"Brandy."
The voice seemed far away, but
it shook the inside of her head. Sluggish and confused, she tried to
reply but couldn't.
"Brandy, if you can hear
me, get up."
Someone mumbled. Herself, she
realized. She tried to remember how she'd gotten here, but nothing
made any sense.
"Get up," the voice
repeated, a hint of impatience now detectable.
Mustering all of her strength
and will, she forced her consciousness through the haze and at last
sensed a touch of blue light against her eyelids. Slowly, ignoring
the burn and the dizziness, she opened them. Before her hovered a
glowing mess of color. As she focused, the kaleidoscope solidified
into the chiseled face of Moses on a large plasma screen. He watched
her with indifference, narrow eyes neither fascinated nor
disinterested in the scene before him. The video feed glitched
occasionally, garbage lines and distorted clusters of pixels marring
the otherwise crisp transmission.
Desperate to behave, she tried
to push herself upright in order to kneel properly, but she could not
bring her hands around. Fumbling about on her side, she quickly
determined that her wrists and elbows were cuffed behind her back.
Moving her legs proved that her ankles, too, were shackled, with only
centimeters of play between them. Glancing down the length of her
body, she found herself not only chained, but completely naked.
And ... pregnant.
"Oh my god," she
whispered, barely able to get the words through her throat.
Her breasts were heavy, and the
unmistakable bulge of her middle rested on the cold stone floor of
the cell.
"Surprised?" Moses
asked.
Suddenly shivering, Brandy
writhed about in place until finally managing to sit up. From there
she maneuvered her body and its excess weight into a kneeling
position. Placing her bottom on her calves, she sat with her arms
bound behind her and bowed her head. Plain brown hair fell against
her cheeks and reached far enough to cover her swollen, tender tits.
Last she recalled, her hair been shoulder length.
"Sir," she said,
unable to keep her voice steady.
"You've been in partial
stasis for eight months," he told her. "The drugs will keep
you slightly disoriented for some time. As long as you do not feel
nauseous, we will proceed."
"What ... what happened?
Where am I?"
Motors whirred. Mechanical arms
supporting the giant screen shoved it forward until the face of Moses
was less than an arm's length from hers.
"Look at me," he
demanded.
She lifted her gaze, ashamed of
the tears but more afraid of disobeying.
"Look at me," Moses
repeated, his amplified voice hurting her ears. "Look at me and
confess your sins. Be careful that you do not insult my intelligence.
Grave consequences can always be made worse."
Sobbing aloud, Brandy explained,
"I didn't know, Sir. If I'd known, I would have immediately
turned myself over to your mercy."
"Stupid
bitch, you cannot turn yourself over to me when I already
have you. You cannot know anything
about yourself before I do.
You are mine. You were mine the second you submitted to my care, and
you will always
be mine.
Now confess your sins before I have you slaughtered this very
second."
Terrified and dizzy and
confused, she said, "I was unfaithful, Sir."
"Why?"
"I thought I loved him."
"After everything I've
given you? How could you?"
She shook her head and tried to
reason out some manner of defense for her behavior, but she had none. "I ... I lost control, and
I have no excuse. I'm guilty, and I will do anything within my power
to make it up to you."
The screen drifted back a meter
and glided to a halt. Moses leaned forward and folded his arms across
his desk.
"Yes, you will," he
confirmed, "starting with the name of your accomplice."
Brandy closed her eyes. "You
will execute him."
"Such is the penalty for
betrayal. You know that."
"I.... Yes. Yes, Sir."
"I will grant ten seconds
for you to ponder this, then you will provide the correct answer or
be taken to the courtyard for impaling."
Trembling, she looked from side
to side, up at the ceiling and down at the floor, but the black stone
offered no counsel.
"Please, Sir," she
said, weeping, "show me mercy. I beg you."
"You showed me no mercy
when you held my heart in your hands and chose to cast it into fire!
Five seconds."
Unable to suppress the fear, she
blurted, "He was one of the Unclean. The slaves in Ward Eleven
call him Warren. He succumbed to my advances. It was my fault. Punish
me, please. Only me."
The massive screen retreated
further, and the image flickered from interference. Moses' handsome
face turned momentarily hideous, one eye displaced to where his mouth
should be and the other elongated to several times its normal height.
"Warren has already been
punished."
Brandy flinched. "No...."
"Yes! My matrons took
nearly an hour to drive a spit through his quivering body, and he was
conscious for most of it. He cooked for most of an afternoon, and we
dined on him that night. We have laws, Brandy. You know them, and you
know the consequences of breaking them. So did your illegal lover."
She dropped her head again,
bowing out of reflex but also too defeated to look up anymore. Her
shoulders ached from being pulled back by the elbow restraints, but
she otherwise felt suddenly and strangely numb. It was all true, of
course. She and Warren had both known what would happen if they were
caught, though never had she anticipated getting pregnant and her
weekly physical catching it before she did.
"That
leaves us only with the matter of your sentence," Moses
continued. "Stasis is common practice when my slaves are
unfaithful, because my immediate reaction in these situations is
almost always a public, painful execution on the roasting spit. Over
the years, I've learned to be patient, because there are options.
There are always options.
It is just a matter of finding them. Would you like to hear your
options, my unfaithful little whore?"
Brandy
thought, No,
but she nodded once and replied, "Yes, Sir. Please, Sir."
"Good. You have two. The
first is freedom. I will have your chains removed, and you will be
released through the North Gate into the outskirts. I suppose there
is a tiny chance that you will survive, but you will probably find
anonymity nowhere. I ensured that word of your affair with Warren was
spread far and wide. Since the Unclean are typically as averse to
their kind mingling with ours as we are, the most likely scenario is
that you will be dragged through the streets, sodomized and branded
with hot irons for being a whore, then ultimately crucified before
the screaming, bloodthirsty masses. If you're lucky, they will stone
you to death as you hang and bleed on your cross. If you aren't
lucky, you could take hours or days to die, all while continuing to
be sodomized, fondled and beaten by passers-by."
Bile teased the back of Brandy's
throat, but she swallowed hard and resisted.
Moses said, "Your second
option is to stand up and walk to the back of this cell. In the
corner you will find a wooden stool and a noose. You are to place
your head through the noose and kick the stool from under yourself.
Restrained as you are, there will be no change of heart. You will
strangle there and die, hopefully quickly. Justice will be served,
and your sins will be forgiven."
She found the strength to look
up. Her lips quivered, but she found her voice.
"Is there no other option?"
"None."
"Not even if I wait ... in
hopes of finding one? Your mercy? Please, Sir. Please...."
"This judgment is final! If
you hesitate, I will have you thrown to the Unclean mob."
"Then I ... I will submit
to the noose as you require."
"On your feet, bitch."
Struggling with her unfamiliar
weight, Brandy rose off of her calves and pushed with her toes. There
was too little slack between her ankles to do much else. Unsteady and
weak, she nonetheless stood and faced her master, swollen breasts and
belly thrust forward due to her arms being shackled behind her back.
"My baby," she said
softly to the man on the screen.
"Medical personnel will
deliver your child right here as soon as you've expired. It will
receive the best care we can offer. Doctors rate survival chances as
fair. So you may die knowing that your one act as a mother was a good
one: illustrating the folly of life as an ungrateful slut who fucks
the Unclean."
Tears again tried to fall, but
Brandy stayed firm and answered, "Thank you, Sir."
She didn't even feel humiliated
anymore. She simply felt more than ever that this was just her fate,
to be a filthy slut in chains for her master's amusement. Anything he
commanded, even her suicide, it was her duty to obey. She didn't want
to. She didn't choose to. It was just who she had become, who
everyone had become in exchange for the sheltered life Moses offered.
The alternative was disease and starvation, death stretched over
months or years instead of a few hours on a roasting spit or a moment
of vicious strangulation. In this world, perhaps the noose was a
kindness.
"Carry out your sentence,"
Moses said quietly.
"Yes, Sir," Brandy
replied.
She turned and shuffled away
from the screen, taking tiny steps with her chained feet. She found
the stool in the corner as promised, and above it dangled a noose
fashioned from simple white rope. The loop had been made wide to
accommodate a bound prisoner, who needed to fit the apparatus around
her own neck without using her hands.
Brandy first knelt on the stool.
The hardwood ground uncomfortably against her knees, but she quickly
scooted forward until her toes found the edge of the seat.
Cautiously, she put her weight on one foot, then the other, and
finally righted herself on wobbly legs.
Turning around, she faced the
awaiting noose and found it at just the right height, the base at
just about collar level so she could place her chin over it and cinch
the rope by simply applying her own weight. With a deep breath, she
leaned forward before losing her courage, whimpering slightly as she
bent her knees and allowed the material to slip softly around her
neck. She leaned forward a little more and let the knot tighten. When
it was snug, she realized there would indeed be no squirming out even
if she wanted to.
Knowing every moment she delayed
was just additional torture, Brandy took a final look down at her
body. Gently, she tugged at the handcuffs on her elbows and wrists,
wiggling her hips from side to side as she tested them. With her
shoulders pinned back, she shook her swollen breasts and watched them
bounce. The token struggling and sight of her bound body left an
electric tingle between her legs. On top of the fear, sadness and
regret, she now felt an unexpected sense of curiosity. But she
quickly discarded all such thoughts, lest Moses decide a more
gruesome punishment would be fitting after all.
It seemed so wrong. She was
Moses' slave. Up until she'd fallen for Warren, she had been a good
one. She'd always done her work. She'd given him her body, serviced
him and danced when ordered to. She'd stayed in shape and taken care
of herself as demanded. Now damn if he couldn't even grant her the
dignity of killing her himself. She deserved that at least, right?
How could this be happening? Was Moses a tyrant, using the desire of
others to escape the stigma of being Unclean to simply pleasure and
amuse himself?
How could she finally ask these
questions only now, as mere centimeters of slack rope and a wooden
stool stood between her and death? Regardless, there was only one way
out now.
A single push with both feet
sent the stool tumbling. She heard it clatter across the floor. The
rope assaulted her before she could draw another breath, and the
world spun violently around her. The pain was far greater than she'd
imagined. What she'd taken for a defiant epiphany in her final
seconds suddenly evaporated in a noxious cloud of terror. Not so
ready to die after all, she fought with everything she had, clawing
and bucking and kicking. Metal restraints cut into her wrists and
ankles. Something ran out of her nose, and she identified it as a
mixture of blood and mucus it when it poured over her lips and seeped
into her mouth.
Air hissed from Brandy's compressed trachea as she struggled. She tried repeatedly to bring the air back in, but she couldn't. Her chest heaved to no avail, burned in starvation, and the pleasant curiosity that had come over her moments earlier was history.
It was too much. She needed to
die before she went insane, and it was a great relief when her limbs
grew numb. Her chains suddenly weighed a thousand tons, and she could
fight them no longer. Massive stones bound to her arms and legs
dragged her down into the watery murk. Maybe it was almost over.
Stubborn awareness stayed with
her long enough for an acrid smell to disturb her sputtering
olfactory sense. Simultaneously, she felt warm piss running down the
insides of her legs.
Her body jerked once or twice,
though through no effort of her own. In the distance, the plasma
screen through which Moses watched her death had returned to a
indecipherable blur of kaleidoscopic color. Then it was black, and
she couldn't remember how it had gotten that way. Not just the
screen, but everything.
Excited voices stirred somewhere
far away. Brandy couldn't understand much, but she sensed something
cool on her skin. It touched in various places around her left
breast. She strained, tried to turn away, but the chains wouldn't let
her.
No, it wasn't even the heavy
chains holding her down now. Her body wasn't responding at all.
"Not yet," someone
said.
Not yet, she repeated to
herself. I'm not....
The thought trailed off
unfinished as oblivion claimed her.
When she died a minute later, a
Johnny-on-the-spot surgeon cut her belly open even as she continued
to hang. Within an hour her bloody, still-shackled body was thrown
out the back of an armored van, into a busy Unclean slum street.
Multiple fights broke out to determine who would claim the fresh
meat, and a prominent gang soon proved victorious. They dragged her
corpse into their tent village beneath the crumbling overpass of a
bygone era. Come nightfall, Brandy was impaled on a spit after all,
coated in butter and slow-roasted over an open flame.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
