Extract from Resilience
Upon the fifth table lay a slim, brown-skinned girl of eighteen or nineteen, whose soft dark eyes blinked up at the high white ceiling. She lay splayed out on her back, with her legs slightly apart and her ankles tightly bound by leather straps. Her arms were pulled taut towards the far end of the table, where ropes from the winding-mechanism secured her wrists. She was naked, and her lean brown torso was being slowly and painfully stretched.
Her entire body, including her head, had been completely shaved: the only hairs she still possessed were her eyebrows and eyelashes. Sweat glistened wetly on her skin as she struggled to breathe. Her pert breasts heaved up and down in a rapid rhythm, rising and falling above the outlined cage of her ribs. Her dark nipples were shiny and stiff, gleaming like polished chestnuts.
Beside the table stood Lorien Reece, wearing a white coat that reached to her knees and white leather sandals. Her long black hair hung down her back in a loose, shimmering mane. Turning to glance at the doorway, she greeted Michelle with a welcoming smile.
"Come in, come in," she said.
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