~Subject: FANTASIA: The Screams of the Dove - Part One
~From: an117711@anon.penet.fi
~Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994  (a.s.stories)

                  * * * * * * * * * * * * *
                   THE SCREAMS OF THE DOVE
                       by V.P. Viddler

                           Part One

    It struck him, as he heard the screaming, that it would not be
himself only from whom information was to be sought; although it
was obvious that with him would be employed no such physical
crudity. Still, it was not to be put down, that frisson of
trepidation for himself and of horror for that other whose sounds
of profound agony continued to ring out, hardly muffled by walls
dividing him from its--intentionally, no doubt--proximate source.

   Now, as the screams went on--for they did go on, almost
continuously, ringing out again and again, shrill, horrific,
carrying such burdens of unendurable, unsupportable anguish that
his blood ran chill--an additional, and hardly admissible, emotion
swam to his consciousness, an emotion no sooner known than--as much
as possible--cast out. But it would not stay out. Listening, it was
not to be put away, that stirring of his blood, that small but
significant tumult in his loins. For it was indubitable that the
screams, such loud, such awful screams, so insistent in their
unrhythmic but unceasing repetition, could only come from a woman.
A woman, probably, from the sound of it, young. A woman, most
probably, innocent of anything calling for such torment; for any
information in such possession could without question be extracted
by far less extremity. A woman, thus, probably attractive, on whom
was practiced such arts of persuasion, appropriate or not, by which
her inquisitors would gratify such lust for pain and for the
thrills of knowing her agony as--it must, it would be admitted--he
himself, hearing, listening, could not stop his mind and his blood
from absorbing and even, alas, envisioning.

   No doubt she was young, no doubt attractive; no doubt, at this
moment, as the screaming burst forth with fresh horror or torture,
in a position of restraint, in which such twistings and strugglings
against the bonds of her captors as would necessarily, on her part,
be brought forth, would add to that lustful, lubricious happiness
with which those madly obsessed and uniformed characters would
watch her. Thinking of it, again a stirring of his loins partly
dismayed, partly aroused him, and he could not but think of it. The
woman would be, must be, unclothed; in shameful nudity must she be
hanging, or tautly lying, or sitting, bound, in a chair of pain;
twisting, writhing in horrible, insupportable submission to that
form of punishment-- they would call it persuasion--which had been
utilized for this purpose.  Was it a whip? He could not, try as he
might, but ask. A knout? A branding iron? Or some possibly unknown
to him instrument, causing that pain, that anguish, that his
aroused imagination saw as producing that struggling and straining
and lubricious, almost wanton writhing the picturing of which so
took him from his own plight as that unknown victim screamed and
screamed and screamed...

   And it may have occurred to him, upon his awakening from a
sudden loss of consciousness, that his arousal was just the point
of his having found himself in a position to witness, aurally, that
which had passed so near to and so far away from him. It was that
his captors, divining his proclivities in that direction-- hardly,
truth to say, unusual--had, on him, utilized a particular form of
persuasion--at least, a first or initial stage of it--in tandem
with, if not simply as the principal spring for, that more obvious
persuasion inflicted on that horribly, thrillingly screaming
victim.

   For now, as it surprisingly imposed itself to his awareness, he
was not still solitudinous. With him, sitting in unstirring calm to
all outward appearance, was another, and a woman. Startling as this
was, he at first almost thought of it as an apparition, a lingering
vision from his until just now slumbering state. But no, it was
truly as it may be said to have been seen, though by him only.

   His first thought, upon realizing this fact, was such a mental
inquiry as might only naturally, if irrationally, occur, as to the
possibility of this being that very, that same woman whose agony
had only this morning saturated the room, through the walls, in
which now they both sat. Nothing in that face, nothing in that
posture, indicated such a conclusion; and still that inquiry was
unstilled. This woman, upon whom for a long portion of time, as it
struck him, he gazed, and who only sat, unmoving, unspeaking, still
as that chair that held her, and yet also pulsing with a kind of
living vibration which must at least now go unnamed, gave no
outward show, now, of discomfort. Not, he further thought, looking
still, in a physical form, but possibly-- that thought had to go
fractional.

   This woman was, no doubt, young--to his judging, not more than
twenty-five, nor less than twenty. And most assuredly was she, to
his thinking, attractive, with a strongly oval face in which were
situated a most pleasing and, he thought of it, striking an
arrangement of features. Most striking of all, perhaps, her dark
and soulful eyes, gazing at him, at what at any moment they saw,
with at once a profound calm and a most vivid vivacity, a
contradiction which struck him as absurd as it still  struck him as
singularly, exquisitely right. The calm diluted  with a
consciousness, as it might be said, of all that was vivid,  also
had its cognition in her carriage, her posture, her figure  in all.

   Still he could not forego that thought of this woman as 
embodying for him that same imaged victim so brightly in his mind 
that morning. That body was now fully clothed, and unbound-- though
he had no illusion of liberty, for her or for himself,  beyond the
boundaries of that room--and that body, thoroughly  still,
thoroughly elegant, thoroughly poised, called to him, in a  way,
his way of looking at it, across that room; the long dark  hair
also was a part of that elegant charm, swaying so slightly,  so
softly, with no definite causality; but was that body the body 
upon which that horror had played which had resulted in such 
recalled, such agonized screams? He was burning to know; that 
question was on his tongue's tip, so compulsively that the 
impossibility of asking it translated him to silence as to 
anything to say at all to her.

   It was, finally, she who spoke first. "I am sorry to disturb 
you this way," she said, in a tone low but clear, and as with all 
of her, calm but still vivid, "but you must understand that it is 
not my choice. I am put here, and must stay as I am put."

   It was not to be said why, but having her speak, or perhaps 
what she said or how it was said, magically almost totally lifted 
from him that inhibiting access of compunction which kept him  from
voicing it all, anything. If he had again allowed a chance  for
thought, that moment must have absconded with alacrity; but  out it
came, and as he said it his blood was rushing, to his face  and to
his loins. "Was it, then--was it you--this morning--that I 
heard..." Trailing, horribly, off, he saw look into his those  dark
fathomless eyes, that calm yet all-acknowledging face.

   "Screaming?" The eyes did not drop, the voice did not  tremble.
"Yes. It was I."

   And that was all. All, that is, for many moments, in which 
again his burning, his importuning curiosity, pushing itself 
gradually, insinuatingly forward, won its slow ground, its hard 
fight, against such propriety as still hung on in him. She sat,  as
it were, waiting, knowing that he must ask.

   "What did--" He had to draw breath, as if drawing blood.  "What
did they do to you?"

   She was still, and at last, from, as he saw, that profundity  of
pain impossible to face, only shook her head. But waiting, his 
stillness matching hers, he had finally a word, and that word was 
the most chilling sound of all.

   "Nothing that they have not done before."

   Nothing, she might well have said, that they would not do 
again; and in that soft, calm, unwilling yet helpless knowledge  of
hell he found a horror unknown, unknowable, unthinkable; and  at
once an arousal, a rabid animal lust for just that horror, as 
caused him, once again, to black out...

   Drugs certainly, it had to be drugs, as floating once again  to
slow consciousness it was brought to his mind, slowly, how 
difficult it was to move his limbs. At last he found floating to 
his sharpening mind a realization that it was his condition of 
restraint which was the difficulty. His arms, his legs, tightly 
roped at wrists and ankles, pinning him, lashing him, into the 
chair he sat in, making him, so to say, a part of it, immobile as 
itself. Nor was that all of shock that was brought home to him; 
for it was with nothing less than total, than all-encompassing 
shock that he discovered his body devoid of that clothing he had 
worn, of, not to put too fine a point on it, any clothing, that 
is, at all. With this twin shock he had hardly begun to struggle 
as he swiftly bethought himself of that other with whom his 
colloquy had only how much earlier passed--he did not know. But 
swiftly glancing, in his shame and almost dread, across the room, 
he colored to his roots to find her still sitting in that chair, 
still quiet, still gracefully elegant, still watching him. Unlike 
him, her condition was not changed; that vision was still  unbound,
still clothed.

   Having caught her eye, he must most quickly look away, in  such
confusion and embarrassment that all realization of her  fellow
captivity was almost as it had not been known. But as to  that, it
took only her first words, in reply to his stumbling  ones, to
bring it back, and that most fully. "I--I'm so sorry,"  was his
awkward beginning. "I hope you will not--I can't think  why they
should--it must be--"

   But she was shaking, again, that graceful head. "You mustn't 
apologize. Do you think I don't know that you have no more  control
than I of what is done to you now?" As he was again  starting to
speak, she quickly went on. "Wait. I must tell you--"  And now for
the first time she did not look at him, but cast her  dark
unfathomable eyes on the hard floor. But that soft slow  voice was,
if tightly so, unfaltering. "It is I who must  apologize to you,"
she said, adding, "They told me I must. Now.  And they told me that
now I must answer, fully and without stint,  anything you may ask
me. That I must tell you, if you still wish  to know, what they did
to me this morning. So that, if you ask me  again, I will do so."

   It struck him all in a muddle, and it took him a time to  sort
it out; during which she again raised her look to his,  though with
no betrayal of her thoughts, or emotions, which might  in any way
affect his. But, but, his could not help being wafted,  on that
look, as on a monstrous flood, or rather a whirlpool; for  it was
with no fixed, no singular direction that they moved.  Round and
round was this frail, listing boat carried, round in a  circle of
horror, of terror, of curiosity, of lust, and all in  all, of the
memory of that morning's screams. Looking at her  watching him,
amid whirling thoughts, it was this he heard.

   "What," he said at last, not looking away from her, not  knowing
why, "did they do to you--this morning. When you  screamed."

   That look did not change, that gaze did not flinch, and he 
could not have said what it was that almost, in that short but 
profound split second only in which she hesitated, almost made  him
put up a hand, had he one free, to stop her. But "almost" was  what
it was. If that voice, as it began, was a bit lower than its 
previous wont, it was still most clear, most in control. Which, 
again, could only rouse all that contradiction, all that 
confusion, within him.

   "I was hung by my wrists," she said, so calmly, so 
shatteringly, "with my ankles bound widely apart, so that I was 
stretched, straining, to my limit of endurance. In this position, 
many things can be done to a woman. On this particular occasion, 
when you heard my screaming, pins were being used on my body. I 
was, of course, naked. Pins--long, thin, sharp pins, with small 
wood bottoms for handling--were slowly stuck into various parts  of
my body. Particularly into my breasts. Mostly in my nipples,  but
not only. This procedure is most painful. I can bear pain--I  have
had to learn to do that. I can absorb a good deal of it if I  must,
without making a sound. Which is why they are always  turning to
new ways to bring me pain. It inspires them to find  original ways
to destroy my will. Always they do that. Always.  And this morning,
no doubt, they wanted me particularly to  scream. Most
particularly. Thus the pins. And so what you heard  was my
unstoppable agony as they stuck pin after pin into my  body, pin
after pin, slowly, sadistically, pushing them in,  further, always
further into my nipples, twisting, turning,  pushing--" With a
gasp, suddenly, she caught herself up, going on  more softly, as in
fascination and a terrible lubriciousness he  sat watching,
listening. "And so I had to scream for them. I  always do at last.
Scream and scream for their pleasure. Until it  stops."

   And stop was what she did, now, and was still; and it was  now
obvious that this narration had aroused him--all too obvious,  to
his humiliation, by that stiff and throbbing part of him which  now
stood tall from his crotch, asserting for all--but alas, she  was
all the all--his reaction, his uncontrollable flood of  arousal at
what she had said, to all that she had told him. And  the woman sat
watching, as it appeared to him, unsurprised,  unjudging of this
truth, simply accepting it as to be a natural  thing, as if, yes,
it would have struck her as unnatural had it  not been so.

   And as his impulse again to apologize was at war with his 
impulse to ask her about further things, to ask dark, horrific 
questions which, as she had told him, she was bound to answer--at 
this point a door was swung open, and the military, in the body  of
a man in a captain's uniform, was in the room.

   "It was thought, and is now known," said this arrival, "that 
the agony and victimization of a woman, such as this, would find 
you--" smiling at that stiff proof of what he said-- "not 
unamenable."

   "What is it that you want?"

   "But, sir, you know that. But wait--it is not time just now  to
discuss such things. It is most obvious, sir, that Miss  Lorna's
narrative is not, to your mind, disgusting. If you wish,  I will
ask Miss Lorna to go on with that narrative, and to  amplify it in
such a way that it will affford you still more  fascination. Miss
Lorna, I would ask that you recount to our  friend the details of
what took place on that day not so long  ago, on which you first
offered that most beautiful body of yours  to me, to use as I
would."

   "No," was on his lips, if not in his heart; but the woman  paid
with her docility only the uniform.

   "I was hanging by my hair," was what first she said, again  now
without looking at him; but at once that military visitor-- for so
he was thinking of that uniformed arrival, though this  situation
was truly that of his playing host to the two  individuals who had,
all unwillingly though it was, anticipated  him in that room--had
made it known, with what was introduced as  a polite suggestion,
but one which, our man was fully cognizant,  had the authority, or
threat, of a command, that it was his wish  that she should not
avoid the sight, the look, of him whom she  was addressing. On this
the woman again raised her eyes to his,  going on with that soft,
tight, vividly calm voice, in and beyond  which lay such a
limitless growth of dark impossibilities as to  almost not allow
him, on his part, to go on gazing at her steady,  dark,
immeasurable eyes.

   "I was hanging by my hair," she began again; and if, as he 
thought, in the slight, almost imperceptible hesitation that 
followed, her throat just barely had signalled a swift, 
involuntary swallowing, no sign of that was in that voice as it, 
not hastily but forthcomingly, continued. "It was most painful. 
Which, of course, was its point. In such pain, a woman will do 
almost anything. And--" again that hardly catchable pause-- 
"perhaps not almost. To hang that way is worse than--I had hung, 
that morning--that first morning of the day I was brought to 
them--by my wrists. Not, as I told you I was this morning, with  my
legs bound also, but just hanging, with all my weight on my 
wrists. For hours. That, I had thought, was the worst that could 
possibly happen. I cannot tell you all the agony of it. Hanging 
that way, all of my body pulling, straining. For hours. I  couldn't
pass out, not hanging like that, I couldn't. And all  that time,
the men. Soldiers. Watching. Just watching. Not  touching me. Not
yet. Just sitting and watching. I was not then  naked. I was fully
clothed. Still, they watched. It was my pain  that was the
attraction, I know now. Not my body. My body was an  attraction
too, certainly, but not as much as my anguish, my  awful suffering,
which excited them so much. So much. And their  anticipation. Of my
broken spirit. Of my submission. For it was  from the first certain
that I would submit. To anything. To all  of it. And I did. Submit.
But that first morning, that waiting,  that watching, as I hung
before them, not knowing what I must do  to stop that pain. And I
was, oh soon, aware that I would do  almost, as I said, anything.
Was I to beg? Was I to offer--what?  I had no valuables. I had no
information to give. I had only, I  knew, my body. I could not
offer that, although I knew it might  be taken. I could do nothing
but cry. I could do nothing but  moan. I could do nothing but, at
the last, scream. I had not been  touched. I was not nude. I was
not--not then--tortured in any way  but by hanging as I was. And I
screamed. Until I couldn't scream  any more. And I knew that I was
lost, I was nothing, and that to  avoid that kind of pain I could
be made to do anything. I told  them that, finally. When I could
not scream any longer. Begging.  Babbling. I told them that. I
would, I said, do what they said to  do, if only I could know what
that was. Saying it over and over,  and hanging, hurting, crying."

   "Stop." It was the captain, cutting into that rising voice. 
"You grow," said this individual, "boring. Was it boring for you? 
Was it?"

   "I am sorry." And it was with that old calm that she said, 
though possibly not with that calm alone, "It was not boring. It 
was not at all boring. It was hell. I had to stop it. I couldn't, 
and I must have known I couldn't, no matter what I did. But I had 
to do it. That noon I was taken down. Unbound. And told to take 
off all of my clothing. I cried. I couldn't do that. They said I 
would be put back up. To hang. Until I did it. I cried. And I did 
it. Standing before them and crying and shaking, I did it. I took 
my clothing off. All of it. I was not touched. I was told to go 
down to my knees. I did. And I was told to crawl. On my hands and 
knees. And I did that, too. Crawling around on that floor, on all 
fours, crying. Until I was told to stop. I knew what would come. 
I knew I was to be raped. I was not hurt at that time. The 
torturing did not start until the following day. The whippings. 
The burnings. The racks. The pins."

   The captain almost, again, spoke, but found it groundless,  for
that signal was not unnoticed. "I--I was waiting, that first  day,
to be raped. But I could do nothing. If it was to be, I must  bear
it as I could. Physically, it could not be worse than what I  had
gone through. But spiritually, it was the most unimaginably 
horrible thing of all. I was a virgin. Of course. I was a virgin. 
But I was a captive, and put to awful pain, and if I was to be 
forcibly violated, helplessly taken, I could do nothing. Nothing. 
But I didn't know. What I would have to do. For him."

   "Him" was, obviously, the captain, that slim and still  military
visitor, who now took in her words with rapt, glittering  eyes,
smiling slightly, watching her, watching him, watching,  too, him
watching her.

   "I was told," the woman was saying, "told by him, that I was  to
give him my body. Not to have him take it, but to give it to  him.
Willingly, as he said. Voluntarily. I was, in truth, to ask  him to
take it. Ask him, humbly, to possess me, to destroy, as he  put it,
my virginity. I was to ask him to do this. And to assist  him. To
do things for him. With him. To him. And, of course, I  couldn't.
It was simply not possible that I should do that.  Horrifying.
Unthinkable. And so I was hung up by my hair."

   "It was a sight," now the captain put in, "to rouse any  saint,
any angel, any castrato. Dangling by that long dark hair,  that
body twisting, swaying, those legs kicking. But I interrupt.  Our
friend is far more fascinated, Miss Lorna, by your narration  than
by mine. Do go on."

   "What must I say further?" that lady said. "It was, simply, 
unbearable. How long I was that way I do not know, but at last I 
was utterly, thoroughly, completely broken. I was broken. I was 
his. I was theirs. I don't know how I was able to say anything, 
but what sounds I made were sounds of submission. I said I would 
do what he wanted. I said I would do it all. I asked him to take 
my body. I promised to give it to him, to do it for him. I begged 
him to rape me. I begged all of them to rape me. I promised I 
would do all the things that would give pleasure. I was--I--"

   "Thank you, my dear," the captain said. "Thus far, as you  can
no doubt discern, your tale has had no diminishing effect  upon our
friend's passion. To the contrary, obviously; to the  most
contrary. And now, sir, if you will, you and I may discuss  that
small business for which you find yourself in this  involuntary but
I think not totally displeasing position."

   "Why should you think I would impart to you anything at  all?"
our man watchfully said. "You will not put me to harm."

   "No, alas," and the uniform was profound in sorrowful  courtesy.
"But such information as you possess would be so  practical in our
hands. And to you it is nothing. While, as it is  so undeniably to
all our sights, your--may I again say, passion-- is not, at all,
nothing. And, as it was our beauteous Miss Lorna  who, so to say,
brought it so unmistakably to light, it should be  Miss Lorna, do
you not concur, sir, who should act as its modus  of satisfaction?"

   Looking now, unavoidably, at the woman of whom he spoke, our 
friend saw the paling, a drawing in of lip, a shifting of eyes, 
which if anything contributed its own odd thrill to that most 
general thrill which what had been said had sent through his  body,
through his soul.

   "What is it that you say?"

   Smiling was our captain now. "I say, sir, that, to begin  with,
that mouth, that sexy mouth, Miss Lorna's own most  attractive
mouth, which has narrated to you, for your edification  and to your
delight, that rousing story of her submission--a  partial story,
thus far, though a true account--should be--and  will be, if you
will allow us that bit of information so  important to us--only
that--will be, I say, the instrument, the  receptacle, if you will,
for your discharging it."

   He could but stare. "You say that--"

   "I do, sir. I say that at that moment in which that  information
is in my hands, I will ask Miss Lorna to use that  mouth on your so
longing, so aching stiffness. Must I, sir, put  it more vulgarly?"

   "No. Not at all. But why would--what makes you think she 
would--"

   "Can you doubt that now?" He was, smiling, astounded. "Ask  her,
if you wish."

   But he could not.

   "So? Allow me. Miss Lorna, my dear, if I should ask you to  use
your so fine mouth to bring our friend to satisfaction, would  you
not do so?"

   Waiting, both waiting, they still watched. But the woman  said
nothing.

   "Miss Lorna?" Smiling. Waiting. And the woman said nothing.

   "Ah," our military man said at last. "But, you see, sir, I  say
she will. I give you my word on that. I promise you she will.  I
promise that. On my honor. I can promise it absolutely."

   "And if not?"

   "And if not," the captain, still smiling, said, "it may call 
for a bit of persuasion. Just a bit. You may, sir, wish to watch 
that persuasion. You may wish to watch it for a long time."

   "I may," he said, "wish to participate."

   "Ah," the captain sighed. "That could probably be arranged.  No
doubt it could."

   "All right." And now with this, finding himself a traitor,  and
all uncaring, he looked straight at the girl. "I will do it."

   Looking at that dark gaze he saw all of it, horror, fear, 
submission, all that calm, his now to do with as pleased him.  That
swallowing of the throat now was not surreptitious. And the  woman
got up from that chair in which she had sat from his  initial sight
of her, got up slowly, and stood, straight,  elegant, graceful. So
clear was that voice now. So high that  head. So almost still that
slim body, but only for the tiniest,  slightest tremor.

   "Do you wish me," she said, "to undress?"

   Her military captor was making the most of this, to him, 
victory. "Do you mean," he said, drawing it out for her, for him, 
for our friend, "first?"

   "Yes," she said, and her look was still on him. "First."

   Our captain, now, in triumph, deferred to him. "Sir?"

   Considering, watching her, waiting, he was all in all.

   "Can she still," his inquiry to our military friend went, 
"later?"

   "Most of course," said that party. "She will be, sir, at  your
disposal."

   "Ah. At my...disposal?"

   "For as long," said the captain, "as you wish." And now,  only
now, the girl closed her eyes, standing still as she could,  before
him, waiting, but now not looking at him, at anything.

   "Then, no," said our friend. "Do not undress."

   But without looking she could not go on, and those eyes met  his
again. Moving slowly toward him, that elegant carriage as  arousing
to him as was that awful dark gaze and that softly  rounded mouth,
she stood just in front of his chair; then, slowly  still, went
down, her body sinking with an awful grace to the  floor, and she
knelt for him. He caught again her eyes for a last  long, lingering
look, and then that head bowed to him, that hair  was touching his
thighs, those lips closing with his throbbing  instrument, and as
he found himself arching his body toward that  lowering mouth,
arching with anticipation, he suddenly lapsed,  sitting still,
wanting her to go after him, wanting her to do it  all. And now,
with a groan, he was taken as that soft, soft mouth  found him,
took him into it, and her lips closed around him, and  soon her
mouth was moving, moving, and as the captain, watching,  took down
in his book the information, it was for him as though  his world
was swaying, rolling, and that mouth, which had told  him of her
awful agony, was, although forcibly, giving him such  joy as had
not in past days been known to him. Now, shouting, he  erupted into
that still taking mouth, filling it with his awful  joy, as he
heard again in his mind that morning's screams,  knowing he would
hear that sound again...