ZLATA Goddess of flexibility

When she had finished her exercises, she said, “I’m rested now…. Shall we continue?” I was completely amazed but asked what she wanted to do now. She said we would play a little game which would involve the equipment I had built. I asked how the game works and she explained it to me. She would be stretched on the board (in a triple fold) and the crank turned 3 times. Then I would ask her questions from a quiz game. If she got an answer wrong, she would have three choices: 1 – an extra turn on the crank, 2 – she has to stay for 5 minutes in the current position, and 3 – she must spend 1.30 minutes in the backbend under water. I said okay, but that I still had another question. “When does the game end?” She said that she would decide the first time we played it, but that if we played it another day, we could come up with some rules. I told her to get on the board again while I fetched the cards. On the way, I thought, “Strange that she should come up with such a game as she didn’t have a great general education” and wondered how long the game would last. When I returned to the bathroom, she had already done the buckles on her ankles and got into a triple fold. I fastened her wrists, and then wanted to know something else. “What if you answer a question correctly?” “Then I have a balance for the next wrong answer, and won’t have to do the forfeit. You will just move on to the next question.” I had another proposal, namely that she couldn’t choose the same forfeit twice in a row. She thought this was a good idea and would make the game even more interesting. She came up with one more rule, that even if she answered more than two questions in a row correctly, she would still only have one “one in the bank”. I naturally agreed. I brought her into the starting position by turning the crank round three times and we began. The first question was to name the capital of Turkey, which she got wrong as expected and she chose the first forfeit. So I turned the crank around once. The second question she answered correctly, and then she got the third one wrong but this was cancelled out by the previous correct answer. The 4th question was to name the country through which the Volga river flowed. I had chosen a geography question because I knew this wasn’t a strong subject for her! She had no idea so I asked her whether she wanted punishment 2 or 3. (She couldn’t choose 1 as she chose that last time.) She said she would go for number 2 so I checked the time on the clock and then I started doing a crossword puzzle to pass the time. I ignored her for the next 5 minutes. As I asked the next question, I thought she would surely know the right answer, but she didn’t. I was surprised that she chose punishment 1 again because this would just make her situation worse for the rest of the game. But of course I happily turned the crank around one more time. I could feel the extra resistance and I noticed a fleeting wince in her face. But she quickly returned to normal, clearly not wanting to show how uncomfortable the position was becoming. I moved on to the next question which was a little harder. I asked what the capital of California was and she didn’t know either. As a punishment she again chose to stay in the position for another 5 minutes so I returned to my crossword. As the minutes ticked by, I noticed that she was beginning to sweat slightly, betraying the fact that she was finding this really strenuous. When she got the next question wrong, she chose to go into the tub for 1.30 min probably to wash off the sweat and to hide her discomfort from me. She didn’t seem to want to admit that her situation was really hard. When the time was up, I cheated a little and left her in until 1.45 as she wouldn’t be able to tell what I had done. I pulled her gasping out of the water and asked her the next question. She got this one right which cancelled out her next wrong answer. When she got the next question wrong, as she had not quite got her breath back from her time under the water, she chose forfeit 2. So I returned again to my crossword, but I watched her out of the corner of my eye. I had the feeling that she was considering ending the game but at the end of the five minutes she just said, “No, I’m not ready to give up so soon. Ask the next question.” I though okay then, if that’s what you want. “How many states are there in Germany?” She thought briefly and answered 15. “Not quite right. Forfeit 1 or 3?” She chose 1 and so I turned the crank again, which by now was really hard going. Now she couldn’t hide it from me any longer and grimaced. So I wondered whether I should ask her if she wanted to give up. We had been playing for about 30 minutes and she had managed to endure all this time in her extreme position; I was already really impressed. But I asked the next question, “ How many neighbouring countries does Germany have?” She got the wrong answer and her face dropped but still she wouldn’t give up. I asked her which penalty she wanted and she chose 3. So I placed her once more into the cold water and watched my stopwatch. This time I brought her straight out after 1.30 mins as her abdomen was spasming really badly, much worse than the last time when I left her in the tub for slightly more than 1.30 to push her to her limits. As she came out of the water this time she couldn’t have a go at me because she had made up the rules of the game herself. She was completely out of breath, and when she got the answer to the next question wrong, she said, “Ok, let’s go got it one more time. Turn the crank again and then leave me for 5 minutes, even if I beg you to let me go or begin to cry, just stuff something in my mouth and don’t let me out until the whole 5 minutes has passed.” A little perplexed, I said, “OK”. So I turned the crank again and this time it demanded all my effort and her face twisted in pain and she began to groan. After 30 seconds she said I should forget all that she had told me before and let her out, but I remained firm and left her. When she began to scream, I took some clean toilet paper and stuffed it in her mouth. She looked horrified, but I just reminder her that she had asked me to do it. After two minutes there were streams of perspiration from the strain running down her face but I made no attempt to free her. She started trying to free herself from the shackles, but gave up after a short while. After 3 minutes she stared pleadingly at me, but I just shook my head and left her in her position. By 3.30 minutes I had an idea that she should do the remaining minute and a half in the tub, so I asked to say no if she didn’t want to do this. But as she had her mouth full of toilet paper she couldn’t say anything of course! “Hold you breath,” I said, which she did - she could hardly do anything else in her position – and I put her back in the tub. I started the stopwatch again. After only 20 seconds, her abdomen started to spasm. After 1.10 the movements of her stomach were as bad as they had been before, and I could tell that she was virtually at her limit. “Only 20 seconds to go. Just say no if you don’t think you’ll be able to do it!” With 10 seconds to go, her stomach was spasming violently and I could tell that she was in agony and couldn’t endure it any longer. When I hauled her out of the water, her whole face was red and despite the cool 20 degrees of the water, she was sweating from the exertion. She spat out some water; the gag had shrunk under the water and she had been able to spit it out. After I pulled her out, it was at least two minutes before she was able to speak, by which time I had freed her from her position. She did her balancing stretches and then turned to me. She made it clear that I had been very naughty and mercilessly taken advantage of her by putting her back into the water again, but she didn’t tell me off for not releasing her. In the end she added to my surprise that the feeling had been quite exciting. She was still fairly red and said she still needed to do a couple more balancing exercises. I thought she meant on the floor, but she headed in the direction of the bath and jumped in. I just thought, “wow! into the cold water again.” Afterwards she did some more exercises in her wet clothes on the ice cold bathroom floor. I thought for the second time that evening, “Wow. What a woman”. TO BE CONTINUED.