Tartarus XV

Script for today:

Page 43

View of Pandora with her arms wrapped tightly around the jar. Pandora is weeping.

CAPTION: Pandora was trying to save mankind from the worst of her action.

High-up view, looking down at bodies sprawled across the floor of the orgy room

CAPTION: But tell me, Taylor. Why are you here?

View of Marie, trapped in the abduction bubble in the scene from Commencement.

CAPTION: I am looking for someone taken here against her will.

View of Taylor, crouched forward, a deep angry frown on her face. She is hugging her knees.

CAPTION: I will find her. I am not giving up hope.

View of Marie floating in a transport tube.

CAPTION (faint lettering, indicating that these are words being whispered by Taylor): Her name is Marie…from Gnosis College…have you…

View of Taylor, on her knees, looking up. Donna, now lying on her back, is also looking out of the panel in the same direction as Taylor.

DONNA: Oh, dear, it’s time to go. Would you kiss me goodbye, Taylor?

Page 44

Taylor and Donna in a deep, mouth-to-mouth kiss.

Donna leaning forward and whispering into Taylor’s ear.

DONNA (faint lettering indicating whispering): Look into Dr. Abdullah’s work.

Donna’s face, backing away from Taylor. Donna is smiling innocently. Taylor looks surprised.

A view of the orgy breaking up. A servant in middle-eastern costume is carrying Donna away. Taylor remains on her knees (her back to us). In other parts of the room, girls and orgiasts are beginning to rise, lean on each other for support as they try to leave the room, etc.

Page 45

A group of nude young women, Taylor among them, walking along a featureless corridor.

CAPTION: The night’s entertainment done, we walk back to our quarters.

A shower scene, with soapy young women showering, one throwing a sponge at another, laughing.

CAPTION: We bathe ourselves.

Taylor standing at a basin in front of a mirror, brushing her teeth.

CAPTION: And brush out teeth.

Taylor lying between two other nude young women amidst cushions on the floor. One is curled up next to her, the other lies to one side. Both are asleep, but Taylor is lying awake, staring upwards.

CAPTION: And go to bed.

CAPTION: If this weren’t all so porny I’d be reminded of a certain book my mother read to me as a child.

Close-up on Taylor’s face from previous panel

CAPTION: It’s clear I need to go in even deeper.

Same close-up before, except that now Taylor is squeezing her eyes closed.

CAPTION: And for the first time, I’m beginning to feel really scared.

CAPTION: END OF PART TARTARUS PART ONE

As we reach this point in Taylor’s adventures, I’ll try to end on an erotically-upbeat note, a harem bathing scene. Fortunately orientalist painters never seemed to get tired of painting harem bathing scenes.

Rudolph Ernst (1854-1932) The Harem Bath. Found at The Orientalist Gallery.

Tartarus XIV

Script for today:

Page 40

On this page, the artist’s imagination should run wild, with all manner of allegorical figures representing the evils Donna enumerates in the captions. Pandora should appear as a tiny, terrified figure holding the jar in one corner of the page.

CAPTION: Out of the jar flew a vast army of darknesses and evils.

CAPTION: Disease and famine.

CAPTION: War and violence.

CAPTION: Hatred and greed.

CAPTION: Released by Pandora’s curiosity, they would afflict all mankind for all time.

CAPTION: Zeus thus gained his revenge.

Page 41

A view inside the jar. A tiny spirit HOPE, in the form of a fairy — a nude female form with iridescent wings — is left, peering out.

HOPE: Please let me out, too. I am Hope.

View of Pandora’s hand, having firmly put the lid back on the jar.

CAPTION: But Pandora sealed Hope back in the jar.

View of Pandora, holding the jar, standing on a cliff. Black clouds boil in the sky behind her.

CAPTION:And why, Taylor, do you think that was?

Taylor sitting cross-legged, holding Donna in her lap.

TAYLOR: Because we need hope? Because only with hope can humanity survive all the other evils?

DONNA:No, Taylor. That is merely the conventional view…

Same view as Panel 3, but pulled further back, making Pandora a tiny figure in a barren landscape.

CAPTION:Remember that Pandora sealed Hope in the jar, rather than letting it out. She had a good reason to..

Page 42

Figure of a woman kneeling before a man. The man’s face is not visible (out of the top of the panel). The woman has a black eye.

CAPTION: Think of woman who returns to a violent cad over and over. What keeps her going, but the hope of his reform…

View of a man, in a dark room. We see him from behind, lit from above. His face is down on a desk, with a letter with the tiny words “We regret to inform you…” visible on the page.

CAPTION:Think of a young man who is failing in his career, alone, despondent, yet soldiering on to new disappointments, because of hope the application will be successful…

View of an elderly person, lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by horrific-looking medical machines which she is hooked into.

CAPTION: What keeps a dying person in horrible pain living on in indignity. Hope…

Donna looking up at Taylor, calmly. Taylor looks shocked.

DONNA: Hope is an evil, Taylor. A second-order evil, one might say. The evil that keeps us going on and on, so that we can find still more frustrations to endure and more ways to suffer. How much better it would be if we just gave it up. Lived in every moment as it comes until no more moments come and we return to the blessed calm of non-existence. That is is the message lurking in the myth…

Okay, so I’ll admit I was in something of a dark place when I came up with this gloss on the Myth of Pandora that I am later able to write up as a speech given by Donna. It’s just how my mind works at moments of real disappointment. It’s not something I would endorse as a general proposition, but I can see how someone might get there.

Donna at least is proving you can get a pretty good education at a state university if you halfway try. She’s perhaps only twenty and already able to steal thoughts from this guy:

“Man kann unser Leben auffassen als eine unnützerweise störende Episode in der seligen Ruhe des Nichts,” is what I believe Donna is playing off in her speech.

Okay, so maybe Schopenhauer isn’t all that erotic. Or is he? He made a very pretty youth:

Just sayin’.

Tartarus XIII

Script for today:

Page 37

A white-gloved hand is holding a champagne flute to Donna’s lips. She is drinking from it.

CAPTION: This all seems like quite a harsh reaction to things going wrong with your family.

View of Donna’s face. Her eyes are closed.

CAPTION: Yes, well that’s how it is. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

A gauntleted hand holding up a flaming sword against a background of a dark, stormy sky.

CAPTION: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law.”

Extreme close-up view of a scalpel in a surgically-gloved hand, about to make an incision in Donna’s bare shoulder.

CAPTION: I chose to live by the scalpel instead.

View of a man in coveralls, pushing a trolley down a corridor, on which something about the size and shape of a human trunk wrapped in burlap.

CAPTION: I did so knowing full well I probably won’t last all that long the way I am.

View of Donna’s face again. Her brow is wrinkled, her eyes closed, her expression dark.

DONNA: Was Emily a “little whore?” Did she die as one? Well then, I’ll die as one too.

Page 38

View of Taylor cradling Donna’s head in her arms, as if trying to comfort her. Donna’s expression is still angry.

TAYLOR: You mustn’t give up hope…

TAYLOR: Hope? Let me tell you something about hope..

View of ZEUS, here a heavily muscled, bearded man sitting on a marble throne, wearing an enraged expression and in the act of pounding one of the arms of his throne with a clenched fist.

CAPTION: After Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to mankind, Zeus, the head god, vowed to punish the human race.

View of PANDORA, a beautiful woman, lying nude on a slab. She is not quite formed. HEPHAESTUS, a hairy, dirty, gimp-legged fellow, is reaching down with his hands to mold some part of her body.

CAPTION: Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the smith-god, to create an artificial woman out of earth. All the other gods then gave her gifts.

View of ATHENA, a stern, beautiful goddess, showing the still-nude Pandora a loom.

CAPTION: Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, taught the woman weaving. And perhaps also some wisdom, as we shall see.

View of APHRODITE, nude like Pandora. Pandora is seated. Aphrodite is doing Pandora’s hair, while at the same time leaning forward to whisper something in Pandora’s ear.

CAPTION: Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, beautified her but also filled her with lusts.

View of HERMES, here a beautiful, beardless young man, standing behind Pandora and speaking to her.

CAPTION:Hermes the messenger of the Gods taught her the arts of speech…and of lying.

Page 39

Athena fitting a long gown on Pandora.

CAPTION: Athena then clothed this lovely created woman. The Gods named her “Pandora,” which means “all gifts.”

Upper-half view of Pandora holding the hands of EPIMETHEUS, who is here a Greek-god-like individual, but defective (cross-eyed).

CAPTION: Zeus then gave Pandora to Prometheus’s dim-witted brother Epimetheus as a bride.

Pandora holding up a lidded jar, which she is gazing at curiously.

CAPTION: The gods gave Pandora a wedding present, a jar which she was told never to open.

Close up on Pandora’s hands pulling the lid off the jar.

CAPTION: But like so many people with gifts, curiosity was an overpowering motive for Pandora.

It scarcely needs to be mentioned what a popular subject Pandora was for artists. One example:

Dante Gabriel Rosettti (1828-1882), Pandora (1878). Original in the Lady Lever Art Gallery. You can find an amazing collection of Pandora imagery here, although unfortunately without much in the way of provenance for individual images.

Tartarus XII

Script for today:

Page 34

Close-up view of a scrawny bare arm protruding under a sheet. Needle tracks are visible.

CAPTION: Emily’s body told the story of her last months.

View of a small chapel. A simple casket sits at the front. A preacher is giving a sermon at a lectern, while Donna sits in front and a few other people are scattered in the pews.

CAPTION: I used the savings from a summer job to make sure that at least Emily wouldn’t end up in a pauper’s grave.

Close up view of Donna in a pew. She has her hands buried in her face again.

CAPTION: I cried gallons that day. But I haven’t shed a tear since.

Donna handing a ticket to a GATE AGENT about to board an airplane.

CAPTION: I dropped out of college. I dropped out of my parents’ world entirely.

View of Donna pulling off her shirt sitting next to Bridget O’Brien (a scene from Study Abroad) who is looking at her, amazed.

CAPTION: Frau Kupler has a long reach. She forwarded me the airfare

Close up on one of Donna’s amputation stumps.

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): But why…?

Page 35

View of Donna, being led on all fours on a leash by her “owner” (a scene from Study Abroad).

CAPTION: I threw myself into my work with zeal.

Frau Kupler sits next to Donna (who is now very nicely attired) on a sofa in Frau Kupler’s office. Kuper is handing Donna a drink.

CAPTION: To the point where Frau Kupler took me aside and suggested that I accept a more radical form of service.

Close-up of Donna looking at something that resembles a coffee table book. She is pointing at something. Frau Kupler looks over her shoulder, approvingly.

CAPTION: I threw myself into that as well.

Donna sits, wearing a hospital gown on the side of an examination table in what looks like an ordinary doctor’s examination room. She is sticking out her tongue. DR. ABDULLAH is holding it down with a tongue depressor and looking in her mouth with a pocket flashlight.

CAPTION: Frau Kupler employes a scientist, a physician and a genius, named Dr. Abdullah. He does the most amazing things with surgery, drugs, genetics…

View of Donna lying naked on an operating table. She is surrounded by Dr. Abdullah and a surgical team, all in surgical garb, and is wearing an anestheisa mask.

CAPTION: His skill made me what I am today.

Donna lying on a bed, in what looks like an ordinary hospital room, her body covered with a surgical gown. (The hospital room is a nice one – there are even flowers on a nightstand next to her.) She has bandages where she now has stumps.

CAPTION: What I chose to become.

Page 36

Close-up on Taylor and Donna’s faces.

TAYLOR: But it must be…

DONNA: No, it’s great.

Close up on the face of a South Asian-looking man, who’s kissing one of Donna’s leg stumps.

CAPTION: There are a lot of amputation fetishists out there.

CAPTION: Many are fascinated by my stumps, of course.

View of a European man spooning food into Donna’s mouth. Donna is wearing an elegant gown.

CAPTION: But there are many others who are just completely sucked in by having a completely helpless woman.

Donna sitting in a tub, naked, soapy. The same European man as in the previous panel is bathing her, sleeves rolled up.

CAPTION: They are obsessed with the idea of caring for me. They’re so tender, attentive, gentle.

Donna, now naked and lying on her stomach. Her head is up, showing orgasmic facial expressions as the European man fucks her energetically from behind.

CAPTION: And yet all the while they radiate desire for me. It makes the sex really hot…

Donna, in an elegant gown again, propped up among pillows on a couch. Champagne flutes are being raised in the front (or sides) of the panel.

CAPTION: And unlike most second level girls, I get taken out a lot. After all, it’s not like I’m going to run away…

The operation undergone by Donna was partly inspired by this image, which is pure mad science and which probably should have gone on squick or squee week, except that I was saving it for now.

Provenance is unclear, but I found it at Janitor of Lunacy.

Tartarus XI

Script for today:

Page 31

Taylor crouching forward, about to take one of Donna’s nipples in her mouth.

TAYLOR: But why…how…

DONNA: Pleasure first, stories after.

Close up on Taylor sucking hard on Donna’s nipple.

TAYLOR: That’s a fair trade, I guess. I tell her my name is Taylor and set to work, trying to ignore…

DONNA: Oh, Taylor…yes…

Taylor and Donna lying curled together on the floor.

CAPTION: She holds up her end of the bargain. She tells me her name is Donna.

DONNA: For me, this is running away to join the circus.

Puffy-bordered panel indicating a memory. A MATRONLY WOMAN with a kindly expression is standing in front of a classroom, teaching Sunday school.

CAPTION: Puffy-bordered panel indicating a memory. A MATRONLY WOMAN with a kindly expression is standing in front of a classroom, teaching Sunday school.

MATRONLY WOMAN: So those who accept Jesus will spend all eternity together in heaven, praising God.

A puffy panel, a close up on the Matronly Woman’s face, which has now taken on a stern expression.

MATRONLY WOMAN: Whereas those who reject Jesus, no matter how well they behave, will have an eternity of torment in hell.

Puffy panel, showing a little girl version of Donna in tears. A pair of adult hands can be seen at the edge of the panel, holding a belt.

CAPTION: My parents did not believe in sparing the rod.

Page 32

Puffy panel. Little Girl Donna playing dolls with another little girl who resembles her.

CAPTION: Not that it was an entirely unhappy family. I had a little sister whom I adored. Her name was Emily. She was the sweetest little girl ever.

A group of teenagers in standard-issue T-shirts, including a teenage version of Donna, sitting around a campfire, singing.

CAPTION: In the summers I was sent off to Bible Camp.

Close up on YOUTH PASTOR CLINT, a strkingly handsome young man, strummign a guitar and singing, his face lit up by firelight.

CAPTION: Every girl there had a huge crush on this really handsome Youth Pastor, named Clint.

View of teenage Donna knocking on the door of a rustic cabin.

CAPTION:Imagine how thrilled I was when, at the age of fourteen, Pastor Clint invited me to his cabin for “special religious instruction.”

View of the cabin only. No human figures are in sight.

CAPTION: “Let me fill you with Jesus’s love,” he told me.

CAPTION: He also told me I would go to hell if I ever told anyone.

View of Donna, in a sweater and skirt, holding a set of textbooks close to her with a cupola of a college campus building in the background.

CAPTION: Still, I kept it together. I got into college. Euphoric State.

Page 33

DONNA’S FATHER having just opened the door to a bedroom at night. He is silhouetted against the light behind him. His face wears an outraged expression.

CAPTION: While I was away at college my father caught Emily masturbating in her bedroom.

Teenaged Emily, wearing a nightgown, kneeling on her bed. The bedroom walls are covered with “Christian Rock” posters, and there are stuffed animals and dolls about. She is wearing an angry, defiant expression. The belt is held in her father’s hands, which are also in the panel.

CAPTION: Which made Baby Jesus cry, of course. In our family, Baby Jesus had an avenger.

View of Donna’s father, lying on his back in the doorway to Emily’s room, looking stunned. Emily’s hand is in the panel, holding his belt.

CAPTION: Emily decided not to take it lying down.

View of Emily, putting on a coat and leaving a house, viewed from within the house. A hand is seen in the panel, pointing out.

CAPTION: Emily and our parents screamed at each other for hours. Then Emily left.

Donna in a dorm room, holding a phone, looking shocked.

CAPTION: We didn’t hear anything for months. Then I got a call from Chicago.

Donna standing in an autopsy room. A MEDICAL EXAMINER is holding back a sheet, showing a body on a gurney. Donna stands behind the gurney, her head buried in her hands.

CAPTION: My parents wouldn’t even come to identify her. “That little whore was already dead to us,” my father told me.

I regret that I can’t think of a sexy image to go with Donna’s depressing backstory (I’ll admit I’m pulling out perhaps-overfamiliar tropes), so I’ll offer something more appropriate thereto instead.

Vincent van Gogh (1853 -1890), Woman with a Mourning Shawl. Found here, original in the Van Gogh Musuem, Amsterdam.

Tartarus X

Script for today:

Page 28

A panel, just silhouetted human bodies in a haze.

CAPTION: Smokable drugs are being handed around, so I can’t really make anything out in the haze.

Taylor stumbles forward in a tangle of bodies, holding up a hand to fend off the offer of a hookah from anther girl.

CAPTION: Even after I manage to…detach myself it’s hard to work my way over.

Taylor’s face, with a look of shock.

CAPTION: When I finally get over to what I think I saw, it s worse than I could imagine.

Panel depicting DONNA (the same character as in the Study Abroad script) lying on her back. Her eyes are closed, her back slightly arched. And she is now a quadruple amputee. There are passed-out naked men around her.

DONNA: Ohh….

Page 29

Taylor, holding Donna upright.

TAYLOR: My God, are you alright?

DONNA: Wha…is it time to go now?

Close-up on Donna’s face. Her eyes are half-closed, and she is smiling sleepily.

DONNA: I feel…fine…

Close-up on Donna’s lower half, showing the stumps where he legs used to be clearly.

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): But what have they done to me?

DONNA (out-of-panel balloon): What they did to me? You don’t understand, pretty girl…

View of another part of the room. The Catgirl has mounted a man sitting on a chair on the stage (we can’t see much of him) and is fucking him.

CAPTION: I asked them to do this.

View of a gloved hand holding up a scalpel, which light glints off of.

CAPTION: And Dr. Abdullah obligingly did. He’s a genius.

Profile view of Taylor and Donna looking at each other. Donna is smiling, shyly. Taylor looks horrified.

CAPTION: Okay Taylor. Don’t freak out. Think. She speaks English with a midwestern American accent. Maybe you just got lucky…

Page 30

Extreme close-up of Taylor’s lips near Donna’s ear.

TAYLOR (faint-lettered balloon indicating whispering): …Gnosis College…Bridget O’Brian…

Head-and-chest view of Donna. She is looking away slightly.

DONNA: One thing that I miss about being…the way that I am…is that I can’t touch myself, even when I really want to. Touch me…

Close-up on Donna’s lower abdomen. Taylor’s hand is now stroking Donna’s clitoris.

DONNA (out-of-panel ballloon): Like that…oh yes..oh…keep touching me…kiss me…

View of Taylor and Donna, their mouths beginning to come together in a kiss.

CAPTION: Lucky for both of us I happen to like kissing girls.

DONNA: …and I shall tell tales like Scheherazade.

View of the Catgirl, who is now curled up asleep on the stage.

CAPTION: Look at her. Amazing, isn’t she?

Close-up on the Catgirl’s face. A motion line inicates an ear twitching in her sleep.

CAPTION: I played at being a petgirl for a while, but the transformation was…a little too radical…so I opted for this instead.

Eat your heart out Gamera, ‘cuz now I’m doing one of your things.

And weird and disturbing as it is, I’m inclined to go there. It’s a real fetish, one that people do take time and trouble over.

(Found at freakyjapan.)

You might be about to find the contents of Donna’s head to be a little more disturbing than the condition of her body. Stay tuned.

Tartarus IX

Script for today:

Page 25

A long view of an immense Moorish ballroom. A line of girls in harem-girl costumes is filing in from one side. At one end of the ballroom is a stage, on which a small Middle-Eastern orchestra is sitting.

CAPTION: After a few weeks of being stretched and penetrated in ways I didn’t imagine could happen, we trainee girls get a run at our first orgy.

A view of ranks of girls in harem costumes, reclining on cushions, sofas, divas, etc. among men wearing comfortable robes. Serving boys move among the crowd carrying trays of delicacies and little drinks. Taylor can be seen somewhere in the panel, craning her neck and looking around.

CAPTION: I look around as much as I can. No sign of Marie. Or of that Bridget O’Brian character. I don’t have much time before the evening’s entertainment starts.

Page 26

A spotlight on a curtain on stage.

CAPTION: Too late. The entertainment begins.

The CATGIRL emerges from behind the curtain, to the sound of music playing (SFX: swirling music). She is heavily veiled at first, so we can’t see that she’s a catgirl. Her face is also veiled, and she is wearing a headscarf as well, covering much of her hair.

CAPTION: A dancer. Bet she’ll be stripping off those and..

A rear view of the Catgirl. She’s turned around and is shimmying (indicate with motion lines) and her tail is swishing back and forth (also indicate with motion lines).

CAPTION: Now that’s sure different. I wonder how….

The Catgirl dances on stage. She has stripped away a few of her veils, but her face is still veiled, and she is wearing a bejewelled top.

CAPTION: …they make that tail work. Prosethesis? Animatronics?

Reverse view of the Catgirl again. She is removing her top.

CAPTION: What ever it is it’s mesmerizing to watch.

Front view of the Catgirl, still dancing. Her top is off, and she has now removed the headscarf and is holding it away from herself, about to drop it. She has revealed that one the sides of her head she has cat-ears. The ears are twitching (indicate with motion lines).

CAPTION: What am amazing effect! I wonder…

Another view of the catgirl dancing. She has stripped over everything but her facial veil.

CAPTION: Wow. That’s…

View of the Catgirl dancing. She is on her knees, her back arched, moving furiously. One hand has recahed up to tear off her facial veil.

Close up on the Catgirl’s face. Her features are clearly feline rather than human.

Page 27

The Catgirl stands on the stage, head back, arms apart, facing the audience, receiving their adulation

SFX:: ULULULULULULU

Close up on Taylor’s face, which is dimly lit, as if by candlelight. She is wearing a look of amazement.

View of the crowd in the room. An orgy is beginning.

CAPTION: That really got everyone in the mood. I personally am wet inside and out.

View from above. Taylor is spread out on a divan, her legs wide apart. One man is fucking her. Her head is tilted back, her throat exposed. She is felating another man who is kneeling at her head. The fellatee evidently has a large cock.

CAPTION: Which is fortunate, because I have work to do.

Close-up view of Taylor’s face. Her eyes are closed as she continues the act of fellatio.

Same as previous panel, except that now Taylor’s eyes are wide open, and she is evidently looking at something.

CAPTION: And then something disturbing catches my eye…

I guess I’m trying to hit every trope or, if you wish to be unkind, every cliché I can here. And know what’s coming up in the script, so it’s only fair to warn you that it gets worse before it gets better.

The catgirl is an obvious example.

(She’s a catgirl. And she has one of the cute little French maid costumes. Found as one of the supporting illustrations at the WikiFur (yes WikiFur) article on catgirls.)

So I plead guilty. But I have a good reason for going where I’ve gone, even above the obvious point that making a catgirl seems like a freakin’ excellent mad science project. Because back when I was young (but not too young to haunt the “adult” section of my local comic book store without getting thrown out) the title I would look for more eagerly than any other was Omaha the Cat Dancer.

(She’s a catgirl. And she’s an exotic dancer. And she’s a mermaid, on this cover anyway. And she’s got some kind of bubble thing. Folks, we have gone beyond ordinary Fetish Fuel here and now have a Fetish Fuel Station Attendant.)

The curious thing is that Omaha was a voluptuous young woman (or cat-woman, if you like) who made her living taking her clothes off in front of audiences. She had a fairly complicated social life amidst a group of other young adult to not-that-middle-aged characters who also had complicated social lives. The results of those social lives — a lot of enthusiastic sexual coupling, among other things — are depicted with great artistic candor and skill. But leafing back through her adventures today, I feel struck mostly at how wholesome and straightforward they all seem compared with the squicky stuff that runs through my head today and out onto the blogpage today, some two decades later. A measure of who life corrupts or, if you prefer, seasons one.

It’s cause fro reflection, anyway.

And perhaps I should note, catgirls have another use, a response to those who criticize how bizarre and ad hoc my mad science gets.

(Found illustrating the hilarious Uncyclopedia article on catgirls.) Reflect on that, dear critics!

Tartarus VIII

Script for today:

Page 22

Taylor being hauled up from the pool with the help of two girls in harem outfits. Another stands to the side with a towel.

CAPTION: I am reborn into a world where pleasure is the only goal.

A group of naked young women face an instructor (similarly naked), stretching on mats.

CAPTION: I am quickly put into training.

Taylor, naked but for a harem-girl vest, is positioned in a split with her feet on two balance beams. She is lowering herself onto a tall dildo placed beneath her. Her face wears an expression of intense concentration and some pain.

CAPTION: A sex slave needs to be flexible, of course.

View of NADIA naked on a mat. She is lying on her back in a contortionist’s position, with both her ankles hooked behind her head. She looks relaxed and calm.

CAPTION: We have a coach, a senior girl named Nadia, who shows us what we can do with enough work.

View of Nadia in the same position as the previous panel. A MUSCULAR MALE SLAVE is fucking her on the mat. Nadia wears an orgasmic expression.

CAPTION: A magnificent male is brought in to demonstrate further why we are learning this.

View of Taylor, sitting cross-legged on the mat, watching. Her right hand has drifted down to her crotch.

CAPTION: I hate to admit it, but I get wVet as I watch this.

Page 23

Taylor, naked except for a tank-top cut off so that it shows underboobs, is in a squat, her legs apart. In front of her is a long roll of paper. She is holding something resembling a fountain pen in her vagina. Dangling before her a bulbous object on a long string with small beads every ten centimeters along its length.

CAPTION:Some of these exercises are damned hard.

Close-up view between Taylor’s legs. We see her holding the pen in her vagina.

CAPTION: My pussy is finally getting a workout, to develop control over the muscles within.

Downward view (Taylor’s P.O.V.) through her legs. We can see the paper she is squatting on, with lots of scribbles thereupon.

CAPTION: Girls who are good at this exercise can sign their own names.

Profile close-up on Taylor’s face. We see her reaching out with her tongue and guiding the bulb on the string into her mouth. We can see that the little beads along the length of the string are numered sequentially each ten centimeters.

CAPTION: Another exercise is to learn to suppress the gag reflex.

Second view of Taylor in the same position as before. She has swallowed the bulb and the string up to “2.”

CAPTION: Some of Kupler’s customers like their fellatio really deep.

Taylor viewed from the front again, her arms held out for balance, the string leading into her mouth. Her head is tilted full back, exposing her throat.

CAPTION: You can’t say this isn’t educational.

Page 24

Taylor naked in an octagonal, plexiglass tank. An AMAZONISH WOMAN is holding her head under water (a trail of bubbles is coming up from Taylor). A line of other naked girls is seen leading out of the panel, apparently waiting their turn.

CAPTION: There are supplementary exercises in breath control.

Taylor split between the balance beams again. This time she is surrounded by two MUSCULAR SLAVE MEN. One is penetrating her vaginally from the front the other anally from the rear.

CAPTION: Our harsh training regimen produces dividends.

A view of many naked girls, sleeping (or lovemaking) side by side. The panel should have a “moonlit” quality.

CAPTION: At night we trainees all sleep together. We are encouraged to explore each other.

CAPTION: “It will enhance your sensuality,” one of our trainers tells us.

Close-up of Taylor in a deep kiss with an African girl.

CAPTION: Does it ever.

Okay, Taylor’s at least two of Taylor’s training exercises here involve a fairly blatant steal, but I can say in my defense that they have an excellent porny pedigree, to with the Hong Kong over-the-top erotic feature Sex and Zen, which pretty much defies easy description (but a hint: it includes an “amazing transplant” far more amazing than that which happened in The Amazing Transplant — watch it now, now d’ya hear?). It also features buxom ultra-starlet Amy Yip, who late in the movie finds herself in a brothel undergoing training rather like Taylor’s.

Though she can actually write better using her…well, a picture is worth a thousand hanzi.

And of course she does this while undergoing her swallowing exercise.

Like I wrote, see it now.

Tartarus VII

Script for today:

Page 19

Extreme close-up view of Taylor from the front, where we see her hands undoing the top button on her shirt.

CAPTION: I do as I am told.

Close-up view from the back, of Taylor undoing the hooks on her brassiere.

Close up view from the front, showing Taylor sliding her jeans down (we see her front from roughly her navel to her upper thighs, with the jeans being slid down by her hands visible in the panel.

Close up view of only Taylor’s hand, holding out her panties to her side, about to let them drop.

A close-up of the brazier, into which Taylor has emptied out her bag, placing the clothes she has just stripped off on top of those, and her passport on top of those.

CAPTION: I am ordered to stack all my possessions in a stove…

View from the other side of the brazier, with Taylor looking down at her possessions, pouring something from a metal can down on them. The blazing torch to one side lights up her face and upper body.

CAPTION: …pour oil on them…

Close up view of Taylor holding a torch up to the oiled stack of possessions.

CAPTION: …and set them alight.

Very close-up view of Taylor’s burning possessions, with particular emphasis on her passport, the pages of which are blackening and curling in the panel.

CAPTION: They really own me now.

Page 20

Taylor standing next to the brazier, facing away from us. Smoke is curling up. In the background, the First Robed Figure is pointing at her.

FIRST ROBED FIGURE: Get down in the dirt at your feet, slave!

View of Taylor kneeling in the dirt.

TAYLOR: How thoughtful of them to have provided some.

Close-up view of the Second Robed Figure. We can dimly seem some outlines of his face behind the hood.

SECOND ROBED FIGURE: Writhe in the dirt! Grovel! Beg for admittance to the kingdom of pleasure!

Close-up of Taylor lying down in the dirt in a writhing posture.

TAYLOR: Please! My lords! This slave begs you to take her.

.Another close-up of the Second Robed Figure. We can see a dim outline of his face, and the traces of a smile thereupon.

SECOND ROBED FIGURE: Very well. Do you see the pool before you?

View of of Taylor’s reflection looking into the pool Her face is streaked with dirt, her eyes are closed.

TAYLOR: Yes, my lord.

Page 21

Side view of Taylor (who is very dirty) is kneeling at the rim of the pool.

SECOND ROBED FIGURE (out-of-panel balloon): Then if you would join, dive in and swim up the other side. But beware — there is no turning back!

Side view of Taylor diving in. The pool is deep, and she is extending downward, surrounded by bubbles.

CAPTION: Why turn back?

Taylor swimming underwater through a tunnel, with a passage leading up. Light is filtering down therefrom.

CAPTION: At least it’s a chance to get clean…but will my breath hold out…a passage up…

Taylor surfacing on the other side, her breasts breaking through the surface as she gasps for air.

You could pull a lot of Fetish Fuel out of this scene, (’cause Taylor’s right: we perverts really do love our little rituals) but the primary inspiration I had in writing this scene was that of “swimming under a barrier to enter a new world.”

And that, as it happens, comes from the adventures of one of the biggest sex bombs ever to be illustrated, Druuna.

She’s the creation of Italian artist Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, and her adventures are enough fuel for all sorts of us perverts.

But then, wouldn’t you expect as much from an artist for whom freedom is a middle name?

Tartarus VI

Script for today:

Page 16

Kupler, sitting behind her desk, her eyebrow raised, holding the packet of money by her fingertips.

CAPTION: I’ve assured at least some good might come from this grisly adventure.

KUPLER: I understand you.

Taylor standing in the entrance foyer of an elegant hotel room, next to a BELLHOP who is gesturing obsequiously.

CAPTION: Even if Kupler understands me, she still insists on my staying 48 hours in a luxury hotel to make sure I think it over.

Taylor looking into a mirror in an elegantly appointed bathroom, sticking something up her nose on the end of a pair of tweezers.

CAPTION: Which works for me, because I have a comm device I need to put somewhere safe…

View of Taylor’s face. She is biting her lip and a trickle of blood is running out of one of her nostrils.

CAPTION: Fuck that hurt.

Taylor lying her back, naked, her hand between her spread legs.

CAPTION:Since in fact there’s nothing for me to “think over” I lie around. I watch CNN and BBC and masturbate to pass the time.

Taylor staring out a window. The light indicates the sun is at a low angle.

CAPTION:And watch the sun rise and set twice.

Page 17

A view of a hi-rise cityscape. In the middle there is a solid black cube.

CAPTION: “Level II” is a vast, windowless building right in the middle of Munai City.

View of Taylor’s face, looking up, brow wrinkled, through the window of a limousine.

CAPTION: It would stand out most places, but all modern architecture in Munai is brutal and ugly.

A uniformed guard holds open a black door in a black wall leading to a black space beyond. We see Taylor from behind, about to step over the threshold.

CAPTION: “Abandon all hope…” but I love you, Marie.

Taylor stands facing a group of black-robed figures who sit on a high bench in front of her. Behind them are blazing torches. To Taylor’s right there is some sort of brazier with a lit torch next to it. In front of her, a pool of water that seems to glow slightly.

CAPTION: These perverts…

CAPTION: They sure love their little rituals.

Page 18

Close up on FIRST ROBED FIGURE.

FIRST ROBED FIGURE: Who dares come before us to beg admittance?

Close up on Taylor’s face. She looks forward, confidently.

TAYLOR: My name is Taylor Chase.

Close up on SECOND ROBED FIGURE

SECOND ROBED FIGURE: Henceforth address us in a manner befitting a slave.

Close-up on Taylor’s face. She hangs her head abjectly.

TAYLOR: Yes, my lords.

Close up on a THIRD ROBED FIGURE, who points with his index figure.

THIRD ROBED FIGURE: You realize that you may go only by our leave, perhaps never?

Close up on a FOURTH ROBED FIGURE

FOURTH ROBED FIGURE: You realize that we may do with you what we will and you shall submit and obey without complaint?

Close up on the FIFTH ROBED FIGURE

FIFTH ROBED FIGURE: You agree that henceforth you are nothing, save a vessel of pleasure?

Close up on Taylor, who continues to hang her head abjectly.

TAYLOR: Yes, my lords.

Close up on Taylor’s feet. It becomes clear in this panel that she is standing on a patch of dirt.

FIRST ROBED FIGURE (out-of-panel balloon): Then strip completely. Expose yourself to use and to the air.

The image of a naked woman facing judgment from a group of robed figures is, naturally, an opportunity to put in another striking image from Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Judgment of Phryne,who found herself in a similar situation once:

(Click on image for a larger version.) It is said that the Aeropagus, on seeing Phryne naked, promptly acquitted her of whatever it was that she was accused of.

Well, I would have, wouldn’t you?