The girl was a prisoner, tightly bound with ropes in one of the most painful and
constrictive positions of all, the hogtie.  Numerous wrappings of cotton clothesline held
the youthful arms firmly behind her back, elbows pulled painfully together, wrists tightly
pressed against each other.  More rope crushed her ankles together and even more cut
cruelly into the soft flesh just above her knees, a wrapping made even tighter by the
bending of her legs back towards her arms.  The link between her wrists and ankles, that
rope which held her body bent into the arched contortion that is the hogtie, was very
short.  So short, in fact, that her open palms were pressed hard against her heels.

It was a strained and painful bondage position, executed with precision and a total
disregard for the comfort of the prisoner; a position never intended to entertain even the
slightest hope of escape.  For an endless period the young naked body, a lass of certainly
no more than twenty, lay quietly on the hardwood floor, forehead pressed against the
unyielding wood in an attempt to ease the strain on her shoulders.  Long black hair lay on
the wood around her head, blocking her sight, but she did not care.  The tension created
by the girl's body trying to unfold, by muscles aching to open out of the imposed
arch, was an unending torment to the teenage girl held locked in this unnatural position. 
The shoulders, which would have been forced back by the cording of the elbows behind her
alone, were held well off the floor by the constant strain.  Even her fingers lay
unmoving.  Once, long ago, they had sought for knots to undo, loose ropes to be worked on,
anything that might move her towards freedom, but now they lay half numb and exhausted
from fruitless effort and discouraged by repeated failure.

Now and then over the long afternoon the young woman turned her head to one side or the
other to search longingly for sign of human company, company that might release her from
the painful ropes.  At first she had struggled the little allowed her by this strained
position and called out, demanding release.  The demands had faded into quiet pleas and
then into moans and finally into cries of agony as the hours passed.  No one responded, no
one heard, and she knew herself alone and completely helpless.  That was why no gag had
been needed.  When the stress and aches became too much she cried, leaving tearstains
across her cheeks for lack of fingers to wipe them away.

It was growing dark when she heard footsteps.  Harsh, loud, male footsteps against the
unprotected wood.  They stopped near her and she turned, straining to look up.  Through
strands of black hair she saw him, the man who had put those ropes on her, who had
condemned her an afternoon of anguish.  She hated him, but had no strength left to express
that hatred.  He kneeled down and cupped her chin in one hand, pulling her head back so he
could look into those blue eyes.  Gently he brushed aside the black tresses and smiled, a
smile warm and friendly and concerned.  She felt like spitting in his eye.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

Her throat was dry and the words formed painfully, “You know I'm not.”  Then,
without hope, “Have I suffered enough?”

“My dear, you did commit a crime.  You must be punished,” he said reasonably.

“A crime...?”  She paused as if thinking about her misdeed.  “Only to a bastard like
you.”

A smile greeted her profanity.  “You tried to escape.  I told you the rules - attempted
escape earns you punishment.  You are being punished.”

She did not attempt to argue with the one-sided logic.  But the lovely lips did form the
words, “How much longer?”  It was a plea more than a question.

“I think a while.  Maybe until you're ready to apologize and say you're sorry
you tried to escape.”

Her blue eyes flared with an inner determination but the fire faded quickly.  There was
not much fight left in the girl and they both knew it.  The pain and enforced immobility
had worn her down, sapped her strength and would someday break her.  Not today, they both
sensed that too, but someday.

“I'm sorry I got caught trying to escape.”

“You're a little imp, you know that?  That's why I like you.  You've got
more fight inside that any ten other girls.  But I'll break you of it.  And I'll
not in a hurry.  I'll take my time and enjoy it.  Then, one day, you'll be mine.
 Not just your body, but your soul.  It is as inevitable as the coming of the snows in
winter, as the death that waits each of us at the end of our days.  You'll be mine.”

“Go to hell,” she said, but with little force.

“That may well be.  But meantime you're the one in her own little bit of hell. 
Enjoy it.  I'm going to dinner.”

He left.  The girl lowered her forehead back to the floor and wept.  From somewhere
inside came tears where she had thought herself cried out.  The evening turned into night
and in the darkness the girl still suffered in her hogtie.