An unsteady reddish light came up in the room where I was confined, emanating from somewhere behind me. I glanced hastily over my shoulder and saw that the light was coming from deep crimson flames that flickered and danced in shallow granite bowls held in the hands of twin statues of naked men. They knelt against the wall opposite the door Annabelle had just opened, flanking another door of heavy wood. Sculpted collars adorned their necks, and sculpted cuffs linked by an exquisitely rendered chain appeared to hold the hands of each statue close together in front of his chest. Their bodies were smooth and hairless like mine, and it occurred to me to wonder if they depicted actual men who had fallen into Annabelle’s hands long ago, men whose cries of pain had perhaps echoed from the walls of this very room. It was after the briefest glance at them I turned back to Annabelle herself.
A subtle change had come over her since she had left me to Brian’s ministrations in the room outside. I had thought her slender and of greater than average height, but now she seemed almost freakishly tall for a woman, and rail-thin. Her hair was loose, tumbling wildly about her shoulders, and it was now a dull, iron grey with only the tiniest hints of black. Her features had sharpened even further, and her face was deeply lined. Despite her wrinkles, however, and the colour of her hair, there was no sense of decrepitude about her. Her arms, bared nearly to the shoulder, were wiry with muscle, and her movements were confident and smooth. She had exchanged her formal-looking, almost corporate attire for a simple, shapeless black gown that covered her nearly to the neck and revealed little of her figure beneath, but the silver circle with three-armed disks around the inner edge still hung about her neck.
I was hardly surprised by Annabelle’s transformation. I had already seen ample evidence of her powers, and I was prepared to accept that her physical form was hers to mould and reshape. Brian’s appearance, on the other hand, was genuinely shocking, not least because he was almost naked. I had known that he was a large man, but either his full size had not really been apparent under his clothes or Annabelle had somehow contrived to alter his body as well as her own. Even now, he was a little taller than she was, and of course his build was far heavier. His thighs were like oaken pillars, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders were enormous. He wore a padlocked steel collar, like mine, and Annabelle was leading him on a chain grasped firmly in her right hand. Apart from that, his only adornment was a metallic contraption attached to his cock and balls, a kind of tubular cage for his cock anchored to a ring around the base of his scrotum. A waist belt held the whole thing in place. It looked rather uncomfortable and very secure, and it sported a padlock only a little smaller than the ones on our collars. Locked up like that, he would never be able to get a proper erection, or to do anything about it if he did.
Seeing Brian stripped, collared, and locked in what amounted to a male chastity belt left no doubt in my mind that he belonged to Annabelle as surely and completely as I did, but there was another indication of his status that was even more dramatic. Someone had tatooed rings of blue ink on his calves and forearms, and around the base of his neck, decorated with Annabelle’s three-armed disk motif. When he was fully dressed, they would be completely invisible, at least if he wore a shirt with a collar, but now, in his nudity, they proclaimed his enslavement to Annabelle more clearly and eloquently than any combination of steel restraints could possibly have done. Also, of course, his body had been completely shaved from his face to his ankles.
“I have you now, my pretty,” Annabelle said. Even her voice was different, with a harsh, raspy quality I was sure had not been there before. She did not seem particularly surprised to see me without my hood.
“Whatever you’re going to do to me, Mistress, can you please just do it? Don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”
She laughed derisively. “Oh, I’m eager to get my claws into you as soon as possible, believe me.” Still she did not hurry as she walked forwards into the room, leading Brian.
“Close the door,” she said to him, and he turned to obey. She dropped his leash and reached up to unsnap it from his collar, and I noticed for the first time that she was carrying a small leather case, almost like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag, in the hand that had not been holding the leash. She set both the bag and the leash aside on a little wooden table near the door, and she turned to look at me.
“You’re ready to come out of the cage, my eager boy? Nothing very pleasant will happen to you out here, I warn you.”
My legs were aching so badly that I did not much care. “I’m ready, Mistress.”
“As you wish, then.” She walked around to the back of the cage, and I twisted in place just enough to watch her unlock a rear door I had not even noticed was there.
“Back out, Alan. Brian, come here and be ready to seize him. You’re going to string him up for me.”
“With pleasure, Mistress.”
He moved into position and I began to wriggle backwards, anticipating the touch of strong, unsympathetic hands at any moment. Even so, I was surprised at his roughness as he grabbed my upper arms and practically hauled me out of the cage. He lifted me to my feet only to drag me over to the middle of the room before I could even catch my balance. There was something dangling from the ceiling here, an arrangement of sturdy metal bars with two hanging cuffs. Annabelle came forward and unlocked my handcuffs, and Brian immediately took my wrists and shackled them above my head. He kicked my legs roughly apart, and Annabelle knelt behind me to unlock my leg irons and snap my ankles into new cuffs that were attached to steel plates bolted into the floor. I was standing almost spread-eagled, stretched and exposed.
“Come here,” said Annabelle to Brian. She took his arm to lead him out of my field of vision, and he went meekly, like some huge, tame mastiff. I was facing one of the side walls of the dungeon, an unbroken expanse of bare concrete. There were none of June’s pictures in here, and no decorations at all that I could see apart from the statues of the kneeling slaves. This room was all business.
Annabelle reappeared in front of me, and reached out to pinch my chin between her thumb and finger. She was a good six inches taller than I was, and the strength of her grip was frightening.
“You look very pretty without all that hair,” she told me. “Brian did a good job with you.”
She moved her hand down to my chest, squeezing and kneading, and then felt my biceps. She dug in her nails for an instant, and smiled as I winced and squirmed. She touched my belly, my thighs, my ass, prodding my flesh just a bit too roughly for comfort. When she drew her nails across my buttock I tried to pull away from her, although the chains brought me up short. Quick as a flash her hand descended, slapping the exact spot she had just scratched. I gave a gasp of pain.
“Hold still, my slave. The more you try to resist me, the worse it will be.”
“How much worse could it be?” I half-whimpered.
She came around in front of me again, not hurrying, and brought her face very close to mine. She drew her nails down my chest, then down to my navel. I moaned and clenched my fists, but tried to keep still. Finally her hand settled around my scrotum, cupping my balls in a firm grip.
“Mistress, please...”
She tightened her grasp, pressing her nails into the most delicate and intimate skin of my body, and for the first time I gave a full-throated scream of pain. I tried to draw back, unable to help myself, and the movement only increased the agony. She gave my balls a sharp twist, and I shrieked again.
“You see?” she murmured, leaning forwards to speak almost directly into my ear. “I can always, always, make it worse.”
