Charlotte shivered in the cold cell where she had returned in the morning with her fellow captive and servant, after their evening of lubricity, after their night of pain for Charlotte, of shame for Josepha.
Charlotte always felt the burning of the ropes, even she had been released for hours.
She had been released but she was not free of her movements. Chains had replaced the ropes for the two captives. Josepha's wrists were hold behind her back by iron manacles and it was all. Charlotte was more heavily hampered. Manacles locked her wrists behind her back as Josepha but they were not common manacles as the ones that held the servant captive. A kind of turnstile allowed tightening the metal at will! And the bearded guard, Igor, had tightened it! Charlotte's elbows were chained with the same system and her wrists were pulled against the elbows chain, forcing her forearms horizontally, with the effect of inflating her biceps stuck in the elbow's handcuffs. These chains were connected to an iron collar joining her tender neck to a ring stuck at the bottom of the wall of stone. This last chain was long enough to allow the prisoner to sit down or to lie on the ground, but with her knees always bent. Her ankles were also chained and connected to her wrists behind her back.
Charlotte was sitting, silent, her long red lashes closed. The Russians did not give her a new chance to escape.
Hours passed slowly. Charlotte did not speak, trying not to move to avoid bruising her skin against her irons.
Josepha could walk and she walked from her place to the heavy gate and from the gate to her place, near her poor mistress. She knew that she was in distress, treated mercilessly pending her execution. Josepha did not even know what would be her own fate. The brave girl only hopped that if her young mistress was executed, it would be the same for her.
And she cried, her head over naked Charlotte's freckled shoulder. The countess opened her tired eyes and kissed the brown neck of her lovely servant.
When the night felt down on their dark cell, Charlotte turned on her belly, face down on the cold stone, her feet up, held by the chain joined to her wrists. It was the less painful position she could find to sleep all in chains. But it was cold in the cell until she felt a naked skin stuck against her naked skin.
Next morning found the two captives tight the one against the other one in the prison where a slender ray of light passed by the small window. Charlotte had so been tired of her events of the last days before that she had managed to sleep in her uncomfortable position, in spite of the bracelets of steel which squeezed her flesh.
"Could you scratch me the nose?" The countess asked of a lazy voice." My hands are busy!"
"My hands too!" Josepha laughed with a noise of chain when she moved her arms always held behind her back.
"Use your own nose, stupid girl. Ouch"
Charlotte had given a small cry, more surprise than pain. Instead of rubbing her nose against her, Josepha had nibbled it.
The two captives laughed together, so strange in a cell! Then Josepha pushed one more time her strong and brown body against pale and athletic Charlotte's body and they took another nap.
They were woken by a noise of key in the lock. Breakfast came and the bearded guard came with it! He dealt with Charlotte entangled in her chains and deposited a quick kiss on the freckled shoulder twisted behind her. He kissed also Josepha brown shoulder before opening her manacles. The black woman massaged slowly her reddened wrists.
The man chuckled: "I released your hands so that you feed this naughty small bird"
The naughty bird frowned but she did not say anything. She felt ridiculous enough to crawl on the floor to get up on her knees.
She ate in the palms of her servant's hands, she ate because she starved, in spite of the shame which made her blush!
But the worst was to come. When the captives had eaten their frugal meal, the bearded man replaced handcuffs around the wrists of the maid.
" I suppose that you need to pee after all this time chained in this cell? So come with me, you first!"
He pushed out of the cell the poor servant who twisted her hands chained behind her back with a sad look to her mistress.
All the time she was away, Charlotte struggled in her chains. It was useless but the only revolt she could hope against their fate. She heard unrefined laughter which resounded in corridors and wondered what could take place. What made these rough men to the poor maid?
Josephine was pushed in the cell twenty minutes later. Her arms were always pulled behind her back, her head was lowered and her black eyes closed on her shame.
Charlotte did not get time to ask something. Igor had unchained her neck from the wall and taken the long chain in hands. He fired brutally at this chain, obliging the prisoner whose wrists were always fixed in her back and gathered in another chain joining the ankles to walk frog there.
It was slow and humiliating, even more humiliating when the man pulled her in a large room where four men were playing cards. They stopped their game when Igor shouted:
"It's our Countess's show, now!"
And Charlotte continued her ridiculous walk towards a dark place at the bottom of the staff room. The countess went pale. Igor pulled her in a narrow and stinking recess, with a hole in the middle of the muddy ground. These were the toilets of the guards! Charlotte hid with difficulty her disgust and asked shyly:
"There is no door???"
Igor pulled harder on the chain, hurting her fragile neck:
"Come in, we'll not spend all morning long!"
Charlotte closed her eyes. She made her needs under the looks derisive of the guards of the prison and their salacious comments.
When Igor chained her again to the wall next to Josephine, she shuffled:
"I want to die…"
The next day, both captives underwent the same shameful ceremony
When Charlotte was back in the cell, Igor did not let her sit down against the wall but he made her kneel down in front of the ring where he fixed her chain as usual. He took then a big rope which he squeezed around the white thighs before tightening it to the same ring as the neck's chain.
"You are a pig!" Charlotte protested, realizing that her new position was as so indecent as uncomfortable.
"Wait for the visitors, your big ass opened!" The man laughed at her… and he went out.
Charlotte stood like this for hours, her red hair falling down over her green eyes, hiding her pain and her shame to her servant and friend. The hard rope dug painfully in her thighs and with time passing by, she had only an idea: slide on her side to relieve the poor knees and the soft flesh of the thighs.
Finally, she was going to cry for help when the door opened suddenly. She heard a cruel laugh, a feminine laugh:
"What a beautiful ass! An imperial ass! You had a great idea. I want that all the men see this show before we take our captives outside! Yes, Charlotte de Maupas., we are going away and all together. I have heard that French secret services are looking for you furiously. This place is no more in safety so let us go into another one, lost in the mountains of Caucasia.