On the Auction Block (21 page)

“But not to the death,” Thorn said. “That can
take days. Only for half an hour. But, let me assure you that even
a half hour of our crucifixion will be agonizing. It will be the
longest half hour this slave has ever experienced.”

Flame wasn’t going to be killed, but she was
left quivering in fear. She didn’t want to experience agony.

But she was a slave. What she did or did not
want didn’t matter a whit. She was going to be crucified and that
was that.

* * *

Flame stumbled as she was pulled away from
the wall and the other slaves. Strong hands held her by her upper
arms. These weren’t Thorn’s hands. Handlers had been brought into
the room.

She didn’t resist. It would have been futile.
These men were far stronger than her. Fighting them would only earn
another punishment. Maybe an extra hour of crucifixion.

A dozen steps to the middle of the room and
she was stopped. Her right arm was stretched away from her body and
her hand was placed around a thick metal bar. A handle of some
kind. She understood that they wanted her to grab it so she did. A
leather strap was wrapped around her fingers so that she could not
open her hand and release the handle. Then the same was done on the
other side so that her arms were loosely outstretched. She heard
the ratcheting of some mechanism that pulled the handles apart. It
stopped when her elbows were straight and her arms were stretched
as far as they could be extended without pain. Yet.

Thorn narrated. “Instead of the traditional
cross, this slave will be crucified on a steel frame. She will have
no support behind her. Instead of suspending her by her wrists, we
are going to suspend her by her hands. There’s less risk of nerve
damage that way. I hope that you appreciate our consideration for
our delicate flower.”

There was gentle laughter from the
audience.

Thorn was quite a card.

The handles that Flame was forced to grip
began to rise. When her hands were higher than her head, they put
pressure on her shoulders. Pain flared sharp and hard as her joints
began to take her weight.

“The reason for crucifixion is that the slave
has her hands stretched to the side rather than overhead. In this
position, the slave’s shoulder joints are bearing her body weight
in a direction that they were not designed for. The stress of her
weight will cause more pain than you can imagine.”

Flame whimpered as her heels left the ground.
Her arms continued to rise and stretch until she had to stand on
tiptoe.

Even when she strained her calves to the
limit, she couldn’t raise herself high enough to relieve the stress
on her shoulders.

It had only been a minute and the pain was
already severe.

“The slave now faces a dilemma. If she
relaxes her legs, her weight will be supported entirely by her
arms. She risks dislocating her shoulder joints. But her legs will
not support her forever. She will spend the next half hour,
struggling to maintain a balance between how much she can afford to
strain her calves and how much weight her shoulders can tolerate.
It does not help that breathing is difficult in this position
because her rib cage is raised and her diaphragm is stretched.”

Flame was beginning to feel the truth of that
last assertion. She had to try to rise higher on her toes to gasp
for every breath.

“I will now start the clock.”

Good god,
Flame thought,
I’m
already hurting something awful and she hasn’t started the clock
yet.

“Gentlemen, you have half an hour to enjoy
your drinks and to take advantage of all the slaves who remain here
to serve you. If any of you would like to fondle our crucified
slave, she won’t try to stop you.”

There was more light laughter from the
gentlemen.

Flame was barely aware of the clinking of ice
in drinks and discussion of further wagers. None of the slaves had
been unmasked yet, so the gentlemen still did not know if it was
the former Lady Irene who was suffering crucifixion or some other
slave. Serious money was being put at risk over her identity.

She could not remain stationary. She had to
keep raising herself higher to breathe then sinking as low as her
shoulders could tolerate to rest her calves. But she could never
sink low enough for her heels to touch the floor.

Every time she exhaled, she groaned.

After a time, she felt increased pressure on
her shoulders and had to raise herself a little further. Oh, god!
Someone was adjusting the height of the handles that trapped her
hands to make certain that she was in exactly the optimal position
to experience the most stress possible.

Taking the next breath required an even
greater struggle.

She was still hooded. She had no idea how
many men were clustered around her nor how close they stood until
she felt a hand begin to massage her breast.

“I love a suffering slave.”

She recognized the voice. This was the
gentleman who had tricked her with the false promise of
marriage.

The hand moved down to her belly. Stretched
taut with her ribcage pulled high, her belly was concave above her
hips.

“I’m in love with you, right now, you know,”
the voice said.

The hand moved around to cup her buttock,
which was clenched into a small, hard melon as she struggled to
stay on her toes.

“Lord Hoffman is to be commended for
arranging such a beautiful entertainment.”

Another pair of hands began stroking her
calves. “Wow,” another voice said, “her calves are like knots of
solid wood and it’s only been five minutes. They’ll feel like
concrete before this is over.”

She sobbed and struggled to suck more air.
Five minutes. It had only been five minutes. She was going to die
before a half hour was over. The pain alone would kill her.

The hands on her calves continued to feel how
her muscles worked as she raised and lowered herself.

She tried shifting her weight to her left
foot to give her right rest, but she couldn’t support herself on
only one foot. The effort increased the strain on her shoulders.
The pain was so intense that she wasted precious air to scream and
had to struggle to take another breath.

“Lovely,” the first voice said. “I could feel
that scream right through her tits.”

A new voice said, “Let me help you out,
dear.”

A hand shoved between her legs to push three
fingers into her cunt. Another hand parted her nether cheeks to
shove two fingers into her asshole.

Then she was lifted by cunt and asshole. Not
off the ground, and not really by her cunt – those fingers put most
of the pressure on her pubic bone, painfully crushing her clit –
but it was enough to help a little. For the moment, she did not
need to put so much weight on her feet or her shoulders. Despite
feeling like her asshole was about to be torn asunder, she took the
opportunity to gasp a great gulp of air. It was the best breath
that she’d drawn since the crucifixion had begun.

The hands in her crotch fell away and her
shoulders protested the return of her full body weight. Waves of
agony surged through her chest.

She cried aloud and someone laughed.

She never realized how well men could be
entertained by the suffering of a woman.

Hands drew away to be replaced by new hands
and new voices marveled at the rigidity of her muscles.

Her ordeal continued, on and on. She was
caught in a timeless dark eternity of unbearable pain. Pain that
she had to bear, regardless.

Her legs were quivering uncontrollably. Sweat
was pouring over her ribs. Her mask was soaked with tears.

She felt like she was dying. She hoped that
she was dying. She would welcome that sweet oblivion.

A voice said, conversationally, “Fifteen
minutes. She’s already half-way through her punishment. This
doesn’t seem so bad. It’s not as severe as a good, harsh
caning.”

Only fifteen minutes! She couldn’t endure
another quarter hour of this. She had already used every ounce of
strength in her body. Her legs were quivering uncontrollably every
time she had to exert effort and take another breath.

Not so bad, he said? She’d take a caning over
this any day. She would have told the man so, but that wouldn’t
save her a minute of this ordeal. It would only earn her a
punishment for breaking her silence. If she spoke, she’d probably
earn a caning to be administered after the crucifixion was
complete. But she had not forgotten that she had already earned
another punishment to be administered after the crucifixion. The
one that her owner had to authorize. The one that she had earned
simply by having once been a lady.

Her calves were almost numb. She could barely
feel them.

“I don’t know about that,” a voice replied to
the previous comment. “This seems pretty bad to me. Look at the
bitch sweat.” Fingers gently caressed the corduroy skin on her ass.
“She’s been caned before. She knows what that feels like. Let’s ask
her.” A hand slapped her lightly on her masked cheek. “Hey, you in
there, we have a question. Which is worse? A dozen strokes of a
cane or a half hour of crucifixion? If you had to choose one or the
other, which one would you pick?”

She didn’t answer. She just hung her head and
suffered.

“Answer me.”

She shook her head, wearily.

Someone laughed. “She’s still mute.”

“Nod if you’d take a caning and shake your
head if you’d take crucifixion.”

She nodded slowly.

Laughter. “I told you. She’d take a caning
over this.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure that this
has made her sorry that she wasn’t a better slave, anyway. Aren’t
you? Don’t you wish that you’d served us better during the
evening?”

She didn’t bother trying to reply. She had
served every man in every way she could.

Her legs gave out. She simply couldn’t
support herself any longer. Her shoulders blazed in pain at the
increased weight and she gasped.

She struggled to get her feet back under her
and relieve the pain but her legs wouldn’t work any more. All she
could do was hang in place and struggle for every shallow
breath.

In a fog, she kept trying to let go of the
handles that kept her arms outstretched, but her fingers wouldn’t
work. She tried and tried, forgetting that leather straps wound
around and around to hold them in place.

She had to get more air. Fighting against
excruciating pain, she forced her calf muscles to raise her on her
toes one more time.

She managed to fill her lungs again.

By now, she was hardly aware of the hands
that keep caressing her body, squeezing her breasts, shoving
fingers into her crotch, and, worst of all, stroking her arms to
appreciate, vicariously, the stress that was pulling her muscles
into tight, hard bundles of steel cables.

The pain was beyond excruciating.

Someone put a hand under her chin and raised
her head to kiss her on the lips. She took advantage of the hand
and forced her chin down against his strong grip. She managed to
take a few pounds of weight off her shoulders that way.

Every ounce was precious, now.

Suddenly, all hands were removed from her
body. Someone was saying something, but a roar in her ears drowned
the words.

Then, a miracle. Her heels touched the floor.
Then her hands dropped lower and lower.

Her legs could barely hold her, they were
shaking so badly.

Strong hands unwrapped the leather from
around her right hand. Her fingers were so stiff that a handler had
to unbend them far enough to remove her hand from the steel
dowel.

A man, one of the handlers, grabbed her arm
to keep her steady while her left and was unwrapped and removed
from that handle, too.

She was no longer being crucified. She
lowered her arms to her sides and sagged in the handlers’ grip.

Inside the mask, she wept in relief.

They forced her to step out of the
crucifixion frame.

Her calf muscles refused to work properly and
she had to shuffle along the floor flat-footed.

“Gentleman,” Thorn said, “that is how you
punish a slave.”

The applause was thunderous.

When it died away, she said, “Now, the moment
that you have all been waiting for. Is this the lady who sold
herself into slavery?”

There was a long dramatic silence.

“I can tell you that this slave is named
Flame.”

Some muttering from the audience.

“A suitable name for a slave, don’t you
think?”

More muttering.

“But what was her name before she became a
slave?”

Silence.

“Here is the key to her collar.”

There was a moment of shuffling and then
Flame felt fingers at the back of her neck. A moment later, the
buckles unfastened, the collar dropped to the floor.

Hands turned her around so that her back was
to the audience. The black numbers forever tattooed on the nape of
her neck were now visible to all.

“This slave is registered six-one-one-zero,
three-one-zero-nine, five-six-five-seven.”

Two zippers, one on each side of her head,
were pulled from the back to the top of her forehead. The mask
dropped to the floor and her hair cascaded down her back. The light
was painfully bright. She blinked away tears and saw a wall.

Hands stoked a few stray locks off her
face.

“Gentleman, I present Flame–”

She was turned to face the audience.

A roar of appreciation drowned out the rest
of Thorn’s sentence.

“–the slave formerly known as the Lady Irene
Fortson, wife of Lord James Fortson.”

Flame looked at the audience in misery. Most
of the faces were familiar, many were very familiar.

When the hubbub faded and Thorn could be
heard again, she said, “The slave, Flame, was not able to hide
among the other slaves. You found her out. Congratulations. The six
men whose names are inscribed upon her belly will each be given a
gold medal that was struck for tonight’s event.” Thorn held up a
small golden coin.