“Wake up!” a coarse voice boomed. The bellow was deafening and painful to her ears.

A massive, meaty backhand smashed her face, sending her rocking in the chair and nearly tipping to the ground. The fall would’ve hurt more than the massive hand. Her skull would’ve cracked on the stone floor. Metal clamps around her wrists secured her arms to the armrests; ropes bound her forearms.

Blinking back the stars and the sudden tears in her eyes, she fought to focus on the man in front of her. Julie’s head lolled, her eyes rolling sleepily back and forth until she could make sense of what she saw. A large fire illuminated every dirty crevice in the small, brick-lined room.

Where am I? What is this place, a dungeon?

It didn’t make sense, but the contrary evidence was impeccable. Suits of armor stood randomly, cluttering the small room. Weapons of every kind littered the floors and crowded a few small tables: swords, maces, axes, knives, arrows. Various clothing lay heaped in piles, torn and blood-splattered.

Her eyes latched onto the chilling man. In a moment, she knew she had never laid eyes on him before. The word huge did him an injustice. His staggering height was rivaled by his roundness. Arms showed signs of muscle hidden beneath a profound amount of fat. His immense belly swelled out towards her, and she doubted he could reach her with his arms. Being tied to a chair was a hard argument to sidestep; the throbbing sting on her face reaffirmed her miscalculation.

His lower jaw jutted noticeably. A profound under bite revealed chipped teeth, cracked and nicked while he ground them in his slumber. Stench reached her nostrils, a mixture of sweat, mildew, and dirt. A faint undertone of copper or something metallic hid subtly beneath the backdrop.

Her head snapped back and forth frantically, searching for an escape. “What the fuck?” Her breath came in rapid pants.

He moved closer; his shaved head glistened with perspiration. A white scar reached from below his left eye down to his jaw, a jagged line like a contour map. He turned away and walked to a table by the back wall. Her eyes flickered between her captor and the monstrous hearth, the length twice that of her height. The crackling, tall flames filled the room with stifling heat. With his back to her, he rubbed the sudor from his head, flinging his hand to the side. Flecks of sweat splatter the stone floor.

The bald man turned back to her with hands wrapped in cloth; a sinister smile split his face. “My name is Mr. Pleasure,” he almost whispered, leering at her. “You shall call me by no other name than Mr. Pleasure. Should you call me anything but my name, I’ll cut out your tongue.”

When Julie didn’t say anything else, he continued. “You’ll find that pain and torture can be a pleasure; you’ll learn to love it, for it is the only thing that makes you know you’re alive. Pain connects everything. If you survive, you’ll appreciate the pain of other things—the things of the world—and they’re nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you. In that, you may find comfort, for your life will be painless compared to this.”

He pulled up a long thin rod, the tip pointed and sharp, and rolled it in his fingers. Admiring the tool, his eyes flickered to hers, making sure she watched, terrified. He lumbered forward, his movement slow but methodical.

“Let us begin, shall we?” He leaned over her right hand, his clamping down on hers. “This is going to hurt,” the dark promise slithered out of his mouth. He shoved the sharp, thin shaft slowly into the tip of her right index finger. She bit down; her throat constricted, her body twitched, spasmed, tried to jerk away but couldn’t move. The bindings held tight, and the pressure of the man’s hand kept her still. The agony was impossible to fathom.

Julie attempted to kick out while she screamed, bucking against the restraints. She pulled at them, wished them to yield. A smile spread across the fat man’s face. Curses flew from her mouth as he stood, appreciating his work. Her eyes darted down to her right hand; the iron burrowed deep beneath her flesh, nestling the bone. Rising panic washed through her, breath coming in pants, her chest heaving. She screamed again, her throat hurting, throbbing, going raw. Veins bulged in her neck as if they’d burst. He stepped back a pace before turning and retrieving another shaft from the table.

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“For some reason,” he spoke softly through her screaming, “When I insert sharp objects into the hand, specifically the end of the fingers, the torment is almost unfathomable. I wonder why that is?” The look on his face made it clear he didn’t care as long as he could inflict suffering. He seemed to grow in strength at her screams, gorging himself. He not only enjoyed her anguish, but fed off it.

Julie’s screams died in her mouth when he showed her the next metal pin. He leaned closer, drool sloshing from his mouth and over her comely face. She wanted to vomit. A finger caressed her cheek. “There’s nothing more beautiful than someone in pain.” She cringed at his vile touch and whimpered. “I’ll give you a choice, sweetie. Shall we revisit the right hand, or would you prefer we move over to your left? What’llit be?”

Lips pressed into a thin white line; her body trembled, but her eyes glared at him, promising him a long and painful death. Other than escaped and trembling whimpers, she sued for silence. He sighed, a deep heave making his belly move perceptibly, and he strained as he stood straighter.

“You know, if you don’t talk, there can’t be clear communication,” he said in a sing-song voice. His hand slammed down on her right hand, clenching it, crushing it, constricting the bones in her hand, hindering her efforts to squirm. Fighting against his strength, an impossible feat with his added weight, she was but a morsel in the jaws of a large predator. She noted that for such a large slob, he moved far more adroitly than she thought possible. He drove home the second rod into the middle finger of her right hand, the movement quick and violent, where the first had been slow and gentle by comparison.

She screamed and bucked against the pain, the chair wobbling, even with his added weight. Her head rocked back, bashing into the back of the chair, arms twisted and squirmed, skin tearing, rubbing raw from the rope. Blood poured from her fingertips, a steady drip splashing the floor. Erratic breath burned in her lungs, chest rising and falling at a frantic pace. Her eyes glazed over, a cool sweat prickled her forehead.

“Oh, no you don’t!” She vaguely heard him move before cold water suffused her. She gasped, choking on the water as he dropped the metal bucket to the floor with a loud cacophony. The drenching water ignited her skin like a thousand tiny needles piercing her in an instant. The chill snapped her awake, her eyes opening wide in shock, the sting in her fingers acuter. A hoarse laugh peeled loose, a deep resonance.

“Kill me!” she screamed.

His laughter boomed, his mass seemingly growing with her pleas.

“Kill me!” she shrieked louder, panicking. An end to her suffering dominated her mind. “Kill me, you fat son of a bitch!”

His laugh ceased, his lips falling from a smile to a snarl. A low, throaty growl emanated from him as he stormed to the back wall. He spun around deftly, a large pair of pliers in his hand.

“I warned you!” he roared. He crossed the room in two quick strides and hit her across the face with the cold, hard iron. Her nose broke in a sickening crunch. Her mouth washed with pain and sat at an awkward angle. Agony shot through her face, masking her fingers but for a moment. She blinked back stars as blood poured from her nose. She spat out teeth and knew he’d broken her jaw.

Strong, gnarled fingers pried her lips apart, digging, searching, the pliers snaking into her mouth, snatching up her tongue. He pulled hard, Julie’s head involuntarily moving with his jerk. She could see the soft, pink flesh clamped between the metal. A gurgling whimper turned into a scream as panic engulfed her. Mr. Pleasure drew a large knife—almost a bastard sword—from his belt and leaned down.

“This will teach you.” He slid the sharp blade through her tongue, severing it.

Intense cold followed by blinding heat filled her mouth as quickly as the blood. In her shock, she inhaled rather than spit the red liquid out. He lifted her tongue so she could see it, in between the unforgiving teeth of the pliers, and the reality of what had happened sank in. Julie leaned forward and vomited, covering the floor with the remains of her stomach and the blood that had filled her mouth. She tried to curse him again but couldn’t.

She wanted to scream, but he just laughed at her and swung the heavy pliers down across her head, rendering her unconscious.