SOLVED. Adult Sci-Fi Short Story. Main character comes to align with enemies who torture him. [s]

[Rob]

A short story, I think. The main character somehow ends up in enemy hands, possibly as a volunteer - some sort of spy. They are tortured - limbs removed, eyes put out, the full horror. Their torturers are similarly disfigured. The experience ends up with them seeing the torture as a right of passage. So when, at the end, a new person arrives from their people (perhaps the next spy trying to find out where they have gone) they are now just another of the disfigured group and they start torturing, their attitude being 'well, I went through it, they should too'.

Any ideas?

[Ky]

On the Uses of Torture from Piers Anthony's Anthonology?

[Rob]

Ah. I think you might be right. Which is a bit disappointing 'cos I have gone further and further away from that author as I have got older.

But still, SOLVED.