The Filipina

 

One

 

            “May pagkain po kayo?”

            Hope in the brown faces crowding the window underlined the children’s question. But Mia shook her head with an apologetic smile. “No, I have no food for you. Maybe later, I’ll have something, okay?”

            She watched the children run off along the narrow street, barefoot in the dust, eagerly followed by a bony and yapping dog. Since the Japanese had come, food had been less plentiful; the black market choked what supplies there were, and the children were asking at Mia’s window more and more often.

            “Joy?” Mia went into the coolness of the parlour, where her maid was sleepily dusting. “Cook some extra rice and ulam for the children, okay?”

“Yes, Ma'm Mia,” Joy said.

            It was the hottest time of afternoon, when even the flies sought the shade of bamboo groves, and Mia retired to the relative coolness of her bedroom, switching on the electric fan. She pulled off her dress, stripped down to her white satin chemise and flopped onto the bed, letting the shifting air cool the sweat that shone on her bare skin.

            Even though Mia had never met her father, his regular contributions of money made her life more than comfortable. Food, clothing, a roof over her head, a good education, and all the luxuries. Too bad he already had a family in the US, a wife and two children who were unaware of their father’s illegitimate offspring in the Philippine Islands.

            Mia sighed. It was two years since her mother had died, and she was lonely.

            In the village, Mia’s beauty was widely admired. Thick brown-black hair that tumbled to her shoulders, glittering almond brown eyes; a slender nose and pouting, plump, and exquisitely sculpted lips; a slender nose and soaring cheekbones. She was graced, too, with a beauty of ffigure, a strength of intellect and a quickness of wit that made her the desire of some, the envy of others.

            Despite her attractiveness, and despite no lack of offers, Mia had never been naked before a man; but she had listened to tales told by other women in the sari-sari store or beneath their parasols on the street corners, and often fantasised about making love in the sweltering heat of an April evening.

            There was a thudding at the front door and Mia opened her eyes.

            The room was still hot, the fan still whirred; but it was dark, the quick tropical sunset having passed while Mia slept. She yawned, rubbed her eyes, sat up slowly. More thumping at the door; then a heavier crash that shook the house on its foundations.

            At once, Mia was fully awake. She leaped from the bed and hurried barefoot to the door, opening it cautiously. She found herself looking straight into the barrel of an army rifle.

            “Do not speak. Turn around,” was the order.

            As Mia turned, she caught a glimpse of khaki fatigues and open sandals; a straw hat. Her heart began to thud painfully in fear, her first thought: resistance. She had often heard of the rebels hiding up in the surrounding mountains, running daring raids on Japanese outposts, sabotaging communications and kidnapping suspected collaborators.

            What do they want with me?

            “Put your hands behind your back,” she was ordered. Trembling, Mia complied. At once, course rope was put about her wrists, binding them so tightly she gasped.

            “Please, why are you doing this?” Mia asked.

            “Shut up,” she was told. “Open your mouth.”

            Fearfully, Mia did as she was told. A moment later, a wadding of cloth was forced between her teeth. She almost choked, retched, a sudden sweat flashing over her, but she couldn’t eject the packing as a second cloth was wrapped over her mouth and tied tightly behind her head, a cruelly effective gag. Mia tried to make noise, but her voice was muffled.

            A hood was put on, next; dark sack-cloth pulled over her head. Some kind of cord secured it around her neck. Panic gripped Mia, claustrophobia and a fear that she would suffocate. She sucked air desperately through her nostrils, and instinctively tried to pull her wrists free of their bonds; but she was tied securely, and she felt hands on her bare arms, turning her about and roughly hurrying her from the house.

            “Get her in, quickly!” she heard. Arms came about her torso; hands grabbed her ankles, and she was tossed into the back of some kind of truck. She tumbled onto a wooden flat-bed, hitting her knee on an iron bolt, and whimpered with pain into her gag. She heard several of her captors clambering into the truck after her; an engine started, and they lurched into motion along the bumpy village street.

 

Two

            The truck bounced along ever-worsening roads and tracks, into the mountains, into the night. For the first while, Mia slid and rolled helplessly about on the truck floor, bound, blindfolded and gagged. Worse, the constant motion made her stomach churn, and it was all she could do to avoid vomiting against the packing of her gag.

            Eventually, though, she managed to get her legs under her, and finally worked her way into a sitting position against the side of the truck. It was awkward, but better than before.

            They drove for several hours. To Mia it felt like an eternity. Fear alone drew sweat from her skin, and the hood over her head quickly became damp, further threatening to suffocate her. Mia’s lungs strained constantly to draw air through the wet fabric, her nostrils flaring with every desperate breath. She half expected to die like this, that her captors would pull the hood off to discover her blue-lipped corpse, and dump her body in some forested mountain ravine.

            But Mia survived; and the truck finally slid to a halt. She didn’t have time to clear her spinning head after the endless buffeting of the ride; hands grabbed her bound arms and wrenched her up. She was hauled to the back of the truck and half-lifted down to the ground.

            Her bare feet found tepid mud.

            “Walk,” a male voice told her.

            The insect hiss and night time clamour of jungle was all around them. Even through the hood that smothered her, Mia could smell the foliage and damp earth as they followed a slippery, rocky path through the undergrowth. Barefoot, bare-armed and bare-legged, she walked with caution, but was unable to avoid stumbling, sliding, being caught by flicking branches and twigs. At one point she fell, landing in leaves and mud on her knees; a casual hand hooked under her arm and lifted her up, and the trek went on.

            After forty minutes’ walk, Mia’s feet were hurting badly. Her flimsy chemise was soaked with sweat in the humid night. Her hands were numb beyond the coarse grip of the rope on her wrists, and her face was running wet, her neck itching from the hood fastened about it, her jaw hurting from the gag crammed into her mouth. When a voice suddenly called a halt, Mia crashed to her knees, sobbing silently.

            That was worse. As she began to cry, her nose filled with mucus. Panic gripped her as she realised that she could no longer breathe. Desperately she sucked for air, sniffing hard, her head spinning. Her arms worked desperately to break free of the ropes. Her temples thudded.

            Gradually, she began to get air again; but a moment later, she was pulled to her feet.

            “This way.”

            Breathless, dazed, she was hurried across flat, leafy ground. Ahead of her, a creaking door was opened - and a second later, she was pushed through onto a hard earth floor. The door banged shut behind her, and there came the sound of a bolt being drawn, a padlock fitted.

            Mia stood, silent, listening. Denied the use of her arms, her senses dulled by the hood, she tried to ascertain where she was. Tentatively she edged backwards, until the searching fingers of her bound hands touched the wood of the door behind her. She slowly slid down it until she was sitting.

            Outside, she could hear the ambience of the jungle, the sound of calling voices and movement. She seemed to be in a hut of some kind; through her hood, it smelled musty and damp.

            Why am I here? Who are these people? What do they want? Mia’s head raced as she tried to imagine answers; but nothing would come. If, as she suspected, she had been taken by the Philippine resistance, she could think of no reason for them to want her.

            Again, she tested her bonds; working her wrists against the rope, feeling for a knot or a few precious millimetres of flexibility. But they were well tied, she was helpless. With the gag in her mouth, she could not call for help; all she could do was sit, and wait.

            Time crept.

            Mia guessed it was after midnight. And although the night was warm, it was cooler than it had been in her village of Cantusay; which suggested she was now somewhere up in the forested mountains beyond the surrounding rice fields and farms.

            Gradually, she became calmer, her heartbeat slowing, the pounding in her head easing. Had they wanted her dead, she would be dead already; the fact that she had been gagged and blindfolded suggested that she was a captive with some value, and that release was a possibility. It was an encouraging thought.

            Somewhere in the jungle night, a bird squawked, an unusually long, piercing screech.

            After a few moments, it came again, and Mia’s heart quickened at the realisation that it wasn’t a bird at all. It was a human, a woman, but barely recognisable. Again it came, echoing through the trees; long shrieks - and Mia’s blood went cold as she suddenly realised who it was she heard.

            Joy!

            They had kidnapped her, too? The maid? The question was answered by another scream. It was definitely Joy’s voice, but a long, long cry of such desperate agony. Mia began to shake. Joy was being tortured!

            No, no, please stop! Mia moaned into her gag, tormented by the sound. The screams went on; one followed another. A long, terrible cry, sometimes lasting as long as a minute, then fading into silence. Even the creatures of the jungle had fallen silent at the sound, as if every living thing was holding its breath for the next cry. And, inevitably, it would come. Another long squeal of torment.

            Joy screamed at intervals for more than an hour. Then, abruptly, the screams stopped. Mia listened, waited for them to resume; but there was nothing. No sound at all. Gradually the hiss of the jungle returned.

            No more than an hour after Joy had fallen silent, Mia heard movement again outside. Boots, approaching her hut prison. In sudden fear, she scrabbled along the wall away from the door, quickly finding herself in a corner; she wedged herself into it as tightly as she could as the lock was released, the bolt drawn.

            The door opened.

            “Okay, on your ... hey, where did she go?”

            Mia held her breath. There was a moment of silence, confusion, then somebody entered the hut. A moment later her cowering, bound and hooded figure was spotted. “There you are! Come on, let’s go.”

            Mia shook her head, tried to moan through the wadding of her gag; but she was unable to protest as she was all but dragged out of the hut. Her bare feet stumbled on the uneven ground, and she was hurried for perhaps thirty feet, before entering another door. It was closed and locked behind her, and she was dropped to her knees on concrete.

            For the first time since her capture, Mia felt hands on the cord holding her hood in place. A moment later, the sack was pulled from her head. The coolness of the air was a relief beyond words; but her relief was momentary, as her eyes fixed on the gun muzzle only inches from her sweat-wet face.

            “Do not try to stand. Do not turn around. Stay as you are, or we will kill you,” a voice said.

            Mia knelt less than a foot away from a concrete wall. The wall itself was pitted with bullet-holes, stained with the faint rusty-brown of old blood; and sweat crept down her spine. The floor beneath her was wet. The only light in the room came from behind her, strong and bright. Her own shadow was stark on the concrete in front of her.            She could see, in peripheral vision, the gunman standing over her. He wore a bandanna over his face, only his eyes visible. A second man, the one who had removed her hood, now loosened the sweat-tightened knot of her gag, and the fabric dropped to hang around her neck. The saliva-soaked packing was pulled from her mouth.

            Mia slowly closed her aching jaw, licked her dry lips, keeping her eyes to the wall ahead. Her hands remained bound tightly behind her back.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Mia Lopez,” she answered in a small voice.

            “You live in Cantusay?”

            “Yes.”

            “Who else lives with you?”

            “My maid, Joy,” Mia said. “Please, can I see her?”

            “Give answers, don’t ask questions,” the voice said impatiently. “What about your parents?”

            “My mother is dead,” Mia said quickly, “she died two years ago ... my father is in America.”

            “What is your connection to the Japanese Intelligence?”

            The question threw Mia, and for a few moments she was unable to reply, her mouth moving soundlessly. Where were they heading with this? “I ... I have no connection,” she finally stammered.

            “Who is your contact?”

            “I don’t have a contact!” Mia said hurriedly. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

            A longer pause, while hushed voices conferred. Male, and female. Then, an order to the soldiers guarding her: “replace her gag, make her ready for interrogation.”

            Mia gasped in fear as the soldier behind her grasped the loose loop of cloth that hung around her neck and pulled it up into her mouth. The knot at the back was tightened, a gag that stopped her forming words but still allowed her voice. She was lifted to her feet, turned around, and a moment later her heart almost stopped.

 

Three

            Above her, brightly lit by floodlights, simple iron manacles dangled from the ceiling, seven feet off the floor. Alongside her was a trolley of sorts, its lower shelf stocked with heavy batteries, its upper shelf containing some manner of control unit, with dials and switches. There were coiled wires and cables alongside.

            Oh, Jesus, no! Mia wailed incoherently into her gag as she realised her captors’ intentions. She struggled; but she was bound and no contest for the two rebels who now held her. A knife quickly freed Mia’s wrists from behind her back; but her arms were seized and raised high over her head. She was pulled up onto her toes as the cold, hard iron of the manacles was put about her wrists. Her heels were lifted from the ground, her weight on the balls of her feet. She watched in wild terror as one of the soldiers bent to a metal pail.

            An instant later, water was flung over Mia’s helpless form. She shrieked into her gag, and stood, reeling, as the water coursed down her body, dribbled from the hem of her chemise. The satin garment clung to every curve of her slender body, transparent; her full breasts with their light brown nipples, her flat belly and narrow hips were all clearly visible.

            “Well! What a pretty one you are!”

            The voice belonged to a uniformed man who emerged slowly from behind the protective glare of the lights. He had the Filipino’s solid build, a small moustache, tidily-cut hair. He wore military fatigues with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a packet of cigarettes in his top pocket, a sidearm in its holster at his hip. He smiled, but there was little warmth in his eyes. The guards moved aside, their eyes on him, as he drew closer to the Filipina half-hanging, still dripping, in the manacles. He reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifted her face between her upraised arms. “Very beautiful.”

            Mia gave fearful protest through her gag.

            “Not yet, Mahal,” the man said with a shake of his head. “You will have your chance to speak, but not yet. First we must ensure your cooperation.”

            Mia’s ongoing vocalisations were to no avail as the officer put out his hand towards the soldier who had cut her bonds. “The knife, if you will.”

            Mia held her breath, watching in trepidation as the blade was passed over. “My name is Ramirez,” he explained, as, with careful fingers, he lifted the spaghetti strap of Mia’s soaked chemise from her skin. The blade of the knife eased under the string, then cut it cleanly. The bodice of the garment slid down, baring one breast. Mia closed her eyes against the humiliation. “It is my job to wrest the truth from you, however reluctant you may be to part with it.”

            He carefully severed the second strap, and there was nothing Mia could do to prevent the water-heavy chemise sliding down to hang about her hips. Her breasts and belly were exposed. There were at least six people in the room; two guards close by, two more distant, and a woman at a desk: never had Mia been so open to the gaze of strangers, and she felt her face heating uncontrollably.

            With cold nonchalance, Ramirez plumped Mia’s left breast in one hand, pinched her nipple firmly with the other; in an automatic response, her nipple swelled, the areola crinkling and growing dark. It was the first time her breast had been touched by a man, and Mia moaned in fear.

            “I warn you that I have much experience in the matter of obtaining information,” Ramirez said. “You would be wise to talk.”

            Mia began another wordless protest, but her voice dissolved into a shriek of horror as Ramirez gathered one of the long wires from the rheostat on the trolley. At its end was a small, cruel-looking clip, serrated brass jaws and a powerful spring. Casually, as if attaching it to a contact, he squeezed the electrode open, then let it snap onto the erect stub of Mia’s nipple. The pain was biting and savage, setting nerves alight deep in her breast, and her first instinct was to twist away, jerking desperately in the manacles; but it was quickly evident that the wire was not to be dislodged.

            Ramirez repeated the process with her right breast; pinching the nipple erect, then crushing the clamp onto her sensitive flesh. Mia moaned and twisted, but could not shake it loose. Is this what they did to Joy? Is this what drew those awful screams from her?

            Ramirez paused to regard his work, the long wires hanging off Mia’s naked and wet breasts, then moved to the trolley and sat in an old wooden chair alongside it. Slowly, deliberately, he flicked a switch on the rheostat, turned a dial. “Electricity is a wonderful thing. It can achieve so very much .... and leave no marks at all. Observe.”

            He threw a lever. With a clunk, Mia’s body bowed into an arch as current surged into her breasts. It felt as if a tremendous force was tearing her very nipples from their roots, tentacles of fire enveloping her breasts. She was aware of wailing into her gag, but it was involuntary as her body writhed from the manacles. The pain didn’t stop, but continued in an unending torrent, while she squealed.

            Finally, after twenty terrible seconds, the current stopped. Mia hung limply, her legs akimbo, barely taking any of her weight; her head lolling between her upstretched arms. Her chemise had slipped from her hips and been flung from her thrashing body, now just a wet scrap on the floor. She was completely naked, but now cared nothing about the stares.

            She moaned incoherently through her gag, slowly recovering from the shock; but even as she did, Ramirez’s hand closed on the lever. Seeing what was about to happen, Mia shook her head desperately, her eyes growing huge in horrified pleading.

            “Nnnnnn! Nnnnn!”

            But Ramirez threw the lever, and Mia’s body snapped into an arch as current surged into her helpless breasts. Her wails escaped over the gag, her body twisting and writhing with the unendurable pain. The hum of the electricity seemed to fill the room, a subsonic buzz that underpinned Mia’s muffled shrieks, punctuated by tiny crackles of sparks from the electrodes.

            Half a minute, before the shock stopped. Gasping, dazed, Mia hung weakly in the manacles. A dilute line of blood ran from one shackle, down her arm. Sweat glossed her naked body. Tears streaked her face, and she shook her head in mute pleading over her gag. No more, please, no more!

            But Ramirez seemed unconcerned by her anguish, adjusting a small dial on the rheostat.

            He closed the lever again. Mia screamed through her gag again as her breasts were ravaged by an even-stronger current. Steam and smoke began to curl from the sprung metal jaws on her nipples.

            Finally, release. Mia went limp.

            Again she was shocked; then again; then again; an endless cycle of current and recovery, until she had lost count of the number of shocks sent into her burning breasts. Her chest was filled with searing pain, her nipples felt as if red-hot pliers had torn and mangled them beyond recognition; and yet they seemed almost unharmed. Her heart pounded painfully. A small trickle of urine ran down the inside of her thigh. She bit helplessly into her soaked gag, trying to speak but unable to do anything more than moan and wail in muted anguish. Tears slid from her eyes as she sent looks of desperate pleading to Ramirez. Why? Why are you doing this? Why won’t you let me speak? Why won’t you ask me any questions?

            Ramirez ignored the young woman’s muffled moans, dialling the current higher and closing the switch again. Electricity seared Mia's breasts. Sparks cracked and sizzled on her nipples. Her stifled screams filled the room, she twisted from the manacles in a desperate effort to rid herself of the pain. But she remained victim to the torture, until Ramirez decided to release the switch.

            Panting hard, her belly heaving, Mia hung dazed. The sweat ran in streaks down her bare, wired breasts. It felt as if she had been under torture for hours. She was drained of strength and spirit. She no longer cared what had happened to Joy, no longer cared what fate awaited her; she just wanted an escape from the pain, even if that escape was death.

            Ramirez slowly pushed his chair back, and stood, walking in a slow circle around the dangling woman. Her slender body, brown and wet beneath the harsh glare of the lights, trembled; muscles spasming in the aftermath of the shocks.

            Finally, reaching between her upstretched arms, Ramirez dislodged the gag from Mia’s mouth.

            “Please, no more,” were the first words she moaned. “Please, what is it you want?”

            “We want information, Mia,” Ramirez said simply. “We want to know about your communications with the Japanese occupying forces. We want to know the name of your contact. We want to know what you have told them about Resistance movements in Cantusay.”

            Mia shook her head weakly. “I know nothing of those things.”

            “That’s not what your accuser told us.”

            “My accuser?” Misery contorted Mia’s face. “Who would accuse me? Please, po, I have done nothing to harm anyone, why would I be accused of this?”

            “Your maid confirmed what we were told,” Ramirez continued.

            “Joy? She knows nothing!”

            “She knew plenty,” Ramirez corrected. Slowly, he returned to the rheostat. “Now perhaps you will tell us the rest?”

            “Please! Don’t!”

            He threw the switch. Sparks cracked against Mia’s nipples, and she slammed into a screaming arch as current fired into her breasts. She twisted and shrieked as humming, sizzling agony flowed from the copper clips directly into her engorged flesh.

            When the current finally stopped, Mia hung panting. “Please,” she begged, when she could finally speak again. “please, no more, I can’t take any more. I know nothing, I swear!”

            “Liar!” Ramirez shouted, and slammed the switch again. Mia screamed and bucked in agony as the shock burst into her breasts. Sparks and smoke sputtered from the wires on her nipples and her scream trailed into a wail, gradually growing weaker, then finally was drawn to silence. Her body, shuddering and arched dangling from the manacles, was rigid. The current sizzled and hummed.

            Ramirez released the lever, and Mia went limp.

 

Four

            The shocks did not resume, and Mia slipped into a whirl of nausea and confusion. Her half-suspended body shook violently. Her nipples felt as though they had been ripped from their roots, a throbbing agony deep in each breast and tendrils of pain encircling her ribcage. There was pain in her wrists from the hard iron shackles that held her aloft; fire in her arms from having hung for an hour or longer. Her shoulders felt as if they were about to rip from their sockets.

            Ramirez had risen from the controls of the rheostat, and now was joined by the woman who had earlier been working at the far end of the room. They were talking, although through the whining in her ears from her racing heart and the echoes of her own screaming, Mia could not pick up their words.

            From behind, hands grabbed her right leg. She was too spent to resist, as a single loop of rope was passed over her foot and drawn tight around her ankle: a moment later, her legs were parted wide and a rope was tightened over her left ankle, too. That brought a surge of alarm, and she looked down, over the glistening landscape of her own dangling body, to see that her angles were roped to either end of a yard-long bamboo pole. Only the very tips of her big toes now touched the floor, her body at full stretch, her ribcage expanded, her belly hollowed, hips jutting out and her legs tautly extended. Her tuft of pubic hair looked like a little birds’ nest in the open juncture of her thighs. This new bondage was even more exposing, and far more terrifying; she began to sob in fear.

            “Mang Ramirez has asked me to explain what happens next.” The woman had come to stand in front of Mia. Immaculately presented, hair tied back, a slender figure in a white sleeveless blouse and khaki skirt; dark almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones. She fixed her gaze to Mia’s face. “So far he has been playing only. A woman’s breasts are not so sensitive to the torture. This was just to see how much resistance you have.

            “I swear, I’m not resisting!” Mia protested in growing terror.

            “My name is Maricon,” the rebel woman went on. “I studied as a nurse, and I can tell you that the most sensitive places to put electrodes on a woman are her armpits, or in her ass.” Her eyes briefly flicked to Mia’s bare underarms, framing her terrified face, wet and vulnerable. “Your kilikili are easy targets, but Ramirez has already seen its effect. …Unfortunately for you.”

            Maricon was holding an object, which she now raised to Mia’s view. A short, hollow brass rod, eight inches long, with one tapered end, one open end. “This is for removing spark plugs from engines. But it is perfect for our needs.”

            Mia felt her stomach churn; as Maricon handed the tool to Ramirez, who moved behind Mia. With her legs spread, the gap between her thighs was generously revealed. Without warning, Ramirez touched the tip of the brass cylinder against the tight brown star of Mia’s anus.

“No – no! Please!” Mia gave a shriek of misery at the humiliation and horror of the metal’s cold touch. With both hands, Ramirez pushed upwards; automatically, Mia’s anus contracted, resisting the intruder, but with insistent force, Ramirez continued to push. Slowly, the metal circumference was embraced by Mia’s ass and the brass tube began to slide into her bowel. Mia gave a long groan; she had never felt anything like this, a thick, long intrusion pressing up into her rectum, filling her, distending her. The other guards smiled to each other, Mia’s moans indistinguishable from those of a woman in ecstasy. Maricon watched impassively.

Deeper, inch by inch, Ramirez pushed the tube, until most of its length was buried inside her ass, only a half inch of shining brass poking out between her smooth buttocks.

            “Take it out, please, take it out!” Mia begged. Her bowels cramped and spasmed, trying to eject the hideous intrusion; but it remained buried inside her. Her head rocked back between her upstretched arms; her widespread legs trembled with the terrible burden of the object buried inside her.

            “Let me explain what happens,” Maricon said calmly. “We electrify the metal. The current will be taken all through your lower body; your ass, into your spine and your pelvis, your vagina and bladder; there are so many routes for it to take and all are immensely painful.”    

            Ramirez, still crouching behind Mia’s wide-spread legs, was attaching one of the brass clamps to the protruding end of the rod. He attached the second to the metal link joining the shackles by which Mia hung, the wires dangling down behind her.

            “This will be a hundred times more painful than the breast torture,” Maricon advised. “So I advise you tell Captain Ramirez the truth, and quickly, or you will lose your mind.”

            “Please – I know nothing, there is nothing to say!” Mia was frantic in terror, Maricon’s words striking to her heart. “You cannot do this!”

            Ramirez was returning to the rheostat, adjusting dials. “You are lying to me.”

            Maricon stood back. Mia, helplessly stretched from the shackles and with legs spread, could not even struggle, but watched in helpless dread as Ramirez’s hand moved casually to the lever.

            When the current hit, Mia’s body snapped into a shuddering, straining arch: sparks sizzled between her legs and the pain seemed to shatter her body. She screamed uncontrollably in agony, a manic shrieking that went on and on as the current continued to violate her very core.

            Ramirez finally released the switch, and Mia’s body went limp, her head hanging forward between her arms. The wire swung lazily between her outstretched legs. The smell of seared sweat tainted the air. Her belly heaved with the labour of breathing. The immensity of pain had left her reeling, in shock so intense she was on the verge of vomiting. She felt total disbelief.

            “The world sees the Asian woman as a fragile flower,” Ramirez said calmly, adjusting dials and watching as meters climbed higher. “And yet, she has a higher pain threshold than any other.”

            “No …” was all Mia could muster. “No, no … please, I don’t know …”

            “You cannot lie to me,” Ramirez said in reply. “And you will not lie to me.”

            He threw the switch again. Screaming. Mia’s body arched, jerked and jolted in the shackles as the electric charge fired into her. The muscles of her pelvis and abdomen clenched fiercely in response to the current, thrusting her hips forward and bowing her back.

            When the shock ended, she fainted.

            “Water,” Ramirez demanded.

            The guards moved awkwardly, erect and aroused after watching the Mia’s throes of agony. A fresh pail of water was brought, and flung over her naked body.

            She woke with a groan, her head rolling as awareness returned in a slow, awful wave. Without waiting for her to become fully lucid, Ramirez closed the switch again. The sizzle of electricity was met by arching and jerking and screaming from Mia, as agony exploded again through her ass, her hips pumping and shaking.

            Release. Mia smelled the tang of smoke and ozone from her own electrocuted flesh. The pain was so terrible that her limbs shook, her eyes would not focus, she drooped heavily in the shackles, her legs spread to the bamboo, the tips of her toes dragging sluggishly on the wet floor.

            Again the shock. Mia jolted and screamed, the brass rod buried in her anus sizzled and her body bowed fiercely, shuddering moved almost sexually in response to the torture. Ramirez kept the current for half a minute, until Mia’s lungs were empty and her voice was gone, eyes and mouth wide open in silent agony, no sound save the buzz of current, the jolting and jerking of her body.

            Release. Again Mia hung, drained, gasping air with her shining ribcage and belly violently heaving. Her heart was hammering. Her hair clung to her face.

            The lever closed; the current exploded into Mia’s body. Her screams were terrible as she shuddered and shook in agony again, convulsing as the electricity coursed through her flesh and her bones. Even secured to the bamboo pole, her legs shifted side to side as if she was trying to shake the electrode from her anus. Again, Ramirez kept the current going, torturing her brutally, counting the seconds until she had been shrieking and thrashing for a full minute.

            When he stopped the current, she swung silently on the creaking chain. She waited for the current to came again, realising that her insistence of innocence would not save her. After a time she managed to lift her weary face, streaked with tears and sweat.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

            “What is your connection to the Japanese Intelligence?”

            “I ... I have been telling them things ...” Mia said, desperately stalling for time.

            “Telling them what?”

            “Names. Telling them names.”

            “Who? Whose names?”

            “I don’t know, please, I don’t remember!”

            Mia’s voice exploded into a ragged scream as Ramirez closed the switch and current fired into her ass again. She shuddered violently in the shackles, screaming for as long as the current ran. When it finally ended, she hung heavily.

            She eventually caught her breath. “Please, po, I cannot remember for the pain!”

            “I need names.”

            Mia began giving names. Names of men who had disappeared from the village in recent times, names she had heard whispered at the market. Ramirez wrote the names down, his free hand never far from the switch; Mia’s eyes watching in dread in case he start the current again.

            Finally he asked, “who is your contact?”

            Mia shook her head, unable to answer, her mouth curling into a sob and fresh tears spilling from her eyes. She knew what was to follow, and watched in misery as Ramirez put his hand to the switch.

            Her screams shook the walls. Ramirez gave her fifteen seconds, then released.

            “I can’t remember,” Mia gasped. “It’s a Japanese name. Maybe a code. Toyo ... Tohiro ...”

            “Tomoyo?” Ramirez prompted.

            “Tomoyo!” Mia no longer cared that she was picking and guessing her way through a confession, prompting her interrogator for cues and saying what he wanted to hear. Anything was better than the shocks. Finally, after an endless time, Ramirez gathered up the strewn pages of information, and rose from his chair.

            “I thank you for your cooperation. Men, take her down, keep her safe.”

 

Five

            Mia was dumped to the floor of her holding cell, the damp rag of her dress tossed in after her; the door was closed and locked. She did not sleep, did not move, but lay on her side, staring emptily at the bamboo wall. Her body still shone with old sweat. Her nipples and anus burned, her wrists were grazed and cut from her frantic struggles during the long minutes when electric shocks took her to the edge of sanity.

            Daylight came, filtering between the stout bamboo poles that made the walls of the hut. Mia discovered then that water had been left in her cell, a chipped old pitcher in one corner. Thirst quickly overcame her weariness; on hands and knees, she crawled to drink, scooping slow handfuls. It helped enough for her to lie down and recover, though every sound, every voice, sent a shock of terror through her, fear that her torturers would return.

            Daylight faded. Mia lay curled on the floor alongside the pitcher. Her prison became dark; then daylight returned in a blink, and she realised that finally, she had slept.

            This second day, every joint and every muscle ached, as if she had walked a thousand miles with a heavy weight on her back. After almost two days naked, Mia weakly gathered up the grubby silk camisole that had been her only clothing. Carefully, she knotted the severed shoestring-straps, and pulled the garment over her head. It sat much higher on her thighs than before, but she seized the small dignity it offered.

            When they came at sunset, she was quickly on her feet, clasped hands, a vulnerable figure in the middle of the hut. Two armed soldiers stood outside, a third carried a ceramic bowl, which he placed on the floor inside the doorway. “Eat.”

            As soon as the door closed, Mia fell on the warm rice soup, but barely had she scooped the first handful into her mouth, when she heard from outside a guard call back, “it’s your last supper, so savour it!”

            Mia’s stomach closed and she could barely swallow what she had taken. Her dark eyes locked blankly to the closed door for a time, those words echoing in her head. “Please,” she called towards whoever might hear, “what do you mean by that? Am I to be executed? I have done nothing wrong!”

            But there was no response from beyond the door’s blank darkness, and Mia lowered her head, bursting in to tears.

            She had no sleep that night, but crept to each corner of her prison, her fingers searching the floor, the walls, for some means of escape. The night-time sounds of the jungle called to her from only paces away; but the bamboo walls of her cell kept her from running free.

            Mia realised, as the night crept on, that her only hope was to appeal to her captors - to their common sense, first; and to their humanity if that failed. In her head, she rehearsed words she would use to convince them not to execute her. But always she was aware of her desperate confession, the crimes to which she had falsely admitted to avoid the agony of electric torture.

            It was dawn when soldiers came; Mia got to her feet as the door was opened. Two men entered.

            “Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”

            “Please – is it true? Am I to be executed?” Mia asked fearfully.

            “Not if you cooperate,” the guard said.

            Mia humbly turned and placed her hands behind her back. Rope was quickly looped around her wrists, pulled tight, and tied; her hands were lashed firmly in place.

            “Now, come with us.”

            Mia blinked against the light of morning, for the first time seeing her surroundings. A compound of perhaps a dozen buildings, mostly bamboo, most beneath the cover of the forest. Here and there, she saw rebel soldiers in pieced-together camouflage or green and grey civilian clothes, some cooking food over open fires, some sleeping on the bare earth. The ground was cool to her bare feet, the air still and fragrant with wood-smoke and forest.

            They walked towards a low central building, made of bricks with an iron roof; the door was opened by a single guard. Mia gasped and tried to pull free of her captors, as recognition flooded her in a wave of sweat; the torture room. From this angle, she could see the bullet-marked wall, the manacles hanging from the ceiling, the awful gurney with its wires and rheostat alongside. Behind the harsh spotlights that had blinded her that night, she now saw was a wooden table and several chairs. Seated at the table was Maricon, and a man whose face brought fresh terror to her pounding heart. Ramirez.

            “Oh, God, no!” she squealed as she was wrenched inside. She struggled to get free, but her hands remained inescapably bound behind her back, and the guards held her tightly.

            “Don’t speak,” Maricon barked abruptly. “You are not here for more questioning, so stop snivelling.”

            Mia bit her lip, fearful but determined not to make her situation worse. A few moments later, the door was pulled open again, and Mia glanced around.

            “Joy! Are you all right?”

            Mia’s maid was pulled inside – without a stitch of clothing on her body, but with her hands, like Mia, bound behind her back. Joy’s eyes briefly met Mia’s, but she had no time to speak.

“Where are her clothes?” Maricon demanded of the two soldiers who had brought Joy.

The guard beside Joy looked sheepish. “We could not find them, po Ma’am.”

“They were taken from her in the barracks hut,“ Ramirez grunted. “I think the men have kept them.”

“Why?” Maricon was puzzled.

“To sniff,” Ramirez said.

Maricon looked incredulous. The soldiers holding Joy could not suppress smiles.

“Fine. She can be naked, who cares,” Maricon finally said. She glanced at the open book in front of her, in which Ramirez’s careful notes documented the two prisoners’ confessions. “Mia Lopez, this Court Martial represents the resistance movement of the Philippines, and therefore the Filipino people. You were brought here under accusation of complicity with the occupying Japanese. The information you have given us has confirmed it. We have no hesitation therefore in finding you guilty of Collaboration and Treason. The penalty for your crimes is death, and the sentence will be carried out without delay.”

            “No!” Mia sagged, a wave of heat passing over her, almost driving her to faint. A soldier grabbed her arm and held her upright. “No, it’s not true! Please, call my father, ask him! He has money, he will tell you the truth!”

            “We have heard the truth, from you, from Joy, and from other witnesses. You have been accused and you are guilty, that is enough.”

            Mia’s eyes had filled with tears; misery overwhelmed here. “I was told I wouldn’t be killed!”

            “It was a lie,” Ramirez said.

“Bring them now,” Maricon ordered. She and Ramirez stood, and led the exit from the room. The guards hurried the two prisoners out after them, Joy in front of Mia.

            As she was marched, stumbling, across the uneven ground of the compound, Joy looked back over her shoulder with sad eyes. “I am sorry, Ma’am Mia,” she said. “I had to say what they wanted, I could not bear the pain.”

            “Quiet, or you’ll be silenced,” one of the guards said, shifting his rifle-butt to emphasise the threat. The two women fell quiet, and walked without talking as they were led down a path hewn through the dense jungle.

They walked for almost an hour, stumbling and weak, sweating in the heat, awkward with hands bound behind them.

            After a time, they emerged from jungle at the top of a ridge, a broad green panorama of rice terraces in the valleys either side; waterfalls cascading over mossy rocks into natural pools edged with ferns. It was beautiful, and Mia gazed across the scene with a mix of sadness and resignation.

            “Keep moving,” one of the soldiers behind her said. 

            On the trek down, they passed a small group of farmers, men and women who watched with curiosity as the straggling group, with the two woman prisoners, one naked and the other barely clad in white negligee, passed by.

            After another half-hour, they reached the bottom of the valley, and there followed a narrow track to a recently-harvested rice field. The dried chaff lay on the sun-warmed ground; a small grove of trees edged the field, four water-buffalo lazing in their shade. Near the animals sat a small group of resistance soldiers, perhaps a dozen in total. They rose to their feet as the group crossed the field towards them.

            “Stop here,” Ramirez said.

The guards halted the two prisoners, and made them kneel, side-by-side, on the dried grass some twenty paces from the trees.

            It was hot in the sun, more so after their long walk. Even so, Mia was grateful for the chance to rest, her maid kneeling beside her, faithful and stoical to the end.

            “What are you going to do to us?” Mia asked, fighting to keep her voice calm, trying to sound composed. “This is wrong, you are making a mistake – we are guilty of no crime!”

            “The matter is already settled, you have confessed,” Ramirez returned indifferently He glanced at Maricon, gestured to Joy. “She’s all yours.”

            “On your feet,” the rebel woman ordered Joy.

            Joy did not move; so on a command from Maricon, two of the soldiers grabbed Joy by an arm each and lifted her up, forcing her to stumble towards the nearby trees.

“Oh God, no!”

            The horror that had caused Joy to scream out was revealed to Mia a moment later, as Maricon picked up a length of rope, one end tied in a distinctive noose. Joy sagged in the rebels’ grasp as the rope was tossed over a low-hanging branch of the tree.

            “Ma’m, please po, please help me!” Joy screamed back towards her mistress.

Mia looked in desperation to Ramirez, who had retired to the shade of a tree himself, and was lighting a cigarette. “Stop this, please! Joy is innocent! She has done nothing!”

“She has seen us, and our camp. We’re safer to be rid of her,” Ramirez replied.

Joy still fought, even as the two rebels brought her to stand beneath the tree branch, and Maricon fitted the heavy noose over her head, closing it snugly around her neck. The soldiers released Joy’s bound arms, and left her standing for a moment in the grass, looking almost peaceful beneath the branch of the tree. Her shoulders shook with her sobs, her head down.

            The two soldiers took up the free end of the rope and drew it in, until the noose pulled up under Joy’s jaw, extending her neck. Wailing, the tears spilling freely down her cheeks; she worked and tugged at the ropes binding her hands behind her back, in a last desperate effort to get free. But the men hauled on the rope; by her neck, Joy’s little body was heaved up into the air, cutting off her cries abruptly.

            It was a bizarre moment. As she continued to be raised up, she swung backwards, then forwards, her legs dangling and feet slightly back, her hands still securely behind her back. The noose was tightly wedged under her jaw, tilting her head as if she was looking curiously into the distance.

            As she swung lazily back and forth again, a pendulum on a creaking rope, the rebels secured the free end to the trunk of the tree, leaving her toes easily two feet off the ground

            The apparent disbelief that had rendered Joy motionless for a moment now lifted, and she began to kick and struggle, eyes wide. She fought again to pull her hands from behind her back. Her body began twisting and writhing in the air.

            Mia did not want to watch, and turned her eyes to the ground. She tried to listen to the hiss of insects, the twitter of birds; but all she could hear was the grassy creaking of rope, harsh croaks and rattles from her maid. Her execution was not going to be quick.

Long, terrible minutes passed. The tears slid down Mia’s cheeks as the sounds of choked agony continued. After a long while, there was the sound of liquid splashing to the ground, but the creaking of the hanging-rope continued unabated.

It was nearly half an hour before Joy fell silent, and the birds and insects were the only sounds.

Mia still knelt in the harsh sunlight, her own body glossed with sweat in the day’s heat. Finally, she lifted her gaze to the slowly-swinging brown body that hung by its neck from the nearby tree. Joy’s face was still pretty, even in death, although her greyish tongue now poked cheekily between her darkened lips.

Mia barely noticed Ramirez returning from his shady retreat.

            “I hope you enjoyed the show,” he said. “But that will not be your fate. For traitors, we reserve a more traditional execution.”

 

Six

            Mia watched as several of the rebels now set to work goading and leading the four water-buffalo out into the sunlight, towards where she knelt. Maricon, no longer interested in Joy’s swinging corpse, rejoined Ramirez.

            “What ... what do you intend to do?” Mia asked in rising panic.

            “Your execution is called ‘quartering,’” Maricon said.

            Mia had never heard of it; but she saw, trailing from the harnesses of each animal, a long rope. Carefully, the four beasts were positioned at four points in the rice field around her, each six yards distant. When the four ropes were laid across the chaff towards her, the realisation struck home with a shock that sent a fresh rush of sweat over her body.

            “Oh - God, no! No! Please, no, you cannot!” She tried to break free of her bonds, but her shoulders were seized, hands grasped her bare leg, and a thick rope was looped once about her ankle, fastened with a simple large knot.

            The second rope was tied about her left ankle while Mia wailed in terror. The bonds about her wrists were untied, she was pinned down to the warm ground, and her left arm pulled up-and-out so that another thick rope could be looped about her wrist. Finally, her right arm; until she lay in a loose starfish-shape, the long ropes tethering her limbs to the four carabao.

            “Please, please, not like this!”

            They let her lie.

            Mia’s heart pounded. On her back beneath the mid-morning sun, sweat quickly saturated the flimsy fabric of her scrappy dress, making it cling to her slender body. Her arms and legs shone. Her breasts heaved with anxious breath. She tipped her head back to look at the heavy ropes around her wrists; they were the kind used to moor boats, and it was obvious they would not break.

            Ramirez finally nodded. “Begin.”

            Using switches and slaps of their hands, the soldiers urged the water-buffalo into motion. The solid beasts lumbered forward. The ropes slid through the felled rice like brown snakes, drawing straight, lifting from the ground as their slack was taken up. Another step, and the ropes rose higher, pulling Mia’s slender limbs taut between them. The knots on her wrists and ankles drew tight, the loops bedded against the heels of her hands, the tops of her feet, and she felt the gentle stretch spread through her limbs as her body was drawn out by the slow strength of the carabao.

            The four beasts shifted outward in their four directions, and like a hammock strung between trees, Mia’s whole body was hoisted from the ground. She gave a small gasp, hearing the creaking of the ropes, her spine giving an audible pop as joints flexed.

            Their progress halted by the tension on Mia’s slender limbs, the carabao briefly stopped. Mia was slung between them, her body mere inches from the ground. Sweat was a liquid shine in her bared armpits and on her throat. The hem of her dress hung down beneath her thighs, her head dangled back, her black hair brushing the ground.

            “Please,” she wailed, “please, not like this! I don’t want to die like this!” She felt a pain deep in her shoulders and hips, echoed in her elbows and knees.

            “Again!” Ramirez ordered.

            At their prompting, the carabao strained forward, now pulling against each other but prevented from moving only by the ligament and bone of the woman slung in a perfect X between them. This time, the groaning ropes drew fiercely tight, and instantly racked Mia’s delicate limbs. The effect was savage; pain flashed from the pits of her shoulders, the depths of each hip, firing along her limbs towards the ropes at wrists and ankles. She gave a cry of pain; and as the carabao strained forward again, the stretching worsened, savage and cruel. This time, Mia gave a scream. She was held like a stretched canvas, and fiery agony exploded into her joints.

            “Oh, God!” she shrieked into the day’s heat, helpless to stop the torture of being stretched. It was a pain like none she had experienced, a damaging, ravaging torment, hot fire singling out every tendon and fibre of her limbs, like red-hot knives slicing along her very bones. The muscles of her arms and legs stood out stark, the tendons drawn.

            The rebels slapped and pushed the carabao; but they were uncoordinated in their progress, and Mia, splayed in mid-air between them, was tugged and wrenched in different directions as her individual limbs were pulled. She screamed with the agony as muscles and ligaments bore the heaving strength of the four big carabao, pain engulfing her body. Her head swung from side to side in torment.

            The carabao were heaving, now, their heads dipping as their powerful bodies pulled hard against the resistance of the ropes. Mia gave scream after long scream of agony as her joints began to weaken under the strain; creaks and pops coming from her stretching body. Her breasts, clearly revealed by her now-transparent dress, quivered as she shrieked and screamed; the soaked fabric clinging to the ridges of her ribcage, the contours of her belly and hips. The veins on the side of her neck stood out as she screamed, her limbs being cruelly stretched and racked, wrenched and wrested by the struggling water buffalo. The agony was fierce, all-consuming, like being burned in a bonfire.

            The four carabao snorted and stomped, bellowed and complained as they were goaded to haul on their four ropes; Mia’s limbs stretched and strained outwards from her body, the pain tore scream after endless scream from her. Dismemberment was not a fait accomplis, nor an effortless task. Dust was kicked up by shifting hooves, the ropes quivered and vibrated as the carabao heaved and pulled. Long minutes passed, until it became clear that this was as much a slow, racking torture, as an execution. It was only the gradual weakening of Mia’s own muscles and joints, as the strain began to wear her to exhaustion, that would finally allow the next stage.

            There was suddenly a loud and distinct “crack!” as Mia’s left shoulder joint dislocated. Her scream of pain was terrible. The agony of her shoulder seemed to spread to every nerve in her starfished body; the small of her back was alive with fire. But the tension did not ease; the carabao continued to pull on her limbs, the ropes groaning. Mia let out a fresh, bone-chilling scream; a moment later, her right shoulder dislocated.

Both shoulders were now pulled out of joint, her arms visibly longer; still the rebels coaxed the four beasts, and the stretching on Mia’s helpless limbs continued without mercy. But her hip joints were stronger than her shoulders, and it took more long, agonising minutes of heaving and stretching, grunting from the four carabao, more long minutes of Mia’s screams before her left hip loudly separated from its socket with a sickening pop! Mia’s whole body shifted violently and visibly with the dislocation, and she shrieked and bawled with the agony.

            “Kill me, please, please kill me!” she screeched in desperation.

            But the execution was neither quick, nor merciful. Mia’s pleading dissolved again into inarticulate screams as her right hip surrendered to the persisting tension, and with a wet, sucking sound, the bone slid from its socket.

            Spread taut and suspended by her wide-stretched limbs, Mia was drawn out on broken joints, screaming at the upside-down rice field. Her limbs’ dislocation had allowed the carabao a few inches of movement, but now they were straining forward again, this time wrenching the Filipina’s very ligaments where they were anchored to the bones.

The stretching would not end. Mia screamed and shrieked as the animals pulled on her body in four directions; after long minutes of her screams, one elbow dislocated loudly, followed by the sharp-popping dislocation of the other. Each separation sent vibrations along the taut ropes. Cracks and creaks came from her spine, too, as her vertebrae were drawn slowly apart.

            Mia’s shrieks were barely human. She could no longer beg or plead, could not form words; the agony of a tearing spine was too much, sending her into the realms of insanity. Even though she could not think, she could still feel; and gave a wild bellow as her knees tore apart with rending pops.

            The spreadeagled Filipina was now stretched by inches; her shoulders beyond her ears, her arms and legs grotesquely drawn, her torso distorted and elongated. But she had not lost consciousness, and remained screaming and shrieking as tendons broke, fibre by fibre. Her wrists and ankles came apart with sharp cracking sounds, now every joint in her body pulled apart as the four carabao continued to struggle against the resistance of her small body.

            “Ease down!”

It was Maricon who gave the command in a shout, over Mia’s screaming. The four rebels glanced at one another, then to Ramirez; but he gave a nod. Gently, the carabao were directed backwards. The tension on Mia’s body was suddenly eased; her screams became a wail, the ropes sagged, and she was lowered to the harvested chaff.

Broken, she could not move a limb, and lay, sweaty and moaning, calling out in agony, in the hot sun.

            Maricon moved to stand above her. Every joint torn apart, agonised, Mia could not focus her eyes on her tormentor, but rolled her head in slow anguish. “Please ...” she groaned through swollen lips.

            “I could order you cut loose,” the rebel woman said in a low voice. “You would die where you lay, eaten by the rats and baked in the sun.”

            “Have mercy,” Mia wept. “Please, just kill me now ...”

            “No, not yet,” the rebel woman said. She drew, from her belt, a sharp knife; carefully, she re-cut the slender straps of Mia’s sweat-soaked camisole, then, resting the back of the knife against Mia’s breast-bone, slid downwards. The fabric of the dress parted to the knife’s kiss, from décolletage to hem. Finally, the rebel woman stood.

            “Finish it,” she called.

            “Oh God, no more, no more!” Mia shrieked in horror and dread, but the soldiers slapped their beasts, and the four water buffalo lumbered forward. Mia gave a long scream of abject torment as her shattered joints were reawakened to agony by the shifting ropes. On disjointed limbs, she was heaved into mid-air again, her starfished body rising up out of the torn remnants of her dress. Even broken, her naked and shining body was beautiful, petite and slender, her perfect breasts and tuft of black pubic hair now bared to the blue sky as the carabao strained in four directions.

            With a terrible creaking and groaning, the four ropes drew taut, wrenching the tendons and ligaments of Mia’s body once again, drawing her broken frame to its limit - and then beyond. There was the deep, grassy ripping of tendons tearing from anchorage, of muscles ripping apart. Mia’s screams were shrill and awful, as her frame was wrenched and pulled in four directions.

            With shouts and slaps, the soldiers urged the carabao on. The beasts pulled and pulled, straining for nearly a minute against the final resistance of Mia’s body, while she, her mouth and eyes wide in sheer agony, shrieked and howled with the torment.

            Then, with a sound like sucking mud, her left arm separated from her body; the skin stretched and tore; the limb pulled away in a splash of blood, and Mia’s body dropped as the buffalo dragged her dismembered limb through the dry chaff. An instant later, her right arm and left leg both tore free; her body thumped to the ground heavily, the last of the air driven from her lungs by the landing, her eyes wide in shock. By her remaining leg, she was dragged a few metres, before the animal stopped.

            Mia gave one last desperate whimper, which faded into a long croaking gasp. Her bare ribcage and breasts heaved, rapid and desperate, as her blood pumped onto the sun-warmed rice stalks. Dazed, her world spinning, she saw an upside-down view of her own arm, its skin still wet with sweat and now splashed with blood, lying in the chaff.

Mia’s breathing was getting shallower. Her body had been pulled apart, her spine broken, her heart going into fibrillations of shock. She gasped like a fish out of water, and then, abruptly, stopped breathing altogether, her eyes wide and still staring towards the sky.

 

 

Epilogue

 

The next day’s sunrise lit a sad scene.

A small corpse hung by its neck from a tree, with wrists still securely bound behind its back. The naked body dangled lifeless and limp, the morning sun adding a dull sheen to its waxy skin. Below lids frozen in a permanent droop, brown eyes still looked in sightless misery at the beauty of the fields. The tongue, dark and fat, still poked between plump lips in a last involuntary indignity.

            Not far away, a naked woman’s torso lay on bloodstained grass, just one limb attached, the other limbs some metres away.

The world turned.

 

 

 

 

July 2009

comments to kirstensmart@clear.net.nz

 

The Filipina II

 

One

 

            Joy Cortez had been Mia’s maid for four years. 27, she was a few years younger than her employer, and tiny, barely four-feet-ten. She was strong from all of her work around the house, though; dark skin and eyes, a broad nose, high cheekbones, perfect teeth and lips in a natural pout; with long, straight black hair secured in a tidy ponytail.

            She stood by the wood-burning stove, cooking a pot of rice. It was a hot night, and her modest cap-sleeved white blouse was wet on her back. Little droplets of sweat sat on her brow.

            The soldiers had come as Joy was preparing food, a large pot of rice cooking on the wood-burning stove. She had seen the truck pull up quietly on the street, and her eyebrows furrowed to see a dozen soldiers clamber down from the truck and quietly move towards the house.

            “Ano ba!” Although afraid, Joy rose from the small wooden stool and moved towards the soldiers, aware that faces were already watching from up and down the street; it gave her confidence to confront them. She put her fists on her hips, her chin lifted, tiny but defiant.

            One solider walked up to her: Joy was about to speak again when his open hand smashed hard across her face, snapping her head to the side. Joy gave a little shriek, stumbled, and before she could regain her orientation, there were two soldiers grabbing her arms and throwing her back against the wall of the house, pinning her there.

            “Hindi!” Joy shrieked, as more of the soldiers walked into the house, banging the door open and crashing into the kitchen.

            A moment later the barrel of a handgun was thrust against her forehead. Joy went instantly silent, her eyes wide and fixed to the face of the solder who had struck her just a moment ago.

            “Hoy! Don’t kill the maid! Bring her!” The voice belonged to another, who was standing between the truck and the doorway, his own sidearm drawn.

            The soldier who was about to execute Joy scowled. “Turn her around.”

            The two holding Joy did so; the girl struggled defiantly but despite her strength, was far too small to resist as her arms were brought together behind her back. Unable to find any rope or binding, the soldier pulled his own belt from his fatigue pants, and cinched it quickly and tightly around her wrists, pulling so tightly that Joy squealed, the leather creaking. The belt was wrapped a few times around itself, and Joy was bound.

            “Get her to the truck,” the commanding officer barked.

            With two soldiers propelling her to the street and her arms pinioned behind her, Joy’s feet barely touched the ground, and her slippers fell behind her as she struggled. As they passed the commanding officer, he stepped in front of them, and briefly grabbed Joy’s chin, twisting her face to look up at him. “Do not make a sound. Not a single sound. If you do, I will strangle you to death.”

            Tears welled in Joy’s eyes, but she nodded quickly.

            They literally threw her into the truck; she landed with a bang on the wooden floor. With hands creaking in their leather-belt bonds, she managed to squirm her way to one side. She was still trying to find a position to sit, when the soldiers returned from the house. Between them, they held Mia: still in her light, revealing chemise – bare armed and barefoot, but with hands bound behind her back and a hood over her head. By the sounds that came from beneath, Joy knew her mistress was gagged.

            It was a long and bumpy ride. Joy would have rolled helplessly about on the bed of the truck, but the feet of the rebels shoved her back into the middle every time she did; instead she bounced and jolted with every lurch. She was sweating heavily with the heat and fear; her white blouse was now translucent in huge swathes down her sides and front. Despite her own discomfort, she felt sympathy for Mia, who, hooded and gagged, was in far greater distress.

            Their journey ended after several long hours, at the end of a barely-defined mountain road. The jungle hissed and steamed. Mia was lifted down from the back of the truck: Joy was less fortunate, one soldier simply hooking her by her own bound arms and throwing her off. She tumbled to the ground, rolling, bruising her knees and elbows and tearing several buttons from her blouse. Still she made no sound at all.

            They walked.

            Joy was barefoot, and in the dark, unable to see where she was putting her feet, it was a painful journey. She could not put her hands in front of her, and fell many times, landing hard on her side or belly, until her sweat-soaked blouse hung off her torso, one small, round breast bared. Every time she fell, she was wordlessly hauled to her feet. She walked, silent, afraid but determined not to show it.

            The compound at which they finally arrived was well hidden, huts nestled amongst the trees. Even the main building was closely surrounded by trees, with camouflage netting strung above it. Concrete and iron, it was an ominous structure.

            There was a clear space in the middle of the compound; Joy was dragged to stand there, held by a rebel, while others took Mia off to another dark corner.

            “Captain. What should we do with the maid?”

“Give her to the men. They deserve some fun,” was the response.

            Joy said nothing, but her heart was pounding as she was grasped by the arm and led off towards a hut, from which the glow of lamplight shone.

            “Comrades, I bring you a gift.”

            There were easily thirty men inside, and all eyes were on the diminutive brown Filipina as she was presented through the door. Her blouse in tatters, one plump sweat-shining breast bared with its berry-dark nipple erect, her eyes wide.

            “Ganda!” breathed one of the rebels.

            The terror became too much, and Joy began to drop to the floor; but before she could, the rebel holding her slammed her back into the bamboo wall of the hut, his hand clamping around her throat. With her wrists still pinioned by the leather belt, she could only gasp. Two more rebels were quickly on her; dragging off her slacks and panties, shredding the blouse from her body.

            Joy’s body showed her Mountain ancestry; dark skin, dark hair; she had a thick nest of silky pubic hair, fine downy fuzz on her arms and legs and belly. To be balbon was very attractive in Filipino culture, fine feminine peach-fuzz a visual and sensual delight. The rebels stripping her pawed at her downy skin, grabbing her grapefruit breasts, and Joy, with her throat clamped and hands bound, could do nothing.

            “Change of plans, men!”

            The voice belonged to a newcomer, and the three rebels on Joy leaped back so suddenly that she knew he was high-ranking. Released but with arms still bound, she sank, naked, to the floor of the hut, gasping. Her straight black hair had come loose of its ponytail and fell about her shoulders. “Bring her to the command block.”

            The relief was overwhelming. Even naked and with hands still pinioned, she felt a sense of elation, and trotted willingly with her escorts to the concrete bunker-like building below its shrouds of camouflage netting.

            The relief evaporated when she was brought into the room and the heavy door was closed behind her. Desks, tables, chairs; at the far end, a wooden desk at which a woman sat working a typewriter, its chatter steady. An armed rebel sat in a corner nearby. But Joy’s eyes barely settled on those things: seeing only the bare concrete wall to the right of the entrance. It was marked only by the distinctive craters of bullet-holes. A metre out, a chain hung from the ceiling, ending in two simple D-ring shackles.

            “What’s your name, girl?” The man who had rescued her from the fate-worse-than-death went to a large table, and, without sitting, rotated a large open log book.

            Joy said nothing. Still in the grip of the rebel who had brought her, she stood, naked, bound, her small brown feet close together.

            The leader glanced up. “I asked you a question. What is your name?”

            Joy’s eyes remained fixed to the floor in front of her. She didn’t utter a sound. She missed the silent command, but a moment later the soldier holding her grasped her hair and wrenched her head back so that she was forced to look again at the leader.

            “Give me your name!” he suddenly exploded.

            Joy was shaking, but said nothing.

            In a violence of motion, by the hair, she was hurled forward. She lost her balance completely, and slammed to the concrete floor with the distinctive slap of bare skin. Arms twisted behind her, she writhed onto her side, just in time to catch a solid kick to the belly from the rebel guard. She jack-knifed, doubling up on herself, mouth open in a soundless shriek, saliva spilling to the floor.

            “Do not mess with us, girl!” the leader growled at the girl who lay curled and gasping. “We’re not playing games. Give me your name!”

            Joy managed to get one knee under her, and half rose. Behind her back, dark with strangled circulation, her small hands were closed into fists. Her face was veiled by her hanging hair. She said nothing.

            The leader scowled. “Secure her.”

            By her arms, Joy was heaved up, and physically carried to the bare concrete wall and the awful dangling chain with its menacing shackles. Joy finally managed to get her bare feet under her, and shakily stood.

“Uh … sir?”

            The rebel leader turned. The two soldiers holding Joy stood under the shackles; it was obvious that they would be six inches beyond the diminutive girl’s tip-toe stretch.

            From the far side of the room, the woman’s voice: “for God’s sake, just lift her up.”

            In her early forties, she had the distinguished beauty that came with the confidence of her age. Straight black hair, wide and soaring cheekbones, deep dark eyes. Even in a conservative skirt and white sleeveless blouse, there was an aura of confident allure about her. Its effect on the rebels was noticeable; she had their attention at once. “Untie her hands and fasten her in the shackles.”

            Still Joy said nothing as, with some difficulty, the belt was finally loosened from her wrists. The two rebels grabbed her hands, and physically lifted her into the air, holding a hand each as if she was a child, pushing her wrists up into the shackles and fitting the rounded hasp around the back of each wrist, screwing the fastening bolts into place just below the heel of each hand. Joy tried to resist, but her kicking and struggling was futile, and a moment later, the rebels stepped away – leaving Joy helplessly hanging by her wrists.

It was something she had never experienced before. There was pain in her hands and wrists, pain in her arms. At once, she was tipping her head back to look up at the manacles. She instinctively kicked and reached with her bare feet, and, a moment later, her head tipped forward again, as she realised her true helplessness. Her toes swinging high above the floor, hanging by her wrists, she was utterly restrained.

Humiliation joined the physical pain and began to manifest in droplets of sweat on her brow and above her lip. Naked and suspended in the glare of the floodlights, she was presented on explicit display.

            The leader was standing in front of her. His eyes travelled slowly from the hard iron manacles that trapped Joy’s wrists; her arms, upstretched and clamped either side of her head, brushed with soft little hairs; although her armpits were shaved, which seemed to contradict her status as the probinsyana, or unsophisticated village girl. Her breasts were beautiful and round, with thick dark-chocolate nipples; her ribcage arched and her belly flat, slightly hollowed by her suspension, the skin covered with the finest peach-fuzz. Her waist was not so narrow, nor her hips so wide; but at the juncture of her thighs was a luxurious nest of soft pubic hair, fine like silk. Her legs were strong-looking, and like her arms, irresistibly balbon. Her feet, gracefully drooping as she dangled, like a ballerina en-pointe, were tiny, pink-soled.

            The leader cleared his throat, aroused but aware that she was not here to be admired.

            “My name is Ramirez,” he said. “I don’t want to have to hurt you, girl, but I will if need be.”

            Joy hung silently before him and said nothing, her chin almost on her chest. Her belly shifted quickly with little breaths, all she could do in her painful suspension.

            Ramirez’s hand came under her chin and lifted her face, until she was looking up into his eyes. “What is your name? What can you tell us about Mia Lopez?”

            Joy’s eyes were defiant. She gave no response.

            “You’re not making this easy on yourself,” Ramirez scowled.

            Joy said nothing.

            “I suggest you think about it,” Ramirez said.

            He returned casually to his table, drawing his chair in, and making notes in his journal.

            The typewriter chattered. Joy hung on the end of the chain, her toes high above the concrete floor.

 

Two

            Ramirez let Joy hang for an hour. There was no reason to hurry. From time to time he glanced up, but there was little to watch. Her small body dangled almost motionless.

            She suffered the hour quietly, not a groan or gasp despite the pain. But Ramirez knew she was suffering indeed. At first, the pain would be mostly felt in her wrist bones and hands, her body’s weight borne by the unforgiving rings of iron. But as her arms’ muscles lost their strength, the weight of her body would be taken entirely the ligaments connecting her bones, and with that would come a hot, searing agony that coursed through her joints. It would soon drown the pain in her manacled wrists.

            Indeed, forty minutes after being hung up in chains, Joy’s body began to take on an oily sheen of sweat, deliciously patterned on her arms and legs and belly by the nap of downy hairs. Her feet began to stir, her legs shifting and her head moving as the torture began to be felt, a slow racking in her arms.

            Ramirez returned to the prisoner at leisure, pausing to gather from his table-top a yard-long bamboo cane, which he trailed across the concrete floor as he approached. Joy’s face remained down, her silky hair still tidily trailing down her back.

            “Are you ready to start talking, girl?”

            Between her straining arms, Joy’s head lifted just a little. Her eyes rose, but did not meet Ramirez’s gaze. The defiance was clear.

“Do not test my patience,” Ramirez warned. “You will tell me your name, and you will tell me everything I want to know about your mistress, Mia. She has been named as a collaborator with the Japanese, and you will be the one to verify it!”

Joy’s head slowly dipped again. Almost imperceptibly, her head shook side-to-side.

“Enough!” Ramirez exploded, and without warning sliced down with the bamboo. It cracked across Joy’s undefended ribcage. Breath hissed from her nostrils, she twisted away from the pain, but Ramirez swung from the other direction, catching her small thigh. Back, forth, back, forth: the bamboo whistled through the air, each stroke snapping across Joy’s bare body while she jolted and writhed, hanging from the manacles. The bamboo landed across her breast, making it jump obscenely; it cracked on her arms, her lower legs, her flanks. She picked her knees up to her belly, so Ramirez cracked the cane across the bones of her feet, and her head bucked with the pain of it. She twisted frantically from the manacles, but she could not escape the beating.

Finally, after a dozen blows, Ramirez stopped.

Joy hung by her wrists, her body swinging, her head rocking back, and then forward again. Her knees sank down again until she was hanging at full stretch once more. Welts were already beginning to appear on her brown skin. She released breath with a low sigh but gave no other sound.

“You leave me no choice. I will make you talk, girl, but before I make you talk, I will make you scream.”

From a storeroom beyond the chattering typewriter, two of the rebels wheeled a heavy gurney. Two shelves; the lower stocked with heavy batteries, the upper containing some kind of instrument that resembled a radio transmitter, with meters and dials and a large controlling circuit-breaker.

“This is a rheostat controller,” Ramirez said. “I want you to understand its application, even if you are probinsyana. It delivers a controlled electric shock through these wires.” He held up a braided insulated wire, at its end a serrated brass clamp resembling the jaws of a crocodile. “It will make you talk, believe me.”

Joy made no sound. Even hanging by her wrists, her arms straining and her hands squashed down into the shackles, she gave no indication that she was in pain, or even afraid. Still holding the clamp, Ramirez stepped close. Gently, he put his hand under Joy’s right breast.

“So perfect,” he said. “So pretty.”

The heavy spring of the electrode clamp in Ramirez’s hand creaked as he opened it, then crushed it onto the rubbery nub of Joy’s right nipple. The little brass teeth sank deeply into the crinkled skin. She gave no reaction, although he was sure it must hurt badly.

Ramirez scowled. He levered open the second clamp and let it snap shut like a gin trap on Joy’s left nipple; this time her dangling toes curled in response, but still she gave no cry.

Ramirez grasped the wires hanging from Joy’s breasts and gave a tug, enough to stretch her nipples and set her suspended body swinging. The electrodes’ springs were powerful, and their grip was secure. “You know what happens next, don’t you?”

Joy’s head remained lowered between her upstretched arms.

Ramirez shook his head. “You are a foolish girl, you are making this much harder than it needs to be.” He returned to the desk, and sat. He threw some switches on the rheostat unit; there was a low buzz as the current began to flow. He turned some dials. “We will start with just fifty volts. You will see what I mean.”

He closed the switch. There was a loud hum and Joy, hanging in the manacles, stiffened slightly, her head shifting, her bare feet flexing and curling. Her breathing quickened visibly but she gave no sound.

Ramirez cut the current. “Stubborn, eh? Well we’ll see if this loosens your tongue!” He dialled the voltage to a hundred, closed the switch again. Joy’s body jolted, and this time, through the veil of her hair, Ramirez could see that she was biting her lip against the pain – but still no scream. She was shaking, but no sound.

He kept the current going for half a minute, then cut. Joy went visibly limp and hung heavily from the shackles. In a matter of seconds a fresh film of sweat had broken out over her brown skin. Sensing his victory, Ramirez dialled the voltage to one-fifty and hit the switch.

Joy’s body jerked, and she buried her face into her own upstretched arm, her dangling feet kicking in agitation. The clamps on her nipples were audibly sizzling, proof that current was searing into her; but she still made no sound, although he could see from the shaking of her body that she was in pain.

He held the current for another minute, until smoke began to creep up from the clamps on Joy’s nipples, but still no sound, not even a groan.

Release. Joy visibly went limp, her head nodding forward.

“We’ll see how tough you are,” Ramirez scowled. He turned the dial until the voltage showed 500, the maximum possible. “Fry, chica!”

He slammed the switch. Bright blue sparks snapped on Joy’s dark nipples as the current exploded into her breasts. Her body went rigid, her arms so tense she half-lifted herself in the shackles, and she turned her head, one way and then the other, her chin trembling and her lips violently sucked in against the pain. The sizzling sound of electricity was joined by a high squealing sound, the electricity starting to burn Joy’s nipples. Her feet swung in restless circles, and the first tear slid down her smooth cheek; her jaw was clenched shut, but still she refused to scream.

Ramirez stopped the current. Joy slowly relaxed, hanging loosely.

Again. The sizzling, squealing electrodes discharging voltage into her bare breasts and the tiny Joy, all four-foot-ten, squirmed helplessly, hanging in the shackles. Still she did not utter a single sound. After a minute, Ramirez cut off the current in disgust.

Wisps of smoke curled lazily up from her seared nipples.

“Ramirez, sir?” The woman who had been typing now stood alongside the rebel leader “Forgive me, po, but you are not doing it right. She won’t talk like this.”

Ramirez gestured to the petite prisoner’s reddening breasts. “I think soon enough, Maricon.”

Maricon gave him the condescending look that only a woman could give a superior. “You men always think so sexually. Her nipples’ skin is thick and her breasts are mostly made of fat, they’re already resistant to electric shocks.”          

“The nipples are very sensitive,” Ramirez was affronted.

“Take a look at her,” Mari said. “Anak nya. She has given birth, you can see the stretch-marks on her belly and breasts. When a girl has had a baby chewing her nipples for half a year, they have a high pain threshold. Of course you’re hurting her, but it’s nothing she won’t endure. The same if you put it in her kiki or her ass.”

Ramirez scowled. The woman hanging motionless again by her wrists in the glare of the lights seemed so small and fragile, it seemed impossible. His hand went to the cane that he had laid across the table. “Then I shall beat it out of her, until she talks, or dies.”

“Sayang! There is a better way. Her kilikili.”

Ramirez laughed. “Her armpits?”

“The skin there is delicate,” Mari explained. “There is very much sweat to help the current and there is no fat to insulate it. There is a major nerve network just below the skin. There are tendons and muscles and bones, and all of them carry electricity well. Put the clips on her armpits, po.”

            Ramirez shrugged. “She’s just the maid. We’ll try it.”

            Joy showed no sign of acknowledging their conversation, her head hanging forward. Hanging by her wrists, she was in no position to hide her profusely wet underarms from view, nor from the touch of Maricon’s fingertips as they ran, from the slight dip of Joy’s biceps, down through her satin-smooth underarm, to the rise of her breast. With her other hand, Maricon carefully removed one serrated brass electrode from Joy’s swollen, dark nipple, then calmly pinched the sprung electrode onto the soft skin in the middle of Joy’s armpit.

            “Maitim ng kilikili mo,” Maricon criticised. “Your armpits are dark. You should use calamansi juice.”

            Tutting lightly about the state of Joy’s underarms, Maricon attached the second electrode into Joy’s right armpit, and stood back.

Joy hung, her up-wrenched arms pressed to either side of her head, the brass clamps firmly biting into her dusky armpits, the wires slung in lazy loops to the rheostat.

“Try,” Maricon said to Ramirez.

Doubt was written all over Ramirez’s face, and with a half smirk, he adjusted the voltage of the rheostat down to two hundred, then closed the lever.

Every muscle in Joy’s arms went rigid; her back arched, her head flew back and she began to scream, her whole body bowed with fierce, shuddering tension. She screamed and screamed, her body thrashing wildly as the electrodes buzzed in her armpits.

“Po,” Maricon called over the noise of Joy’s screaming.

Ramirez’s eyes travelled the length of Joy’s little frame. Above the manacles, her fists were clenched. Her arms were tight and jerking violently back and forth, as if she was trying to shake the chains’ loose from the ceiling. Her head was flung back, her mouth wide and perfect teeth bared as she screamed, long black hair sweeping her back, the tendons in her neck bulging. Her ribcage was raised and stark, her round breasts jiggling as her body jolted. Her legs were kicking and twitching crazily, setting her body swinging, the muscles in her thighs and calves fiercely defined.

“Ramirez, po!” Maricon shouted again. “You will kill her!”

Ramirez barely seemed to hear.

Joy’s screams went on and on, the Filipina jolting and writhing from the shackles, so Maricon’s hand came over Ramirez’s, and eased the circuit-breaker up. The current cut. The spell was instantly broken: Joy’s rigid body went limp, her arms lost their tension, her head fell forward, and began gasping air. Urine spilled from the dark nest between her glistening thighs, coursing down her legs and dribbling to the floor below. Slowly, as her shock abated, abject terror took over. Joy began mewling like a kitten.

“Again,” Maricon urged quietly.

Ramirez nodded and slammed the lever down. For the second time, Joy’s dangling body snapped into a trembling, straining arch and her head flew back with a shrill scream of agony. Her legs kicked desperately, her shrieks piteous and shrill. Long seconds of current; long, terrible screams.

The shock stopped and Joy’s head fell forward, a rope of bloodied drool spilling from her mouth. Her groan was tremulous, followed by sobs and gasps. Her breasts jiggled as she heaved breath. Ramirez rose from the table, and strode quietly over to the slowly swinging girl.

“Are you ready to talk?”

Joy said nothing, sobbing, helplessly dangling on the creaking chain. Ramirez reached out and touched the hot electrode that was clamped into her right armpit, fascinated that such an innocuous part of a woman’s anatomy could prove so sensitive. “So be it.”

As he returned to the table, Joy’s head lifted; her face, half-veiled by the tangle of her own thick hair, showed abject dread. “No! Please, please, no more!”

Ramirez halted, half-turned. “Let us start with your name.”

“My name is Mary Joy Cortez,” she said, without hesitation. “Please, sir, I am just a poor –“

“And what of Mia? What is her involvement with the Japanese occupation force?”

“Po, she is not involved, she is –“

Even as Joy tried to make her denial, Ramirez reached over to the rheostat and closed the switch. Joy’s voice exploded into a scream, her head flew back, her arms went rigid, her little body spun and jerked, the wires trailing from her underarms swinging with the violence of her thrashing.

The current ceased, and Joy swung limp, her head falling forward. She gave a cry of misery, even as Ramirez turned up the power to three hundred, and shocked her again. Sparks sizzled and spat in her armpits and she screamed again, a long, hoarse screech of agony.

            Ramirez cut the current, gave Joy a count of three, and hit her again. Again she was screaming, jolting and jerking where she hung, until her voice trailed to nothing and the only sounds were the rattling of chains and the sizzling hum of the wires in her armpits. This time, Ramirez kept her under torture for a full minute, watching Joy’s little body strain and stretch against its will, her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging, a gagging, croaking sound coming from her throat.

            When he was sure he had wrung the last drop of strength from her, Ramirez stopped the current. Joy’s body went limp with a vocal “uh!” and her feet swung, another little dribble of urine snaking down her leg, her head falling forward. Her ribcage heaved; her belly spasmed and she coughed up a string of bile that spilled from her open mouth.

            “This is only going to get worse for you,” Ramirez said. “If you don’t talk, I promise you a hell that will not end.”

            Joy sobbed. “Please, please let me down, I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll be good, please …”

            “Tell us about Mia’s connections with the Japanese.”

            Joy’s response was a wail, her head tipping back. Ramirez sighed and closed the switch.

            Joy’s screams echoed off the concrete walls for half a minute.

            When the current cut, Joy felt her body sagging once more, drained of all strength, her muscles quivering. She knew she was still hanging in the shackles but couldn’t feel her hands, nor even sense which way was up. Her head was spinning, her brain filled with a clamour of pain and jangling nerves. Her armpits were burning, her arms and chest on fire, her heart thumping so rapidly she thought it would explode. She felt herself pissing again, for the third time.

            The man called Ramirez was talking again. Asking questions, asking her to lie about Mia. But before she could even answer, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, his hand closing that awful lever …

            Pain beyond comprehension. Red hot nails driven into her armpits that spread savage tendrils of fire to her very fingertips, burning her arms like gasoline; reaching down inside her chest to the pit of her belly. The pain was so terrible she could do nothing but scream. At the same time, every muscle in her body was suddenly driven to clench, so powerfully and absolutely, it felt as though ligaments were tearing and her very bones were bending and twisting. It went on, and on, and on; endless, nightmarish.

            Finally, the current stopped.

            “Who is Mia’s contact? What is her involvement with the Japanese?”

            Somewhere in the chaos of pain shattering her thoughts, Joy knew that all she had to do was say what he wanted to hear, and this would stop.

            Again the current. Thought vaporised into a hell of straining, burning pain, as if her arms had been sliced with rusty blades from armpits to fingertips and the bones scraped and sawn, pain as if her spine was being snapped like a splintering twig and her ribs were bending into her own organs.

            Ramirez knew patience. As Joy shuddered and twisted, hanging from the manacles, shrieking in agony while the brass clamps discharged their fire into her armpits, he counted the seconds, counting how long was enough, then letting her scream for a minute more. It had been half an hour; most victims would have fainted, but Joy, tiny Joy, was strong as a carabao. She fought, remaining conscious despite the shattering torment.

            Ramirez stopped the current and watched Joy go limp. Her head fell forward. Sweat was dripping from her face. He turned up the voltage to four hundred, and then electrocuted her again, admiring the quivering arch of her lithe body, revelling in the satisfying intensity of her agonised screams. He had broken her.

            After half a minute, the current stopped again. Joy hung, conscious but unable to move, overwhelmed by the immensity of her pain. Her muscles were all but paralysed; every time the electricity surged into her armpits, her body expended more energy than if she had sprinted a thousand yards. Her lungs were heaving, her limbs were trembling and exhausted.

            “Po, I will tell you everything you want to know,” she whispered. “Anything at all. Anything. Please.”

            The session went on into the night.

            For some questions, Joy could give answers; a simple nod, an admission, an invented story. For some she had no answers, and when that happened, she would sink into a desperate panic, kicking her feet and shrieking in terror, her eyes wide and fixed on the rheostat from which, inevitably, more agony would come. Her armpits were red and raw with the endless shocks.

            After an hour, Ramirez was satisfied and the questions stopped. The clips still in her armpits, Joy hung exhausted and motionless, her toes drooping, her body stretched long by its own suspension, still shining with her sweat. Her muscles had failed and she was all but paralysed.

            “Let her down, take her to a holding-cell,” Ramirez said.

            “Po.” Maricon took the chance to volunteer help again. “She should be tied.”

            Ramirez looked at the barely-conscious girl as the guards plucked the clamps from her tortured armpits, set about letting her down from the shackles. He saw no need to tie her; the holding huts were well secured and guarded. But he was happy to indulge Maricon’s wishes. “Sige.”

            Joy was laid face-down on the floor, in the puddle of her own sweat and urine, pinned by two of the guards. Maricon had rope, and carefully, painstakingly lashed Joy’s small wrists together behind her back. Every loop of the rope was pulled creakingly tight, all but killing the circulation to her hands, and each knot was cinched until it was hard as stone. Joy’s fingers quickly began to turn dark. The little Filipina moaned but could offer no other resistance.

            “The flesh will be gone from your bones before your hands are freed again,” Maricon said with satisfaction. To the rebel soldiers: “get her out of here!”

 

 

Three

 

            With prisoner and soldiers gone, Maricon went to the door of the bunker and locked it. Ramirez watched curiously as the beautiful Filipina turned and offered a half-smile. “Po, may I ask you a favour?”

            “Sure,” Ramirez said.

            Maricon went to the iron shackles that still dangled from the ceiling. Turning to face her superior, she slowly reached up, grasping the chains and twisting them around her own wrists. She leaned forward, testing them, letting her arms take the weight of her body for a moment. Her eyes were dark with lust.

            “Put the electrodes on me. I want to feel what she felt.”

            “Put them …? “ Ramirez pointed awkwardly. In her sleeveless blouse and with arms stretched up, Maricon’s armpits were bared. “Sa kilikili?”

            “Yes,” she breathed. Her chest shifted rapidly. “I want to know. Sige na? Please?”

            Ramirez drew close to his assistant. He put a hand out to touch her hair. “Ok. But I have to chain you.” As he reached up to put Maricon’s left wrist into one of the shackles, she looked panicked, and momentarily drew back.

            “Why?”

            “You might have convulsions, fall on the floor and break your arm, or hit your head. This is safer.”

            “I can hold on.”

            “I doubt that.” Ramirez closed the first shackle, then placed Maricon’s right wrist into the second. Their iron was still warm from Joy’s wrists. Maricon lightly closed her fists, feeling the hard metal around each wrist, aware of her helplessness. Her arms now held above her head, she was exposed and vulnerable. Ramirez had one of the serrated-tooth clips in his hands, and Maricon bit her lip.

            Maricon’s armpits were fashionably pale, and carefully shaved. The skin was soft. Ramirez firmly pinched the jaws teeth of one electrode into the hollow of her left underarm, catching a little fold of skin. Maricon turned her face towards the ceiling, shifting her hands in the manacles. Ramirez noticed a shine of sweat in Maricon’s right armpit as he secured the second electrode.

            “Wait!” As Ramirez stepped away from Maricon towards the rheostat, she called after him. “How long … how long will you shock me?”          

            Ramirez glanced at her. His eyes travelled from her feet, neatly together in her black pumps, to the slim khaki pencil-skirt, the slenderness of her little waist, the white sleeveless blouse and her graceful arms pulled up tightly over her head, framing her face. The electrodes looked like shining butterflies in her armpits, their wires trailing down in a long loop to the rheostat.

            “Three seconds only, ok?” she tried.

            Ramirez sucked his lip. “If you want to know how she felt, I will give you longer. Thirty seconds.”

            “Thirty seconds?” Maricon instinctively tried to pull her arms down, a panic reflex that was checked by the manacles holding her wrists high.

            “But I will give you a choice. You can have thirty seconds straight … or three shocks of ten each.”

            Maricon closed her eyes. Her breathing was already quick. There was sweat shining above her lip. “I will take the three shocks.”

            “Very well.” Ramirez threw the main charge switch on the capacitor; Maricon jumped in fright, but there was no shock yet. Ramirez smiled. “Are you nervous?”

            “A little,” was Maricon’s reply. It was an understatement; her voice trembled.

            “Good. Basa ng kilikili mo … the more nervous you are, your armpits will be more wet.”

Maricon twisted her face to look; the electrode was barely an inch from her nose, firmly in place. The glare of the spotlights shone of the wet trails of sweat that already ran from each underarm.

“Then we are ready,” Ramirez said, and slammed the switch.

Instantly, involuntarily, Maricon was screaming. Her arms’ muscles locked rigid and her back arched, her head flung back. Her feet scrabbled at the ground but she was effectively hanging in the shackles, her body jerking and jolting helplessly with the surging current. Small bright sparks were crackling in both armpits, testament to the current that was raging through her arms and torso.

At ten seconds, Ramirez cut the current. Maricon instantly hung limp by her arms, her legs splayed and unable to support her weight, her head falling forward and her chin on her chest. Her body heaved breath and she drew whooping breaths. “Oh … oh Jesus …”

“Ready for the next?”

“No –“

But Ramirez hit the switch and Maricon screamed as the sparks in her underarms sizzled, her arms locked fiercely tight again and her breasts straining against the buttons of her blouse as her spine arched with her helpless thrashing. Her screams were desperate and animal, and it seemed by the violent shaking of her arms that she was trying with all of her strength to jolt the ceiling-chain loose of its anchor.

The current cut, and Maricon went limp again. This time her breathing was ragged, too fast. Her blouse was already soaked and clinging to her back and ribcage with her own sweat. Her arms and legs had lost all strength and she hung heavily.

            Slowly, her head lifted; strands of her hair glued to her wet face, her eyes dark, traces of her mascara already streaking her cheeks. “One more,” she gasped.

            Ramirez threw the switch and the sizzling electrodes in her armpits drew a new scream from Maricon’s throat as her body hung shuddering from the manacles, as if in the throes of an orgasm. Every muscle in her slender, upstretched arms was starkly defined, the tendons taut like cables with the involuntarily clenching.

            Finally, it ended.

            A dark patch quickly spread down the front of Maricon’s skirt as she hung limp for the third and final time; a stream of urine spattered to the floor between her feet. Her head hung forward, her body still twitching.

            “Maricon?”

            Ramirez shut off the capacitor, and rose from his chair in concern. Slowly, Maricon’s head lifted.

            “Ay naku,” she croaked. “How long did you torture the girl before she talked?”

            “An hour maybe,” Ramirez said.

            “I don’t know how she did it. … Jesus.” Slowly, Maricon managed to get her feet under her. In a lower voice: “I am so horny.” Maricon’s dark and ferocious gaze was locked to his, her face framed by her upstretched arms. “Fuck me now.”

            Ramirez attempted a chuckle. “Maricon, you know you are a beautiful woman, but it would not –“

            “It was not a request, sir,” Maricon growled. “Do your duty as a soldier and fuck me.”

            Ramirez swallowed. It was not as if months of fantasies were not rising to the fore. His cock was threatening to rip the seams of his drill pants. Maricon was the desire of every man in the encampment and to have her in chains, demanding that he make love to her, was something he had not even dared dream about.

            No more hesitation. Ramirez went to Maricon, put his hand up to the shackles in which she hung.

            “No, po. Do it to me here. And I have one more favour, sir. Electrocute me.”

            “Maricon –“

            “Keep the current low. 75 volts maybe.”

            “That will still be painful.”

            “I want it.”

            Ramirez unbuttoned the back of Maricon’s skirt, letting the heavy fabric slide to the floor, pushing her soaked bloomers down also. Her legs were brown, smooth, shining. Between her thighs, a small and neat thatch of wet pubic hair. He could hear Maricon’s broken breathing, a mixture of dazed exhaustion from the torture she had just endured, and unbearable arousal.

            Her blouse was completely wet; he began unfastening the buttons with trembling fingers so that it hung open. With her arms drawn over her head, he could smell her sweat, rich with her pheromones, and it made his cock so hard it hurt.

            Maricon’s breasts were perfect, the shape and size of half coconuts with chocolate nipples already erect. Ramirez bent his head and brought his face close to her glistening golden skin, breathing the aroma of her perspiration; then licked the flank of one breast, tasting her salt and suffering. Maricon gave a groan, her head back, twisting her body and pushing her bared breasts towards him. “More!”

            He drew her nipple into his mouth, hot and firm, sucked it, teased it with his tongue. Maricon squealed, the juice of her arousal already running down the inside of one thigh. Ramirez’s hands rose to her body, caressing the firm contours of her torso, cupping one breast while he suckled the other. His caress continued up to her underarm, finding the electrode still clamped in place. The brass was still hot from the current he had sent through it.

            Maricon was lost in the sensations, overwhelmed; her body still trembling from the torture, but sensitive beyond words. The feeling of Ramirez’s mouth on her breasts, his hands roaming her body; the ache of the clamps in her underarms reminding her of the pain they could deliver, and arousing her at the thought of her own vulnerability.

            Ramirez’s mouth sought hers and Maricon accepted his tongue, thirsty for his kiss. With arms chained over her head she could not touch him, could not guide him with her hands or reward his attentions; so she kissed him with fury and desperation, driving his arousal so that he would do what she asked. She could taste the sweat from her own skin on his lips.

            Finally he broke from the kiss. Both were breathing hard.

            “Are you sure you want the electricity?” There was concern in his eyes.

            Maricon smiled. “I want it. And you will experience the best fuck of your life.”

            Ramirez went to the rheostat. Hurriedly he undressed; discarding his clothes. Maricon was trembling; her body covered in goosebumps despite the heat. She was so sensitive that even the air against her skin was almost too much.

            Her eyes were locked to Ramirez. His physique was strong; powerful shoulders and muscular arms, worked and defined abdomen and chest. From the dark nest of his loins, his cock stood as if it was made of polished wood, dark and engorged as if it would explode.

            “You are a beautiful man,” Maricon breathed. “Get inside me.”

            Ramirez paused only long enough to set the dial on the rheostat. He glanced at Maricon; hanging in the manacles, she nodded, and he closed the switch.

            The current hit, surging into her body through the vulnerable gateway of her armpits; locking her arms tight and arching her back, tingling fiery tendrils that were an unbearable mix of pleasure and pain. She gave a cry, jolting and jerking in the chains, unable to bear the intensity of feeling.

            Ramirez was upon her. Somehow Maricon found the strength to lift her legs and throw them around his hips; his cock found her pussy and a moment later he was plunging inside.

“Oh, God!!” As the electricity ran through Maricon’s body, her muscles locked and loosened, involuntarily shuddering and releasing, the current’s path changing with the shifting resistance of her moving muscles; the moment Ramirez was inside her, Maricon was swept by the first orgasm.

It ebbed, but it did not end; she could feel herself thrusting against Ramirez, feel her vaginal muscles tightening against her will around his cock, her body fucking him of its own accord as a second orgasm began to build. The sensations were overwhelming, the burning pain of the electricity melding inseparably with the blinding pleasure that wrapped her body, driving her beyond anything she had ever experienced, beyond rational thought. With her legs locked around his hips, most of her weight was on her shackled wrists; and yet they felt nothing, her body consumed by the sensations of electricity, and the cock slamming into her, filling her so deeply it felt like she would tear apart.

“Here I go again!” she wailed, as the second orgasm ripped through her body, even her toes tingling, her lips numb, her nipples throbbing. She rocked back and forth on Ramirez’s cock, twitching, shaking, crying out.

            Ramirez grasped Maricon’s taut and slippery body, and fucked her to the hilt, slamming hard into her. He could feel her muscles clenching on his cock, a supernatural grip as the electric current forced her to spasm and jolt, and forced one orgasm after another through her. Her head was hanging back, the sweat clustering her skin in fat salty droplets. He could see the muscles in her arms and torso rigid and quivering. Some of the current flowed into his cock, too, a sensation that was beyond pleasure but not quite pain; compelling, driving, unbearably controlling.

            Even as Maricon’s second orgasm ended, the third began, more intense still. Her cries were getting louder, more desperate, and Ramirez slammed into her with a new frenzy. Hard, violent strokes, their hips crashing together, her heels driving into his back as her legs tightened and loosened. Her body was jumping, shuddering, her beautiful pussy still clenching and gripping him with such strength that it was all he could do not to explode inside her.

            “Jesus Mary and Joseph!” she screamed, her back arching and her body jolting as electricity and the pounding of Ramirez’s cock drew her into the third orgasm. Ramirez could not hold back any more and released himself inside her, emptying his seed into her in thrust after powerful thrust, his fingers digging into her flesh as his hips slammed against hers.

            At last he was drained, empty, buried inside her, his face against her neck. He held onto Maricon’s slender and slick body, smelling their mixed scents, feeling the hammering of both their hearts. Her weight hanging on her shackled wrists, her legs still around Ramirez’s waist, her head lolling against her arm, Maricon continued to twitch and shudder, still moaning with the pain and pleasure of the electricity ravaging her body.  

 

 

Four   

 

            The bamboo door of the holding hut was pulled open and Joy was flung inside. With wrists cinched so tightly behind her back, she was unable to break her fall, and slammed to the packed-earth, landing hard on belly and breasts. She stayed down, dirt on her lips, cheek pressed to the ground. She lay, hearing the heavy iron padlock and chain being fixed to the door, locking her in; then the shifting of boots. One pair only, the second guard remaining outside.

            She lay for a long time.

            Joy knew that her hands were tied, but she couldn’t feel the rope. Nor could she move her arms to test the binding’s strength. Echoes of her ordeal still rang in her ears; the intense horror of the electric shocks continued to resonate in every muscle fibre. Her strength had been completely drained.

            Nothing seemed real. As the crickets of the mountain province night chirped peacefully, the last hours sat at complete odds with everything she had ever known in her life. It felt like some awful nightmare, reliving itself in a blur of moments inside her head. Always she could hear the sickening sizzling of sparks as the electrodes buzzed only inches from her ears, and the pain that was so intense, so all-consuming. She tried to groan, but even her voice would not come: she had screamed herself raw already.

            After a long time, there was a scream.

            Joy turned her head, her cheekbone resting on the earth, listening, holding her breath. It came again; longer, a ragged howl, an unmistakable voice. Mia. Now they are torturing her, just as they tortured me, Joy realised. As another piteous screech shattered the silence and echoed through the trees, Joy wondered if her own screams had sounded so dreadful.

            The night was long; fear and the nightmare of her ordeal refused to let her mind rest, and sleep would not come. By morning, her muscles were beginning to hurt badly, her arms aching behind her back, her chest and back throbbing. The sensitive skin of her armpits was burning from the electric shocks. Daylight struggled to find its way between the bamboo walls of the hut, but in the dusty shafts of light Joy was able to make out a pail of water in the corner. Fighting the protests of agonised muscles, and hampered by her bound hands, she struggled to it. It already swarmed with mosquito larvae, but she dipped her face into the tepid water and drank heavily regardless.

            The heat became stifling as the day went on, and Joy surrendered to her exhaustion and despair, lying on her side, bound and naked, her dark skin shining with the oil of perspiration, her eyes dully staring.

            Another night passed, and another day. Nobody came. No food was brought. Joy felt some small strength returning, although her muscles hurt even more than before; and her wrists remained locked tightly together in unyielding rope behind her back.

            On the morning of the third day, the door of her hut was finally unlocked, and two rebels came in. The air smelled of Joy’s two-day-old sweat, ripe and heavy but thick with her pheromones, and enough to prompt both soldiers to breathe the aroma deeply. Had there been opportunity, Joy could see that they would rape her; instead she was hauled to her feet.

“Why are you naked? Where are your clothes?” one of the soldiers demanded in annoyance.

“Po, I don’t know, they have been taken from me.” After so long without clothes, Joy had completely forgotten about her nudity. She felt fear, and angst, and guilt, and worthlessness, but no embarrassment. Clothes suddenly seemed trivial and irrelevant.

The soldiers, scowling, marched Joy back to the main compound.

            “Joy, are you all right?”

            As she was brought inside, she saw Ramirez and Maricon at a low table, and in front of them, her own hands bound behind her – but at least clothed in her own chemise – Mia. Soldiers guarded her as they did Joy.

Joy had no time to answer, as Maricon barked, “where are her clothes?”

The guard beside Joy looked sheepish. “We could not find them, Ma’am.”

“They were taken from her in the barracks hut, “ Ramirez grunted. “I think the men have kept them.”

“Why?” Maricon was puzzled.

“To sniff,” Ramirez said.

Maricon looked incredulous. The soldiers holding Joy smiled, amused.

“Fine. She can be naked, who cares,” Maricon finally said. She glanced at the open book in front of her, in which Ramirez’s careful notes documented the two prisoners’ confessions. “Mia Lopez, this Court Martial represents the resistance movement of the Philippines, and therefore the Filipino people. You were brought here under accusation of complicity with the occupying Japanese. The information you have given us has confirmed it. We have no hesitation therefore in finding you guilty of Collaboration and Treason. The penalty for your crimes is death, and the sentence will be carried out without delay.”

Joy listened to the verdict and sentence in disbelief. She could hear Mia pleading, bargaining for her life; but Joy simply felt numb. She gave no resistance as the rebels guided her outside again. There were other soldiers gathered outside, making breakfast, cleaning their weapons, but all faces turned to Joy, naked and with hands tied behind her back, as she was marched across the compound.

Mia was being led behind, and Joy’s thoughts briefly flitted to her. She looked back over her shoulder. “I am sorry, Miss Mia. I had to say what they wanted, I could not bear the pain.”

            “Quiet, or you’ll be silenced,” one of the guards said, shifting his rifle-butt to emphasise the threat. Joy said no more, and walked without talking as they were led down a path hewn through the dense jungle.

It was a strange procession: Ramirez in the lead, swinging his cane. Behind him, Maricon, immaculate as ever in a crisp white blouse and khaki slacks; then Joy, then a rebel soldier, then Mia; and with three more soldiers at the rear. They walked for almost an hour, the two prisoners awkward with hands bound behind them.

            After a time, they emerged from jungle at the top of a ridge, a broad green panorama of rice terraces in the valleys either side; waterfalls cascading over mossy rocks into natural pools edged with ferns. Farmers and field workers stopped their work to see the odd group pass; they were used to seeing rebels in these mountains, but the little dark naked figure walking stoically with hands bound behind her was a new sight, and worth the extra minutes of staring.

            After another half-hour, they finally reached the bottom of the valley, and there followed a narrow track to a recently-harvested rice field. The dried chaff lay on the sun-warmed ground; a small grove of trees edged the field, and four water-buffalo lazed in their shade. Near the animals sat a small group of resistance soldiers, perhaps a dozen in total. They rose to their feet as the group crossed the field towards them.

            “Stop here,” Ramirez decided.

The guards halted the two prisoners, and made them kneel, side-by-side, on the dried grass some twenty paces from the trees.

            It was hot in the sun, more so after their long walk. Joy’s brown skin shone with sweat. Her muscles were tingling, her bare feet aching from the hours’ long trek. But she knelt without protest, silent, sullen, her eyes fixed sadly to the ground.

            Mia was pleading again for her life, but was met with indifference: moments later. Ramirez said to Maricon, “she’s all yours.”

            “On your feet,” Maricon ordered Joy.

            Her heart quickened. As long as they had been walking, Joy had felt somehow protected: but this felt like the end and her body refused to let it happen. She remained where she was, staring at the ground. Maricon barely missed a beat, and ordered the nearby rebel soldiers: “bring her!”

            Joy began moaning in terror as, by her bound arms, she was hauled to her feet, and dragged after Maricon as she strolled almost casually to the nearby trees.

“Oh God, no!”

            Now there was true terror in Joy’s shriek, as she saw the rope coiled on the ground. The little hairs on her arms stood up and her legs collapsed under her, so that the two rebels had to hold her up. Maricon’s eyes barely acknowledged Joy’s terror as she gathered up the rope, and casually tossed the noose up and over a low-hanging branch of one tree.

“Ma’am Mia, please, please help me!” Joy screamed back towards her mistress.

Mia desperately began pleading for Joy’s life, but it made no difference. The little maid still fought, even as the two rebels, aroused by her struggles and her naked body, brought her to stand beneath the tree branch. “Ngeh!” She tried to dodge away but Maricon fitted the heavy noose over her head, sitting it on her shoulders and drawing the coiled knot down to the nape of her sweating neck. She wailed as Maricon carefully lifted her shiny black hair free of the rope and tucked it forward of her shoulder, so that it would not tangle.

            “Execute her,” Maricon ordered casually.

            The soldiers released Joy’s bound arms, and left her standing for a moment in the grass with the noose snugly around her neck, almost peacefully beneath the branch of the tree. Her shoulders shook with her sobs, her head down. Dappled sunlight shone through the leaves and ignited the downy hairs on her bare skin, bathing her body in beauty.

            The two soldiers took up the free end of the rope and drew it in, until the noose pulled tightly up under Joy’s jaw, extending her neck. Wailing, the tears spilling freely down her cheeks; she worked and tugged at the ropes binding her hands behind her back, even though she knew they were inescapably tied.

The men hauled on the rope; by her neck, Joy’s little body was heaved up into the air, cutting off her cries abruptly.

            It was a bizarre moment. As she continued to be raised up, she swung backwards, then forwards, her legs dangling and feet slightly back, pink soles exposed, her hands still securely behind her back. The noose was tightly wedged under her jaw, angling her head as if she was looking curiously into the distance.

            As she swung lazily back and forth again, a pendulum on a creaking rope, the rebels were securing the free end to the trunk of the tree, leaving her toes easily two feet off the ground

            The apparent disbelief that had rendered Joy motionless for a moment now lifted, and she began to kick and struggle, eyes wide. She fought again to pull her hands from behind her back. Her body began twisting and writhing in the air. A strange, bird-like gasping sound came from her throat. Her struggles quickly set her body swaying in a slow, graceful ellipse beneath the tree branch. Despite the rope around her neck, her face showed little sign of strangulation: due to her diminutive weight and the thickness of the rope, the noose had barely tightened, and was merely pressing on her windpipe.

Her executioners were still unaware of the fact. Maricon had come to stand in front of Joy, barely two metres away, so she could gain a first-hand view of the spectacle. “Goodbye, my recalcitrant little one. Strong you may be, but not invincible.”

Beyond, in the burning sun, Mia kept her face down, unwilling to watch Joy’s final suffering.

The first minute crept by. Then another. Then five, then six; but Joy did not show any signs of succumbing to the noose. Instead, her struggles grew more frantic as she was tortured by her slow suffocation. Her eyes bulged. Her tongue began to swell in her open mouth, bringing a string of saliva. Odd gasping, gurgling sounds escaped her throat, and her feet kicked and searched. Her arms’ muscles flexed as she tugged still at the rope that held her wrists behind her back. The sweat of panic had broken out over her body, like clustered dewdrops.

            “Ma’m, maybe we should finish her, po?” One of the soldiers offered, preparing to grasp Joy’s feet and impel her to a quicker death; but Maricon shook her head.

            “Let God’s course be run.”

            Without warning, urine sprayed from between Joy’s thighs, rivulets coursing down her legs and dribbling from her toes. It lasted half a minute, until her bladder was completely empty.

It had been ten minutes. Joy continued to struggle. Her body twisted and writhed at the end of the creaking rope. The choking sounds were becoming harsher as the rope gradually embedded itself deeper under her jaw, forcing her mouth more widely open. The tendons in her neck stood out like cables; more saliva spilled in a slow rope from her chin and onto her shining breasts. Her ribcage was arched and defined, her abdominal muscles working visibly as she strained to pull air into her lungs. Her legs moved endlessly, toes fanning and stretching as if they might miraculously make contact with the ground far below.

            Maricon, standing in the sun, finally threw up her hands. “Ang kulit talaga! So persistent!” She returned to the shade of the tree, slapping Joy’s thigh as she passed. “Do not fight so hard, girl, you cannot escape death.” She settled on the shaded grass, from there watching Joy’s endless struggles.

Fifteen minutes since she had been hauled up off the ground by the noose around her neck, Joy’s face had finally grown dark; her tongue, swollen, was filling her open mouth, flecks of foam gathering at the corners of her lips, bubbly drool slowly spilling to her chest.

Twenty minutes. Joy’s struggles gradually became less coordinated, her movements jerky, her feet flicking and circling oddly, her arms still shifting behind her back in an unconscious effort to free her wrists from the rope that bound them. Only the agony of slow asphyxiation and the pain of a stretching neck kept her from accepting her fate.

Gradually, though, over the next five minutes, Joy began to get weaker. Her mouth was open with her fat tongue extruded and her lips puffed; her eyes were growing dull. Her pedalling feet still searched the air, but the ends of her toes were growing dark, a signal that she would soon acquiesce. Her struggles became feebler, her bound hands finally coming to rest against the curve of her buttocks. She looked as if she was fighting to stay awake, the lids hovering over her eyes.

            On and on she fought. Jerky, uncoordinated. Half an hour after being hoisted up in the noose, Joy was finally unable to make any sound: the rope had all but cut off her air, and her her mouth was fully plugged by her own engorged tongue, although slow bubbles of saliva betrayed the life still slowly being squeezed from her. She was not dead, but she was acquiescing.

Finally, after nearly forty minutes, she gave up. Naked, her body still wet with sweat, she hung by her neck, only occasionally twitching. Her toes pointed daintily towards the ground, her tound hands rested in the small of her back, her head tilted sideways with her tongue poking at the world. Her eyes, half-open, gazed unseeing.

            From where she sat on the grass, Maricon gazed up for a long time at the slowly-swaying figure. The rope gently creaked but there was no sign of life.

            “Ay, naku!” Maricon expressed, rolling her eyes. “Let us get on with our day, already!”

 

 

Epilogue

 

The next day’s sunrise lit a sad scene.

A small corpse hung by its neck from a tree, with wrists still securely bound behind its back. The naked body dangled lifeless and limp, the morning sun adding a dull sheen to its waxy skin. Below lids frozen in a permanent droop, brown eyes still looked in sightless misery at the beauty of the fields. The tongue, dark and fat, still poked between plump lips in a last involuntary indignity.

            Not far away, a naked woman’s torso lay amidst bloodstained grass, just one limb attached, the other limbs some metres away. The world turned.

 

 

 

 

October 2009

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