A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Home From The Gym...

Eka watched. Eka waited. The Georgian girl had no idea how to handle this situation, and the Russian woman in front of her was not providing her with any helpful prompting. She seemed inscrutable. Eka would have been impressed concerning how little reaction the woman showed had she been in a different situation. But right now, Eka was freaking out. The emotion started up as an internal one, but now it was fully on display. There was no dark hair concealing her face, and Eka's confusion and fear was written on to her visage to the extent that she started to worry that it was going to be permanently etched there.

Then came a smile. The thinnest smile she had ever seen, but a smile nonetheless. Eka smiled along, as brightly as she possibly could, praying that by mimicking her captor she would be granted some mercy. Her blue eyes showed her exact mental state, which was fraught with anxiety over the unknown. And given that little smile, she figured that there were a lot of things coming that she had no chance at being able to predict.

Eka was not really weirded out by this woman getting closer, although that hand moving into a pocket caused her some concern. Then the Russian woman grabbed the back of her head, and the moment was almost intimate. The words she were saying were almost tender, until the very end. Eka would very much like to keep on breathing, and her eyes went wide when the threat finally reached her ears. She had no way of stopping this woman.

That was rendered stark when she was slammed into the stomach. Eka grunted and coughed and wheezed, doing whatever she could just to breathe. The Georgian girl had a tight stomach, but all the abs in the world were not going to be enough to prevent the pain of that particular blow. Her eyes bulged as she coughed, and soon her chest was rising and falling heavily as she did what she could to regain her wind.

"Please, I want to live. I have no idea what is going on." Eka blurted out. She tried to compose herself enough to speak in Russian. "[I am not following you. I don't know who you are...]" Eka gained some wind back, and was speaking less haltingly now. "[If I did something wrong to you, I am sorry, I really am, please forgive me.]" Eka closed her eyes. "[How can I make it right?]"

Sophia shuddered. How could she not? The yielding flesh, the dying wail that came from it as Eka decompressed like a child’s squeak toy. Yes...that’s what she was. A toy. A fun little toy sent to her as recompense. This is what she deserved. This is what those bastards promised. This was hers now. All of it.

The smile adorning the Russian’s lips twitched and shivered at irregular intervals. The muscles keeping it in place convulsing as an electrical torrent worked through her. She stepped back and watched with her mouth agape, her tongue nearly falling out altogether as she watched poor Ekaterina gag and fold, tighten and seize, struggling to breathe with a lung threatening to collapse on itself. The sight brought a warmth to her chest, a tension in her loins. Sophia wasn't lying to her. She truly did have the sweetest accent, a rare voice whose purity could only be appreciated here and now as the Georgian wheezed and spat every inch of it onto the stained floor between them. The soldier gripped her knuckled hand tight, readying for another puncture. She took a step forward, wanting to hear more.

But Eka’s words stopped her.

Her head tilted to the side, curious to see if reality would change with her perspective. Begging? So soon? Did the Motherland no longer breed strong cattle and draft? Were there but feeble fawns and little rats in the mud that lined their ranks?

All the more fun for her, she supposed.

She reached out behind her and snagged something from the table before she stepped back into the girl’s personal space. Her hand brushed the side of Eka’s cheek, parting the hair from her face. Slowly, her palm came down to cup the Georgian’s chin, bringing her and forcing their gazes to meet. If dear Eka would rather keep her eyes closed, that was fine. She would wait. She would wait for as long as it took until those pretty little eyes revealed themselves again, and she’d look deep into those clear blue pools, staring infinity into them as her lips parted and offered them one single instruction. “Scream.”

Suddenly, a pair of metal pliers clamped down on Eka’s side, grabbing a bite of the tight, fatty flesh as she sagged. Sophia turned the device in her grip with only a few motions of her wrist, folding in the muscle and skin in on itself, tightening and burning worse with every crank. The crack echoed through the room next as the back of her bare fist smashed against the side of Eka’s face. Whatever lucidity that evoked wouldn’t last for long as she went back to turning pliers, bringing the surface closer and closer to the point of no return. [“SCREAM!”] She backhanded the Georgian twice more with greater ferocity. [“SCREAM LIKE A PIG! YOU UNGRATEFUL SOW!”]

The feeling in Eka's heart began sinking further and further. She would be lucky if this were some weird sex thing. No, this was something far more serious. The weird shivering shuttering smile was not a sight for sore eyes, although in this dark hole she could not even imagine what her salvation would be. For a second, she closed her eyes as tightly as she could. No amount of wishing was going to get this to go away. She collected her breath as much as she possibly could, and opened her blue eyes again, silently praying that she had already faced the worst.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew that she hadn't. When Eka unveiled her pretty blue eyes to the world once more, this Russian woman was nearly on top of her, staring into her soul as if she were nothing. For a second, she shuddered. Before this crazed woman even uttered a word, she winced. But the second after she said such a horrid word, her mouth was already open. And that was before the pain began.

The Georgian girl acted as if she had been electrocuted. Her whole body shook. A loud piercing shriek would have shaken the room had they not been underground, and she twisted and turned, making the pain far worse. Then it was this Russian woman's turn to make the pain worse, rubbing the anguish in. Eka turned her head left and right, crying out in abject horror and suffering. There was noting that she was experiencing that was not pain.

"Stop please for the love of God!" Eka's eyes were closed. The next scream of pain came with the foulest words in Georgian that she knew. For as long as she had been alive, she had never known pain and doubt and anxiety like this. And she would have done anything for it to end.

This woman was was weak. Very weak. A part of Sophia was almost offended by the idea that someone like this was sent after her, but that was all overshadowed by the disappointment to come. If the Eka wanted to keep her secrets, that was fine, but she expected proper recompense. She’d pay with her pride, in tears and blood filled to the pint. And she would get them.

But would it be worth the wait?

The Georgian was giving her captor everything she asked for. She wanted screams? She had them. She got enough to fill the room, to echo against the stone and spill out into the corridor just beyond the steel door separating their little pocket of delight from the rest of the world. The anguish filled the Russian’s ears, trickling down to her deepest recesses. Her prisoner wasn’t wasting an inch of effort. It was all genuine, even the plea that followed close behind. She did what she asked. That should have satisfied Sophia. Right?

If there was an answer to such a question, it couldn’t be read from Sophia’s face. The terrible screams, let out barely an inch from her face without a hint of restraint, failed to elicit even a twitch from her expression. Her eyes stayed forward, gazing into her prey, digesting her with her eyes as she thrashed and flailed helplessly from her makeshift skewer. She didn’t smile, she didn’t laugh. If she was deriving any pleasure from this...no. It wasn’t if. How could she? It was so base, so impulsive. And those words…

...those words...

“Ugh...” She looked to the ceiling as she shook her head. After a moment, that lone eyes cast its discontent back down at Eka. She unclamped the pliers and yanked them away, not necessarily in that order, before she tossed them blindly to the table behind her, letting it scurry its contents with spontaneous clatters.

“You are so pathetic, Ekaterina. I can not tell if this is an attempt to make me angry, but since you are having a hard time understanding this...” Her hand shot up and smacked against the bottom of Eka’s jaw, clasping her fingers tightly around it and fixing their gazes together, letting her look down into her prisoner. “...let me put this in plain words: I do not care how badly you want to live. I do not care about you. I do not care for your smile, or your stupid jokes. I do not care for your repentance, or how bad you desire to live. Your life?” Her face drew closer, enough to feel the heat of Eka’s cheeks against her lips. “Your life is worthless to me.” Her eyes shifted with the light. The intensity in her gaze subsided momentarily as her eyes wandered down, looking past the curve of Eka’s modest chest to her hand roving further below. “...but your body.” Her fingertips traced up the Georgian’s inner thigh, coming up with two fingers to lightly tracing the fabric of her shorts and the sensitive spot just between her legs. “You have no idea what I can extract from that. No. Idea. At All.” Suddenly, her hand pulled away and reached to the spot her pliers had once occupied, gripping it tightly with her claw and setting alight the tender flesh underneath.

[“Who are you, and why are you where?”]

Eka focused on breathing while she still could. Her breaths did not come evenly. Big breath. Shortbreathshortbreathshortbreath no breath at all. Big breath. The muscles in her side twitched where she was attacked, every little movement of the muscle fiber bringing the pain back anew, lighting a fire that provided no warmth within her. Eka had been through grueling matches, but she had never quite experienced anything like this. Shortbreath long breath. Eka's eyes closed, and her mind raced. Despite the fact that it was little more than a fantasy, her mind turned over on itself trying to think of a way to escape. Just as before, she knew that it was impossible. The only option left was to ride it out.

And as the Russian woman spoke, she did not feel any better. Eka gladly accepted that she was pathetic right now. The Georgian girl could only imagine what she looked like, strung up and in pain, with no way out. The Russian woman placed her hand under Eka's chin, forcing Eka to reckon with her. Eka looked and looked but saw nothing. She was staring into the void, as inky and black as thirty minutes to midnight. There was going to be no reasoning with this woman, no chance of her talking her way out of this one. The look of sheer horror on her face was palpable.

Eka shuddered. She had never been told that her life was worthless. All of those other things, she could abide, but not that. Especially not in a situation like this. The hands going all over her body moved to places that she would only share with her closest. She groaned a bit as sensitive spot after sensitive spot was probed, but tonight was not going to end with her pleasure. Far from it, in fact.

Once again, her tender flesh was enflamed with sheer agony. Her scream reverberated around the tiny room once more, prolonged by the repeated attacks on her body. Her head rolled back as she shrieked once more, and once again she found herself struggling to breathe. Shortbreathshortbreathshortbreath.

"Please..." She finally wheezed. "[I am Eka, and I wrestle and do my Master's...]" Eka tried to turn her head away so that she did not have to face her captor. Maybe if she were not forced to face her, the pain would not be so bad...

Eka had every right to be scared. To be nervous, anxious, terrified, saddened, debased. All of the fun little reactions she enjoyed teasing out bit by bit as they gathered and pooled into a devil’s concoction at her feet. It was natural to be the way she was. It was natural to want it all to end and go away, to do anything to be rid of it for even a second.

But there were rules.

“Don’t close your eyes at me.” Her knee reached Eka’s stomach in a flash, rebounding off her vulnerable gut with a sickening clap that echoed off the aged stone and cement. Her hands unfastened from the back of Eka’s neck. When they got there, who knows? Unconsciously, she had leaned into the strike, used her own prey for balance before she stepped back down and righted herself. Her hands fell to her side, watching the woman with a gaze hewn from stone. She slowly began to circle the woman, eyeing her through to the center like a vulture its fallen quarry. Seeing its heartbeat, its life draining with each twitch.

“You would be surprised how many people make that same mistake. Everyone believes that in a nightmare they can just close their eyes and wish it all away. It is all that easy. Yes?” She crept her way behind the Georgian, standing stalk still behind her. Invisible. A voice in the dark. “But close your eyes enough, and you simply find yourself in a nightmare a thousand times worse than the one you left behind. And then? You never blink again.” Her arms wrapped around the Georgian’s neck, tightening a rear naked chokehold.

“I give you ten seconds before you pass out.” She leaned forward, pressing her chest into Eka’s back as she brought her mouth close to the woman’s ear. “If you won’t be the honest one, I will. I’ll tell you the truth. That one certainty that will never change no matter how hard you or anyone else attempts to hide from it.”

A manic smile stretched across her lips. She pressed her head into Eka’s as if yearning to stare into the Georgian through eyes drunk in darkness. “There’s no paradise for you to escape to.”

Eka's eyes were open now. If this Russian woman's words did not give her a choice, then her actions certainly cemented the fact that Eka was a leaf on the wind, being blown this way and that. Her eyes went wide as something that was very hard and coming very fast slammed into her gut. Had she been standing, she would have doubled over. Because she was not, all she could do was lean forward and spit and gasp, her blue eyes bulging with pain and fear. She feebly sucked in some of the putrid air of the basement, trying her damnedest just to stay alive at this point.

The Georgian girl could not turn her head to follow the crazed Russian woman as she stalked around her the way a shark circles a school of fish. The words that she were saying poured into her ear. Yes, Eka did want to close her eyes and make this all disappear. No, she did not want this nightmare to get worse. Although, a woman such as Eka had no idea what that would be. This woman could shoot her in the head, she supposed, or run a knife across her belly. But the Georgian girl was not quite up to date on what the hottest torture techniques were, and as such, her creative and thoughtful mind began to wander a little bit.

The Russian woman's chest on her back did not feel nice. In no small part because there was an arm over her throat that was restricting her airflow. Had they been anywhere else, the moment would have been almost intimate. But here in the dingy confines of the basement, there could be no mistaking what it was. Eka hadn't really had any wind since the knee to the stomach, and she was losing it faster and faster.

There's no paradise for you to escape to. That was Eka's last waking thought as she drifted off into the dreaming. It was not a nice thought to have, especially in a place like this...

Gunfire poured around her. Way off the mark, unfortunately. The dense vegetation surrounding Jianfeng Mountain made for the kind of camouflage infantry could only dream of, even more so in the dark of the night, amidst the sound of rain and running water all around her. Another round of fire sprayed her way. She waited for the instant it would happen, braced herself for the stray bullet that would cut her thigh, pierce her arm, take a finger as she lay in wait. She bit her lip and shook like the leaves all around in the light rainfall. The sounds almost blurred together, a constant stream of ballistics and moisture that made her skin shrivel and her blood curl beneath the surface.

[“Cease fire!”]

They kept firing. She couldn't tell how many there were. She counted three flashlights before she decided to drop. The mud could only save her for so long.

[“Cease fire!”]

Undisciplined. Mercenaries, no doubt. The motherland was not happy with her. She started moving now. The gunfire worked both ways. She shifted through the overgrowth and kept her lips buried beneath the mud. The rainforest was practically a marsh at this time of the season. She moved slow and watched the muzzle flashes as she neared.

“Hey! Hey, stop fucking firing!”

Too late.

She was already beneath them. One of them noticed a slight tremor in the waters, but took it for little more than a snake. She submerged herself, practically swimming in the dirt and grime. One fired off beside her foot. Her heart skipped a beat. It took all of her effort to keep from laughing out the hysteria. Conserve air.

“I fucking saw you, bitch!” His muzzle searched the ground, finding not a trace. She was a ghost now. “Where you hiding, huh? Where you at? Where you at?”

Silence moved through the bog. The rain falling around them only seemed to reaffirm their isolation. Even the mist seemed too frightened to dance above the thin blades and green. They were alone in this forest, and their kind was no longer welcome.

Sophia sprang as a creature from the mire and wrapped her arms tightly around the gunner’s neck with a rear chokehold. He dropped his rifle instantly and went for his knife, only to find it already occupying Sophia’s hand. She kept it close and let her lone eye trail between the two men as they trained their guns on her.

[“Let him go! Let him go!”]

Her eyes raced between them, darting faster and faster as they took steps closer.

She choked tighter…

...and tighter…

...and tighter...

She blinked. Her gaze traveled down to her arms and found Eka limp in her grasp. How long she had been like this, Sophia had no exact way of recalling. The Russian was breathing heavily, though. The rush had overtaken her, and only the Georgian’s inadvertent gasp before she fell had roused her back. The sweet memory faded to ash in her mouth.

“Feh…”

She shoved the Georgian waif away, letting her dangle alone in the light. She watched with a sharp glare from the dark. Her eyes trailed slowly down her limp form, observing the faintest twitches and convulsions from her unsettled sleep. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. Eka was either being completely genuine or was far and away the most profound actress Sophia had ever witnessed. Either way, there was no room for error. Whether or not Eka - supposing that was indeed her name - left this room could jeopardize everything.

Onto the next act, then.

She grabbed a stool from the corner of the room and placed it down in front of Eka before climbing her way up to the steel pipe that held the Georgian aloft. At a rate that her drill sergeant would have found “satisfactory”, she untethered the rope from the metal and let the unconscious young wrestler fall flat on her back onto the cold floor. Sophia jumped down and crouched at her side, undoing the bindings at her hands and instead bringing them to her legs. She bound them together just as tightly, then dragged her and her deadweight along the floor and up off the ground as she ascended the stool. Far from an easy task. The woman certainly had the weight for someone who exercised regularly. All the more reason to be suspicious.

She raised the woman’s feet to the pipe then tossed the rope around, tying it again to hang her upside from the ceiling. Cattle in an abattoir. Satisfied with her work, she stepped back down and kicked the stool clean out of sight. She noticed a problem, however. That baggy shirt. It was obstructing her view, covering Eka’s face. That wouldn’t do. Stepping over to the table, Sophia grabbed her knife and knelt down, cutting away the fabric in short-order before peeling it off the Georgian and tossing it into the shadows. She stood up, taking a second to admire Eka’s sway, taking note of the toned abdomen and slightly pronounced contours on her arms and shins forced to accentuate themselves against the strain. A body that could take a beating.

Sophia grinned. As soon as she was convinced that Eka wouldn’t fall right on her head and break her neck, the Russian would reel her foot back, winding up a step like an Olympian sprinter, and fired a hard roundhouse kick to Eka’s ribs.

Eka's eyes opened for a second. Her back was on the floor now. It was cold. The world was mostly still dark. The terrible pressure that she was feeling in her arms had mostly abated, which meant that she was no longer being strung up. That seemed awfully strange to her. The last waking memory that she had was not of her doing something daring to break free of her bonds, but it was of this woman choking her. Which meant that she did not get here under her own power. It seemed awfully strange that this crazed Russian lady would let her down. Unless, of course, that meant that something worse was about to transpire. With that thought, her eyes closed again. Right before she passed back out, she wondered if they would never be opened.

Her thought died and she was grateful that she did not when something hard hit Eka right in the ribs. Eka breathed in and opened her eyes. The dulling ringing pain in her chest made her wonder if she had broken a rib. The darkhaired woman coughed a lot, causing the pain that she was experiencing to worsen threefold. Her long raven locks were now falling to the floor, and it occurred to her that she was upside down. The sensation of blood rushing to her head was not a pleasant one, and Eka's already blurred vision declined to the point that all she could see of the world were rough outlines and darkness. The cold tinge on her skin indicated to her that this woman had liberated her of her shirt. Of all the ways to lose your virginity, upside down in some strange place against your will was easily the worst.

She covered her chest. Eka would be fighting gravity, and this weird dangerous thing had become a weird dangerous sex thing in her mind, so she was not entirely sure that this Russian woman would abide by it. There was very little dignity left to be preserved at this point, but Eka was going to try anyways. The only thing that she had left was her sports bra, which deflated her sizeable chest a little bit. Her already red face blushed that little bit more.

Breathing was pretty difficult, but she did manage to choke out: "Please, I can't give anything more to you." She swung a little bit. Her blue eyes were glued to this woman, morbidly curious what would happen to her next. The blood in her head made her thoughts turbid, her words even moreso: "I, just, I, I am a student, please, I don't know what please let me go..."

The Russian was able to find quite a lot of amusement from the sight at her feet alone. There was something deeply engrossing about watching the life return to her prisoner’s eyes, watching the short renaissance that went on behind those vacant pupils as they took in the details around them.

How was this reality Eka? Did you prefer the old one?

She almost felt like laughing when the woman - girl, perhaps - covered her chest. It was cute, innocent, almost too much so. A graduate student, professional wrestler, and apparent globe trotter that was this bashful? The ex-soldier found her mind wandering back to the actress theory. It changed little, in the end. Humiliation was certainly on the agenda tonight, though Sophia’s personal brand was far more eccentric than the most. “Unorthodox”, if one were to ask her superiors. “Effective” for the ones that actually cared for results.

Unfortunately, that went away once Eka started speaking again. Personally, Sophia was getting a bit tired of this broken record. She wondered if there was a way to change the tune.

Her leg cranked back and shot forward, nailing Eka square in the face while she felt so inclined to use her hands to protect her modesty over anything actually worth a damn. Oh, and she didn’t stop there either. She kept kicking again and again until the Georgian felt like protecting her pretty little features again, then the rough tip of her boot would move elsewhere. She’d tag her stomach, go for the soft spot her roundhouse kick had landed, maybe even try a couple of those gazelle kicks she’d remembered from boot camp.

Part way through, she started making a little game out of it. She kicked right in the young woman’s center of mass to make her sway. As she came back, she kicked her again with greater force to send the wrestler back, only to be ready with her next kick. She kicked the chest to get as much distance as possible. She kicked her with a sweep just to send her spinning on the spot, then kept kicking her to see how fast she could go, round and round like a human tetherball. She finally stopped and used her hands to make the Georgian face forward...but only to knee her in the gut, curious to see if she’d lose her lunch after all that.

Now then, maybe she should try again from the back?