The Fine Art of Torture (Slave of the Aristocracy Book 3) Read online

  Slave of the Aristocracy, Book Three:

  The Fine Art of Torture

  by Ashley Zacharias

  Copyright (c) 2014 Ashley Zacharias

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, either in whole or in part, in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  “We’re going to have such fun, Irene. You can’t imagine.” The professor smiled brightly at his new slave.

  Irene could imagine only a life of horror. Lord Snow’s other slaves often mentioned the professor in hushed tones. They all feared that they might be sold to him.

  He made no secret that he was a sadist.

  Now the professor owned her, not because Lord Snow had sold her, but because he had staked her as a wager in a poker game and lost her to the professor.

  What could be more humiliating than that? It was bad enough that she was no longer a titled lady, but merely property. Now she found that she had meant so little to Lord Snow that he had been willing to risk her as stakes in a card game. He had wagered her on the strength of a king-high full house and lost to the professor’s ace-high full house.

  The professor had been dealt five lucky cards and now she would spend the rest of her life being tortured for the professor’s amusement. Maybe a short life. Maybe she would be tortured to death within a week. She had no idea what fate she faced. She knew only that it would be agonizing.

  Nevertheless, she had no choice but to follow the professor from Lord Snow’s manor. Traditionally, a slave was handcuffed and leashed when she was taken away by a new owner but Lord Snow had lost possession of her so abruptly that the men hadn’t bothered with the tradition.

  The professor was determined to take her from Lord Snow’s manor this very night.

  Take her out the front door, compounding her humiliation.

  If the professor had expected to acquire a new slave, he would have entered the grounds by the slave entrance and parked in front of the kennels. Instead, as an invited guest, he had parked his car in front of the manor.

  Now he saw fit to lead Irene naked through the manor, as though her were a conquering hero.

  She was terrified that Lady Snow would see her. Slaves were always covered in a housedress in the manor. If Lady Snow saw a naked slave in her house, she would be horrified.

  Irene kept her head down, letting her long hair curtain her shame, kept her gaze focused on the professor’s heels.

  They almost made it to the front door when she heard a familiar voice, “Professor Krauss. It was so nice–”

  Lady Snow’s voice faltered in mid-sentence when she saw the naked slave following her guest.

  Irene glanced up to see the expression of utter contempt on Lady Snow’s face. Six months ago, Irene and Felice had been good friends. But six months ago, Irene had been Lady Fortson. Now, she was a slave, lower in social status than a whore in a brothel, because the whore was a human being, not property.

  If the professor had been tracking dog shit through her manor, Felice would have been less disgusted than finding him leading a naked pleasure slave.

  Irene could sympathize. Lord Snow wouldn’t leave Lady Snow alone in her bed every night while he went out to his kennels to fuck dog shit. But his wife knew what he’d been doing with Irene. She wouldn’t acknowledge it, but she knew it.

  The wife of every lord who owned pleasure slaves knew what her husband did with them.

  The rotund professor wasn’t in the least discomposed by the situation. “You must forgive me, Lady Snow, but my car is parked in the front. I hadn’t expected to leave with a new slave but there’s no predicting one’s fortune at cards.” He didn’t sound the least contrite. If anything, Irene would describe his tone as gleeful.

  “Please, then, Professor, don’t let me delay you. Good night.” Lady Snow’s voice dripped with contempt. She twirled about so quickly that her dress flared like a dancer’s as she fled the room.

  The professor chuckled merrily and continued out the door. He didn’t bother turning to see that Irene followed him; didn’t look to see the bright red humiliation on his new slave’s face.

  He didn’t have a driver. The professor opened the passenger door for Irene, and then climbed into the driver’s seat himself.

  Irene felt strange. She hadn’t sat in the passenger seat of a car since she was a child. When she was an adult and a lady of considerable substance, she always had a driver and sat in the rear, either alone or with her husband. Now, as a slave, she also sat in the back seat but for the opposite reason. As a lady, she had too much status to sit next to the driver; as a slave, she had too little.

  As they drove away from Lord Snow’s manor, the professor spoke. “I fear that you may have offended Lady Snow. I wonder if she would like to see you be tortured some time. Do you think that seeing you suffer would make her feel better?”

  “I don’t know.” Irene’s mind was reeling from the question. The professor was not shy about telling her that he intended to torture her. His sadism was legendary among slaves. Now, she had no hope that it was only a legend. It was a true fact that he was willing to admit openly.

  Apart from that, there was the substance of his question. Lady Snow had once liked her as a friend, now had contempt for her as a slave who had undoubtedly had frequent sex with her husband. What would Felice think about Irene being tortured? Would she be gleeful about it or disgusted? Maybe she would be happiest to see Irene tortured to death.

  “She might like that very much,” Irene said.

  “She might,” the professor said. “There’s only one way to find out. When the time comes to exhibit you, I’ll have to send a special invitation to her and Lord Snow.”

  Irene felt sick with fear.

  * * *

  “You’ll sleep here tonight.”

  Irene looked at the bed in dread.

  Sleep?

  He was showing her a rectangular, coffin-sized wooden box. The bottom of the box was covered with thousands of nails, driven up through the bottom to create a carpet of sharp steel spikes, the tips a half-inch apart.

  Irene imagined her body sinking down on the spikes, two inches of steel piercing her from head to heels. Though the nails weren’t long enough to reach any vital organs, she would still bleed to death from thousands of wounds.

  She looked at the professor.

  “Come on,” he said. “I don’t have all night. Climb on in or you’ll spend the night in the crucifixion frame. You really wouldn’t like that.”

  The room contained a variety of torture devices. She didn’t want to spend the night mounted on any one of them.

  She put a hand into the box and pressed down. The nails were sharp. Not needle sharp, but sharp enough that they would slide deep into her hand if she put her full weight on it.

  She whimpered and snatched her hand back.

  The professor’s eyes glittered with eager anticipation.

  She reached across the box and grabbed the far side with her right hand, then put her left hand behind her back and grabbed the near side. Next, she raised her right leg and rested the calf on the far side. By supporting herself by her hands and lower legs on the edges of the box, she could lower her butt and back gently onto the bed of nails.

  When she was laying full on her back and butt, she was surprised. The nail points hurt but they weren’t unbearable. Her weight was distributed over so many points that there wasn’t enough pressure on any one of the
m to puncture her skin.

  When she moved her arms and legs into the box, her weight was distributed over more nails and that helped even more.

  The professor dropped a six-inch long piece of oak plank into the box by her head. “A pillow, my dear. I want you to be comfortable.” He chuckled in delight. Then he placed four sturdy pieces of two-by-two hardwood like bars across the top of the bed and secured them with long steel hasps that fitted over staples mounted near the base of the bed. Padlocks ensured that she would remain in the bed until he released her.

  “Sweet dreams, darling.” The lights went out, a door closed, and Irene was alone in the dark with her pain.

  She positioned the scrap of oak plank under her head. It was a relief not to have the nails digging into her scalp.

  The bars across the top of the bed were also a blessing. She could grab them and raise herself to adjust her position. Without them, she would have had to press down against the nails with her hands and that would have hurt more.

  Enough weight on her palms and fingers would pierce them.

  She wondered if the professor knew that. She suspected that there was little that he didn’t know about his torture devices. She wasn’t the first slave to be confined in this bed and he was a watcher. He would have spent some time observing his victims.

  She was exhausted, but it was impossible to sleep. Her back, butt, and legs hurt. Even the oak plank under her head hurt, though not as badly as if she had been forced to lay her head on the nails. Worse than all that, though, was her fear of what the morning would bring. Crucifixion? Worse torture than that? Her mind was filled with fears of burning. Amputations. Teeth pulled out and eyes gouged from her head. He was a sadist and he owned her. Nothing was prohibited to him.

  If she were confined to this bed of nails every night, she might never sleep again.

  Could a woman die from exhaustion?

  Would that please a sadist?

  * * *

  “Good morning, dear.” The professor’s round, smiling face peered down at her through the bars. “Are you ready to get up or would you like to stay in bed for a while? I don’t mind if you want to sleep in.”

  Irene didn’t know what horrors awaited her outside the bed. Lying on nail points for seven or eight hours was bad but the devices that she had seen scattered around the room promised worse pain than this. Maybe the torture that she knew was better than the unknown suffering that awaited.

  Maybe her best choice was to spend the rest of her life lying on a bed of nails.

  Her bladder contradicted her.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” she said.

  “Of course you do. Can’t wet your bed. It would rust.” He unlocked the padlocks and removed the bars.

  Once she was physically able to move, she was impatient to do so. She grabbed the sides, hooked her ankles on them, and pulled herself off the nails.

  The relief was immediate; the sharp pain of the nails morphed into a dull ache of a myriad of tiny bruises that they’d caused.

  The professor didn’t let her go to the bathroom immediately. He had her stand by the bed for a minute while he inspected her back. “Lovely. A perfect grid.” He ran his fingers lightly over her skin, feeling the deep indentations. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes, but not as much as when I was still lying on the nails.”

  “Next time, you’re going to have to lie on your stomach. It would be so lovely to see this pattern across your breasts. You have such nice, full breasts.”

  Irene’s stomach clenched at the thought of enduring her next night with the ranks of sharp nails pressing into her breasts. It was only mid-morning and, suddenly, the coming night seemed so close. Though, spending the day being tortured with one of the other devices in the room would make the time pass rather slowly.

  “Let me show you to your bath.”

  She followed the professor through the building. He lived in a converted warehouse. The torture devices, including the bed of nails, were in a large open room on the main floor. There were several doors on the back wall. The right-most one opened onto a flight of stairs leading up to the second level.

  He gestured for her to precede him up the stairs.

  The staircase opened up onto a nicely-appointed living space. Two couches and three easy chairs formed a U around a fireplace. Bookshelves were built into the walls. Paintings and drawings hung between them.

  It was no surprise, but unsettling, that the artwork featured images of women being tortured in various ways.

  She followed the professor across the room and through another door that opened onto a short hallway. The first door off the hallway was a bedroom.

  “This is your bedroom.” He pointed to a door on the far side. “You can freshen up in your ensuite. Meet me back in the study after you’ve cleaned yourself up.” He looked at her nude body. “We dress for meals. You’ll find a few clothes in your closet.”

  He left her alone.

  Her bedroom? Slaves lived in cells in kennels. They didn’t get bedrooms. But this was no cell. There was a freshly-made double bed, a vanity stocked with cosmetics, a bureau, and a bookshelf.

  She peeked in the closet. It contained a handful of dresses. They were properly-tailored garments, not the flimsy housedresses that slaves wore when they were outside running errands or working in the manor. There were a couple of pairs of shoes and slippers on the closet floor.

  The bureau offered underwear – the panties, camisoles, and stockings that a lady would wear.

  Beyond the bedroom was a private bath. A new toothbrush was still in its wrapper, lying next to a tube of toothpaste that had never been squeezed. Clean towels hung from the rack and a new bar of soap sat in the soap dish.

  She showered, brushed her hair out, and put on a pale blue dress. It fit perfectly. As did a pair of white patent leather pumps.

  The camisole and panties felt strange. It was the first time that she had worn cotton panties and a camisole since her previous set had been torn from her body while she was standing on the auction block.

  When she went back out to the room with the fireplace, she found the professor sitting in an easy chair reading a book.

  He put a bookmark into it before setting it on an end table. “How are you feeling, my dear?”

  “Much better,” she replied.

  “Good, good. We should make sure that you get a good breakfast and then get some rest. You’re going to need your strength for your ordeal this afternoon.” He smiled sweetly at her.

  She couldn’t smile back. She was clutched by fear. “What will my ordeal be?”

  “Oh, no, my dear. I couldn’t possibly spoil the surprise. I love surprises.”

  He rose and gestured to the bookshelves. “Do you read? I was told that you were an educated lady.”

  “Yes. I enjoy reading.”

  “Then please feel free to select a book to entertain yourself while I prepare our repast. Breakfast should be ready in about thirty minutes.”

  He exited the room by another door.

  Irene glanced at the book that the professor had been studying: Les Inconvenients de la pitie by the Marquis de Sade. She examined the volume more closely. It was well-worn from many readings. The text was in French. She had been a fair student of French, but the eighteenth century vocabulary and grammar were beyond her.

  She perused the bookshelves. English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Latin were about equally represented. She wondered if the professor could read all six languages with equal proficiency or if he stocked his shelves with books that he had never read to impress the rubes.

  Of the books in English, she could see cheap paperbacks of crude, semi-literate pornography pressed between such works as Edmund Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society and volumes of Thomas Macaulay’s history of Britain. She noted that art history and criticism was especially well represented.

  Looking at French and Spanish, both of which she read with moderate facility, she found the same m
ix of pornography, history, philosophy, and art criticism. The Spanish histories seemed mostly to be descriptions of the inquisition. She noticed that he had a copy of Torquemada’s original handbook for inquisitors.

  Examining the pornography more closely, she was not surprised to see that almost all of it described the abuse and punishment of slaves. The remainder described the kidnapping and rape of free women.

  The professor’s interests were not as eclectic as his bookshelves suggested at first glance. In fact, he seemed to have a one-track mind.

  The longer Irene examined his library, the more her dread grew about the coming afternoon’s ordeal.

  She had not selected a book to read herself before the professor returned and ushered her through another door into a formal dining room.

  The table was set for two.

  “Have a seat. I’ll be back in a trice.” In a moment, he returned bearing a platter of eggs Benedict with a side of toast and marmalade. It smelled delicious.

  Irene half expected him to serve the good food to himself and throw a few inedible scraps on the floor for her. That would be the sadistic thing to do. But he served two eggs Benedict on a plate to her – a far more generous and tastier breakfast than the bowl of porridge that she was given in her former owners’ kennels every morning.

  He behaved as a perfect host serving an honored guest.

  It was wrong for an owner to treat his slave this way. It presaged some horrible consequence that would be necessary to restore the balance of power between them. Her fear increased in direct proportion to his inappropriate courtesy.

  “Eat up, my dear. Eat your fill because I think that it would be better if you skipped lunch today. You will fare better this afternoon if your stomach is not overfull.”

  Every time he mentioned the ordeal that he had planned for her in the afternoon, her fear increased more.

  By this time, he had frightened her so much that she could barely eat. But she forced herself. If she were to have no lunch, then she would be overly hungry by suppertime. Presuming that the afternoon ordeal didn’t kill her, which would make supper unnecessary.