Image... a city somewhere in China, there is a beautifully flowered stage set up in the middle of a square. Before it, at a low table, sits a very beautiful Chinese woman; she is quite young, her hair is long and jet, her face and hands are the color of gold. She is smiling; the others gathered around the table, most of whom are men, lift their cups to her in salute. She acknowledges each one in turn, bestowing the gift of her radiant smile freely.
Then she rises and walks perhaps just a bit hesitantly to the platform and ascends its short stair. On top, among the flowers, is a low stool. She stands beside it, flowers all around her, her eyes lighting briefly on each watching face.
Slowly, teasingly, she begins to remove her elaborate costume. As her firm small breasts are exposed, some of the younger men below speak admiringly of them, of her dark and turgidly erect nipples. She laughs with them, touches her nipples with her fingertips; they become even more rigid.
She pushes her skirt down, exposing more of her golden skin. Her thighs are perfection, softly rounded, smooth. She runs her hands down them, touches the small dark triangle between them; her fingers come up wet. Again, the men make appreciative noises; again, she laughs with them.
She reaches down beside the stool, her hands come up holding a rope. She flings it up, over an overhead beam; the other end is already tied off. The end dangling has already been tied into a slipnoose...
With a smile, she steps up on the stool and reaches for the rope. Carefully, she lifts her hair, fits the rope under it; with sure hands, she snugs it around her slender neck. Reaching one hand up, she tugs at the rope, finds it secure.
Her smile in place, she waves at her audience. Then she places her hands against her flat stomach, twines her slim fingers together. There is a moment's pause...
Then, with a tiny foot, she kicks away the stool. It clatters off the platform, leaving her hanging.
The audience is rapt; her face darkens but she keeps her beautiful legs still, she keeps her hands clasped against her stomach. Her head is tipped away from the rope, her mouth is slightly open but her eyes are closed as she swings gently back and forth.
Then she opens her eyes, looks out at a specific young man. She smiles and winks at him; she cannot breathe, she is strangling.
Unhurridly, he ascends the platform, stands beside her, looks up into her dying eyes. She turns her own eyes, looks down at him; her fingers untwine, her hands drop to her sides. He watches her closely; her eyes remain fixed on his. Her legs are beginning to jerk involuntarily now, her fingers coil, then open; there is no movement of her chest. Her eyes are glazing; she smiles at the young man a final time. Urine drains down her leg, splashes among the flowers.
The young man looks up at her closely; then he turns to the audience, announces her death. There is mild applause...
Image... A very young and darkly pretty girl, her features marking her as an islander, is preparing a pot over a low fire. Methodically she chops vegetables, puts them into the water. Nearby, a man watches; sometimes he touches her affectionately. She is clad only in a brightly-colored skirt; the man idly plays with her dark brown breast, and she grins at him as she works. Without stopping, she asks him if he is sure about his dreams, about the visitors he says are coming and their demands for a very special dinner. He answers that he is. She looks into his eyes for several seconds; she shakes her head, but, dutifully, she returns to her cooking.
Finally, she is finished; her stew is ready, except for the meat. She turns to look at her husband; he has removed his pants, his only garment, and his erection is apparent. With a rather fragile smile, she removes her skirt. While he lays still on his back, she first takes him into her mouth for a while, then straddles his body, impaling herself on his penis. Holding her lower lip between her brilliantly white teeth, she moves on him. After a while, she quivers with an orgasm; seconds later, his body jerks as his arrives. She climbs off, checks the water. It's boiling; she tells him so, and hands him the carving knife she was using to chop the vegetables.
He kisses her; she hugs him tightly, then lies down on her back near the fire, stretching herself like a cat. He kneels beside her, runs his hand across her body, leans down to suck at her nipple.
Then, keeping one hand on her breast, he stabs the knife into her stomach. It sinks deeply into her, just below her navel.
Her body jerks violently; she grimaces, closes her eyes, bangs her head back against the floor. Leaving the knife buried in her body, he watches her for a few seconds. Her blood wells up, runs off her stomach, pools on the floor. Her hands twitch, she balls and opens her fists. Finally, she seems to regain some of her control; she opens her eyes, makes a little whimpering sound, but she nods to him. He nods in response and starts cutting, straight down through her abdomen, ripping her belly open as far down as her pubes.
As he cuts her she stretches again, more of a spasm this time; her mouth is open in a soundless scream, her eyes again closed. The man draws the knife out, lays it aside; picking up a length of rope lying nearby, he ties her wrists, then tosses the end of the rope over a roof beam and hoists her up so that her trembling toes are just off the floor. Her entrails hang glistening from the slit in her belly; blood and others fluids spill onto the floor, a huge pool has formed there.
In a weak voice, she tells him that one of her legs will be an ideal meat to add to the stew. He agrees. While she continues to tremble he cuts a deep ring around her thigh near the top, then cuts another around her small ankle; finally he connects them by cutting down the center of her thigh, across her knee, down her shin. She begins to moan when he teases the edges of the skin up with the knife; when he begins to tear it off, the moans change to gurgling sobs. Even so, she manages to speak, to express her hope that their guests will enjoy the meal.
Once her leg has been skinned, he uses the knife to hack off her foot; she gasps, sobs, moans, jerks. He does not hesitate, he begins slicing into her upper thigh, just at the edge of the skinned section; blood squirts out, spraying across the room. She makes no further sounds; her head hangs limply on her chest, and she does not react when he wrenches the bone free from her hip. Paying her no further attention, he separates her leg at the knee and places both skinned pieces in the pot. He makes no attempt to clean up the mess; he tells her that, according to his dream, the guests expect to see her butchered body and the room blood-spattered.
But she, of course, cannot hear him now. Image... A large crowd has already gathered around the scaffold; the executioner is waiting there, a huge man, bare-chested. All heads turn as a young and very beautiful dark-haired girl mounts the stair. Behind her, her hands are bound, but no one pushes or escorts her, she is alone. To all appearances she is walking to her death of her own free will.
Reaching the top, she greets the executioner with a warm smile, as if he were her friend. He says nothing, he does not return it; he steps up to her, seizes the lapels of her white dress, and rips it down the front. The crowd is gleeful as he presents her to them without her clothing; her legs are long and lovely, her breasts firm and high. As she is displayed, she keeps her head up, her eyes searching the crowd; there is no embarrassment there, no shame.
He steps away from her; boldly, she turns to stand in front of the block and drops to her knees. Once down, she lays her head on it. She moves it around a little, as if trying to find a more comfortable position. At last she becomes still; she waits for his stroke, waits to die.
But it does not come. Instead, the executioner pushes down his black pants; he is already erect. Stepping behind the girl, he tucks his penis between her buttocks and rams himself roughly into her. She raises her head as he slams his hips back and forth; she looks pained, but not surprised. The onlookers shout and applaud; the executioner keeps pumping for a few seconds, then stiffens against her. Finally he pulls out, his penis drips semen, and a little blood can be seen staining it. The girl sighs, lays her head back on the block, closes her lovely eyes.
The executioner turns, picks up his sword, holds it near her face. She opens her eyes, looks at it; then he lifts it, lays its edge on her slender neck. She shudders a little, feeling the touch of the steel, but she does not move. Slowly, he raises it again. The onlookers are frenzied, yelling and cheering. There is a long and pregnant pause. Then, suddenly, it sings through the air.
The cold steel slices neatly through her delicate neck, and her head tumbles into the basket while her body jerks wildly, a geyser of blood shooting from the stump of her neck. Quickly, he reaches down, picks up her head by her hair, holds it high. For a moment, while the head drips blood, her eyes blink rapidly, her lips form words. But no sound comes. Image... a scene somewhere in the Mississippi bayous; a Cajun girl, a teen-ager, is approached by her reluctant parents. The mother weeps, the father is stoic. They show her, but do not offer her, a large quantity of bills. She begins to cry as well. Outside, night has fallen.
She cries, she cling to them as they hug her; but nevertheless, they send her out into the night. As she goes, they ask her if she knows what she must do. She replies that she does. Then she turns away, begins walking down one of the dark paths leading down among the sloughs. The expression on her face alternates between fear and determination.
As the cheerful light of the little house recedes in the distance, she stops, takes off her shoes and socks, walks on barefoot. After another hundred yards, her pauses again and strips off the rest of her clothes; her young breasts are very firm and high, her nipples stand out in the cool night air. Utterly naked, she walks on, walks toward the bend in the path.
She slows a little as she rounds the curve; her breathing is ragged, her eyes dart about wildly. When she hears a sound behind her, she bites her lower lip, but she doesn't turn. There is a roaring sound from the woods, then several more such sounds. She ignores these too and walks on, but she has begun to tremble.
A man, as naked as she is, creeps out of the woods, creeps up behind her. In each hand he holds a peculiar three-tined knife, each of the tines hooked like an animal's claws. She has seen him, she knows he is there, but she still does not turn, she makes no sign. She cannot restrain a little whimpering sound. He stalks her for a little while, then finally leaps at her like a wild beast.
His left arm comes around her chest, the claw-like blades hook into the flesh of her right breast and tear three four-inch gashes in it before imbedding themselves firmly. She gives voice to a pitiful cry, a cry of pain and terror. He holds her by her now profusely bleeding breast; she can feel his erection pushing against her buttocks. After a moment, he uses his other knife to slash three shallow scratches across her throat. He brings the knife down, brings it around in front of her, and hooks the claws into the upper part of her right thigh. She cries out again, her voice almost that of an animal; blood spurts from her thigh as she grabs the knife. She merely holds it, she does not try to pull it out of her flesh.
"I am the panther," he says in a low, gutteral voice. "And I have caught you! You are ours!" He digs a little harder with both claws as he speaks.
Tears of pain run from her eyes. "You have caught me," she sobs, saying what she knows she is expected to say. "I am your prey!"
He leans down, licks blood from her neck, bites it hard. "And now that I have caught you," he asks, "what can I do, what should I do, with you?"
She sobs again. "As you will," she answers. "As you will!"
He holds her tightly against himself, and four more men emerge from the woods. They too are naked, they too are carrying the three-tined knives, but each bears only one. She watches them come, her eyes large, her body trembling.
Three of them stand alongside her, alongside the man holding her; they reach out with one hand apiece. One holds her left breast, another her left thigh, the third grabs her arm. The fourth man stands in front of her; he too reaches out, runs his hand over her slashed right breast. Then he smears some of the blood on his face, licking a little of it off. He puts his hand between her legs, fondles her genitals. His erection bounces.
Then, still holding her genitals, he brings up his three-bladed knife, touches the hooked points to her abdomen, just a little below her ribs on her left side. He glances at her face. "You are the prey!" he barks. "What shall be yours this night?"
"Death shall be mine this night...!" she replies ceremoniously.
"It is so!" he cries. Then he presses in with the blades, pulling his knife down at the same time.
The hooks catch her flesh, the points of the blades enter her body, they start tearing three inch-deep grooves down through her abdomen. New blood spills out. The girl does not even cry out; she gasps, pushes herself back against the man holding her.
Her assailant is relentless, he continues to drag the blades down, ripping her belly all the way down to her pubic hair. Then he withdraws his knife; quickly, he changes places with the man who was holding her breast.
This man stands in front of her too. "You are the prey," he says. "Shall I spare you?"
She fights for breath for a moment. "No," she gasps finally, still reciting her lines. "No, you must not! You are a panther!"
He smiles, he holds her genitals, he presses the hooks of his knife under her ribs on the opposite side. She closes her eyes tightly; he drags the knife down, and three new gashes are opened in her soft belly, crossing over the first three. She moans and sags against the man holding her.
As he finishes, the other two men reach around with their own knives, hooking them into her sides, one high, one low. At the same time, they drag them across, shredding what is left of the skin and muscles holding her abdomen together.
Her intestines fall free, hanging down below her knees, blood streaming over them. The men seize them, begin pulling them on out of her body, stringing them out on the ground, then hacking them off. The girl has lost consciousness, but she breathes still.
When they have finished disembowling her, they carry her off to a little cabin deep in the swamps. Once there, they quickly tie her hands, then suspend her by her wrists to an exposed beam on the porch. They can see that she is still alive; patiently, they sit down and wait. Blood and other fluids drip from her mutilated body steadily, but she does not die.
After a long wait her eyes flutter open; she groans, looks down at her ruined body, then looks at the five men. A little blood stains her throat; much more is streaked down her side from the tear in her breast. Her abdomen is awash in it.
Seeing that she is awake, the men gather around her; her eyes move from one face to another. She no longer looks as if she is in pain, no longer looks fearful. She just looks tired.
Two of the men lift her legs, each holding one by the calf; She looks down, but reacts almost not at all when they begin slashing her thighs at the point where they join her body. Two other men focus their attention on her breasts, ripping them repeatedly until they hang from her chest in tatters. She trembles, urinates, moans slightly, struggles very weakly against her bonds.
The fifth man, the one who initially captured her, waits until the mangling of her thighs and chest is well under way; then, rather delicately, he uses the hooks of his three-tined knife to cut first into her throat, then into the sides of her neck. Blood squirts out; her eyes roll back in her head, her body relaxes.
One of her legs comes free from her torso; the man tosses it onto the ground, and a firehose-stream of blood sprays from the stump. He starts on her arm, but by that time her other leg is gone as well, and her blood drains out rapidly. An immense pool of it has collected under her.
The first man's knife grates against the bones of her neck, and a moment later her head comes off as well. A new red fountain shoots up from her severed neck, but only for a moment. As they continue to dismantle her body, the blood merely drips.