The Gathering Storm - A Group XS Story

"I FOUND YOU!"

Tania Sarducci saw the subject line of the email written in Russian and felt her pulse immediately quicken. She'd risked everything to flee her native Russia, to escape from the evil Mistress XS and her companions who'd tortured and enslaved her back there. But even five thousand miles wasn't far enough to escape Group XS. By chance, she'd learned that they had set up shop practically in her own backyard, continuing their wicked practices in a new country with new innocent victims.

With Tania's help, Catherine Grace was able to break up the human trafficking ring and put Dr. Zorhof and Dr. Saavik behind bars. Tania had testified in the trial, relating the horrible abuse Group XS and the two doctors had subjected her to back in Russia. In exchange she was granted legal status in the United States and the help of the witness protection program. But Tania could never rest easy. She knew Mistress XS had never been caught. She was still out there somewhere. Maybe she'd moved on to someplace else. Maybe she was still nearby, biding her time, plotting her revenge.

Tania's hand was shaking as she clicked on the email. She quickly skimmed the contents, suddenly relaxing as she saw the signature line - Nadia, her best friend in Russia, from before her life was shattered by Group XS.

Dear Tania,

I am so excited to have finally found you! I hope you are well. Lately I have found myself in the company of several rich and powerful people. They take me to such wild parties where I dance and sing for them all through the night. With their help I was able to track you down. I hope you don't mind.

As it happens, my patrons are attending a fundraiser for some of their American friends and I will be visiting near you. I would love it so much if you would come to see me! I have attached a copy of your invitation. Please attend, we have so much to catch up on.

Love,

Nadia

P.S. The fundraiser is a masquerade party. Be sure to wear a sexy costume - maybe you can find a wealthy, handsome boyfriend just like we always dreamed ;-)

Tania looked up from the email. She couldn't believe it was Nadia. Poor, sweet, innocent Nadia who had been swept up by Group XS alongside her back in Russia. She was glad to hear that she seemed to have found a life for herself after experiencing such horrors. She'd always dreamed of being an entertainer, she had such a beautiful voice.

Tania skimmed the invitation attached to the email. The party was in a few days at a hospital upstate, just a few hours drive away. She made sure to mark her calendar and started thinking about what costume she should wear.

---

Tania drove up to the iron gate and pressed the button for the intercom.

"Name?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Tania. Tania Sarducci," she said.

There was no response. Instead, the electronically operated gate slowly swung open. Tania drove up the long and winding driveway. "This place is practically in the middle of nowhere," she thought. She passed through another gate, this one set inside a fence topped with spool upon spool of razor wire. "What kind of hospital is this?" she asked herself, wondering about the seemingly excessive security. Her question was answered as her headlights illuminated a sign: Van Pelt Psychiatric Hospital. It was a nuthouse, she realized. The fences and the barbed wire were there to keep the dangerous inmates locked up. She sure hoped they were kept away during this party.

She followed the drive up to a pair of buildings. The first was a large mansion that was a peculiar mix of Victorian austerity and gothic excess. It was a square red brick house, three stories tall. The front had four columns supporting a canopy which stretched for the width of the building and forming a balcony for the second floor rooms. The upper floor was set in the roof where small windows protruded, the ornate tiles and ridge to the roof contrasted starkly with the tall, dark and brooding institutional building that stood beside the mansion. The utilitarian concrete slab structure was cold and unwelcoming. What few windows there were had thick bars covering them. It looked more like a prison than a hospital. Tania pitied the poor souls committed inside.

In the dark, lights could be seen blazing from behind the drawn curtains in every window of the ornate house. By contrast, the institution next door had scarcely a glimmer of light showing, its lifeless interior matching with the cold, unwelcoming edifice. Tania pulled her beaten up, old car into an empty space beside the rows of limousines and luxury automobiles. She stepped out, feeling her white high heels crunch on the gravel beneath her feet. She tiptoed up to the marble steps, careful not to fall and dirty her tight white dress as she moved over the uneven surface. Tania had decided that simple was best for her outfit - she wore a white cotton dress that came to her upper thighs, just far enough to cover the tops of the white thigh high stockings that clung to her beautiful toned legs, which were shaped nicely by her four inch pumps. The plunging neckline of her dress fell low on her generous bust, presenting her beautiful tits nicely. The costume part of her party dress merely consisted of a puffy white tail pinned on her back above her hips, and a black and white half-mask over her eyes resembling a cute, fluffy lamb. There were fluffy wool cuffs around her wrists at the end of her long sleeves. She could feel the soft, floppy lamb ears on her head wave as she ascended the steps.

She knocked on the door and it swung open a minute later. "Good evening. You must be Tania. Please come in," the handsome Asian gentleman said as he ushered her in the door. He was dressed like a businessman from the 1920's, his finely tailored three piece suit and newsboy cap looked great on him, making Tania's costume immediately seem low effort. "My name is Vincent. I work for the woman hosting this little soiree. If there's anything I can get for you, don't hesitate to ask. The party is right this way."

He ushered her into a ballroom that must have taken up half of the first floor of the house. There were about two dozen guests already present, mingling and chatting among themselves. Tania felt like all eyes turned to her as she entered, but the guests quickly rejoined their conversations. Tania's eyes scanned the room, hoping to spot Nadia somewhere amidst the crowd, but she was unable to find her friend. She made her way into the room. All of the guests wore such intricate costumes, many of them concealing their identities, perhaps Nadia was one of those people and hadn't seen her come in.

She made a lap of the room to continue her search. She heard conversations in English, but also in Russian - a language she hadn't heard since fleeing her homeland several years before. As she strolled about, she couldn't help but feel that the other guests were secretly stealing glances at her, but whenever she turned toward the person, they carried on, deep in conversation with another guest, acting like she didn't even exist. Maybe this was a bad idea, she thought. Maybe she didn't belong here.

She accidentally bumped into a muscular man dressed as an executioner. His cold, dark eyes locked onto her and sent a tremor down her spine - his leather half-hood resembled something she'd seen back in her days of captivity. Tania involuntarily gasped. His bulky arms flex beneath his leather vest.

"Pardon me, miss," the executioner said with a suddenly friendly smile that immediately disarmed Tania, making her feel foolish. He saluted her with the floppy rubber axe he held in one hand.

A waitress strolled through with glasses of wine balanced on a tray. She was dressed as a 19th century southern debutante, with a crushingly tight corset further emphasized by a broad, frilly hoop skirt. Her milky, round bust spilled out above the corset, constrained only by the top of her dress. She wore a feathery sequined Mardi Gras mask strapped to her face. Her hollow green eyes seemed to dart nervously back and forth around the room as Tania approached her to get a drink. Tania grabbed a glass and was about to ask the waitress if she was ok, but another guest approached, snatched a glass for herself and then turned to Tania while the waitress stiffly walked away.

"You'd better watch yourself around me," the woman sneered.

Tania stepped back in surprise. Did she know this person? She must have Tania confused for somebody else. "Excuse me?" Tania replied.

"You'd better watch yourself," the woman repeated. She paused. "You know, because you're a lamb and I'm a lion. Rawr!" she laughed.

Tania looked down at the woman's costume. She wore a tight, orange, velvet leotard that hugged every one of her extraordinary curves. Her mask was fringed with tufts of real looking animal fur and a soft lion's tail hung from her lower back.

"Oh, of course," Tania said blushing, feeling foolish once again.

"I'm Lisa," the woman said, brushing her long blonde hair back and offering Tania her hand.

"Tania," she replied, shaking hands.

"Oh, right. You're Nadia's friend," Lisa said. "She's a lot of fun. We got to spend some time together earlier today, before the party."

Tania immediately felt better. Finally there was someone here who knew Nadia, maybe she knew where she was. "You know Nadia? I'd really like to talk to her. Have you seen her?" Tania asked.

Before Lisa could answer, however, a man dressed as a surgeon grabbed her elbow. "Excuse me, Miss Shaw, may I have a word?" Lisa followed him away. Tania did a double take - something about that man seemed familiar, but she couldn't recognize him beneath his scrubs, medical cap, and surgical mask. Only his piercing gray eyes showed. She quickly downed her glass of wine and continued her search for Nadia. She grabbed a second glass of wine from a waitress dressed as a robot - a shiny metal box covered her body from her neck to her thighs, with holes for arms and legs, which were wrapped by corrugated plastic tubes. A metal bucket concealed her head, with two round screens for her to see out of.

Tania drank down this next glass quickly, too. She was starting to grow concerned that she wouldn't find Nadia. Where was she? Tania spotted Vincent over on the side talking to a stout woman in a terrifying wolf costume and scurried over to him. "Excuse me, Vincent?" she said, interrupting. The wolf glared at her and then stormed off. "Do you know where I can find Nadia? She was the one who invited me here, and I came all this way to see her. Can you take me to where she is?"

Vincent smiled and looked at her. "You'll be seeing her soon enough," he said. "She's putting on a little performance for us later. I bet she's preparing right now. I'm sure you'll have a chance to meet after the show. Until then, just relax and enjoy the party."

Tania couldn't relax. She just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about this whole situation. She waved down another waitress, this one dressed as a slutty nurse, and grabbed two more glasses of wine. Perhaps if she'd looked a little more closely at this waitress she might have noticed that beneath the nurse's surgical mask the woman's jaw seemed to be stretched unnaturally wide. Instead, in her increasingly inebriated state Tania found herself admiring the decidedly un-nurselike six inch heels that were strapped onto the woman's feet as she patrolled the room.

Tania soothed her anxiety with wine and soon found herself drunkenly swaying back and forth as she loitered on the edge of the party awaiting the arrival of her friend. Her mind was foggy with drink, but she thought she kept hearing bits of words jumping out from the din of conversation that didn't seem part of normal party discourse - words like 'slave' and 'punishment' and 'torture'. She told herself she was just imagining things, but decided that she'd better go outside to get some fresh air and clear her head. But when she got to the door, Vincent was blocking it.

"I'm sorry, miss. I can't let you leave just now, our host is about to give a speech," he said.

Just then there was the tinkling sound of someone tapping a fork on their wine glass to get everyone's attention. All eyes turned to an older woman dressed elegantly as a queen. Her dark gray hair had been pulled back into a bun, and a crown populated with what looked like actual jewels rested upon her head. Her long dress was such a high quality that it seemed like it had, indeed, been made for royalty.

"Welcome everyone to our grand reopening party," she said. "For those of you who don't know me, I am Martha Van Pelt. I am the driving force behind the scenes of our organization. I provide the guidance, the vision, and, perhaps most importantly, the money that allows us to do what we do." There was a titter of laughter and light applause from the guests. "I know the past couple years have been difficult. Some dear friends had been taken away from us. But, starting tonight, we will begin to make things right. Starting tonight we will turn the tables. Starting tonight we will have our revenge!"

There was a murmur of excitement amidst the crowd. Tania was left wondering if she'd heard that last part right. Revenge? What did a hospital fundraiser have to do with that?

"Now, if you'll all follow me. We've arranged for some special entertainment downstairs. One of our members has brought a featured guest, Nadia, from far away to sing for us."

Tania's heart leaped. Finally, she thought, she'd get to see her friend. A set of double doors on the far side of the room opened and the gathered crowd made their way through. Tania followed along at the back of the crowd. There was an elevator in the other room, taking seven or eight guests at a time downstairs. Tania waited impatiently in line. She didn't want to miss Nadia's performance.

"These old buildings," Vincent sighed next to her. "The elevators are so slow."

Tania nodded, and continued waiting. She was in the last group of people to enter the elevator. It was just her, Vincent, the wolf, and the surgeon she'd seen earlier. The doors closed slowly and the elevator began its descent. Tania stood in the front, facing the doors, eager to see her friend. The surgeon was standing uncomfortably close behind her.

"Tania," the man whispered in a Russian accent. "It's so nice to finally see you again."

His voice was immediately familiar and sent a chill down Tania's spine.

"Again?" she asked in Russian, afraid to turn around and confirm the creeping fear that entered her mind.

"Yes," the man said, switching to Russian himself. "We didn't get a chance to talk at my trial. The last time we met was at a party in our homeland, right?"

Hearing him speak in his native tongue finally broke through cobwebs in her mind. Her heart skipped a beat. She froze.

"Saavik," she whispered, just as the elevator doors dinged and slid open. A shrill scream from outside greeted them at the same time. Vincent and Dr. Saavik each roughly grabbed an arm and dragged Tania out of the elevator.

"That's right," Dr. Saavik sneered. "You thought you could put me away. But I am not disposed of so easily."

Tania stepped out of the elevator and into a scene straight from her nightmares. She was right in the midst of a Group XS torture dungeon. The party guests who had arrived ahead of her were shedding parts of their costumes and grabbing bound and naked slave girls down from tiny cages suspended from the ceiling, or dragging them out of pits in the floor, binding them to racks or chaining them to rings.

She saw the debutante waitress from before, now with a large red ballgag filling her mouth. Her hoop skirt had been removed and she was bent over a waist high bar with her wrists and ankles shackled to the floor. A drunk cowboy had wrestled the tight leather crotch strap from between her legs and twisted out the oversized dildos from her holes, and now he was vigorously fucking her in the ass. The debutante squealed and cried as the cowboy pounded her ass, but the only person in any position to help her was the fairy princess who had knelt down before her, yanked the slave's tits out of her dress, and snapped a pair of vicious nipple clamps onto them. The princess was now linking the clamps to the floor with a chain short enough that the debutante's tightly corseted waist couldn't possibly bend to relieve her.

The robot waitress had been forced into a standing spread-eagle up against a rack. The bucket over her head had been removed to reveal a harsh metal bit gag. The bar in her mouth had a U-shaped bend in it, pressing down against her tongue and jabbing at the back of her throat. The corrugated tubes on her arms and legs had been removed, revealing tight leather straps with inward-facing spikes spaced every few inches up and down her limbs. The shiny box covering her torso had also been discarded. Underneath her tits bulged from between a set of heavy presses that crushed her breasts flat and caused them to sag under the added weight. Lisa Shaw, the lion, was playing with her labia, snapping clamps onto them and then stretching them towards the straps around her thighs with elastic cords.

The sexy nurse waitress had shed her uniform, keeping only her stockings, heels, and red cross hat. Her elbows and wrists were bound together behind her back and she was on her knees being savagely face-fucked by the friendly executioner Tania had seen before. The dildo gag she'd had hidden under her mask at the party lay on the floor next to her.

Everywhere Tania turned she saw domination, cruelty, and abuse. Saavik and Vincent dragged her, kicking and screaming, deeper into the room.

"Isn't it marvelous, Tania?" Saavik beamed with his trademark smile. "We're back, stronger than ever before. I was even granted a work-release from prison so that I could attend this party. We can spend all weekend together, just like old times! Unfortunately I must return to my cell on Monday, but soon, with the aid of your friend, Catherine, I will be freed."

The trio stopped in front of a raised dais and Tania's screaming ceased. She had found Nadia. Her friend was bound and suspended before her. She hung in a stress position that Tania recognized as something called "the parrot's perch". She was faceup with her knees draped over a four foot high horizontal bar and her ankles bound together. Her arms passed under the bar, but were tied together at the wrist with her hands above her lower legs almost like she was trying to curl into the fetal position. With the bar supporting her weight, Nadia naturally wanted to hang down with her upper body toward the floor, but her bound wrists prevented that. Instead, she was left loosely hugging her legs, her core muscles tensed to try and relieve the strain on her arms and the bar digging into the backs of her legs.

The position left all of Nadia's most sensitive areas worryingly exposed and it seemed not even Nadia had been spared the indignity of a humiliating costume. As fitting for someone hanging in the parrot's perch, she was dressed like a songbird. A colorful latex hood was stretched over her head. It was cover in short, fluffy feathers with a decorative pointy beak over her nose. Her mouth was held wide open by a large ring gag pressed behind her teeth. A staggeringly wide butt plug had been jammed into her ass, stretching the muscles of her anus as tight as a bowstring. Long, colorful ostrich feathers jutted out from the center of the plug, just barely grazing the floor as they drooped down. Her fingers had been tipped with curving razor sharp claws so that if she wasn't careful when she flexed her hands, she would shred the skin on her arms and legs.

Tania stared into her friend's sorrowful blue eyes. It wasn't clear how long the woman had been hanging there, but she was clearly in significant distress. "Nadia," she whispered. "How did they catch you?"

"Catch her?" Saavik scoffed. "She never escaped. She's been with our Russian chapter for years."

Tania was stunned. She couldn't imagine what horrors Nadia had seen after years of torture and abuse. She looked up and down the bound woman's body, seeing scars, burns, and marks all over. She felt like she was going to be sick. She couldn't believe she had been so foolish. She'd fallen right into their trap, naively arriving at Group XS headquarters like a lamb to the slaughter.

The wolf who had come down on the elevator with them stepped up onto the dais with Nadia. She was handed a chair and a small hard case. She unzipped the case, showing the contents to Nadia and whispering something in her ear.

"Nnngh! Nnngh!" Nadia begged behind her gag, suddenly growing more animated as the wolf sat down near the girl's vulnerable nether region.

The Wolf lowered her hood and leaned in close to Nadia's trembling pussy.

"Zorhof!" Tania exclaimed, instantly recognizing the evil doctor who had tortured her countless times during her captivity.

"That's right," Saavik replied. "All your old friends are here, Tania. We've missed you so much."

Tania stared in disbelief as the evil doctor began withdrawing needles of varying length and thickness, and stabbing them into Nadia's increasingly agonized body. There were short, thick needles for her labia - inner and outer. And long, skinny needles for her tits, piercing in from one side and pushed along until they erupted out the other. There were even needles inserted into the ring of her tightly stretched anus. The ones jabbed into her nipples were inserted perpendicular to Nadia's chest, starting at the top of her nipple and slowly pressed inward. A final thick needle was earmarked for Nadia's clit. The frantic girl bucked and thrashed as Dr. Zorhof teased her most sensitive flesh out of hiding. Nadia stiffened and shrieked as the needle entered the very heart of her womanhood.

With the needle case finally empty, Nadia fell limp and cried. But Zorhof was only just getting started. A machine was wheeled up onto the dais and the wicked doctor began running thin wires from the machine to the end of each needle. When she was finished, she moved her chair behind the machine and began adjusting dials and switches. A second chair was then brought up on stage.

"Attention everyone," Vincent called out to the room. "Tonight we are honored to have a special performance by Mistress Svetlana, accompanied by her songbird, Nadia."

Several of the guests stopped what they were doing, dropping their whips and clamps and came to gather around. A woman in a long, elegant dress carrying a cello came and sat down in the empty chair. Saavik leaned in close to Tania. "You're in for a treat. Mistress Svetlana has been practicing this performance for over a year with your friend. It's really quite beautiful. The nice thing about electrical torture is that the victim never gets used to it. It's just as agonizing the hundredth time as it is the first!"

The cellist led off the composition, playing a haunting and sorrowful melody, gradually building in intensity. When the piece reached the right point, Dr. Zorhof pressed several buttons on the device she sat in front of. Nadia stiffened and screamed a high, shrill scream. The cellist subtly adjusted her notes, forming a dismal chord with the sound of her instrument and the screams of poor Nadia. Zorhof cut off the electricity. Nadia fell limp, gasping for breath while the music carried on without her. Her respite didn't last long. The song soon demanded her participation once more. Zorhof activated the device again, flipping different switches and somehow rending a scream of a different pitch from the miserable, suffering songbird.

On and on, the music played. Tania watched helplessly as her friend was tortured over and over. Saavik and Vincent kept a tight grip on her arms. Finally the song ended. The audience filled the room with rapturous applause. Nadia hung her head and sobbed. "Nadia... poor Nadia," Tania cried.

"It was by happenstance that Mistress Svetlana noticed that your friend screamed in such pure, perfect notes," Dr. Saavik told her, giving her a director's commentary that Tania had no interest in hearing. "After much experimentation, she was able to find ways to produce other pitches, tuning her like an instrument as it were. Nadia is very lucky. If it weren't for her talent, Group XS probably would have lost interest in her by now. Instead, she gives private performances all over the world. Isn't that marvelous?"

That wasn't the word Tania was thinking of.

After a brief interlude to allow her vocalist time to recover somewhat, Mistress Svetlana started up another song. This one was much more up tempo and had Dr. Zorhof furiously flipping switches to keep up. Nadia writhed and jerked under the electric onslaught, her eyes bugging out of her head as she was brought high and low. The song kept building in intensity. Nadia's parts came more frequent. She finally reached her breaking point right at the end, where, in the most dramatic fashion, Dr. Zorhof flipped every switch to 'on' and cranked every knob to maximum. Nadia's voice broke. She screamed but no noise came out. Her body shuddered violently under the electric current. Every muscle tensed. Her face grew red. Her blood pressure spiked.

Suddenly there was a 'thump'. The crowd gasped as the enormous butt plug lodged into Nadia's ass spontaneously shot free, landing on the floor just behind her. Tania stared at the slimy mass of rubber the size of a lavalamp with her mouth agape. She couldn't believe how such a large object had been inserted into somebody, nor how much pain and power was required to expel it in that way.

The audience roared with approval. Nadia had mercifully passed out during the agonizing finale. Her body still twitched and shuddered as Zorhof powered down the needles. Several of them had shaken out during the peak of her final stanza and now little streaks of blood dribbled out of the empty puncture holes onto the dais below.

Mistress Svetlana stood up and took a bow. She thanked Dr. Zorhof, then glared at her unconscious slave girl. No doubt she was thinking about how best to punish her for feinting during the performance.

"Simply remarkable," Saavik muttered. Tania had been driven to tears by the incredible abuse of her friend. She gathered herself as she felt Vincent and the doctor tighten their grip and start to drag her away.

"Unfortunately, your friend must return home to Russia tomorrow, so this will likely be the last time you see her. But, luckily, you are now here, back where you belong, and we can pick up right where we left off," Saavik said. "Well, maybe not right where we left off. See, you have caused us no shortage of trouble from your collaboration with Catherine Grace, and our members have all decided that you must pay quite dearly for your crimes. Starting now."

Tania's adrenaline surged. She had to escape. She struggled against the grip of Vincent and the doctor, nearly breaking free despite their superior strength. However, additional men came to their aid and, with one person each holding an arm or a leg, Tania was carried from the room and taken, screaming, to a different part of the dungeon.

---

Tania hung from a metal frame securely bolted to the wall. The frame was like a wide metal ladder, shaped similar to the number '4' - her torso fixed to the sloping side, facing inward, her arms straight down the uprights, and her thighs attached to the underside of the horizontal part. The effect was to thrust her naked ass out invitingly, and the way her legs had been drawn apart to the edges of the frame, force her tender pussy to be on display.

She was in pain from her position. They had not been kind to her. Her breasts had been pulled between two of the rungs on the ladder-like frame - rungs peppered with short, sharp, spikes. The rungs had been slowly ratcheted together so her breasts now bulged obscenely like two dark purple balloons. She had not been strapped to the frame; she had been bound to it with wire. The thin metal cut into her flesh where it supported her tense and frightened body.

Tania had been waiting for nearly an hour now. They had bound her in position and then left, leaving her to think of all the awful punishments that would soon be in store for her. It was cold in the room, though her trembling was not due to the chill but rather from her overwhelming fear.

She became aware of a new figure entering the room. She tried to turn her head to see who it was, but a wire pierced through her tongue and wound around the rung in front of her prevented any but the smallest movement. Then she was aware of the newcomer coming close to her, aware of soft female hands stroking her, aware of an expensive perfume that she instantly recognized. She felt a leather-gloved hand stroke gently down her back and expertly manipulate her pussy, teasing the lips apart and massaging her most intimate areas, teasing her clitoris until she felt a shudder of pleasure. Abruptly the fingers stopped.

A soft female voice whispered in her ear in Russian. "You never could control yourself, could you? Perhaps I need to teach you another lesson."

Tania knew the voice. It was a voice which had haunted her nightmares and waking hours for years. A voice from which she had run halfway around the world - Mistress XS. She started to scream.

She was screaming long before the first blows of the bullwhip struck her back; she was still screaming as the heavy cat found the soft flesh between her legs; she continued screaming when the cane found her bulging breasts. She stopped screaming as she passed out from the rain of blows she had received from the rubber hose.

The dungeon was quiet for the first time in over two hours; quiet, that is, except for the rhythmical 'swish, thunk' of the rubber hose which continued the unconscious girl's relentless punishment.

Mistress XS finally put down her instruments of torture. "Welcome home, Tania," she told the limp, battered beauty hanging from the rack before her. "This is only the beginning."

(Note: This scene was adapted from the preface to the original Group XS story.)