The Whip Changed Hands in That Basement

I woke up slowly, my head heavy and a metallic ringing in my ears. When I finally managed to open my eyes, I found only darkness. I tried to turn my body and discovered that my wrists were tied behind my back and my ankles bound with something rough that kept me from spreading them apart. The last thing I clearly remembered was the private room in a bar in the old part of the city, the faint bitter taste of the drink, and the smile of the brunette girl who had arranged to meet me and give me her testimony.

I’m an investigative journalist. A couple of weeks earlier, an informant had passed me a folder with documents pointing to a well-known upper-class couple —he, a successful lawyer; she, public relations for art galleries— up to their necks in a covert prostitution ring and trafficking of women brought in from the east. The girl, who introduced herself as Rocío, contacted me through a secure channel, claimed to be one of the victims, and promised me irrefutable proof. I went to the bar with the recorder in my pocket. Three drinks later, the world blurred.

My head was spinning. I’d been drugged, that much was clear. The question was where they’d taken me, and worse, what they intended to do with me.

Then, suddenly, the screech of a door. The light from a fluorescent tube hit my eyes. It took me a few seconds to focus and, when I did, I recognized the two protagonists of my investigation. The woman, blonde, about forty, wore her hair pulled back in a high ponytail and a black shirt that clung to her hips. The man, behind her, checked his watch impatiently.

—Look who we’ve got here —she said in a calm voice—. The nosy reporter.

—You handle it —he replied without looking at me—. I have to leave for the airport in an hour. Panama won’t wait.

—Don’t worry, darling. You know I’m good at this sort of thing.

The man left without bothering to close the door all the way. The blonde nudged it shut with her foot and came closer slowly. Her heels clacked against the concrete.

—All right, handsome —she said, crouching in front of me—. You’re going to tell me where you have the documents that belong to us.

—I don’t know what you’re talking about.

She smiled. It was a slow, unhurried smile, the kind worn by someone who’s been doing this a long time.

—I see you want to play tough. Relax, we’ve got time here. And tools.

Only then did I look around. The basement was set up like a studio. Rings embedded in the walls, chains hanging from a rail in the ceiling, a panel with quirts, whips, gags, and handcuffs of every imaginable shape. In one corner, a camera mounted on a tripod. My stomach clenched. They filmed here, I thought. This was where they turned girls into merchandise.

—Allow me to introduce Rocío, though you already know each other.

The brunette appeared in the doorway. She didn’t look me in the eyes. Between the two of them they hauled me up from the floor, adjusted the ropes around my wrists, and clipped me to a ring hanging from the ceiling. That was when I realized I was on a sliding hook.

—My husband comes back in a week —the blonde said, folding her arms—. We’ve got plenty of time to play. If you cooperate, this’ll go quickly. If not, I promise you’re going to have a very bad time.

She slapped me hard enough to wrench my jaw. The metallic taste flooded my mouth.

—Still silent? Good. That way we have fun.

She pulled a small black device with two metal prongs from her back pocket: an electric stunner. She triggered it in the air for a second. The crack of it ran down my spine.

—This hurts like hell. Don’t make me use it more than I have to.

I knew two things at once. If I tell them where the documents are, I become an inconvenient witness and I don’t get out of here alive. My only chance was to endure and wait for a crack in the wall.

—Rocío, untie his feet. We’re going to take off his clothes.

The brunette obeyed. Together they yanked my shirt off in strips. Then the belt, the trousers. They left me in my underwear, arms strained overhead and legs trembling.

—My turn now —said the blonde.

She knelt in front of me. She hooked her fingers into the waistband of my boxers and pulled them down without ceremony. I was left completely naked before two women who had all the control and all the time in the world. My cock, shriveled by the cold and fear, hung limp between my thighs, exposed within inches of the blonde’s face. She looked at it with the same clinical curiosity someone might use to inspect an item in a shop window, and smiled.

—Not bad at all —she told her accomplice—. This is going to be a short week.

She stretched out her hand and grabbed my cock between thumb and forefinger as if weighing it. She hefted it, shook it a couple of times, let it fall. Then she cupped my testicles and lifted them with obscene slowness.

—Pretty balls, handsome. It’d be a shame to ruin them too soon.

Humiliation burned up into my face. A fit guy with some training, hanging there naked in front of two strangers who didn’t seem the least bit rushed, while one of them handled my cock like someone feeling fruit at the market.

The blonde —who later, through the other woman’s carelessness, I learned was called Sabrina— took a multi-tail whip from the panel.

—Let the show begin.

The first lash landed across my back. I took it. The second caught my thigh. I clenched my teeth. The third, across my side, tore a grunt out of me. By the fifth I’d stopped counting. Each strike was followed by a pause long enough for the pain to settle in, and short enough that it never faded. She did it deliberately. It wasn’t her first time.

When she stopped, my back was burning and my legs were weak.

—Rocío, spread his legs.

The order froze me. The brunette tied a rope around my right ankle and passed it through a ring in the floor. She pulled. My leg was forced apart in a brutal jerk. The same with the left. I was opened like a compass.

Sabrina activated a control and the hook began to rise. My arms strained. My feet came off the floor. The ankle ropes, tied to the rings, kept me spread while the ceiling pulled me upward. I ended up suspended, aching, with my groin at the perfect height for whatever she felt like doing next.

She came closer. She stroked my testicles with a hand that was almost affectionate. Then she lowered her face to my cock, stuck out her tongue, and licked the tip from top to bottom, very slowly, drawing a wet circle around the glans. I felt an involuntary shiver. She took the entire tip into her mouth, sucked only lightly, and pulled away with an obscene sound.

—Poor things —she murmured, brushing my balls with her lips—. I’m going to miss them.

She took a step back. And raised her leg.

The kick hit me squarely. I couldn’t say whether I screamed or simply lost my breath. Pain shot up my spine to the nape of my neck. A second kick struck both at once. I think I saw white for an instant.

When my vision returned, Rocío had crouched in front of me and was stroking me with both hands. I didn’t understand what she was after. After a while, I understood all too well. She squeezed the base of my cock with one hand and, with the other, massaged my aching glans slowly, wet with her own saliva, until my cock, against all will, began to swell between her fingers. I looked at her with hate. She wasn’t looking at me either: she was watching my cock grow, intent, mouth slightly open.

—Look, Sabrina —she said softly—. He’s getting hard and everything.

—That’s biology for you, darling.

Rocío took my glans into her mouth and began to suck it with premeditated slowness, more to humiliate me than to give me pleasure. Her tongue ran all over it, down to the base, then back up. When she let go, a thread of saliva hung from her lip to my cock. The sensation of being hard inside the mouth of one of my captors, hanging and spread-legged, with my balls still burning from the kicks, turned my stomach and at the same time made me harder. I hated my body for responding. They knew it.

—That’s enough —said Sabrina—. We don’t want him liking it.

Rocío pulled my cock from her mouth with a pop and gave it an almost affectionate pat before stepping away. Sabrina came over with a thin riding crop. The first strike landed on my shaft. The second, right over my still-erect cock. The third hit my testicles and ripped a howl from me that echoed through the basement. I was going to confess. I was going to say anything if only they’d stop. And then I thought of an idea.

I let my head fall forward, slackened my body, and pretended to faint. The blows stopped.

—Damn it. We need him alive. Lower him.

I heard them release my ankles and the hook descend until my feet brushed the floor. I opened my eyes a sliver. They were both turned away from me, selecting something from the panel.

Now or never.

I gave a small jump. The bindings around my wrists slipped free of the hook. I was loose. I ran —if you could call what I did running— toward Sabrina, who was the dangerous one. Rocío shouted a second too late. A dull blow to the back of the neck and the blonde dropped like a stone. The brunette tried to reach me with a whip, I dodged and drove my elbow into her stomach. She dropped to her knees, winded.

—That’s for the drink at the bar —I whispered.

It took me effort to pull on my trousers with my hands still tied behind my back, but I managed by bracing myself against a wall. I rummaged through Sabrina’s pockets, found the stunner, and with it in my hand forced Rocío to untie me. When I finally got my wrists free, I drew a deep breath for the first time in hours.

I could have called the police right then and there. There was more than enough evidence. But my testicles were aching, my back was on fire, and something inside me wanted one more thing before I closed the story.

***

I waited for Sabrina to regain consciousness. When she opened her eyes, she found me seated in a chair in front of her, the stunner resting on my knee.

—You won’t get away with this —she spat.

—We’ll see.

She tried to lunge at me. It was a reflex, more pride than calculation. I pressed the stunner against her thigh and the blonde convulsed on the floor for a few seconds. When she stopped, she was someone else.

—To the wall. Both of you.

She got up with difficulty. Rocío, still out of breath, leaned against the concrete.

—Take off your clothes.

—What?

—You heard me.

They looked at each other. There was nothing left to look at. They began removing their clothes, slowly, as if each button were a negotiation. They were left in their underwear. Sabrina wore a pale lace set that pulled tight over her chest. Rocío, a little younger, slimmer, wore a plain black set.

—Keep going.

Sabrina was the first to unfasten her bra. Her tits fell heavy and white, the pink nipples hardening in the basement’s cold air. Then she pulled the lace panties down over her hips, crouched to take them off her ankles, and when she straightened up, she stood naked in front of me, her blonde cunt trimmed into a narrow strip and her thighs clenched by instinct.

Rocío took a little longer. She slipped off the black bra in a quick motion and revealed small, firm tits with large brown nipples. The panties clung to her bony hips. When she finally pulled them down, I saw that her cunt was completely shaved, the lips pressed together, slightly glossy.

I looked at both of them, standing against the basement wall, naked, with their hands in front of their pubis in belated modesty.

—Hands behind your backs. Let me see you properly.

They obeyed. Sabrina lifted her chin, defiant; Rocío lowered her face.

When they were both completely naked, I ordered them to turn around and put handcuffs on their wrists. Rocío ended up secured to a ring in a corner, her face against the concrete and her ass toward the basement. I took Sabrina myself to the center of the basement.

—Sit down.

I forced her to sit on the floor. I took a spreader bar from the panel and fitted it between her ankles. Then I activated the sliding hook. The bar rose. First the legs. Then the hips. The last to leave the floor were her shoulders, and there I stopped the mechanism. Sabrina hung upside down, hands cuffed against her body, thighs parted by the bar, and her head a handspan above the concrete.

From where I stood, her blonde cunt was spread wide open at the level of my chest. Her lips had parted under the strain of the position and I could see all the pink inside, shining, with a tear of moisture running toward her navel. The clenched eye of her ass, a little higher up, trembled with every breath.

I looked into her eyes. They were flooded with something I hadn’t seen in them before: genuine fear. Beneath it, a trembling thread of rage.

I took a thin whip from the panel. When she saw me come back with it, Sabrina lost control of her bladder for an instant, just a few drops sliding down her belly and falling from her navel to her hanging tits. The flush that rose into her cheeks was worse than any blow. I ran my hand along her side, then the inside of her thigh, and brushed her cunt with two fingers. She was wet. I couldn’t tell whether it was fear, adrenaline, or both.

—You should know this is exactly what you were going to do to me.

She didn’t answer.

The first lash caught her in the stomach. She screamed. The second, lower, right over her pubis. I stopped the third midway myself, because I realized that if I kept going down that path, it would stop being revenge and turn into something I would not enjoy seeing myself do.

I lowered the whip. I stood still for a moment, breathing. Sabrina was breathing hard too, hanging there, sweaty, defeated, her open cunt shining between her thighs and her tits swaying slowly under their own weight.

—I’m not you anymore —I said quietly, more to myself than to her—. But I’m not the same man who walked into that bar either.

I hit the control and lowered her. When her shoulders touched the floor, I loosened the bar, put ankle shackles on her, and secured them to a ring with a padlock. I did the same with Rocío. The two of them were left lying on the floor, cuffed, with no possibility of moving more than a meter, naked, skin marked by the cold concrete.

I left a bottle of water open within each of their reach. I needed them to arrive alive at court.

I went up the basement stairs, stepped out into the street, found my phone on a table on the ground floor, and called. First, my informant. I asked him to send the newspaper the copy of the documents I’d kept in a post office box. Second, the police. I gave them the address, Sabrina’s name, her husband’s, the flight to Panama, all the details I had memorized during those hours hanging from the ceiling.

When I hung up, my hands were shaking. They were shaking from exhaustion, but also from something more complicated. I had endured. I had escaped. I had crossed, for a few minutes, a line no decent person crosses. And I had made it back to the other side just in time.

The report ran three days later, on the front page. The marriage ended up prosecuted for a long list of crimes. Sabrina and Rocío weren’t spoken of much: the judge separated them pending a different trial. They offered me psychological counseling, protection, and a journalism award. I only accepted the first.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I go back to that basement in my head. I see the hook, the rings, the camera on its tripod. I see Sabrina hanging upside down with her cunt open, I see Rocío kneeling and sucking me against my will, and I see myself letting go of the whip before going any further. And then I close my eyes, breathe, and thank myself for being able to stop.