by Hans Meijer
When she woke in early light, Effayd and the horses had departed in the night.
It took Audrey Cotswold a little while to reach fear. Being bound or chained was now her natural lot. It was commonplace. A girl just put up with it. But being abandoned in an African wilderness, attached securely to a tree, was something else again. She called out several times but was mocked by silence. When panic loomed she fought it down. Pushing herself erect, she considered waiting and hoping, or starting now to strive to free her hands. She did not believe she could. To seriously try meant chafed cut skin and pain, and was unlikely to accomplish anything. Audrey was a good judge of bounds. In a scale of one to ten the cords on her wrists would merit top score. She decided to wait in the hope of Effayd's return. When, after a long time, it became evident she was on her own, she fought her fight with her single bond. She fought it with all her strength and in mounting panic. Finally her wounded wrists demanded she desist. In defeat, she knew she had not loosed a single cord. She was as tightly tied as she had been the night before.
In frustration she wept. It was too cruel to be held by so small a length of rope. But she was as helpless as if heavily chained. Around her the African day responded to the sun. There were sounds. Unhappily, she wondered about animals and snakes. They did not invade a camp. But a single naked girl tied to a tree was almost bait for a carnivore…! Her heart contracted. She remembered reading of just exactly that: A delinquent damsel staked out to lure a tiger. She supposed that here it would be a jackal or a lion… she had heard of other animals she could not name.
She considered returning down to sit. Effayd had been considerate in that! But she was frightened. Somehow it felt safer on her feet. She was defenseless either way, but standing she could see the path. If someone passed she could call for help. But that would invite rape or another slavery…! By afternoon she was in despair…
She would stay there, naked, with her hands tied behind the tree until she died.
Why?
Corey Gibson was happy. She was where she had asked to be, chained neck and wrist within a coffle of twenty female slaves. She paced the miles, light footed and alert, her mind busy with plans. At the end of the coffle's journey she would not be sold. Her Master would keep her for his own. It was a miracle! What he would do with her, neither of them knew. Her suggestions had been erotically stimulating for both, but they had about them much of the roseate exuberances of an infatuated teen-ager. Miss Corey Gibson, the daughter of The Planet Corporation, was deeply and romantically in love. But Corey Gibson was female. Rooted within the female is an instinct for a home, a family and friends. For one of the richest and most beautiful girl in the world there were other enticements from which slavery had divorced her utterly, but which now surfaced with surprising allure. She would not dare mention them to Seth Burdett… not now! But there would come an opportunity…! For the present, she adored the shackle on her wrist and the metal collar on her neck. She fingered them often.
She supposed Seth Burdett had seen it in her eyes, or the jaunty toss of her head as she walked. That evening he took her once more into the trees. In their brief walk to seclusion he allowed her freedom. It did not last. Satisfied with a small clearing, he demanded: "Give me your hands." Quivering with the joy of being alone with him, Miss Corey Gibson surrendered to the breathtaking sensuousness of watching the rope prison her wrists. She wanted embraces and declarations but would settle for simple sex. Ingenuously, she declared: "I love you, Master."
He was always unpredictable, her hold on him tenuous, not yet cemented. Tersely, he told her: "Kneel, Face me."
Corey obeyed, her sex heating, adoring his dominance. Her ambitions were still distant. For now, she wanted only to wallow in submission. She was well aware of being slave to the tumescent glands demanding his seed within her womb. But there was more to Seth Burdett than that. To explore that unknown quantity behind his steely eyes would cost her physical pain. But that too was a price she longed to pay. Her demure: "Yes, Master." was almost too perfect. Sitting back on her heels, she allowed her bound hands to rest on her pubic triangle.
"Not that way! I don't want you comfortable. Kneel upright."
It was going to be wonderful! Corey knew it was. Her Master was in a mood. He would certainly hurt her. She braced herself for feminine dissembling. "We didn't talk enough, love. Your eyes are too starry."
"As you whip me they will become as you desire, Master."
"Who said I'd whip you, Corey? You want it, don't you?"
"I want whatever is a part of you."
He sighed. "Look, you silly bitch, you're going through a stage you should have outgrown. You want my whip, you want my cock, you're plotting to make me a possession."
"I'm chained on a coffle, Master, I can't plot anything."
"Come off it! I'll tell you what you're plotting. It's me in a Homburg hat from nine to five, the posh apartment above Central Park, and the place at Cape Cod?"
He was been right in making her kneel this way. Corey felt defenseless and exposed. There was no really good place to put her tied hands, they were as de trop as an adolescent boy's. "I can't help being rich."She said plaintively. "I've asked you to keep me in Africa in chains, isn't that enough?"
"For now." He bestowed his sardonic grin. "But let's put the housekeeping in order. First, I'm my own man. I'll take you as a slave, and I'll keep you as a slave. What's more I'll make my own money…"
"But, Seth, I don't mind…!"
"Hold on! Try that again."
"I'm sorry, Master. I… I forgot."
"See what I mean! For a moment there you thought you were free. That's going to keep happening… Never been broken, have you, Corey?"
"No… I suppose not." The thought thrilled her outrageously. "Are you going to make me crawl, darling?"
"Put those tied hands at the back of your neck, Miss Corey Gibson. And hold still. That 'darling' is going to cost you."
Unrepentant but quivering. Corey obeyed. Her breasts jutted in response. She guessed instantly what he was about to do to her. "I'm not sorry I said that, Master." Deliberately, she arched her back and added an inch or two to the prominence of her nipples.
A lash across the curve of each breast. One only! Corey had retired behind closed eyes and clenched teeth, and accepted this new and dreadful pain with a fortitude she knew would not have lasted if the blows continued to fall. She swayed, her nostrils flared, her sex flamed. She had given and received in a love play designed for a slave. Opening her eyes, she looked down at the scarlet bars enhancing the loveliness ofher most feminine flesh.
"Thank you, Master."
"Humph, you make me feel a bastard, love." He grinned confidingly. "Doesn't change a thing. I'm going to make you scream before I take you back to the coffle."
"My breasts hurt terribly, Master, but I did not scream."
"You will, love. Underneath those palpitating glands you're a sensible girl. You're not a kid. You'll scream rather than be whipped to death."
Corey's heart fluttered. Would he? She did not think he would. But still…! She fell back on mischief: "Will you fuck me first, Master?"
"…And last, you outrageous female! They had a word for you in the States… Sexpot!"
"I'm not really. I used to be considered cold. I was cold. I'm what I am now because of you."
Seth held up a hand. "We're starting to argue. Keep quiet while I tell you about the housekeeping money… and don't think those pretty tits can't get another stripe or two."
"I'll behave, Master. I'm honestly not a bit keen on getting my breasts whipped, even by you."
Burdett draped his whip prominently across one knee.
"First off, you'd better understand about the slave trade. When someone pays a million dollars for you up there on the auction block I'm lucky to end up with ten percent. There's the Auction boys to pay, there's a couple of political factions, there's the lousy police, and there's some damn heavy bribery to find the girls, get them kidnapp
ed and delivered to where the coffle starts it's trek." He grinned, admiring her taut loveliness in its tiring kneel. "The Trek doesn't cost, and it gets us out of sight. Its best function is to tell the girls what they are. I've seen many a randy little bitch start out fighting her chains all the way but end up smooth as silk. Nice thing about the coffle is the girls have to pay attention to each other. If one of them acts up so the girls on either side get chafed skin they damn soon lean on her hard. A coffle's the best leveller I know."
"Can I sit back now, Master?"
"No, you can't! Erect and attentive's the drill."
"Well, can I lower my hands from behind my neck, please?"
"No. Stay as you are. Your breasts are nicely positioned for a couple more stripes… you're hovering on the edge of getting them."
"Master… about the Auctions? All that money for Audrey and I…? I thought you'd be rich?"
"Hah, so did I! You three white girls stolen out of Amphala were the first real bonanza Mustafa and I ever ran into. White girls are hard to come by without an organization behind you. We'd mostly had to deal in coffee colours. If it hadn't been for those bastards, Abdul and Mustafa, I'd have made enough out of you to turn respectable." Seth grimaced in disgust. "If I sold you again now I could make enough to feel I was talking to you on half way equal terms… that is, if you were around… which you wouldn't be. So now I've promised not to sell you, and that leaves me about where I've been for a long time." He bestowed a rueful grin. "How'd it be if I sold you anyway and kidnapped you back afterwards?"
"Darling, collect ransom on me. Daddy will gladly give you a couple of millions and then we can get married…"
Corey's breasts cringed under the two cuts, one across each. She whimpered under the searing impacts, fighting hard not to move, protruding her second feminine curvature defiantly while still screaming inwardly with the agony of the first. But her emotions were overcharged. With a cry of anguish, she slumped back on her heels, her bound hands flashed up and over her head to awkwardly and pathetically caress her wounds. Piteously, she wept.
"I was only… t-t-trying… to h-h-help." She sobbed.
"I am a slaver, not an extortionist."
"I'm… I'm sorry… I… I keep making the mistake." "And my wife doesn't by me! I'm not at all sure I want a wife. I told you I'd take you as a slave, and I still will. If that's not good enough, just say so. I'll sell you instead."
"It's good enough!" Corey couldn't get the words out faster.
Seth Burdett eyed the disorganized bundle of feminity with affectionate amusement. "This is where the script says I take you in my arms and offer you my shirt and pants if you'll stop crying…" He gave a contemptuous grunt. "Piss on that! Here's the proper way."
Once more, Miss Corey Gibson knew herself betrayed by her own libido. One should have dissolved in grief to either disgust this man or earn his pity as he dragged her to the tree. Instead, her tears ceased and her loins flared in a sudden intense desire for the cleansing scourge of his lash. As her bound hands were tied to the trunk above her head, she muttered savagely: "Alright, whip me! Whip me into an orgasm. Whip me into a hundred orgasms… damn you, Master!"
Seth whipped her joyously, aware of each of her tremors, the flexing of her muscles, the growing heat within. Amused, he noted her bound wrists and their agony as she tugged and heaved, turned and twisted. But, as a boy controls the whipping of a top, so he carefully kept Corey facing the trunk, the whip across a twisting hip or exposed flank kept her back and bottom properly available. When, in her beginnings of orgasm, her legs parted and one raised invitingly, he swept the thong in a snapping uppercut into her crotch so that her climax flowered in a ullation of delicious agony. Her wailing cry was neither of triumph or defeat. It was the tribute of a slave whose Master knew her all too well.
"Don't stop! Whip me! Whip me…!"
"What are you?"
"A slave! You idiot, I know I'm a slave, a slave, a slave…! I'm never going to be anything else but a slave, so I may as well get used to it. Whip me… you complacent bastard. Whip me good."
Corey thrust her breasts hard against the tree while her Mster spaced his strokes across her back. Probably he would half kill her for the epithets she had hurled at him. Her tear-stained cheek joined her breasts in seeking the comfort of the bark. Inspired, she added to her declaration: "I want to be… Oh, can't you understand! I want to be your slave, I want to be… I want…"
The whip acknowledged her surrender. It did not stop. When she began to scream she terminated each cry of pain with a curt demand: "Whip me, damn you, Master, whip me…!"Then screamed again.
When he dragged her back to the coffle he locked only her neck, leaving her hands tied as they had been. Corey did not know whether he had forgotten or had a purpose, but she hurt too much and was too tired to try and bite at his knots. Besides, what did it matter! Even freed entirely of all restraints she would still be a slave. She would always be a slave. Her mind would no longer search beyond that knowlegde. Unconcerned and undismayed she went to sleep.
When Corey was freed the next morning for the chores, another girl was unlocked to take her place. Quietly smiling, her Master stood her upright before nineteen curious girls, tied her ankles tight, then took her crossed wrists to the nape of her neck and tied them to her collar. His instruction was terse. "Stand there and keep still."
Miss Corey Gibson stood there, a public spectacle, fuming.
The girls were delighted.
When Corey's neck and right wrist were once more shackled to the coffle and the march resumed she was teased unmercifully. She did not mind. She detected in the comments a hint of envy. She wore her fresh weals, particularly the scarlet stripes across her breasts, with immense elan. She wondered at herself and at the man who owned them all. Could she say she was broken, that the coffle and the whip had made her subservient? Or was it her own shameless lust that made his whip a benison upon her flesh? She was wanton, reveling in the memory of being tied to the tree and then, afterwards, ravished again and again in a series of couplings in which she used her bound hands and thrusting body in taunting provocations to replenish her Master's virility. In loving abandon she regaled the man who had whipped her with every trick and variation of the practiced whore. In so doing she defeated not him but herself by erasing from her mind all thought of liberty. Seth Burdett remained his own man, but Corey Gibson was most certainly a woman!
*****
It happened on the day before they should have reached Ben Sirah. The uniformed men rose from concealment, three to each side of the coffle of girls. Rifles pointed.
"Is nice we meet again." Corporal Eliah was one big grin.
"What the hell do you want, Eliah?" Seth demanded without concern for pointing muzzles. "You'll get your cut…!"
The corporal raised a placating hand. "Mr. Burdett… please!" He managed to sound reprovingly shocked. "We do not steal. We arrest."
"Try and arrest me and I'll break all your bloody necks!"
"Is not you, Mr. Burdett. Please, no! Is bad young lady escape from custody. You are most respected, sir. No doubt she tell a story of bull and cock for getting your sympathy. I am seeing her now. She is there on coffle with slavegirls."
"You talking about Audrey Cotswold?"
"Indeed yes. Most guilty young lady."
Corey cringed in the impotence of chains. The shackle and collar removed her from the affairs of men. She could do nothing.
"Damnit, Aliah, don't mess up a good deal. You know the drill. She'll be sold inside a week." Burdett was puzzled.
"Alas, this is not business, effendi. It is the Law."
"Fuck the Law!"
"We must take young Lady. I have warrant." The corporal unfolded a well decorated document. He read with relish: "Conspiracy to defraud. Escape from custody. Naked in public place. Immorality. Prostitution. Perjury…"
"Stow it, Eliah. It's all horseshit, and we both know it. But you take that girl… I'll make trouble!"
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"Court have no quarrel with honest Slave Trader, Mr. Burdett. We arrest girls… such bad and naughty girls! You carry on with coffle, Mr. Burdett, sir."
"What d'you mean, girls? There's only one of her?"
"Regrettably, is two." Corporal Eliah pointed at Corey Gibson. "She whore from Amphala. Also suspicion of fraud. Must be tried and sentenced to much prison."
"Up your arse!" Burdett was nonplussed.
"Whit possible whippings." The corporal added pompously. "Our esteemed magistrate Mussuba not approve bad girls."
"You take Corey Gibson and I'll have all your hides."
"Please, most honourable sir, do not make distress. We now arrest. When you arrive Ben Sirah you most welcome to visit their cell in police station. Can arrange nice fuck if you so like…? We very modern."
