9
"Derek," Collins said, "before you go I'd like you to help me secure
Miss Gordon for the next stage of her... persuasion."
"Yes, sir."
Collins reached beneath his desk and pushed a hidden button. In
response, a panel in the ceiling rolled back, revealing a winch-like device set
into the exposed beam. At the touch of another button, a metal hook attached to
a length of cable began to descend slowly.
Startled by this development, Joyce was not immediately aware of Derek
approaching her. Before she could avoid him he had seized her wrists in his
hands. Though she struggled, the small man held on to them with surprising
strength, while Collins rose from his chair and came toward her, holding a small
coil of rope. Joyce kicked out at him desperately, but between the two of them
they overpowered her, though she fought so hard they had to force her to the
floor. There, with both men using their bodies to hold her down, Derek held her
arms while Collins managed to tie her wrists tightly together in front of her.
The ceiling cable had played itself out, and the metal hook dangled only
a few feet above the floor. The two men raised the girl's arms and attached the
hook to the ropes binding her wrists. Then Collins, panting a little but smiling
triumphantly, went back to his chair. Again he pushed a button., The cable began
to wind back up.
Joyce cried out as the slowly ascending hook pulled her arms high in the
air. The pressure forced her into a sitting position; then, as the gradual but
inexorable ascent continued, she was compelled to clamber to her knees, and then
to her feet, to alleviate the strain on her arms and shoulders. But still the
hook rose, stretching her arms tightly over her head. Her body strained. Her
breasts rose, tautened. Her face twisted with pain. She went up on tiptoe.
"Stop it!" she cried at Collins. "Stop it!"
He did not stop it.
The ropes bit cruelly into the flesh of her wrists, and the girl gave a
loud shriek as her struggling body was lifted clear of the floor. Her legs
flailed, her feet stretching in a vain attempt to maintain contact with
solidity. Her shoes fell from her writhing feet.
Collins watched the helpless body rise until her feet were a good six
inches above the floor. He then pressed the button, and the mechanism stopped.
Still he gazed with rising triumph at the incredibly exciting sight of the
squirming, groaning, naked girl hanging in front of him.
"You may as well stop struggling, my dear," he said, a bit hoarsely. "It
will only exhaust you prematurely. And it will do you no good." He turned to his
assistant. "That will be all now, Derek. Thank you."
"Yes, sir. Thank YOU," the small man said. He went out quickly, closing
the door behind him.
The girl had stopped her futile struggles and was laboring to catch her
breath. "Let me down," she gasped. "Let me down! Please! It hurts!"
Collins smiled at her. "Oh no, my dear Joyce. You're going to be up
there for some time, I'm afraid. Until you're tamed, in fact. Until you agree to
do exactly as I say. From now on. No matter what."
"Oh please..."
Collins went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Of course, just agreeing isn't
enough. That will be easy. But I must be convinced--completely convinced--that
you are ready to cooperate. That you will be utterly acquiescent. Because, of
course, that is how the Council wants you."
The girl's eyes closed, as though to blot out what was happening to her,
and tears rolled out from beneath their lids. But at the same time she summoned
up from somewhere a reserve of stubborn strength, for she whispered tightly:
"You... go to... hell."
Collins' eyes were bright. "As I said before," he murmured, "it is going
to be an exquisite delight to break you." He opened another drawer in his desk
and took out the whip. "And we shall start right away," he said.
Her eyes opened, then widened with shock as she saw him approaching her,
the whip in his hand. The blood drained from her pain-distorted face; the
dangling body began to tremble. "What--what are you--" she gasped.
He unfurled the black whip, holding it by the handle and letting the
wicked length of it hang down to the floor. "What I am going to do, Joyce, is to
give you more pain than you ever imagined to be possible. I am going to hurt you
so badly that you will wish you had never been born. And, when you are
absolutely certain that no one in the world has ever known, or could ever know,
such suffering--then it is going to get worse."
A tiny, involuntary sound escaped her; but she said nothing more.
"Here we go," Collins breathed. He raised the whip. He was an expert
with it. He swung it back as far as he could, and then with astounding speed and
all of his strength lashed out at the hanging girl. The thing whistled sharply
through the air, and then landed with a loud, savage crack across her uplifted
and defenseless breasts.
Her first scream almost made him come in his pants.
