Slave Woman's Grave Keeper Pt. 07

"That evil, young witch who designed the spell, err.. the curse... was sent to the Joppa dungeons. She was deemed too dangerous to allow to live amongst the commoners, for indeed, as designed, Piper became incapable of communicating. She couldn't even write words anymore. That's what her family and friends have said."

The Dirt Room woman yanked on the hair still attached to the left side of Maisie's head, exposing the right side to the doctor's clippers. The motor kicked in again and the doctor pressed the cold blades against Maisie's temple quickly grinding through another pass over the top of Maisie's head before resting again.

"I have kind of wondered how a highly intelligent woman such as yourself, Maisie, would choose to have a relationship with someone who is little more than a pretty, human shaped, walking music box. You seem like someone who thrives on intellectual debates. I thought that perhaps you just had shallow tastes. Piper is very pretty. She has an amazing singing... err, humming voice. But how does she challenge your intellectual desires?"

The clippers engaged again and the doctor pushed the blades carefully around Maisie's ear ensuring that the entire right side of her head was reduced to stubble.

"Well, last night as I was monitoring you in your sleeping cage, I heard you speak with Piper. I heard the words that you used. And she would respond, humming, seemingly precisely timed notes and pitch changes - very pretty sounds, but, at the same time, very complex. And, after her little song was complete, I listened to your words. You were conversing! I could only understand your side of the conversation, but there was no doubt about it. You were having a conversation with someone who had supposedly been cursed to never communicate ever again. Brilliant!"

The Dirt Room woman grabbed Maisie's ear and harshly yanked her head to the other side to allow the doctor to shear through the hair on the left side of Maisie's head. After she finished, she set the clippers down and pulled out a mirror, holding it to allow Maisie to examine the damage that the clippers had done. Without the use of any guard, her head was covered by no more than a thin layer of stubble. Maisie frowned as she saw herself in the mirror, but merely pressed her lips tightly together.

"You know, I am really curious how you two beat the system. What is the nature of this beautiful and unique language that the two of you have developed? What sorts of details can be expressed? Just imagine the richness of emotion that can be communicated by a single note from pretty Piper's throat! I really do want to know."

Maisie turned from the mirror to look at the doctor, lips still held tightly.

"Divinica, on the other hand, does not share my interest," the doctor said, placing the mirror back in the case. She pulled out a complicated tool which looked like a set of tongs though accessorized with a curving canister of some sort centered vertically near the business end of the tongs. A Dirt Room woman stepped up quickly placing the heel of her hand on Maisie's forehead, then reaching down to grasp her nose.

"Get the fu...!" Before Maisie could say more, the Dirt Room woman pressed the fingers of her other hand into the hollow's of Maisie's cheeks allowing her to force Maisie's mouth open. The doctor shoved the tongs inside Maisie's mouth grasping her tongue tightly in the rubber coated surface of the tongs and pulling her tongue sharply outward.

Maisie let out a mewling sound, her limbs flexing desperately against her restraints.

The left side of Maisie's tongue was being harshly pinched by the design of the tongs - so much so, that Maisie was concerned that they intended to simply cut her tongue out completely. The doctor however, released a little tension and Maisie reflexively tried to shift her tongue to the right to get away from the most painful pinch. However, the doctor was acting with intention and soon, Maisie's tongue was not only well gripped by the tongs, but also perfectly centered within their grasp.

The doctor yanked sharply on Maisie's tongue then pulled a trigger. A long, thick curved needle shot from the canister piercing the tip of Maisie's tongue. Maisie gagged and shrieked but quickly stopped trying to form the choice set of curse words she had decided to use when she realized that the needle was still well embedded in her tongue and every sound she made caused her tongue to pull painfully against the impalement. The Dirt Room woman released her nose, but Maisie chose not to move at all for fear that her tongue would be physically ripped from her mouth. The doctor twisted some fixture on the tongs and disassembled the tool enough to be able to extract the gripping tongs from her tongue. However, the vertically oriented needle still impaled her tongue and its length was such that Maisie could not open her mouth wide enough to pull her tongue back into her mouth. The cold steel, curved needle pressed against both her upper and lower lip.

Maisie's eyes were streaming with tears and blood was beginning to drip down her chin. She began to let out anguished grunts. The doctor had turned back to her case and pulled out some sort of brown bag. The doctor pulled a thin chain from the brown bag. The final link was an open ring. The doctor raised it to Maisie's mouth mounting the ring in the upper end of the needle impaling her tongue. She then began pulling the needle down, slowly slipping it from the tip of Maisie's tongue. It burned as she pulled the needle, sliding it through the open wound.

Finally, the doctor pulled the needle all the way out and flicked it off to the side. But now it was the ring that had slipped through Maisie's new piercing and the doctor squeezed the ring to close it, shaking with the effort, until there was a click.

"We'll have to use wire cutters to remove that again," the doctor said with a smirk on her face.

Maisie's tongue still burned. She could feel the link of chain that the ring was attached to with the tip of her tongue. She could feel more links press against her lower lip and trail down her chin. When the doctor moved a little, Maisie could feel the weight of the chain pull painfully on her tongue, forcing more tears to fall unbidden.

"Swish this around your mouth, love," the doctor said as she unceremoniously dumped a small cup of blue liquid in Maisie's mouth. "It's anti-bacterial. Improves healing." Maisie coughed and choked on the liquid. It burned like hell when it drained through the wound in her tongue. She finally jerked her head forward letting the medicine slosh from her mouth and splash down across her naked breasts. "Such a mess," the doctor said.

After towelling off Maisie's chin, the doctor held up the brown bag. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the structure of the bag. The bottom was shaped like a face and the top was lined with metal eyelets - a thick cord attached to pull the eyelets tight. It was a leather hood. Also, the chain that descended from her mouth disappeared through the opening and into the hood.

The doctor held the hood up higher to show Maisie a small grommet at the point which would align with the wearer's mouth where the tongue chain passed through and less than an arm's length later ended in a prominent sturdy ring.

Horror blossomed in Maisie's soul when she realized that the chain locked through her tongue was also permanently linked to the hood. The diameter of the end ring was far too big to fit through the tiny grommet in the hood. As long as her new piercing was embedded in her tongue, the hood would be attached to her. And she did not think that they would simply let it dangle around her neck.

The Dirt Room woman had grabbed the back of Maisie's head as the hood was lifted towards her face. Maisie was not typically claustrophobic, but she started to shake as the doctor began to open the hood. There were no holes for her eyes. In fact, there was padding to keep the eyes closed. Also there were cups on each side meant to isolate her ears and restrict her hearing.

"Nooo! Please!" she tried to say around her sore tongue but already the hood was being pressed to her face, quickly swallowing her head. The pads pressed against her eyelids, pushing them closed. Her nose slipped into a pocket build for it. Two grommets were cut into the hood in line with her nostrils in order to allow her a good supply of air. Maisie felt the chain being teased through the grommet aligned with her lips and her pleas for leniency were stifled when the chain pulled against her new piercing and forcing the tip of her tongue to anchor along the back side of her teeth.

With her freshly cropped hair, they would find no difficulty in securing the hood around Maisie's head. Quickly the lacing was taken up and as the hood was sealed around the back of her head, the cup that held her chin slowly pulled up and in forcing Maisie's mouth to close. The thin chain pressed uncomfortably between her teeth and passed between her lips which were beginning to be pressed together with enough pressure to render them motionless. From there the chain slid through the narrow grommet at her lips and hung down into her lap.

Her words, deteriorated by restriction, soon were reduced to muffled moans. Her ears were ensheathed in sound reducing cups. While she could still hear the sound of the doctor's voice, it was certainly greatly muffled.

"I look forward to you future communications with your beautiful girlfriend, Maisie," the doctor said. "She will have to enunciate her... I don't know... her musical phrasing? And she will need to sing much more loudly for you to hear. And you, of course, will have to resort to her musical language... so, all should be fine!"

The doctor put her palm on Maisie's leather sealed head as the Dirt Room woman tightened a flap of leather over the secured laces of the hood, sealing it with a padlock. She began to drum her fingers. "You CAN speak Piper's language, can't you Maisie? Well... we'll see."

Maisie's wrists and ankles were unlocked from the chair and she was led blindly through the dungeons below the cloister of the Holy Women of the Sacred Hand to the edge of the pit where her cage was waiting for her. They pushed her into the barred cylinder and she heard the door slam and lock. The cage was pushed over the edge and swung out into the darkness supported by a single heavy chain secured to the ceiling high above.

They hadn't locked her wrists at all this time, so Maisie raised her hands to her hood trying to find a way to loosen its grip. She quickly found the padlock and realized the folly of escaping. Her hands returned to the chain descending from the grommet at her mouth. They followed the links down to the end ring which had been secured to a staple in the bottom of the cage. She would not be able to stand - chained to the floor by her tongue.