Excerpt from "The Checkpoint: Book Two"

 

Nicola panted and sweated as she ploughed the field like a pony might, but one that had been perversely bound to a cross.

That was what the girl-plough strapped to her back resembled. It was a solid wooden cross with a small coulter and mould board fitted to its weighted base. Her arms were outstretched and bound to its crosspiece by heavy straps about her wrists, elbows and shoulders. The upright of the cross ran down her back, secured by broad leather straps that went over her chest above and below her breasts and across her stomach just above her hips.

She had just enough strength to drag the plough blade through the, fortunately, much-turned earth of her small field. She was ploughing at right angles to the furrows presumably cut by the previous woman to have worn the plough cross and she would not be released until she had finished. She felt every bump and tug the plough made as it cut through the earth because there was one more intimate fitting connecting her to her burden. An angled bracket midway down the cross shaft supported a large rubber dildo that was plugged deep into her anus.

She alternately clenched the dildo inside her rectum and then tried to loosen her grip, pretending it was not inside her because it was so intimate and insulting. But of course ultimately she could not ignore it and its presence worked away within her in an insidious fashion, stimulating her to dark thoughts and strange feelings. She was aware that her pussy was slippery and wetter than it ought to be, and she thought a few drops from it even felt to the dark earth of the field.

Of course it was not quite a full field she was ploughing. It was a walled garden in the middle of the old castle gardens that extended out on either side of the eastern gate which resided in Nove Kraznic territory. Once they must have been quite beautiful, until the overthrow of the old order and then the division of the country in two with its border running right through the Castle grounds. She could just see the top of the ugly concrete wall that divided the gardens between what were now two tiny rival states; the Barovians with their restored Duke and the Kraznicians still clinging to their old socialist ideals. But it meant no difference to her. As a foreign terrorist suspect she would suffer equally on either side of the wall.

Captain Luka had reiterated this to her when she had brought out here this morning to begin her second day of ordeals. 'We may be rivals with the Barovians in many things,' she said, 'but we still hold the old laws in common. They permit us to put you through these ordeals to discover the truth and we shall follow them to the letter. It is necessary that you suffer, do you understand, Filuhund Dekatri?'

That was what the metal tag on her collar red. It was her prisoner designation while she was in the power of checkpoint staff. She had been told it meant Bitch 13. All the women she had seen in the dungeons had similar tags. It was further reinforced by the details of her restraint harness. Her hands were enclosed in finger and thumb-less gloves that had been cut and shaped to resemble paws and her feet were encased in reinforced boots that had paw-like toe caps. Their heels were very high which either made walking difficult and humiliating, because of the length it added to her legs and the roll it added to her hips, or else totally impossible. A rod inside the heel could be freed which then jabbed a spike up through the sole of the boot into her own heel, forcing her to go down on her hands and knees like a true bitch. Presumably, it was all part of the deliberate degradation process designed to weaken her determination.

Nicola had nodded in response to the Captain's question. She had a plug-gag in her mouth so she could not respond in any other way, of course.

And then Luka's stern face had softened slightly. 'Unless you wish to admit your guilt now? Then you know we shall hand you and your friend over the international authorities to begin their investigations into your lives...'

Nicola's face must have shown her horror at this suggestion because Luka smiled. 'Very well we shall continue as we began yesterday...'

She had led her through the gardens with their many pathways and high hedgerows until they came to the ploughed field surrounded by flaking brick walls. Once it must have been a leisure garden for a prince, perhaps ringed by statues. Now only empty pedestals remained around its perimeter. No doubt the statues had been judged to be too decadent when they chose to grow cabbages here instead of roses. Had they been classical nudes Nicola wondered? Well they had replaced stone flesh with the real thing.

On the way here she had glimpsed through archways and the gaps in the hedges other female prisoners being tormented, bound and stretched and bent. She could still dimly hear their sobs and moans as their hooded tormentors went about their grim work. She had been subjected to their cruel attentions down in the dungeons yesterday. Her pussy still ached and there were cane marks across her buttocks. How could something so mediaeval still occur in modern-day Europe? But she had been brave and not been broken. She hoped she would do as well today...

In a corner of the field garden, hung from hooks on the wall had been the strange and sinister device of the cross. Luka had made her bend over with her behind facing it while she had lowered it across her back and strapped it in place. Then she had been given her simple task.

'You will plough this entire stretch of earth across the previous plough marks,' Luka had told her. 'If you fail to do so adequately then you will be punished.' She pointed to the wall where iron restraining hoops were bolted to the brickwork in the shape of a spread-eagled figure, and beside which hung a fearsome length of bamboo cane wrapped in bands of studded rubber. 'I will return when you have completed this assignment. Then I will find you some fresh labour...'

Then she had left Nicola alone, simply shutting the big gate in the wall behind her as she left the garden. Nicola's initial surprise was soon diminished when she realized there was no possibility she could escape to anywhere with such a device harnessed to her and the earth itself would testify to her progress and successful completion of her task. In any case she was sure she was not unobserved. As she had discovered down in the dungeons there were concealed cameras about her at all times, and there was no doubt a set focused on her at this moment. Of course that idea made her feel angry and acutely embarrassed and yet at the same time she understood they were necessary. She must be seen to suffer to prove her innocence...

And so she sweated up and down the tiny field, bend over with the tail of the cross trailing out behind her, digging her reinforced boots into the earth as she laboriously churned furrow after furrow. It was exhausting and backbreaking work. Still it made a change from the gloomy dungeons and the horrors that lurked within them. Nobody was actually having sex with her at this moment, although the dildo up her rear was a reminder that her intimate passageways had not been forgotten. It looked as though her captors and tormentors could be just as inventive above ground as below it.

Soon her mind began to wander, dwelling on a strange and troubling aspect of her first day's ordeal. Of course she had hated the vile things that they had done to her and the liberties all those hooded men had taken with her body, and wondered metaphorically if she would ever feel clean again, but what disturbed her most deeply was that there had been moments when she had felt seriously aroused by her treatment. That could not be natural! How could something like that possibly excite her? But she also knew what she had felt. In fact when one of the men had been screwing her she almost thought she had a mini orgasm...

Then she realised her thoughts were interacting with the constant twisting and shuddering of the dildo up her backside. It was, through the thin membrane of flesh separating us to passages, beginning to excite her clitoris. Oh no, this could not be happening! What was going on?

Instinct made Nicola stop and try to clench her thighs together so as to bottle up her arousal, but of course it did no good whatsoever. And bound as she was she could not even touch herself to relieve her perverse need properly, even if she had dare to in front of hidden cameras. But she could not just stand there on a half ploughed field looking ridiculous and she knew the penalties for slacking. So miserably she continued on, realizing that she was dripping lubrication from her pussy as she went.

She had finished about half the field and was in a state close to desperation, when the gate opened and Lieutenant Petra Zacas came in. She was in uniform shirt-sleeves and she was carrying a plastic water bottle and a cloth.

'Come over here, I do not want to get my boots dirty,' she commanded, pointing to the flagged path around the field. Glad of the excuse to stop tormenting herself, Nicola dragged her plough across to her. The path was raised above the level of the earth which allowed Nicola to straighten her back as she stood upright upon it edge with the plough blade still resting on the field. It was like bliss, even though she realized she was in effect standing crucified before Petra with her arms wide, as though offering her body to her.

Petra splashed water onto the cloth and wiped Nicola's face over which felt wonderful. Then she pulled her gag out and fed her the rest of the water, which felt even better. Petra has overseen her evening and morning washing and toilet sessions down in the dungeons, which had been intimate and embarrassing but were at least thorough. Apparently she maintained basic twenty-first century standards of cleanliness amid this antique process. If she had been kept in true medieval filth Nicola did not think she would have lasted twenty-four hours.

Briefly she wondered why, if they wanted to break her, they had not thrown her in an oubliette with her own filth for a week. Were there rules about the nature of the privations she could be subjected to? She had not thought to ask. Or perhaps despite their proud protestations of independence, they could not shut themselves off totally from the modern world. A foreign prisoner dying of septicaemia or cholera, or something would have been impossible to conceal and cause a scandal that might ruin their international reputation. There were limits. That was something to think on...

'You seem to be performing adequately,' Petra said, critically surveying the furrows Nicola had ploughed. 'If you continue like this you will be finished by lunchtime. That is good...'

Then, while Nicola was still gulping down water from the bottle and feeling slightly heartened, Petra's free hand ran down Nicola's sweaty body and unexpectedly caressed her hot sticky sex mouth.

Nicola automatically tried to pull herself away, but the tail of the plough dug into the ground, preventing her from doing so.

'Why are you surprised by my touch?' Petra asked her. 'What do you think I'm going to do to attractive woman in my power of who I am commanded to it degrade and punish by every permitted means possible?'

'I... I was not thinking, Madam,' Nicola said with miserable humility.

'Well think now. And open your legs wider...'

Biting her lip, Nicola obeyed, bracing herself in a tripod of her spread, trembling legs and the base of her cross which was digging even deeper into the soft earth.

Petra's fingers slipped further into Nicola's sex, twirling and teasing and making her bite her lip and whimper. No women had ever touched her like this before. She had already suspected Petra was a lesbian along with her boss. There was no doubt about that now. A whole new world of torment was being opened up which was so much subtler than an oubliette.

'But this pretty slot was aroused before I touched you,' Petra observed. 'Were you getting excited by your bondage or exposure? Or was it the phallic rod up your backside? Do those things excite you?'

'I... I don't know, Madam,' Nicola snivelled. 'This is all... very new and frightening to me.'

'So it should be,' Petra agreed. 'You did not expect to be untouched by any of this, did you?' Her fingers were digging in a deeper into Nicola's cleft. Her stiff first and second fingers were filling her vagina while her thumb was running up through her hot sticky furrow to massage the swollen nub of her clitoris. 'And do you want to cum now?'

'Oh... oh God yes I do!' Nicola admitted shamefully, even as she shuddered with barely contained lust.

'Then do so.'

'But its... sick... dirty!'

Petra's deep brown eyes transfixed her with their power. 'What does that matter if it's what you want to do? Think of it as part of your punishment if it makes it easier. I am shaming and degrading you by taking advantage of your helpless state. That is what the ordeals require. As long as that is what the camera's record the law is satisfied. Only you will know what you really feel. Now you will orgasm...'

Petra's experienced fingers dug and twisted deeper into Nicola's dripping sex, taking the matter beyond her ability to contain. With a sob and moan, crucified by shame and need, she felt her loins convulse and then something seemed to burst within her, and she sprayed her juices across Petra's hand.

And Petra held it there and simply smiled.

When she was done, Petra wiped her soiled hand across Nicola's breasts and then pushed her fingers into Nicola's mouth and made her suck them clean. For the first ever Nicola tasted her own juices. Then as a final insult Petra wiped her fingers dry on Nicola's hair.

'Now get back to your ploughing, Bitch Thirteen,' Petra commanded sternly, pushing her ball gag back into her mouth.