Red Feline's body was tense, her legs still tight, holding her in position, her mind tried to stay in a different dimension where the pain wasn't hers, but a lash that cut through her back, reaching her face, brought her back to her reality. Slowly at first, she realized that she was still there, that she was going to be there for a while, and that she didn't have the control.

It was not going to be one of those times when she had reached a limit to her resistance and was able to free herself.

The time she had lived in that incredibly romantic mansion at the edge of a small town, she had managed to create a nocturnal world where she could play her very elaborate and painful games.

But always in control, always with one foot in the door to the outside world of reality. Now she was completely in and no longer able to just jump out of her ordeal.

Red Feline was slowly losing control of her legs, she felt her body pulling down a number of times but it was then that she found the extra strength to hold on and stiffen her legs to support her weakening body. Her head hung limp, shaking with the force of every stroke of the whip and at times she felt that it was going to fall off her body and roll away.

It was the loss of the control over her body that made her feel the worst.

After her initial experience in her torture garden she learned to prepare herself better for every experience she had during that long year. Long, because she felt it had no end.

The first few times it was herself, a rope and a tree, one of many trees that made a circle. There were two of these circles surrounded by trees in the large garden. They were there to be used as a place of relaxation for the dwellers of the house. They were big enough to hold 10 or more people sitting in a circle, sharing a meal, a drink, a conversation.

Often enough it was used for 'guitarreadas', nights of singing and dancing, a few troubadours providing the music with the mastery of their guitars.

But to her, those circles, after midnight, were the scenes of her multiple self-tortures.

Again, the whip made Red Feline feel like falling on her knees, but she fought inside to gain over her weakness and try to stay up. One way of achieving such a feat was to turn away from her misery to watch from afar the punishment of Piroska.

"Eighteen!", the soldie'rs hoarse voice proclaimed as the whip cut across Piroska's back, halting her breath. Her eyes were fixed on the sky above, beyond the clouds, where she was looking for the apparition that seemed to look down on her from time to time.

"Nineteen!", the soldier cried out and Piroska closed her eyes in pain and clenched her teeth as the whip fell on her shoulder, the tip hitting her neck. "Twenty!", counted the soldier, almost relieved that it was over and the whip flew one last time to wrap itself around Piroska's waist. She opened her eyes in pain and saw her.

Piroska felt almost faint as the echo of the last lash traveled up and down her back. Her legs trembled, her face was wet with her sweat, her back bled from the many lashes that had cut her skin. The soldiers were contemplating her in silence, somewhat relieved that they had finished their ungrateful task. One walked away to let the Governor know that the slave had been punished.

There was a moment of peace for Piroska who felt her body practically abandoning her...or she was abandoning her body, raising herself up to where she saw the redheaded goddess.

She looked down at her hanging and beaten body and saw the Governor walking to her cross. She noticed that her eyes were closed and for a moment she felt as if she was someone else. As if she was the goddess looking down. A far-off sound made her turn away from her cross and to darkness.

She saw a low light and a body illuminated by that light. A woman with her arms streched and her body bent. Piroska wondered where she was and who the woman was.

Red Feline felt the gaze of Piroska, as if it was her own. The lash across her legs made her aware that she could no longer stay in that position. She had to do something, it was time for a change. Somehow she had to find some relief to the tension on her arms. Slowly, she moved around, to the position she was in when she was first hung. She had felt some relief then, because she had some room to move, to try to straighten up.

As she changed her position, the whip kept falling on her.

To her frustration, she didn't find any relief with the difficult turn she took. Halfway through her turn all she had accomplished was to expose her breasts to the whip. Now she couldn't even see herself in the mirror.

That was one element she didn't have during her games in her torture garden. She could not see herself hanging from her crosses. She could only imagine, and she never imagined her body as broken as it was now.