by Nicole Dere
At least they remove the shackles from our hands and legs, and leave us alone for a brief interval while we stand, kneel and finally crouch in turn over the basin to perform the most intimate parts of our communal bathing. We learn not to delay, for they soon reappear with cheerful shouts to fasten us up again and remove the basin of scummy water. We do our poor best to tame our matted hair by combing through it as vigorously as we can with our fingers.
By far the worst aspect of these sanitary arrangements is the loathsome lavatory bucket. Of necessity, it has to remain within two yards of us, as our chains do not allow us to move more than five feet from the log. How we hate the sight and the stink of it and, worst of all, the unavoidable humiliations of putting it to use. It swiftly becomes the prime symbol of the degradation of our enslavement, for that is what this condition is. I begin to wonder if what we first felt was the amazing blessing of not being used as sex objects to satisfy the needs of at least the five captors directly responsible for bringing and keeping us here is worth being subjected to this primitive state of existence. Especially as Simon’s man, Mattius, seems to carry a surprising amount of authority, at least as far as our welfare, or lack of it, is concerned. Apart from his one swift shag on the Malaika during the trip here from the mainland, neither he nor his comrades has laid a hand on either of us, except for a quick casual grope or a jovial admonitory slap on our backsides.
Why such noble restraint? I comfort myself with the thought that it is because Simon has threatened them with death or worse if they lay more than a finger on us. But as these first few days and nights slide slowly past, and our physical state grows worse and worse, I begin seriously to consider that coupling with Mattius (and even if necessary with one or more of his cohorts) might be a price worth paying to improve our basic, not to say animalistic, situation.
Lying in Wanda’s arms, after a loving session that has lasted at least half the night and succeeded in making us forget for those passionate interludes the unsavoury realities that surround us, I try not to squirm and scratch at the innumerable insect bites, and the layers of dirt and sweat that coat my almost naked frame, apart from the limp and filthy rag of a dress, and the even more disgusting tiny knickers I have just wriggled back into. Somewhat tentatively, I voice my thoughts about my strategy to improve our conditions.
I should have known better. She says little, merely grunts dismissively, and pulls me down to her gently rising and falling damp breast, scarcely covered by the ragged scrap of nylon and lace attempting to contain it. But next morning, soon after sunrise, when Mattius leads in the young women who are carrying our plates of gruel and the mugs of tea, she leaps up with a shattering cry that sends the women fleeing, while Mattius falls back in alarm.
‘What the fuck is this?’ A wild kick sends the porridge skidding and splattering across the dirty stone floor. Her next swipe sends the tea flowing in its wake in a milky puddle. ‘What are we? You think we’re fucking beasts, to keep chained up in this stinkhole?’
She raises her arms, holding out her wrists, rattling the short lengths of rusty chain that link them, stamps her feet, spreads her legs as far apart as she can, to make the chain stretch taut. ‘Look!’ she screeches, her voice wild and ugly. She twists her arms to force the iron hoops encircling the wrists to ride up enough to display the ugly scabbed abrasions which mark our skin. ‘You don’t treat animals this bad, you stupid fucker! Tell your Mister Simon – and that fat froggy freak, Monsieur Auguste – I’ll make sure my family pays fuck-all for me! Go ahead!’
She steps up close, until she can get no further from the log to which we are shackled, and he draws back in dismay. She rips at the ragged scrap of silk at her breast, and the cups part, the slender ruin of elastic and lace falls from her chest to cling about her hips. She tears at the shred of those briefs until she drags them from her loins and pulls the ruins of the undies clear of her. She flings them down to join the mess on the floor. ‘We’re better off naked than wearing these filthy rags!’
I jump back, and even give a small scream of fright, as she swivels and steps over the beam and, with one mighty swing of her foot, sends our shit-bucket flying, its revolting contents splashing across the ground to make an even greater evil smelling mess on the other side of the beam.
Oh shit, indeed! I think, gaping rather like Mattius at the harpy which has transmogrified in our midst. But her superb display of fury, whether spontaneous combustion or by design, does the trick. Mattius falls back without a word, hurries out, leaving us in the mess of our own making, and in a screaming silence. I stand there, dumb and immobile, until suddenly Wanda gives a childish little giggle, puts a hand to her mouth and says, ‘Whoops! You don’t think I went just a bit over the top, do you?’ and I collapse into her arms to join her in a hysterical outburst of frightened mirth.
Within minutes Mattius is back, with reinforcements consisting of Abdul and two of the crew. Behind them comes a group of wide-eyed and wary native women, bearing buckets and mops and brushes. They get to work cleaning up the floor, while Mattius, muttering gently as though trying to calm spooked animals, hastily unshackles us from the log, and then removes the fastenings about our wrists and ankles.
Free at last ! We shuffle and caper like idiots, half laughing, half crying, as he ushers us out into the already strong sunlight. ‘You no try to run. There is nowhere to run,’ he says, but still softly, almost pleading with us to be reasonable. And indeed we are, dazed at our good fortune as we are led across the compound, behind one of the grass-roofed rondavels, where we are shown a double shower compartment, protected by a screen woven from sticks. There is even an overhead tank, from which the water falls in a soft but adequate, tepid sprinkle. A bar of soap and a clean towel each awaits us. About 20 metres further away, there is another small section, also screened on three sides, though without a roof, which proves to be a long-drop choo , the native word for lavatory. At least its purpose isn’t obvious until we venture within a few yards, but there is a wooden box-like seat erected, over a trench which is deep enough to comfort us with the thought that we will have to serve several years of captivity before it becomes necessary to move its location.
Not only our ablutions but even our lodgings are changed. When we have made leisured use of both our new facilities, clad only in our damp and scarcely adequate towels, we are led to the nearest hut where, to our surprise and great relief, we find two modern, low camp beds erected, and beside the stout pole rising from the centre of the circular room to support the conical roof, a small table and two wooden chairs. On each bed is laid a thin, brightly patterned cotton kikoi , which, unlike the local women, who wrap them about their hips to clothe their lower limbs, we wrap and knot at our breasts, as securely as we can, and which therefore cover us, barring accidents, from tits to mid-thigh. We are not sorry to say goodbye to the soiled ruins of our former clothes, nor that primitive and debasing imprisonment we have endured over the past few days.
‘Don’t grovel!’ Wanda warns me, sotto voce but with clear authority, as we watch the arrival of our second breakfast, still the thin gruel, but augmented with fresh fruit: large slices of paw-paw and crinkled purple passion fruit, along with a hunk of what looks and smells like fresh-from-the-oven bread, and set out on the table, where we are invited to sit and partake.
I blush in my newfound finery, for it seems as if she has read my mind. In my state of dizzy euphoria I would probably be inclined to give more than my thanks to the benefactor of the feast, the beaming Mattius, who stands there like a major-domo. He all but draws out our chairs for us as we approach the food. When he nods and leaves us alone at the table, Wanda is even blunter, and there is an uncomfortable degree of strength in her grip on my still red-ringed wrist. ‘You don’t have to lick arse – or anything else – for this!’ She waves her free hand around at our new surroundings. ‘They must be shit-scared now at the way they’ve been treating us. Got just a little carried away with themselves, our little band of desperadoes,
and now they’re regretting it. So don’t let them think we’re ready to fall on our backs with legs open wide out of gratitude. You hear? If you’re grateful to anyone, it should be me , for losing my rag like that. Understand?’
I feel myself blushing, and speak with quick guilt. ‘Oh, I am! I can hardly believe it. I was terrified when you started ranting on like that! You were ... magnificent. And I am, truly, grateful.’
She grins, leans in close, and kisses me, letting her lips nuzzle against mine, then my cheek. Under the table, I feel her palm sliding up the inside of my thigh, stretching and tightening the thin cotton beneath which it explores. The fingers reach the top of my limbs, follow the contours of my sex, ruffle through the newly soft little curls of my pubes. I tighten my belly and my thighs, feel the muscles of my vagina clenching, my buttocks tightening on the hard wood of the seat. I clutch at her wrist. Her lower arm is firmly held between my legs, under the thin cotton which threatens to part as it rides up under her pressure. ‘Someone will come!’ I gasp, yet again accidentally feeding her the old familiar joke, to which she responds.
‘Of course. But later, babe!’
Her forecast proves accurate, though it’s quite a few hours later, when, snug in our “little wooden hut”, and with the luxury of a dim, romantically flickering lantern to send strange elongated shadows up into the high dome of the rustling roof, we wrap our refreshed and newly soap-perfumed bodies about each other in amorous conjunction. Wanda is carelessly blasé. ‘Let the bastards come in and watch the show!’ But we have pulled the two thin mattresses off the camp beds, after noting the telltale loud repetitive squeaks at even the comparative mildness of our opening embraces, and laid our bedding side by side on the floor to make our “love nest”. And very satisfactory it is. Head to head, head to toe, faces to clamping thighs, we soon lose ourselves in our passionate bliss, our panting, moaning, and eventual cries and barks of frenzy and climax no doubt making our maidenly embarrassment over the squeaking bedsteads somewhat supernumerary.
‘I love you!’ I gasp, our mouths locked in tongue-writhing kisses in which we savour the evocative flavours of our combined sexual emissions. ‘I love you!’ comes the whispering echo, and with secret burning shame I try to banish the memory of my tormented jealousy, and the deep, deep thankfulness of my joy when Simon returned so lovingly to me alone, and I wept with the happy thought that I would never see Wanda again.
* * *
So begins the second phase of our captivity, a much more civilised, almost pleasant interlude – we are even supplied with hairbrushes and deep, curved wooden native combs and luxuriously soft toilet tissue. Who could ask for anything more? Well, as the days roll into another week, I guess we, ungrateful bitches that we are, can! And do!
‘How long are you going to keep us here?’ Wanda fires at Mattius one morning, as we sit on our wooden chairs in the morning sun, outside our hut after breakfast. We are permitted now to eat and to lounge around in the area adjacent to our rondavel. The bare-breasted girls who cook and bring our meals actually sweep our small forecourt every morning, with their brooms of bound twigs.
As always, my heart rate accelerates at her aggression, and I remain notably silent. I’m a little ashamed, but then I remember as always that I am in fact on Mattius’s side: Simon’s secret spy, rather than a fellow prisoner. I have to keep reminding myself of this; especially when I recall Mattius’s brief but daunting shagging of me on the trip here. Does he know the truth of my situation? He has given no hint of it. But then of course he mustn’t, because our real prisoner, Wanda, must have no idea of my treachery. But what is my role? A diversion for her? A lover to distract her, to make her more docile, to ensure she doesn’t try to do anything spectacularly stupid?
The alarm bells jangle much more raucously when Wanda suddenly turns and gestures furiously towards me, almost as though she has been reading my thoughts. ‘And just what is she doing here, huh? Why have your bosses sent her along? Is she just a sex toy? More fun than a vibrator, and doesn’t need batteries? My little lezzer buddy I can play with day and night to take my mind off the fact that Simon and the fat Frog are shafting me and my family for all they can get!’
‘Wanda!’ I squeal in righteous indignation. Because I have to say something , if only to counteract the telltale, toe-curling, blood-rushing crimson tide sweeping up through my entire frame, screaming its GUILT in block capitals.
She switches to me, that once more glossily rich black waving hair swinging across her beautiful face, those black eyes blazing like headlamps. ‘Well?’ Her low voice is harsh, that fearsome rasp transforming it into part of her armoury. ‘You tell me then! Just what the hell are you doing here? You still haven’t explained any of it. You’ve got no fucking money, so you say! Simon’s responsible for everything: the food you eat, the clothes he puts on your back and takes off whenever he fancies it. He’s even responsible for who fucks you, right? Mattius, M. Auguste – me , for fuck’s sake!’
I can’t look away from her. I’m like some miserable little mouse hypnotised in front of the swaying snake. My mouth opens and closes soundlessly before I begin to cry, and then speech comes, stammeringly rapid and semi-incoherent in my angst. ‘I’ve told you! I don’t know – I don’t know what the hell I’m doing – why Simon’s doing this to me, locking me up here.’
The sobbing takes over, my head goes down and I blubber, just like the miserable kid I was years ago, hating myself both for my helplessness and my lies. I suddenly have the urge to stand up and be damned – to scream at her: Yes, you rich and spoilt bitch, I’m here because Simon put me here and I do whatever Simon tells me to, because I love him! Truly love him, not just because he fucks me, but because he loves me – he told me so. And I’m here to see that you get screwed for every dollar he can squeeze from you and your fucking loaded family!
But I don’t. I jump up, tears streaming, and run from the bright sunlight into the gloom of the oven-warm hut, and fling myself down on the creaking narrow bed, bury my face in the sheet which is probably still damp and stained with the evidence of our frantic night-time loving, and wish I was miles away, in Simon’s wide and wonderful bed, and he in me!
Chapter Seventeen
PHASE THREE OF OUR incarceration opens with startling abruptness one morning about two weeks after phase two had begun. We’re just getting used to the great improvement which came along with our transfer to the rondavel, which does not include any contact with or knowledge of the outside world and its doings. Hence the difficulty in keeping record of the passage of time. I suppose if we were more organised or stronger willed we’d have made an effort: carving notches on a pole or something to record each passing day. But at first, in that stinking slave shed we were so lost in our misery, kept like animals in such squalor, that our minds were numbed; we were too trapped by the physical degradations we had to endure. And since they took us out of that horrible place, and our situation has improved so much, we’ve been too filled with relief and happiness, equally content to bask in our good fortune. Or maybe living for the moment is enough for us, when our future is so uncertain.
I don’t know. Wanda’s such a strong and dominant character in so many ways, but perhaps she really is frightened what might happen to her, and therefore shies away from thinking about it. As for me, I go along with things, and cling secretly to the one fact that matters to me now: that Simon loves me – he has told me so – and that eventually I’ll be back with him, no matter what happens.
We’re allowed to lie in bed until a civilised hour these days, not that we have watches or clocks to mark the hours for us, just as we have no newspapers or radios or any other means of contact with the outside world. But the sun is already high when the noise of the girls setting out breakfast and sweeping our small area outside the hut wakes us. Nobody comes to rouse us, and as we generally don’t get to sleep until nearly dawn anyway, when we separate our sweating and love-weary bodies and retire to our own beds, we slumber on long pas
t sunrise.
‘You think they don’t know we’re beavering each other all night?’ Wanda teases grumpily as we put our mattresses back on the camp beds and arrange the sheets. ‘The noise you make when you come, they can probably hear it back on the mainland!’
‘So do you!’ I fire back, sounding more like a peevish child than a consenting adult, but we both still go through the motions, even though I acknowledge the truth that our rising from separate beds each morning fools nobody. The most important and miraculous thing is that we have each other each night, and nobody else has us.
But on this particular morning, we are indeed roused from a deep sleep, and we sit up, blinking foolishly, bare breasted, to find ourselves gazing on the imperturbable beaming features of M. Auguste Mazarin. I see my grotesquely distorted features reflected in the lenses of those thick glasses, and gape at the creases of that flat brown face and squat figure. He is dressed in immaculate, pressed safari jacket and knife-crease shorts. They project their sharp points almost a foot in front of his thick, short legs, which are encased in pristine white knee stockings above brown suede ankle boots. He is bare headed and his black hair glistens in slick-backed sleekness. Apart from the missing topi or bush hat (and his short, rotund figure) he is the perfect historical replica of the great white hunter or colonial official.
