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“Let me be quite clear, Ms. Ryan,” he looked down at the paper on his desk, “Shelby, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve been chosen for this job because you scored high in our qualifying examination. The exam was intended to weed out aggressive, overachieving females with any sort of penchant for domination or control. What I need for this position is a woman capable of loyalty, discretion and a high degree of integrity, who is otherwise submissive in disposition, willing to do as she’s told without question.
“And you’re young. I like that. I like the woman who works so closely at my side to be moldable, something easier to accomplish with a younger woman who may still be unsure about themselves. I assure you, that at this point in time, with what you have told me in your application and the qualifying exam, I know you far better than you know yourself. I know your mind, your heart, even your sexual inclinations.”
Shelby’s eyes widened but she made no reply to that remark.
“See,” he attempted to smile. “A more assertive woman would have objected to that last statement. But you did not. A lack of response is appropriate for your naturally submissive disposition. We are going to get along just fine…”
Only in the days ahead would she realize just how true that statement was.
***
Shelby was stripped of the thigh-irons and hateful waist and crotch belts. Though the tattoo was going nowhere, at least she had the dress and her brown boots. Some semblance of normalcy, she wryly thought. Yet, the cell into which she’d been roughly thrown was as cold as the interrogation room in Vienna, and not nearly as comfortable. All she had now was the bare floor and the cold walls, and her crazed mind. If it weren’t for the water dripping somewhere nearby there’d have been no sound at all. A quiet so deep as to drive one crazy.
Shelby’s eyes were closed when an unfamiliar noise suddenly jerked her body awake. Then the sound of boots striding across the concrete floor, the turn of the key, the clang of the door. She looked up to see a striking male figure in riding jodhpurs and a tan work shirt. In his fist, a leather strap. Her sex went suddenly wild over an image straight from her past, from dreams and nightmares created in another place and time.
The man stood over her for a long while, gazing down expressionless. When he kicked her with the toe of his boot, she scrambled to her knees and he backed off.
“I’m Col. Jessup.”
She’d already guessed as much. Some things you know without having them spelled out.
“You tell me now what I want to know,” he spoke in perfect American English. Tough as a cowboy kind of American, certainly not the kind of man she had expected. “It’s your last chance to avoid a lot of pain.”
“I wish I knew what to tell you but there’s nothing, I swear! You have to believe me, you have to!” She looked up at him through desperate eyes. “I thought the DVD was music, nothing else. I swear to you, you have to believe me…”
“I don’t have to believe a thing,” he cut her off, and grabbing her by the arm, he jerked her to her feet. His free hand was raised about to strike. Even without it connecting with her left cheek, she could feel her flesh burn hot. One good look at Col. Jessup and she knew exactly where the terrifying moment would lead. She’d met this man before, not in the flesh, but in her nightmares many times.
He pushed her away, then strode before her menacingly, eyes hard and firm, his chin sporting a day’s growth of beard. Across his right cheek was a small scar. He was hardly taller than Shelby, but his build was muscled and fierce, a man not given to kindness or pleasantries.
“So you don’t want to talk. You want to keep up your lie. That is fine with me. My job is to torture females who refuse to cooperate.” Shelby could see a smile forming at his lips. “Being sadistic by nature, I’m v
ery good at my job. In fact, I love my work. Right now it’s just you and me. I’m more than happy to work on you all night if that’s what it takes to break you.”
“Sir, please, I’m begging you,” she dropped to her knees and clung to his booted feet.
He kicked her away.
“Grueter!” He barked into the dungeon air and a young man in a grey uniform appeared. He was a much less rugged man than Col. Jessup, more polished like the well-trained guard at the Vienna airport.
“String her up by the wrists!”
While Grueter swiftly moved in and grabbed for Shelby’s wrists, Jessup stood by watching. The cell had been previously fitted for torture with eyes bolts cemented into a number of places along the concrete walls, and an apparatus for suspension ready to pull down from the ceiling. Straps and hooks and two sets of heavy cuffs all attached to pulleys in an ominous array.
Shelby shuddered, but she did not resist as the young Grueter lifted each wrist and secured it into a thick cuff. Then moving to a set of controls on the wall, he hoisted her until she was standing on tiptoe.
“Stop!” Jessup snapped. “You can leave us be now. But stay close should I need you.”
“Yes, sir,” he said with an officious nod to the Colonel. Then his boots clicked sharply as he left the cell.
Before Shelby could get her bearings, Jessup flashed a knife before her face. “Oh, gawd, please, no!” she whimpered.
“Just going to cut off the dress so I can have a clear target when I whip you. I’ll start with twenty lashes, then see if you’re interested in talking after that.”
It was only a matter of time before the dress would go; Shelby had been certain of that. And yet, she mourned the loss of decency and the dress’s scant protection. Naked but for the boots she could feel Jessup’s callous eyes burning into her body like lasers, tearing her skin to shreds long before the first cut of the lash.
