Chapter 3: Second Verse, Same as the First

Both Sarah and Cynthia watched Jared retreat into the interrogation room, his words echoing in their minds. The warden took a moment to regain his composure before speaking, his eyes still locked onto the door as if it were a gateway to hell itself. “We need to find another way,” he murmured, almost to himself.

Sarah nodded, her thoughts racing. “We can’t just stand by and let him use that ... thing,” she said, her voice a mix of anger and fear. “We need to understand these drugs, find a way to counteract them if necessary.”

Cynthia’s expression grew grim. “Agreed. We’re playing with fire here, and we need to be prepared to douse the flames if they get out of control.” She turned to the Warden, her voice firm. “We’ll work on developing an antidote, something to neutralize the effects of ‘The Devil’s Pulpit’. We owe it to the detainees, and to our own humanity.”

“I can’t decide what is more unsettling though that as far as we can tell he was being honest or that we believed him”, Herbert said simply as he looked at them for confirmation of either.

The two women nodded, understanding his concern. “We can’t let this get out of hand,” Cynthia said her voice firm and decisive. “We need to find a way to either contain him or find an alternative to his methods.”

“And if he succeeds and becomes our most prominent asset, what then?”, he countered, how do you bribe the devils lackey, if that self-same madman probably knows he going to hell after this for what he’s created?, he said bitterly, his voice barely a whisper “I’m sorry to be so bleak, but we need to face the reality of our situation, we’ve let a madman into our house and given him the keys to the basement, and we can’t just kick him out because we don’t like what he’s doing down there, because let’s face it, we don’t know what’s down there”, he said looking at the two of them seriously. “All we can do is take his honesty at face value and hope he’s not manipulating us into believing he’s more than he is, his first words in that door were a question as to whether we believed he was either crazy or simply bored, which we never answered for ourselves”, he said simply as he looked to them for a possible answer.

Cynthia sighed heavily, “We’ll deal with Jared’s ... unique nature, later. For now, we need to focus on the here and now, on Farah and Hazeem. We can’t let them suffer like this indefinitely,” she said, her voice filled with a mix of compassion and determination. They steadily agreed.

Hazeem watched as he left and Farah continued to glide up and down against his skin, her body rubbing against his, as she slowly, precariously etched herself closer to her final destination, at least for now, growing ever closer to the base of his manhood, gorged on his daughters sin. The steady rise and fall of her hips made the flesh of her bountiful ass ripple slightly, her hands held above her head, her fingers locked there, as she casually rose and fell to the whims of her captor’s drug, dictating speed, rhythm and more. Her captivating body left him stunned, but equally sickened, as his own arousal grew despite his best efforts to fight it off. The room was dimly lit, with a faint scent of antiseptic and sweat lingering in the air, the wooden chair bolted to the floor beneath him, unforgiving as it was unmoving to his attempts to free himself, leather-like black restraints, kept him in check securely at all three points on his body, as his daughter worked to break him from without and he forced himself to brace his resolve from within.

He could feel his breath quickening, his heart pounding in his chest like a wild beast, desperate to escape the cage that was his own body. Farah’s eyes remained on his, pleading, begging him to understand, to forgive her, but he knew there was nothing she could do, she was as much a prisoner to the drug as he was to his own conscience. Each time she descended, he felt his soul shrivel a little more, his mind reeling from the horror of what he was witnessing. The pain was unbearable, a burning agony that seemed to seep into his very bones, and yet he remained silent, refusing to give them what they wanted. He thought of his past, his training, and his comrades, all of whom would have done the same in his stead. They had always talked about the unspeakable things that could happen in enemy hands, but none of them had ever imagined this.

Farah’s body jostled over his own, her reactions becoming sharper, drawing him deeper into her as she felt him or more precisely his body respond to the attentions of a partner. She could feel him within her, fully realized, wanting more than just simple release, as she finally reached her sought after objective. Her hips slamming down vehemently, as she drove into him with the need for sudden release, her body acting on its own, as her face mirrored her fathers, confusion, anger and bitter, growing rage at this forced union. Her growing whimpers haunted his thoughts as she seemed to come alive with a fresh frailty to her nerves, biting down on her lower lip with each thrust of her hip on him, as she smoothly lubricated his suffocating length inside her, with a clear white liquid almost bursting prematurely from her stretched entrance, coating his shaft, rolling down its length and filming his balls in a warm soup of her bodies growing warmth, shed with each crash of her hips on his, matching the alacrity of her bodies rising needs, as a disconnected part of her mind that watched this unfold before her.

Her limbs moved on their own accord, but at the same time allowing her to feel every strain, every simple and complicated gesture she brought down on him amplified, as it brought her unwanted confusion and hate coupled with her steady, bubbling anger, and saturated it with the undermining sensations of pleasure flooding her body at the same time. It took each traitorous decision to continue this form of torture out of her hands, at every avenue it could have afforded her to stop and release her father from her wanting bodies tightening grip over him, with no signs of relenting until either her objective to make him confess everything vital he knew was achieved or in all the most pragmatic scenarios she could think of, he passed out, suffered cardiac arrest or they repeated the process, under the same undue stress his body was being put under now, though in reflection Hazeem mused was used to the physical aspect of it, all the distress her actions were causing were more firmly rooted in the emotional facet that was being exploited here and which would more than likely still his heart completely, he thought. Her own growing realization at the fact that she would be the source of her father’s likely death or more unlikely redemption seemed to fuel her bodies needs to power into him harder for the latter rather than the former, as her movements became swifter more aggressively inclined than before, as her lips met his, her tongue searching out for his own, as the time for foreplay was dead and gone and they were biting well into the meat of it, at their torturers leisure.

Her eyes searched his for any sign of submission, any spark that would indicate that his resolve was breaking, but all she saw was a tumultuous storm of pain and anger, his jaw clenched tightly, his teeth grinding against one another as he bore the indignity of his own daughter’s forced intimacy. Despite his efforts, his body was responding to her, his arousal evident and growing. Farah felt a twisted mix of disgust and arousal, as she continued her rhythmic torment, the drugs playing havoc with her emotions, her mind torn between the love for her father and the overwhelming desire to end his suffering by giving the interrogators what they wanted.

Her body was moving wildly at this point, each thrust onto him seemed to bring her closer to an edge she never thought she’d reach under these circumstances, but her mind was a battleground, torn between her love for him and the horror of what she was doing, the drug’s influence had a powerful grip on her, she was a mere spectator in this grotesque play. Farah’s breasts bounced in rhythm with her movements, smearing the sweat that had built up on her body onto Hazeem’s chest. She felt the pressure building within her, a pressure that seemed to match the pressure in her heart, a pressure that threatened to shatter her very essence if ever fully realized.

Hazeem could feel she was close, they both were, his tactic so far to remain as passive and essentially as unflinching as possible in his efforts proving to bear little to no fruit, knowing he had to take on a more aggressive approach, no matter how it sickened him he had to give in to the worst part of himself he knew he could summon, which they’d probably hoped he would demonstrate, just to stir him on to greater heights of hedonism that weren’t welcome in his heart or his thoughts, as he struggled with how he would even approach such an assault on their plans and their devices to instil a sense of effective powerlessness and vulnerability as they violated all he held sacred and used family as a keystone to achieve it. Before he knew it he had a plan in mind, which would force him to go on the offensive, as he quickly resolved it was the only way or risk repeating this treatment, as effective as it was to wear him down to a defenceless nub of a man, until they got what they wanted from him with no resistance left at all.

Farah felt her father tensing, not as a result of imminent climax but something else, before she knew it his mouth had firmly sealed over her left breast, the nipple sucked on by his lips as he aggressively took charge and began to draw her into his latest plan, his hips thrusting up into her with a visible need, beyond the involuntary kind, bent of giving her body what her mind wished it could deny, decided on breaking his daughter before she could break him, as she gasped understanding in a the breadth of a heartbeat what her father’s plans entailed, her body already adjusting its own movements to meet his sudden newfound vigour, her eyes widening with a mix of horror and hope, as she felt the walls of her own sanctity tighten around him, her body betraying her as she felt him swell inside her. Whether it took one or a million tries to break him, Hazeem’s eyes glowed with a fervent lust to remain unbroken, unwilling to give in so lightly, before his final breathe was drawn and he was delivered unto his God for judgement, this looked scared her, making her mind shrivel back, hoping desperately that, that act alone was enough to put enough distance between herself and his flinty gaze, as he began doubling down on his efforts, as she felt him thrust with the need to make her capitulate, his unwavering will brought to the fore like a well used dagger sharpening itself on her body like a whetstone.

Her father’s teeth grazed the sensitive flesh of her nipple, and she couldn’t help but moan, the pain mixing with the pleasure and adding a new layer of complexity to the horror. Although his hands were tied back the tall wooden chairs back, that didn’t limit the end result, as he thrust upwards into her body, as they found a new rhythm together, amidst the sounds of depravity echoing from both their throats and body their bodies, as sweat, lust and determination flooded their senses, power of will dominating and determining the final outcome, as they fought their frayed senses and tattered bonds of father and daughter to break free of this hellish dance that was forced upon them or at least begin to.

Jared, padding into the room quietly took up his position on his chair as he said “not bad, not bad, an “A” for effort, now Farah, if you may, please enlighten me without stopping, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the maximum output your body could possibly be producing in the sense of pleasurable stimuli and one being the least amount, where do you rate yourself at this moment”, he said with a mixture of obvious glee in his tone, derived from them both being forced to perform this undignified and incestuous act in no small amount, as he waited for her response, in no rush of his own.

Her breaths were ragged, her eyes wide with shock and horror at her own body’s treachery as she was forced to admit, “Nine,” she gasped, the words tearing from her as if her very soul were being ripped from her body. Jared’s smile grew wider, his eyes gleaming with victory. “Okay, that’s good, and do you think with time and effort and repeated attempts to break your father, what you consider a nine now could later become say a six, if you were to perform this act more often at a higher level?”, he asked with a childish almost painful glee to her ears, as she considered her answered between pained breathes as her father efforts seemed to double in Jared’s presence willing to show him nothing less than a strong front on his side.

“I ... I don’t know,” she whimpered, her body still writhing on her father’s, the drug’s grip on her desires unrelenting. Hazeem’s eyes bore into hers, willing her to hold on, to not give up hope, even as his own resolve was being chipped away with each passing second. “Fair enough, time will tell, as they say”, he said cheerily. “Hazeem anything to say on your part, useful or otherwise?” he ventured.

Hazeem’s eyes never left Farah’s, his voice a low growl of determination. “You will not break me,” he spat through gritted teeth. “And you will not turn my daughter into a weapon against me.” His words were a declaration of war, a promise that echoed through the room, even as his body continued to betray him with every thrust. “No, probably not, which is good, I like a challenge”, he said with the same unnerving joviality. “It’s for that same reason we here at the “pleasure palace” as I would like to refer to it, if no one minds too much”, he gestured around him with open arms and even to the mirrored screen he knew at least three of the senior staff he’d met before were watching him from, along with anyone else in the adjoining rooms connected to it, via CCTV, as he took a moment and said.

“Why do think ... why am I not nervous Hazeem, examine my voice, my body language, tell me what you see, digest what you know and then tell yourself why am I not even breaking a sweat, despite the carnal nature of this torture or the fact that we are monitoring, recording, revising and dissecting every moment, before this method, this process either gets the stamp of approval or the outright rejected in light of what it can do because of it? Tell me, do I fear or approve either result or is there a third choice? Like the third side to any coin that rarely lands perfectly on its edge, how do I know what’s happening here is so far beyond this simple torture, this agony I am causing the two of you that failure in my mind is not only impossible, but outright undreamt of hmm?”, he asked with a softer, almost detached tone in his inquiry that almost took them off guard, even those behind the mirrored screen, almost as if he might actually be concerned for their wellbeing as ludicrous as the even thought might sound.

Hazeem’s eyes searched Jared’s for any sign of a bluff, but all he saw was the cold, calculated gaze of a man who had seen too much, done too much, to be phased by the depravity playing out before him. “You’re enjoying this,” he spat, his voice filled with disgust. “You’re a monster.”

“Pfft”, he simply replied “come on, try harder, put some meat on it and cook with some real thought, why am I doing this, with an ease that compares to nothing you’ve probably seen, dealt or received and why don’t I fear the outcome? You Farah, your insights are welcome too, don’t feel excluded if you have any to offer your father, who doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge what is looking at him straight in the face, with gleeful eyes”, he said with a look which in any number of casual, normal circumstances would have been disarming almost charming to look at, as they both considered his words, believing in part that they were also another layer of torture, as they were forced to confront the reality of the situation, and the nature of the man who was orchestrating it.

Farah felt a shiver run down her spine, the implications of what Jared was saying were clear, he had no moral compass to guide his actions, he was a true believer in his methods, and that scared her more than any pain she felt, because she knew that was the kind of person who would not stop until their goals were met, regardless of the cost, as she felt her father’s thrusts growing stronger, his breathing more ragged. She knew he was trying to find some way out of this, to protect her, as he had done his entire life, she had to find a way to help him, even if it meant playing along with this madness, even if it meant doing the unthinkable, she had to find a way to outsmart Jared.

Her eyes searched her father’s, trying to convey her love and support, trying to show him that she was with him, that she was not lost to the drug, she was fighting, she was trying to find a way out of this. Hazeem’s eyes searched hers, and she could see the doubt, the pain, the anger, but also the determination, the unyielding spirit that had kept him going through countless battles and interrogations, the same spirit that she knew now fuelled his aggressive response to her, his body acting in rebellion to their interrogators will.

Farah’s responded by saying, “I don’t think you’re just enjoying this, Jared,” she panted, her voice strained from the forced intimacy, “you’re ... you’re feeding off of it.” The room’s atmosphere grew thicker, the air heavy with the scent of sweat and despair. Jared leaned into his chair, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Points for the obvious, but what else”, he said obviously happy they were firmly getting on same track of thought as his as she continued to grind against her father.

“You’re testing us, pushing us to our limits,” she continued, her voice growing stronger with each word, “to see what we’re made of, what we’re capable of.” Hazeem nodded in silent agreement, his eyes never leaving Farah’s, their unspoken communication speaking volumes of the love and determination they had for each other, even in this hellish situation. “And what does that tell you, Farah? What am I looking for?” Jared’s eyes were cold, his voice a sharp contrast to his earlier jovial tone. “Truth perhaps, ultimate truth?” she said almost quietly, as if afraid to voice her opinion.

The room fell into a tense silence; the only sounds echoing were their laboured breaths and the slick, obscene noises of their forced union. Jared’s eyes lit up, a hint of admiration crossing his face. “Ah, you’re not entirely lost,” he murmured, “but we’re not looking for just any truth, are we? We’re looking for the kind that can shake empires, the kind that can bring down armies, the kind that can rip families apart,” he leaned forward, his voice low and intense. “And I will find it, no matter the cost. The problem is, is that in order to get the answer you must know the question, but the question cannot be taught; it’s meaning lost if I were to simply ask it out loud, it would seem obvious and impossible, simple or even crude. No the question itself is not enough to seek out the answer, but if you like I can offer it to you, the question, and in the same turn a hint at the answer, if you like?” asked them both and seemingly the room at large. “If you catch the answer at its heart I’ll even stop this” session” outright and allow the upper echelons not a stone’s throw from where you’re sitting take over, and allow them to despite what you may think of their motives, to establish an alternative to what I offered them in the observation room, compared to this”, he indicated to them and the room at large, what he was putting them through and yet to make them suffer, in the near future.

Hazeem felt his stomach twist at the thought of what other forms of torture awaited him and his daughter if they didn’t find a way to break this cycle. He had to think, had to find the key to ending this nightmare. “Your methods are twisted,” he gritted out, his body moving against hers with a fierce desperation that had nothing to do with the pleasure he knew his daughter felt, and everything to do with the need to survive. “But I won’t let you win.”

To this Jared simply rolled his eyes and asked “how about you Farah, you seem the more level headed one, would you like a hint as to how to escape any further suffering at my hands, I can disclose that the personnel despite their treatment of you, your father and the other prisoners are still just human, they can feel pain both emotional and the physical kind, which is surprising considering their vocation in life, but it’s up to you, I just work here, as the saying goes”, he said with a shrug, his eyes never leaving hers, as if challenging her to take the bait.

Farah knew she had to be smart, she had to play the game, even if she hated every second of it. “What do you want from us?” she asked, her voice trembling with anger and fear. “What could we possibly know that’s worth this?”

He smiled devilishly, as he said simple “everything”, before relaxing for a moment considering how to frame his thoughts he added “in nature power is distributed between prey and hunters, correct? Perfectly balanced alongside an eco-system that supports unknowingly in perfect balance with itself. A wolf does not question why it is running down a rabbit for its lunch; all it knows is that it must. At the same time it’s making sure an equal amount of prey exists for a predator without shortage or overabundance. Unlike the simple animals though we do question everything, every second of every day, we make the wrong and right decisions and even the ignoble ones if we have to”, he said firmly as he stared at them.

“These choices we make are fuelled by one thing, this one thing is the ultimate truth we deny ourselves, we distract ourselves from on a daily basis, but not all of us, and not all at once, what is it? Find that and you’ll find what I’m trying to establish here, apart from a helpful home remedy to peal answers out of your fathers soul if need be of course, I may be ... no I am “off” as they say but not ignorant, and with that comes a form of clarity of purpose in everything I do, because I don’t have to hold back, at least not in my work. So any guesses at what I’m hinting at, what it could be in its truest form, from anyone?”, he said even including those in the observation room”, he called out in their general direction hoping someone would chime in. “Open invitation to speak up”, he added “you might even learn something about yourselves”, he said with a tired tone “or maybe not”, he said almost depressed as he rested his head on his arms on the chair as he sat down once again on the reversed seat with ease, despite the two wildly rutting bodies in front of him, begging for release.

The silence was deafening, as the two of them continued their forced performance, their bodies moving in a macabre dance of submission and rebellion. Farah felt a spark of anger and resolve within her, she knew what he was getting at, but she also knew that she had to tread carefully, she couldn’t just blurt it out, she had to make him think she was still under his control. “Survival,” she murmured, her eyes never leaving Jared’s, “You want to know what we’re willing to do to survive.”

“Close, but no cigar, and normally life is too cruel to give second chances on such important matters, but considering the question and that the answer is right under your noses”, he said with a glint in his eye “though not as obvious as you might think”, he added before they had a chance to jump to such vulgar conclusions as simple sex or self aggrandizement or in layman’s terms the expansion of simple power. “I’m willing to make an exception, considering there’s two of you; you should get two attempts, with one left to go. Get it right and I divorce all control here thereof to the higher ups and their bleeding hearts, fail to answer correctly, and we see how far the rabbit hole goes”, he said with a mischievous grin. “Feel free to talk amongst yourselves”, he said idly “but please I recommend you let this poor man and yourself Farah, to find release before you come up with an answer, intense sex good, bad or terrible from my experience has a way of clouding your mind from truths best pondered after a climactic, world breaking release not before”, he said as his gleeful tone returned, watching as they took his advice, their bodies on the verge of climax as they both desperately searched for the answer, trying to outthink a madman.