“Anyway, moving on, I don’t want to bore everyone with more excerpts from Dante’s epic, so we’ll just get right into the second circle.” As Haley finished saying that, a stagehand brought out again the bowl full of ticket numbers. She stared at it, looked to the audience, then stared at it again. “Oh, right,” she finally blurted out.

Moving quickly, Haley plunged her hand into the tiny sea of papers. Her hand came out holding just one. “Ticket number 683!” she announced. “Please come up onstage.”

A woman, this time, hastily walked toward the stage.

“Who might our second winner be called?” Haley asked.

“Nelly,” the woman answered.

“Well, Nelly, it seems you’ll be condemning our very own…” Haley gestured to the wings. A stagehand dragged out another woman by her handcuffed arms. Her outfit was teal instead of the standard black. She was wearing a hood, her legs kicking and flailing about. The muffled cries under the hood suggest that she’s been gagged as well. A second stagehand trailed behind, carrying some rope in one hand and a pair of black heels in the other.

Examining the situation, Haley apologized, “Sorry, she’s a bit feisty. Uh, you, could you hand me one of her heels?” The second stagehand handed one over. “Set here down over here,” she instructed. The first stagehand let go of her arms. They hit the stage floor quite hard. She stopped struggling. She pulled her arms in front of her and sat up.

THHK!

As soon as she sat up, Haley hit the side of her head with the shoe she was holding. The hooded woman fell back down, knocked out from the blow.

“She’s all yours, Nelly. Boys.” Haley showed Nelly off the stage, the two stagehands in tow carrying the still unnamed and now unconscious woman. She handed back her shoe.

Haley dusted off her hands. “All right, now that that’s done, we are now at the second circle of Hell,” she said as the curtains parted open. “Lust.”

The floor of the stage was now covered by a thin layer of snow. Center stage was another blonde woman in open arms. Her medium wavy hair hid much of her face. Instead of the standard black panties, she was wearing a black micro skirt. The only bondage she had was some rope tied to her wrists, pulling her arms in opposite directions, the ends of which vanished into the darkness of the wings. Seeing as she kept her head down, she did not seem comfortable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Athena,” stated Haley. “Those condemned to the second circle of Hell were to be buffeted and tossed all around by the violent winds of a never-ending storm. However, our punishment was inspired by something else.”

The sounds of a machine became audible. What little slack the ropes gave disappeared as they became taut. “Aaaah!” Athena tried her best to cry in pain as quietly as possible.

“In 2010, a video game named ‘Dante’s Inferno’ was made,” Haley began to explain. “It was, of course, based on Dante’s epic but only the Hell part. In the game, the circle of lust was a giant chasm, consisting of a broken bridge with a tower in the middle.”

The machine sounds stopped temporarily. A thin icicle had emerged below Athena, the thin layer of snow hiding where it came from. Its tip seemed sharp.

“That tower was called ‘The Carnal Tower’. In the game, the tower resembled a penis. In our case…” Haley’s voice trailed off as she looked to Athena. The icicle under her began slowly inching upward again.

“In about two minutes, that icicle…”

Athena drowned out all outside stimuli to focus on her situation. She composed herself, appearing determined. She tried leaning forward and backward to in an attempt to avoid the icicle, but she found that that might cause her heels to slip on the snow. To make things worse, the tip of the icicle seemed to follow her crotch’s every move. She thought about standing on her toes but came to the conclusion that it would only tire her out. In response to her movement, the ropes pulled on her arms harder. “Aaaaah!” She cried louder this time, clenching her fists as she did. She snapped out of her trance and heard Haley speaking.

“Oh, don’t bother trying to squirrel your way out of this one. This is Hell after all,” Haley commented.

The tip of the icicle was now inside of Athena’s skirt. A look of fear escaped her. She could feel the cold tip against the inside of her thighs. The coldness of the room finally got to her; she began to shiver. The thought of an icicle skewering through her loins ran through her mind. She began to sweat and pant at the thought of dying this way. “Fuck,” her thoughts were finally culminated into one simple word. “I’m gonna die.”

When the tip of the icicle finally touched her privates, Athena let out a gasp. It was cold. She held her breath. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, waiting for this thing to finally penetrate her and get it over with.

However, there was only silence. She felt the icicle move no further upward. Time seemed to stop as she unclenched her fists and peeked open one of her eyes. There was the audience, on the edge of their seat, their looks of anticipation beginning to fade into disappointment. Opening her other eye, she turned to look at Haley’s expression. She caught her in the middle of stomping her foot. It was then that she remembered.

CHHK!

“UUGGHH!” Athena cried out. When Haley stomped, the icicle suddenly jerked upward, momentarily launching her upward. Her hips were in agonizing pain, yet she decided to keep still. Whimpering and panting, she looked down at the situation under her. “W-Wrong hole!” she thought. The tip of the icicle had penetrated into her anus. Any thoughts of gaining any pleasure from this ordeal immediately vanished. Blood started to trickle down the icicle.

“And again!” Haley exclaimed. She stomped again.

“AUUUGGGHH!” At this point, Athena was coughing up blood. Verbal protest was out of the question; each breath she took became short and painful as the tip of the icicle pressed against her diaphragm. She felt her stomach had been shot through, and who knows how her intestines are doing. The second jerk lifted her off the ground, leaving her legs to dangle against the icicle. Trying to get any sort of comfort, she desperately tugged against her ropes, but they remained taut.

“Listen up, ladies and gentlemen!” Haley addressed the crowd. “On the count of three, I want you all to stomp your feet. Ready?”

“Yeah!” The crowd shouted almost all together.

“One!” Athena weakly shook her head ‘no’.

“Two!” She kept shaking her head.

“Three!” Everyone in the audience stomped.

“UUUGGGKKKHH!” The third jerk lifted her higher up. The tip of the icicle was in her chest now. “I can’t breathe!” she thought. With the icicle in her esophagus, it pressed against her windpipe, limiting the airflow in her lungs. If she wasn’t short of breath before, she is now. All feeling below her waist was numbed by excruciating pain. Lacking the strength to do otherwise, she left her mouth agape and kept her head down.

Haley approached the impaled Athena. “Hey, Athena, how does it feel to be knocked up?” she mockingly inquired. Athena remained silent. Blood dripped from her lips.

“It feels great, right, to just have it go deeper and deeper?” Haley berated. She stood right in front of her. She put her hands onto Athena’s shoulders. “Doesn’t it just feel good and warm inside?” She traced her fingers along Athena’s outstretched arms. “Mmmmmmm…” she purred. “Don’t you want a kiss for all your troubles?” She angled her head and leaned in for a kiss.

“Ptoo…” Athena spat in Haley’s face. A little bit got in her mouth.

Haley spat on the ground. “I was expecting that, not gonna lie.” She reeled back, wiping the blood and saliva of her face. She went around behind Athena and took hold of her shoulders. “You’re gonna love this.”

In one coordinated motion, Haley pushed Athena down on the icicle and stomped.

“GKK…” The blood-coated tip of the icicle emerged a good foot out of Athena’s mouth. Her head was forced back and her mouth forced open to accommodate the frozen object. She was in a monumental amount of pain. With her breathing altogether blocked, she knew her time was short, yet she still chose to remain still and not writhe. “At least my feet are back on the ground,” she thought, making light of a grim situation. Seconds seemed like minutes as her vision began to blur.

“Don’t die yet, Athena. We’ve got one more thing for you,” Haley stated. “Boys.”

At that moment, the ropes of her arms pulled their hardest. Athena could do nothing, not even make a fist, as she felt her arm get yanked out of its socket.

“Harder, boys!”

The audible sound of things ripping apart dominated the room. It didn’t take long, but eventually, Athena’s arms were ripped violently from her torso. There was no sound from her, only a single tear from her right eye. Her eyes were now blank--she had passed out. Her severed arms lay far from her, nearly offstage, both having each one end of her humerus sticking out. A trail of blood led from the arms back to its torso. The stumps of her arms on her torso bled and sagged with no bone to support them. Apart from all the bleeding around her mouth, groin, and inner leg areas, she looked fine. It was quite the sight.

“Please give a hand, or two, to the lovely Athena!” As the curtains closed once more, Haley found herself the only one clapping. “Come on, still nothing? I even applauded her! There’s just no pleasing you guys, is there?”