Aurelie has become the whipping

Aurelie had to stand on the ball of her feet to prevent the sturdy, thick, iron shackles from biting into her frail wrists. She stretched herself as tall as she could, the muscles of her legs forming trembling ropes under her glistening skin, her ribs forming crenulations on her torso, her belly hollowed in, her arms framing her head. In that position, balance was difficult to keep on a moving ship deck and thus she was constantly tottering. It did not take long for her wrist to become raw from continual grinding against the rusty edges of her shackles.

However uncomfortable that position was, it was nothing compared to the pain that exploded whenever the whip cracked and wrapped itself around her totally exposed body. Whenever a **** misbehaved or was judged too slow or too lazy, the whip master would flail his weapon on her. The lash and the pain threw the young redhead out of balance, screaming. Her entire weight yanked on her wrists and then she had to fight to recover her footing and her equilibrium. Sometime, the whip lashed again just as her toes had found the floor again.

The whip master never attacked the same part of her body so that as the time passed, red, bulging whip marks added to each other, crisscrossing her entire body, from calves to neck. Only her face and her arms were spared. Aurelie spun and swung, never offering herself at the same angle to the wrath of the leather so the welts were uniformly spread on her filthy skin.

The minutes and the hours passed like months and years. No relief ever came. When the slaves were given water, she was given some too, but she was never unhooked from the ceiling. Her legs and feet grew knotted with cramps. She was exhausted, half-mad from the fiery pain each lash added to her ordeal. She moaned continuously, her voice bursting into a screech when she was whipped. At some point, unable to control her bladder any longer, she peed on herself, wetting her long legs and feet, adding to the stench of the oardeck.

It was difficult to ascertain how much time had passed. How long would she be kept like that? Would she ever be freed?