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8. Her Turn
She had hardly even noticed the swelling of the crowd wandering about among the tables, pawing at her through the cage. She had so inured herself to this loathsome swamp of humanity with their endless taunts and rude invasions that she had withdrawn into an anesthetized despair. She failed to perceive the change in the atmosphere as guards took up positions by the doors. It's not until a guard inserts a key in the padlock on her cage door that she's jolted into frightful awareness that her time has come.
The front of the cage swings open and a silver choke collar and leash is quickly slipped over her head and tightened around her neck. A second guard is releasing her wrists from the cuffs that held them to the sides of the cage. Fully alert now to the imminence of death, her heart pounds, every sense sharpened to painful clarity. With a shock she realizes she's looking directly into the pleasant face of the sandy haired guard who sat next to her on the plane, the man who said he wished she'd been sold to him as a "fuck toy." He tugs on her leash and she stumbles out of the cage, her knees buckling from the hours of standing immobile. He shoves a hand between her thighs and holds her up by her crotch until she's able to control her legs. She staggers backwards out of his hand to the end of her leash, angry at his impertinence, yet oddly grateful for his help and appalled at her flush of arousal when her clit slid past his fingers. Most of all, she's disconcerted that he is the one who will take her to her death.
But why? What difference does it make who actually leads her to the platform? Why should she care which one hangs her up for the slaughter?
She remembers her plan for a possible escape and looks past him to the tables. They're gone, and the knives with them. They've been taken away to make room for this fourth influx of dining guests eager to inspect the final sacrificial offering, watch the preparation of the main course for the ten o'clock seating and maybe even help with the slaughter. The high point of a good snuff banquet.
So much for escape!
She glances to her right. All three cages have been opened and the other girls are equally rubbery on their legs. One of them — the last of the Amsterdam beauties — falls to her knees and is hauled back to her feet by her blonde curls. Suddenly Lili feels another grain of appreciation for her own guard. At this point in her ordeal she would rather be helped to her feet with a hand in her crotch than jerked up painfully by the hair.
Another tug on the leash and the little procession begins, Lili joining the other two women on their way to an appointment with the sacrificial knife. She remembers being struck by the eroticism of this scene from the viewpoint of an observer. Naked young females paraded through a fully dressed, jeering, hooting crowd. Strangely, it feels as erotic to be doing it as it did to observe, even though the destination is death. Maybe because of that.
She is acutely aware of the feeling of the ground under her feet, partly grass, partly flagstones, partly brick. The sensation is exquisite, her last contact with the earth, her last experience with the sweetness of life. Of existence. A thing so precious. So short.
Only steps away now from the platform where her life will end, from the upright posts and the cross beam with three ropes hanging down, hooks dangling from the ends. Waiting. Which one will be hers? Where will she die? Her life only minutes long now. Her heart hammering. Her bowels cramped. Will she disgrace herself at the end? No; she's been cleaned out with three enemas. Now she knows why.
The procession comes to a stop. Her legs are trembling. She keeps her face blank. She'll not give them the satisfaction of showing her terror. The guard with the pleasant face and sandy hair turns her to face her audience. Their smiles and excitement sicken her. She notices that he's led her to the number one position. She'll be the first to die. It's better that way. Get it over with. Is that why he put her here?
He's preparing the gag, a red handkerchief with a buckled leather strap to hold it in place.
"Open up," he says softly.
Why resist? He'll just hurt her until she does it anyway. She opens her mouth and feels the dry texture of the cloth on her tongue.
"Shhh," he whispers, as he feeds the cloth slowly into her mouth with his fingers.
"Don't react. I'm going to do you a small favor. I wish I could save you from this because you don't deserve it, Miss Lily Primrose, but I can't. What I can do is make it less easier for you. When they hang you up by the ankles, that's the worst part. The wire cuts right through your skin to the bone. Extremely painful. But I'm going to slip a little piece of leather under the wire so it won't hurt so much. For godsake, don't wiggle or squirm or you'll knock it out."
As he's been talking, another guard has been tying her wrists together, cinching the rope tight. Now he reaches for the hook and works it between her arms and under the ropes. She feels the hook pulling her hands up over her head. Her arms pull painfully in their sockets as she is lifted off the ground. It's worse when the guards spread her legs and tie the ropes from her ankles to the ground bolts. The downward pull of the ropes accentuates the strain on her shoulder ligaments. She holds her breath and bites hard on the gag so she won't cry. She's seen this ritual three times and knows exactly what to expect. But watching it and living it are entirely different.
It seems to take forever for the white-smocked women to arrive with their catheters and bottles. Pain flares up from her crotch as the catheter is inserted hastily into her pee hole and shoved callously up the urethra into her bladder, tearing the delicate tissues along the way. She looks down between her breasts and watches her urine, pink with blood, drain into the bottle. She thinks back to a time when hanging naked in front of a large audience while emptying her bladder would have been unthinkably shameful. Was that only a few days ago? The catheter is suddenly ripped from her urinary tract with a stab of pain. The attendant rushes off with the tube and the bottle of pink piss.
Lili is unaccountably saddened to see this last normal excretion of her body taken away to be discarded. How hard it is when everything you do is for the last time, even peeing. And to be so disposable. How soon will memories of her be discarded at home? When will they decide she's never coming back? When will they start disposing of those things that are a reminder of her existence — her clothes, dishes, photographs, furniture, her little Toyota Echo? Will they give up hope for her only after her absence is taken for granted, when it's too late to shed tears, to honor her with their tears? Perhaps, in the end, that's the true test of a person's value in this world. Has she left her footprint in the sand, or is she just food and garbage? Fertilizer for another generation.
Her ankles come together as the ropes are untied. Her feet touch the ground as the hook lowers. She almost weeps with relief as it drops further, carrying her wrists down to the level of her waist. The guards are waiting, including the pleasant faced man. They untie her wrists and as the blood rushes painfully back into her hands they wrench her arms behind her back and begin binding them together with wire, forearm to forearm. Wire is not rope. It hurts! It's twisted tight because in the cooking process her body will shrink, so they compensate in advance. The second guard suddenly puts an arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders and sweeps her feet off the ground. The guard who would have preferred to have purchased her as a "fuck toy" begins winding wire around her ankles. As he promised, he slips a narrow strip of leather under the wire before tightening and securing it with multiple twists. Lili feels the hard iron of the hook grate between her ankles and begin pulling her feet upward. She has stood on her feet for the last time.
She glances over at the other two girls and sees what she missed with the previous three groups. Their faces are twisted with pain. Blood is seeping out around the wires as they cut ever deeper into their ankles. The gags muffle their whimpering. Her own ankles register considerable discomfort from the intense tightening of the padded wires, but her suffering is obviously nothing like theirs.
The three attendants are back and with a click their clippers buzz into action. Lili feels the cutter bar sliding over her scalp and watches sadly as large locks of her long dark hair fall to the ground. In a few minutes she is bald, her scalp sensitized to the slightest movement of air, unaccustomed to the total exposure. The clippers make a painful pass over each eyebrow. They don't need to bother with her pussy because her abductor shaved it in the cabin.
Lili looks over at the girl next to her. Her blond curls lie in a heaped mass under her head. It matches the narrow strip of pubic hair the attendant is shaving. A natural blonde.
Her own attendant has made a quick application of foam and a few razor strokes to her eyebrows. Now she follows it with a closer shave of the vulva area. Apparently someone has purchased her "cunt crisps." It doesn't take long since the attendant doesn't care if her hurried shaving draws blood or makes the patient flinch.
Once again the three attendants gather their equipment and disappear.
Now it's time for the drawing. What lucky guest will have the pleasure of cutting her throat? Her heart is beginning to hammer again. She knows it won't be long. Maybe she would have preferred to be third instead of first? No. A few more minutes of life aren't worth the anguish of watching the others die. A gruesome countdown to your own execution.
The two men who conduct the drawing are taking their place between the victims and the guests. Their excitement is growing. There's the hat filled with numbers, one for each of them. What fun!
"Damen und Herren. Madams et monsieurs. Ladies and gentlemen."
Lili sees that the girl beside her, still beautiful despite her shaved head and eyebrows, has drawn blood on both elbows where her hands are constantly clutching and releasing them, the long fingernails digging into her flesh. Nervous tension? Or to distract herself from the pain in her ankles? Probably both. Tears are rolling from the corners of her eyes down to the blond stubble on her scalp.
Fragments of an old spiritual infiltrate Lili's thoughts. Hush, little baby, don't you cry; you know your momma was born to die . . . Too late . . . but never mind . . . all my trials . . . soon be over.
"The Society of Isis is pleased to announce that the first winner of the lottery for this sacrifice is number . . . ."
How appropriate it is that the guests have been reduced to mere numbers as well as their victims. A woman squeals with delight! Will this one be as squeamish at carrying out her duty as the first woman was? She hopes not. How hard can it be to murder a helpless young woman?
A moment later the happy winner of the snuff drawing is standing in front of her. Even upside down, Lili has no trouble recognizing the buxom bottle-blonde with the precarious d é colletage, the woman who had argued with her husband over the value of her breast meat. She seems really pleased with herself. Well, why not? It must be gratifying to be able to kill the woman whose tits so fascinated her husband. Happy anniversary!
"Members and guests of the Society of Isis, we welcome you to the M ä dchenbraten and to the celebration of our beloved Goddess. It is to the glory of Isis that we offer and dedicate the last of our sacrifices on this day. May the blood of these three young maidens and the roasting of their flesh be acceptable in her sight . . . ."
Lily wonders how people in the normal world deal with the knowledge of their impending death. People with cancer, failing organs, gunshot wounds. People trapped in the rubble of fallen buildings, or on sinking ships. Does it help when there's pain? Does that make death a welcome relief?
". . . Let us, in turn, honor her bounteous favors by using our health to enjoy the full pleasures of our bodies, and our prosperity to seek those pleasures in abundance."
She thinks about suicide. How much pain, mental or physical, does it take to make someone want to throw away what she herself so dearly wants to keep, that one priceless possession on which everything else depends, and which, once discarded, can never be retrieved?
"Das Schwert aus Isis!"
"DAS SCHWERT AUS ISIS!"
She watches the man in the white chef's costume hand the woman hand the scalpel, handle first, to the woman in the daring black cocktail dress. Its pointed blade, sharper than a razor, glints in the late afternoon sun. Then it disappears from her view as the woman thrusts it aloft.
"Heil Isis!" she cries.
The crowd, flushed with drink and ecstatic with anticipation of the first killing, shouts back. "HEIL ISIS!"
Lili closes her eyes. Her heart is pounding wildly!
A sharp sting on the left side of her neck. Another on the right. Warm liquid washes down both sides of her inverted face in a pulsing tide. It collects on her chin and spills into the corners of her mouth, soaking into the gag. For some reason the taste of it makes her open her eyes. They're immediately flooded by the torrent of blood, blurring her vision. When she tries to blink it away, it collects on her lashes. Blood runs into her nose, blocking it up. Her lungs demand air and she snorts out a spray of blood that rains back on her face. She looks towards the ground at the bowl that's been placed under her head. It's filling rapidly with the blood that her heart is frantically pumping through the severed arteries in a futile effort to restore pressure.
Carotid! That's the name of the arteries! The carotid arteries. She will be dead in a few more seconds, and yet that small triumph, remembering the name of the damned arteries, gives her a little peace of mind. Just when she needs it most. A curious sort of closure.
Her heart is fluttering. It's running out of blood to pump. It can't keep up with the outflow. Because she's upside down, there's still blood in her brain, but it's running out of oxygen. It can't get back to the lungs for refreshment because the pressure in her viens has dropped to zero. She knows this. And there's nothing she can do.
She's getting light-headed, like an overdose of cold pills. Very dizzy.
She closes her eyes again. Doesn't want them open when her corpse is taken down, like some game animal shot in the woods.
She tries to flex her hands at her elbows, but if it happened she can't feel it. In fact, she can't feel anything, even the padded wires gripping her ankles.
Which reminds her, she wants to thank that sandy haired guard for his small kindness. What did he call her? A fuck toy? She tries to remember what a fuck toy would do, but it's hard to think in a straight line. Everything is so fuzzy now. So muddled.
She's spinning. Spinning in numbed silence. A heavy spinning silence. Pressing in on her. She doesn't have the strength to break through it.
She's too tired, anyway. Too tired to think any more.
Or care.
And too sleepy.
So very sleepy.
Best just to sleep.
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