CHAPTER ONE

 

The sharp snapping reports of leather against flesh echoed through the clearing, each one immediately accented by the choked scream of the naked blonde strapped to the whipping-post.

Julia Dawson watched the flogging with dread, instead of the exhilaration of revenge that she should have felt. She winced as the big Arab lashed into the white back with the long, vicious whip. The woman's body was streaked now; the thin red weals being raised without any pattern between the shoulders and the lower part of the jerking buttocks.

That same morning, Julia herself had suffered the pain and humiliation of having to bare her own buttocks to receive twelve strokes of the cane from this same blonde. With the thought of that ordeal so fresh in her mind, the smarting heat still burning her flesh, she should have been gloating over every agonising stroke that bit into the wealed, sweating body at the whipping-post. But she wasn't. Her only feelings now were fear and an overwhelming disappointment.

"I'm not liking this one darn bit," muttered the red-headed American girl at her side.

Julia glanced at Sylvia Carter, the only friend she had. Both of them had been lured out to this remote island in the Bahamas in the belief that they were coming to highly paid jobs; Julia as a tutor to the two teenage children of Cynthia Briggs, the woman now writhing under the lash and Sylvia as personal maid. The jobs were there all right, but they had found that the island was being used as a base for slave trading and that Cynthia Briggs was the cane wielding boss, with two white men and a score of Africans to back her up. There were also fifteen golden skinned girls imported from the South Sea Islands, whose main chore was to keep the Africans happy.

Now the whole population of the small island stood silently watching with varied emotion as their erstwhile dominating mistress was flogged. They were covered by the guns of the men in green battle dress, who had taken over the island less than an hour before, under the command of a huge, English speaking Arab, who now stood close to and dwarfing, the big Arab carrying out the punishment he had ordered.

Twenty lashes he had sentenced her to and now the punishment was nearing its end. Cynthia Briggs was exhausted, the maddened jerks under the earlier strokes had now degenerated to a painful swaying of her body from side to side; her screams to whimpers for mercy.

Sssswisshhh ... Craaacckk!

Another red weal appeared across the top of the buttocks, disappearing over one wide, writhing hip.

"After all the times she's laid a cane across my backside, I oughta be cheering that guy on," Sylvia whispered.

"Me, too - and all I can feel is pity." Then Julia gasped as she watched another punishing stroke lash into the streaked back of the tortured woman at the post. "Oh, Sylvia - what are we going to do?"

Less than an hour before, the two girls had been hugging each other joyfully as they watched the two armed motor launches nose into the bay and men boarding the ocean-going yacht owned by Cynthia Briggs and her gang of slave traders. Then had come the two helicopters and the swarm of Arabs in green battle dress, headed by the huge Arab in the resplendent uniform. They had watched from the window of Sylvia's room as the whole of Cynthia's gang had been rounded up. Then they had heard footsteps as the big ranch house was searched. Joyfully, thinking that this was an army contingent sent in by the authorities and that they were being rescued, they had thrown open the door and welcomed them with open arms.

Then had come the fear and shattering disappointment as they were ushered outside and made to line up with the rest; learned that, far from being rescued, they were being 'taken over' by an even more highly organised and ruthless gang of slave traders. The flogging of Cynthia Briggs had been ordered as an act of vengeance because she had apparently been operating in opposition to them.

Another searing weal was laid across the sweat-filmed back and yet another to the full, squirming buttocks. Both Sylvia and Julia sighed with relief as the brutal flogging came to an end and the naked woman was released from the whipping post.

As soon as the thongs were untied, she slumped to the ground and lay motionless, her back and buttocks a mass of weals. She lay prone, legs sprawled, her sex exposed to the whole company. The massive leader stood looking down at her, then inserted the toe of his boot between her thighs and nudged roughly.

"Get up," he barked. "He hasn't killed you. Get up before I order him to give you another dose."

She stirred then, and struggled to her hands and knees, her head hanging. She tried to rise, but hadn't the strength.

"Here - give me that whip." He grabbed the whip and lashed it down across the kneeling woman's taut buttocks, bringing a weak sob of pain as she sagged forward. "Want some more?"

"No ... no," she choked. "No more ... please ... no more ... you ... you'll kill me."

She crawled forward and got her arms about the whipping post, hauled herself up painfully and stood on shaky legs, her body pressed against the post that had held her for the whipping.

Julia glanced at the woman's two teenage children, not in the least surprised at the mixture of awe and excitement on their faces as they watched the pain and humiliation of their naked mother. These were the two she had been brought here to teach; the same two who had engineered her own punishment of twelve strokes of the cane. They were cast in the same mould as their mother; Julia had seen the unholy joy on their faces as they watched the frequent canings inflicted on the South Sea Island girls, knew the same look would have been on their faces as they had watched her being caned that morning. The punishment was made all the more embarrassing when the unfortunate woman to be caned had to expose the necessary parts on the spot, lifting and tucking in her skirt, unfastening suspenders from stockings and drawing down tight panties, an ensemble Cynthia Briggs insisted on them all wearing.

Julia's caning that morning had been her first taste of corporal punishment. To make matters worse, Sylvia had been forced to hold her down across the table while Cynthia Briggs seared her bared buttocks with the cane. Afterwards, Sylvia had been allowed to help Julia away, Cynthia and her two children losing interest as soon as the humiliating chastisement had been inflicted. Sylvia had taken her to her own room and done what she could for the wealed flesh. Julia had been in such a state, mentally and physically, that Sylvia had offered to make love to her, having found it had helped her when she had accepted it from one of the Island girls after her first caning two years before. Julia had been the injured party in a divorce only a few months previous and neither woman was a lesbian, but she had accepted Sylvia's offer, finding that, after the initial shyness, it not only helped take her mind off the shame of being thrashed as she was and the fiery agony of her bottom, it had also drained off a lot of the pent-up sexual desires that had been accumulating since the break-up of her marriage. Knowing that Sylvia was in almost the same boat as herself sexually, Julia had insisted on returning the favour.

Then had come the short-lived joy when they thought they were being rescued. Poor Sylvia, thought Julia, she had hung on and suffered the shameful canings and other humiliations for the last two years, instead of rebelling and refusing to work as several other white women had done. They had been taken away and presumably sold as slaves; Sylvia had preferred the devil she knew to the one she didn't know and had taken whatever came. Now, it seemed, it had all been for nothing - they would both soon be sold as slaves to God knew what monsters.

The invaders began to shepherd the Africans and the golden-skinned girls back towards the big house. Julia looked quickly at the two white men who had been Cynthia's lieutenants; one of them, the Englishman, George Westley, had been the woman's lover. His face showed no emotion whatever, as he moved away with the German, Fritz Schroeder - the one who used to visit Sylvia when he felt like it, generally satisfying his own desires and leaving Sylvia's unsated.

"You two - come over here!"

The two women, stomachs turning over, went across to the new boss standing by Cynthia at the whipping post, the whip still dangling from his hand.

"Sylvia ... he ... he's not going to whip us, too, is he? We haven't done anything," whispered Julia.

"I shouldn't think so honey." Nevertheless, Sylvia's voice trembled.

They stood before the big Arab as he looked them up and down, idly flicking the whip. He flicked it suddenly at Julia, catching the hem of her dress and tossing the skirt up, laughing as she jumped back with a startled yelp.

"What's your name?"

"Julia Dawson ... Mrs Julia Dawson."

His eyes flickered with interest. "Mrs eh? Where is your husband?"

"I'm divorced." Julia's eyes were fearfully following the swaying whip, like a rabbit following the undulations of a snake.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty seven."

"And you?" He turned to Sylvia, letting the whip rest on her left shoulder.

"Sylvia Carter ... I'm twenty eight; not married."

"Twenty seven and twenty eight," he said, nodding thoughtfully. He walked round them, taking the whip from Sylvia's shoulder and leaving a bloody streak where it had rested on her dress. "Good build; good looking, good age. Should fetch a good price!" He gestured towards Cynthia Briggs, still clinging, moaning, to the whipping post. "Take her down to the beach and put her in one of the boats."