In Hell
by
atara

Rated:  NC-17
E-mail: astarte@uia.net
Pairing:  Xena/Callisto
Summary: In Hell, Callisto finds herself in the hands of the Xena From Hell.
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures.  No copyright infringement is intended, and no financial profit is
anticipated.
Warning: Angst, torture, rape, cruelty, exposure, humiliation, fire, blood, and more.  This one really really isn't pretty and definitely not for the squeamish. 
I'm pretty sure it's the darkest I've ever written.
Note:  If you take the above warnings seriously and read the story anyway, even though you don't like stories with torture, rape, cruelty, etc., then it's your
own damn fault.  If you don't take the warnings seriously, then you're being very foolish.  Otherwise, feedback is most welcome.
Note:  The story takes place in the Hell in which we see Callisto at the beginning of "Ides of March" (Season 4), but it takes place some time before the events of
that episode.  If you recall (or if you don't) a man in Hell with Callisto, conveying a message from an unidentified "Him," is trying to recruit her to go on
a mission to tempt Xena.  He tells Callisto that otherwise Xena will likely be reborn "higher up the karmic ladder."  Callisto says, "Oh.  Right-- she cooks my family, destroys my life—and I end up in Hell while she gets another shot.  That's fair."  Then a hallucination/vision of Xena appears, winks and smiles at Callisto, says, "Gotta love the irony," and disappears again.



In Hell

by atara

Copyright © 2004



In Hell, sleep is rarely allowed, and then only in a seemingly endless variety of painful ways.  It was only inhuman exhaustion that enabled one to snatch any rest
while chained, or bound, or stretched on a bed of spikes, or hanging upside down, or cocooned in layer after layer of heavy fabric while lying inches away from a
white-hot fire.

A hard slap across her cheek woke her up, and the backhanded slap to the other cheek made it clear that she really was awake, not having yet another nightmare.
She found herself hanging by the wrists, up against a cold stone wall, the overtight cuffs cutting into her skin.  She was so thin that she had no extra flesh anywhere, and Hell's manacles pressed through skin and muscle almost to the bone.  Perhaps it was a measure of her madness that she managed to sleep at all, although the constant nightmares were as much a torment as the visions she suffered when she was awake.

This, however, was all too real.  The raven-haired, blue-eyed woman before her raised her eyebrows and smiled beatifically.  "Good morning, darling.  I've missed you so much."

Callisto growled and hissed, wriggling helplessly against the cuffs that held her to the wall.  "Fuck you, Xena!  Why the fuck did they send you here anyway?"

The warrior princess shrugged, answering coolly, "I guess the balance never tipped far enough in my favor.  Although for some reason they've given me some perks.  Like you for instance.  You're my toy, and I can do whatever I want with you."

Callisto shrieked and got enough leverage to give Xena a strong kick in the thigh.  Xena shook her finger slowly and reproachfully in Callisto's face, then plunged an
iron fist into her gut, leaving Callisto gasping and coughing and wondering how Xena had gotten so much stronger in the afterlife.

Xena stepped back, appraising her victim.  "I like your outfit, Callisto.  It suits you."  Callisto wore nothing but the slightest rag-like two pieces that barely covered the designated areas.  Xena reached forward and scooped one of her breasts out and began pinching, twisting, and pulling the exposed nipple.  Callisto gasped slightly, and Xena remarked, "You like it when it hurts, don't you?"  Callisto growled, and Xena delivered a slap across the breast she'd been playing with, then went back to amusing herself with Callisto's nipple, digging in her nails as she tugged on it, twisting it as far as she could and letting it go, while Callisto fought not to react. 

She was furious with herself for being so obviously aroused, but of course, she did like it when it hurt, and from the time she first saw Xena attacking her village, she had hated herself for being unable to eradicate the tall dark-haired warrior from her fantasies.

Xena suddenly produced two clamps on long thin chains and affixed the first one to the throbbing nipple.  Then, almost indifferently, she ripped the fabric off to expose the other breast and attached the other clamp.  She released the manacles that held Callisto to the wall so quickly that Callisto fell to the floor.  Xena reached down for the two chains, pulled them sharply, and ordered "Get up, lazy bitch!"  When Callisto stumbled to her feet, Xena bound her hands behind her back with a rough piece of rope that chafed Callisto's already raw and bleeding wrists.  Callisto tried to test the binding, but Xena just laughed.  "I have many skills, remember, little girl?"  Xena then ripped off the bottom half of Callisto's ragged coverings, leaving her naked, while remarking "Much as I like your outfit, dear, I think you could do better."  Callisto spat at Xena's face, but Xena just laughed, wiping off the saliva.  "You'll regret that."

Callisto's nipples were lanced with pain as Xena pulled them like a leash, forcing Callisto to follow her, leading her on a tour of her environs while the other inhabitants got a brief break from their own torments to point at her and laugh.  She dragged her over to an X-shaped wooden cross with manacles at each extremity.  Xena yanked the rope off of Callisto's wrists,  and manacled her wrists and ankles to the cross with her back on the exposed side.  Xena stood back for a moment, admiring her work, then smiled to herself.  Callisto's clamped nipples were already being crushed against the wood, but Xena took each of the long chains and looped it around a hook on the upper sections of the cross, leaving the chains taut.  Every move Callisto made would cause the clamps to pull sharply at her nipples.

"Ya know," Xena drawled.  "I killed you once, and you became a god, I killed you again, and then I end up here with you.  And you're still acting like a child.  I'm really tired of you refusing to GROW THE FUCK UP!  But since you insist on acting like a little brat, and I can't really kill you any more ways, I'm just going to give you the whipping you've been asking for since I first met you."  Xena uncoiled her whip, walked around to where Callisto could see her, and breathed on the tail of the whip, which immediately caught fire.  "There are certain advantages to this place," murmured the warrior as she positioned herself behind Callisto.

The first fiery slash of the whip across Callisto's thin shoulders caught her completely off-guard as much as she had been bracing herself.  A lash like that felt like a line of flame under the best of circumstances, but to have the lash accompanied by an actual sizzling burn was beyond anything her experience had prepared her for.  Her scream was so piercing that it caused all the other tortured sufferers in that place to cover their ears if they were able.  Time seemed to slow.  With each slash of the whip, Callisto heard the crack, felt her skin parting and then her flesh burning from the fiery tail of the lash.  She screamed so much and so loudly that she found herself running out of breath and having to pause to let out the scream.  As her body jerked and spasmed, she barely noticed the chains pulling on her nipples.  The lashes traveled down her back in two rows, then across her ass, and down each thigh with military precision.  The observers could see the flame itself burning for a moment within each new cut and hear the blood sizzle before the flame went out and Xena laid down the next one.

As Xena was whipping her thighs, Callisto was slumping more against the cross; she was about to reach unconsciousness, when Xena announced, "Oh, no you don't.  I have no interest in whipping a piece of dead meat."  She removed the nipple clamps, unclasped the manacles, first at Callisto's ankles, and then her wrists, and caught the falling sufferer.  She began turning the limp body around, slamming Callisto's back against the cross.  When Callisto dimly realized what Xena was doing, she tried to struggle, but Xena had her wrists manacled before she could even gather herself to fight back.  Ankles manacled again, and Callisto faced outward,  her head drooping in despair, and sobs ripping out of her raw and swollen throat.

"Who would have known you were such a baby?" mocked Xena.  She splashed some water from a mug onto Callisto's face and took a swallow and pressed her mouth to Callisto's, forcing her to drink from her enemy's kiss.  Callisto was too parched even to try to resist the indignity.  Every swallow of water in Hell was gift no matter the source, and every swallow of  water in Hell had to be purchased with some humiliation or torment.  There were worse torments than Xena's lips pressed fiercely to her own, and when Xena bit Callisto's lower lip, drawing blood, Callisto could only be thankful for the additional fluid to swallow.

Xena took the most slender, flexible cane in her hand that Callisto had ever seen.  She cracked it high up on her victim's leg, the tip just catching the soft curve
of flesh on the inner thigh.  Callisto wailed nonstop as Xena slashed at her thighs and crisscrossed her belly with bright red marks, each one oozing blood where the tip had struck.  "You know what's coming next, don't you, baby?" crooned Xena, and Callisto nodded, not having enough fight in her to make a show of refusing to answer.  The crowd around the cross gasped when the cane struck Callisto's breast, and then the other in two quick strikes.  Callisto wailed more loudly and tried to dodge the blows by jerking her body, but Xena never missed her target.  Soon Callisto's breasts were covered by a multitude of fiery lines, and the blood dripped and smeared. 

There was a whisper from the sufferer, and Xena paused.  "What's that, Callisto?  I didn't hear you?"

"Pl-lease stop, X-xena.  Please," murmured Callisto almost inaudibly.

"Reduced to begging.  How the mighty have fallen, " remarked the dark-haired warrior.  "Well, I'm almost done if that's any consolation."

"Oh, gods, Xena please no," Callisto whispered, desperately trying to pull the words out of her raw throat. 

"Smart little girl.  You know what's coming," said Xena indifferently, and raised the cane, bringing it down so the tip struck directly on Callisto's nipple.  Callisto's screams were almost silent; she no longer had the voice to produce them, but her jerking body transmitted her reaction to the pain to the enthralled onlookers, all glad someone else was being tortured.  Xena walked up to Callisto, pinched and twisted the second nipple for a few moments before stepping back and landing another perfectly aimed blow.  Callisto's body arched forward, and then she slumped back and almost fainted again, but Xena squeezed one of the now ruby-bright nipples and wiped some blood from her fingers onto Callisto's tongue.  She then bent down, took a firm grip on one lacerated breast, and casually licked the blood from the nipple, twirling her tongue around it in a grotesque parody of foreplay.

Callisto was sobbing again, but brokenly, as if she had used up all her fear.  Xena took a step back from her and with no warning slashed the cane upward between her legs just once, and the new shock gave Callisto voice for one more loud scream, one that had as much anger in it as pain.

Xena dropped the cane and took Callisto down from the cross.  At first Callisto swayed as if she was about to fall, but her rage surged through her and she broke away from Xena, grabbing a knife from a hiding place in nearby niche in the rock wall.  She lunged at Xena, her teeth bared in animalistic fury, but Xena simply batted the knife out of her hand, took a strong hold of her wrist and nudged the knife with her boot before kicking it upward and catching it her free hand.

"I'm impressed.  Nice try.  But you know I like to play with knives too."  She shoved Callisto onto the hard stone floor, making every wound that touched it flame up with renewed pain.  Xena yanked Callisto into a sitting position, and straddled her legs, pinning her in place.  She tied Callisto's hands back behind her back with the same rough rope and paused.  "Hmm.  What should we do with our new toy?"  She traced the point of the knife lazily around Callisto's breasts, then suddenly held it up to her throat.  Callisto hung her head backwards affording greater access to her throat, and Xena laughed harshly.  "Do you really think I'd be that easy on you?  But that pose gives me an idea." 

Callisto's hair was hanging down behind her and Xena reached around to grab it, pull it into a tail, and slice through it with the knife just above where her fist was grasping it.  "Nice knife," remarked Xena as she held up the blonde trophy, then fished for a moment for a thread and tied it together neatly.  "A souvenir," she explained as she put the cut hair aside, and then she used the knife to cut Callisto's hair closer to her head all around.  Callisto, defeated, had no strength to fight; she just wept at yet another humiliation inflicted on her by her enemy.  "You'll have to forgive me if it's not exactly even," Xena said with a voice full of blatantly false concern.  She had gotten up for a moment, flipped Callisto onto her stomach, and was now straddling her back, so she could reach the back of her head.  "It's a good knife, but I don't think it was designed to cut hair."

Xena finally put the knife to the side, climbed off Callisto and quickly flipped her back over on her back.  Callisto yelped from the pain of her wounds and from
the strain in her arms with her hands still bound behind her back.  Indifferent, Xena shoved Callisto's legs apart and sat between them.  She spread her labia with clinical coldness, inspecting to see where the last cane stroke had left damage.  Satisfied, she began pinching Callisto's clit, which was already burning from the quick slash of the cane.

Callisto moaned desperately, a sound that was clearly not all pain.  Her legs fell further apart, and her hips pumped just once.  Xena laughed and shoved two fingers in Callisto's cunt.  "Gods and goddesses, you're wet.  And that's a damn lucky thing for you."  Without warning Xena formed her hand into a fist and shoved it directly inside Callisto, slamming into her cervix with the first blow.  Callisto groaned loudly and spread her legs wider, while shifting her hips as if to allow easier access.  Xena pumped her fist in and out of the apparently welcoming entrance and commented, "I should have fucked you the first time I caught you making trouble for me.  I knew you were a slut, but I didn't think you'd open up to me that easily."

"I've always wanted you, Xena," whimpered Callisto, completely broken.

"I know that," replied Xena dryly.  "I just figured a psychotic bitch like you would have had more pride.  Can't say I'm complaining though."  She fucked her enemy ruthlessly, pounding her fist in and out, and Callisto's hips suddenly lifted up, her eyes closed, and her lips parted in a hoarse wail.  Xena grinned triumphantly, as she felt Callisto's cunt spasming around her fist.  Xena continued, this time rotating her fist back and forth, using her knuckles to stretch the slick, hot flesh even more.  Callisto soon groaned through another orgasm, the tight muscles gripping Xena's wrist as if she didn't want to release it.

Xena laughed.  "You've put on a damn good show, you shameless cunt, so don't think I was doing that for your pleasure."  As Callisto's panting slowed down, her eyes opened to take in the same group of onlookers who had watched Xena whip her.  Somewhere in the depths of her brain, she knew she should feel utterly humiliated, but her body was too exhausted to register any such complex emotion.  Anyway, this was Hell, and tomorrow another victim would be the freak show of the day.  Realizing that her victim had no more to offer her, Xena yanked her fist out of Callisto's cunt, reached up and wiped her hand thoroughly on Callisto's now-short hair, stood up, kicked Callisto over on her side, untied her wrists, and walked away without a word.

* * *

Callisto woke up lying naked on cold stone, her body covered in welts and bruises.  Memories rushed in at her, and she shook her head to try to jolt them into some sort of order.  She shook her head again.  Her eyes widened, and she slowly lifted her hands to her hair—what there was of it.  It was short and wispy, and going off in every direction.  "No no . . . " she began to murmur.  She sat up and then she saw her own knife lying near her and next to it . . . blonde tresses tied neatly together with a thread.  "Nooooooooo," she moaned in the voice of a little girl.  Then a realization seemed to flash across her cortex, flinging her head backward with its violence as her moans became a piercing, high-pitched, drawn-out scream.

The End



to XWP and HTLJ index page