"What do you care how I feel?" Kiana spat. She was dangling by her wrists from an overhead chain; she wasn't in a very charitable mood.

The Chinese woman smiled. "I assure you, it matters a great deal. The torture will not be nearly as effective if you are feeling poorly. If you are feeling well, we may reasonably expect that our session will last longer and be more...satisfying."

"You really enjoy your work, don't you?" Kiana demanded.

"Of course," the woman replied. "It is an honor and a privilege to serve the People's Republic."

"And to violate people's human rights on a daily basis."

Something flashed in the Colonel's black eyes. "You have no rights here. You're a spy for the United States government. You forfeited your rights when you came into our country and attempted to steal our military secrets."

"And now you're going to torture me until I tell you what you want to know about my government?"

The colonel laughed. "I'm afraid you have some misconceptions about your own importance, Kiana. Alas, you are a fairly low-level operative. I rather doubt that you have any interesting information to give me. We already know who your CIA handler is." To prove it, she mentioned his name. "We know exactly what you were trying to do here in China. And we know who will be sent to try it now that you have failed. If there is something else you wish to tell me, of course you may do so, but I'm afraid it won't change things between you and me."

Fear crept into Kiana's eyes for the first time. "If you aren't going to interrogate me, then why--?"

The Colonel sighed. "It is unfortunate. But really, you in the West have given us little choice. Only the basest, most brutal violence gets your attention. It is the only language you seem to understand. Without it, you disregard our wishes, our needs. It has always been so: the Opium wars, the Boxer rebellion, the American occupation of Beijing during the war...and now you, Kiana. Always the West treats us like children, and so we respond in the only way possible. This is now the People's policy, I'm afraid: captured spies are to be tortured to death, slowly and with as much pain as possible. Their ruined bodies are then to be returned to their superiors, to serve as an example for those who follow. I am sorry, Kiana. It's not terribly civilized. But then, we didn't start this."

In front of Kiana was a small table. She had been trying not to look at it; it contained tools of torture, and frankly, Kiana didn't really want to know any more than that. But she couldn't help looking as the Colonel approached it. On the table was a white, plastic bucket. The Colonel reached in and drew out what appeared to be a strip of wet leather. Approaching Kiana's helpless body, the Chinese woman slipped the leather thong around her throat and tied it tightly. "As this strip of rawhide dries, you will begin to strangle," she explained. "The process takes several hours."

She stepped back and gazed admiringly at Kiana's body. "Your physique is impressive," she said at last. "You have sculpted your body into a work of art. I can see that every part is just as you wish it to be. You have built excellent muscles, and yet you retain your femininity. It will be a pleasure to torture you to death." "Go to hell," Kiana gasped. The rawhide was already making it tough to breathe.

"Express defiance while you can, if it makes you feel better. Now, then. Let's see how you respond to electric stimulation." The Colonel selected a cattle prod from her table of implements.

Kiana's eyes grew wide. "You can't..."

But of course she could, and did. Kiana's body leapt as the shocks tore into her belly. Her sleek, hard muscles rippled as spasms of pain worked their way through her abdomen. She kicked and flailed wildly, thrashing about in her chains. Her nubile body swung like a pendulum from the wrist chain, her twitching feet mere inches from the floor.

"Very nice," the Colonel mused, moving the prod up Kiana's sleek, taut body. "I have never seen a waist as slender as yours. And yet your breasts are so large. I imagine American men must find you very attractive...though you will soon be unrecognizable to them, of course." Kiana screamed suddenly, her slender body quivering from head to toe. "Ah, I see that I've found a nipple." The Chinese woman held the prod in place over Kiana's purple bikini top, letting the current flow through the thin fabric and work its magic on the tortured model's tender flesh peak. "Very nice...and now the other..." The prod moved easily over to Kiana's other breast, and produced similar results there. Kiana threw back her head and screamed a loud, honest, throaty scream as her nipple blazed. Moist pink lips twitching, black mane flying, Kiana suffered.

"You respond very well to torture. I think we should proceed with the mutilation now. It's clear that you have tremendous respect for your body; one might almost say that you seem to worship it. I suspect that the worst thing I can possibly do to you is to slowly destroy that body as you watch helplessly." On the table was a small coal brazier; the Colonel took from this a short, red-hot iron.

"Please," Kiana whimpered as the Colonel drew near, "not that. Oh, God, anything but that..."

"Ah." The Colonel smiled, pleased. "I've found your weakness, haven't I? Excellent. Yes. Now watch, please, as I ruin this body which you have struggled for years to perfect." She touched the brand to Kiana's belly, and the tortured girl howled with unprecedented despair. The brand moved down tentatively, navel-fucking Kiana briefly, then paused just above her purple g-string.

The Colonel stepped back, allowing Kiana to look down at her scorched belly. "Oh God oh God oh God," Kiana chanted. She knew the angry red welts would leave permanent scars, even if she survived...which of course she wouldn't.

The Colonel moved behind her, still holding the poker. Kiana could feel its heat. With her free hand, the Chinese officer untied Kiana's bikini top and let it fall to the floor.

"Now we'll work on your breasts, I think," the colonel decided, circling around to the front. "You're particularly proud of them, aren't you? Well, you should be. They are magnificent. So large, and yet so firm and round. They are quite perfect. And on a body as slender as yours, they look spectacular." The Colonel touched the poker to Kiana's exposed pink nipple, and the tortured girls' world exploded. The agony was absolutely blinding. She tried to scream, but found that she couldn't. The leather thong at her throat had been growing steadily tighter; it now rendered speech or screams impossible. She could only suffer silently as her nipple crisped and charred. Tears flowed down her cheeks like rain. And when the poker moved to her other nipple, she finally passed out.

A faceful of ice-cold water woke her. She gasped, startled, terrified, still in agony...and suddenly able to breathe again.

"Yes, I've moistened your throat thong again, as you can see. It was drying too quickly, I'm afraid. This will give us more time together."

"Please...just kill me..." Kiana croaked.

The Colonel chuckled. "Poor Kiana! This is TORTURE, dear girl. It continues for as long as your body can take it. Didn't they explain that to you in your CIA training?"

She was holding the poker again. "It is time to get serious, I think. I believe I shall take your eyes now." "No," Kiana gasped. "Oh, sweet Jesus, no..."

"Your god can't help you now." The poker came close to her eye without actually touching it. Kiana felt the liquid boil inside the tender orb. She felt the eye burst, felt its hot juices roll down her cheeks, burning them. The other eye followed. Strangely, all Kiana could think about was how professional it was, to do each nipple, each eye one at a time, to maximize the duration of the torture.

Blind Kiana gurgled. She was almost glad she had been blinded. At least now she wouldn't have to see whatever horrors the Colonel might carry out on her body.

"Yes, very good. And now the breasts again, I think." Terrified, tortured Kiana couldn't see what the Colonel was doing, but she felt it soon enough: a sharpness, a cutting, a slicing, a scraping. The Colonel was running a razor over her tits, carefully scraping the flesh away from them one layer at a time! Kiana tried to scream, but again the leather thong at her throat was too tight; she could manage only a strangled whimper. Now she saw how wrong she had been: she couldn't see what was happening, but that only meant that she felt it all the more. She had no vision to distract her from the pure pain that coursed through her body as her breasts were slowly peeled.

She admired the precision of the Colonel's work. She sensed what was happening: her breasts were being altered, not destroyed; mutilated, not removed. The Colonel left her a layer or two of skin, to hold everything together.

It shouldn't have surprised her when the salt fell onto her skinned breasts, but it did. She began to convulse in her chains, screaming silently through a strangled throat, hoping for death. How much more could she possibly endure? Was there no end to this torture, this viciousness?

"Are you still with me? Yes? Good. I greatly admire you, Kiana. You've outlasted every other subject I've ever tortured, and there have been many. It may interest you to know that I plan to write an article about your case. Really, you are extraordinary, your stamina, your fitness, your endurance. My congratulations." Kiana heard chains rattling near the floor, felt cold steel lock around her ankles.

"I want you to die stretched, Kiana. I think you'll appreciate it." Kiana heard a distant motor, and her wrist chains grew taut. Forgetting how strangled she was, she tried to scream once again as the chains dug into her wrists and ankles. Slowly the steel links stretched her, pulling her arms almost out of their sockets. "Yes, that's excellent...the powerful muscles rippling, the biceps, the triceps...you're a beautiful woman, Kiana, and you look magnificent stretched. You will be pleased to know that we are done. I have nothing more to teach you. You may die now, at your convenience."