Colin went behind her and brought the belt brutally down twice more. Once for each cheek. Again he gave it time for the sting to reverberate through her body, for the initial fire to die down before returning in burning echoes that gradually levelled to a constant searing heat across her flesh. While her bottom throbbed he went casually about the room pulling out drawers and spilling the contents, kicking her intimate things around the floor and destroying the few possessions she owned.
"What do we have here?" he sneered, picking up a large black vibrator. He turned it on and rubbed the buzzing dildo around her face before pushing it beneath her and between her breasts. As the purring phallus tickled her tits, Colin started tearing apart her knickers, taunting and teasing her as he did.
"Business been good?" he mocked, sniffing the crotch of one flimsy red pair. "I bet you give a good fuck in all this gear. Two up for the sailors is it? Maybe a gang bang if they're in a hurry. What do you charge? A tenner? A fiver? I bet you'd do it for a drink, or a bag of chips?"
He threw the ripped remains of the last pair of knickers on her back then resumed her lashing, this time giving her six, seven, eight strokes of the belt.
The pain no longer came in waves, it coursed through Melanie's body in one continuous eternal throb, burning, stinging and all consuming.
But she wouldn't break! She wouldn't!
"I'm impressed," he said, with a grim smile. "That's quite some dedication. I just hope he's worth it."
The sight of Colin replacing his belt brought great relief and Melanie's bottom relaxed a little. The flesh lost its tightness if not its crimson hue. He didn't untie her though, but went about the flat kicking over tables and smashing plates. Melanie couldn't give a shit about that, as long as he left her alone. He could break up the entire place for all she cared, it was all crap anyway.
Suddenly the sounds of destruction ceased. Colin was standing in the bedroom, the door of the airing cupboard open and broken against the wall. The cupboard, like the flat, was big, it took up the entire recess on the side of the chimney breast. On one side was shelves for towels and blankets, on the other a huge copper boiler for hot water.
"You know what?" said Colin. "I've run out of fucking cigarettes."
He went across and untied Melanie, then took her over to the cupboard and began tying her around the gleaming boiler, her breasts pressed against the shining metal.
"I'm going to nip down to the garage and get some," he informed her. He checked that she was secure. "And when I get back, I think I'll take a bath."
He flicked the switch that turned on the immersion heater.
Melanie's eyelids peeled back, exposing the trembling whites. Through the saliva drenched knickers she began to scream her submission but Colin wasn't listening now. When he neared the bedroom door he turned and spoke to her.
"I'll try not to be long," he said calmly. "I just hope the car doesn't break down or something happen to me while I'm out."
She heard the outside door shut and almost immediately felt the gurgling water rise inside the tank as it began to heat up. In an effort to remain calm she tried to recall how long it took for the water to get hot when she used the heater. Twenty five, thirty minutes. That gave him half an hour to get to the garage and back. That was if he was coming back. Maybe he'd had enough. Maybe he'd thought she wouldn't tell him Peter's name no matter what, and had just decided to do her in as painfully as possible.
She began to panic at the thought of hot copper searing her flesh, scorched skin peeling away like the film on cold milky coffee. The more she panicked the more her temperature rose with the fear. Or was that the boiler heating up already?
She struggled uselessly against her bonds, raising the heat still further. Perspiration began to run in rivulets down her temples and forehead, dropping in tiny beads from the tip of her nose, and as the sweat increased she felt her naked belly and breasts become slippery against the warm copper.
Time ticked away. Inside the boiler tiny bubbles formed along the length of the hot tungsten element before leaving it to float away as the temperature increased. Melanie tried lifting parts of her body away from the metal. In order to do that she had to press another part onto it, but soon the whole boiler would be too hot to touch. Her sweating increased, her thoughts became confused.
What to do?
She couldn't scream, couldn't break her bonds. Perhaps if she squeezed the boiler tighter death would come quicker, but the human pysche isn't built to embrace death quite so easily. Her nerve ends, already sensing the danger, were telling her to run, to get away, driving her to the very edge of madness. Frantically she began jerking, pulling, straining at the chords that held her firmly against the burning metal.
"Struggling so soon?" Colin checked his watch. "It's only been fifteen minutes and already you're losing your nerve." He came across and placed his palm on the water tank, feeling its temperature, then in mock surprise he shook his hand as if trying to cool it down.
Melanie could only plead with her eyes, imploring him to release her before she was seriously burned.
"You know?" said Colin, composed and confident. "If you'd only have learnt your lesson the first time, none of this would have happened. Are you sorry?"
Melanie nodded her head furiously.
"Have you learnt your lesson now, at long last?"
Again she nodded in affirmation.
"And what about the name, are you willing to tell me his name now?"
Without hesitation she motioned her submission with further movements of her head. Colin stood behind her and ran a finger down the line of her bottom.
"How do I know you'll tell the truth?" He got down on his knees and opened the cheeks of Melanie's arse noting the wet line of sweat running down it. "You might say anything just to get me to release you?"
This time Melanie shook her head to assure him of her compliance.
Colin got to his feet and removed his trousers slowly. "I don't believe you Melanie. You always were a liar." He positioned himself behind her feeling the heat from her body as well as the rapidly warming tank. Taking hold of his erect prick he lowered it down to her anus and forced himself inside, crushing her against the hot copper tank where the heat forced her to push back. The effect sent him deeper up her darkest hole, delivering him into raptures of sexual delight.
"Hot isn't it?" he sneered, pumping at her snatching ring piece. "I like them sweating and squirming."
The heat now was almost unbearable and Colin savoured the feel of a woman struggling back onto him, impaling herself ever deeper on his engorged cock. Almost on the verge of coming, yet never losing control of his senses, he finally undid the suspender belt gag and pulled the knickers out of Melanie's mouth.
"Talk!" he snarled, his hips still pounding at her backside.
"His name is Peter Warburton," screamed Melanie. "He's the husband of Susan Warburton, one of the girls Lincoln has been using in his cab."
Colin increased the speed and power of his strokes at the memory of the fucks he and his brother had taken on the man's wife, the things they'd done to her back at the depot. "Tough shit on him," he snarled and spewed his spunk up Melanie's arsehole.
Melanie surveyed the damage to her apartment.
Everything was in tatters, her clothes were in shreds and scattered about the room. The furniture had been smashed and doors hung precariously from bent hinges. Her only sensation was numbness, her mind existing in a void of consciousness.
She was awake yet unaware, blind to the colours around her, deaf to any sounds. She had escaped this nightmare once, but the nightmare was back, more terrifying than before. The demons had been watching her all this time. They had been learning new tortures, new torments, saving them up for the day they returned.
In the corner lay the severed head of Barnie, her childhood teddy. His disembowelled body hung absurdly from the corner of the cracked dressing table mirror, a shard of glass running through his middle. Barnie had been her lifelong confessor, the only male thing that had never treated her badly, and the only remaining link to childhood innocence. Now he was gone too. She felt truly alone and abandoned by everyone.