Corey found it pleasanter to march in daylight instead of stumble in the dark. She looked often at her shackled wrist, or fingered the metal on her throat in incredulity that, by them, her whole existence was dictated and changed. Against the iron links education and intelligence served naught. The padlock mocked them all. When, twice a day, it was unlocked at chore time she dared not disobey but returned to it as to a stern and waiting authority. Each night two girls were chosen to service The Male. They were taken from the coffle and returned to it in much the same manner as a book from a public library. When it came Corey's turn she was taken into the trees by Selim, Mustafa's new man. Before she could ask why she found no favour with his Master, the Master himself arrived to ensure her proper subjection to the male. They tied her hands behind her back and made her kneel. She writhed inwardly in the prospect of beastliness. But Abdul Nour's brothel had taught her lessons in survival. Miss Corey Gibson was prepared to be as humble as they wished. It began verbally.
"What are you?"
"I am a whore, Master."
"What kind?"
"I am a white whore, Master. I am also your slave."
"Do you expect to be punished?"
"Yes, Master. All whores should be punished."
"What service have you given the men of Abdul Nour?"
"I have spread my legs for them to fuck me. I have sucked their cocks. I was kept chained by my neck for their pleasure. I was an obedient girl and did what I was told."
"That excuses you?"
"No, Master. I know I will be punished. Thank you for enslaving me. I did not wish to be a whore."
"There is the matter of your price at the auction." The slaver's voice had become thoughtful. "I wish it to be high."
"Of course, Master. I will make myself beautiful and display my nakedness seductively. Did I not behave well for your profit before?"
"Hmmmmmm, yes you did well." Mustafa was still savouring an intent. "But whores are soiled. They do not fetch top price."
"I will tell no one, Master. Need the buyers know that all of us have been well fucked, Master? We are all young. It does not show."
"Ah, yes, that is true."The Slaver was pleased but still probing for profit. "Suppose we give them a small entertainment?" He glinted sardonically. "The pure white maiden shrinking from defilement by the wog, cringing from the exposure of her cunt…?"
"Yes, Master. It would excite them profitably."
"You could the be whipped into a sweet and willing submission on the block…?"
"You are clever, Master. Is such an honour indeed mine?"
Musafa eyed her suspiciously. "You seem overly willing, girl?"
"I have been much fucked and much punished, Master. It has made me a sensible girl. Why should I not aid you in profit?"
He smiled grimly. "You hope I will not whip you now?"
Corey was thinking hard with desperate precision. She felt she was doing well, she was pleasing a hard Master. These verbal abnegations did not really matter. If she could survive a hundred impalements what were a few demeaning words! "No girl wants the whip, Master. But if it pleases you to whip me I will not complain. I am a slave."
"You are a craftly slave."
"Yes, Master. You know from whence I came. i never knew the whip or nakedness until short weeks ago. I had been fucked only by chosen men I had desired." Corey twisted to flutter her bound hands. "But I am now a slave. I know I can never escape your chain. I have learned many lessons. I will do what i must to earn myself few stripes. If you stoop to fuck me I will be honoured."
She had done it well. Mustafa was impressed. "A girl such as you can be made into merchandise beyond the price of gold." He spoke slowly, seeking her eyes. "If it be told you are most highly skilled in the arts of the Hetaera you might entice Solomon himself. Are you thus skilled?"
"I do not think so, Master."
"Perhaps a touch of the whip?"
"It would teach me only obedience, Master. It cannot grant me the skills of an ancient craft."
"Did Abdul Nour demand so little of his whores?"
"He never used me. I cannot tell you why. He preferred to give me to his jailor or his soldiers. They were my tutors."
"Well, surely they must have…?"
"No, Master. To them I was a cunt, two lips and a tongue."
"Humph… you are more than that." Mustafa pondered his way into decision. "We will give you a drill."
"A test, Master?"
"Suck Selim's cock."
Corey knew it for more than a brutal and demeaning command. This trader in the flesh of girls had an idea which, if she could promote it, might take her into liberty from the coffle, perhaps to liberty itself. A bidder at the auction who perceived her as a Houri and would pay for her a Houri's price would be a man of immense wealth. He would have sensibilities above the animal lust for which most slavegirls were bought and sold. She shuffled on her knees to rest between Selim's spread legs. Her bound hands could help her not at all. Instead, she rubbed her cheek against the hard erection within the slaver's pants and murmured sweetly every endearment she could remember or device. Then, searching with her teeth, she found the zipper, bit it and tugged it down. The male organ that leaped out against her face was no more horrific than any other. Wryly, she conceded thanks to Abdul Nour's bordello, and absorbed Selim's offering between her lips.
After she had reduced her subject to gasps and moans, Mustafa paid her the greatest tribute possible. He untied her hands. Gratefully, she used them to promote her cause. Chained back on the coffle in the dark, Corey Gibson went to sleep with a glimmer of hope for company. She refused to think disgustedly of what she had done. She refused to think of it at all. She had become a warrior and had fought her first fight. Somehow the chain irked less.
Marching in the sunlight, her right arm swinging with the chain to which her wrist was shackled, Corey Gibson sensed the cadence of unison and the rhythm of a mood. The neck chain rarely jerked her collar. They were going to be sold, and for the majority this was a destiny much to be desired. She felt no strangeness in being the only white girl in the coffle. All the youthful breasts and triangles were simply female, chained together they mattered little. Abdul Nour had thrust them into the sisterhood of whores, and whoredom is a tight Guild in which skin colour was a matter of chance. Corey stepped blithely with the rest but her mind was busy with a surmise. That evening Mustafa alone took her into the trees. He was a man disinclined to share good fortune.
"The whip is a part of man's desire, Corey Gibson. Plead with me to whip you."
The naked American slavegirl no longer deluded herself that it was better to be whipped than to have a man's phallus thrust within the recesses of her sheath. She would have preferred the latter. Unless it was wielded by a man you loved the whip just plain hurt. Whips hurt a nude girl abominably. She sighed and entered the fray.
"Beloved Master, your slavegirl is possessed by pride. I beg you to whip it from me." She looked up at the stern Arab features in girlish adoration. "I beg the boon of being hung by my wrists in nakedness to receive your stripes."
Mustafa was pleased. "You wish a gag, girl?"
"Only if you wish me mute, Master. Otherwise I will scream so you may know my gratitude."
There was no gag. Mustaf tied her hands and raised them to a bough. Miss Corey Gibson stood naked and alone in an African wasteland and waited to be whipped, a whipping she had requested with all the sincerity she could muster. The Master who owned her body whipped it with keen appreciation but an eye to preserving its saleability. Half way through to emunciate clearly: "Thank you, Master, you whip me beautifully." Mustafa climaxed into his dirty robe, but after the briefest pause continued to stripe the taut white skin.
Corey's weals were not severe but laying on the ground there was a tenderness. She bore it with a quiet smile as she arranged herself within her chains to sleep. Winning was painful but she scented victory. It was the following day it happened.
It was midday. The girls were marching in the swinging cadence which they themselves had envolved. Each girl's thoughts were busy far away. None but Corey beheld the shadow. She looked apprehensively at her Master, but Mustafa on his donkey was as lost in reverie as were his slaves. A quick glance to the rear showed Selim equally somnolent. By the time she had turned back to confirm her suspicion Mustafa had seen the shadow too. Seth Burdett stood motionless and menacing on the low eminence of a rock. He had allowed the coffle and its owners to approach to a confrontation he himself had staged. The Arab slave trader's motions were instinctive and swift. But the sighting of his rifle was too late. Burdett's bullet plucked him from the donkey's back and slid him neatly to the ground. The coffle halted in dismay, its cadence lost. At the rear Selim sat on his diminutive steed in an open mouthed astonishment that rapidly changed to a broad grin.
The girls were frightened, all except Corey. Her spririts soared, her heart beat high. Joyfully, she heard her own voice in urgent command: "It's all right. He's a friend. You won't be hurt." Seeing their wide eyed apprehension, she added: "He'll be kind to us, he'll be kind…!"
"You be good girls or I whip." Selim admonished cheerfully. "We now are meeting nice gentleman. You most lucky."
The shadow advanced into the sunlight.
It was the smae Australian saunter, lithe power in every step. It was the same sardonic Australian grin. Seth Burdett took his time. A quick glance at the dead man, a leisured survey of twenty naked girls, a cheerful recognition of the man on the donkey.
"Greetings, Selim."
"Greetings effendi. That good quick shot."
They were evidently old friends. Corey Gibson was piqued that the masculine scan of its new possessions had failed to focus on her white skin, but she watched breathlessly as the two males talked earnestly in Selim's own tongue. She sensed instand rapport, the orderly progression of a plan. The coffle was told to sit and rest while Mustafa was stripped and buried. When the march resumed it was with Burdett riding ahead as Mustafa had done. The girls had become pleasantly excited, their cadence returned full swing. Still chained in the coffle, Corey Gibson had constantly before her vision the broad shouldered maleness of her Australian Master. But Seth Burdett had said no word, the white slavegirl was ignored. Irritably she kept pace with her giggling companions.
It was Selim who freed Talifa and herself for the evening chores. Corey observed her Master cock a surprised eye, but he said no word. She was hurt by his seeming obliviousness to her existence. He had filled her thoughts since Ben Sirah, quite evidently she had not filled his. Yet she was only a slave on a coffle of girls, and there might be forces and undercurrents of which she was unaware. In their previous times together he had pledged her nothing, all the avowals had been her own. Chagrined, she threw a load of wood beside the fire and demanded: "What's the matter, Seth? Why don't you speak to me?"
He spared her his usual lazy amusement. "You sure you got the right address, love?"
Corey stamped an expressive foot. "Alright then! Please, Master, what's the matter?"
"Nothing. Couldn't be better."
"But you keep me chained! You don't speak!"
"You ain't chained now. Did you expect me to go down the coffle shaking hands?"
"You're being deliberately unkind."
"You're being deliberately foolish. Get me a cup of water."
Seth Burdett's grin was infuriating. Corey, the slave, threw the water in his face. naked and enraged, she hurled the cup at his feet. "And you know what you can do with that!" Breasts heaving, she faced him defiantly.
Carelessly, he beckoned an entranced but horrified Talifa. "Take this silly bitch over there on the grass and tie her while we eat. Selim can free you another girl to help."
Shame ans humiliation mantled Corey's cheeks scarlet as she walked the few paces to the spot indicated. Evidently she was beneath the attention of men. Even her punishment was delegated to a girl.
"You foolish slave! Why you be so silly?" Talifa was intrigued. "You got hot cunt for big man. Talifa easy tell."
Corey sniffed. She had nothing to say. Pouting petulantly, she crossed her wrists behind her back. It was a familiar gesture almost automatic. She winced but did not complain as Talifa tie them tight.
"Talifa not tie pretty elbows unless she told. But now you lay down."
Miserably the delinquent slave obeyed. It looked like being a sad suppertime. She winced again as her ankles were deftly roped. When the rope was taken on up to join her wrists she tensed and objected: "Oh, Talifa, you don't have to hog-tie me. Please don't tie me like that."
"Why not? It keep you nice and quiet."
"Because it hurst, that's why. He just said tie me up. He didn't tell you to hurt me."
"You don't struggle it don't hurt. Keep still."
Corey sniffed again. She was far more angry with herself than with the girl who was binding her, or with the man who had given the order. She had asked for this. It served her right. She gasped as the tensioning rope drew her feet and hands together to bow her back. It was a beastly way for a girl to be tied. She hated it.
With Talifa gone, Corey tried to relax. She could not get loose, and she was too close to observant eyes to struggle. She wanted to cry, but the eyes would see that too. Angrily she blinked back her tears and settled herself down to endure her punishment. The less she moved the less she hurt. She watched the mealtime preparation, feeling abandoned, lonely and misused. She made a bitter resolution that if she ever got back on the coffle she would stay there and keep her mouth shut. Sulkily, she ate the few scraps Talifa's fingers poked into her mouth when the meal was done. The evening was well advanced, and Corey was stiff and cramped and sore when Seth Burdett picked her up and carried her into the trees.
"Damned impatient, weren't you, love?"
"It wouldn't have hurt you to look at me."
He dumped her on the ground. "Look, girl, if you want to pout and be sulky you can stey here like that for the night. I'll go back to camp."
"Noooooooooo!" Corey struggled wildly against Talifa's knots. "Please, Master… P-L-E-A-S-E!!!"
"Try an apology."
Careless of wether she was right or wrong, Corey Gibson embraced humility with abandon. "I'm sorry, Master. I really am sorry. I do apologise for not knowing my place. I forgot I was a slave."
"Hmmmmmm, a bit stilted."
"I'm in love with you, you big oaf. Don't you know that?" The declaration sprung out of her, uncontrolled.
"You'll be whipped for the big oaf bit." Seth said dispassionately. "And if a slave loves her Master it doesn't mean she's privileged. You're one girl on a coffle. I can't single you out for extra rations."
"You don't have to keep me on that damn chain."
"Why?"
"Beause…" She sniffed unhappily. "Oh, never mind!"
Slowly he untied Talifa's knots. "I warned you before." He said broodingly. "I'm a slave trader. In a way, you've a better chance of freedom than I have. We don't mix."
"We could if you'd try."
He turned her about as though she was a kitten and bound her hands again in front.
"You're going to whip me?"
"Yes."
It was a matter of fact statement, leaving her nothing to say. She had no wish to plead. She was not even sure about the whipping. Perhaps she needed it. In sulky silence she allowed herself to be suspended to stand on her toes. Undoubtedly, from a man's standpoint, it was the most practical posture for his purpose. To begin with, it scared the girl half to death by its blatant exposure of her body.
"Mustafa had a go at you already, I see."
"Yes." She could be as monosyllabic as he.
Seth Burdett chuckled. "But not half hard enough. You're uppity as hell. You need a lesson."
"I'm sure you'll give me one. Please watch out for my breasts."
This time he laughed delightedly and patted her bottom.
"That sounded just like M'lady giving the butler his instructions for dinner."
"I don't feel like M'lady. I feel like a frightened little girl. For goodness sake whip me and be done with it before I pee my pants."
"You haven't got any pants."
"That makes it worse."
He reached down and cupped his hand between her thighs, kneading her soft moist mound. Corey held still on her tether, refusing to be coy. Her Master clutched a full hand of her a couple of times and examined the result.
"Hmmmmmm, you sure aren't in the mood."
"Would you be, tied hogtie for a couple of hours?"
"Lady Vere-de-Vere again! You damn girls…!" Pensively, he frictioned her nipples betwen fingers and thumbs until she yelped.
"You're under no obligation to arouse me sexually before you whip me." She said tartly. "I expect to scream either way."
"More humane if you're horny, love."
Stretched from her raised and tethered arms, Corey Gibson stood in petulant silence under the ministrations of the man she must call Master. She tried to hate him and could not. She tried to suppress her responses to the play of his hands and fingers but she could not do that either. She closed her eyes and surrendered to defeat. Being feminine, she strove for the last word: "I hope you're proud of what you're doing to me."
It was a strange whipping, a contest of the minds rather thn te flesh. Corey refused to scream. She did not understand her ability to keep silent but it was there, springing from some deep emotional need within her psyche to touch this man when she possessed no other weapons. She jerked and writhed and kicked under the lashes by which he cut at her defenceless nudity, but she made no sound beyond the involuntary gasps of shock as each blow impacted to sear her skin.
Seth Burdett was an artist with captive girls. He had whipped many. No coffle was without its recalcitrant maidens who, as far as he had been able to determine, could respond to no other guidance than a thrashing. Their ability to relate to any other form of persuasion was just not there. Often they fetched the highest price when stripped upon the block. Probably it was because of their whipmarks which, in the end, they became inordinately proud to bear. He did not rank Corey Gibson as belonging to this group. In his own sardonic way, he saw her as something of an experiment. She responded to cruelty and kindness most entertainingly. She had a piquancy…!
When the blows stopped and the knowing hands and fingers resumed their delicious tactile torment, Corey knew herself once more delivered to a welter of sensations she could not control. She now had no wish to control them. She was too utterly defenseless to render any kind of resistance valid. She tried hard to stand still, to keep her eyes disdainfully closed, to keep silent. But only her eyes obeyed. Within their make-believe oblivion she continued on with much the same sounds and motions as when the whip was striping her flesh. She assured herself that if she could have controlled them she would have done so, but she could not. She sensed his pleasure in all she did, but her furious retorts were washed away in a flood of surging sexuality. When he resumed her whipping the strokes had become an acute quintessence of glory.
"Feel better now, love?"
Seth Burdett did not sound too concerned. It was a minute or two since he had ceased whipping the naked girl who adored him. He had not released her, she still stood stretched and vulnerable and with closed eyes. She had no real wish to open them, and from their darkness heard her own voice saying something she did not wish to say.
"Yes, Master. Thank you."
"Acts as a tonic for a girl, wouldn't you say? Sets her straight."
"Yes, Master."
"We've got a little talking to do, and you'll stand there like that while we do it. Any complaints?"
"No, Master."
"But first you deserve a damn good fuck. Remember last time?"
She had never forgotten the most unorthodox coupling she had ever imagined. She was suddenly aflame with desire. But, instead, said miserably: "You mustn't. You know about me… don't you?"
"What's there to know, love?"
"About Amphala… when Abdul Nour took me bck there…? He's got a brothel for his men. He chained me in it with the other girls, the ones you've captured on the coffle with me." Corey opened her eyes and gave her latest owner her frankest star. "He made me a whore. Unpaid, but still a whore. Since you made love to me I've been raped a hundred times."
"Oh that!" He laughed at her seriousness. "You're just a silly kid in lots of ways. I think a coffle's the proper place for you. Come here."
She could not come here or do anything else except the one thing he desired. When Seth's strength enveloped her she proceeded to do it with every outrageous sound and motion she possessed or her tether would allow.
"Well, that's two things looked after." Burdett seated himself comfortably and regarded his panting slave's sweat bedewed nudity with affection. "I suppose you're curious, eh?"
"Yes, Master."
"That's better. Proper respect, no demands, no questions, I've got you back to about where we were when we left off last time. I'm still going to sell you, y'know."
In simple sincerity, Corey said: "I wish you wouldn't. I wish you'd keep me. I'm not talking about marrying me or anything like that. Keep me as a slave. I'd be good for you."
Seth Burdett sighed. "You're a treasure. But where would I keep you? I don't have a home."
"Keep me on the coffle. I wouldn't mind. It's a healthy life." Amusedly she plucked at a term she had once employed elsewhere. "I could be your Judas Goat… show the others how to behave?"
"Alright." Seth waved a tolerant hand. "But here's the way it is. I've got no money. That bastard Abdul cleaned out Ben Sirah to the last penny, including our take from the auction. I just managed to get out of the damn place with my life. Mustafa had made a deal with the son-of-a-bitch. A fine old double-cros on me. Made me feel like a bloody innocent. Abdul knew the time and the place and the take. Wouldn't be surprised he screwed Mustafa out of his cut, they're a pair of twisters. Could be the reason for Mustafa snaffling Abdul's whorehouse."
Corey pondered. Nothing was ever the way you thought it was. She wished she had the courage to ask him to let her arms down a few inches. Instead, she enquired hopefully: "What happened to Audrey Cotswold?"
"Your side-kick on the coffle?" He shrugged disgustedly. "What the hell happened to anyone that night? The place was a shambles."
"Might she have escaped to… civilization?"
"Damn unlikely, love. Probably got herself picked up." He chuckled. "Be a joke if we found her in one of the slave cages when we get there."
"You're going to sell me in the same place?"
"Yes."
They surveyed each other in the gloom. One of the world's richest girls, naked, trussed up to the bough of a tree, her beauty livid with whip marks. And a man…! The strongest man she had ever known. Seth Burdett the Slave trader. Corey remembered another term. "An odd couple." "You still won't allow me to be ransomed?"
"Hell, girl, I can't! By African standards you're still the property, the slave, of Assef Aslam. By U.S. standards you belong to your father. There's two accumulations of wealth that could make mincemeat of me. I'm a known Trader in girls. There's a price on my head. But I'll add to my promise: Once you're sold and I've got the cash I'll tell 'em where you are." He grinned apologetically. "By that time your purchaser will have screwed you enough he'll be open to an offer."
"That's beastly."
"It's practical."
"My father won't hurt you if I don't want him to."
"But you can't make that promise about Aslam."
He was right. A throbbing heat in her loins drove Corey on: "I don't want to be sold. I want to stay with you."
"Stretch your legs open, love. You can raise one foot if you like."
"Did I sound that sulky I have to be punished?"
"You know damn well you did."
Corey Gibson lifted one leg out to the side to expose her crotch. She managed to take two whistling cuts between her thighs before lapsing into a contortion of agony. When she was again standing straight and stretched and trembling she paid her dues.
"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 stood 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 authority. "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.
Audrey Cotswold knew herself doomed. They had a good thing going and would use her as they pleased. The uniforms meant nothing. The title of Magistrate meant nothing, Mr. Syroid was a rogue. In this place white female flesh was more valuable than the promise of cash, a promise which she realised was extremely tenuous. She sat on her seared bottom on her cot within the hateful small cell and watched the corporal fit the handcuffs on her ankles and click them tight. "What have I done to serve that?" She asked without hope. "You've already replaced the cuffs on my wrists and elbows."
"It makes a nice ensemble, Miss Cotswold." Mr. Syroid enthused. "Innocence in chains" or perhaps "The maiden all forlorne." "Surely you would not begrudge us an aesthetic pleasure?"
"But makes me so helpless! I can't do anything for myself. And there are things…"
"They can be dealt with on request. In the meantime you look very pretty."
Audrey had to believe him. Over the period of a couple of days there were enough male eyes peering at her through the bars to prompt the thought of him selling tickets. She was asked to show her wealed bottom and do pose… She did her best. She knew herself broken. She did not want to return to the bench.
Her day in Court was brief and highly illuminating. The Judge talked to the corporal and the corporal spoke to her. Regardless of her shocking iniquities the Court was prepared to be most merciful. She would still be publicly whipped, but not imprisoned. "You are so young and so beautiful, it is a pity to lock you in a stone cell for twenty years." The corporal explained. "You would come out so old… Even if your jailors fucked you it would not be nice…! So you are fined one hundred thousand of your American dollars and, of course, your public whipping."
"But I don't have a hundred thousand dollars, not here!"
"In that case it is the prison."
She sensed a hint. Mr. Syroid made it clear. "You have a means of obtaining it, Miss Cotswold."
"In Ben Sirah! How?"
"After you have been whipped you may instruct us to have you sold."
It dovetailed, no doubt planned. "You mean in that slave auction they have here?" She asked incredulously.
"Of course!"
"But surely it's illegal? Why don't you stop it? It's your duty to stop it!"
"The slave Auction of Ben Sirah is known throughout the world." The corporal intoned reprovingly. "It is everywhere approved. In this country it is not illegal at all. The State receives revenues…"
"But what happens to me? Where will I…?"
"We will arrange everything for you, Miss Cotswold." Mr. Syroid asured suavely.
"But I don't want to be shipped! Surely you don't have to have that done to me?"
"Is most needful we show action."The corporal explained helpfully. "You are most criminal. You must visibly be seen to be punished or this Court loses face. You do understand…?"
She did indeed! "I understand I'm being railroaded." Audrey said bitterly. "But look, this whipping… It doesn't have to be in public? I don't want to be dragged out naked and whipped in public for everyone to gawp at!"
"How else can the public know…?"
Audrey Cotswold accepted defeat. She supposed it might turn out better than to be locked in some dismal hole for twenty years and be violated by all and sundry. She looked at her male inquisitors wanly: "When does it happen?" "You will be whipped five days from now."
"Why not tomorrow and get it done?"
"We wish to fuck you often before you leave us." The corporal explained ingenuously. "And besides, there is the advertising and the printing of the posters…"
Audrey let herself be led back to the cage. She was in a daze of incredulity. She let her ankles be locked together without comment. Her wrists and arms had not been freed. Somehow her tunic had been lost along the way. She took the small red pill they gave her every night and spread her legs obediently for them throughout each day. With great ceremony they locked and unlocked her ankles each time she was pierced. As the corporal had said: In Ben Sirah they did things right.
The crowd was surprising. But after all why not? A naked girl to be whipped in public did not happen every day. And the girl was white…! Without illusions, Audrey mounted the steps of the platform and beheld the dangling rope… It was not for her neck but for her wrists. She was experienced enough to know she would survive. Each stroke upon her nakedness would be a step through agony, but eventually the steps would take her out the other side. She remembered other whippings. Hands still behind her back, she faced the blur of faces, naked for their delectation. She stood, woodenly, while she was prepared. Her hands and arms spresd wide to the bar above her head, her ankles tied out to rings in the platform. She knew what that meant… she would be whipped between her legs. Well… it had all happened before, but never in public! She saw and felt the potency of being whipped in public. She had never been so naked, never so shamed. Those close to the platform were looking up into the cleft of her spread thighs at her Venus mound. Her breasts and nipples were for everyone…!
Audrey faced the multitude. The privileged sat in rows of chairs provided behind her back. They would be able to see the thong as it seared her skin. She had caught sight of the whip as she had been led to where she now stood. She wondered if any white girl had ever been so blatantly exhibited in Africa…! Or so cruelly punished! With the first stroke of the lash she closed her eyes and, while she screamed, went back in memory to the whippings ordered for her flesh by Assef Aslam.
"You are a very brave girl." Said the corporal sincerely after the crowd had tired at the sight of her and the dignatories had gone. "I am sorry I cannot part with the handcuffs."
Still on the platform, Audrey stood erect and let him do his will with her arms and wrists. She was in a maze of pain but also in a well of thankfulness that her whipping was done. With an eye to her forthcoming auction the law of Ben Sirah had stopped short of doing her skin real injury. She had been competently whipped. The crowd had been edified by her screams. The dignatories sitting on the platform to watch the actual impact of the lash upon her skin had all gone home with gratifying erections. Her wrists were being tied behind her back with cord. Nou doubt the police budget did not run to a gift of handcuffs. The corporal noosed her neck for a tether and led her to the place she knew of old. There were cordial handshakes all around. Some papers were signed. The English girl was not accorded the sole use of a cage. Her neck was shackled to the wall, her chain was long… there were the pails! In the gloom of the big chamber, and all alone, she thought longingly of Corey. She fingered her weals in tender exploration of damage. She sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall. There wasn't much else she could do except to wonder how much money she would fetch, who would buy her, and how long she would have to wait. But she did not have to wait at all. The next day she had a visitor.
It was Reid Hunter.
"You're dead." She said flatly when he sauntered to her chain.
"Well, you're not." He surveyed her jauntily. "They whipped you, didn't they! The silly bastards! If we'd got word a day sooner…!"
"But, Reid, you were…?"
"No I wasn't. A lot of blood and a knock on the head. Lucky really, Abdul and his boys thought I was dead too. They didn't touch the jet, so I flew home. Then some asshole of a lawyer got in touch…"
"Mr. Syroid?"
"Right! Now I've got to buy you all over again. Fortunately Syroid didn't know your market value. I'm getting you cheap this time."
"Where's Assef?"
"New York. Waiting for you. I think he's decided to let Corey go rather than pay a few more millions. She's her dad's affair from now on. Where is she?"
"I don't know. Abdul took her. Oh, reid, I'm so damn thankful you're here! I've been whipped and screwed…!"
"So I see." He raised her to her feet, her chain trailing. Then kissed her gently, the kiss of a big brother. "I still love you. Welcome home."
"But, Reid darling, I'm still chained!"
"Why, so you are! But no problem." He chuckled. "I have to do something you'll hate though. Assef's got a notion… you know, the way men are?"
"Sure, I know. Don't worry about it."
"I have to deliver you back in chains or tightly bound."
"What's wrong with that?" Said Audrey Cotswold happily. "I thought you were going to tell me something rough. After what's been done to me…! Darling, hurry. Get me out of this."
Reid Hunter chuckled her under the chain and kissed her again.