Shackled by the Dictator (BDSM Erotica) (2 page)

Mansk proceeds to give us the guided tour,
whether or not we asked for it.

“We are in Gorky, capital city of Ursk. Two
million citizens live here.”

“Are they all out in the streets today?” I
ask timidly.

“Many of them are in fields and factories,
toiling for their day’s wages.” Mansk has a faraway look on his
face.

I know Mansk’s English isn’t the best in the
world, but I find it strange that he should select the word
‘toiling’. And the way he says it is unexpected as well. As though
he is repeating a phrase he has read from a magazine.

We come out into a plaza where a bronze
statue of Potchenko stands thirty feet tall, towering over the
gathered masses like an imperial judge. It has an incredible
likeness to him, I note. But it is the assembly before the statue
that fills me with dread.

A raised platform has been erected to face
the statue. Three contraptions that I have not seen outside a
museum have been placed upon it. My gut rolls at the sight of three
massive Guillotines. Their frames are painted black, and the
cunning blades that are suspended from their top bars are angled
and shiny. They use Guillotines here? I thought they have been
outlawed.

But wait a minute.

Three Guillotines.

There are three of us in the cage. Max, Greg
and myself.

A sudden panic seizes me. Surely they are not
going to execute us for a public spectacle? What have we ever done
to Ursk and Potchenko? Does he mean to murder us in cold blood in
front of all these people as a flip of his third finger to the very
Western capitalist supremacy which imposes sanctionsup on his
country?

Oh my God.

That is exactly how he is going to play it,
right?

My palms behind my back are now clammy. The
blood runs cold within my veins – ice-cold, despite the starkly
contrasting sunniness of the day. Overhead, clouds scud across the
mockingly sweet blue sky.

“Max,” I whimper.

“Gina, it’s going to be OK,” he whispers
tersely without turning around. His shoulders tremble, and I can
tell that he doesn’t quite believe in his own pronouncement.

Greg says urgently from behind me, “Gina,
it’s not what you think. He’s not going to kill us. There is no
point. He’s not stupid enough to incur the wrath of Uncle Sam by
executing us when we haven’t done anything!”

Not stupid, I think, my teeth clattering now.
But rash. Maybe he really wants to bring war down upon himself. It
has been known to happen. Dictators do stuff like this throughout
history. Entire nations have had to pay for it.

There are television crews in front of the
podium. Cameras are angled towards the stage. For it is a stage,
make no mistake about it. A political stage for Potchenko’s
one-upmanship to the world.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God.

I can only repeat this as a litany because my
mind is totally blanked to everything else. For some reason, Mansk
does not meet my eyes. Of course. He knows what will happen to us.
He has known all along. My thighs are trembling so hard now that I
can scarcely hold myself upright. Sweat trickles down the cleft of
my buttocks.

I can’t believe I’m really going to die. I’m
a living political statement. I’m about to go down in history books
as a footnote. And not only me – but the two people I absolutely
love and adore: Max and Greg.

I simply can’t bear it if they are to be
killed alongside me.

A soldier bedecked with medals and epaulettes
climbs onto the podium – a silhouette against the sun. I don’t have
to understand Urskan to know what he is saying:

“Bring the prisoners.”

2

I don’t know what I’m expecting. My life to
flash before my eyes, perhaps. Every memory of my mother and father
and sister, Karyn. All my precious memories of Max fucking and
loving me. And Greg, with his sweetness and warmth and
tenderness.

But there is strangely nothing. There is
nothing because my shriveled leather of a temporal lobe has curled
up and decided to go AWOL. My memories are malfunctioning – that
can be the only explanation. My vision isn’t great either.
Everything in front of me is runny, as though a pail of soapy water
has been thrown against my retinas and is now slowly trailing down
my screens.

Every fiber of my being tenses as I wait for
the door of our cage to open and the guards to physically haul us
out.

But there is . . . nothing.

Instead, two men and a woman are brought up
the stairs of the podium. They wear grey smocks, and their hair is
lanky and bedraggled. Their heads are bowed. They are the very
portrait of misery and resignation.

The guards line them up behind the
Guillotines.

I know I’m supposed to find this terrifying.
I have never seen a live execution before. But the profound relief
–
guilty
relief – that washes through me almost pitches my
entire body forward. So I am to be spared! So are Max and Greg!

This time, at least,
the little
warning voice tells me.

Still, to watch a public execution is no
laughing matter. I decide that I am not going to watch it. I am
going to kneel here on my comfortable cart and keep my eyes fixed
steadfastly upon the floorboards.

Mansk says, “Did you think for one moment you
are to have your heads chopped off?”

Yes, actually I did.

Greg says in a tight voice, “Are public
executions common here as a ‘welcome home’ present for
Potchenko?”

“You will address the Great Leader as Master.
And yes, these are prisoners of politics,” Mansk replies. “They
deserve to die.”

I wince. These unfortunate souls have
probably done nothing more than to print dissent leaflets and
distribute them.

Murmurs ripple through the crowd. I study the
floorboards with intensity. Behind me, my tethered fists are
clenched. The whorls and grooves of the wood swarm into one
another, making faces reminiscent of that haunted German painting I
have once seen on some documentary –
The Scream
.

Three simultaneous whooshes – like knives
slicing through crisp air – jolt me out of my reverie. I flinch,
refusing to allow my chin to rise above the level of my thyroid
cartilage.

“Gina, don’t look,” Greg says from behind
me.

“I’m not,” I squeak.

“It’s not pretty,” Max agrees. From the
strain in his tone, he is clearly looking.

The crowd begins to cheer. Forced cheers, I
would like to think. Or maybe they’ve been forcing it so long that
it becomes natural now. Cheering without really meaning it.

“Is it over?” I whimper. I’m still not
looking up.

“Yes,” Max says.

I don’t want to see the cleanup. This is like
a hundred and eighty degrees from how I’ve been brought up. More
than ever, I treasure the safety and comfort of my home, which I
have always taken for granted. I will never take anything for
granted again.

Mansk stays silent throughout the aftermath.
I’d pegged him for a cynical quip, or maybe he doesn’t feel like
doing cynicism in English.

When the cart starts moving again, we visibly
relax. Or at least, as relaxed as one can be after witnessing an
execution in a foreign land where we have no rights. After, you
never know if the crowd will chant for an encore.

I steal a look at Mansk. His head rotates to
follow the podium, as if he can’t bear to let it out of sight. Is
he that bloodthirsty? The expression on his face is not one of
patriotic righteousness, however. It is one of regret.

“What’s the matter?” I ask him in a low
voice.

His eyes turn to me. There is a flash of
absolute pain in them – so stark that I am taken aback.

He says as a matter-of-factly, “That was my
sister, Anushya.”

“Anushya?”

“Yes. At the Guillotine.”

Understanding dawns within me. “Y-you mean .
. . ?”

“Yes.”

I am speechless for a moment. Then –

“I-I’m sorry.”

What else can I say? I have never been in
such a situation before. It’s absolutely chilling.

Mansk says, “She deserved it. She betrayed
the Great Leader.”

“But she’s still your sister.”

Mansk turns away from me. His shoulders are
rigid. But an unspeakable sadness permeates his entire frame. It’s
not something he needs to tell me . . . I just
know
it. As
morbid and calculating as it sounds, I file this little piece of
information away in my memory. I have a feeling it’s going to come
in useful someday.

That day may be very soon.

3

The cart winds its way up to a stone castle.
That’s literally where Potchenko . . . oh, sorry, the Great Leader
. . . lives. It’s suitably forbidding and Gothic and medieval, and
I feel like I’m approaching Dracula’s lair.

The landscape of Ursk basks behind the castle
– cultivated fields of produce dotted by silos and granaries and
black-and-white milk cows. Ursk is mostly agricultural, so I’ve
been told. Self-sustained. They don’t need help from the world and
the world doesn’t need them. They don’t have oil, minerals,
precious metals or anything the world doesn’t already have surplus
of. I guess that’s why America hasn’t taken a greater interest in
Ursk.

As we reach the castle grounds, Potchenko and
his motorcade rev to the front while our little donkey cart is
taken to the back of the castle. Of course. We are only lowly
slaves who should be stomped beneath the feet of the hired help –
why should we be accorded front door treatment, right? The guards
troop us out of the cart and we are left feeling self-conscious and
shivering in the suddenly chilly breeze that whips all the way
around the structure.

Mansk points to me. “You, come with me.”

What? I am to be separated from Max and
Greg?

I stand there helplessly as Mansk removes my
nipple clamps and unwinds the chains from my chafed and sore pussy
folds. There – I am now free from Max and Greg. It feels strange to
be walking unencumbered again, but I don’t like to be parted from
Max and Greg in this place. You know . . . where anything awful can
and will happen.

I look longingly back at Max and Greg – who
are equally as anxious. Who can blame them? I wonder if I will ever
see them again. I’ve been in DEFCON One state since the execution.
I follow Mansk into the castle. The back door immediately leads to
a humungous kitchen where several cooks are stirring something
spicy and aromatic in pots as big as my torso.

My mouth waters. I realize I haven’t eaten
since the plane.

Mansk does not heed the growling of my
stomach juices. He steers me out of the kitchen and into a chamber
with a brick fireplace. It’s a cozy room. Despite it being summer,
a fire crackles upon the heath. The room is as warm as my stomach
acids.

A large woman with three chins and arms as
large as hams is pouring boiling water out of a kettle into a large
wooden bathtub. Steam puffs and eddies everywhere, penetrating the
atmosphere with fog. The whole chamber smells of fresh vapor.

Mansk says something to her in Urskan, and
she replies with an expression that can curdle milk. I stand there,
feeling naked and foolish.

Mansk shoots me a knowing glance and
leaves.

“What you waiting for?” the woman barks at
me. She points at the tub. “Get in.”

I stare at the steaming surface of the
water.

“But it’s hot,” I protest. Like in
really
hot.

“Get in,” the woman repeats. She slams down
the kettle onto the stone floor. It hits the ground with a clank
that sends goose bumps down my back.

Is she planning to scald me?

When I don’t move, she takes three strides
towards me and seizes my right ear. Her pincer grip hurts something
fierce.

“Ow, ow, ow!” I shriek.

“When I tell you get in, you get in!”

She pulls me by my ear to the tub, which
frankly looks like a soup tureen. She drags me into the water and
pushes me in headlong. Upon contact, my skin lights up. I’m swarmed
all over with fire ants. I’m dunked into a cauldron of water so hot
that I can think of nothing else but fire, fire, fire. I scream and
water gurgles into my mouth.

A hand pulls my head upward by my hair.

“Shut up, you stupid girl. It is not
hot.”

I sit there in the steaming water, my pulse
drumming a scatter upon every sluice in which you can feel a pulse.
My skin has reddened and my wet hair plasters upon my neck in
scraggly strands. I don’t know what her definition of ‘hot’ is, but
if this isn’t hot, I don’t want to know her version.

“You call me Gerta,” the woman booms. She
takes up a brown brush and starts to scrub me in earnest – the way
you would scrub grime off an ancient wall.

Tears spring into my eyes. Is everyone in
this place going to be cruel to me?

Gerta starts to scour my breasts and my
tender nipples. She pinches my protuberant tips until they are
plucked and raw. The red of my nipple flesh merges into the crimson
hue of my heat-ravished skin. My mounds start to chafe with the
intense scraping.

Then she dives down.

“No,” I whimper, closing my legs tightly.

“Open them.”

“No. You’re going to hurt me.”

“I say open them or I open them for you.”

My penitence has been honed by months of
sexual slavery. I tentatively part my thighs, and her giant arms
push them open as though they are fragile sticks. My pussy is
exposed in the water. Gerta brings the brush down onto my tender
nether lips, and upon the first touch of the bristles, I
scream.

“Stupid girl!” She slaps my face, and I begin
to sob. “Raise your butt on top of water. Do it!”

I’m not sure what she wants me to do, but I
raise my hips so that my pussy is above surface level, all the
while keeping my legs apart. My slippery hands grip the sides of
the tub.