Chapter 5

The control room for the slave theater was above and behind where Steve was captive in his hospital bed. It was equipped with one-way glass and video monitors as well as two-way audio. The microphones in the overhead rigging were very good. They picked up the sounds of Willow pleading with Steve for her life. Carl sat in the control room in front of the microphone, his face a mask of concentration as he listened to what was being said. He was listening for anything that he might use to push Steve even more.

Page, her hands bound behind her, was standing next to Carl. She was standing very still and regal. But Page was concentrating just as much as Carl was except on a different subject. She was watching Willow.

They had used makeup, dust and some of the detritus from the explosion to make Willow's arms and legs look dirty, like she had been working in the fields. Her short black hair was slicked down to look like it had not been washed in a long while. There was makeup on her face that made her look filthy and neglected. The course material covering her body completed the look.

The man reclining in the bed was shouting at Willow, "Ah, fuck! How did you get here? Where have you been?"

"Forget all that ... tell them what they need! They are, oh God, here they come! Help me Steve! Steve! You're my brother! Tell them!" Willow was rattling the post like she was trying to get out. Some breaths she just screamed.

"Steve," Carl said into the microphone. "I told you that I know you. I knew that you had a sister, a sister that had been enslaved in Fresno. I brought her here. I asked her master and he sold her to me so that I could teach you manners. The first slave, the tiny girl with the dark skin? Someone offered the hotel one hundred thousand dollars for her. The hotel said no. Look what we did to a slave worth thousands! Your sister? She was sold for three hundred dollars ... three hundred dollars! That's less than my bar tab on a slow night. There is nothing between your sister and a slow, painful death ... but you."

Willow's words were clear through the speakers, "Steve! They are going to whip me! They are going to kill me! Help me Steve!"

"Please ... Please..." Steve was pleading.

Next to Page was Heather. Heather, her hands bound as well, was shaking and looked like she might vomit at any moment. Page had made it very clear that if she did not remain quiet and still the next person on the whipping post would be her.

Randy let this go on for a full ten minutes before he intervened. While Steve's attention was locked on his bound sister, he had come up behind with three strips of duct tape. Without warning he reached over and slapped a strip of tape over Steve's mouth. Undoubtedly this caused him pain because of his fractured jaw, but that was minor. The two other pieces of tape quickly followed. Willow was screaming for Randy to leave her brother alone and for them to let him go. Once the conversation became one sided, Randy stepped on stage and pointed the handle of the whip at Willow. She fell silent.

Carl kept pressing, "Steve, you only have one more opportunity to make things right. I told you I knew everything about you. That includes facts like you were at the Master's Expo in Santa Clara. You helped kidnap some of the slave that night. You don't believe me do you! Well let me ask you a yes/no question and you can nod your head. Ready? That night, about twenty minutes before the smoke and gas started, you stopped at a booth near the back wall selling bondage frames. There was a slave strapped to a frame, a frame that turned, remember? Nod your head if you remember the girl getting fucked in the bondage frame. She was wearing a horsehead costume. Remember? Nod you head Steve. Steve, if you do not want hear this, we can just get on with ripping your sister's skin off with a whip. Do ... you ... remember?"

Steve did remember. The slave's arms and legs were bent around a frame that could pivot. He did remember. He nodded his head vigorously.

"Steve, I know you were there and that you were no more than six feet away. You see, I remember too, because I was the guy fucking that girl's sweet ass! Yea, that was me. I saw you. You were there, and you set off the gas, and you caused two slaves to choke to death, and you ran away down the hall. You stole property from some very bad people. Yea, I know you. I know all about you."

Steve had thought he had gotten away clean. He thought no one knew he was there or had carried off that raid. That night he was so proud of what he had done getting those girls away. But the BC was unsatisfied. The Bitch Cunts wanted blood. Steve had become afraid when the next day they complained that all they had done was a prank. He had become afraid of what they would do next.

Willow renewed her screaming and pleaded with her brother to save her. She shook her bonds and kept yelling, "Help me! Help me!"

The voice from the speakers was back, "You have only one more chance to tell me what I need to know, so I don't want you to waste that chance, thus the tape on your mouth. One more chance, so I am going to do my best to convince you it is the right choice." Two of the guards replaced Willow's leg shackles with a wide spreader bar. They then did the same with her hands. "I guess this comes down to a simple equation. Does your sister, your last living relative, mean anything to you? Don't answer now... ," there was a chuckle from the speakers; "You will provide evidence one way or the other ... soon."

With that Randy stepped up to Willow and ripped away the course material covering her breasts and hips. Carl wanted Steve shocked at looking at his sister naked, but they did not want him to appreciate the transformation she had undergone. She was no longer the plump girl that had lived in Fresno. There were limited options but some dust and a lot makeup powder partly hid the contour lines of her stomach. But despite the special effects efforts, Willow's breasts were beautiful and proud. Her arms, despite the dirt, showed the muscle that Page's workouts had given her. Carl was glad that Steve was facing her because no one could fail to be impressed with Willow's perfect ass. The camouflage was the best they could do.

Randy placed horizontal post between the vertical whipping post and Willow ass, pushing her hips forward in the same arch that the first girl had been in. Finally he stepped behind the post and began turning a crank. Willow's hands rose as the slack in her bonds was taken up. She was pulled high up on her toes and began moaning from the discomfort. When he came back around to the front he made a show of mauling Willow's left breast. He then turned and winked at a horrified Steve and said, "This is the last time they will look like this!" He then turned back to Willow and ran his hand across her pussy lips. Damn! The girl was soaked! He hid the discovery from Steve by wiping his hand on his jeans, then walked to the edge of the stage in front of Steve and knelt down. The microphone picked up Randy's words clearly.

"I was taught many ways to use a whip. Each technique has a name. I am going to teach you a few." Randy pointed back to where the other slave still hung limp in her bonds. "Look at her legs. That is called Zebras. They are parallel welts, close together, delivered quickly. That is used for slave punishment and for correction of bad behavior. It is very intense but quick. The slave learns from their mistake and it ensures they do not want to repeat it! That is Zebra."

Each member of the team, Carl, Randy, Willow and Page had contributed ideas to give this effort the most impact. Randy had simply said he would say something about what he was going to do to Willow before he started, before they allowed Steve to speak for the last time. It was go for broke time and Randy was pouring on the coal. "Another way to use the whip is for ... entertainment. The strokes are given at a moderate pace, widely spaced in time and placement so that the slave, and those watching, can have time to savor the moment. One of those techniques is called Tiger Stripes. Recovery time is quick because little real damage is done. Masters don't like their expensive property damaged too badly because most fuck their slaves right after." Heather could not help but glance at Page. The marks were very faint now, but she remembered them from the private dining room, remembered when they had been fresh.

Randy shifted a little closer to the edge of the stage and lowered his voice, like he wanted to tell Steve a trade secret. "But there is another way to use the whip. You are going to see that today. The whip can kill and it does not kill quickly. One of those techniques is called Skin the Cat. It is in three stages. The first stage is to maximize the pain and humiliation of the slave. It is a drawn out process of laying crisscross patterns all over the body. And just when it seems like it cannot get worse, it does. It gets much worse. I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but in the second stage of the process the whip begins to remove parts, like toes, fingers, nipples, clit, lips, then at the last the eyes. The last stage, the part that gives this technique its name, is when the whip cuts deep into the belly. The stomach wall gives way and they are disemboweled. They die of shock if they have not died already. That part really doesn't matter; we finish like that whether they are alive or dead. As the saying goes, you still have to Skin the Cat!"

Randy stood up pulled a marker pin from his pocket and walked over to where Willow was suspended. "I like to have a plan. I put circles where I want the first welts to cross. It is like a personal challenge, you know, it keeps it interesting for me." With that Randy used the marker to put a small circle, no bigger than a dime, on each of Willow's thighs, three circles across her stomach, and one on each breast about two inches above the nipple. "My goal is to lay enough crossing cuts at that spot to completely obscure the mark."

Willow had renewed her pleas for Steve to save her. "Steve! Please ... Help me! Steve! Help me!"

Carl could see Steve shaking his head back and forth. He could hear what might have been screaming behind the tape. But they really only had this one shot left, so Carl decided to raise the bet one more time.

Carl watched Randy take a couple of steps back and raise the whip. Crack! Willow thrashed in her bonds and screamed. Randy walked back to Willow and ran his finger down the line across her left thigh. The wound was six inches long and went right through the circle he had drawn there. Randy looked back at Steve and grinned. Randy stepped back again and raised his whip. Because he was going for precision, Randy waited until Willow was still again, but within only a few minutes, he put a stripe across Willow's other thigh, two diagonal and one vertical line across her stomach and a line across each breast. Each line transected a black circle.

Carl looked at Steve. He was arching his back, something that must have really hurt his injured ribs, and was nodding his head as vigorously as the straps would allow. This is it Carl thought. "Steve, do you want to talk? Do you want to stop this?" Carl asked through the speakers. There was more vigorous nodding from the bound man. "Steve, this is it, your last chance. Are you going to tell us what we need to know?" More energetic nodding. Carl knew that if he did not tell them now, this bit of theater was over and with it the chances of stopping another attack. "Steve, I am asking emphatically, who and where are the members and leadership of the BC?" Randy, who had jumped down from the stage, ripped the tape from Steve's mouth.

"Berkeley, Hayward, and Sacramento! Sharon Hall lives in Berkeley but spends most of her time with Sil, Silvia Tomas, in Hayward. That is where they stored the bomb parts the last I knew. Kiley Green lives in Sacramento, runs an office equipment business that they use for recruiting..." Names, address, dates came pouring out of him. Once the floodgates opened, it became his confessional. He told it all. He told them how he had learned to make bombs from someone in prison. He had planned on bombing the frat house that had enslaved and killed his girlfriend Dee. He told them how he had been recruited at work and how the BC used different businesses to camouflage their money and activities. He told them how he had made five initiators for the BC, enough for five bombs. One he had used in Fresno, one was used there at Treasure Island. That left three. He told them how he had planned the Master's Expo raid. Steve had closed his eyes and was just letting fly. He talked for forty minutes straight.

When the monologue stopped Carl asked a few questions to confirm he could repeat the names and addresses, to make sure Steve was not giving them a lie he had just made up. Carl had also asked Matt for a laptop and they pulled up the street views of the locations and asked Steve to confirm the color of the houses or buildings. It all checked out. In the end all Steve could do was sob. He did finally open his eyes, but Willow was gone. The whipping post in front of him stood empty. Using the sound system for the last time, Carl instructed the guards to return Steve to his room.

Unknown to Carl and the rest, Madame Carronade and Matt Yamada had observed everything from one of the private suites. Matt would have been much more comfortable with the situation if his boss had not been openly masturbating the whole time.