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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			A Bug's Tale (Charlie's Story) ———————————————— by Van & Courier  ©2000
			Chapter 9

Charlie's thoughts were on Jessie as she trudged along behind Teri.  Poor kid, she thought, again.  The tight manacles linking Charlie's wrists to the back of her iron collar were still as inescapable as ever, the leg irons shortening her already petite stride still solidly locked around her ankles.  Her eyes rested on Teri's buttocks, watching them dimple and flex as she trudged towards their unknown fate.  Poor Ter, she mused, she still doesn't know help's on the way... has got to be on the way... Please be on the way.  Deep in her gloomy thoughts, Charlie nearly collided with her fellow captive when they arrived at yet another door of thick, iron-bound timbers.  Drake fitted another of her seeming inexhaustible collection of skeleton keys to the door and eventually it squeaked open on oil-hungry hinges.

The parade entered a large chamber with a low ceiling, dominated by two large shapes shrouded by white cotton dust covers.  Victoria stepped between Charlie and Teri and put her arms around the prisoners' shoulders.  Teri flinched at their captor's touch, but Charlie steeled herself and stared forward, her eyes carefully neutral.  "So," Victoria asked with a cheerful grin, "who wants to go first?"

Before Charlie could react, Teri took a step forward.  "Hey, wait," Charlie protested, "I don't mind going first... really.  Well, I mind, but I'll go."  She eyed the shrouded objects before them.  "Uh... go where?"

Teri turned and mewed through her gag, angrily scolding her fellow prisoner.  "I think she really wants it," Victoria observed.  Drake, arms crossed across her chest, watched with an amused smirk.

"Can it Ter!" Charlie ordered, glaring at her friend, then turned to Victoria.  "I'm the one who should—M'mmpfh!"

Victoria had slipped her hand off Charlie's shoulder and was clutching the petite prisoner in a tight hand gag.  "Don't be greedy, Little One," Victoria said.  "It's only fair the Doctor gets a chance to prove her bravery.  Isn't it?"

Charlie nodded behind Victoria's freckled hand, and the grip was released.  Charlie looked up and found her friend and fellow prisoner gazing at her, eyes wet above her gag.  Then Teri smiled, and winked.  Charlie swallowed, a lump in her throat.  As if Ter needs a chance to prove she's brave, she mused.  "Love you, Ter," she mouthed silently.  Teri blinked and a tear rolled down her gagged cheek.

"Isn't that sweet?" Victoria cooed, then nodded to Drake, who untied the ropes linking the prisoners' collars, then stepped forward and removed one of the dust cloths with a fluid jerk.

Revealed was a complex machine, apparently... half torture rack and half... musical instrument?  The rack was tilted upwards at an angle of about forty five degrees, and its bed was comprised of transverse wooden slats.  Iron manacles dangled from short chains attached to a small windlass at the head.  At the foot there were widely seperated, individual ankle stocks, mounted on weighted, cantilevered brackets.

And the musical half?  A taut web of thin wires fanned from a short post set into the rack about a third of the way up from the floor and out to a complex frame mounted perpendicular to the rack's base.  The frame was wood, perhaps three feet square.  Two long, metal, screw-like rods, studded with blunt pegs and small pin-like points ran through the rack and perpendicular to the wires.  The short saddle post on the rack inself, where the fan of wires converged, was about six inches in height and two across, and was made of polished wood.  The frame was mounted atop some sort of machine apparatus, an apparatus with metal gears and wheels.  Charlie could see more machine, and what looked like it might be a chain drive underneath the rack.  "It's... it's a music box!" she gasped, "a mechanical harp!"

"I guess you are an engineer," Victoria said with a polite bow.  "Yes, the Reverend Mother called it her 'Harp of Heaven.'  The 'harp' has no true sound box, so it's only mildly melodious, but once it gets going, it does set those strings vibrating quite nicely."  She closed the distance to Teri with one short pace, put one hand at the small of the captive's back and used the other to lightly caress the squirming archeologist's labial lips.  "And all that acoustic energy has to go... someplace... eh?"

Charlie looked at the rack, the manacles, stocks, the central position of the saddle post of the harp...  Oh God! she thought.  It's a clockwork, Medieval, musical vibrator!

Meanwhile, Drake had leaned over the rack and used a small bottle to anoint the saddle post with a thin coating of some sort of light oil.  She then used a long pole to hang an inverted glass flask on a hook in the ceiling directly over the central post.  Victoria, her hands still exploring Teri, but no longer groping her prisoner's sex, grinned at Charlie.  "The oil helps the post vibrate evenly," she explained, "and there's enough of it in that drip bottle to last for hours..."  She rubbed her hand over Teri's flat stomach.  "...and hours."

Charlie squinted at the now glistening central post.  "How does...?  What...?"  Charlie shook her head in frustration, then stooped to try and get a better look at the gears (nearly tripping herself on her leg irons.)  "How'd he solve the problem of...?"  She shook her head again and bit her lower lip in concentration.

"My, my," Victoria said with a chuckle.  "Quite the little engineer, isn't she?"  Drake shrugged and began turning a large, two-handed crank at the head of the machine, winding a powerful, unseen spring.  One hand in Teri's hair, the other clutching her left breast, Victoria dragged the reluctant, mewing prisoner to the rack.  "The saddle post is hollow, with interior reeds of paper-thin horn attached to the wires with amber beads," she said, directing her words to Charlie, who was still engrossed by the workings of the machine, "and the wires are braided platinum."

Charlie was on her knees, examining a set of gears and doing some mental calculations.  Belatedly, she heard Teri mewling, and the sound of the struggle.  She clumsily regained her feet just in time to watch the end of her friend's furious, futile battle to prevent herself from being chained to the rack.  Teri rattled her new manacles and glared at her now sheepish friend.  "Sorry, Ter" Charlie apologized.  "I got curious.  It's not like I could do anything."

Teri sighed and pulled on her chains, then urked through her gag.  Drake was using a large metal key to make adjustments to various parts of the rack.  Teri's sex was now nestled against the central post, held there by the weighted stocks imprisoning her ankles.   The visual effect was eerie, almost as if the taut fan of wires emanated from the prisoner's womb.  As they watched (Charlie, their captors, and Teri) a drop of oil fell from the overhead flask onto the rounded top of the saddle post and dripped between Teri's sex and the polished wood.

Without preamble, Victoria turned a small key.  Something in the depths of the machine pinged, there was a shuddering grind as the gears meshed... then the peg and pin studded rods at the base slowly started to turn, the first of the pins came in contact with a wire, pulled the wire, then snapped free.  A low, strangely hollow hum sounded.  Teri yelped through her gag, then the yelp became a keening squeal as the first vibrating wire was joined by a second, then a third, then several at once as the rotating rods came to speed, pins and pegs strummed and dampened the wires, and the individual, humming notes became a complex, continuing arpeggio.  Eyes wide, Teri writhed in her chains, trying to pull herself off the post, but the waxed slats of the rack's bed prevented her from gaining any purchase.  Her weight kept her in solid contact with the saddle post and its singing wires.  Teri tugged on her manacles and pulled herself up and away from the vibrating post... until the stocks at the foot of the rack prevented further progress.  Her sex was held above the humming post perhaps one inch, her biceps bulging and pectorals banding under the effort.  The low, hollow music of the harp continued.

"That's better, isn't it Doctor." Victoria said quietly, running her fingers along the manacles taut chains.  She then leaned close to Teri's gagged face.  "But how long can you keep it up... so to speak?"  She leaned closer and kissed Teri's forehead.  Drake laughed in the background.

Charlie watched Teri struggle.  Just let go, Ter, she thought sadly.  It's gonna happen anyway.  Teri continued flexing against her chains, squirming her butt for hold on the rack's bed.  The waxed slats allowed none.  Poor Ter, Charlie mused... then looked up and found Victoria smiling at her.  Charlie swallowed nervously.

Drake had sauntered over to the second, large, shrouded shape in the chamber, and was clutching its dust cover.

"Your turn, Little One," Victoria said with an evil smile.

The Hex-Rover whined along a minimal, primitive road twisting up a low bluff nestled against the East face of a sandstone butte.  The crest of the bluff revealed a small clearing with a low, circular, solidly walled hogan.  Nearby, a circular set of posts supported a sunscreen of gray-white branches and brush, something Janet had identified as a "summer hogan."  The rusted hulk of a very old pickup was to one side.  Next to it was a second pickup, one that looked like it might run.  A sheep corral and a row of rusty, steel, 50-gallon drums on a low wooden rack completed the scene.

"Why here?" Kat asked.

"Huh?" Janet answered.

"Not very close to water.  Why build here?"

Janet pointed to the East, towards a low, rocky ridge and a line of distant buttes beyond.  "A good place to greet the sun," she said.

Kat looked at her companion, then towards the magnificent view.  Must be a Navajo thing, she decided, and started to open her door.

Janet motioned for her to remain in the Rover.  "Wait 'til somebody comes out and lets us know they know we're here."  Kat looked confused.  "It's polite," Janet explained.

After about a minute, an old woman dressed in traditional long skirt and blouse came to the door of the hogan.  She gazed at the Hex-Rover for a few seconds, then slowly walked over to the summer hogan and sat in an old rocking chair.

Janet opened her door and stepped out.  Kat joined her.  "Let me do the talkin'," Janet said as they approached the old woman.  Kat nodded silently, then they were at the entrance to the summer hogan and under its shade.  "Hello, Grandmother ," Janet said in Navajo.  "My name is Janet Begay, I'm with the Navajo Police out of Window Rock.  My father is Charley Begay, born for the Many Goats Clan, born to the Waters Come Together Clan.  My mother is Vera, and they live out by Chinle Creek, near where Old Woman Gray Rock's outfit lives."

Kat was introduced and the visitors were invited to sit.  Their host's name was Old Woman Attcity.  Janet resumed talking and Kat was more or less ignored.  At first she thought perhaps Old Woman Attcity was hostile, that they were being snubbed.  Of course, not speaking Navajo was part of it, but after a while she noticed that the very rhythm of the encounter was... unfamiliar.  Listening seemed more important than talking.  There was none of the two-way "small talk" required in the "normal" conversation of Kat's experience. It's a cultural thing, she decided, and silent patience was the order of the day.  Kat listened as the conversation continued... and continued.  After a while, Janet was no longer doing most of the talking; it was Old Woman Attcity.  This continued for several minutes, then several minutes more.

"Kat," Eve's voice whispered through the bodyguard's earpiece, "please lend Sergeant Begay your PalmCom."

Kat pulled the thin, black, roughly three by five inch computer from a pouch on her harness and popped it open.  The screen displayed an image of a Humvee.  Kat handed it to Janet.

"Thanks," Janet said.

"Glad to contribute," Kat mumbled, eliciting a wry smile from her companion.

Old Woman Attcity examined the screen and spoke rapidly for several seconds.  She then called out, and a young Navajo came out of the hogan.  He was perhaps twelve or thirteen, and was dressed in old jeans and a green plaid shirt.  He looked at Kat... then at the tiny screen... then at Kat.  The old woman laughed and said something, causing the boy to blush.  He mumbled a few words, then fled back to the hogan.

"Looks like you've gained a fan," Janet whispered to Kat.

Kat watched the boy disappear behind the blanket hanging across the inside of the hogan's doorway.  "I'll send him an autographed color photo," she said evenly.  "What have we learned?"

 "Well, your new boyfriend is Old Woman Attcity's nephew," Janet explained, "and he saw a four door, black Humvee traveling Southwest about a day and a half ago, fifteen miles from here."  She handed the palmtop back to Kat, who gazed at the revised image on the screen.

"That is very helpful," Eve's voice whispered.  "The four-door configuration and black color are both factory options.  It greatly narrows the search parameters."

Kat smiled, slightly astonished.  "You were right," she told Janet.  "They did see something."

Janet smiled back.  "It's not some mystical Navajo thing," she explained.  "Dineh are like most rural people.  They know what's happening around them, like weather, who's grazing their flock where, who's toolin' around in an expensive rig, that sort of thing.  No magic."

"We're nosey," Old Woman Attcity said in perfect English.

Drake removed the second dust cover and Charlie got a look at the object revealed... and swallowed nervously.  It was a set of heavy wooden stocks and pillory designed to hold a victim in a kneeling and forward leaning position.  Underneath was an iron sculpture of a horned devil, lying on its back and elbows, thrusting upwards with its hips, its hands open with its palms facing up.  The devil's gray-black skin was studded with hundreds of sharp spikes, virtually a demonic porcupine.  It had a large, curved penis, bristling with spikes.  Charlie realized from the position of the stocks and pillory that the devil's taloned claws were positioned as to clutch the breasts of the absent victim, the penis thrusting towards the victim's loins.  The devil's body was grotesque, and Charlie could see numerous slots and hinges in its body and limbs that hinted at possible adjustment or movement.  Yes, grotesque, but the overall effect was strangely... artistic... which only made it all the more menacing.

'Absent victim', Charlie mused. I'm the 'absent victim'.  Drake smiled and walked towards her. At least I wish I was 'absent'.

Charlie was hustled to the foot of the device.  Drake leaned close as she moved Charlie into position.  "I like this one," she whispered to her prisoner.

Charlie felt her stomach drop.  Anything this nutcase might "like" was certain to be unpleasant.  She watched as Drake knelt and unlocked her shackles.  Hmm... With my ankles free I can kick her in the...  Charlie looked up and discovered Victoria had found a riding crop someplace and was using it to slap her palm, a feral grin on her freckled face.  Maybe not .  At Drake's none too gentle prodding, Charlie knelt and placed her ankles in the stocks.  The device had knee rests that were surprisingly comfortable, which Charlie found not at all reassuring.  In this context, padding hinted at long-term imprisonment.  Despite herself, Charlie flinched when the top half of the stocks slammed down and was locked in place, imprisoning her ankles.  Next, Drake unbuckled the disused gag from around Charlie's neck, then unlocked her manacles and collar.  Charlie's upper body was free for the first time in many hours.  She looked back as Drake adjusted sloping, wooden blocks under her feet and began clamping her toes in place with wire fittings. Not free enough, Charlie mused.

Victoria cleared her throat.  "Ahem."  Charlie turned and Victoria nodded towards Teri.  "You're missing the show," she said coyly.  Apparently, either tiring of holding herself away from the harp, or resigned to her fate, Teri had settled her weight back against the saddle post and was enduring the full effect of the harp's vibrating strings.

Could be worse, Ter, Charlie mused, looking down at the spiked devil below.  Could be worse.

Victoria cleared her throat again.  "Now, Little One," she said, slapping her palm with the crop and stepping towards Charlie.  "I want you to sit up straight and put your hands behind your head."  Charlie tried to think of a clever and defiant remark... and failed.  "I think your friend is going to cum soon, "Victoria noted, looking back over her shoulder, "aren't you Doctor?"  Victoria directed her attention back at Charlie.  "The first of many times... this evening.  If I time things just right, and whip her breasts juuust as she cums, the effect will be startling. "  Charlie sighed and assumed the ordered position, interlacing her fingers in her tousled hair.  "Elbows back," Victoria ordered.  "I want to see those nipples point."

Charlie complied, blushing in humiliation.  Bitch! she fumed.

Victoria slipped the carrying strap of the crop over her right wrist, stepped close to Charlie, leaned close, and began massaging Charlie's breasts.  The petite prisoner squirmed as the redhead's freckled fingers gently teased her nipples.  The dangling crop flopped and slapped against Charlie's right thigh.  "Oh look!" Victoria whispered, continuing her massage and nodding towards Teri.  "There she goes."

Teri was flexing and pulling on her bonds, breathing rapidly through her gag, flushed and sweating.  Finally, after an indefinite period of suspended time... in which Charlie's nipples were massaged until they were rigid and erect... in which Victoria smiled and rested her red hair against Charlie's tousled, dark mop... in which Drake smiled her leering smile... Teri screamed through her gag... and came.

"That's number one, Doctor," Victoria called out.  "Keep count for me, will you?  We'll have a party when you reach 100."  Teri glared at her captors, chest heaving, skin wet and shining, squirming as the harp continued its unheavenly music without respite.  Charlie blushed anew, angry and humiliated for her friend... for herself.  Drake laughed callously and piled Charlie's former chains next to Teri's on the floor by the chamber door.  "Yes, the first of many," Victoria mused aloud, then released Charlie's nipples and slid her left hand down to the captive's sex.  Charlie tensed, and her fingers flexed.  "Hold!" Victoria ordered.  "Hold position, slave, or I will whip your friend, I promise you."  Charlie froze, cheeks burning, her nostrils flaring above her tightly clinched lips.  "You're wet, slave," Victoria purred.  "It made you hot watching your friend cum, didn't it?"

Charlie stared straight ahead.  Bitch! she fumed silently.  Liar!

Victoria stepped back.  "I want you to carefully lean forward and put your wrists and neck into the pillory," she ordered.  Charlie looked down at the spikes beneath her, sighed, and gingerly settled her wrists and neck into the appropriate slots.  She found herself staring into the satyr-like, smiling face of the iron demon, but was relieved to find that none of its spikes touched her flesh... so far.  "The Reverend Mother's plans state that the spikes should be needle sharp," Victoria said, "but I've taken artistic license and blunted them a little.  You'll find they can still be quite painful, but if you respect them, they won't cut your skin... at least I think they won't."  She patted Charlie's dimpled rump and closed the pillory.  Charlie flinched as the heavy timber banged home and was locked.  "We'll see," Victoria purred.

Drake found a key-like, metal tool someplace and began making adjustments to the devil's body.  Charlie couldn't see what she was doing, but from the vibrations and what she could see, the Bitch was causing the devil's body and hips to rise, bringing the spikes just into contact with Charlie's body.  "Hey!" she protested.  Drake twisted the tool again, and the spikes pricked her in what felt like a hundred places.  "Hey!" she repeated, and arched her back, pulling herself away from the spikes as far as her restraints would allow.  "That smarts," she pouted.

Victoria laughed and accepted the tool from Drake.  She knelt on the floor near the devil's head (and Charlie's) and inserted the tool behind the devil's right ear.  "I want to explain something to you," she said pleasantly.  Charlie glared and said nothing.  "The devil's hands are attached, via a system of pulleys, cables and levers, to the devils tongue." She gave the tool a quick turn, and the tongue in question extruded through the devil's grinning lips.  It was thick, smooth, and obscenely penis-like.  "Take it in your mouth," she ordered, continuing to make adjustments.

Charlie found her tongue.  "You have got to be kidding," she complained.  Victoria smiled evily and made another adjustment.  "Ahhh!" Charlie gasped, her eyes wide.  The talons of the devil's hands had come into contact with her breasts and closed slightly, the sharp points dimpling her milky white flesh.

"The weight of the tongue causes the hands to close," Victoria explained.  "To prevent it, you must keep the tongue firmly in your mouth.  Understand?"

Charlie grimaced and slid her lips over the devil's tongue until her lips came in contact with the devil's.  Yuk! she thought with a delicate shudder. Tastes like rancid grease and rust.

Victoria made further adjustments and the devil's hands opened slightly.  Charlie sighed... and the tongue slid wetly downward, perhaps a half inch.  The tiny movement caused the devil's hands to begin closing again.  Charlie yelped and sucked and tried to mumble something, straining to maintain her hold on the horrid cylinder.  "Don't talk with your mouth full," Victoria scolded, then made further adjustments, altering the angle of the devil's head 'til it was easier for Charlie to hold onto its tongue.  A final adjustment caused the talons to open again, then Victoria took a step back and was joined by Drake.

Her captors watched as Charlie strained to hold her body above from the spikes.  She found it wasn't too tiring a task... for now.  Victoria stooped and ran her hand over Charlie's rump and back.  "I'll be back in the morning to whip you," she announced, "then Drake will whip your feet.  I can't keep all the fun to myself," she purred, smiling at her companion.  Drake walked to the chamber's door and turned off the overhead lights.  Victoria joined her, and with a last long, gloating smile... they left, closing and locking the heavy door behind them.

Charlie could see dim light playing across Teri's sweat-slick, struggling body, emanating from the depths of the Harp of Heaven.  Shadows played over the vibrating strings as the hidden gears turned, and the machine's deep, strangely harmonious "music" filled the chamber.  Charlie looked down... and found the devil's eyes staring back at her... glowing a bright, ruby red.