The lights had dimmed almost to a complete blackness, everything went quiet and the two or three couples left on the dance floor quickly cleared.

The strength and clarity of the announcement almost surprised. 'And now all the way from Paris, France!' It might have been a high-class French restaurant and club, even if the theme was distinctly sadistic, but you could not avoid the Las Vegan way of doing things. 'The new Piaf! Let's have a big Nevadan welcome for our singer tonight! Francoise! The sparrow in chains.'

'Le moineau enchainee.' Lucinda was trying to remember the French. 'That sounds much better.'

Suddenly a spotlight shone and illuminated the head of a diminutive, waif-like girl, standing at the edge of the floor. She was wearing a leather blindfold locked over a head from which all traces of hair, even eyebrows had been completely removed. As the beam of the light widened, it could be seen that she was escorted by a strong, powerful and nearly naked man, at least head and shoulders taller, who was standing impassively with his arms menacingly folded across his chest. The light also revealed that the only clothes she wore was a floor-length dark velvet skirt, with dark stockings and shoeless feet showing through a high split to her left hip. She was totally naked above the waist, except for a collar, several gold rings and chains, which appeared to be attached to and link the numerous piercings in her nose, ears, nipples and navel.

He felt Lucinda's hand tighten its grip.

As the music started to play the strains of the old Edith Piaf song, Je Ne Regret Rien, the strongman carried her towards the centre of the stage before unceremoniously dumping her at a lone, free-standing microphone. She stood there with a totally lost and apprehensive look on what could be seen of her face and quite unsteadily, as her balance was not aided, by her hands being securely pinioned behind her back with wide and irremovable cuffs linked by a stainless steel ring. Her feet were similarly cuffed and connected, but with a short heavy bar instead of the ring. The separating ring and bar were further linked by a tight chain, that was just a little too short to allow her to stand fully straight and upright, so that it induced a bend in her back that thrust her small breasts and narrow hips forward uncomfortably and very provocatively.

'The poor girl!' Lucinda was whispering. 'Judging by the sight of her ribs, she needs a square meal to hold up all those chains and that ironmongery!'

The transformation in the audience as she started to sing in French was dramatic and immediate. They almost could not believe the quality and strength in a voice, that was coming from such a tiny, constrained and apparently weak body. Not a man or a woman in that audience made a sound, coughed or even fidgeted as she completed the song with a style and a passion, almost worthy of the great French singer. As she finished they all stood as one, clapping and cheering the performance to the roof.

***

A stream and an amazing variety of songs followed without any break or introductions, sung in both English and French. There were ballads, modern standards such as Yesterday, rock from the sixties and earlier and she finished with the unusual and moving song about loving and violent relationships penned and originally sung by Dory Previn, Angels and Devils.

As she bowed as deeply as the chains would allow to an adoring public, to receive and thank them for their acclaim, the whip struck her across the shoulders and back and she fell forwards landing heavily on her left shoulder. The audience stopped clapping and gasped as the strongman hit her perhaps five or six times with a cruel, thick and heavy leather whip about three feet long. He did not appear to be pulling or faking anything, the tears seeping from her blindfold looked very real and deep red stripes were now visible on her back. As he stood above her with the whip raised, cheers, insults and catcalls started, divided between those who wanted him to perform much more of the same, those that felt it was a rather unfair fight and perhaps half who were rather horrified at it all.

Lucinda who was perhaps only a dozen feet away from the prostrate girl, was looking aghast and almost crying with her. 'I just hope it's all an act!'

Cruelly the strongman now knelt down and grabbing her by the collar he pulled the singer to her feet with a single hand, as one might lift a kitten or a puppy by the back of the neck. He lifted her several inches off the ground and with the other hand he ripped the velvet skirt from her body, throwing it disdainfully to the floor. As he turned and displayed her to the audience, she was not naked underneath, her sex being covered by a stainless plate tightly sculpted to her body and held in place by a network of chains and locks around her waist and thighs. It was a modern equivalent of the mediaeval female protective armour.

'Do we want her to sing some more?' The strongman had grabbed the microphone. The baying audience left no doubt as to their answer.

***

Five songs later and she was singing better than ever, when the strongman pushed her roughly aside and grabbed the microphone. 'Has she done well?' The answer was obvious. 'Or do you think she needs another thrashing to improve her voice?' The band had now stopped and the noise was a mixture of shouts and calls, which gradually degenerated into a chant asking for her to be given another severe whipping.

He raised a hand and to his cue a gleaning steel frame about six feet square was lowered from the ceiling in front of the singer. Using keys from a hook on the frame, he removed each of her hands from the central chain and attached them by their cuffs to the top rail of the frame about two feet apart. Seconds later and her feet had been similarly fixed to the bottom rail, spread-eagling her into a perfectly symmetrical St. Andrews' cross. The next action was unexpected and sudden as ropes inverted and stretched the frame and she was left hanging with her head a few feet above the ground and her bottom at the ideal level for his shoulder, arm and whip.

This time he waited and circled before he took up the whip. This time she also screamed as he hit her with more force than it seemed her slight body could ever take. So he quietened her by fitting a vicious gag and then he tied and locked her head into a leather hood, before continuing. He spared none of the sensitive parts of her body, as the frame swung wildly to and fro, with every move and strike caught in the harsh glare of the spotlight.

As the thrashing ended, the frame and its fragile cargo was lowered flat to the floor. The strongman then kneeled, roughly unlocked and pulled off her hood and gag, and released her limbs from the cuffs attaching them to the frame. As he rose, he could not resist the temptation and kicked her hard across the floor. 'Sing' He kicked her again as she tried to stand 'Sing or you die!' Some in the audience gasped at the words. Others did not!

***

She did not sing! Or she could not! She just sat there in a heap, virtually naked except for torn stockings, her chains and the blindfold, with blood trickling from cuts on her back and her mouth.

Just as he had called for the frame, he now raised his hand again and caught in a second spotlight, a hangman's noose descended, to more gasps. In horror at the noise of the commotion, she tried to run, but he easily caught her in a few strides, silencing her screams by refitting the gag and hood. As she fought with her much stronger attacker and vainly tried to escape, he dropped her face-down to the floor and expertly tied her hands and elbows together behind her, with innocent looking lengths of white rope. The struggling was stopped completely, when after sitting on her legs he bound them strongly at the knees and feet.

The band had been silent since the singing had been so crudely interrupted, but now a single drum started to beat out a slow rattle of death, as the limp body was lifted from the floor and the neck was fitted with the noose. Most faces were staring almost wildly at the scene, whilst others dared not look. Lucinda was now gripping his hand with both of hers and tears were smudging the mask around her eyes, which were hardly blinking and displaying total fear. There was a strong communal intake of breath as the rope lifted the limp body a few inches off the ground.

She must have hung absolutely still for fully a minute, whilst the drum beat monotonously and the man circled sadistically waving his whip and shouting abuse. An audience that minutes before had been baying for more violence and blood was now almost subdued and apprehensive about what was to happen. Hands were literally in mouths, some couldn't look and others were following Lucinda's examples.

One of the waitresses now strode into the circle of light carrying what appeared to be a black coat or cloak in her free hand. The strongman put it on and covered his head with an executioner's hood straight from the gothic excesses of cinematic horror. He now took a large silver sack or body bag from the waitress and slipped it up over the hanging and still body, tying, chaining and locking it to the rope about a foot above the noose. He hit and poked the bag with his whip and it squirmed and wriggled for perhaps a minute and then went ominously still. Slowly the bag and the body was raised some three or four metres into the air, illuminated by a series of brilliant spot lights.

***

As the lights changed yet again and expanded their vision, it was now apparent that four strange towers with polished globes at the top had been wheeled on to the stage. It was more gothic excess, except that this time the electrical machines were real.

An unseen mechanism way in the roof, started to swing the body, as the executioner retreated to the edge of the stage. Five maybe six times round the body swung, the lights dimming with every circuit, in an absolutely silent auditorium. Then as it swung closer to one of the polished globes, the electricity jumped across, cracking like lightning. The body gave an almighty twitch. Again and again the sparks came and the spasms followed, first strongly and then with a decreasing amplitude. Finally, all movement in the bag ceased and the swinging was allowed to decline until a lifeless silver lump was hanging above the centre of the stage. As Lucinda tried to say something that expressed her horror, the machines retreated.

The executioner did not wait, as taking a heavy calibre hand-gun from the assisting waitress, he raised it above his head and fired two accurately aimed shots at the bag. An explosion that was all noise and smoke erupted, briefly hiding everything from view. Lucinda thought that she saw something silver drop from the rope.

As the smoke cleared she realised she had been right. Hanging by a now free right hand from the noose was the singer, to the relief of most, very much alive and smiling and without the blindfold for the first time. Her limbs were now untied and she was dressed in a slinky, long, strappy, sequinned and scarlet dress and matching high-heeled shoes. As the rope lowered her slowly to the ground, she spun round to reveal that the dress was backless save for a few tiny straps over her shoulders and that the skin was almost as perfect as the day she was born.

***

The ovation lasted perhaps three minutes, after which she called for silence and started to sing unaccompanied.

She sung of the horrifying and terrible things in life; sadistic torture, violent rape, unlawful imprisonment, abject poverty, vicious execution, uncalled for and gratuitous violence and horrible deaths. She balanced it by singing of those more pleasant; the joy of freedom, the wonderment of love and the attainment of happiness.

As she finished the song, she just held her hand once to the tumultuous applause, bowed her head delicately and walked calmly from the stage, leaving the audience to its thoughts and feelings.

Copyright 1999 by Ewart Higgins