Yelena, kneeling in front of the standing Marya, finished adjusting the straps of the phallus around Marya's thighs. Yelena could easily sense the tension in Marya's muscles. She could tell that Marya was trying very hard not to jump each time Yelena touched her in such an intimate area. "How does that feel, dear?"

Marya smiled. The smile was so close to natural, but still forced. "Well, it doesn't feel like I really have one."

Yelena smiled despite herself. "How would you know? But it's not to make you feel different. Just to look different."

Yelena could see Marya's labia glistening with baby oil. She had wanted to make sure Marya was ready for the next visitor, so she had taught Marya how to use her fingers to spread the oil around inside. ("You don't have to go all the way back, but spread a lot around just inside. When the man is in you he'll push it to the back for you.") That done, she had decided to give a quick lesson in oral sex.

"Okay, now watch me." Yelena reached up to take the phallus shaft gently with her thumb on the underside, forefinger on the top, and slid her fingers slowly from front to back before opening her mouth to surround the phallus head. Taking in several centimeters of it, she slid her fingers back and forth again, then brushed her tongue on the underside, with her mouth opened wide enough for Marya to see, and then let it slip out of her mouth. "Don't open your mouth as wide as I just did. Keep your lips touching it all the way around. But I wanted you to see what I was doing with my tongue."

"So do I keep doing what you just did?"

Yelena shook her head. "There's more. I'll show you the different things to try, and you keep experimenting until you find what gets him the most excited."

For twenty minutes Yelena showed all the variations. Then she looked up at Marya. "Okay, now I want you to show me." She started to unbuckle the nearest strap.

Marya put her hand over Yelena's to stop her. "Wait, Hélène." Her lips curled into a smile. "First I want to be the man." Marya squatted in front of the still-kneeling Yelena, took Yelena's head in her hands and kissed her. Still kissing, she urged Yelena backwards onto the floor, and followed her down, lying atop her. She kissed her again, with a soft mmmmm of satisfaction, while moving her hips, raising them to poise the phallus in front of Yelena's entrance.

Marya has it written in the core of her being, Yelena told herself, that she has to "want" my body as much as I "want" hers. That was one of the conditions of staying out of the snake pit. She's not going to let an opportunity go by to show the sincerity of her promise.

Just moments later Marya was, by proxy, inside her mother, thrusting hard with her hips and grunting, in full simulation of the role of the man in missionary position, the grunts muffled by the joining of their mouths. Yelena wrapped her arms and legs around her daughter and held her tightly, moaning. She wondered, as she so often did, whether Dimitri was watching.

Mandy had permanently given up counting seconds two meals ago. A full day, as her theory had it. She had decided she wasn't counting towards anything, and counting only made her more acutely conscious of time dragging, and dragging, and dragging, with nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to look forward to except more nothing. She had gone back to blanking her mind, with some success. It seemed to make the hours between mealtimes go by a little faster. Who knows, she thought during one of the intervals when her mind returned to functioning. Maybe a year can go by like a week.

She gasped, her whole body convulsing, at the sound of the door lock being turned. It hadn't been opened as long as she had been in here, ten meals.

A rectangle of light appeared around the edges of the door. Mandy cried out with the pain in her eyes. By the time the door opened fully, she had her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She whimpered and drew her legs up against her, trying to disappear back into the wall behind her.

She felt them take her wrists, not really roughly, just coldly and efficiently, and unlock the steel bands around them. She pulled her arms back to cover her breasts, rubbing her raw wrists, as they unlocked the ankle bands.

Hands pulled her roughly to her feet. She risked a narrow squint. Though she knew the light was still dim by normal standards, she found it nearly blinding.

There were several men in front of her, in military uniforms. One of them, in insigniae that probably represented an officer, started reading officiously from a page on a clipboard. She made out a heavily accented "Amanda Forrest," but all the rest was gibberish.

Could they be releasing me? she wondered suddenly. Sending me home?

One of the men brusquely spun her around, and used rope to tie her hands together behind her. She quailed as he looped a rope around her neck, but it wasn't very tight once he'd tied it.

I don't think I'm being released, she told herself. I don't think I'm going to like this. She ventured a meek, "Could you tell me what's happening, please?" but received no response.

Using the end of the rope around her neck as a leash, one of the men pulled her forward, out of the cell she had despaired of ever leaving.

She was gradually able to open her eyes wider, and take in more of her surroundings as she walked. Looking behind her, she saw that the men following her were carrying guns. Shotguns, she recognized. Not rifles. Her father had tried, when she was little, to make a hunter out of her. Failing to raise any interest in her, he'd settled for teaching her gun safety.

What are they afraid one little naked woman is going to do, she wondered listlessly, that they think they need armed guards? Use karate with my feet and escape?

The soldier in the lead opened a door that led into a small room. Ah, thought Mandy miserably. Great. Another cell.

There was another door on the other side of the tiny room. Once the squad had all squeezed inside and the door behind them closed, the next door was opened.

Mandy was blinded again, and shivered suddenly as a blast of freezing air hit her. That, more than the sudden brilliant whiteness she wasn't looking at anyway, told her she was headed outdoors, into a field of snow.

She tried to breathe the stinging cold air. What the hell is this? she wondered. Are they going to put me back on the helicopter? Like this??

At last she could breathe, her entire body convulsing with shivers, while she followed the soldier pulling her along by the rope around her neck. She knew she had no choice, and had given up on the idea of getting an explanation. She walked with high steps through several inches of nearly-fresh snow, her feet burning at first but quickly starting to grow numb.

After about fifty yards, she judged, they arrived at a stand of pine trees. One of the men spun her around and pushed her back against one of the trees, and behind her she felt her elbows grabbed. A rope was tied around her right upper arm just above the elbow, and she grunted as the other elbow was pulled back harder, forcing her back hard against the rough bark, and the rope around her right arm was pulled behind the tree and tied to her left, again just above the elbow.

She was speechless with shock. They can't do this! she thought, they can't just leave me here! I'll die out here!

The loose end of her neck rope was now looped around the tree and tied, while the ends of another rope going behind the tree were tied to each ankle.

It seemed obvious now she was to be abandoned to the freezing cold. Too late, she started struggling with the ropes. "No! Please! Let me go, let me go!"

One of the men in front of her took advantage of her open mouth and shoved a large wad of loose cloth into it, and wrapped another cloth around her head across her mouth to hold the first cloth in place. She squealed and doubled her struggling, and tried to scream as another cloth was tied higher around her head, covering her eyes.

Still attempting muffled shouts, she heard the men drawing away from her to stand in front of her.

One of them called out some sort of command.

Mandy stopped struggling and stood suddenly very still at the next, instantly identifiable sound: shells being chambered in several shotguns.

Oh God oh God oh God, no, help me, please.

The next thing through her mind was: Oh, I'm going to be really late for the start of classes.

Even to her, it seemed a very odd thing to think at this time.

It was her last thought.

Rachel, gathering pine straw and, inevitably, shivering, heard the sound of a distant gunshot. It may have been several shots at once, but the faintness of the sound, and the echo, made it hard to tell. That's a first, she thought. Maybe they're shooting our dinner. I've been wondering about that.

That night at showers, Rachel found it was apparently her team's day for hair trimming. She and the rest sat on the uncomfortable concrete cubes while the same man who had cut Rachel's hair off ran his clippers quickly over each woman's head in turn, a small dusting of short hair fibers covering each one's shoulders afterward. I hate them doing this to me, she told herself, I hate my hair like this. Especially out in that freezing air.

Afterwards, the shower. Rachel hardly noticed the cold water anymore. After the soapy mops, as the line of chain-connected women continued down the line under the spray of water to rinse, she jumped slightly at the feeling of a hand brushing against her thigh, just below her butt. Then she heard Anya's soft giggle behind her. Rachel turned her head and grinned, then faced the front again to keep pace with the moving line.

I'll always love hearing that giggle, she thought.

During rape time, Rachel had to turn around for vaginal sex from Matt. She could hear Igor getting oral sex from Anya, hear Anya gagging and nearly choking several times on Igor's erection. Gritting her teeth against the pain of Matt's invasion of her dry interior, Rachel squeezed her eyes shut in anger over what Igor was doing to Anya. They can do what they want to me, she thought, I can't stop them. But I have to think of some way I can protect Anya. Maybe I can offer myself every time they want her.

For Play Time, the guards apparently had decided on an all-sex evening, picking out half a dozen women, including Anya, and setting them up in pairs in the same position in which Rachel and the Amazon had spent a night. Rachel couldn't see Anya from inside her cell, but saw the pair in front of her. On command, each pair began simulating passionate sex in that sitting position, eliciting comments sprinkled with laughter from all the guards, and occasional threats of the whip for those not trying hard enough or exhibiting enough excitement.

Rachel groaned when Boris opened the door of her cell, anticipating another night intimately entangled with one of the other women. She saw Anya now, facing away from her at the far end of the aisle, holding and kissing one of the other prisoners. For Anya they had decided against a mismatch, choosing instead a woman from the other team who was only a few inches taller than Anya, though more filled out. Not with bigger breasts than Anya's, however. Anya could always compete well in that category.

Rachel blinked in surprise when Boris clipped a leash to her collar, and walked away expecting her to follow him. Knowing better than to bother asking him what was happening, Rachel trailed behind Boris to the drawbridge and into the corridor.

Through corridors now familiar to Rachel, Boris led her to the general's office. An aide knocked at the door when Boris arrived, and Rachel followed Boris in.

The general was signing papers, and for a few minutes continued, looking up only briefly to nod Boris to a chair in front of the desk. There was only one chair. Rachel remained standing quietly, Boris still holding her leash.

Rachel's spirits picked up slightly when it occurred to her the general might be going to tell her they had moved Mandy to a larger cell and/or given her a little more freedom within the cell and/or given her some light. She couldn't think of another reason for being brought here. She was fairly sure she hadn't done anything that would make Mandy's situation still worse.

At last the general pushed the papers aside and looked up at Rachel. He drew a paper from a different pile and set it in front of him. He read from it -- that is, he appeared to translate from it. It was typed in Russian letters.

"Miss Amanda Forrest, having been convicted of espionage by military court of the Republic of Irkhetnia, was executed this morning at nine o'clock." He looked up blandly at Rachel.

Rachel sucked in a prolonged gasp that sounded like a rusty hinge in her throat, drawing in almost more air than her lungs could hold. Her legs turned to water, and she dropped down to her knees, her eyes wide, her mouth moving without words.

Finally she found her voice. "Y-you can't... she... you couldn't..." Her whole body was shaking.

The general waited for comments more articulate.

Rachel took a deep breath. "You... you promised..." Her voice failed again.

The general shook his head. "Nothing was stated in the form of a promise."

Boris said irritably, "Stand."

Rachel looked at him, saw him swimming through the tears in her eyes, and struggled to stand, finally making it, still shaking.

Sudden rage coursed through her. She had just remembered why Mandy had been kept alive to begin with. "I... then I quit." She almost spat the words at the general. "I won't play the games anymore. I won't work in that damned icebox anymore. You can't make me. I won't give them my body to use for sex anymore. If they want to rape me they'll have to just drag me out of my cell and do it. And I'll fight the whole time. I don't have anything to lose." Her voice a furious rasp, she said, "If you think I'll just sit there and let you fuck me, you can all go fuck yourselves."

The more rational part of her mind, pushed to the background for the moment, tried to decide whether she meant it. It was all worth a try, she decided, at least as a bluff. It seemed possible they might make some accommodation to persuade her to go back to being a model prisoner. If Mandy was, by some chance, still alive -- unlikely, since they had no reason to say she was dead if she wasn't, given that they had been playing on Rachel's concern for Mandy's safety and now could no longer do that -- then this might force them to produce her. To say it had all been some ghastly joke.

The general raised his eyebrows at her last comment. Boris, catching enough of what Rachel said to get the drift, made an angry sound, but the general made a calm-down gesture with his hand.

He said quietly, "I'm very sorry to hear that you feel that way. I'm sure Miss Simonina would be very sorry too."

Rachel's brow wrinkled. "Who is Miss... Simonina?"

"Ah. She may not have given you her last name. Possibly you only know her as Anya."

Rachel's gasp exceeded her first one in length and time and degree of horror. Unable to speak for a moment, she finally whispered hoarsely, "What about Anya?"

The general folded his hands together on the desk in front of him. "If you fail to honor the already-established standards of decorum, we would have to punish Miss Simonina very severely."

"Please, please, no." Starting to cry, Rachel went down on her knees again, in supplication this time rather than inability to stand. "Please, I'll do anything." She was dimly aware she was using exactly the wrong strategy. Surely, that rational corner of her mind told her, you could screw them up by convincing them you don't care one way or another. If you did it well enough, they'd have no reason to hurt Anya. Not if they don't think it would matter to you. But another voice in her pointed out that they could not be fooled that way. The mere fact that they knew anything at all about her connection with Anya suggested they had been watching closely. And Rachel knew she and Anya had both made it too obvious what was going on.

In any case, she was unable to stop her emotional reaction, and went on, "I'll... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry what I said before. You can use me. All of you, everybody. One after another. You can all do me any way you want, one after another, all night, I won't complain, I'll take any position you say. If you'll just promise, please," her voice broke, "Don't touch Anya."

The general looked at her sternly. "This isn't a bargaining session. If you fail to behave as required, then..." He smiled briefly. "Sergeant Kodorov told me an interesting story." His eyes flicked towards Boris as he said it, and Rachel understood that Boris was Sergeant Kodorov. "I'm sure you observed Miss Simonina's... Anya's, if you prefer... that her skin is bruised with a considerable number of whip marks?"

They're already starting to fade, thought Rachel, so she knew she'd been correct at the beginning in judging that the bruises had come recently. Briefly, she nodded, biting her lip.

"Those were given to her by a close friend of hers here. A girl she'd originally been arrested with, in fact. This girl behaved very badly at work one day. So she was required to whip Miss Simonina -- Anya -- until Anya fainted."

Rachel's jaw dropped in horror. Then she drew it closed, in a stubborn set her father would have recognized. "You could never, ever make me do that." She remembered belatedly that she had, in fact, once struck a helpless Anya with her fist. But that, she also reminded herself, was because they had threatened Mandy. They can't do that now.

The general raised his eyebrows. "No? Well, the alternative was that each of the nine guards present would whip Anya instead. Each successive guard's turn would have gone on until she fainted. Fainting from pain nine times in all. It might have taken several hours. Anya's friend understood that doing it herself would be much kinder to Anya."

Rachel whimpered involuntarily. All those marks. In Anya's crotch, all around her sex. All over her breasts. A friend had done that?

The general looked at Rachel thoughtfully. "That was an impromptu punishment, just something the guards came up with on the spot." His eyes bored into her. "I'm sure we can design something more prolonged and far more painful for you to do to her, given time. With a truly unthinkable alternative."

Rachel felt lightheaded. She closed her eyes to stop the room spinning around her. She had such a vivid memory of Mandy being tortured. She knew that what would happen to Anya would be worse. And that she would have to do it to Anya herself. "I... It won't come to that. You'll see. Sergeant..." She worked at remembering Boris's name. "...Kodorov will see. I'll do my job. And I'll try very hard at the games, after work. They won't find any faults." I swear to myself, she vowed, I will keep that promise.

"Well, there are some new conditions as well, in addition to the old ones."

Rachel, still kneeling, trembled silently. She nodded.

The general went on, "Starting from now, you will not speak to Anya. You will not respond if she speaks to you, nor respond to anything the guards might require her to do. You will not look at her. In short, you will not, in any way, acknowledge her existence."

Rachel had trouble breathing. In a tiny voice, she said, "But... she's on my team. I work with her every day. My cell is right next to hers."

"That will all remain true, but it is not important. These are rules you will follow."

But I love her! Rachel wanted to scream. I need to be with her! I need her to be part of my life! She remained silent. She knew saying any of those things would do her no good. They already knew. That was exactly the reason for the rules. To make her day-to-day existence an agony.

Tears streamed from Rachel's eyes. I will give her up, she told herself, the one person who makes my existence bearable. Because I have to protect her, no matter what.

She nodded.

The general looked directly at her. "The guards will be observing your behavior. And when you return tonight, Sergeant Kodorov will install this listening device in your cell." He picked up a tiny piece of electronic equipment and handed it to Boris. "Also a video camera, across from your cell, looking in." He handed Boris a second device. "Anything you say in your cell will be recorded, and the playback searched by computer for signs of any form of speech, as well as spot-checked for other sounds. If you try to remove, destroy, or disable the device, that in itself will be a violation, so I trust you will not do that. Similarly, the video camera will record your movements in the cell. Those will be monitored as well. Since you are awake in your cell only a few hours each day, it is quite easy to examine the video recordings at high speed for any movements."

Rachel looked at the tiny gadgets Boris was holding. She had no doubt such devices could be made as small as the ones she was seeing -- the video and sound recording parts of a cell phone were probably even smaller. She didn't know how long the batteries would last, but they could swap out the devices for new ones with fresh batteries as often as they wanted.

Burying a moan, she was silent for a moment, then nodded again.

The general gave Boris a look of dismissal.

Boris said gruffly, "Stand."

Rachel didn't remember the walk back to the cell block. She found herself, somehow, already walking across the drawbridge. At the end of the row of cells, she saw Anya's thin, bare back, its muscles tense as Anya ground her sex against the other girl's, held her tightly in her arms, and continued an endless kiss. Anya couldn't see Rachel's streaming tears, could not see Rachel at all, in fact. She didn't know anything was wrong yet.

I won't let them hurt you, Anya, Rachel said to herself. Ever, ever, ever.

Boris leaned into her cell and used a wad of gummy substance to attach the listening bug up in the back upper right corner of her cell, then brusquely gestured her in. After locking the door, he used another glob of gum to mount the camera just above the door to the opposite cell, whose occupant, as it happened, was one of the pairs simulating sex farther up the aisle. The camera was very unobtrusive, but had an excellent view of the interior of Rachel's cell.

The full import of the devices did not quite sink in until now. Anytime I'm outside my cell, she reminded herself, the guards are always around, watching and listening. I can't possibly say anything to Anya then, or even look at her. The only time they are not watching me is when I'm here in my cell, and they have that covered now.

I can't hold hands with her at night. I can't whisper to her. I can't make any kind of contact.

Rachel tried to convince herself that they couldn't possibly monitor the camera and bug all the time. But recalling what the general had said, that wasn't really necessary. Her time each day in her cell, without supervision by the guards, was mostly spent asleep. It wasn't impossible that all of it could be checked, all sights and sounds. Especially with computer assistance at detecting voice sounds and motion. Periods of immobile silence could be skipped automatically, with no human review required. But Rachel realized that didn't even matter. Even if they never actually checked up on her at all, she would have no way of knowing that. She couldn't take a chance at any time that they might not be watching; she had to assume they were. The penalty was far too great to take the risk.

Anya will think I just decided I hate her. That I think she's a pest. That I want her to stop bothering me and go away.

Rachel squeezed her eyes closed. I can't do that to her! she moaned herself. But it's either that or hurt her physically, very badly. They might even make me injure her permanently.

Wait, though, she thought. Anya knows how it is, here. She knows what they do to you here. She saw when I refused to hit her, then they took me somewhere, and I came back and hit her. She knows they can make you do anything. Like making her friend whip her. Now she saw them take me out tonight, and now that I'm back...

Rachel gasped and squeezed her eyes shut. No, oh no, oh no, she thought in despair.

Anya didn't see me go anywhere, Rachel pointed out to herself. She thinks I've been here the whole time. All she's going to see is I'm suddenly acting different, and there won't be a reason. There's nothing she can think of that she did wrong, and nothing I did wrong that they're punishing me for. She'll just think I suddenly don't want to be her friend anymore.

Why would they do this?? Rachel asked the world silently. Why are they doing this to me??

Suddenly Rachel knew. And it wasn't because she herself was special. It wasn't because she was their one American prisoner.

It was because I was happy, Rachel told herself. Anya and I were both happy. And they can't have that here. Not in this place.

Rachel curled up on the floor of her cell and buried her face in her hands. Tears streamed through her fingers, and her shoulders shook. But she worked hard not to sob. Anya might hear it. Even that might be a violation.