Father Felix O'Bannen's face stung from the blow just delivered to it. He winced in pain and tried to shy away from his attacker, but was held by the coarse ropes that bound him to the rough, wooden chair.
"Where is the damn map?" O'Bannen's attacker, a medium-sized, trim man with perfectly combed hair and a hawk face demanded calmly in his clear voice.
O'Bannen simply stared up at him in silence, inwardly praying that his ordeal would soon be over.
"Fucking bastard!" roared the other man as he backhanded O'Bannen across the cheek once more. "Tell me where the goddamn map is, you ignorant son of a bitch!"
"Please," said the woman standing with O'Bannen's attacker. "Just tell us. Then this will be over." Her voice was sweet as honey and smooth as silk, fitting her lean, lithe body, angelic face and long, shimmering black tresses perfectly. "Tell Tyson where you've hidden the map and this will all end. I promise you."
"Trisha!" Tyson snapped. "Shut the fuck up! You shouldn't even be here. You've got no stomach for this shit. Get your ass back to your room and wait for me!" He turned back to O'Bannen. "And you, you religious freak, tell me where you hid that fucking map or I'll start breaking your fucking fingers until you do!"
The dark-haired woman gently laid a hand on Tyson's shoulder and softly said his name.
He whirled around, snarling at her. "Get your fucking ass back to your room before I beat it for you!"
"Let me spend some time with him, Tyson. Alone. Just him and me. He'll tell us where he's hidden it. I promise you."
He sneered at her. "You think you can make him talk?" His sneer turned to open laugher in her face. "You?"
"Yes. Please, let me try."
Still laughing, he shook his head. "You're too soft. Your idea of torture would probably be to tickle his feet with a fucking feather or some shit like that!"
She stared at him, her gaze locked with his, unsmiling. "You've no idea what I'm capable of, Tyson."
His laughter gave way to a frown. "You threatening me, bitch?"
"No."
"Sounded like a threat to me, whore."
"It wasn't."
"Stupid cunt." He lifted a hand, as if to strike her, then glanced back at O'Bannen. Lowering his hand, Tyson smiled. "Tell you what, I'll give you till sunrise tomorrow with this asshole. If you get the information by then, I'll not only apologize to you for doubting your skills, I'll not beat the shit out of your ass for interrupting me here. If you don't get the map..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "I'm going to beat the hell out of you till you can't even stand to have any clothes on that hot body of yours. Then, since you'll be naked for a few days healing, I'm going to fuck you over and over and over until you're raw and bleeding and if you so much as ask me to give you a rest, I'm going to beat you and start all over. Understand, bitch?"
She held his gaze steadily. "You'll have your map, Tyson. I promise."
He snickered and glanced at O'Bannen. "You'll probably die from the beating I'm going to give your ass, bitch." Then he turned and walked to the door, knocked for the guards and left when they opened the door for him.
Turning back, Tyson peered in through the tiny barred window. "Sunrise tomorrow, you ignorant fucking cunt. That gives you about twenty hours until I drag your ass to the bedroom, then wail it and fuck it. Understand?" Without waiting for a reply, he slammed the small door that covered the window. His voice was muffled but audible when he spoke to the guards outside. "No one goes into or comes out of that cell until I come back tomorrow morning. Got it, shit-heads? And don't even open the window to check on them. Let the bitch have her fun. It may be the last she ever has."
Tyson's footsteps receded down the hallway.
"Why do you deal with that?" O'Bannen asked.
Trisha turned a sweet smile on him. "Money. I'm going to have a lot of it soon, thanks to you. You'll tell me where the map is, I'll tell Tyson, he'll take some of them to find it, use the map to find the golden statue and we'll be rich. Then, I'm going to kill Tyson. He deserves it. You've already seen that. With him dead, the men will fall in line under me. I'll be rich, powerful and happy, Tyson will be dead and gone, and you, Felix, may I call you Felix? Call me Trisha. And you, Felix, will stay with me as my new lover!"
O'Bannen stared at her in open astonishment.
Before he could speak, she went on. "You will. Trust me, Felix. Starting now, you're going to devote yourself to a new faith and the worship of a different kind of deity. I'm talking about sex, Felix. As a priest, you've probably trained most, if not all, of your life. Correct?"
"Yes."
"So I'm guessing you're still a virgin."
He felt his face flush.
She smiled. "Thought so. And you're past middle-age, too." Her smile morphed into a sad little frown with a hint of a pout to it. "I'm sorry to hear that, dear Felix. We've got to make up for lost time. And we've got to start now. I've only got a few hours to begin to undo all the damage your religion has done to you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Poor, dear, sweet, innocent Felix. You were born to religious parents, weren't you?"
"Yes." He was confused, not knowing where she was going with this.
She shook her head sadly, her blue eyes fixed on him. "I'm sorry, Felix. I wish that I could have met you sooner. I could have spared you years of trauma. You see, you've devoted your life, every aspect of your life, to the praise and worship of a deity that demands its followers abstain from sex. Married couples are allowed, but no one else according to your doctrine. And you, poor, poor dear Felix, being a priest, aren't even allowed to marry. So your religion, the very religion that you've devoted yourself to, demands that you live out your entire life without even once having sex. That's wrong, Felix. It's wrong! Sex is life! Without it, none of us would even be here. Think about it! We're born because two people had sex. Without sex, no one would ever be born and the human race wouldn't even exist! As humans, we're literately born to have sex! Yet your religion denies people that. It forces people to deny that they're human, to bury desires and instincts and needs that are a part of us at a primal level. The very thing that ultimately drives us, your religion would deny us."
She paused, smiling at him once more.
"But now, Felix! Now I've found you. And I can rescue you from all of that!" Her eyes sparkled as she spoke. "Soon, you'll know what's like to have sex! In a few hours, you'll forsake your perverse religion in favor of life!"
"No," O'Bannen said, his voice thick. "Please, leave me alone. I want no part of your blasphemy!"
"You've probably never even seen a woman naked, have you? Now's the time, don't you think?" Without waiting for his response, Trisha unlaced her bodice and peeled herself out of her dress. Her underclothes followed a moment later, leaving her nude and shivering in the cool dampness of the stone-walled cell.
Beaming brightly at him, she slowly ran her hands over her lithe body, caressing her flawless flesh as she stood unabashedly naked before him.
O'Bannen stared for a moment, then squeezed his eyes closed and began to pray.
She chuckled, a warm, easy sound. "Felix, dear? That's what got you into this situation in the first place. Remember? Open your eyes and look at me."
He did not.
After a moment, O'Bannen felt her soft hands stroking his face, her long fingernails gently scratching along his neck, her warm breath in his ear.