KATYA'S ORDEAL Entering the main hall, Katya looked around in wonder. The room was a riot of Bokhara carpets and cushions, hangings of silk and muslin, loops of chain and rope. At irregular intervals along the walls preserved heads hung by their hair. There were nameplates beneath them; Alexandra’s and Rosa’s heads were there and a beautiful blonde head in the centre of the facing wall was labelled “Elena”. She turned to Grigori to ask about this, but then remembered her place. “Lie here” he told her, indicating the great refectory table. It was lit by bleeding women who hung from their ankles by chains slung between pillars, each with a candle lodged in her cunt and another in her arse. They sighed and panted as they writhed in their bonds, hopelessly straining to avoid the hot wax running over their lips. Katya climbed onto the polished oak surface and lay sprawled on her back like a bride awaiting her man - or a victim awaiting the priest. Grigori went back the way he had come and left her for several hours, alone with the soft moans of the human candlesticks and the memory of Dana’s ecstatic sacrifice. At last, a door creaked open and Katya opened her eyes wide, chewing her lower lip and digging her nails into her palms to contain her excitement. Leon and Andrei took their places either side of her; they had washed and changed into silk suits and they were discussing the new editor of ‘Cinema Review’. Out of the corner of her eye, Katya saw a pale-skinned girl with fine, ash-blonde hair. Completely nude, she hurried to and fro bringing the men glasses of wine, heavy cutlery and linen napkins in ivory rings. “We should find the text of his address to the academy,” said Leon “then we could decide for ourselves”. Andrei murmured assent, and then both turned as Grigori entered from the kitchen. He, too, was dressed immaculately and he carried a great mound of bloody steaks on a silver salver that he placed on the table between Katya’s trembling thighs. She panted and ran her tongue around her lips as he leant across her to lay slices of rare meat over her outspread body, warm and dripping. All conversation had ceased, and the men paid close attention as Grigori placed the steaks across her bosom and stomach slowly and carefully; Katya ran her fingers over her face and through her hair, fighting the urge to arch her back and writhe at his gentle touch. “Eat, all of you” Grigori laughed. “Her name was Dana”. Andrei leant forward to peel a strip of meat from Katya’s flat stomach. She shivered at the touch of his fingers and moaned aloud when Grigori also reached out to take a piece from between her breasts. He carried it to her mouth and she parted her lips eagerly to take the dripping morsel from his fingers with her teeth. She rolled her head ecstatically as she swallowed human flesh. When Leon and Andrei bent their heads to her crotch and chest to take juicy medaillons into their mouths Katya grasped the edge of the table. She went rigid, threw her head back against the board and howled her excitement to the vaulted ceiling as three cannibal tongues licked the jus and blood from her quivering flesh. Leon fed her the last gobbet of meat with his thumb and forefinger and she stretched her neck to take it, sucking the last drips from his fingers and licking her lips. Andrei leant over her to lick a trail of blood from her ribs and over the swell of her bosom. Then he sat back, abruptly. “This is a cruel torment” he complained. “I wish to lick her own blood from her – and she wants that too”. “You know the plan” replied Grigori, sternly. “She must be back in her office tomorrow, with nothing suspicious about her - not even scars. We can fuck her hard but she must be blindfolded and on her way back to the Old City by midnight”. “Yes, yes” Andrei acknowledged, grudgingly. He rose to his feet and unfastened his trousers, seizing Katya by the hair to direct his stiff cock to her mouth. She wrapped her fingers around the shaft and looked up into his eyes. “Please Andrei?” she began. He nodded. “I can telephone a code to my director which tells her that I am investigating something sensitive and must not be disturbed for a period of days. That way, I could be yours to use until Sunday”. She turned to Grigori with a strange smile, “They will expect me to file a report next week, but that need not concern us, in the circumstances”. “Bring her phone” Grigori ordered, and the pale nude put down her tray of glasses and hurried from the room. Katya sat up to take the telephone and quickly transmitted her message. “I am yours” she confirmed to the men seated around her, with a catch in her voice which she failed to hide. “Would you dim the lights, please?” asked Grigori, and the others attended to the two suspended slaves, wrenching the wax candles from their tortured cunts and lowering them to the floor. “Go.” he told them “Go back to your cells and wait until we send for you”. The women struggled to their feet and stumbled from the hall, leaning on each other for support. Leon and Andrei remained where the ankle-cuffs hung from the rafters above and beckoned for Katya to join them. Grigori helped her down from the table and she went to them, lay back on the floor, and raised her feet to be manacled and hoisted into the air. The men hitched their ropes and Katya was stretched upside-down between them, her hair hanging loose and trailing down onto the floor. “There is a deerskin whip on the cabinet over there” said Grigori, directing the fair-skinned slave girl. He paced around Katya, swinging a pair of handcuffs as he went, and reached between her outspread thighs to accept the whip – a dozen strips of soft leather woven together at the handle – which he draped over her upturned crotch. “Your wrists” he ordered, and Katya stretched her arms behind her to be cuffed together. He took the whip again; the supple tails stroked her cunt as he drew it slowly towards him and she could not suppress a soft cry of excitement. “She is very wet” Grigori said silkily. “Come” he urged the waiting blonde, “Feel her”. The girl stepped closer and ran a testing finger slowly over Katya’s open lips, provoking another deep sigh from her. On his nod, she continued with her gentle stroking. Katya began to buck her hips wantonly at the tender assault and Grigori swiped the whip across her buttocks. The buckskin slapped maddeningly into her arse and back, barely reddening the flesh but bringing Katya to a burning plateau of arousal. Leon took a fistful of flaxen hair and pressed the girl’s face down onto Katya’s cunt. She needed no urging, and started to lap and suck feverishly, pulling the lips apart with her fingers to lick deep inside and nibble wickedly at the erect clit. The whip continued its relentless stimulation, now tormenting Katya’s thighs mere inches away from the churning tongue. Her head tossed from side to side between the slave’s knees and she rasped out a rhythmic pattern of bestial grunts. Suddenly, the sucking stopped; Leon had pulled the slave’s head back again. “May I have the whip?” he asked Grigori. “Her nipples need attention”. Of course,” Grigori passed it over and drew the pale girl toward him. “You must continue your efforts from here” he told her “But be gentle and focus on her arsehole”. She looked from his eyes to Katya’s helpless body and back, her face a blank mask of lust. For several minutes Leon played the whip back and forth across Katya’s aching nipples, occasionally swiping her belly and flanks so that she could never anticipate where the next stroke would fall. The girl bent over her from behind, forcing her burning cheeks apart with both hands, now delicately brushing her soft lips over Katya’s throbbing clit and now driving the tip of her tongue wetly into her anus. “Kneel down here and suck hard on her teats” Leon ordered, laying down the deerskin, and the three men walked off through a side door talking amongst themselves. Katya hung helplessly imploring the slave to stop or to bite hard, driven to the edge of reason by the gentle insistence of lips and tongue on her pulsing nipples until at last she saw the men coming back into the hall. Leon dragged a weighty wooden block over the stone floor, Grigori bore a huge bearded axe on his shoulder and Andrei stripped off his shirt and tie as he walked. “I hope you will find this death meaningful” Grigori said with a twinkle in his eye as Andrei took the axe from him and beckoned silently. The blonde let her eyes close for a moment and her head tilted to one side as she heaved a sigh. She put her hands behind her back and walked forward meekly, but her eyes never left the gleaming edge of the blade and she licked her lips. “The Pallid Mask” the girl whispered as she stepped up to the block and dropped gracefully to her knees. Settling her chest and neck into the hollow carved into the wood she brushed her fair hair forward from her neck and shoulders then stretched her arms out behind her and spread her knees wide, her shaved cunt shining wetly and her nipples erect. The bud of her arse winked and a drop of moisture ran down her thigh as Andrei brought the axe down on her slender neck and the head flew from her shoulders with a great jet of blood. Giving an animal roar, he threw himself at the twitching corpse and seized it by the hips, driving his cock into her. Grigori and Leon moved in, stepping out of their trousers.