For Susan Mitchell, being exposed naked in front of her classmates was embarrassing enough. The various tortures she had been subjected to throughout the year, like having every one of her holes filled, or being whipped, or shocked were extremely humiliating as well. But for Susan, the worst embarrassment and humiliation was nights like last night. Kylie had never returned to remove the handcuffs from around her wrists, meaning she had spent the rest of the day and night with her hands bound behind her back.
That meant when her dinner was slid through the slot in the bottom of the door, she had to use her legs to slide the tray over and then eat her dinner like an animal. She bent over the tray and grabbed the sandwich in her mouth and chewed it. She lapped up the water like a dog. This was what humiliated her the worst. She felt less than human on most days, but when she was alone like this, in a tiny concrete room, bound and naked and helpless, that was when she felt totally and completely degraded and helpless. She cried herself to sleep like she had on so many nights and woke up sore and depressed.
Susan had just finished eating her breakfast in the same degrading way when the door opened. Her friend Kylie walked in and looked down at Susan hovering over the tray of food. "Oh, no, did I forget to take off the handcuffs yesterday?" she said with a grin on her face that told Susan the woman had not forgotten at all. "Well, saves me the trouble of doing it this morning. Anyway, on your feet, bitch, we've got a full day ahead of us."
The young woman knew better than to argue. She struggled to get to her feet and faced her tormentor. Kylie pushed Susan ahead of her out the door and marched her down the hallway towards the atrium. A tear dripped from Susan's eye as she saw they were headed once again out into a chilly February morning.
A slight mist was falling from the sky as Kylie led Susan down the sidewalk to the concrete patio where students gathered for lunch on warm days. Kylie pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the handcuffs from Susan's wrists. The woman instinctively rubbed at her wrists, both of them sore from being bound behind her back for over 18 hours.
"Get up on the picnic table," Kylie said. "On all fours, if you don't mind."
Susan minded. She minded a lot. But she learned a long time ago that complaining or refusing was not going to make anything any better for her, so she stepped up onto the picnic bench and placed herself on the damp table on her hands and knees.
Kylie was fumbling with something in a bag near the table. Susan saw she had a set of metal loops. One went around Susan's left ankle and Kylie used a power screwdriver to fasten the loop to the wooden table. She pulled Susan's other leg apart and secured it to the table as well. Once again, Susan Mitchell found herself in an exposed position, something that was all too common for her this year. Two more of the metal loops went around Susan's forearms, pinning her arms to the picnic table.
The cold drizzle seemed to be intensifying, but Susan really couldn't tell. The trees around the patio had lost their leaves in the fall but still provided some cover for the dining area, so the rain was not as heavy here as it seemed when she looked from side to side. Susan was thankful for the unseasonably warm weather. Often this time of year there would be a decent snow cover and temperatures below freezing. But today, as earlier this week, the temperatures were in the high 40s, maybe even 50s. The sprinkles of rain made it feel colder, though, but at least there was little to no wind.
