Chapter 40 Sentenced to Suffering
The Scorpions proceeded to march Ci-ci outside, some twenty yards from the
building, to the well which served the needs of the Pit. The rain was no more
than a fine mist now that fell gently on her body, allowing tiny patches of
Ci-ci's ivory-gold skin to peek through the fine patina of coal dust. The arid
coal dust had filtered into her throat, exacerbating her thirst; Ci-ci opened
her mouth to taste the moisture of the night, hoping that she would not be
punished for indulging in that tiny pleasure without permission.
Lying on the ground alongside the ancient cistern was a heavy yoke-like
device, which Dao and Lin quickly fitted to her bare shoulders. Then the Ox
lowered a canister, attached to a heavy rope, into the dim recesses of the well
and pulled it back up a moment later, brimming with water. He quickly lowered a
second canister, which, like the first, had a capacity of some six gallons, and
hauled it up when it was full.
Then, at Chiang Chan's direction, Zheng and Dao spaced the huge canisters
about five feet apart and positioned Ci-ci so that each end of the yoke was
directly above one container. Then, Lin pushed down on Ci-ci's shoulders,
forcing her into a semi-crouch while his comrades attached the canisters to each
end of the wide yoke that had been placed across the girl's shoulders. Ci-ci's
back and shoulders were bent low under the yoke so that the canisters could
rest on the ground while Chiang Chan, a cruel smile on his handsome face,
lowered a smaller jug in to the well, retrieved it, and then proceeded to top
off both containers, replacing any water that had been spilled while raising
them from the well.
When he was done, both canisters were full to the brim. Ci-ci, dreading
her next ordeal, judged correctly that the weight of the water that she had been
sentenced to lift and carry was not much less than her own.
Chiang Chan stepped forward and cupped Ci-ci's chin in his left hand,
forcing her to look into his dark, reptilian eyes. He addressed her sternly.
"You should be grateful that we are going to let you use our well-water for your
bath, wench." Then he added in a harsh whisper. "Be careful that you do not
waste it."
Then, as if to emphasize the seriousness of his directive, he slapped her
dust-darkened left breast sharply with his right hand. Soft skin and firm
flesh, he marveled -- what a delightfully erotic combination.
"Ouwwwww!'" Ci-ci, still half-crouching in preparation for lifting the
fully-laden canisters, grimaced in pain.
"That is but a foretaste of what you can expect, if you are careless with
our water."
"Now, take up your burden and carry it to the stove, girl. Dao, cut a
switch from that tree. And use it," the son of George Chan added in a voice
devoid of mercy, "if she is careless."
Ci-ci groaned softly as by dint of a prodigious effort, she began to
straighten her legs and back and lift the near hundredweight of water clear a
few inches above the ground. Silently she cursed the Scorpions for filling the
twin canisters so full; the immense Ox himself could hardly have managed such a
burden without spilling some of the contents.
"Hurry it up, wench. We haven't got all night," the gap-toothed man
muttered as he cut an arm-length branch from a low-hanging tree, and proceeded
to strip away the leaves and twigs, thus converting one of nature's leafy gifts
into a menacingly rough-barked switch.
Ci-ci staggered under the weight of the unwieldy canisters. Then she took
a tentative step forward, torn between the urge to walk quickly so as to
unburden herself from the dreadfully oppressive weight all the sooner, and the
need to refrain from spilling any water.
"Get moving girl!" Dao growled as he snapped the gnarly switch across the
backs of her thighs.
Ci-ci buckled under the cruel blow and lurched forward unsteadily. Already
she could feel the water sloshing around in the canisters. Step by back-breaking
step she did her best to keep the containers at either end of the yoke fairly
steady, but it was next to impossible, particularly when she had to turn
sideways to scuttle her wide load through the barracks door. It took her nearly
five minutes to traverse the twenty yards from the well to the door of the Pit
and the same distance again to reach the far end of the barracks.
When she approached within a few feet of the now-roaring stove, she gently
bent her knees, lowering the huge canisters of water to the ground.
"Turn around!" It was the rough growl of Gap-tooth.
Despairingly, Ci-ci hoisted the heavy containers again and with a great
effort turned around to face her tormentors, again conscious of the heretofore
innocuous but now ominous sound of water sloshing. As she turned to face the
grim quartet, she noted with alarm that a number of small puddles lined the path
she had taken from the door to the stove. Trying to remain composed she bent her
knees and lowered the canisters to the ground once again.
Ci-ci remained in a stooped-over position under the yoke, her knees
slightly bent, her dust-darkened breasts reminding Chiang Chan of ripe fruit
waiting to be plucked from tree limbs that bent gently under their pleasant
weight.
"Did you spill any of the water, girl?" Dao asked, as the Ox, reacting to a
gesture from Chiang Chan, unhooked the canisters from the yoke. Ci-ci's body
seemed to give a huge sigh of relief as the onerous burden was removed from her
shoulders.
"Y-y-yes," she stammered in a trembling voice, knowing it would be foolish
to lie. The barracks floor was wet with the evidence of her 'failure'. The Ox
was lifting the yoke from her shoulders now.
"What's the matter with you, girl? Stand up straight when a Scorpion
speaks to!" Dao snapped. "How many cups of the water have you wasted?"
Ci-ci had a bit of difficulty straightening her spine even though her
burden had been removed, but did as she was bid. Meanwhile she looked town at
the canisters, trying to calculate how much she had spilled.
"But I ... I didn't mean to..."
"I didn't ask 'how', you careless, thieving slut. I asked 'How many', "
Dao snapped again.
"I d-don't know... perhaps six?" she guessed.
"Six, eh? It is well that you did not attempt to lie. Step backward!"
Ci-ci edged backwards gingerly -- the stove, now possessed of a
bright-burning fire, was no more than a foot behind her.
'I said, step backward, girl!" Dao muttered as he tightened his grip on the
switch. The thick end, which he held in his strong right hand, was as thick as
his index finger, but it tapered to a wicked whippy slimness at its striking
end. And it was that whip-like final foot of switch that came hurtling toward
the soft skin of Ci-ci's tummy at blinding speed.
"Ouuwwww!!" Ci-ci yelped, as she moved her arms to deflect the blow.
"Back, I say! And keep your hands, down. You'll get another for trying to
block that one.
Shaking, the pig-tailed young maiden lowered her tremulous hands to her
sides. Once they were clear of her body, Dao lashed out again, switching her
sharply across her belly, just below the pleasingly pronouced swell of her
ribcage.
"Back, I told you!"
And Ci-ci stepped back, and after taking another flick of the switch-tip
across her right hip, back again until her hips were only inches from the
roaring stove.
"Six strokes it shall be -- one for each cup of water you have wasted." Dao
was enjoying his moment of tyranny. He knew that Feng would have been pleased.
Once again he imagined the old bastard grinning evilly in some infernal region,
his right arm raised in masculine encouragement, while his left hand stroked his
prodigious manhood.
"Please...not here... the stove.... it's too hot..."
"Well, then, you'll just have to keep your feet firmly planted while you
take your six strokes, won't you? You should have thought of that before you
were so careless with our well water, girl. Hands at your sides!"
Ci-ci, cowering in fear, obeyed, her body trembling in apprehension.
Chiang Chan reached into one of the canisters of water and splashed a
handful against the stove, causing the hot metal of the dingy furnace to hiss
violently in protest, as steam rose toward the vent in the ceiling. "Yes, wench,
you had better take your whipping bravely." Ci-ci shuddered at the thought of
the scalding metal touching her tender bottomflesh.
"Now if you stand your ground as Dao gives you these six, you will have
nothing to fear from the stove. If you do not ... well, that is your own
concern. Are you ready?"
"N-no...please," Ci-ci murmured as she tried to brace herself.
SWICKKK!! "Aghhh!!" The switch cut into both of her thighs, perhaps four
inches above her knees. Fresh tears welled up in Ci-ci's eyes; it was all she
could do to remain in place.
SWICKKK!! "Aaaaahhhh!!" Again, four inches higher; to Ci-ci it felt as if
the blow had severed both of her quadriceps, the long smooth muscles that gave
the fronts of her thighs their pleasing curves.
Dao, gripped and re-gripped the deep-biting switch, spinning it deftly in
his fingers, as if searching for its sharpest edge. The two fresh stripes
accentuated the lushness of Cici's dust-blackened thighs. Dao smiled through
his crooked jack-o'-lantern teeth at the way Ci-ci's shapely legs quivered in
fearful anticipation of his next violent stroke.
Dao feinted two or three times, while his comrades laughed at Ci-ci as she
flinched from the pain-dealing weapon. But there was nowhere to hide from the
slender rod -- the steaming stove was immediately behind her, and Dao stood
directly in front of her, with his three colleagues in cruelty arrayed in a
semi-circle behind him.
SWICCCKKK!!! "Aieeeeeaaahhhh!!" When Dao launched the third blow Ci-ci's
hands flew reflexively across her upper thighs in attempt to protect them from
the savage onslaught. The blow caught her painfully just above the wrist of her
right hand. But worse, it angered the gruesome figure with the gnarly switch.
"I thought I told you to keep your hands at your sides, girl!"
Seeing the look in his eye, Ci-ci begged forgiveness. "I'm
...sorry...please...I won't do it again."
"Maybe you'd better take her arms, boys," Dao called to his pals and Zheng
and Lin stepped forward and each took an arm and stretched it at arm's length,
parallel to the ground. Zheng's bullish strength was such that Ci-ci felt that
he might pull her right shoulder from its socket.
The arm-twisting forced Ci-ci's shoulders to dip slightly, once again
emphasizing the delicious fullness of her sixteen-year old breasts. Dao's
tongue protruded obscenely from his malevolent lips as he eye-balled her twin
treasures. He was tempted to abandon the pattern of his strokes in order to
engrave a slender, red-edged streak or two into her tender lust globes right
then and there, but decided to defer that pleasure, and continue on with his
original plan.
Those juicy jugs aren't goin' anywhere, he thought to himself, as he
clenched his remaining teeth and lashed out at Ci-ci again, this time with a
back-hand motion, SWICKKK!!! catching her high on the tender flesh of her
upper thighs.
"Aaaiiiaahh!!" Ci-ci groaned, as she fought desperately to absorb Dao's
ferocious blows without giving ground and falling back against the hissing metal
of the stove. In between strokes she tried to dig a toehold into the
unforgiving surface of the barracks floor, as if seeking a stronghold from which
her body could not be driven backward against the steaming metal.
SWICKKK!! Four! -- "AAUUUAAHH!!" This time the switch left its fiery
kiss on Ci-ci's pubic mound, scalding her dark-fringed mons with unimaginable
pain. But still she held her ground.
SWICCKKK!!! Five -- "AAAIIIAAGHH!! -- A fierce cutter to her midsection,
a small knot on the switch seeming to find its way unerringly into her
umbilicus.
"Only one more, wench. But I'm going to make it a good one!"
Ci-ci's parched throat gulped with despair as she looked upward at the
ugly man with the switch. But his eyes weren't on hers; the grinning
gap-toothed man was staring menacingly at her vulnerable treasures. The
mist-dampened coating of coal-soot did nothing to conceal the delicious size and
shape of her twin targets.
"Let her go, boys." Dao motioned with a gesture indicating that Zheng and
Lin should release her hands. "You'll get a better look at this next one from
over here.
When the Scorpions released her arms, Ci-ci crossed them over her chest;
her right hand stroked what really was a sore triceps muscle, but she had little
hope that Dao would be fooled by her ruse.
And he wasn't. But it was Chiang Chan who spoke first. "Put your hands
behind your neck girl, and lace your fingers together."
Her torso oscillating gently in fear, Ci-ci slowly lifted her arms up and
away from their defensive position in front of her soft-skinned breasts, and
linked them together behind her head. As she did so she was conscious of how
her healthy young pectoral muscles lifted her dark-streaked pleasure globes
slighly higher on her chest, as if for the delectation of the four leering
Scorpions who surrounded her.
Richard Chan had made her pose in this position for him any number of
times, sometimes for long minutes, while he walked around her, studying her
boldly proffered breasts, and her deliciously desirable nipple buds from every
conceivable angle. As if he were a surveyor, mentally assessing how much her
girlish globes had blossomed since their last encounter. Until the disappearance
of the Golden Dagger, Richard Chan had pampered her love-globes with nothing but
caresses and kisses and the gentle bites of a skillful lover; but today she
seemed to have endured a cruel blow for every sensual caress that she had ever
received.
As Dao watched Ci-ci adopt her provocative position he recalled that Chiang
Chan's father George had posed that blonde German slut in just this way, in the
doorway of Richard Chan's study a few weeks earlier. But she had been on her
knees, Dao recalled with a grin, as befitted a blonde-haired, round-eyed slut.
Ci-ci's tits weren't quite as spectacular as the blonde's had been, but they
were nice. Damn nice. With the kind of tight brown nipples any red-blooded man
would love to sink his teeth into.
Curiously, Chiang's thoughts also turned momentarily to the German beauty
and her cock-pleasing, pink-nippled globes of desire. Who could ever forget
that afternoon when he had chanced upon the sight of the full-breasted blonde
hanging in chains in his father's punishment room off the den? Chiang Chan had
watched covertly as his father, armed with a punishing whip, had circled her
dangling body, clad, at least at first, in the filmy revealing garb of a harem
slave. Even now, weeks later, he could still hear the sharp report of the whip
as it exploded with violent fury on the blonde's magnificent breasts in his
mind's ear.
What had ever become of her? Chiang Chan wondered. Shanghai seemed to have
swallowed her up, he thought, just as Dao barked a command that brought him back
to the present.
**********
"Stick your tits out, wench!" growled the gap-toothed villain.
Ci-ci stood there, still half-covered with coal-dust, with eyelids closed
and legs widespread. Her inter-laced fingers fidgeted nervously, her out-thrust
elbows trembled visibly, and her lovely breasts heaved with each staccato
breath, as she waited for the sixth stroke of the pain-dealing switch. A stroke
that she sensed would make the other five seem like love-taps.
Dao's switch was lifted high, poised to bury itself in Ci-ci's
pruriently-proffered lust melons, when a voice interrupted him.
"Wait!" Even with her eyes closed Ci-ci recognized the cool, detached voice
of the heir to the Chan empire. "Why don't you clean the soot off of her tits,
Dao, so we can see them."
"Yeah!" chimed in Lin the Drooler. Ci-ci opened her soft brown eyes to see
the boy actually twitching with sadistic lust. She shuddered at his eagerness,
his impatience to see the ugly gap-toothed man bring his atrocious weapon down
on her girlish breasts.
"Aye, boss. That I will." Half-thankful for any reprieve, Ci-ci trembled
in expectation as Dao looked around the dingy barracks, presumably for some kind
of a rag. Then his eyes seemed to focus on an object lying off in the corner
opposite the coal bin. Ci-ci's eyes followed his across the room until she saw
what he had seen, and then her heart sank.
For Dao was striding briskly across the room to retrieve a stiff-bristled
scrub brush, which looked as if it hadn't been used for months.
"Yeah, that's it," cheered Lin enthusiastically. "That'll scrape the dirt
off those juicy tits!"
"Do you think you can handle the job, boy?" Dao asked, as he returned with
the brush. Might as well let the lad have some fun.
"Can I? Yeah! I'll clean 'em up good for you, Dao, you'll see!"
The acne-scarred youngster took the heavy brush from Dao's outstretched
hand, and approached his captive, a rapacious glint in his eyes.
Ci-ci's eyes welled up in tears.
"Now, you just keep your hands behind your head, sweetie, and this'll only
take a minute," Lin giggled, as he dipped the brush lightly in one of the
canisters of water.
Ci-ci closed her eyes and then felt a stab of pain as Lin cupped her left
breast roughly in his left hand. Moments later she felt the sensation of the
cold well water dripping down into the valley between her close-set mounds,
followed almost immediately by the stiff bristles of the floor-brush scraping
over the tender flesh of her breast.
"Mmmmggghhff" Ci-ci's lips grimaced almost inaudibly in pain as Lin
painstakingly set about scrubbing every square centimeter of her breastflesh,
raking the abrasive bristles backwards and forwards across her love-globes.
Ci-ci watched him with disgust; the amount of saliva that trickled from the
corners of his mouth down onto her dark-tipped treasures almost made it
unnecessary for him to re-wet the brush, but he did so anyway, enjoying the way
the chilled water made Ci-ci's pleasure globes shiver gently while he worked on
them
The Drooler spent a good minute scouring her left breast until he and his
comrades could detect the faint tracery of delicate blue veins pulsing nervously
under Ci-ci's ivory-hued flesh, before turning to its twin where he applied
himself with equal diligence. He seemed to find a special gratification in
returning her aureoles and nipples to their former state of pristine
cleanliness, scrubbing them until the mahogany-tipped lust-buds stood in
well-polished arousal, gleaming wetly in the pale light of the oil lamps that
lit the Scorpions' barracks. Small droplets of the chilly well water seemed to
cling for dear life to Ci-ci's desirable nipple-crests -- as if loath to fall
to the grimy floor, never to touch such feminine perfection again.
When Lin stepped back, pleased with his work, Dao took the tip of his
springy switch and pressed it directly into Ci-ci's moist left nipple and then,
using considerable pressure, pushed her love-nugget back into her breastflesh
until she gasped in pain. Ci-ci planted her feet and fought desperately not to
take the fatal half-step backwards into the seething embrace of the grim black
stove.
Dao pressed harder still, until the tapering switch bowed in protest.
After maintaining that dreadful pressure for half a minute or so, Dao at last
released the little nubbin, which sprang resiliently back to life as if
invigorated by his cruel treatment. Gap-tooth then gave Ci-ci's other breast
thirty seconds of the same nipple-boring abuse. But when he was done, Ci-ci's
once dormant nipples were puckering nicely.
Ci-ci bit her lip as Dao flicked her partially-distended love-buttons
briskly with the tip of his switch, gently but firmly teasing them to an
ever-more ardent erection. When his ministrations were done, Ci-ci was dismayed
to see the tips of her breasts thrusting forward shamelessly, a pair of
upthrusting bullets of desire.
Then, and only then, was Dao ready to unleash his sixth stroke on Ci-ci's
tantalizing body as it broiled in the radiant heat given off by the stove.
Studying her pulsating breasts he pondered for a moment whether to strike
her pleasure melons with a punishing downward stroke; she being much shorter
than he, that was certainly an attractive proposition. The upper slopes of her
breasts could not have been posed more favorably for such a blow.
On the other hand, there was a lot to be said for a horizontal cutter. One
that would punish those dark nipples that he had teased into such bold,
impetuous erection for his own perverse pleasure.
Sensing his comrades' impatience, Dao decided to go with a side-arm cutter
instead of an overhead slash. He drew the ugly switch back along a plane
parallel to the ground.
Ci-ci closed her eyed and braced herself for the appalling blow.
"Let her have it!" She recognized the rumbling tones of the Ox.
"Bust those babies open, Dao!" Ci-ci shuddered at the inflammatory words,
voiced in an excited high-pitched squeak, from Lin the Drooler.
"Open those pretty brown eyes, honey. I want you to watch this," Dao
muttered as he waited for Ci-ci to open her tear-filled almond-shaped eyes.
"Now take a nice deep breath and stick those fine young tits out. Further,
wench! Or I swear by the Great Wall that you'll get three instead of one!"
Certain that Dao would make good his diabolical oath if she refused, Ci-ci
summoned all of her courage, inhaled deeply and boldly thrust her quivering
pleasure-globes out toward the four leering thugs.
As soon as she did, Dao struck, whipping the black switch forward with
lightning-like rapidity and thunderous force until it drilled into the firm and
tender flesh of Ci-ci's breasts an eye-lash below her distended nipple-buds.
"AAAAAAIEIAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Ci-ci screamed and then she screamed again as
the force of the blow forced her backward against the hissing stove, where she
felt the scalding heat of the blazing metal branding her rounded buttocks for a
millisecond before she tore herself away and fell to her knees. Ci-ci's slender
fingers reached for her switch-savaged breasts, hoping against hope that the
touch of her own gentle hands would somehow soothe the excruciating pain in her
throbbing love globes.
"Well-struck, Dao," Chiang-Chan congratulate him. "Now, gentlemen, I think
our young friend could use a bit of exercise before her bath." Then, turning
toward the bare-chested giant, " Zheng, put the water on to heat. You two,
bring the girl outside."
Ci-ci could hear Zheng emptying the great canisters of water into cauldrons
on the stove, even as Dao and Lin lifted her roughly by the arms and began to
lead her toward the door. What cruel fate, she wondered despairingly, waited
for her outside, in the shadow of the Black Pagoda?
