Stranded

“What happened?”
“She just washed up. I've got the team trying to figure out who she is.”
“Poor girl. Of all the islands in the south Pacific, she had to wash up on ours.”
“I can make it quick if you want, boss.”
“No, no. I'm not as nice as Alastair was. I like to play with my food first.”
“Have it your way, ma'am.”
“Thank you Harry, I will.”

*

Kelly couldn't remember feeling this comfortable in a long time. The skin-scorching sun, the itch of salt water, the wood and metal against her skin all seemed a very long way away. Instead, there was soft and white and warm.

She jolted awake.

She was in a bed, naked. It was a big bed, and comfortable, and it sat in the middle of a large apartment with a full wall-window overlooking a picture of tropical paradise. Whoever owned the apartment was clearly a big fan of BDSM erotic art, but otherwise the whole place was tastefully decorated.

A young woman was sitting in a recliner by the window, working on a laptop and sipping a cold beer. She looked to be in her late twenties, and wore her hair in a nest of dyed dreadlocks, purple fading to black. She glanced up at the bed at Kelly's movement and smiled a warm, happy smile.

“Welcome back.” she said. “how are you feeling?”

Kelly sat up, and groaned as her head protested. “Augh... awful. Sorry. And... confused.”
“You're dehydrated. There's a jug of water next to you.”

Kelly turned, saw the jug and grabbed it, gripped by a thirst she'd never have imagined was possible before the plane crash. The other woman watched her drink it with a slight knowing smile. Finally, Kelly had to stop with a gasp for air. A lot of water had gone all over the sheets.

“Oh.. God, I'm sorry. Where...?” She suddenly collapsed, dizzy.
“Answers in good time, sweetie.” said Miss Dreadlocks. “For now, I put something in the water to help you sleep...”

*

This time, when Kelly came to, she was in the same bed, but the sheets were dry and Miss Dreadlocks was lying next to her, brushing a stray hair out of the way.

Kelly couldn't deny, she felt much better than the first time she'd woken up. So much so that she didn't really mind being naked while a stranger – a female stranger – did something so intimate and caring.

“Hi.” said Miss Dreadlocks “I'm Annie.”
“Kelly.” she replied, feeling unaccountably relaxed. “Did you save me?”
“Not exactly.” said Annie. Spotting Kelly's slight frown, she smiled “you washed up here.”
“Where's 'here'?”
“About the worst possible place you could have washed up, I'm afraid.” Annie said.

It was a strange thing to say, but Kelly was too busy luxuriating in the softness of the bed and the happy comfortable feeling of being groomed and loved to dwell on it too much. She giggled.
“Why would you say something like that?” she asked.
“It's the truth.” Annie said. “though I guess you feel like you couldn't be anywhere better right now, right?”

Kelly nodded, and giggled. She had only just noticed that Annie too was nude. She distantly marveled that she really didn't mind. In fact, for the first time in her life she was finding another woman erotic.
“Am I high?” she wondered aloud.
“As a kite.” Annie smiled. “A bit too high, actually.” she bent down and kissed Kelly on the lips. Kelly was too stunned to respond at first, and the sober core of her was desperate to pull away from the weird lady who..

…had tied her to the bed...
...was all lips and warmth and strawberry lip gloss and tongue and MMMM....
...tied to the bed....
...never kissed like this before...
...TIED TO THE FREAKING BED...
...don't care...

The sober core shut up and whimpered as the tongue in her mouth became a torturing trail of nibbles and kisses down her chin, her neck, her breast, then a warm lick on the inside of her thigh, trailing upwards and inwards to release a thousand waves of rolling pleasure that spread out from her pussy, filling her and building one one another until her mind went away for just a few seconds of bliss.

“...this.... this isn't quite... how I was expecting to be rescued.” she joked, when electric bolts of passion had stopped brawling inside of her.
“More sober now?” Annie asked.

Kelly was. “Why am I tied down?” she asked.
“I've got bad news for you.” Annie said.

She stood up, and threw on a thin silk kimono dressing gown. “Have you ever heard of M-Net?”
Kelly shook her head no. The fading drug buzz was quickly letting her sense of healthy fear come back.
“That's good, because we're about the best-kept secret on the planet. A few hundred of the world's richest and most powerful, and a few thousand more of regular folks who share a passion that is VERY illegal everywhere. We're sick and wrong and we love it. Care to guess what the M stands for?”

“I'm a-afraid to.” Kelly said, fighting past chattering teeth as honest fear took root. “M....mur...”
“Yes. M for Murder. Good girl.”
“Oh God...” she sobbed. Her guardian angel had become a demon in mere seconds.
“Oh, hush, sweetie, don't worry. Don't worry. I'm not planning on killing you.” Annie rushed back to the bed and wiped the tears out of Kelly's eyes. Kelly thought of biting at her fingers, but the look of honest compassion in Annie's face stopped her. “I'm just telling you why you can never leave this island. So, I'm afraid you're not rescued. Not really.”

Kelly just stared at her. She felt numb, and violated. Just a few minutes ago the monster who was now talking quite openly about murder as a sexual fetish had taken her to such incredible heights of pleasure. Her stomach twisted into an uncomfortable guilty knot at the memory of her orgasm, and she revolted herself by, just for a second, feeling a sense of longing for the murderer's tongue to slip inside her again.

“I mean it sweet thing, I really don't plan on hurting you. You're completely safe. If I was just going to kill you, you'd have woken up in a torture chamber.”
“You're sick.” Kelly said at last, sounding more like a sulky child than a moral human being.
“Yep!” Annie replied happily.
“So if you're not going to hurt me...?” Kelly didn't finish the question. She wasn't even sure what the question was.
“Well, we take our privacy very seriously. You can't ever leave this island in case you let the cat out of the bag, and you'd better believe that we have killed people who jeopardized our privacy before. So I guess that makes you my prisoner. The question is, do you want to stay tied to something forever, or would you rather have the run of this nice lagoon atoll?”
“You can't be serious?”
“Completely. You're not getting off this island, so your options are to be a high security prisoner, or a minimum security prisoner. Or if you want me to, I could just kill you. You'd look fucking gorgeous with your brains all over my sheets.”
“Go on then, untie me.”

Annie laughed “Not yet.”

She picked up a remote control from the bedside table and Kelly's restraints slackened, allowing her to sit up and hug her knees.

“You murder people? For... for sex?”
“Murder is how the law sees it. But I've never killed anybody who didn't want me to.”
“Bullshit!”
“Nope. You think that's unbelievable, you wait until I show you just how huge the necrosexual market is. There are a lot of people out there who get off on snuff porn vids, and a lot of THEM would pay good money to star in one. As either victim or... client.”
“I don't believe you. That's crazy.”

Annie giggled. “Yes, yes it is. But you'd better believe it sweetie, there are a lot of people in the world who get off on death, and a lot of them think that getting their crazy asses killed will be the ultimate sexual high. I don't know about getting killed, but doing the killing drives me fucking wild, there's nothing like it. It's a match made in fucked-up heaven.

She smiled at Kelly's expression of wide-eyed denial.

“I'll happily demonstrate, if you want me to.” She cocked her head, arrogantly. “Go on. I can have two people in this room begging me to kill them inside five minutes. Just say the word. I dare you.”

A distant, incredulous part of Kelly's brain watched in horror as, nettled, scared, confused, sickened and still just a little bit high, she looked the bitch in the eye and said, unable to stop herself, “Go on then.”

*

Kelly couldn't cry any more. The tears just wouldn't come. The brutalized wreckage of what had once been a man was hanging opposite her and she had killed him, condemned him by calling Annie's insane bluff. It had been Annie's hands holding and working the tools that had taken him apart so viciously, but only on Kelly's own instructions.

There had been two, to begin with. A man and a woman had marched into the apartment aroused and ready within minutes of Annie's call.

“Pick one.” she had said. Kelly had refused. “Pick one, or I do them both.”

She hadn't been able to force herself to make the call until Annie's countdown had passed one and the last second was nearly spent. Finally, just before Annie could crow “zero!” and claim both lives, her hand had shot out as far as her bondage would allow and she had cried “him!”

She wondered if she was having a nightmare. Whether she was still clinging to the wreckage of her plane, hallucinating under the implacable grip of terminal heatstroke. She cried and screamed and begged Annie to stop as her chosen victim thanked his “Goddess” and begged her – literally begged her on his knees - to kill him.

She had bound him even more immobile than Kelly, nailed his pulsing erection to a wooden board, and then proceeded to cut his dick into inch-long chunks while he howled and shrieked in agony and lost his mind from the pain. She had driven steel spikes into his abdomen, delicately peeled the skin from his chest to reveal muscles which jerked a macabre dance of pain as she plunged a knife into his gut and spilled his innards all over the floor.

Kelly could have turned away at any point. She could have shut her eyes, blocked her ears, turned her head and hidden from the depravity she was being shown.

Could have, but didn't. But she had cried. Tears of terror, remorse, of empathy and grief. She had cried because he was in pain, cried because she had caused it, cried because he smiled and thanked his murderer before the end, cried in disgust as Annie kissed his severed head while finger-fucking herself, cried with self-loathing at the flush sensitivity in her breasts and the wetness in her cunt, cried as she felt her whole grip on the universe slip and tumble away as she watched a man ENJOY being tortured to death in more vile and inventive ways than she could have imagined.

The image of his final expression - a moment of blissful revelation - was indelible, scarred forever into her.

Two men came into the room and cleared up the mess while Annie was showering, quickly and professionally. By the time the Empress of Snuff sauntered back into the room, smiling like the cat that got the canary as she dried her limbs on a soft towel, there was nothing to show that a man had died there aside from the wet mop-marks on the ground and the tears that had soaked all down Kelly's front and into the sheets around her.

Annie picked up the remote, and Kelly's restraints tightened gently, until she was once again spread-eagled on the bed, not uncomfortably but immobile. She climbed into the bed alongside Kelly and ran a languid finger down the length of her captive's body. Kelly tensed, equal parts afraid and ashamedly eager to be raped.

Instead, Annie kissed her lightly on the cheek and said “if you'd like to die now, just ask.”

Kelly didn't respond, and after a few seconds, her captor drew the sheets across them both and fell asleep, leaving the captive to stare defeated at the ceiling, until fatigue finally won the battle against emotional trauma and she fell into a fitful, unhappy sleep.

Kelly hissed in discomfort. Her ordeal under the baking castaway sun had left most of her body red and peeling from sunburn, and Annie was busy rubbing some kind of soothing cream onto the worst affected areas.

Given the choice, Kelly wouldn't have let her do that. Annie's touch sickened her. Kelly had never seen a person die before, and to watch a person be murdered, and for both killer and victim to show every sign of having ENJOYED it... Her world had turned on its head in one evening.

But she didn't have the choice. She was tied down. The straps around her wrists and ankles were soft and safe, but unrelenting. The most she could do was squirm in protest as the caring hands of a sadistic killer explored every square inch of her skin.

The worst part was her own mounting, confused arousal.

“You're insane.” she said, the first words she'd spoken to Annie since the beginning of the snuff last night.
“If you say so.” Annie replied, placidly. “I don't FEEL insane, personally.”
“You are!”
“Because I get off on killing people?”
“Yes! That's abnormal!”
“Abnormal, yes. Insane... I don't think so.”

Kelly turned her face until she could stare in disbelief.

“To me, 'insane' would mean I wasn't able to think my actions through.” Annie explained. “ It'd mean I was doing it because... I don't know, because God told me to, or because I had voices in my head or something.” She gave Kelly the bright smile of a totally untroubled conscience. “I know full well what I'm doing, and I'm doing it for honest, tangible reasons. Sure it's abnormal, but that's not the same thing as insane.”

Kelly didn't answer. She shut her eyes and thought of her boyfriend. She knew he was dead now – the plane had literally fallen apart around them, and she had no idea how she had survived. It was too much to hope that he was alive, and utterly forlorn to believe that if he was he might hold on to hope that she was too.

She wished she could cry. But there wasn't enough grief left in her body.

She couldn't stop herself from licking her lip as Annie massaged the cream into her breast, or biting it in response to the cheeky nipple-pinch.

“Your body knows what I'm all about” Annie said, and Kelly hated herself. “We're just waiting for your brain to catch up.”
“If you're going to kill me, kill me.” Kelly said, quietly. “Don't torture me like this. Please.”
“Oh, sweetie...” Annie sighed sympathetically “We both know you don't really want me to. And as long as you don't want me to, I won't. I don't get off on rape.”
“Then let me go!”
“Not an option. I'm sorry gorgeous, I truly am, but I'm completely serious about protecting my organisation and the people in it.”

Kelly turned her face down into the pillow and sighed, too defeated to protest. She didn't even tense when Annie brushed a few stray hairs out of her face.
“You're welcome to walk around free on the island.” Annie said. “So long as you agree to the security mercs keeping a close watch on you.”
“How close?”
“Close. They won't follow you into the bathroom but that's about it. If you're good, I might give you a bit more freedom after a while. Beats being tied to my bed, right?”
“Clothes?”
“If you like. A lot of people don't bother on Isla Moros.”
“Okay.”

*

The rules were actually pretty simple. The mercenaries checked her cabin thoroughly every day in case she was trying to stockpile anything in there other than clothes and books, and required that she take half an hour of light exercise – a walk around the island – while they did so. She wasn't allowed food in the cabin, so if she wanted to eat she had to dine with Annie or with one of the flirtatious sorority of so-called “M-Girls”.

It was a queasy experience, knowing that fifteen of the twenty-seven girls and three men she met on the first day of her pseudo-freedom would be dead within a year. They were a varied bunch, some bubbly and vivacious, others more introverted, but what they all had in common was a genuine happiness, even joy of life. She turned down sex with all of them, over the course of the first few weeks. She had a thirst for company, however, and it was hard not to like even these strange alien creatures with their sexual fixation on death.

Travis was one of the three M-boys, although “boy” was an odd term for a handsome athlete in his mid-thirties. He and his cousin Melissa had joined the stable seven months previously, at the start of November when two of the M-girls died in the big halloween event. Both were quietly intellectual Canadians who stuck to the fringes of the near-perpetual hedonistic party that was an M-girl's daily life, sampling it when the mood took them. They were completely open about their incestuous relationship, and good at rationalising their necrosexuality. They had also apparently talked Annie into making a few exceptions to the rules that governed Kelly's captivity, and each visit from them brought with it a couple of nice bottles of wine and some of Travis' excellent baking.

“You're going to die one day.” Travis said one time. He was reclined lazily in Kelly's cabin, slightly buzzed from the wine but still perfectly coherent.
“I know, but... why hasten it?”
“Why prolong it?” Melissa countered. “If it's inevitable, the only choices we get are When and How.”
“That sounds nihilistic to me.” Kelly said.
“Maybe it is.” Travis said. “But I don't feel like a nihilist. I feel like somebody who's decided that I want to live an exciting life.”
“By ending it early?”
“By RISKING it ending early.” he corrected her. “For me, being part of the M-stable is a gamble, with the ultimate stakes. It's a rush every time.”
“A lot of the girls figure that it's better to burn bright and hot and fast than to fade out.” Melissa said. “You know, have a great time and end with a bang.”
“So if your number comes up...?” Kelly asked, fascinated. The cousins looked at one another.
“No regrets.” Travis said.
“Why should there be?” Melissa added. “Life's been good to me. I've met interesting people, fucked a lot of them, done stuff most people could never even imagine. I'd HATE to have a “normal” life of the same gray routine every day for thirty years. If it ends tomorrow... well. Peter Pan.”

This drew a frown and a “huh?” from Kelly.
“You know, Peter Pan? 'To die would be an awfully great adventure'?”
“You believe there's something that happens after you die?” Kelly asked.
“I hope so.”
“And even if not...” Travis said, then adopted the tone of voice of somebody quoting from memory “Did the ten thousand years before thy birth trouble thee? Well no more will the ten thousand after thy death.”

Kelly frowned at him. “I don't recognize that one.”
“Neil Gaiman, a comic book series called 'Lucifer'.”
“You get your wisdom from comic books?”
“Wisdom is wisdom.” Travis replied, peacefully. “Doesn't matter where or how it's written.”
“Only place I've never seen wisdom written down is a bathroom wall.” Melissa added with a giggle.
“Okay, if you believe in an afterlife I can maybe get my head around not being afraid to die, but if we're just.... transiting between two infinities of nothing, doesn't each second count?”
“How many seconds have you wasted in your life feeling bored on a Sunday evening or something?” Melissa asked. “People don't use every second to the fullest anyway.”

She giggled, and took a swig from the wine. “Hey, do you mind if I suck Travis' cock?”
“Wha...?” Kelly's train of thought derailed. “Why?”
“Because I want to.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm here!”
“I could eat your pussy instead if you like.” Melissa offered, and both cousins burst out laughing at the look Kelly gave them.
“She's serious, you know.” Travis said. “If we're all fated to die, the only thing that really matters along the way is how much you enjoy yourself. What's so great about a life spent inside your comfort zone, eh?”

They gave her a look that said “...well?”

For the second time in her life, part of Kelly's mind stood back and watched aghast. She had no idea if it was the alcohol, the loneliness, Stockholm syndrome or whatever else, but it was almost as if a second Kelly shouldered her conscious mind aside and took over. “Go on, then.” it said.

Melissa grinned. “Blow him, or eat your pussy?”
“Blow him.”

The Cheshire Cat himself couldn't have produced a broader smile than Melissa at that moment. She took another hit of wine then crawled forward, tugged at the front of Travis' shorts, and took a moment to savour the musky, masculine aroma of his cock before wetting her lips and wrapping them eagerly around its soft, tender end.

Travis closed his eyes and took a delighted breath through his nose as his cousin wiggled the full length of him into the back of her throat and tickled his balls with the tip of her tongue. When he opened them again, he caught Kelly's gaze.

“Go on.” he said. “Get naked.”

Even conscious, detached Kelly felt a powerful desire to do as he suggested. She couldn't deny that the display of lust in front of her had made her ferociously horny. She didn't stand a chance of refusing. She swayed to her feet and gave him her best impromptu striptease. Not long after, Melissa's cheek was warm and soft against her own, a pressure that turned first into a steamy kiss, and then an almost loving competition to see who could lavish more attention on the rock-hard dick in their mouths.

It was heaven. Aside from the drug-fueled, semi-consenting night with Annie, Kelly had gone without sex now for nearly a month, the longest dry spell of her adult life.

Up until tonight, she hadn't felt like it. The tangled grief, horror and culture shock of her captivity had completely crushed her sex drive.

Travis and Melissa clearly sensed the need that even her raunchy alter-ego stopped shy of saying aloud, and their lovemaking soon went from being a girl-and-girl-on-guy roll in the hay, to being him and her - two beautiful, skilled and attentive lovers - worshiping at the altar of Kelly's body.

She had never before been the center of attention like this. It occurred to her that her boyfriend, Andrew, had never devoted himself to her like this. With him, it had always been fucking, not lovemaking. She hadn't even appreciated that there was a real difference before. The guilty thought flashed through her mind in one beat of her hammering heart, then evaporated as it ran headlong into the most incredible emotional and physical pleasure.

Melissa kissed her, and Kelly tasted her own moisture on the other girl's lips. It drove her wild, and as one cousin's talented tongue was replaced with the other's diamond-hard dick, Melissa scooted her pussy around and presented it to Kelly's face.

It was a night for new experiences. Kelly had always considered herself straight, and the evening with Annie hadn't changed that. There was no aloof, spectating part to her brain right now but if there had been, she would have been astounded and amused by how she had gone from hetero to fully appreciating the eroticism of the sight and smell of a gleaming wet cunt inches from her mouth. It was the most natural thing in the world to kiss it, brush Melissa's clit over the sensitive nerve endings of her lower lip, then bury herself up to the nose and send her tongue questing inside.

Travis, on the other hand, was torturing her. He was going slow, keeping up a steady but gentle rhythm that was different in almost every way from the macho hammering she was used to. He graced her nipple with a suck and a swirling tongue in time with the grinding of his hips.

"Faster" she begged, then whimpered in frustrated haste as he chuckled and paused for just a teasing second.
"Nuh-uh. Sloooow." he said, sounding amused.
"Aaaaoooh you son of a bitch... don't torture me! Fuck me faster!"

He refused. She couldn't stand his restraint, couldn't believe the man who was loving her like she'd never been loved before could be so cruel to her. The longer the tease went on, the more agonising it became. She NEEDED to be fucked, every part of her demanded power, and speed, and force.

The torture dragged out for what felt like hours of sadistic slowness, and her pleasure just wouldn't stop mounting. Each new height brought a new begging cry of "faster!" from her, until it became a mantra that was all that was left of her mind.

His cock drove her out of herself, leaving nothing but the irrational, self-abusing desire for the bliss to FINALLY end. It was pleasure unlike any she had ever known, but all it served to do was focus her into one thought, one burning need.

Melissa dismounted and whispered into her ear.
"Do you feel alive?"
"God... yes!" Kelly moaned.
"Do you want to come?"
"Fuuuuuck yesssss!"
"If you come, this'll be over."
"I don't care! God, I need it!"

Melissa laughed gently by he.
"I feel like this *all the time*" she said, and kissed her.

Travis gasped, lost his rhythm, applied just a little more force and that was enough. Kelly's mind broke into a million pieces and there was an interval whose length could have been anywhere between a second and a year as she felt him explode into her and send rushing heat to her very core. At long, final last, she came.

She wondered if the infinite instant of ecstasy which destroyed her mind and then re-made it was what dying felt like.

She might have lain there gasping and incoherent for hours, she didn't know. Only Travis' ragged, exhausted breathing finally reminded her that there was a real world, and she was still in it.
"A... whuh. wow." was all she could manage.
"I think we broke her." Melissa said, a laugh bubbling out of her.

There were strong arms under her, a pair of lips against hers, then the softness of sheets against her body, and the warmth of naked skin on naked skin. She fell asleep to the loving tattoo of kisses on her neck, and of hair being brushed away from her face.

“I don't want to lose either of you...”

Kelly was aware that she was almost whining. The thought of losing either Travis or Melissa was agonising.

“Odds are that you won't, baby.” Travis told her, hugging her close.
“Don't go.”
“If we don't.” Melissa said “then they'll just drag us both in there and kill us anyway. That's part of the contract. Please... come with us?”
“But if... I don't know that I could watch...”
“If it happens, wouldn't you rather be there to say goodbye?” Melissa asked.
“Rather than just hearing it from whichever one of us comes back?” Travis added.

Kelly bit back a sob. “You're... right. You're right.” she said.

*

It was the first of July. Time for one of the M-ployees to die. Planes and yachts had been arriving in a steady trickle for most of the last three days, and now the sea around the island was solid with moored craft. Kelly had been shocked to watch some of their owners come ashore – faces she knew well from Hollywood, music, world politics, and sports. Some were people she could never have imagined would be into something so depraved, whose public personae were so enlightened and loving and nice that the idea of them attending a commercialized murder and cannibal barbecue felt like a betraying punch in the gut.

She had been propositioned by three of the people who had always been on her “would fuck if given the chance” list and she had turned them down. A talk show host she had always been in awe of had expressed their disappointment that she wasn't the new M-girl, and had requested the privilege of decapitating her. A professional boxer had flirted with her, telling of the time he had hung a girl up by her neck and then used her for a punching bag and asked if she'd be interested in allowing him to repeat the experience.

At sunset, the party started in earnest. Alcohol and drugs had flowed freely, men and women both famous and obscure had mingled, joked, partied, danced, fucked and even brought and sold their freedoms and lives to each other in a bizarre bazaar on the beach as the sun retreated to the horizon, blushing red as if ashamed to watch them.

When it was gone, moon and starlight were aided in lighting the scene by the light from a charcoal pit and dozens of torches. Only the stage was lit artificially, and shortly after sundown, the twenty-seven women and three men whose lives were in the lottery tonight lined up dutifully on the stage, naked and oiled ready for their demise or continued existence. All looked nervous and flush, all were restless, but what struck Kelly was that none of them seemed to actually be afraid.

Annie Richmond took the stage, and the buzz of conversation dwindled and died, leaving only the lapping of waves, the rush and whisper of palm trees in the wind, and the distant carnal sighing of a woman somewhere in the darkness.

“I won't detain you.” She said, to a general smattering of applause. “But it's been brought to my attention that some of you have been propositioning a guest of mine for sex and/or death. I wish to make it clear that this guest – Kelly – is not an M-net member, and unfortunately washed up on this island following a plane crash last month. She is not a Client nor a Victim, and you can imagine that this is all a bit of a culture shock to her. I would ask you all to please leave her alone until she adjusts.”

“Until?!” Kelly couldn't stop herself from asking, loud and outraged. She wasn't sure how she had wound up so close to the stage. There was a general chuckling.

“Assuming you do.” Annie replied, smoothly. “Get up here so they all know what you look like, would you dear?”

Kelly's feet moved despite her rebellious urge to give her captor the finger and stalk off into the night. The defiant urge translated itself into a straight-backed, proud march up onto the stage, rather than permitting herself the indignity of a shy and squeaking stumble.

She was, she realised, oddly grateful to Annie for asking people to back off. It was an unexpectedly considerate gesture coming from a sadistic sociopath, and was met with reasonable nods and a murmuring of assent from the assembled as they agreed to give Kelly her space.

She was about to leave the stage, having decided not to berate them all for their sick fetish, when Annie took her arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Travis and Melissa have asked me to invite you to draw tonight's name.” she said.

Kelly froze, and looked to her lovers, who were holding hands nervously in the line-up. They gave her a wan, scared smile and nodded encouragement.

She didn't want to. She was terrified that she'd reach in and pull out either of their names. She KNEW that doing it would mean that she'd be effectively choosing which of the nearly three dozen was definitely going to die tonight. She didn't want that blood on her hands at all. The idea that the blood might belong to the two people she cared most about in all the world right now all but paralysed her.

The mantra in the back of her head was “no, no, no, no, no...” but her traitorous body took over again and she walked, numb with dread, to the horizontal barrel full of ping-pong balls with names written on them, turned it over three times, then reached inside.

Thirty balls. Thirty lives. She didn't want any of them to end, but there were two she ESPECIALLY wanted not to draw. But she couldn't see inside, couldn't tell the difference between her lovers and their colleagues. There was nothing for it but to grab at random, and rely on the odds.

She groped around, found a ball, took it, and drew it.

The words “Sara J” were written on the side in careful black marker.

She handed it to Annie.

She barely paid attention after that. The unfortunate Sara J's terrified gasp of dismay, her wobbly, tearful walk to the front of the stage, the applause of the crowd, the raucous noise of the auction as sums of money she couldn't have earned in a whole lifetime were bid on the privilege of human slaughter, the way the M-stable gathered round and said their farewells to their departing friend, who shared tear-streaked and trembling embraces with all of them. It was all background to her relief, and to Travis and Melissa's own subdued celebration that they would get to live for at least another month.

The M-stable had a duty to the crowd, so she couldn't celebrate with them. All of the twenty-nine survivors were there to entertain to the guests, and pretty soon every one of them had been partnered off to a paying customer.

She joined Annie instead, the only other real acquaintance she had.

“Guilty?” Annie asked, handing her a glass of wine.
“Yeah....” She couldn't take her eyes off Sara, who was chatting with her purchaser. He was an older man, and it was amazing to watch her terror evaporate in the face of his kind words. Sara's weak smile quickly found strength and within minutes she seemed to have even more life and passion in her than she'd had on the few occasions that Kelly had spoken with her in the Stable. She even began to laugh and flirt as they discussed her sacrifice, as if the idea of it held only delight for her.

“Anton there always makes it beautiful.” Annie said. “I'm glad you're here to see this.”
“I don't want to see it.” Kelly muttered, though the bitter resentment she tried to muster wouldn't come. The protest sounded insincere.
“You should see it anyway.” Annie said. “I forced you last time. I was caught up in the moment, and I didn't think it through – you need to see how a life can end wonderfully.”
“I thought you liked it cruel?”
“Cruel can still be wonderful!” Annie said happily. “I've killed people in ways that shocked me even as I did it, and they all thanked me when the end finally came. For some people, my sadism is exactly how they want to go out. If I'm fulfilling their heart's desire, even if that desire is... hideous, brutal stuff? Well, to me that's still beautiful.”

Kelly shivered despite the warm pacific summer air and the glow of the charcoal pit. “How can death be beautiful?” she asked.
“Romeo and Juliet?” Annie suggested, after sipping her wine. “or Anthony and Cleopatra. Or Desdemona in 'Othello', or... fuck, Bruce Willis in 'Armageddon'.”
“They all died for love, though.” Kelly said. “Sara's dying because she gambled her life for money and got unlucky and now somebody's paying for the privilege of murdering her. How is that beautiful?”
“Beauty is where we make it.” Annie told her. She ran a sympathetic hand down the line of Kelly's jaw “Be brave and watch. Please?”

*

Kelly watched.

Sara didn't die quickly, nor painlessly, nor without fear. But she did die beautifully.

Anton, it transpired, really was a master of seduction, and he used all his skills to comfort his victim, who in the end gave him a wan, brave smile as she lay down for him on a crucifix made from brushed steel that gleamed in the firelight. Clearly Anton had some kind of religious fixation because he had given her a white loincloth to wear and had brought a coronet made from barbed wire from his chalet. Kelly couldn't hold back a snort of contempt as a few members of the crowd, though clearly perfectly fine with deadly cannibalistic debauchery, shuffled their feet and glanced around uncomfortably as the most sacred scene in Christian mythology was played with for their erotic entertainment.

“Hypocrites” Annie murmured, only just loud enough for Kelly to hear and clearly intending the comment only for her. She had to agree.

The snuff started gently – rather than being nailed on, Sara was first tied to the cross, wrist and ankle. There was a hauling and heaving of ropes and the torture device swung upright and thumped down into the post-hole prepared for it.

Annie sighed at the sight: Sara was a bit on the skinny side, and a light brunette whose hair fell a little further than her shoulders. The muscles of her shoulders, thighs and tummy flexed and worked against gravity, clearly visible as the ruddy glow of the fire played across her at an angle, creating shadows that tickled Kelly's burgeoning sexual appreciation for women.

“Christ should have been a woman.” Annie said. Kelly couldn't help but agree – despite the nagging voice that insisted she should be revolted at the fact this was even happening, and another - the part that had gone to Sunday school as a little girl – was revolted by the sacrilege unfolding before her, the biggest part of her was resolutely pointing out how incredibly erotic the doomed girl looked up there, and apparently winning the votes of the nipples and pussy demographics.

Anton climbed a ladder and pushed the crown of “Thorns” down onto Sara's head, all gentleness gone. The M-girl shuddered and moaned in pain as the sharp wire scraped cuts in her forehead and scalp that sent glistening red trickles oozing down her face and neck. Satisfied, the murderer stepped back,handed the ladder off to one of the club's discreet assistants. He pulled a large knife from his belt.

Kelly gasped and turned her head, screwing her eyes shut, and Annie spoke to her.
“Watch.” she commanded.

Kelly took a deep gulping breath. She couldn't recall the last time her heart had beat so hard or so fast – it felt like a hundred drummers were trapped inside her chest, slamming away on their instruments in perfect time as if it would free them.
She opened her eyes.

Sara was gazing down with an expression of terrified apprehension as Anton tested the knife's blade against his thumb. Her breathing was ragged, shallow and quick as he clearly decided he was satisfied with its sharpness, and raised it to the flat curve of her tummy.

Kelly and Sara both emitted the same noise when he cut her – a sob. It wasn't a cry of pain or a shriek that tore itself out of Sara, but just a simple noise, as if she was more in mourning than in agony. She threw her head back and the muscles in her upper arms and shoulders twisted and played in the firelight as Anton sawed through the flesh of her abdomen with confident swiftness, but the most sound she made was to pant like he was fucking her rather than eviscerating her.

There was a moment of bulging wetness, and then Anton skipped back as, with a wet ripping sound, her innards gave way and slithered out of her, rearranging themselves into a sickly, sticky apron that reached to her toes, and then unravelled to leave ropes of gut twisted in the sand.

There was a murmur from the crowd that sounded to Kelly's ears like the kind of approval connoisseurs shared over a particularly fine specimen of their art.

“Still alive and conscious.” Annie muttered. “She's tougher than I thought.”

There was blood, and Anton busied himself reaching up inside his victim to stop its flow, and cut away the organs that were outside her, leaving them to drop into the sand at his feet. Sara had no strength or energy left to hold herself up – she truly hung from the cross, her face hidden behind a veil of blood and barbed wire and hair. Anton's religious fixation continued as he accepted a long spear from one of the club's assistants and drove it into his prey's side, halfway between thigh-bone and ribs. It sunk into her unnaturally thin waist and Sara squirmed weakly on the end, but with no organs to stand in the way it passed through unimpeded and eventually made a tent on the far side of her body, which ruptured and allowed the spear to burst free.

She looked up as Anton accepted a more modern tool of death – a rifle – from one of the assistants. The weapon had a green laser-dot that blazed like a tiny baleful sun, easily the brigtest light present, as he played it up the length of Sara's body. He played with her toes, caressed her legs, brushed her tummy and ran lazy circles around her nipples with it, almost like a lover's meandering finger. Sara just stared at him.

She shut her eyes as the dot steadied on her forehead, and Kelly jumped as Anton fired the second he had settled his aim. Sara's head exploded with an odd metallic noise that must have been the high-powered round passing straight through her brain, out the back of her skull, and ricocheting off the steel behind her head. The body spasmed hugely, just once, and then went completely limp.

From some of the audience, the applause was enthusiastic. Others joined in rather more reluctantly. A few had stomped off in a fury.

Annie met Kelly's eye with an expression which asked: “Well?”

She looked up at the ruined parody of the messiah above her, and despite every fibre of her moral being telling her to be apalled, she had to admit – Sara's death had been beautiful.

No, she acknowledged, with a hot coal of shame burning deep within her – it had been profoundly erotic.