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Chapter Seven - Approaching the Edge

As I cranked the rack's wheel, Haruhi's body elongated. When I released it, she shrunk back to her normal length. Though her flexibility didn't quite match Elastigirl's from The Incredibles, I could tell that stretching wouldn't damage this girl as much as it would an everyday ordinary medieval wench. The stretching certainly induced pain, but Haruhi managed it.

This made no sense. Until I glanced at Haruhi's bare backside. Normally racked prisoners lay on their backs, but an intuition informed me that Haruhi belonged on her belly. I glanced at the items lining the shelf below the table supporting her. Clothespins and a stick.

Why was that stuff there?

I developed a theory. Since Haruhi's mind dreamed up these torture devices based on her memory of how they worked, she also designed her souped-up Amazon body to handle the discomforts these devices dispensed.

Why the extras?

Haruhi's subconscious mind knew that she'd cheat and, being a masochist at heart, it provided alternatives. That was the only thing that made sense to me.

Haruhi groaned as I stretched her out once again. As her body adapted to its new length, I reached under the table and grabbed the wooden stick. Its purpose seemed obvious. I flicked my wrist and lightly bounced the cane off of my prisoner's taut bare bottom.

"What are you doing?" Haruhi asked, a twinge of fear in her voice. "What did you bounce off my bum?" She couldn't turn or wiggle, stretched as she was.

I gave her butt a proper swat.

WHACK!

"Eeeeeeeeeeep," she shrieked. "Hey, that hurt."

I enjoyed watching the reddish outline of the cane swat form on my prisoner's perfect round bottom before it slowly disappeared. I smacked Haruhi's upper back with the stick. She shrieked again. A red mark appeared and faded. A smack to her thighs elicited a similar response.

But this was business as usual. Something was still missing. Then I noticed Haruhi's wiggling toes - connected to the soles of her feet, which were pointing upward. Was this her secret?

Haruhi wailed loudly as I methodically smacked the soles of her feet. She hadn't prepared for this, and the attack proved very effective, especially when I smacked the softer arches. Soon my composed and confident Amazon princess cried and begged for mercy. Not so fast. I still had the clothespins.

Haruhi's muscular closed space body, her skin tight as a drum, didn't offer many places to pinch her.

Aha. Her ears.

"Noooooooo." My prisoner shook her head in protest when I affixed a couple gripper clothespins to each ear. "No, can't do that," she screamed. "Not my ears. It's not fair. That's now what you're supposed to do here."

This was getting really fun. I hate to say this, but on some level I think Haruhi liked it too. As she tried to spin her head against her arms to remove the clips, I got back to work on her feet.

"No. Stop it. Not my feet," the helpless wench screamed while writhing in agony. "You cruel, heartless, evil asshole."

After dispensing a few more lashes, I kneeled at the girl's head.

Teary-eyed and red-faced, Haruhi asked, "Please?" Sniff, sniff. "Would you please stop?"

I held out the palms of my hands and shrugged my shoulders, silently asking, "Do you give up?"

"Hell, no. I'll never give in to you. Never, never, never. Just like that Winston Churchill guy used to say."

So I went back to work on her feet, eliciting screams of, "No. Please, no." Just for fun, I affixed a couple of clothespins to the webbing between her big toe and the other toes.

After a sufficient quantity of screams, moans, and tears, I returned the clothespins and stick to the shelf and lessened the rack's tension. It took my sobbing prisoner about ten minutes to recover.

"Never," she said, her confidence and breathing back to normal. "Never, never, never. Do you hear me?"

When I released her from the shackles, she draped her legs over the side of the table and sat up. Though she rubbed her ears and feet, Haruhi looked as good as new.

"What's next, asshole?"

I pointed to the water wheel.

"Piece of cake." Haruhi hopped off the rack, walked over to the wheel, and stepped up onto its platform.

The water wheel looked like a mini Ferris wheel with its bottom portion submerged in a trough of water. In medieval times, torture purveyors set the wheel above any number of things—sharp metal objects, fire, broken glass, an ant hill, a bee's nest, you name it. For some reason Haruhi preferred to get dunked in water.

Drowning wasn't a pleasant way to die, and few things matched the horrifying feeling of nearly drowning. It's what makes waterboarding so effective. I had a feeling Haruhi's enhanced body could last for quite a while without air. Still, the dungeon master had to do his duty.

Haruhi backed up against the shiny silver wheel, her arms at her sides. She stood between several straps, reminiscent of those used to strap stuff to the top of a car. I fastened one strap above Haruhi's breasts, another beneath them, another at her hips, another over her thighs, one below her knees, and the last strap at her ankles. When I finished, Haruhi's arched body covered a quarter of the wheel's circumference.

I examined the device. Its construction was top notch, made of modern metal tubing. A bicycle-like mechanism facilitated the wheel's rotation. A crank tethered to the center of the wheel by a flat chain allowed me to turn it, slowly lowering the prisoner into the drink. Once I submerged my prisoner, I could latch the wheel into place and watch her struggle for air.

I cranked the wheel clockwise a few degrees, lifting Haruhi's feet off of the platform. Then I removed the platform so her feet dangled above the water. After twenty cranks, the nude Amazon princess was face down in the trough. Haruhi's imagination had thoughtfully conjured a trough with transparent Plexiglas walls. Sporting full breasts rivaling those of Mikuru Asahina, Haruhi's underwater struggles were fun to watch. Now and then, I let her up.

"I'm not giving in," she said with determination when her head dipped beneath the water line for the fourth time. As I had guessed, Haruhi made a show of struggling, and she may have felt true discomfort, but her lungs never ran out of air. I did my best to make a show of it, but I'm sure she would have lasted an hour submerged if I'd tried it. I was getting bored.

What was the key here? What was I missing?

I spun Haruhi up out of the water, leaving her legs submerged, and latched the wheel. For fun, I grabbed a couple of clothespins and clipped them to her nipples.

She didn't seem to mind. In fact, she had trouble suppressing a small pleased smile. I sent her underwater a few more times with clipped breasts. It definitely made her uncomfortable, but I didn't get the impression this wheel was going to break her any time soon.

I considered keeping her under till she stopped moving. What would happen if Haruhi died in this closed space, if I took things too far? Would it be like dying in a dream? Would she wake up in her bathtub? I considered this as I watched an unending stream of air bubbles seep from her nose and mouth toward the water's surface.

I realized that killing Haruhi in here was impossible. No matter how hard I beat her, she would keep bouncing back. No matter how long I kept her submerged, she would simply spit out the water and taunt me again. No matter how hard I paddled or whipped that perfect round bottom, her body would recover in seconds.

Haruhi wasn't leaving this place until she was done with me. She and I had unfinished business.

So what was I missing?

I stepped back and looked at the wheel. Like that shelf under the stretching rack, there was something here I could use—a clue left by Haruhi's subconscious mind that wasn't obvious.

Then it hit me. I cranked the wheel and slowly raised Haruhi out of the trough, again appreciating the view of her body, sexily arched and tightly strapped to the Ferris wheel. She gazed forward proudly, though her full breasts pointed skyward. Instead of lowering the wench back into the water, I turned the crank the other way and raised her up toward the ceiling.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Haruhi asked nervously while gaining altitude.

Moments later her belly button sat at the wheel's apex as she looked up at the ceiling rafters. I left her perfectly balanced in the center.

"Oh shit," she whimpered. She crooked her head sideways to look around.

I pulled the chain off of the center wheel hub, and nudged the wheel half an inch backwards. Haruhi's weight caused the wheel to spin on its own. She fell backwards, the top of her head accelerating rapidly toward the vat.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

SPLASH!

Haruhi came to a sudden halt at the bottom. In contrast to the measured reactions she had to my slow, controlled dunks, the princess flailed around in a panic. I let her flail for a while before manually turning the wheel and lifting her out.

I had found the key.

Getting slowly lowered into a water vat and holding her breath was no big deal for Haruhi. What killed her was the uncertainty. Perched at the apex of the Ferris wheel, Haruhi had no control, no way to prepare.

I sent her to the top again. "No. No. No." Her body strained mightily against the straps and her breathing rate spiked. She couldn't predict her next plunge and it drove her crazy.

For fun, I cranked the wheel the other way, throwing her into the drink feet-first. Due to her rapid descent and helplessness, she couldn't stop the rush of water shooting up her nose. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Haruhi's wide bulging eyes as she struggled behind the Plexiglas.

Hoping to throw her off even more, I lifted her out of the water upside-down. The wench shook her head and sputtered, took a deep breath, and shot water out of her nose like a fountain.

After ten more iterations, Haruhi cried and begged for mercy. I pulled her out of the water and let her hang upside-down until her breathing normalized. When I moved my face within inches of hers, she looked at me with a defeated expression and whimpered, "Please, no more."

Again, I opened my palms and shrugged my shoulders. Haruhi turned her head away. She couldn't admit defeat. But she didn't want to go through any more of this. She grumbled in the toward the wall, "I won't give in to you. Never, never, never."

So I sent the wheel skyward once again.

"Eeeeeeeeee. Please don't. Not again. No more. No more. Pleeeeeeeeeeease."

Yes, I was having a blast. Getting super-dunked like this may not have bothered the average wench too much, but I'd found Haruhi's kryptonite.

Though I might have broken her had I continued, I still had two more torture devices on my list. Or, I should say, Haruhi had dreamed up two more torture devices that she wanted me to use on her.

The strappado chains came next. Two shackles attached to a chain hung from the ceiling. Two more shackles connected to an iron ball lay on the ground. An array of leather horse whips hung on a nearby wall.

This torture device gave me three basic options. I could hang Haruhi by her feet, by her wrists connected overhead, or by her wrists connected behind her back, a.k.a. the strappado position.

As I studied my options, Haruhi lay on her side on the ground in the fetal position, still shaking from the wheel ordeal. Had I made an impression on the girl?

Nah. Ten minutes later, the nude wench sat on the trough's platform, her legs crossed, her hands wringing water out of her hair.

As I walked my wet prisoner over to the third device, my massive hand acting like a vise-like grip on her arm, I tried to decide which of the three positions to try first. But Haruhi broke my concentration.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" she spouted with a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

I was tempted to nod my head 'Yes' because I totally loved torturing this girl. But I decided against it. I knew Haruhi—still hiding behind that proud, defiant, and unbroken front—loved it too.

I pulled the Amazon princess's arms behind her back and yanked them up toward the dangling shackles. After binding her wrists, I shackled her ankles to the ball and chain.

Haruhi groaned when I yanked her arms skyward. Instead of rising straight up like an "I", her behind-the-back bound wrists position forced Haruhi into a "Z", her trunk and legs forming the lower segments of the letter. I knew she felt discomfort, but nothing she hadn't anticipated. Her amazing body adapted to the position even as the iron ball tethered to her ankles left the ground. Haruhi easily handled the force, which would have dislocated the shoulders of any normal human being.

I retrieved a horse whip from the wall. The strappado position invitingly forced her bare bottom outward. I playfully rubbed her firm cheeks before stepping back and cranking up the whip.

CRACK!

I nailed her bum dead center.

"Aaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeaaaaa," Haruhi screamed at the top of her lungs as a thick red line formed on her skin.

That had to hurt. In the real world, a shot like that would have drawn blood. In Haruhi's custom closed space, however, the red strip across her bum slowly faded and her skin reverted back to normal within seconds.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

I whipped her body mercilessly—on the butt, on the legs, on her back, her belly, her breasts. I didn't hold back. Haruhi screamed after each hit, and I'm sure it hurt like hell, but on another level she was loving it.

"Is that all you got?" she taunted as the streak across her breasts healed.

I shook my head and frowned. Once again, I was missing something. But what was it?

I stepped up to the dangling nude wench and studied her perfect body. At her present altitude, her eyes were a foot above mine. The tilt of her torso thrust her breasts forward. I'd whipped them a good number of times, and I'd gotten a good response, but it was all so conventional. I was missing something, yet I couldn't put my finger on this device's hidden secret.

Then it hit me. I couldn't see Haruhi's underarms. Her current strappado'd state hid them from me. I knew a secret about this girl's armpits.

I lowered my prisoner to the ground and reconfigured her wrists, binding them together overhead. Then I raised her again, till the iron ball dangled above the ground. With wrists now directly overhead and no strappado strain on her shoulders, I studied Haruhi's sides. Her armpits were now clearly visible and accessible.

Haruhi's eyes bulged with fear. "You wouldn't dare."

I dared.

I started squeezing her sides below her underarms. Haruhi laughed and bucked like a bronco. "No. No. No." My naked stallion writhed and kicked as the iron ball swung beneath her. I moved my tickling attack to her lower sides and waist. "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh. Stop. Please. No." As Haruhi lost her mind, I had fun again.

After fifteen minutes of relentless tickle torture, I paused to look into her eyes.

"Please, no more," she said with a wavering voice. "Please… Aaaaaaeeeeeehhhhh." I knew Haruhi hated surprise touches—I'd seen her jump on several occasions after accidentally getting poked—but I had no idea she was this ticklish. Then again, I'd never taken the opportunity to tickle her before.

It surprised me that Haruhi's Amazon body hadn't come built with an immunity to this. Then again, a tickle attack was probably the last thing her conscious mind would have predicted.

The soles of Haruhi's feet proved even more sensitive than her armpits. My attention there left her crying aloud. The creases where her legs met her torso provided a gold mine as well.

After thirty more minutes of tickle torture, Haruhi gasped for air and begged me to stop. Once again, I'd made her red-faced, teary-eyed, and spent. "Please don't," she said. "I can't… I can't… Not to you… Please. Please don't make me…"

I really didn't want to break her at this point, though I had a feeling I had her on the edge. It didn't seem right. After all, we had one more torture device on our list and I'm sure Haruhi wanted to experience it.