Author’s Preface.

Many of the activities detailed in the following chapters are very dangerous indeed. In my humble opinion, readers would be most unwise should they attempt to indulge in any of them. They are for the imagination only. However, should any of the more reckless and foolhardy among you experiment with any of the Violent and Unusual activities referred to in this story (and survive), I would be Most Interested to hear of your Experiences.

It should further be understood that the characters and events related here are entirely imaginary. No resemblance is intended to any actual persons, whether living or dead.

Finally, I must stress that the reader should on no account imagine that the author in any way approves of any of the Barbarous and Unnatural Behaviour described below!




CLEMENTINE IN HELL

Part One - Triumph and Catastrophe

CHAPTER ONE (In which a newly enriched Clementine takes a trip to Paris).

(Clemmy had a choice and it was not a nice one. Either way, her life would never be the same again. Choice number one would most likely kill  her in a singularly painful way and the second wasn't a whole lot better! Shit! Another fine mess she'd got herself into. She racked her brains as to what she should do and soon realised there was no choice. Before giving her inevitable answer, she went over the amazing events of the last few remarkable weeks.)


''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

It all started when she won the prize and got the sack, both in the same day! The sack came first and when she arrived home, much the worse for drink, there was the envelope and the enclosed cheque which changed her life for the better, just as  losing her job had seemingly changed it for the worse.

It wasn't exactly a fortune, certainly not enough to live on for the rest of her life, but for an eighteen year old pushing nineteen with the soul of an eternal optimist, it was enough to lift her spirits sky high. She would need to find work in a year or two (or a rich husband!) but meantime she could travel. She had always wanted to travel and now she could - and in some style.

As soon as her euphoria had stabilised to some extent she was on the phone to her best friend, Estella Wainwright, (Stella for short) who had so recently assisted her to drown her sorrows.

"Hi Stella! I've just won a million pounds! That ticket I bought the other week. It's a winner!  How would you like to help me spend it, darling? I'm going to tour around Europe for a while and it'd be so much nicer if you came along. We've always done everything together."

This was true. The two had shared most things during the last year or two, including clothes, boys and even each others bodies for a while, a month or two ago, when,  during a period of boyfriend trouble, they had experimented with alternative lifestyles. With Stella - dear Stella -  alongside her, the trip would be very heaven. It would still be great even without her best friend, but she was determined to talk Estella into joining her.

She didn't have to talk too hard! Estella had not been too happy in her job these last few months and was only too pleased to hand in her notice. Within two weeks of Clementine's good news, the two girls were settling into a hotel in the Champs Elysée and preparing for a few days in the French capital before moving on to explore some of Europe's more hidden secrets.

The two leant back on their respective beds and stared at each other. Stella was fair haired, blue eyed and slim, a few inches shorter than Clemmy and much more delicate. She had an upturned nose, freckles and the kind of breasts that make male heads turn. They might not be that big, but they stood out with a bold aggression that few men cared to ignore. Her legs were slim and shapely, ending in mouth watering ankles and tiny feet. Men looking at Estella always felt protective: she was such a sweet vulnerable little thing.

Clemmy was taller than her friend and with a face that commanded instant respect. Her nose was firm and straight;  her strong chin had a determined set to it. She was tall but looked even taller with her ramrod straight posture. Every inch of her spoke of a woman who loved sport of all kinds. Clemmy had been captain of hockey and her school's best middle distance runner. She had a very solid build for a woman.

Both girls had disrobed almost completely and Clemmy looked down at her own legs -  thick and sinewy thighs, athletic calves and strong bare feet. Clemmy had a careless disregard for appearances and her legs were unshaven, in contrast to her friend’s scrupulously cared for pins; not that anyone would mistake them for male legs. She was all woman, but a strong woman! Not a woman around whom a  man would feel the urge to fold his strong protective arms.  Indeed it was she who had initiated the couple's brief and not wholly satisfactory exploration of the love of Sappho! Clementine eyed her Estella’s delicate young frame with revived lust. But Estella’s appraisal of the bigger woman was more critical.

"Look at those legs, Clemmy. That's gross! We can't go out with you looking like that. We gave up being butch - remember! You'd GOT to sort that out."

"Balls!" replied Clemmy. "I think I like this look. There are men who get a kick out of hairy women and I'll see if I can't attract one tonight. Come on  -   let's get dressed and go and hit the town!  Unless you like to let me insert my tongue into that sweet pussy just once more - just for old time's sake!"

Stella sighed sadly but did not press the matter further. At least Clemmy was a blonde like her and the golden hairiness of her magnificent legs was not that apparent except at close quarters. As for the lesbian overture, she HAD hoped there would not be too much of this during their trip together, but on this occasion she amiably spread wide her legs and felt that warm wet tongue and those hungry lips massage, lick and stimulate her clitoris until she had yet another of those shameful orgasms that Clemmy was so good at bringing her to. Finally it was over, Stella had cleaned herself up, and they went out. Clemmy savoured the delightfully lingering taste of her friend's secret places as they walked together.

"That was strictly a one-off, Clem! I don't like it at all and it's only to please you. Try to be a good girl and find a nice man to make love to. It shouldn't be difficult, you know! You're a very striking girl, even if you are rather on the tall side."

"OK sweetie. I'll do as I'm told! Hate to upset you - you know that. But you seemed to be having a ball back there. I've never heard such moaning and groaning. Face it, sweetie pie - you loved it."

Stella made no reply. The memory of that half hour kept coming back and she felt herself go wet again and again.  By the time they found a place to drink, she was weak at the knees and trembling. What a selfish bitch Clemmy was! But she did like her and this was going to be such a fun time together.

The couple found a bar not too far from the hotel and settled down in a corner with a martini apiece. They doubted it would be long before some predatory male hit on them and they were not wrong! It was a warm evening and neither girl was hiding much of her charms. Clemmy had a very short skirt and a sleeveless top which failed to cover her midriff, allowing the world to see for itself just how trim and toned her stomach was.

Stella wore a similar top, a pair of brief shorts and open toed sandals which showed off her sweet little feet to perfection. Clemmy, still pleasurably excited over her daring, was barefoot. The couple were as open an invitation to male advances as it is possible for two nice girls to get.

Both  were still full of excitement, guilty in one and satisfied in the other, after Clemmy's enthusiastic muff-diving in the hotel. Something of this must have communicated itself to the two young men who stood over them with smiling Gallic charm. It was not long before the table had four people sitting around it.

"I'm Jules" said the taller of the two, his arm around Stella's bare shoulder and resting on the side of her left breast, the greater part of which was deliciously visible. Stella looked pretty happy, thought Clemmy.

"And I'm James" said the second, his hand resting lightly on Clementine's knee.

"James - not Jacques! So you're not French. I've come all this way for nothing!"

“Sorry, sweetheart. I'm from Surrey and Jules is my French cousin." The hand was moving upwards and was already under her extremely brief skirt. "Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

Clemmy stole a quick glance. What a hunk! Sure she could forgive this example of Home Counties manhood! But she knew better than to give way to her feelings too soon. The night was still young and this man would have to work for his reward! Not too hard - but work all the same!

"As long as we meet gentlemen - a stress on this word! - I'm not prejudiced." She firmly pushed the hand away. Hell! He was inside her panties already. No slouch, this guy!

No sign of a blush was to be seen on that so handsome face. Could such a perfect physiognomy  not be a dream? Jutting jaw, blue eyes, high forehead, with a lock of fair hair trying to fall over his eyes from time to time. And a nose that had been broken more than once - no mother's boy, this!  She had forgotten Stella's adorably cute crinkly lipped and juicy pussy already. Well - almost forgotten!

James was a good talker as well as an efficient seducer and the evening passed very enjoyably. He and Jules were thinking of going to spend a few weeks in Abhlovia, a former Soviet Republic which now had a sort of vaguely semi autonomous status. The place was well run and the Russians kept their noses out as long as the locals did not export their troubles. Apparently this was unlikely things were controlled by a highly professional elite.

"Ostrokovich, the President, is a good man." explained Jules, taking his mouth away from Stella's wide open and dripping lips for a few seconds. "He stands no nonsense but he's fair as long as people obey the rules. It's a great place to invest - safe and crime free."

"I have read that it's a total despotism." said Clemmy. "The sort of place that gives law and order a bad name.  Why, you can even be punished for dropping sweet wrappings. Like Singapore."

"I think Lee Kwan Yew is a sort of role model" said James. Jules had returned to sucking Stella's face and Stella was cooperating with obvious delight.

"Well, I knew someone who left Singapore and came to England. He said he didn't care how much litter there was back home - at least he could breathe the air of freedom."

"So you wouldn't fancy a trip with us?"

"We've only just met. Although Stella seems to be getting on famously with your buddy.  Why should we change our plans just because of a chance meeting?"

"Why not? We only live once. You should grab your chances when you can. I think I can promise you as good a time as Stella's having. Maybe better!"

"I suppose as long I don't have to live there. They treat Western visitors OK?"

"Of course they do. They need the investment, having seventy years of stagnation to make up for. And there are some wild places to visit. It's stark and barren but very beautiful as long as you don't have to live there all year."

"I prefer the greenness of England. And the rain!" said Clementine. “After a few weeks in a hot climate I can't wait to get back home!  But a few weeks is all it would be, I suppose. You say there's lots to see?"

"Lots. If you like riding and camping then you can trek to some of the best climbing country in the world. You look like a girl who'd like a bit of rock climbing. I can't take my eyes of those legs, those arms and those shoulders. We could see the world together looking down from the heights!"

"And making love on them!" thought Clemmy pleasurably. Her loins throbbed as those eager fingers crept into her.

"I'm not really into mountaineering as such." was what she actually said "All that stuff with clamps and ropes. Too much messing around. But I can climb pretty well without all that gear. I've been likened to a mountain goat! How about you?"

"Pretty much the same as you. We’ll take just the most rudimentary gear and it'll be just the two of us against the mountain! How about it?"

"I think we need to get through the next few days first!" laughed Clemmy. "How long do you intend being in Paris?"

"We fly out the day after tomorrow, but you two can come and join us when you've "done" Paris. When will that be, do you think?"

"Don’t know. Let us have an address and we'll be in touch - if we're still interested!"

She looked at her friend, the sweet and delicate Estella. Golly! If those two got any more friendly they'd get themselves arrested!

"Stelly! Let's all be moving on, shall we. I think we've exhausted the possibilities here! Come on Jules! Put your libido on hold for a bit. It's making me dizzy watching you two. I didn't know Stella was so hot! She never was with me!"

As they walked away from the bar, leaving behind them a few other amorous couples, whose passion had provoked no more interest than Stella and Jules's, Clementine walked with the other girl and the two men brought up the rear.

"You might show a bit of modesty, you know! You just threw yourself at him. I was shocked."

"Sorry, Clemmy, but after having you eat me back in the hotel, I needed something straight to take away the taste of being gobbled by you - just when I thought all that was over. I hope you WILL take up with James. He's a darling and looks just your type - sporty and all that. You and he could make lots of waves."

Clementine was inclined to agree with this and the thought went some way to mitigate her displeasure at Stella's slighting reference to their love making. She had loved every second of it and her dearest friend had run straight into the arms of the first boy she met just to forget it! Nice!

"I wonder if we will hear from them again after tonight? asked Estella. "I hope so. It would be fun with those two. Especially Jules. Is he ever hot!"

"You didn't look exactly frigid yourself!" muttered Clemmy sourly. How dare Estella prefer some smooth talking Gallic stranger to her? How dare she!

At their newly found friends' suggestion the four of them took a taxi up to Montmartre and drew up outside a dingy looking house under the shadow of Sacré Coeur. it was obviously a club of some sort and James and his friend were members. All were ushered into a largish room where there were tables, waiters and a stage at one end.

"Some sort of show?" whispered Clemmy. James eased his arm around her.

"Yes." he said. " I think you might be interested. It's kind of kinky. Quite varied, but kinky. You look like you might be a bit kinky yourself with those bare feet! It usually hots up after midnight and we get chucked out at three sharp. Drink?"

"Gin and French"

"Done!"

Stella and Jules quickly resumed their active embracing and Clementine allowed herself to be caressed with increasing intimacy by James.  Her juices started to run as he fingered her vagina. This kind of thing never happened in Basingstoke! She was just getting to wonder how much more of this expert manipulation she could take when a couple emerged and came onto the small stage. Both were clad in what looked like nightgowns and they bowed to the audience before shedding these diaphanous garments. Underneath was total nudity.

One girl was black and the other white and fair haired. The white girl was almost as tall as Clementine, but the black one was taller still - quite as tall as  our heroine and, if anything, more well built. Both were handsome women and there was obvious chemistry between them. The audience felt it as soon as the pair disrobed.

"What now?" whispered Clemmy.

"Just wait and see! I haven't seen this couple before. What a beauty the African is! A tragedy if she ever went to fat!"

Clementine nodded in agreement. Oddly enough she could have sworn some kind of look had passed between him and the black woman. But she did not mention this. Indeed, she had hardly noticed.

“I wonder what these two are going to do?” whispered Estella during a brief pause in her frantic kissing of Jules.

" I wouldn't mind a session with that young lady myself!" said a trembling Clemmy. " I think it would be strenuous in the extreme but highly enjoyable! Not that I want you to feel hurt, my dear boy!"

They said no more and watched the striking couple as the white girl went on her knees and the black one towered above her, her legs apart  allowing the blond to kiss her moist pink pussy. The girl squirmed as she sucked and licked at the black giantess, her hands grasping the girl around her sinewy buttocks and drawing her closer. The watchers were silent and every suck, lick and gasp was audible  around the room. Finally the black girl stepped back and pushed the other one away. Both rose to their feet and bowed. The applause was polite and enthusiastic. The stage was empty again.

"Well?" said James.

"I'd sooner be doing than watching!  But I picked up a few interesting ideas. What about you, Stella?"

"Not my cup of tea, as you should know by now. But I'd far sooner watch than do!"  Clemmy felt a stab of pain at this and leant nearer to James for a bit of consolation.

The conversation was resumed - mostly between Clementine and James. The other two seemed happy to speak the silent tender language of unbridled lust. Between the two of them they made almost as good a show as the one on the stage!

And then something happened that was to blow Clementine’s mind. Both performers returned to the stage. The white girl came on first and the other one followed carrying a large leather bag. The blonde stepped up to the wall and raised her hands above her head as far as they would go, going up onto her toes. Clementine saw that there were two rings in the wall which the girl's hands were nearly level with. The black woman took a pair of handcuffs out of the bag and attached one of the blonde's hands to one of the rings. Returning to the bag she produced another pair and secured the second hand. Tall as she was, the blonde was stretched taut and her feet only just touched the ground - her heels were off the floor only her toes touching the boards.

"You did say kinky! I don't much like bondage - not that I've ever seen it to be honest. I tend to lead a sheltered life apart from occasionally making love to Estella!"

"It's most likely more than bondage. We can leave if you like. I would understand."

"No. I feel something stirring. And how it stirs! I can't wait to see what she does to her!"

The African touched her companion on her back and caressed the smooth skin hungrily. She kissed her between the shoulder blades and went gradually onto her knees kissing that smooth long back until she reached the buttocks, to which she paid particular attention, covering those fleshy globes with a shower of wet and noisy osculation.  The white girl was obviously becoming aroused. She squirmed and writhed against her bonds as her companion came at her sex from behind and inserted her startlingly pink tongue between those dripping lips. Finally the black woman stepped back and went to the bag. Clementine gasped as she saw what was taken out this time.

"Oh, James! She's not going to use that on that lovely girl! Look at it! It'll slice her to ribbons!"

"I rather think she will! It's the way it goes in here, but don’t feel too concerned.  I am pretty sure nobody does this against their will. Our friend is begging for it. Trust me!"

"It" was a whip. And what a whip! Twelve feet of leather, thick as Clementine's wrist at one end and tapering to a thin wisp at the other. With a mixture of horror and pleasure she watched as the big black woman stepped well back. She turned around to face the audience.

"Oui?" she shouted.

"Oui!" shouted the audience. Clementine was shocked to realise that her own voice had formed a part of that sadistic roar. She saw that Stella was frozen with horror, but seemingly unable to move. She returned to Jules and was clearly trying to shut this horrible impending spectacle out of her mind.

The mighty whip was raised and the statuesque African brought it down hard upon the stretched white back. Her black well muscled arms were obviously putting their all into this and the leather struck down with a staccato crack which made Clementine jump out of her skin. The blow left a long red mark from left shoulder to right buttock as the poor blonde jerked and screamed. Even as the second blow landed, blood was beginning to flow from the first lash. By the time twenty had fallen on the poor woman there was just one mass of red where only  minute or two ago there been an ivory white back. Apart from the first scream. the blonde uttered not a sound. The long legs were covered with streaks of blood which was already dripping onto the floor.

At the thirtieth lash the horror ceased. The black girl put the whip, all bloody from  tormenting the wretched victim, back in the bag. She released the blonde and both of them bowed to the audience, smiling as they did so. To a round of applause they walked off, the flogged beauty seemingly unaffected by her ordeal as she stepped with strong confident strides off the stage and through a small door at the rear.

"I feel sick!" said Stella. "How could you two have brought us to such a place. I hope I never see either of you again. Come on Clemmy. We're going back to the hotel. Come ON!"

The other three followed. Clementine was shamed by Stella's decency into realising just how depraved the recent spectacle had been.


CHAPTER TWO

 (In which Estella and Clemmy Make two new friends and Clemmy issues a reckless and fateful challenge).



"I still can't believe we saw that savage whipping last night. That poor girl - she looked so lovely and delicate. But I suppose she submitted willingly, as James said. Didn't she?" Stella sounded doubtful!

Clemmy nodded. "I guess so, Stella. There are certainly  twisted people around who love pain. I’ve even fantasised about it myself before now, though I hope these particular dreams never come true! We just can't get inside their minds to see things their way. But I would rather like to have my mind set at rest about that couple. The victim touched my heart somehow! She was lovely, Stella, and I just can‘t forget her. And I can see how upset you are. Let's try and track them down and see the poor blonde girl is O.K."

It was ten o'clock in the morning following the scene in the club. Neither Clementine nor Estella had slept well last night! Stella had sobbed quietly while Clementine lay on her back reliving the experience over and over again. Every lash had come before her eyes many, many times. She had tried to imagine herself helplessly spread-eagled like that with her back being torn to shreds. Round and round in her mind she had gone over every minute detail, hungrily picking each last scrap from her memory.

She wondered how a girl could enjoy submitting to what she had seen last night. She sure as hell wouldn't! Or would she? At one point she dreamt of herself secured for a flogging with the lash eating into her body many times and the pain she was in. Far worse than the pain was the awful loneliness and she woke from that dream feeling more depressed than she could ever remember.

Estella and Clementine finished breakfast and went back to the club. It was still early, so they hardly expected anyone to be around at that hour. But a start had to be made somewhere. To their surprise there was a rapid answer to Clementine’s robust and peremptory knock. A little worried looking man was behind the door. He reacted at once to their query. He certainly did remember the flogged and fragrant blonde!

"Ah, yes. I remember you both from last night, the little one - your friend. She was having the good time, Oui And you, also, the young men liked you both a lot?"

"Yes. She certainly was! And so was I, but that blonde on the stage seemed to having a particularly BAD time. I wonder how she is?"

The man smiled. "You left early so you did not see the rest of the performance. I am happy to say both young ladies are well and considerably the richer for their night's work. Both are resting and licking their wounds today!"

"Both?"

"Both! After you left the tall African volunteered to be whipped by a member of the audience. I would say that of the two, she is in the worse state today. I hope you will not be thinking of going to the police! We will deny everything and you will find no witnesses. If you wish to see the two ladies, I will see if they are willing to receive visitors."

Clementine nodded and the little man scurried away and returned after a couple of minutes.

"I telephoned Rashumba and Viola. They will be happy to see you and set your minds at rest. I think they were quite touched by your concern. Here is the address. Not too far away from here."

It was indeed only a very short stroll to the apartment where these kinky females lived. They climbed the three flights of stairs and rang the bell. It was the blonde Viola who answered. She looked a little pale, but otherwise not too much the worse for her night's “work”.

"You are the concerned couple from last night?" the words were spoken in a flawless cut glass accent, This young lady was straight out the top drawer. Her silvery voice had Roedean written all over it. Clementine and Estella followed her into the apartment. The black lady was lying face down and quite naked on a sofa. It was obvious who ruled the roost in this household and who ran about answering doors! Viola introduced the visitors.

"Welcome" You are in time to do Viola's back. Just as soon as she's finished doing mine! Come on Viola. Chop, chop! And make sure you're gentle. That bastard last night really went to town on me - not that it wasn‘t fun at the time!"

Rashumba spoke in a decidedly more plebeian tone. More Rotherhithe that Roedean. What was a lovely girl like Viola doing being dominated by such a person? Clementine was angrier than she had ever been. She had been taken by her the night before. Now that she was close enough to touch and smell her the fair Viola she was in love!

"Let me do her, Viola!" said Clementine sharply. "Give me the ointment! Stella, You do Viola's poor back for her. And be VERY careful to be gentle. She had a fearful pasting last night. You were sensible enough not to look after a while, but I saw every lash and it hurt me just to watch. Come on, Rashumba! Relax and let me rub this in!"

So the two whipped girls lay side by side and let the two friends apply soothing ointment to their lacerated backs, one black and sore and the other white end even sorer. The more Clementine thought about the way poor Viola was being treated by this lover, the less she liked it. And if Viola really liked being whipped, then she, Clementine, could always oblige from time to time when more conventional lovemaking grew a little boring.

Estella was a very deft little girl with sweet, nimble and ever so gentle fingers which massaged the salve into Viola's back and hardly hurt the poor girl at all. Clemmy was less light handed. Soon Rashumba began to groan and curse as Clemmy's hands worked their painful magic despite the threats the big black girl began mouthing.

"Don't like it when you're on the receiving end, do you?" asked Clemmy softly so the others wouldn't hear. "You cruel bitch. You don't give a damn about Viola. My Viola!"

Rashumba twisted round angrily to confront her tormentor. She soon wished she hadn't! With a scream she resumed her prone position and allowed Clemmy to finish applying the ointment, which soon began to ease her pain despite the rough way it had been rubbed in.

The salve having been duly applied, the two friends cleaned up the apartment and prepared the two voluntary invalids a nice meal. Then they left, promising to be back next day to continue the treatment. Viola smiled at Estella, Rashumba glared at Clemmy and the odd couple were left to resume their recuperation in private.

"What an extraordinary pair!" said Estella. "You like Viola, don't you?"

"I love her! I love her desperately with a love that will last for the rest of my life!" replied the smitten Clementine. "I'll get her away from that ogress if it's the last thing I do!"

"Probably will be the last thing! She's a big tough lady. As big as you, darling - and hard as nails; and she looks like she might be pretty quick on her feet at the same time!"

Clementine snorted with contempt. She clearly had no fear of the African musclewoman, or if she did it was overcome by her newly acquired infatuation for Viola! Stella sighed. She hoped Clemmy would come to no harm through her customary arrogance. Clemmy, for her part, knew she must have Viola and get her away from such an unhealthy relationship, even if it were only so that she might be free to exercise a similar painful domination of her own!

After a week, both whipped women were well on the mend and it was agreed that all four would meet for dinner at the end of the week, by which time Viola and Rashumba would be healed and able to show their bare backs in public without frightening the other diners and ruining their appetites!

The dinner was a great success and Clemmy and Stella were invited back for a farewell drink. They were due to fly home for a few days before deciding what to do next. The pleasant atmosphere soured when Clemmy dropped her prepared bombshell.

"You're coming with me, Viola. If you stay with Rashumba, you'll be back at that awful club again being sliced open by that bitch. And I won't stand for that. I love you, Viola. Please come away with me!"

"This is what you've been planning all along, you bitch!" screamed Rashumba. "Well. Viola stays with me - OK?"

"Maybe Viola might have something to say?" quavered Stella. She looked at the irate Rashumba and wondered if Clemmy could be sane to antagonise such a formidable woman. But Love is blind!

"Well!"

Both Clemmy and Rashumba spoke as one. Viola looked from one to the other. She seemed to be struggling to come up with an answer. Then.

"Fight each other for me. I'll go with the winner and be the victor's submissive and ever pliant trophy! You're both darlings, but I'll go with the braver and stronger darling! Fight and I'll belong to the one who knocks the other unconscious. NOT HERE!" she spoke sharply - very sharply. She owned the apartment and was not about to see it wrecked! The two backed away from each other and lowered their clenched fists in obedience to this unaccustomed asperity from the usually mild Viola.

"OK! Where can we go to be sure of not getting disturbed? I don't know this city. Where can we go? I'd kind of like it to be outdoors, although that's not too important. Might I suggest somewhere where the grass is short and springy? I don't want Rashumba hitting her head on anything hard when I lay her out! All I want is to take you away from her - not kill her!"

"I have a small house about 100 miles from here." said Viola. "In the grounds there's a wood with a clearing in the middle. And the grass will be lovely and springy beneath the fighters feet as they duel for my love! The pair of you can fight there. I want you to promise it'll be just fists (and feet if you like). No knives or other weapons. Stella and I can wait while you two settle things. The one to walk out first, leaving the loser where she falls,  gets me. The loser stays on the ground until she recovers. We come straight back here without her. That means you too, Stella. If Clemmy loses, you come back with Rashy and me and leave Clemmy to make her own way home. I insist that you both fight entirely naked. Before the fight begins I'll kiss you both and do other really nice things to you, to give the two of you a taste of the prize you're fighting for. Then you fight and we wait for one of you to come out of the wood and claim her wonderful prize - me! How's that grab you?"

Not too well, thought Stella. Rashumba was a very tough lady. Estella closed her eyes and in her mind's eye again saw the muscled sleekness that had brought that whip down over Viola's shoulders. She  would pulverise Clementine, who had led a sheltered life, and the poor girl would have to find her way home in a foreign land, and without clothes. One hundred miles! They'd arrest her, of course, and throw her into jail - unless she were so badly hurt she went to hospital. Yes. Hospital. That's where she would end up when they found her broken, unconscious body. Poor Clemmy - the things people will suffer for love!

"It sounds OK to me. How about you, Clementine?" asked Rashumba. "I wonder if you still want Viola that badly? It's not too late to back out and then we can all be friends again."

"Let's get started. If we hurry we can get this done at dawn. I can't wait to kick your black butt!"

"I'll whip that white arse of yours, to say nothing of smashing that nice face, generally beating the shit out of you and making you wish you'd never been born, before I finally knock you senseless and put you out of your misery - long after you’ve been begging me to finish it. Lets get going!"

Rashumba clenched her fists menacingly and Estella saw that those hands had seen a fair bit of action already, unlike Clemmy’s soft ones.

Stella had not bargained on this when Clemmy had persuaded her to come away with her! Maybe coming into a fortune was not a one hundred percent blessing after all. Back in Basingstoke, Clemmy might have been poor but at least she had all her teeth, an unbroken nose and an unmarked and perfectly symmetrical face! Even so, she was vaguely thrilled to think of her friend being willing to fight, especially against such a fearsome opponent, to win the love of her life! Even if the said love were a girl and not a handsome man - like James!

==============


CHAPTER THREE
(In which Rashumba and Clementine fight to be worthy of Viola’s love).



“Nice breakfast, girls?" asked an excited Viola. The four were seated around her dining table on the morning of the Great Fight which was to decide who of two strong and lustful women was to be her mistress - the young and fair Clementine or the mature Rashumba, with her muscular body and excitingly cruel ways. She was clearly looking forward to the coming contest, no matter who won, unlike Estella, who was dreading it, and Clementine, who was beginning to have butterflies in her stomach. The young challenger was at last coming to appreciate the mountain she was going to have to climb! She had to force herself to eat, although she had no intention of backing out. She would see this through to the bitter end, no matter what!

Rashumba looked very confident, rhythmically slapping a fist into the palm of the other hand, having polished off her morning meal with immense gusto! It was clear that she couldn’t wait to demolish this foolish upstart rival!

"I always say that it doesn't do to fight on an empty stomach!"  twittered Viola happily. “Not that I'd know myself, of course, never having struck a blow in anger in my life! Now eat up, you two, and get those clothes off! Give me and Estella a thrill and expose those lovely strong, soon to be battered, bodies to the morning chill! Early morning is such a good time for fighting, with the air still cool. So hurry up and we'll all get along to the wood. I'll say this, Clemmy, you've got the advantage fighting in bare feet. Yours must be pretty tough I should think. I haven't seen you in shoes since we met!"

This was quite true. Since discarding her sandals on their first night, Clemmy had been barefoot the whole time and appeared to be quite unaffected by the hot tarmac despite the fierce August sunshine. Her strong and long legs, tapering down to those perfect ankles and serviceable, but one hundred per cent feminine feet,  had drawn a lot of startled, admiring glances, from both men and women!

Clemmy stripped slowly, as if she wanted to postpone the encounter for as long as possible (Which she ardently did by this time!)  She watched her opponent do likewise, by stages revealing that muscular body, so that Clementine was reminded again just what she had taken on in a moment of reckless and love induced bravado. Rashumba certainly did have an awesome physique for a woman! But those thighs were just a mite too well muscled for her own good, decided the coolly analytical Clemmy, becoming calmer inside and planning her tactics for the coming bloodshed. Her own trimmer, but equally strong, thighs would serve her better in a battle of movement. Rashumba did have pretty big hands, though - but so did, Clemmy! She clenched one of hers and made a quick comparison - Not bad!

Once she had completely stripped she stared down at her own body. She  liked what she saw, and so, obviously, did Viola! It was an athlete's body and in great condition. Her  six-pack stomach could bear comparison to Rashumba's any day; it was as rock hard as it looked and Rashumba could land as many heavy blows on it as she liked and do no harm - or so Clemmy hoped! She could take this sadistic bitch. She had to! Viola deserved better than a lifetime of whippings and humiliations, unless, of course they were at her, Clemmy's, hands! This sweet girl's fate depended on Clementine getting a favourable result in a few minutes time. She fought down her considerable fear and put her clothes, neatly folded, to one side, next to Rashumba's. Viola would send someone to collect them in a couple of days. The naked winner would get a ride home and the loser would have a long, painful and unclothed walk back.

Viola locked the door behind her and made sure that the house was securely shuttered. No one could get into that fortress! The poor loser would have no place to go! Stella felt a pang of pity for her soon to be demolished friend,  but reflected that she was making her own bed and must be prepared to lie in it. Maybe her coming comprehensive thrashing at Rashumba's eager hands would teach her a little wisdom and humility, qualities which Estella judged her friend to be notably deficient in these days. She further hoped Clementine would recover sufficiently and live long enough for what was left of her to benefit from this painfully acquired wisdom!

Viola walked in front to lead the way and the two naked gladiatrixes followed. Stella brought up the rear and admired those two undulating bottoms, one black and jutting and the other white, firm and proud. Clemmy had never walked taller and straighter in her life, thought Stella! Rashumba, too, had a stunningly upright posture. The two strode to their appointment with destiny without a single sideways glace. And to think that she, Estella, was to go back to Paris and leave her gloriously lovely friend, bloody, broken and unconscious, to face goodness knows what tribulations. At least Jules wouldn't cause HER this kind of trouble. She was grateful to be a weak and defenceless woman, rather than an Amazon. She felt a bit of regret, though, that Clemmy was so strong and suicidally brave and she so weak and timid. It must be great to be in control of things the way Clemmy seemed to be these days.

It was a short walk to the wood and Viola led the two soon-to-be combatants to the clearing. She French-kissed both girls at great length, running her hands hungrily over both bodies and into both vaginas, Rashumba first and then Clemmy, letting them feel her tongue working its magic on them and getting both really, truly worked up and horny. The contestants then knelt in turn to eat her fill of the panty less Viola's dripping juicy womanhood - the prize they were going to bleed and suffer to attain. Then she pulled down her skirt and turned and left, hearing them start on each other with no opening formalities.

The eager combatants landed their first vicious blows before she had left the clearing. She reflected that just one of those solid thudding punches would very likely have felled her. And these two had only just started! She loved strong women!  She looked round briefly and saw that Rashumba had made a solid start, having already drawn blood from Clemmy's nose and blacked her eye. Poor Clemmy! She wouldn't last too long at this rate! But she seemed pretty unfazed, even so, as her right fist, as big and bony as her opponent’s, snaked past her Rashumba’s guard and landed a confident blow on the African girl’s nose, although she failed to draw blood - unlike her opponent who seemed able to break Clemmy‘s skin with every blow.

Stella was waiting at the edge of the wood and soon Viola joined her. Long before Viola emerged, the air was full of the sound of heads and bodies being mercilessly and expertly punished. They stood together and listened, holding hands as thuds and grunts followed by yet more thuds, gasps and the odd involuntary squeal of pain emanated from the hidden clearing.

Minutes passed and the bruising sounds of combat continued unabated, even increasing in tempo and solid punishing fury. The sound of sharp impacts on bone and softer thuds on flesh and muscle beat out its painful remorseless rhythm. The two furious girls were getting into their stride by now and it was going to be a long morning!

"I'll say this for Clemmy. She's putting up a great fight!" said Viola. "Rashumba usually knocks them out pretty quickly, after first pulping their faces and breaking a few ribs. I'm truly amazed! I know Clementine has a good body - it pleasantly surprised me back at the house - but she's still much softer than Rashumba. She hasn't had a load of whippings to harden her up."

"You mean this has happened before?" said Stella, her large blue eyes wide open in surprise.

"Yeah! Poor old Clementine's about to become the sixth victim this year. Last year there were five. It's so nice to be wanted enough for them to fight for me. Makes me so proud! Actually, I'd rather like Clemmy to win this time. She's different to the other women who've tried to get me away from Rashumba. Not only that, but she's a girl of my own age. But she's got absolutely no chance! Mind you - she's doing incredibly well! Better than any of the others. Listen to that fight! I bet most of the hits are landing on Clementine but she's still taking them and staying on her feet! I DO wish we could watch!"

Estella listened, at one and the same time rapt and appalled.

"THUMP! GASP! THUD! SQUEAL! WHAM!! GROAN! CRACK ! OUCH. CRUMP!! GASP." This finally became too much for Clemmy's best friend!

"Come on! I must watch! The suspense is killing me!"

Stella grabbed the not unwilling Viola and dragged her into the wood. They stopped short of the clearing and peered through the summer foliage. The girls were on their feet, although both had been knocked down a few times already and a fair amount of rolling around had already taken place. Stella could see that the grass was flattened around the two fighters where they had wrestled and punched before tacitly deciding to make it a purely stand up affair. She winced as a solid straight right crashed into her friend's nose, which was already spurting blood. She hardly recognised either girl! Clementine's abdomen was an angry ugly red, with little red beads where Rashumba's punches had almost winded her a few times already - hence the gasps, thought Stella! Clemmy might be taking a bad beating but she was dishing a pretty effective one out in return! The watchers clasped each other and held their breath as Clementine was felled by a wicked uppercut which snapped shut her mouth and almost lifted her off her feet!

Stella sighed with relief as her friend rolled away from Rashumba and leapt up. Thank God! She was still in the fight! But for how long?

Clemmy wasted no time retaliating and landed a tattoo of blows to all parts of Rashumba's gleaming and magnificent body, putting the black girl temporarily on the defensive . This was when both watchers realised that the sounds they had heard had mostly been Clemmy hitting Rashumba! But although Rashumba landed fewer blows, the ones she did get in hurt Clemmy a lot and each one was worth at least three of the other girl's light and comparatively harmless punches - and the other girl knew it! One particularly powerful and well-directed blow got Clementine full in the stomach, just under her ribs, and Stella was amazed that her brave but seemingly outclassed friend could keep fighting at all after that. As it was she was helpless to protect herself for several painful damaging seconds and went down again, only to roll once more out of harm's way and rise with a very athletic leap. It would start going irrevocably Rashumba's way if Clemmy tired and slowed down enough to let the African hit her at will. Only a few more like the recent uppercut and the solar plexus punch would suffice to finish her.

"Come on, Clemmy. You've got to knock her out soon or you're going to lose." muttered a worried Stella. "Do you want to go on watching, Viola? Or shall we leave them to it. It IS what we agreed, after all."

"O.K. Stella. Let's go back and wait. To be frank, it hurts me to see them doing that to each other and knowing it's my fault. Let's go!"

Stella strongly doubted the sincerity of this pious protestation! She was pretty sure Viola was loving it, and she herself was getting to be horribly fascinated! But they stole quietly away and the fighters were left to battle on unwatched.

"How long have you two been together" asked Stella as the sounds from the clearing continued. Golly! Some of those punches must be causing a hell of a lot of damage to one or other or both! They cracked out like pistol shots, some of them. And all were clearly hard and well aimed. These were two incredibly tough bitches and no mistake! Stella never would have thought that Clemmy had it in her!

"About a year, since I was eighteen! I'd have joined her years before but I was still at school and they were very strict at my school. I always knew I would be hers as soon as I could get away from England and come here to this cottage and my apartment in Paris that my grandfather left me. The old reprobate would have loved to think of my unconventional life if he were still around!"

"CRACK!! WHOP!! GRUNT!! CRACK!CRACK!CRACK! SCREAM!"

"What were your parents doing about this?" The innocent Stella was shocked.

"CRUMP! THWACK! CRACK! GRUNT! WHOPP!"

"They don't care. Daddy has his fancy woman not a lot older than me and Mummy spends most of the time hitting the gin good and hard! Not as hard as those two are hitting each other, though! Woweee! Just listen to them! How do they do it and keep coming back for more? Clemmy's great - really, truly great, but I still think she'll lose."

"SMACK!! GRUNT!CRACK!CRACK!CRACK! THUMP.OUCH!"

"Do you recognise any of those grunts, Stella?"

"I think it's pretty even, Viola! Clemmy's squealed a few times but a lot of grunts could be anyone - how about you?"

"CRACK.THUD. OUCH!"

"I heard Rashy groan. I guess it IS even enough"

"THUMP! OUCH THUD! OUCH!"

"And how many challenges have you engineered in all that time, you cunning heartless minx?" Stella just wanted to get that awful noise out of her ears!

"THUD!! CRACK! CRUMP! GASP!! CRACK! THWACK! WHAM! GRUNT!!"

"A dozen altogether. All in this clearing. Listen to them, Stella! This has got to be the best fight ever! They've hardly paused for a breather the whole time. What stamina!"

"WHACK!! THUMP!! SQUEAL! THWACK!! GROAN!!"

Stella listened for a few seconds. She had no more questions. It made her sick to hear what that  woman was doing to her best friend. And excited - oh, so very excited! She had to be there for Clemmy. She just had to! The way her friend had been fighting was a revelation and she couldn't stand not knowing what was happening.

Their eyes met. Both spoke at once.

"Come on!"

"This is far too good to miss!" said Estella excitedly. "If we live to be a hundred we'll never see a fight like this and to THINK we've missed so much of it already! How could we have been so stupid? Never mind! I'm sure these two are still going to give us loads of great action! I bloody hope so, anyway. Hurry up, Viola!"

Newly imbued with blood lust, they made their way hastily but quietly - not that either fighter could have heard them- back to the clearing. What a sight the two were by this time! Rashumba had the advantage of a skin that didn't show injury but she was obviously tiring and her face was a bloody mess, as was Clemmy's. Clemmy's entire body was red and bruised from a series of wicked blows. Her legs were bruised too, and it was obvious feet as well as fists had been used to great effect . And hard punishing blows were thudding into each fighter as they watched. Estella was more thrilled than she would ever have though possible.

Rashumba had clearly been trying to slow Clemmy down by going time and time again for her shins, but Clemmy's sturdy legs had been well and truly hardened on the hockey pitch! Both her eyes were closing rapidly and one streamed blood from a deep long cut which a merciless Rashumba was doing her successful best to open even further! Her mouth was bloody and her nose was so much soggy pulp. And how had those poor ribs had not been cracked and crushed a dozen times under lightning punches from those flashing deadly hard fists and feet! But she was still on her feet and swapping blow for blow with Rashumba, who seemed to be tiring rapidly but too proud to submit. Only a spot-on knockout punch would end her dour defence of her claim to Viola!

"They must really fancy you, Viola! To go through all that!"

"THUD! THUD! GASP!"

Both fighters took more hard punches to body and head, neither backing off, despite the pain. Rashumba was clearly nearing the end of her resources and looked to be rooted to the spot, her legs gone, and Clemmy was as light on her feet as ever. Her judgment about Rashumba's mobility had been right. She could afford to take Rashumba's shots by now, as they had lost much of their power. Clemmy , though, was landing her blows at will and clearly enjoying herself for the first time in a long hard while as she steadily softened up her opponent and watched for a chance to finish things.

"I suppose so. I have to admit that with Rashumba it's just a power thing. Her parents were dirt poor after they had to get out of Africa in a hurry with only the clothes they stood up in. OUCH! I felt that one!"

This was a reference to a hard blow from Rashumba which clearly shook the prematurely over-confident Clemmy, who backed off, obviously trying to get her head clear. But Rashumba seemed too exhausted to follow up this advantage and Clemmy was safe. In a few moments Clemmy had Rashumba on the run once more and the watchers breathed again. But Clementine knew she mustn't make any more mistakes and was careful not to stay too close, reverting to using her legs to dart in and out of range of Rashumba's still lethal fists. The watchers were silent as the struggle continued and blows sounded out, their reverberating thuds showing what pain the fighters were still inflicting and suffering.

Finally Viola resumed telling Stella about her unusual relationship.

"So I think when she took up with me it was a chance to lord it over a rich white chick. Revenge for centuries of oppression and all that - and I get a kick out of being dominated as you must have guessed by now! I think her rule over me might be over soon, though! I reckon I'll be tending Clemmy's wounds later on! Unless you want to help?"

"No. I am seeing Jules. He is flying back today. You can bathe the victrix's wounds! I wouldn't be too sure about the outcome, even now, Viola. Rashumba's still hurting Clemmy, even if she is slowing up."

"No. She's shot her bolt and Clemmy's got her measure."

The next exchange of punches confirmed this judgment. Clemmy was playing with her opponent now and it wasn't pretty to see.

"Let's go, Stella! I think I owe Rashumba the dignity of being defeated without it being seen by me. You stay if you like! I don't think it's going to be long now!"

Viola stole away and Stella was left alone to watch her friend give the coup de grace to Rashumba who fell senseless under a rain of blows which thudded out in the morning air as crisply as had the opening punches of that mammoth conflict. The killer punch sent the black girl flying and she hit the ground hard and lay still. Estella was disappointed to see that Clementine wasted no time seeing to her beaten foe but started out to claim her Viola without a backward glance at the bleeding unconscious woman who had several times been on the verge of besting her that day.

Stella reached Viola just as Clementine came out of the wood. Golly, but she looked one proud young woman, bruised and bleeding though she was! Stella was proud herself, albeit sickened at the unladylike violence she had just witnessed. As for Viola, her eyes positively sparkled! Clemmy took her newly won lover in her arms and kissed her long and hard on the lips. When she drew away, both faces were red with Clemmy's blood and both faces had a wild rapture that Stella was to remember for the rest of her life!

"Let's get you home, Clemmy! That face needs a lot of attention!" said Viola dreamily as she rested against the strong, bruised, naked body of her new Mistress. Even though Clementine had just been through such a stupendous bone crushing, bruising fight she seemed to be drawing strength from her new lover's embrace. Stella was amazed to see that it was Clemmy who was supporting Viola and not the other way around!

"Nonsense. A bit of water! That's all I need to wash away the blood. You won't look after me, darling. I look after YOU from now on!" and the naked, filthy and bloody Clementine picked up the willing Viola and carried her effortlessly back to the car. Stella followed, glad that her friend had triumphed, but worried sick about poor Rashumba whom she had grown to like despite her cruel ways. She looked around and saw her come staggering unsteadily out of the wood. The black girl sank dejectedly to the ground as she saw her lost love being carried off by the triumphant Clementine. Poor girl, thought a sympathetic Stella. At least she was alive, though. Thank Heaven for that! And what a fantastic, superiffic fight!

When they got back to Viola and Rashumba's apartment, Estella threw a cloth over her naked friend and hustled her up the stairs into the flat. As soon as they were inside, the two new lovers embraced again This time there was a gasp of pain from Clementine.

"Wow! You have quite a grip, Viola. Mind my poor bruised ribs! They'll be tender for a few days yet I fear!"


"Sorry, my pet! What now, Clemmy? I can't stay here. Rashy'll be back soon. She's plenty smart. She'll find her way back soon enough! I'll get my things and we can go."

"No you don't! I won you in a fair fight and Rashumba will respect that. She's an honourable woman and a very courageous one. I doubt she'll be back that soon, but even if she is you can have one last night here - with me! And in the morning we fly home to England. I'll get you a place to stay and come and see you often. "

"You mean we won't be living together!" asked Viola tearfully.

"Of course we will if you like, but you might meet a nice boy one day and I've already met a great guy of my own. but I'll always be there for you. Just as soon as I'm back from this trip with James to the mountains, I’ll be back and we'll have such great times my sweet!"

CHAPTER THREE

 (In which Clementine, the victor, savours the spoils, but for how long?)


"We've been friends for nearly two years now and in all that time I never knew you could fight, darling! At least not like that - you are something else. Where the hell did you learn? I mean that was just tremendous the way you took all that punishment and still came through it all to win. You must be made of something more than ordinary flesh and blood to have kept going against that woman. Because she was tough too. I should have thought you'd both have been unfit to go on after a couple of minutes and I reckon it was getting on for a half hour you two were slugging it out."

Estella babbled on,

"We watched a lot of it, you know! When we were just outside the wood it sounded so exciting, the two of you going at it with all those biffs and thuds; the crack of fist against bone and all those gasps of pain. We just couldn't help ourselves, Clemmy!  Listening to all those lovely hard punishing blows wasn't enough - we just had to watch them landing on their two gorgeous but battered and bleeding female targets!  Do you mind terribly? I was so sorry when it ended; really I was and I wouldn't have cared who won, it was such a great fight. I know it's  a horrible thing to say that I was enjoying it, when my best friend was getting really badly hurt and her face marked for life, but it's true.   I want to see more fights now - lots more fights!  Jules is going to take me to a boxing tournament next week - only men, though. I think I'd sooner watch women fighting - especially you!   I suppose you're feeling the effects today!  You're certainly showing them! I bet you're sore all over! You don't have quite such big tits as me, but I bet it hurt, all the same when she kept bashing away at them!"

Estella and Clementine were outside the apartment, waiting for Viola to come down to the taxi. The lovers were due at the airport in half an hour and Stella was to meet Jules later that day. Next week, the three of them would be back together in the boring Home Counties! Stella was not too sorry about that. A part of her  craved for boredom after the bizarre things she had seen this last few days!

"I'm glad you saw us in action, Estella, and pleased you enjoyed watching. It would have been a shame for  Rashumba and I not to share all the excitement with you two!  From your enthusiasm  I think you have developed a new, and rather bloodthirsty  interest! I'm even happier to think that my Viola saw it. Now she knows how much I love her - how much I was willing to go through to get her! And I'd go through ten times that - a hundred times - just for her."

Stella quite believed this last protestation. Clemmy was in love alright. You only had to look at her yesterday when she seized Viola and kissed her. Her face had contained such joy as Estella had never conceived of.

 "As for my fighting skills, continued Clementine. "They are mostly from looking at others.  I trained at a gym, but only for exercise. Apart from some very friendly sparring, I never hit anything other than a punch bag for real until yesterday until I graduated to hitting Rashumba!! I did do a lot of stomach firming exercises, or that cow would have winded me very early on. She kept on trying - that and breaking my legs - fat chance of that! I could see Rashumba wouldn't last that long, as she's not built for speed and all I needed was to keep moving around and out of trouble. Mind you, as you saw, I took a good few hard knocks from her fists! When her blows land, they really land!  I shall feel the effects for a month!"

"Well, it was a revelation to me" enthused Estella, her eyes bright with the remembered excitement of it all.  "By the way,  I'm sure Rashumba has had quite a lot of experience fighting. In fact I know she has. Viola told me that several other rivals for her affections bit the dust in that clearing before you triumphed yesterday. I think the local Police must be pretty well used to battered naked lesbians turning up in that area! "

“It's a kind of Sacred Grove isn't it?" continued Estella, as breathlessly as ever. "That clearing in the wood? The King Must Die and all that!  Let me know if there are any more challenges - I wouldn't miss out on a second of it and I'll bring a video camera next time so I can watch it over and over again afterwards!  We must show the pair of you around a bit - try to drum up a few rivals and see who turns up!  You could be on the verge of a great career, Clemmy!"

"Indeed!" Clementine looked impatiently to see what was keeping Viola but that eager young woman was bursting out of the apartment block just as Clem was about to go and get her. The two kissed passionately, a string of saliva escaping from Clementine's mouth as she drew her head back. Yuck! Estella thought longingly of Jules and good healthy STRAIGHT sex! They did make a handsome pair, though, despite Clementine's battered face. Viola was tall and slim and Clemmy stood tall and  straight, a few inches higher than Viola and strong, so strong. She looked prouder today even than yesterday when she had walked with such an arrogant, triumphant stride to claim the painfully won Viola!

 But it would be a relief to Estella when her face lost those awful bruises and her eyes emerged from behind those swellings. And as for  that frightful cut, which Rashumba had been working on so busily  right up  to the end, it was bad and looked to Stella like it needed quite a few stitches!

The next week was one of the happiest that Clementine had ever known. Viola found herself a job in the town's most expensive jeweller's and every night her mistress would have a meal waiting on the table as the blonde returned. The nights passed  quickly and Clementine scaled heights of love she had never dreamt of in all her short, active and eventful life.

"Do you want to be whipped, darling?" asked Clemmy one morning as the waking pair gazed lovingly at each other, still exulting in having each other's beloved faces to see immediately after waking. Clemmy stroked the hair away from Viola's forehead and kissed it, before going down to that lovely mouth and sweet tongue whose cunning witchcraft had so inspired her just before the fight. She lingered there a very long time before drawing away to hear Viola's answer.

"If you want to, sweetheart. Whatever you want is OK with me!"

"You'll have to ask me first, dear sweet Viola. You'll have to ask me. I'll only whip you if you want me to and you MUST tell me when to stop. I couldn't see you cut up like the first night I saw you. I would hate that!"

"I think you'll have a very long wait, Clemmy my love. Maybe for ever!"

"Good! I hope you're right!" But Clemmy was a little disappointed, against her better nature. She had a bit of mutuality in mind!

**********************
(Clementine came out of her reverie for a second, back to the awful present. She knew that an answer was expected - and soon. How had she been so silly?  Why had she not listened to Viola's warning? Then she went over the rest of her descent into disaster.)

**********************

Viola kissed Clementine just over her eye where the cut was still terribly visible. The stitches would come out in a week, but the mark would always be there. Poor Clemmy!

"I'm sorry I got you two to fight, darling! I should just have come away with you when you asked. Will you forgive me?"

"Nothing to forgive, darling. And you couldn't leave your old mistress without a new mistress first showing her worth by beating her. You know that!  Maybe one day I'll lose you the same way. Who knows?"

"Don't say that, Clemmy my darling. Please don't say that. I don't care if you do get beaten. I'll still stay with you. I will!"

Clementine laughed gently.

"Well. here in England, women don't fight over other women. At least I hope not!"

She thought about this conversation while Viola was away at work. Would she lose her one day in the same way as she had won her? Would she be obliged to defend her right to this submissive and captivating blonde with her tender smile and sweet adorable body? After the battering she had endured, whose effects had still not worn off, she wasn't sure she fancied ten challenges a year - which was what Rashumba had faced, by all accounts. She doubted she was as durable as the tough African girl who had shown no sign at all of past battles. She looked at her face in the mirror. That eye still looked a mess and her nose would never be straight again. Maybe when the stitches came out? Even then there would be a scar which might never fade. Her doctor had warned her of that. And one of her teeth was loose - a miracle she hadn't lost any! No. A life spent defending her right to Viola against all comers was not likely to prove beneficial to her health - and yet!

And yet, she had never felt so alive as when she knew she must beat Rashumba to win Viola. The fight itself had been the greatest physical ordeal she had ever faced and she still savoured the triumph of those minutes afterwards when she had put her bruised arms around her lovely prize, swept her up and carried her off, in full view of the recovering Rashumba!

 She wondered if Rashumba would track her down and demand a rematch and what Viola would say to that. She guessed the bond between those two, even though it was based on an unhealthy desire on Viola's part for ritual domination, had not been wholly broken. There was a reserve about her, as though she was already hankering for the old life of beatings and pain.

What nonsense! How could she want to go back to that club and be whipped bloody?  A few months of a normal life, with Clementine gradually introducing her to normal people, would transform her.

As she was going through this train of thought the phone rang. It was Estella.

"Hi Stella! Where are you?"

"On the way to see you. I've got Jules with me. Hard to concentrate on the driving with his hot little paws all over me and a mobile in one hand! Also James is with us. He can't wait to see you! We'll be with you in a couple of hours. Bye for now!"

And so the evening saw five of them around Clementine's table. On one side of Clemmy was Viola and on the other was James. And they both obviously adored Clemmy and resented each other. Clemmy purred her pleasure. She wondered if James would fight Viola for her! Not quite such a silly notion, perhaps. Viola was a tall girl and might know a few sly tricks. But James was a gentleman. he wouldn't fight a lady and in any case, they were going to have to share her and like it! In view of Viola's obvious distress at having a rival on the same premises, Clementine made very sure to shower affection on the girl in a very noticeable fashion.

James watched with great jealousy as the two girls shared wine from the same glass,  passing it from one mouth to another. Jules and Stella were too busy with each other to notice. But after the meal, he and James went for a walk down to the pub, leaving the three girls to tidy and wash up.

Clemmy had no idea what the two guys were talking about at the time, but later on she came to have a fair idea. When it was too late!

"Well. When you suggested going to that club, I doubt you thought Clemmy would take over Viola!" said Jules laughingly. "They make a sweet couple though!"

James snorted angrily. "I wonder what became of Rashumba after her unaccustomed beating. I shall never forgive her for  letting that bitch win! She's supposed to be a trained fighter and she lets some bimbo from Basingstoke who was a bloody secretary till a few weeks ago, beat the shit out of her!"

"Even secretaries have their qualities and she's a pretty tall, strong bimbo! She had access to a gym and the spur of wanting Viola was all it took to put her training to good effect. She has grit, that girl and that's what did the trick. And I'm sure she likes you! It's just that she likes Viola as well, but that may not last. Viola might find a nice man and marry and settle down. Then you might have a chance with Clementine,  if you still wanted her!"

"Maybe. I wonder if she's still interested in a trip to Abhlovia? I'm off there for a few weeks, before the weather gets too bad. I'd like to get her up those hills for a few days - have her to myself without bloody Viola around. All that girl was good for was being whipped and sucking Rashumba's pussy."

"Don't take it so hard, James. And maybe Clementine's got enough love for the two of you. Big strong girl like her!"

"Yeah. She is strong. Beautiful, in a butch kind of way, and strong. Screwing the arse off her would be great. I'll ask her about Abhlovia when I get her to myself. If I get her to myself!

"I don't think she's butch looking!" replied Jules. "If I weren't so madly in love with Estella, I'd fancy her myself. I'll always be glad you chose that pair to hit on in that bar. You will be kind to Clemmy, won't you?"

There was an uneasy note in Jules's voice.

"Sure, I'll be kind to her. She's no Rashumba to me, but she's a great girl. I wonder where that black bitch is. Not like her to go to ground like she has."

"Full of shame, I should think. She's a proud woman, James and by all accounts she was humiliated the other week. Stella was telling me how Clemmy was running rings around her towards the end. Said that clearing looked like a couple of sheep had been slaughtered there and the blood was mostly Rashy's - not all, but mostly. What will you say when you see her?"

"I don't know. Commiserate, most likely. I do feel something for her, even if she did go off with Viola. I'd maybe think of getting back together, after it's over with Clemmy!"

"That presupposes that it will start with Clemmy! She looks pretty hooked on Viola to me. Lets be getting back. The women will have finished washing up and started on the gossip. Let's nip that in the bud!"

After a few hours conversation, Viola, Stella and Jules went up to bed. Jules and Stella had one room and James was due to sleep alone, knowing that Clemmy and Viola would be sharing a bed and making love. It did not please him but he kept his temper remarkably well for a man supposed to be hopelessly in love. Clementine and James, alone for the first time, sat on the sofa and kissed. James soon had Clemmy on the floor and naked. Then, just as the two were about to copulate, Viola appeared and took Clementine upstairs with her without even a backward glance at the astounded James.

"Thanks for rescuing me, Viola. I think James is far too forward."

"You like him a lot though!" Viola pouted. "He'd have shot his load into you and you'd have loved it if I hadn't happened along!

"Not as much as I like you, sweetie. I'm here for you and only you as long as you want me. But there is one thing. James asked me to go to this fantastic place with him and go climbing in the mountains. I've simply got to go. It's been in my mind ever since he first asked me. You can come too, if you like."

"No thanks. James can have you to himself and when you get back, he doesn't come near you ever again!"

"Fine, Viola! That's just fine!  When I get back in three weeks, I shall  devote the rest of my life to making you happy. Now let's get to sleep, shall  we? Unless you've anything else in mind!"

Viola definitely did have plenty else in mind! Both girls overslept after they finally did drop off, as did Jules and Estella. James was first up the next day. One of the advantages of enforced celibacy is that a bed is mostly just for sleeping in!

=========

"Well, Clemmy? Are you coming to Abhlovia with me to climb the mountains? My trip's partly business, but I'll be done in a week. Why don’t you join me and we can do some serious climbing?   Viola can come too."

"I'll come, James, and Viola can stay here and look after the place for me. You'll be OK darling, won't you?"

Viola nodded glumly. She clearly couldn't wait for Clementine to return.

"OK, my love." Clementine kissed Viola and went out to say farewell to James, Stella and Jules. James was off to the airport and Estella and her lover were off to watch a few fights. Estella had definitely been turned on by watching Clemmy and Rashumba. On the card tonight was one  women's bout and Estella was beside herself with excitement. She explained that the women would be decently clothed and padded with breast protectors and this seemed to disappoint her a bit.

"I don't suppose I'll ever see another fight  like the one you two had the other week, but I've seen quite a few since then; well - two or three - and there was some blood. Not as much as you two shed, though! That was awesome - I still can't quite believe it happened! Have a lovely time with James. Don't stick with Viola for ever, honey! James is a great guy and little Vi will find a nice man and settle down. Don't let James get away, now!"

"Viola is hardly little, Stella! And she took a good few whippings from Rashumba and was able to walk away from them! Don't be fooled by her submissiveness; she could be quite an opponent to anyone who crossed her!"

Clementine waved farewell to the three guests and went back inside to make arrangements for her trip in a week's time. She had a hard job comforting Viola over the next few days. The poor girl was sure that the trip was a bad idea.

"I knew Jules and James before I met you, Clem darling. James got us the spot at the club. He knew we were a bit of a kinky couple and thought we might as well make a few bucks out of our perversions. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure he and Rashumba go back a long way. She's six years older than me, you know and James is nearly thirty. I think they were lovers once, although I don't know - just intuition. Don't get involved with him, darling. Jules is sweet, but James is deep and there's a lot nobody knows about him and his dealings. But if you do go, please be careful and come home as soon as you smell even a hint of trouble. That's bad news, Abhlovia!"

"I don't like what I've heard about it, but I won't break any of their laws, Vi darling! And I won't be in the capital, but in the back of beyond up in the mountains. And in three weeks we'll be together again and together for keeps!"

"You really do mean that?"

"Of course, Golly, I didn't get myself beaten to a pulp and marked for life just for a summer fling, honey. You're for ever - believe me!"

"I do hope you'll be alright, my darling! Be sure and phone me when you arrive and every day if you can."

"I will. I think my mobile will work from there, although the mountains may be out of range. Sorry to leave you, but I just have to do this. Try to understand - it's the challenge. I love challenges. And I've made a will, darling. I've left everything to you!"


CHAPTER FOUR

 ( In Which James and Clementine make love in the mountains and Clemmy has a Nasty Surprise).
"And what do you think of my second home, Clemmy?"

"You mean Abhlovia?" asked Clementine, as the couple prepared to go to bed at the end of a hectic first day.

" It's clean and well run to all appearances. I'll say that much. But I get the impression of a place very much under the thumb. I'll be glad to get up to the mountains and breathe clean free fresh air!  It's great to be with you again, though. I'm glad you still like me without my thighs on public view, but I think I'd be arrested in this Puritan country if I wore my favourite clothes. I wear short skirts and tiny shorts all year as a rule."

"Never mind that, Clemmy! I know what you're hiding under that covering! AS for your not liking law and order -you're a funny one! I bring you to a place where a girl can walk home at night in any part of the city and be safe and all you can do is moan about freedom. Freedom for who, Clemmy? For thugs and tearaways? Who cares if they get dealt with severely?"

"I think it's more than criminals who have to be careful. I can understand and read a fair bit of Russian which still seems to be the lingo around here, and the local press is deadly dull and gives nothing away. Give me the British tabloids and all their muck-raking any old day!  And it's wrong that women can't show their legs in public. it's time these people grew up and came into the modern world, James. How you can come from a liberated place like Paris to a place like this and not notice how repressive it all is, I don't know!"

James frowned and looked uneasy. This young woman was too bright - too observant for her own good. At this rate she was likely to cut her stay short and go home. Better get her away from the capital before she said something she would be sorry for. He wanted that trip into the hills and to make love to her in the mountains. Like Clemmy, he had set his heart on it. It was as well for Clemmy she didn't know what else he had set his heart on!

After making love, they dressed and went for a late night walk around the few places of any interest and James heard Clemmy gasp in surprise as they passed a crowded bar.

"What's the matter, dear?"

"I saw Rashumba in that bar. And she saw us. My golly, but she looked really venomous. Her face might be on the mend, but her pride still looks pretty wounded!  I wonder how she ended up here? Whatever happened to her, she's found some more clothes, and very nice expensive ones at that. It must have cost her a fortune to be dressed like that. I think I got more badly marked than she did, alas! Her face is almost healed by now, the lucky girl, and I still look a fright. Not fair, considering I beat her!"

"You look lovely to me my darling. That cut's fading fast and your nose isn't that bad, considering what it went through. You're still a lovely girl, Clementine!"

James cursed under his breath. He'd warned the woman to keep out of the way while Clementine was around. But of course she had to keep him under observation, even though she must hate to see him with the detested Clementine. But he had explained what he was doing and how important it was not to make her suspicious. Let’s hope she didn't suspect anything and make a run for the airport before he had set things in motion! But Clementine soon forgot her recent rival's mysterious re-appearance in this of all places. She was tired of the city and just wanted to get up to the hills as soon as it was light.

They  spent just the one night in the main hotel and the sex had been everything each of them had dreamt it would be. But Clementine knew that what they would experience on top of the mountain would be better still. Three years ago she had been on a school trip and climbed a rock in the Pennines with a boy from the same class. They had only kissed when they got to the top, but it had been the most exciting kiss of her life as the wind had almost blown them both off the edge. He had pulled away her upper clothing and fondled her breasts. It had been the most thrilling day of her life to date and now she was going to make love to the exciting James who would definitely not be content merely with fondling her tits. They were going to go all the way and leave out nothing during those moments of high altitude ecstasy!

Then it was understood between them that they would resume their own separate lives. James, though, had his own ideas as to what course, Clementine's life was about to take!

They drove up in a Land Rover and as James had promised they travelled pretty light. Clementine tried to contact Viola, but there was no signal. Never mind! They would be together again soon and this trip was turning out to be everything she had been promised. The country was pretty barren, at least this part of it, and Clemmy was enraptured by its stark beauty. As the mountains came nearer and nearer, she knew that she must scale the tallest and most hazardous and do it naked. She confided this wild idea to James who hooted with laughter.

"I don't advise it, my love! You'll get yourself cut up something terrible on all those sharp rocks. And you ought to carry some ropes, just in case."

But Clementine was adamant. They reached the foot of the mountain at dusk and spent the night in the open. It was still reasonably warm during the day, but Clementine was glad of James's body close to her during the night. After a camp breakfast, they approached the foot of the rock and looked up at the top so far above them.

"I reckon I can climb that OK, James. You go first and I'll follow. I guess you've done this before and I'd appreciate your leading the way. I'll get undressed while you get a start on me."

"I do think you're being foolhardy, darling. But have it your own way, as I don't doubt you always do." He thought of Rashumba as he said this. He'd fuck Clemmy on the summits, as they had both promised each other and then it was back to the city for him and as for her.....

She watched James get about twenty feet up and marked out the way she was going to climb. This was pretty easy, she thought. A bit harder with nothing on her body, but she could do it - and get down again! As soon as she felt the rough rock under her bare feet she knew she had made the right decision. She felt she was almost making love to the mountain!  By the time she got all the way up she was scratched in many places but otherwise unharmed. James had been there for several minutes. Nudity had slowed her down but not stopped her.

"How many more of these have we to climb before I leave" asked Clemmy.

"Another three. But this is the most interesting. It has quite a story attached to it. It will take time getting to the others. We'll need to do it on foot, alas and then get back here to the truck. I'm afraid you'll need to carry a bit of stuff on that strong but scratched back of yours! And now, let's make mad abandoned love!"



But Clemmy put her hand on his arm, just as he was about to start undressing.

"Hang on! I'm still a bit tired. While I'm recovering my breath, tell me story of the rock!"

"OK. Have it your way! In the Middle Ages -round about five hundred AD there was this hermit, a very holy man. He had a cave about fifty miles from here and was highly thought of - it was rumoured he had the gift of healing. One day he was tempted by a beautiful girl from the local village. She came to his cave one night as naked as you are now and he couldn't resist her charms. The Village had a bad harvest that year and the girl was blamed and burnt alive as a witch. He then came up here as an act of penitence and stayed up here for forty years. They would come and leave food and water for him every few days and sit at his feet imbibing wisdom and all that stuff. Then finally they came up to see him and he had died in the night. Apparently he wore no more than you are now! So he must have been a tough old buzzard."

"Wow! I'll say!" said Clementine. "How do you know all this, James?"

"Oh. The place became revered after the saint's death. Look over there!"  James pointed to a rough crucifix fixed to a rock on the edge of the level summit. Clemmy had not seen it because James had been in the way. Her heart missed several beats and she felt deep shame to be here in this state of nudity. If only she had known!

"We can't have sex here, James. It would be sacrilege! Lets get down and quickly. You should have said and I'd have kept my clothes on to come up here. I like sex - don't  get me wrong - but there is a time and a place for everything. This would be as bad as doing it in church. I'm going down now!"

James made a few efforts to make her change her mind and cursed himself for telling her about the bloody hermit. All that climbing for nothing. He went first and Clementine had still some way to go when she saw him standing at the base of the rock and photographing the last stages of her descent. She joined him, breathless and with a few more abrasions to add the ones acquired on the way up.

"Don't bother sending me those pics, James. I don't care to be reminded of what I just did. I feel like an act of penitence of my own."

"Not abstaining from sex, I hope!" James sounded disconsolate!

"No. I must think what it should be."

Then just as she was preparing to get dressed again she took off her shoes and tied the laces together, hanging them around her neck. Then she stuffed her clothes into her rucksack, put it on her back and straightened up.

"There, James. I shall do this entire hike barefoot and naked. I daresay you approve of this particular penance!"

"You'll suffer Clementine. It's a rocky part of the world underfoot and gets pretty chilly at night."

"Well, I think my feet are up to it and even if they're not now, they will be after fifteen days of this! As for the cold nights - I've got you to keep me warm, so that's no problem. Now let's get away from here and leave it to the spirit of the old saint. What was his name, by the way, James?"

"Saint Stanislas. You must have seen his name on several squares and streets. The cathedral is named after him. After his death his body was buried with much pomp under the High Altar."

"Strange that such a simple man who lived such a Spartan life should have such a rich burial!  He must have been terribly cold all that time up there.  What's the winter like here?".

"Cold, but not too cold. It's sheltered to some extent from the worst of the winds from the East and North, but I prefer not to be here from January to March. It can rain a lot and the wind is bad especially over the central plateau. I suppose it snows a bit about every third year."

"I see. Well, we won't be here to experience it!"

They set off on their hike, James with his stout walking boots and climbing gear and Clementine with nothing except her heavy rucksack. She insisted on carrying her fair share of the food and equipment. The stones underfoot soon started to bite into her feet, which might have been hardened a bit in the last few weeks bare footedness, but were still too tender for this kind of terrain. By the time they reached their first night's camp she had started to lag a bit behind James and was limping. This penance business was no light matter! He took a few more snaps of her. She was quite a sight. The heavy pack should have made her stoop under its weight, but she was as upright as ever and James looked forward to their coming night together.

As they settled down for the night, James looked at her sore feet. He massaged them and then sucked all ten toes, taking his time as he did so and causing her to squirm deliciously.

"You must have spent a lot of time barefoot, Clementine. Most women seem to develop calluses or deformities but yours are perfect. The sweetest toes I've ever sucked!"

"Thanks, darling. I think you've done them good!  I don't seem to have broken the skin at all. Just a bit of bruising maybe. Just you watch - I'll be better tomorrow and keep up with you. By the time we finish this jaunt they'll both be fit to go for ever without shoes.  Bloody Hell, James. Fuck me!"

This last remark was caused by the sight of his penis, as he stripped off his underpants.

"Not seen one of these before?" he asked.

"Yes - lots!  But never one the size of that! Am I glad I came away with you!  Let's stop wasting time!  I can't wait for you to put that where it belongs!"

In the morning Clemmy and James packed up their equipment after breakfast. They drank water from a mountain spring then bathed in it, Clementine screaming as the cold water touched her bare skin. Then she looked around and a look of uncertainty crossed her face.

"Maybe I'd better wear something James. I mean a bra and panties. The feet stay bare whatever happens. We might meet someone and they might be offended."

James looked disappointed.

"I'd say the chances of meeting anybody are zero. In the summer there's a few shepherds and goatherds but not at this time. The nearest settlement is fifty miles south of here. But if you want to deprive me of the sweet sight of all that lovely sexy body, so be it.  I've grown to love the sight of that bush being blown in the breeze! But you might be wise."

"If you're sure we won't meet anyone?"

"Ninety nine per cent, Clemmy."

"O.K .That's good enough odds! You get to see it all - all day and every day. You lucky man!"

And her body remained uncovered, except for the enormous rucksack. The rest of their hike was glorious. James was amazed that this woman could walk all those miles, barefoot and climb all those difficult rocks so well without clothing or any aid at all save her own agility and strength. He saw now how she had triumphed over Rashumba. Nothing stopped this  eighteen year old once she had set her mind on something!

After fifteen days, they returned to the truck and the road. Long before they came within sight of possible passers-by Clemmy had put on her clothes for the first time in over a fortnight. It was early October by now and she had been feeling the strengthening cold wind increasingly over the last few days, especially at night, and had been grateful for James lying beside her in their tent. But although they made good lovers, she knew that she could not wait to be back with Viola and James seemed to know and resent this.

Getting dressed again  was like saying farewell to that joint dream - the one they had first conceived in the bar in Paris when they first met and just before Clementine had laid eyes on Viola. Before her whole life had changed after her first sighting of the other blonde. In a few days she would be back in Basingstoke with Viola and her life would start for real. But she had certainly had a great time with James and was pleased they had had these few weeks together.

They had four days in Abhlovia City and James showed her the sights, although he seemed busy with business, now that he was back at the centre of things. Clementine  spent a deal of time wandering the streets on her own. She did some shopping, spending a lot on some gifts for Viola. One of these was a polished  stone ointment box that would look nice on their dressing table. It was the most beautifully marked coloured marble and James smiled when he saw it and said that marble was one of the country's chief products and was quarried from several places in a range of hills to the north-west of the country in perhaps the wildest and most barren terrain in the entire state.

"Why couldn't we have visited that?" she asked.

"Maybe some other time fairly soon" said James mysteriously. But there would be no other time, thought Clementine. She would not be coming back. The place depressed her and she was sure she was being followed, no doubt by secret police anxious that she not speak to the local dissidents - well she had wish to get into trouble and was careful not to get into any conversations other than about shopping and the weather  - safe enough topics in any part of the world, she hoped! Happily for her peace of mind, she had not seen Rashumba again. James said she had been here for only a few days, with friends from Paris and Clementine had no reason to doubt him.

She left alone for the airport, having said goodbye to James who had a business appointment and said he regretted not being able to see her safely through to the departure lounge. She was already excited about seeing Viola later that day and was not paying too much attention to her surroundings or she might have seen the car parked opposite the hotel and a few hundred yards down. But when this car overtook her taxi and forced it to draw in to the kerb, she realised that it was an unmarked police car.

Three men jumped out and roughly ordered Clementine, sick with fear, out of the taxi, whose driver looked white and scared out of his wits. This was when her nightmare began. They  cuffed her and when she protested, struck her hard across the mouth, drawing blood and leaving her more utterly terrified than ever. Then the three goons bundled her roughly into the back of their car and she was soon incarcerated in a small and dark cell. She knew fear in that moment and felt total despair. Viola had been so right to be concerned about this trip! She had walked into a trap and ought to have left as soon as she saw Rashumba in that bar. Now it was too late.





.


CHAPTER FIVE

 (In which the Horror begins).

After a wait of several hours she was taken upstairs and into a room which she realised was a court. A charge was read out. She had been seen in a state of nudity climbing a national monument and this insult to the country's dignity was to be severely punished. They gave her a choice.

"Miss Anderson! You have been convicted of a very serious offence against public decency. This is not your own decadent country and you should realise that as a guest you have a duty to respect our ways. You will have a choice of punishment. Either you accept a flogging or you serve a term of the hardest of hard labour. Which is it to be?"

"How many lashes, Sir and how long would the hard labour be?"

"A sensible question. Three hundred lashes or twelve years. What is your decision?"

"Might I please see what I am to be whipped with, Sir and who would do the whipping?"

She gasped as she saw the fearsome whip and the three powerfully built men who would take turns to make sure the lashes did not grow lighter as the punishment progressed. It was even more terrifying that the one that had been used on Viola.  Viola had been a mess after thirty, and she was used to it!  And these men were all far more powerful than Rashumba! No choice, really. After less than a third of her three hundred she would be torn to pieces and very, very dead. What a great sense of humour this judge guy had, to be sure!

"I accept the hard labour, Sir," she said after her whole life had sped before her eyes and she had swayed dizzily in the dock under the impact of the awful sentence. Just as well Viola is provided for, she thought as they led her to a waiting van, I‘ll never live through this.  She was shackled to the rear of the open vehicle with seven other unfortunate women and driven off at speed. Soon the city was behind them and they were heading up into the arid interior. They stopped at a grim looking walled enclosure, possibly an old fort and now apparently a prison. They led the new prisoners inside and left after a couple of large and armed women took them into their care. After passing through several solid looking gates she found herself in a reception area.

"Remove all your clothing and line up for inspection" shouted a large female, both in Russian, which Clemmy understood, and the local language, which she didn't, but most likely would long before she got out of here. At least Clemmy understood enough Russian to get by. She had still hardly got her thoughts together. A man, presumably a doctor,   walked down the line and gave each girl a very cursory glance. Then they were summoned to walk in line to where prison clothing was being doled out. One pair of sandals, a skirt, a shapeless blouse and two pairs of panties were all that she looked like getting for the next twelve years. She wondered if there would be time off for good behaviour or a chance of parole, or even an opportunity to appeal.

As she came up to the woman, she reached out to take her clothes, but was waved on and given nothing to wear. Odd! Maybe foreign prisoners got to wear something else in order to distinguish them in some way. The seven women were led into a corridor, along which were barred doors on each  side. One by one the other six were let into cells, which seemed each to hold two. Soon, Clementine was alone and told to move along. They took her out into what looked like an exercise yard. In a large cage in the middle of the yard were eleven women, all naked like she was.

And what women they were! If she had thought Rashumba was hard, these were harder still! None of them was bigger than Clemmy, but all were tougher, much tougher. That was obvious and it was equally obvious that they were eyeing her up as though they wanted her for breakfast. She was going to have a hard job surviving amongst this lot!

She was pushed roughly into the cage which was then slammed shut. She looked up at the sky. It would soon be dusk and it wasn't too warm already. One of the women laughed as she guessed what was passing through her mind.

"Yes, dear! You'll be glad of a bit of warm flesh next to you when the winter sets in! That's all the heat these bastards let us have. So be a good girl or we'll freeze you out and you won't like that!"

"I see what you mean," she smiled. "Can you say why they choose to do this to some of the prisoners? It seems very odd!"

"It's a compliment, I suppose. look at us and look at yourself. What do we have in common?"

Clemmy looked around and then down at her own magnificent body. She nodded. "We're the strong, tough ones. I can see that, but I still don't see why that means we have to stay naked all the time.  Are we some kind of show?"

"Sort of. Mind you, we still work as hard as the others. A lot harder in fact, but sometimes they make us do other things. Can you fight? Because that is what you may get to be doing a lot of in the years ahead."

"Fighting whom?"

"Us!"

"And what if I choose not to?"

"You won't. They are very persuasive. But you fight when you are told and not when you quarrel with someone. They don't like that."

The friendly woman moved away and one who looked like the leader of this gang of Amazon desperadoes walked up to Clemmy. Clemmy decided there and then that she had to become the leader herself one day and this was as good a time as any to make a start. She was NOT going to spend twelve years here! Being leader would give her some sort of chance to escape - she hoped.

This woman was about five years older than Clemmy and very hard looking. Her skin was like leather after years exposed to the summer heat and the winter cold. She looked as though she at least would need no warm female flesh to keep out the frost! She pushed her face close to Clementine and the stink of her breath made the newcomer want to vomit.

"Lick my twat, you little piece of shit! And make a good job of it."

The others laughed and crowded round to see the new girl made to perform this and other disgusting acts.

"If it smells like your mouth, I'd rather not, thanks." Thank goodness her Russian was up to this kind of backchat!

"What did you say, you cow?"

"Are you deaf then, as well as ugly and stupid with a smelly cunt and a mouth like a sewer?"  Her unspoken thought was that she might as well go down fighting. They'd soon enough tire of picking on her if she fought back every time. She had learned THAT much during her sheltered genteel upbringing!

She saw the blow coming, but not  quite soon enough and she landed on her bottom with a sore lip. It wasn't that she had been knocked down, more that she had lost her footing trying to get out of the way. She scrambled to her feet and clenched her fists. It looked like her second ever fight was about to begin in earnest! She had no difficulty returning the blow - this lady was no dancing queen! She felt her knuckles make contact and it was good. The blow rang out across the yard and the wardress heard it.

By the time the pair were separated, Clemmy had a bruised cheek, a black eye, a bleeding nose and a fair amount of respect from the others. The woman who had challenged her was similarly marked  and Clemmy guessed she was well on the way to taking over from her.

"Who started this?" stormed the female guard.

Clemmy looked at her opponent. She turned to the guard.

"I did, the cow insulted me and I don't take that shit from anyone."

"Take her over to the wall!"

Two guards took hold of Clemmy and she was dragged to the wall. She saw a couple of iron rings and guessed what they were for, Sure enough she was soon very tightly secured. The rest of the women had been left in the cage, except for the girl she had just fought. Clementine wondered why she was being brought out. Were they going to punish her as well?

"We don't like trouble makers here and you couldn't wait five minutes before staring a brawl! You'll soon be sorry. Very sorry."

 Clementine looked round and saw that the guard had produced a whip from somewhere and was handing it to the other woman.

"Use this on the new inmate and don't go easy on her. Not that you're likely to, the way she marked you. I'll be gone for a while, but I'll be able to hear, so whip her good and hard and don't even think about stopping until I get back. If I think you haven't done a good enough job on her, I‘ll draw a few red lines on your back. Clear!"

"Yes, Ma'am. Clear!"

The guard walked slowly away and the whipping began. Clementine had wondered, when she had seen Viola being flogged, what it would be like and she had toyed with the idea of a bit of consensual mutual flagellation during the last few weeks. Now she had the chance to experience at first hand what Viola had endured and she didn't like it one little bit!

"WHOOOSH! - CRACK!!" went the first lash and Clemmy's back arched and her whole body jerked. She bit her lip and tasted blood. In her agony she had bitten clean through it and she had only received one lash and that was probably by no means the hardest she was going to get from the angry head honcho!  She looked round and saw all the other women crowding to get a good view. They looked happy to have something to relieve the monotony!

"SWOOOSH - CRACKK!! went the second one and they kept on coming each terrible swish preceding each new accretion of pain. She could soon feel the blood trickling down her back, her buttocks, her thighs and her calves as the merciless flogging went on and on and on.

By the time the guard had gone inside Clementine had received twelve and she had never in her life felt such monstrous agony. When she had fought Rashumba she had been hurt - terribly hurt - but she had been in control and able to hurt back. Now she was tied and helpless. She had never felt so lonely, desperate and hopelessly lost as each fresh lash sent currents of white hot torment pulsing through her body, engulfing her in hellish suffering which this wretched woman knew just how to prolong, making every lash count to the full.

As her ordeal continued, Clementine  supposed she would get another twelve once the guard re-appeared and walked the length of the yard over to her. That was a minimum of twenty four, plus whatever this bitch of a woman gave her during the guard's absence, and who could say how many that might be? Twelve heavy lashes descended and still there was no sign of the guard. Another twelve and then another and Clemmy began to lose consciousness with all the pain. She hadn't cried out once, though. Viola would be proud of her!

Inside the prison, three people were watching the performance. "I think I should go back and stop it, now." said the guard. This new prisoner had work to do and the prison had quotas to fulfil. Too much more of this and the new inmate, even if she was big and strong, would be fit for nothing for weeks!

The second watcher turned to the third.

"What do you say? Has she had enough?  She sure looks a mess! I'll let you decide!"

"Not by a long chalk. That other prisoner has hardly started on her, as far as I'm concerned." answered Rashumba who couldn't tear her eyes away from Clementine's painful punishment - not even for a second. "It's only a light whip and it's hardly scratching her lousy white hide. She can take plenty more and still be good for work in the morning. Make the bitch dance a bit more. Look at her writhe and jerk! That's a good girl, the one with the whip! She knows how to time the lashes to  maximise the pain. See how she waits a few seconds after each lash? That's because a lot of the pain follows the impact. Then just as it begins to fade a bit, she hits her again and keeps the pain on the boil! I like that one! I could use her when she gets out!"

"That won't be for another twenty years" chuckled the guard as the whipping proceeded. "She is a multiple killer. Only her family connections saved her from the gallows! It sure enough wasn‘t her good looks, the ugly bitch!"

Back at the wall, Clementine gasped as the ice cold water struck her face. She was fully conscious again now and ready to appreciate to the full the excellence of her tormentor's handiwork!   The lashes kept on coming and the woman seemed to be getting stronger as she worked away at Clemmy's poor bleeding back. Maybe that idea of pushing her leadership claim had been a bad one. But she was strong and fit and young. She braced herself to take the strokes which were still landing loudly and painfully on the back. She tried to keep still, but the reflex was too strong under the lashes and she continued to writhe, twitch and jerk as the punishment continued, The watching Rashumba felt an orgasm developing as she sensed the awful depths of  Clemmy’s agony.


The pain-racked Clemmy came to realise that she would need take a lot more of this. Judging from the state of all the other women in the cage, such beatings  were hardly unusual around here. She might as well get used to it right from the start. But she  guessed that the guard would impose a limit to her suffering and one just about within her capacity to endure. Hard labour had been the sentence. She wouldn't be doing  any  work, hard or otherwise, if this went on too much longer!

"How many has she had now?" Rashumba asked the guard. "I've lost count. It must be a lot. And she's still jerking around as fresh and lively as she was at the start. That'll teach her to steal my Viola and beat me!"

"One hundred since we've been here, and I should guess twelve while I was walking over. She's a tough girl and after a few floggings like this she'll take them in her stride and still be good for a day's work, but I really must insist we call a halt to it soon this time. She has work to do and we don't allow people to go sick here!"

"OK, Go and tell the woman to stop." said James after watching another two dozen. He reluctantly saw the woman's point. His firm had an interest in the work these women did, after all said and done! "Let her rest for now. She's plenty more pain to come in the years ahead. Shall we go, darling? We'll be back in a few weeks to see how she's doing!"

"Feeling any better, darling?" James asked Rashumba as they left and he helped her into the car. "I arranged all this for you, you know. Went to a lot of trouble to trap that honey!"

"I think so, but it's a little early. I'll let you know this time next year when I've had a chance to see how they treat the bitch over a twelvemonth! Badly, I hope! Extremely badly!"

"Never fear my love! She'll get it rough. All the prisoners in that place get it rough and some get it rougher than others. One prisoner will get it roughest of all and guess who she is!"

Rashumba laughed out loud and long and they drove away. As they left, Clementine was being cut down and taken back to the cage to rejoin her new playmates!

"What are we doing tonight, James?" asked Rashumba as the city loomed up in the distance. "I'd like a celebration meal. I think we should have one every year on this day, after first going to watch that cow get her stinking hide well and truly shredded until we see her white ribs. Don't you?"

"Whatever you say, my sweet!"





CHAPTER SIX

(In which Clementine settles in and finds out loads more about pain.)




"Well, they certainly taught you one hell of a painful lesson" said Olga, the ugly tough who had just whipped her. This seasoned prisoner was sweating from every pore after her exertions, despite the night chill. She was standing over her recent victim and examining her handiwork. The new girl was certainly in a bad way. Clemmy had been warmed up herself, but she was still shivering feverishly from the after effects of the beating, which had brought her out into a cold sweat.

"You must have easily got ten times the stick a new girl usually gets for a first offence. Take me for instance.  I was like a wild animal when I first came here. I fought with the guards and bit one bitch's finger clean off. That's right! There was blood everywhere and you should have heard the cow squeal! But they didn't give me what they just gave you - nor anything like!  In a way, I almost felt sorry for you. Almost, but not quite. But I'm glad they stopped it when they did. I was getting so tired! I'd have stopped a long while earlier if it had been up to me and I enjoy taking the skin of a bitch's back as much as any of us. You must be someone special  to get a working over like that on your first day! You must have done something pretty bad - either that or upset the wrong people. Whatever - they've really  got it in for you! If you want to stay alive, you'd better learn to be tough and learn fast, although after what you did to me, maybe you already have! Have some of this!"

Olga ended her remarks by handing  a rusty can full of water which the  grievously punished girl gulped greedily and gratefully down. She had only just realised how cruelly thirsty she was. Clemmy eased herself on to the ground, face down on the rough surface, and tried not too successfully to get into a comfortable position, wishing she were in a nice warm room and comfortable bed, being treated for her wounds as she had treated Rashumba and Viola not so many weeks ago. But she knew she would get no such treatment here and that this was just the first of many such beatings looming ahead of her over the next twelve years. There would be no healing ointment and no bed-rest for her in this hell. She looked up at her tormentor.

"When I'm better, we'll finish that fight. OK?"

"They'll have you whipped again - most likely harder next time. You're a very special prisoner and in for a very special time! A hundred lashes will be your minimum, I shouldn't wonder. But be grateful and try to look on the bright side. You are privileged! None of us has ever got more than fifty for starting a fight and that was after a fifth offence! A normal incomer would have got off with a rifle butt in the gut and warning, but you got the works! Yours is going to be one permanently sore hide! Pity -  you had such lovely smooth skin before I took it all off!  But the sun, wind and rain and frost over the next few years will do to the rest of you what the whip does to your back."

The others laughed  and Clemmy knew that she would get no pity, either from the prison staff or her fellow inmates, who had one thing in common and that was total callousness and indifference to the sight and sound of pain. Inured to their own suffering, they had no pity for Clementine and she knew she must never sink to pitying herself. Only strength of mind and body would get her out of here, unless someone at home learned what had happened to her.

"I know I'll get flayed again. But I'll still finish that fight. We can start now, if you want!" Clementine could scarcely move as she said these words, but she meant what she had just said.  If this woman wanted, she could have Round Two here and now!

The  other women laughed. They already respected the newcomer, who obviously had a lot of spirit, and guessed that Olga would have her hands full if she wanted to stay at the top of the heap.

"I'll let you wait till you're ready." said Olga. "Then I'll be happy to oblige and knock you out good and proper. Better get some sleep if you can. Two of the others will try to keep you warm without hurting that back. Sleep well. You've a long hard day ahead in the morning."

Alexia, the very young woman who had first greeted her,  and another called Sveta came over as it got dusk. They lay down one on each side of her. Clemmy was astonished when Sveta started to lick her sore back. She made as if to protest but Alexia explained.

"You've seen an animal lick its wounds?" she laughed, the first pretty sound Clementine had heard since arriving. " Well, that's what we do here. It works after a fashion. In the morning we'll all piss all over that back  It'll hurt as bad as the whipping, but it'll do your stripes a power of good. Nasty but effective. It's an old remedy in these parts. Don't worry, you'll soon smell bad enough anyway after working all day, just like the rest of this stinking shower! Why are you here? You're a foreigner, aren't you. You don't talk Russian that badly but you aren't one. I should know, I was born in St Petersburg."

Sveta carried on licking and then Alexia took over. Clementine debated as to whether she should confide in these two. There hardly seemed any reason not to.

"I upset a couple of people. I fell in love with this lovely darling girl in Paris and she was under the thumb of a big African woman a few years older than she was. I fought the black girl and won, so the other girl is mine now, not that it's much good to me stuck in this place." She suppressed a sob at the thought of Viola, so short a time hers. "I also took up with a man, who I quite fancied and it turned out he and the black girl were ex-lovers. I'm here because this guy arranged to get me arrested. He's got a lot of influence here. At least I think that's why I'm here. I can't think of any other explanation. The ostensible reason is that I climbed a national monument whilst totally nude. That was true enough - I did, but I didn't know I was going to be reported for it or that anyone apart from my boy-friend and betrayer was around."

"You mean he preferred a black woman to you! But you're so utterly gorgeous, even with the scar and the broken nose! How strange!"

"Don't be racist!" said the well brought up and politically correct Clemmy. "And she's very striking, our Rashumba. Tall and well built - massive body, but very delicate features. I fancied her myself until I fell so hopelessly in love with Viola, her sex slave. I would have done anything to win that darling for my own, and I don't regret it, even if I am going to spend twelve years in this ghastly place."

"I know there are Westerners with a lot of influence here. Mostly connected to organised crime. This whole place is run by the Mob. The rest of the world has no idea what goes on here." said Alexia.

"Aren't there foreign embassies here?" asked Clementine, relieved that the gentle warm moist application of tongue was soothing her back a little.

"No. Only consular representation and precious little of that. This is still officially part of Russia, but the local boss pays Moscow an annual subsidy and they leave us alone. It's been that way for ten years and likely to go on for ever."

"And you can forget about going home after the  twelve years!" said Sveta, pausing a second or two in her ministrations. "If you fell foul of this guy and he's got things to hide, you'll never get out - at least, not alive. He won't want you letting people in the West know what's going on here. The best you can hope for is to become a guard when you've served your sentence, in the unlikely event you haven't perished in one of our winters long before then,  but you'll never leave here, so forget good old England or wherever it is you come from. You've seen the last of that!"

"Are all the guards ex-prisoners?" Clementine had not considered this before.

"No. Just a few and we never see them. We are the damned in this cage and we only get the  the attentions of the regular guards, and only the worst and most brutal of them. But we get fed well enough. They like to keep up our strength. We really get to work here, as you'll soon find out. Some strong men couldn't keep up with us!"

"What sort of work and when do we get fed. I'm ravenous?"

"There's a quarry where they get marble. Lovely stuff when it's all polished, but I have got to hate the sight of it after five years. You'll be hauling it into a truck to be transported to the factory or helping to cut it up. Back breaking work and you'll not like it with that sore back, but they'll have no pity. And if you fail to do your stint, there'll be more whipping for you, even on top of today's - they won't care. At least once a week some poor bitch gets it. And food is at six in the morning and eight in the evening. We sometimes get some at midday with our lunch time drink of warm foul tasting water that tastes like nectar you'll be so unbelievably thirsty. You just missed out tonight, I'm afraid and had to take your whipping on an empty stomach. You did pretty well to come through it like you did. I've never seen the like of it! You'll survive here, alright, but you won't like it. I've prayed to die a thousand  times."

"What will happen when the quarry is worked out, I wonder?"  Clementine was wondering if she might be able to get away from the work party. It must be possible. She remembered that marble box she had bought for Viola. No wonder James had smiled that funny smile when he saw it. Soon she would see marble unfinished and in the raw!

"This isn't the only prison in the country.  The other place is nearer the mountains, and it's much bigger than this and all the men are there - plus a few women. There's a mine there and if you go there you'll spend time underground, But that's men's work and only a few women get sent there, although any of us in the cage could qualify - we're all easily tough enough."

Clementine pondered this. Maybe some of the miners would be ordinary workers and not criminals. If she could get to make contact, perhaps she might get a message out and get someone at home to help her. If the governments in the West knew what was happening they'd surely bring pressure to bear. Much as she dreaded the thought of being underground, she knew this might be the answer - in time. For the present she had to cope with getting accustomed to being a prisoner and slave and surviving among this bunch of ghastly savage women, of whom only Alexia and to a lesser extent Sveta seemed to be likeable. She thought Alexia very likeable already. She felt the throbbing in her back ease further as the two women licked away at her cuts. She noticed that Alexia was getting dangerously low down to an area that had escaped the lash altogether. Well! Get your pleasure where you can!

 She moved her legs apart and soon felt a warm wet and delightfully agile tongue in her vagina. It felt good and she moaned slightly, not out of pain this time. Alexia continued licking, moaning herself, until Olga noticed what was happening and told her to stop. She wondered how many of the caged women got to lick Olga out. Well - she would never be one of them and it didn't matter how dreadfully she was punished. In ten days, as soon as she had healed and got her strength back,  that woman's reign would be over. With this ambition in mind she slipped into an uneasy sleep in which she dreamed of Viola and woke up feeling as desolate as she could ever recall. Alexia was lying next to her and she must have sensed Clementine's anguish, because she kissed her on the lips and wished her good morning.

The morning meal was brought into cage by one of the ordinary, clothed prisoners whose clad state made Clemmy very envious. She was cold, despite her two companions and she knew much colder weather was not too far ahead. None of the cage inmates tried to approach the orderly and Clemmy saw why. The attendant guards had their guns at the ready. She and the others were incommunicado. She looked at the prisoner, but there was no response and the girl looked terrified to be in the same enclosure as these hardened and desperate women. Clemmy guessed she would be looking pretty rugged herself before too long. She certainly hoped so - how else was she to survive?

She waited until the others moved towards the food, which Olga dished out to each of them. Despite her obvious loathing of Clementine, she was fair in her distribution and the newcomer did not miss out. Then the orderly came back and took away the empty cauldron. She also filled the communal water tank. As soon as she had forced the ghastly meal down her, there was a shout from Olga.

"Get over there, new girl and lie down. It's pissing time, girls!"

Clemmy did as she was told. She was willing to try the urine treatment once, but would resist to the death if the treatment didn't work! She lay down and Olga squatted over her. God, but that girl stank! She winced as the hot golden shower flowed over her back, and head. The wicked cow had made sure that Clemmy's lovely fair hair would not be too fragrant for the rest of the day. One by one the others followed suit and she got to savour for herself the odours of the various pudenda which were emptying out their load on her torn back. Finally she got up and added her own piss to the pool in which she was standing, deep enough to cover her feet! She felt like vomiting, but knew she needed that food inside her - vile as it was - and not on the ground!

She squelched her way back to the others. Alexia grinned at her. Clementine thought that Alexia's smile was about the only good thing here - that and her laugh.

"How was that, dear?"

"I hardly think you need ask! I must say the back feels better, though. But I don’t think I need to be pissed on by all of you. Just you would be enough!"

"You'll get it every day, I'm afraid. As long as you're weakened after that flogging, you can't challenge Olga again. Just grin and bear it. Bide your time. You're after being boss woman around here, aren't you!"

Clemmy nodded.

"Good. You can count me as a helper! You'll be an improvement on smelly Olga. Oh, dear. Olga's looking my way and I know what she wants! She wants her cunt licking out. I know that look of old. See you later. I'm not brave like you. I just lick away and try not to be sick!"

Clemmy wanted ask where the toilets were, but realised that such luxuries were most likely not to found in the cage, which had a very nasty smell indeed. Sveta came over to her and she asked her.

"There's a pit over there'" she pointed. "There’s a plank over the top but it doesn't do much to stop the stink."

"We need to dig proper latrines" said Clemmy. "Nice and deep. I bet that solitary pit is almost full of shit by now. How can you live like this? Ask a guard  for a shovel. I'd gladly dig the thing out myself."

And so Clemmy found herself digging out a row of latrine pits, all nice and deeper than she was tall, as far away as possible from where the women congregated while the rest of them were marched off to the quarry. When they returned she had finished her work and earned herself some gratitude, but not from Olga. Olga glowered at her. As soon as her wounds were healed, Clemmy knew a decisive fight was coming and she started preparing herself mentally for this first step on the long haul out of here.

Next day her hard labour started for real, after she was urinated on for the second day in a row. Most of the women used the new latrine pits, but Olga insisted on squatting over her again. Then Alexia peed over her. Her pussy smelt sweet and wholesome, which since Clemmy had been sucking at it for much of the night, while Alexia did the same for her, was not surprising!  Clemmy was relieved that Olga had only peed on her back. She guessed the monster would like to void her bowel on her and wondered how long this loathsome temptation would be resisted. Never mind! She was healing well and the fight would be soon. Then Olga would be firmly put in her place!

The women were assembled under the eye of five guards all of whom plainly meant business and would like nothing better than to shoot an attempted escaper dead in her tracks. An open truck containing fifty of the ordinary prisoners came up to the gate and drove out. The naked women were forced to follow on foot, having to run to keep up with the truck. The women on the vehicle jeered at the cage women as their tits joggled and bobbed around in a variety of ways. Clemmy was young and her breasts were firm and moved pleasantly up and down in time with her running, but Olga's flopped and plopped in the most sickening way. Clemmy definitely had the edge on her in that department!

The five guards were on motor cycles and watched the running prisoners like hawks. Any deviation was noted and angrily corrected. Clemmy learned very quickly to keep in strict line. She veered to one side to avoid a very nasty looking jagged stone and a lash cut her healing back wide open from shoulder to buttock. Clever stuff - wielding a whip one-handed while riding a bike. That guard should be in a circus! She ran in a dead straight line after that no matter what her feet had to suffer.

Clementine had been a good distance runner at school and still kept up a regular schedule, although she was used to running in shoes and over smooth surfaces, but her feet had been partly inured this last few weeks. She ate up the distance and the other cage women were impressed that the new girl kept up so well. They had expected Clemmy to be lagging behind and getting a savage whipping for being too slow. As it was, the only lash she got was that first one and she was very careful not to give them an excuse to land another on her.

When they reached the quarry which was six miles away from the old fort, she was quickly set to work, without so much as a breather or a drink of water. She was thirsty already and apparently it was hours before they got to drink. A guard told her to bend down and a pile of slabs was loaded on her back. It hurt and she knew it would only get worse as the day wore on. She was directed to run, part of a human chain, stooping under her burden, to a waiting truck, onto which she was told to mount and deposit the slabs. Then running back to the pile and another back-breaking load to carry at the double. She was desperately thirsty already and was crying out inside her for a drink -just one drop of water. She asked the guard for one and received a rifle butt across her face for her insolence. As Alexia had predicted, that can of foul water tasted like nectar when she finally got to drink it.

Four more hours of dreadful and growing agony, during which Clemmy was not allowed to rest once and they were told to line up to return. A guard looked at the remaining slabs that Clemmy had still not loaded.

"Not bad for a first effort! It hardly seems worth punishing you for those few leftovers. I'll have to report it, but I'm sure you've no reason to fear a whipping for something trivial like this. Keep this up and you'll do OK! And remember - you drink when we let you and you NEVER speak without permission. NEVER! I'd hate to spoil that nice face any more!"

Could that have been the faintest smile playing around that guard's lips? Maybe she fancied Clemmy! Could there be anything to pursue here? She couldn't afford to ignore any possibility.

Back at the cage they had the day's second and final meal. Once again, Clemmy was careful to waste nothing. She had to keep up her strength. The women were relaxing for the evening and Alexia was nestling against Clemmy and Clemmy was reflecting that life here was not all bad when the guard came up to the Cage.

"Olga and Clementine! Come over here!"

"What now?" Clemmy asked Alexia.

"More lashes, I'm afraid. You left a bit over at the quarry and it's been decided to punish you. Very strange. It was your first day and you only left a couple. They have got it in for you! You poor, poor thing!"

Clemmy was on her feet and moving before Alexia had finished. Olga was by her side and gloating. "Looks like you get it again, honey and so soon after the last lot. At this rate you'll never be ready for our next fight!"

The guard wasted no time in having Clemmy secured. As before, Olga was directed to flog her hard and the guard left.

"That's twenty four to start with", she thought as the guard walked away and Olga started on her.

It was pure bad luck that Rashumba had happened to drop in again! Even worse luck that James was not with her this time.

"How has the new prisoner done today?" she barked at the senor guard. "Has she done her stint?"

The guard looked at the report.” She left a couple - no more. Pretty good for her first day. She's strong."

"Left two! Have her flogged. Get the same girl to do it again! And make sure she gets a REAL flogging this time, not a few scratches like the other day. Go on! Get her against that bloody wall! I want a pool of her blood on the ground before she goes back to the cage!"

And so Clemmy got another and worse whipping even as the scars had barely begun to  heal after the first. It hurt a whole lot more than the first and she couldn't hold back a few screams from time to time, although she tried hard not to show just how much she was suffering. It was getting to be too much to bear and she wondered how long she would last if this went on.

 The anxious guard watched as Clemmy got two hundred. The wretched, tormented girl jerked and writhed under the lash while the black girl squirmed and masturbated at the spectacle of her rival's predicament - not once, but several times. What a woman, thought the admiring guard, thinking of Rashumba as well as of the wonderful strong Clemmy. She guessed that there was something between these two and prayed that she never fell foul of the vengeance that had befallen Clementine. When Rashumba finally told her to free Clemmy, the guard  left at a run to rescue the wretched suffering young woman from too much more pain. Her haste was her undoing, however, and she went flying after tripping on the rough ground. Rashumba laughed as the guard picked herself up and hobbled over to bring the whipping to a close. That slip cost poor Clemmy twenty seven instead of twelve. More haste less speed!

She walked back to the cage under her own steam and collapsed in a heap on the rough ground. Alexia went over to her, but the guard told the other women to leave Clemmy where she had fallen. Only when Rashumba had left and her car was safely out of sight, did she direct the women to look after her.


Next day Clemmy ran all the way to and from the quarry and almost completed her quota, even though she was racked with such pain as she had never known before. No matter how much she was hurt, there was always greater pain to come. It was beginning to drive her crazy.

This time, Rashumba was not around to incite the guards to give her enemy the sadistic punishment she loved to watch and Clementine only got twelve. Although the guards had strict orders to have Clementine's least failure punished, they were determined to keep it to a minimum as long as the merciless Rashumba was not around. And what authority did that woman have here any way?




CHAPTER SEVEN

 (In which there is Love for Clementine, a fight and more pain).



"It's been a month since your last flogging, Clemmy" said Alexia encouragingly. As she spoke, she was looking at that strong and much whipped back,  running the tips of her fingers down the ridge of the spine, making Clementine shiver pleasurably. Her skin might have been thickened and desensitised after the savage treatment it had endured of late, but she could still enjoy those sweet  caresses from Alexia!

No matter what abuse had been heaped on it, Clementine's back was still a very handsome sight - straight and strong as ever. Alexia felt the muscles beneath that scarred and roughened skin. They were responding to the hard work Clemmy had been forced to do.  By now she was a different person to the already strong girl who had been plunged into this inferno of suffering just a few months ago.  Alexia bent down and kissed the top of Clemmy's head.

"I think you're ready to fight Olga now. You look really strong, darling. Strong and beautiful. You are so powerful, Clementine!  This terrible life of slavery is killing  the rest of us, but it seems to agree with you."

"Yeah. I guess so!" she finally said. "I was always fond of the outdoor life and plenty of exercise. I'd sooner not be here, even so!  And, yes I can take Olga now, but it'll be the mother and father of whippings this time. Certainly two hundred, possibly even more - who knows? I wonder if I'm up to it all! It gets no easier to bear, Alexia. Each time they order me to be punished I feel the same sick fear as they take me over to that wall and chain me to the rings. And it still hurts, even if my skin is thicker by this time than any other woman's here."

The others got whipped too, but less often than Clementine, and their punishments were counted out in tens. Clemmy often got hers in hundreds by this time. She had been told that she would never get less that a hundred in future, as a result of James and his mistress putting pressure on the staff.

"You! Of course you are up to it. Especially after what you've been through. And you never look scared when they take you to be punished."  Alexia caressed her friend's back again. "That skin's like leather! Tougher than leather. You're a real iron woman, Clementine - better than any of us already! Go and smash that Olga and become the boss. We're all with you, you know!”

Clementine smiled at Alexia's fulsome praise. Alexia was a strong girl herself, like all the cage women, but she had taken to Clementine right away, being the same age, and the two had become lovers from the first. On the second day after Rashumba had come back and made the guards give her victim a second and more horrible thrashing, the two had stayed awake all night, as Alexia did her best to ease the newcomer's anguish, discomfort and distress.

They had exchanged stories and Alexia's had been a very sad one. Her husband had always beaten his child bride. He had been a drunkard and in his rages he would beat the girl to a pulp, despite the fact that Alexia was a big young woman and able to defend herself if she wished. But she didn't wish. She was a gentle person, despite her strength and had been schooled into thinking a woman must obey her man and submit herself to him. But she knew she was drawn to other women and this had led to her downfall. Her husband had found her lying with another young girl, an old school companion,  and angrily thrown  this person out of the house, but not before half-killing her. Then he had started on Alexia and this time she fought back like a tigress, not for her herself but because  what he had done to her lover had finally driven her over the edge. Unfortunately she had hit her husband too hard and he was knocked out, never to recover.
The husband was still alive, Alexia  had told her, but a vegetable. They had not been able to charge her with murder, but she had still got ten years. She had been here a year now and like Clemmy had been singled out for the cage, both because she was considered violent like all the other cage women and was strong and big for a woman. She had been working in the quarry for six months now after a stint at the gravel workings. She preferred the quarry, as she had been the sole cage woman at the gravel diggings and the other prisoners had constantly jeered at her nudity.

Clemmy still could not forget Viola, but there would always be a bond with dear Alexia. She guessed with a pang of misery, that Alexia was what she would have to make do with in any case! If only she could know that Viola was well and reasonably happy. She dreaded the idea that those two demons might go after her, but guessed that  James's and Rashumba's fury was chiefly  directed at her.

Her first week had been pure hell on earth. She might have been able to get out of the mire if Rashumba had not interfered with such effect. But that second terrible flogging had almost done for her. She got a dozen lashes on her second day at the quarry, and much the same daily for seven long weeks thereafter. She was not to know but Rashumba and James were in Paris.

Then, gradually she completed her quotas and went for days at a time without beatings. Her strength returned and she only got three really bad beatings over two months. Now she was well and strong again. Alexia was right! It was time to sort Olga out once and for all!

She walked deliberately towards Olga, who was surrounded by a half dozen girls, all huddled against the biting cold. Clemmy and Alexia had each other's bodies and wanted no other source of warmth, except occasionally when Sveta disengaged from the pack and they made an amorous threesome!

"Fight, everyone!" said Clemmy. "Come on you ugly stinking cow. Come and be half killed!"

Olga responded but not too enthusiastically. She guessed that she would have a hard job beating Clemmy, who already had a reputation for hardihood and strength. They had been upping her quotas for weeks now and she was fulfilling them with ease. Her body made everyone marvel, even the guards who were getting quite proud of the young foreigner with her fair hair and proud bearing. Clemmy was stamping her authority on her companions and gaining the grudging respect of the staff. The coming victory over Olga would lift her morale no end. That famous optimism was already beginning to help her rise above the miseries of her long imprisonment.

The women crowded around and the two started at it. Olga got in the first blow and Clemmy  fell back into the crowd who pushed back towards the other woman and straight into a great punch which opened up the Rashumba created cut again. This time she kept her balance and rocked Olga with a lovely combination which had the women cheering wildly and Olga wilting. This was going to be SO easy!

James and Rashumba were just back from Paris and at her insistence, they had gone to see how the hated Clementine was doing. Rashumba looked at the work returns and punishment sheets and was angry to see that Clementine had not been whipped for a month.

"Can't you increase her quotas?" she asked the head guard, her eyes flashing venom,

"We are and she seems to eat work. She's strong, Madam. Very strong. We watch out for the slightest infringement and we pounce. But if she obeys the rules, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. Would you like to see the cage for yourself? They are all back from the quarry."

Rashumba and James followed the guard to the observation window. The guard handed a pair of powerful binoculars to Rashumba who adjusted them and trained them on the huddled group of shivering detainees. She saw that Clementine and another girl were standing apart.

"Why aren't those two with the others?" asked Rashumba.

"They seem not to feel the cold too much." lied the guard. She knew about the love affair and guessed that Rashumba would try to get Alexia moved if she found out, as a way of making Clemmy's life more truly miserable. She'd find out in time, of course!

This was when Clemmy made her move. Rashumba watched, spellbound as the fight started and Clemmy soon began to get the upper hand after that first bloody setback.

"I'd better go and break that up before Olga gets hurt," said the guard, but Rashumba motioned her to stay put.

"Let it go its course. Let that bitch have her triumph and then I'll have a very nasty surprise for her. Two nasty surprises!"

The three watched as Clementine mercilessly and methodically demolished the unfortunate Olga. Finally after a much shorter time than the famous duel with Rashumba, Olga lay unconscious on the frost covered ground. Clementine waved the others away from the fallen ex-leader, who was left to pick herself up and stagger towards the others, all of whom backed away.

"I thought so! Olga's now the ex-leader and Clementine has taken over. I'm glad, although she must be punished very severely. I wonder if one of them will be willing to use the whip on her. I doubt it! It will have to be a guard!. I'll see to it and get Olga moved indoors before she freezes to death." said the guard.

"Let Olga freeze!" sneered Rashumba. "As a punishment for not beating that cow. And now for my surprise number one! Give me the whip. I'll administer the whipping myself. I'm very good at it as that proud bitch is about to find out!"

The guard made to protest but James nodded. He had seen Rashumba at work many times and couldn't wait to see his present love flog his former girlfriend.

To the others' astonishment, Rashumba slowly removed all her clothes. She grinned.

"I do my best work naked. Ask James!  I know it's bloody cold, but I'm going to warm myself up on that white back and make it red! Bye darling! " and she bent down and kissed James lightly on the mouth.

Clemmy stood waiting for the guard to come to flog her. None of the other prisoners would be expected to do it. She was the leader now and the guards would respect that. She did not have long to wait! Three guards came out of the guardroom and she was soon tied up in the by now familiar position. Her heart raced and seemed about to escape from her ribcage. She was frightened to death. She had not grown to like her whippings, although she was as hard as any of the women after all this time. Let's get it over with, she thought. It was the waiting that always played havoc.

She was not prepared to hear that voice again! Although she realised that that black nemesis had never been far away these last painful months.

"Hello again Clementine. How do enjoy being my guest?"

"Your guest! Since when are you in charge around here?"

"Well. Let's say I have influence and you are here and here for over eleven more long, hard and painful years, because of me and what you did to me in that wood."

"It was  a fair fight. I beat you fair and square. And you survived. If you had won, I'd have had to live with it, hard though it would have been. Why can't you?"

"Because I'm ME! No one ever gets in my way and goes unpunished. So you’re being punished, Clementine. How do you like your punishment thus far?"

"Not much. But I'm surviving, as you can see!"

"Surviving! Yes! And I intend to see you go on surviving. Surviving and suffering, Be honest with me! You have suffered, haven't you? HAVEN'T YOU!!!!"

"I have suffered agonies I  never dreamed possible and always they can come up with fresh misery and fresh torment to surpass that which I've already endured. They're masters of pain here. I don't suppose I've seen the worst of it yet, either. Does that make you happy, Rashumba?"

"Happy enough, for now. In a few years time I'll be even happier. I'll keep coming back to make sure they make it harder and harder for you. You'll never know happiness again, you bitch!"

"And now for your latest in a long, long series of whippings. I won't kiss your back like I did to Viola. I loved her and I detest you. I only want to inflict pain on that back. Plenty of pain. Who was the best punisher you've known here? Who made every lash count and made you wish you were dead?"

"Olga. The girl I just beat. She gave me my first two floggings and most of the others. She knows how to inflict pain. Something of an artist, that one!"

"But I'm better, Clementine ! I was watching your first two punishments (I made sure the second was a real punishment, by the way. I didn't have a silly old softy with me on that occasion.) As I say, she is good but she tends to rush it a bit. There's always a split second of exquisite torment still coming to you from the last lash when she dishes out the next. I will remedy that in the coming pleasurable minutes - pleasurable  for me, that is!  You‘re going to wish you‘d never been born before this is over. I promise you that.
"I am a guard for the purposes of this whipping. You are under my control and will obey my orders. I order you to count out the lashes and to say "THANK YOU , MADAM" after each lash.  I award three hundred. Failure to speak clearly to my satisfaction will result in extra lashes. Do I make myself clear."

"Yes, MADAM."

"Good. We will begin!"

"WHOOOSH! CRACK!"

The pain was extraordinary. It surged along her arms and legs and wrapped itself around her heart, seeming to be going from one tormented extremity to the other - back and forth without any diminution..

"ONE! THANK YOU! MADAM"

The pain reached its climax.

"SWOOOSH! CRACK"

More waves of the most horrible pain. Rashumba was right. She knew how to work that lash and sensed with devilish intuitiveness when the next cut was due. Three hundred of these and having to shout out with a loud, clear voice after each and every one. Dear God!

"TWO! THANK YOU MADAM!

Back in the observation room, James was now the one to be feeling like masturbating, but the eyes of the guard were on him so he controlled himself. Rashumba looked magnificent, her toned and muscular body putting all its force into each lash. Clementine looked the part, too! Three hundred had been agreed with the guard and James knew that his wonderful girl would not tire or flag until all three hundred had been delivered onto that bleeding back.

"She's good - your friend." said the guard. "She's done this before?"

"Many times" said James. "She is absolutely the best there is. Mind you, her victim is a tough lady too. She'll come through this - I hope."

"You wish her no harm?" said the guard.

"I wish her plenty of harm, but I want her to live and enjoy more pain - much more pain!"

"I doubt she's enjoying it too much" laughed the guard. "Shall I go and get us drinks. It's thirsty work watching those two."

He took advantage of his temporary solitude to pull his penis out and watched the spurts of semen pump into his handkerchief. He was trembling and soaked in sweat by the time the guard came back with two four-packs.

"This should keep us going," she said cheerily. "Have they had to revive Clementine yet?"

James shook his head. It was up to seventy already and Clemmy's voice was still strong and clear.

"Why do you hate that girl?" asked the guard. "It's none of my business, and she'll serve her full term alright, but you know and I know she doesn't deserve all this!"

"Reasons of State" replied James. "I advise you to ask no questions and give that girl no favours. Just accept that she is here to be punished."  

And that was the end of that conversation!

In the cage, Alexia tired of watching her lover's ordeal. The worst part was how Clementine was being made to count and say "Thank you, Madam" to this naked dark stranger with the wonderful body and the wicked way with the lash. She'd get through the physical part of the punishment, but she suspected that the mental scars would take a long time to heal. This must be the black girl she had told her about. Alexia agreed with Clementine. Rashumba was very beautiful, but it was a devilish beauty and she feared for Clementine to be at the mercy of such a fiend for more than eleven long years. No wonder Clemmy was thinking of escape! But there was no escape.

She went over to the beaten and almost moribund Olga. As Clemmy's lover she took it on herself to deputise while her chief was otherwise occupied!

"Go and clean yourself up, Olga. try not to smell so foul all the time. Then go and get warmed up." She turned to the others. "That's an  order. We'll have no frozen corpses here!"

 Having taken care of this she went over to be as near the wall as possible. Clemmy was magnificent tonight!

"TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY! THANK YOU MADAM!"

"Good old Clemmy" muttered Alexia. Then something warned her not to show so much interest in the whipping. She wandered across to the others and found some warm flesh. When a bleeding but unbroken Clementine was led back into the cage, she had to wake her lover up.

"How was it, Clemmy? Be honest. You can tell me."

"The very worst ever, Alexia. It was having to kowtow to that woman, who I loathe and despise, that really hurt. I can cope with physical pain by now, but there are other types of agony and I think I've only just begun to find out about that. It was total humiliation, darling.  I thought once that I respected her but now I pity her as well as hate her. I'd like to have her in here for just one day. She'd suffer then just like I have."

"I think she'd separate us if she knew we were lovers" said Alexia. "I hope she never finds out. I think it might kill you to lose me!"

"I think it would"

A car's engine roared and the visitor left. Alexia and Clemmy breathed again and folded themselves into a warm and loving embrace. Soon they slept.

In the morning, Clementine was called over to the orderly. Before she doled out the meals, something was pushed into her hand by a guard.

"The lady who whipped you last night asked me to give you this. I think it is your local newspaper!"

This was Rashumba's second nasty surprise. Clemmy's heart sank when she saw the headline. "Local Girl's Tragic Death in Abhlovia"

So that was it! No hope of rescue. No friends asking questions. It was up to her to escape. Not that there seemed any way that she could, but she had no choice now. She finished seeing everyone had her fair share and looked again. Apparently she was supposed to have perished in a collision and her remains, which had been buried in the village churchyard next to her late parents, had been unrecognisable.

She handed the paper to Alexia.

"Get that torn up into squares and we can use it for loo paper. Nice to be halfway civilized for a day or two!"

"But you've hardly looked at it"

"I've read the part that evil cow wanted me to read! When I can bring myself to, I will explain."

"News of your 'death'?"

"Clever girl!"

If Rashumba had hoped that the combination of shattering news and a bad beating would make Clementine fail to meet her quota, she was wrong. It almost killed her but she made it with seconds to spare.

It was not until it was doubled a week later that she failed and Rashumba came and gave her another three hundred. And, of course, that was accompanied by  three hundred, "Thank you Madams"

"I think we should leave her alone for a while" said James as he saw Clementine walking back to the cage. I want to get to somewhere warmer and you're coming. We'll resume her torture in the Spring."

"As you wish. I think I might have caught a chill, as a matter of fact." said Rashumba.

"If you will insist on stripping off in this weather, what do you expect?"

"That fucking cow Clementine doesn’t seem affected. I'd like to think I was as good as she is, I suppose."

"I hate to remind you of anything so painful, but she has already shown she is better than you. Just be glad we have her where we want her, where we can make sure she spends years paying you back,  and leave it at that!

"I guess you're right - as usual, James!"

 And so February dawned with the two away in warmer climes and Clemmy had no more than frostbite to worry her. The quotas were adjusted to a reasonable but still arduous level. She was forced to work a gruelling day every day for seven days a week, but "Hard Labour" had been the sentence, so she had no complaints about that - aside from the injustice of the sentence in the first place.

She grew in strength and stamina as the winter turned gradually into spring. Thanks to her vigilant leadership all the cage women survived the winter, which was the first time any one could remember that happening Even Olga was won over to being her loyal follower. Her body grew in sheer magnificence and work, hardship and occasional whippings seemed only to add to her beauty. But there was a deep sadness in her heart as she longed for her own country and for a Viola who had most likely forgotten her already and moved on to another mistress. She only prayed and hoped that Viola would not get into the same clutches that she had!

One day in late March, she and Alexia had finished their work and were relaxing together. Then Clemmy recollected her first moments here all those months ago.

"I am sure I was told we were sometimes expected to fight, as entertainment for someone or other. Yet there's been no sign of that so far."

"I think there were some contests organised a few years ago, but they sort of petered out. I think it would be a good idea in a way. You're having a hell of a job stamping on quarrels before they  get out of hand. You’re the leader. You can approach a guard and mention it. It would be ideal now that the snow is melting. Ask that one who fancies you. She'll have you flogged, of course but the idea will be acted on. You haven't been whipped for ages, have you? Time to chance your arm!"

And so it happened. Clementine’s leathery back  was savagely scarified for insolence. The guard took her suggestion to the commandant and the first fight was arranged between Alexia and Olga for the first week in May. Then it all went horribly wrong.

It was mid April when the quarry guard was distracted by a quarrel between some of the ordinary prisoners. Clemmy saw her chance and ran, managing to drive one of the prison trucks away.

By the time the guards realised she had gone she had got ten miles, abandoning the truck and heading south to the border on foot. It was three days before they caught her just a few miles from the frontier and freedom.

Alexia was the one who saw her being led back, looking tired and weak, as she had not eaten much on the run. Her heart bled for her dear friend and lover, although she was selfishly glad that she had not lost her company permanently. The rest of them soon saw as well and a groan of dismay went up. There was not one who hadn't wished her a successful escape.

She was allowed a few days to recover and then resumed her work. The women all accepted that she was still the leader and the guards went along with this, but they knew that an example must be made. The head guard decided on a series of floggings, spread over ten days, with poor Clementine forced to work each day as usual. After the sixth flogging, Clementine's ribs were showing through and her back was like raw meat. The heat had caused maggots to infect her and she went though worse torments than ever. It was reluctantly decided to let her recover before she was given the rest of her punishment. In six  weeks  they had finished with her and by that time she had a wild air about her as though the horrors had totally unhinged her. Ironically it was Rashumba, now back in the country, who saved Clementine. She wanted her to live and suffer - not die prematurely.

While Clementine was going through all this the work days were lengthened as a punishment to the rest for helping Clemmy to escape and the fight between Alexia and Olga  cancelled .

CHAPTER SEVEN

(In which things get worse and worse)


"It's time you snapped out of this, Clemmy my love." murmured Alexia to her brooding, withdrawn friend and lover. It was now two months since the prison guards, sickened at what they were doing to Clemmy, but under orders to spare her nothing of her punishment,  had finally got to the end of chastising her for her attempted escape. It was two weeks since she had been the given the last painful instalment of two hundred lashes on a back still raw from previous sessions. Now she was healed completely  but her mind seemed still to be far away. Clemmy did her work and they hadn't raised her quotas since she was able to return to the quarry.

She would hold Alexia's hand sometimes and look wistfully at her before returning to whatever inward thoughts she was having. Alexia's coaxing loving voice went on.

"You know I can't hold the fort on your behalf much longer. What happened to that confident optimistic sunny girl I grew to love and even those other brutes got to at least respect? I miss her so badly!"

"She had the skin whipped off her back once too often, darling Alexia. She nearly died from infection and I understand it was my worst enemy who rescued me - the one who can make me call her "Madam" even though I am better than she can ever hope to be. I should have died. I wish I had. I almost made it and being caught just yards away from freedom. It's broken me, Alexia." And then she cried for the first time since her arrest and trial.

"We all felt for you, darling Clemmy. Well I did and I think the others have got to feel for you too - even those hard women. And they know they need you. You get things done around here. It's thanks to you we all got through the winter. You can speak up for us to the guards and you aren't afraid to step out of line to help us, even though you know you'll get beaten for it. It's thanks to you Irena was given clothes and put indoors when she would have died out here. No one else would have kept telling the guards she couldn't last much longer and get flogged each time. But you did and in the end they listened. I don't have that sort of courage and you do. Please don't let us down!  If the others don't matter to you, then please don't let ME down!"

"I let you down by running away, didn't I? And I'd most likely try again if they took their eyes off me long enough. And why are you standing apart from me and pretending not to be talking?"

"If you had made it home, this place would have been exposed to the gaze of the whole world. Even our government would have been forced to take notice. We'd all been  given decent conditions and some of us might even have been freed. So good luck if you can get away! As for standing apart from you, I hate not to be close, where I can touch you and smell you and feel the warmth of that wonderful beloved body, but I don't want people over in the admin block seeing us together right now. Your black buddy is around  - I can sense it!"

For the first time in weeks Clementine showed a bit of animation. She was here because of Rashumba and her hatred was the only thing that helped her to keep even a  tenuous hold on her sanity.

"I'll speak to the guard about the fights, Alexia, and see what we can arrange. I think I can take a few dozen lashes on your behalf. Now I'm healed they'll give me some anyway on some pretext or other - so what the hell!  I'll do it tomorrow when we get our water break. If I'm smart enough I may get away unscathed - that's if  nobody sees us talking! Wish me luck!"

It was  as well that Alexia was so careful. Rashumba was indeed watching as they spoke.

With some trepidation, Clementine spoke to the almost friendly guard.

"About the organised fights between the cage women, Madam." she whispered when they couldn't be overheard by any other guards. "Is there  a chance of arranging anything now that I've been properly punished and the working day had been shortened again? I think it might be good for morale and I know the staff were entertained when they used to take place. There isn't one of us who won't put up a good show. I promise you that. And I could help train the others. I learned how to fight at my school in England."

"I'll look into it" replied the friendly guard "Before you came to join us there were quite a lot of them, mainly to entertain us, as you say, but also to settle quarrels and stop things boiling over in that cage. But recently I think there is talk of filming some contests and marketing them.  Don't get any bright ideas, Clementine. No fights involving you will be included!  If I do as you ask, that means they'll know where the suggestion came from! After all, Clementine  it could only be you who'd be brave enough and silly enough to stick out her neck! Sorry about that, but I'm sure you knew. I like you but I have a job to think of. Get back to work."

"What's poor old Clementine done this time?" asked Olga as the cage people's fair-haired leader was led away to be flogged that evening. "Doesn't she ever learn, that stupid bitch? Or does she actually like having her back made to look like raw meat!

"She did it for us, Olga" said Alexia. "She tried to raise the fight idea with a guard. So she gets whipped once more  and perhaps as a result, we get a bit of action and something more than work and sleeping to occupy our minds.  I'm sure you can't wait to be let loose on some poor bitch and beat her senseless! And in any case  we get to see her whipped again and we all enjoy watching that - don't we!" Alexia didn't enjoy it, but she knew the others did, whatever their respect and even liking for Clemmy.

"I see. Yes, I would like to fight a few of you bitches. It makes me feel good to knock people out! I'm sorry about what I said in that case. Glad she's come back out of her shell at long last. I hated the woman when she came here but she's a better leader than I ever was. She really thinks about us  and puts herself last every time. Good old Clemmy, that's what I say!"

There was a murmur of agreement from all the assorted murderesses and they all settled down to watch their beautiful leader get a really good whipping. Two guards stood behind her one on either side and alternately lashed that much abused back until the blood ran all down it once again. Everyone agreed that she took the hundred and fifty  splendidly and without a murmur, not fainting once. Just like the Clemmy of old!

"How was it, sweetheart?" asked Alexia as she licked her lover's wounds later that night.

"You do ask the stupidest questions, Alexia!  I'll never get to enjoy pain like two people I know, one very dear to me and another one  not dear to me at all! If I could this place might not be such total hell on earth. But after all this time, I can take it and survive and that's all that matters. I wonder how many more I'll get before I get out of here. I don't really want to think about it. Thousands and thousands at this rate!"

"At least Mistress Rashumba didn't do it! She would have had you dancing very prettily to her tune!"

"Don't mention her, angel-face, not just as I was beginning to enjoy myself for a change. I love your sweet tongue on my poor whipped back. Just lick my wounds in that gentle way of yours and cut the talk."

"Do you know something my sweet?" said Clemmy a bit later as the pain began to ebb.

"What darling?"

"I shall have been here in this cage a year tomorrow, although It feels like for ever. And there are still another eleven years to come. Plus a bit extra for my escape attempt. Thank heaven for you. Don’t ever leave me, Alexia."

Rashumba and James were also aware of the first anniversary. It was mid-morning on the great day and they were still in bed at James's handsome town house, the home of a former Count, so he proudly boasted. He was still amazed at Rashumba's prodigious stamina and the way she could keep him going from one orgasm to another with an almost constant erection. Her cunt seemed to have a life of its own as it sucked him into her and kept him aroused for hours at a time. He should have been up and about hours ago but this temptress would not be refused when she was in the mood. She was so much better than that Clementine, who had never failed to make her preference for Viola insultingly obvious. An insult she was now paying for - the bitch!

"Remember what you promised a year ago today, James? We must have a celebration tonight to toast the end of that cow, Clementine's first year in the cage! But first we drive to the prison and see her whipped. Maybe, I'll even do it myself!"

"Anything you say, darling!"

The guard greeted the couple with her usual show of obsequious friendliness. More trouble for Clemmy, she thought! And the girl had just been flogged rather severely. Never mind. It was important to please these people,

"What has Clementine been up to lately?" asked Rashumba.

"She spoke to a guard yesterday and got one hundred and fifty."

"Is that all, with her record of misbehaviour? From now on, I don’t want her ever getting less than three hundred even for a trivial offence. And speaking to a guard is anything but trivial. Give her two hundred more. Better - let ME do it. OK James?"

"Fine!" .

Once more Rashumba removed her clothes and walked over to the secured Clementine.

“Hello again, Clementine! My but that back is a sorry sight! Been a naughty girl again, have we?”

"Yes, Madam." Clemmy was in her usual position for her chats with Rashumba, tightly secured for a flogging. She could scarcely turn her head to look at her former rival and present mistress. Get it over you cow, she muttered inaudibly.

Rashumba stepped closer to the prisoner and recoiled, her nose wrinkling. “I must say, Clementine, that you don’t get to smell any sweeter with the passing of time and your hair looks totally disgusting! I suppose it’s crawling with lice? “

“Yes, Madam. They shaved us in the Spring, but the bugs soon come back home!”

"You dirty bitches don't like washing yourselves, I suppose you prefer to be verminous and stink to high heaven do you?"

"Yes, Madam." Actually, they were given just about enough water to drink. Washing was a totally unheard of luxury for these women, not that most of Clementine's companions had ever been fond of personal hygiene! There was a shower at the quarry, of which few availed themselves except Clemmy until she had been forbidden to use it since her escape and recapture.

Rashumba smiled, happy at the noisome wretchedness of the once proud young woman she saw before her.

“This is a special day for all of us! For you, for James and for me. It is, as I am sure an intelligent girl like you knows all too well, the first anniversary of your richly deserved incarceration. I think it calls for a celebration. James and I are dining out in style tonight, after showering and dressing in really nice clothes, as we will every such night for the next eleven years. But you have a part to play as well in this feast. A very important part in helping us have a happy day. Guess what that is?"

"Being whipped, Madam?  And you've learned a lot of long words lately, Madam."

"Clever Clemmy! And cheeky Clemmy! Still not completely humble, are we! Still a spark of the arrogant white bitch who thought she could take anything from me, just because she wanted it. But there are eleven years to work and beat that out of you. As to your anniversary whipping, I think you know the drill by now?"

"YES MADAM!!!!!!!!!"

“Good. Let us waste no further time in idle chat!” Rashumba stepped back and exerted every muscle in her powerful body as she directed the leather towards the scarred  and furrowed back of the person she hated most in the entire world. Even the hardened women who were Clementine's companions had begun to be shocked at how badly the cruel punishments had disfigured  the star prisoner and there was not one of the regular guards who had not come to feel pity, but Rashumba's heart was cold as ice and hard as steel. She felt another of her moments of supreme exhilaration as the whip made contact, curling and biting into the spread-eagled and helpless Clemmy's waiting back once again.

"SWOOOSH!! CRACK!

Once more the agony which only Rashumba knew just how to maximise.

"ONE! THANK YOU MADAM"

Once again the agony climaxed

"SWOOOSH! CRACK!"

"TWO THANK YOU MADAM!"
And so on, up to two hundred. And then!

"SWOOOSHH! CRACK!

TWO HUNDRED AND ONE, THANK YOU MADAM!" Her voice was beginning to falter now and who could wonder?

"What IS she doing" asked the guard. Two hundred was the agreed punishment - against my better judgment I might add. How many more will she give her before she's satisfied?  I'll go and stop her. This has gone far enough! Clementine was beaten yesterday and we don't want her out of action. She's too good a worker for that. And she doesn't deserve this. I have a suspicion that she doesn't belong here at all and you two are using this prison as a way of pursuing a private vendetta."

"Watch what you say", snapped James angrily. There is a saying that the truth hurts and it was true in this case!

"But I'm sure she won't overdo it. We all know Clementine is a marvel and can take a lot more. She's so tough by now and I think that stands her in good stead with the other criminals. Let Rashumba have her fun. It is a special day for us, after all."

Unwillingly the guard agreed. She had spoken out of turn and was now sorry she had. This was a well paid job and she had no wish to lose it - certainly not over some foreigner, however much she admired her. She watched Clemmy  writhe and twist helplessly as her hellish agony went on and on.

*********************************

"That black woman again! " said Olga to Alexia." Look how she’s tearing into Clemmy‘s hide. I hope I never get on the wrong side of someone as vicious as that! It's her first anniversary, of course. It was bound to be a bad day for her. Pity she didn't approach the guard today. Then she'd be facing that ordeal with a fresh back. Bad judgment.

"It was my fault" sobbed Alexia as the three hundred mark was reached and passed.

**********************************

"I WON'T allow any more!” stormed the guard, her patience finally gone at the insane onslaught she was witnessing. She opened the window and roared out a command to the guard with Rashumba and the whipping stopped.

***********************

In the restaurant later that evening Rashumba sulked. She would have stripped away that cow's flesh down to the bone if that officious head guard had not intervened. But James had added his voice to the guard's protest and she had been forced to give way.

"I suppose I did overdo the whipping. Maybe we can think of some additional refinement. I know!"

 And she cheered up.  The rest of the meal was a success.

CHAPTER EIGHT

(In which Clementine enjoys Year Two)


Ten days later the women were called together and told that the fight between Alexia and Olga was on again. The venue was to be a place ten miles away and transport would be provided for all the cage women. Clemmy gave her word that she would not try to escape and it did not occur to anyone to doubt her.

Olga won easily and Clementine nursed her friend all the way back to camp. Alexia had put up a brave fight but Olga was a killer. Rashumba had been in the audience and she saw the pain in Clemmy's face as Alexia was knocked out - rather spectacularly.

Next day, a small metal cage was brought into the large communal cage and hung from the mesh ceiling. It was tiny and the girls all wondered what it was for. Would it hold a human being and, if so, whom?

It was there for weeks after that until in mid-November, Clemmy got on the wrong side of one of the more brutal guards. She got three hundred and was told she would never get less than that from now onwards and would get many more for a serious offence. Then they brought her back into the cage. Horror-struck, the other women were forced to the back of the cage and the small cage was lowered and the terrified Clemmy forced into it. It was then raised, too high for any one to touch and the inmates were left to their own devices. Rashumba had got the two lovers separated, without Alexia being released into the prison proper!

They kept her there for six weeks, so confined that she could barely move. The cage was lowered twice a day and Clemmy fed and watered, but without being let out or having the little cage opened. The others learned to keep away from the area under Clemmy. She had only one place to shit and that was downwards. Her predicament cast a shadow of despair over the whole company. If the weather got too much colder, even the hardy Clementine would not survive. Fortunately this second winter was to be relatively mild.

She coped by withdrawing into her own inner world. She recited all the poems she had ever learned time and again and even made up a few of her own. She composed a really lovely one about her Viola and a nice one about Alexia who she could see from up above. It added top her own misery to see that Alexia was beside herself with grief. They had told her when they put her in that tiny space that she must not talk for the duration of this punishment so she ignored all the words of encouragement that the braver ones called up to her. All these kind people were whipped for their generosity and the talking soon stopped. Soon enough, they grew used to seeing her up there, sometimes swaying from side to side as the wind howled and the cage was rocked in it and its occupant sent swaying to and fro. But Alexia never for a second stopped thinking of her up there all alone and confined like an animal.

*******

 What do you think of my idea, darling?" asked Rashumba next time she and James visited the prison. Clementine had been confined for a month now.

"Pretty damned splendid, old girl. I've got to hand it to you - you come up with some great wheezes - you really do!  I wonder how they got her into that small space!  Her knees are right up against  her chin and she can't move her head more than an inch. I bet it hurts like hell being bent up like that all the time!"

"Yes. It does my heart a power of good to see her there. And she's still got time to do - a couple of weeks more! But it's a bit difficult to see her properly. The big cage gets in the line of sight and the bars on that one hide some of her. I think a glass cage would be better. And it could be hung in the yard, proper so that I could get a good view.

"That would keep out the cold, of course"

"That’s true. Forget it, then! I want that cow to shiver!"

But the idea of taking the small Clementine cage outside the big one was acted on and Clemmy was totally separated from her friends for the last weeks of her confinement.

When she finally went back to work, she still stooped from the after effects and it took weeks for her to regain her former posture. Her legs were weak from lack of exercise and she had awful trouble making the run to and from the quarry, even though the truck was driven slowly, the driver being by far the kindest hearted person  on the whole prison staff.. Finally she was whipped for not keeping up and put in for another three horrible months. When they let her out in early April she could scarcely stand. Happily Rashumba had succumbed to  the winter. Suffering from a chest infection she went off to Spain to recuperate. She was away until late July and by then the small cage had been taken to pieces and its use forbidden by higher authority. Questions had been asked by the prison staff  and Rashumba would never be able to get Clementine locked in it again. She would have to think of other ways of tormenting her victim. By the time of her second anniversary Clementine was back to her former state of robust health, working hard and being unpunished.

CHAPTER NINE

(In which Clementine completes a third dreadful year)

Rashumba came with James to celebrate the start of Year Three. Clemmy stood tied to the wall as usual.

"My! How you stink, Clemmy!  When did you last have a shower? When it last rained, I suppose!   Sorry it's been so long since we last met. I had to go to Spain for my health. The winters here don't agree with me! No more escape attempts this April?"

"I was in that cage for a long time and I was weak as a kitten from atrophy of my leg muscles, Madam."

"The legs are nice and strong again, I hope."

"Thank you, Madam. They are." And ready to kick you, you bitch  was what she wanted to say!

"Make sure you don't use them to run away again! You won‘t, will you?

“If I think I stand a chance, yes I will! And if they shot me, I'd be better off dead.” Clemmy couldn’t lie and Rashumba must know that escape was still her chief aim in life.

” Still fucking that Alexia, or do you stink too much for her to get near you or has she got sick at being loved by a girl with a scarred back like yours?"

"I thought it better to call it off for her own good, Madam."

"Very sensible. Well - I now think the time has come for me to wish you a happy anniversary in the usual way! Still remember the drill?"

"Yes, Madam. Am I to be told how many?"

"No. Let it be a pleasant surprise when it finally stops!"

Rashumba looked again at that awfully scarred back. The girl had not been whipped much since before going into the little cage for the second time and if she had started to heal, it was not obvious to Rashumba, who had a keen eye for these things. Time to get the cow jerking and twitching  again!

"SWOOOSH!! CRACK!!

The bitch hadn't lost her touch! She was getting better, if anything. The agony made her almost swoon. This was her first punishment for eight weeks and her skin had got just a wee bit too soft for her own good. This was NOT going to be fun!

"ONE, THANK YOU MADAM"

She got three hundred. Instead of leaving, Rashumba waited until a guard arrived to take Clementine back to the cage.

"Get something to tie around this bitch’s neck!" ordered Rashumba. "I feel like walking the dog around the yard before she goes back to lick her wounds. Now get on all fours, Dog!"

Clementine obeyed, not wanting more flogging for the time being. Soon the guard returned with a rope which was tied around Clementine's neck and Rashumba took the other end .

"Walkies, doggy!"

And Clementine was led several times around the yard on all fours. Although it was cold and Rashumba was feeling it by the time she had finished, the sight of that proud tall girl crawling behind her in such a humiliating way made up for the discomfort. She completed the misery by making Clementine lick and kiss her feet. She lifted each foot in turn and Clemmy was forced to lick the soles clean, sucking on each toe to clean between them all. Then she kicked Clemmy hard in the stomach and was disappointed to see that it had little effect, if any, even though she repeated the kick many times making herself sweat and pant with the effort. All it did was to turn Clementine’s hardened belly red, but the muscles held out well against the onslaught.

Finally Rashumba tired of this and ordered Clemmy to spread.  She aimed the next kick straight between her victim's obediently opened legs. Clemmy obviously felt this and so Rashumba gave her ten more hard kicks to the hated rival’s suffering crotch, and then another ten, and another and another and another, not stopping until her foot was covered with Clemmy's blood. When Rashumba finally let her go back to the cage, Clementine was close to tears and scarcely able to stand. She staggered over to the horrified Alexia and weakly sank to the ground,  realising that there were still many fresh depths of pain and mortification for her to plumb before she reached rock bottom.

 Before Rashumba left she promised Clementine an extra hundred lashes next year and so on, year on year, until she got twelve hundred on her last day. Probably would be her last day in more ways than one. Hell! She would be  thirty years old by then, her youth wasted away. But she wasn't a bit sorry for winning Viola and still had hopes of seeing her again, and long before her thirtieth birthday!


Year Three (continued)

"Please don't ignore me, Clementine. I don't think that cow Rashumba wants to separate us any more and I also think she doesn't have so much power here as she did. She overdid it with putting you in that awful little cage and leaving you to suffer for months on end. They got no work out of you in return for your food and keep. What's more they even had to be nice to you for a bit to get you better, which must have really upset them. Let's be lovers again - you know you want it as badly as I do, or almost!"

"Rashumba still got to whip me on my anniversary the other day. And make me crawl around the yard like a dog and kiss her feet and then kick my cunt until it bled. Look at the state of me, Alexia! Look at my back after what she did to it the other day!  She has a lot of influence even now."

"I expect it was the being led around on a rope that hurt more than the lashes." Alexia still sobbed for her friend when she recalled that.

It was three days after the start of Clementine's third year. Two years in this ghastly place and freedom seemed as far away as ever. Clementine's back still bore the marks of Rashumba's recent three hundred lashes, all of which had been laid on with all that lady's considerable strength and  focused ferocity. And her spirit bore the marks of the humiliation that had followed the whipping. Alexia, sensing Clementine's anguish had sidled up to lover not  long after the evening meal. She had put her hand on her friend's shoulder and felt the girl move closer to her as if by instinct.

Soon the pair kissed and a friendly cheer went up from the others. They were glad to see that the couple were together again. The two were far and way the best looking women in the cage and when they made love they put on a fantastic show and the others got to see their every tongue touching, pussy licking move. They did not disappoint today. It was Clemmy who seemed the more frantic as she dived into Alexia's sweet and fragrant pussy, noisily sucking those darling lips once again. Alexia responded eagerly and the other women watched enviously as this young and attractive couple writhed and convulsed oblivious of all the watching fellow prisoners.

Alexia  had obviously been pining badly. What was even more obvious was that Clemmy needed the human contact. The thought that, after two long and painful years, she was no nearer getting out than ever had begun to wear her down and rob her of all hope or desire to go on striving.

She still never stopped looking for ways to escape, but the guards obviously had instructions to be extra vigilant. When James had heard just how near she had been to getting out of the country, he had had a very bad few days. If his bosses in Paris had got wind of it, that might have been the end of him. Only his infatuation with Rashumba prevented him from having Clementine eliminated. He determined that it would need only one more attempt and she would be, so it was lucky for her in a way that her weakness had prevented another run for freedom. Even if she had known of this, she would still have taken the risk.

Clemmy was not afraid of dying, in fact she would prefer it to this continuing humiliation at Rashumba's hands. The physical pain was horrible enough, but the mental torment was worse and getting harder to bear each time they spoke. Clementine was still the proudest of women and the need to address this tormentor as "Madam" was dragging her down further each time. She hoped she would not see her again until her next anniversary, but doubted her wish would be granted.

A week after Alexia and Clemmy's getting back together, another fight evening was arranged. The same open air venue was chosen. This time, Clementine was picked to fight Olga and three other fights were put on the bill. They were given a week to prepare to put on a good, hard fought and preferably bloody series of contests. All of the women were keen to put on a good show, but not all had the same skills as Clemmy and Olga and these two supervised evening training sessions for all twenty women, half of whom had joined the cage sorority since Clemmy had arrived.

Three women had died last winter, while Clemmy was confined in that tiny cramped cage and unable to get the women organised. The savages had reverted to type without their leader. The three dead women had all been "frozen out" as the result of petty quarrels, which Clemmy would have sat on very firmly if she had been around. Others had either been released or sent to the indoor cells. Clemmy had been told that she would spend all her sentence out in the yard, naked. It was highly likely that a really severe winter would kill her off and this was James's hope by this time, although Rashumba still wanted her loathed victim to go on suffering for the entire balance of her sentence. As far as Rashumba was concerned, death was way too good for Clementine.

Rashumba and James discussed the latest fights on their way home. They were pleased up to a point, but anxious to improve the quality of their "product". Clementine had fought and beaten Olga. The former leader had given Clementine a hard time for a couple of minutes and drawn blood, but in the end had no answer to the blonde girl's superior strength and skill.

The second fight had featured  Alexia and Sveta. This was a more evenly contested match and had been the longest of the three, lasting nearly twenty minutes and leaving both girls exhausted. Alexia had won, knocking Sveta off her feet with her final piece de resistance. The third spot had been filled by an older pair. These were two tough and hard women but they had lacked the skill and verve of the other fighters. As Rashumba tartly observed, being a violent criminal is not the same as being a good fighter.

"We need some fresh blood, James. Those women are not good enough, except for Clementine, Alexia and Olga. And I don't like that arrogant bitch being on the top of the heap. That's not what I had her put in there for - to queen it over the others the way she does."

James nodded. If Rashumba wanted someone to supplant the hated Clementine, then she would have it. The problem was finding someone who was at one and the same time capable of beating Clementine and a criminal. He sighed to himself. It looked like he would need to frame someone and that sort of thing cost money.

As  luck would have it, the pair found a couple of new companions for Clementine only days after this conversation. They both went to a club that had recently opened in the city centre. The atmosphere was very congenial with an excellent band - for this part of the world - and they felt they were almost back in Paris, which both were longing to revisit. They were gazing romantically into each others' eyes, when they were disturbed by an altercation between a group of women, who seemed to have had far too much to drink. Two of them obviously had some serious difference of opinion and decided to settle it with their fists. James was about to usher Rashumba away when she put her hand on his arm and told him to sit down.

"Let's watch this little brawl, James! I think it might be worthy of our attention!"

Both of these ladies were young and both tall and strong. Both sported very short haircuts and had a decidedly butch appearance. Rashumba correctly guessed that they were lesbians quarrelling over a third girl - a slight and pretty woman of maybe nineteen.

"Two butch dykes fighting over little Miss Pretty! And she knows just what she's doing! Look at her!"

James looked. He saw what Rashumba had spotted. The little girl's eyes were alive with excitement as she saw the others fight over her! Finally Rashumba had seen enough.

"Call the police, James! Your special tame police! Then let's get this pair somewhere where they can fight properly - after they have sobered up! I see definite possibilities here!"

Within minutes the club was raided and the two angry disputants  bundled into a police van and driven away. The pretty one, who had caused the disturbance, was  told to make herself scarce. She looked frightened to death and scuttled away fearful she was about to join the other two in custody. In the morning the two sobered up women were driven to a piece of level ground in a private estate belonging to James and Rashumba. She ordered the police to free them and leave the couple alone with her.

"OK you two! Let's see how you fight in the cold sober light of dawn! Come on! Fight!"

They were about to start, their animosity clearly not lessened after a night in the cells, when Rashumba raised an imperious arm.

"Not so fast. Let's see you both stripped! Come on. STRIP!"

It was not warm, being late November and the two showed some reluctance but there was that in Rashumba's eye that commanded obedience. They were soon naked and standing before Rashumba who critically looked them over.

"Yes. You look the part! You both keep very fit! Those are two very nice bodies - trim and hard. I think I know ways of making them harder still! You’d both like that, I’m sure! You should put on a pretty good show, both of you!  Fight now! Feet and fists."

The pair needed no further encouragement and were soon swapping kicks and punches with much the same aggression as Rashumba and Clementine had done. Rashumba listened appreciatively to the sound of shrewd and telling blows landing on toned hard bodies. She went inside the house and joined James at a window overlooking the garden

"They're pretty good, James! Both as big as Clementine and both born fighters. We'll be going now, but tell the police to let them fight to a finish - then get them thrown into the cage with Clementine. One of them will beat that cow. They're good - very good. What are their names?"

"Ira and Alexandra. They run a gym and are both trained fighters. Leave it to me. I'll have them banged up tonight!"

"Let them have a day or two to get over this fight first, darling. I want them in good shape to meet our friend in the cage!"

Ira beat Alexandra, but she had a hard time doing it and after her victory she sank to her knees next to her unconscious foe and looked ready to pass out herself. Then they were both taken back to their cell and allowed two days to recover.  If the two had known that neither was going to see the object of their lust for a very, very long time, if ever, they might have fought less fiercely. But they did not know what Rashumba and James had in store for them and saw themselves spending no more than a few days behind bars - if that.

A week later the two were thrown into the cage after being sentenced to five years' hard labour for malicious damage and threatening behaviour. They had both been forced to stay stripped after the fight, even for their court appearance and were adjusting to the prospect of being two very chilly-in-winter, burnt-in-summer, perennially weather-beaten girls for the next few years. They had been briefed about Clementine and tempted by the promise of early release - just as soon as Clementine had been knocked out by one or other of them and then made to spend a few weeks being systematically degraded and humbled so that she would never be leader of the cage women again. Not wishing to stay in this place a minute than they needed, they approached Clemmy as soon as the guards had closed the cage behind the new occupants.

"You in charge, then!" asked Ira, as if she didn't know! Clementine was still the only fair-haired woman here, although her hair was filthy and its golden colour sadly not as lustrous as it had been when she first arrived.

"I am head prisoner, yes. Welcome to the cage. I hope you're not here for too long. It's not a lot of fun, to put it mildly!"

"When I'm head prisoner it might not be so bad, with Alex as my deputy! Why should some dumb blonde foreigner be in charge anyway? Prepare to take a back seat, bimbo!"

With these words she lashed out at Clemmy with both fists and then spun around to give her a ferocious kick right in the jaw. It would have laid her out there and then if she were not such an experienced fighter herself. As it was, she staggered back temporarily dazed. The other women gathered round to watch. Would this insolent newcomer beat Clemmy, or would the guards separate them and whip the new girl as Clemmy had herself been whipped on her first day?

"Shall I separate them?" asked the watching guard.

"No. Let Ira knock Clemmy out and then have the cow whipped as soon as she comes round!"

"That hardly seems fair. It was Ira who started this, and it will be she who gets punished." said the guard firmly. Rashumba looked at the guard as malevolently as only she could, but said nothing.

"Clementine's good, Rashumba!" said James after the fight had been going for a couple of minutes and Ira had lost her early advantage. "I think it may be up to Alexandra to finish her off. Ira's not doing too well at all!"

Rashumba growled. "Let's wait and see. This girl's better than Olga. A lot better!"

"But still not good enough!" sighed James as Ira was finally knocked senseless and Clemmy, her magnificent chest and abdomen expanding and contracting with the effort, wiped away the blood from her face and stood over the foolish challenger. She looked in the direction of the other new girl and seemed to be challenging her to come and suffer the same fate as her friend.

"But Clementine's been hurt. She felt some of those blows badly, even if she is looking pretty pleased with herself right now" said Rashumba "She'll never beat Alexandra. I wonder if the other women will let her fight Clementine now or make her wait. Not a lot we can do about that.!"

The other women were too fired up by what they had just seen to be willing to wait another day for the second round and Alexandra was shoved into the makeshift ring formed by the circle of stinking nude women.

"You want the same as your friend?" snarled Clemmy, as the two circled each other looking for an opening.

"Look at you! You're out on your feet. This'll be easy!"

"CRACK!" went Clementine's hardened fist into Alexandra's face, drawing blood from her fine straight nose.

If Clementine hoped that this would stop the other girl, she was wrong - very wrong indeed!

Alexandra's riposte sent Clemmy sprawling. No one had knocked her down since the first day she was here. She was on her feet before some of the women realised she had been downed, but the watchers in the observation window saw just how hard a job Clemmy had to do if she were to keep her top position.

As soon as she was on her feet she aimed a kick at Alexandra's stomach, hitting it so hard that the impact echoed around the walled enclosure and the blow could be heard by James and Rashumba. It didn't even make the new girl blink and Clementine was on her back again after a return kick hit her in the mouth making her bleed as copiously as Alexandra. After that she kept out of range of those deadly feet for some minutes, wondering if she was finally to be knocked off her top spot and maybe robbed of even that slight chance of escape she still had.

"She's done for, James. Done for! And Ira and Alexandra can be in charge of the fighters. Clemmy's going to be at the bottom of the heap from now on. Look at her being sent flying across the ring! She's done for!"

Once again, Clemmy had been catapulted into the wall of flesh and thrust rudely back to get more punishment from the now confident Alexandra.

"I hope so!" said James, but he was less certain. He sensed that Clementine was still the same resolute girl he had trekked through the mountains with. Even from the distance that separated them he could see that set determined look on her face as she studied her opponent's every move and tried to work out an answer to her most formidable challenge yet.

Clementine felt the blood run down her face and realised that the old cut over her eye - the one that dated back to her fight with Rashumba - had been reopened. She saw the look on Alexandra's face. The woman sensed that she had Clemmy at her mercy and the seasoned leader of the cage woman knew that her only hope was to turn her opponent's over confidence to her advantage. Seeing a kick coming her way she allowed herself to be sent down again and got more slowly to her feet than she needed to. This was repeated three times and the watching women sensed that Clemmy was nearing the end of her rule over them. Alexia felt tears start to run down her cheeks.

Then Alexandra drew back her fist to deliver the final blow - the hammer punch that would send Clemmy to her doom. But Clementine had been waiting for just this move and astounded the other woman as well as all those watching by  aiming the kick of her life up into the other girl's face, just as she was moving toward her. It knocked Alexandra out and she was down for ten minutes.

"Looks like you're still stuck with me, girls!" laughed a triumphant Clemmy, as the women crowded around  to congratulate her. Then she put her arm around Alexia and the couple went off together to make love. After Rashumba and James had left in disappointment, Ira and Alexandra were taken out to be whipped. They were awarded fifty lashes each. The guards asked Clementine if she wanted to punish the two, but she contented herself with flogging Ira and deputed Alexia to whip Alexandra. If Clementine was tired after her double fight, this was not obvious to Ira who was crying out for mercy long before her ordeal was over. Alexia was similarly ruthless in putting all her strength into reducing Alexandra to the same state of abject whining misery.

Later that evening, Clementine came over to the two newcomers, both nursing their wounds.

"I hope our violent introduction won't stop us being friends! My name's Clementine."

"We know all about you - at least we know your name. I'm Ira and this is Alexandra. And you're good. In fact, you’re just about the best! Congratulations! How long are you here for?"

"I was given twelve years and that was over three years ago. But I won't ever get away from here. I may get a job as a guard when I finish my sentence, otherwise they'll find an excuse to keep me here until I die. How long have you got?"

Alexandra  paused in her licking of Ira's back. Clementine had done a good job on it. It was not often she got to be the one to do the flogging and the experience had been surprisingly congenial - only she would have preferred to have Rashumba to punish, rather that what she strongly suspected to be a Rashumba plant, and still hoped this might happen one fine day!

"Five years! Five fucking years hard labour and just for fighting in a club over another girl. And, yes. We're both dykes! Some black woman was involved in this. She made us strip off and fight the morning after we were arrested and we've not seen her since. But we heard from her that if we beat you, we might get out early."

Clementine put her arms around both newcomers in sympathy.

"Looks like we're both victims of that lady! You'll see her again. She comes to whip me from time to time. She may fly out for the winter soon and give me a rest until the spring, but I daresay I'll be getting a farewell visit before too long, especially as I've caused her plan to go wrong! You'll soon see me get a whipping that will make your hair curl to watch! But don't think of challenging me just after she‘s finished with me! Firstly, I'd probably still beat you - I am one seriously tough lady after my time here and secondly, the others wouldn't let you take advantage.

And I hate to upset you, but I wouldn't count on an early release - or even a release at all! You'll both be here as long as I am and you won't get out until you've managed to beat me and I think I can safely promise that that isn’t going to happen!"

Ira looked furious.

"We'll beat you one day! And then we'll catch up with that bitch who got us here and beat her!"

Clementine explained that Rashumba was so well connected as to be invulnerable.

"But of course you're welcome to have another shot at me - not that I can stop you!  I look forward to taking you both on again and beating you again many times in the coming years! But for the present, there's a series of woman to woman fights, involving us cage inmates, coming up soon to entertain the staff and certain favoured visitors. I'm the trainer and I appoint you my two deputies. Tomorrow we start to prepare!"

****************************



It was on a snowy day in December when the fights took place. Clemmy blinked in the bright lights as she stepped into the improvised ring to face Olga again. She thought she saw James and was sure Rashumba was there - there weren't that many tall African ladies in this part of the world, after all said and done. After seven minutes pretty tough fighting in which both girls were bleeding most satisfactorily for the onlookers, Clemmy laid Olga  out cold. She was out for fifteen minutes and Clemmy was getting quite worried that her squad of fighters might be one fewer, but Olga had been brought up in the hardest of environments and was pretty durable. She made a good recovery after a few days and enthusiastically rejoined the team, vowing to even the score next time.

Rashumba was watching, hoping to see Clemmy beaten. She was swathed in expensive furs and wearing a Cossack style hat and looked a million dollars, thought the shivering naked Clementine. Her face and body were bruised and smeared with blood after her recent fight and she stood at the side of the ring watching the rest of the contests. If she had not had Alexia and Sveta with her with all three huddled tightly together, she would not have survived the evening. This was easily the worst December yet. What would January and February be like?

Al the remaining fights were less one-sided than Clemmy's. By the time the losers had been knocked out a lot of mutual punishment had been handed out and a great deal of blood shed. It was obvious the night had been a success and Clemmy wondered if it had been filmed.

She was right about that. Rashumba wanted  to see the fights again. Clementine might have won, but she had been hurt and that was some comfort! And James saw a way of raising some cash, which was getting to be a dire necessity these days, what with Rashumba's expensive tastes in clothes, food, jewellery and drink. If only the newly enriched Clementine had not gone off with Viola, he would have had a woman capable of financially supporting him - at least until her money ran out! But she had gone off with Viola and now she was paying for it.

Ira fought Alexandra again and this time it was Alexandra who won. Tatiana  beat Sveta after twenty five minutes of hard if not very skilful fighting.

The evening was finally over and the prisoner/fighters taken back to the cage, where they all formed one pyramid of flesh in a desperate attempt to keep warm. By morning the snow had turned to rain and Clemmy enjoyed the run to work in the cleansing downpour, feeling all the filth washed off her. But  she did not enjoy the work that day. The marble kept slipping through her hands and she dropped one piece and cut open her leg very badly. She just completed her quota, though and escaped a whipping by seconds.

On the way back to the city after the fights, Rashumba discussed Clemmy's performance.

"She's good, James. I'll give her that. All that hard work has done wonders for her physique and stamina. I'm sorry I put her in that little cage for too long and ruined her legs for a time. She can be useful to us and I want that body kept in fighting trim from now on. I don't want the punishments to stop, but I want her to be a fighting machine, James. And I will fight her again one day. As for Ira and Alexandra. I think we need to find another challenger for Clementine and they can stay where they are - in fact you might try to get their sentences extended."

The next day, Clementine was called out into the yard. She fully expected a beating, although she could think of nothing to justify one this time. The prison supervisor and the head guard, together with three other guards stood facing her, all dressed in their winter uniforms. The naked Clemmy stood and shivered uncontrollably. Oh to be enfolded in some lovely warm female flesh! She hoped this interview would be brief.

"We have decided that, when the temperature falls below minus 6 degrees you will all be brought indoors until the weather improves. Furthermore, the rations will be increased for all fighters. For the non-fighters, the rations will be as at present. Today, the temperature is minus 8 degrees and falling. You will be brought indoors now. Kindly march your women into the building. They will be given work indoors from now on. You will still work in the quarry for the time being and will be given hard outdoor work within the prison compound if access to the quarry becomes impossible! Get them into their quarters. You will report for work in one hour"

"Yes, Madam"

Clementine gave the others the good news and then marched them into the large hall which had been set aside for their winter quarters. As soon as they were left alone, pandemonium broke out and Clemmy had some trouble quietening them down. She told Alexia to come with her on a tour of inspection. As she had suspected a small door at one end led to a toilet.

"Just look at that, Alexia. A real flushing toilet! I'd almost forgotten what one looked like! And paper! Not very soft, mind you, but it's better that what we've been used to. Wow. I hope the cold weather lasts a nice long time!"

 Next to the loo was a shower room with enough space to accommodate three at a time. Clemmy got the girls to line up and allowed three minutes apiece. Within half an hour the stinking women had been rendered sweet and wholesome for the first time in years! Clemmy knew she was still forbidden to shower and decided not to risk another beating. She stayed as foul-smelling as ever and was to remain that way for the rest of her time in the prison. Only when it rained was she ever to have the filth washed off her.

Work at the quarry was suspended for the others and Clemmy was escorted there alone and on foot as usual with three guards to watch her every move as she toiled away in solitude. But there were many days when it was too cold and the snow too deep for guards to be able to get her there and she was given outside work at the prison. She thought at times that she would die during that winter and was often in a state of near total collapse when dragged back to join the others at the end of the working day, curtailed only  by the shortness of the winter days. The other women were found work in the prison. In her 'spare' time  Clemmy, even when still bleeding from her latest whipping, was kept at work as a trainer in a rudimentary ring which the guards put in one corner. She asked for more equipment, explaining that she could not be expected to produce good fighters without proper equipment. The equipment was produced. Clemmy was given three hundred lashes for speaking out of turn.  Rashumba had fled the country with a bad cold and would not be back until May when Clemmy promised to have twelve top class fighters to enter for the next tournament.

The temperatures plunged all through December and stayed  low until mid March when the women were marched back to the cage and the old harsh life resumed. Rashumba came back in April and personally whipped Clemmy until she passed out with the pain. Her final "Four hundred and fifty, Thank you madam." was scarcely audible.

Afterwards she told James that the easy time she had been having had softened her. He promised to make sure that any leniency in the past few months would never happen again.

Clementine had failed to achieve her allotted work quota next day and because another whipping was judged impossible she was staked out on the ground all night, outside the cage and all alone. This was to be a new addition to her miseries in the coming weeks.

They had five tournaments that spring, and Clemmy fought in them all, winning with ease. Rashumba watched her performances and itched to fight her hated victim again.

"That would be the final agony for her, James. To be beaten by me. It would destroy her! I know I could do it!"

"She's a million times harder than she was when she came here. And you would need to train round the clock for weeks - and lose a bit of weight."

Rashumba growled angrily, but she knew he was right. If she was to beat Clemmy she would have to work hard at it and she didn't like the idea. Luxury was beginning to take its toll and she was twenty seven and Clemmy a tough twenty one. She thought for a while and made up her mind

"I'm going into training, James. I'll have that bitch on her back bleeding and senseless on the floor, if it's the last thing I do!"

Rashumba was true to her promise for three months and James could see the improvement as she shed the excess pounds and flesh. But he saw clearly that Clementine would still win easily and was able during the summer to talk her out of a premature challenge.

Then it was late October again.

" Remember what tomorrow is?"

"Oh, yes! As if I could forget. Her third anniversary. The start of year number four. I promised her four hundred lashes this time when I whipped her last year. But she's so hard now I think I might just add another fifty for luck!"

And she did - then fifty more  to make it five hundred. This had something to do with the fact that Clemmy stopped thanking her after the first fifty. No matter what the cost in pain, she was never going to show respect to Rashumba again. When Rashumba tried to repeat last year's dog walking episode Clementine spat in her face and told her to go to Hell. Two guards held a furiously struggling Clemmy, still incredibly strong despite her whipping,  while Rashumba, who seemed to be wearing more rings on her fingers with every passing week, punched the helpless, writhing girl into bloody insensibility .

CHAPTER TEN

(In which Clementine passes a fourth year of misery)

"How was your annual chat to Rashumba? I saw you had a nice long talk before she started slicing up your poor old back!  It must be great to meet up with her and talk over old times! She gave you her best effort yet, I would say. But you seem OK.  They'll never break you, Clemmy!"

Alexia and her lover were lying together at midnight on the day of the anniversary. It was bad enough to know that another year had passed and her imprisonment was going interminably on and on, but each anniversary had to be marked by the agony of flagellation skilfully inflicted   by a past mistress in that black art accompanied by sneering gloating from the venomous Rashumba. The whipping, though, was followed by the most delicious comfort! Clemmy had felt her darling's tongue licking her sore back for the past two hours. Poor Alexia must be getting pretty dry after all the saliva she had left on Clemmy!

"It was like the others, Alexia - only worse. I think she gets better and better, but I don't care any more. I really truly don't give a shit about it all. It still hurts but I'm not afraid any longer when I'm tied up against that fucking  wall waiting for those bitches to start flogging me. And I don't jerk under the lash these days. You must have seen that? Pain is my destiny, Alexia and I accept it. It hurts just as badly as ever, but I live with it now. I can hardly remember what being without pain was like and I'll never know such a time again. So this is my life. A life of unending agony made bearable only because I am with you! You, my darling and these other women. Getting a team of great fighters together and keeping them up to scratch. I'm happy enough with my lot. I mean! What choice is there?  As long as I am happy, they lose and I win."

The two lay together for a while. The night was frosty and they both wondered what the coming winter would be like. Now that the regime had been relaxed for ultra cold weather the other women would be indoors all day and all night. Only Clementine, who would work outdoors no matter how cold it became, had any reason to fear it. And she no longer felt fear or any other emotion save love for Viola and Alexia. Her hatred of Rashumba was a thing she had forced herself these last few months to exclude utterly from her mind. She accepted all the torments that the black woman inflicted on her in a totally impersonal way. In view of the utter powerlessness of her situation vis a vis her enemy, she could now only keep her sanity by forgetting her. The woman who had just whipped her was nobody, just a hand wielding a whip, no different to any of the guards - or so she tried to tell herself.

Clemmy kissed Alexia goodnight and felt the body next to her relaxing into a deep sleep. She lay awake a little longer, though. She had not been entirely truthful to Alexia, whom she did feel very fond of. She was not going to be here for the next nine years. She had wasted too much of her life as it was. And it was Viola who filled her dreams, not faithful dear Alexia. It would hurt to leave her behind, but, as she had said, if Clemmy made it home the Government would be forced to improve conditions here. The world community had ways of bringing small countries into line. Alexia would benefit from her escape, as would the rest of them.

She slipped into slumber and, as she did so, realised not for the first time that the fight tournaments were her best  hope of getting out. There must be a way of talking to some of the spectators, one of whom might be able to help. She was sure some of them were not locals, but Westerners like herself.

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Rashumba had pulled a shoulder while thrashing Clementine. It hadn't brought Clemmy any benefit, though. The injury did not show up until later and she delivered all her lashes with her customary thoroughness and terrifying power and her subsequent punches  had hurt her victim as badly as ever they had in the clearing over three years ago. But the next day Rashumba had the most intense pain whenever she tried to raise her arm. The weather here was getting uncomfortably cooler already and there were no local doctors she trusted, so she went to Paris for treatment.

 In between her sessions at the clinic, she revisited some of her old haunts. It was with some happiness that she found that the club where she and Viola had done their painful act still functioned. The manager remembered her and enquired after Viola, whom he had not seen since Clementine took her back to England with her. She growlingly replied that she had no idea. Then she took a seat and prepared to enjoy the show. She was disappointed to see that it was tamer than in her day, . There was a whipping act, but it involved a woman flogging a man and not terribly hard at that. If she were in charge of this place, there would be more action that this.

She closed her eyes and saw again Viola's bleeding back. She still missed that girl sometimes, but the memory of staggering dazedly out of the wood after her fearsome beating by Clementine hands and seeing the look of joy on her face as the winner carried her off had destroyed much of the love she had once felt.

 One day she drove out to Viola's house in the country. It was not so much that she hoped to see Viola again, and she very much doubted that her former lover/sex slave had been near France since Clementine took her away. Something told her that she had lost Viola for ever. She wanted to see the place where she had seen off a dozen challengers before finally being beaten in a very close contest by the loathsome Clementine, who was now paying dearly for her insolence!  She went into the grounds, after seeing that the house was shuttered and apparently unoccupied. She looked at the deserted scene and was more sure than ever that Viola had not been near her country retreat in years - possibly since Clementine had taken her back to England. Well - she wasn't interested in her any more, not after she had seen Clementine beat her.

 She spent little time looking at the house, with its peeling paint and general air of desolation, but made for the wood along the path where she had last walked side by side with an opponent who had not deigned to look at her once on that fateful procession. In a few minutes she was in the clearing. It seemed smaller than she remembered. She stood in the centre, where she had fought thirteen other women and relived her triumphs when she had despatched all those dykes to bloody unconsciousness and chuckled at the memory. Then the last fight kept coming into her mind. She undressed in the autumn chill and assumed a fighting posture. It felt like the first time she had raised her fists since that awful day, although she had been training hard during the summer. She did a bit of punching at the frosty autumn air and squatted down on the grass.

She recalled how the blows she had rained on Clementine that day had not stopped the blonde girl coming back at her time and time again, her face a soggy, bloody mess and her body one giant bruise, until she, Rashumba, had been left senseless on the ground. She remembered coming to and staggering to the edge of the wood and seeing Clementine carrying her Viola away not seeing fit to give one backward glance. Well, she had recently battered that arrogant bitch again and this time there had been no chance for her to fight back. It had felt good to feel her fists make contact with that hated face and pound on those ribs and that defenceless stomach, but she knew that a fight with her on equal terms,  one in which she was victorious, was what she desired most of all. She might be risking a repeat of the defeat she had suffered here but she felt compelled to take the risk. Unhappily, though, she would be no good with her shoulder in the state it was right now.

Rashumba had no idea how long she sat there, but it couldn't have been long before the cold made her come to her senses. She couldn't take the cold like the tough Clementine who had no choice in the winter but to live and work outdoors. She couldn't fight like quick, hard-hitting agile, brave Clementine and she couldn't take a whipping like the stoic Clementine, who never uttered a murmur as her back was shredded time and time again. If she had been sent to that prison of horrors she knew she would never have lasted a week and Clementine appeared to be thriving there! She hated her rival more than ever in that moment and vowed to think of new ways to torment her when she returned to Abhlovia.

Later that week she developed another bad cold and flew off the Bahamas, where James was to join her for a ten day break. She thought of England and Viola, but knew she couldn't go there, not if she knew what was good for her.

As the pair sat by the pool on the day before their return to Europe watching the sun set in a glory of red, Rashumba mentioned Clementine, at that moment recovering from a more than usually ferocious punishment.

"I want you to think of new things for that cow this summer. It gets hot then, James. Really hot.  I think a few days in the sun stretched out on the ground with nothing to drink all day would be a nice addition to her regime."

"We don't want to spoil her for the fights, Rashumba. As you know, they're beginning to bring in serious money. And then there's the quarrying - she works amazingly hard and more than pays for her keep. Her productivity is astounding - really incredible. And please don't forget I have to satisfy  my boss  as well as you. We can't overdo it with the punishments, but I will see what we can arrange. I'll get them to cut her water ration during the day. And she can spend the nights staked out if you like, but we can't push her too far. Remember she can only take so much! She may be tough, but she’s still human and has her breaking point. And there is the complication that the other women have come to like her and they trust her to settle their quarrels and get them organised. The guards rely on her to run the cage and she does it brilliantly. We can't upset them all and provoke a mutiny."


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Clementine's next bout was six weeks into her fourth year and a week before her next escape attempt. She won against Ira, but was hurt, suffering a cracked cheekbone and much bruising to her ribs.  A lucky kick had her limping through much of the second half of the match and the lack of her usual mobility meant that she had to go on soaking up punishment all through the fight until she took advantage of a lucky opening and put Ira down for a count of ten. When Ira got shakily to her feet and Clemmy was declared the winner, there was nothing triumphant in Clementine's demeanour. She had been lucky to win that one and everyone watching knew it. She lost no teeth but did have her mouth hit so hard at one point that her teeth penetrated her lower lip. The crowd had its fill of blood that night.  It was not like that time in the clearing with Rashumba, but bad enough.

She had fought Ira and Alexandra four times apiece in the last series of fights. Now she was into her fourth year and the threat posed by these two was as potent as ever. Each time she fought one or other, she knew she must use every skill and all her strength to survive. The other women sensed the constant danger to the leader's position They would desert her willingly if she lost. Life was certainly very tough indeed at the top. And if she were no longer at the top, her misery would be quite insupportable. It was only her hard won leadership that gave her that last remaining shred of self-respect that made life endurable.

The thought of a life up against these two tough opponents every few weeks and being whipped with increasing severity almost as often temporarily unhinged her. She was so desperate to get away from this interminable reduction of her once beautiful face into a battered nose-flattened mess, to say nothing of what her back must be like by this time, that she tried to get away. She was twenty-one now and knew her looks would go for ever if she got knocked around too much more. So she made another run for it.

Ira and Alexandra were both working in the quarry that day. Both had adapted well to the conditions in the ten months they had been here. They were strong young women and, like Clemmy, saw that their only hope lay in strength and hardihood. They had the advantage over her of being Abhlovians. The rest of the women, however much they admired Clementine, never lost sight of her foreignness.

This pair had not forgotten how Clemmy had beaten them and more than once in the last year. Also they hoped for their sentence to be reduced if they caught Clementine out in some infringement  of the rules. Thanks to this pair, Clemmy had been savagely whipped several times, most recently on the soles of her feet, a punishment that had given her terrible pain - particularly as she had still been forced to keep up with the others on the way to and from the quarry despite  the state if her soles which bled for days as a result.

They saw Clemmy make her move and let her get some way before alerting the dozy guards, whose inattentiveness had given Clemmy her chance. The two laughed as they saw Clemmy being dragged back, her mouth bleeding where the guards had struck her and her stomach an angry red where the rifle butts had thudded wickedly into it.

"What possessed you, Clementine? Do you want to get yourself killed?"  the guard had asked when she had finally been run down by the motor cycling guards and cornered, her eyes full of frustrated tears and her heart sick with apprehension. She knew she was in for it, now!

"Yes. What do I have to live for? If I can't go home I don't want to live any more - not like this. I've done nothing wrong, for Heaven's sake. Certainly nothing to justify twelve years round the clock torture!"

They put her back to work. When she got back to the cage they tied her up in the cold all night. Next day they gave her a hundred lashes, which was light for her these days, but they told her she would receive one hundred every week from now onwards on each Friday, in addition to any other penalties she might incur. Well - that was not too bad, she told herself. She was as hard and brutalised as any of her companions by this time. Only the memory of Viola and the love Alexia had for her, saved her from totally losing her humanity.

Ira and Alexandra had not been too subtle this time and their treachery had been noticed by one of the other quarry workers. By evening all the cage women knew how they had broken the prisoner’s code by betraying Clementine. Under cover of darkness,  Ira and Alexandra were surrounded and mercilessly beaten for their treachery. Clementine, tied to the ground, heard the blows thudding into those two stooges and made no attempt to intervene, not that her pleas for the two would have been heeded if she had called out  to them to stop. When the guards saw them in the morning, neither was remotely fit for work, indeed they were scarcely alive. They were taken into the hospital. Clemmy never saw either again. Rashumba and James had both of them handsomely paid off and they returned to their former life knowing better than to breathe a word about what had happened.

The word got around that Clemmy was to be whipped every Friday and the women were  pleased to think they had something to watch once a week. The guards were getting slacker these days and more humane. Sometimes weeks could pass and no one was punished. The hardened and brutal cage women, inured to pain themselves, enjoyed Clemmy's punishments because they were far more terrible than any one else ever received. They might like and respect her, but they liked a good whipping too, especially when the victim was brave and Clemmy was always that. The other women guessed that Clementine’s floggings were a never ending battle between her and her tormentors and as long as she kept silent she retained some shreds of dignity in her squalid and brutal life.

She got a hold of herself after that fiasco of an attempt and was never to lose control  for the rest of her time in the prison. She would have some hard fights and take some stupendous floggings, especially  when Rashumba was in town, but she got through the rest of her fourth year and had the satisfaction of building a fine team. The tournaments had been broadened and outside fighters were brought in to take on Clemmy's team. Only two of her fighters were beaten and Clemmy was not one of them. She was kept very strictly away from the audience, though, and they were not allowed anywhere near the fighters.

The next winter was another mild one and the women stayed in the cage. Rashumba and James left for warmer climes in early January, shortly after the first scattering of snow. If Clemmy had cared to look up from slaving away in the quarry and risk another whipping she might have seen high up in the sky the tiny speck that was the plane taking them both to Bermuda.

Rashumba’s suggestion of tying Clemmy down in the summer heat and reducing her water ration had not gone down well with the prison staff, but James was very persuasive and they reluctantly agreed.

It was on the first day in June that the first heat wave of the summer reduced the entire area to a dusty inferno. The mid-day drink break came and found all the quarry workers near to collapse. Clemmy had been worked far harder than the others, as usual, and reached out gratefully for the chipped cup. It was only half full and scarcely served to wet the inside of her parched mouth. She looked at the guard in horror-struck amazement.

"Get back to work. If you fail to meet your quota we will punish you."

She had no idea how she kept going that boiling hot afternoon. The dust covered her body from head to foot and the weight of the slabs on her back as she staggered a hundred times from the quarry to the waiting truck and back again seemed greater than ever. The sweat poured off her and she knew that with the minute quantity she had been given to drink she was likely to die of thirst. As she ran with the others back to the camp, her head was swimming and the only thought in her mind was a desire for water. She heard her bare feet hitting the ground as they bore her towards the prison and a blessed cup of water from the communal tank, but she felt nothing as they slammed down on flints and rocks. At least they could hardly stop her getting a decent drink then! The walls of the old fort got nearer and nearer and  the sounds of the guards and the truck's engine seemed to fade away into the distance. She stumbled once and veered off course. They gave her two lashes for that, one on her right shoulder and the other on the left. The two deep cuts formed a large saltire on her dust-covered back. She hardly noticed, so extreme was her terrible thirst.

 When she did finally stumble into the compound she found that her vision of water - a vision that had, alone, enabled her to cover those final miles, was to be snatched away from her. She was seized by two guards and dragged, unable to stand, into the yard, within sight of the cage and Alexia. She could not believe this was happening to her as they pegged her out on the ground. They left her there all night and all the next day without food or drink. Her tongue seemed to have swollen to three times its normal size and she barely had the strength to breathe, let alone moan and ask the guard for help. The sun rose and burned her parched body as she lay helpless and suffering in the hundred degree heat. She prayed for it to go down and give her some respite, but the hours between ten and six when its heat seemed as it would never fade seemed to take for ever. She kept her head turned away with her eyes shut in order to stop them being ruined by the glare. Every now and again she looked at the lone guard, who seemed quite unmoved at her plight. Knowing that she could expect  no mercy, Clementine refused even to contemplate begging for it.

Rashumba watched from her observation window as the poor girl lay squirming in agony, finally slipping into unconsciousness. When they let her go and gave her water at long last she was delirious. They kept this treatment up for the entire month and into July, giving her a couple of days normal rations and then tying her down for two more. And the Friday whippings continued.

"How can they do this to you, Clementine?" asked Alexia one day after this had been going on for six weeks. She was cradling the weakened Clementine in  her arms in the evening. It had been a "Normal" day for her and both knew that two days of misery lay ahead. Alexia wondered how Clementine managed to perform a full day's work any more, she was so debilitated by this time.

"It's Rashumba, Alexia! I was getting too used to the normal punishments and this is her way of keeping up the pressure. It keeps us apart and gives me a new type of agony. But being kept separate from you is the worst of it. If you were near me and able to touch me when I was tied down I would not mind at all."

Then in late July James was given instructions to arrange a series of contests. It was the hottest day of the year so far with the temperature a terrifying one hundred and twenty degrees. The other women were at the quarry and dropping like flies in the heat. Clementine was tied down and the sun was not yet at its height. She despaired of getting through the day. James, suffering himself from the heat, was with Rashumba, watching Clementine's tormented writhing, when the message arrived.

"We'll need Clementine in good shape for these fights, Rashumba. Sorry, but we'll have to stop this treatment soon. She can have until the first week in August to go on suffering, but then we must let her recover. I know how much pleasure it's given you, my darling,  and it breaks my heart to bring it to an end. Never mind! There's always next summer and we'll make sure she has a nice cold winter!"

"As you say, my dear! Let's go and walk over to Clementine, shall we,  and chat to her!"

"You go if you wish. I'm not going out until the heat starts to go off. I really hate this weather."

Rashumba smiled to herself. James had never once, in all the getting on for four years that Clementine had been at their mercy,  made his presence known to her. She guessed that he was ashamed to face the girl he had first made love to and then betrayed. What softies men can be! With a parasol to keep off the sun's killing heat she walked over to the pinioned Clemmy and saw how dreadfully burnt that face and body were after the last seven weeks. That once soft and succulent skin was dried and cracked in the searing heat as the sun beat down on it all day and the sweat glands were drying up with her lack of moisture. Her lips were cracked, burnt and grotesquely swollen - gone was the commanding beauty and sensual charm that Viola had found irresistible. If only she could see her now and witness how terrible was Rashumba's vengeance on all who crossed her!

"Enjoying the sun, Clementine? It's a glorious day isn't it? How I envy you having all day to lie out and soak up the rays! You really do have the loveliest tan, darling!"

Clementine wondered whether to reply. Her tongue was dry and her throat sore with the lack of moisture. She doubted that she would be able to speak or that the effort would be wise. Whatever strength she still had needed to be conserved. But she was unable to resist the urge to show at least some defiance to this monster.

"Why don't you join me? You've nothing else to do but spend half your time here gloating over me. From the way you look when stripped you don't have to exert yourself much these days. Come and try working in the quarry with me tomorrow, you bitch!"

Her voice was the merest croak and sounded nothing like the lilting feminine voice that Rashumba had first heard in their Paris apartment  four years ago. She sneered as Clementine's head fell back to the ground in sheer exhaustion.

"How much longer is this going on for" croaked Clemmy, gathering all her forces for this one last effort. She seemed to have passed out by now and Rashumba had no idea if her words could be heard.

"We need you for a series of fights in late August. You go on being punished until the first week in August. So you get fifteen more days. I'll get them to change your routine for those last days. You stay permanently tied down until the seventh of August. But you get a cup of water at dawn and one at nightfall, plus some food until then. It'll be enough to stop you dying on us, but not enough to stop you feeling thirsty and in agony for every waking moment. And don't worry - you'll still get your nice Friday floggings! Enjoy!"

That night Alexia sobbed to herself as a guard told her that Clementine would stay where she was for all of fifteen long and horribly hot days. She was told to take over Clementine's role as the head of the cage women and none of these ladies would have wished it otherwise. Clemmy would be back soon and ready to punish anyone who gave Alexia a hard time.

Alexia soon found that she was too exhausted herself after working in the quarry in the seemingly never-ending heat wave. The guards all had parasols to keep off the sun and the ordinary prisoners were excused quarry duties during the hottest hours, being allowed to rest in the shade. But the naked cage women were worked harder than ever and if Alexia thought of her friend at all during the day, it was to wonder whose plight was worse, the pinioned, deliberately dehydrated, half starved Clemmy who at least could lie still, or the rest of her companions, including Alexia, who worked prodigiously - naked under the merciless sun and with little more to drink that usual.

Alexia decided that the cage women could not last much longer like this. She had seen Clementine approach the guards many, many times on behalf of her fellow inmates, only to be punished, even when her requests were granted. Alexia had marvelled at her courage in bringing so much pain down upon herself just for the sake of others. Now she, Alexia, was temporary leader and she must show the same courage. She approached a guard and asked for a second drinks break while the weather was so abnormally hot. This was agreed to. Alexia was whipped that night, receiving two hundred lashes, and Clemmy's distress was made immeasurably worse as she heard her lover being punished.

"Well done, Alexia" said Olga as the acting leader walked shakily back into the cage. "We're all proud of you and so will Clementine be. When she finally escapes - and she will - you can be the leader. You earned it out there!  Shall I lick your back?"

"No, Olga. It was kind of you to offer, but that's for Clementine to do and she's not here. I'm OK - really I am. I think they went easy on me, to be honest."

Olga was right about Clementine feeling proud of Alexia, but her pride was tempered by pity and the knowledge that the dear, sweet, gentle girl did not belong here. She was not a  violent person and this lack of the killer instinct was the reason she would probably never beat Olga. Apart from one deed committed while out of her mind with distress and pain, she had never struck another human being except in self defence. And she was stuck in this cage with the hardest of killers. Clemmy reflected, not for the first time, that she herself did belong here, at least to some extent.

She had gladly faced Rashumba in that clearing and gone all out to knock her out, glorying in that moment when her broken and bleeding opponent lay at her feet. And she would do it again - no matter what the consequences. In that encounter  she had discovered something about herself. She had discovered that she was a fighter who would never give quarter or show or ask for mercy from any opponent. It had been an entirely happy discovery and, despite the ghastly predicament it had landed her in, she was still glad that she was what she was. With that thought in mind, she saw the guard coming to feed her. After eating the bread and drinking the small cup of water she fell asleep, happy in the knowledge that she was always a warrior and never a coward.

 If she had known about Olga's confidence in her eventual escape, she would have laughed. Her last attempt meant a weekly whipping, for which she would still be dragged almost lifeless over to the wall two times in the next two weeks before being let back into the cage. She knew that this present punishment regime was barely within even her amazing powers of endurance. Another escape attempt was simply not on. She had given up hope of ever leaving this spot, and took comfort from the fact that she got to get a good fight from time to time. That, together with the love of Alexia, was the only thing that made life bearable.

On the first day after Clementine was released and put on a special diet to bring her body back to its former strength the drought ended with a two day deluge. They let her stay in the cage for three days and then put her back to work.

Rain was still coming down as the cage women, now with Clementine back with them, ran slithering in the mud behind the truck. The ordinary prisoners noticed that Clemmy was back after her ordeal. They were allowed to use the yard for exercise but had never been allowed to speak to the spread-eagled girl as she lay in the atrocious heat, her fair hair spread out on the ground growing more bleached with each passing infernal day. None of them was ever allowed to discuss her punishments and one of their number had been stripped and sent out to the cage herself for showing too much sympathy and interest. In spite of the instructions not to communicate with the tall and powerfully built blonde, some of them waved in a friendly way. The guards noted this and the offending women were punished later that day.

Clementine struggled to keep up with the demands of her overseers. Once again, marble kept slipping through her hands and once again she dropped a piece which cut her leg, despite her speed in drawing back from the falling stone. She bled from the gash for the rest of the day. It was a week before it healed and she was not allowed to rest for a second. In the evenings she had to train her team of fighters.

The first fight was in the third week of August and Olga was given two opponents, Alexia and, a week later, Clementine. Clemmy watched in angry frustration as Alexia continually failed to take advantage of opportunities to nail Olga. She was just too sporting and chivalrous - not qualities that Clementine had ever exhibited right from the fight against Rashumba until now!  

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you, my sweet!" she said later that night when they were back in the cage. "You can beat that bitch. Just be a bit tougher, darling. Be like me!"

"I wish I could, darling! Maybe next time I'll surprise everyone!"

A week later, Clementine faced Olga herself. She was still not one hundred percent better after her weeks of torture by sun earlier in the summer and this was a hot day. She saw that James and Rashumba were in the audience. She looked at James and was pleased to see him blush and look away. One of these days she was going to shout something at him - but not today, her back was too sore from last Friday, when she had been given a more than usually hard time by the strongest of all the guards.

If Olga thought she was going to beat Clementine, she was mistaken. She had improved since their first encounter nearly four years ago, but so had Clementine.

For the rest of her fourth year, there were no more contests and only work which got harder and harder and floggings which continued to be doled out to her every Friday and on several other occasions. On the eve of her next anniversary she went to sleep with a sore back and the knowledge that she would not get through the next day without passing out under Rashumba's savagery. Despite the horror she faced the next day, she still slept well, being as tired as ever.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

(In which she starts Year Five and has her worst moment yet)

The dreaded time of her fourth anniversary came around. It was a Friday and that meant her usual one hundred and a further five hundred from Rashumba. The guard gave her the hundred and wanted to go easy, in view of what she still had in store for her later in the day when Rashumba and James came visiting, but she knew Rashumba would spot it if she hadn't given Clemmy her due and so she was sore and softened up for Rashumba's marathon session.

Rashumba prefaced her whipping with her usual insulting remarks about Clementine's rank stench and verminous condition, which made her feel low and despicable even though it was hardly her fault. Then came the five hundred lashes. Rashumba might have put on weight and be too slow to beat Clementine in a fight but she was still strong. She paused after every fifty in order to recoup her strength and get her breath back. When she had finished she was near to collapse and went straight to bed as soon as James had driven her home.

"I am getting a bit too old to whip that bitch, darling! But I did a good job on her, didn't I? She was out cold at the end. That'll teach her to cross me. Next year I'll get the guards to share the task with me. And that silly little whip isn't heavy enough for her. She needs something a bit more cutting. Something longer, not like the one Viola and I used for our act, but better than the one we use on her now. It's getting too easy for her!"

"She did pass out, darling."

"True. But I want a bigger whip for her, all the same. These Friday whippings are a joke, James. The one she got today before I really laid into her, had hardly broken the skin. I want blood on a Friday, James. Blood! Her blood!  Do you hear me?"

James indicated that he heard her only to well.

As for Clementine, Rashumba had indeed been laying into her unconscious body for much of the last hundred, despite constant dousing with ice cold water. When she was cut down the wretched girl collapsed, unable to move. It was obvious that she could not work next day. To her surprise, when she regained consciousness, she saw that she had been brought into the sanatorium rather than being unceremoniously dumped back in the cage. They allowed her a week to recover and treated her back with something which stung at first and made her scream but took away all the pain within minutes. Alexia told her that, although still scarred, her skin looked better than it had for years.  

Then she was told something that made her exult. Rashumba was to be her next opponent! This was a stupid move on the African girl's part and James knew it as well as Clementine. Even if she got badly flogged before the fight, Clementine was sure she would still win. And, in any event, the authorities would almost certainly not allow her to go into the ring showing fresh scars. Even her regulatory weekly whippings, of which she had now received over forty, were always suspended the week before a fight and  doubled up next week. There was no way she would lose!

James and Clemmy were right! Although a naked Rashumba was still a great sight, she was not the Rashumba of four years ago. That ridged abdomen was fleshier and she looked to Clemmy like an easy opponent this time. It would take more than a few visits to a gym to get her up to Clemmy's standard!

All the horrors of the last four years and two months were expunged from her mind when she stood in triumph over her unconscious tormentor. She had worn the black girl down with a merciless attack and suffered very little herself, being almost unmarked and Rashumba was a mess. Clemmy could have knocked her opponent out in seconds if she had wished, but chose instead to inflict dreadful injuries before delivering the brutal but merciful sledgehammer blow that finally felled her. Rashumba thought of giving up but her pride would not let her. So she vainly tried to avoid Clementine's fists as they aimed blow after punishing blow and her feet as they slammed into all parts of her body. She was knocked down many times but kept getting up again in the vain hope of getting back into the fight, but it was hopeless and finally she went down and stayed down. After ten minutes, Rashumba recovered consciousness and  was taken away by James, sobbing in rage and shame. On getting home she took to her bed where she spent three weeks recovering. Clementine went back to the cage and the applause of all the other women, who knew too well, just what this had meant to the tortured girl after so many months of humiliated agony.

Clementine overheard from a conversation between two of the guards that Rashumba had gone away again, presumably to Paris and wondered when or if she would get to revisit the city where she had met Viola and so painfully won her love in that wood. She was beginning to doubt it, knowing that she would never get another chance to escape. Her only hope was rescue and everyone at home thought she was dead. All her thoughts these days were concentrated on survival. At the end of her sentence, if her behaviour from now on was satisfactory, she hoped to become a guard herself. But she would never forget Viola, even though she no longer had any hope of seeing her again.

Two weeks after Rashumba had hauled her disgraced carcass off to Paris,  Clementine was in the ring again, this time fighting a new opponent and in a fight with new and exciting rules. She jogged up and down and watched her latest foe. She was a big girl, this one, and it looked like she was facing a real challenge for once! She was glad about that. The danger of losing and the pain of being on the receiving end of good hard blows was all part of the thrill! She looked down at her hands and her stomach churned inside her.

"That sort of glove is called a heavy cestus, darling" Alexia had told her. "The Greeks and Romans wore them in their boxing contests. They do awful damage. Aren't you scared? I am. I'm bloody scared and I don't mind telling you. But I'll fight bravely, darling, as I always do. I just wish it wasn't Olga again!"

"Nothing scares me, Alexia. Only losing and being thought a coward." Clementine spoke the plain truth here!

These gloves were going to wreak havoc on that body in the opposite corner! And then she looked at the other girl's hands and wondered what a few good punches from them would do to her. She was soon to find out and she couldn't wait to get started.

For the first time in her fighting career, Clementine was not to fight bare-fisted. Her hardened, scarred hands had gloves on this time - and what gloves! These were not only leather, but studded with metal and designed to cut skin and break bones. As long as the broken bones weren't hers! Then the bell went and both fighters stepped into the middle of the ring.

James was alone this evening and he was relieved not to have Rashumba's voice next to him, hysterically urging whoever was up against Clemmy to knock her out. He no longer expected Clementine to be defeated, sensing how vital it was for the girl to keep winning in order to stay at the top. This new refinement had been suggested by the company marketing the fight videos. The earlier fights had sold well but not well enough. James had been told to spice them up by fitting the women with these lethal gloves and that Clementine's fights must be included in any future videos.

"She's far and away the best, James. I can't think what it is that makes you leave her videoed bouts off the final product. From now on, she's the star. OK? And clean her up a bit before future bouts. The wild look‘s fine up to a point, but can be overdone!"

James was forced to agree, although he was not too worried. It was highly unlikely that Clementine would be recognised. She had few friends and none of them was likely to buy a video and see one of her fights. It was very much a minority interest and the chance of Clemmy's death being questioned after four years was not worth losing sleep over.

He watched apprehensively as the two fighters came to the centre of the ring and circled each other tentatively, each trying to get the measure of her foe, now that they were facing each other for the first time. Clemmy struck first and the other girl moved her head in time to avoid the blow, at the same time lashing out at Clemmy with her left and bare foot. Clemmy was not so worried about feet making contact but she winced as this particular foot struck her. It was not going to be a walkover for her. She staggered slightly and then the other woman's glove rammed into her.

Clemmy had the merest split second to dodge that flying fist and the impact was a fraction of that intended. It hurt, though and that wretched cut had been opened again, and only seconds into the fight! This was a poor start and she could feel the disapproval of her fellow cage women.

"Come on, Clemmy" muttered James. "You can do better than that!"

He was soon reassured as his former girlfriend got into her stride and landed a beautifully timed straight right on the other woman, making her blink and drawing a stream of blood from her rather experienced looking nose. James could see that both these young ladies had seen plenty of action in their short lives. He judged them to be about the same age. The other girl was called Amanda and she was a visitor to Abhlovia and here by courtesy of James's boss. She had only agreed to take part in the fight on condition it was time limited and broken into three minute rounds with one minute intervals. She had reluctantly agreed to the absence of both seconds and a referee. The two fighters came to the end of the first of fifteen rounds with honours even. Clemmy had a cut over her eye - again - and Amanda had a bleeding and possibly broken nose. Both looked as if they couldn't wait for the bell to sound for the second round.

The crowd were not as noisy as some that Clementine remembered. But this was because both girls were being cautious. They both knew, after the first exchange that it hurt to be hit with the gloves they were wearing and were less keen to trade punches than they might otherwise have been. It seemed that the old bare fisted fights were better and more full of action. Then Clementine decided she was bored with this pussy footing around. She liked a proper fight, not this tentative stuff, and if that meant getting hurt, then so be it! She opened up with a series of four rapid-fire punches, all of which landed on various parts of the fast moving Amanda, although not on her jaw where Clemmy was aiming.

Amanda, too, seemed just as anxious to get things moving, dancing about on her surprisingly delicate bare feet and replied with a blisteringly accurate series of jabs of her own. Clemmy was quick enough to dance her way out of trouble, but the cut was dripping blood all over the ring by this time and Amanda was going all out to keep it open. She aimed at Amanda's nose once again and was pleased to feel the bone give way beneath her. It felt good and she could see the other girl was hurt. That calm immovable face had shown a passing spasm of pain.

In the third round, Clemmy decided to test out Amanda's stamina. She stood toe to toe with her opponent and swapped blows for the whole round. This was getting the crowd excited! Clemmy loved the roar of an appreciative audience and she stepped up her attack, totally disregarding the fact that Amanda was doing at least as much damage to her as she was suffering at Clemmy's hands.

Clemmy hardly heard the bell at the end of that round and it seemed that Amanda didn't either. But they broke off and went back to their corners, where they sat glaring across the ring, impatient to be at each other again. The crowd had loved that round and Clementine decided that she would keep up the pressure from then on.

In Round four she put Amanda down with a stunning upper cut, but the opponent was up quickly without taking a breather. In the next second, Clementine was down, floored by a spinning back kick that spread her nose over her face. After this it was back to swapping punches, with the occasional kick to the thighs or stomach. First Amanda's head would snap back and then Clemmy's. Then the bell and they went back to their corners, both bruised and both bleeding.

By the twelfth round, both girls were tiring and the ring was slippery with their blood. Clemmy had lost count by now of the times those metal studded fists had crashed into her body and face, but she was grimly aware that she had given at least as good as she had got. Then came the surprise.

As round thirteen was announced, Amanda stayed in her corner. She made a sign at Clemmy,  pulled her injured face into some semblance of a smile and shrugged her shoulders. The fight was over. Clemmy was declared the winner and this was the signal for her to make herself scarce. But Amanda had other ideas! She got to her feet and came over to Clemmy telling her opponent's two "minders" to get out of the way.

"This woman is a prisoner and must not speak to anyone." explained the guard, but Amanda was a strong girl and not to be denied. She pushed the guards away and came up to Clemmy. She threw both arms around her bloodied opponent and hugged her.

"You were so good, Clementine."

"You were good too, Amanda. Frankly, I thought you had the edge on me and were getting on top. I'm surprised you gave up!"

"I am sorry, Clementine. I too would have liked to finish it and maybe one day we can meet again - oui?"

"I won't say that would be nice exactly! But, yes! I would love to fight you again and finish the job next time - win or lose!  It would mean a lot to know for certain which of us is the better!"

"I 'ave to fight next week in Paris. If I get knocked about by you any more, I would not be fit. But I am sorry. Perhaps one day you could join our club in Paris. You will not be 'ere for ever?"

"Eight more years! I've been here for four. I was a bad girl!"

"You must 'ave been bad! What did you do?"

"You might say I am here for fighting though strictly it was for public nudity. You would be wise to forget me and this conversation. Just get out of Abhlovia and never come back!"

"I will be back, Clementine and we will fight to the finish. Zat is a promise cherie!" Amanda continued "You like to sit and watch the other fights with me, chère Clementine?"

The watching guards looked horrified but James had given them a signal and Amanda and Clementine sat in the front row and waited for Olga and Alexia to come on.

"Are you not going to get dressed, Clementine my dear?" asked a concerned Amanda, just slipping into her clothes. It was a chilly evening. When Clementine explained that she was naked as part of her punishment, Amanda quickly stripped again and the two sat side by side, companionably naked. They exchanged a friendly grin and Amanda put a warm arm over Clementine's shoulder so Clemmy enjoyed her first friendly human contact with the outside world in four long terrible years.

The fight between Olga and Alexia lasted all fifteen rounds and both fighters were out on their feet at the end. Alexia was declared the winner on points and her delight was palpable, despite the ghastly state of her face after those terrible gloves had smashed so many times into it. Clementine whispered to Amanda that she must go and see to her friend, and would soon be going back to the prison.

 Both agreed that the metal gloves added something to the occasion and agreed to use them next  time - if there was a next time. Then they kissed with surprising passion for two women who hardly knew each other and had just been energetically rearranging each others' faces, trying to knock each other out. Clementine was finally hustled away.  She very much doubted that she would see Amanda again. They would never renew her visa after the way she had caused a few cases of heart failure by talking to the pariah Clementine.

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Three months after this, the weather was still not quite cold enough to trigger an evacuation to indoor quarters and it was Friday. Clementine saw the signal that her weekly whipping was now due and she walked over to the wall, followed by a guard. She raised her arms above her head and leant against the wall, ready for the by now familiar punishment. These days there was no need to secure her. Clementine had come to take all this in her stride by now and scarcely noticed as the leather bit into her hide. She was conscious of the warm trickle of blood down her back after the punishment had been going on long enough to cut through her skin, but the pain, although as great now as it ever had been, made no difference to her. Pain was her life now. Two of the strongest guards, stripped to the waist, came over and took turns to whip her. They worked hard and skilfully, each giving her five lashes at a time and  pausing between strokes, as Rashumba had taught them,  to give the prisoner the maximum amount of agony.

Clementine was as brave as ever. For three months now,  new whips had been issued for use solely on her. They were much longer and heavier that the one normally used and designed to cut into the flesh, rather than merely to hurt. When she had seen them coming to use them on her for the first time, Clementine's heart had skipped a beat. She knew that a new and more painful phase of her long captivity was beginning. They were not the fearsome things she had been shown at her trial, but she guessed that in time she would graduate to being punished with those monstrous snakes.

Even Clementine's toughened skin had not been proof against the new whips at first and even after a total twelve hundred lashes  had seared her body in the last three months. they still made her bleed after the seventieth lash. The very first time they had used them, the note of that very first hissing, whistling whoosh through the air warned her to expect something extra nasty. When it swooped down onto her skin and curled cruelly around her body it was like white hot metal burning her and she had let out a gasp of agony.

 But she was used to this new instrument of torture now and took the hundred without even a grunt of pain and even managed to smile throughout the ordeal. She was about to turn around to go back, but another guard came over and ordered that she be secured and left where she was, being ordered to keep facing the wall. So she waited in the cold and wondered what was in store. She had done no wrong for weeks and was completing enough work for two, to say nothing of organising a fine team of female fighters of which she was the best by far. Why was she being left here like this when she so badly wanted to be embraced by Alexia and comforted after her painful whipping.?

She heard footsteps, two sets. It was Rashumba and another.

"Hello you smelly piece of shit! That arrogant white back still waiting for its weekly taste of leather? She gets one hundred lashes every Friday as punishment for her second escape attempt last year. Stupid bitch only got a few yards and it's cost her more than four thousand lashes and many thousands more to come. Stupid cow!" she said to her companion, whoever that might be.

"I've just had my hundred - can't you see, you fucking cow? I expect you were watching, and getting off on it, you sick bitch! But give me some more if you want - as many as you like. Anything to please you. Feeling better after the hiding I gave you? I suppose you went off to Paris to recuperate? Time to be getting off to somewhere warmer, isn't it? Poor frail, delicate thing - you can't take the cold like I can!"

The naked Rashumba shivered. Clementine was right and she intended to be off to Spain in a few days. She cracked the whip a few times to let Clemmy know that her hundred was to be followed by more - many more.

"Oh!  But you're about to be very sorry you said that! By the time you skulk away and drag that foul smelling carcass back to your stinking friends in that stinking cage, you'll be a very, very sad stinking Clemmy, Won't she, darling."

"If you say so, my darling"

Rashumba was right about Clemmy being in for a bad time! That voice was as familiar as it had been four and a half years ago when she had last heard it. She disobediently twisted her head round, saw Rashumba with her arm around those beloved slender shoulders and cried in a voice full of the anguish of the damned.

"Viola!!  NO!, NO!, NO!"    

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TO BE CONTINUED