Aliquis\'s punishment

Special thanks for K. S. and for Elwood Wood

 

Chapter 3.

 

1.

It was a long, dreamless night. I felt much better. In the next week I rarely saw Master Samir. He said my only duty is working out. Ahmed was always present at my work outs, but he didn't have to use the whip. In a few days I was in a great shape again. My muscles were showing under my skin.

 

Then in the morning I woke up when the cell door opened and Ahmed came in. Ahmed stepped behind me, pulled my arms back and handcuffed me. Fear struck me suddenly.

 

Ahmed tossed me forward. He led me through corridors, then downstairs. The air was pretty chilly and since I was naked, I got goose-bumps.

 

Finally we entered into a room which was surely underground.

Master Samir was already in the chamber.

Lit by torches on the walls, a wheel rack stood in the middle of the dungeon on a raised stone plinth, a macabre shrine to suffering and torture. It was just under six feet in diameter, although its slight elevation on wooden supports from its heavy base added a little height. It was crafted with skill; a thick, solid, heavily-studded rim mounted on heavy cross-beam spokes. It was turned by an iron cog, in turn operated by a ratcheted lever.

The "rim" of the wheel, the curved surface of its circumference, was nearly three feet wide. Near the upper curve were bolted two lengths of chain, ending in open manacles. To the wooden base, immediately below the foremost extreme of the wheel's rim, two more chains and manacles.

Ahmed pushed me closer to the wheel rack. It was terrifying to see it up close. The iron studs in particular look gruesome and forbidding.

It took every last ounce of courage not to run straight for the door. Instead, I let Ahmed guide me up onto the stone plinth, and stood in place alongside the big wheel. Its iron-studded curve brushed my shoulder blades icily. Ahmed knelt at my feet, gathered up one of the manacles, and fit it around my ankle.

Shackles. I was immediately reminded of its heaviness, the solid metal weighty and cold against my skin. Ahmed locked it shut, fastening it with a small padlock, and let it drop; it rested against my ankle bone and the top of my foot. He placed the second shackle around my other ankle, locked it, and checked the chains.

My feet were secured to the wooden base.

Firmly, Ahmed held out his hand again for my wrist. He lifted my left wrist to the open manacle, which lay against the curve of the wheel. He closed the thick, cold iron around my wrist and locked it, again with a small padlock. He did the same with my right wrist, and as the padlock clicked shut, I felt a fresh prickle of sweat over my body. With my arms slightly raised, I was completely helpless, utterly in the power of my tormentors.

Samir took a syringe filled with yellow liquid and gave me a shot. Then he looked into my eyes.

"This rack is turned by a simple gearing mechanism," Samir explained indifferently. "An easy movement of the lever — thus — causes the wheel to shift about one half of a degree, effecting a stretch of one third of an inch." He cranked the lever to demonstrate, and the big wheel groaned, turned fractionally.

Here goes.
I felt sweat prickling along my hairline, down my spine. My heart was pounding almost painfully. My throat was suddenly dry.

I automatically grasped the chains that run upwards from the wrist manacles. My toes curled and rubbed against the wood beneath them. I was acutely conscious of my nakedness, my vulnerability. I was aware of how fragile my flesh must seem, alongside the heavy mechanisms of the wheel rack.

Click - beep.

Ahmed turned the cameras on.

Samir grabbed the lever, but instead of turning it, simply agitated it back and forth slightly, drawing deep clanking sounds from the ratchet mechanism. It sent a wave of anticipation through me, so intense that it seemed to burn inside my belly. My heart felt like a fluttering bird in my chest. I moved my hands a little, the chains knocking on the wood above my head.

Samir pulled the lever.

The wheel groaned, creaked, and shifted, and I felt the chains draw on my wrists. Another notch. Then another. Little by little, as the wheel rotated, my hands inched higher. Click, click, click … the anticipation deepened into a kind of dread as I began to experience the slow, inexorable progress of the turning rack.

A strange thought rose in me. Something was different. Samir was different. My thoughts were stopped by another click.

As my wrists were drawn upwards, they were also drawn backwards, following the curve of the wheel. It arched my back, so that the cold iron studs dig uncomfortably into my back and shoulders. My spine began to extend, my breasts lifting, my belly hollowing, my armpits and ribcage exposed, and my sense of helplessness grew with my discomfort.

A fraction of an inch at a time, my arms were drawn to their full extent over my head. My back arched more severely as my body followed the curve of the wheel, my shoulders, shoulder blades, lower back and now buttocks all pressed against the cruel iron studs, while my legs extended straight down. With the next few notches, my heels rose off the platform, so that I was standing on the balls of my feet. It was very uncomfortable, even the mere act of breathing caused the studs in my back to painfully press into my flesh. The manacles were biting into my wrists.

A droplet of sweat slid down the arch of my ribcage from one underarm. My whole body felt unnaturally strained already. It was an effort to even lift my head. My arms, although not truly stretched, were feeling the pressure of my body's weight.

"Today I want more than the usual. There is another purpose – besides punishment – to this torture." says Samir.

"W-what is it??" I get scared even more. I knew already that he was going to torture me again. But for what else than being unfaithful to my master?

Samir said nothing more, but smiled, and returned to the lever.

I closed my eyes.

The wheel shifted as he hauled on the lever, and on its studded rim, I was lifted a little further by my shackled wrists. My body, curved backwards, stretched a little under the gentle urge of gravity; but I knew there were much crueller forces waiting to act upon it. Another notch, and I was on tiptoes. My legs were at full stretch. I could feel the muscles of my calves knotting with the strain. The iron manacles seemed to burn into my wrist bones, my hands tingling.

Samir drew the lever again. The wheel groaned, and my toes cleared the ground. For the first time, I was half-suspended over the circumference of the wheel. It drew a grunt from my throat. The studs in my back and the iron on my wrists were painful, the arching of my back a considerable discomfort also. Another notch, and with ease, the wheel lifted my body back-and-up on its arc. I could feel the weight of the fetters and chains hanging off my ankles. The position was seriously uncomfortable to the extent of being a battle to endure.

I flexed my toes, trying to reach the ground as Samir cranked the lever again. I could not touch it. Looking down, I could only see my own naked chest, my pecs drawn almost flat into my ribcage, but my nipples jutting like small berries into the air. The curve of my body was such that I could see no further without lifting my head.

Another notch, and I felt, for the first time, the tug of the manacles on my ankles. It was only subtle, but enough to tell me that the chains had drawn taut. My toes must have been at least six inches off the ground. The discomfort through my arched body was severe.
The rack began its work.

The manacles on my wrists hauled my hands a fraction of an inch further, while the manacles and chains on my ankles held my feet in place. Tension translated all along my arms, my spine, and down my legs; the tension of a yoga stretch.

"Ahh…" It was only a forced release of breath from the awkwardness of my arched position, but it prompted Samir to take his hand from the lever.

"I believe it is the most appropriate at this point," he said, "to let you dwell on your pending agonies for a time?"

"What do you want from me, master?" I tried to hide my fear from my voice.

The dungeon door shut with a thud. I heard the clunk of its bar sliding into place.

Then, silence. Utter and absolute.

I was naked and cold, half-hanging across the curve of the wheel, shackled at the wrists and ankles and mildly stretched. And utterly, completely helpless. The iron studs dug into my back, but I could not move to relieve their painful pressure, nor could I ease the hot bite of iron on my wrists and ankles. I could only endure.

Minutes pass. I did not have any way of gauging time, but I knew it had been more than two. It had been more than five. And still no hint that Samir was returning. The pain was growing worse as time passes and the cold gnawed into my body. I was fighting the urge to shiver, which would only make things worse.

Minute after slow minute.

I tipped my head back, an effort in itself, and looked towards my own shackled wrists. The heavy iron sat snugly around my wrists, locked shut with the padlocks. I could not, in a thousand lifetimes, free myself.

"Master"

My voice barely even reverberated in the dungeon enclosure, muted by the thick bedrock from which it was hewn. I doubted that it would even be heard beyond the door, let alone along the narrow fifty-foot tunnel that lead to another heavy wooden door, beyond which was labyrinthine gloom of Samir's dungeons. I could scream and yell, but I would never be heard. Nobody but Samir knew I was there - and nobody ever came in here by chance.

"Mas-teeee-eeer"

Unexpectedly, panic arrived. It was overwhelming. My heart-rate surged. The sweat burst from every pore. The adrenaline pounded and gave my muscles new strength; the pain of my strained position was immediately forgotten. I began thrashing as much as I could, which amounted to little more than tensing my arms and waggling my feet slightly against the tension of the chains. I twisted and turned my hands in the manacles, reaching my fingers for the padlocks. I caught the lock on my left wrist-manacle between two fingers, but was only able to tug at it feebly.

So I gritted my teeth and put even more effort into it, every last ounce of my strength, until my muscles are pronounced and hard with straining, my limbs shaking in the effort to pull myself free - even though I know, as a torturer myself, that I will not escape. The iron studs bite and press into my flesh, only bringing more pain.

I was helpless.

Maybe more than an hour. But even that eventually dissipated, until there was nothing left but the chill eating into my bones, the iron studs boring into my flesh, the shackles eating into my wrists and ankles, and the ache of fatigue eating into my muscles.

More than an hour after Samir left me alone down here, the pain began to gnaw at me. My back was hurting. Not just the flesh where the iron studs were digging, but a deep pain in my spine, in the muscles of my shoulders and lower back. In the tendons. Being arched backwards for such a long time was an unnatural and forced position, and my body was feeling it.

It was the same with my arms. They ached. The muscles, the joints, the tendons. A dull, deep ache, as if there are bone-deep bruises. Only my legs, stretching down towards the ankle manacles, were relatively free of pain.

I had lost count of the minutes. But it seemed that at least another hour crawled by, and I remained secured on the wheel rack, helpless, and in silence. Down there, it was cold; barely sixty degrees Fahrenheit, and the chill seemed to eat into my helpless body. My nipples stood hard on my flattened chest. Goosebumps textured my bare skin. My teeth started to chatter. But I was helpless.

Perhaps another hour passed. Perhaps two hours. Perhaps only half an hour.

I had no way of knowing. It felt like an eternity. I began to feel detached from the real world, detached from my own identity. Being like that, arched and naked on a device of torture, I was reminded that all I really have in this world is my own body. And even that, even the temple of my flesh and blood, could be ripped apart.

Time crept.

I was in a numb daze when I heard sounds. A rattling at the dungeon door. The bar was drawn, and I heard the door creak open.

"Fighting against it?" Samir entered, re-locking the door behind him, then stepping up onto the plinth. "You look cold," he said, noting my chattering teeth, my bullet-hard nipples.

"Take me off, Master. Please."

"No."

Samir looked straight into my eyes. I looked into his. There was absolute seriousness in his tone. What else does he want? I was suddenly more scared than I have ever been. Samir moved to the lever of the wheel rack. I had already tested my restraints many times, and I knew myself to be truly helpless, but my heart quickened with an impulse to try and escape as he grasped its stout wood.

"Where is your brother?" Samir asked suddenly.

"What??? What?" I was shocked. How on earth did he find out? "What are you talking about?"

"You find me. You know me. I want to ensure that you never betray me. I have to know where he is. It is a kind of...self-insurance."

My thoughts were racing. My brother, barely 17, was my only living relative. The only one whom I care for. He was being raised by foster parents but I know where he lived. I couldn't let those ruthless people hurt him. He had nothing to do with that whole mess!

"I have no brother!" I yelled.

Samir smiled and pulled the lever. The mechanism of the rack groaned, the wheel shifted, and as my body was wrenched upwards, my legs felt the stretch most, as they pulled against the ankle manacles. He found another notch, and with the wheel's next shift, I felt a hot, burning pain deep in my hips, mirrored by pain in my lower back.

I felt my head move suddenly with the sharpness of pain. "Oh, it hurts!"

"So, where is he?"

"I said it before. I don't know! What the fuck do you want! I’m an only child!"

He pulled the lever again

I was stretched, and a fiery pain filled my hips and lower back, and seemed to spread up my spine. I felt it in my shoulders, now, too; quickly overshadowing the pain of the manacles and the iron studs that dug into my flesh. The pain of being stretched was far more intense, like fire along my bones.

"Ohh!! Master!" I gasped. "I Pleaseee!" I desperately tried to adjust to the pain.

"I hear what you are saying, boy." Samir said, and cranked me another notch. The wheel creaked, but I also heard my spine pop, and hot pain flashed along my back, down through my legs. It seemd to tear up through my shoulders, too, and I gave an involuntary groan.

"Master, please, stop, stop for a moment! God, it really hurts now!"

"Do have something to say?"

"Seriously, Master, it hurts! Oh God! I have no...oh..." I could feel my body's response to pain, now; sudden profuse sweat all over my bare skin. I felt hot, even in the dungeon's chill. The pain was intense, fiery. "Oh, shit … that's bad …" My breathing was shallow, my ribcage already expanded by the arching of my back, and I could feel my pounding heart thumping against my spine.

"Tell me. Do you really think that a whelp like you won't break under my hands? Don't make me laugh," he chuckled. "I have broken much tougher men than you, kid. Just tell me what I want to know. Or be stubborn..." He reached for the lever again.

"No - Master, no!" I shouted, but he pulled the lever anyway. As the wheel moved, my wrists were drug a fraction of an inch further, my ankles remained anchored, and my body was stretched. New pain filled my hips, spread up my back, breathtakingly huge. I felt my eyes widen, and I gave an involuntary groan. Quickly, there came an intense agony in my arms, too, seeming to spread from my armpits up to my elbows, hot pain as if a scalpel has sliced along the bone.

"Oh Jesus, Master! Fuck!" I squealed. "Ahh, shit!!" I started to shake my head. "No, I have no brother!!! Pleaseee!" I could feel droplets of sweat running down my face, beading up on my drawn pecs and my taut belly.

Samir let go of the handle, but left the rack secured.

"Listen. Just give me an address. I won't hurt him. I swear. I just want you to know if you hurt me I can hurt you too. That's all."

I couldn't let my little brother get involved. Oh Jesus, what had I done!

As I was thinking, Samir was returning to the lever. I suddenly found myself gibbering. "Please - no, no, not that, pleasee -"

He cranked the lever.

The wheel groaned around, and my body was stretched. As the pain flared brutally down through my legs, up my spine, up through my arms, it was liberating just to let out a shriek of pain, although I was able to stifle it quickly.

Another notch of the rack, and my scream was high and frantic, my mouth wide, as the fire intensified along my limbs. I heard my joints crack in succession, a creaking from my tearing spine.

"Oh God!! Samir!! Aaah!!"

"Give what I want." He voice as cold as ice.

"Samir, please, please, I can't stand the pain," I babbled out. The sweat was stinging my eyes, so that I could barely see. "Please, just loosen the rack!"

"Fool kid" Samir added and cranked the lever again. Raw and terrible agony exploded along my legs and arms, and it felt as if my abdominal muscles were tearing, my spine breaking apart. I wasn't even aware of screaming for the first several seconds; it was a completely involuntary reaction to the pain: I was making woooaaah - woooo - ooooh - aaaahh noises at the top of my lungs.

When at last I could contain my screaming, the tears flooded from my eyes, spilling down my cheeks.

"Oh God, Master, please, please stop," I sobbed. "I'm begging you, now!"

Without hurry, he stepped from the lever and stood close to my wrenched body. Even stretched back over the wheel, with my toes high off the ground, his face was almost at the same level with mine.

"I admit you are tough. But this session is out of our deal. I won't spare this" he gently stoked my ribs and abs "magnificent body."

"Aahhh … "  was all I could say.

"Shall I repeat my demands?"

I realized I was in no position at all to deny him. "Samir, ple-e-e-ase,anything but this!!!" I wailed.

"So beautiful." He put his hand to my solar plexus. Stretched this taut, I could barely breathe, only my drum-tight belly shifting with desperate little fish-gasps of air. He trailed his fingers up over my ribcage - bump-bump-bump over each rib - then the slight swell of my pecs. His palm brushed the hard pencil-eraser of my nipple, but I was unable to flinch from his touch. Then he moved his hand downwards on my side. Finally he reached my groin. I loathed his touch. Only when he touched my cock did I realize that it was rock hard. The pain shrouded my senses. He grabbed it and stroked a bit.

"Don't be surprised. Even normal men got erect sometimes during torture."

I felt utterly humiliated; but it was nothing compared to the agony in my stretched body. "Please, Master, just loosen it a little," I sobbed.

"You know, you leave me no choice."

As he stepped back to the lever, fresh terror hit me. "Master! No! No!"

But I couldn't stop him; the cogs turned, and the big wheel shifted slightly with a sailing-ship creak. The hot, tearing agony that exploded all along my limbs and torso was incredible, intense, overwhelming, and that time I couldn't stop my screams.

When I didn't have enough breath, I simply groaned in agony. I was sure my back was about to break. My hips felt as if they are being ripped apart, my shoulders likewise. The ravaging agony was so intense that I couldn't even feel the manacles on my wrists and ankles any more.

"Okay!" I managed to squeal. "You win! I have a brother!! But we haven't met in years! He can't hurt you!! He is just a child!!!"

He looked at with his reptile-like eyes.

I could barely speak. "Please - Master, please - loosen it… oh God, I can't stand it … it hurts so much …!"

"I know he can't hurt me. I will not hurt him either. Just tell me where he lives." Through eyes swimming in tears of pain I saw Samir's blurred shape move away from the lever, and I gave a wail of horror, knowing that he wasn't going to ease my agony yet.

"Oh God, Master, I don't know, I can't think, please, you're killing me!"

"Tell me the address." Samir said.

I remained silent.

Samir sighed.

Samir went behind me and returned with a candle in his hand. The candle was six inches tall, two inches across, with a thick and heavy wick. He placed it where I could see it, slowly picking up a matchbox, striking a single match, and touching it to the wick. The flame caught, fluttered, then built into a tall, bright upside-down teardrop, its peak tapering to a reddish-orange, a slender thread of smoke sliding upwards into the cool air.

"I will ask you again, boy," Samir said slowly. He lifted the candle and held it in front of me. Held taut and helpless on the wheel-rack, I could not even struggle, only gaze in horror at the bright point of light.

"Oh shit … please," I whimpered. "I do not know the answer."

There was a shallow channel that ran from just beneath my well built pecs down to my belly-button; tanned skin beaded with perspiration, heaving with shallow breath. It was to this flinching skin that he first brought the candle flame, holding it close so that I felt the bite of heat, my sweat turning to steam.

"Uuhh!" I moaned, trying to suck in my stomach. He brought the flame close again, just kissing my skin, and there was a soft hiss and I again cried out. "Oh, fuck, fuck it hurts! Stop, please!"

"Talk. Talk or it gets worse for you!"

"I do not know! I don't know what you ask!"

Samir touched me again with the candle, holding it longer to my flesh, burning slowly down the line of my solar plexus, and the skin crackled and reddened in the flame's savage path. I gave a scream of pain, my head whipped from side to side, and the sweet odour of burning sweat and my skin filled my nostrils.

"I ask again!"

Tears were spilling from my eyes. "Please, stop!" I begged.

The candle flame kissed my belly again, fleeting visits that burnt my skin and drew shrieks from my lungs. The burns were only superficial, but they hurt badly enough to bring a fresh beading of sweat over my tightly-pulled body.

"No!!"

Lower. Halfway down my stomach, tiny peach-fuzz hairs vaporising and skin searing under the candle's razor-touch. My body jolted within the unforgiving tension of the rack, and again I shrieked in pain.

"Ohhhh fu-u-uck! It hu-u-urts! Stop! Stop!!"

"Your skin is blistering, kid." He touched me with the flame, barely above my navel; hissing sweat and crackling skin and another shriek from me. I could smell my own burning flesh.

But that has only been an introduction to the candle's searing touch. I knew that it can get much, much worse. Samir ran his fingertips down over the corrugations of my ribcage, the taut skin of my belly, then flicked them through the shallow dip of my navel. I caught my breath, helpless in anticipation.

A moment later, he touched and held the candle's flame to my belly button. It licked into the slight hollow with the sound of sizzling sweat, and I gave a shriek, then another, then a cry of pain. He didn't lift the candle away, but held it in place, letting the flame flutter and burn, tearing at my sensitive skin, while wax dripped to land on my erect penis beneath. I could do nothing but shriek and wail with the pain as a long scorch-mark slowly formed above my burning navel.

The agony as my belly-button was burned seemed to bore all the way to my spine, and despite the tension of the rack, I tried to writhe my hips and escape the agony; but I was held firmly under the candle's searing touch, and as the pit of my navel reduced to black char, my screams were filled with horror and pain.

When he finally withdrew the flame, my cries trail off into a long wail. I was running with sweat, every muscle pumped from my fruitless struggles. My pecs bounced on my chest with my rapid, panting breath.

"I'm running out of patience, kid" Samir warned. "Where does your brother live? What is his address?"

I was weeping. "I don't know any of that, I swear!"

With one finger, Samir gently flicked the swollen tip of my erect left nipple.

"Oh shit, no, no no!" I saw the candle being brought close; I tried to lift my head from between my arms, desperately trying to blow out the flame but the arch of my body and the tautness of the rack meant that I could not get the angle nor the air to do it. I puffed uselessly a few times. He waited until I was done, then brought the flame underneath my nipple.

It was quite magical, the way my nipple parted the flame. Two halves of a single flame wrapped almost lovingly around my nipple, and there was a hissing, a crackling. Then I screamed as the pain hit me, eyes bugging from my head and every muscle rigid. The pain bore deeply into my flesh, and my head began to whip from side to side in helpless agony.

Samir had lifted the candle flame away before anything more than superficial damage was done, but he burnt my right nipple instead. Again the crackle of searing flesh, and again I gave horrible shrieks of pain.

Left. Right. Left. Right. He shifted the candle from one pec to the other, just letting the flame caress my erect and now weeping nipples. Quickly they darkened, the top layers of skin charring, then splitting to expose fresh, sensitive flesh beneath.

"Oh please, oh please!!" I shrieked. Tears coursed down my face. "Stop, stop, please stop!"

"Reveal what you know!" he shouted. "You are holding back from me! Talk, and it stops!"

My mouth still open, my face screwed up in pain, I wailed in a whirl of confusion, but I was still not ready to give up the only person whom I really cared for. So he put the candle to my nipple once more, and burned flesh smoked again as the flame curled around it. I shrieked and cried in agony.

Left nipple. Right nipple. Left, right, until the swollen nodes of flesh were charred and misshapen, and I was arched and groaning on the curve of the rack. Both nipples were almost burned through; and yet I had not been broken. I knew I had a high threshold to pain, but I never imagined that I could hold out so long. But I knew I have not achieved anything other than prolonging my nightmare. I knew it, and Samir could see that I was trying to convince myself that I could endure more.

"Give he four notches, Ahmed" he yelled.

My  body was already tightly stretched, and as the wheel creaked and shifted, hot agony flashed through my limbs, brutal and tearing. I gave a high-pitched wail.

Another notch, forcing my joints to accommodate. Intense pain bedded at the base of my spine flared through the muscles of my belly.

Another notch, and deep popping sounds came from between my vertebrae, dragging another wail from my lungs.

With the final notch, I gave a cry that I barely managed to contain again. My world was becoming diluted pain. My limbs burned, my spine hurt badly, my burnt belly-button and nipples tormented me in slow, searing waves of agony.

The candle was burning bright and steady when Master Samir brought it close to my face. I whimpered, trying to turn away from its heat. Slowly, he trailed it down my body, between my drooping and wounded pectorals, over my arched ribcage, my taut and red-scorched belly. I moaned as the flame passed my burned and seeping navel, singeing the slight hair that leads my groin.

And then he thrusted the lit candle between my legs.

There was a hissing of sweat as the heat reached the tender skin of my ball sac. An instant later, I began to wail, then shriek, then scream. My eyes bulged. My lungs emptied themselves in a terrible screeching as Samir passed the flame up and down, searing my shaved testicles and the bottom of my cock, holding it directly under the flinching star of my anus. The soft hairs that surrounded my balls smouldered and then burned away, the skin hissed, wisps of smoke curling from between my thighs, and I shrieked and howled.

"Oh fuck no oh oh oh shit please stop aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!" My head thrashed from side to side, my dark blond hair was pouring sweat. I was squealing and roaring with pain as my delicate parts suffered the intimate agony of the candle-flame.

He shifted the flame further back so that it fluttered and blistered my arsehole again; the smell was a mix of burning skin and searing sweat, and my screams were demonic.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!! Stop-stop-stop I'll talk, I'll talk, I'll talk!!" Samir removed the candle. Smoke still drifted out from between my legs, and my pecs heaved, my eyes rolling in disbelief at the agony that ravages me. "Ohhhhh …"

"Tell me where is he!" Samir said.

I gave him the address.

Ahmed typed it into a palmtop. He shook his head.

"Tell the truth!" Samir shouted, and thrusted the candle again between my legs. I clenched my teeth, but the flame licked my wounded sex and the pain returned, even worse than before. My mouth opened in a terrible scream.

"Ooooaaaahhhh!!! I swear I swear I swear!!" I shrieked. I was trying, despite the hideous tension in my body, to buck my hips against the pain, but I could not escape it. Fresh wisps of smoke and steam filtered up from my groin, and I yelled my agony dementedly, but no admission.

Samir withdrew the candle. He turned to Ahmed. "Not because I believe him, but because a stronger form of persuasion is required before he will tell the truth."