How come she ain't screaming?

To my intense frustration, he stopped at that point. He stepped back and examined the juice dripping from his hand. He took out a handkerchief and wiped it dry with a flourish.

"Peaches will make us a lot of money," he declared, smiling at his underlings. "She is going to be our biggest star yet. I will have to notify our special customers that we have something new for them and see if they have any requests. In the meantime, Mr. Jones, get the camera set-up and test it. We'll get started as soon as I get back."

"Should I free her arms? She hasn't given us any trouble so far."

King considered this. He looked into my eyes before making up his mind.

"No. I think we'll leave her bound for the first few scenes. After that, we'll see how she does. I'll let Roxy know we have a new performer."

With that, he left and Smith and Jones started hauling equipment from another room and setting it up. It seemed to be quite a professional system. The camera was an expensive-looking digital one that connected to a DVD recorder. They had sound equipment too — boom mikes and everything. There were no lights, though. Apparently I had been right about the ceiling lights being bright enough.

While they were getting ready, I gradually adjusted my makeup. If I was going to be photographed, I wanted to look good, even if it was some awful amateur film. Heck, even if it was a snuff film, I wanted to go out looking good. At first, I didn't do too much, thinking they were sure to notice. I enhanced some shading of my all-over tan and I added some blush and highlights that would give my curves better definition. Then I remembered that bright lights tended to wash out skin tones, so I went a little further than I really should have. Heck, even if these crooks noticed something different, they wouldn't be able to explain it.

While I had some time to myself, I looked around. The place was definitely a barn. It had big wooden beams all over and the 'room' I was in was large enough for a few horses. It had only three walls, with the fourth just a couple of support columns between it and the hallway. It looked like a row of horse stalls with the dividing walls and doors knocked out.

I rubbed my toe on the floor and found that it was dirt with a couple of inches of hay over it. The overhead lights were big industrial-looking things that didn't belong in a place like this at all. The bright bluish-white light they gave off reminded me of the grow-lights we used in the Botany lab at school to germinate seeds and record their growth. It was in keeping with the idea of the place being a farm, I supposed, but what kind of farm grew its crops indoors?

"The illegal kind, you dolt!" I thought, answering my own question. The spicy odor must be coming from hundreds or even thousands of marijuana plants in other parts of the barn. I checked out the lofted ceiling to get an idea of how big the place was, and I nearly whistled when I came up with a guess that made it close to the size of a football field. There was room enough for a forest of dope to be grown in there. It was no wonder I felt comfortable in just my skin, the temperature and humidity were quite tropical, even at this time of night.

This explained the odd status of Winslow's convenience store. He was selling something profitable, but it wasn't cheap beer or stale snacks. People looking to buy drugs wouldn't care how run-down the place was and he would hardly need to advertise. Word of mouth would be sufficient for his needs.

With one puzzle solved, I looked around for more clues. There were several bales of hay lying about. Some were piled in the corner, but a few had been arranged in a more organized group in the middle of the floor. These were mashed down on top, as if someone had been rolling around on them.

"The stage setting," I thought. With that in mind, the arrangements of bales did seem convenient for the purpose of sex.

The back wall of the room was heavy, rough planks. I could see large metal hooks and brackets had been mounted on it at what would seem to be odd places, if you didn't know they were for tying girls to. I walked over and saw that they were set just right to spread-eagle someone between. Even the hay bales had leather restraints beside them that were attached to bolts in the floor.

As I walked to the wall, the cable trailed behind me for a bit, then, as I approached its limit, I saw it rise from the floor. It ran over a pulley suspended from a track hanging under an overhead steel beam that was several feet higher than my head. The cable ran through another pulley a few feet from the first and then through a hole in the wall. I thought this was odd, until I realized that the other use for the cable was to lift and move the large bales of hay. The cable must be connected to a winch of some kind in the other room. That meant that if the winch were turned on, I would be pulled off my feet to dangle in the air by the rings in my nipples.

"No wonder Smith and Jones were so proud of their little innovation," I thought. "Kinky devils. If I were wearing the collar instead... I'd be hung by the neck. Damn! That's probably what they did to the other girls to break them and get them to cooperate in the videos. They let them hang until they gave in and did whatever they wanted. The choice would be between cooperation and strangulation. Maybe they did other things to them while they dangled by their necks. I take back the part about 'kinky devils'. These are some sick bastards."

I was facing the back wall when I heard a door open down the hall. A gust of air came in, carrying with it the worst stink I had ever smelled. It was an awful acrid odor that felt like it was eating away the inside of my nose. I wanted to pinch my nostrils shut, but I couldn't with my hands tied behind me. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that way felt like I could taste the stink.

Smith and Jones felt the same way I did. Smith held a handkerchief over his face, while Jones fanned the air with one of the photographic reflectors. It helped, but not a lot.

Smith took the cloth away long enough to choke out, "Hi, Roxy." Jones just coughed.

I looked to see who Roxy was and was startled to see someone clumping down the hall wearing a moon-suit with an air-tank strapped to the back. It was one of those white, full-body things you see Hazardous Material crews wearing at a clean-up site. Whoever was inside must have been wearing it so they could work in the horrible atmosphere of the room at the end of the hall without being asphyxiated.

"Meth!" I thought. "They're running a methamphetamine laboratory, too. They've got that suit so they don't have to vent the place and stink up the neighborhood. This must be the person they call the 'cook'."

I was going strictly by what I had got off the TV news. I had never been personally exposed to meth, or 'crank', or any other slang names for the drug. The only stories I had heard at school were about kids who got sick from taking it and had to be hospitalized. I had no idea the size of the problem locally, but I knew a small amount of the stuff was worth a lot of money. First extortion, then kidnapping and illicit videos, now hard drugs. It looked like these people were into just about every kind of crime that would turn a buck.

"What kind of warped person manufactures something that ruins lives?" I wondered as I watched the figure in the moon-suit unzip and unstrap.

Off came the headgear, the respirator mask, the tank of air, the boots, and the bulky suit. All the gear was carefully hung up in a shallow closet close to the door to the lab and the cook shut the closet and came down the hall to see the fresh meat that Smith and Jones had brought in.

I was stunned. She was incredibly beautiful. She had the same kind of face that Helen of Troy must have had — the classical beauty that sculptors have been trying to reproduce in marble for thousands of years. Under the protective suit, she wore just a brief top and a pair of bikini panties, both of which were soaked with sweat and clinging to her body.

Her walk was grace in motion. Every movement seemed choreographed. Her raven-haired head didn't bob as she walked, but her full, round breasts jiggled beautifully. They seemed to be trying to shake off the clingy cotton cloth and I suddenly wanted to help them get free. They weren't as big as mine or Mom's, but their shape was as perfect as her face. All of her that I could see — which was most — was perfect.

The goddess walked right past Jones, Smith, and the video camera that Smith was pointing right at me, as though they didn't exist. She stopped in front of me and looked down at me from only a couple of extra inches of height, but I would have sworn she was on a pedestal.

She looked me up and down, taking in the full picture of the helpless girl before her. Her placid expression was one of detached curiosity, like she was a queen examining a commoner brought before her to be judged. I felt like I should be kneeling or bowing. My knees quivered and my head started to nod before I got control and forced myself to keep eye contact. I braced everything that wasn't already strapped into rigidity and tried not to look like a rube.

When she smiled at me, I almost cried. She was even lovelier with a smile on her face. I fell into her smile and almost drowned. With a start, I discovered that I was so smitten that I was showing it. I gulped air and blushed with embarrassment.

Her smile twitched at one corner of her mouth when she saw me blush. She eased up to me along one side, so she could get as much of her body close to mine as she could without my breasts getting in the way. She came to within a fraction of an inch of touching me and I could feel the heat of her body on my naked skin. The unpleasant odor from down the hall had mostly gone, and I could smell the scent of her sweat-soaked clothes. It seemed like exotic incense, heady and sweet. I breathed deeply of her, trying to experience her as fully as I could.

She put her left hand behind my back, under my bound arms. With this hand she steadied me, while with the other, she cupped the lower curve of my right breast. Her touch was feather-light as she slowly stroked me. Her hand never leaving my flesh, never squeezing or poking, but sliding across my skin like a fallen leaf blown across a still pond.

As her hand approached it, my nipple stiffened and hardened so much that it hurt. She saw this, and instead of touching it, she ran her fingers all around it, teasing me. She watched my hard nipple and she stroked my breast from my chest out to the tip, just like you would stroke a cock if you wanted it to shoot off so you could watch. With each stroke, my poor nipple became larger and harder, looking and feeling like it was about to break right off.

I was on an ecstatic high. The roaring sound in my ears was my blood rushing through my brain, bringing it my own favorite drug, hormones and dopamine. I was vibrating with heat and arousal and my clit was trying to outdo my nipple to see which could get the biggest and the hardest.

"You're very responsive," she said. Her voice was low and husky. She spoke almost into my ear but the sound resonated like a cello in a concert hall.

"These are some unusual rings you have. The chain is a nice touch. Who did the piercing for you?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. I couldn't tell her the truth and I was so hot I couldn't think of a lie. The little dragon charm dangled in plain sight from the taut chain, reminding me of who I was and what I was doing here. I tried to look apologetic.

"Cat got your tongue? C'mon," she coaxed, putting her lips to my ear and brushing my earlobe with them "Tell me. Pleeeease."

I was frozen between needing to talk and not being able to think of a single plausible lie to explain my rings. My stupid mouth hung open, but nothing came out. In a distant part of my mind, I realized that she was just trying to break the ice, that if she could get me to talk about this, then I would most likely answer the next question, which would be more revealing about who I was and was there anyone likely to be looking for me. It would have worked, but she asked the wrong question to start.

She took my nipple between her thumb and forefinger and as she rolled it around, my eyes rolled back in my head and my legs threatened to give way. When she saw that I was about to climax from this, she pinched and twisted, digging her nail into my swollen nipple and shocking me back from the brink of orgasm.

My eyes flew open and got wide at the surge of pain. My mouth dropped open and I gulped air. Still, I remained silent.

"Well, if you won't talk to me, then I guess you won't. But I think you'll change your mind in a minute."

She waved her hand and Jones pressed the button on a control box I hadn't seen because it had been hanging on the far side of one of the big wooden posts. There was a whining sound from the other side of the wall and the cable began to disappear into it.

"If you hadn't noticed already," she said, pointing to the cable and tracing it from the wall to where it attached to my rings, "you are on a leash. And it's getting shorter every second you refuse to talk to me. Soon, you will be standing on your toes to keep those lovely breasts from being destroyed when you can't stand tall enough and the winch pulls those rings out. It's likely to tear your nipples right off!"

I was breathing so hard I was almost hyperventilating. I mustered up all my limited acting ability and tried to look scared, instead of excited, at the prospect of being hoisted into the air by my rings.

The slack went out of the cable very quickly and I found myself standing under the pulley, watching the last loop of cable rise up above my head. When the slack was all gone, Jones pressed another control and the winch slowed to a crawl.

"Last chance," Roxy told me. "The winch has two speeds going up, but only one coming down. If you wait too long to change your mind, it might be too late to save those pretty tits, and that would be a real shame."

I remained silent and watched the cable slowly slide through the ring on the right side and pull my rings together and my nipples with them. By reflex, I rose up on tiptoe as the winch pulled my breasts up into the air. In a matter of seconds, I followed them and Smith tilted the camera up to follow me, recording the moment for posterity and lots of money from the sadists among their clients.

My toes lost contact with the floor and I swung like a pendulum, hanging from the rings in my nipples. I wish I could say it was the most exquisitely painful thing I've ever felt, but the truth is, it was something of a letdown. It wasn't nearly as painful as hanging from the clamps had been. The rings actually gave better support because they went fairly deeply into my flesh. Also, they didn't pinch like the clamps. It hurt, but it was a nice kind of hurt. I relaxed and let my head drop back, hanging as limply as I could while I rose higher into the air.

"How come she ain't screaming?" Jones asked Roxy. There was no immediate answer.

I was curious about her reaction, but I knew they would figure it out quickly enough and I wanted to enjoy this as long as they let me. I kept my eyes closed and my head back and hung like a side of beef in a freezer.

Roxy touched my ankle. The contact made me swing, which was nice. I shifted my feet to increase the swing.

"Shit!" Roxy said. "I think she likes it! She's doing that herself. Damn! Let her down a couple of feet."

I felt Roxy turn me so I faced her. Her face was even with my pussy and I could feel her breath on my sex as she spread my thighs apart to look at my clit.

"That's one of the biggest clits I've ever seen," she said, "and she's had it skinned!"