Avenging Angel chapter 1 by Clarissa Hendry

Mandy

After the escort left I had another shower, put on fresh clothes and went down to the bar. It was quiet: midweek, autumn, medium-price hotel outside town. I took a gin and tonic to a corner table and scanned my fellow-customers: three middle-aged couples celebrating a birthday or a wedding or a small lottery win, a few businessmen and women slaving over hot I-Pads or pontificating about economic prospects or the weather or the Middle East, and a handful of elderly locals drinking away their loneliness. The escort, whatever her name was, could have picked up more business here.

There was one other person, who sat in the opposite corner appraising me. She was in her mid forties, short, heavily built, black hair barely covering her ears, no makeup, no jewellery except a gold filigree necklace; dark jacket, jeans, trainers; intelligent eyes, knowing smile. Who was she? I raised my eyebrows and she did likewise. Drink in hand I went to her table and sat facing her.

“Enjoy her, Douglas?”

A stranger initiating a tête-à-tête in a hotel bar is disconcerting, especially when she addresses you by name and appears to know (if not in detail) how you’ve spent the previous hour in the privacy of your room. Possibilities flickered through my mind (hotel security, police, tabloid reporter, forgotten acquaintance?) but I dismissed them. She wasn’t trying to pick me up, either, not in the usual sense. Not that I’d have wanted her to. I made a non-committal gesture.

“I wouldn’t hire her again.”

“Too expensive? Limited services? Poor performer?”

“Brain of a pork pie and vocabulary to match,” I said, “so no conversation. Found a better use for her mouth.”

She sniggered. I was wrong about the makeup; there was a trace of lipstick, blood red. I asked who she was and how she knew me.

“Mandy.” She shook my hand and her eyes crinkled. “Yes, I know about you, Douglas: what you like, what you dislike.”

Like and dislike are opposite faces of the same clay tablet. You can’t have light without dark, summer without winter, joy without sorrow. Each pair is carved on a single block. What did this woman know about me, and how? Did she know how I loved what I’d once (in poetic mood) described as the moth-wing sound of falling snow, tiptoeing to the ground in lambs’-wool slippers, but detested the melting slush that squelched like a half-decomposed corpse under my boots? How I loved the call of April skylarks rising into a crimson sunrise through air redolent with heather and peat, but hated the fog-bound mire of November when no bird sings? How much I enjoyed BDSM and humiliation, both giving and receiving?

“So what do I like, Mandy? What do I dislike?”

“You like pornography of a certain specialist sort.” She watched my face reel from the impact and grinned. “Want to watch a porn film, or wouldn’t you be interested since your passion’s so recently been consumed?”

I drank half my G & T and leaned back in the seat. Love-making, pornography: opposite faces of the same clay block. But I’d had my fill of love-making for one lifetime.

“It seems you know a lot about me, Mandy. My name, the fact that I’ve – ”

“I know your taste in porn, Douglas: videos, DVDs, downloads.”

How could anyone have discovered that? I occasionally selected dark stuff from online sources but I never talked about it, and my computer was protected against prying eyes.

“So what is my taste in pornography, Mandy?”

She grinned again and finished her vodka and coke. I turned aside; I can’t bear to see women drinking vodka and coke. Tastes differ, said her eyes; activities that excite one person disgust another. No need to be ashamed. Fantasies, however extreme, are fine provided you don’t upset anyone with them.

“Rape, degradation of women,” she said; “typical male entertainments in both fantasy and reality.”

I’ve never revealed those interests, I thought. Not ashamed, though – merely discreet.

“Also castration fantasies,” she went on, “fem dom, forced – ”

“What makes you suppose – ?”

“I’m not supposing, Douglas. I know.” She leaned closer to me and whispered. “I can show you films you’ll enjoy on a big screen in a small private cinema. They’re longer, more explicit and more graphic than anything you could ever find online. Much better made. Much more interesting.”

* * * * * * * *

Specimen Five

I can’t explain why I trusted Mandy. The journey in the back of her Volvo, the blindfold, her refusal to answer questions when the car finally stopped, her hands guiding me through narrow alleys between high stone walls – it should have made me panic and run. Perhaps her friendly façade and apparent personal interest assured me no harm was intended; at least, not tonight. Or maybe it was anticipatory excitement, or a yearning for danger. Or was I wondering what else she knew about me? The reasons don’t matter. I went.

Frost nipped my nose and ears as Mandy guided me out of the car, but after we’d negotiated the narrow alleys and a couple of staircases I breathed warm air, comfortable and musty as a Victorian parlour. Then she took off my blindfold. As promised, we were in a miniature cinema, dimly lit, with four short rows of red velvet seats facing a large white screen. Mandy gestured and I sat in the middle of the back row. The seat was plush. She placed herself beside me, holding a remote control. The pair of us constituted the audience.

Where were we? The traffic noise during the journey, the stopping and starting at road junctions, told me we’d driven into the city; but which part? The sounds had now faded to a whisper, either because we were distant from roads or because the building was sound-proofed. There was no point asking Mandy. If she’d wanted me to know our destination she wouldn’t have blindfolded me.

“The film’s in four parts,” she said. “Given your tastes, the third part will entertain you most, but the first part shows the kind of action most men enjoy. The second part’s all talk; interviews; I don’t know whether it’ll do much for you. The fourth part’s for another night.”

I asked whether there’d be intervals between the parts; drinks, ice cream, popcorn. She pressed the remote and didn’t answer.

The screen darkened and the title appeared in large white letters, stark and enigmatic: SPECIMEN FIVE. A moment later the legend ‘A VALKYRIE FILM’ appeared. There were no other credits. The title and legend faded and were replaced by the subtitle PART ONE, which shortly gave way to the image of a public park. There was a fragrant impression of summer evening but the paths and lawns seemed deserted. Then a young woman appeared.

I recognised the location: Holland Park, Kensington, London.

* * * * * * * *
She strode along the path through the shrubbery beyond Holland’s statue, a tall slender brunette wearing a short skirt. A young man appeared from behind the camera and approached her. He was fair-haired, medium height, well muscled. His voice was educated Southern English.

“’Scuse me, can you direct me to Holland Park tube station?”

She said “Yes” and pointed towards the east side of the park, and he put his hand up her skirt, fingers groping. The camera panned round to the front of his trousers; erection. The woman screamed “You bastard!” five times, battering him with her handbag and trying to kick him. He dodged the blows without taking his hand from between her legs. He grinned.

“What the fuck did you expect, walking through a deserted park at twilight wearing a short skirt? You invite men to feel you up, don’t complain when they do.”

Her rage visibly mounted, but two punches under the rib cage stopped her pummelling and kicking and doubled her up on the path. He dragged her into the bushes and stripped her, throwing her clothes around at random. The camera zoomed in: small shapely breasts with hard dark nipples; triangle of black pubic hair; and, as he pulled her legs apart, mild arousal – labia moist and swollen. He looked and laughed.

“So much for the feminist crap about women not wanting men to overpower and force them. Gagging for it, aren’t you, slag?”

Winded by the impact of his fists she managed only feeble resistance, her cries for help faint and futile. He forced her cunt open with his fingers, then grasped her wrists and held her down on her back. His cock was about six inches long and fairly thick, so when the first thrust went all the way into her it was obvious her body was ready. For a couple of minutes she lay rigid on the grass, head turned aside, teeth gritted, eyes slammed shut; and then she began to grunt, hips moving to his rhythm.

The setting was authentic: a border of geraniums around the lawn; azaleas rustling; a thrush hopping along the wall, another pecking at the lawn.

“Wide open and soaking wet,” sneered the rapist. “Slut. Harlot.”

The insults seemed to arouse her further. He fucked her for ten minutes, muttering into her ear, and then she came. It was convincingly acted, not overdone. Only as her convulsions were diminishing did he shoot his load. Then he laughed, rolled off her and dusted himself down. She gave a long low moan and curled up in foetal position, legs together, knees up to her chin. She was shaking. She didn’t speak. Then, to my surprise – shock, rather – she vomited, mostly on to her hair, which was spread out under her face.

Wow, I thought, she deserves an Oscar. He’s pretty good, too.

He talked to her as he wiped himself down and put his clothes back on, his voice issuing from the speakers beside the screen and filling the little cinema.

“You’ve learned something about yourself, if you didn’t already know it: you’re a whore. You didn’t need the orgasm to prove it, though; you announced it by wandering along the path showing your legs. A woman out alone at night wearing a short skirt is asking for it. If you hadn’t lashed out at me when I felt you up I wouldn’t have shagged you, I’d have gone to a brothel, so I guess that’s why you did it: you wanted a man to force his way into you, and you know there’s nothing like a show of resistance for making sure he fucks you good and hard.”

He bent over her and spoke into her ear, but I could still hear his words. Good sound-engineer on this production.

“Those rape crisis centre bitches will tell you it wasn’t your fault, any more than it’s your fault if you get mugged in the street. But you know better, don’t you? You know they’re lying to make you feel less guilty. If I walked down a street in a rough part of town waving a fat wallet and got mugged, it would sure as hell be my fault. I would have been asking for it. Same goes for you: short skirt, wandering alone at night, show of resistance, and then being cheap enough to cum while I’m raping you.” He sniggered. “Doesn’t matter, though, does it? You’ve had dicks up you before. One more makes no difference.”

He stood straight, planted his booted foot on her stomach and grinned again.

“Why don’t you be honest with yourself and do it for money?” He opened his wallet and dropped a folded ten pound note between her breasts. “That’s being generous. Your minge isn’t worth ten quid. But at a fiver a fuck, you could earn a hundred a day.”

He kept his boot on her stomach while he opened her handbag, tipped out the contents and rifled through them.

“Nothing ‘specially interesting about you, is there, slut? Virginia Mitchell. Address in Hayward’s Heath. Maybe worth remembering: Virginia, Hayward’s Heath. Virgin for short but not for long, eh? How old were you when had your first shag, Virginia? Twelve, thirteen?”

He laughed again, threw her handbag over the bushes and walked off screen towards the tube station, lighting a cigarette. He called “Thanks for the directions” over his shoulder as he disappeared. The thrush flew away from the lawn. After a couple of minutes it returned to its evening meal.

The woman was sitting up now, sobbing, collecting her scattered belongings without seeming aware of her actions. She peeled the ten pound note off her chest and tore it into confetti.

The scene faded and the screen went dark. END OF PART ONE.

Mandy glanced across at me and nodded, satisfied. She was right: this film was far better quality than any porn I’d seen. Although I’d cum inside the escort an hour or two earlier my cock was hard again.

“I see you did enjoy Part One,” she said.

I grunted.

“Very well acted. Seemed to be set in the ‘80s but must be more recent since it’s so explicit. Script was heavy-handed, but it was clever to have the woman cumming so she seemed to enjoy being raped. I liked that. Didn’t get the point of attaching a name and address to her, though. The guy remained anonymous but she didn’t. Rape porn is best when you identify with the rapist, not the victim. He should be the one with a name and address. She should be a cipher.”

“An object, Douglas? Objects shouldn’t have personal names or addresses, right?”

I nodded, then wondered whether I was right. Just before the rapist had wandered away towards the tube station, nonchalant cigarette in mouth, he’d told her he knew her name and where she lived. Could that theft of her privacy have been the most insidious part of the rape? Perhaps she’d never feel safe at home again, always imagining herself vulnerable to attack; unless she moved house and perhaps changed her…

I was starting to imagine Part One of the film was real! A tribute to its quality.

“On the other hand,” I said, “maybe… I’m not sure.”

Mandy smirked. She seemed to read my mind. I told her I didn’t understand the title of the film. Would its significance become clear in Part Two or Three?

“‘Specimen Five’ is the rapist’s name. Label. The same rapist reappears in the rest of the film.”

I frowned.

“That’s an object name not a personal name. In the interests of pornography it would be better to call the woman ‘specimen’ and give the man a – ”

I realised I was on the verge of contradicting my new insight.

Mandy said “Not for this sort of porn.”

* * * * * * * *
She was right about Part Two: it didn’t interest me. A lot of it purported to be interviews with ‘Virginia’, her partner and her therapists. According to these accounts, for weeks and months after the rape ‘Virginia’ lost her ability to concentrate, was always on edge, slept badly and had little appetite. Her memory of the event was confused and contradictory, yet she kept reliving it through memories and nightmares. Her emotions became unpredictable; she was generally anxious. Often she felt numb, detached, as though in a dream, yet sometimes she was abnormally alert. The familiar world became strange to her, full of danger. She avoided not only Holland Park but also any object, any feeling, that could remind her of the assault. She burned the clothes she’d worn that night. She felt humiliated, degraded, worthless. She lost her job. Her social life disintegrated.

I yawned. Everyone knew the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder; listing them in a porn film detracted from the entertainment, which was a pity given the excellence of Part One. Also, what ‘Virginia’ claimed to experience reminded me of Laura. And ‘Specimen Five’ had been right: the stupid cow had brought it on herself. She deserved to feel worthless.

Her fictional partner’s comments were more interesting. By the time he was ‘interviewed’, allegedly eight months after the rape, he and ‘Virginia’ had separated. He could no longer deal with her insistence on moving away from London while at the same time wanting to hide away in their house. Nor could he cope with her mood swings and unpredictability, or with his sex life being on indefinite hold.

So far, I thought, so boring. But the mixed feelings he claimed to experience were intriguing.

As the weeks passed, his sympathy for ‘Virginia’, his desire to protect her, his guilt at failing to do so (irrational but understandable), his rage against ‘Specimen Five’, his anger at the police for not identifying the rapist, gave way not only to frustration and incomprehension but also to a prurient fascination with the rape. Part of him empathised with ‘Specimen Five’, wanted to share the experience of forcing a woman; he wanted to know what it had been like for her moment by moment, to revel in her recollected sensations and emotions. The film implied that immediately before the end of their relationship he had forced himself on ‘Virginia’.

“Well, why shouldn’t he?” I said. “He was her partner and she was refusing sex. And since she’d been raped once it couldn’t do her much harm to be forced by her own partner, could it?”

“Do you think not?” said Mandy.

Of course I was provoking her, but she seemed more amused, or contemptuous, than provoked.

Most of the rest of Part Two consisted of a ‘confession’ by ‘Specimen Five’. Much of it reiterated what he’d said to ‘Virginia’ during Part One, but he also admitted – like her partner – to fascination with her emotions during the rape. However, his ‘confession’ had an offbeat peroration:
“I returned to Holland Park two evenings later,” said ‘Specimen Five’, “when they were doing Richard II in the open-air theatre. It wasn’t a bad production, though their Richard struck me as more effeminate than the role requires. After the performance I went to a pub in Kensington with a guy who’d sat beside me in the front row. Turned out he was a literature professor at University College. We sat ‘til closing time arguing about Shakespeare’s analysis of kingship and the privileges and responsibilities of power and authority. He was interesting. I wouldn’t have minded attending his lectures.”

What that passage was doing in a porn film eluded me. It was irrelevant and distracting.

At the end of Part Two, a narrator’s voice told me that following its interrogation and confession, ‘Specimen Five’ was prepared for upgrading. At that point, Mandy stopped the film and asked for my impressions.

“Not many surprises in Part Two, apart from the critique of Richard II.” I grinned. “No idea what the point was. Virginia’s partner’s reaction before the supposed break-up was entertaining. But I’d like to know what ‘interrogation’ and ‘prepared for upgrading’ meant – you know, the last bit of the voice-over?”

Mandy nodded.

“I’ll explain. But I’d like to know how realistic you’ve found the film so far.”

Something in her voice stirred the hairs on my neck. My erection had faded.

“The acting in Part One was far superior to any I’ve seen in a porn film, and I suppose Part Two was meant to make the rape seem authentic. I got the victim’s emotions, and I got the way the rapist and even her partner enjoyed feeding on them. So up to now, the film’s carried almost as much conviction as a good art film. Which is pretty amazing for porn.”

She smiled. There was little humour in it.

“Intelligent judgment, Douglas, but off target. The event reconstructed in Part One happened. Virginia Mitchell was a real rape victim. Specimen Five was the perpetrator. The interviews in Part Two were selected and edited, but they were genuine and the selection was unbiased.” Her eyes stared into mine. “Don’t imagine you’re watching fiction, Douglas. This is documentary. Virginia’s real. Damaged, but real. Her partner’s real as well. And Specimen Five is real, and what it did to her was real.”

Sure, Mandy, I thought. I’m totally convinced.

“Yeah, right.” I shook my head, stood up, stretched, and sat down again. I didn’t sneer. “You said I’d particularly enjoy Part Three, Mandy, so how about showing it?”

“I will, but I’ll answer your questions about ‘interrogation’ and ‘preparation for upgrading’ first so you’ll appreciate Part Three better.”

* * * * * * * *
The interrogation of ‘Specimen Five’ wasn’t part of the film. Pity; I enjoy fem dom porn. Mandy’s description was graphic, though. It seemed she’d been present during the process, which had taken several days.

She said the interrogation was designed to help ‘Specimen Five’ confess to the rape of ‘Virginia Mitchell’ so the attack could be reconstructed and filmed. No punishment could be exacted until a full confession was recorded. Since ‘Specimen Five’ wouldn’t have relished the punishment, the confession must have required a lot of persuasion, which would have made a great forty-minute film sequence. However, Mandy’s description was an arousing substitute.

As she portrayed it, the persuasion involved services you can purchase in a dominatrix’s dungeon, but without the enjoyment. The pain was severe and inescapable; no safe word, no mercy. ‘Specimen Five’ wasn’t seriously injured or mutilated during questioning, but the rack, the whips, the dildos, the electrical devices, the hoists and the other paraphernalia of BDSM fantasy, along with the interrogator’s leather boots, were deployed with practised expertise. To judge from Mandy’s précis: eat your heart out, Spanish Inquisition.

“I’d have struggled to withstand all that,” I said, smirking, “but knowing what would happen to me if I confessed would have stiffened my resistance.”

“I doubt it, Douglas,” said Mandy. “If a specimen hasn’t confessed in full after five days of interrogation, it’s given an ultimatum. If it confesses, but only if it confesses, it will be given a shot of lignocaine to numb the pudendal nerve and other sensory fibres ten minutes before its punishment starts. No confession, no anaesthetic. Which would you choose?”

I wondered briefly why she referred to the ‘specimen’ as ‘it’, not ‘he’, but then light dawned. The description of Specimen Five’s interrogation had excited me. My heart was pounding and my face felt hot. My voice was hoarse.

“Did Specimen Five hold out for five days?”

“Almost, but the ultimatum settled it. Once it faced the choice it couldn’t gabble out its confession quickly enough.” Mandy looked thoughtful. “Some specimens won’t confess even after the ultimatum so their confessions have to be written for them. They regret their stubbornness once the punishment starts. On the other hand, a few specimens need no persuasion at all; they actively seek the punishment.”

Seek it? My chest hurt. My legs felt weak. I flopped back in my seat, trying to control my breathing. I was becoming carried away by this fantasy. When I spoke again my voice sounded even hoarser.

“So what does ‘preparation for upgrading’ involve?”

The physical preparation was straightforward, Mandy said. Specimen Five’s clothes were taken away and it was housed naked in a locked room with basic facilities. It was fed a fruit and vegetable diet and given only water to drink. Chastity was enforced. Four weeks before the scheduled punishment it was circumcised. All its body hair was removed except some pubic hair, which was trimmed to a feminine shape. Its genitals were shaved smooth. The hair on its head was allowed to grow long. There were regular sessions of anal penetration, which increased in depth and duration as the days passed.

What a shame all this wasn’t filmed, I thought.

For the psychological preparation, ‘Specimen Five’ was told about its punishment. It learned it was one of twelve specimens, each guilty of one or more rapes, all undergoing the same regime of preparation. All twelve were being readied for the annual Castration Festival. Each was assigned to a castratrix who aspired to become the new Champion. The reigning Champion examined the current year’s dozen intimately, studied their confessions, and chose the one she wanted; the other eleven were then assigned at random. The specimens had no right of appeal.

This, I thought, is pushing pornographic fantasy to a new level; too far, in fact. Yet Mandy claimed these events had happened! Impossible, of course.

Specimen Five’s castratrix, said Mandy, had shown it a film recorded during the previous year’s Festival. This film wasn’t available for me to watch, either, but again Mandy described it to me. It allegedly showed a ‘specimen’ being dragged into an open-air amphitheatre, naked and bound, and secured to a tall wooden post in the centre. The castratrix specified the way in which it was secured. The audience, exclusively female, was seated in a semicircle around the amphitheatre. Most of them had been rape victims, or were friends or relatives of rape victims, so the show would provide emotional release through vicarious punishment. A panel of three female judges sat close to the centre of action, and surgeons and nurses were in attendance.

“At every Festival,” said Mandy, “each specimen is left in no doubt about what’s in store for it.”

“I take it Part Three of the film shows Specimen Five’s punishment.” I smiled to myself.

“Yes, of course. Uncensored.”

Like lots of men, I enjoy castration fantasies. Mandy had somehow discovered this before she met me. I masturbate while I watch online porn showing simulated castrations. If I time it right, then just as the victim in the film is parting company with his balls, mine spurt themselves empty. But suppose the castration were real, not pretend? Would it excite me or horrify me? Make me hard or make me sick? Perhaps I’d find out as I watched Part Three.

“The specimens don’t only lose their balls,” said Mandy, “they’re also relieved of their cocks. The Castration Festival is also a Penectomy Festival. The judges assess each emasculation in terms of the castratrix’s skill and confidence, smoothness of execution, originality and imagination, level of suffering inflicted on the specimen, duration of performance, and so on; each performer is marked on each criterion. She has an hour to finish neutering her specimen. If the specimen dies before she’s finished, she’s disqualified.”

In my head, credence wrestled with scepticism. I was shaking but my cock was hardening again. Mandy went on:

“The Festival lasts for four days, three castrations per day. The reigning Champion goes first and the other eleven follow in random order. The Champion uses the techniques that won her the previous year’s trophy; it sets the bar high for the others. On the final day, after the twelfth castration, the judges compare their assessments. Then the new Champion is announced and the trophy’s awarded.” She looked at my crotch and sniggered. “I see you’re eager to watch Part Three, Douglas.”

* * * * * * * *
Even after Mandy’s account I couldn’t have anticipated the details of Specimen Five’s punishment.

Several cameras were poised around the perimeter of the amphitheatre, and two large screens were positioned to give the audience close-up views of the wooden post at the centre. Two of the cameras panned around the crowded seats so the women could watch themselves on the screens, chatting in groups, sharing picnics, drinking, laughing. Most were dressed for an afternoon’s enjoyment under a blue sky decorated with fluffy white clouds. Many of them, I gathered, had attended the morning session to watch ‘Specimen Four’ being neutered. Now they were eager to watch ‘Specimen Five’ being relieved of his – its – genitals.

If Part Three was as well acted and produced as Part One, I thought, this would be a treat.

The area around the wooden post had been cleared. Collectively, the three judges’ desks commanded an all-round view of the operation. The Mistress of Ceremonies spoke through a microphone. Her English was clear but I couldn’t place her accent.

“Good afternoon, ladies, and welcome to the fifth castration of this year’s Festival. As usual, before the specimen is brought to the post, we shall hear its voluntary confession.”

The audience noise sank to an expectant buzz, and then Specimen Five’s educated southern accent was heard through the hidden speakers. The confession was factual, detailed and unemotional. As it proceeded I felt rather than heard the mounting anger of the audience, and as it ended the women’s rage exploded in cries for vengeance. The Mistress of Ceremonies intervened, restoring calm.

“Have no fear, ladies; the perpetrator will be punished before your eyes by the slow and inexorable obliteration of its manhood. Please welcome our fifth castratrix, Ms Melanie Siddall, to her first-ever Castration Festival; and her eunuch-to-be, Specimen Five!”

There was a blast of music and Ms Siddall entered the arena wearing a long cloak. She carried a small leather bag. Four female guards in black uniforms marched beside her. Specimen Five, naked, hairless apart from the luxurious locks on its head and the inverted triangle at the base of its abdomen, was led by a chain around its neck. Its wrists were tied behind its back and its ankles were joined by a chain about two feet long, so its walk to the post was a clumsy stumble. The audience response was a mixture of applause for Ms Siddall, laughter at the sorry spectacle cut by Specimen Five, and renewed anger at its confession. There were shouts of “Cut its dick off” and “Tear its nuts off, stuff them down its throat!” and what I supposed were similar demands in other languages.

Ms Siddall threw aside her cloak and set her bag down beside the post. She wore only a black one-piece swimsuit and long leather boots; it would be easy to clean bloodstains from them. She bowed to the audience and murmured to the guards, who in less than two minutes had secured Specimen Five to the post by its neck. Its wrists were tied to hooks in the wood and its ankles were fastened to pegs driven into the ground so that its legs were stretched wide apart. It struggled but it couldn’t move. Ms Siddall beckoned for the microphone and held it close to her victim’s mouth so its pleas for mercy sobbed through the loudspeakers. There was a roar of laughter from the watching women. Then the castratrix slipped an elastrator band over Specimen Five’s scrotum, clamping the cords supplying its testicles and cutting off their blood supply. Despite the lignocaine injection, it yelped and jerked forward so the chain around its neck almost strangled it. Its eyes rolled and its abdominal muscles convulsed. Its scrotum began to change colour: bright red, slowly merging to purple. Watching, I cringed, despite my fascination and mounting excitement. The audience in the amphitheatre was enraptured.

Ms Siddall handed the microphone to a guard and moved so close to Specimen Five that their bodies touched. She murmured into its ear and began to play with its cock. Despite the elastrator, despite the situation, the cock hardened; Mandy told me it had been injected with Alprostadil a few minutes earlier. Ms Siddall waited until the organ was erect and the cameras were projecting a close-up of it on the screens, and then she took from her bag a miniature mole grip. She put its jaws around the penis, just above the elastrated scrotum, and began to tighten them. Specimen Five cried out and sobbed again. As the metal jaws closed the cries became screams. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen but I needed a drink.

“The anaesthetic hasn’t done much good,” I said, trying to clear my throat.

“It has, Douglas,” said Mandy. “The specimen would be unconscious by this time if it weren’t for the lignocaine.”

Of course, I thought: local anaesthetics numb the pain fibres but not the deep pressure sensation, so Specimen Five can feel the compression, the crushing, of its penis and scrotum; and of course by looking down or glancing at the screen it can see what’s happening to it. So although the pain’s suppressed, the suffering isn’t.

Indeed, Specimen Five was staring at its penis with a look of horror. The organ would have become limp by this stage, Alprostadil notwithstanding, if the pudendal and penile blood vessels hadn’t been clamped shut by the jaws of the castratrix’s mole grip. The compression kept it more or less erect, but like the doomed scrotum it was changing colour: bright red, purple, gradually becoming blue. Ms Siddall directed her victim’s gaze to the screen, where the image of the ruined penis was magnified so the whole audience could relish it. Ten minutes into her allotted hour, this novice castratrix had effectively destroyed Specimen Five’s cock; and even if the elastrator band were removed now, the testicles probably wouldn’t recover.

Ms Siddall turned to the audience and called out, “What next, ladies? Shall I cut through it about here, so all that’s left is the stump where the scrotum’s attached, or shall I take the balls off first?”

She asked for a show of hands. About a third of the women voted for the dick to go first while the other two thirds opted for the nuts. I was surprised. The castration fantasies I’ve read and watched have persuaded me that men focus on the loss of their balls, which will mean they’re no longer men and their cocks will be forever limp, whereas women revel in cutting off the victim’s dick and regard de-balling as an afterthought. I supposed the two-thirds majority in Ms Siddall’s audience wanted the less interesting part of the process to be completed first, so the de-cocking would become (so to speak) the climax of her performance.

“Okay,” she said, “you saw the vote, Specimen Five. Which ball shall I take first, left or right?”

Specimen Five was incoherent now, tears running down its cheeks. Its penis and scrotum were blue-tinged and darkening. Ms Siddall gripped one testicle in each hand, holding it between her thumb and her index and middle fingers. Then she began to squeeze, first with her left hand, then with her right. The elastrator had cut off the blood supply to the balls but it hadn’t killed the nerves, and although the lignocaine had suppressed the pain it hadn’t touched the pressure sensation.

“Come on, decide,” she wheedled. “Right first” (squeezing with her left hand) “or left first” (squeezing with her right). She kept repeating the invitation, slowly and rhythmically, over and over again, her grip tightening further at each repetition. Specimen Five’s throat was raw with screaming. It made a desperate bid to free itself from its shackles but its efforts were hopeless. The veins in its neck and temples swelled. Then it shat, eliciting laughter from the audience and guards.

The rhythmic squeezing went on for more than five minutes before its resistance broke. “Left!” it shrieked, eliciting more laughter and applause.

“Very well.” Ms Siddall’s tone was kind. “I’ll destroy your left testicle. Slowly.” She smiled at one of the guards. “Please hold the microphone beside Specimen Five’s scrotum.”

The guard complied and the castratrix took another implement from her bag. She held it up for all to see: it consisted of two flat metal plates attached to a handle. A rotating knob at the end of the handle moved the plates together or apart. She put it to Specimen Five’s lips with the command “Kiss the nutcracker”. When the victim refused, she gripped the scrotum and twisted it, hard, until the kiss was performed.
Then she set to work. The plates were set far enough apart to slip over the condemned testicle. Then she started to close them, turning the knob very slowly.

“Keep the microphone in place,” she told the guard.

A faint crunching was heard over the loudspeakers, Specimen Five’s whimpers and shrieks providing a descant. Another five minutes passed before there was a popping sound, almost like a balloon bursting in an adjoining room, as the testicle disintegrated. Then Ms Siddall turned the knob more quickly until the plates were closed.

“There,” she said, “left ball gone. Your scrotum now contains one testicle and one heap of mush. Time to even things up.”

Specimen Five didn’t reply; it had fainted. Ms Siddall sent one of the guards for a bucket of cold urine to throw into its face; this revived it. Then she spent another five minutes repeating her performance with the nutcracker, crushing the right ball to pulp. As soon as it popped she said, “There, Specimen Five, you’re now a eunuch. Time to relieve you of the rest of your raping equipment.”

Specimen Five was sobbing helplessly. The castratrix put the nutcracker away in her bag and took out a knife.

“This isn’t very sharp,” she said, “so it won’t be quick.”

I expected her to slice through Specimen Five’s cock beside the mole grip, leaving just a little stump, as she’d suggested to the audience; and so she did – ultimately. But first she cut off the head of the organ, slicing through it just behind the glans. As she’d predicted, this took a few minutes. Specimen Five fainted again. There was very little blood, though; the mole grip had clamped the major veins and arteries shut. Then Ms Siddall sliced the remains of the penis lengthways, down to the scrotum, so it flopped into two halves. Finally, she turned the knife through a right angle and cut off the remains. A guard presented a waste bin and she tossed the shreds of cock into it. Specimen Five stirred in its shackles and groaned.

“Say ‘Goodbye, dick’,” she ordered.

The fact that Specimen Five obeyed, sobbing, proved its subjugation to the castratrix’s will. Fifty minutes had passed since it had been secured to the post. During those fifty minutes it had lost its manhood, both physically and psychologically.

Ms Siddall ended her performance by slicing through the skin and cords of the scrotum just below the elastrator band, but this seemed almost an irrelevance. She threw the severed nut-bag into the waste bin, ordered Specimen Five to say ‘Goodbye balls’, then turned to the audience and bowed, gesturing to her newly-fledged eunuch.

She received a standing ovation. As the guards untied Specimen Five and handed it over to the care of the surgeons and nurses, she put her cloak back on, replaced her castration equipment in the leather bag and turned to leave the amphitheatre.

Before she reached the exit a woman rushed forward from the front row of the audience and hugged her, eyes overflowing with emotion. It was Virginia Mitchell.

End of Part Three.
* * * * * * * *

---