They were always the same, like cold little piss holes in the snow. She’d come to the conclusion that the point of the mask and the different voices was simply to fuck with her head, to keep her in a state of confusion. It was all part of the game. And the name of the game was control. Layer by layer, he was stripping away her identity, her dignity, her sanity. Already she could barely remember who she’d been before she was abducted. Soon all that would be left of her was an empty husk with no will of its own.
‘Hello, my sweet little whore.’ Today his voice was excited, high-pitched, well-spoken. ‘How are we feeling?’
Melinda stared at the gimp. Her gaze wasn’t confrontational, it wasn’t scared. It was simply blank. But inside she was shaking so badly it took all of her willpower to keep her teeth from chattering. No more , she kept mentally repeating to herself. No fucking more!
The gimp held up a long yellow rod with two black prongs at its end. He pressed a button and electricity crackled between the prongs. ‘You know the drill. On your face. Hands behind your back. Move or even flinch and I’ll give you a taste of my rod.’ The gimp gave a strange little chuckle, as if he’d made a joke.
Melinda rolled obediently onto her front, biting back a wince as the collar chafed her sores. She held herself perfectly still as her captor pulled away the thin, rough blanket that covered her scrawny naked form and clicked metal cuffs on her wrists and ankles, squeezing them painfully tight against her bruised skin. ‘Good girl,’ he breathed in her ear, rolling her back over. ‘I’ve brought some new toys for us to play with.’ He opened a holdall and withdrew an object that was familiar to Melinda from S&M sessions with punters. It was a stainless steel device about seven inches long with a small wheel at one end. A series of evenly spaced short, sharp spikes radiated from the wheel. ‘Have you seen one of these before? Answer with a nod or a shake of your head.’
Melinda nodded.
The gimp gave a click in his throat, annoyed his toy was nothing new to her. ‘Do you know what it’s called?’
She shook her head.
‘It’s a neurological wheel. Originally it was used to test nerve reactions as it was rolled across the skin, like so.’ The gimp pushed the pinwheel lightly over Melinda’s stomach, producing a sharp, prickling sensation.
Again, she held herself as motionless as a dead thing, allowing no flicker of expression to cross her features.
‘Nowadays it’s more commonly used as a sex toy,’ continued the gimp. ‘Of course, most people only use it to stimulate the flesh. They don’t press down hard enough to puncture it. But where’s the fun in that?’ He ran the wheel across Melinda’s stomach again, this time with enough force to leave a trail of bloody full stops.
She gave no sign of having felt anything. The gimp raked the wheel across her breasts and nipples several times, pushing the pins in deeper with every pass he made. Still nothing. Not even the faintest of moans. He scrutinised her face for any sign of pain. There was none. She stared at the ceiling as if seeing through it to some other place – a place where no pain could reach her. He flipped her onto her front again, and attacked the backs of her thighs and her buttocks, going at it so viciously that soon clumps of ploughed up flesh and skin clogged the pinwheel. He stopped suddenly and hurled the device aside as if it disgusted him.
‘Fucking bitch. Fucking whore.’ His slightly breathless voice quivered not with pleasure but with anger. He grabbed the chain close to the wall and, grunting with effort, hauled down on it until Melinda’s toes dangled a couple of inches above the mattress.
The pain of the pins piercing and tearing Melinda’s flesh had been agonising. But it was nothing compared to the pain of being hanged. She felt as if her neck was stretching like a rubber band, and as if her head was expanding
Learning to Kill: Stories