The party was reaching a crescendo of frenzied activity. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were walking hand in hand like two little schoolboys watching proceedings excitedly when suddenly they gave a little jump in astonishment. Tweedledum looked at Tweddledee. Tweedledee looked at Tweedledum. They had simultaneously recognised the flash of the distinctive knife tattoo they had seen in the massage parlour where they had rescued Kim.
"It's him!" they exclaimed at the same time.
"We must tell mistress!" they shouted together.
They both set off in a hurry to find the Red Queen, stumbling over one another and bumping into guests in the process. They eventually found her in the dungeon busily whipping one of her guests with a riding crop. They fidgeted at her side waiting to catch her attention.
She turned to them with a look of withering disdain, "What do you fools want? Can't you see I'm busy."
"It's important."
"Yes, it's important," echoed Tweedledum.
"I've seen him."
"No-how. It was me who saw him first."
"Contrariwise, it was me who saw him first."
"Shut up you bickering clowns. Who have you seen?"
"The man who tried to attack Kim in the massage parlour!" they blurted in unison.
"Is that all?" said the Red Queen dismissively.
The mouths in their rotund faces dropped and they looked crestfallen.
"But aren't you going to do something about him?"
"Do you dare to question me?" At the merest arching of an eye brow and narrowing of the piercing eyes the pair realised their error, "You idiots. Do you think I don't know who the guests are at my own party?"
"You mean you invited him?" asked Tweedledum.
"You always knew he was here?" said Tweedledee.
"But of course you fools. I invited him specially."
The two round figures sniggered as the penny dropped.
"Then he's in trouble," said Tweedledum.
"He's in big trouble," said Tweedledee.
"Oh yes," said the Red Queen, a glint of malice in her eye, "nobody assaults my precious slave girl, my acolyte, and gets away with it. Now perhaps you fools can be of use. Gather whoever you need to help you, but I want him captured and secured in my torture chair. Do you think you can do that?"
"Oh yes mistress," they exclaimed together, excited at being of service to the Red Queen and rushing off to do her bidding.
The Red Queen turned around scouring the dungeon for Kim. She wasn't there, so she set off back to the isolation room to find her. Yes, everything was going to plan, she smiled to herself. There would soon be justice administered and retribution delivered. Kim would get her vengeance. She found Kim having just untied the Duchess from her bondage contemplating what more fun she could have with her. She sidled up to her and caught her attention.
"Beware the Jaberwock, my girl," the Red Queen said with a gentle movement of the head and the slightest of glances across the dungeon.
"What do you mean?"
Kim was puzzled at first until she recognised the name of the dragon slain by the white knight in the Alice stories. She didn't realise the full import of the words until she followed the line of the Red Queen's gaze through the open door into the dungeon where a masked man with a blood dripped knife tattoo stood.
"Oh my god," exclaimed Kim as she saw, "that's him, the psycho from the massage parlour. Who invited him?"
"Oh, don't worry Kim, I'm sure I can find an appropriate way of dealing with him," she replied, a wickedly malevolent smile broadening across her red lips.
"I'm sure you can," laughed Kim, "I wouldn't doubt that for a second! You arranged for him to be here?"
"But of course Kim. He'll have to pay for his attempt to assault my acolyte. It's fortunate my idiotic agents got there just in the nick of time before you were defiled by him."
The two women looked on as Tweedledum and Tweedledee and a handful of guests grasped Kim's assailant. He was muscular and strong and struggled violently but they had the element of surprise and numbers and he was soon overwhelmed and dragged to the Red Queen's medieval torture chair which directly faced her throne. The heavy iron manacles were closed around his wrists and ankles and, despite his struggling and cursing, he was soon locked into the hideous piece of equipment.
"There's just one more costume change for you Kim. If you go into my changing room you'll see the Duchess has laid some appropriate attire out for you. I'm sure you'll appreciate it. I'll deal with this miscreant until you return."
Kim scuttled off, the shouted abuse of the trapped man echoing in her head. What had Mistress Nemesis got planned for him she wondered.
Whilst Kim was getting changed ready to make her re-appearance the Red Queen approached the iron chair and announced her arrival before Kim's attacker. She leant over him, a towering presence in black and red pvc.
"Who the fuck are you? Let me go," he screamed.
"I hear you've finally found your voice."
"What the fuck do you want with me, you perverted witch?"
"Oh my, now that's not very wise is it considering the predicament you're in?" she said calmly. "You are in Nemesisland now, the world of the Red Queen and the Goddess Nemesis. All do as I command in my realm."
"You're mad! What the fuck are talking about."
"Oh dear, I'm afraid I can't accept language like that. It's very rude you know, especially when you're talking to the party's host. Duchess, get my ball gag," she ordered.
The Duchess handed her a gag with a red rubber ball and leather strap. Tweedledum forced his mouth open as the Red Queen pushed the rubber ball into his gaping mouth. He had no choice but to close his mouth around it as she tightened the strap at the back of his head. Muffled noises came from behind the gag.
"Now, that's better, isn't it? I can't be disturbed by all this shouting and abuse. You see this chair," she said, leaning over him and whispering in his ear, "It's one of my very special toys. It's modelled on a real piece of medieval torture equipment you know. It's designed to keep slaves and miscreants trapped ready for their punishment. Can you imagine it? Can't you just hear the screams of agony as they are subjected to torture?"
"Nnngg," the voice behind the ball gag grunted.
"Who knows what torments men were made to suffer in devices like these? Can't you visualise the metal pincers as they closed around a man's balls and gradually crushed them or better still as they squeezed his useless and helpless cock until he screamed in pain?"
"Nnngg," his body shook violently in a futile attempt to break his restraints.
As she was speaking the Red Queen completed securing him to the chair by closing an iron band around his chest and pulling a metal bar down against his thighs and padlocking both into position.
The Red Queen continued to torment him, "And of course, there was always the red hot poker. And this neat piece of equipment offers up all sorts of possibilities, it leaves lots of sensitive parts of the body exposed," her voice rose in a menacing tone, "like your arse-hole for instance."
"Nnngg."
Finally, an iron head cage was closed around his face. The Red Queen stepped back and admired her handy work. He was shackled into the iron chair, her fearsome piece of medieval torture equipment built to her exact specification.
She continued, "But you see; I'm very fair. I wouldn't punish you without a trial. After all, that wouldn't be right, would it? I believe in dispensing justice. There'll be evidence heard and witnesses you know."
At that point the guests who had gathered around the torture chair to see what was going on turned their heads. Bless her, thought the Red Queen, Kim's timing is impeccable; it must be in her blood.
At that moment Kim entered the chamber. All heads turned and the guests gasped in approbation as Kim stood there head to toe in a white pvc skirt and basque decorated with black hearts and silver trim balanced on a pair of white stiletto heeled shoes. She had re-appeared as the White Queen. She was the mirror image of her mistress but she was pure white and blonde to her mistress's red and ebony. There was a hushed silence as Kim stepped imperiously across the floor tiles the stiletto heels clicking against the floor with each measured stride. She stood alongside the Red Queen and cast a withering look at the figure in the iron chair. He looked up and his eyes registered recognition of the girl he'd encountered in the massage parlour. She looked different now, scary and powerful. He remembered the moment well as since that day his life had followed a strange sequence of events that had led to him being knocked out by anonymous attackers, invited, quite innocently as he thought, to a fetish party, right up to his current predicament, locked into a medieval torture chair. It finally dawned on him there was a purpose to him being invited to this strange event.
"Yes, there will be a trial and then a judgement," announced the Red Queen.