The guards approached Marie and dragged her screaming out into the hall. The door slammed shut behind them.

Tony took Zoey’s elbow and led her to another part of the room, past the screams and moans and whimpers. Pointed toward the floor. Two metal hoops, shoulder width apart, jutted from wood slats. Pushed to her knees, shoved forward, her  hands were forced between the loops and locked in. A leather hood was draped over her head, the eyes, nose, and mouth holes zipped closed. Air was fleeting, and Zoey panicked, struggled frantically but her wrists were securely fastened.

Someone grabbed her head and held her steady. Unzipped the small hole beneath her nose. Air gushed in. Other senses were cut off, and she felt that she was no longer part of the world. Her legs were forced apart, cushions placed beneath her knees. Felt … someone at her swollen, aching vagina … wet, licking, a tongue lapping at her pussy. Fingers prodded, flicked her clit, explored. Pushed inside her, all the way in, so deep, many long thin fingers in and out. She didn’t want to feel this, didn’t want any sensation from their touch, but her body had its own agenda. She tried to fight the carnal feelings but couldn’t. The fingers fucked her harder, deeper still, worked her cunt, a second hand diddled her clit, squeezed it between thumb and forefinger, rolled it, hot plumes of breath tickled it. Licking and sucking, and as much as she tried to fight it she was cumming.

A cock pulsed inside her while fingers played with her clit. They groped her tits, pulled the nipples. Lack of senses was unbearable. Sweltering heat inside the hood. One finished fucking her and another took his place and then another and another until she lost count, the number dizzying, until her knees trembled and her body ached and her vagina was a pit of fire.

The pace slowed, and she prayed they were tiring. Someone slid beneath her, awkwardly taking her from below, pushing his cock up and into her. But there couldn’t be anyone beneath her, she would have felt his body. A hand brushed against her

mound, a dildo held in position inside her. Someone took her from behind again, stuffing her with his engorged dick, sharing her pussy with the dildo. Her body shuddered, tried to deal with the torment, fresh bouts of pain when she’d thought she couldn’t take any more.

When he finished and pulled out she collapsed on her side, her chest heaving, fluids tricking down swollen inner thighs.

They unshackled her from the floor, removed the hood.

The screams from the other women had gone unheard, distorted by the leather encasing her head. She dropped onto her back. Eyes closed, she prayed for her own death.

Chapter 6

I
can help you.

In her dream she kills Mel, over and over, each way bloodier, each way more satisfying than the last. It was Mel who precipitated these events, whether intentional or not. How could she not have known? Mel, the harbinger of torture and pain, now dead.

Zoey’s hands, wrapped around the scrawny bitch’s even scrawnier neck, fingers embedded in the flesh, throttled her until the bitch turned shades of red and purple, eventually blue.

James was next, and she stabbed him with a butter knife, his eyeball hanging from gristly strings flecked with gore, and he screamed in pain every time she attacked his flesh, ragged holes weeping blood, hurting him as much as he had hurt her. Hurting him more.

When she woke from this violent and fitful sleep, her head pounded, felt like a massive hangover. What she wouldn’t give for a good stiff drink.

She sat up and clutched the sweat-soaked sheet. Couldn’t remember who had dressed her, couldn’t remember coming back to her cell. Not that nudity mattered much anymore. Just about everyone had seen her naked, had seen every bit of her fat protruding, jiggling as they fucked her, being squeezed and poked and prodded like mounds of rising dough. What the hell did it matter anymore?

The burning sensation had subsided. Her fingertips came away moist and sticky, coated in some foreign substance. Assumed it was some sort of salve but couldn’t tell in the darkness. She hoped it wasn’t blood.

She wondered if anyone in the outside world was looking for her. Not that she had many people in her life. Parents dead, sister living a thousand miles away, and they hardly spoke any more.

In the blackness she imagined Julie’s face, reached out to touch the image, wanted to hold her, to be comforted by her sister.

Was there a chance the police knew where she was? A possibility that her job had been concerned when she didn’t show up? There was always that hope, a persistence that she shouldn’t give up.

Maybe someone was looking for her.

Every time she thought they’d reached the pinnacle of inhumanity, had tested her endurance with the most horrendous acts imaginable, they came up with something else. So now, what else could there be? Envisioning a worse scenario was impossible.

Breathing: soft moans, loud snores of exhaustion. No words save for the occasional cry in someone’s sleep. The air was heavy with the smells of soap and futility. Darkness, obscuring her sight, unsure how many of the other women were also in their cells. She had tried counting heads in the cafeteria and came up with sixteen prisoners. There were almost as many rapists and torturer guards.

The clanging at the end of the corridor startled her. Clutched the sheet, pulled it up to her chin, a cotton-polyester shield. The footsteps ended outside her cell door. She could make out a silhouette from the dim light thrown by the open door at the end of the hall.

“Let’s go, Zoey,” the shadow said, unlocking the cell door and throwing it open.

She followed the invisible footsteps down the corridor and into the outer hallway.

They entered another door just on the other side of the exit. Climbed a short, narrow flight of stairs, reached yet another door. Cooler up here, a slight breeze brushed against her cheeks. Ushered inside, told to sit, to not touch anything.

Hands in her lap, Zoey glanced around the office. Shelves lined with books. Large globe in the corner. Framed prints hanging from the wood paneling. Could have been a college professor’s office. Except … except for the medieval torture rack in the corner of the room, and a cage suspended from the ceiling like a twisted birdhouse, just large enough for a human head.

“Good morning, Zoey. I’m Dr. Sullivan.”

His voice startled her, and the hair on her arms bristled, heartbeat quickened. He sat across from her behind the mahogany desk, steepled his hands beneath his chin in an attempt to look scholarly, as if studying her, his science project.

She swallowed, wondered what he wanted, why she had been brought here. “From New York, I see.”

Nod? Smile? Cough? She didn’t know how to respond.

He smiled. “You’re allowed to talk in here.”

She relaxed a bit.

“I’m a counselor. I’m here to help our guests emotionally.”

“Guests?” she asked quietly, terrified of uttering that first word.

“I prefer the term guests.” He lightly tugged at the tuft of hair on his cheek, as if making sure it was still attached.

Guests.
Victims is more like it
, she thought.
Prisoners
.

“We conduct research. Sexual studies, things of that nature.”

“I noticed,” she muttered. She felt the anger swelling, could feel the heat exploding on her cheeks.
Research
? Was he for real?

“As long as you cooperate, Zoey, your stay with us will be uneventful.”

“Uneventful? I’ve been raped! I’ve been beaten and molested, fucking
tortured
. What do you consider uneventful?” She hovered over his desk, her breasts tipping the paperclip holder and the pencils in a mug stamped with some inane Best Dad Ever message.

He looked past her, and she glanced back, noticed the guard standing in the doorway.

“Sit down, Zoey,” he said calmly. “You’ve been given permission to speak, but one more outburst like that and this session’s over.”

She sat, trembling hands palms up in her lap.
Session
. She wondered what his credentials were, if he even had any.

“This facility was created for the purpose of conducting research. We gauge reaction, stimulus, response, as well as neurological, biochemical, physical, and emotional reactions … many others. Some tests will require your being hooked up to sensors that will gauge your responses. Other tests are purely reactionary. I assure you, it’s all quite harmless. Including your ‘rape,’ as you call it. What you call rape, we call research. It’s for the good of humanity, Zoey. Think of it as a humanitarian effort. It doesn’t matter how you handle it anyway, because you’ll eventually get over it. You’ll recover.”

“I can’t believe what you’re saying …” Her insides were a churning tempest but outwardly she remained calm. “How can you even think this is something I would ever simply ‘get over,’ just because you say I should?”

He sucked his teeth, cleared his throat. “I was hoping for more enthusiasm, Zoey. You don’t seem like a team player. I thought you might be interested in working for us.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. Not sure how to respond. “How?”

“As a recruiter, perhaps. Like Mel. Or in some other capacity.”

It couldn’t be this easy. To agree to work for them seemed like her way out. She nodded. “Okay. Count me in.

He laughed, his eyes widening. “It doesn’t work that way. You have to complete your stay with us first. Then we evaluate.”

“And how long is my stay?”

“That all depends on you.” He stood up and cleared a spot of the edge of the desk, sat in front of her. “We’re giving you something in exchange for your participation in our research.”

“What’s that?”

“When you leave here, you’re going to be thin.”

How bizarre that he believed this was acceptable payment for torture. “That’s the deal? I’m going through this shit because you’ve put me on some kind of diet?”

He returned to his seat, leaned back in the chair. “Well … yes. You can leave once you’ve lost the weight. This is why we accept larger women into the program. Nothing too big though—gets in the way of … research.”

“Did it ever occur to you morons that gang-raping a woman would be more traumatic than her carrying around extra weight? What kind of justification is that, anyway? You’re out of your mind. And did it ever occur to you that some women
like
the way they look? Some people are happy with the way they are.”