EXTRACT FOR
Raptor
(Kelly Addams)

Cautiously Jenny opened her eyes. For a few moments she had lain awake as she tried to unravel what had happened. She had slipped and fallen, that much was very clear, but why could she hear voices. The porters? She had questioned, her eyes still squeezed shut, her head was pounding, there didn't seem much sense in making it worse by squinting in the daylight.

It had to be the porters chattering away in the background, it was African voices she could hear. Wood smoke filled the air, and meat roasting. That had been the first signal that things weren't exactly as they seemed because half of her expedition were veggie burger types who had refused to smell the flesh of any animal cooking, which had forced confirmed carnivores like Jenny and Graham to take their protein boiled and flavourless.

And then her senses had reeled, a breeze had wafted across her body and instantly she realised that she was naked. The voices returned, a little closer now, and her concern forced her to open her eyes slowly despite the headache she knew would blossom fully. The voices she was hearing were female, and as she knew that neither Gloria or Alice spoke the local dialect she understood that she may have been in camp, but certainly not her own.

Where the hell am I? She questioned as her vision cleared and she saw a small group of black women gathered with their backs to her, and what the hell is happening she asked in alarm as she looked down her naked body and found herself streaked with red and grey and blue smears.

"Hello?" she called out weakly as she raised her head a fraction only to close her eyes quickly as a stabbing pain flashed and rattled around inside her skull.

The African women ignored her completely and were still huddled together when she finally dared open her eyes again.

Topless she realised, from the waist up their backs were naked and one sported deep scars, healed but massive, around their slender waists hung short leather skirts, the hide supple looking and a patchwork of different coloured skins.

Jenny moved a finger and nudged against her hip, she was wearing the same skirt, so whoever had discovered her unconscious had stripped her out of her shorts and blouse, then painted her body with what looked like a mixture of grease and mud and then finally dressed her again in an animal hide skirt.

Tribal? She wondered as she tried to lift herself up onto an elbow, or maybe ritual. Tony the anthropologist would have known she was sure, she just hoped that regardless of her body paint being tribal or ritual it didn't have any connection to the word sacrifice.

"Hello?" she tried again, a little louder, and forcing herself she managed to sit upright as the Africans continued to talk quietly together.

The woman closest turned her head, Jenny saw pale white streaks like the marks left by smearing fingers across her deep ebony cheeks. Their eyes met, the girl glanced away and said something quietly. Another girl turned and studied before nodding, soon all of the group had studied the painted white woman sitting at their side, but none of them spoke directly to her.

"Do you speak English?" Jenny asked without much hope of a yes.

"Parlez vous Français?" she added, aware that across the Congo French was the predominant European language spoken, a throwback to the dark days of Belgian rule.

Still no response, not even a flicker of recognition in their eyes. And they aren't pygmies she told herself, all of the girls were far too tall, they were taller than herself.

It was then that it struck her, they were exceptionally tall, and slim, and elegant, their bearing proud. They could almost be warrior women she thought as she remembered tales of ancient warrior tribes that were made up exclusively of women... like Amazons! 

The first girl that had looked at her turned, and Jenny attempted to struggle to her feet. She was topless as she'd assumed, she just hadn't expected to see such piercings through the girls prominent and very dark nipples. On television Jenny had seen documentaries that featured south Pacific Island cultures, the warrior men with wild boar tusks through their noses. The girl approaching had those same tusks through each of her nipples. Behind them she realised as the girl drew closer, the tusk had been inserted through the ring of her areola on one side and then pushed deep before turning to emerge on the opposite side of the nipple.

That is far beyond a piercing Jenny gasped, she thought about the time she'd had her own nipple pierced, the intense pain, then the infection that had forced her to abandon the dream of a gold bar that showed so clearly under a tight t-shirt. But that must have been agony, the tusk was easily as thick as her finger.

The girl paused, her expression completely blank, then she reached forward and pressed a finger against Jenny's breast. Jenny looked up into her jaundice yellowed eyes, what did it mean, and she still didn't know where the hell she was.

"Jenny." she said as she pressed a hand to her chest. "Jenny," she repeated pressing her hand harder, "My name is Jenny."

The girl looked at the hand, then pressed against Jenny's erect nipple.

"Jenny!" she whispered.

Then Jenny winced as powerful fingers gripped and twisted her nipple hard.

The group giggled, and turned, and Jenny took a faltering step back as hands reached out, snapping fingers threatened her nipples. She staggered backward, the girl still maintaining her painful grip. At her back she felt wood and rushes, she was against a wall, trapped, and the group closed in on her.