A Bad Night
I woke up with a headache and a bad taste in my mouth. That wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but I had no idea why. Try as I might I could not remember a single thing after eating lunch yesterday. I think it was yesterday; I wasn’t even sure of the date.
That’s when I fully woke up. Something was very wrong. I was lying on my stomach, with my hands and arms behind my back. Or rather fastened behind my back; I recognized the bite of handcuffs locked on my wrists. The moment I tried to move my hands I discovered the chain around my waist, holding the handcuffs in position in the small of my back. I knew what that meant: transport chains, enhanced security, and a serious problem for me.
I managed to swing my legs over the side of the bunk, onto the floor. The effort was accompanied by the rattle of chains. Looking down I saw why. Leg irons were fastened around my ankles. They weren’t standard ones either; the connecting chain was about half the regulation length. I could still walk, but not very fast or very far.
When I stood up it went from bad to worse. Using my fingers I explored the handcuffs. They were hinged, the evil kind, with a metal security cover blocking the keyholes. The cover was held in place by a slotted metal bar on one end of the waist chain. In order to take off the cuffs the waist chain had to be removed first. Looking down I could see the padlock at my side, well out of reach. Keys wouldn’t do me much good. I made a token effort to slip the cuffs off, to no avail. Whoever had hooked me up had done a thorough, professional job.
My clothes were gone, which gave me cause for concern. But what really scared me was the metal cage surrounding my penis. Someone had taken a small handcuff and welded a frame on top. My balls were trapped between the cuff and a tube attached to the main part of the cuff. Inside that tube was the rest of my manhood. If I had an erection now it would be painful inside that small enclosure. The end was perforated; at least I could urinate. Where the connecting chain would normally be on the cuff there was a sturdy ring. I hoped it was for decoration only.
My surroundings were just as disturbing. It was a jail cell, a small one, with heavy bars in the front, set into gray concrete walls. The door was shut; I assumed it was locked. Carefully I shuffled over to the bars to see what I could find out. The leg irons were a real impediment. If I were careful I could put one foot in front of the other, which made for slow going. I couldn’t afford to be tripped up and fall on my face. Without hands I might easily break my nose.
When I got to the bars I turned around so I could grasp the bars around the door lock. They were closely spaced together, to prevent a handcuffed prisoner reaching through and using a key to open the door. Unfortunately for me it works, though I didn’t have a key. I did pull on the door but it didn’t budge. I wasn’t going anywhere.
The view on the other side of the bars didn’t reveal much. The walls extended out, blocking whatever was on either side. Directly in front was an empty corridor. The one odd thing was a single rail running along the far wall. It was about waist high and similar to the I-shaped tracks on a railroad. Numerous bolts were fastened through it to the concrete wall, similar to railroad spikes. Its purpose eluded me.
I leaned back against the bars, trying to take stock of my situation. Obviously I had been kidnapped, probably by drugging me but I had no memory of it. From the years I’d worked as a corrections officer I recognized a skilled hand in how I was restrained. Someone had invested a significant amount of money and work in an effort to capture me.
As to who, or why, I had no clue. I knew of no one who harbored so much hatred for me that they would be driven to seek me out and imprison me in this place, wherever it was. Was it sexual? The horrid little device on my penis said yes, but again I drew a blank. It could be a random act, though women were almost always the victims in those cases.
Once more I struggled with the handcuffs. As long as I was wearing them I was at a severe disadvantage if things got physical with my captor, or captors. Same with the leg irons; I couldn’t fight back or run away, even if I managed to escape from the cell.
I stumbled back to the bunk and sat down. For now all I could manage is to wait patiently in the hope I’d eventually have visitors. There had to be a reason I was here. Whether it was some sort of revenge or one of those random moments of sadistic violence I’d find out sooner or later.
The Rail
I had no idea how long I sat there before I heard the distinctive sound of boot heels on the floor. Finally, I’d get some answers. I stood up, ready to demand my release.
Two women, dressed in uniforms that included high jackboots, stopped at my cell. I didn’t expect that. Women were poorly equipped to handle prisoners twice their size when it came to physical force. Neither one spoke; they stood there, on the other side of the bars, staring at me like I was a creature in a zoo.
“Okay,” I began, “I don’t know what’s going on here but it stops now. Kidnapping, false imprisonment, you’re facing serious charges when the police find me.” I turned around. “Get these things off me, return my clothes and we’ll talk about how best to resolve all this. If this is some kind of joke it isn’t funny anymore.”
I heard a key in the door. Glancing over my shoulder I saw one of them enter the cell. The other one remained by the door. Once I was free we’d straighten out this mess and I’d find out who was responsible. Pranks were one thing; this had gone too far.
I felt a jab in my leg. Suddenly I was on the floor, writhing in pain. When I looked up the guard was standing over me, a telescoping rod in her hand. I could make out the two prongs in the end. It was a cattle prod, or more accurately a people prod, a stun gun that delivered a high voltage electric shock. I’d never been subjected to the receiving end before. I can attest to how well it works.
“You talk too much,” the guard warned me. “Why don’t you shut up and listen?” She jabbed me again, this time in the waist. I curled up in agony. “And so you know, from now on you address all women as ma’am, understand? Or do you need some more education?” She raised the prod again.
“No, uhh, ma’am,” I replied. “I understand.” Two jolts from that thing she carried were enough; I didn’t need a third to encourage compliance.
She grabbed my arm. “Up on your feet. Not one sound out of you!” She placed the tip of the prod against my groin. “I’m told this is an especially sensitive area for men. C’mon, just one word. Let’s see if it’s true.”
I struggled to stand up, in silence. Close together I towered over her. Without those restraints I’d overpower her in seconds. With them on, well, it was clear to me who was in charge. I could see the gleam in her eye. She wanted an excuse, any excuse, to see me twisting in pain, laid out on the floor one more time. I refused to give her the satisfaction and tell her what I was thinking.
“Let’s go, Edith,” the other guard called out. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities to mess him up later on. We need to get going.” Mess me up? I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Why did that guard have it in for me? She was a stranger; I’d never seen her before yet she’d taken an instant dislike to me. I almost asked why but caught myself in time.
“We’re going to stroll out into the hallway. If you have other ideas, forget it. Cooperate or the two of us will make your life a living hell, right here, right now. Want to call our bluff? Please, go ahead.” I started my slow walk to the cell door. I was certain she wasn’t bluffing.
It was a slow trip but I managed as best I could. The chain between my ankles was too short to cover any distance. It seemed to take forever to cover the short walk to the corridor, though I did manage it. That’s when I saw that thing mounted to the rail.
When the other guard stepped aside there was what I later learned they called a shuttle. It was a heavy steel box, mounted to the rail, with what appeared to be a slot in front, in the middle. I didn’t make the connection until the guard who delighted in dealing out misery grabbed the ring on my cock cage and jammed it into that slot. I heard the dull thud of a deadbolt slamming home.
I knew exactly what that sound signified. I was secured to the rail in a way that guaranteed I would stay focused on whatever my captors demanded. I had to stand close to the wall just to relieve the pressure on my member. If I got another jolt from one of those prods I’d be in a world of hurt like I’d never experienced before.
“Do we have your undivided attention now?” the guard who hated me asked in a sarcastic tone. “You are going to take a trip, all on your own. Start walking, to your right, until you run out of rail. When you reach the end, wait until someone comes for you.”
Walk, bound up like this? It wasn’t impossible, from what I could see. I had a little bit of mobility but not much, thanks to those cursed leg irons. Attached to the rail I wasn’t going to wander off, assuming the contraption that mated me to the rail did its job. All I had to worry about was if my legs would hold out for however long it took me to get to my destination.
On my own? That was a surprise too. Prisoners were always escorted. In my case it wasn’t a high probability I would escape and run off, not in one piece. Even if, a remote possibility, I was able to free my hands I had no idea how to remove that cage.
“He doesn’t seem to be too enthusiastic about his trip. Maybe he needs a little bit of encouragement?” That came from Edith, the other guard. Before I could react I felt as much as heard the click of the ratchet when the thumbcuffs tightened around my thumbs. There was another click when she used the end of a key to double lock them.
Thumbcuffs are a real piece of work. Small and rigid, it felt like a lobster had hold of my thumbs. The edges were serrated, to dig into the skin to prevent slipping them off. Edith had shown me no mercy, clamping down on them, so tightly my fingers began to hurt immediately. Before long they’d go numb from loss of circulation.
“They’ll be removed when you arrive. I suggest you don’t stop to take a rest along the way. Off you go.” In order to emphasize her point Edith yanked on the thumbcuffs, causing me to take a sharp breath at the sudden pain. I certainly had an incentive now.
The two guards stepped back. I took the first step, sliding my bare foot along the floor as far as I could manage. The shuttle was heavy when I pulled on it with the most sensitive part of my anatomy wholly unsuited to the task, but the box did follow me. At a snail’s pace I inched along the wall, doing my best to remain as close as possible to the rail.
“There goes Speedy Gonzalez,” one of my guards quipped. “Care to bet on arrival time?”
“How about we wager on what falls off first, his thumbs or…” They both burst into laughter at my plight. I failed to see the humor.
I eventually reached a bend in the corridor. Under normal circumstances it might have taken me a minute or less. But these weren’t normal; I guessed at maybe ten minutes. When I turned my head to look back the guards had disappeared. I truly was on my own.
I leaned to the side to peer around the corner. All I saw was more of the same, a featureless corridor with that hated rail on one side, stretching into the distance. I turned my head the other way, back toward my cell. What was to stop me from going in that direction? Whatever was waiting for me ahead couldn’t be any worse.
I came to a quick halt when I felt the sharp discomfort of the cock cage jerking against my testicles. No, my captors had not been careless. The shuttle binding me to the rail only moved in one direction. I resumed my own personal trail of tears; tears that came from the throbbing pain in my thumbs.
A Chance Encounter
A step to the right, slide the rail shuttle, another step, slide again, the routine became a blur. Was I making any progress? The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. On the other side, across from me, I passed a few cells similar to the one where I woke up. Behind the bars they were empty. Interspersed with the cells were mysterious steel doors, unlabeled and always closed. They were out of my reach, though between the handcuffs and waist chain I had no way to try.
I was in the middle of a step and slide moment when one of those doors ahead of me suddenly swung open. A woman walked out, dressed in the now familiar guard uniform. She didn’t notice me until she slammed the door shut. I stopped in surprise, unsure of what to do.
She stood in the middle of the corridor, staring at me. When I didn’t move she pointed to the wall next to her. I got the message and continued inching along the wall to where she waited. I watched with some trepidation while she pulled one of those prods from her belt. With a practiced flick of the wrist it snapped into full length.
“Stop!” she ordered when I reached her position. She walked around me, peered at the shuttle and the cage that linked me to the rail, and finally tested my handcuffs by jerking on the waist chain. She tapped my left foot with that prod. “Feet apart, as far as you can.”
I chose obedience over defiance and did as she commanded. I was terrified of that prod and what it would do to me if she used it while I was stuck to the rail. One day, I told myself, the day will come when the restraints come off. Then we’ll see who’s the boss.
Standing behind me she suddenly grabbed my hair and pulled back on it. With the prod in her other hand she tapped the wall in front of my head. “That’s your spot.” She forced my head forward, until my forehead rested on that spot. “Keep it there, understand? Don’t move.”
It was humiliating, standing there naked, penis stretched out in that damned cage, being ordered around like a trained circus monkey, and nothing I could do about it. I clenched my hands in frustration, which only exacerbated the shooting pain in my thumbs.
She started laughing. “Mad, are we? Upset the day isn’t going quite as planned? Poor baby, would you like me to let you go? Would that make things better?”
I dare not answer or I’d pay for it. The mocking tone she used warned me she wasn’t serious. I unclenched my hands and let them hang loosely in the cuffs. Giving in to anger was playing their game, whoever they were. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.
“That’s better. The first step is to accept your situation. Learn to live with it. After all, being helpless and vulnerable isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”
I was being pragmatic, not accepting. She was wrong; helpless was bad from my point of view. The first chance I had I’d take care of that particular problem.
“I see you’ve the beneficiary of one of Edith’s incentives.” She took hold of the thumbcuffs and wiggled them. I gasped from the agony in my thumbs but said nothing. “Edith tends to the excessive; I’ve warned her about it.” I felt her doing something, but I couldn’t see.
Then the thumbcuffs were gone. My thumbs prickled with pins and needles when circulation was restored. “Thank you,” I whispered in gratitude.
She grabbed my hair again to jerk my head back. “You were instructed on how to address those in authority. Now, what was it you said?”
“Thank you, ma’am, for your kindness.” It took me a moment to remember. Ma’am, they all had one name and I wasn’t going to forget it.
“What were your orders?” she demanded, still pulling back hard on my head.
“To follow the rail to the end, ma’am.”
She removed her hand from my hair. Pointing down the hallway with her prod she snapped, “Go! And you better speed it up; we don’t have a lot of patience for cattle like you.”
Step, slide, step, slide, I was on my way once more. Cattle? Is that how they thought of us, prisoners like me?
She jabbed my waist with her prod. I waited for the surge of electricity that would leave me hanging in pure agony from the rail, but mercifully it didn’t come. “Move it! If you’re still in sight when I come back I’ll put that little incentive back on your thumbs to see if it helps you concentrate.”
I tried to pick up my pace but those stubborn leg irons wouldn’t cooperate. Try as I might, I couldn't move my legs fast enough to make up for the connecting chain limitations. I heard her footsteps receding in the distance. Risking a glance over my shoulder I saw her back as she walked away. She’d already lost interest in me.
Comrade in Adversity
On and on I went, around corners, down long, straight hallways, step by slow step. My path seemed endless, though that was likely due to my snail’s crawl while trapped against the wall. On the plus side my thumbs were returning to normal. That was about all I had going in my favor.
I slid around another corner. In the distance, about two-thirds of the way along the corridor I saw someone else crawling along the wall. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in the same restraints, with hands behind his back and firmly attached in front to the cruel rail that forced the two of us along the same path.
Once more I tried to quicken my steps, to catch up with him. It wasn’t happening. At best I’d have some more bruises on my ankles but I couldn’t move any faster. Then he turned his head to look back and saw me approaching.
He didn’t stop but he did slow down. I noticed how he continually looked back and forth. It must be the guards that concerned him. Understandable, they worried me too. We were both in a very defenseless position, being stuck to the ‘dickhead railroad’, as I was beginning to think of it.
It took a while but I caught up with him. “Do you know what’s going on here?” I whispered, when we were about an arm’s length apart. I matched his pace to keep us close together.
“Not really,” he answered, shaking his handcuffs. “I woke up this way. Two guards locked me on to this rail and told me to start walking. One mentioned something about being questioned, that’s all I know. How about you?”
I held out my bound hands, behind my back. “Same here, but my guards didn’t say anything about what to expect. I’ve been following this rail for, I don’t know how long, hours?”
“Same here.” Once again he looked around nervously. “One of the guards told me to keep quiet, no talking. Let’s just keep going for now, okay? If one of them hears us,” he shrugged, “you have a good idea of what might happen.”
That ended our conversation. He was right; we couldn’t take any chances. We kept going, the silence broken only by the rattle of the chains on our ankles and the soft scraping of the shuttles on the rail. I had to admit it was actually a relief to find I wasn’t the only man in the same predicament, not that I’d wish it upon anyone else.
I was beginning to draw some conclusions from my short time incarcerated in this place. Women were in charge, and their job was to degrade and humiliate men like myself and my traveling companion. In that regard they were successful. I could think of few things more embarrassing than having my penis chained to the wall while women stood by and laughed at me.
What ate at me, more and more, was the frustration at how powerless I was to resist them. They had outsmarted me, trapped me, and forced me into humbling myself by calling them ma’am along with sheepishly obeying their orders. Maybe they were right; I was cattle, to be herded around with electric prods, treated like a dumb animal.
End of the Line
We crawled around one more corner, all but glued to the wall in our effort to stay as close as possible to that rail. My companion stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him. Ahead of us the rail came to an end, next to a heavy door. There was a desk close by the door. One female guard sat behind it, checking a tablet. Another woman stood close by, also in a guard’s uniform.
She was the one who saw us, stopped a short distance away. She pointed to the wall, where the rail ended. “C’mon, we’re busy here. What took you so long?”
She yanked the prod off her belt and extended it with that trademark snap of the wrist. Tapping the floor she all but yelled at us, “Move it! Now! I’m already pissed off you made us sit here and wait for so long. Don’t try my patience by standing there gawking.”
We stumbled our way to the end of the rail. That silvery wand in her hand frightened me as nothing had ever done before. I could feel myself trembling in fear she would turn it on me. My impulse was to beg for her mercy, but something held me back. That cold, unsympathetic look on her face showed no trace of empathy for us. Pleading would fall on deaf ears.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” her voice dripped with irony, “to Intensive Interrogation. Here you will be given the opportunity to freely confess your crimes against women, without any coercion. Think back over your lives carefully. You will describe in detail every incident which led to your invitation to join us. Your cooperation will be taken into account later on.”
What was she talking about? My crimes against women? What was that supposed to mean?
She stood close behind my companion. Leaning in, she started whispering in his ear. I caught part of it, something about an incident in New York City. His face turned white when she finished. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’re next,” she informed him in a loud, clear tone. “You better start thinking about confessing all of it.”
She turned to me. “We know all about your history too. I hope you try to hold out as long as possible. They have something special prepared for you inside. I’ll enjoy watching every minute of it.” She ran that prod up and down my leg while she was talking.
We were interrupted when the door to what I now called the interrogation room swung open. I couldn’t see inside but I did hear a man sobbing. A guard stepped out, her uniform showing several red spots on it. “We’ll be ready for the next one in about five minutes, after we clean up.” The sound of someone starting to scream was cut off when the door slammed shut.
Next to me, and next in line, my traveling companion was close to panic. I could hear him muttering in a low voice, over and over, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” I had no idea what he thought he might try in order to prevent it.
Our watchdog, still behind us, put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down,” she told him. “Go in there, do as they say, answer their questions, don’t leave anything out. You’ll survive.”
I didn’t believe a word she told him. But, her reassurance did seem to help. Maybe he was only clutching at straws, like a drowning man in the cliché, but he stopped his muttering.
It was the calm before the storm. The door swung open this time, wide enough for one of those medical gurneys to be wheeled out. There was a man on it, lying face down. We could see the bruises and burn marks on his back. One arm dangled over the side, almost touching the floor. There were bloodstains on the sheet under him.
“Just a minute,” the guard at the desk said. She reached into a desk drawer and took something out. She walked over to the lifeless form, pickup up his arm and twisted it behind his back. I heard the click of the handcuff close around his wrist. The guard from the interrogation room yanked on his other arm, pinned under his body. In moments his hands were secured by the same hinged cuffs I was wearing.
“That’s better. You should be more careful.” The desk guard sat back down.
The other woman began pushing the cart past us, headed back down the corridor. “I’m not too concerned,” she replied. “You’re going to be a good boy from now on, aren’t you?” she said, leaning down over the man’s body. I heard him groan.
Two more women came out of the interrogation room. “Okay, we’re ready.” She nodded toward the man next to me. “Unhook him and we can get started. It’s gonna be a long day.”
The moment our watchdog released him from the rail he started backing away. “Please, don’t do this to me. I’ll do anything, sign anything, whatever you want, but don’t take me in there.” It took three of them to get him going in the right direction. There was one on each arm, and a third pushing from behind.
“Leave him alone,” I yelled. “Take me instead.” Part of me hoped they wouldn’t, but I felt I had to make the gesture. I was next anyway; it wouldn’t make much difference if they started on me now. Moral support was the best I had to offer. They had neglected to release me from the steel grip of the rail.
When he reached the door and could see inside I saw him stop dead, frozen in fear. “Oh please god no, not that!” He fought back with all his strength but bound up in chains he didn’t have a chance of success. When the door closed it cut off his pitiful pleas for mercy.
The woman at the desk stood up and came over to me. Folding her arms she leaned back against the wall, studying me. Despite my circumstance my eyes were drawn to her ample breasts, hidden under her blouse. She saw where I was staring.
“Like what you see?” She turned to face me, pulling her shoulders back. “I bet you’d like a handful of these, wouldn’t you?” She locked eyes with me. “Go ahead, I don’t mind.”
Normally I’d never waste an opportunity like that, but the handcuffs and waist chain proved to be too much of a barrier in fulfilling her offer. She grabbed my hair and jerked my head back. They must teach that maneuver in guard school. “Big man like you, I bet you’re used to getting your own way. Not in here. When they get through with you,” she nodded toward the closed door, “you’ll come crawling out, begging to clean my boots with your tongue.”
The door opened again. Out walked the other corridor guard, shaking her head while she straightened out her blouse. “What a crybaby. We managed to get him settled down so they can start working on him.” Closing the door she glanced at me. “What about you? Are we going to have to go through all this again? Maybe you should have gone first. They tell me they’re eager to meet you.”
She went to my other side. “What about it, strong, silent type? Are you impatient to make some new playtime friends? They have these delightfully ingenious toys to share with you. I bet you can last for hours and hours without stopping.” Both women burst into laughter.
“Unhook him,” the desk guard said. “My boots need to be cleaned.” I saw she was serious this time. Whatever the consequences I was determined not to grovel on the floor, licking her shoes just to satisfy her superiority complex.
The other guard inserted some kind of key in the rail shuttle. There was a click and just like that I was free of the rail. “On the floor, crawl to me,” the desk guard ordered. “Start with the right one, it’s the dirtiest.” She stuck out a booted leg towards me.
I didn’t say anything. Nor did I kneel down. We stared at each other, locked in a contest of wills.
I hit the floor, hard, on my stomach. My hands remained behind my back, bound and useless. The prod in my leg from the woman behind me was unexpected. I was still shaking from the jolt when the woman in front used her prod. I flopped around, my muscles out of control from spasms caused by the voltage.
The two of them worked me over for a while. They seemed to know just how long it took me to recover before I was hit again. I lost count of how many times I felt the sting from those magic wands. At some point I passed out.
Time to Eat
When I woke up I was strapped into some kind of restraint chair. I couldn’t move, but it was an improvement over the chains. My head was tilted back at an uncomfortable angle, held in place by a harness around my head attached to the back of the chair.
I knew all this thanks to the large mirror at the opposite end of the room. I immediately assumed it was one of those two-way mirrors, and one or more people were observing me behind it. To my left was a chair and a small table. The door was directly behind me; my head blocked sight of anyone coming or going.
I tested my bonds. There were wide leather straps everywhere. My wrists, forearms, elbows, all were firmly attached to the chair. My legs were spread far apart, uncomfortably so, with more straps keeping them in place. A few more belts crossing my torso guaranteed I would stay in the chair.
What caused me the most concern was the wide, curved metal plate covering my groin, resting between my legs and wrapping around my waist. I wasn’t sure but it felt like the cock cage was still in place. What else was under that makeshift chastity belt?
My head was strapped in place, though that didn’t impede my eyesight. I could see the entire room clearly from the reflection in the mirror. I was alone, for now. My stomach was rumbling and my mouth was as dry as the Sahara desert. Surely someone would feed me before much longer?
At that moment the door opened and two guards wheeled in a cart. I must be able to predict the future. The smell of a cheeseburger and fries started my stomach rumbling all over again. I was so intent on the food I didn’t notice who the guards were until they came around the chair to face me, one on each side.
My heart sank. It was Edith, the lover of thumbcuffs, and the other one, who disliked me intensely, leaning over to stare into my eyes. “Remember us?” she asked.
I certainly did, and not with fond memories either. The burger was so close, yet so far now I found out who was going to serve it.
“We have orders to feed the prisoner. You’re in luck today; the cheeseburger is fresh off the grill. There are some fries and a cold cup of ice water to go with it.” She held up a styrofoam cup with a straw sticking out the top. “Here you go. Tiny sips to start on an empty stomach.”
She pushed the straw into my mouth. The water was cold and invigorating. I didn’t want to appear defiant and risk losing my momentary luxury so I did as she ordered, taking small sips from the straw.
Edith joined in. “For security reasons we have to blindfold you before starting on the solid food. No biting, I’m sure you understand. It’s policy, for your safety.” She began to wrap a wide elastic bandage around my head, covering my eyes.
I didn’t understand but I held my tongue. I had no way to stop her; a protest would serve no purpose other than to irritate my companions, and I did not want to risk that happening. The comment about it being for my safety must be some kind of sick joke.
“Okay Shirley, he’s ready.” Now I knew the other guard’s name. Shirley and Edith, the two harpies placed on Earth to make my life miserable. The bandage was a simple and effective blindfold. I had no idea what was going on now, except for what I could hear.
“How about we start with a French Fry? Open wide.” The aroma of freshly fried potatoes drove out all common sense. I opened my mouth and received a bite of pure ambrosia. I know, we’re all supposed to eat healthy, but I gave in to the dark side with a greasy burger and fries all too often anyway. I got another sip of water to wash it down.
“Good, aren’t they? Wait till you taste the burger.” It was close by; the aroma made my mouth water. “Let’s see, cheese of course, lettuce, tomato, slice of onion, and just a tiny bit of mustard for some zing.” I was ready to sell my soul for a taste of that.
Shirley was doing the talking and the feeding. “Okay, here we go. Remember, a small bite, there’s plenty here. Now open wide, it’s a big bun.” I might not be able to see it but my nose pinpointed it precisely. I opened my mouth as far as I could, waiting to savor the taste of seared ground beef.
What I got instead was something with a hard rubber center, covered in spongy foam. Before I could react I felt the straps go around and over my head, fixing it in place. I tried to push it out with my tongue but got nowhere. The gag was in to stay. I struggled with the bonds in the chair, hoping to free a hand to pull it out. Like everything else in this place the chair restraints were done with a professional touch. I had no means of removing the gag.
Edith removed the bandage around my head. My first sight was the two of them grinning at me. They never intended to feed me. It was only a trick to get that foul tasting gag in my mouth. It worked too. They were laughing at me, again, and I was chewing on a hockey puck.
“Want some of this burger? It does look tasty.” Shirley held it out to Edith.
“I’ll take half. Look in the cart, should be a knife to cut it. And some of the fries too.”
I watched with pure hatred in my eyes as they slowly consumed my food. They were making quite a show about how good it was, I’m sure for my benefit. When the police finally found me I hoped the two of them would be on bread and water for ninety days.
“How should we log this?” Edith asked.
“The prisoner became uncooperative after being fed. He was verbally abusive and showed disrespect for authority. It was necessary to silence him as punishment.” Shirley recited it as if it came from a book.
Edith leaned down, her face close to mine. “Yes, I agree. Rude and obstinate, aren’t you? Naughty boy should be sent to his room, without supper.” She smiled at me, but not in friendship. “I think a timeout for bad boys is in order too.”
She began wrapping the bandage around my head again. “There you go. We’ll leave you alone now, so you can rest up after that big dinner. Now then, mind your manners, what do you say after we were so nice to you?”
I let loose with a few choice words, anatomically impossible but still satisfying.
“No, I didn’t like the sound of that.” The observation came from Shirley. Suddenly two fingers pinched shut my nose. I couldn’t breathe through the gag; I was suffocating. I tried in vain to shake loose those fingers but whoever it was held on. I was feeling dizzy when she let go.
“Let’s try that again, shall we?”
This time I tried to get out a “thank you, ma’am” past the gag.
“That sounds better. And one for Edith?”
“Thank you, ma’am” is what I intended, though it didn’t come out very clearly.
“That’s a good boy!” That was Edith, with her grating, condescending tone, treating me like a small child. What got to me is, in a way, she was right. I was about as helpless as a baby in a crib, and I didn’t like it one iota.
I heard the cart moving, followed by the door. They must have left, without bothering to remove the gag or blindfold. Cattle, that was the real analogy. Put me in the barn and forget about me until the next day.
My Advocate
I didn’t know what to expect when the door to my room opened. I still had that blindfold on, Edith’s parting gift. Someone began unwrapping it.
To my delight it wasn’t Edith and Shirley, back to torment me in their spare time. Instead it was a petite young lady in a simple dress, carrying some papers in a folder. Blond hair, blue eyes, couldn’t be over 5 foot tall, she struck me as “the girl next door”.
She dropped her folder on the table and came to stand by my side. “Hello! My name is Sally. I’ve been assigned as your advocate.” She had a warm, soft voice. Nice legs too, I notice those things. Whoever she was, she was a long way from the cattle prod crowd I’d had the misfortune to meet so far during my stay at wherever this place is located. I tried to ask if she could remove the gag.
“Sorry, but Sally can’t understand you while you’re wearing that gag. Sally isn’t allowed to touch you, but she can help in other ways.” She had a way of speaking slowly, but without the disdain when the guards ordered me around.
Okay, so she talks about herself in third person. And what was that weird emphasis on certain words? Strange, but definitely an improvement over women who dressed me up in chains and used me to practice with those prods. I put all that aside. If she was offering to help me I wanted to hear what she had to say. I was desperate for any kind of good news.
She went back to the table and sat down. I watched in the mirror, the way she carefully gathered her dress in a modest way. She sat with her legs together, both feet on the floor. It was very old-fashioned and overpowering in its attraction.
Something behind the chair started to beep. Sally looked up in alarm. She hurried to my side and pointed to the metal plate over my groin. “Did Sally do that?” she asked. Yes, she did. I was having an erection and there was nothing I could do about it.
There was a look of anguish on her face. “Please,” she begged, “try to think of something else. Sally is flattered you think of me that way, but there’s something you need to know. The people, women, who run this place do not approve of men acting uncontrollably, like you are now. There’s a pressure sensor in there,” she nodded toward that plate, “that sends an alarm if you act irresponsibly. If you don’t stop, and fast, you will be punished.”
Her warning came too late. I jerked violently against my bonds as several jolts of electricity hit my genitals. Dimly I could hear muffled screams, my screams, coming out around the gag.
It finally stopped. I was able to catch my breath and recover from the shocks. At least my punishment was over, I told myself. That’s when the second round hit me.
When I came out of my daze Sally was still standing next to me, peering at me in a way I couldn’t describe. For some reason I felt like a bug under a microscope, being calmly dissected by a dispassionate observer.
“Sally is so sorry she caused this to happen. You should have been warned ahead of time. Sally only wants to help you, to support you in adapting to your new life.”
I didn’t want help adapting, I wanted help getting out of this place. If only Edith hadn’t left me with this gag, if only I had keys to the handcuffs, if only I could escape. If only, if only…
Wishing wasn’t making it happen. Maybe Sally was right; I did have to change, at least for a while. If Sally kept talking, maybe I’d be spared a visit from Edith and Shirley, or I might even find out why I was here in the first place.
She went back to her table and sat down. This time I made a deliberate effort not to watch, concentrating on something safe like the paint color on the walls. “Since you can’t talk, we'll have to use the push-buttons. Under each palm you can feel a soft, squeezable ball. The right hand is green, for ‘yes’, and the left is red, for ‘no’. Can you squeeze the ‘yes’ button for Sally?”
I felt a lump under my hand, so I squeezed it. Nothing happened, so I squeezed again harder. A green light flashed on momentarily, over my head.
“And now your left hand, for the ‘no’ button?” She tapped something on her phone screen.
I discovered it took considerable effort to trigger the switch, and when it did the light didn’t stay on very long. I didn’t care, I was communicating. Maybe I only had two words, but it was a vast improvement over none.
Elated, I tried the ‘yes’ button again. Nothing, no matter how hard I squeezed. Sally must have noticed what I was doing. “Sally has to reset the sensors after each answer.” That explained what she was doing on her phone screen. Yeah, I could communicate, but only by permission, and only one word at a time.
“Sally is so pleased with our progress today. We can have a proper conversation now. Sally will ask the questions, and you will answer. Oh, once I ask, you must answer, and don’t delay. Too long and that siren will go off. After that you will be punished for not cooperating.”
Naturally the replies are mandatory. Everything in here is mandatory for me. Would it be the same punishment as an erection? I didn’t want to find out. Sally was not forthcoming on that tidbit of news.
“You were originally scheduled for an intensive interrogation. Sally managed to get you a postponement, for now. An Intensive is very hard on the men who have to undergo the questioning. Sally will try to keep the delay going as long as possible.”
That explained my trip on the rail, and what happened at the end. The man ahead of me must have known what was waiting for him. I didn’t know, but the screams and begging for pity I heard when the door opened was warning enough. No wonder my silent comrade was terrified when they dragged him inside, desperately kicking and trying to fight the guards while pleading for mercy. I was grateful to her for saving me. Despite all her oddities she truly was on my side, my one friend in this innermost circle of hell.
Pre-trial Preparation
Sally kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the somewhat lumpy couch. This part of the world, good furniture was difficult to locate. She grabbed the remote and switched to the channel monitoring his chair.
She shook her head, almost feeling sorry for him. The emotion didn’t really exist in her head. Psychopaths had no feelings for their victims. She picked up his papers. No name, just a number. He probably still believed he was back in the States, somewhere near his home town. Maybe he’d never even heard of rendition, or that he would one day be part of that program.
Sally smiled. The unpleasant part, where he spent the night bound in a chair while she slept in a reasonably comfortable bed. The first day had gone well. She could tell he liked her, he was starting to trust her, and, to his detriment, he was attracted to her. She knew people could be conditioned to just about any desired response, but the way her employers denied him a simple erection, that was cruel. Not that she was concerned about it; cruelty was an occupational necessity. Better to be on the giving rather than the receiving end.
He was good-looking, and probably a decent man. It was his bad luck that he crossed someone with a lot of power, somewhere in his past; a woman who held a grudge against him for the better part of a lifetime, and now had the means to exact retribution. It wasn’t easy getting a name on the rendition list to this place. Some other location, it might have been fun to spend a few nights with him. But professional ethics wouldn’t permit it now.
He was scared, of that she had no doubt. Her ‘Intensive Interrogation’ scenario had been flawless. There was no such room, not for these employers, but he didn’t know that. In his imagination the room was strewn with blood and the bodies of those who couldn’t take it. He’d heard it himself. Chances were good it would keep him awake all night. She figured the actors would be having a party right now.
He had a strong resistance factor; it would take some time to break him down. She wasn’t concerned about failure. The first cracks had already appeared, when she suggested he adapt to his new circumstances. She sensed his hesitation instead of outright rejection. It was her weak point in his armor, to be forced wide open, eventually leading to his total collapse. Sally lived for that moment, when the light of independence went out in their eyes. By the time she finished he wouldn’t be able to tie his shoes without permission.
She glanced at a copy of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, on the table in front of her. It was the inspiration for the new program she was developing around her latest victim. She had already laid the groundwork, calling herself an ‘Advocate’. He was arrested and imprisoned by a faceless authority, for a crime never revealed and so impossible to defend against. It was all a surreal caricature of real legal proceedings. Judge, jury, the ‘Advocates’, all were part of a rigged game. Every bit of power over his life would be stripped from him; she would see to that. Her advice would seem reasonable, even helpful, her favorite word. It would lead him down a path of total personality destruction. Whatever was left, that was for her employers to clean up.
She reached for her tablet. There had to be pretrial motions and arguments at the start. She needed to work out the script for it. There would be plenty of emotional ups and downs, near victories devastated by crushing defeats. Each day that ended with good news would be met the next morning with a reversal of fortune when the judge summarily dismisses the motion. And Sally would be there to help him through the bad times.