Clive Bedford
Mistress of torment
(Bondage book – 133)

CHAPTER ONE

Detective Inspector Harold Wilson of New Scotland Yard Criminal Investigation Department removed his hat in order to facilitate scratching his head. It needed scratching, but for once this habit failed to stimulate his brain. Wilson was a good, solid, stolid policeman who, by dint of doing as he was told and not arguing, had worked himself up in the CID as far as he would ever go. In a year he would retire, if not in a blaze of glory, at least not in a shower of mud! This was beyond his experience, and with the wariness of his age and nature, he could see one thing very clearly. There was likely to be a lot of trouble here! And Wilson did not want trouble. It was the very last thing he wanted.

He spoke to the young intern who stood patiently by.

"I'll have to make a special report about this," he said at last. "You'll have to hold the body for autopsy, but I want you to take special precautions. Do these, things lock?"

Wilson pointed to the rows of gruesome refrigerated cabinets that lined one side of the wall.

"Yes. There's two keys. The attendant has one, and the secretary of the hospital keeps the other in his safe."

"Hmm. I'd better have the attendant's key, now please. And then I'll come with you and collect the other one." They closed the drawer containing the young man's corpse with that degree of respect that most people give to the dead even if they withhold it from the living!

As they went along the corridor, the inspector said, "I suppose we'll have to get a disinter men order for the other one – the woman. That's a bloody nuisance, I can tell you! Every time that happens some maniac or other starts squawking about 'desecration'! Where was she buried?"

"Highgate, I believe."

"Christ, right in the middle of London! We'll have to keep the press away with bloody barbed wire!"

Wilson collected both keys gloomily, signed for them and went outside the hospital to where his driver was waiting. Detective Sergeant Gerry Glasner was an entirely different kind of police ma from his boss. For one thing he had not yet arrived and had practically nothing to lose. For another, he had come into the force from university, and had a well disciplined and enquiring mind. For a third he was by no means sure he had made a wise decision in his career choice, and did not much care whether what he did met with approval or not!

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"Trouble?" he asked, sympathetically, studying Wilson's gloomy face.

"Another one of those damned chastity belt corpses," said Wilson.

"Another one? Another girl?"

"No. A man this time – or a boy really. Only about sixteen years old."

A week before the body of a girl had been pulled out of the Thames at Teddington Lock. She was about eighteen years old, a virgin. Her clothes were good, having been mostly bought in the King's Road, Chelsea. She had been well-groomed and manicured – and dead. There had been no sign of injury, yet the autopsy had proved that she had not drowned. She had been dead before she got into the river. Yet there was no bruising or any other sign of her having been thrown in.

All that was bad enough. Already it had involved Inspector Wilson in the thing he most hated, trouble. He had some twenty Murder Squad men working around the clock, trying to trace the identity of the girl. Until they knew who she was, there was not much hope of tracing her friends, or anyone who might know anything about her death. So far, some fifteen hundred individual contacts and enquiries had drawn a blank. But the worst feature of the affair had been that the girl had been wearing a most odd appliance. It seemed to be made of some kind of grey metal, cold to the touch. Yet it yielded like rubber, so that it fitted her body like a second skin. Worst of all, it did not stretch, and all the efforts of nurses and doctors had utterly failed to remove it. There was no joint, no fastening. It might have been molded over the girl's body.

The staff of the hospital were not altogether unused to removing chastity belts! Especially from men. Every few weeks someone would be brought in from a road accident and if he was conscious his reluctance to be undressed would prove to be due to the fact that he was wearing a more-or-less complex arrangement of chains around the waist and loins – sometimes even along the torso to a metal collar as well. And, at the end of all the chains, there would usually be a metal box of some kind that completely enclosed his genitals, with a small hole in the box for toilet purposes. Sometimes the chastity belts were fastened on with padlocks. Some of them were soldered on. Only last month there had been an extremely complex and unpleasant one, with sharp spikes inside the box which would have made an erection terribly painful, and that had been welded on so that the doctor bad to send for a maintenance engineer with oxy-gas equipment to cut it off!

The standard story was that the patient had put the thing on himself, although in most cases this was manifestly impossible unless he had also been a contortionist! The inference was that the man had been playing sex-games with a woman or another man who found pleasure in depriving him of sex-satisfaction. One or two claimed they had had the chastity belts fitted for religious reasons! It was embarrassing all round, but that was the end of it. If a man cared to wear a chastity belt, that was his affair and no one else's.

But the girl, and now the boy had both been found dead in unusual circumstances. And both had been wearing these curious belts, of an unfamiliar material. Not wishing to publicize the oddity, the police had, in fact, conspired to conceal the facts surrounding the girl. They could not be concealed again. Trouble was in the air! Wilson groaned aloud. Gerry Glasner reached for a bottle lying under the dashboard.

"Indigestion?" he asked.

"I shall have! Not now… Do you know, at the hospital they've tried getting that damned thing off with bolt cutters, and couldn't even dent it! Yet its surface feels like satin… They'll have to cut it off! Or if not, I'm afraid they'll have to cut up the body and get it off that way. We've got to have it – and I guess we'll have to have the one off the girl now. It's the only clue we have."

Back in his office, Wilson asked for the file on the girl. In it were several photos.

"Look at these, Sergeant," he said to Gerry Glasner. They studied them together, with a new interest.

The sight of the young, slender body, lying stiff and cold brought a spasm of anger to them both. This, after all, was what their lives were about; punishment for this, and prevention for the future. Yet, there was no proof of murder, except that the girl could not have thrown herself in the river after she was dead! And she had not drowned. That was all they had to go on, except for the chastity belt. The soft, yielding metal thing fitted over the girl's breasts, proving that she had had a beautiful, full figure. The cups totally covered the breasts and there was an area of the metallic substance flat against her chest. This was shaped like a brassiere, and led around her chest to her back. There was no clasp or fastening of any kind. The report said that the cups over the breasts were hard as glass, but the rest was soft and resilient. The girl would have been unable to feel any sensation through the metal of the cups.

Attached to the breast strap was a wide vertical one that joined to a kind of waist belt, about four inches wide and perfectly shaped to fit between her rib-cage and hip-bones. This was as tight as it could be, cutting deep into the flesh, compressing her vital organs. In front of the waist band was a shaped piece that covered her belly and proceeded down to curve up between her thighs, narrowing as it went, and up between her buttocks to join the waist band at the back. Between the thighs was a hole about a half-inch in diameter, and there was another round hole about an inch in diameter over the anus. Investigation had shown that to each of these holes was attached a tube of the same size and same material. The front tube seemed to enter the urethra, and the rear tube was clearly in the rectum. The length of the tubes could not be determined because the metal of the belt was opaque to X-rays. Despairing of removing this garment without desecrating the body they had buried the girl in it. Now she would have to be disinterred and, somehow or other the garment would have to be recovered.

"Maybe the lab will be able to give us a lead of some kind," said Wilson. "Whoever made and fitted that belt must have had some kind of workshop!"

"What about the boy's belt?" asked the Sergeant.

"There's some polyphotos in my case. We'll get the regular ones in about an hour, but these will give you the general idea."

The boy had been wearing jeans and a roll-neck sweater, which before he died would have concealed the high collar of silver-grey metal that was fitted around his neck. It was just fitted close to his skin, not tight enough to restrict his breathing, not loose enough to move. Pushing a finger down between the collar and the skin, the doctor had determined that the inside of the collar was fitted with hundreds of small, blunt spikes that must have pressed painfully into the flesh. At back and front of the body was an extension from the collar, about three inches wide, joining to a tight waist band similar to the one the girl had worn. There was a kind of box in front of the belt, shaped so as to allow no expansion of an inert penis. When the belt had been fitted, the boy had obviously not had an erection – and he had certainly not had one since he had worn the belt! The scrotum was in a separate enclosure, equally small. At the end of the penis-sheath was a hole, not more than an eighth-inch in diameter, and investigation had shown there was a kind of catheter tube attached to it, presumably running along inside the penis. At the rectum there was a one-inch hole and tube, similar to the one on the girl's belt.

The boy had fallen in front of an underground train at Piccadilly Circus Station and had been almost cut in half. The wheels of the first two coaches had passed right over him, and over the chastity belt. But the material of which it was made had not even been marked!

"What are you going to do, Inspector?"

Wilson closed the file and rested his hand on it. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Gerry," he said. "I'm going to pass this one upward, as far and as fast as I can! I'm not a very bright copper. You know that!" He smiled. So close to retirement he could afford to; he no longer had any apples to polish! "But all my instincts tell me that this one is trouble, with a capital T. And I don't want any part of it!" He got up. "I'm going to see the chief inspector," he said. "The intern told me he was going to ask one of his maintenance engineers to try to cut through that belt on the boy with oxy-gas before he locked the cabinet in the morgue. If you get a call from him, say I'll ring him back."

It was Sergeant Glasner's turn to be gloomy. He had just seen an example of the kind of petty-mindedness that made him feel he was in the wrong job. This was a challenge, not something to be passed up the line to where the buck stopped. But there was nothing he could do. He was caught in the rigid discipline machine.

Ten minutes later the phone rang and, as Gerry answered it his face changed from boredom to incredulous horror. "OK," he said, quickly. "I've got all that. I'll tell Inspector Wilson. Yes… I expect we'll be right over." He put the phone down and was just reaching for another one to call Wilson, when it buzzed. A girl's voice spoke.

"Sergeant Glasner? The chief inspector would like to see you in his office right away please." Gerry threw down the phone and ran!

He entered the chief inspector's office soberly enough, although his eyes were bright with excitement.

"May I give Inspector Wilson a message first, Sir?" he asked, and as the great man nodded, Glasner said, "Just had a phone call from Emergency Services, Sir. There's been a hell of an explosion at the hospital, in the morgue. A young intern is dead, the attendant, two nurses and an engineer!"

The other two men sat, suddenly alert, tense.

"What was it?" asked the chief inspector.

"Did the gas explode?" asked Wilson.

"Apparently not, Sir. They've only had a quick look of course, but, you know the stuff that chastity belt was made of? Well, apparently when they started to use the oxy-gas on it it exploded – just blew up. It was a hell of a bang. Shattered every pane of glass in the building, and for about a quarter-mile around. Everyone thought it was the Irish at it again!"

The chief inspector sat still, looking at his finger-tips.

"Sit down, Sergeant," he said. "You're twenty-five and unmarried, I believe."

"Yes Sir."

"Engaged to be married?"

"Not yet Sir. Nothing serious anywhere."

"Parents?"

"My mother passed away last year Sir. Father's due to retire from the Air Force next year."

"He'll be a man who knows his duty…" said the chief inspector, mysteriously. "Glasner, Inspector Wilson has been talking to me. And he's given me a glowing account of you, I may say. I know a lot more about this chastity belt thing than either of you. And I don't think anyone is going to get very far by routine methods. This is very serious, very serious indeed. And terribly dangerous too. Both the bodies you have seen have been agent working for Special Branch!"

Gerry stared in amazement. "On the force, Sir?"

"No. And that, I think was the mistake. They lacked enough experience to be able to look after themselves." He counted his fingers carefully, as if he felt there was one missing. Then he looked up so that Gerry had to meet his gaze. "I need a young, intelligent and dedicated volunteer for a job of great danger," he said quietly. "A job on whose success may depend the security of the country – and indeed the security of the world…"

"You mean me, Sir?"

"I am not giving any orders, Sergeant. In this you are a free man. And there won't be any adverse remarks on your Conduct Record if you refuse. I'm by no means sure I'd accept the job myself, even if I were young enough."

Without a moment's hesitation, Gerry said, "I'll do it Sir, if I may."

"Good. Wilson said you'd take that attitude! There's not a moment to waste. I'd like you, Wilson, to go along to the hospital and see what you can find out, if anything. I want to talk to Sergeant Glasner."

When they were alone, the chief inspector said, "This is all covered by the Official Secrets Act, Glasner. You could get ten years in jail if you talk! And now I've said that, let's be informal. This is not routine police business. In fact, as soon as we are finished here, I am going to dismiss you from the force in disgrace!"

"Sir?"

The chief inspector smiled, thinly. "It's only to give you cover! When it's over, you can come back in as Detective Inspector if you want to – and with no loss of pension rights! But I expect we shall find something else more interesting for you to do, if you want it!" He took a small box from a drawer and opened it, pushing it across the desk to Gerry. "What do you make of that?" he asked.

Gerry took the box in his hand. In it there was what looked like a length of very fine fuse-wire, about an inch long. He looked up, baffled.

"It is a fantastic piece of ultra-micro-miniature circuitry," said the chief inspector. "We don't know how it works yet, nor even what it is for. All we know for certain is this. That piece of wire was removed from the back of Betty Bronson's neck – that's the poor kid that ended up in the river. It was driven straight in, just between two vertebrae, into the spinal cord."

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"Is that what killed her Sir…"

"Not the driving of it in. That much is certain. But some kind of signal generated by that circuitry did kill her, instantly. And I'll tell you another thing. We may never be able to check the boy after that explosion, but I am sure there was a similar thing in his spinal cord – just as there have been in five other agents we have employed in the past six months, all of whom have died accidentally – and all of whom have been found wearing one of those chastity belts!"

"Seven gone? In six months?"

"Yes. Want to change your mind?"

"No Sir."

"Good. Now, tell me, what do you know about UFO's?"

Chief Inspector Dodds smiled again, fleetingly as he saw the sudden tension in Gerry's face. He knew just what the young man was thinking!

"Unidentified Flying Objects" – witches on broomsticks? Or the delusions of weak-minded people? Or a mystery wrapped in an enigma that had not so far been opened up? Should Gerry show his chief that he had an open mind – and risk being considered eccentric at least, if not downright unstable? Or should he dismiss UFO's as nonsense, and risk being thought of as having a mind closed to new ideas? It was a difficult dilemma for an ambitious young police officer. Dodds resolved it for him.

"Level with me, Glasner," he said. "Be frank. I'm not trying to catch you out, lad… I'll tell you something – under the umbrella of the Official Secrets Act – the Prime Minister is in daily contact with the President of the United States over the hot line about this very question. And even though we may not think much of politicians, no one thinks they are that crazy!"

Gerry Glasner took a sudden resolve. If this new assignment proved to be worthwhile, it could lead him quickly out of the boring routine of police business, and into something that would give him the chance to use his intelligence to the full. If not, well, he already had in mind to resign anyway, so what had he to lose?

"I think there have been genuine sightings of UFO's, Sir," he said quietly. "A lot of the reports – maybe most of them – may be illusions, genuine or crazy, but there are some that seem, from the little I have read, to be beyond question… After all, a lot of policemen have reported sightings, on night patrol!" He smiled, disarmingly.

Chief Inspector Dodds sat silent for a moment his face hard, frosty, and Gerry wondered if he had said the right thing – then he thought, "So what the hell! I've said what I honestly believe. He can like it – or lump it!"

"You're right, of course," said Dodds, surprisingly. "There have been sightings, quite recent ones, that are absolutely genuine. And I don't mean just sightings in the sky. I mean, real, genuine sightings of craft – and of personnel – on the ground. Backed up by photographs that are unquestionable – and by eye-witness accounts that tally so well that there can be no question of collusion, or even of mass hysteria."

"I'll give you the data to read later on, but for now you may take it as certain that there are some kind of space-craft, peopled by living beings with human characteristics – or some of them at least – flying about in our atmosphere, and making landings from time to time. What's more; the creatures concerned have been interfering in human affairs for a very long time. For centuries in fact. And in the past year this interference has grown into a serious and dangerous menace."

"Was it… them… who killed Betty Bronson and the boy?" asked Gerry.

"We believe so. And the other agents too. We've used these young people because about a year ago, we became convinced that a lot of mysterious disappearances were due to abduction by these… creatures. As you know, there's always hundreds of people disappear into the blue every year. I guess most of them are husbands getting away from wives – and although the wives don't like it, it's not really our affair. So long as there's no suspicion of foul play, it's not illegal for a husband to disappear!"

"But last year the number of young people disappearing suddenly trebled, and that's serious. A lot of older, experienced officers began raking up the old stories from the 1920's about the white slave traffic, and the possibility that these youngsters were being sold into brothels and such, like in the Mid-East. But you know it's not easy these days for anyone to be taken against his will out of the country. It can be done, but not on such a large scale. I mean, we were dealing with something like an additional two thousand disappearances of people between about sixteen and thirty years."

"And then we got a lead, just one, that opened up an entirely new line of enquiry. We had to take the whole thing out of the hands of the regular force and give it to Special Branch – and it looks as though they've failed too, with all their agents dead. So now I am under orders from the home office to try a different angle."

"I'm going to use just two agents, more mature, experienced, working together. It's a slender chance, but we hope that one at least will survive to tell the tale!"

Gerry shivered, in spite of himself.

"Two agents?" he asked.

"Yes. You, now you've volunteered, and an American, a girl. She's just turned twenty-two years old, of an age to appeal to these… creatures. And old enough to have some sense and experience. She'll work with you."

"But why are the Americans involved? Isn't this a matter for NATO?"

"In a way, it's accidental. But for one thing, the Americans have the hardware and the technical capacity to help. Their satellites, for instance, have actually sighted dozens of these craft, although the damned things don't stay in one place long enough – and they move too fast – for us to be able to pinpoint them – yet. And it's better for us to work with the Americans. Oh, we have our differences, especially at newspaper level! But in a general way, we lead the-same kind of life, we have much the same kind of aspirations, we speak the same language – and that helps a lot. But more than that, these days when we confide anything to our NATO allies in Europe, it gets back to the Russkies inside a couple of days, and we're still not sure it is not them!"

"You think these may be Russian craft?"

"No. We don't think so. But they could be. And in the present state of the world, we've got to be damned sure it's not, before we blow the gaff! They are so tight-lipped that they wouldn't tell us about it even if they knew, even if it meant we could all get together to deal with the situation. In fact, we are sure they've had sightings, but they blame them on 'spy planes', usually American, and that adds to the gaiety of nations as you know! So, we're going it alone, with the Americans, and the Cabinet are convinced this is the best way. If and when we get incontrovertible proof, then we'll tell Russia and ask for their help. In the meantime, they'll have to go on assuming it's the Americans, or NATO, or even the Chinese!"

"When and how do we start?" asked Gerry.

"Right now. You go out of here to the Westland Hotel. Go up to Room 128. You'll find Sonia Evans waiting there. She'll tell you all you need to know. Before you leave, read this folder and note carefully what it says. Then give it back to my secretary – and get a signature for it to cover you in case it ever leaks out! And now, Glasner," snapped Chief Inspector Dodds, "stand up!"

Wondering at the sudden change of attitude, Glasner pushed his chair back and stood up.

"Your conduct during the past six months has been totally unworthy of a police officer of your standing. The charges of corruption against you cannot at present be confirmed. If they ever are, you will find yourself in court – and probably in jail. You are dismissed from the Service in disgrace, with pay up to 6 p.m. today. That is all! – Except for one thing!" Dodds suddenly smiled. "You'll find your account is credited at your bank with two-thousand pounds, and so long as you don't go mad and spend it too fast, that balance will be maintained all the time you are on detached duty." He held out his hand impulsively. "Good luck, lad," he said. And then, suddenly serious, "Keep safe… OK, on your way Glasner – and keep out of my sight if you know what's good for you!"

To say that Gerry was confused would be an understatement. He spent an hour in an anteroom reading the folder with growing unbelief. Then he returned it to the secretary who gave him a receipt for it, merely mentioning its official number. When he walked out through the general office and along the corridors, it was obvious that everyone who met him knew that he was in disgrace. He encountered glances that held pity, derision, disgust, contempt. He felt like a cheap crook as he passed through the swing-doors and into the street!

However, there was nothing wrong with his instincts, or his training. He walked down the stairs into the underground station, bought a ticket for a long journey, and went down the escalator to the platform. He let two trains go by, and noticed that a stout man in a fawn raincoat did the same. Someone was tailing him! When the third train came to the platform. Gerry stood well back, keeping the corner of his eyes on the man who was reading a newspaper. At the very last moment, just as the automatic doors began to close, Gerry ran forward, put both hands between the closing doors and pulled hard. With an effort he squeezed through, and had the satisfaction of seeing the man in the raincoat dash his paper to the platform and stand there, swearing. Maybe Dodds had put a tail on him, or maybe it was someone else. Whoever it was would be disappointed. Gerry had no intention of either being nurse-maided, or of being foiled in his work before he had started. He got out at the next station and took a cab to the Westland Hotel.

Without announcing himself either at the desk or on the house phone, Gerry went right up to Room 128 and pressed the buzzer. The door opened a crack, then wider and a warm, seductive voice said, "Come in Sergeant Glasner. I have been expecting you!"

Instinctively Gerry stood for a few seconds, studying the American girl, and from what he saw he felt that this job would have certain compensations, even if he ended up in the morgue, wearing a strange metal chastity belt! Sonia Evans was worth spending a few seconds – or several hours – studying in detail! She was tall and very beautiful, with a breath-taking figure. The black leather trouser-suit she wore showed off every detail of her magnificent body to perfection. It was a moment before Gerry could reply.

"Here's my identity card," he said. "May I see yours please?"

"Come right in," said Sonia. "Here it is!"

They exchanged cards and stood inspecting them gravely. Gerry held the girl's card in his right hand, checking the photograph. It was all in order, but as his thumb rubbed over the edges of the photo, something odd stirred at the back of his mind. He looked again more carefully, checking the descriptions in detail.

NAME: Sonia Evans.

NATIONALITY: United States Citizen.

AGE: 22 years 4 months.

BIRTHPLACE: St. Louis, Miss.

HAIR: Black.

EYES: Large, dark brown.

COMPLEXION: Pale.

NOSE: Straight.

HEIGHT: 5 foot 10 inches. (Tall for a girl, but she looked taller.)

Gerry's eyes traversed that glorious body noting the full, generous breasts, the incredibly tiny waist, the zip-fronted crotch – surely that was a small lock that closed the zipper? And at last his gaze fell on Sonia's feet and rested there. She was wear in black shiny boots, laced tight to below the knee, with sharp, pointed toes and the most incredibly high heels he had ever seen in his life – and working around Soho, he bad seen quite a few pairs of high-heeled boots in his time! That was why she seemed taller than her description! That was why she towered over his own six-foot height!

His uneasiness faded. There had been some thin wrong – and that was it. The girl looked far too tall for her description. Nothing more than that. A small detail, but in noticing it he showed himself that his instincts were still alert. But not quite as alert as he believed!

He handed back her identity card and took his own.

"We destroy them both now," said Sonia, in the deep, seductive voice that gave Gerry goose-pimples every time she spoke. She walked across the sitting room and took a gas lighter from the table. She held one corner of her identity card in the flame and, when it kindled, put it carefully into the large ashtray. The card smoked and flared until it was a heap of ashes. Sonia stirred the ashes with the base of the lighter, crushing them to powder.

"Your turn," she said. For an instant, some warning voice inside Gerry's brain said it was unfortunate that he could not look at that card just once more. He dismissed the thought and came beside Sonia to destroy his own card. When it too was reduced to black powder, the girl took the ashtray into another room and Gerry heard the sound of the toilet flushing. Obviously she knew her security!

She came back, striding swiftly and purposefully to answer the phone. She stood with her back to Gerry.

"It's not important now," she said. "Goodbye." She replaced the receiver. "They've lost one of my dresses in the cleaners," she said. "I'll have to let it go." Why was it that, into Gerry's mind came a sudden vision of a heavy man in a fawn raincoat?

"What's the drill?" he asked. "What do we do? How do we start?"

Sonia said, "Sit down. I'll fix you a drink." And when Gerry began to protest about "Not drinking on duty," she smiled so that at the sight of it his entrails seemed to turn to water inside him!

"This is a different kind of duty, Sergeant," she said. "I have a feeling you're going to need a drink. What'll it be? Scotch?" Gerry nodded, and the girl poured him a large Scotch on the rocks and handed it to him.

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When she, too, sat down, it seemed to Gerry as though a queen had seated herself on her throne. The chair was large, with arms and a high back, and while Sonia was not fat or overweight she was a big girl, so that she filled the chair, sitting with her back straight, not touching the chair-back. She crossed one leg over the other and sat, lightly swinging the upper foot. Gerry's fascinated gaze was upon that sharp tip – and suddenly, unbidden, came into his mind the wonder what it would feel like to kiss it, to feel the sharp stiletto heel grinding mercilessly into his genitals! He raised his eyes, and was aware of Sonia's sardonic smile; he knew that she understood his thoughts, and he flushed.

"We start here," said Sonia, "and now!"

"How can we start here?"

"I have all our instructions detailed in writing," replied the girl.

"I'll let you see them before we… start. But briefly, this is what is required. The previous agents have discovered that, for some reason the Andromedans… the, er… extra-terrestrial people, are attracted to what we know as 'perverse' people. You must realize that our information has been gathered carefully now for almost ten years, not merely on the reports, of the seven agents who have been executed."

"Executed?" asked Gerry. "That's a strange word!"

"From their point of view… executed. From ours, of course, murdered!"

"We'd better continue to look at things from our viewpoint," snapped Gerry. "Otherwise we'll get confused… What was that name you used for the… creatures?"

"Andromedans."

"Andromedans?"

"Yes."

"Is that our name for them, or their own?"

"Ours, of course."

"Meaning we believe they come from the nebula in Andromeda?"

"It could be." Sonia waved the idea aside impatiently. "It's not important. We have to call them something. 'Andromedans' is as good a name as any other, until we know better. The important thing is that the ones who reach Earth seem always to be attracted to 'perverse' people, and to no others."

"That must limit their field of operations!" said Gerry, grimly.

"Not so much as you might think," smiled Sonia. "I am told that in America and Britain it is estimated that one adult in five is actively 'perverse', and about four and a half in five are psychically perverse, in that they fantasize about perversions, or what are called perversions anyway. You, for instance, are psychically perverse!"

"I beg your pardon!" Gerry was suddenly angry, his face red.

"Just now, you were thinking extremely perverse thoughts about my boots, weren't you?"

"Well… yes… maybe… But how do you know that?"

"It was written all over your face!" Sonia laughed lightly. "You're potentially perverse at present. Before we set out to find the Andromedans… you have to be actually, dynamically perverse before we can interest them in us!"

"And you?"

Sonia smiled. "Oh, I'm already perverse! That's one of the reasons why I was chosen for this job!"

"Look, I'm out of my depth. Suppose I just take a look at the official instructions."

"Why not? It may save time." Sonia took an envelope from the table beside her and handed it over to Gerry. He was annoyed with himself to find his fingers trembling as he removed the thin letter from it.

His eyes widened when he saw the address printed at the top of the page, and they stayed wide as he read the brief letter and studied the signature. He recognized the name of the Prime Minister, but did not know the signature. However, the letter was counter-signed by Chief Inspector Dodds, and that signature he was familiar with. It looked like a spider had crawled over the page, soaked in ink! Gerry slowly folded the letter, replaced it in the envelope and handed it back to Sonia without a word.

"Well?"

He grinned. "It looks as though I'm in for a lively time, doesn't it?" he asked.

Sonia smiled back at him. "You could say that," she agreed. Fifteen minutes later in Sonia's hotel bedroom, Gerry was convinced of it. He was naked, except for a black rubber G-string which did nothing to conceal the rigidity of his throbbing penis. Also, he was extremely uncomfortable, but in no condition to protest about it. He was kneeling on the carpet with his forearms between his calves and his thighs. His wrists had black leather bands around them, tightly strapped, and joined by a short chain. In his mouth was a very large rubber ball covered with soft spikes. A tube was threaded through the ball from side to side, and there was a chain through the tube. The chain had been pulled tight at the back of his neck and fastened there with a small padlock. And from the front of the ball, a leather thong was passed to the chain between his wrists and pulled tight, so that his head had been forced down hard between his thighs. He could not raise his head – and he could not withdraw his arms.

There were similar black leather bands around his ankles, also joined by a short chain, and there was a fine chain locked tight around the neck of his scrotum… so tight that he could feel his balls almost crushed by the pressure of the skin. That fine chain was attached to the chain between his ankles. And, in that quite simple way he was fastened in a kneeling, crouching position, with his buttocks sticking up, vulnerable and unprotected.

Something dangled down to tickle his cheek, then moved before his eyes. He shivered when he saw the tip of the lash of a long black leather whip!

"Now, Gerry," said Sonia softly, her voice a caress, "I'm going to teach you how pain can become a pleasure! Lesson number one coming up!"

The tip of the whip was withdrawn from Gerry's line of vision. He actually heard it sing through the air in the instant before it made contact with his skin. At the flaming, burning sensation that ran across his body, from one thigh to the other, traversing his exposed buttocks, he would have screamed aloud – but the large rubber ball in his mouth muffled his cry so that all that could be heard was a short grunt. His body quivered.

"Hell!" he thought. "I've heard about the 'whipping perversion', and I've always thought it was damn silly. Now I know it is! How does anyone get pleasure out of this?"

His body jerked as the whip fell again. But it did not jerk much, because as he moved his legs convulsively, Gerry became aware once more of the sharp, fine chain around his scrotum. It felt as though if he moved another quarter of an inch his balls would be cut off! Again the whip fell, and again and again on Gerry's quivering hide. Then, for a brief interval it stopped and he was able to collect his thoughts. The first thing that was borne in on his dazed mind was that his penis was alive and erect, rigid as never before, and throbbing with life. Which was puzzling, because he felt that the pain should have overcome all sexual desire. But even without the touch of the whip, he had been excited almost beyond control as Sonia had quietly, impassively strapped and chained him into position.

Gerry jumped again as the whip fell once more, but with a great effort remained still under the blows that followed. And slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees, even as Sonia had forecast, the pain in some mysterious way was transmuted into sexual desire. At last, if he had been free to speak, he would have been crying out to Sonia to beat him harder, not to stop. Almost as though she could read his thoughts, the cuts came faster and harder until suddenly, almost without warning and despite the pain it caused in his balls, Gerry's body jerked and heaved as he reached the peak of orgasm and ejaculated as he crouched there. No one had touched his genitals.

Everything had taken place in his mind which, in some way he did not understand, had translated the blows of that whip into sexual messages which had at last triggered off the orgasm. He crouched there, panting for breath.

"Shall we do it again?" asked a soft voice, and Gerry thought, "Oh God! No! Not again! I can't bear it!" And then he realized not only that he could bear it, but that he actually wanted it.

He tensed as he felt something hard and cold penetrating between the cheeks of his buttocks, pressing against his anus. The smooth probe pressed hard and slid slowly right into his rectum. A belt was passed around his waist and buckled tight, and it seemed to be carrying a weight of some kind that was attached to the probe.

Gerry jumped convulsively, regretting it immediately, as the probe began to vibrate with a high-pitched electronic hum. Sonia must have moved a control, because the sound went up the scale as the vibrations increased in speed and intensity. When Gerry realized that there was nothing painful to follow from this, he relaxed and began to feel a pleasurable sensation from the stimulatory massage. Slowly he felt his penis harden again, until he was once more at the peak of his desire. This was better than being whipped! But even as the thought came to him he heard the hiss of the lash through the air, as the whip cut into his exposed and sensitive flesh.

This time it took much longer for him to come to orgasm. After the first one, he had felt he would not be able to repeat the performance for a couple of days, but now he knew that a break was imminent. Yet it took a king tizie, during which Gerry's mind became confused so that he lost contact with reality and was conscious only of the vibration in his rectum, the raging pain caused by the whip that Sonia wielded so expertly, and of the throbbing of his penis which seemed to want to find deliverance, but could not quite make it.

At last the inevitable happened and this time, regardless of the terrible pain in his balls, the young man writhed and twisted as he crouched, until the sweat ran down his flanks and tears of agony came to his eyes.

And then it was all over, and he waited to be released. But the vibrator did not stop, and a soft, seductive voice in his ear whispered.

"And now we'll do it a third time, just to prove we can do the impossible!"

The hair literally stood up at the back of Gerry's neck as the thought got through to him. There was nothing he could do about it! If Sonia cared to whip him until he collapsed, he could not resist. He was utterly helpless, at her mercy. And as he realized his position, once more, despite his fatigue and weakness he felt his penis begin to rise again.

The vibrations continued, penetrating his anus, bringing new sensations to his vitals. But suddenly, without any warning there was a change. In addition to the vibrations, he now felt violent electric shocks which seemed to cut, like white-hot irons from his balls to his anus, cutting right through his loins like a sharp bladed knife!

He groaned silently and seemed to die a little. But then he felt the lash across his buttocks, biting into weals already purple and sore, and soon it seemed almost as though one pain cancelled the other, mingled with the pleasurable vibration of the probe to produce a sensation of sexual ecstasy far advanced on anything he had ever experienced or even dreamed of. He became detached from the events, until it seemed that it was someone else who was suffering, and all Gerry could feel was the mounting sexual pleasure in his genitals. And at last, he began to wish for pain, to beg for it, to pray for it, so that the girl Sonia became, not just a casual acquaintance he had met in the course of duty, but a kind of deity to whom he owed an allegiance, and from whom he expected benefits…

After what seemed like an age, his body contorted once more. The orgasm came again, but with difficulty and agony this time as well as with pleasure, the two inextricably mingled so there was no knowing where one ended and the other began. There was no ejaculation, nothing but a dry, contortion of his body and difficult spasms of his muscles. Once more he cried out, inside the gag that shut him away from the world. And then his body relaxed, his mind went blank and he keeled over on his side and lay, twitching, sobbing, dead to the world.

Sonia stood watching him, her face impassive. Although he had fainted, she deliberately placed her right boot on the soft part of his waist and ground the stiletto heel into the flesh, twisting it from side to side, leaving a circular scarlet wound.

Then she sat down in the large arm-chair as though enthroned, legs crossed, waiting. She set her head on one side and listened. A faint tapping sound was coming from the sitting room. Agile, swift, like a sleek cat after a mouse, Sonia stood up and strode gracefully, purposefully across the room. She opened the door and went into the sitting room. She stood again, rigid, tense, aware. The sound came from a walk-in closet. Sonia pulled the door open.

By a fantastic effort, the girl in the closet had managed to move one foot close enough to the wall to be able to tap her heel against the plaster. Sonia bent down and pulled the shoe off, then the other one.

"Kick all you want now," she hissed. "No one will hear you!" She checked the bonds carefully, tightening a couple of buckles so that straps cut into soft, warm young flesh. She added two chains, fastened with padlocks, then stood back to appraise her captive critically. "You won't go far tonight!" said Sonia, grimly. She shut the door, locked it and pocketed the key. Then she went back to her "throne" and sat there impassively, waiting for Gerry to regain consciousness.

In the dark of the closet the genuine Sonia Evans moved convulsively, trying to find a way out of her bonds, but without success. The creature who had tied her up had done her work too well. Sonia strained once more against the leather straps that cut cruelly into her flesh, then she felt herself rushing down a steep slope into a dark pit as she fainted again. She sagged against the bonds, soft and sweet and gentle. Her blond hair hung like corn-silk down over her face to her waist, obscuring the pale face with its soft hazel eyes, cupid-bow lips and rounded contours. The hair was long enough partly to cover her small but perfectly shaped breasts, soft petal-pink, with virginal nipples of a darker hue. Her tiny waist was dragged in by a wide leather strap that narrowed it incredibly. Her sex was covered by another wide strap fastened between her legs, to the waist belt. Invisible were two long black plastic plugs, each set with harsh knobs, which were held in her vagina and rectum by the under-strap. The girl's whole weight hung from that strap, although when she was conscious she could relieve the pressure marginally by standing on tip-toe. But even that slight relief was denied her now, because to prevent her from moving her feet again, the woman in the leather suit had put a strong chain through the short chain that joined Sonia's ankles and had pulled it tight to a ring set in the back of the belt, so that the bound girl's legs were twisted up, all their weight now on the ankle straps. Her wrists were banded with leather and the chain that joined them was locked to a metal hook in the wall behind her, high above her head.

It was impossible to judge the exquisite beauty of her face, because it was contorted by a cruel metal gag that forced her mouth wide open, almost to breaking point of her jaws. The key was still in the mechanism of this dreadful object, and before closing the door on her, the leather-clad woman had turned the key one more whole revolution, deliberately.

Gerry Glasner stirred and a deep sigh seemed to be torn from his chest. The woman he knew as "Sonia Evans" got up and quickly released the chain that encircled his scrotum and removed the gag. Gerry felt the relief and stretched his limbs carefully. His mind was still numb, with a kind of horror mingled with memories of a peak of pleasure he had never known to be attainable. His wrists and ankles were still encircled by leather bands and connected by short chains.

"You may get up now," said Sonia.

Gerry swallowed. "I'm not sure that I can," he said. He was visibly trembling, but with a great effort he managed to get to his knees and then to stand upright.

"You'd better not sit down for a while," said Sonia. "You can take a bath in a minute. That will take a lot of sting out of your skin – after you get used to the hot water!" She grinned as though she were enjoying herself as indeed she seemed to be doing. "How did you enjoy your first taste of 'practical perversion'?" She asked.

"There were moments," agreed Gerry, thickly.

"What would you do if I said I was going to do the whole thing over again?"

Gerry shuddered. "I'd run like hell, if I was free!" he said, "But if it came to the point, I guess I'd end up right here, in this suite!"

"You take to it like a duck to water!"

"It's nothing new," said Gerry, gruffly.

"Don't tell me you've got a 'Whipping Girl' of your own tucked away somewhere, Sergeant," the woman mocked. "Why, your skin did not have a mark on it – before I attended to you!"

"No. I've never gone in for that sort of thing. I've always thought it was crazy… But I've thought about it… ever since I was about ten years old, off and on. Wondering what it would be like to be whipped by a girl, dressed like you. Why like you, Sonia? Why always in a black leather trouser suit? Why always with black hair and a pale, beautiful face?"

"Ah," said Sonia, "there's a mystery all right!" But her face betrayed that it was not quite such a mystery to her, as it was to Gerry.

"How long does the treatment go on?" he asked at last.

"Until I am satisfied that you are genuinely masochistic; until anyone reading your thoughts would know that you are a genuine masochist, that you really do get pleasure from being tortured."

"That may take weeks!"

"I think not. I can get you into the right mood in a couple of days… You've been preconditioned."

"Precondition? Exactly what do you mean by that?" Gerry's voice was suddenly hard, filled with suspicion.

"Oh, by your upbringing, by social pressures… you've already admitted as much."

Again, for an instant Gerry felt a rising doubt, a suspicion, but in face of Sonia's reasonable explanation it subsided again.

"I'll take that bath now," he said, holding out his hands. Without a word "Sonia" unbuckled the wrist bands and Gerry removed them. Then he bent to unstrap his ankles. As he bent over, his face level with his knees, he became aware of a sharp-toed boot on the floor, between his feet.

Again that seductive voice whispered, "Kiss it, Gerry! Get down on your hands and knees and adore it! You have always wanted to, and there's no one here but you and me to see. Now's your chance!"

Impelled by a force beyond his control or understanding, Gerry Glasner dropped to his knees on the carpet. His hands went to the glossy black boot, and he shivered as they made contact with the smooth leather. He bowed down and began to kiss the toe of the boot, and as he did so he seemed to lose all sense of reality. His lips moved along the foot, planting an ardent kiss at every inch, and his hands moved up the leg of the boot, encircling the tight-laced calf.

"Turn over and lie down on your back!"

Like a man in a dream, Gerry obeyed. "Sonia" stood over him, looking as high as a building as he stared up at her. She extended her right boot, resting it with the toe on his forehead.

"Open your mouth," she ordered, and Gerry obeyed. The heel pressed into his mouth, against his tongue, as he closed his lips around it. For several minutes she stood motionless while Gerry cherished the heel of her boot with lips and tongue, and as he did so, to his amazement he felt his penis grow hard for the fourth time inside a couple of hours. At last she withdrew the heel from his mouth, and he felt the toe of the boot being dragged down his chest, along the length of his belly until the sole rested square over his throbbing penis. The heel pressed against his scrotum.

"If I leaned forward now, with all my weight, I could ruin you for life!" said the woman, and Gerry was surprised to find that he did not care what happened to him. The pressure on his genitals increased as a spasm of pain shot through his loins. It was a tight, tense moment. Then the woman lifted her foot and replaced it on the floor. The moment passed.

"Go and take a bath now," said Sonia. She seemed to have lost all interest in Gerry for the time being. "I have to go down to the foyer to make a purchase. I'll be about fifteen minutes. You'd better lock the door while I'm gone – and leave the key in the lock. Otherwise the chamber maid may decide to come in to clear up the room for the evening. Don't bother to dress. Put on a robe. You'll find one of mine somewhere."

She walked out without another word. Gerry went to the door and locked it. For a moment he leaned against the door, regaining his composure.

"Better find the robe first," he said to himself. But a quick search of the bedroom drew a blank. There was nothing even resembling a robe in any of the drawers or closets. He remembered seeing the walk-in closet in the sitting room. Be tried the door, but it was locked.

"It can be useful, being a copper," he thought. From a secret pocket of his jacket he took a small leather wallet. Opening the wallet, Gerry selected a thin tool and inserted it in the simple lock of the closet. He jiggled it around carefully and, after a few seconds was rewarded by the sound of the tumblers falling. He turned the handle and opened the door wide – and at what he saw there he almost collapsed with surprise.