Chapter 18: Opaqueness

The dictionary defines the word "opaque" as: impenetrable, not translucent to light, heat or sound; hard to understand, not clear or lucid, obscure; dull, stupid and unintelligent.

With the exception of the final few words, Cecily fitted the dictionary definition to a tee. Lying was a joke to her, a laugh! a scrape! She was obscure, impenetrable, deliberately hard to understand and unclear.

She'd told Howard that she was impervious to pain, and it was a fib. It wasn't true. "Mr Pendrill," she'd said. "I feel pain but I choose to ignore it. That's my gift."

The dictionary defines "impervious" as: incapable of being injured or impaired; incapable of being influenced, persuaded or affected.

Howard didn't believe that she was impervious for a moment. Her words were deceptive: everybody feels pain because to feel it is part of our common humanity, and while Howard could have argued and made a fuss, he didn't. What was the point when the truth could be settled so easily?

He could prove that she would be persuaded by pain. So he grabbed her tits by the nipples and pulled them from her breasts, doing so sadistically, tugging at them and waiting for her to crumple and break. He was convinced that he could prove that she was lying, that all he had to do was tug those black muffins and ease them from their delicate white casings!

And indeed, to an extent he was right. Her Frankenstein breasts did change shape. They extended and lengthened into narrow, flattened hoses. They deformed so that the silver dots that had once been scars of stitches dilated and became prominent. Howard became curious, for here in front of him was the evidence of where thread and needle had penetrated, where one Egyptian woman had begun and a European had ended. Howard examined these marks forensically and with boyish distraction, fascinated at how the silver dots elongated and became translucent each time that he pulled them.

And yet there was silence.

He could turn the silver dots into dashes and thereby create an erotic Morse code, but beyond that there was a wall. "Mr Pendrill, this isn't clever!" Cecily said to him tiredly. "I've already told you that I'm impervious to pain."

And right then, the silence was broken. Cecily might not be influenced, persuaded or affected, but Lucy was. Cecily's mild verbal complaint was swamped by the agonized cries that screamed through the air from the direction of the old willow, and sawed at Howard's heart. It was Lucy crying and shrieking and she was certainly bowed and injured by Howard's cruelty, and she was indicating this vocally.

Howard could have panicked, for he was responsible for Lucy's cries and he suffered the burden of guilt. His actions were being replicated on her so that his colleagues were pulling at her breasts and doing to her what he was doing to Cecily.

So what was he to do now?

He sensed that he was treading the right path, and that his strategy was working and all he needed was time. If he renewed his efforts, Cecily would break and Lucy's troubles would be over...

That was his strategy, his plan, and so he squeezed Cecily's nipples with even more venom, shutting his heart to the consequences, but it was a challenge because once again, there was a frantic disembodied howl from beneath the distant willow as if Lucy had been appointed the mouthpiece of all the ghosts in hell.

And yet Cecily barely murmured. "You're hurting your girlfriend, Mr Pendrill," she observed quietly, calmly, as if Howard needed reminding of this miserable fact. "Maybe it turns you on to hear her screaming? Does it? Maybe you like torturing pretty young women and acting the sadist? What do you say, Mr Pendrill? Is that why you continue with this nonsense? Do you enjoy listening to women suffer? I think you do. In fact, I'm sure of it."

Howard drew the shutters down on his thoughts and shut the noise of Lucy's distress from his mind. He refused to believe that he was mistaken, that he could have erred in his judgement, for to prevaricate was to fail, and so he forced himself to concentrate on Cecily's imminent downfall, and not on Lucy's terror. It was a war of attrition and to win it he had to block Lucy's misery from his conscience and his heart. He had to stay focussed. He convinced himself that by squeezing Cecily's tits and jerking at her nipples, this was the surest road to victory. He told himself that the colour was draining from her face and the pain was riddling her brain. He told himself that she was a fake, a fraud; and that behind the facade of impunity was the fragility of a desperate woman.

"You're bluffing!" he screamed at her - losing his cool and squeezing, pulling, jerking - even attempting to lift her from the ground by her tits, although he didn't have the tenacity to manage it. His face was swollen and purple and his temper had flown. He screamed at her face: "No one is impervious! Everyone feels pain."

He had a mission, a cause. He would do it for Lucy. He would break her, this putz, and for a moment he thought that he had broken her, for he saw her body shudder and droop. It bowed as if wilting, and then, as he yanked again at her nipples, it sank.

This was it! She was teetering on the edge and about to falter, so this was the moment to press home his advantage. He scooped her up and carried her to the tree and stood her against it. He was going to finish this once and for all.

Where was the bloody hammer? Where were those damn nails? He was going to nail her! He would nail her breasts to the Oak!

Impervious indeed! What folly! He could feel the anguish and the terror with which she was fighting him. He could sense her weakness! The intensity of the charade was sapping her energy and blocking all thinking.

It was opaque. All of it. None of it was true. She lived in a three bedroom suburban house with a husband called Charles and a blonde headed daughter with dimples. Cecily wasn't a spy! She'd never been to a war zone. She was a psychologist like it said on the door. She was a fake and a plant and it was a test: an interview. Everything about her was an invention.

That's what he told himself as he pushed her against the tree and scooped up the hammer, and immediately he saw the terror in her eyes and knew he was right. There was the proof!

"Oh my God!"

He scooped two nails from the box, discarding the rest. This was it. Finally, after all the talking and the games, he was going to nail her: drill her - maybe tar and cover her in feathers.

"Keep your hands behind your back," he squawked, barely recognizing the hate of his voice as he waved the hammer, whooping like a Native Indian and enjoying her confusion and fear.

"If you move your hands, I'll make it worse. It won't be your tits that I nail... but your forehead: I'll kill you. Do you understand, mam?"

She understood. Her hands didn't move. She kept her back to the tree and her eyes firmly on the hammer and the nails in his hands, knowing that this was it. Her breasts were in jeopardy. She'd driven him to the point of temporary insanity where everything was possible. She was looking at him, fearful and open.

That's when Howard's hand flew to her waist, to her belt, and he grabbed it and unclipped the buckle, his hand shaking violently, and he told himself that she an ordinary woman and not a spy, and that he was going to reduce her to size. He tugged at the belt and there was a slither of noise like the rush of a breeze as the belt rushed through the loops of her skirt and lurched into the air, and she couldn't prevent it because her hands wouldn't move.

"Turn round!" he ordered, not waiting, but making her do as he asked. He spun her round, kicking her forward. "Face the tree. I'm going to nail you."

Her lips were moving, quivering, almost praying, as she twisted her head and saw the nails in his hands, and she was crying, her cheek forced against the tree, whilst behind her, the belt reared up, its long leathery tail towering above her and staring down with lascivious intent.

She moaned in terror as Howard's hand jerked up and the belt snaked towards her back in a flash of flame, like the disembodied presence of torture itself. It hit her and a welt appeared on her shoulder and extended beneath her blouse, across her back to the top of her arms.

She cried.

Her body spasmed. She screamed and jumped into the air, appearing to the entire world like a condemned woman convulsing upon the electric chair, turning this way and that, but wretchedly keeping her arms pinched to her back because that's what she'd been ordered to do, and so again, Howard had no choice but to hit her.

This time it was worse. He hurt her. He knew it! Somehow, she'd spun a half circle and was face on to him when the belt landed, and so it was her chest that took the weight of the pain. The leather landed on her tit meat and she registered amazement, shock, surprise and despair: unhidden and undisguised. Howard could see the spot where the belt had landed, the mark. It had cut across her tit to the extremity of her black areolas. The mark continued across her cleavage, reaching her second tit and exiting via her right torso.

It had been a good hit, a satisfying hit, well aimed and perfectly delivered. The welt flared up and protruded and became an ugly shade of red, but there was no trumpet of fanfare to accompany its creation.

Cecily was shaking and plainly hurt. She'd turned her face to disguise her emotion, but somehow, despite everything, she was holding herself together. Her hands remained pinned to her back, as Howard had commanded, and so he smiled, for her body was perfectly presented. With her hands held like that, she made a beautiful target and he couldn't resist.

He aimed a second time at her chest, and more specifically at the undamaged nipple, and as the belt rose upwards, she drew breath, knowing what he was about to do and clenching her teeth and averting her head.

Howard made her wait. He swirled the belt round his head, admiring her breasts and how beautiful they were, and he wondered that she didn't turn away.

Did she want to be hurt?

He saw the Major's face staring at him bug eyed. "Beat the bitch!" he was screaming, mimicking the actions he thought Howard should take. "Strip the bitch and beat her daft tits. That's what makes these stupid cunts break!"