She took another bite, and then finished it off. She hadn't eaten anything as delicious as this since entering the Dodge household.

The man put something else in her hand a napkin. She discretely wiped her greasy fingers. She was about to tell the man to try one because they were exquisite, but realized the trap. She was not to speak.

Instead, she nodded her approval, congratulating herself on outwitting the man.

"Raise your hands," the man said.

When her hands were in the air, he scrawled his name across her belly. "See," he said to someone. "No real slave has such delicate manners. Every other woman in this room gulped it in a single bite and wiped her fingers on her thighs."

A fourth man added his name to the three that were already scrawled across her abdomen. "You're a clever man, Jake."

Jake Rostrum. Lord of Flatstoke. A man that James admired for his skill at card games. Flame wanted to cry at the man's cleverness.

"It was a mistake to try to identify a lady with s.e.x," Jake said. "All cats are black after midnight. It's the table manners that make the lady."

Now she wanted to tell him that he was wrong. McCullough had identified her with s.e.x. He had tricked her into giving him cold-fish, lady-style s.e.x.

But she still dared not speak.

It seemed that having four names inscribed on her belly made her stand out from the other slaves. Suddenly, she was the most popular girl at the orgy. A rather dubious honor as she was ordered to her hands and knees and used repeatedly without a break between men. That stopped after the fifth man in a row impaled her with his c.o.c.k; the second of the five to prefer a.s.shole to c.u.n.t.

These men were fast, rough, and impersonal. She couldn't tell if they were trying to treat her as much like a slave as possible in the hope that she would reveal herself by revolting; or if they thought that she probably was Lady Irene and wanted to make sure that they could say that they'd f.u.c.ked Lord James' wife the next time they played poker with their friends.

If it was the latter, then they were just covering their bets but not risking anything by signing her belly.

Maybe they had already used up their votes by signing their names on other slaves. Maybe all five had signed the same slave and she, not Flame, was in the lead for getting punished.

A girl could dream.

But not for long. Someone ordered her to her feet and then scrawled on her belly. She didn't know why he had chosen her but now she had five votes. That had to be a lot because there were fewer than three men per slave. Even three votes would have been more than her share.

Maybe the most recent vote had been registered by one of the five men who had used her when she was on her hands and knees or maybe it was someone that she had encountered earlier someone who had been spending time with the others and had been convinced that none of them could ever have been a lady.

A new voice began speaking in her m.u.f.fled ear. "I don't care if you're Lady Irene or not. I've been watching you and I think that you're an exceptional woman. My wife died last year and I'm not interested in the kind of ladies that keep trying to trap me into another marriage. They're a bunch of tight-a.s.sed prudes. I'd like to buy you and spend a year teaching you to be a lady. If you can show me that you can fit into society, I'll free you and marry you. Every man secretly fantasizes about marrying a slave so that he'll have a wife who will give him as much pleasure in the bedroom as he can get in the kennel. The difference between me and those other men is that I want to make my fantasy come true. What do you think? Could you act like my slave in the bedroom but be a lady in the dining room? If you had the right training, I mean?"

Flame thought about his proposition. It was a way that she could get what she wanted most, a pa.s.sionate s.e.x life, without having to service any man who gave her an order. She would be a part-time slave of one master.

She nodded.

"Really? You're not just humoring me, are you? That would be cruel. You'd really marry me if I could make it work?"

She nodded again.

He leaned close. She could feel his lips against her ear through the leather. "Got you, Irene. I got you. You know why?"

She shook her head.

"Because you listened to my proposal. You hoped it I would do what I said. No real slave has hope. Ever. When I offered the same proposal to other slaves in the room, every one of them either laughed in my face or pushed me away. They knew that they had no hope of ever being free, no matter what a gentleman says. You're the only one who took my jest seriously. Now, slave, put your hands behind your back."

When her hands were out of the way, he signed her belly.

She now had six votes. That had to be enough to make her the winner of two special punishments.

Three more men used her, each one taking advantage of a different orifice.

She was exhausted. She didn't know how these men could keep getting it up. Surely they were as tired as her. As nearly as she could remember, she had been used more than a dozen times. Some of the men, like Earl Jones, were too old to perform at all. So, if all the other slaves had been used as much as her, then most of the men in the room must have f.u.c.ked more than a half dozen slaves.

Flame doubted that. She didn't think that it was physically possible for so many men to have so many erections in an evening.

There was only logical conclusion. She must have serviced far more than her share of the gentlemen in the room.

"Gentlemen, your attention, please." Thorn's voice penetrated to all corners.

Men stopped what they were doing.

"I do believe that every man in the room has voted. Am I correct? Is there any man here who has not written his name on the belly of one of the slaves?"

There was silence.

"Then it is time to tally the vote. Give me a moment to arrange the ladies."

There was shuffling and milling around.

After a couple of minutes, Flame was grabbed by the arm and escorted across the room. She was turned around and placed with her back against a wall. She could feel naked arms brushing against hers on both sides.

"Gentlemen, as you can see, I have arranged the slaves in order according to the tally of votes on their bellies. We have two slaves who were so good, so subservient that their bellies are unmarked. Lets give a hand to the two slaves who were perfect."

There was a scattered round of polite applause.

"Next, we have one slave with one vote, five with two votes, and three with three votes. It seems that they could have tried harder but they did not fail so badly that they merit punishment."

There was a brief pause while Thorn walked down the line, and then Flame felt a hand on her shoulder.

"That, gentlemen, leaves a tie. These two slaves have each earned six votes. We must break the tie. All those gentlemen who voted for one of the other slaves must now vote for one of these two. We won't bother with the markers. We'll vote now with a show of hands."

Thorn raised Flame's hand high above her head.

"Gentlemen, how many of you believe that this slave, the one marked with a K was Lady Irene? Raise your hand. Even if you already marked her belly, you have to raise your hand now, to be counted again."

There was a pause before Thorn returned her hand to her side and released it.

"And the other slave, who was marked with an M?"

Flame struggled to understand. If they had been arranged alphabetically, then she would have been the eleventh slave in the line. That was consistent with what she had believed when they were being lined up that only one slave was in line after her, the one marked with an L. So where had the M come from?"

It didn't matter.

"The winner, gentlemen, is Slave K!" Thorn raised Flame's hand high. "She will be punished for receiving the most votes, six in the first round, and a full twenty in the second."

There was a round of enthusiastic applause.

Her stomach sank.

"In the tradition of the ancients, this slave will be crucified."

Flame felt like she was going to collapse. Crucifixion was a death penalty.

"But not to the death," Thorn said. "That can take days. Only for half an hour. But, let me a.s.sure you that even a half hour of our crucifixion will be agonizing. It will be the longest half hour this slave has ever experienced."

Flame wasn't going to be killed, but she was left quivering in fear. She didn't want to experience agony.

But she was a slave. What she did or did not want didn't matter a whit. She was going to be crucified and that was that.

Flame stumbled as she was pulled away from the wall and the other slaves. Strong hands held her by her upper arms. These weren't Thorn's hands. Handlers had been brought into the room.

She didn't resist. It would have been futile. These men were far stronger than her. Fighting them would only earn another punishment. Maybe an extra hour of crucifixion.

A dozen steps to the middle of the room and she was stopped. Her right arm was stretched away from her body and her hand was placed around a thick metal bar. A handle of some kind. She understood that they wanted her to grab it so she did. A leather strap was wrapped around her fingers so that she could not open her hand and release the handle. Then the same was done on the other side so that her arms were loosely outstretched. She heard the ratcheting of some mechanism that pulled the handles apart. It stopped when her elbows were straight and her arms were stretched as far as they could be extended without pain. Yet.

Thorn narrated. "Instead of the traditional cross, this slave will be crucified on a steel frame. She will have no support behind her. Instead of suspending her by her wrists, we are going to suspend her by her hands. There's less risk of nerve damage that way. I hope that you appreciate our consideration for our delicate flower."

There was gentle laughter from the audience.

Thorn was quite a card.

The handles that Flame was forced to grip began to rise. When her hands were higher than her head, they put pressure on her shoulders. Pain flared sharp and hard as her joints began to take her weight.

"The reason for crucifixion is that the slave has her hands stretched to the side rather than overhead. In this position, the slave's shoulder joints are bearing her body weight in a direction that they were not designed for. The stress of her weight will cause more pain than you can imagine."

Flame whimpered as her heels left the ground. Her arms continued to rise and stretch until she had to stand on tiptoe.

Even when she strained her calves to the limit, she couldn't raise herself high enough to relieve the stress on her shoulders.

It had only been a minute and the pain was already severe.

"The slave now faces a dilemma. If she relaxes her legs, her weight will be supported entirely by her arms. She risks dislocating her shoulder joints. But her legs will not support her forever. She will spend the next half hour, struggling to maintain a balance between how much she can afford to strain her calves and how much weight her shoulders can tolerate. It does not help that breathing is difficult in this position because her rib cage is raised and her diaphragm is stretched."

Flame was beginning to feel the truth of that last a.s.sertion. She had to try to rise higher on her toes to gasp for every breath.

"I will now start the clock."

Good G.o.d, Flame thought, I'm already hurting something awful and she hasn't started the clock yet.

"Gentlemen, you have half an hour to enjoy your drinks and to take advantage of all the slaves who remain here to serve you. If any of you would like to fondle our crucified slave, she won't try to stop you."

There was more light laughter from the gentlemen.

Flame was barely aware of the clinking of ice in drinks and discussion of further wagers. None of the slaves had been unmasked yet, so the gentlemen still did not know if it was the former Lady Irene who was suffering crucifixion or some other slave. Serious money was being put at risk over her ident.i.ty.

She could not remain stationary. She had to keep raising herself higher to breathe then sinking as low as her shoulders could tolerate to rest her calves. But she could never sink low enough for her heels to touch the floor.

Every time she exhaled, she groaned.

After a time, she felt increased pressure on her shoulders and had to raise herself a little further. Oh, G.o.d! Someone was adjusting the height of the handles that trapped her hands to make certain that she was in exactly the optimal position to experience the most stress possible.

Taking the next breath required an even greater struggle.

She was still hooded. She had no idea how many men were cl.u.s.tered around her nor how close they stood until she felt a hand begin to ma.s.sage her breast.

"I love a suffering slave."

She recognized the voice. This was the gentleman who had tricked her with the false promise of marriage.

The hand moved down to her belly. Stretched taut with her ribcage pulled high, her belly was concave above her hips.

"I'm in love with you, right now, you know," the voice said.

The hand moved around to cup her b.u.t.tock, which was clenched into a small, hard melon as she struggled to stay on her toes.

"Lord Hoffman is to be commended for arranging such a beautiful entertainment."

Another pair of hands began stroking her calves. "Wow," another voice said, "her calves are like knots of solid wood and it's only been five minutes. They'll feel like concrete before this is over."

She sobbed and struggled to suck more air. Five minutes. It had only been five minutes. She was going to die before a half hour was over. The pain alone would kill her.

The hands on her calves continued to feel how her muscles worked as she raised and lowered herself.

She tried shifting her weight to her left foot to give her right rest, but she couldn't support herself on only one foot. The effort increased the strain on her shoulders. The pain was so intense that she wasted precious air to scream and had to struggle to take another breath.

"Lovely," the first voice said. "I could feel that scream right through her t.i.ts."

A new voice said, "Let me help you out, dear."

A hand shoved between her legs to push three fingers into her c.u.n.t. Another hand parted her nether cheeks to shove two fingers into her a.s.shole.

Then she was lifted by c.u.n.t and a.s.shole. Not off the ground, and not really by her c.u.n.t those fingers put most of the pressure on her pubic bone, painfully crushing her c.l.i.t but it was enough to help a little. For the moment, she did not need to put so much weight on her feet or her shoulders. Despite feeling like her a.s.shole was about to be torn asunder, she took the opportunity to gasp a great gulp of air. It was the best breath that she'd drawn since the crucifixion had begun.

The hands in her crotch fell away and her shoulders protested the return of her full body weight. Waves of agony surged through her chest.

She cried aloud and someone laughed.

She never realized how well men could be entertained by the suffering of a woman.

Hands drew away to be replaced by new hands and new voices marveled at the rigidity of her muscles.

Her ordeal continued, on and on. She was caught in a timeless dark eternity of unbearable pain. Pain that she had to bear, regardless.