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 ï>¿Flesh byWonderstormÂ(C)
Flesh: Sacrifice Ch.  04

   Dani D'Annunzio wiped sweat from her brow as she plunged her paddle
deeper and more forcefully into the water.  Her muscles ached, and even
though she knew full well that Benitez was doing most of the work behind
her, she was contributing all she could at the front of the canoe.  She
longed for another quick dip in the Rio Rosa.  She longed for a break in
the paddling.  She longed for Benitez to turn the canoe towards the river's
edge to her left.

   While their first day in the canoe had been slow and lazy, today's trek
had been nothing of the sort.  The morning started slowly enough, Dani and
the doctor digging just slightly deeper into the water as they fought an
increasing current up-river.  But by mid-day, the current had gotten so
strong that the American girl wondered if they were making any progress
whatsoever.  At one point, just after lunch, they'd been forced to unload
the canoe and make a number up trips along the river's edge by foot,
carrying their supplies past a powerful series of cataracts that they'd
encountered.  Dani feared, hearing the roar of rushing water and seeing the
crash of the Rio Rosa against the rocks in front of her, that they'd be
forced to do so again.

   "It's beautiful," she nonetheless remarked, allowing herself a moment to
take in the waterfall.  It stood six, maybe seven stories tall, and was a
good three hundred feet across, with the tip of an island splitting the
falls into two.  Mist rose from where the water cascaded down into the
river below, froth and bubbles everywhere.  It seemed impossible that the
outside world wouldn't know of this waterfall, wouldn't be sending wave
after wave of tourists to photograph it.

   "Qaqaqa Qan," Benitez nodded.  Translating, he explained, "'Thunder.'"

   "Are we going around?"

   The Argentine answered in the affirmative.  "Manqus Wasi is up there,"
he announced, pointing at the island between the two halves of Qaqaqa Qan.

   Dani swallowed hard.  They were here.

   Benitez grimaced.  "Our escort is here waiting for us."

   Dani didn't see anyone.  She searched the horizon, looking for any sign
of life.  It was growing dark, and the girl had difficulty seeing too
deeply into the jungle.

   "They're hiding," the doctor explained.  "They're watching us."

   The brunette wasn't entirely comfortable with unseen eyes watching her
every move.  Why didn't they just show themselves?  Why weren't Dani and
Benitez greeted with the same jubilation and excitement that Summer had
received in Aya Pampa?  Why weren't they making themselves known?

   "I'm not sure," Benitez answered after Dani had voiced her concerns
aloud.  "Maybe it's just that they're expecting a blonde."

   Dani was back in the bright yellow cover-up dress, with her black
swimsuit underneath.  She'd slept just inches from Benitez back in the tent
at Santa Teresa in nothing more than the purple panties and white tank
she'd worn to bed the night before.  The smell of sex had hung in the air,
Dani's whole body alive with lust and longing, but she'd denied her baser
impulses and kept her back to the doctor.  She'd been in the cover-up all
day - aside from a couple of quick swims in the river - as she'd worried
about losing herself to her current adventure, succumbing to the urges she
felt around Benitez.  The little yellow dress, by no means conservative in
nature, nonetheless offered another layer of defense between Dani and the
doctor.

   As they pulled the canoe onto the banks of the Rio Rosa, Dani still
didn't see any of the Huaca that Benitez had noticed.  The sun had dipped
below the horizon, but the sky was still alight with a purplish-blue hue.
Dani scanned the trees, looking for any sign of life.  If the villagers of
Manqus Wasi were out there, they were better disguised and hidden than Dani
was capable of seeing.

   "Rap-hi!" Benitez shouted into the darkened jungle.  "Rap-hi!" He
followed his hellos with a few phrases shouted out in Huaca.  Dani caught
only one word -- "Chaqiska."

   "The village is up there?" Dani asked, looking towards Qaqaqa Qan.  "Why
don't we just start walking?"

   Benitez was distracted, still staring out into the jungle.  "It's above
the falls," he answered absentmindedly.  "We'll be escorted there by our
guides, once they show themselves."

   Dani clutched herself tight.  The reality of what was about to transpire
had begun to seem more and more real.  It was one thing to volunteer back
in San Eduardo, inspired by an unthreatening little girl named Qapila and
perhaps being a bit too cavalier about the prospects of erotic adventure.
It was quite another to be here, in the Bolivian yungas, waiting for a
little-known backwater Indian tribe to emerge from the jungle and fuck her
as a flesh sacrifice.

   But emerge they did, and in numbers that frightened Dani and seemed to
surprise Benitez.  One by one, then two by two, and then four by four, the
Huaca stepped into the waning twilight.  They'd been perfectly still in the
jungle, and even now, it was difficult for Dani to pick them out
individually against the dark backdrop.  But they came en masse, maybe
forty of fifty of them, dressed and adorned in the same fashion as Achaku,
Qarachupa, Rukuku, and the rest of Qaray Puka's men three days earlier --
loincloths, ritualistic scarring, and piercings here, there, and
everywhere. But unlike the friendly Medicine Man from Aya Pampa, these men
did not seem pleased to see the American and the Argentine, and Dani
couldn't help but notice that they were all armed.  Bows and arrows,
menacing-looking spears, and hunting knives at the ready, the Huaca did not
seem to be rejoicing at the sight of their brunette savior.

   Benitez reached out to Dani, shielding her with his left arm, and
pulling her behind him.  This only made the girl more frightened, knowing
now that Benitez was as ill-at-ease as Dani herself.

   The doctor cleared his throat, and offered something to the approaching
Huaca in their own tongue.  Again, "Chaqiska," was the only word that Dani
recognized, and she hoped that Summer's reputation would keep her safe. 
One of the Huaca, indistinguishable from any of the others, shouted back at
Benitez, seeming angry and confused.  Benitez answered, and he was answered
back, and it carried on like this for a few minutes, Dani standing behind
the Argentine and offering nothing at all.

   And then, without warning, the Huaca were on top of them.

   The attack came so quickly that Benitez had no time to shout anything to
Dani, that Dani herself had had no time to even scream.  Dani was grabbed
roughly by the hair by a man rushing up behind her, while another grabbed
at her chin and held her mouth open.  A large, rough, piece of wood was
inserted, and Dani gagged at the size of it between her teeth.  In one
quick motion, a hunting knife had sliced through the thin yellow material
of her cover-up.  And when the Huaca discovered her black swimsuit beneath,
that, too, was sliced apart.  Hands were all over her, grabbing at the
material, tearing it from her body.  In an instant, Dani was naked in front
of an entire tribe of men, her breasts out in the open, her pussy full
exposed.  She tried to cry out, but found her screams muffled by the gag in
her mouth.

   This was how her adventure was to end.  Instead of being sacrificed on
an altar, Dani would be raped and gang-banged in the jungle.

   But the men, once Dani had been stripped of everything but Summer's
necklace and the simple braided sapumpa ferns around her neck, made no
sexual advances.  She wasn't groped, she wasn't fondled, she wasn't
violated in any additional way.  Instead, she was bound at the wrists and
ankles, and laid on the muddy earth at their feet.

   Benitez was faring little better.  He, too, had been stripped to the
skin and gagged.  He, too, had been bound and laid in the dirt.  He was
limp, however, and had his back to Dani, the girl being denied any sort of
reassuring eye contact, any sense that she'd be okay.  But, even at a time
like this, when Dani was terrified and dreading what might come next, there
was a part of her that couldn't help but take in the doctor's naked
backside, that wondered what it might be like to be on the receiving end of
strong, thrusting buttocks like Benitez's.  There was a part of her that
was disappointed that she wasn't able to see him, full-frontal.  There was
a part of her that was disappointed that she hadn't been bound, gagged, and
taken by Benitez himself.

   Everything that they had brought with them was ransacked, taken apart
and examined on the edge of the river.  Dani watched as her swimsuit and
yellow dress -- or what was left of them, anyways -- were tossed carelessly
into the Rio Rosa, the current taking them downstream.  Her white tank-top,
her button-down short-sleeve shirt, her khaki shorts, and her jeans were
all examined, but when the half-dressed Huaca found no use for them, they
were tossed into the river, as well.  Her bras and underwear, on the other
hand -- including the purple cotton panties she'd worn to bed the past two
nights, which received an appreciate sniff and a disgusting grin from one
of the Huaca men -- were divvied up and distributed among the Huaca, as
were her flip-flops, the espadrilles, and the jaguar-print loincloth she'd
been given in Aya Pampa.

   The hooting began when one of the Huaca found the silver dildo in Dani's
bag, the men finding it hysterical to come across such an intimate toy
among their captives' personal items.  This, too, was examined with a quick
sniff and a wrinkled nose, and the toy was passed among the Huaca so that
everyone, it seemed, could have a turn holding the dildo that had been
inside Daniella D'Annunzio the night before.

   Dani's eyes were wide in horror and shame, and it seemed that one of the
Huaca took exception to the fact that they were now being watched.  Instead
of being knocked unconscious, as Benitez surely had, Dani found herself
being blindfolded, a strip of a leather being tied around her head, and
blocking out what little remained of the dusk's light.

   The world was black to Dani.  She was denied sight, and was forced to
rely on her other senses.  She could smell the Huaca men around her --
strong, masculine, and musky.  She could taste their sweat in the air.  The
could hear them uttering quick instructions and sharing observations in
their native tongue, barking at one another and laughing about the captives
they'd taken.  And she could feel them, grabbing at her forearms and
calves, securing her to the underside of some sort of spit.

   She was hefted into the air, dangling beneath of long pole of some sort
-- A tree branch?  One of the spears?  -- with her ankles and wrists
fastened securely to either end.  She imagined herself being carried by two
men, one at either end, and bouncing and swaying as they began their hike
through the woods to Manqus Wasi.  The bindings burned against her skin,
her muscles aching already at the weight they were holding.

   Four thousand miles away, Dani's parents might have been sitting down to
dinner with her baby sister Michelle.  They'd talk about their day, Dani's
father offering gruffly about what it had been like down at the garage, her
sister Michelle offering the latest goings-on at Cherryfield High.  Dani's
mother would remark on a phone call she'd received from Dani's middle
sister, Valerie, who was studying at Vermont State, or a postcard she'd
received from Dani herself, who was off to work on a public health program
in Bolivia.  She might have said she missed them both, and that whatever
they were doing at that very moment, that they were safe, and that they
were having fun.

   Dani began to cry.  Her tears ran into the leather blindfold, however,
and her sobs were muffled by the gag between her teeth.  Her mouth ached,
her lips stretched further apart than was comfortable.  She felt her hair
drag along the ground every now and then -- though the Huaca men were tall,
Dani's hair was long, and it brushed against the trail and the undergrowth
along it.  Her tits bounced in all directions, the choppy path and the
up-and-down motion of her porters causing them to move independently of one
another, carried whereever gravity took them.  And, though her legs were
bound together, Dani could feel how wet and excited she'd become..

   And she cried that much harder.

   The ride beneath the spit could have been five minutes long or an hour
and five minutes long; for Dani, it seemed like an eternity.  She had to
pee.  She wanted to touch herself.  She wanted to massage her wrists and
ankles.  She wanted to massage her pussy.  Her head ached, her breasts
ached, her crotch ached, her joints ached.  The only comfort that she took
in being carried into Manqus Wasi, however, was that whatever waited for
her there, whatever the Huaca were planning on doing to her, it wouldn't
happen until the end of this little hike.  And so, despite her aches and
pains and longings, Dani hoped the hike would never end.

   She listened.  She heard the roar of a waterfall somewhere to her right.
She heard the crackle of torches being lit.  She heard the Huaca talking
among themselves.  She heard bare feet padding along a dirt path.  And she
again heard the rush of water, knowing that they were somewhere upstream,
somewhere beyond the waterfall.

   She was loaded into another canoe, this one shallow and poorly-made. 
For a few, brief minutes, Dani found relief from being hung upside down
underneath the spit, being laid on a damp and roughly-carved wooden bottom.
But the trip was short -- thankfully so, given that she could hear the
crash and thunder of Qaqaqa Qan somewhere downriver, and feared that the
Huaca might be carried over the falls with their prizes.  She was hefted
back onto her porters' shoulders once they'd reached the shores of Manqus
Wasi itself, and even over the roar of the waterfall, Dani could hear the
roar of an appreciative village.

   She had no way of knowing for sure, but already Dani had the sense that
Manqus Wasi would dwarf Aya Pampa.  There seemed to be people everywhere,
laughing and talking and shouting and screaming out in joy.  They seemed to
be pressing around her, and she could feel their hot, collective breath
upon her skin.  There were familiar smells - of dried meat and fish, of
carambola juice and chicha qullisara, of human perspiration and human
flesh. After having the Rio Rosa to just herself and Benitez the past two
days, Dani now felt crowded and claustrophobic.

   She was carried through the center of the village, or so she believed,
across the little island between the falls that made up Manqus Wasi.  The
canoe that had taken her across the river was on the far end of the island,
and Dani judged just how far she'd come by the increasing volume of the
Qaqaqa Qan in front of her.  Slowly but surely, the voices of the Huaca
crowd were drowned out by the thunderous cacophony of the Rio Rosa spilling
over the cliff-face, and the hot, sticky jungle air was replaced by a
cooling mist of rising water vapor.  As they drew closer to the northern
end of Manqus Wasi, Dani began to grow concerned that she'd been brought
all this way to be tossed into the churning waterfall below, that she'd be
a sacrifice not to Sipusiki, but to Qaqaqa Qan.

   But Dani, instead, was laid upon a cool, hard, volcanic rock just above
the falls, the clamor of Qaqaqa Qan reverberating right through her very
being.  She was given instructions, in Huaca, as the bindings on her wrists
and ankles were loosened, but as she had little understanding of the
language beyond saying "hello" and introducing herself -- neither of which
the Huaca seemed all that concerned with at the moment -- she simply went
limp, and numbly allowed herself to be pushed around and positioned by her
captors.  Her arms were raised over her head and stretched apart, and her
legs kicked outward like she was performing some sort of grotesque, nude
jumping jack.  Her wrists and ankles were bound once more, though this time
not to each other.  Instead, she was held in place by rough, scratchy rope,
her body splayed apart like an X.  And, once the Huaca had established that
she was securely fashioned in place, her gag and her blindfold were
removed, and she was no longer in the dark.

   A small sliver of a waning moon hung overhead, and Dani knew that
tomorrow would be pitch black.  Tonight, at least, the village of Manqus
Wasi was lit with starlight, torchlight, and at least some remaining
moonlight.  And for the first time, Dani saw the people whom she'd intended
on sacrificing herself for.

   There were, indeed, more Indians here than there had been in Aya Pampa,
but the setting was no less cramped and crowded.  Manqus Wasi was not a
bucolic little village in the way that Summer had described Hanan Pacha on
her first experience with the Huaca.  Nor was it the quirky ravine town
that Aya Pampa had been.  No, Manqus Wasi was nothing short of a city. 
Huts and houses were scattered everywhere, almost literally right on top of
one another.  There were trees and bushes still standing on the island, but
they were fenced in and surrounded by Huaca homes.  All were built from
rocks and mud and sticks and leaves, but despite the impermanence of them
all, some were clearly newer than others -- green leaves instead of brown,
freshly cut tree branch walls instead of faded, weathered exteriors.

   And people.  People for as far as the eye could see.  Jam-packed so
closely together that all Dani could think of was Grand Central during
morning rush hour, the Huaca stood shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the
brunette girl bound before them.  They were young and they were old, and
they were all dressed in mostly traditional Huaca garb, aside from the fact
that the only exposed breasts that Dani could see were her own.  Men and
women both wore loincloths long and short, but Dani was hard-pressed to
find a woman not wearing a skin-wrap around her chest, or some type of
native bikini top, or something similar.  Dani was quite alone in her
nudity.

   But not completely alone.  To her left, Gabriel Benitez Serrano had been
similarly stripped, bound, blindfolded, and secured by his arms and legs to
a pair of trees that stood defiantly at the edge of Manqus Wasi.  Dani's
left wrist and left ankle had been roped to the same tree as Benitez's
right wrist and right ankle.  And, had there been a third member of their
party, that individual would have been arranged between two trees to Dani's
right -- four trees and three gaps, enough to display three prisoners to
the village -- city?  -- of Manqus Wasi.  Their buttocks faced off the
cliff, and Dani could feel the sensation of mist from Qaqaqa Qan cooling
her lower body.  Their fronts, completely exposed, faced Manqus Wasi and
the crowds that had gathered to stare up at them.

   Perhaps it was a treatment reserved for women, or perhaps Benitez's lack
of consciousness had made it unnecessary, but the doctor hadn't been
gagged. He moaned, and then coughed, the gentle spray of Qaqaqa Qan seeming
to bring him back to life.  Dani looked to him for guidance, looked to him
for explanation, and looked to him to see if he was all right.  But even
held captive like she was, even as scared and horrified about what would
befall her that night, Dani couldn't help but glance at the doctor's body.

   He was well-built -- that much Dani had been sure of even before she'd
seen him undressed.  Slender, but not necessarily skinny, Benitez had a
build like some sort of professional South American soccer player.  He was
muscular, with biceps, triceps, and pectorals accentuated by the way he'd
been hung between the two trees, and possessed a set of six-pack abs that
would later have Dani wondering where he got his work-outs in way out here
in the Oriente.  But it was Benitez's cock that Dani had fantasized about
for most of that day, a lifetime ago in the canoe on the Rio Rosa, and it
was Benitez's cock that now held Dani transfixed.  It was big.  Even
flaccid, Dani could see that Benitez was well-hung.  More than the
Australian backpacker, or her Cherryfield schoolmate, or the Peace Corps
volunteer from Texas she'd fucked during training, Benitez had a gift.  And
maybe, just maybe, it was Benitez's "talent" that had attracted Summer
Monroe to him in the first place.  Maybe, just maybe, there was more to the
relationship between Benitez and Summer than the pair had let on.

   "Where are we?" Benitez asked groggily, blinking himself awake.  He
seemed to be having difficulty seeing.

   "Manqus Wasi," Dani answered, concerned for the doctor's health.  "With
the Huaca."

   "No," Benitez croaked.  "Too many people for Manqus Wasi."

   Dani shook her head.  No.  No.  No, this had to Manqus Wasi.  They were
on the Rio Rosa.  They were between the falls.  They were in Manqus Wasi.
They had to be.  Or else Dani were in even bigger trouble than she'd first
thought.

   "No, you're right.  It is Manqus Wasi," Benitez corrected himself,
eliciting a sigh of relief from the brunette.  "Qaqaqa Qan.  The island."
He squinted out into the crowd.  "But there are way too many people here.
The whole village has grown."

   Dani was less interested in a census than she was in her immediate
well-being.

   "It's not the worst reception I've received in a Huaca village," Benitez
tried to calm the girl after she'd voiced her fears.  He shot her a wry
smile.  But then he spat blood, and scowled.  "But there's definitely
something wrong here."

   Benitez again surveyed the crowd.  Gathering his strength, he called
out, "Suwaqara!  Suwaqara!" He beckoned for the chief.  Not getting an
immediate response, he barked out for the village's medicine man.  "Qallu
Qallu!"

   There was a momentary pause, before a strong, male voice shouted from
the crowd.  "Qallu Qallu wanyusqa!"

   This obviously concerned Benitez.  He yelled out in the direction of the
voice.  "Suwaqara!"

   Again, the male voice barked back, "Suwaqara wanyusqa!"

   "What's happening?" Dani asked.

   Benitez frowned.  His brow was furrowed, and he was quite obviously
getting a bit more worried.  He smiled at Dani, though, choosing to ignore
her question, as if he were telling her to "buck up," that he'd handle
this.

   "Gabriel!" Dani cried.  "Gabriel, what's going on?"

   Benitez bit his lip.  "I don't know." He hesitated for a moment, as if
trying to decide whether or not to let Dani in on what he'd just learned.
"Suwaqara is dead.  Qallu Qallu, too."

   Dani felt a shiver go up and down her spine.

   "So what does that mean?"

   Benitez shook his head.  Even if he knew, he had no time to explain. 
The strong, male voice belonged to a strong, male figure, who emerged from
the crowd and stepped up to where Dani and Benitez had been bound naked on
the cliff-face.  He was tall, even for a Huaca, standing a good head taller
than Dani herself.  He had dark skin, with a series of ritual burns and
scars traced into it, symmetrically, on either side of his body.  A strong
jaw and a thin, slight beard framed his face, which was otherwise adorned
with lip, nose, and eyebrow piercings.  A single necklace dangled on his
chest, the skull of some sort of small animal having been turned into this
man's jewelry.  In addition, he wore a long, flowing brown loincloth, and a
pair of sandals that seemed almost out of place among the barefooted
masses.

   "Kuchaq sutiymi," the dark-skinned man introduced himself to Benitez,
not even bothering to address the naked brunette.

   Benitez glanced at Dani, and then launched into his Huaca.  Kuchaq
listened intently, and then answered Benitez in turn.  Benitez asked about
Suwaqara and Qallu Qallu, Dani was sure of that much.  And Kuchaq pressed
the doctor of Chaqiska, looking at Dani herself disapprovingly.  Benitez
seemed confused, and then it was Kuchaq's turn to seem confused -- all of
which was taken in by Dani, who had not the slightest of clue what was
being shared between the two men.  She stared off into the crowd, doing her
best to forget how naked and exposed she was at that moment.

   Kuchaq reached for the knife at his belt, and Dani was sure the worst
had come.  But, though his tone had softened and his disapproval hadn't
waned, the dark-skinned man reached up and cut the Argentine doctor from
his bindings.  Right wrist, right ankle.  Left ankle, left wrist.  Benitez
was being freed.

   The same could not be said of the brunette.  She was left where she was
bound, neither Kuchaq nor the doctor making any moves towards loosening her
bindings.

   "I need to go talk to the chieftainess," Benitez explained, rubbing his
wrists.  To look at him from the front, Dani could now see a good-sized
bump on her traveling companion's forehead where he'd sustained a blow.

   Kuchaq was obviously displeased with the porters who'd carried Benitez
into town, slapping at one of them angrily.  He paid little attention to
Dani, however, and it was apparent that no similar anger who be directed at
treating the woman the same way.

   "What's happening?" Dani asked, doing her best to maintain eye contact
with the doctor.  He, on the other hand, seemed to be casually taking in
her body -- not in a wanton, sexual way, but more absentmindedly, as if he
were trying to think straight while looking at her tits.

   "The chief is dead," he explained.  "Suwaqara.  The village priest, too.
It's been Suwaqara's daughter, Sacha Allqu, who is serving as chief and
medicine man both -- priestess and chieftainess all in one."

   "Dead?  How did they die?"

   Benitez shrugged.  "Some sort of disease.  Yellow fever?  Hep A?  Food
poisoning?  I don't know what -- it's a good thing we're here." The doctor
scratched his chin, as nonchalantly as if he were fully dressed and not
standing in front of an enormous crowd.  "It's sounds like some of the
newcomers brought it with them."

   "Newcomers?"

   "From other villages," Benitez answered.  "There's an American mining
company to the south of here -- Knox Industries.  They've been all over
this part of the country for years now, not long after Summer first came
down, mining for Huaca silver." He looked at Dani, and only seemed to just
register that she was completely in the nude, aside from her jewelry.  He
gestured to her chest, and said, "Like your necklace.  It's some sort of
special alloy.  But it sounds like they've been displacing some of the
smaller Huaca villages, and they've been flooding in here, downriver, to
Manqus Wasi.  And, apparently, some of them have been showing up sick."

   "What does that mean for us?" Dani asked.

   Benitez looked at Kuchaq, and then out into Manqus Wasi, and then back
to Dani.  "I don't know," he admitted.  "But I'm going to go find out."

   "Cut me down," Dani pleaded.  "Cut me down."

   Benitez glanced sideways at Kuchaq, and then back at the girl, naked,
bound, and spread at the edge of the waerfall.  "I can't," he apologized.
"'Uywa.' You're property.  Livestock.  This can be a part of the
t'ojsiy...sometimes."

   Dani blinked back tears of disbelief.  "You can't just leave me here
like this!  You can't!" she cried.

   Benitez was clearly pained by the way the American girl begged him to
cut her loose.  He shook his head apologetically, and said again, "I can't.
I just can't." He looked away from her, doing his best to avoid the
disappointment and fear in the girl's eyes.  "I need to go talk to Sacha
Allqu.  Maybe I can do something."

   "Don't leave me!" Dani sobbed, struggling against the restraints.  She
was being held in place, naked, in front of hundreds of Huaca in Manqus
Wasi.  Her arms were stretched apart, her legs spread apart.  She was Ann
Darrow, waiting for Kong.  She was a well-meaning Catholic missionary,
waiting to be boiled alive and eaten by cannibals.  Nudity and dildos and
orgasms -- these were the things she had signed up for.  But this -- this
display, this humiliation, this treatment as "livestock" -- was not what
Dani had expected.  She was supposed to have been greeted as a liberator,
treated like Sipusiki made flesh.  Instead, she was a prisoner, subject to
restraints and torture.

   "You'll be okay," Benitez did his best to reassure the girl.  "They
won't hurt you.  You'll be okay." And with that, he began to slowly back
away from the edge of the cliff, a pained look quite evident on his face.

   "No!  No no no!" Dani screamed.  "You can't leave me!  Don't!  No! 
Gabriel!  Gabriel!  Gabriel!" She was panicking, her naked chest rising and
falling as she had almost begun to hyperventilate.  She was being betrayed
by the Argentine doctor, left alone.  She was scared.  She was humiliated.
And she was crying.

   Kuchaq, apparently, could take no more of the girl's shrieks.  Without
looking for approval from Benitez, he grabbed the girl roughly by the jaw
and crammed the gag back between her teeth.  She coughed for air, recoiling
at the taste of dirt and sweat on the man's fingers, her tears now
streaming down her cheeks.

   She moaned and screamed into the wooden gag, her words muffled but the
sounds still emanating from deep in her throat.  She tried desperately to
make eye contact with Benitez, but the Argentine worked just as diligently
in trying to avoid it.  He was brought a brown-maroon loincloth of his own
by one of Kuchaq's men, and even as Dani struggled and writhed and pulled
against her restraints, Benitez stepped down from the edge of Manqus Wasi
and disappeared into the crowd.  He was guided by Kuchaq and a number of
the porters, and did not once look back at the terror-stricken brunette
behind him.

   The sun was down, and night was upon them.  Torchlight flickered among
the tightly-packed huts and houses the Huaca had erected for themselves on
this little island.  The thunder of Qaqaqa Qan was omnipresent, but Dani
could hear the laughs and whispers and observations taking place before
her. For the longest of times, Dani stared blankly and numbly into the dirt
at her feet, asking herself how she'd gotten into all this.  She did her
best to find some level of comfort, alternating between hanging on her
wrists and standing as tall as she could in her ridiculously widespread
stance.  Her whole body was on fire, aching and sore.  Some of it could be
traced to the paddling she and Benitez had done that afternoon, but most of
it was from the uncomfortable way she'd been positioned between the two
trees.

   Dani continued to cry, but eventually worked up enough courage to take
in her surroundings once more.  There were hundreds of Huaca on the
haphazard paths and alleys that made up Manqus Wasi.  They were eating with
their families and friends out in front of their homes.  They were playing
some type of game with pebbles.  They were chatting and talking with one
another, tending to fires, and washing dishes.  They lived on top of one
another, like some sort of Lower East Side tenement at the turn of the
century.  But none went very long without taking another look at the
brunette propped up and held in place at the edge of falls, trying to make
sense of her presence as much as Dani herself was trying to make sense of
why she was here in the first place.

   As scared as she was, and as much as her muscles and joints ached, Dani
was overcome by another sensation, a feeling of excitement.  She was
powerless, subject to the whims and decisions of the Huaca, unable to
decide her own fate.  There was a freedom in captivity, a sexual charge the
likes of which Dani had never before experienced.  Her nipples stood
straight out, headlights in the Bolivian night.  Her pussy, open by the way
her thighs were pulled apart from one another, seemed to drip with some
combination of water vapor thrown off by Qaqaqa Qan and her own, inimate
juices.  The bare skin of her neck and chest, where Summer's necklace
rested against her body, felt hot and alive, as if it were being kissed by
a masculine lover's rough and calloused lips.

   If the t'ojsiy were to happen that night, Dani wondered about the
duration of the rite -- she very clearly was going to cum at the slightest
touch.

   Dani had no concept of time, but even by the most conservative of
estimates Benitez had to have been gone for close to four hours by the time
he returned from Sacha Allqu's.  The American had remained silent and
spread apart on the cliff, having little say in the matter from the
beginning.  She gazed dumbly off into Manqus Wasi proper, lost in her
toughts and fantasies, doing her best to escape the burning in her muscles
and the heat in her pussy.  She was here, but she was elsewhere, divorced
from her naked body and luxuriating in it all at the same time.  She was
Dani D'Annuzio.  She was an embarrassed American girl.  She was a proud and
beautiful sacrifice to Sipusiki.  She was horrified.  She was turned on. 
She was contradiction.

   "Dani," Benitez said softly to the girl as he approached.  He took one
step up the black, volcanic stairs, and then another.  Kuchaq continued to
flank him, as did a number of Kuchaq's strong, warrior-like men.  "Dani."

   The girl looked up at the Argentine, as if she hadn't even seen him
coming.  She was down and she was beaten, and she no longer struggled
against her bindings.

   "I need to talk to you," the doctor spoke as he extracted the gag from
her mouth.  "Are you okay?"

   "I need water," the girl croaked.  Her lips and jaw hurt from having
been stretched so far for so long.  "I need to pee."

   Benitez turned and said something to Kuchaq, and Kuchaq barked at his
men.  The tall, dark-skinned man himself stepped forward and began to untie
the knots around Dani's right wrist, while Benitez came up alongside her
and gently touched her hip.

   "Water's coming," he assured her.  "And we'll let you down to pee."

   Dani just nodded.

   As Kuchaq released Dani's right arm from its binding, the girl slumped
to one side, and had to be braced by the Argentine doctor.  He was still
wearing nothing but the brown-maroon loincloth, and the feel of his warm,
brown skin against her own was electrifying.  He held her up again when
Kuchaq released her left wrist, holding her slender frame in his muscular
arms.  She wanted to kiss him.  She was drunk on her own aches and pains,
on her lust and longing.

   Kuchaq freed the girl from her ankle restraints, and she took a few
tentative steps away from the waterfall, Benitez guiding her and holding
her up.

   "I need to pee," she said again.

   "Okay," Benitez said, glancing at the tightly-packed little island
spread out beneath the stairs.  It was going to be difficult to get all the
way to the bathhouse from where they were currently situated.  "Is here
okay?"

   Dani scanned the crowd that watched her every move.  They stared at her
naked body.  They watched the way her breasts jiggled as she descended the
stairs.  But Dani was tired, and out of it.  Her body ached, and more
pressingly, her bladder ached.  She'd already been humiliated more than
she'd ever been before in her life, and what she'd volunteered to do for La
Iniciativa was even more degrading than that.  And, though he'd left her
above Qaqaqa Qan, Dani still found herself trusting Benitez unwaveringly.
"Okay," she replied weakly.

   Surrounded by Kuchaq and his men, and holding on to Benitez's leg for
support, Dani simply squatted at the base of the stairs and relieved
herself.  She could giggles and twitters from the Huaca in the crowd, but
she paid them no mind.  She was, after all, "uywa." She was livestock.

   Freed from one more torture, Dani stood and the party continued its
descent into Manqus Wasi.  The Indians stepped back and cleared a path for
the brunette and the doctor, and Benitez led the girl to through twisting
alleys and narrow paths between the Huaca huts.  As they walked, he spoke.

   "They're going to take me," he said flatly.

   Dani looked up at him, confused.  He was still propping her up, helping
her walk naked through Manqus Wasi, aiding her until the strength in her
muscles returned.

   "So much as happened here since last year, when Summer and Taksha Kuchu
were here.  Knox Industries has displaced a good half dozen different
villages mining for his silver alloy -- he's chased them off their land. 
Sikimira Qullu, Lachiwana, Wasi Masi," Benitez spoke the village names as
if Dani knew them.  "They fled here, to Manqus Wasi."

   Benitez met the eyes of the Huaca as they passed.  Dani couldn't bring
herself to do so.

   The doctor continued.  "They've had so much hardship.  And then the
disease.  I think it may have just been age, or something simple, or maybe
caused by everyone living in such close quarters - but first Suwaqara, and
then Qallu Qallu.  It's easy for such a superstitious people to believe the
worst, to believe that they've been cursed."

   The Argentine cleared his throat.  "And then you."

   Dani raised an eyebrow, growing concerned.

   "Sacha Allqu had expected Summer.  They all had." Benitez paused.  "And
I think, if Summer had known what was going on here in the South, she never
would have sent you.  She would have come herself.  She never would have
asked you to perform the Yumachi ritual."

   "Yumachi?" Dani asked.  "What about t'ojsiy?"

   Benitez gritted his teeth.  "It's the same.  More or less." He paused
again.  "They need me to help you."

   Dani wasn't quite sure what Benitez was getting at.  She continued to
stumble forward, and continued to hold onto his half-naked body for
support. Did Benitez mean that he'd be holding the qollqephichilu?  That
he'd be in charge of driving the silver dildo in and out of her?

   "Do you remember the icons in Santa Teresa?"

   "The sun.  And the...woman's vagina?"

   "Yes.  Taytaku and Sipusiki.  The Sun God and the Earth Goddess.  It was
from their union that this world came about, that Apucha and Hatucha were
born -- the first man and woman."

   "I remember the story," Dani told him.

   "The Yumachi is an older version of the t'ojsiy.  More fundamental. 
More to the roots.  Taytaku and Sipusiki represented by Apucha and Hatucha,
represented by man and woman."

   Dani suddenly understood.  She stopped walking.  Staring up at Benitez,
with her lips quivering, she asked, "With you?"

   Benitez, biting his lip, said, "Yes."

   Dani wasn't sure what to feel.  She hadn't signed on to have sex with
anyone.  She was no prostitute.  She was a slut -- that much had made
itself evident by what she had actually agreed to do, as well as by the
fact that there had been a part of her that had actually begun to look
forward to it.  Dildoing herself -- or, as the case may have been, being
dildoed by someone else -- was one thing, but fucking someone was something
else entirely.

   But...was it?

   Dani was confused.  She'd wanted Benitez.  And wasn't sleeping with the
Argentine better than being toyed to completion by some old Indian man?

   "You don't have to do this," Benitez offered, sensing hesitation. 
"Sacha Allqu believes they need to do everything in their power to appease
their gods, and that they need to perform the more traditional Yumachi to
the t'ojsiy.  And they'd prefer to have Summer, anyways.  You'll have to
wait here, with them, while I take the canoe back up North to get her, but
you don't have to do this."

   "No," Dani answered.  "No, but I will."

   Dani had signed on with the Peace Corps to do some good in Honduras. 
She'd flown to Bolivia to help be a part of Summer Monroe's "public health
campaign" among the Huaca Indians.  She'd agreed to play the part of flesh
sacrifice in Manqus Wasi because of an opportunity to help an entire
generation of Huaca, an entire generation of little Chaqiscas and Qapilas.

   But Dani wanted this for herself.

   At some point in the past few days, Dani D'Annunzio had lost herself to
her body.  Since slipping out of her clothes by the Land Rover and slipping
on Summer's necklace, it was almost as if she'd been transformed.  Every
sexual urge that she felt was somehow magnified, as if she were on some
type of Huaca Spanish fly.  The afternoon shower, the night in the tent --
Dani couldn't quite put a finger on it, but she found herself hornier than
she'd been in months.  Maybe ever.  There was something about the way she
was exposing herself, the way her breasts had been bare in Aya Pampa, the
way she'd been stripped naked in the Aya Pampa bathhouse, the way she'd
been propped up on display here in Manqus Wasi, the way that the Huaca were
watching her naked figure even now.  She was getting a sexual charge from
exhibiting herself, of being naked in such a public setting.

   No, this wasn't going to be for the Huaca.  This was going to be for
Dani D'Annunzio.

   "Are you sure?"

   Dani nodded.  And then she asked, "Are you?"

   Benitez was a bit surprised by the question.  It was clear that he
hadn't given it much thought, having worried more about Dani's reaction
than he had about what taking part in such a ritual meant for him.  "I
guess I always said that I'd put myself in Summer's shoes if I could," he
answered slowly.  "And it's a bit unfair to ask you to do all this if I'm
not willing to subject myself to it."

   "Words every girl dreams of hearing," Dani quipped.

   "I'm sorry," he replied.

   "I'm joking."

   The doctor grew silent for a few moments, the pair coming to a stop in
what qualified as a small clearing at the center of Manqus Wasi.  In front
of them was what - at least at first glance - appeared to be a well.  But
steam poured out from below, billowing up into the dark Bolivian night. 
Dani would soon learn that Manqus Wasi, surrounded on two sides by the Rio
Rosa, was also home to a series of hot springs deep beneath the surface.

   "They're going to take me away," Benitez said after a few minutes of
watching the steam dissapate overhead.  "I'm going tonight.  I'll be back
tomorrow evening."

   "To where?"

   Benitez shrugged.  "I'm not sure.  Away?  They need to 'prepare' me for
the role of Taytaku."

   Body-paint and braided hair, Dani thought to herself.  She assumed that
she would need to be "prepared" to play the role of Sipusiki, as well.  All
she said was, "It's late."

   "Are you sure about this?"

   Dani glanced around the clearing, finally meeting the eyes of Manqus
Wasi.  These people would watch her fuck the Argentine doctor.  These
people would watch as she climaxed in front of them.  These people would
see her cum, see her squealing and screaming in front of them while she was
being penentrated by Benitez's surprisingly large cock.  She licked her
lips unconsciously, and answered, "I'm sure."

   "Kuchaq will take you to Sacha Allqu," Benitez explained slowly. 
Gesturing towards one of Kuchaq's men, he said, "I'm going with Tiyan
Tiyan."

   "Tomorrow," Dani confirmed, standing up, alone, on wobbly legs.

   "Tomorrow," Benitez replied.  He looked at her as if he had more to say,
but couldn't find a way to say it.  Instead, he just backed away, and
followed Tiyan Tiyan off into the crowded village of Manqus Wasi.

   Dani, surrounded by a crowd of brown-skinned Indians in one of the most
remote corners of the world, was naked and alone.

   ***

   To see Sacha Allqu in person was to experience the girl's undeniable
royal presence, to bear witness to a backwoods beauty, a goddess in and of
herself.  When Dani had first met Summer, she'd been struck by the blonde's
confident sexuality, a trait that Sacha Allqu seemed to share with the
biologist in spades.  The Chieftainess couldn't have been any older than
eighteen, and her young, supple body belonged not in Manqus Wasi but rather
gracing the pages of a lingerie catalog or an adult magazine.  She, like so
many others among the Huaca, had strong, striking features that looked more
Asiatic than South American, with almond-shaped eyes and soft, tanned
features.  Dark eyes, dark skin, and dark hair, the girl was smaller than
Dani in both height and chest size, but she owned the large lodge that both
women now found themselves in, Sacha Allqu's presence making her seem three
or four times Dani's size.

   The girl was seated upon a bamboo throne, decorated with flowers and
feathers as if to signify just how important she was to Manqus Wasi.  She
wore a dangerously short, yellowish loincloth, but her legs were crossed
and it was impossible to see anything between them.  Unlike the other women
of her village, she was topless, and her moderately-sized chest was as
exposed as Dani's own, her breasts utterly perfect in their appearance. 
Her nipples stood straight out, though Dani guessed that had less to do
with any sort of sexual excitement than it did with the fact that they'd
been pierced through with two simple-looking silver hoops.  Her belly
button was similarly adorned, as was her chin, her ears, and -- when she
first spoke she confirmed it -- her tongue.  Around her neck was a large
collection of gold, silver, and clay jewelry, resting alluringly between
her two breasts.

   The lodge sat just off the steaming well where Benitez had left the
girl. Dani wasn't sure whether it was a home, or a temple, or a palace, but
whatever its name, it was packed tight with Huaca.  Sacha Allqu sat at one
end on her throne, flanked by Kuchaq and a number of other advisors, while
Dani knelt in the dirt before her.  Standing, sitting, and crouching around
her, pressing up against one another were as many villagers of Manqus Wasi
as the lodge would allow.  It was hot inside, and the air tasted like the
sweat and flesh of dozens of people.

   Dani was no less naked than she'd been when Kuchaq led her inside the
Lodge and sat her before Sacha Allqu.  She wore the necklace that Summer
had given her, as well as the fraying sapumpa fern braid.  Her skin was
bare, save for the small butterfly tattoo that had earned her the nickname,
"Qapila," and the yellow-orange handprint of an Aya Pampa girl whose name
Dani couldn't remember.  Her hair was a veritable bird's nest, flowing this
way and that, and cascading wildly down her neck and past her shoulders.

   There was a menace in Sacha Allqu's eyes, and though the two were
entirely unable to communicate with one another -- Sacha Allqu spoke no
Spanish or English, and Dani spoke no Huaca -- Dani knew full well that she
was going to be tested tonight.

   It had to have been past midnight by the time that Dani was brought to
the lodge, just based on how long the sun had been down and how long she'd
been bound and gagged at the waterfall's edge.  But disappointment that
Dani was not Summer seemed to be abating, and the full celebration of
Phancha -- with all the requisite music and dancing and laughing -- sounded
as if it were underway outside the lodge.  Manqus Wasi may not have had
Summer Monroe, but they had their sacrifice nonetheless.

   Sacha Allqu gestured to one of her people, who stepped from the masses
and placed a large wooden bowl in front of Dani.  The brunette knew right
away what was inside -- she could smell the purple chicha qullisara before
she saw it.  The strong, powerful corn liquor was a gift for her, and
though it was more than Dani was capable of drinking, she knew she had to
accept it as she had with Uturunku.

   As Dani lifted the bowl to her mouth, Sacha Allqu rose from where she'd
been sitting.  She moved languidly, slithering towards Dani as if she were
some type of jungle snake, oozing sexuality as she walked.  If she'd
flashed anyone from beneath her loincloth, the crowd showed no reaction,
and now the material hung teasingly over her sex.  Dani took a first, small
sip of chicha, coughing at the burn, but the Chieftainess wouldn't let her
stop.  The Indian girl tipped the bowl forward, and Dani had no choice but
to continue swallowing the salty purple alcohol, choking it down as best
she could.

   Dani's eyes watered and her throat burned, but she took every last drop
that she'd been offered, knowing full well that she'd just done a good
seven or eight shots at once.  She coughed violently, and steeled herself
for whatever was next.  She would do what was asked of her tonight -- given
that there was no way to protest even if she intended to, Dani was giving
herself to the village of Manqus Wasi.  In an instant, she knew she'd be
drunk, and she knew that she'd be even more malleable than she'd intended.
Sacha Allqu called for the bowl to be filled once more, and though Dani did
not think she could keep another bowl down, she said nothing.

   The chieftainess, taking Dani's bare shoulders in her hands, gently
pushed the girl backwards and onto her back.  The brunette was now lying
naked in the dirt at the center of the lodge, her knees bent and her arms
awkwardly at her sides.  Sacha Allqu flattened her legs, and then crouching
over the American girl, set herself down on the girl's naked thighs.  She
reached up and took off the necklace and the sapumpa ferns and in their
place laid a set of four silver coins -- maybe the size of half-dollars --
atop Dani's forehead, atop her pursed lips, and atop each nipple.

   The feeling was electrifying.  Dani didn't want to lose Summer's
necklace of silver beads and jaguar teeth, and whimpered a little as it was
taken from her.  But each of the coins was smooth and cold, and seemed to
send sparks directly into Dani's body as they were applied.  She breathed
through her nose, thanks to the disc on her lips, the cool metal making it
feel as if her mouth had become another erogenous zone.

   Sacha Allqu, acting chieftainess or medicine woman or perhaps both,
called for something, and an old-looking leather sack was produced
alongside another bowl of chicha qullisara.  This time, it was Sacha Allqu
who drank from the bowl, but unlike Dani, she did not swallow.  Mouth full
of the thick, salty, purple liquor, the chieftainess leaned forward, and
after temporarily removing the silver coin from Dani's mouth, kissed the
American girl on the lips.  The chicha qullisara passed from one woman's
mouth to the other, Dani having little choice but to accept the other
woman's offering.  The whole ceremony, and the entirety of Manqus Wasi,
seemed completely foreign and alien to Dani.  She swallowed the liquor
passed to her through the gentle lips of the chieftainess, her head
spinning and her chest burning once more.  Dani stared absently towards the
ceiling of the lodge as Sacha Allqu pulled away, paying no attention to the
fact that the Huaca girl was rifling through the leather bag.

   Forcefully, Sacha Allqu took the brunette's jaw in her left hand, and
Dani allowed herself to be manipulated.  With her right, the chieftainess
inserted her fingers into the American girl's mouth, and found her tongue
between her thumb and middle finger.  It was awkward, especially given that
Sacha Allqu clung to a long, thin, metal wire in her right palm that
pressed itself up against Dani's face.  Only too late did Dani realize what
the instrument was for.

   The taste of blood drew Dani back from roof of the lodge, where she'd
been lost in absentminded contemplation.  She focused immediately, and
tried to jerk away from the Chieftainess, but Sacha Allqu kept a strong and
forceful grip on the brunette's jaw.  She drew her piercing needle -- and,
of course, that was what had just been run through Dani's tongue -- up and
out of Dani's mouth, the naked girl trying to shriek and scream to no
avail. Moving with lightning speed, Sacha Allqu replaced the needle with
thicker silver rod, slipping it into the hole she'd just created before
Dani had even been able to vocalize a coherent protest.  She twisted it
quickly while Dani's eyes rolled back into her head, and snapped a silver
bead into place at the top.

   Dani kicked at the dark-skinned girl on top of her, and crawled
backwards on her elbows out of the center of the lodge.  She wasn't sure
where she was going, or how far she thought she'd get while being
surrounded by then entirety of Manqus Wasi, but instinct -- fight, flight,
or fuck -- a taken hold, and Dani simply wanted to get as far away from
Sacha Allqu as possible.

   Sacha Allqu would not allow it, however.  She barked an order at Kuchaq
and another man, and they descended upon the American girl.  Even as she
squirmed and fought on the dirt floor of the lodge, Kuchaq grabbed both her
wrists together in just one of his big hands, while his companion managed
to take hold of her ankles.  Sacha Allqu, not the least bit deterred by the
fight in her uywa, took another quick swig of the chicha qullisara, and
spat it messily into the brunette's now-bloodied mouth.  She found another
small bowl, this one filled with a thick white paste that reminded a
surprisingly lucid Dani of kindergartners' glue.

   "Samincha," Sacha Allqu spoke to Dani, dipping her fingers into the
paste and then smearing it on Dani's tongue.  The brunette gagged a bit at
the bittersweet taste, but she found that the pain almost instantly abated.
Her tongue was numb, but no longer did it sting quite so violently. 
"Samincha," apparently, was some sort of Huaca salve.

   Dani calmed noticeably, and though her head spun from the alcohol, the
sudden violence, and the numbness of the salve, she was coherent enough to
process what had just happened to her.  She'd been pierced.  She'd been run
through by one of Sacha Allqu's needles.  She'd been fitted with a tongue
piercing.

   Dani closed her eyes and breathed deeply.  Her chest heaved, and only
then did she realize the silver disks has fallen from her nipples during
her struggle.  And, though it was stupid -- Dani knew that much -- she felt
somehow more naked, more weak, and more victimized without them.  Her chest
heaved, her breasts rising and falling with each breath.  Kuchaq still held
her wrists tightly, the other man still firmly gripping her ankles.

   The tongue, by no means, would be the last of Dani's new jewelry.

   She knew that fact instantly - there was more coming.  These were a
people who believed in their ritual scarring and body paint and piercings
here, there, and everywhere.  They had been waiting for Summer Monroe,
who'd been fitted with her own silver jewelry some time ago.  They were
being ruled over by a chieftainess/medicine woman who sported more silver
poking through her various body parts than Dani even owned back in the
States.  And Dani was to be at the center of a rite in which her body and
her sex were to be the focal point of the Huaca's attention.  It was
pointless to fight.

   Dani didn't particularly want her tongue or any other part of her body
pierced.  But then, she hadn't wanted to be naked on the Bolivian frontier,
either, her clothes that hadn't been tossed carelessly down the Rio Rosa
god-knows-where in Manqus Wasi.  She didn't want to be held captive and
used as a sexual sacrifice to Sipusiki.  She didn't want to be fucked by
Gabriel Benitez Serrano (or did she?) in front of a crowd.

   But in for a penny, in for a pound.  Dani went limp.

   Sure enough, Sacha Allqu was far from finished.  The chieftainess took
another mouthful of the chicha qullisara, and then sucked Dani's left
nipple into her mouth.  The brunette gasped at the sensation.  Her mouth
still filled with liquor, Sacha Allqu then moved to Dani's right, and did
the same.  Apparently, Dani put together, this was her way of sterilizing
the site of the piercing; though, if Dani's nipples hadn't already been
standing straight out, at attention, it might have also been useful in
exciting the subject.  The chieftainess swallowed what remained of the
liquor, but purple liquid trickled sensually from Dani's areolae down her
bare and goose-bumped skin.

   Dani wasn't fighting anymore, but Kuchaq and the other man still held
her firmly by her wrists and ankles.  This turned out to be for the best,
as even steeling herself for the expected prick did little to keep Dani
from bucking her whole body at the pain of a needle piercing through her
left nipple.  She squirmed and screamed, the shriek of pain eliciting no
reaction whatsoever from the Huaca crowd that watched.  And, even had they
spoken English, none would have been able to make sense of the brunette's
nonsensical, gutteral cries, the incoherence of exclamations of sharp pain
magnified by the fact that Dani's tongue with still numb.

   One nipple, and then the other.  Sacha Allqu pierced both, and then --
working as quickly as she had with Dani's tongue -- outfitted her with the
vicious-looking nipple piercings she was intended to wear for the Yumachi
ritual.  A barbell, for lack of a better description, ran horizontally
through each nipple.  It was attached at either end to a silver ring that
ran the circumference around the nipples themselves.  And the ring, in
turn, had been fitted with long, half-inch-in-length spikes that gave the
appearance of rays of sunlight emanating from the center of Dani's breasts.
Dani took one look at them, gagged at the very sight, and looked away,
tears welling up in her eyes.  Sacha Allqu slathered each nipple with the
"samincha," and they, too, went numb to the pain.

   Dani's bellybutton had already been pierced, so Sacha Allqu thankfully
passed by that particular body orifice.  But Dani gritted her teeth at the
thought of what was next, and the thought of what the chieftainess was
about to do to her body.  And yet, she didn't fight, she didn't struggle
against Kuchaq or the other man.  She laid limp, aside from gently parting
her legs, and waited for the Huaca girl to do her worst.  Though this had
never been a part of what Dani had agreed to back in San Eduardo, had never
even remotely entered her imagination when she'd met little Qapila at the
Oveja Negra, she had given up.  The Huaca were going to do to her what they
felt most necessary for the success of the Yumachi ritual, what they felt
was most necessary to appease their demanding gods.  Dani was no longer the
Dani she'd always been; rather, she'd become something else -- subject,
object, a tool to be put to good use.  She was a tool for the Yumachi, and
her function was no more than to fuck.

   Though she'd been expecting it, electricity nonetheless still sparked
through Dani's nether regions as Sacha Allqu flicked at the brunette's
pussy with her tongue.  Dani's mind wandered, wondering whether this would
be considered a lesbian experience.  It was, wasn't it?  Throughout her
time at NYU and after, she'd joked with friends about kissing other girls
or having a "bi" experience.  But laughing and giggling about it as much as
she had, Dani had never actually acted upon such naughtiness.  And, truth
be told, Dani was unsure of whether this actually counted.  After all, she
wasn't a woman, exactly -- not right now, not in the context of what Sacha
Allqu was doing to her, and what the Huaca were preparing to do to her
afterwards.  She was a "thing," a religious object, and Sacha Allqu was
doing little more than preparing that object for its intended purpose.

   The combination of the warm, sticky chicha qullisara combined with the
warmth of Sacha Allqu's own breath caused a wave of pleasure to wash over
Dani's body.  The chieftainess flicked her tongue, just enough to tease the
already erect clit to throb at the sensation.  Dani fully expected a sharp
and violent pain in just seconds, but in that moment, all she felt was
carnal pleasure.  Given how on edge she'd been since first entering the
lodge -- no, perhaps it was since she'd first entered the valley itself --
Dani didn't think it would take long for the Huaca girl to get her off. 
But Dani's orgasm was not what Sacha Allqu was after -- at least, not at
that particular moment.  The chieftainess placed her left thumb under
Dani's clit to keep it steady, and used her right hand to insert her needle
into the American's tender flesh one more time.

   Dani howled.  Some wild combination of pleasure and pain wrapped itself
around her spine and surged to every extremity in her body.  Dani had never
fully understood masochism until that very moment, and now that she'd
experienced it, she might never be the same.

   She came.

   And she came violently.

   Eyes rolling back in her head, the brunette screamed something entirely
unintelligible, representing the pinnacle of orgasm as much as the nadir of
bodily harm.  She was sweating, and she was covered in the dirt from the
lodge's floor.  She had a sheen of perspiration and chicha and the
chieftainess's saliva and her own pussy juices all over her body.  Her hair
was matted against her forehead, and her tongue and nipples continued to
throb despite the dullness of their pain.  Her shriek was high-pitched and
animalistic, as if she were channeling every woman and every female beast
who'd ever orgasmed before her.  She bucked up against Sacha Allqu's finger
tips, even as the Huaca girl did her best to hold the American steady,
fitting her uywa with her new decoration.

   But Dani would have no chance to see what the Huaca had done to her
pussy that night.  Instead, through some combination of liquor, stress, and
the strength of her orgasm, the girl passed out while being restrained
naked in the Huaca lodge.  Her first night in Manqus Wasi had drawn to a
close, and no matter what she'd been put through that day, tomorrow would
bring entirely new challenges, tests, and rewards of its own.