"You'll make it, kid. I done this before."
"I can't tell him anything. I can't! Oh Jennie!" It was the only pertinent thing I could say. Jennie mowed it down.
"I don't think he expects it, love. This is just what we do with girls." It soaked in gradually. "You mean… this is his way of keeping me prisoner?"
"He don't see it as torture, ducks. It's their way of keeping you docile. If you've got anything to tell 'em they take it as a bonus." While she snipped away the wire from my ankles my moans were as sincere as any I have ever uttered. I was finding hanging by my thumbs every bit as bad as the story books lead you to believe. When the wire was gone I flexed my legs gratefully, but instantly desisted. Any motion brought an instant protest from my looped digits.
"But it's you who looks after me," I ventured hesitantly.
"Couldn't you go a bit easy?" Jennie made a move of disparagement. "You've got a gift, love, for making me feel like a bitch. I am one, of course, but I don't usually admit it. You see, I'm enjoying this. You've no idea how beautiful you look hanging there. I'm no lesbian, but you make me feel like one. There's something so damned erotically female about you. I suppose that's the reason all these fool men are so willing to pay." She left me with no answers. But I hurt so much I kept trying. "We're both English, Jennie. Doesn't that count?"
"We've both got cunts."
"Oh Jennie, there's more to two girls than just each having a pussy. You wouldn't want to hang naked like this."
"Kid, it's no good. If I say a wrong word to Ashad or his boys, or if he catches me doing you a favor, I'll be hanging on the opposite wall the same way you are."
"You said I was beautiful. Jennie… if you want me! I mean… I will, y'know. I'll be ever so nice." My shamed offer touched her more than anything I had said. "You poor sweetheart!" She reached up and gently allowed her fingertips to hover across one of my breasts. "If I liked eating cunts I'd be at you ravenously this minute." Transient as her touch had been it told me my fire was still alive. How strange girls are! My hunger for Jennie flamed from nowhere. "Please… I want to make love to you," I gasped. She was as strange as I. For moments her fingers traced themselves across the taut skin between my breasts and the junction of my thighs. Impetuously, they went to my pussy as a homing pigeon might fly to its nest. Hotly, they clutched to send a spasm of joy through my whole being. One of them entered my wet warmth. Then, with an inarticulate cry of distress, she turned and ran from the cell. She did not even stop to close or lock the door. Punishment is timeless. It is forever. Alone with pain, a girl can not envision its termination. Even reason defeats you, it tells that the dragging hours are no more than seconds or minutes by the clock. You hang forgotten. Pain has become the purpose of your being. The heat between your legs subsides and dwindles… I would much sooner be whipped. I am an epicure of female punishment. Compared to suspension or those beastly wires the whip is kind. It places its wound upon your skin then goes away. Its agony is short and fierce, it does not nag. Beneath its cruelty a girl can writhe, she can scream. But hanging like this from pinioned thumbs I dare not move, I dare not scream, even the scream would mean extra pain. I am robbed of all the normal expressions and reliefs of punishment. I hang motionless trying to control my panting breaths. If Ashad thinks this is not torture he is crazy. One of Ashad's men comes in to gloat. He sits on the box and enjoys my nakedness and my discomfort. His lewd eyes focus constantly on my puss. I cannot move it from his sight. Within it the heat returns. Neither of us speak. What is there to say! It is he who finally breaks the silence.
"You get fucked a lot?" he enquires politely. I think it best to lie. It should make me less desirable. "Quite a lot," I murmur untruthfully.
"You enjoy?" A second lie seemed prudent. "Why, of course I do!" I exclaimed warmly, on the basis that if I liked it I would not get it.
"You give it away or you charge money?" That one was easier. "I'm a slave girl. If someone wants to use my pussy they just do."
"I do not pay." There was a boasting in his declaration. "These foolish English with their charge for entry!" He chuckled obscenely. "It is surprising their women do not carry tickets to sell."
"If we're going to talk, how'd you like to shove that box under my feet for awhile? You can sit on the cot."
"Why?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.
"To give me a rest. I'm hurting terribly. I could talk to you a lot better if I wasn't in such pain."
"But you are just a girl!"
"What's being a girl got to do with it?" I had him stymied: how does a man analyze the obvious for a stupid female who does not understand her own lack of identity. He gave me an irritated stare that made me glad there wasn't a whip laying around.
"A girl is a girl…" Even to him this sounded a bit weak. He gestured with a majestic male arm. "If a girl hangs by her thumbs it is because she is supposed to hang by her thumbs. There is no more to say or to do." I was neatly tossed into the limbo of his faith's regard for my sex. "Wouldn't you like to fuck me?" I flung at him with venom.
"It is not permitted. Before buying you will be tested for conception." His male conceit in his potency was almost funny. There are many desolations for a punished naked girl. One is to be closeted with a human being with whom communion is a blank. In a foolish desperation, a resentment against his fatuity, I burst out with: "Royden said he was going to Cairo. He also said something about taking up options there with this chap Sinclair you're so concerned about. Go and tell that to Ashad and get me down off this wall. I've had enough." He was shocked and pleased. I wondered what sort of a pitfall I had dug for myself. "This is simple stuff, easy to tell. Why not tell us before?" he asked shrewdly.
"Because there was a friend of Miss Harding's in it," I floundered. "His name is Mynarski. I didn't see why he should get murdered too."
"This Mynarski, what does he do?"
"He's a sort of financier. He arranges deals." I must have struck the right note. He departed, grinning. It was not long before Ashad and Jennie made an appearance. Neither of them were smiling. Jennie carried something I could not see.
"Put them on her." Ashad's order was crisp and definite. What had I done wrong! Opening her hand, Jennie disclosed, not one but two, of the avid jawed battery clips.
"But I've told you!" I wailed. "I've told you what you wanted to know."
"That's the trouble, love. You knew what we wanted so you gave it to us. Mind you, I can understand you wanting to get down off that wall."
"Girls are stupid," Ashad said contemptuously. I gave my best gasp of horror yet when it became evident where I was to get the clips. "No, no, no, not on my nipples!" I pleaded. No one gave heed. All of Jennie's attention was focused on my breasts. With careful deliberation she opened the jaws over one of my nipples and pushed it to encompass the aureola, then let it close. I screamed. Jennie calmly positioned and let bite the other set of jaws on my other breast. Holding my flesh beyond the base of each nipple they had the anchorage to stick out arrogantly like enormous metal teats. I screamed again.
"You're sure they won't damage?" Ashad's anxiety was not humane.
"We certainly can't leave 'em on her all night." Jennie sounded faintly on my side. My heart went out to her. "Let me down, oh, please let me down." I sobbed without caring for anything except an end to the punishment. "I'll do or say anything!"