Red Feline's face was again attacked by the whip. There was no consideration on the part of the Man in Black about the young woman's most fragile areas of her body. Her face, her breasts, her pussy, were the parts of Red Feline's body that were off-limits and were to be touched with permission only, a permission not easy to come by.

She was protective of her body. She would rather touch herself than allow just anybody to do it. But she was not in control at this time and her face and breasts and everything else were targets of the whip.

Until this moment she always had some kind of control in every part of her life. At home, in school, at play, with boyfriends, with girlfriends...always. She even had control over her dreams, which was unusual. It was rare the times where her dreams turned into nightmares and where she wished she would wake up. This was beginning to be one of those times.

When the last lash fell on Piroska's back, a rapid succession of images filled her mind and fed her anger. At once she saw the woman nailed in the palisades, her mother hanging and burning, her aunt's scarred back, the body of her father dragged by horses, his decapitated head on top of a stake.

She stopped her angry scream and regained control of her body and mind as two slave women reached up to her wrists to cut her loose. Her back showed the large welts, but no blood. The skin was not broken. The soldiers approved and compensated the man.

Teary eyed, Piroska was taken down and she fell on her knees. The slave women helped her get back on her feet "Treat your master nice this time.", they told her, "He will take care of those welts himself and he will feed you and dress you well if you just do what he wants.".

The soldiers grabbed her by the arms and dragged her naked, sweating, trembling body back to the Governor.

For Red Feline, the tale of Piroska was beginning to have a separate reality. It was becoming more like the detailed recollection of a far off event. Every lash on her body was a reminder and in some strange way, her suffering was stimulating not only her mind, but her body.

What was most fascinating was that as her body went through the motions she was so familiar with: the trembling of her legs, the pounding of her heart, the screaming of her clit for an intense rub -a soft, tender, but intense rub- her mind, in the other hand, was in a journey through time that had more detail and emotions and facts than she ever imagined before.

All the separate images she collected in the filing cabinets of her brain, were now joining together as if an invisible pencil was drawing a line and connecting the dots.

The events were clear now, not just one traumatic moment of a distant past or one delicious torture for her lonely nights. The story was real with real emotions and real pain and more importantly, a real purpose that she was just beginning to understand.

The words of the gentle slave women were still in Piroska's ears as she was dragged through the hallways of the large palace, out to a yard surrounded by the elegant construction, up the stairs into another hallway and up again a staircase to a higher level where the chambers of the Governor, his wife and mistresses were.

Everyone on the way could see the naked, young slave, her back full of welts, being dragged by the soldiers. She was not walking, her legs were limp, because she wanted it that way. There was a smile on her face even if her cheeks were wet with sweat and tears.

Her lower back was dirty as the dirt on the ground was picked up by her body and the dark particles attached themselves to her skin. The large welts were red with a contour of white, they were raised over the rest of her white skin. Not an impressive show of punishment, people had seen a lot worse.

As the soldiers climbed the spiral staircase, Piroska's feet were hitting the edges of the steps, still, she refused to walk. The Governor was waiting at the top of the stairs.

Red Feline wished the marks of her body were only red welts, she wished that her punishment was as merciful as the one Piroska received on her first day of rebellion. There was something unfair in the way Red Feline was treated. She was not given the chance to choose for a lesser form of punishment. In fact, she was never told why she was there.

Even if it was only her imagination or a nightmare created in the depths of her soul and for her own enjoyment, it was still unfair. The lash was breaking her skin, it was cutting through her flesh, it was giving her the pain she only tried to imagine in the worst cases she came up with in her fantasies, and only as references for what could happen to the characters she was interpreting during her mental games.

The lash fell across her chest without mercy, her skin was cut, her blood flowed.