Miss Pinch pressed a bell three times.
Then she took a key and unlocked a wrought-iron grill. She took another key and unlocked the basement door. She gun-prodded me into a small hall. She shut and locked both the grill and the door.
"You can resume screaming, if you like," she said. "This basement is totally soundproof. It really is a find. It also has a nice back garden where one can bury unwanted bodies. So just be patient and do as you are told."
She kicked me into a second room.
In spite of my red haze of pain, the place gave me a shock. She sensed it and said with satisfaction, "Interior decorated by myself."
It was dull red of hue. Instruments of torture hung tastefully upon the walls. Festoons of whips served in lieu of curtains. A huge bed occupied the center of the room, its four posts topped with the grinning faces of gargoyles. The carcass—stuffed, I hoped—of a dead goat hung head down in the corner. It was full of darts.
"Now just sit down on the bottom of the bed, Inkswitch." She assisted the movement with a prod of the gun.
"Now, I know you are probably provoked," said Miss Pinch, looking at me with slitted eyes. "Men are violent and unreliable. Therefore, we cannot begin upon the removal of the bag until certain precautions are taken. You might kick out."
With her left hand she undid my overcoat. She reached to my waist and undid my belt. I would have lunged up but it looked like the gun was going to hit me in the teeth. I sat back. She pulled off my shoes. She shucked off my pants. She pried off my underpants. A chain rattled!
She was fastening a steel cuff to my right ankle. It was held to the right-side bottom of the bed with links. She clamped a steel cuff to my left ankle. It was connected with a chain to the left bottom post of the bed. Miss Pinch got up on the bed behind me. She pulled my overcoat, jacket and shirt up over my head and down on my arms.
She then hauled me backwards to the center of the bed. From the right-hand upper post of the bed she pulled a steel cuff on a long chain. She put it on my agonized right wrist. She did the same from the left-hand upper post and put that steel band on my left wrist.
Going to the posts, she shortened the leg chains until my feet were securely fastened wide apart.
She took up the slack on the wrist chains as far as she could with my hands still in the bag.
"Now, I know those traps must be quite painful," said Miss Pinch, sounding very congratulatory about it, "but we will have to free them. But only if you promise not to strike out. Men are so violent!"
Begging, I promised.
Working on the outside of the purse bottom, she effected the release of something. She drew off the purse.
Two huge rat traps!
They had teeth and were gnawing deeper with every movement!
Standing very clear of possible strikes, she got the sleeves off the right hand and trap after she unfastened and refastened the steel cuff. She then tightened the chain so the arm was extended nearly to the right side bedpost. She repeated this operation on the left side.
I was naked and spread-eagled, chained face up on the center of that bed!
Miss Pinch removed her overcoat. She took off her hat. She smoothed out her hair before a mirror in a frame of daggers.
"You forgot the traps!" I screamed at her, driven by the agony of my mangled fingers.
"Everything in its own time and place," said Miss Pinch. Then she raised her voice and called, "Candy, baby! Come see what I've got for us!"
The door to the back room opened. Mincingly, expectant, a woman, maybe thirty, tiptoed in. She was dressed in very frilly, very feminine, gingham clothes. She had frizzy, very fluffy, platinum-colored hair. She had big, round, black eyes. She wasn't very pretty but she certainly was making the most of what she had.
"Oooooo," she said. Then she jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Oh, Pinch, dear! What wonderful things you do! And all for me!" She raced to Miss Pinch and kissed her passionately.
A lesbian and her "wife"!
Oh, Gods, what did they want with me!
Candy danced back and looked at me, spread-eagled and naked on the bed. She pretended coyness. Then she said, "He isn't very big, is he?"
"Oh, my darling Candy," said Miss Pinch. "You are not pleased."
"No, no, sweet Pinchy. Please let us not quarrel. He will be just wonderful! Have I offended you, dear Pinchy?"
They embraced with croonings of endearment.
"Take off these Gods (bleeped) traps!" I screamed at them.
Miss Pinch said to Candy, "I thought that you, just this once, might like to..."
Candy drew back in horror. "Oh, no, no! I could not bear to touch a man. What must you think of me! Oh, dear Pinchy, how could I be so gross? Never, never would I be unfaithful to you even by a fingertip."
Miss Pinch smiled at her indulgently. Then, humming a little tune without words, she moved over and, in the most painful way possible, began to take the trap off my left hand. Believe me, I screamed!
"Ah," said Candy. "Ah, dear Pinchy. Kiss me!" Her eyes were shining.
Miss Pinch kissed her. Then she came back and finished the left hand with maximum agony. I screamed myself hoarse!
Candy had sat down on a sofa. She was panting. Her mouth was wet. Her knees were wide apart. She was beckoning urgently to Miss Pinch.
Miss Pinch grabbed her, crushed her to her flat chest and then carried her to the other room and slammed the door shut with her heel.
Through the red haze of agony from my right hand, I could hear urgent beggings in the next room. Then little moans. Then groans of ecstasy. Minutes. And then a gasping shriek!
What was going on in there?
More minutes.
A low muttering.
The door opened.
Miss Pinch still had her coat and shirt and tie on. But she was nearly naked from the waist down. She was breathing hard.
Candy was wearing only a chemise now. Her face was red and flushed and wet.
Their eyes were hot.
What could they possibly have been doing?
Miss Pinch went to an Iron Maiden and opened it. It was serving as a fridge. She got out some beer.
They lolled down on the sofa, drinking from their beer cans thirstily.
"Take off the Gods (bleeped) trap!" I screamed at them.
In a conversational voice, Miss Pinch said, "Everything in its time and place, Inkswitch."
"What are you up to?" I bellowed.
"Tell him," said Candy. "I always love to hear it."
Indulgently, Miss Pinch said, "All Rockecenter's companies have classes in Psychiatric Birth Control. It's vital, you understand, to reduce the world population. They breed like rats. And they're all riffraff. They outstrip the world's food supply which has to be reduced so food prices will stay up and Rockecenter's friends can make a profit. And, of course, that is the name of the game."
She took a thirsty guzzle of her beer and, without bothering to wipe off the mustache, continued learnedly, "Birth control requires more than pills and besides, I. G. Barben has no monopoly on them and there are competitors. So the answer to controlling world population is homosexuality. Now, if everyone was a homosexual—the men gays and the women lesbians—then there's no more population problem at all. The great work begun by the Rockecenters decades ago is just now coming into its own. Birth control training is now being introduced even into kindergartens. The competitors of Barben will go broke, as who will need the pills? There will be no mass meetings against abortions and even abortion is going out of use. The trend is overwhelmingly toward universal homosexuality.
"The Psychiatric Birth Control classes are wonderful. They were developed by Dr. Frybrain, the head of the International Psychiatric Association, on a special Rockecenter grant. And the Rockecenters, as you know, have always controlled psychiatry and psychology. What used to be called 'normal' sex is the real sex crime. And what used to be called 'sex crimes' are now normal. So if every student becomes dedicated, as psychiatrists are, to making all the perverts and sadists and homosexuals they can, then the long-term Rockecenter goal of shrinking world population will become a fact. So we are expected to make at least one man a pervert. And that's where you come in, Inkswitch."