Do you know the way to Guantanamo Bay?

My hood was removed and the harsh morning sunlight began its slow burn of the dust and filth of my partially clothed body. I was in a wet cellar; I could taste the tuberculosis. I squinted as the blurry amorphous shape above me paced in heels on a stone floor with an unexpected malice. The shape became sharper and the colours stopped bleeding together and slowly a face and a hairdoo emerged from the glare. My hands were still tied behind my back and my ankles bound.

"Trudie?"

"Reports of my death and all that..." She was dressed for extreme bondage, there was no doubt. Her hair was chopped and dyed black and she wore a beautiful cliche - the black leather bodice, the heels and the fishnets. Personally I thought the riding crop was just gilding the lily. It's fair to say that I've never really been in touch with 'my pain' and so the thought of being chained to the ceiling by my nipples has never been high on my list of things to do before I die. Trudie smacked the crop against her own thigh.

"I never believed them."

"You started them."

"Ok, you got me there, but you have to admit, it wasn't looking good for a while."
"You just haven't understood all along have you?"

"Well I can't deny that."

"All those warnings, those attempts on your life, I can't work out whether you're mildly stupid or too stoned to care. Don't worry I'm going to leave you to think about things for a while and perhaps you'll have a things straight in a few days and remember, things don't have to be like this, they really don't." Trudie made to leave.

"Just one thing." I called after her and she stopped with the cellar door half open.

"Go ahead."

"You'd make a great magician's assistant."

"See you in a couple of days, let's hope there's not a high tide eh?" And with that, Trudie slammed the door shut.

“So theys bin trying to kill you toos.” A strange lisped voice came from behind me. I wriggled round in the mud and slime of the cellar floor. I turned to see a barred half-moon grate in the floor of the cellar. A small face shone through the gloom. I had to look twice and that still wasn’t enough. Ben appeared to be

“This might seem like two stupid questions but where am I and what are you?”

“Yous is in the cellar of the wine warehouse down on the river. I swims up here from times to times to sees whats theys is up toos and I’s your next door neighbour back home.”

“You’re Ben?”

“I am Ben the fishboy.” It was true. Ben’s lower half below his barrel chest and muscular forearms resembled a mud flipper. He didn’t even have the luxury of being half seal. On the upside, it meant he could fish shopping trolleys out of the foul mud of the estuary banks with ease. “And that over there,” Ben nodded to the far wall of the cellar, “Is Karl, Mr Konstantin’s son.” I struggled round one more time to see the skeleton of a man, handcuffed to a steel loop on the wall. His feet were bound and on his wrist a digital watch cast a bright reflection on the curved cellar ceiling. I was debating whether the sight made me feel ill given that some skin and hair remained dotted randomly around his parts when the alarm on his watch sounded.

“Now that’s gonna get annoying,” said Ben the fishboy.