Yelena rose to face General Karozki and said coldly, "I will not go anywhere with you unless you show me my daughter first. I demand to know what you've done with her."

The general seemed about to dismiss her demand, then paused. At length he nodded. "Perhaps that would be best. You will see that we have done nothing to her. As yet. What happens to her in the future is yours to decide."

"What happens... You mean that nonsense you were just talking about? I can assure you that will not happen."

The general shrugged. "You may change your mind. But I will take you now to visit your daughter. If you will simply remove your clothes first."

Yelena's jaw dropped. She had to replay the echo of his words in her head several times to be sure she had actually heard them. In a tight voice, she rasped, "You are crazy. I will do no such thing."

General Karozki flashed the nasty smile again. "Madame, this is a women's prison. There are no females here other than the inmates, of whom you are now one. No inmate leaves these rooms dressed or unfettered. If you imagine that I would make an exception for you as an official visitor, or in recognition of your status as First Lady, discard that notion now. You are not a visitor, and you are no longer First Lady. You are a prisoner and will be treated as such."

"I... I..." Yelena gulped. She felt the full mass of the walls surrounding her, weighing her down, closing her in. Her head echoed with the same four words heard internally by every woman who had stood in this room: This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Trying to summon a voice of authority to match the general's, while stilling the tremors starting to shake her body, she said, "General Karozki, I insist that you call my husband. Now, on the phone. I will give you the number of his private chamber if you don't have that. I am sure you are exceeding your authority in your demands of me, and my husband will issue orders for more respectful treatment." Yelena knew how angry Dimitri was, but she felt sure he would cool off if he heard her voice. She knew how to speak to him.

The general's voice grew more steely. "Madame, remove your clothes now. It is with respect towards a woman whom our president once loved that I give you the opportunity to disrobe yourself, rather than have it done forcibly for you. It will be the last gesture of such respect that you will see. I advise you to take advantage of it."

Without turning to look, Yelena could sense that the men behind her, like hammers on a pistol being cocked, were preparing to take action. She said quickly, "Okay! Okay. But they must leave." She swept her arm to indicate the men.

The general shook his head. "You must understand that you may not give orders. You have no standing to make them. I have been patient with you, far beyond my accustomed habit. But that patience is at an end. Now."

Yelena was taking in air in rapid sips that seemed insufficient, but she felt powerless to breathe more deeply. She stood staring at the general for what seemed an eternity. She could see no bend in him, no sympathy, no heart. Her heart pounded. I have to do this, she told herself. It's for Marya. He will hurt Marya if I don't.

Her face on fire with a concentrated blush, Yelena reached behind her neck to unfasten the clasp at the top of her dress. With shaking fingers, it took several attempts before she succeeded. Her voice barely a whisper, she stammered, "The... zipper -- only the zipper!" The last words came out in a rush.

The general nodded to one of the men, and Yelena felt fingers against the back of her neck, taking hold of the zipper, pulling it down to the small of her back. She felt her blush deepening still more as the suddenly cooler air against her back told her how exposed she now was.

She let the top of the dress drop down to reveal the half-cups of her bra, and worked the dress down past her hips, letting it fall to the floor. She picked it up. "Will you... put this somewhere safe? Please?"

The general blinked and smiled. "You will never need clothes again, but I suppose I can find a home for it somewhere."

Yelena made a growling sound in the back of her throat, and squeezed her eyes closed. This is the only way I can see Marya, she reminded herself. I have to make sure Marya is okay.

She began to bend over to unfasten the straps on her high heels, but stopped the movement before it started, unwilling to give the men behind her that kind of view of her ass. She crouched instead, keeping her back upright, and removed the shoes.

Standing upright again, she squeezed her eyes shut again and made herself continue, rolling down her panty hose, crouching again as the roll reached her lower legs, and pulling it off.

Standing barefoot now, in only a bra and panties in front of a roomful of unknown and menacing men, she completely froze now, unable to keep going.

The general gestured towards her throat. "I will take the pearls now. And of course, the wedding ring, which is no longer yours to wear."

Her lower lip trembling, Yelena reached behind her neck to undo the clasp on the pearl necklace, handing it over to the general. When she put her fingers over the ring, she began crying at last. From nearly twenty years in the past, vivid memories sailed through her mind of a different time, a time when a teenaged Irkhetnian actress, already recognized and popular in western Europe, fell in love with a young and handsome Soviet colonel from her homeland whom she met in Paris, in that chaotic time when the Soviet Union was crumbling. Within a year's time the colonel, now general, was running Irkhetnia as a newly independent country, but he always made time for tenderness with his pregnant bride.

I haven't seen that man for years, Yelena thought. The man who gave me this ring. The man who gave me a daughter. The Dimitri I once loved. I don't want to be married to the monster he became, and I don't want memories of the man he once was. They hurt too much.

Gritting her teeth, she wriggled the ring past her knuckle and off her finger, and handed it to Karozki. She felt some power return within her. There, she thought, I did something I wanted to do.

Summoning up dignity somehow, she stood in front of the general in her underwear and said, "This outrage has gone far enough. You have had your fun, and I demand that you take me to see my daughter. NOW!" The last word emerged like the crack of a whip.

Sighing, the general gestured to the men behind Yelena. She sensed them closing in.

"No!" Yelena's trembling from anger transitioned directly to trembling from fear without a change in the sensation. Quickly she reached behind her back to unfasten the clasp on her bra, and shrugged out of it, letting it drop to the floor. At last, her breath catching, her teeth raking her lower lip, she slipped her fingers under the waistband of her panties and slid them down past her hips, letting them drop the rest of the way to the floor.

The feeling of her hair brushing her bare back seemed to emphasize the fact that all of her skin was bare. She felt the eyes swarming over her body like bees, male eyes surrounding her, staring at every square inch of her, her buttocks, her breasts and nipples, the soft folds of skin between her legs.

The general gestured to one of the men, who went into an adjoining room and returned with a tape measure. The general left the room.

Yelena had resisted against the manacles being fastened around her wrists and ankles, but only briefly, stopped once more by the general, who had returned before they started with the manacles, asking whether she wanted to see her daughter.

The general raised his hand to stop the men holding the chains. "Not the standard arrangement, I think. Something different, for the occasion." He shook his head at the thirty-centimeter chain that one of the men, kneeling, had started connecting to her ankle manacles, saying, "No, the short one."

Yelena stood silently fuming as the men worked on the bizarre arrangement of chains under the general's direction. She glared fiercely at the general as he took one last look over the men's handiwork. She could not imagine any purpose served by binding her in this way. What she did know was how exposed and vulnerable it made her feel.

With her arms upraised, elbows highest and pointed toward the ceiling, her wrist manacles were padlocked, at the back of her neck, to the ends of a short chain wrapped around her neck, the ends of the chain passing through a ring before joining the manacles. Yelena had learned quickly that she could not pull her hands away from the back of her neck, or lower her elbows, without choking herself.

Another chain ran from the ends of the chain around her neck to a chain wound tightly around her waist, attaching to it in the small of her back, the connecting chain so taut that Yelena was forced to keep her back ramrod straight -- bending forward even slightly would, again, cause her to choke.

Only one other chain was in use, the ten centimeter chain, in whose favor the thirty centimeter one had been rejected, connecting her ankle manacles. She could walk, but only in the tiniest steps, each step not even half the length of her own foot.

At last the men stepped back, and the general, rubbing his chin with his fingers thoughtfully, looked Yelena up and down. She grew more furious by the second. She was no street whore for him to examine as if deciding whether to engage her services!

When he reached forward and cupped her left breast in his hand, she gasped in shock and took a quick step backward, forgetting the chain. As her foot stopped short, she began to topple backwards, tried instinctively to free her hands to break her fall and felt the chain around her neck snap tight around it, cutting off her breath.

The men behind her moved quickly to catch her and push her back upright. Her heart pounding, she shouted furiously at the general, "Don't touch me, you animal!"

The general merely gave her a small smile, a mere twitch of his lips upward. "I'm afraid that, in a very real sense, you are the animal here, Madame Gerova. We own you, and can treat you as we like. I urge you always to keep that in mind."

Breathing hard through her nose, her lips compressed into a thin line, Yelena waited, glaring at the general.

The general gestured briefly to the other men. Yelena could see that the one man visible to her out of the corner of her eye saluted, and she presumed the others had as well. She could hear them exiting the room, into the hallway through which she had come here, and hear their footsteps as they walked down the hall.

Alone now with the general, Yelena felt sure she was about to be raped, though she would have expected the departing men to close the door behind them. She set her jaw defiantly and met the general's mild gaze.

The general said quietly, with that small smile she had already grown to loathe, "And now, Madame, you may visit your daughter. I will go on ahead and make sure everything is ready, pending your arrival. You will see the way when you emerge from this room. Please be assured that the men are under strict orders not to touch you or approach you, nor impede your progress in any way."

Yelena blinked. "What men?"

The general's smile broadened. "Why, all of them, of course. The men in my command. You must trust that they will follow my standing orders to the letter." The general felt quite confident of that. No man in his command would dare disobey him, for fear of being transferred away from this most wonderful of all postings. There were plenty of men ready and eager to take their places. "They will keep their hands in their pockets, and I assure you that you are in absolutely no danger from them -- unless, of course, you should fall at their feet, or touch one of them yourself. They will regard that as an invitation, and all of the men -- all of them -- will use you in turn before you are allowed to proceed on your way."

He gave her a slight nod. "I shall see you at the infirmary, where we are caring for your daughter." Without another word, he walked past her, out the door and down the hallway.

Yelena, stunned, took in a shaky, horrified breath. She had thought she knew what was going to happen. Perhaps, she told herself, I misunderstood.

She turned, awkwardly, trying not to trip herself, and faced the open door. Good thing, she thought, he left it open. I can't think how I could open it if he hadn't.

Taking that sign of unexpected thoughtfulness as encouragement, she crept, in tiny steps, to the door. Pausing in the door frame, she looked to the left, the direction from which she had originally come.

The breath ran out of her in a rush, with a tiny, helpless whimper. Her bowels seemed to turn to water.

Lining the walls on both sides of the two-meter-wide corridor, looking back at her with lecherous grins, stood perhaps twenty men, equally distributed on both sides. They had obviously assembled there during her time in the general's office, making absolutely no sound beyond the light footsteps that one would expect to hear outside the door of a commanding general's office -- Yelena had barely given the noises a thought. They were indeed standing with their hands in their pockets, and Yelena understood that everything the general had just told her was true -- both the reassurance and the threat.

She was more self-conscious than ever before in her life, standing naked for all of them to see, her arms upraised, unable to hide her breasts, indeed forced to thrust them forward as if in invitation to look and to touch. Unable to hide her most private place of all, which she had never imagined showing to any man unwillingly.

Carefully, but as quickly as she could, she backed out of sight, and heard the first words any of the men spoke to her: "Oh, come on, baby. Give us a better look than that!" It was followed by a snicker, and several other voices, making equally crude comments.

Thundering in her head, her inner voice said I can't go out there!! I can't go out there!! I'm safe in here! They aren't allowed to come in here!

But if I don't go out there, another voice reminded her, I can't see Marya!

She could not even beg the general, appealing to a sense of humanity she didn't think he had anyway, to let her see Marya without passing through this gauntlet. The general wasn't here. He was in the infirmary, and there was only one way Yelena could reach him.

She stood, unable to make herself move, hearing the constant hubbub of voices outside the door, making crude jokes provoking laughter and calling for her. One especially penetrating voice said, "Come on, Yelena, come out and play," and the rude familiarity of calling her by her first name struck fear in her out of proportion to the trivial nature of the insolence.

The clock on the desk told her twenty minutes had gone by while she had stood here frozen in place.

They aren't attacking me, but they might be raping Marya right now! There's nothing to stop them!

Despite knowing that she herself could do nothing to stop them either, nevertheless she couldn't possibly desert Marya and leave her to these animals!

Trembling, her stomach in knots, able to breathe only in little sips, she began making tiny steps towards the door again.

A chorus of "All right! She's back!" greeted her at the door, and she walked out into the hallway. It took at least a dozen slow, small steps just to reach the center of the hallway so she could start moving towards her goal.

She recognized, about ten meters away, the intersection of corridors where her path and Marya's had split. The infirmary had to be that way, down the other corridor.

Yelena had never imagined being so frightened. She fully expected her pounding heart to break its way out of her chest and bounce on the floor in front of her. Her trembling legs could barely support her. She steeled herself not to fall, putting nearly all of her concentration into simply remaining upright, leaving only a small part of it with instructions to keep shuffling one foot ahead of the other. Slowly, so slowly. Arms upraised, breasts thrust out. Everything visible to the hungry eyes on both sides of her.

And all along, hearing the men discussing her as if she were nothing but walking meat.

"See? I told you she'd be totally shaved! Smooth as a baby's bottom." "Okay, you win, I'll pay you later." "Look at those tits! Isn't she almost forty? You'd think there'd be some sag." "Come on, she's the president's lady. You know she's had stuff done." "Plastic surgery? No, there's no sign of it. I'd show you where the scars would be, but I can't point just now. Later." "I don't even care one way or another. Just so I can rub my face against those tits."

The men were so close, enough to reach out and touch her from either side if they'd been allowed. She tried, just once, to close her eyes so she couldn't see the lascivious stares, but it made it that much harder to keep her balance, which her feet, held nearly together by the hobble chain, were useless to correct if she started to fall. And she needed to see in order to keep moving in a straight line -- if she strayed from it, she'd very quickly bump up against a man on one side or the other. Either falling or touching would make her fair game for rape by every one of these men in succession. She had no choice but to continue seeing the way they were looking at her -- all of her.

She couldn't even use the full extent of the hobble chain: every time she stepped too far, the quick jerk of restraint from the chain snapping taut threatened to send her spilling forward to the floor. For safety, she pushed each foot about the length of her big toe ahead of the other, slowly, making sure she felt perfectly balanced.

It took, in fact, several minutes before she had progressed far enough to leave the first men behind her -- and now there were comments on her backside. "That's really a tight ass! She must have her own gym at the People's House." "Had, you mean. She doesn't live there anymore." Laughter. "Isn't it weird thinking how even the wife of the president shoots brown out of her butt? And there, right there's where it comes out!" "I don't care what comes out of there, but I know what I want to put in there." More laughter.

From her right came a wonder-filled voice. "I've got her picture in a French movie magazine from years ago. I think she was maybe eighteen. Man, I can't tell you how many times I jerked off to that picture!" Laughter. "And just thinking that now I'll get to do her for real... wow!"

Yelena was breathing harder now, not from effort but from fear, anger, and embarrassment. Her face felt burning hot, and she knew how red it must be.

A voice on her left said, "Think her daughter's in shape like that? I haven't seen her yet." "You've seen her picture, haven't you? You know she's a hot little treat." "Picture, yeah, but not naked. Can't wait to see. And do a little exploring. Think she's got a virgin pussy?"

Yelena, who had tried so hard to stare straight ahead and not give any of them the satisfaction of attention, spun her head to glare at the man making this comment about her daughter. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I can't fight with them, she told herself. They'd be here forever, raping me, and Marya needs me right now. I swear, she told herself, whatever it takes I will protect her from these monsters. But I can't do it here.

The other corridor, after an endless time, came up on Yelena's right, and as her tiny steps took her forward she began to be able to see down its length. She saw that still more men were lining its walls, so this torment was not over yet.

More of the corridor came into view. Slowly, slowly. And at last, Yelena saw that the double line of men continued for three times the distance she had already walked. Including the men she had already passed, over a period she estimated at twenty minutes, she guessed there were about eighty men altogether. With three quarters of them, and three-quarters of the distance from the general's office to her daughter, still yet to be traveled. An hour of the gauntlet still ahead of her, to a door she could now see, but that seemed impossibly far away.

She nearly fainted, and felt her bladder, which she had worked so hard to control, letting go. A stream of urine ran down both legs and dribbled to the floor. She hoped they wouldn't see...

"Hey, look! She's pissing!" "No toilet here, sweetheart. Want me to plug that hole up for you?" Laughter again.

She began walking down the long corridor, in tiny, tiny steps.

Forever, and forever, and forever. Her face pulsing, on fire. Seeing their eyes fixed on her, their excited grins mocking her terror. Unable to lower her arms to hide any part of herself from men who would use her in every imaginable way, restrained only by their general's command, and then only if she could navigate a long hallway without falling when it took every bit of her concentration to balance. Unable to stop arousing them still further. Unable to help her daughter any other way than by walking on.

Almost halfway now... "Look at those lips! I can already imagine them slipping up and down my cock." "I'm looking forward to a mother-daughter combo. Tongues on my shaft from both sides. Wouldn't know which mouth I was going to squirt in." Laughter.

Animals! Even with their hands in their pockets, she could see them stroking themselves.

I will not let them see me cry! she told herself. Again and again. Holding her jaw so firm her teeth were in agony.

"I'll bet her pussy is still tight. All we know is the president used her once. Maybe she's almost-a-virgin." "Bet the girl is tighter, though." "I'll take that, if you'll give me five to one."

Seeing the door just a few meters away now, wanting to sprint to it, forcing herself not to hurry. Hurry means disaster.

After forever, and forever, and forever -- or an hour, depending on one's point of view -- and an endless stream of descriptions of her breasts, her buttocks, her legs, and that private place between them, she arrived at a door marked, helpfully, "Infirmary." There were no more men in the hallway beyond it.

It was closed.

Carefully, she turned towards it and shuffled up to it until her big toes were touching it. She rapped against it with her forehead.

It opened inward suddenly, and, not ready for that, she began falling forward, squeaking with fear. The general himself caught her. "How good of you to join us at last, my dear."

Breathing hard, feeling overwhelming relief, Yelena simply leaned on the general for a moment, her hatred for him temporarily forgotten. Behind her, she heard from the hallway the sounds of men departing for wherever it was they went when they weren't harassing presidential wives. Two of them entered the room through the door behind her, but when she quickly looked at them, she saw no menacing moves. They simply waited by the door.

Turning back to look over the general's shoulder, Yelena saw more deeply into the room for the first time.

She stiffened, and shrieked, "You said she was still alive! You monsters!" She could see Marya, stretched out naked on a slab, completely inert, her eyes closed.

The general said quietly, "Calm down. She is alive, and quite healthy. We simply have her under anesthesia. She will remain so until you help us decide her fate."

"Her fate... Cover her up, you animals! You have no right to see her that way!"

Beside the slab, a gray-haired, bespectacled man in a lab coat, presumably the physician in charge of the infirmary, examined what seemed to be medical monitors assessing Marya's condition. He gave Yelena a remote, mild look and returned his attention to the screens. Yelena couldn't recall seeing him in the hallway, with or without the lab coat. Somehow the sight of him calmed Yelena. The man must be a dedicated professional, unwilling to leave his patient even for the entertainment of hurling verbal gibes at the former First Lady as she shuffled past in her shame.

The general responded, "I alone determine the rights of the inmates in this prison -- in this case, the case of yourself and your daughter, I do so under the authority given me specifically by the president."

Yelena, breathing hard through her nose, tried once more to free her hands from the back of her neck. Any amount of authority she could summon into her voice was wholly inadequate as long as she stood in front of the general seeming to offer her breasts to him. Again she felt the momentary choking from the chain around her neck, and immediately desisted. "Let me loose! I'm not going to talk about Marya's fate or anything else as long as you have me bound up in this ridiculous way."

The general simply smiled and stood waiting.

Yelena gave up. "All right! What is her 'fate,' then?"

"I already told you."

She glared at him. "What you outlined to me in your office is not going to happen. That is certain."

"I did tell you there was an alternative. I can show you that now -- no, it does not involve hurting your daughter, at this moment. Any pain will come later."

Yelena stared at him a moment, then said, "All right. Show me."

"Come this way, then." He led her, patiently waiting for her to follow in her snail's-pace creeping, through a door at the rear of the infirmary.