'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?'
