I1:

OPEN

"So, what do you think?"

I looked through the looking glass. On our side, it was a transparent plate of crystal, on her side it was a proper mirror.

"I think she is going to catch a fever lying naked on the floor."

Karen was not actually lying. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees and her head buried between them. She was completely naked and were the light a touch less sparse, I would have been able to see bruises on her forearms.

"It's possible.", agreed Craig. "But that's all part of the plan. She has to toughen herself, there's worse things in store for her than just lying naked on the floor."

The cell could actually have been colder. A fully dressed person would, I imagine find the temperature reasonable. Of course, Karen lost most of her clothes in struggle to break away from her attackers and what was left of it, mostly lingerie and stockings, was brutally ripped from her body once she was delivered to the compound. At least her arms were free now, but ugly bruises left by the handcuffs will take days to disappear. Then again, according to the plan, she will have many more to show before these fade to nothing. Simple handcuff bruises will be pleasant memories this time next week.

THE REMAINS OF HER LAST MEAL

She was crying uncontrollably after being deployed in the cell. She was screaming until she lost her voice, then choking in tears, violent, painful twitches shooting through her body every now and then. She threw up, partially on the floor, partially on her own chest. We watched as she was trying to clean herself as best as she could, using only her bare hands and tongue. It was all she had. Mike was laughing, commenting at how pathetic she looked as she sobbed and spat. No one came to clean it, the puke was left on the floor. Karen moved as far away from it as she could and sat herself up against the wall, still crying. Hours passed as the crying subsided into shallow sighs and then stopped. She moved into a dull stasis and awaited whatever the fate might have in stock for her next.

"She will be seriously ill in the morning" said I.

Craig thought about it and then nodded:

"The fear and uncertainty alone might throw her into a fever, accompanied with the cold."

"Yeah, not only that", said I, "She threw up a hell lot, she didn't have anything to eat or drink the whole day and she pissed quite a lot: again the combination of fear and cold. She will be dehydrating very soon."

Craig nodded again. "Understood", he said. He took the pen and added a short note in his notebook.

The stench in the cell must have been pungent. I watched Karen as she was throwing up, all violent spasms and painful groans, the bile mixed with remains of her last meal. Cheese, wine, Italian bread, olives. Had she known, she might have thought about it and treated herself to something more expensive.

On top of that there was the piss. There was no way she could have contained herself. We knew that. The shock and the cold cell, the hours that passed. It took almost six hours before she started screaming, begging to be allowed to go to the toilet. It took another hour until she decided: she got up, and walked to the far end of the cell, six paces all in all, I counted them one by one. It'd take four of mine, perhaps five. She squatted in the corner, her back turned to the large mirror wall and let her urine on the floor. It was a seemingly endless stream of piss and it reached the middle of the cell, despite her hopes to put some distance between herself and the stinking fluid after she got back to her chosen place on the floor.

Over the next fifteen hours she did it another two times. I expected her to lose more fluid, but she was apparently still controlling herself, perhaps still hoping that an explanation will be given, hoping that someone will come.

That was not the plan however. Twenty four hours of complete isolation, that was to be the phase one.

I didn't get any sleep over this period either. But of course I knew about that in advance, I was prepared for the effort I was to undertake, for the duty I signed up to.

Craig was chewing on a candy bar. It was rich with cereal, I could smell cereal and honey in his breath. He did get some sleep. We were organised in shifts in order to ensure the most efficient use of human and other resources. Craig came to his shift two hours ago and he looked refreshed and relaxed. It was obvious to me why he was chosen to be one of the leading people in the actual implementation of the project. He was a very decisive person, brutal even, yet still reasonable and I guess even calm. Anyway, he got his six hours of sleep and I didn't get mine. But of course, my position in the project was different. I was not the one tasked with kicking Karen's door in and throwing her on the floor, hand on her mouth, handcuffs ready, a knee in her back.

The cell. I kept thinking about the room as "the cell". The official term in the project for this room was bedroom. I am not sure if this was an intentional stab at humour. If it was, it was fairly laid back and made me feel somewhat uneasy, like a murderer making an ambiguous joke a second before pulling the trigger. For starters, there was obviously no bed in the cell. There was no furniture at all in there in the first day of her imprisonment, just walls (a pair of metal rings on one of them), floor and a large see-through mirror. She was thrown on the floor and locked in. A cell, with no windows, with dirty halogen bulbs on the ceiling, scary and bare. Yet, it was carefully designed by an architect. It had its purposes, though containing a bed was not one of them. The other rooms reflected the same twisted sense of humour (?): there was a "living room", a "gym", a "bathroom", a "kitchen".

I looked at Karen again, she was shivering. Craig followed my gaze, then he looked at me. He didn't need to speak. He added another note in his book. He knew what needed to be done.

I got my first sleep in thirty hours when Karen fell asleep. She was falling in and out of this semi-conscious state for a while, but near the twenty four hour mark, she was shivering violently, squealing like a pig through her teeth pressed tightly together.

Day one ended like that. She was in fever the way I predicted she would be. Craig looked up at the digital figures measuring the absolute time of her incarceration and switched the intercom on, explaining to whoever was on the other side what needed to be brought in.

"Please… Please…"

She was repeating this word over and over when Amus walked in. I was not sure whether she was pleading to be helped out of the cell or merely not to be hurt again. She pressed her back against the wall, her arms in front of her, trying to cover her nudity. Amus was on the Team Alpha in the displacement phase, so she probably remembered and feared him. He was the one who slapped her really hard, twice, before she was gagged, and then two times more, after, her hands already cuffed behind her back, her eyes flooded with terror and panic, bursting out with tears. He was the one who ripped her blouse right on the spot, his black fingers tearing the fabric as if it was paper.

He put the bowls on the floor near her, one with water, one with food. It was dog food, a really small can emptied into the bowl.

"Stinking pig" he added, over his shoulder as he was leaving the cell.

After she realised that he was not going to touch her, she struggled to get up on her feet, but it was obviously an effort, the fever, the hunger, the fear draining her strength over the past day.

"Please!", she coughed, trying to shout, "Please, don't go!!"

Ironic, it was ironic seeing her chase her captor as if he was somehow about to turn into a mysterious saviour the next second. He wasn't, of course, she was one step behind him as he reached the door and Amus turned around, lightning fast, and slapped her across the face, hard. As she fell back to the floor and covered her head, in fear of subsequent slaps, he spat on her and wiped his hand against her skin and hair. She was squealing quietly, head covered with her arms, folded into a little ball of flesh as he walked out mumbling about a dirty bitch to himself.

I was viewing the scene with close attention, the first interaction with another person in 24 hours. I adjusted the lens carefully, focusing on her arms and torso. When she raised her head and looked into the door, I closed in on her face, the red mark of Amus's hand on her cheek, her eyes swollen and painful, but no tears coming out. She was dehydrated.

The food and water was supplied in dog bowls.

"Oh, look at it, she refuses to act like a dog", said Craig.

Karen drank the water from the bowl, holding it in her hands, she drank slowly, the expression of anguish on her face reminding me that her throat was probably all sore and hurting from screaming and vomiting. The bowl was obviously not made for what she was using it for so water spilled out of the corners of her mouth.

"There is time, it's only her first day.", said I, looking at the list of ingredients supplied by the maintenance team. Sarah and Owen were given detailed list of our observations and projections and they made sure that Karen received necessary additions in her water. "She didn't get any directions or training. It would be a bit unrealistic to expect her to drink from the bowl positioned on all fours before someone makes it clear what is expected of her, wouldn't it?"

"Sure", agreed Craig, "I hope she is looking forward to the training as much as we are."

Joking about this subject was what we did a lot, probably to shake off the feel of unease everyone must have felt somewhere. Some guys just made the sense of unease worse with their jokes, but Craig managed to sound positively warm and caring. In any case, all that was not important at all. The project was described in detail, everyone was briefed and carefully instructed and the plan needed to be followed, making proper adjustments along the way as necessary. Careful observation was needed in order to determine whether the implementation follows the plan and Craig's and mine task was to see that this was done, regardless of any interior doubts we might have had.

The water Karen drank contained several additional ingredients. I watched her carefully as she was looking at the food bowl, the expression of disgust on her face. I was hoping she wouldn't throw up again as that would mean having to go in and drag her out, feed her through a needle. That would be an unwelcome disturbance to the plan, though we were prepared for that as well.

In the end she put the bowl down and rolled into a ball on the floor again, shivering uncontrollably. I relaxed and looked at Craig. He was dutifully making another note. He was really taking his supervisor role seriously. I was glad he turned out to be a very reasonable person after all as he was to be my main counterpart on this job. His CV revealed a lot of good and bad about him, but the sense of reliability I have come to receive from him was reassuring. Unlike Mike, whose bio was downright scary. That's the guy who wore a shirt saying "I ruin lives for a living". You know there is a role for such person on a team, you just hope you don't have to hang around him too much.

For better or for worse, we were all here, our roles and tasks precisely defined, held together by commitment and discipline.

The water that Karen drank took care of her. She rehydrated and that was the most important thing. Additionally, the antipyretics intercepted the fever she was starting to develop and she was also pumped full of painkillers, vitamins and tranquilisers. Not exactly the kind of cocktail I'd recommend to a person in her state, but we were after a quick recovery. She needed to be back on her feet and soon, so she could start with her service.

Around 29 ^th hour she fell asleep on the floor, the shivering subsiding as the medications kicked in. I stuck around for an additional hour, making sure her vitals look reasonably well, adjusting the cameras, and having a quick look through the footage I made. Then Mike was there to replace me and I said good night to him and Craig.

I2:

DARK RAIN, WE KNEW

"Did she eat anything at all?"

Mike and Robert were looking bored, a bunch of 2000 AD comic books on the floor between them. I was actually surprised that Mike would read something like Judge Dredd in public, but I guess we were all starting to get close to each other over time.

Karen did not eat at all for the first two days. She didn't do much anything. She was just sitting on the floor, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming at the top of her lungs, pleading, begging to be set free. She drank the water, though, which managed to keep her in shape.

"She had a couple of mouthfuls of dogfood." Said Robert, "but she spat out nearly as much as she ate."

"Is it all on tape?" asked I. It was their duty to keep track of all the important events and preserve them on video, while I was having my rest. They have received some training in order to make sure they can handle it in my absence, although it was prearranged that I am to make the best of efforts to be around for all the duration of Karen's waking hours.

"Yes.", confirmed Robert.

I sat down at the console and started the routine footage check. These first days were not supposed to be full of events so it was an easy ride for me.

Mike was playing Solitaire on his computer as Robert went out, his shift coming to an end. I was always amazed by people having the cutting edge technology at their disposal and yet being satisfied by using only a tiny percentage of its capacity. Then again, I was to be the techno geek here, Mike was here because of other qualities.

I opened up four windows and started simultaneously fast-forwarding through hours of Karen's imprisonment caught on four different stationary cameras. The time flew in front of my eyes, mostly uneventful. These cameras were left alone for most of the time when I wasn't present, the other guys instructed to use the main one if the need be. I switched to that one, skimming through time until I reached the part where Karen ate the food. She looked disgusted as she coughed and spat, trying to chew and swallow.

"I don't know what's with the drama", I heard Mike say behind me. I turned around and saw him smiling. "The damn thing is perfectly edible, I have tasted it myself many times."

I nodded:

"I guess it's the lack of any spice that we commonly associate with prepared food. Plus it stinks. Doesn't it?"

"It doesn't stink once you get used to it. And she didn't eat anything in a long while, this should be the scent of heavenly food to her. I guess the lady just needs to pretend for the cameras."

He was grinning, his big finger caressing the mouse slowly.

"Hm, probably not. She shouldn't be aware of the cameras yet. That comes at a later stage."

We both looked at the screen again, watching Karen cry as she was trying to swallow, chunks of meat falling out of her mouth, her manicured fingers smeared with animal fat and meat.

"This stuff is high quality, man. She eats better food than what me and you get on our pizzas!", Mike continued proving his point. I slipped my headphones on, signalling to him that I was about to devote my complete attention to the task at hand.

Muffled sounds of sobbing and crying filled my head.

Later that day Karen cried, squatting in her own urine, her hands folded across her belly and then dark fluid rained down on the floor. It was only a question of time when her bowels would need to be emptied and I guess the tranquilisers just delayed the inevitable. She had to have diarrhoea. I picked up the receiver.

A MOUTHFUL OF AIR

Cursing and shouting at her, Mike and Amus broke into the cell and stormed Karen.

"No, please, I couldn't…" was all she had time to say before being violently slapped two times.

"You fucking cunt!!!!" screamed Amus at her.

"You fucking dirty bitch!!", was Mike's contribution.

She fell to the floor, covering her face, trying to crawl away from them on her back, but this was just a token effort. Even if the cell wasn't just marginally larger than a shoebox, one exhausted woman on her back couldn't outrun two angry men in perfect shape. Amus caught both her wrists in his large hand and forced her arms away from her face. She was screaming "no, no, no, no" at first but as he increased the pressure she ditched the words and just screamed. Mike stepped in and placed his hand on her throat.

"Shut up, bitch!! Just shut the fuck up, or I'll choke you right here!! You are dead, do you hear me?"

He squeezed. I carefully zoomed in. The light was sparse, but that was all part of the project, as was my equipment. Ordinary cameras would produce grainy, blurry images. The ones I handled produced quality images even in this light. I zoomed in. Mike's fingers: white with the effort.

Karen kept her eyes tight shut at first, scared of being hit again, but as Mike increased the strength of his grip, she opened her eyes as well as her mouth. She was gasping for air as he explained how she pissed him off with her misbehaviour. Her eyes were scared, begging, pleading, bursting out of their sockets. Veins on her temples growing fat with the effort. I operated the zoom and carefully panned across her face, gently swaying back and forth. I wondered whether Mike was going to step over the line. This early in the project that would signify terrible assessment of staff members and could jeopardise the whole undertaking. Amus seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Easy, bro."

Mike smiled at him. A smile of power, contempt and irony. I doubt that Karen saw it. He let her go, finally, pushing her back to the wall. She fell down, her mouth wide open, inhaling audibly, saliva dripping from her mouth. Amus kicked her in the ribs:

"You filthy whore, look at this mess, you got shit all over you. I should have let him choke you, you worthless cunt. You're of no use."

I zoomed out as they were dragging her out of the cell, Mike firmly holding one her arm and her hair, her body leaving a wet trail on the floor.

They dragged her all the way down the corridor, as she was screaming and trying to fight back. I followed quickly behind them, handheld camera focusing on the scene. They were taking her to the "bathroom". My work so far was an easy ride, but as the action heated up, so the professional challenges increased.

I3:

MERE STEPS BEHIND

It is essential to have a sense for important details in this line of work. To have to deal with professionals is one thing. To have to deal with ordinary people is another. To have to deal with people who don't even know what is going on is yet another. There are no opportunities to explain to them what you need to make a good shot, there are no opportunities to repeat the situations, all you have is here and now and your talent. The displacement phase was planned very carefully, Karen was under observation for such a long time we all felt we knew her intimately. Every member of both teams knew their tasks, sub-phases of the displacement were all timed, well defined and rehearsed many times. Team Beta was securing the displacement area, taking care of neighbours, passers-by and possible troublemakers. Team alpha was tasked with infiltration and extraction. However, my task was probably the hardest, I couldn't rehearse my part in advance as we couldn't know for sure what Karen might do. We did many test runs with women roughly her constitution, but it is one thing dealing with a person who is paid to fight back and it is another doing the hot run with a person struggling out of mortal fear.

So I went in with the Team Alpha, my camera recording every moment of the action. Karen has been followed, the high heels of her shoes echoing in the hallway. She never noticed it, but we were lurking from the shadows all along. We were only steps behind her when she climbed the stairs and unlocked the door. We were mere heartbeats behind her when she started closing the door behind her and that's when Craig did his thing, running faster than I ever could hope to. He kicked the door in, violently, brutally, and was on top of her in mere seconds. We followed behind him, running in perfect order, rehearsed many times before. I was able to get a perfect shot of her face, when he turned her around, lifting her off the floor, his hand over her mouth. The look in her eyes was perfect. I watched that particular moment repeatedly tomorrow, while she was lying in her cell. The fear in her eyes, the surprise, the complete and utter panic, the loss of control. Then Amus stepped in and when Craig freed her mouth, he slapped her twice. Hard. She didn't have the time to scream. The gag was inserted into her mouth the next second, violently, probably hurting her a bit, but I imagine the adrenaline was already pumping through her vessels and pain was just another sensation. He slapped her two more times after Mike tightened the straps at the back and her head shot violently left and right, one of her earrings falling off. He grabbed the thin fabric of her white, sleeveless blouse and waited for a second before he pulled hard. The sound of tearing fabric was strong in the recording as I was close enough to catch it properly.

And so on. The need to be perfectly calm and focused because the work demanded it. I knew I was looking at hours of uninteresting images and only seconds worth focusing on, but I needed to be ready and not miss them.

INSIDE WITH ERIC

I was sitting at the console in the evening of the second day, Karen back in her cell. She was so exhausted that she just lied on the floor which gave me enough time to look through the tapes and do a rough edit. The terms of my contract demanded not only that I be able to catch important details in the best possible way, but also to be prepared to view hours of raw material made every day (the cameras in the cell never stopping), find the good bits and edit everything down to maximum two hours of quality footage. These first days have been short on activity so I was struggling to actually reach the two hour mark. I had to look for special expressions on Karen's face, for multiple angles on her middle region as she was peeing. The following days will present an altogether different challenge. With the ordeal Karen was going to be submitted to, there will be an overabundance of material to choose from and tough aesthetic choices to be made.

I removed my headphones as Craig was handing me over a bowl of doughnuts. He was smiling a smile of a man pleased with his day's work.

"Thanks".

"So, how did we do?"

I knew he expected a verbal pat on the back. After all this was their first real performance in this project.

"I thought you guys were real good." I took a bite, the doughnuts were surprisingly great. "Real good work, you did well, all of you. I liked the way you acted." Craig's smile widened a fraction. "There just was this great balance of spontaneity and well rehearsed moves. I think you lead the other guys well, you know, you weren't imposing yourself on anyone and still you held it firmly under control."

Craig was making confirming noises, chewing on another doughnut. I took another bite.

"Man, this shit is really good."

We both chewed without words for a couple of seconds, looking at the screen. Since my headphones were still plugged into the deck, there was no sound. The static camera mounted on the ceiling gave us a view that looked strangely voyeuristic and uninterested at the same time. It was like a camera someone positioned there to make a documentary about a table and then forgot about it. The bodies moved in silence, a thin, fragile female body on the table and strong, muscular male bodies around it. A male figure between Karen's legs was making violent pelvic thrusts inside her, Karen's legs held apart by another two men, her arms held by another, her head hanging from the edge of the table shaking desperately to left and right. With headphones on I could hear her screams and pleas, but right this moment, chewing on a doughnut, this looked like a strange theatre act, the actors sworn to silence, trying to make up for the absence of sound with overemphasised body acting. I could see myself on the screen. I pressed a key on the console and switched the viewpoint to a small camera I had in my hands at the moment. Karen's face filled the screen, spilling over its edges, red from pain and blood that rushed into her head that was hanging over the edge of the table. Her lips were forming silent no's and please's.

"Damn good, really", replied Craig, "That's because they are fresh, they ain't worth shit when they get stale." He took another doughnut and turned around, casting a glance at Karen motionless in her cell. He didn't need to look at the footage right now. That was my task. He will be free to watch the edited version. The rest of the guys were anxious to see the footage as soon as they were finished but Craig managed to convince them that I needed to do the edit and that watching the raw material would just take away the excitement. The complained but they agreed to wait, begging not to be cut out from the final version. "Man, leave me in, don't be a jealous prick!!" laughed Amus as they were leaving the room. I laughed as well.

I hit the pause button and put my headphones back on. I rolled the tape to the beginning. Time to be creative.

The good thing about the equipment I was using was that it was state of the art, the best money can buy and I was free to do whatever I wanted to as long as I provided quality videos as a result. The bad thing, of course being that I felt like a child in a candy store, so many options at the tip of my fingers that I had to constantly remind myself what the work was about. I adjusted the levels on the sound mixer, so that I had a channel with music of my choice in the background. Dolphy makes it all that much easier to concentrate. Slowly I moved the sliders up until I could hear the ambient sounds. I was isolated from my surroundings, free to work. Craig was there, ready to alert me if anything demanding my attention happened with Karen in the cell.

The interesting part began with Karen being dragged to the "bathroom".

THE DRY RUN, THE RUINS

Mike and Amus were instructed what to do in a case that was predicted just as about everything else Karen could do or what could happen to her was predicted. We had a lot of intel about her even before we started planning the displacement phase. The dossier on her was 70 pages long and every member of the team had to learn it and do the tests before displacement phase even took shape. We have been in her apartment many times before that particular night, unseen, unheard. The only living beings that knew we were there were Karen's cats. We knew their names and habits as well. They ran away in terror when Craig kicked the door down that night. We left the door open after we dragged her away, tied down and gagged, her clothes torn away brutally. I assume the cats had enough sense to leave the apartment and look for food and accommodation elsewhere.

So Mike and Amus knew what to do and they only needed me to tell them when my equipment was ready to start. I needed just a short time, since everything was prepared, tested and adjusted days before Karen became our prisoner.

The "bathroom" was an empty room, tiles on walls, a drain on the floor. Karen was thrown into the corner, her own excrements smeared across the inner side of her thighs, but also on her back and arse. She was sobbing and crying, disoriented, not knowing what to expect. That was all part of the plan.

Amus unscrewed the valve as Mike aimed with the hose and a strong stream of water hit Karen the next second.

"Give her a thorough bath, man", giggled Amus, "She's a dirty pig, man."

This lasted for good ten minutes, which was actually far more than it was needed to clean Karen's skin. But those were the instructions Mike and Amus had and they were good soldiers. Karen could not stop crying, I managed to get a few excellent shots of her face. Her dignity was reduced to almost nothing, as she was getting the treatment a pig on a farm would. Mike changed the angles and directions, circling around her, aiming with the hose to get every single square centimetre of her body.

"Come on, pig, spread 'em, we need to wash that dirty ass of yours", he aimed the stream of water at her back side, managing to hit the spot right between her legs, as she lay face down on the floor. As I was handling the camera, I couldn't help but wonder whether thoughts of escape or acting in any way were going through her head. She was out of her cell for the first time, did that spark any hope in her? If it did, that would only make the following events harder for her.

"Look at her, man, she's crying." Amus laughed a healthy, cheerful laugh, the two of them being like boys who just discovered a great new game.

"She was hoping for a gentler treatment, no doubt. Perhaps a bubble-bath." He aimed the stream of water at Karen's face, forcing her to press her eyes and lips shut "Listen to me, bitch, a dirty whore like you can only hope to get this kind of hygiene treatment. You are so filthy that none of us would touch you before you are washed with a hose. You should consider yourself lucky I didn't beat you up like you deserved for shitting yourself. But don't think you won't get punished for that. Oh, you will, you will."

She was shivering after this was over, the water being adjusted to body temperature. It wasn't exactly cold but it must have been very unpleasant being treated with it for ten minutes. However, miserable as she was at the end of bathing, this was not the punishment Mike was talking about, but a mere preparation. After he put the hose down, Amus stepped up and grabbed her hair, pulling her off the floor.

Karen tried to struggle, but she was barely in control of her own body: wet and cold, she was a pitiful sight to see. Her nipples were extremely hard from the cold, her hair was a mess and her face was red with crying.

"Get up, bitch, get up, get up!!", he issued the orders in a nervous, impatient tone, pulling her up.

"No, please, please, I'm begging you…", her voice was trembling as her whole body was, but Amus paid no heed to her pleas.

"Get up quickly, bitch, we don't have all day. The other guys are dying to greet you and I don't want to leave them waiting the whole day." He started pulling her towards the door, still holding her hair in a tight grasp, as she tried to follow on her knees, falling, then continuing on all fours.

"Time to get your official welcome, you fucking slut" added Mike, "By the look of those nipples, I'd say you are as eager to know the posse better as we are to show you what we have in stock for you"

I guess that, if there was any doubt what was about to happen next and what her incarceration would eventually lead to, if Karen managed to somehow block the path to logical conclusions in her mind, Mike's explanation shattered that last little bit of hope she might have retained.

It was obvious she understood what he had in mind as she was trying to break free any way she could. She was trying to get a firm grasp on something to slow down the progress, but the floor was not an ideal surface for that. She was screaming "No, no, let me go!!" and fell on her back, trying to slow Amus down. It didn't help. Mike leaned forwards and got her legs, even though she was kicking and screaming in absolute terror. She knew what was going to happen.

Amus adjusted his grasp, taking a hold of her arms as they carried her into the "living room". Three other guys awaited there, completely naked and prepared as was the plan. The ten minute bath was not only meant to erase any remaining sense of dignity in Karen, it also provided the rest of the team the time to get ready. Amus and Mike threw Karen on the plain wooden table placed in the middle and the other three guys readily got hold of her arms and legs, their erections impressive and threatening.

"Nice nipples" said Craig as Mike and Amus started undressing. Karen was thrashing on the table, but she was no match for three strong, trained men who held her down.

Then five of them raped her on the table.

They had their instructions and they acted as a well trained team. As I approached for closer shots, Owen and Craig held her legs apart and Jurgen prepared for penetration. She was completely helpless, her body making violent motions in an attempt to break free, but with no success. She begged and pleaded, repeating words like "please" and "no", her face a grimace of exceptional terror as the realisation that she was going to be raped and that there was nothing she could do to stop it took over. Jurgen was to be the first.

"Relax, bitch, this is what you've been waiting for all along, isn't it?"

He thrust his penis into her with one violent pelvic movement. Her screams simultaneously grew in intensity and lost all verbal meaning. These were screams of pain. Jurgen was huge, he was chosen to be the one to break her in for a reason.

"Uhh, fucking slut, you have a tight cunt. I didn't expect that from a whore like you!", Jurgen pulled his penis out, spat on it and pushed it back into her. Karen's body twitched in pain. "You are a bit dry but I don't mind that. As long as you enjoy it. "

He fucked her hard, sticking his penis all the way in once the initial resistance was overcome. Crag and Owen were helping him, keeping her legs apart and pulling her onto his penis every time he pushed. He increased the speed after a while slamming into her violently, his big, shaven balls hitting her anus every time he pushed in, making a loud slapping sound.

Karen was screaming as I closed in on her face, trying to preserve some of the most genuine moments of pain and fear I have seen.

"Oh, God, please, oh, NOOOOOO!"

The next second, Mike grabbed her hair and put his penis into her mouth.

"Suck it, bitch, make yourself useful!", he ordered. Karen's screams ceased as she was struggling to breathe through her nose, his massive pole of flesh being brutally pushed into her mouth. She made muffled gagging noises as he was moving in and out, his penis wet from her saliva.

"Ooohh, you fucking slut!!! Suck it, SUCK IT!!" He was pulling his penis out almost completely and sticking it back in, effectively fucking her in the mouth just like Jurgen fucked her cunt. I managed to get close, seeing the bulge in her throat rise every time he thrust inwards.

Then they switched places. Mike pushed her legs upwards, as Craig and Owen still held them apart, and he slammed violently into her. At the same time, Jurgen forced his penis, covered with her own juices into her mouth. The natural lubricant on his skin shined just enough for my camera to catch it, thus proving that Karen's body responded to the treatment in a way her mind and spirit rejected, only making the humiliation deeper. Jurgen was alternating between deep mouthfucking and slapping Karen's face with his huge shaft. The woman shook her head, trying to avoid contact with his flesh, but there was nowhere she could escape.

And Mike was the first one to cum, as he pulled out of her screaming "You dirty whore!!!!" at the top of his lungs. He held his penis in his fist and ejaculated all over her belly and breasts. Seconds later he was replaced by Craig and he himself replaced Jurgen in Karen's mouth, forcing her to suck his penis clean. She submitted to his wish only after being slapped two times across the face. Tears mixed with saliva as Mike spat in her face, thrusting his softening penis all the way into her mouth. The moment he pulled back, apparently satisfied with her performance, Jurgen shoved his penis back into her mouth preventing her from taking a deep breath. Him and Craig both fucked her in the same rhythm, as Owen and Amus held her legs, preparing themselves to take her.

Jurgen came first, shoving his cock almost all the way down her throat.

"Ahhh, you bitch, swallow it, swallow it all!!!"

The rest of the guys cheered after he pulled out and Karen started coughing, spitting his semen out of her mouth. He rubbed his penis against her face, spreading his sperm and her saliva over it. He slapped her face with it, highfiving Craig at the same time.

"Take it you fucking slut, you like that taste, don't you!!!"

Craig pulled out just a little bit later, Owen replacing him between Karen's legs. He walked around the table, grabbed her hair, lifted her head up, put his penis in front of her face and ejaculated in thick gushes of sperm over her face and hair. He was spitting in her face simultaneously. Her eyelids, hair, forehead and nose were covered with sperm and spit as she was crying in pain and shame. He ejaculated the last drops on her lips, positioning her face for the camera so I could get the best angle.

"This one can go on the front page of any decent porn magazine, eh, man?"

I gave him thumbs up, but I didn't reply as I was slowly zooming in, careful to catch every single glimmer of light on drops of his semen and her lips.

It all went like that for some more time, Amus was the last to fuck her and he was probably the most merciless of all, his big black penis being very thick in diameter, his enormous cockhead slamming viciously into her vagina, no doubt aching from the ordeal it was submitted to. She was almost completely exhausted by then, her body resembling a rag doll thrown on the table, her voice cracked and tired, she wasn't pleading any more, she was just squealing wordlessly, and after he squeezed last drops of sperm onto her hair, she remained lying, eyes closed, motionless, giving me the perfect closing shot.

JUST ABOVE THE ELBOWS

The team cheered all the way through the premiere screening of the edited footage of the rape. They were commenting on each other's performances, and even cock-sizes, even though part of their training was spending a lot of time together naked in the gym, in order to familiarise with each other's bodes, to maximise the efficiency in the performance.

A natural leader, Craig awarded each of them with appropriately nice words for every good thing they did, pointing out the areas where improvements could be made.

"Man, this is good, the bitch was super hot!!" exclaimed Owen, still fresh memories of gang rape he participated in obviously making him want more.

"She's a natural deepthroater even though she didn't even know that", added Jurgen.

"Dude, you almost chocked her with that monster of yours" laughed Mike. They were all like a basketball team after a hard won victory.

"She has to get used to it, the sooner she learns to swallow cock, the better for her."

"And us", added Amus thoughtfully.

"Yeah, well, frankly, us in particular!" answered Mike as everybody laughed a threatening laugh.

"You guys, you only think of yourselves. It is important that the lady learns to enjoy it." Told them Craig in mock reproach. "That way she will make an effort to make it better for us as well."

As the laughter rose and subsided and rose again, I looked through the glass. Karen was still asleep or at least lying motionless on the floor. If she doesn't move soon, if she doesn't eat or drink anything she will have to be forced to. I assumed that finding volunteers would not present a problem.

She was carried back to the cell after the rape, still completely naked and covered with sperm and spit. She was thrown on the floor, but not just left there. The plan demanded she be restrained in a specific way. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, with another pair of leather cuffs added just above her elbows. This way she would be forced to drink the water and eat like an animal, kneeling on the floor, pushing her face in either of the bowls. Craig explained this was to be her punishment for shitting herself the way she did and resisting the boys' attempts to clean her up. Then she was locked in and abandoned.

I4:

THE FILTH THAT SHE HAD PRODUCED

Owen lay asleep in his chair, but that didn't matter. It was the middle of the night. I was only there because Karen has been reported not to sleep. For a reason.

"Man, what is it, seven days before time?"

Craig was very pedantic about figures so he looked in his notes:

"Eight days before time"

"Well, we expected it. It could have happened the first day. I'm surprised it didn't."

Owen was the one who reported Karen having her period, eight days early, apparently. It's not uncommon for women to have an early period when experiencing stress of this magnitude. Craig and I were summoned to make official notes and consult the medical team.

Owen was the one who entered the cell and grabbed Karen by her hair, lifted the upper half of her exhausted body off the floor and yelled abuse to her face smeared with tears. He screamed at her, at close range, red in the face, tiny drops of his saliva ending up on her skin, visible in the lens of my camera. He demanded her to talk to him, to confirm she understood the situation, to follow him through his rage. He made it look as if it was her fault. He made it look as if she could have done something to prevent it. She was crying as he was pointing at her thighs, smeared with menstrual blood, as he pointed out the stench, the filth that she had produced. She was crying like a little girl, her first period ever taking place and an enraged father exploding with anger because of it.

She has been cuffed for the last day and watching her struggle to move around her cell, watching her crawl to her toilet-spot was source of amusement for most of the team. It is difficult to move when your arms are restrained and you are naked and scared and ill and broken from gang rape. She couldn't control her body well and as a result parts of her skin were smeared with urine. Another hose bath was in order.

She was forced to thank Jurgen for the bath he provided for her. He was free to choose whether he wanted full scale intercourse with her or just oral sex and he decided he just needed her to blow him. She was on her knees, as he grabbed her wet hair and forced his cock in her mouth. He was pushing his massive penis deep into her throat, leaving it there until she looked as if she'd choke or throw up or both, then he'd take it out and slap her across the face with it, all the while calling her a dirty whore, a cheap slut et cetera. He ejaculated over her face and hair and his semen was not washed off before returning her to her cell.

And then Owen called to tell us she had her period. I was asleep and Craig was sitting with some of the boys, watching telly and smoking. Our positions on the team demanded we make personal appearances and notify officially the new development in Karen's state, consult the medics, as well as to give directions for immediate and mid-term actions.

Owen was asleep in his chair, but that was OK, it was the middle of the night. I was only awake because I had to. Craig left for bed, but I stayed as Karen was still awake. I watched her for an hour after Owen left her to lie in her own blood and stench. It took a while before sobbing subsided and then she struggled to her knees, her arms still cuffed on her back. On her knees she made her way to the dogbowls with water and food in one corner. On her knees, she bowed down and drank the water, face in the bowl, like an animal.

I adjusted the zoom, slowly, until her face filled my field of vision. Then I played around with the camera on the ceiling. There was something extremely artistic about her naked figure on her knees, her arms tied on her back, her head bowed down. The symmetry, the shape, the curves. I adjusted the lens so that the dark around her was absolute on screen, only the white of her body shining as she drank the water.

We like to think we are much more than just animals. But she was an animal at this very moment. Or, more precisely, I guess she was an animal all along, it's just that her cover was blown. Because we are like that. We are animals, we just keep forgetting that.

Kill the alpha male in a group of gorillas and watch the rest of them retreat in confusion, then fight each other for his position. I watched Karen as she pushed her face in the food bowl and made animal noises trying to get food into her mouth using just lips and tongue. I thought of the assassination and how everything was changed after. I remembered retreat and confusion and fighting that followed.

She finished her "meal" and crawled back to her spot on the floor. It's worth noting that she didn't just lie down next to the bowls, she went back to where she was lying before. Her cell, how ever small and uncomfortable it was, was her habitat and, consciously or not, she separated it into eating, sleeping and toilet zones. Women.

I typed the instructions into the log. From tomorrow morning she will have a designated time of the day to be lead out of her cell and into the toilet down the hall, where she will be given five minutes to empty her bowels. If she fails to do it, or doesn't finish in time, well, I typed for thirty long minutes. The instructions ended up being quite precise.

Time to wake Owen up and go to bed.

I5:

IN THE FLESH AND ON LINE

Karen's first enema was a messy experience because she never head one before.

We knew that. We knew many things about Karen. We knew where she lived and where she worked. We knew names of members of her family, her co-workers, their phone numbers and their habits.

We knew Karen's shoes size, we knew the exact date when she had her belly button pierced and the price of the waist-chain she bought three weeks later to wear it underneath her work-clothes. We knew what her favourite lingerie was. We knew what her secret email address was. We knew her measures, her weight and eating habits. We knew her sexual preferences and names of her partners, in the flesh and online. We knew her inside out.

I watched hours of footage of Karen in months before we performed the displacement. In months after her fortieth birthday. She bought very expensive canned food for her cats that day. I watched and studied the surveillance footage taken in the street and in her home, watching her slender, tall body, her long legs and her face, sometimes with glasses on or off.

She had a very elegant, ladylike way of walking. She looked like a calm person at all times. There is a piece of footage I watched many times, no sound at all (shot from a car at the opposite side of the street, no need for sound recording), Karen crossing the street and wind wrapping her skirt around her legs dressed in black stockings and elegant high-heeled shoes. There was something deeply poetic in the way she looked around at one point, stopping in the middle of the street, the wind playing with her hair. She looked almost directly into the camera, the expression on her face as if she was trying to make something out, so delicate. And then she just continued walking. There was so much significance in those fifteen seconds, so much to see and imagine and analyse. I watched it countless times.

I read her email.

I downloaded photos from her hard disk at home, photos of her taken by people I didn't know. Photos of her with people, male and female, I didn't know.

We didn't need to know them. Was there a need, we'd learn about those people.

She had her first enema in the morning after Craig pulled her into the toilet at the end of the hall, releasing her arms after more than thirty hours. The instructions were barked at her.

I AM THE EYE OF THIS STORM

"Do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND, BITCH!!!!" shouted Craig in a voice that would scare even me.

She was terrified, hiding her head between her shoulders, closing her eyes in fear of what he might do. She nodded, a barely visible gesture, a fragile female body sitting on a toilet in a stall with no door, her ribs and tits looking so vulnerable, her inner thighs covered with dried menstrual blood. She understood, but she couldn't do it. The minimal food intake, the stress, the fact that she was watched, all that affected her in a predictable way. So, after five minutes Amus and Craig were upon her, pulling her off the seat, shouting at her.

"You have to defy us, bitch!!! You just have to piss us off, don't you? Now you'll see what you get for playing games with us, you stupid cunt!!!"

Craig was good at this. He had a cold, military mind, able to think along one line and act along the other.

Karen was taken to the "bathroom" and positioned on all fours there. Then, as Amus was preparing the bags, Craig inserted a gag into her mouth. There was no need for that, but he still thought of using it because he was used to thinking one step ahead of the events. Military mind. She resisted, waving her head left and right but she didn't have the courage to really fight him. Even though her arms were free after such a long time, she didn't dare put up a real fight. Instead she just pressed her lips together and tried to avoid him by violently shaking her head. Not that it made much difference. He stood above her, his legs spread around her kneeling body, and he grabbed her hair and pulled her head savagely back. She moaned but managed to keep her mouth shut. I was taking a wide shot which was just as well as Craig turned back and looked directly into the camera, grin on his face, as if to say he was welcoming the challenge she presented to him.

"Come on, open your mouth, bitch, don't make me really hurt you!", he was pulling at her hair, jerking her head violently back and forth, but her mouth stayed shut. I circled them slowly, zooming in onto her face. I was surprised to see that there was still defiance left in her at this stage. After being so thoroughly abused and violated, one would think she would accept the gag without much protest. After all, she was punished for things she had no control over before this, it must have been clear to her that her refusal to comply would only result in more punishment.

"Fine, if that's the game you want to play, be my guest!!", Craig decided to change the tactic.

He switched hands. The gag was a big, plastic penis one, with leather straps and buckles. He took it in his left hand, and placed his right hand on Karen's throat. He had big hands. Her neck looked tiny as he violently squeezed at it.

"Oh, you're gonna open your mouth for me, I know you are.", he was singing in a low voice.

He pushed her down, and her arms collapsed under her. He pushed her face to the floor, his fingers still squeezing her throat. His strong, muscular legs kept her under his control, as her body began to thrash. The expression on her face was one of desperation. She knew what the game was about. She understood the stakes. She tried to fight with all she had at the moment which was not much. She thrashed violently under him, red in the face, her eyes exploding with fear. It was her life or her pride. She knew that. That was a lost fight from start, but she still fought, for some reason trying to cling to the illusion that she had a degree of dignity left, that there indeed were traces of her free will left. She didn't want to be gagged, she refused the penis-gag, the instrument of ultimate humiliation, she didn't want the vestiges of her dignity to be mocked in this way.

But she gave in eventually. Human fear of dying is too strong. Almost always it triumphs over pride. She had to open her mouth. No one would be able to keep their mouth shut, being brutally choked in the way she was. It was a small wonder she managed to last for almost half a minute the way she did.

The moment her mouth were open, Craig shoved the gag in and released the grip on her throat. Then he pushed her face to the floor to prevent her from spitting the thick plastic penis out, as she was coughing and gasping for air. Swiftly, he buckled the straps on the back of her head, fixing the gag, making sure it was planted deeply in her mouth.

"That's a nice girl, I knew we'd get along together eventually.", said he, pleased with what he'd done. He pulled her back up to her arms and legs, and grabbed her hair so he could direct her face towards my camera. I made a long shot of her, zooming in slowly as her heavy breathing subsided. Her eyes were full of tears. The penis-gag was rather long and its tip must have been buried fairly deep in her throat, forcing her to accommodate to it. Saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth, down her chin, onto the floor. She was a sorry sight. She was looking right into the camera, crying silently. She was looking right into the lens.

Then Amus brought the bags and Karen was cleaned on the inside. The two of them had great fun sticking the tubes into her anus and pumping her full of water and soap. Amus placed his hand on her belly as she was getting filled.

"Yo, man, you gotta check this out, you can feel her guts getting fatter."

Craig placed his hand next to it and they both pressed and played around with her belly, as she was silently moaning. I saw the expression on her face move from discomfort and shame to pain and anguish as more water entered her intestines, inflating her, pressing her inner organs, hurting her.

As brown water rushed out of her anus, Craig and Amus cheered, and Amus pushed her head down, so she could look between her arms and legs and see the dark stream run out of her.

"Look at it, you dirty bitch. You oughta be thankin' us for cleaning you of your filth!"

The ordeal was repeated three times and after it was finished, Karen looked completely exhausted. She took the hose-bath just lying on the floor, as Amus sprayed her from all angles, cleaning her of dried menstrual blood and other filth.

"She seems to be getting used to the water temperature.", said Craig.

"Well, either that or she is completely wasted and unable to react.", said I, not turning the camera away from her for a second.

"Well, that would be unfortunate as I am really hoping she will react to what we have in stock for her next.", said he.

She heard that, even though I thought she was almost unconscious. She looked up at the two of us, her face a grotesque of leather straps, tears and agony. I understood her look, perfectly. She was pleading. Pleading to just be left alone. She was exhausted, ill, broken.

"Right", said I, checking the time elapsed on my camera, "take her to the "living room." It was only middle of the morning.

A VERSE OF SPASMS

They carried her to the living room, as she struggled, desperately. But she had no chance. A slender, exhausted woman, humiliated and all dripping with water was no match for two men in their prime. They carried her effortlessly, like a plastic doll. When we entered the "living room", she could see the rest of the boys awaiting there. She knew what was to follow and her eyes widened in panic. But there were no screams, all I could hear were muffled cries, barely audible through thick plastic buried in her mouth.

"Come on, baby, you loved it the other day, didn't you?", asked Jurgen. "We know each other now, no need to pretend you aren't happy to see us."

"We, sure as hell are happy to see you" added Owen, his swollen penis in his hand, foreskin peeled back, the purple head glistening with precum. They were happy to see her, no doubt about it.

Yet she fought. Somehow, that was strange. The first time she was raped, she barely struggled. This time around, even though she was exhausted and thoroughly humiliated, she resisted desperately, with all the strength she could muster. As I played the footage back later that day, I thought about this. It could be that at first she was scared for her life. That was only natural, after all. Maybe she imagined that accepting what they did to her kept her alive. But by now she probably understood. The rape she was subjected to was not merely a passing opportunity for a bunch of horny men. It was systematic, calculated, planned. She probably understood that now and she struggled against her captors. Not that it made much difference, of course. They had their orders, they had their training. She was bent over the table in no time, her arms violently pulled back and her wrists cuffed together.

"So, slut", started Craig, "I hope you appreciate all the effort we invested in cleaning your filthy ass. " He made a pause, as if waiting for the reply, but, even were the gag not still firmly planted in Karen's mouth, I doubt he'd have got one. "It's only appropriate you thank us by investing some effort yourself and making us feel good now, understand?" She probably understood where he was going with this, but bent over as she was, her hands restrained on her back, her mouth filled with that big piece of plastic, she didn't have many options but to continue listening.

"Of course, you understand we did it more for you than ourselves, because we're nice guys. I wouldn't mind fucking your ass as dirty as it was, since that would only give me the right to have you clean my cock afterwards with your mouth, right? But some of the guys here thought you may not be ready for the taste of your own shit just yet, slut, OK? So you got a free enema, OK? Now you are going to be fucked in the ass, OK?"

Karen made a violent motion upwards, trying to get up, probably not thinking at all, just reacting to the threat in his voice. But he was ready for it. He pushed her back to the table and pressed her down, his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. The camera positioned right in front of her showed me a good shot of Karen trying to raise her head, her breasts crushed against the wood of the table. Amus stepped in then and grabbed her hair, keeping her head down.

The cry she let out was unbelievable. Without a gag in her mouth, it would have been a deafening scream. This way it was a muffled howl of an animal in pain. Craig penetrated her anus savagely, pushing his cock in with such force that her eyes looked as if they were going to come out of their sockets.

"Man, come on, push it all the way in, she's loving it", said Amus, lifting her head up. "You love it, don't you? Don't you, slut?" Craig kept pushing and his flesh disappeared in her, inch by inch as her muffled cries followed one another. "Such a slut." Said Amus, and spat on Karen's forehead.

"Man, you won't believe how tight she is", said Craig as he pulled back and then thrust his member into her with more force than before. "She's going to have to practise if she seriously plans to become a true anal slut, right?"

Karen was in agony, her face red, the veins on her forehead bursting with blood. The fact that she was tied down and gagged must have only contributed to the sense of helplessness. The pain from Craig's brutal anal penetration forcing her whole body to twitch violently each time he entered her.

"Come on, man", said Owen, "quit playing around, stick it all the way in, she's a big girl, she can take it."

"That's the difference between me and you", said Craig, not stopping his violent thrusts for a moment, "You think only of yourself, whereas I know what ladies like." He took his penis all the way out, and pressed his swollen cockhead against her anus again. Pushing in, he made circular motions, forcing her flesh to part. It went in slowly. Karen was howling into the gag.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear she's a virgin", said Owen, clearly impatient to have a go at Karen himself.

"Here, let me help you with that", said Amus, stepping in. He placed his hands on Karen's butt-cheeks and spread them as wide as they would go. "Do it, man!"

"Are you ready, slut? This is what you have been waiting for all along!", announced Craig in a cheerful voice. "I'm going to fucking break your ass."

With these words he made a savage pelvic thrust and buried his penis all the way into her. Her eyes grew in size. Red with blood and fear, there was no reason in them at that moment. Just pain. Spit dripped from her mouth, down to the floor. She screamed again and again as Craig started fucking her brutally, his testicles hitting her shaven cunt with every thrust he made.

THE NOSEBLEEDER

"Ooooh, you bitch, you like it, don't you?" he asked, breathing heavily, "Your fucking ass is so hot, slut, I can't believe you wanted to keep it all to yourself."

He grabbed her hands, cuffed on her back, and pulled her onto his penis every time he thrust into her. Her body was pulled back and thrust forth on the table, her breasts rubbing against the hard wooden surface.

"You love it? You love it, right?", repeated Craig as he was pounding her relentlessly from behind, his ball sac bouncing off comically. "Take the gag out of her mouth, man, I want to hear her say she loves this."

Amus unbuckled the straps and Karen was free to breathe once again.

"No!!! Please, stop, PLEASE!!!!"

Her voice was cracked and raw. All the screaming she did with the gag in amounted to very little actual sound, but it wasn't less taxing on her throat, obviously. She was turning her head back, trying to look Craig in the eyes, trying to convince him to stop.

"Please, heave heart!!! I can't take this, please!!!!"

Craig grabbed her hair and pushed her head down as he continued fucking her hard.

"Easy there, bitch, someone might think you aren't enjoying this as much as I do."

"She is being real ungrateful here, man." Said Jurgen, "Craig is just getting her prepared for the rest of us and I know I don't plan to be as considerate and gentle as he is."

"You hear the man, slut?", asked Craig. "Do you hear him? If you think this is painful, wait until Jurgen gets his hands on you. He is going to tear your ass apart with his monster, bitch."

Karen was crying in pain and fear as Craig accelerated his thrusts. He was getting really hot and demanded her to take part.

"Come on slut, tell me you love this! Tell me you dreamed of this all your life!!!"

All she came up with was "No, NO, NO!!!" over and over again but that clearly was not good enough for Craig.

"Come ON, BITCH!!!! You can do better than that!!!!" He stuck both his index fingers into her mouth and pulled to opposite sides, forcing her to scream in pain.

"Come on, see, you can smile after all. Now tell me you love the way I fuck your ass!!!"

She was waving her head left and right, in helpless denial. Craig had her body but apparently she didn't want to let him have her will, not completely. But he was determined to force her into complying.

Craig took both her breasts in his big, strong hands and squeezed at the nipples. That was not a measured kind of pressure, applied by a skilful lover, capable of the subtle balancing act between pain and pleasure. Instead, Craig twisted and pulled at her nipples with vicious determination, a cruel smile on his face as her cries rose to high-pitched shrieks signifying the fresh kind of pain.

"Come on, come on, say it!!!!"

"No, GOD, NO, NO PLEASE!!!"

"Say it, or I'll rip your fucking nipples off, I swear I will cripple you, BITCH!!!"

To prove he meant business, he pulled at her nipples very hard. It was scary seeing the flesh and skin stretch the way they did. I zoomed in to get the details.

"Oh, GOD, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!!"

Karen was screaming in agony. I wondered would the fear of mutilation, that primal, pre-rational fear overcome her resistance the way fear of dying did it before. Would she crack? What else was there for her to do?

"Oh, GOD, PLEASE STOP, I'LL SAY IT, JUST PLEASE STOP!!!!!"

Craig was pleased with the way things resolved. He decreased the force he was using, but her nipples were still firmly between his fingers.

"I knew you'd come through for me baby. I knew you'd see the light once. Come on, let me hear you say how much you love being fucked this way. Come on, now."

Karen was catching her breath, trying to force herself to utter the words that probably disgusted her more than she could ever imagine as he continued rolling her nipples between his fingers.

"Now, bitch!!"

"I... love it" she whispered finally, his cock still going steadily in and out of her.

Craig laughed a cruel laugh.

"You gotta be kidding me, slut. You gotta be kidding me, seriously. You think I'd fall for that? What the fuck do you take me for?"

He grabbed her breasts using his full hands, and squeezed mercilessly. She screamed in pain.

"Come on, one more time, with passion. I want to hear you mean it."

"Oh God… Oh God… Oh my God…", Karen was trying to compose herself, trying to concentrate on the task in front of her. It was a simple task at a glance, but nothing in her position was simple any more. It seemed that she realised Craig was ready to hurt her really bad unless she did exactly what he told her. She inhaled deeply.

"Oh, God, yes…" she stopped there and exhaled audibly, then took another deep breath. Passion. She was trying to leave the impression of being aroused.

"Yes, yes, oh, God, yes, I love it. I love it."

"That's more like it, bitch, see you can be a good slut when I help you out a bit." Craig accelerated his thrusts. Karen's helplessness, her tight anus, her fragile body under his, and her acceptance of his cruel game in the end, all this obviously excited him very much. Still, he knew this was making for a good show and that the footage I was getting was first class. A professional.

"Yes. God, yes, yes, fuck my little arse, please."

Karen was putting up a nearly convincing act, considering the state she was in. It was good enough for Craig, apparently, as he was getting ready to come any second.

"Ahhhhh, bitch!!! You are going to make me come, you fucking dirty slut!!!"

He pulled out of her and quickly stepped around the table.

"Open up!! Open up wide, slut!!! I want to come into your mouth!!!" he grabbed her hair and pulled her head up. I wondered whether Karen would defy him at this point.

She did. She pressed her lips together tight, her eyes closed, ready to feel jets of his semen on her face. I doubt that was a conscious decision. She just reacted like anyone would in this situation.

So Craig slapped her face once and then two more times, forehand, backhand, forehand. She was slapped quite a bit these days, but not as hard as this, not once as hard as this.

"Open your mouth now, BITCH!!!" screamed Craig.

And she did. Her eyes were still closed but she opened her mouth wide, a thin stream of blood trickling down from her right nostril. She was trembling, visibly. That was fear, pain, humiliation, exhaustion, you name it. None of it mattered to Craig as he was pumping his swollen member.

"Ahhh, take it NOW, BITCH!!!" he exclaimed as he shot jet after jet of sperm into her mouth. When the twitches subsided he shoved his penis into her mouth, letting the last drops of his semen fall on her tongue.

"Ahhh, that's great, now swallow it. COME ON, SWALLOW IT ALL, NOW!!!!"

She did so. Crying, bleeding from her nose, then coughing as spit, sperm, blood and mucus dripped from her mouth and nose and onto the floor.

That was when Jurgen approached her from the rear and shoved his cock into her anus.

"Time to feel the real man, baby", he announced himself.

That Craig finished and sat into one of the chairs behind him was a sign for the rest of the guys that Karen was all theirs now.

A SWARM OF DRONES

Jurgen was indeed even less considerate than Craig. He was shoving his huge cock into her all the way, taking little notice of her pleas. And she did plea, at least until Amus forced his cock into her mouth, effectively blocking most of her air, now that her nose was bleeding.

The two of them performed like a well trained team, perfectly in synch with each other, filling Karen's orifices with their flesh and retreating at exactly the same times. Owen and Mike were waiting for their turn, but they weren't idle either. They squeezed at her ass and breasts, they slapped her face, her butt-cheeks, they twisted her nipples and shouted derogatory names at her.

They were less than gentle, that much is sure. Especially Jurgen who was shoving his penis into her anus with vicious enthusiasm.

"Take THAT, whore!!! How do you like that? Ha? How do you like being fucked in the ass by a real man?"

Amus took his penis out of her mouth and slapped her face with it. But Karen didn't answer Jugen's question. Instead she just moaned and cried. Jurgen was sticking it in all the way up to his balls and I suppose that was a thoroughly painful experience for her, even after being broken in by Craig. Jurgen was much bigger than Craig. Jurgen was much bigger than any of the boys and he had this cruel streak about him – it was just so obvious how much he was enjoying inflicting pain at Karen.

"Does it hurt, eh? Does it hurt?", he asked, "I know you love it when it hurts, because you are just that kind of slut." He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head backwards. "Tell me you love it, come on!!!"

The lesson was learned. It took Karen several seconds to compose herself, but she did come through for him.

"I… I love it… I love the way you fuck me…….. OH GOD!!!" The scream at the end was the result of Jurgen thrusting into her especially hard and then again and again. "Oh, GOD, PLEASE STOP, IT HURTS SO MUCH, PLEEEASE!!"

But her cries were a powerful turn-on for him and seconds later he was running around the table, still holding her hair in his hand, the other hand pumping furiously at his huge penis. He didn't bother ordering her to open her mouth as he discharged his semen over her face and hair. At the same time, Owen took the opportunity and penetrated Karen's anus, trying to continue Jurgen's furious rhythm. It wasn't his turn, he was to be the last, but he decided to improvise and we allowed him to do so. Karen's face was a mess of semen, blood and tears within seconds as Jurgen unloaded over it.

"You BITCH, suck it!!! Suck it clean!!!". Perhaps Karen wanted to follow his order, but Owen's thrusts were rocking her whole body forth and back and she was completely unable to obey. Not that Jurgen saw that as an excuse. He slapped her face only once, but very hard and her nosebleed continued. "Suck it clean!!! Now!!"

As she accepted his penis into her mouth, Mike, whose turn it was and who probably felt impatient about the whole proceeding stepped closer and pushed his penis in as well. I had to circle around them to get a clean shot as both of them moved their hips forth and back, fucking her mouth with understandable difficulties. It was a sight to see, normally I doubt Karen would be able to take their two members into her mouth at once, especially with Jurgen's dimensions. However, as it was, there was nothing whatsoever she could do about it and Mike made his way into her mouth by pushing violently forwards, stretching her lips wider than they have probably ever gone before. On top of it, each time Owen penetrated her ass, her whole body slammed forwards and the two cocks were swallowed deeper.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead. The room was very hot.

"Damn, bitch, I said to clean it, not just play around with it!!!" Jurgen sounded displeased with Karen's performance as he wiped his softening cock off against her hair. That gave Mike more manoeuvring space and he was making sure he got the most of it. He was holding Karen's head with both hands and started fucking her as deep as he could get. But he wasn't just thrusting his hips forwards, he was pulling her head onto his cock every time, being very inconsiderate, merciless.

"Aha, yeah, that's it, bitch, swallow my cock, come on, suck on it, suck on it well!!!!"

As he took his penis out of her mouth, he impatiently pushed her head downwards.

"Come on, now do the balls, bitch!! Suck my balls NOW, before I fucking lose my patience!!!"

He pushed her face into his crotch and she was forced to tongue his ball-sac as he jerked off above her head. Apparently not satisfied with her, he pulled her head up again.

"Look me in the eyes, SLUT!!! You are not even trying!!!! It seems you need to be taught a lesson!! You'll see what I'll do to your ass as soon as Owen's finished, bitch!! That'll teach you to fucking pay attention when you are told to do something!!"

With these words, he shoved his cock into her mouth once again, using a different angle this time, pushing into her left cheek first, then the other one.

Possibly inspired by his words, Owen chose that moment to start slapping Karen's butt-cheeks with both his hands, really hard. He hit her once, then, quickly once again. I imagine that it was not the pain, it must have been the surprise. After all, she was in considerable pain for a while already. It must have been the surprise. She wasn't expecting it. She was struggling for her sanity there, doing a balancing act on the edge of abyss and this just sent her tumbling down.

The scream came from Mike. It was a genuine scream of pain and horror. I think that everyone in the room froze for half a second. I panned to Mike.

"FUCK!!!!!!! The bitch bit me!!! She fucking bit my cock!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Everyone in the room was frozen.

Mike slammed his fist into Karen's face. He raised his arm once again and landed another blow.

"You fucking cunt, you bit me!!!!!!!! You bit ME!!!!!!! I AM GOING TO FUCKING PUNCH YOUR FUCKING TEETH OUT, DO YOU HEAR ME??!! DO YOU HEAR ME, BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

His arm went up again. I looked at Craig. He was looking back at me, question hanging on his face. I closed my eyes and moved the fingers of my left hand outwards.

"Michael!"

Mike's fist slammed into Karen's face once again.

"BITCH!!!

"Michael!!"

Craig's voice had such an edge to it that suddenly he looked significantly taller to me.

Mike looked his way. He shook his head, his arm raised, preparing to deliver another punch.

"Remember your instructions, soldier!!!!"

Craig didn't move from his seat. He just straightened his back and spoke up. But that left a very strong impression on me. It was clear why he had been selected for this position.

"Alright…" Mike was trembling with rage, but he put his fist down. Karen was bleeding from her nostrils and her mouth. I hoped Mike's punches hadn't broken any of her teeth. She was not supposed to take any damage of this sort. Not this early, anyway.

"Alright. Alright, but the bitch is going to pay for this!!!"

SUMMON THE WASP

Mike grabbed Karen's hair and pulled her head up, bowing down to be on the same level with her.

"You are going to pay for this, bitch. Just watch me!!!"

He moved to the back and Owen let him take his place. But he didn't penetrate her anus the very same instant as I expected him to do. His penis was very hard, despite the fact it received a painful and unexpected bite. I suppose that her helplessness turned them all on, but that Mike got especially hard now that he punched her in the face repeatedly and now that everything somehow became personal.

Instead of anal penetration, Mike shoved four fingers of his right hand into Karen's cunt.

"Take THAT, you slut!!!"

He moved them in and out quickly, his other hand grabbing the flesh of her behind and pulling her down onto her fingers as she helplessly cried. I looked at Craig. Her cunt was not to be used during this session. He nodded but gestured at me to keep the things going. I nodded back. I had trust in him. He would know when to stop Mike if he stepped out of line again.

"You like that? Ha? You like this? I am going to rip you apart, you bitch!!"

Mike pulled his fingers out and observed them. Mucus, white and red graced his skin.

"You filthy, filthy whore, look at this! LOOK AT THIS!!!"

Pulling her head back violently, he pushed the fingers into her mouth.

"Lick it up!!! Come on, lick it all up!!! You slut!!!"

There was nothing she could do as he pushed past her bloody lips and shoved all four his fingers into her mouth. She had to take them all in and suck her own menstrual blood off. I zoomed in on her face as she was gagging on his fingers, probably repulsed by the taste and the knowledge of what she had in her mouth.

But that didn't quite satisfy Mike. As he wiped the blood and saliva off his hand against the skin on Karen's back, he went to the corner of the room where his clothes were left and pulled the belt out of his trousers.

"I'm going to teach you to obey, bitch."

As he walked back towards her, I looked at Craig, but he was silent. Alright.

If Craig was the one to punish her using a leather belt, I am sure he'd have known in advance how many lashes were to be given and each of the lashes would have hit the precise spot he had planned up front. But this was Mike instead, hotheaded and boiling with rage.

Karen was screaming in a harsh, high-pitched voice, she was screaming so loud that I made a mental note to have her vocal chords examined later that day. Mike was cursing, his arm going up and down in broad, uncontrolled bows. The leather of his belt was hitting Karen's behind for the most part, but some of the lashes fell on her back, some hit her cuffed hands, then some went over her thighs. Ugly, broad, red marks appeared on her skin.

"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!"

She was beyond rational pleading, these were just cries of help, cries of pain, cries for anyone who could hear. I stepped in front of her, zooming in on her face and she was looking up, directly into the camera, trying to make eye contact with me, to penetrate through my professional devotion.

"PLEASE, PLEASE, JUST MAKE HIM STOP, I'LL DO ANYTHING JUST MAKE HIM STOP!!!!"

Slowly, I circled around her until I was standing next to Mike, as he delivered another three lashes, two of those falling squarely between Karen's butt-cheeks, hitting her anus. It swelled almost instantly, burning bright red. Then he discarded the belt.

"And NOW I am going to fuck you, slut!!!!", he announced, spreading her butt-cheeks wide as they would go.

I thought Karen had passed out as she made no sound when he penetrated her anus violently. But then I saw her body thrash in blind fear and resistance and realised that it was Owen who stepped forwards and put his penis into her mouth.

"You dirty whore, your ass is sooo hot!!!!", Mike was on the verge of orgasm as soon as he was inside Karen's anus. The beating he delivered obviously excited and aroused him very much. After a very short time he pulled out and ejaculated over Karen's anus, ass, thighs and back, some drops of sperm falling on her hands as well.

"You BITCH!! Dirty bitch!!"

This left just Owen to complete his run and he knew he was expected to take his time. So he approached her from the back once again and slid his penis into her anus slowly. There was a relaxed, dreamy quality about the way he fucked her now, going all the way in and then all the way out, making circular motions. Her sphincter was stretched from all the violent pounding it received in the last half an hour, so Owen was able to take his penis completely out of her and slam it back in from a distance without having to aim too much. I turned to look and was pleased to see that Craig already gestured for Kerry to join us. Kerry was ready since early morning and stepped into the room in a matter of seconds, her equipment on a plate she carried.

"OK, Kerry", said Craig, "You know what to do. Tell Owen how you want her."

Kerry placed the plate on a nearby stool and smiled at Owen. She was a very pleasant, experienced woman and a very welcome late addition to the team.

"Right, OK", she said, "What I need you to do first is push her body a bit more forwards. I need her breasts to be at the edge."

Owen was a very disciplined person. I noticed that earlier. That was why he has been selected to be the last in line. He could also last the longest if the need be, and this was why he was to be the one to fuck her as Kerry was going about her job. He skilfully lifted Karen's feet off the ground and pushed her body forwards over the table, his penis not once leaving her anus.

"That's just perfect, honey, thank you."

Karen looked at Kerry with bafflement. It was safe to assume her mind was working slower than it normally would after all she has been put through of late. So far, every person in the room has inflicted physical harm onto her, excluding me. Of course, I was the one who videoed every single detail of her torture, deaf to her pleas, in a way I was the one who the whole performance was done for: I was the proverbial eye of the beholder. I haven't laid a finger on her, but all the torture she has been subjected to focused in the lens of my camera. So I was as evil as the rest, if not worse. But now, another person entered the room and she looked different. She had clothes on, like I did. And she was female, and she was smiling and not shouting at Karen.

Karen looked up in bafflement, the rape she was subjected to just developing a new dimension that she couldn't grasp at first. There was this woman in front of her, woman with glasses and a reassuring smile on her face. Karen was breathing heavily.

Then she noticed the equipment on the plate.

"What…"

There were seconds of confusion, seconds of contemplation, if you want, while her mind was struggling with the concept. It all became very clear once Kerry took a hold of Karen's right breast.

I could hear the thoughts in Karen's mind slamming into focus with metallic echoes as she was trying to back off from Kerry.

"No, please, no, let me go, no no no no no!!!"

"Would you please hold her tight, honey? I need her to be still to be able to do this."

Kerry didn't even raise her voice. Owen knew what was expected of him. After all, he practised this many times over. Not with women who were struggling for real, but then again, not with women who have been exhausted and broken the way Karen was. So he was very efficient, pressing Karen down to the table, while at the same time holding her head and shoulders up so her breasts were at Kerry's disposal. All the while, his erect cock was slowly moving in and out of Karen's anus.

Surely, this didn't need to be done exactly this way. But the instructions were very strict. There was a deeper logic at work here, not just the one of getting the job done. It was about doing it in a precisely defined fashion, doing it to satisfy certain rules and propositions. And no one questioned this logic or the methods. Everyone involved had agreed to follow the rules outlined by the project description and specific additional documents.

Kerry was disinfecting Karen's right nipple with a piece of alcohol-soaked gauze. Karen screamed, her body wriggling like an eel, but held firmly in place by Owen. There was no way she could escape what was in stock for her. There was nothing she could do, no matter how much she screamed and pleaded. The blood trickling down from her nose and mouth was not stopping either. Screaming the way she did, the drops were falling all over Kerry's grey coat.

"No, please, please, how can you, PLEASE, PLEASE, DON'T DO IT!! Oh, God, no no no no no!!!!!"

Seeing Kerry reach back to take a needle, her other hand firmly holding her breast, Karen's panic climaxed. She realised that Kerry was not going to be persuaded by her pleas.

"Keep still, dear, and this will only take a second"

She realised that Kerry was not going to stop. She realised that Owen was not going to let her go, or even stop moving his cock slowly in and out of her anus.

She turned her head my way. Not Craig's way. She turned my way.

"Please, please, I'm begging you, please, I'll do anything you want, just stop them, please. PLEASE!!!! NO NO NOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Her words turned into hysterical screams as Kerry brought the needle forward. This was a tense moment. Piercing a nipple is not something you do lightly. You need to know anatomy and to be very careful. Kerry was a stone-cold professional, her CV a string of awe-inspiring jobs and this is why she was drafted for this project.

Amus stepped in and helped Owen hold Karen absolutely still. They were instructed not to cover her mouth, even though this would have probably helped Kerry concentrate better. But the instructions were clear and Kerry knew this as well, so the screaming carried on, as Karen's head and body were held firmly in place. Kerry placed the tip of the needle on the nipple.

I6:

UNHINDERED BY SCREAMS

Looking at the footage later that afternoon, I was not surprised that the whole process of piercing Karen's nipples and placing rings in them could be edited to no more than two minutes. In reality, it took almost half an hour. Owen was miraculously able to continue fucking her anus all this time, unhindered by her screams of pain, by her twitches. After it was finished, Karen's voice was almost completely gone. Kerry placed silver rings in both her nipples and, satisfied with the work she had done, took her gloves off and gently touched Karen's face.

"See, baby, that hurt quite a lot, didn't it?"

Then she spat in her face, just like that. It was a surprise even for me. I watched the screen as the saliva dripped from Karen's forehead, entering her left eye, continuing down her cheek.

"That's only the beginning, dear. You'll get many more."

She was talking about piercings, but Owen probably thought she referred to spittings. And he indeed joined, spitting at Karen's back, accelerating his movements. He was allowed to come and he was bringing himself to the orgasm through violent slams into Karen's anus. But when the time came, he decided to use her mouth.

Karen was almost completely motionless as he was finishing raping her. Multiple rapes, violent beating she received and the shock of having her nipples pierced while being raped, the screaming, the helplessness, it all drained her energy almost completely. As Owen was thrusting into her, she lay without motion, her head and breasts hanging down from the edge of the table.

In order to ejaculate into her mouth, Owen had to go around the table and lift her head up, then savagely put his penis in. He groaned as he was coming, holding her head with both hands, his hips shooting forwards in throes of orgasm.

"Swallow. Swallow it all, slut. Let me see you swallow it."

I rewound this part several times. The shot done by my handheld camera was by far the best, even though the light was not perfect. But Karen's face had this otherworldly look to it, as she made the effort that made the simple task of swallowing half a coffee-cup of semen look like the hardest thing on Earth. She was barely conscious. But she was conscious. Anyway, were she to lose consciousness at any moment throughout the session, we had the expertise and the means to get her back to her senses immediately and carry on with the proceedings until the end.

After finishing the editing later that night, I sat with the boys for about an hour. It was a cheerful bunch, everyone satisfied with the work that had been done and happy that the project moved on. The fact that Karen was to be spared for the next couple of weeks meant they could have a bit of a rest themselves. We watched TV, ate some smoked fish, made a bunch of stupid jokes that guys usually make when they sit together.

Craig made it plain to Mike that what he'd done was a violation of project plans and direct instructions. Yet, he made it sound more like a friendly, thoughtful observation than a dry critique. I thought Mike understood the point and even though he officially said he was sorry for losing his temper and doing what he did, he was not put to shame or singled out among the others. Yet again I had to admire Craig's perfect grasp at squad psychology.

"We gave her something to think about, eh?", said Jurgen.

"I just hope she doesn't get too hot reminiscing about today and resorts to masturbation, we need her to be as horny as we are going to be once she is back in shape."

Owen was referring to a two week period the medics prescribed in order to allow Karen to recover at least partially.

We spent most of that afternoon with the medics. After the rape was finished, she was taken to her cell and left there on the floor, her hands still tied on her back. I arranged with the medics and she was examined, thoroughly. The examination was to take place anyway because of the piercing and her period, but the fact that she received more physical damage than expected meant it had to be detailed.

Jean-Michel was laughing all the time, sometimes reminding me of the doctor in The Simpsons. In contrast, Elisabeth was a quiet, unpleasant woman that I never felt comfortable around. However, that didn't matter. The project was what it all was about and everyone knew we didn't have to like each other as long as our job was done professionally.

"We're looking at at least a fortnight", said Jean-Michel. "The boys have been quite irresponsible with their new toy, hehehe."

"Yeah, I know that.", said I. "Anything broken in there?"

"No, no, all her teeth seem to be there, thankyouverymuch, but she cut the inner sides of her cheeks on her teeth, hence the swelling."

Karen's upper lip was grotesquely swollen, as well as both her cheeks. It was a relief learning that it didn't signify broken teeth.

"That will go in a matter of days. But there's other things that she needs a breather for."

Karen was sitting in a chair specially designed for this project: her ankles and wrists immobilised, her legs set apart, her groin exposed and readily available. We haven't washed her after the rape so Jean-Michel had to use a sponge to remove dried blood and semen from her face in order to examine her.

"She is still dehydrated. If she doesn't begin taking fluids more regularly, it might be a good idea to have one of the boys make sure she does. I am sure young Michael would be delighted to be given such a task, hehehehe."

I wasn't sure Karen understood the reason for Jean-Michel's cheerful laughter at the end of that sentence

"You don't think that having Mike piss in her mouth repeatedly would be harmful for her health?", asked I.

"Oh, no, not at all, making sure she gets all the medications we prescribed, the only thing she would have to worry about would be the taste. To be honest, knowing Mike's eating habits, I'd worry about that very much."

Were Craig here with me, I'm sure at this point I'd have seen him making a new entry in his notebook to consider having Mike piss into Karen's mouth on a regular basis in order to have her rehydrated. I just made a mental note, wondering whether Karen was taking notice of all this. I was hoping she was. Although she looked as if she was going to go to sleep any second.

"The throat might be the biggest problem here, it's completely fucked up. If she was a regular patient, I'd advice her to stay in bed, make her self warm, drink lots of fluids and don't try to speak for quite a while."

I looked at him, inquiringly.

"Well, yeah, since that is out of the question, just make sure she takes enough of that water. Which, of course means Mike will have less work to do, but the antibiotics in that stuff will take care of the infection that is most definitely taking place in her throat as we speak."

"Are her vocal chords alright?", asked I.

Mike was looking at the shots he made with the small camera he'd inserted into Karen's throat. You could tell he was delighted and amused with the opportunity to use the cutting-edge technology.

"They are swollen, but she'll be fine. Ladies can take more of this than guys, I don't think we need to worry about it."

Karen almost had no voice left after she was taken back to her cell from the "living room".

"The same goes for her period, everything seems to be going well there, although hygiene is not exactly at its historical peak in this particular case. But the antibiotics should take care of that as well, should any complications occur."

We spoke for a while, talking about Karen in the third person, as if she wasn't there at all. I wondered how much of it made any sense to her. I wondered was she actually aware she was the subject of our conversation. Her awareness was important. The proposed two weeks of relative rest for her (a veto on rape and harsh physical abuse at least) was probably going to make sure she regains most of the awareness of her surroundings and even some of the hope, perhaps.

"As for the rings…"

"Ah, I wouldn't worry about that, Kerry seems to have done a splendid job. Salty water once a day and you can forget about those. And, of course, don't pull on them for a couple of weeks. After that, you are free to hang stuff from those. She is going to have lots fun involving her nipples soon, hihihi."

His laughter was highly inappropriate and therefore hilarious. At least he was cracking jokes