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I love bright intellectual young women they make my job so easy.
This lovely young thing is Alex. Alex is or was a junior associate at one of Manhattan's most prestigious law firms. I found Alex at a cocktail party at a penthouse on the Upper East Side.
When the moment came I merely whispered in her ear, "Alex it's time, come with me." In an instant her demeanor completely changed, her smile faded and she fell into a state best described as a waking dream. Then without saying a single word she arose from her seat and meekly followed me out. A short limo ride later Alex and I arrived at my secluded mansion in the hills just north of the city. Tonight, Alex would meet the Virgin and fulfill her destiny.
The gift of mind control is one of the most useful abilities my master, Lucifer, saw fit to bestow upon me. By the time our limo pulled away from the curb thirty eight stories below that cocktail party, no one in attendance that night would remember that either Alex or I had been there. No one we passed on the street as we walked to the waiting limo would ever remember us being there. Even the limo driver would soon forget that he'd ever driven me into the city that night. -
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Alex awoke from the most bizarre dream she'd ever imagined possible. And yet it had all seemed so real. In her dream she'd left the cocktail party accompanied by a handsome but completely unknown stranger. It was only when they'd reached his home that her dream had become even more bizarre.
She could remember him smiling as he'd suggested, "It would be a terrible waste to ruin such a lovely evening gown, I think you should take it off." She could still vividly remember unzipping her evening gown and allowing it to slowly slide down her body to pool around her heels. The way he'd smiled at her as he offered her his hand as she stepped out of it. And the overwhelming rush of carnal delight she'd experienced as this complete stranger said, "Alex, turn and bring your hands behind your back so that I can bind your wrists before I strap you into the Virgin."
I think it was the chill of the cold metal against my bare shoulders that finally awakened me to this terrifying nightmare. Everything I'd dreamt had come to pass. I could see my lovely but expensive evening gown lying in a crumpled heap where I'd so casually discarded it. The feel of the leather strap biting painfully into my tightly bound wrists. The terrifying site of all those hideously sharp looking spikes coupled with the firm and utterly inescapable embrace of the leather straps that held me helplessly bound within this horrifying metal sarcophagus. -
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Seeing that all too expected look of unimagined terror mixed with a look of utter and total confusion on his guest's beautiful face Hans smiled with amusement. He hated the ones who lost all reason at the realization of their terrifying situation. He'd still butchered them of course but it weren't nearly as much fun.
Staring into Alex's terror filled but still questioning eyes he asked, "I see you've remembered how you arrived to be here and you might as well give up all hope of rescue since no one at that party remembers use leaving together or that even that either of us were there tonight."
Seeing the look of disbelief on Alex's face, he continued, "My master saw fit to grant me the power to cloud people's minds, so I can assure you that no one will ever remember either of us being there or how you came to be here."
Her initial shock slowly subsiding into pure unadulterated terror, Alex stared into her captor's cold eyes and asked, "OK, I believe you but why an Iron Maiden? From what I've read most serial killers prefer a more hands on approach when it comes to murdering their victims."
Hans smiled with satisfaction, so few of his victims ever have the courage to ask, "First Alex, please do not refer to my creation as an Iron Maiden, that's a term that's been used to describe all the crude attempts to recreate the horrifying perfection of the Virgin. You're standing within the real Virgin of Nuremberg, the one I created back in 1609 on the orders of the High Bishop of Nuremberg. You see his lordship, the High Bishop, was rather possessive and he suspected that his favorite concubine was secretly having an affair with one of his lordship's stable boys."
Alex recognized to look of pure delight on her captor's face as he continued, "As it turned out his lordship's suspicions were soon confirmed. Less then a year later the stable boy went to the headsman while his lordship's mistress went to the High Bishop's dungeons for her long overdue appointment with the Virgin."
Alex watched in horror as her captor paused to chuckle, "Of course, his lordship only confirmed his former mistress's opinion of him when he turned and fled the dungeon less then ten minutes later. He hadn't the guts to stay and listen as his former concubine died screaming in agony."
Alex, despite the terror threatening to overwhelm her senses, simple had to know, "How long did the High Bishop's favorite concubine take to die?"
Alex could see the momentary look of regret on her captor's handsome face as he answered, "Sadly, she didn't last all that long. As I recall she lasted just over 6 hours before she expired, hardly a record." Pausing as he gazed upon Alex's shapely firm body, her captor continued, "I wouldn't worry your pretty little head off Alex, with you're firm, aerobically exercised, physique you'll suffer for at least 18 hours before you die." -
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Alex watched in fear as her captor slowly started to close the Virgin's spike lined front panel. In desperation she asked, "How is it possible? How can you be the one who built the original Virgin and still be here, alive, over 400 years later?"
Hans paused to respond, "After the brutal execution of his lordship's favorite concubine I was approached one dark night by Lucifer, the prince of darkness. Lucifer offered me the chance to become one of his servants here on earth. It was that or I'd burn for all eternity in the hottest fires in hell."
Alex noticed the momentary look of sadness in her captor's eyes as he commenced once again to close the Virgin, "I hope you can understand Alex. I took the offer." -
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Watching in terror as the painfully sharp looking spikes began once again to move steadily closer to her helplessly bound body, Alex struggled to say anything that might give her captor pause, "Before you kill me, can I ask one final question?"
As momentary sense of relief filled Alex as the spike lined front panel of the Virgin once again stopped its terrifying approach as her captor responded, "So, what would you truly like to know before you die?"
Knowing this could well be her last chance to delay the inevitable, Alex fought to keep the sound of fear out of her voice as she asked, "I still don't get it, why me? This bargain you have with the devil, you get eternal life in exchange for killing me?"
Hans laughed darkly and responded, "Alex, don't be silly. Do you really believe your life is all that important? Or, did you think Lucifer a fool. As his servant I'm granted eternal life, but it's an installment plan with payment due on the last night of every month." -
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Hans could see the sudden look of horrified understanding dawning deep within Alex's lovely blue eyes as he continued, "I see that you finally understand. Lucifer gives me eternal life but at an obscenely brutal price. On the last night of every month, ever since that fateful night in 1610, a young woman has died in agonizing torment within the Virgin. Upon their death the devil takes their soul and I'm granted another month of life."
Too overwhelmed to respond, Alex could only watch in horror as those razor sharp spikes slowly approached her eyes as her captor continued to close the Virgin's spike lined door.
"Alex, I know you may still find this hard to believe. But I didn't go to that party for the express purpose of seeking your life. I picked you because it was easy." -
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Alex could do nothing but stare helplessly at the slowly approaching spikes, the sharp points already to close for her eyes to focus on. Never in her darkest nightmare could she have imagined a death as obscenely brutal as the one she was now doomed to endure.
Alex desperately struggled not to cry out as those hideously sharp spikes reached her helplessly bound body but quickly found herself screaming uncontrollably as the front of the Virgin finally closed, stabbing its deadly spikes deep into her brutally mutilated body and eyes. -
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Hans stood quietly listening to Alex screaming in unrelenting agony as he watched her blood slowly beginning to flow down into the basin carved into the front of the Virgin's stone pedestal.
Soon it would be midnight and another month of his eternal life would commence. Another month of eternal youth and vigor paid for once again by the pain and suffering of another young woman's doomed soul. -
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The darkest cruelty of the Virgin wasn't in the overwhelming agony it inflicted on its victims, rather it was the diabolically slow and lingering nature of their eventual demise. The Virgin's razor sharp spikes stabbed mortally deep into the woman's body, brutally mutilating her, while their smooth conical shape helped seal the woman's deadly wounds to keep her blood lost to a minimum.
In truth, the slow steady flow of Alex's blood pooling within the Virgin's stone basin had more to do with the involuntary movements of her body against the unyielding steel spikes caused by every agonizingly painful breath she desperately struggled to take. And inevitably, like every other women who'd stood within the Virgin's agonizing embrace, Alex would ultimately bleed out and die.
Watching as Alex's blood slowly began to fill the Virgin's basin Hans could hear the haunting sound of a ghostly clock sounding twelve times as the devil marked the beginning of yet another month of his eternal existence and for Alex, screaming from within the brutal confines of the Virgin, the start of the final day of her moral existence. -
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It was well into the following evening before Hans heard Alex take her final desperate breath from within the Virgin, the slow steady flow of her blood having filled the Virgin's basin.
Hans could feel that almost overwhelming deathly silence that filled the chamber now that Alex's desperate struggle had finally reached its inevitable conclusion. That momentary sensation of terrifying dread that always seemed to accompany Lucifer as he claimed one more soul from the Virgin's deadly embrace.
In the end, Alex's death hadn't set any new endurance record but even Hans had to admit she'd done quiet well, surviving within the Virgin for almost 20 hours. Marie that pretty French courtesan still held the record, she'd lasted just over 23 hours back in the winter of 1723.
All that remain was to clean up the mess and dispose of Alex's mutilated remains. Fortunately, Hans had thought to install an industrial incinerator in the basement.
Perhaps, if he'd still had a soul, Hans would be troubled by all those women he'd so casually consigned to the fires of hell but he'd long ago come to terms with his pact with the devil. And besides, on that fateful night so long ago, Lucifer had gone into great detail describing just the kind of hell awaited him if he'd refused the devil's bargain, better eternal life as a servant of the devil then to spend all of eternity like that.
Later, as he watched Alex's body burning in the incinerator's flames, he briefly wondered how she was adjusting to her new life in the fires of hell. If she'd thought that her time spent dying within the Virgin was bad how she was adjusting to her new existance, trapped without the hope of death, within the spike lined embrace of the Virgin, especially since this one would also be glowing white hot for all eternity. -
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Once again, the Virgin of Nuremberg silently awaits its next victim.
Perhaps next month it'll be your turn... -
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The "Virgin of Nuremberg" figure graciously provided by Davo, who's delightfully fiendish products are available over at the Renderotica Store.