PROLOGUE

 

The beautiful black girl from Senegal sat under the colourful sun umbrella at her fake jewellery- (Faux bijoux) stall in the market place in Naples staring into space and wondering what had happened to her sister, Fire, when they had been parted six months before.

Flame's left ankle was shackled to the heavy white plastic, water filled base of the red and white striped canvas umbrella, beneath the table to stop her from running away. There was just enough steel chain attached to it to allow her to walk around the table and serve her customers. The long brightly coloured skirt of her native dress disguised the fact that she was shackled to the table.

Trade was slow that hot summer morning. She wore no brassiere beneath the low cut skimpy top that matched her skirt and she could feel the sweat running down between her pert, smooth black bra-less breasts, making its way to her waist and dripping into her little cotton panties. She wriggled around on her white plastic chair trying to make herself more comfortable as her pussy was throbbing painfully with the recent sexual activity it had taken.

The faux bijoux laid out on her table sparkled invitingly in the morning sun in the market place, enticing several female customers who were looking at it and also a couple of elderly men standing nearby, who were eying her up and down, as they knew that her body was for sale as well as her glittering wares.

Her young good looking Neapolitan pimp, who was dressed in fashionable clothes, a body hugging black T-shirt and tight blue Armani jeans with Nike trainers and wearing a red baseball cap on his shaven head, was hovering nearby keeping her within his sight and also watching out for male clients. He was on his cell phone taking orders for the drugs that he supplied and also making appointments for Flame when she had finished her stint in the market, and for some of his other girls he looked after for his boss.

Flame was dressed in a bright multi-coloured traditional Senegal cotton outfit to attract the customers. The bodice of her garment was unusually low cut and revealed her dark-skinned pert breasts to their full advantage. Her black braided hair that peeped out from the intricately tied cotton headdress that matched her long skirted outfit, framed her lovely dark coloured face. She felt sad that morning as she thought about how she had come to be in the market place in Naples and what had happened over the last few months or so. She recalled the debasement and degradation that she and her twin sister had been subjected to.

***

The so called Freedom Fighters had invaded her small village along with several others in the northern region of Senegal and burned the small wooden houses down to the ground and shot most of the inhabitants. The two girls had managed to escape as soon as they saw what was happening to their people.

Young pubescent boys and girls were being taken away and the old people shot in the head by the band of atrocious men who had ridden into the village on ten black quad bikes, shouting and firing rounds of ammunition into the air.

The twin sisters had been named Fire and Flame, by their father the chief of their village - because he said that they had been conceived by the fire in his large hut when the flames were high during the winter months - or so he told everyone. He had married a beautiful coffee coloured, fine-featured young woman from one of the other villages. Both girls had been born with their father's dark skin, but the delicate features on their faces, were carbon copies of their mother who had died at childbirth. Their height also, they had taken from their father, together with his large shiny black eyes.

They were twins and for most people, it was very difficult to tell them apart, unless they were undressed. On Fire's left breast, tucked into the fold beneath, was a small pale pink birthmark shaped like a heart, so unless they were naked and under complete scrutiny, no one could tell the difference. They often had a lot of fun with the two young men in the village that their father had chosen for them when they had reached puberty, by changing partners every so often. The girls though were still virgins, having had no actual penetration only a lot of petting, body rubbing and some oral sex

 

CHAPTER ONE

THE REBEL FIGHTERS

 

The Senegali Rebel gang had come down from the mountains to Flame's small village in the south. The twin sisters had somehow managed to run out of their hut undercover of the thick smoke and into some foliage nearby during the disturbance. They hid in a neighbour's ruined hut that had served as a barn, with a large piece of old tarpaulin covering the entrance, amongst some trees without being seen by the men.

It was a cold spring day and the wind whistled through the gaps in the planks of wood of the roughly built old hut, biting into their tender skin and they huddled together deeper into the foul-smelling rotting straw and tried not to make any noise as they watched the neighbouring farmer and his wife being tortured to death.

Now they knew that their men were either captured or worse still dead having been shot along with the other men and women and possibly the children, unless the rebels had captured the very young children which would lead to them being trafficked between criminal gangs for adoption by Western women in Europe and America, or worse still people who dealt in young flesh and would end up in the wrong hands.

The little farmhouse that was but a few metres away from the hut was still smouldering. The owner had been a friend of their father, the Chieftain of the village, but he was away in Dakar trying to get funds from the government, for his and the neighbouring villages at the time of the atrocious happenings.

The poor farmer had been stripped naked and then nailed to a post with barbed wire wrapped tightly around his body. In front of him, the young woman, his wife, who had obviously been very pretty once by all accounts, lay before him on the ground, her clothing in shreds around her where they had been ripped off when she was savagely violently assaulted by the evil intruders. Her bruised breasts had swollen and there was a large dried patch of blood between her spread thighs that were scratched and cut. Her face was bruised and bleeding badly from the beating of the Rebels and the rivulets of blood were still wet. Their animals, two sheep and four hens had been slaughtered along with several rabbits; ready to be taken away to provide food for the rest of the band of evil men.

The vicious invaders had made the farmer watch while they had abused his young wife and then she had seen them cut off her husband's testicles and then they shot him in the back of the head before they slit her stomach and left both of them for dead, whilst the twins hid in the straw and watched the dreadful men carry out their foul deeds. They found it so hard not to cry out less they be discovered and receive the same treatment.

No matter how hard they tried the girls could not dispel the images that kept recurring in their minds. They just hoped that their deaths would be quick and not too painful if the evil men found them.

Two of the men who were dressed in black from head to foot came into the hut and jabbed at the straw with their rifle butts just missing Flame's feet and she bit her tongue for fear of crying out.

Horror and terror ran through her veins as she huddled closer to her sister. She knew if they found them that they would torture and rape them, they were both young and pretty and the filthy men would have no compunction about it. Then most probably they would kill them afterwards.

"There is no one here," shouted one of the rebels in heavily accented French. "Come on let's go, we're only wasting our time. I must have a piss though." He quickly unzipped his flies and peed into the straw showering Fire with his urine.

She stuffed a fist in her mouth to prevent herself from screaming out as she felt the hot liquid run down her face.

"Mon Dieu, that's better," he exclaimed as he hawked and cleared his throat and spat out a large lump of phlegm into the straw narrowly missing Fire's face. Then the two men hastily left the hut and bundled the dead animals into black plastic bin liners and threw them into the large black fibre-glass panniers on their great quad bikes, mounted them and drove away in a cloud of dust.

The terrorised girls heard the men drive away and waited for some time before peeping through the wooden slats of the stable. It was getting dark and they decided that under cover of the cold night that they would try and make their escape. They pulled their skimpy clothes around them and carefully pushed aside the tarpaulin covering the doorway and looked out into the darkness. It was cold and damp and they shivered with fright for fear of bumping into some of the rebels, but so far the coast was clear.

As they looked out into the hazy moonlit night there seemed to be no sign of movement within the shadows of the many candelabra cacti and old dried up, gnarled Tamarind trees. They filled their lungs with the cool night air and staggered out into the rough area.

They had walked along the dusty tracks of the quad bikes towards an unmade furrowed road of hardened earth with overgrown grass and weeds either side. The tall dry grass afforded them some protection as they crept through the undergrowth. The tangled thorny weeds growing amongst the grass grabbed at their thin clothing tearing it to shreds. Droplets of blood were appearing on their tender dark flesh and their bare feet were being torn to ribbons by the harsh pointed pieces of flint rock on the dry track.

The waning moon in the sky lit up their paths slightly as they stumbled barefooted towards what looked like a cave in some dense rocks on one side of the track a few metres away. Though exhausted and gasping for breath, the memory of what they had seen back at the stable, spurred them on. They staggered out of the dense foliage and crawled into the cave like hole and sat down trembling from their experience and eventually fell asleep in each other's arms.

CHAPTER TWO

THE TWINS ARE CAPTURED

 

The warm early morning sun awoke the twins and they were hungry and thirsty and their bare feet sore from the night before on the rough surface of the dirt track they had stumbled along.

As they looked around them the almost desert-like area in front of them looked desolate and sinister, but so far there was no one about and they decided to leave the cave and make a dash for it. There were dried-up tumbleweeds everywhere and wicked straggling weeds trying to trip them up as they slowly made their way across the uneven rocky surface. They had no idea how long they had been walking and tears blurred their deep black eyes as they squinted against the burning sun trying to find some other sort of shelter. Suddenly they noticed in the distance a dense green area with tall trees looming and a hill behind them that looked vaguely like an oasis and they wondered if in fact it was only a mirage as they quickened their pace towards the place and paused to rest panting beneath a large old tree.

Through the trees they could hear voices shouting and the sound of vehicle engines. They approached very carefully and found that they had come upon another small village and it was being plundered and ransacked by more rebels. Women and children were being shot down as they tried to escape. There seemed to be no male villagers around and the dastardly rebels were firing shots into the air and at the women and setting fire to several wood and straw huts.

Already vultures were flying overhead at the smell of fresh blood and the twins hid behind some large rocks. But the dried grass and trees nearby were catching fire, which caused them to leave their hiding place. Suddenly one of the men spied them and shouted to the others as they darted out of their coverage. The men rushed for their quad bikes and started to chase them as they pounded in their painful bare feet through the burning trees towards some more cover nearby.

The machines careered after them, narrowly avoiding the trees, the riders' ugly faces that were covered with crash helmets with full-face dark tinted black visors, to disguise themselves, were distorted with rage beneath them when they saw that the young women were escaping.

The two girls had hitched up their torn skirts around their waists and ran as fast as they could on their long legs, dodging tree stumps and boulders as they climbed the incline that would hopefully lead them to safety, but it seemed that the men were gaining on them faster than they could escape. They got to the top of the rocky incline and looked down over a cliff at the riverbank and turbulent water below. The sisters knew they were trapped and could see no way out of their predicament as they looked around them. Suddenly Fire noticed that to one side of them was a vast rock face in between some old, tall gum trees and what looked like a cave almost covered with undergrowth. They both ran as fast as they could towards it.

"Quickly, in here," shouted Fire dropping to her hands and knees. "They won't be able to follow us into the cave."

She grabbed her sister's arm and pulled her towards the opening. The entrance was narrower and deeper than she had thought and the girls had to push hard to force themselves through the tangled weeds and brambles, the thorns savagely tearing at their flimsy torn clothing, that was almost in shreds and their feet once again badly scratched and bleeding from the sharp stones they had scrambled over, but there was no turning back now. They would surely be caught and tortured, or worse still, raped and then killed. They had to escape, to be anywhere else but there, in full view of the fast approaching men. Their breath was coming in short, sharp rasps and Flame thought she was going to choke as she coughed violently at the smell of bat guano in the cave and there was a sudden fluttering of wings as they disturbed the angry dark grey furry creatures.

Both girls screamed out in surprise as they stumbled with fright and found themselves slithering down a slope that was damp and smelt of mould until they came to a moss covered ledge. Crouching down, Fire thought she saw a faint crack of daylight shining through the cave face and they squeezed through the split in the dark rock and crawled towards the light of the sun and then suddenly the rest of the new cave opened out and they found themselves in a natural chamber of rock.

As they straightened up and walked towards the light the chamber became wider and then it narrowed again and their footsteps echoed in the darkness around them. The rock ceiling above them was closing in and they felt the feeling of claustrophobia thrust itself upon them; it was as if the rocks were closing in on them completely. Suddenly the girls stumbled again and fell into a small abyss and they slithered down the sheer damp earth and they found themselves in a dark subterranean passage. They stopped and listened for anyone who might be following them but all they could hear was the rushing of water as they ran towards a beam of sunshine. The cave opened out onto the riverbank that was below the cliffs and they momentarily felt safe once more amongst some reeds.

Although they looked dishevelled in their colourful torn dresses, the daylight revealed that they were both very attractive young women of approximately nine years of age. They were both tall, but beautifully proportioned. Their native headgear had been lost in the scramble and their finely featured dark-skinned faces beneath their shoulder length multi-braided hairstyles glistened with sweat that ran down to their full unfettered breasts that had been exposed by their torn clothing revealing their sharp pointed dark red nipples. They both had slim waists that broadened out to smooth hips and tight rounded bottoms, velvety thighs and long shapely legs.

Flame sat up and wiped her face with the tattered sleeve of her garment, grimacing as she saw how broken her finger nails were and at the scratches from the thorns on her left arm as she showed them to her sister.

Fire forced a smile on her beautiful face as she too winced from the pain in her bruised back where she had fallen and looked around her. It would seem that they had lost the two pursuers for the time being.

"Well it could be worse," she laughed shakily trying to play down the terror that she felt only minutes before when they had been running for their lives.

"So what do we do now?" Asked Flame as she looked up at the rock face and then much to her chagrin she suddenly noticed that two masked rebels were following them and were abseiling down the high cliff face and she could hear the roar of two quad bikes of two other men approaching from around the bottom of the cliff face. They had somehow found a track down to the bank of the large river.

The girls knew that they were finally trapped now on the pathway and they had no means of escape only into the turbulent water, but neither of them were good enough swimmers to face the river that was making its way to a waterfall that would eventually flow to the sea beyond.

"We can either try to swim in the rough cold water, or we can be captured. Either way we could both be captured," exclaimed Fire, "but, I think that as long as we stay together we have a slight chance of surviving."

They huddled together and watched the masked men approaching them. The two abseilers and the two black quad bikes with their riders were nearly upon them.

A tall well-built athletic looking young man, wearing concealing black leathers and a full-face motorbike crash helmet with its darkly tinted face visor pulled up, had some wisps of blond hair that had escaped and were showing from beneath the helmet. He drew up near to the girls and jumped down from his quad bike. He clicked his leather-clad thumb and fingers and beckoned to the other three men who also wore pulled down full-face helmets and were clothed in black leathers from head to foot.

As the girls surveyed the area around them they noticed an old Army lorry with a light brown coloured soft top and flapping sides approaching them and they knew now that there was absolutely no way that they could escape and their hopes dropped as it came nearer and they realised that there were also some more of the rebels coming for them and there was little that they could do.

Three men jumped out of the old military vehicle. Each one of them was dressed in sand coloured camouflage combat outfits, wearing caps to match and heavily tinted wrap around aviator sunglasses and had either a VA, UZI mini pistol or a MP5 rifle in their hands as they spread out and approached the girls, keeping in contact with each other through the mikes in their headsets.

The twins ducked down and lay spread-eagled and trembling on the ground and the man who was leading them was watching them through a pair of high powered binoculars and giving the men their instructions.

The Commander of the band of rebels, Claude Quidi, who was a French/white South African mercenary, gave a shout as he approached the two girls and pointed his gun at them.

The twins knew that there was no point in resisting the men now and thought they would be better off dead anyway.

They both stood up in the reeds and three of men quickly approached them with their rifles pointed at them. The big white man grabbed Fire viciously by her right arm and pulled her towards him forcefully against his large body whilst shouting a command in French to her sister not to try and escape, or he would shoot her.

"You stupid, black whore. Bitch, you know that you have made it more difficult for my men. Our Leader will not be pleased with you, nor will the Trader." He slapped Fire hard across one cheek with the back of his large rough hand and her head snapped sharply to one side.

She slowly turned her head to look at him and spat in his face and he slapped her again, this time more brutally and the strength of the blow threw her down onto the rough ground and he kicked out at her with his heavily booted foot. The velocity of his savage kick as he slammed his right foot into her chest, forced the air from her lungs and as she lay on the ground her body twisted with violent pain whilst she tried to regain her breath. She lay writhing at the cruel man's feet. He poked his boot into her ribs and gave her another vicious kick. This time she heard a slight crack as if one of her ribs might have snapped and knew that she was probably seriously hurt as she cried out loudly.

He pulled Flame towards him and shouted at his approaching men to hurry over, in heavily accented English.

"So, you stupid whores, you thought you could escape from us?"

The big man's cruel, tanned rugged face became distorted with anger as he shouted at her in French, his cold grey eyes awash with disdain for her as he showed his contempt by spitting on the ground, narrowly missing Fire's face.

"You have no right to treat us like this; we are the daughters of the Chieftain of the village that you burnt to the ground. We are royalty in our own right." Fire looked up at him through her tear-glazed eyes. "I shall report you to the authorities," she shouted courageously at him though her stomach was churning with fear.

"Comment? Authorities? Which authorities? HUH, they have no control over us; we are the law around here, you stupid black woman. They do not care about you or where you come from. Everyone is dead in your village and some of the others, we run the country now! We are the Authorities." He laughed cruelly as he looked down at her contemptuously, but he could feel himself becoming aroused at the sight of the lovely young high-spirited woman lying on the ground before him. He wanted her, not just to force himself upon her now, but he wanted her for himself. Perhaps, for his submissive, there was something about her that appealed to him.

He clicked his fingers and beckoned to his other two men from the vehicle and the two sweaty abseilers together with one of the bike riders came forward quickly towards the frightened girls, with handcuffs, blindfolds and ropes dangling from their hands. They seized the two girls, threw them down on the damp earth, straddled them and pulled their wrists behind their back and handcuffed them. Then they hobbled their ankles with ropes, blindfolded and gagged them with silver duct tape, and finally heaved them to their feet and with a firm grip on their bound arms they pulled them along blindly towards the old canvas sided army truck and threw the girls into the back of it, pushing them roughly to the floor chaining and padlocking their legs to the old slatted seats which had several steel rings bolted to them. The girls' arms were pulled up roughly and chained to one of the anti-roll bars of the vehicle.

The tall young blond rebel clicked his gloved fingers again and the driver jumped back into the cab of the lorry together with the Commander. The other man and the two abseilers were left in the back with the two girls, ogling them and making obscene remarks as they drove off with their captives. The two quad bike riders in front of the lorry were leading the way back to their secret hideout.

The two girls tried to scream as they squirmed against their bonds, but their cries were muffled by the duct tape over their mouths and one of the men kicked out at them viciously and an angry Senegalese voice shouted at them to be silent as he poked at their backsides with the butt of his rifle and laughed raucously at their plight as he lifted what was left of their torn skirts and ran the end of the rifle around their thighs and poked again at them. This time he ran the tip of the rifle barrel over their pudenda and pulled their scanty torn panties to one side as they hung helplessly from the anti-roll bar like meat carcases in their bonds. He made coarse remarks at them in their own language and laughed as he teased their sex lips. They flinched but there was nothing that they could do as he manhandled them and made further lewd remarks, telling them what he would do to them when he was alone with them. The two girls tried to cry out, but their cries were distorted by the silver tape and were mere whimpers that no one could hear.

As the twins swayed and their bodies bounced up and down with the unevenness of the ground they were being driven over, they wondered where they were being taken. They felt thoroughly humiliated at the way they were being treated. They were trussed up like wild animals, their mouths covered with duct tape; they could not call out and their clothes were torn to shreds revealing their lovely bodies.