MEETING

"So what do you think? Should I take the job?"

Justine didn't answer at once. Caroline was an RN at the largest hospital in the city. As such she occasionally supplied information of some importance – what government official was seriously ill, whose secretary just had an abortion, whose son had almost overdosed on drugs. But like most in the movement, her major value lay in her willingness to do what needed to be done to help fuel the revolution, even in these early stages which had more to do with organization and planning than planting bombs and assassinating ministers.

Caroline was the first operative Justine had recruited and they both felt the special bond between them. Although Justine could never jeopardize the movement or anyone connected with it for Caroline's benefit or safety, she did worry about her whenever she knew Caroline was putting herself in danger.

Not that she didn't worry about her other operatives, she did. In fact she had to admit to herself there was one that was on her mind more than any of the others, including Caroline. Her name was Marty, short for Martina. Justine never should have recruited her, but she almost fell in love with her when they first met. Marty was only 19 - a student - with a sparkle and allure that would move a stone. And she was beautiful, with the litheness of a ballet dancer and an innocent face the mirrored her sole.

She did very little for Justine; she kept her as far away from risk as possible. For the most part all she did was monitor activity on campus, look for possible recruits and suspected MIS agents.

The organization was set up to provide the utmost in security for its operatives, even if it sometimes hindered its efficiency. Even Control did not know the names of Justine's operatives, only knew them by code names. But even Control did not know the existence of Marty, not even by a code name. She was Justine's secret. If anything ever happened to her she would never forgive herself for luring her in.

"What exactly would you be doing?" Justine finally said to Caroline.

"I don't really know. They said they would tell me when I said yes. When I asked them 'how could I make a commitment without knowing what I was signing up for?' I was told "The major requirement for the position is an unwavering loyalty to the state and a willingness to serve without question?"

Justine's eyebrows raised and Caroline continued, "I told them that was true beyond a shadow of a doubt but I felt I had a responsibility to the hospital as well as my patients, present and future. They simply nodded and said, 'You have until tomorrow to give us an answer,' stood up and left."

"Hmm. The better question is, 'What could you possibly do at the Ministry for Internal Security?'"

"Maybe caring for patients the MIS does not want treated in a public place."

"Including perhaps keeping interrogation subjects alive while they are being tortured."

"That…that thought crossed my mind."

"Or even assisting those goons in the torture of innocent people."

"I couldn't do that. I could never do that."

"You would have to. Listen, the answer is pretty obvious. You have to take the job. Even if it is only caring for some schmuck with colitis, you would have a good chance of getting some valuable information, intel that might really help us.

"Also, if you don't take it there is a chance you might lose your job, even come under suspicion yourself. You know what these people are like."

"But what if it wasn't changing some VIP's bandages? What if it was helping to torture someone? What if it were someone from here, someone I knew?"

"How many of us do you know? Besides me, two others, and you have only met them for an instant. I have seen to that. And if it were me, I am telling you right now, you would have to do your worst, no matter how much I screamed and begged."

Justine saw the look of horror on Caroline's face and added, with a smile, "Maybe you could find a way of killing me and ending my suffering. And maybe after all it will just be changing some big shot's bandages."

In the end Caroline agreed she had to take the job. They did not ignore the possibility of her being fingered by an interrogation subject. It was unlikely that under the circumstances the two she had met would be able to ID her, and Justine would make sure no one else came in contact with her. As for Caroline, Justine thought, she would have to believe her that if, on the unthinkable chance she were captured, and Caroline was present at her interrogation and torture, she would never give her up.

MESSAGE

They agreed to keep their contact with each other to a bare minimum. This was the MO for their group. So Justine was a little surprised when Caroline showed up at the café where Justine worked as a cashier. But just a little; it had been two weeks since Caroline had started her new job.

She bought a brioche to take out and paid with a small bill. Justine gave her her change and glanced at the money she had handed her. On the serial number, a three was underlined and a four circled. That meant she would meet her at four the next day (it was already after five) at location number three on the list they had prearranged, a café not far from her apartment.

Justine was a little anxious about the meeting. What could be so important that it couldn't wait until their prearranged meet less than a week hence? But it was apparent the moment she sat down across from her that Caroline was a nervous wreck.

They didn't try to hide their tête-à-tête. They were, after all, two friends meeting for coffee, nothing more. If there were a safer way of doing it they would have, which is why they took every precaution before the meeting, but if they were seen, any attempt to be circumspect would have simply raised suspicions.

"I'm sorry," Caroline said, "I just couldn't wait. I'm scared."

Justine reached over and patted Caroline's hand reassuringly. She said nothing and waited for Caroline to continue. When she did the words rushed out in a voice between a gasp and a whisper. "They know. At least one of them knows. A man, an officer, said to me as he passed me in the hall, 'You're FFA. I am too."

Justine straightened in her chair. She couldn't think under what circumstances another one of their agents would identify himself as such, even to someone he knew was a comrade. There could be reason, but it was beyond her.

"Who did you tell…about me, I mean?" Caroline said.

"No one, just…" and here she hesitated. She had almost given the name of her superior, "the person I report to. And she doesn't know who you are, or enough to identify you to anyone else."

"You've got to get in touch with her and find out what's going on. I need to know if I'm in danger. I might have to run."

"No," Justine said, the explanation suddenly coming to her. "If my boss had let anyone know of your existence she would have told me for sure. MIS probably does this with all unknown new employees. A test of sorts, to see what your reaction would be. Are you sure you weren't followed?"

"Yes. Yes. But there's more." Caroline paused. "They had me assist in a torture session." Justine said nothing, just tilted her head in an invitation to keep talking. "I didn't do much, just checked vital signs." She stopped and dropped her eyes. "And administered a stimulant when she fainted." She looked back up at Justine. "I had to. If I didn't… They also had me attach the electrodes to her body, even inside her vagina. I clipped a cable onto her clitoris. Oh God Justine, it was terrible." Caroline bit her lip and stifled a sob. "She screamed and screamed and they just kept on torturing her. I have no idea who she was or what she did. She was gagged the whole time and they just kept going at her. I don't know if I could do it again, watch it again…"

Without another word she stood up and left. Fled might be the better word.

PART TWO: CAPTURED

SEIZED

Five days later Justine was snatched up while she slept. They worked with a speed and efficiency that would have been frightening if she had had time to think about it. The cover was pulled from her, she was rolled onto her stomach, her wrists bound behind her back and a cloth gag stuffed in her mouth, all before she even knew what was happening. It took ten seconds. In that time she was rendered totally helpless, unable to resist, incapable of calling out for help, as though anyone would have responded.

After her wrists were zip-tied and she was gagged, they could have finished at a more leisurely pace, but they didn't slacken. She didn't know how many of them there were, it seemed as though at least a dozen. There were four. One of them seized her ankles, crossed them and zip-tied them while another wound a cloth around her head, blindfolding her. A broad swath of tape was slapped over her mouth, sealing the gag. She was lifted off the bed and placed in a kneeling position on the floor. She felt a sheet of plastic under her bare shins, which a moment later was wrapped over her thighs and pulled down hard, welding the back of her thighs to her calves. Once again she was lifted, the plastic sheeting wrapped tightly around her legs once more, then passed under her legs again. A pair of hands pushed down on her shoulders hard, forcing her breasts against the plastic that bound her thighs and calves together, and then the sheet was pulled tight over her back. The process was repeated, and again. When they finished she was bound into a tight ball, her face pressed against her knees, unable to move a muscle.

A kind of duffle bag was pulled over her bound body. She was pushed onto her side and the bag was zipped closed. She was lifted, her body now upside down, and carried down the stairs and loaded into a car trunk. The car moved off and she knew it would be a short ride; she was certain they were on their way to MIS headquarters for interrogation. It was only now that Justine began to panic. The shock of her seizure had benumbed her for the few minutes it took to carry her off, but now the full impact of her kidnapping struck her. Interrogation by MIS meant torture, and in all probability, death. And if the stories were to be believed, confession and information made no difference. Capture by MIS meant a slow death by torture.

Justine began a frantic struggle against her bonds, weeping while she did. It was stifling being encased in plastic inside the bag. She had to fight for every breath and within a couple of minutes her t-shirt and panties were soaked with perspiration.

It was less than five minutes before the car stopped and she was lifted out of the trunk and carried into an elevator. Words cannot convey the abject terror she felt at being carried upside down inside a tight fitting bag into a building that engendered nothing but extreme horror from every citizen.

Justine could barely breathe and had almost passed out when the bag was lowered to the floor and opened. She was spilled out onto the hard tile. With her mouth gagged, she sucked in as much air as she could through her nose, thankful to be free of the canvas prison and for the chance to breathe somewhat more freely. She was lying on her side, unable to move within the skintight plastic sheeting that bound her body into a compact ball. She thought that now they would untie her and take her to a cell, but instead she heard their footsteps recede and a door shut. She was alone, blindfolded, gagged and helpless in a cocoon of plastic. But at least she could breathe.

She didn't know how long she lay there. Her first instinct was to escape. She didn't know how the sheets of plastic had been fastened, or even if they had been fastened at all and simply clung to each other like Saran wrap. Perhaps there was a glimmer of hope in that. In any case, she thought, she couldn't just lie there and wait for them to come back and take her to her to be tortured. So once more she struggled inside her plastic sheathing, fighting with all her strength to free herself. But it didn't take long before her energy flagged and all she had accomplished was to wriggle around on the floor a few inches. She also realized that even if the plastic sheets parted she would still be bound hand and foot and completely helpless. She moaned and wept for a while longer, petrified of what the future held for her. She wondered how long she would be able to withstand whatever it was they had planned for her. She tried to keep the idea of torture out of her mind, but it was there, floating around in her brain and coloring her every thought. Finally, exhausted physically and mentally, she fell into a fitful doze. Neither awake nor asleep, she waited for her captors to come for her.

CONFINEMENT

She had no idea how long she was wrapped up in that plastic ball. She had lost track of time, aware only of the dull pain that suffused every inch of her body and the slick sweat that coated every inch of her skin. Her damp skin and scant clothing clung to the plastic and increased her discomfort.

She became aware of their presence only when they began cutting away the plastic sheets. At the same time the tape over her mouth was pulled off and the gag pulled from her mouth. The relief was immediate but short lived. She opened her mouth, working the jaw muscles to relieve the painful stiffness resulting from having her mouth stretched around the bulky gag. Instantly metal tongs grasped her tongue and pulled it straight out, where it was trapped between two slabs of hard rubber. The device was wider than her lips and jammed into the corners of her mouth. It allowed her to suck some air around it, eased her breathing and she could now make unintelligible sounds of protest, which she did, even though she knew they would be ignored.

She was pulled to her feet and dragged some fifty feet, and shoved into a cage of heavy metal bars. It was the width of her hips and they had to press down on her head and shoulders to get her in. This forced her neck to bend forward so the top of her head was pushed against the bars at the front and the back of her head against the bars at the top. Her shoulders were pressed in so closely by the sides of the cage that they were hunched toward each other, which with her wrists crossed and bound behind her back, hurt. When the door shut behind her it pressed against her buttocks, making any movement almost impossible.

The bars of the cage were made of iron, the insides of which had been judiciously worked on with an abrasive, so that they were rough enough to abrade human flesh. Justine's head was bent forward so her face was looking downward and the back of her head pressed hard against the top of the cage and those jagged iron bars. Slowly she bent her knees trying to relieve the pressure and the pain but after only a couple of inches her knees were against the front of the cage and she couldn't flex them any further. Now it was her knees that suffered where the iron bars pushed into them and the only way she could keep her head from hitting the top of the cage was by keeping her neck bent at an angle. If she tried to straighten up a little to relieve the pressure on her knees, her thighs began to burn painfully from being kept in a semi-squat position.

She struggled franticly to find a position that would ease the pain. But after a few seconds the new pain would become greater and greater and she would have to move the few inches she could. Her little dance went on and on, and the pain got worse and worse. How long did it go on? Her sense of time was gone. A minute in that hell hole seemed like an hour. She couldn't measure time in seconds and minutes, only in how long it took for her grunts turned to moans and her moans turned to sobs.

The walls of the torture-cage seemed to press in on her tighter and tighter. Being blind became part of the nightmare and she tried to get rid of her blindfold by rubbing it on the iron bars, only managing to hurt herself more. Justine felt as though she were trapped in a steel straightjacket, one that was squeezing the life out of her. She couldn't stand the touch of the walls. It was worse than the pain. She knew she was going to be slowly crushed to a pulp. She began to thrash about, her t-shirt and bottoms tearing and her skin scraping where it touched the rough bars. Her sobs were punctuated by screams of terror. She began to scream for help, forgetting about her gag and where she was and why she was there.

PART THREE: FIRST TASTE OF TORTURE

PREPARED FOR THE WHIP

Justine didn't know how long she spent in that hideous device. Probably many hours, she thought, but maybe a day or more. In reality it was eight hours, and she was half out of her mind when the door was pulled open and she was pulled out of the cage.

Her legs were useless and would not support her; she would have fallen flat on her back if hands had not lowered to the floor. She was lying on her stomach moaning into her gag when they cut through her wrist tie. Her arms slid uselessly to her sides. For a moment she thought that she had awoken from a horrible dream, or that she had been rescued or that she was about to be released. The reality was clear, however, when seconds later she was flipped onto her back and her wrists retied with rope in front of her. The ankle bindings, the blind fold and gag remained.

Still in a daze she felt the now familiar grasp of rough hands under her arms lifting her and dragging her across the floor. When they stopped her arms were pulled above her head and fastened to a hook at the end of a metal cable. For a moment Justine hung there face down, her back arched and her lower legs and the tops of her feet still in contact with the floor, until she heard the whine of an electric motor and her wrists were pulled upward.

She was rising slowly and it hurt her arms from her wrists to her shoulders. She groaned into her gag, barely aware of what was happening. She was pulled higher until her feet were barely in contact with the cold floor. Now her shoulders began to burn and she reflexively scrambled to get her feet under her for support. It took a few seconds but her toes found purchase on the floor and she managed to stand, albeit with her heels inches off the ground and her body stretched upward by the rope.

A bucket of icy water was splashed over her head and she came out of her trance. Incongruously, her first thought was that with her t-shirt drenched her tormentors could see her breasts and nipples. Seconds later she didn't have to worry about her nipples showing through her wet t-shirt as it was ripped from her back. Only then did it occur to her that she was going to be whipped.

Two of her captors positioned themselves on either side of her. The one on her left walked toward her. She heard his footsteps approach. Then he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her neck. She whimpered in fear. His hand pushed her long hair over her shoulder, then ran down her spine. With his forefinger he traced a path on her bare back from her right shoulder blade to her left hip. She understood that this is where he would strike. She steeled herself for the pain. "How bad could it be?" she thought. She heard him step away and then right behind her head she heard the sound of a rifle crack. It was the whip of course, snapping through the air, not aimed at her, but merely a foretaste of what was to come.

That sound changed her perspective, her reality. The soft breeze from the ventilating system she felt on her back was no longer cooling and welcome; it was a stark reminder that all she wore was a pair of rather scanty briefs, that she was naked above the waist, and that her back was bare and unprotected from the instrument of torture that made that frightening noise. As were her breasts, "my soft breasts," she thought, at her captors' disposal, bared for the whipping.

The whip snapped again behind her. The thought of that lash cutting into her delicate breasts terrified her more than anything in her life. She began to pull at the rope that held her wrists, that stretched her taut for her whipping. She twisted and squirmed futilely at the end of her tether. They couldn't, they wouldn't use the whip on her breasts. But of course they could. There was nothing to stop them. This was, after all, torture. Torture – she was beginning to understand the true meaning of that word. Her body shivered uncontrollably. She began to sob, the tears running out from under her blindfold. "No!" she cried, "Wait! Wait!" Her gag swallowed up her words but not her terror. A terrible feeling of helplessness fell over her. All she could do was wait for the whip to cut into her flesh.

Her tormentor waited too, enjoying the way she was suffering from the anticipation of her pain. He stepped close again and draped the whip over her shoulder so it ran between her breasts and snaked below her navel. It was thin and supple and seemed almost alive. She shuddered and moaned into her gag. She thought she heard her torturer snicker. She couldn't be sure; if it was, it was the only human noise she had heard since her capture.

WHIPPED

When the lash finally fell it drew a line of fire from her right shoulder to her left hip. She hadn't thought such pain was possible. She screamed as she had never screamed before. The violence of her shriek almost tore her tongue from the grip of the gag. Even before her scream had died, he struck again, flinging the whip across the small of her back.

Her back arched and she pulled down on her bound wrists so hard she lifted herself off the floor. Her mouth was wide open but the only sounds coming from it were short animal grunts. Her body came back down and somehow she managed to balance on her toes. She stood there gasping for air and waiting for the next assault of the whip.

The seconds ticked by and still there was no sound of the lash cutting through the air. The wait was a torment in itself, knowing that any second that unholy pain would ravage her again, yet hoping against hope that they were done, that the torture was over. Of course her torturers knew that too, which was why they waited.

When it came the whip sliced her back from the left shoulder to the right hip, the mirror image of the first cut. Underneath the agony came the realization that somebody was whipping her from the other side.

Her scream seemed to sap the little strength she had left in her legs and she sagged in her bonds. She hung from her wrists, her only thought being that there was nothing she could do to stop her torture. She tried to beg for mercy but with the gag clamping down on her tongue she could only make unintelligible sounds; all she could do was pray silently to God to make it end. The whip cut across her back in a line parallel to the one at the small of her back, but higher, its supple length curving around her left side just below her breast.

The next lash came from her left side, the tip of the whip digging into her right underarm and her agony reached new heights. When her scream emptied her lungs she took a deep breath and screamed again. Her toes curled beneath her and she dangled helplessly, unable to stand against the pain.

The motor whined again and she was lifted off the floor. The tie around her ankles was cut and replaced with shackles, attached by a short chain of only two links. She twisted her head back and forth, trying to rub her blindfold loose on her up-stretched arms; she needed to see what they were going to do to her next.

They hung a weight from her shackles, heavy enough to make her groan into her gag. It pulled her body painfully taut, but that was not the only reason for her groan; the thought that the lash would now fall on her tightly stretched flesh horrified her.

They switched to a broader strap-like whip. It would not cut up her back as quickly as the thin whip they had been using; they could whip her longer without causing as much damage. They alternated sides, sometimes spacing the blows minutes apart, sometimes striking two or three times in quick succession. She screamed at each stroke, sobbing uncontrollably when they paused between. They worked the strap up and down her body from her shoulder blades to her calves and back again. Sometimes the whip reached around her, striking the sides of her breasts, her stomach and the front of her thighs. They spared only her lower belly and buttocks, the area covered by her briefs.

Through the haze of pain she realized they were not attacking the most sensitive part of her body. Perhaps she should have been thankful for this but instead it horrified her. She knew who her captors were. She knew they had no scruples or limits when it came to torturing a member of the underground. And she knew how they absolutely reveled in sexual torture. If they were sparing her sex now, it was only for more precise and exotic abuse later.

As she hung there in her chains, this thought filled her mind, filled it to the point that when she felt the weight removed from her shackled ankles she felt, not relief that maybe the whipping was over, but terror at the idea they might now begin to brutalize her pussy. Then in an instant she was sure of it. In a moment they would tear off her panties and remove her shackles so they could spread her legs. They would tie her ankles far apart and use the whip on the inside of her thighs, the thin cutting lash slowly climbing up the V of her legs until the barbed tip savaged her vagina over and over until her pussy was shredded and torn to bloody pieces of flesh.

She needn't have worried just yet. She was lowered until her bare feet were flat on the floor. A short chain attached her shackles to a U-bolt set in the floor and the hoist was started once more lifting her clear. She was slowly pulled taut, then even more slowly stretched tighter and tighter. She was being painstakingly racked. First the muscles in her slim arms and legs started to burn and then it felt as though hot nails were being driven into her shoulders and hips, her elbows and knees. She tried to cry out but didn't have the breath. She could feel her stomach being pulled apart, ready to tear. And then they stopped.

And then the whipping resumed, again with the long thin lash. It slashed her lower back and curled around her side to bite into her taut stomach. She shrieked at the unbelievable pain. Not only was her skin stretched tight, but her tightly racked body couldn't move an inch to absorb the force. Next the whip cut into her shoulders and tore at her armpit. She screamed, drew in her breath and screamed again before she fainted.

She was revived with a dousing of cold water and the whipping started again. She was screaming nonstop, her brain consumed by the thought that if she screamed enough she would run out of oxygen and faint. The torture was unbearable. She fainted twice more.

PART FOUR

FINAL STEPS

When she revived the last time, she was lying on her belly. Her captors had fastened a stiff wide leather collar around her neck and were in the process of fettering her wrists with leather cuffs. Her arms were pulled behind her back and bent upwards so her wrists met between her shoulder blades. There the cuffs were clipped to the collar, binding her wrists behind her neck.

She was pulled to her feet and held there; she could not have stood unaided. The shackles were removed from her ankles, and metal cylinders were slid over her big toes. They were connected by a thin chain and had a small screw on the top side. When the screws were tightened she let out a short cry of pain into her gag.

One of her captors prodded her at the small of her back. Still blindfolded and with knees so shaky she could not remain standing without two of the brutes gripping her by her elbows, she tentatively moved one foot forward. Immediately she felt a pull and a sharp pain in both big toes.

The chain used to attach her toes, was no more than ten inches long, forcing her to move forward in an awkward shuffle. The two guards that held her let her go at her own pace but if she was not moving fast enough to satisfy them, a third tormentor lashed her flayed back with a short quirt. Thus she was pushed onward, each hobbled step forcing her to grunt in pain and each assault with the quirt drawing a scream from her gagged lips.

If a straight path had been taken to Interrogation Room Three the walk would have been no more than five minutes, even at the slow pace Justine's hobbled toes forced on them. As it were, the circuitous route chosen by the guards took them a half hour. They actually passed the interrogation room three times, reversed themselves often and took two short elevator rides, one up and one down.

Justine was aware at some level that she was being led in circles. She even wondered if it were being done for their pleasure watching her struggle and hearing her groans and cries of pain. But it didn't matter. She was in great pain, totally exhausted and could not think rationally. She just wanted her ordeal to end and gave no thought as what she had to do to accomplish that.

They supported her as she staggered onward, urged forward by the lash. Four times they stopped and pressed her nose against the wall, pushing her face hard into it. Three times they started her march again. The fourth time the wall moved away from her and the next stage of her suffering was about to begin.

INTERROGATION ROOM THREE

The door opened inwards and after a moment she heard a woman's voice say, "Thank you gentlemen, right on time. If you would be so kind as to secure the prisoner to...well you know the drill."

It was now horrifyingly clear to her: what she had endured - the whipping, the torment, the debasement, the pain - had been no more than a warm-up, an exercise to soften her up, a mere prelude to her interrogation. It was here that her torture would begin.

She tried to fight them. Her struggles were laughable. With her wrists bound behind her neck and her feet neatly fettered, she couldn't even flail her legs. All she could do was writhe in their grasp as they lifted her in the air.

Justine was dropped onto a steel table. She was flat on her back, staring up at a white ceiling. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Her wrists were unclipped from her collar and the collar fastened to a head rest by two rings at the side. Her arms were pulled up and back and bent over the back of the table and her wrists shackled to rings beneath the surface, pulling her arms painfully tight. Her biceps squeezed against her head and she smelled the acrid odor of fear that emanated from her armpits. The bondage arched her back off the table and pushed her breasts forward. A belt was tightened around her just below the rib cage, pushing her back against what she was already beginning to think of as her torture table. As all this was going on, her ankles, knees, thighs and waist were being strapped securely to the device.

"Dim the lights," the woman said. And then to Justine, "I am going to remove your blindfold and I want to help your eyes to adjust. I want to start on you soon and I want you to be able see what we have for you."

The woman's voice chilled Justine to the bone. The thought of being tortured by a woman added a new dimension to her terror; why she was not sure. Maybe, Justine thought, because she will know my body like her own, will know better how to torture my secret places. The woman spoke slowly and distinctly, lecturing Justine while her eyes adapted to the light.

"You know why you're here, and you know what we are going to do to you. But just to make it clear – you are going to be interrogated, but first I will torture you." She was standing next to Justine, smiling down on her. Justine pulled at her bonds; nothing moved.

Justine could see her now. She was slim, actually too thin, with no breasts or hips one could discern under the white lab coat she wore. She probably would have been attractive, pretty even, if not for a deformed upper lip that might have been a cleft palate.

"I am an excellent interrogator; I am an even better torturer. I am an excellent interrogator because I can sense my subject's state of mind. I am a great torturer because I am a sadist, and there is nothing in the world I enjoy more than making a beautiful young woman suffer. I really don't care at this point if you are willing to give me everything you know – you will be tortured.

"When I am done you will tell me everything I want to know. You will not be gagged while I torture you, I want to hear you screaming for me to stop and begging me for mercy. But you will not be able to stop the torture by confessing; I will simply ignore you. And, when I am willing to listen, if I have the slightest doubt about your information, I will resume hurting you in ways you cannot imagine.

"Now it is time for me to get to work on you. Caroline, prepare her."

CLAMPS, TEETH AND NEEDLES

Justine should not have been surprised. She knew Caroline had assisted in at least one torture session. But hearing her name and seeing her walking toward her, pushing a trolley gleaming with metal clamps that had wires running to a black box festooned with all manner of dials and switches, stunned her. Her eyes were wide and dilated with fear and she shook her head back and forth in denial to the degree the leather collar would allow.

The look on Caroline's face frightened her more than the sight of the electrical contacts that would soon be attached to her body. It was one of terror. It told her at a glance the torture would be so horrible it would be unbearable for her to watch.

She bent forward with a shiny clamp in her hand but the Interrogator stopped her. "Caroline, please. You are forgetting the explanation. Don't be in such a rush. I like to draw this out as much as possible. You know that."

Caroline looked back over her shoulder and said, "Yes. Of course. I'm sorry."

The Interrogator sighed. "I'm beginning to think you are too sensitive to ever be any good at this work."

Caroline held the clamp in front of Justine's face. "I am going to attach this to your breast, high up, where it becomes the inside of your armpit." She opened the clamp wide. "Do you see the row of teeth? They will dig into your flesh and make sure the clamp does not come loose as you buck and heave when the electricity hits you." Caroline reached down to fasten that gruesome clamp to Justine's breast. The moment before she did she mouthed to her, I'm sorry Jus. I'm so sorry. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and all Justine could think of was Be strong Caroline. Don't give yourself away.

The spring that held the jaws of the clamp closed was strong, so strong that Caroline's fingers had to strain to press the levers to open it. She did not let it snap shut, but let it close slowly, saving Justine some pain. Still, it hurt terribly, and she could not suppress a cry of pain from escaping around her gag, and again when the second clamp was fastened to the other breast.

Next came three one-inch in diameter disks. These had small teeth along the circumference, which made them look like giant beer bottle caps. Caroline loosened the belt that ran around Justine just above her hips and held her tight to the table. She could now slide the first disc under the strap below Justine's navel, and then tighten the strap to press the disc into her belly. It hurt, but not as badly as the next two when the process was repeated at the inside of her thighs. Those straps were only inches from her crotch, and when the straps were pulled tight the sharp teeth of the disks bit deeply into the firm muscles stretched taut by her bondage.

The Interrogator came forward a few steps. "Until we start the electro-torture we don't need you gagged. And when we fix the next set of electrodes to your body it is going to hurt like hell. No reason I should deprive myself and Caroline of your screams.

"Take her gag out."

It was so eerie for Justine, lying there, strapped down, unable to move while this woman made casual decisions with no more than a few seconds consideration that were of greater importance to her than anything else in her life had ever been. "Take her gag out so I can hear her scream while I torture her," said with the same emotion as "Which bus do I take to the city center?" And she could do nothing but lie there and wait, absolutely helpless to do anything about it. Well at least now with the gag out she could beg.

"Water. Please…water."

Caroline took a step back and then looked at the Interrogator. She moved her head in an abbreviated nod. They must have had this request many times because she immediately brought Justine a bottle with a plastic tube through which she could suck out water. She held it there for her until the Interrogator said, a little sharply, "That's enough. Get on with her toes."

Caroline held up two metallic objects which Justine could not make out clearly. No matter, the Interrogator was going to enlighten her. "What you see is a mesh tube which is going to be slipped over your large toe. The mesh can be easily tightened by a band at the bottom so it grips your toe firmly. But focus at the top. There are two teeth slightly less than an inch long. Nurse Caroline is going to position these teeth so as the mesh is drawn down your toe they will be driven under your toenail. If the screams of our previous subjects are any measure, it hurts like a bitch. But do try and remember, this is not the real torture, we are simply getting a good contact for the electricity."

She felt the wire mesh on her right big toe, felt it being positioned, felt the jagged teeth under the tip of her nail, heard the Interrogator's voice, "See how she already squirms."

When the teeth found the soft flesh under Justine's nail her entire body went stiff. "Slowly now," the interrogator instructed.

Justine screamed as the teeth were worked millimeter by millimeter under her toenail. Her body jerked and twisted as much as the tight straps that held her would allow. "Good job," the Interrogator said to Caroline and Justine screamed again.

When Caroline started to slide the mesh over the large toe on Justine's left foot she began babbling, "Oh God. Oh God. OhGodohGodohGodohGod," before she once more shrieked in pain.

Caroline iced Justine's nipples, then slipped a noose of thick wire over each and pulled them tight, trapping the swollen buds, squeezing them painfully and forcing them erect. When this procedure had been completed she stepped aside and the Interrogator held a three inch needle before Justine's eyes. The young captive shook her head violently from side to side and began to beg. "No. No. You can't. Please. Please don't. Don't do it. Please."

The Interrogator placed a hand over Justine's mouth to silence her. "Listen you little cunt. I am going to stick this right down the center of one of those pretty pink buttons until all that shows is the head and the electrical wire. You're going to scream your pretty head off. But the beauty part is that with my little device I can direct the current from any part of your body to your tit or concentrate it in your nipple." She then licked the point of the needle and began to slowly slide it into Justine's nerve-rich flesh.

When Justine stopped shrieking the Interrogator held the second needle against Justine's trembling lips. "Lick it," she commanded. Justine stared at her, unable to comprehend her tormentor's obscene order. In response, the Interrogator took the nipple that had already been pierced between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed.

Justine shrieked "Stop it! Stop it."

"Lick the fucking needle," the Interrogator barked, as she continued to press Justine's tormented flesh against the invading needle. Not caring about anything but the pain; not concerned about this newest abasement at the hands of her torturer; not thinking about what this degradation meant in terms of her questioning and ability to resist torture, Justine licked the needle. The Interrogator smiled and placed the point of the new needle at the center of Justine's other nipple and began its slow journey into her beautiful victim's gentle breast.

Smelling salts roused Justine from her faint. She tried to pull her head away from the noxious odor but was held fast by the collar. Her nipples and great toes throbbed painfully but what immediately became the center of her attention was the position of her legs; while she had been unconscious they had been spread, and indeed, were even now being pulled wider apart.

The portion of the torture table to which her legs had been strapped were extensions that could be cranked apart into a wide V to allow access to, in this case, Justine's vagina and anus. She fought in vain for a few seconds to resist the spreading of her thighs, but the mechanism was unrelenting. A few seconds later when her Interrogator was satisfied that she could operate on Justine's pussy unhindered, the spreading stopped.

Within seconds Justine felt a tug at the waistband of her panties and the cold touch of shears on her belly. It was dead silent in the room and Justine could hear clearly the sound of the blades cutting away the material at the juncture of her crotch and right hip, and then the left.

Justine groaned, and then began to cry softly. The pain from her overextended hips was not insignificant, but was nothing in comparison with the terror of knowing her thighs had been spread so they could torture her sex.

The Interrogator held up two shiny silver cylinders. "These," she said, "are going inside you, the smaller one up your asshole, and the thicker one up your cunt. And these," she said presenting two three inch long, one inch wide, serrated clamps, "are going to snap onto your pussy lips. Actually, they go on first; makes it easier to get the electric dildo inside you when we pull them to the side."

Justine could bear no more; she began to struggle frantically as the Interrogator spoke, writhing uncontrollably on the torture table and pulling desperately at the leather cuffs that shackled her wrists and ankles. Totally lost in her futile effort to escape her bonds, she was unaware of the Interrogator chuckling at her young captive's useless struggles.

"And this," offering a vicious looking toothed clasp, "goes on your clit."

PART FIVE: START OF JUSTINE'S TORTURE

FIRST QUESTIONS

Justine arched her back in one last attempt to free herself, then collapsed on the table, drained and panting from the effort of her struggles. The Interrogator looked down at the naked girl and licked her lips. She reached out and touched the inch wide line of pubic hair running down Justine's belly, then ran her finger to the apex of her pussy.

"Who did you shave yourself for?" she asked.

Justine stared up at her tormentor in puzzled disbelief.

"You heard me, who did you shave yourself for? Don't tell me you keep your pubes in a neat little line like that so you look good in the mirror."

Justine opened her mouth wide, then closed it. She understood. The woman was trying to humiliate her, to lord her control over her by making her answer personal questions she would never ask if she did not have her splayed out naked and helpless before her.

The Interrogator moved her hand lower and dipped her thumb and forefinger into Justine's vagina. Justine groaned and tried to slide her hips away from the offending digits, but the straps around her thighs and waist held her tight. The fingers found her clitoris, one to either side, and slowly closed.

"Who did you do that for?"

Justine's mouth opened again, but this time the sounds that came from it were short gasps of pain uttered in rapid fire succession. The fingers squeezed tighter. "No! Stop! Stop! Stop!"

"Who did you do that for?"

Justine screamed. "No one! No one!" The fingers pressed tighter and pulled up. Justine screamed again. "No one! I swear no one! Stop! Oh please God stop!"

The Interrogator relaxed the pressure on the poor girl's clit but kept her fingers in position. "Men or women?"

"What? What do you want? What do you mean?"

"Is that sexy little haircut for men or for women?"

"Neither." The pressure increased. Justine cried out and answered quickly, "Men. Men."

"When is the last time you were laid?"

"Month ago," she whispered.

"So was this wishful thinking, or maybe you were thinking about a woman."

Justine groaned. She was thoroughly confused. "I don't know." The pressure on her clit increased. "Why are you doing this? I don't know. Stop, please stop this."

"Have you ever been with a woman?"

"No. Please."

"Would you like to be with a woman?"

"No. I don't know." Once again the Interrogator squeezed hard and Justine shrieked in pain. "Yes! Yes! Just stop!" It was true; she had masturbated more than once thinking of Marty.

The Interrogator removed her hand from Justine's pussy and touched them to her lips. "Clean them," she said. When Justine hesitated she started to move her fingers down to her clit. Justine screamed at her "Wait, I'll do it! I'll do it."

She pushed her fingers into Justine's mouth and the helpless girl sucked them vigorously. "I knew you liked women, which leaves only one question: how do you expect to hold out against torture when a little pressure on your clit has you crying like a baby? If you think that was pain, wait until I hook up your pussy with enough electricity to light up a house."

CAROLINE'S SUGGESTION

Justine lay on her torture table weeping softly, no longer fighting against her bonds. She gave every appearance of being defeated and resigned to her harsh destiny. She could no longer resist; she didn't have the strength. The whipping and torturous bondage had exhausted her; her struggles on the table had sapped the last ounce of her remaining strength.

The Interrogator ran the back of her hand down Justine's cheek. "You are going to be tortured. You know that. There is no way to prevent that. But…" The Interrogator bent over close to Justine's ear and said in a voice just above a whisper, "I can go easier on you. Much easier. I promise you it will not be worse than a session or two with the dentist…without Novocain of course. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever worked on. I must admit I look forward very much to hearing you scream under torture. But I must also admit that I would like even more to have you as my sex slave, to have you service me and fulfill my every desire. In return I will make sure you are satisfied. I will thrill you as only a woman can.

"But first you must answer my every question about your organization. And if it makes it any easier on you, we already have most of the information. That is your choice: unrelenting torture at the hands of an expert or unrelenting sex, also at the hands of an expert. So what do you think?"

The last question jolted Justine out of her torpor. For whatever reason she remembered clearly Caroline using those same words when asking her if she should take the job that led to her assisting in her torture. She looked past the Interrogator at Caroline who looked as though she were having a hard time keeping herself from breaking down. Their eyes met for an instant and Caroline pressed her lips tightly together. Justine thought she was saying, "If I have to torture you, I will, for our people. Please forgive me." In that moment Justine swore she would not betray her.

Still she could not in effect simply give the order for the Interrogator to start her torture. "How could I trust you once you have what you want?" she said.

The Interrogator laughed. "That sounds as though we have a deal if I can convince you I will follow through on my part of the bargain." Justine said nothing. "Well put simply, why would I want damaged goods to share my bed?"

Justine didn't dare look back at Caroline. She was going to suffer for her and for Marty and for all the others. "Do your worst."

The Interrogator shrugged and said sharply, "I will. I promise you, I will." Then, "Caroline, bring me the equipment. I'm going to put the finishing touches on this cunt up myself."

Caroline handed the Interrogator the anal probe. She looked at it for a moment and then said, "No, give me the other one. The circuitry's the same. It should work just fine, just fatter, will hurt a lot more, especially going in. We have another fat one for her pussy."

Caroline saw Justine stiffen, saw her breathing immediately become shallower, more rapid. "I wouldn't."

"Why? Is there something about this bitch makes you not want to hurt her?"

"No, not at all. Just too great a chance of dangerous injury for a small increment in pain. She could bleed a lot. It's not worth the chance. Listen, that's what you keep me around for, this kind of advice."

Justine noticed the anxiousness in Caroline's voice and hoped the Interrogator would not. She also noted the annoyance and sarcasm in the Interrogator's voice when she replied, "Alright, alright. Any other good ideas?"

"Well, yes actually. You told me once that the fear, the anticipation of the torture can be as bad as the torture itself. This one is pretty worn out. Let's give her a rest. I'll give her a mild sedative, just enough to put her under for a couple of hours along with some nutrient. In a couple of hours I'll dose her with a stimulant. She'll be alert, rested. Then we can give her a couple of hours to think about how she's going to be tortured, and she will be able to, uhmm, appreciate it more in a more attentive state."

Justine knew Caroline was doing everything she could to spare her the worst of the pain that was intended for her and in doing that was taking a chance she would herself come under suspicion. It was the bravest thing she had ever been witness to, and swore that no matter what they did to her she would never betray her friend.

She waited for the Interrogators reply, half expecting it to be an accusation of, at the least, Caroline being sympathetic to the underground. For a brief instant she had an image of Caroline hanging naked from her wrists and being whipped and scourged while she was forced to watch. So it was with relief she heard the Interrogator say, "Not a bad plan at all."

The Interrogator took the anal probe that Caroline had handed her. A thin veneer of lubricant shone on its metallic surface. She looked back at Caroline, thought of saying something, then turned back to her spread-eagled victim. "Caroline," she said without turning back, "Hold her head up. I want her to watch what I am doing."

Justine began to sob as the Interrogator slowly twisted the metal tube into her anus. It hurt of course, but it was the sight of that woman's deep concentration as she operated between her legs that drove her to tears. With the cylinder halfway in, she picked up her head and smiled at her sobbing victim, then bent back down so her face was almost obscured by Justine's thighs and belly.

The interrogator straightened up and picked up the fatter probe. She said nothing but smiled at Justine before she bent over so her face was mere centimeters from Justine's pussy. Justine closed her eyes and whimpered when she felt the slick head of the cylinder touch her lips. The Interrogator gently ran it up and down Justine's labia, increasing the pressure so the metal dipped into her sex, and then drawing it out so it just caressed her lips. Then she grabbed the clasp that clamped onto the spread-eagled girl's clit and pulled it out of the path of the thick metal cylinder. As she slowly, almost lovingly, pushed it into Justine's vagina, her helpless victim began to beg her, "Please…please…don't…please… not my pussy…please…" When the metal tube had disappeared into Justine's sex with a faint sucking sound, she looked up at the torturer and sobbed, "How can you do this to another woman? How? How?"

The answer was simply, "Caroline attach the wires. I want to get started."

She then paused and looked down on the naked beauty crying and writhing in the straps that bound her to the torture table, who moments before had turned down her offer of lesbian sex. "God you're sexy," she said. "You know I think I am going to enjoy torturing you more than fucking you." Then turning to Caroline, "We will do as you suggested but first I want to give this one a taste of what she is in for. It will make the wait all the more horrid."

A LITTLE SAMPLE

The Interrogator pulled a desk chair on castors up next to Justine and sat at her head. "You do understand, don't you, why I need to give you a trial run?"

Justine felt the grip of irresistible fear beginning to squeeze her chest. She had to fight it, could not let it overcome her if she was going to have any hope of not cracking under torture. "Because you're a sick fuck," she said, surprising herself that her voice was even and hard.

The Interrogator laughed. "Yes, by your lights I probably am. But I am not the one who is naked. I am not the one who is strapped down and helpless. I am not the one who is going to be tortured."

Justine turned her head away from the Interrogator, who took her by the chin and turned her head back so she was looking up at her. "And I am not the one who does not even have it in her power to turn her head.

"Those are the things I am not. What I am is someone who is going to break you, break your body, break your spirit, break your will. What I am is someone who is going to relish your every scream; who is going to laugh at you when you plead for mercy and go at you harder when you beg me to stop.

"But enough about me…Caroline, what do you suggest as a trial run?"

Caroline spoke from out of Justine's view. "Why not use the test mode? We can test each circuit we have her programmed for. Say one second each at level three and a ten second rest between each."

"Test mode, very good. But let's make it two seconds at level five with two second intervals."

Justine could not help but groan. Here two people were planning on hurting her in ways no stable person would consider, and bargaining over her torture as though she were a casaba melon at a souk.

"Two seconds, OK. But level five, even level four, would require a gag to make sure she didn't bite off her tongue. A gag would inhibit her screams. And ten seconds gives her time to recover, so it is not only safer but should make the next jolt somewhat more effective. Plus she will have more time to anticipate the following shock and draw out the total torture with an actual decrease in risk."

"OK, set it up. You can come over here and watch her with me. The computer will take care of everything."

"I think I should stay here and keep an eye on it."

"Nonsense. It sounds as though you don't have a stomach for this."

As an answer, Caroline walked over and stood behind the Interrogator. "Actually," she said, "Since I had a part in this I am rather anxious to see the results. The cycle should start in about thirty seconds."

Justine knew that Caroline was saying this to play her part for the Interrogator, knew she had done her best to mediate her pain, but it still cut her to the quick. She looked at her and saw her silently mouth I'm sorry over the Interrogator's shoulder. Justine now realized she didn't want her friend, her closest friend, perhaps her only friend, watch her writhe and scream under torture – torture she herself was being forced to help administer. That was the last thought Justine had before she felt the current burn through her right breast.

It started at her underarm and shot down in a fiery line. Her nipple exploded in pain that a fraction of a second later consumed the entire lobe. Despite the straps that bound her so tightly, her back lifted off the table and she hung in the air, her body quivering like a reed, for the full two seconds the electricity ran through her body. She didn't scream until the current abated and she fell back to the table.

It was a short shriek, more of horror than of pain, the worst of which had abated when the current stopped. Justine had no idea anything could hurt that badly. She lay on the table gasping for air when the second wave hit her other breast. Again she arched off the table, this time a strange animal sound between a growl and a grunt emanating from her throat. Before she had even collapsed back onto the table, the Interrogator snapped at Caroline, "Quick: hold the process."

Her brain reeling with pain, it took Justine a moment to understand what the Interrogator had said. Immediately her heart leapt – her torture was over! Then the Interrogator said to Caroline, "This is no fun. I need to control the pain. I will control the intervals, I will signal you when I want the current switched on. Don't worry; it will be at least ten seconds."

Her voice dropped to a murmur. "If I am not mistaken, the next path will be between your nipples. The needles I pushed down the middle of each should come into play nicely, even if it is only for two seconds. Next time it will be for a lot longer," and she nodded to Caroline.

Red hot pain crushed Justine's nipples, as though pliers heated with a blowtorch had been closed on each until the jaws met. The insides of her breasts too burned with intense heat, pain that by itself would have been unbearable but that paled in comparison with the agony from her nipples.

"So how was that?"

Justine couldn't answer. Her mouth gaped open and the only sounds she was making were a series of panting moans, "Uhh…uhh…uhh…" Finally she managed to gasp "You're…a…monster." The Interrogator signaled Caroline again.

They worked the electric charges down her body. The Interrogator took to lifting her arm and holding it raised in the air before bringing it down as the signal to start the current. That gave Justine time to anticipate the beginning of her torture. She would sob "Oh God…Oh God… Oh God…" or "nonononono" over and over until the electricity hit, but she didn't start begging until the charge ran between her thighs. She didn't know whether the charge ran from the left to the right or the right to the left; all she knew was that it coursed through her groin. Her body threw off a spray of sweat as she bucked and twisted straining to pull her hips free of the straps that held them fast. The only sound in the room for those two seconds was her animal like snarl through tightly clenched teeth. Then came the scream. "Stop it!" she shrieked, "For the love of God stop!"

The Interrogator raised her hand. Justine screamed "Noooo! No more! I beg of you. Have mercy on me. Pleassssse no more!" She kept pleading with the Interrogator to end her torture until the obvious truth broke in on her desperation and she knew there was no hope. She wailed "Noooo!" and began to sob. The Interrogator brought her hand down.

In the throes of agony Justine never noticed the Interrogator masturbating vigorously to climax as she signaled for Caroline to hit the button. When the current stopped, Justine shuddered once and passed out.

"That will do," the Interrogator said. "No sense in reviving her, she's had it for now. Hook up an IV and replenish her fluids. I will see you back here in four hours."

PART SIX: SHE IS GOING TO BREAK YOU

ENTR'ACTE

Caroline let Justine sleep for three and a half hours, not the two hours they had agreed upon. She felt the poor girl would need all of that, and probably a lot more, to survive her upcoming ordeal.

She looked down at the sleeping girl. At the moment Justine looked peaceful, her face and body relaxed. For a good deal of the prior hours she had jerked and twitched in her bonds, sometimes crying out in her sleep "No more," or "Stop. Please stop." But now she seemed finally to have thrown off the demons plaguing her rest.

She did indeed look beautiful, and Caroline was overcome with a sudden desire to touch her, to fondle her, to comfort her. She reached out and stroked her breast, then ran her hand down her belly to the thin strip of neatly groomed pubic hair. She wondered, had Justine done that for her? She felt herself becoming aroused. Could it in some perverted way have anything to do with Justine lying there helplessly and her own participation in her torture? She thought about moving her hand lower to Justine's open pussy when Justine suddenly shuddered and screamed "No more! No more! Somebody help me!"

Justine's eyes flew open and she tried to sit up. She was confused, totally lost between unconsciousness and awareness. She managed to lift her head a few inches and looked down her body, staring in bewilderment at the straps that bound her to the table. "Oh my God," she said, "I'm naked." Then she first saw Caroline.

"Caroline! Oh thank God! Help me! Save me!"

Caroline put her hand over Justine's mouth. "Shhh. Shhh. Listen to me. Do you know where you are?"

A few long seconds passed and finally Justine seemed to sag in her bonds. She nodded her head.

Caroline made a quick decision – she would have to be honest with her friend, no matter how much it hurt. Lying would only make the reality of her situation that much more horrible when her torture and interrogation started anew. "I can't stop it sweetheart. There is very little I can do…except pray for you."

Justine groaned. She was wide awake now. She understood.

Caroline removed her hand from Justine's mouth. "Then you know why I can't help you?"

Again Justine nodded her head, this time with a whispered "Yes."

"Now listen to me. I will do what I can to make this easier for you but you are going to suffer, to suffer terribly. There is nothing that can be done for that. We…she…is going to break you. No one can resist this torture for long. You are going to want to crack immediately, but you must hold out as long as you can. The only way she is going to believe you is if you fight it to the end. If you give in too easily she will be suspicious and continue the torture. It will be worse, the pain will be unbearable. And in the end the result will be the same. And don't lie. I know she has a lot of information, what exactly I don't know, but she will be able to judge much of what you say.

"But no matter what you can't give me up. If you do we will both die horrible deaths under torture. I know her, she would take great joy in stringing us up together and making us watch each other tortured in the vilest ways.

"Hold out as long as you can and give up what you have to. She might already have that information anyway. Then I think I can guarantee you a quick death when it is all over. Or even life in prison, until this miserable regime is overthrown and you would be released."

"At least can you loosen the straps?"

Caroline thought for a moment and then released Justine's manacles from the chain pulled them down over the top of the torture table. She then shackled them to the ends of a bar at the top of the table, spreading her arms wide and leaving her naked body spread-eagled. This left a little slack in her bondage, not enough to give her much freedom of movement but taking some of the pressure off her shoulders. Seconds later Justine was gasping and crying in pain as the blood and the feeling returned to her arms.

Caroline deliberated whether or not to loosen the belt at Justine's waist; it held the electrical contact in place and she probably would have to use tape to hold it down. Just then the door to Room Three opened. After a moment examining her prisoner, the Interrogator cocked her head and smirked, "I see you have moved our little friends arms," her voice rising as though she were asking a question.

Caroline answered calmly, "Well, to be honest, it was for aesthetic reasons. I'm sorry if I should have asked first. I think the spread of her arms, almost like a crucifixion, is more appealing. It makes her look so much more vulnerable, and sexy, don't you think. I thought it would be fun if our pet had just a bit more freedom to writhe around on the bench, you know, struggle without hope against her bonds. Also when the current hits, she will be able to arch her back and thrash around more vigorously, which I think we will find appealing."

The Interrogator smiled and patted Caroline on the back. "I knew when I hired you that you had potential…and look what I brought." She held out a pear shaped metal device that had a key-shaped shaft protruding from the narrow end. The wider end was somewhat discolored by what looked like a thin coating of rust.

"Because of its shape this instrument is called a pear. It has been in use since at least the middle ages. The wide end is inserted in one of the subjects orifices and when the key is turned the pear expands, like this."

As the pear loomed above her head, there was no doubt in Justine's mind that it was one of her orifices the pear was destined to penetrate. The only question was which one. But as the Interrogator turned the key and the pear expanded Justine became sure of its destination, and could almost feel the pressure of the metal leaves against her vagina, pushing the walls out further and further until the delicate inner tissues began to rip and then tear apart.

"They came in different sizes, oral, anal or vaginal. This one was meant for the mouth, but since it is the only one I have, I have had to make it work for any opening." She tilted the wide end of the instrument toward Justine. "For example, that red film you see is blood from the pussy of its last acquaintance. I'm sure it's dried by now, but you be sure to let me know if your saliva liquefies it."

Justine clamped her mouth shut. The Interrogator motioned with her head to Caroline and she seized Justine under the jaw and pressed hard on the juncture of upper and lower with her thumbs. The Interrogator pushed the tip of the pear against Justine's closed lips.

Justine groaned in pain but managed to keep her mouth closed. "If you don't open wide I can shove this in and break a few teeth in the process." She tried to shake her head loose from Caroline's grip. That was useless but she kept her lips pressed together. The Interrogator pushed harder. Justine felt the cold metal press her lips against her teeth. Then, with no warning the Interrogator slammed the heel of her hand against Justine's belly. Justine's jaws flew open with a loud gasp and the pear was shoved in, completely filling her mouth.

The outline of the torture instrument could be seen etched against her cheeks. She cried out in protest but all that emerged was a muffled wail. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly as she fought to suck air past the iron obstruction. The Interrogator grasped the key to the pear and looked at Justine with a pleasant grin. The helpless girl tried to shake her head, tried to scream "No," tried to beg for mercy, but all that was denied her. The hand grasping the key held her head immobile while the pear reduced her pleas to meaningless mewling. The Interrogator watched her, smiled and said in a sharp voice, "Deep throat this, bitch."

INTERROGATION OR PUNISHMENT

The Interrogator turned the screw almost a full revolution. Justine's cheeks bulged as the pear filled her mouth and forced her jaws open wider. The next turn spread her jaws to the breaking point. Her torturer wondered if any further widening of the pear would dislocate her prisoner's jaws. Justine was writhing frantically in her bonds, gasping for air. The Interrogator decided to give it a try, and gave the screw a quarter turn. The only sounds in the room were a strangled gurgling and the rattle of the chains that held Justine's wrists as she pulled spasmodically at her fetters. The oxygen starved girl's taut belly quivered and her breasts rose and fell rapidly on her heaving rib cage. Her eyes bulged. The pear made breathing through her mouth impossible and impeded the flow of air from her nostrils to the point she had to fight desperately for each breath. The lack of air intensified the horrible pain of having her mouth stretched beyond its limits.

"Ease it back," Caroline almost shouted. The Interrogator looked angrily at her, but Caroline responded immediately. "If you don't you're going to kill her. If you shock her with her breathing so restricted she will strangle to death." The Interrogator thought for a moment and then reluctantly brought the pear back to an almost closed position. "Thank you," Caroline said, "The electro torture will still be unbearable even with the pear inserted fully closed."

Justine knew that Caroline was doing whatever she could to ease her ordeal, but she also knew that what she said was true, that the pain of the electro torture would be unbearable. The Interrogator walked to the control panel, which was situated just two feet from Justine's head, and sat down. Justine followed her every step with increasing dread. All she knew for certain was that the "test" they had put her through was by far the worst pain she had ever suffered in her young life and this was going to be a lot worse.

"I think you know how this works, don't you?" Justine lifted her head the few inches her bondage allowed and screamed "Don't do this to me!" at her grinning torturer. All that emerged from her pear packed mouth was an incomprehensible muddle.

It went on for 22 minutes; 23 minutes might have killed her, and it wasn't long before Justine wished it would. There was no way to describe the torture. The pain of course was soul destroying. She couldn't have imagined anything as agonizing as having the bolts of electricity coursing through her breasts and armpits, stabbing at her belly and streaming up her legs and through her groin.

When it was over, Justine lay on the torture table with her head lolling feebly from side to side. The Interrogator removed the pear. "Can you hear me," she said. When Justine responded with a low moan, she said to Caroline, "We'll get nothing from her now. I'll give her 30 minutes, an hour, to recover, then I'll continue the interrogation. I'm going out for a bit. Stay here with her just in case she wakes and wants to talk. Buzz me. I'll be close by."

PART SEVEN: JUSTINE'S TORTURE CONTINUES

THE FIRST CRACK IN HER RESISTANCE

After five minutes Justine's eyelids fluttered, then opened. She looked at Caroline but it took a full minute before she could focus and identify the person looking worriedly down at her. She started to cry. Between sobs she gasped out to Justine, "I can't take any more…I can't…I'm sorry…too much…pain…Have to talk.... give them up…Oh God…forgive me."

Caroline reached up and stroked her forehead. "Shhh. Don't. I told you no one could hold out against this torture."

"But what will happen to them?" she wept.

"Don't. Don't think about that."

"Oh God, she's going to torture them. It's my fault. They're going to be tortured."

"It's not your fault. We all knew what we risked. And she might already have their names."

"I can't stand any more. I can't. I want to die. No more…no more." Justine's voice trailed off to more sobbing.

Caroline had a decision to make – should she call the Interrogator back now or give Justine more time to gather herself. If the former Justine would be totally believable but on the other hand might give Caroline up in her crazed state. A few minutes rest might give her more protection.

"I'll call her back and tell her you've broken. Give everyone up to make sure she believes you but you can't name me. Do you understand? It will do no good and I won't be able to continue our work."

Justine looked her straight in the eye and said in a level voice, "Yes. Yes, I understand. Just make this stop." Caroline pressed the button.

The Interrogator was back in the torture room in a matter of minutes. When she opened the door she did so slowly and quietly so as to check on her prisoner before she had a chance to react. What she saw was Justine spread out on her back, sobbing and writhing uncontrollably in her chains.

She shut the door and Justine jerked her head around at the sound. When the naked girl saw the Interrogator she screamed, a wordless shriek of fear, and then screamed "NO!" The Interrogator moved to her side and Justine screamed again as her head rolled from side to side, her eyes moving between her two tormentors. "Get her away from me! Get her away from me."

The Interrogator moved her hand onto Justine's stomach and patted it softly, then moved her hand down slowly over her belly until her fingers were entwined in Justine's neatly trimmed pubic bush. The tightly bound girl managed to lift her head from the torture table and watch her tormentor's fingers inch toward her wide spread thighs. She shook her head slowly back and forth, her voice now little more than a whisper, begging "No…no…not there…not my pussy…no more… I'll talk…I'll tell you… everything. Just no…no more torture."

"Don't lie to me. If you do, or if you so much as omit one name or piece of information, you will suffer worse than if you had kept silent."

Caroline held a small recorder close to Justine's mouth while the Interrogator wrote Justine's confession in a notebook, sometimes asking her to repeat herself. There were some questions about procedure but mostly about names. She had her repeat the names three times, each time separated by other questions. Justine repeated the identical names each time in the same hoarse whisper, looking between her Interrogator and Caroline. She did not name Caroline.

When the questions stopped the Interrogator looked down at her notes and then said to Caroline, "Gag her."

Justine shook her head in disbelief and cried out "No! Why?" before Caroline pushed the hard rubber gag into her mouth. The Interrogator grabbed Justine by the hair and pulled her head up so Caroline could fasten the straps behind her head.

"You lied to me. You didn't give me all the names." She was still holding Justine by the hair and staring into her eyes so her prisoner could barely move her head in denial. She tried to beg, to protest, but of course all that came from behind the gag were grunts. The Interrogator looked into the wide blue eyes that were pleading with her not to torture her any more. "Oh how you're going to suffer. I warned you. Now it's too late. When I have finished you will have another chance to tell me the truth. And, oh yes, I am going to torture your poor cunt but a lot worse this time."

THE PEAR

The Interrogator held up the pear where Justine could watch her coat it with a thin film of lubricant. "It's not going in your mouth this time," she laughed.

Justine had figured that one out by herself, but just to be sure the helpless girl remembered the function of the pear, the Interrogator cranked it open to its full width, and enjoyed the way Justine's eyes seemed to bug out and the way she was screaming indecipherably into her gag. What she was trying to say was that she had given up all the names.

Of course she hadn't but she was sure the Interrogator couldn't know that, the only one she hadn't named was Caroline, and if they knew that they would have already seized her; she certainly wouldn't be working at such a sensitive installation. And then she stopped shrieking and groaned. She realized hadn't given up the beautiful and innocent Marty.

She didn't have the chance to wonder if it was a simple case of the omission being caused by the stress and pain of her interrogation or whether she was trying desperately to protect her young protégé. Because at that moment she felt the thick cylinder removed from her sex and seconds later the cold slick metal of the pear touch the lips of her vagina.

She groaned into her gag as the pear was slowly and carefully pushed inside her. There was no pain at first, just fear. As the wider part of the instrument began to fill her up it became uncomfortable and for a moment she clung to the hope that maybe it wouldn't be so bad, that she would be able to bear it. But still the Interrogator pressed the pear in further until only the handle was protruding between Justine's lips, and any hope she had of this torture being bearable had disappeared.

The Interrogator stood over her prisoner with her naked body spread out helplessly and polished with sweat. Looking down at her with a predatory gaze, her eyes narrowed, her lips in a tight smile. Yes, this would be better than having her in bed.

Justine's pain was growing. It wasn't the burning agony of the electricity or the sharp pain of the lash, it was a terrible pressure that gnawed at her insides and grew with each passing second. Her tormentor reached down and tapped the handle firmly. Justine felt the vibrations through the sensitive tissues of her pussy.

"Just a reminder of what is yet to come," the Interrogator said, moving the handle of the pear back and forth in short quick movements and then rotating it a half turn. Justine screamed and screamed again. "You are going to suffer horribly because you lied to me. We are going to leave you alone for a while to think about what happens when I turn the handle and the pear gets bigger and bigger until you think it is going to tear your cunt to pieces." She nodded to Caroline, "Blindfold her," she said, "I want her to be able to concentrate on what we are going to do to her. I want her to lie here with no distractions. I want her to realize there is no way she can stop the torture. I want her to not even think ever again about not being truthful to me."

The last thing she saw before the cloth was passed over her eyes and tied behind her head was Caroline looking at her with undisguised pity. She bit her lip and shook her head sadly before blocking out Justine's vision. A thin sliver of light showed beneath the blindfold but even that disappeared as the light was extinguished with a click of the wall switch.

Justine had no idea how much time passed before the door opened. What she did know was that the Interrogator knew her business. She lay there for what seemed like forever with the pain in her vagina growing slowly but unrelentingly, unable to think of anything except what was in store for her and how she would give up Marty the first chance she had. The moment they removed her gag she would scream out her name.

Caroline was another story. Justine prayed that they did not know there was another operative. She swore to herself she would never give Caroline up, it would do no good, but deep in her heart she knew she was lying to herself. If the kept torturing her for one more name she would break. But they wouldn't, she thought, oh God please don't let them.

Caroline removed the blindfold. Justine blinked in the harsh light. "Ready to talk?" the Interrogator said in a low measured tone. Justine nodded her head frantically and yelled "Yes. Yes." Into her gag. The Interrogator smiled and shook her head. "Too bad I am not ready to listen. First you must suffer." And with that, she gave the pear a quarter turn.

The Interrogator tortured Justine for half an hour, expanding the pear a quarter turn every two or three minutes. The pain in Justine's pussy exploded to new heights with every turn, bringing with it shrieks and pleas made unintelligible by her gag. Between turns of the screw the pain did not abate in the least, but remained at an intolerable level until the next turn brought it to a new unimaginable intensity.

The gag was removed and Justine shrieked "Take it out! Take it out! I'll talk! I'll talk!"

"First the names." Justine gave up Martina, shouting out her name in a rush, and repeating everything she knew about her three times. Interspersed with the information about the pretty young student were pleas to remove the pear from her pussy. "She's the only one you haven't given me yet?"

"Yes. I swear it. Stop the torture. I beg you. Oh God my pussy. I can't stand it."

The phone rang. The Interrogator picked it up, listened then said to Caroline, "You're needed upstairs." Caroline started to say something, "But I…" The Interrogator snapped at her, "Now."

Even before the door had shut behind the reluctant Caroline, The Interrogator was moving toward her naked victim holding two wires from the generator.

Strapped down as she was, Justine could not see what The Interrogator held in her hand. "Take it out. I've told you everyone. Please. My pussy. Take it out."

Justine felt the hands on her sex. "Hurry," she begged, "The pain. Too much. My pussy. Take it out." She felt the pear move slightly, but it was not being closed down. She heard the click of the clip on the metal pear and strained her head up to look down her sweat soaked body. She saw the wire that ran from between her legs snake toward the generator and knew immediately what was going to happen. "No," she screamed, "No no you can't!"

The Interrogator slid her hand under Justine's back, just above her buttocks, and lifted, making it all the easier to slide the thinner probe out or her anus and the more bulbous probe in. "That will complete the circuit."

In that one terrible moment, Justine could feel the current burn a path through her belly from the probe to the pear. She could feel it explode in her sex, searing the flesh of her stretched vagina, filling her with agony greater than all the tortures that had gone before. And she shattered like an overheated light bulb.

PART EIGHT: JUSTINE IS BROKEN

BETRAYAL

"Stop! Stop! I can't take anymore! It's Caroline," she shrieked, "It's Caroline! Your Caroline!" The Interrogator stared down at the naked girl, writhing on the table, pulling at her chains in crazed desperation. If The Interrogator said anything in reply she never heard it because that is when she hit the switch again.

Justine awoke on a bed in a room bare of other furniture. The bed itself was nothing more than springs hung from a heavy metal frame with a mattress that was little more than a pad. Her wrists were cuffed together around the top of the frame with her arms extended fully above her head. When she tried to pull herself into a more comfortable position she found she could only move a few inches as her ankles were shackled to the foot of the bed.

She took a little solace in that she now wore a prison smock, which she thought – hoped – meant she was no longer going to be tortured. Of course she knew what was going to happen to her; she was going to be executed. Although she certainly did not want to die, she would be satisfied with a quick painless death. To ask for more would be unrealistic.

She lay there for a little more than an hour, groaning in pain and occasionally weeping in despair. Her entire body throbbed, but it was her pussy that sent messages of agony to her brain. The pain grew with each passing minute and she realized that she had been drugged and the anesthetic effect of whatever it was that they gave her was beginning to wear off.

When the two guards came to get her, she assumed it was to take her to her execution. They unchained her and half carried, half dragged her out of her cell. She couldn't stand, much less walk. She asked repeatedly, "Where are you taking me?" but was not answered.

Finally, after an elevator ride to the lowest floor in the building, she was brought into a hall way that she immediately recognized as the level where previously she had been taken to be tortured. Her heart began to pound so loudly she was sure it could be heard throughout the facility. Could it be her ordeal was not yet over?

They stopped before a door. A guard stood to one side, smoking. There were a couple of crushed butts on the floor near his feet. He looked with little interest at Justine, then said to her escorts, "She needs to be blindfolded."

They were prepared for that and one of them produced a broad black cloth that was fixed over her eyes. She heard the door open and was led into the room, one man on each side holding her by the upper arms. After five steps she was pulled sideways a few feet and then pushed backward into a wooden chair. As her wrists and biceps were strapped down tightly she began to cry, sobbing "What are you going to do to me? Please don't torture me, I beg you." Again there was no answer, but a thick rubber bar that looked not unlike a dog bone with straps attached was pushed into her mouth, gagging her. Finished with their task, the men left her and she heard the door open and shut behind her.

She sat there in darkness, bound to the chair, waiting. Minutes went by but nothing happened. At first her anxiety verged on panic and she fought futilely to escape the straps that held her in the heavy chair, struggling until she sagged exhausted in her bonds. But as she sat there panting from the exertion she began to calm a bit; she was still clothed and they had only strapped her arms down, her feet and body were not bound. If they were going to torture her they would have stripped her naked and done a better job of tying her down, wouldn't they have? Of course they could still do that but they hadn't yet and it gave her hope.

When Justine had composed herself somewhat she tried to concentrate on her surroundings. She could of course see nothing, only a tiny sliver of light seeping under her blindfold. She listened but heard nothing, except noise she took to be the ambient sounds of an empty room, probably mostly of her own auditory creation. But the more she listened, the more she thought she heard something more… human. Not exactly breathing, just something. She wondered if there wasn't someone in the room with her, watching her, deciding what to do with her. Was her interrogation not over? She wanted to cry out but of course she was gagged.

Finally she heard the door open, heard light footsteps, and seconds later there were hands at her face, a woman's hands, and the blindfold was removed. The room wasn't exceptionally brightly lit, but after the blackness of the blindfold, she had to blink her eyes while they adjusted.

In front of her was a young woman. Chains running from the ceiling ended in steel cuffs circling her wrists. More chains ran from iron staples in the floor to manacles that were fitted around her ankles. Her naked body was spread in a tight figure X. Her skin was unmarked, so Justine assumed she had not yet been tortured. But it was a certainty she was going to be, and that Justine was going to be forced to watch…and listen. There was a black hood covering her head so her identity was not available. But Justine knew who it was, and knew why she was going to be forced to watch Caroline die under slow torture.

She stared at the spread-eagled girl. She of course had never seen Caroline nude. There was a blue bird tattooed on her right hip at the pelvic bone, and an identical bird in red on the left. They were small and the only ink on her body, but still she was a little surprised. She also seemed a little thinner than she did in clothing, with beautifully shaped breasts that were flattened on her rib cage by her tight bondage, but she was stretched so taut that would easily account for her slim appearance.

The woman who had been standing behind her walked forward. It was The Interrogator. "Hello Justine," she said. "Thank you for all your help in breaking up your little group. Would you like to know what I am going to do to your friend spread out before you or would you like to wait and see for yourself?"

Justine stared at The Interrogator, her eyes wide with horror, and shook her head violently back and forth. "No? Well then I guess I will have to tell you. I am going to skin her alive." Justine shrieked into her gag; The Interrogator walked over to Caroline. "I am going to start here," and she bent over and touched Caroline's ankle. The spread-eagled girl's leg twitched, its movement restricted by the chains. "Right above this shackle. Then I will do her legs. You won't be able to see me flay her calves and the back of her thighs but you will be able to hear her screams. The inside of her thighs will be the most fun, right up to an inch away from her pussy. Peel her skin right off her body."

Justine was twisting and pulling at the straps that held her in the chair, screaming into her gag, "No! No! No!"

"I'm not going to bother with her back, but I will do her butt," and she slapped Caroline on her ass, hard. A muffled cry came from under the hood. "And her sides, from her armpits to her hips. Maybe I'll leave her nipples when I skin her tits, just for the effect. And I'll finish with her labia, major and minor, and finally, tah-dah, the clitorectomy."

Justine was sobbing uncontrollably, and shaking her head slowly back and forth. "Can you think of a more horrible death?" A woman's voice spoke to her from next to her shoulder. A hand reached down and took her jaw and lifted her head. Justine stared through her tears at her new tormentor. It took five seconds for her to make out the face through her tear-fogged vision, and another ten to process the information in her terror-fogged brain. She didn't scream, or even cry out. She just stared uncomprehendingly at Caroline.

"Do you want me to start now Supervisor?" came the voice of The Interrogator.

"In a minute," said Caroline without looking back, then said to Justine, "I don't know what was more fun, playing my little game of masquerade or watching you writhing around under torture." Justine cried out into her gag. "Why, you say. There are so many why's. Why did we torture you until you named me? Because I knew that I would be the last one you named; after that I was sure there was no one else. Why are we making you watch while we torture…oh wait, there is a who before the rest of the why's." With that Caroline walked over to the figure spread-eagled between the chains and took off the hood. Even with her face half obscured by her gag and blindfold Justine knew it was Marty. She screamed.

"If you are wondering about the blindfold and gag, we are not quite ready for her to see you. Her ears have also been blocked so she cannot hear when I tell you that when we picked her up we told her that you were the one that ratted her out. We omitted the part about the torture; actually changed that to you did it for a more lenient sentence. But as punishment for squealing you would have to watch her torture knowing you were the cause."

Justine stared at Caroline in disbelief. "So she will suffer looking at you and thinking it is because of you she is suffering. And her suffering will go on past the flaying. I think we will be able to keep her alive and screaming for hours after we have skinned her. Do you know how sensitive raw flesh is to the simplest of tortures, say needles stuck into her belly and inside of her thighs, and the lash across her breasts. And of course salt poured over and rubbed into her bloody flesh."

Justine looked across at Marty, her lithe young body stretched so taut she could only move her hands and feet, fingers and toes – those body parts not pulled tight by the chains. And her head of course, but this she held motionless as though trying to hear anything that would give her a clue to her fate. She must know, Justine thought, that she was going to be tortured, but had they told her they were going to flay the skin from her living body? That that was why they had spread-eagled her so tightly, so she couldn't move a muscle and spoil their precision with her struggles and writhing.

"Why Marty? Because she is so young and beautiful and innocent, because you had a crush on her and watching her slow painful death would be a torment beyond physical pain for you. And finally why am I doing all this to you? I think simply because it is a fitting end to the game we played.