Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Stained Sheets by Lizbeth Dusseau
A Pink Flamingo Ebook Publication
ISBN 13: 978-1-934349-53-3
ISBN 10: 1-934349-53-4
Original Copyright © 2005
Revised Edition Copyright © 2021 by Lizbeth Dusseau
Cover Image: © YanLev – shutterstock.com
With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publishers.
For information contact:
Pink Flamingo Media
www.pinkflamingo.com
P.O. Box 632 Richland, MI, 49083
Chapter One
Carlton
“I don’t know what to tell you, Carlton,” he said, as he laid the photographs on the table between us. His voice was low, and he glanced furtively around the open-air café before continuing, “She’s a damn fine piece of ass—but she’s getting laid by a whole lot of men—that are not you.”
I knew this was true, but still it hurt to see the evidence before my eyes. Black and white images, poses too numerous to mention, men of varying sizes and shapes. The backdoor ones were the most startling. The way the pictures were haphazardly scattered across the table reflected the clutter of thoughts inside my brain; and my headache only grew worse. Meantime, I fought back the temptation to sweep them back into the envelope, or at the very least, light them on fire lest those sitting nearby by would see the graphic display and be as appalled as I was.
“Amazing camera work,” I managed to say as I stared at Marni’s round behind, her cheeks parted and her asshole entered by some hulking, bare-assed black man. Framed by the hotel window where they fucked, the image couldn’t have been more damning, more heartbreaking, or arousing. My cock tensed, growing larger by the minute; I wanted to shove myself in that ‘other’ love hole, but I’d thought it was something to wait for. Now I know; Marni obviously wasn’t waiting for me.
“You’d be surprised what these new digitals can do, especially with the long-distance lenses,” Charlie said in his most professional voice.
“Yeah, the proof’s right here.”
“She should be more discreet,” he added.
“She shouldn’t be doing it at all,” I shot back tersely.
He didn’t reply, so I could more easily work on the solution to the dilemma of my wife, my bride. Oh, I had my plans laid out long before this meeting, conceived about the time I hired Charlie on that hot Tuesday in August, six weeks to the day before this meeting.
But it wasn’t enough to employ my detective friend Charlie Nash to do my dirty work—hunt her down and record the facts—I had more in mind for him than just his following her as she rendezvoused with a bevy of horny men. He had other talents. It had been my hope that he would see Marni the way I did: lusty and provocative to the point of making men ravenous, even if she was a difficult woman to manage. Managing her sexual obsessions had turned out to be more than I could handle; why not let Charlie have a try? I had nothing to lose.
“So…” he sighed. “You annul the marriage; that shouldn’t be too tough.”
I shook my head, my mind deep in the midst of the pressing fantasy. “All I can think about is punishing her.”
“Then punish her, goddammit; she’s earned her stripes.”
“I’m afraid I won’t stop.”
“No. You can’t do it angry,” he conceded.
“I can’t do it at all…but I do know what she needs.”
“And that is?”
“Few women need a sadist,” I looked up at him, “Marni does.”
“So, you come to me,” he grinned slyly.
“You’re the only sadist I trust.” As if I knew a phonebook full of sadists.
Now he laughed, just before he turned solemn as a preacher and leaned in over the table, saying in all sincerity. “What do you hope to gain, Carlton?”
I shook my head.
“Love?” His eyebrows lifted with the question.
“I have her love,” I said. I think for a while, then decide that there is only one real answer to his question. “I want to own her.” The word came out with a malicious ring. “I want all that raw desire of hers focused on me and me alone.”
Charlie leaned back in the wrought-iron chair and gazed toward the sky, breathing deeply, then he looked back at me. Fresh and dashing as ever, sipping Russian vodka, casual as you please on a warm September afternoon, turning the heads of every woman who passed by the table; this was Charlie. I don’t even recall knowing any man more handsome, or more of a sadist in his relationships with consenting masochistic females. A heady combination. If I were to lose Marni to any man, it would be Charlie Nash. But I didn’t plan on losing my wife and Charlie was just part of my scheme to win her fidelity.
***
Her apartment is simple, painted yellow, the curtains white. The trees outside cast dappled images of leaves against the walls at all hours of the day—except in the dead of night. Although when there’s a full moon, the leafy branches leave their shadows against the walls with the pale glow entering through the window. These subtle images were why Marni decorated with so few pictures; nature makes her own, she says.
She owns a small Picasso sketch, not a very good one, but it has the artist’s signature and she’s proud to own it. Next to it over her bed hangs a tiny oil painting of a village in Spain—green, ocher, crimson, violent hues, but just a miniature, embellished by its large frame. Otherwise, the walls of Marni’s apartment are bare of decoration.
Her laughter lifted like a sail, buoyant and sensuous, while she sat on the young man’s groin, filled with the essence of that young male. He was deep in her velvety love nest, with his meat, all that makes him a man, nestled in contentedly. His chest expanded upward as he breathed, body shaking and about to come. Meanwhile, her slender body moved with him: skin smooth, breasts rounded and touchable, nipples bursting from the centers, taut and shining with perspiration. His hands moved from the soft flesh of her ass, along her hips, then upward. She felt his touch and trembled, while her well-rubbed clit grazed against the base of his erection, gathering more sensation that made her laughter become a cry of pure desire.
I felt my cock begin to swell, as if it were my cock, not Julius’ ravaging her pussy.
As she bounced gloriously in her freedom, her mouth opened. “Ah, ah, ah… yes…” in short panting breaths; her face began to contort in a beautiful sex-filled scowl.
Her climax was brief, punctuated with waves of pleasure rippling through her torso, her belly, her limbs, leaving an imprint of feral satisfaction on her face. Her eyes darkened, infused with a wicked but oddly playful glow—like that of some demonic elf. She sunk down into Julius’ chest to rest. But he grabbed for her breasts, pulling her up enough so he could devour them with his open mouth. Then suddenly, he arched his back, his hips thrust hard, and his body tensed, as he ejaculated into my wife.
Watching silently, I winced, my agony a private one.
It was all I could do not to stop her from where I stood peeking into the room through the small crack where the door meets the frame. I thought at first that they would have heard my footsteps on the outside stairs, or when I bungled with the lock, or when moving into her walk-up, I dropped my keys on the floor. But as their sex sounds began to die, I quieted my own movements; believing myself to be the intruder on a scene where I could not be wanted.
She sat back drifting and pleasantly thoughtless, so I moved silent as a cat into another room, afraid to disturb her. Maybe if we gave up her apartment, these trysts would end, but even I am not so foolish to believe that would happen. Normally she doesn’t screw her dates in her own space; she leaves her obsessions at the door and maintains this little inner sanctum as our personal love nest. So much for another romantic idea destroyed.
Even after seeing this, it’s still my plan to own her.
My official arrival is not marked until Julius is gone and Marni’s stepping from the shower.
“Hey there, cowboy!” she says with a sunny, erotically sated grin.
It’s things like her calling me ‘cowboy’, and that whole thing she does with her body when she smiles that keeps me coming back. Even now with her brunette hair plastered to her head, and rivulets of water dripping from her breasts, she’s the loveliest sight I know. Her long thin neckline is as graceful as a dancer’s; I can see her in my dreams doing pirouettes, with languid expressions and elegant arms, her fingers positioned daintily in the air. That is not to say that Marni is some lightweight poster child for anorexia, or that she has the heart of a sugarplum faerie. On the contrary, while she may be buoyant in her exuberant spirit, it is the molten earthy quality of her physical form and her psychic aura that have me most enamored. I love her in soft skirts and blue jeans, in sexy teddies, as well as flannel and work boots. She’s exhilarating to watch with mud on her face as she digs in the garden, toiling over a bed of pansies, then wipes her cheek with the dirty back of her arm. She cleans up better than pretty. She’s not afraid to screw hard, cum long, to show off the roundness of her breasts, the lusty glint in her eyes, and her crotch when she bends over in a tiny denim skirt.
I had to marry her fast before someone else robbed me of the pleasure. I suppose I’ve paid the price for that; in my social circle, big weddings are in. To have eloped is romantic some told me, while others have used it as a reason to disparage the whole premise of our marriage—as if it’s not as good as the church vows and the sit-down dinner kind. This got us off to a rocky start with the snooty wives of my best friends, who were not quick to accept a woman they judged their inferior. And yet, Marni’s natural charm has intrigued them: her fresh face, easy smile and genuine warmth. She still cringes every time we’re in their company, but she puts on a damn good show of it.
“You’re getting ready for the party?” I ask her as she’s toweling off. She then lifts her leg to the toilet seat, wets her razor and trims away a bit of pubic hair she missed in the shower. I see her pink ass from behind and her smooth wet pubes peeking from below. All this makes my penis start to throb.
“Oh,” she pouts, gazing over her shoulder. “I forgot. I was really thinking we could stay in?” She puts her leg down, turns around and cocks her head. “I’m not sure I’m up for another of those stuffy parties.” She even scowls in her effort to manipulate me.
“Oh, but you are going,” I say. I feel an unexpected force behind my words, the hint of indignation that she would deny me this, after what I just witnessed in her bed. Of course, she has no idea that I watched. I think further back to the sheaf of pictures Charlie presented me, letting my resolve renew. I think of the club, the pending party, my secret society and wonder if I’ve already taken the wrong turn with regard to Marni’s infidelity. There are solutions readily available to me, but I’ve wanted to avoid those extreme measures until I understood more about my bride. She does have certain issues and it’s for me to be understanding and not judge too soon. Besides, I’ve decided to let Charlie decide how to proceed from here; he has more experience in this situation than I’ll ever have.
Marni casts me a dour glance—still trying to get me to change my mind—but I don’t relent. “Of course, I’ll go,” she says.
I’m still in my mood, moving to the closet and rifling through her dresses; she has many more at my house, but certainly something here will do. I finally pull out a green dress, short, tight; I’m not sure she’s worn it to my “stuffy old club,” but the guys will be after her with their eyes all night.
“Isn’t that a bit risqué for your friends?” she says, surprised by my choice.
“No. I think it’s perfect. If you have the body to wear something this sexy, you should.”
There is something a little fiendish in my choice. I suppose at the moment, I’m seeing her as a slut not a wife.
“Okay,” she says, as she snatches the dress from my hand and begins to dress. Meanwhile, I do a little freshening up at the bathroom mirror. Our activity reminds me how we started in this apartment, escaping into our love nest like randy teenagers. Fucking. Making noise. Stirring up the neighbors. Fists banging. Bedsprings creaking. It’s been a wild ride—up to the point where I think I’ve been taken for a chump.
Chapter Two
Marni
They are all here: the banker, the doctor, the CEO; three polished performers, three beautiful wives. Carlton would call them power friends. I’m still not used to any of them, but I am trying to fit in because my husband—I still tingle at the sound of that—is so sure that I, we, need these people in our little world. He was a little terse with me tonight, which worries me; so, I’m here, wearing a green dress that feels a bit too skimpy for this crowd. I’m getting lots of stares.
All the important members of Carlton’s exclusive men’s club have arrived, as promised.
John and Maggie Driver—he’s the banker, a zillionaire I’m told, with a crusty formal expression and an authoritative attitude that gives me chills—and I mean this in an oddly sexual way, even if it also feels a little creepy. Maggie is beautifully blonde, well-kept, not even the tiniest flaw on her pretty face; at least not that I can see. She’s also the most welcoming of the women, effusive when she needs to be, drawing me in with her one hand grabbing for mine as if we are old pals. When she plants a kiss on my cheek, I feel grateful for her acceptance. CEO Bronson Kent’s wife, Jane, bores me with her highbrow talk. She wears her dark hair in a pageboy with bangs, and dresses in nothing but black. Jane does book reviews for the Journal and takes on obscure wildlife causes that only she can care about. The others laugh at her behind her back, although I think she knows this and doesn’t care—nothing phases Jane. Still, she’s part of their crowd. Of the three, she’s the most dismissive of me. The third, Trina Reeves, is a voluptuous redhead, a bauble to decorate her husband’s arm.
I flirt with them, batting my lashes and smiling coyly. It’s a female body language that usually works in my favor—they find me charming if nothing else. Although I don’t think anything would work in my favor with Jane; she’s just a hard ass bitch. I’m sure she tolerates me only because the others do, and because her handsome husband, who thinks of me as ‘eye-candy’—his words—told her to be nice.
“Hey there!” Maggie waves, cheerily as I approach. “And look at you! What a dress! So daring, but so…so you.”
Why me? Why’s this tight thing me?
“You know before I had the baby, I could fit into something like that,” Trina says.
“This was Carlton’s idea,” I dash off glibly. “I told him I thought it was a bit much… but, well.”
“Ah, he’s still the new groom, you’re the bride, of course he’d want you looking like a sex pot,” Maggie says.
Like a sexpot?
“I have a little presentation to make,” Jane tells us, having completely dismissed the discussion about my dress. “You’d better listen up, because I’ll be quizzing you all afterwards.” This should sound like a joke, but she does it with a straight face, sounding completely sincere, and then moves off.
We wait, wonderingly, then as she begins to speak, I see Daniel Cody, my editor standing alone on the perimeter of the room. I wander his way to give myself a needed break.
“Hi there, gorgeous,” Daniel greets me as he usually does. I’m just a lowly copyeditor at work, while here I’m part of the royalty.
“Hi.” A cursory hug follows, and we’re ordered to listen up, as Jane taps on a wineglass with a knife. We stare through the crowd. “What do you think she’s going to say?” I ask him.
“The usual nothing,” he replies.
Daniel has an animal magnetism that has always attracted me to him. In fact, we had a brief affair before Carlton arrived on the scene—and one brief tryst afterwards. He fucks like he’s ravenous, even slapped me around a bit, mostly on the ass, but sometimes on my tits. I get so hot I come on his hand, while he keeps slapping my bare skin. It’s all head back, eyes rolling upwards, losing myself in the amazing sensations, that are, on the one hand, too much to enjoy and never enough. I’m getting off, begging for more. I’ll bet I could beg him now for a brief quickie in the broom closet and he’d take off with me in a heartbeat.
But no! No! I have to stop thinking that way, even if these miserable gatherings seem to put me in the mood for something outrageously daring.
Besides, Cody is a confirmed bachelor and we’ve already determined that we would never be right for each other. He does look perfect here in this setting. The tweed sports jacket—very expensive—the graying hair and mustache; he is so like a noble country sportsman with the huge estate and the rack of guns and the deer head over the mantle. He even smokes a pipe, adding his distinct odor to the cigar scent that already permeates the room.
“She’s kind of pretty tonight,” I say, seeing Jane brush her pageboy back in an elegant gesture. Her hand is delicately thin—almost too thin for the heavy gold engagement ring and wedding band. She looks up to make her point, focusing keenly on the center of the small gathering where the most well-heeled of the club are listening intently. If she wins them over to her cause, she’ll have all the money she needs to fund this latest project. That is how this society works.
“Pretty?” Cody counters me. “Like a snake is pretty.”
“Oh, that’s bad.”
“She’ll suck you dry.”
“And you know this for a fact?”
“I know Jane,” he lowers his voice, “in an intimate way.”
“Ooo, I’d never taken her for an adulteress.”
He laughs at the word adulteress. “She’s had hers, still does, but not me.”
“Oh?” I sidle up to him, but just a bit. Can’t forget where I am and who I’m with or that Carlton’s eyes have just landed on me with a look so obtuse I have no idea what he’s thinking. I wave, smiling, and he nods—which I take to mean I’d better get along, so I give Daniel a smile and move to my husband’s side.
After Jane finishes with her little speech, there is the usual cocktail talk that leaves me bored. Although I’m never really bored in these surroundings. Even after all these months, I still get a little tingle of excitement at even being inside this exclusive rich man’s playground. Deacon House, as it’s properly known, is furnished like a gentleman’s study in rich wood paneling, the colors hunter green and harvest gold. Elegant paintings of rural scenes are strategically placed between the bookcases, against walls covered in jacquard fabric. The dark green carpet is much too thick for high heels like the spikes I wear, so I have to be careful when I walk alone. It’s so much easier to move on the arm of a man—which really is the only way women are allowed in this masculine setting, according to their strict rules. We arrive and leave in the company of a member, which lends a bit of mystery to the events here. Fact is, most of the time the men come here without their wives… if only I could be a fly on the wall…I have a feeling that things get pretty raunchy behind closed doors!
I understand that there’s a private club behind the façade of this one, but I have no idea what that’s about.
Carlton brought me into his world and though I’ve been given a decent enough welcome, I still feel as if I’m an inconsequential piece of fluff; here to inflate my husband’s ego. This is a world of trophy wives and I think he pegged me as his next right at the start. He was married to Sandra Sterenburg before me—she does commercials for some brand of coffee and sends him cryptic notes about the settlement that just doesn’t seem to ever get settled. I don’t concern myself with that.
Trinket though I was, when I first arrived on the scene, the regulars, Maggie, Jane and Trina, kept me from feeling like a total outsider. It is their duty, I believe, something they do on orders from their husbands. This is, after all, a patriarchal society where husbands rule and wives relent. You’d think that Maggie and Jane, especially, would recoil at the anti-feminist sentiment here, but when your husband brings in plenty of money to fund your pet projects and days at the spa, I suppose it’s easy to be submissive in certain situations.
I really dreaded the club that first time. At Carlton’s suggestion, I told the girls about my years in Paris and Madrid; about my briefer stays in Istanbul, Cairo and Malaysia. He thought that would give me credibility and drama. And why not tout my experience abroad; my father was a statesman with the Foreign Service for many years. I lived in exotic places, ate exotic food and learned languages that have, oddly enough, stayed with me. Sometimes I force myself to recall those strange sounding languages…I take trips back in time, exploring my memories—at least until they stumble into the incident that ended my international travels.
I try not to think of that misfortune, but often my mind returns to the time without my realizing. Suddenly I’m back in that North African mosque again, respectfully waiting for the pilgrims to finish their prayers so that my father can speak with his friend, Aman. I’m very careful of protocol; it was drummed into me since I was very little…
I was eighteen, my father and I had traveled to Morocco, which I thought was a vacation, but I’m not so sure. I don’t know why we were in the mosque; in fact, there are many blurry moments in my recollection of those terrible events. One minute I was respectfully on my knees waiting for father, the next, I felt something cold against my throat and a sickly smell filling my nostrils. I recall being lifted from my reverent pose and dragged away by a pair of strong arms that emerged from beyond the heavy folds of a man’s robe. But that is all I recall of my capture, until I awakened flat on my back, bound and gagged, the light so scant in the humid room where I lay, that I thought I’d just met eternity. Nothing but inky darkness, the most profound black emptiness. I froze, petrified and though I tried to scream in panic, no sound came from my throat. I wasn’t gagged, but I couldn’t scream. More evidence, I believed, of my earthly demise.
Then, in time, I heard noises, voices; I saw a band of light under what I suppose was a door; I smelled incense, the smooth fragrant scent of flowers.
A slight breeze grazed my arms, the hairs stood on end. And when I began to move my hands enough to feel my immobilized body, I realized that I was bound, securely bound.
The voices beyond me became more heated, an argument in a foreign tongue I knew only as some Arabic dialect. Then my world fell silent again and I waited, awake—or maybe half-asleep. Either way, this was an uneasy waiting, filled with unanswered questions, fear, quaking limbs, a parched mouth, and a rain of tears that stung as they streamed from eyes and ran down my cheeks.
I must have slept because I awakened again to the sensation of being jostled by powerful hands. Something cold was pressed against my temple.
“You not fight, American girl!”
I froze in panic. The gun then disappeared, although it left me terrorized.
The ropes were untied and my limp body was lifted from the bed. I walked, hobbled and drunk-like from the desolation of my dark room to the terror of another room filled with loathsome men in long robes.
“Let me see her…” The voice inside the robe was thick with a Middle Eastern accent. The face was hidden, so I could only see the man’s lips move, not his eyes for they were buried in the shadows of his garment. At his command, the man who’d taken me from my room, pushed me forward in the direction of the voice and there I stood, naked but for my panties and bra.
“Turn, slave!” came the sharp command.
I turned; my hands clasped together in front of my body in a failing effort to cover my private parts. My dark, mussed hair fell over my face, half hiding my eyes and smelling of sweat. Had I been able to see their eyes, their stares, the exhibition would have been more difficult; even so, I trembled with every breath, every miserable half turn, every bit of tit and ass and crotch exposed. After making my 360 degrees, I saw the voice-man nod toward someone behind me, then seconds later, my arms were grabbed and pulled back; the added exposure diminishing me further.
A dark, bearded man in military garb moved in, bearing a knife that he grazed along my neck.
“Please no!” I said in an impassioned cry. “Please…”
More hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Please, what? Cut you?” he scowled.
“No, no no,” I shook my head.
He smiled derisively and placed the tip of his knife blade between my breasts and under my bra. I looked down, shuddering at the sight of the sharp edge and watched, awestruck as he pulled back, cutting the bra in two and exposing my breasts to his glare and the vague stares coming from the men in robes. My nipples shriveled into tiny knots as they hit the air and I recall feeling an odd flutter in my tummy that I could not identify.
The soldier’s eyes filled with lust as he viewed me. Then he sidled up to me and rubbed his chest against my naked tits. I winced and turned my head away.
“No, enough, huh?” he said, disparagingly. Backing up, he slipped the knife inside my panties and ripped through the thin strap on my left hip. He repeated the move with the blade going under the right side, then lifted the panties and held them up for all to see, chuckling at his find.
Finally, he stepped back to show off my utter nakedness, letting the others see me fully. A thick finger traced a line down my undulating belly. The terror turned my mounting fears into a painful arousal, and I knew the swarthy soldier would find that out. His finger moved further down between my labia and pressed against the hood of my clitoris. I gasped, shaking, but was still held securely by the man behind me, so I couldn’t get away. He opened my sex, pulling back my labial lips and revealing my wetness.
“They are all alike, these American sluts,” he growled for the others. Then he began to finger my bud more vigorously, delivering me from fear to an embarrassing state of arousal, so I was just seconds from spasming whorelike. Though I was a virgin at the time, I knew what sexual pleasure felt like. With my body bared and crudely exposed, I closed my eyes, lowered my head and tried with all my might to shake off the unwanted feelings of lust. But my belly swelled with such enormous energy that I knew I’d fail. Just when I thought the orgasm was about to burst through my body, however, the soldier’s hand withdrew, and the man who held me released his hold.
Weakened, I nearly slumped to the floor, but then another hand reached out from behind and held me upright until I could stand on my own.
The hood of one man’s robe fell back and I saw a face emerge, a dark brooding Mid-Eastern face, bearded and solemn. Even the black eyes afforded no clue to his thoughts.
“Turn again, young one,” he said, “so I can see your ass.”
I turned, shuddering so deeply that I stumbled on my own feet. I held my hands over my breasts, which I think only made my crotch all the more visible to the leering eyes.
“And bend over,” he said, when my backside faced him.
I did as he commanded, feeling even more wobbly in my bent pose.
“Now reach back and grab your cheeks.”
I did that too, feeling my awkwardness grow along with my shame.
“You will not falter,” he suddenly shouted.
The soldier grabbed my hair; I feared his knife was posed to cut it off.
“Please!”
The man ignored my plea and continued: “Part the cheeks and let us see where we may use you, slave.”
He called me slave. Was that what I’d become?
I grabbed my ass cheeks hard and pulled them back, opening the crevice to their gaze. Humiliation turned my neck hot, the sensation rising toward my face, which I was sure was blotched with a harsh red blush. While the soldier still gripped my hair to keep me steady, we turned in tandem so that all the robed men in the room could see my asshole and my vulva below. For a time, the soldier’s free hand stroked the crevice, gathering juices from my pussy and swathing them upward. I could only guess at how that made me look. Only now can I make sense of what was happening to me in those miserable hours.
At the time, I was forced to believe that the degrading treatment revealed the real truth about my character. Until then, I was like other teenagers, interested in sex, even boy crazy at times driven by my burgeoning lust. But I’d never been promiscuous. I dressed modestly and shyly averted the attention of most boys my age. In captivity, it seemed that these demons had suddenly shown me the truth about myself, the beastly sexual me that I must have hidden in my real life behind the respectable behaviors I was taught.
“They either pay your price, or we sell her,” the soldier said in his gravelly voice.
My insides recoiled at this statement, my knees buckled, my hands dropped to my sides, and I stumbled toward the floor, with the sudden move releasing my hair from the soldier’s fist. He grabbed at me fast, yanking me back upright, but then the man with the voice waved him off.
“Without the ransom, we will turn her quickly. She’ll bring a good price, yes.”
“Should you leave her a virgin, she’ll bring an even bigger price,” someone added.
“Ah, but there must be some pleasures in life. I think this one we pluck for ourselves,” my tormenter said with a twisted grin. I heard murmurs rush through the room. “Beat her, Masood to make her soft and ready.”
“No!” My faltering voice managed a full-fledged protest. I wanted to flee but there was nowhere to go, and Masood grabbed me by the arms and hauled me from the room, drawing out his gun again, which stunned me into silence.
Back inside the dark room where I had slept, Masood left the door ajar so he could see my body under the gloomy glow of the corridor’s yellow light. Pushing me over the end of the bed, he tied my wrists, and picked up a heavy leather flogger, which he used to lash my backside from my neck to my knees. I cried miserably from the outset, although after several minutes of repeated flogging, I was transported to a strange, altered state that was not just painful, but sexually arousing as well. I’m sure I lost track of time; in fact, I remember very little about that beating. I know that I screamed. I understood later that at times I wailed so loudly that Masood paused, showing pity on me. He said so later while informing his superior about the incident and I overhead their conversation.
After the punishment was over, Masood bound me to the bed again and I fell asleep.