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You know pain, because you’ve felt it before. Maybe not like this, but all pain is the same when you really get down to the core of it. A physical sensation. Temporary. Pain can’t harm you; pain can’t even touch you.
And they know that.
You’re a toy to them, the Englishman who can’t feel, they say. They don’t know how to break you, because you arrived in pieces.
The first time they hang you up from the ceiling by your handcuffs, you think about her. And when they kick you in the stomach until it brings up blood, you barely notice until there’s copper running out of your lips.
Because your body might be here, but your mind is back in London. When they come for you-and this is a certainty, not a question-she’ll probably give you a terse smile, trying to hold herself together, and say that she’s recommended you for some sort of fancy title. And you’ll tell her that the only award you wanted was to look at her face one more time. She’ll blush-she’s not made of stone after all-and you’ll give her a kiss on the cheek. At first, her instincts will tell her to rebuke you, but how can she, not after all you’ve been through. So she’ll let her guard down, even if just for a moment. And then she’s going to realize, just how much she loved you all along.
You’ve been unchained from the ceiling. Your arms are most likely dislocated, and you make a mental note to confirm this when the guards get tired of beating you.
For the time being however, they’re smacking you in the ass with a board. It’s almost humorous, really. You’d explain to them just why you’re laughing, if you knew the equivalent word for “kink,” in Mandarin. But, without the grace of total bilingualism, the guards assume you’re mocking them, and perhaps in a way you are, so they drop the board after a few weak paddles. It seems that they’re getting tired. Your apparent invulnerability is really doing hell on their rotator cuffs.
One guard, frustrated, kicks you square in the face with his steel toed boot. You taste more copper.
Ah well, it’s not the first time your nose has been broken. They scoop you up from under your arms and force you down into a rickety wooden chair. Maybe you’ll get a splinter in your ass. Not that you care.
You imagine that you’ll be a sorry fucking sight when the Chinese are through with you. That’s fine with you-you never needed your looks to get what you wanted anyway. Those were always just a bonus. You won’t need them to win any points with her anyway; her husband looks like an overfed bulldog. Really, the more beat up you are, the more willing she’ll be to let you slip past her defences, under her skin...
“Owwww,” you moan at last, so absorbed in your own thoughts, you’ve been entirely ignoring what surrounds you.
You taste something like cloth in your mouth. It’s a glove. There’s a glove and a hand, and a pair of pliers in your mouth, and you see your first canine laying on the floor, embedded in bloody pulp.
And for a split, treacherous second, you wonder what would happen if they pulled out the back left tooth-the one that isn’t a real tooth, but a ceramic holder for a cyanide capsule.
But you push that thought out of your mind, because you’re not going to need that tooth; you’re going to go home and see her again, and she’ll be rendered so amazed by your service to Queen and country that she’ll...
They’re crushing the second canine, grinding the pliers into your gums, and you can’t help but cry out because it hurts, it fucking hurts and you know it.
The admittance of one pain leads to the acceptance of them all, and before you can take a breath to block it out of your mind, your shoulders are aching , and your mind is cloudy from the days without sleep. Your back is burning from where they’ve beaten and lashed you, and your mouth tastes of nothing but cloth and metal, and they’re pulling out the next one now...
“What do you want?” you scream, in a moment of temporary weakness. You’ve refused to talk from the time you arrived, and your own voice scares you.
What frightens you even more, loathe as you are to admit it, is that the guards laugh at you. They’re laughing.
“Englishman,” the one begins. He’s large and brutish, probably the leader of the little pack which loves to devise new ways to make you squirm. “We do not want any information from you. We want to punish you.”
You stare at him, confused. This must be another psychological trick, to make you lose hope.
“For what?” you spit back, your own blood spurting from your mouth.
“You are Tiago Rodriguez, are you not?”
You nod, best as you can. No use in denying it when they already have you.
The guard smiles at you. It is cruel.
“Mr. Rodriguez, several months ago, you hacked into Chinese databases and stole the names of our agents embedded in foreign countries, before distributing them to our enemies. This was a mission unauthorized by the MI6. I do not know why you felt compelled to do such a thing, nor do your superiors at MI6. Perhaps you were trying to exact revenge for the six British agents we were holding captive. If this was your plan, then I must congratulate you on a job well done, as your superior officer approved a simple trade of the agent who hacked us for the six agents we were in custody of. And now, here you are! No one is coming for you, Mr. Rodriguez. They’ve left you here to die.”
“That’s a fucking lie,” you manage to eek out through swollen lips. But your heart is pounding in your chest, because you know, you know you shouldn’t have taken those names. She had been so angry at you that night, and angrier still when you suggested that if she wanted to punish you so badly, why not just spank you and get it over with.
“Do you know just how long you’ve been here?” the guard asks you.
“A long time.”
“Five months. No one is coming for you. They sent you to us, a present tied with a bow, to do whatever we wanted with.”
“M would never,” you whisper, more to yourself for affirmation than anything else. But, he hears your.
“Ah yes, Em, that’s what you call her, isn’t it? She’s the woman with whom I negotiated the terms of your imprisonment.”
It’s a lie. It’s a lie. He is lying to you; he must be. He intends on breaking you, and then extracting the information once you have been broken.
But, you can’t be broken, and that’s why she liked you. You were too much of a mess to torture; didn’t care about living or dying or pain or any of it. The only thing you ever cared about was her.
But they know about her. Don’t they?
“M would not cut a deal with a terrorist...”
“But, we’re not terrorists. We’re the People’s Republic of China. Our two countries have had a rocky history, certainly. But, as your friend Em said, the exchange of you for our prisoners is going to usher in a new age of trust and diplomacy between British and Chinese intelligence.
Just like her. For being such a ruthless bitch, she certainly loved her diplomacy. You think it’s all rubbish, really. Why would the Empire need to play by anyone else’s rules?
“Are you going to kill me?” you ask, breathless.
He shrugs.
“She said we could. But, I think it’s more fun to let you suffer the way our agents you uncovered suffered.”
The guard punches you square in the jaw. Another tooth breaks. Your jawbone makes a sickening crack.
“There’s a cyanide pill in your back left molar; we know there is. We pulled them out of our other British captives; they were too valuable to be killing themselves. But, we don’t want you. No one wants you anymore. I’ll give you a choice. It’s the same one our agents got. We’re going to leave. When we come back in five hours, if you’re not dead, we’ll pull the tooth.”
You’re not going to give them the satisfaction of finding you dead. They are lying to you. Someone will come for you. You will see her again, and she will kiss you on the forehead and tell you that it’s always been you that she loved and that she’ll never let anyone hurt you again...
“Oh, and I thought that you might want to see this, before you make your decision.” The guard dangles a photograph in front of your face.
It’s M, and she’s with the Chinese Minister of Intelligence. The photo is printed on newsprint, and you’re sure it must be a fake, because she wouldn’t negotiate with him, but you know how image manipulation works, and it’s real.
You don’t want it to be real. It’s some sort of mistake. It must be.
“This was the meeting where she authorized your capture. Christmas Eve, I believe it was. Her first meeting with the Minister. We were all very excited.”
You keep looking at it, practically stick your face in it, and it’s real. Certainly, it doesn’t prove anything on it’s own, but no one is coming for you, are they? And they’re letting you kill yourself. If you had any information, they wouldn’t risk that... they would have just pulled the tooth right away.
The guards have left, but they kept the pliers on the floor.
She gave you up.
After all you did for her, she gave you up. It wasn’t enough.
You weren’t enough.
And when you realize that, that no one is coming for you, and you will never see her again; that you have suffered so long to gain nothing in return... you will never kiss her and she’s never going to tell you that she’s loved you all along, because she doesn’t.
She doesn’t love you. Not one bit.
You can’t be broken with pain or torture, because you never cared if you lived or died; all you wanted was to please her.
And you failed at that.
The pliers are in your mouth before you know what you’re doing, ripping at the the back of your molars. You’re going to end this pain right now, because you can live with beatings and blood, but not with this.
The tooth cracks, the pill opens; you suck down cyanide and acid.
Which is when it occurs to you, as you feel your stomach begin to protest, and your eyes involuntarily shut, that perhaps instead of being upset with yourself, you should be angry at her.
That perhaps, she is the one to blame, for taking all the love and loyalty you had to give and spitting it out, leaving you to die.
You allow yourself, for your last few seconds on Earth, to feel anger.
And then it is very dark.
When you wake up, you’re not entirely alive anymore.
But you’re still angry.