Territory Slaves

Chapter Three - Torture and Affairs of State

Jahhan spent an endless night in restless terror. In reality, many days must have passed, maybe even weeks, but to Jahhan it was all one long nightmare. Finally, glaring lights heralded the arrival of something far more frightening. He knew what would happen now. A few hours before, a shower was revealed for the first time. To prove his humanity with cleanliness more than anything, Jahhan had stepped into the cold shower.

Now Jahhan wondered about the wisdom readying himself for torture. He watched the door even though his eyes watered from the bright light after the long time in darkness. The door opened. Sesul stood in the frame.

“Follow.” He said, expressionlessly.

Jahhan stared at him from his corner. He didn’t know if his legs would even support him. He’d always faced trouble head on, but the whipping had shown him levels of pain existed beyond anything he could have imagined.

“Follow me.” Sesul repeated.

“What are you going to do to me?” Jahhan asked, not moving.

Sesul strode into the cell and grabbed for him. Jahhan tried to dodge the grab, but Sesul was too fast. He caught one of Jahhan’s arms and twisted, forcing him around. Sesul shoved him face first against the wall.

“You will be silent and follow me, with your eyes down or I will break your arm and drag you by it.” His voice was low and calm, but no less threatening than if he’d yelled. He twisted Jahhan’s arm harder until he thought Sesul would carry out his threat before giving him the chance to comply.

Sesul finally released him and left the cell without pausing to see if he followed. Jahhan followed as bid. He had no doubt Sesul kept his promises.

Sesul led him to the same room where he had been tortured before. Lehu wasn’t waiting for him, but the shackles were. This time, though, they were spaced far apart. The room also had a table against the wall, thankfully clear of torture implements.

Jahhan hesitated at the door, but Sesul caught his arm, pulled him to the center of the room, and shackled his wrists. The shackles drew his arms far out to his sides and a little higher than his shoulders. Sesul attached the clear band with the tube to his elbow.

“During this session you have permission to speak, you have permission to be free with your eyes, and you have permission not to follow any order given. I want everything you say or do to be of your own free will.” Jahhan wondered how a person could make “your own free will” sound so sinister. Sesul smiled. “Beg me to fuck you.”

Jahhan stared at him. The hell he would. He let his silence be his answer. A voice deep in his mind told him, Do it. Better that you do it. Jahhan’s breath caught at the thought. The hell he would.

Sesul’s smile widened and he walked towards the door. Last chance, the voice insisted. Jahhan remained silent. Sesul tapped a panel near the door. Something bumped Jahhan’s head. He started badly, jerking in the restraints. A collar attached to a line swung down in front of his face.

Sesul returned to him and placed the collar around his neck with the line at the back of his neck. He went back to the panel and tapped it again. The collar lifted, choking Jahhan until he managed to get up on his toes. He was now unable to turn his head freely, but from the corner of his eyes, Jahhan saw Sesul leave the room.

Jahhan understood the game quickly. He could stand on his toes, or he could pull up with his arms, but only for so long. He couldn’t reach the collar with his hands restrained so far apart. And when he couldn’t keep himself up any longer, he’d strangle. Slowly.

Time passed. A lifetime might’ve passed for all Jahhan knew. The pain in his calves and shoulders grew. He began to shake with the effort. As he lost the fight, his throat took more of his weight. Occasionally, he found reserves of strength, but even his reserves ran low. Pressure built behind his eyes. His lungs ached from the struggle to breathe. Jahhan managed to haul himself up again, but couldn’t hold the position.

The room began to grow dim, then he was off his burning calves and flat on his feet, the collar looser around his throat. He gasped for air. He looked up and moaned when a stabbing pain shot through his head.

Sesul stood before him, watching him, amused. A long moment passed before Jahhan remembered what Sesul wanted of him. A longer moment passed as Jahhan considered which option was worse. Then Sesul started for the door.

“Fuck me,” Jahhan cried out, startling himself with the strength of his panic. What if Sesul didn’t come back until it was too late? Would that even be a bad thing?

Sesul reached the door. His hand hovered over the panel. “Not good enough,” he said without turning around. He tapped the panel and left the room.

***
Kinnet eyed Jahhan’s monitors surreptitiously. Mijre had asked her to join her and the other guests to watch Jahhan’s session in the viewing area, in order to settle mundane details of ruling the Territory during dull moments, of course.

Jahhan turned his head to the side, towards his audience, futilely trying to ease the pressure. He couldn’t see them. Kinnet knew, from experience, that the semi-circular wall surrounding Jahhan looked solid and white to him, but from the viewing room perspective the special type of screen which made up the wall might as well not have been there at all. The wall was as clear on their side as it was opaque on Jahhan’s side. Sound sensors picked up every whimper and gasp, and carried them to the attentive audience yards away.

Slaves attended to some of the guests’ arousal, while other guests simply watched and sipped beverages. Kinnet often wondered how the Territories had become so universally depraved. Traditions, customs, and religions varied between the Territories, but they all enjoyed a similar taste in entertainment: suffering. The only outstanding aspect of Baceti Territory was the limited scope Mijre allowed in such entertainments. Free people in Baceti could do with their slaves as they pleased and this often involved torturing them for entertainment, but Mijre kept a tight reign on slave trade in Baceti. Slaves were valuable, which restrained their owners to a degree.

Mijre herself—the most sadistic individual Kinnet had ever known—kept only a handful of pets for amusement, while other Councilmen from other territories held mass “performances” for huge audiences. Such performances were even broadcast throughout the Territories.

Mijre would’ve been known as a poor hostess for her guests if it were not for the renown of her torturers, especially Sesul, and the ingenuity of her sessions. Popular opinion held that her small gatherings and the small scale, at least in numbers, of suffering gave the proceedings intimacy and the quality of a rare delicacy. Regardless, they admitted, she certainly didn’t stint the wider audience in the fighting arena.

Kinnet realized Mijre had started speaking to her as she watched Jahhan.

“Torland Territory requests trading rights with Duarya Nation. The prince referred the request to my advisors,” Mijre was saying.

Kinnet shifted her attention to her owner. “Torland? You annexed two districts from him three years ago. Why does he want to trade with us?”

“Downturn in his usual markets. I suppose ‘eternal enmity’, I believe were his words, is as long as it takes for his resources to drop past his comfort point. Shall we allow trade with Duarya?”

Kinnet considered Torland’s proposal, which Mijre had sent through to her screen. “Of course. Torland produces organic foodstuffs superior to most of Duarya’s more expensive suppliers. They need the competition. Besides, Torland would make a useful ally if he’s grateful enough to forget the past unpleasantness.”

Mijre smiled with affectionate approval. The sort of smile Lehu said made him want to stand between her and Kinnet. He disliked the similarity with the smiles Mijre bestowed on her pets, like the one suffering before them. Kinnet saw the difference: a lack of mockery when Mijre smiled at her. She feared the difference more than the similarity. She knew the fate of the pets. Her own fate was unchartered territory. Mijre had plans for her. Mijre’s plans for people usually turned out to be very unpleasant.

“You’re right. Perhaps we should send an ambassador. Sesul or one of the less frightening ones?” A shark-edged glint of humor flickered in her gray eyes before she turned serious. Sending a torturer as well known as Sesul to negotiate carried an undercurrent of a threat. But his presence also stressed the importance of the negotiations to Mijre. Everyone knew Mijre didn’t send him from her for just any mission.

“I believe you’ve frightened Torland enough.”

“Perhaps another ambassador then.”

Kinnet shot another glance at the monitors. Vitals consistent with strain, oxygenated blood levels low.

“The Sundehts withdrew their backing from Prince Rylam Li Sundeht.” Mijre said, conversationally.

Kinnet watched her expression closely. “He’ll lose Sundera in the vote.”

Mijre nodded. “The vote will go to me or Pietsi, with Ardres’s backing. I have decided to hold onto the prince for the time being. He’ll go to whoever wins Sundera.”

The unfortunate man. “Do you think Pietsi could win the vote?”

“Perhaps. Many people on the Council don’t want to see me gain the entire planet. I’ll need you and Sesul to run a little errand for me to the Sundehts.”

Jahhan whimpered a breathless, agonized plea to God. Kinnet could see Mijre’s attention slip from Territory affairs at the sound.

“Yes, mistress,” she said as Mijre touched the shoulder of the slave serving her. The slave moved under the privacy drape covering Mijre from the waist down. Kinnet looked away in distaste. Though her views on sexuality had changed greatly from the conservative attitude common in Matujen, she still had as much difficulty understanding the way people in the Territories put their own sexuality on display as she had understanding the unquenchable thirst for torture.

She glanced at the monitors again. Sesul had given Jahhan so little time to recover. He was strangling. His vitals on the monitors were becoming erratic. Kinnet wouldn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Sesul knew his craft and he had the same monitors as the viewing room. Besides medical could do most anything short of resurrecting the brain dead.

Get in there, Sesul.

As if obeying her command, Sesul entered the room and gave the line attached to the collar slack. Jahhan hung limply, still pulling the collar line taut and still choking. Sesul walked behind him, and lifted Jahhan with one arm to relieve the pressure. Only half-conscious, Jahhan’s head lolled back onto Sesul’s chest. Kinnet frowned. Everyone needed to connect, but some more than others. And when the only person available was his torturer . . .

Oh yes, Mijre would have fun with this one.

***
Jahhan roused from a pained-filled haze to find himself pressed against a warm body, with an arm wrapped around his chest. The arm held him until he returned fully to consciousness. The arm released him and Sesul stepped in front of him.

Sesul regarded him with a raised eyebrow until Jahhan remembered what was required of him. He couldn’t look Sesul in the eyes. “Please fuck me.” Silence. “Please. I beg you to fuck me.”

Sesul walked out of sight and the collar line went taut again. “Sesul?” Jahhan gasped.

Sesul’s arm snaked back around his chest. A hand brushed his bare behind and he heard a rustle of cloth. Despite having consented to this over strangling, Jahhan couldn’t keep from trying to jerk away. Sesul held him firmly, then lifted him. The tip of Sesul’s erection parted Jahhan’s cheeks and pushed against his opening. He tensed.

“Relax,” Sesul murmured in his ear. “It’ll hurt less.” Sesul let gravity pull Jahhan down on him. Jahhan gasped in pain at the intrusion and tried to push higher on his toes. Sesul tightened his grip and drew him down inch by excruciating inch.

Jahhan grunted with each breath and twisted weakly trying to escape the fierce pressure inside him. The agony grew until the collar line was pulled taut and Jahhan’s ass rested against Sesul’s groin. Sesul held him still for a moment. He fought for breath as lights flashed behind his eyes.

Sesul shifted his grip so he held Jahhan’s hips and finally lifted him. He gasped for air, then immediately released it in a pain-filled grunt when Sesul thrust into him hard. While Jahhan prayed he’d come with every stroke, Sesul thrust into him at a leisurely pace, which he seemed able to maintain indefinitely. Jahhan went limp in Sesul’s grip. He could do nothing but gasp for air and suffer.

Sesul drew Jahhan down until his entire erection filled him, and the collar didn’t allow him to breathe, then thrust in short, hard strokes. Just as Jahhan hoped he might pass out, Sesul stopped and lifted him until just his tip was still in him. Jahhan drew a deep breath automatically. Sesul shoved his entire length back into him in one stroke, forcing a ragged moan out of Jahhan. After several hard thrusts, Sesul’s breath finally grew harsh. He shortened his thrusts, quickened his pace, and came inside Jahhan.

Jahhan expected him to take a moment to recover, but he immediately pulled out. Jahhan gasped in relief when the pressure finally left him. Jahhan heard more rustling behind him. Then Sesul walked to the door, threw a cloth in a receptacle that appeared for a moment, and left the room.

Jahhan panicked. The rape had taken so long his muscles had rested, but they still trembled from the strain and the line on the collar was still taut. He’d begged for it. What did Sesul want from him?

He kept himself on his toes a few minutes this time. As his muscles failed, he considered not trying anymore, but the door opened again. Instead of Sesul, as Jahhan expected, Lehu walked into view. Lehu leaned against the table across from Jahhan and watched his struggles. Jahhan pushed to his toes with a remnant of strength. “Help me,” he managed in a breathless whisper. Shaking his head sadly, Lehu turned towards the door.

Jahhan had a sudden thought. “Fuck me, please.”

Lehu walked to the door.

“Please. I’m begging. I’m begging you to fuck me. Please.”

Lehu touched the panel, and Jahhan’s restraints released him. He collapsed, panting. Lehu lifted him off the floor by his arms and hauled him, stumbling, to the table. He lay Jahhan’s upper body face down across the table.

“I want you to feel me without distraction,” he said as he filled Jahhan’s sore body. Jahhan felt every stroke.

Lehu left him when he finished. Jahhan slid off the table and lay on the floor. He chose to focus on the gratitude of being allowed to rest over feeling his pain. He wasn’t left alone for long though. Sesul returned.

“Please fuck me.” Jahhan said uncertainly.

Sesul chuckled. “Later, I promise. Unfortunately, right now we have a serious matter to discuss. Your session is over. You no longer have permission to speak or be free with your eyes, and you must obey all orders again. Rather, you must start obeying orders. You were given these rules before, and yet today you broke them, before being granted permission for session. Tomorrow we will begin your punishments.”

Sesul tapped the panel to retract the shackles and collar, killed the lights, and left.

Feeling exposed, and a little ridiculous, Jahhan crawled under the table to rest. His body ached, especially where he’d been . . . abused. His throat felt tight and raw, and if they wanted to hear him scream tomorrow, he wasn’t sure he could oblige them. But he hadn’t suffered nearly the injury he had from the whipping, at least not physically.

Punishments. If his punishments were to begin tomorrow, what had he already been enduring?

Two red lights saved him from further contemplation. A dim red arrow and a dim red button. The cell and the torture room had the same system, then. He found the bowl and spoon, but he had to eat without the benefit of light. The red lights lit very little. He drank deeply of the water. Swallowing hurt his throat, but soothed it as well. As before, the water button did not vanish.

He walked slowly in the direction he thought he’d come from and felt around until he found the table. He lay down again to rest, curling his body and crossing his arms to conserve heat in the constant cold.

His hand encountered the plastic band on his elbow. He’d forgotten about it. The tube was still attached. Taut, but not pulling at his arm. The tube’s slack must constantly adjust as he moved. Strange. He thought the tube could be used to deliver some form of liquid, drugs or medicine, but didn’t know what or why. He didn’t try to remove it. Apparently he was in enough trouble.

The toilet appeared later with a light. After he used the toilet and returned to his place, sleep overcame Jahhan with suspicious speed.

He awoke to bright lights and hands reaching for him. He fought the urge to struggle as they pulled him from under the table. A long, tilted table with straps had been set up in the room. A flat panel on a stand sat under the higher end. He must have been drugged, to have missed the room lights coming on and the arrangement of the table.

The hands belonged to men wearing tunics, with short-sleeved shirts and shorter pants than he’d seen on Lehu and Sesul. They laid him face down on the table and strapped his wrists, thighs and ankles down. His head hung over the higher end of the table. They placed boards on either side of his back and secured the boards and his torso to the table with thin straps at intervals on his back from his armpits to his hips.

His back was to the door and he didn’t hear them leave, but the room became still and silent. Jahhan waited, feeling very aware a frame had been placed around his back, and was awaiting a painter.

He started when a hand reached in front of him and tapped the panel. A feminine hand. The panel now showed an image of his back, the tip of his sweat encrusted hair curling along the top of his shoulders.

“I am Weial,” a woman’s voice told him. “I’m here to teach you and punish you. You will find it difficult to pay attention to the lesson through the pain, but you must learn it.”

The hand disappeared from his view and reappeared on the screen holding a thin knife. Jahhan shuddered. She laid the knife against his skin. He bucked against the restraints as the blade sliced through his skin, but the straps held his torso too firmly for him to move. She continued to carve and he grunted from the pain.

“Pay attention to the screen.” He glanced at the screen. His stomach turned when he saw the livid wound slowly seeping blood. “This is the first symbol of the Bese alphabet, the primary language of Baceti Territory. The sound for this character is ‘se’. You have permission to speak to repeat the sounds. Se. Repeat.”

“Se.” Jahhan stared at a thin line of blood lazily running across “se”. Language lessons? In blood? Baceti Territory, she’d said. Was he in Baceti Territory? He gasped as she began another cut.

He fought to concentrate while she relentlessly carved into his skin. He had to struggle not to interrupt her with cries of pain. She didn’t repeat herself. When she finished carving, she went through the symbols, sounding each out for him. He repeated the sounds through gasping breaths. When she finished, he stared at the screen in front of him, horrified as he was by the image, and memorized as many as he could. He remembered so few of them and he knew they would punish him for what he didn’t know.

The men returned to remove him from the table and to tie him spread-eagle to a steel frame with his feet flat on the floor. Part of the wall became a viewer, showing the first symbol of the Bese alphabet. Before she left, Weial instructed him to sound out each character. He quickly learned errors caused marks to appear in an adjacent screen.

Despite his best efforts, he earned marks rapidly. After the characters had repeated a couple of times, the screen went through them with Weial’s voice speaking them. Then Jahhan was on his own again. After a few rounds, the marks added up more slowly. He had a performer’s memory and ear for sounds, but the nuances of some sounds escaped him and his raw and ragged throat occasionally betrayed him.

The challenge of the task kept him occupied at first, allowing him to relegate the pain in his body to the back of his mind. As the viewer continued showing symbols, though, the strain of his awkward position weakened him, the pain in his limbs grew more distracting, and his voice failed more often. He fought to keep his head up and his mind focused, but the marks increased.

He faced an army of marks when the character screen went blank.

Two men entered the room with whips. They took positions in front of and behind him, and began. The whips found for Jahhan his voice. They didn’t toy with him as Sesul and Lehu had. They kept a fast, brutal rhythm for the duration of the whipping. As painful as the blows were, especially across the slices in his back, Jahhan saw mostly welts on his front and little blood.

When they finished, the screen of marks vanished. Jahhan had never questioned what they meant. They released his ankles and wrists, dismantled the frame around his limp body, and left. Jahhan breathed a relieved sigh when the lights went out.

He couldn’t recall which direction the table was from him. He painfully crawled to the wall, then crawled along the wall until he found the table. He curled under the table to rest.

The red lights returned. Jahhan stared at them, unwilling to move, not caring if he starved. They stayed on. He considered what might happen if he ignored them. The idea of waiting to find out was unbearable. He crawled to them, and ate and drank. He waited for the toilet, unwilling to make another trip.

After he used the toilet, he returned to the table and received a reward for his efforts: unconsciousness.

***
“Come.” Sesul ordered. Jahhan crawled out from under the table.

Sesul took him across the hall, and handed him a cloth. “Scrub yourself thoroughly everywhere.” He said, pointing to the cold shower. Jahhan obeyed, hurting himself where his skin was bruised or broken, but grateful to clean off the blood, sweat and semen.

When he emerged, Sesul put a leather harness, of sorts, on him. A blindfold went over his eyes with a strap around the back of his head, another strap secured a soft gag in his mouth. Sesul put a collar on him, and cuffed his wrists to a ring on the collar at the back of his neck. Metal clicked on metal at his throat.

“I promised, didn’t I,” Sesul cooed in his ear. “Blindfolded and on a leash.” The leash pulled him forward, and he followed the pull uncertainly. They went further than a trip to the torture room would have taken.

As they walked, the corridor grew busier by the sound of the people. Jahhan flushed thinking of how he must look. Naked, blindfolded, leashed, and tortured. He’d wondered if they thought of him as an animal when he first arrived. He doubted even these people thought so poorly of animals.

Sesul paused, then drew him to the left. Finally Sesul stopped him. “Step up.”

Jahhan put a foot up about step height, and banged his toes on the step in front of him. He found the top and stepped up. He could hear people moving and speaking around him. He felt, timidly, for another step up in front of him, and found the ground dropped again instead.

A hand, probably Sesul’s, grabbed his ankle and pulled his foot far to the side, then moved his other ankle equally far to the other side. Cuffs were locked around his ankles, holding them in place with his legs spread wide. His wrist cuffs were unhooked from the collar and locked together behind his back. He felt something else click onto them before they were drawn up behind him. He kept limber and in shape for performances, though at 34 he was no longer as loose as in his youth, but his arms rose higher and higher, until he was bent over and his shoulders strained against the angle.

He bit the gag hard. The position left him open, vulnerable, and ashamed, which was certainly the intent. Someone stood in front of him and began gathering his hair. Someone who smelled like Sesul.

Realizing he knew Sesul’s scent caused Jahhan to jerk in unpleasant surprise. Sesul tightened his grip on Jahhan’s hair when he moved, so he stilled. He felt tugging on his hair, and when Sesul released his hair, it stayed back, out of his face. So he couldn’t hide, even behind his own hair.

Then the tugging moved to his balls. He began to shiver in fear. Sesul put some kind of ring around them, and tightened it. And tightened it again, until his balls ached. Two clicks on each side of his balls, and they were stretched downward, causing the ache to build. Finally, Sesul removed the leash with a click and replaced it with something Jahhan couldn’t guess at.

Sesul stepped away, leaving Jahhan alone with the voices of strangers. With Sesul’s preparations complete, the voices approached and a laughing man cupped his balls. He fondled them, twisted them, and commented, perhaps in Bese. A female laughed. He released Jahhan and those two voices moved away.

Other voices approached. A group of hands touched him, stroked him, pinched him, prodded him, twisted his nipples, even slapped him. He suffered the touches silently, moving as little as he could until something invaded his sore anus. He jerked forward. Someone spoke disapprovingly, but ruined the tone by laughing. The person grabbed whatever was attached to the collar and unhooked it.

The object in him left, and the disapproving voice stood behind him. Jahhan’s apprehensive questions were answered when something struck him painfully across his buttocks. He grunted. Sesul had thoughtfully left something which could be used to beat him hanging on him. The man struck him until he panted through his nose with pain, then reattached the implement to his collar. The object probing his anus immediately returned. Jahhan stayed still this time. At least it wasn’t very big. A finger, he realized, as he felt the joints flex.

The finger found a spot which filled Jahhan with a pleasurable sensation. Sesul and Lehu had hit the same spot while they were in him, but the pressure and pain had overwhelmed the pleasure. The finger seemed determined to overcome the pain he was in now. He flushed as the finger rubbed the spot rhythmically. His balls throbbed in aching counterpoint. Confused, his penis bobbed, stirring from the pleasure, and the people sounded as if they appreciated the attempt.

A cool hand jolted Jahhan by wrapping around his shaft. Someone must have taken offense. The implement was unhooked again. He steeled himself against a beating like before, but the blows landed on his stretched, sensitive balls. Jahhan couldn’t help but shout into the gag and twist to try to escape. The implement returned to his collar after several blows.

The group returned to the previous entertainment. The hands brought him unwanted pleasure in a teasingly slow build, but stopped short of bringing him to orgasm. Though he ached without release, he was grateful he hadn’t with such hated stimulation.

The people moved into another room, a door cut off the voices abruptly, and he was alone. Perhaps being alone was worse. No hands distracted him from the pain between his legs and strain on his shoulders. No voices kept his mind occupied with trying to determine content by the tone.

The minutes stretched, as aching as his balls. He tried counting them, but kept losing track when a wave of pain washed over him. He’d almost convinced himself he wanted the people back when they arrived. The implement left his collar and he knew he was safer alone.

Someone behind him spoke Jahhan’s language with a light voice and a heavy accent, “We give pleasure to you, but you are here for punishment. We must punish you.”

The man beat him so thoroughly, Jahhan actually felt gratitude that the man aimed more blows to his buttocks than his balls, when he felt anything other than agony. The man returned the implement to its place, and the hands returned, but the touches seemed half-hearted. A finger would enter him, tease him a bit, before the owner wandered off to speak to another. A woman tugged on his balls absently, dragging a moan out of him with each tug, while holding a conversation. Until even she wandered away.

Suddenly, the ring around his balls dropped away. He writhed and moaned into his gag as the blood flowed back into them. When the waves of pain finally subsided, his wrists were lowered. He suffered through the aftermath of the strain put on his arms and shoulders. All of the cuffs were removed. He heard them set aside on his platform.

“Legs together.” Sesul ordered. A rare order Jahhan wanted to follow. Sesul removed the gag, then the blindfold. Jahhan noted the foot long leather paddle hanging from his neck, then stared at his feet. Sesul tugged him off the platform and turned him so he faced the group of people, now standing in a loose row a few feet away. Jahhan ducked his head lower, realizing he wore nothing except his instrument of punishment. Sesul stood at Jahhan’s shoulder.

“Look at them,” Sesul ordered. Jahhan felt a little ill as he reluctantly raised his eyes to look at the people who had fondled him, or worse, so casually. “Look each one in the eyes.”

Amused, leering, knowing eyes. They knew every inch of his body. They knew he would unwillingly respond to their touch. They’d watched his suffering without sympathy. He looked down when he’d made a circuit. Sesul dug fingers into his shoulder until he looked up again. Eight people ran their eyes over him, without seeing him.

“Every person in Baceti can use your body, if we grant them access. Each person here has been granted access and will be using you at a later date, however they wish, until they are satisfied your body has nothing left to offer them.”

Jahhan could see the people deciding the use of his body. He wanted to look away.

“You may look down.” Sesul said.

Relieved, Jahhan looked down. Anger followed. Sesul had managed to make him feel ashamed to look at them. The anger died in the face of fear. Sesul had only begun and would only stop when Jahhan believed he didn’t deserve better treatment. Or he would stop when Jahhan died.

Sesul removed the collar and handed the paddle to Jahhan. He pointed to man in a white fitted shirt and loose blue pants. “Hival enjoyed the paddle. Perhaps he would like to use it when he has you again. Offer it to him. Bow and kiss the paddle. Hold it out for him and do not straighten until he takes it or pushes away your hands.”

With increasing mortification, Jahhan walked on shaky legs to the man, bowed, and kissed the hard leather surface. He held it before him. The paddle left his hands. He stumbled back to Sesul, who ordered him to bow to his superiors as they departed.

They waited for the room to clear before Sesul finally led him back through the corridor to the torture chamber. His legs barely held him upright, and he would have been weaving and stumbling except Sesul took hold of his arms.

Sesul released his arms after attaching the arm band. Jahhan sank to the ground, hating himself for feeling inferior to the perverts who would use him, and hating himself for feeling more secure with the torturer holding him.

The torturer himself didn’t even acknowledge him before leaving him alone in the dark again.

***