“Wake up!”

A strong backhand slammed across her face, rocking her head back. Stars exploded in her view. It was much harder to bring everything into focus this time, and she was dismayed to see the obese man standing in front of her.

“My name is Mr. Pleasure,” he introduced himself as if they never met. “You shall call me by no other name than Mr. Pleasure. Should you call me anything but my name”—he let his eyes cast about the room—“I’ll char your flesh over the fire.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the hearth. “Do you understand?”

Julie looked at him for a long moment, taking in his sheer size and mass. If it were possible, she would have guessed he had gained weight since the last time she had seen him, but who knew how long ago that was? She remembered her broken jaw and her severed tongue, and then nothing.

“Do you understand?” he roared in anger. Mr. Pleasure slammed his fists down on the arms of the chair, his face looming close. His breath smelled like decay, fetid and malodorous.

“Yes,” she whimpered, shying away as much as possible, her face cringing. Bewilderment struck her that she could speak at all. She remembered seeing her tongue as he held it in the vice of the pliers. Consciously, she rolled her tongue around the sides of her mouth and was relieved to find it still attached. Thoughts whirled through her head as she tried to imagine how the fat man could have reattached it. The notion flabbergasted her; this brute was capable of doing something so … magical.

“Good. Then, let us begin, shall we?” The echoing of his words sent a shiver down her spine.

He picked up a long, thin knife from the table and walked towards her. “This,” he said holding it up for her to see, “is a flaying knife. This beauty is what we use to skin beasts. Lucky for you today, the thing getting skinned is you.” He smiled with glee at the thought of inflicting discomfort. His jowls quivered with anticipation.

She swallowed, clamping down on her revulsion and fear, burying it deep; her torturer seemed to feed off it, an observation from earlier, but now confirmed. It was possible he was larger than before or seemed larger because she tried to make herself smaller, sitting as far back into the wood chair as she could as if to get away.

“This is going to hurt,” he leered, another echoing of words.

Slowly, methodically, he cut into her skin on her left arm. Uncontrollable convulsions shot through her. She shook hard, desperate to get away from him and from the pain he inflicted. Just the thought of being away from him made her grateful. A simple burning thought, hope for escape, allowed her to block out some of the agonies. She’d never thought about something so hard in her life—anything to escape her current predicament.

“You surprise me,” his voice said, breaking through her retreat. She blinked, and the solitude she formed in her mind faded away. Her wet clothes clung to her body, but she dared not take her eyes off him. But that’s what he desired, Mr. Pleasure, for her to see the horror he wrought.

He seemed almost deflated when he spoke. “Look at yourself.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She refused, knowing what would happen if she did; her eyes would behold the revulsions he inflicted. Panic would rise, her need to get away, to flee, would overcome any sane thought, and she’d feed him. He’d grow stronger as she lost her mind. Her emotions, and the control she had over them, only empowered him. Looking was giving in. Finding a way to take his power away, his control, would strengthen her, but what could she do bound to a chair?

“Look!” he shouted the command. But still she refused. Letting out a snarl, he snatched the back of her hair, pushing her face downward, but she closed her eyes. “Good!” he bellowed. “You don’t want to see? You want to close your eyes. Fine! I will cut off your eyelids. Then you’ll have to!”

He crossed over to the table and picked up something very small, no larger than a fork, with a small blade on the tip before crossing back over and strangling her by the throat. “Hold still, unless you want me to cut your eyeballs,” he said, both snarling and smiling simultaneously.

Julie tried to struggle at first, moving her head, shying and jerking away from the impending agony and his arduous grip. The cold metal left angry red trails across her skin. She screamed and tried to squint her eyes shut, willing him to stop; anything to keep him from carving her, but she held still in the end. She thought frantically back to the escape buried deep in her mind, but the serene landscape eluded her. Julie couldn’t think of anything but the impending threat of the blade and the thought of him cutting off her eyelids.

The fire of the laceration danced across her skin, her face burning as hot blood ran rivets down her cheeks. The sharp sting ricocheted all through her body, a trauma blossoming in the back of her head and shooting down her spine. Another scream ripped through the air, one so loud it hurt her ears. His hands worked deftly; her strength sapped and the ability to fight him off vanished.

“Now look!” he said. Strong, calloused fingers snaked through her honeyed tress, his grip threatening to rip out her hair as he forced her to gaze down at her arm. He flayed the skin off her left arm from wrist to elbow. Muscle and blood pooled in recesses, the skin a sickly white and pink, a thin layer of fat clinging to the underside of her peeled flesh. The vivid redness of her muscles burned into her mind. The walls around her mind crumbled, whatever defense she built up came crashing down after seeing what the monster had done. A renewed scream came crawling up her throat into the room.

“You fat fucking son of a—” A meaty hand crushed into her temple, stars exploding in her sight, the blow hard enough to end her words. Julie’s head rocked to the side, and her body slumped, on the cusp of consciousness and unconsciousness.

An odd scraping sound of metal on stone filtered through before she distinguished a thud through the metal chair. The jarring effect brought her back from the brink momentarily before she slid back towards the welcoming darkness. She sought the darkness, anything but Mr. Pleasure and his tortures.

She didn’t know when she started to feel the new sensation, but she experienced heat, and her body protested against the odd position it rested in. Sweat peppered her body, her vision fluttered, focusing through the luminance. Flames thundered below her, licking the air between her and the bed of coals. Her arms were bound behind her, and her ankles were fastened to a metal rod, roasting like a pig on a spit. A quick, panicked glance out into the room and she spied the bulky man. He smiled as the flames rose underneath her. With defiance, she held his gaze. This monster, no matter what he did to her, would be deprived of the satisfaction of feeding off her screams and discomfort. She’d hold out for as long as possible.

The aching need, the want and desire to kill him fed her, giving her strength to resist screaming. The suffering ascended, the heat melting her flesh. Her skin boiled, blistering, rising and falling, flourishing down her legs and over her stomach. She wanted him dead, and she craved to be the one who delivered it. Her mind dwelled on this one thought as the smell of cooking flesh filled the room. His laughter broke the hold of her desires, the torment rising to an unbearable point. She remembered hearing someone scream in the distance before she succumbed, embracing death.