A Bestiary of Unnatural Women Read online

  Their relationship lasted for almost four months. Suzie might have kept coming back forever but Rob began dating a girl his own age and dumped Suzie.

  In a stroke of pure justice, he dumped her just as cruelly and abruptly as she had dumped her own husband, Paul, and lover, Andy. One Saturday, he weighed her in the morning, put her in her punishment bra, and, when she came back eight hours later, told her that he was tired of her and their relationship was over. He ordered her to leave his office and never come back. She couldn’t believe what he was saying and he had to insist that he was bored with her and never wanted to see her again. She began crying harder than she ever had, even during his most cruel punishments. He was unmoved. When she asked him through her tears to unlock her bra before she left, he told her to go find someone else to remove it. He was done with her. She hung around outside his office door for a few minutes, pleading for mercy, but he did not respond. It did not take long for her to realize that, the longer she hung around in the hallway, the longer she would have to suffer in the bra, so she soon left and never returned. Once her trust in Rob was broken, it would never be mended again.

  And that girl that Rob began dating? Suzie showed me that Rob was no ordinary lump of rock; he was a diamond in the rough that merely needed a little polishing. I haven’t moved in with him yet but we spend every evening together. It’s our Saturdays that are really special, though. I look forward to having nicely warmed buns and well-pricked tits once a week. Suzie isn’t the only bent woman in this world.

  Riding the Devil's Horse

  Cindy’s eyes narrowed when she saw Trevor looking at the sign over the dark doorway. “You don’t want to go in there,” she said flatly.

  “It might be interesting, don’t you think?” He sounded hopeful.

  “I think it might be disgusting. That’s what I think,” she replied.

  “Oh, come on. How often do we come to Amsterdam, anyway? I bet you’re curious. You’re curious about everything. You don’t want to miss this opportunity.” He grinned at her. “Come on, be a sport,” he said, took her and tugged her toward the doorway. “It only costs five euros.”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. “It costs a whole five euros? Apiece?” Then she relented with ill grace. “If it’ll make you happy, okay. But you owe me for going along with this.”

  “Yes, dear,” he replied, already distracted by the possibilities that lay within.

  “You owe me big time!”

  “Yes, dear.”

  So she followed her boyfriend into the torture museum and dutifully began studying the crudely-constructed medieval devices on display, one after another; taking time to read the English text on the yellowing didactic plates and examining the pictures that illustrated their use. She studied the information so thoroughly that one would have thought that she was preparing for an examination. Trevor was not surprised. She studied any new subject with equal attention to detail. That was what made her such a successful graduate student in the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago.

  After an hour, he was bored stiff, tired of looking at device after device that was designed to rend, pierce, burn, crush, and break parts of the human body in the most cruel ways that evil, brutal men had been able to devise. He had begun hinting that he was ready to leave after the first half hour but she had ignored him. Now, after a full hour had passed, he was bluntly nagging at her to hurry up. He was hungry and his feet were tired.

  Her only response was to remind him that he was the one who wanted to come inside; and that they ought to make sure that they saw everything because they were unlikely to get back here again.

  He replied that if you’ve seen one iron maiden, you’ve seen them all.

  She did not respond; she was too busy reading about a pear, a small device shaped like an elongated iron pear. According to the description, it would be inserted into an orifice, like a woman’s vagina or a rectum or a mouth, and then screwed open. The two halves would unfold like petals of a malignant iron flower, pressing inexorably against the vaginal or rectal walls, slowly stretching them until they burst asunder. The pain would be excruciating, the damage catastrophic.

  Cindy imagined her own womanhood being ruined by such a device. The fantasy was abhorrent. Knowing that it had actually been used on real people in their vaginas, rectums and mouths was appalling.

  She took a picture of the device, as she had of every device in the little museum, presumably so that she could remain appalled in years to come.

  Trevor could only shake his head.

  She did not talk to him about any of the devices until they reached a simple thing called a Spanish horse. It was nothing more than a large wooden wedge supported on tall legs. The victim would be placed astride the device so that his legs were stretched apart and hung freely on either side, leaving his entire body weight pressing his crotch against the upper edge. The working edge was not particularly sharp but the area of the body that was being tortured – the genitals, perineum, and rectum – are especially sensitive to pain. She commented that this was the first device that she had seen that would hurt a person without being likely to cause permanent damage.

  Trevor pointed to the part of the text that explained that weights would often be hung from the victim’s feet to increase the pressure. If enough weight was hung, parts would rupture, and eventually the dull edge would break through the victim’s flesh.

  “No, I mean if it were only my weight resting on the edge without any additional weights attached. I weigh about a hundred and twenty pounds and the edge is not that sharp. It’s only about a forty-five degree angle. I don’t think that I’d suffer permanent damage from resting astride it for a while. I wonder how long I’d be able to ride it before I was screaming for mercy, saying anything, offering to do anything to be released. I bet I could stand it for quite a while before I got to that point.”

  Trevor was more than a little disconcerted to hear his lover talking about being tortured personally. He hoped that she was engaging only in idle fantasy but she looked too intense for his comfort. She was a stubborn woman and, when she made her mind up about something, she could not be dissuaded. He had a bad feeling. “I’m getting out of here. I’ll meet you outside.”

  “Okay,” she said with an air of distraction. “I’ll be out in a minute.” As he walked toward the exit, the walls were illuminated by flash after flash from her little point-and-shoot camera. She was taking pictures of the Spanish horse from all angles.

  No more was said about the Torture Museum for the remainder of their vacation, nor when they returned to Chicago.

  Trevor assumed that Cindy had left her interest in the topic as soon as they left the museum and spent the next two weeks living and working with a light heart.

  That changed when he came home one afternoon in mid-July and found her in the spare bedroom, the one that she used as an office, typing madly on her computer. “Whatcha working on?”

  “Sociological aspects of modern interrogation techniques. It’s a broad survey. I’ve decided to write a comp on it.”

  “Oh. Good.” Being in her first year of her doctoral program, Cindy was required to write two comprehensive examinations to demonstrate her understanding of general topics in sociology. She had written the first one before their Amsterdam trip and he was pleased to see that she was making progress on the second one. She would be a lot easier to live with once the pressure of her comps were gone. Then he thought about what she had just said, “Wait a minute! What do you mean by ‘modern interrogation techniques’? You mean torture?”

  “Sure. Torture is only part of the topic, but it is the biggest single part.” She kept typing.

  “Since when does the University of Chicago administer comprehensive exams about torture?”

  “Since I petitioned the Director of Graduate Studies. He agreed that it has become an important issue since the administration launched their so-called War on Terror so he would allow it.”

  “That’s sic
k.”

  She stopped typing and turned around to look at him. “It’s an important issue. People are being tortured by our government as we speak and that is affecting our whole society in ways that the Bush administration never anticipated. Not that we should be surprised by that. That administration never anticipated the consequences of any of the foolish things that they did.”

  He sighed. “Okay. You’re right. It’s important. Good luck on your comp.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, ignoring the fact that she didn’t need his permission for anything, and went back to typing furiously.

  Trevor consoled himself with the thought that as long as her interest in torture was only academic, it would do no harm.

  Cindy sequestered herself like a medieval monk until she had completed her comprehensive exam. A week after it was over, he was unsurprised when she mentioned that she had passed with distinction; she had done the same on her first comp. Her ability to focus on a topic was astounding. He had never met a woman who could be so single-minded. To his distress, her single-mindedness in the six weeks before the exam had excluded any interest in sex. To his delight, in the week after the exam, she was interested in almost nothing but making love.

  On a Thursday night in early September, after making love for the sixth time in five days, she turned to him and said, “Trevor?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re good with your hands.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, stroking her soft, full breast. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said, putting her hand over his. “I mean, I do like that. But what I really meant is that you know how to build things.”

  “Yeah?” he drawled, wondering what project she had come up with now.

  “I want you to build a Spanish horse for me.”

  “What? A horse?” He was confused.

  “You remember. Like the one in the Torture Museum in Amsterdam. It won’t be hard. It’s just a couple of pieces of wood mounted on four legs. I’ve got lots of pictures if you need to look at them. I bet you could build one in a couple of hours. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You just have to make sure that it’s strong enough to hold my weight. Even if I’m wriggling around on it.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  He didn’t want to think about what she must be thinking.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  She looked at the device standing in the center of the room. It was a large wooden wedge, about two feet long with sides about a foot high. The sides met at a forty-five-degree angle, about the same as in the museum, but it looked sharper and crueler when it was sitting in their living room. Supported by four sturdy, well-braced legs, it stood a little higher than her waist. When she was perched on it, no matter how desperately she pointed her feet and strained, the floor would remain at least six inches beneath her toes. “It’s lovely. Just beautiful. I thought that it would be a lot more rustic looking.” She reached out and stroked the smooth wood.

  “I made it out of maple. I thought that oak would be too rough, too porous. And I finished it with linseed oil because polyurethane would have been too sticky against your skin.”

  “I love the way the grain shows in the wood.” She ran her fingers across the upper edge. “It’s not too sharp.”

  “I planed the edge off to about the diameter of a pencil because I don’t want it to cut or cause any permanent injury. The corners on the side, too, where your thighs will press against it.”

  “That’s good. I don’t want to be injured when I use it.”

  “I don’t want you to use it at all. It’s just for show.”

  “No, it’s not.” She began unbuttoning her plaid shirt. “I’m going to try it out right now, just to see how it feels.”

  “It’s going to feel painful.”

  “I bet it is.” She unsnapped the waistband on her jean and unzipped them. “I bet it’s going to hurt like hell.” As soon as she had removed her sports bra and cotton panties she said, “I’m going to need a chair to climb up there. I can’t just jump up on it from here.”

  “I’ll get one.” He brought one back from the kitchen area and set it beside the horse. She slipped her white tube socks off, leaving herself entirely nude.

  As soon as the chair was in place, she stepped up and swung her leg over to the other side, just like she was mounting a real horse.

  She gingerly lowered her crotch down onto the apex of the blunt wedge. “Ouch. I still have to spread my legs pretty wide to get on this thing.” She kept a running commentary as she adjusted herself. “Ooh. It feels a lot wider than it looks. Let me get my foot off the chair and let you pull it away. Ouch. I have to rest all my weight on the edge. That hurts. It’s pressing real hard into my crotch. Ouch,” she said more emphatically. “I thought that I’d be able to take some pressure off by squeezing my legs together and lifting myself up, but I’m just hurting my legs when I try.” She rested on the edge for a minute, then said, “Ow. It’s really starting to hurt now. A few more minutes and it’ll be real torture. I wonder how long I can stand it.” She swayed from side to side a bit. “I have to work to keep my balance on this thing. If I don’t keep working at it, I’ll fall right off. I guess my upper body is heavier than my legs.” She put her arms down in front and back, placing one hand between her legs and the other behind her butt and pushed down. “This is no good. I can use my hands to lift myself right off the edge. We have to do something about that. You can’t let me get relief like this.” She rocked her pelvis forward an inch before lowering herself back onto the wedge. She replaced her hands and repeated the action. “This is no good at all. I can scoot myself right off this thing if I can use my hands.” She inched forward again, and then said, “Nope. I’m going to run out of room for my front hand. I have to go backward.” Following her own instructions, she began to inch backward along the wedge. “It feels like I’m scraping my thighs raw against the wood this way, but that doesn’t hurt as much as sitting on the upper edge. It’s no deterrent. The edges rubbing against the sides of my thighs by my knees are a bigger problem than I would have guessed. I don’t feel them much when I’m stationary, but when I’m moving, they makes two more pressure points that add to the pain in my crotch.” She kept slowly scooting backward until she had no place to put her hand behind her. Then she simply put both hands in front of her, leaned forward and put her weight on them. “This kind of hurts my hands, but a lot less than it is hurting my crotch. Oops. There we go. I can feel the corner right underneath me. One big push and I’m off.” As she described her action, she leaned far forward on her hand so that her crotch was clear of the corner of the wedge and then pushed back hard with a little bounce.

  She screamed as she dropped off the end feet first to the floor. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” Her eyes teared up and she grabbed her crotch with both hands. “Damn, that hurts. I hope I didn’t injure myself.” She bent forward at the waist and parted her hands to peer through them at her pubis. “I banged my damn clit against the corner when I went down. Ooh wee that hurts. It isn’t bleeding.” She looked at herself again. “I don’t think I’ve got any permanent injuries there, but sex isn’t going to be much fun for a few days. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. It’s going to be bruised for sure.” She clutched at herself and rubbed gently. “We’ve got to fix that problem. I could probably have climbed off to the side if I’d tried. That would have been better. The only reason that I didn’t was because I was worried about catching my foot and dumping myself on my head, You’ve got to find some way to stop me from moving around and jumping off. Or falling off. I shouldn’t have to keep myself balanced all the time.

  “While you’re at it, I was wondering if you could think about some kind of stirrup arrangement. I love the idea of being able to put myself on the horse without help. The only thing is there’d have to be some way to get rid of the stirrup once I’m on the thing so I can’t use it to lif
t myself up after I’m on edge, so to speak.”

  A few days later, Trevor showed her the upgraded Spanish horse. It looked more complicated, now being adorned with assorted straps and chains.

  When Cindy saw it, she said, “That looks more complicated.”

  “It has to be. The medieval device in the museum was used manually by the torturers. They would have put the victim on it and then kept guard to make certain that he did not climb off. If you want a self-contained torture device that doesn’t need assistance, then you need mechanisms to perform the same functions as human torturers.”

  “Okay. So what do I do?” she asked as she began to shed her utilitarian grad-student clothes.

  “First, you buckle this belt around your waist.” He handed her a black leather belt with a pair of handcuffs attached to a D-ring in the center. “And when that’s done, you mount the horse. You’ve got a stirrup now for mounting and dismounting.” He pointed to a wood and steel strap hanging from a short chain. You put your foot in it and mount up.”

  When she was nude, but for the belt with attached handcuffs, she mounted the horse.

  “That’s right. Now you reach down and buckle the belts about your legs on each side.”

  Cindy had already begun to buckle the black leather straps around her legs, just above the knees. Their purpose was obvious. They would attach her legs to the lower edge of the wedge. Once buckled, they were not tight enough to support any part of her weight but she would not be able to move forward or backward; nor would she be able to tip to the side. While she buckled the left strap, she kept as much of her weight as possible on her foot that was resting in the stirrup, but when she bent forward and to the right side to buckle that leg into place, she had to press her crotch to the wedge. “Ouch. That puts pressure right on the old clit. Ouch.” She buckled it as quickly as she could so that she could sit straight again.