by Hans Meijer
"I'm sorry, Master. I expect I'll learn." Desperately, she added: "Please marry me. That would settle everything."
He caressed her wealed skin tenderly. "You little idiot, d'you suppose I haven't thought of that? We might get away with it. But then where would I be? I'm no nine to five type."
Corey was breathless with pain and a new prospect. "We could come back here. After we'd waved the certificate around and everybody saw I was happy it would seem perfectly natural."
"What then?"
Corey flushed. "So, O.K., this is crazy. But I want you to put me back on the coffle. I like it. It's healthy and exhilarating. I get along with the other girls… and there's an… excitement." She twisted shyly against her tied hands. "You don't have to sell me. You'll always have a chain around somewhere. Keep me on it."
"That's the most damn fool thing I ever heard from a girl."
"Well… yes, I know. I'd run away screaming from it with anyone else. It's just you. When I'm locked tight on your coffle I'm yours. I'm safe."
Seth Burdett kissed his slavegirl softly with a new tenderness. "You really mean that, don't you?"
"Of course I do!"
Silently, he untied her, led her back to camp, and padlocked her back in place among the other girls. Corey watched him seek his sleeping place. She was happy. No questions had been answered, but she had not been whipped for asking the last of them.
The girls delighted in her weals. Half viewed them dubiously as something that could happen to them. But the rest of them knew. Corey was much teased as having been chosen a favourite. She gathered that in this part of the world to be well whipped was to be well loved. It was whispered to her with many giggles that if a girl was not whipped, at least a little, on her wedding night she had chosen the wrong man. New York and Boston might never countenance such an erotic honesty, but Miss Corey Gibson in Africa was quite willing to believe.
She revelled in the coffle. She realised her happiness arose from the constant erotic arousal of her chains and from her heated fantasies of Seth Burdett. But there was something beyond these sexual sensations, something for which she had not yet found a name. She strode nakedly along the tiny path with a tremendous zest. Her feet had toughened, and she had never felt such tingling good health. She would have loved to run and leap and be a child again. But the chain restrained her in a reasonable decorum.
Her Master watched her amusedly from the corner of an eye. He had reverted to his policy of leaving her alone. She was not hurt. She knew his reasons. He was fighting his own battle to remain uninvolved. After her nightly chores she longed for him with an intensity almost painful so that she bestowed her sex as a gift upon the girls who shared her chain to either side. It took a good deal of wriggling and giggling to find the moist pungency they sought. She returned the favour, finding only pride in her circumvention of the chain on her neck and on her wrist. The reproving metal was simply one more zest in the scented lubricity of her newly found sexuality.
On the fourth night, her Master took her gain into the trees, and after he had whipped her cruelly and impaled her again and again as she hung with toes above the soil, he pinched her nipples and told her casually: "I've decided not to sell you after all."
Audrey Cotswold had grabbed her pistol and dashed from the bedroom in a panic of protectiveness. Corey Gibson must not be harmed. Whoever the enemy, he had best be coped with downstairs. But she found only a shambles and the inert figure that had been Reid Hunter. Venturing through the open door, she was grasped in strong smelly arms and swung off her feet. Instinctively, she thrust the small gun back against the bulk of her captor and pulled the trigger. When the arms fell limp she leaped into the night in a blind panic at the approach of dark figures by which her gun was outnumbered. Hiding behind discarded oil drums, she cursed her thoughtlessness in leaving Corey chained to the bed. Miserably, she watched the swift sacking of the village by a considerable force. She saw Corey taken, and was helpless to intervene. When, suddenly, there was only emptiness and the roaring of trucks in the distance she knew she had but one hope: to find a civilised man or a civilised place. Ben Sirah appeared to offer neither. Forgetting the nakedness that had become natural for her, the favourite slavegirl of Assef Aslam sped down the abandoned street.
Civilisation was closer than she supposed. The four policemen's uniforms were neat and clean, their berets businesslike. They carried rifles. It was obvious they had dressed in a hurry and were grateful for the absence of an enemy no more formidable than a naked girl. They eyed her gun with disapproval. Their greeting was not the one she wished to hear.
"You under arrest."
It was too absurd! Audrey explained their error and what was required of them. They listened, tolerant and unconcerned, to the babbling of a woman.
"Please to hand me gun."
With three rifles pointing at her breasts there seemed little else to do. Audrey parted with it reluctantly and felt doubly naked. The corporal extracted a yellow card and read from memory the classic warnings about anything she might say… Audrey listened in disbelief. It was pure opera Bouffe. "But you can't possibly arrest me." She protested. "There's bandits you need to chase, and besides, I haven't done anything. Look, have you got a phone?"
They had a convenient faculty of hearing nothing she said. The corporal intoned solemnly while his companions beamed with pride and lust. "For indecency. For exposing genitals in public place. For carrying gun without permit. For being female bandit…"
"Look here!" She expostulated. "This is nonsense. If you'll just phone…?
And who said I was a bandit?"
"You speak of bandits. We hear much shooting. You bandit girl."
"I'm not! They all left in trucks."
"Ah, so you get left behind! We capture."
"Please…! Do I look like a bandit?"
"Good girls do not run naked. You very bad girl. Good girls do not carry guns. You go to prison."
The cold hand of realization clutched hard. These ineffectual members of the local constabulary were behaving correctly by their terms of reference. No doubt she was something of an anomaly in Ben Sirah. She could not hope to escape them. Surely, if she was taken before some intelligent authority it must bend a sympathetic ear! But the next polite request was like the knell of doom.
"Please to hold out hands."
Audrey did the reverse. "You don't need to handcuff me. Please don't. I can't possibly get away."
"Resisting arrest." The corporal intoned.
Audrey held out her hands.
"Is now behind back after resist."
Resigned, she turned about and allowed her wrists to be encircled by familiar steel. The cuffs bit. Audrey Cotswold was helpless. Feeling ridiculous, she marched between them to whatever justice the law of Ben Sirah meted out to naked girls.
Being English, Audrey Cotswold recognized certain British features of the police station donated by British rule of years past. She could swear the two cells, actually big cages, had been fabricated in Sheffield and assembled in the big stone room in which they now stood. A massive padlock guarded each barred door. She was propelled within and the padlock proclaimed her safety with an impressive click. "Is hearing in morning." The corporal politely informed. She was left alone.
Her cage was less than ten feet square. It held a low bunk and thin mattress, but no blanket. There were two pails, one with a cover, the other nearly full of water. The little prison had no walls. She was completely exposed from every side. She had no more privacy than a canary. She wondered, woefully, whether the corporal had forgotten to take away her handcuffs or if bad girls in prison wore them full time. She sat on the bunk and reviewed the phantasmagoria of her day. In misery she lay upon her naked breasts and wept herself to sleep.
The prison tunic emphasized rather than hid her sex. But Audrey Cotswold was grateful. She supposed that her breasts, her nipples and her pubic hair seen through thin cotton was more respectable in Ben Sirah than being bare. She stoo
d forlornly in the dock and faced her judge. Magistrate Mussuba, a large dark gentleman with spectacles, eyed her with the approval of pure lust. As for the corporal, the prisoner could believe in the happiest day of his life as he rolled her iniquities off his tongue with relish. To the previous list had now been added: murder, theft and kidnapping. All the crimes of Abdul Nour were coming to roost on her innocent shoulders.
The captive girl had lost her handcuffs only briefly. They were now once more safe on her wrists behind her back. After all, with such a list of crimes…!
"Mr. Mussuba is not speak English." The corporal informed. "I do the talk." Audrey's heart sank. Desperately she fought her losing battle between the interested features on the bench and the polite corporal. There were a number of male spectators on the seats provided. She was getting the most democratic justice Ben Sirah could provide. She suspected it was very, very local and would avail her nothing. At the finish of it the corporal gave her the Magistrate's summation.
"All evidence not here. Mr. Mussuba think sentence may be you get good whipping in public Square and then twenty years in nice prison. Lady's prison very nice."
She looked at the smug features askance, tugging at the cuffs on her wrists in utter frustration. "But I haven't had a trial! I don't think he's a proper judge at all. It's all… all…!"
"Is remand for few days. We get you lawyer. We are doing things very right." The corporal paused for good effect. "If murder proved, you get flogged instead of whipped. Then sentenced to death. You may choose whether hang or behead. Is very modern here."
Taken back to her cell, Audrey pleased: "Corporal, I don't have to be handcuffed in here, do I?"
"Is much best. Must wear two pairs."
To her fearful consternation, the absurd policeman produced a second set of shining chrome and fitted them on her arms above her elbows. Their clasp was demoralising, defeating her efforst to keep from panic. Wide eyed, she looked up at him. "Oh, please, this is awful. I'm only a girl… There's just no need…!"
"If make fuss can put third pair on little ankles?"
Audrey Cotswold said no more.
Mr. Syroid, barrister and solicitor, was not of Ben Sirah. He was an import. Sleek and sharp, a predator. His English was precise, he communicated. Enjoying her nipples, protuberant through the cotton, his first question set the tone: "Have you any money, Miss Cotswold?"
The doubly handcuffed girl told him her plight. "Get hold of Assef Aslam and there will be all the money you want." She assured him earnestly. "In the meantime, can you persuade them to take these handcuffs off me?"
He appeared not to have heard. His eyes removed her cotton tunic and approved what they saw. "You are a lovely girl, Miss Cotswold, but you have no money. Would you care to spend an hour with me in private, and without that silly dress?" He smirked. "It can be arranged."
"You mean this whole police thing is a farce?"
"Not as far as you are concerned. Without my help you will most assuredly be whipped and imprisoned. A common whore gets that if she had been tardy in her dues."
"And if I let you… use me… well, what then?"
"That's my retainer. I then try and get you acquitted. I try and contact your Mr. Aslam. I have heard of him."
Audrey was curious. "You're bargaining for my body." She said slowly. "But I'm absolutely helpless…" She turned for him to see the twin handcuffs on her arms. "Why don't you just take me now? I can't possibly stop you." Mr. Syroid was shocked. "We are civilised here, Miss Cotswold. We nogotiate. We do not use force." He sighed gently. "It's true the corporal is authorised to cane the buttocks of any prisoner who proves… difficult." The iron hand in the velvet glove! They were shaking it in her face. Audrey did not like Mr. Syroid. Impetuously, she challenged. "Very well then, you may as well advise him to do that to me. I'm not going to spread my legs for you."
It was a bluff. But even when she was losing it Audrey stubbornly tested Ben Sirah's corruption. Mr. Syroid accompanied the constable who held her arm and led her to where it would be done. "You do not mind my watching the caning of your bottom, Miss Cotswold?"
"You'd watch anyway, even if I did."
It was hard to believe it would happen. Probably they were testing her resolution. Audrey marched with her head high in disdain. But the room was daunting, bare, stark, designed for punishment. It held a bench. Beside the bench stood the corporal. His presence told her she had gone too far, but she kept a hostile silence while they unlocked her handcuffs. She hoped they could not see her trambling.
"Your tunic, Miss Cotswold?"
She discarded the cotton and stood proudly naked, staring at the wall. She dared not look at them.
"The bench if you please."
For a moment Audrey was puzzled by the unfamiliar shape of the thing on which she must be draped. But the waiting straps and buckles were more eloquent than words. She arranged her nudity for their convenience, bitterly shamed, bitterly hurt by betrayal, wanting to cry, she thrust wrists and ankles and her neck into their prepared slots and loops. "A charming young lady."Said the corporal proudly. "Strap her down tightly, constable." It was hateful and beastly, three men looking at every part of her body as she was made helpless, helpless on a contraption specially designed for female immobility. There were even orfices into which her breasts were thrust as she lay along the surface of the wood. Her arms were taken down on each side, the bench was narrow to allow this and to make it possible for her feet to be dragged beneath and to each side also. But not before her bottom had been reared across a round hard bolster. Straps tugged until Miss Audrey Cotswold was a naked 'U' turned on its side, her feet and hands remarkably close, her bottom proclaiming itself obscenely parted to cause a rearward thrust of her vulva and pubic hair. She gasped in disbelief when a strap crossed the small of her back and was cinched down and down. The last constriction doubled and trebeled the exposure of her buttocks and her crotch. Hating it, Audrey recognized punitive intent. Her gluteal skin was as tightly stretched as a drum. She knew much of punishment. This one was going to hurt!
"Have you anything to say, Miss Cotswold?"
"Only that I've done nothing to deserve what you are about to do to me."
"You have been inclined to withhold favours."
"You mean, if I ask everybody to fuck me I don't get caned?"
"Miss Cotswold… please!" Mr. Syroid had a gift for sounding profoundly shocked. "No one said that."
"They inferred it. Very well, sorry to be a nuisance but if you'll forgive me this punishment or whatever you choose to call it I'll lay on the floor and invite you to fuck me."
"I am afraid it is now too late…"
It was indeed! The strapped girl was sure the cane had cut her in two. The corporal had wielded it as though she was a horse. The pain burrowed deeper every moment. Gaspingly she pleaded. "No! Oh no! Oh, please… I can't stand it… Oh, not so hard! Please, I beg of you, I'll do what you want, fuck me, please fuck me…!"
"The lady appears to have had a change of heart." Said Mr. Syroid softly. "I am sure she will negotiate."
"We must rob her of nothing." said the corporal with equal solicitude. "Constable, give four more, all hard."
It was a kind of Hell Audrey went through, stroke by stroke. She did not believe she could survive the next, but she did. It splatted across her stretched flesh with an impact sufficient to bed it well within the resilience she was helpless to protect. She heard herself screaming. She did not care.
"A mere five." Said the corporal. "We are most humane. But if you would enjoy five more…?"
"I'll do anything you want!"
"A most co-operative girl." Mr. Syroid's approval was heartfelt. "We do want you to be quite sure?"
"No, thank you. I've had enough. I'll do whatever you wish. I'm sorry to have been a bother. Please fuck me."
"She has a sweet temperament." Said Mr. Syroid magnanimously. "She sounds most sincere."
"I will take her first." Said the corporal with autho
rity. "We can keep her on the bench all afternoon."
It could not be happening! Not like this! many things had been done to Audrey Cotswold in her moulding as a perfect slave, but nothing such as was being done to her now. She had been pierced, impaled, violated often, but never when stretched and strapped into a posture so designed for her surrender from the rear. Twin orifices, they could take their choice. She wanted to turn and look but could not move her head. Her neck was neatly within the slot designed for it, a strap held it there securely. It did not impede her breathing but she could look at nothing except the floor. She wept intermittently through the hours of the afternoon as thrust after thrust entered the most secret places of her femaleness. She could watch her tears splash as they fell. All three exponents of the justice of Ben Sirah were extremely virile.
