Beloved bonds

7 Nude Courage

For eighteen troopers it was a triumphal march.

For two naked girls it was a Via Dolorosa. Two badly wounded prisoners had been taken away in the truck. George and one other, bandaged and bound, trudged beside the delinquent girls, upon whose wrists well-clamped handcuffs replaced rebel rope. For Trudy and Nikola there was, as yet, no mercy and no belief in any of their protestations.

“Yo’ big damfool, George,” Nikola hissed as they marched in disgrace. “Look what yo’ gets us into! I never marry yo’ now.” Disconsolately, she added. “I never gets to marry nobody. Maybe I gets shot for runnin’ off.”

“The worst yo’ gets is a flogging, love, It’s me who gets shot.” George sounded aggrieved.

“My back will be all scarred—and it’s all your fault! ’Sides, what gal wants to get herself a floggin’?”

“Silence in the ranks!”

It was Ringbolt’s stentorian bellow. He was enjoying one of the happiest days of his life. He was certain of commendation and reward, both for the magnificent performance of his troop under fire, and for his own perspicacity in guessing where the fleeing George was headed.

Trudy marched in mute misery. The too-tight handcuffs behind her back were a foretaste of what lay ahead. If only she had screamed at that one crucial moment! But she had kept quiet. She supposed the best she could expect was to be flogged shamefully in some public place. Most certainly in front of her fellow troopers! She envisioned the scene all too graphically: Herself naked and tied in some awful exposure, unable to move, waiting for the fatal command for the lashes to commence. What constituted a ‘flogging’! Twenty strokes or fifty—or more! And what kind of whip! A cat-o-nine-tails? A sjambok? Her back would be lacerated and they would rub salt in the wounds . . . ! She gave full rein to all she had ever read about such horrors.

And what afterwards! She had no hope of being expelled from Zindawba. The new republic would want its revenge. Most likely a term in prison. She shrank from such a sentence as cringingly as she did from the whipping of her back. A stone room and bars and chains . . . !

“I’se sorry—I sorry real bad—” George’s grief for them was real, as was his guilt.

“Send that man to the rear.” The W.O. knew how to deal with mutinous mutterings. “Take the other with him. The girls march alone.”

They were not alone. Around them was the troop. The girls would shed tears for their comrades fallen from grace, but would do nothing to help them. Justice would run its course. A court-martial lay ahead. At that moment in the President’s Guard ‘escape’ was a naughty word. Trudy marched to her doom beside her fellow prisoner in a maze of misery.

“I have to make an example of you girls.” Rulua was terse.

“Yes, of course.” To Trudy, at that moment, anything unpleasant seemed logical.

“The posts for the day so you’ll be in full view. No clothes. You don’t get your uniforms back until you’re acquitted or have served your sentence.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve adopted a proper attitude. The sergeant will bind you. Don’t try and play on her sympathy.”

Trudy hated posts, but she obediently backed against hers. She saw Nikola back against another. Poor kid, she was bereft.

“I’m going to tie you tight, love. No hard feelings?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“You’ve got guts, Trudy. Not a single hysteric.”

“What’s the use, Galla! I haven’t a hope, have I!”

“There’s always hope, love. This here won’t be fun. But it’s not your court-martial!”

It was not fun! Trudy’s ankles were tied to the post, her knees, her waist, a rope came up through the lips of her vulva from behind and was cinched tight to her waist, rope below her breasts and above so they were framed and protruded by the stress, then her shoulders . . . Her wrists were handcuffed behind the post, then her elbows were circled and tugged back. “I can’t move an inch,” she said bitterly. “Is that what you want?”

“Not me, love, it’s regulations.”

“Is it regulations to cinch that rope into my pussy?”

“ ’Fraid so. It’s to shame you in front of the rest. They’ll all come and visit. They have to. It’s an order.”

“I hurt terribly. I guess I’m supposed to—?”

“That’s right, love. See you at nightfall.”

It was a long, long day! Both bound maidens wept. Sometimes a visiting trooper dried their tears.

When it came time for Trudy’s release the ropes were peeled from her skin in an agony of parting. Her lower labia lapped together gratefully when the cutting strand was withdrawn, but the burn of it would remain for hours. It was strange to be able to move, strange to draw a deep breath without the scalding ropes around her breasts. She leaned against her post in thankfulness that one day of punishment was past. She looked down. wryly, at the weals. The ropes were gone but the scarlet indentations in her skin were still vivid as though she was still bound by invisible restraints. To walk was a heady but unstable adventure.

The coffee and the shower were a surprise. Trudy had not known what to expect. Troops on the move do not carry dungeons. She was sure she would have been chained in one had it existed. The hot drink and lukewarm water revived her spirits. When she was handcuffed and taken to her tent and her own cot, and her ankle firmly padlocked to it she was in a whirl of hope.

“You have been a foolish girl,” Galla told her as she rearranged the covers over the fettered foot. “You think about it.”

Trudy did not think about anything. She went to sleep.

There was no great ceremony. Two meek and handcuffed girls stood nude before their peers. Nikola gently wept. Trudy wondered if a girl became unconscious when she was flogged.

“You could have screamed.” said Sergeant Galla.

“You allowed this young buck to walk off with you like a pair of sheep. One shout would have awakened the whole tent.” Captain Rulua surveyed them crossly.

“A hot crotch, that was her trouble.” W.O. Ringbolt glowered at a tearful Nikola. “Needs it thrashed.”

“The poor dear was in love with him and scared of getting him into trouble. I was just trying—”

“Silence!”

Ringbolt’s command shattered Trudy’s protest into fragments. She subsided into silence, fingering her handcuffs nervously, awaiting sentence, wondering if a girl’s back ever completely healed afterwards.

“We do understand the motives were not disloyal,” said Galla.

“It is a demonstration of the demoralising effect of so-called ‘boyfriends’ on members of the President’s Guard,” said Rulua.

“Need their arses kicked,” said the W.O. leaving it uncertain whose posteriors he referred to. “For desertion the penalty is mandatory, a flogging.” The Captain’s voice was hushed with regret. Trudy’s heart missed a beat. This was it!

“You both been good girls otherwise,” Galla mourned.

“Fine pair of troopers!” Ringbolt pointed at Trudy. “Especially her: a cunt in a million.”

“The Court is disposed to leniency,” the Captain interposed hastily. “Your story has been corroborated by the prisoners. The young man named George has accepted responsibility—”

“Yo’ don’t do nothin’ bad to George—?”

“Silence!”

“No dear, Your George will receive the same corrective education as any other prisoner of war in our enlightened Republic.”

“I sooner be flogged so he don’t take no blame—”

“Silence!!!” Ringbolt was in excellent voice. “Neither of you will be flogged, dear.”

The relief was a sensation beyond words. Trudy glowed. Nikola stopped weeping, and dried her cheeks, sheepishly, with handcuffed hands. The Court beamed.

“But your stupidity in allowing this whole affair to happen cannot be overlooked. The results of your meekly following that absurd young man from the tent were bad enough, but they could have been much worse. You will be punished.”

Trudy did not care. Just so long as she was not to be flogged!

“You, Nikola, will be corrected in the manner wisely suggested by our Warrant Officer. He will administer a sound whipping to that area between your legs which is the source of your libido.”

“Thank yo, ma’am” Nikola managed to sound grateful.

“And you, young woman, will receive twelve of Mr. Ringbolt’s best on your bare bottom. It is the lightest penalty I can invoke.”

“Oh, thank you. Captain!”

“I’ll make ’em sting,” promised the W.O. cordially.

“Thank you, sir, I’m grateful.” Trudy’s heart was singing.

“Well, that looks after that,” said Galla. “You girls trot along with Mr. Ringbolt and get attended to. I’ll expect you back in an hour.”

“The Court is adjourned,” intoned Captain Rulua impressively.

The handcuffed girls walked meekly to their pain.

“Here, have a tot of rum,” said W.O. Ringbolt hospitably. “And don’t think I’m going to ask you to stand still for it—the punishment. I mean, not the rum. I’ll tie you so you won’t embarrass yourselves.”

“Thank you, sir.” They sipped obediently. “Your hands and forearms against the tent pole, love.” The cane patted Trudy’s bottom gently. “Ah, that’s champion!”

The handcuffs did not have to be removed. In front of her face Trudy watched her wrists and forearms bound to the upright. As the ropes bit they told her how effective they would be. She would have to stand, there was nothing else she could do, while her bottom was thrashed with the officer’s cane. Fear returned. It was going to hurt.

“And you, m’dear, up on the cot.”

Nikola had become stoic. She lay on her back and brought her legs up and back. The W.O. looped her ankles and pulled to each side until she rested on her shoulders, her bottom reared and her thighs spread to expose the well-thatched labia presumed to be the source of her delinquency. In this obscene posture she was privileged to have a close-up view of her own punishment.

The W.O. tossed a coin. “Tails!” He nodded at Nikola. “That’s you.” He produced a short whip of many delicate thongs. “This will warm you up nicely, love.”

To watch was awful. It was also fascinating. The young loins took the striations of the whip with shuddering jerks at implacable bonds, the pale dusky skin scoring and welting across the puffed vulva, the flat belly, the creases of the groins, and the tender junction of thighs. Trudy watched, wincingly, in the knowledge her own skin would soon be similarly responding. She was wedded to the post by cords. She could not move away. Her nakedness waited in enforced patience.

“That’s right, m’dear, scream all you want,” Ringbolt magnanimously conceded. “I could gag you if you want. But, actually, we’d prefer you to make a noise so the other little fillies can hear. We want ’em to understand it doesn’t pay to be silly.” He took a deep breath. “Now, let’s see if I can’t get in the crease a bit harder.”

Nikola screamed lustily, her Venus mound aflame. Trudy cringed with every blow, longing for it to end. She could picture the girls outside, exchanging nervous glances, shrugging diffidently, wondering . . . ! Nikola’s vocals would be a stern deterrent to any maiden nonsense in any maiden mind.

“I think we’ll call that enough.” Ringbolt made it sound as though he had bestowed great riches. “Twenty’s a good number. A girl remembers twenty, and you’re a nice colour down there. Never seen a cunt swell any better or take the marks.” He turned his attention to Trudy. “Ready for yours, love?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s the spirit. I’ll use a cane, of course, and I’ll make it whistle.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How’s this for a start?” Trudy thrust her forehead hard against her bound arms as though seeking refuge. The blow drove it harder still, a fierce blow enveloping all of her in pain, a sickening frightful pain against which a girl had no defense.

“You can scream, y’know. It’s supposed to help.”

“Thank you, sir. But I want to try not to.”

“Understand perfectly! You’re a good girl. Guts!”

Trudy did not scream. She hoped the sounds she did make would not penetrate the canvas. They came to her own ears shamefully: whinings, moans and gasps . . . ! And sounds that had no name, the small animal cries of a naked girl in agony, a feminine admission not for other ears. She thrust her nudity against the post, holding it tight with cuffed hands, absorbing blow after blow, fearing they would never end.

“Seven, eight, nine . . . !” There were still more to come. And she had to stand! Meekly stand. The ropes mocked before her eyes, the handcuffs glinted. There was no escape.

“Ten, eleven, A-N-D. T-W-E-L-V-E—!”

It was a shocking stripe, a slash of pure horror slicing into her innocent loins with a punitive intent she should not forget. But it was the last! Flooding with thankfulness, Trudy hugged her stanchion of wood while the waves of pain swept back and forth, reducing her to a tied package of quivering flesh.

“Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, m’gel. You took ’em well. You’re good stuff.”

It was good to just stand and pant, knowing the cane had finished with her. Being bound did not matter. She was not going anywhere! But, in a final awareness, Trudy turned her head and was appalled. Warrant Officer Ringbolt was copulating with the girl tied, most conveniently, on his cot. Nikola was beginning to gasp in the oncoming throes of orgasm.

The girl tied to the post quenched panic. The W.O. was exercising a perquisite of his office. He was as entitled to it now as well as any other time. Their girls’ bodies were his on demand. They had been since the inception of the troop. It was useless to travail or feel injustice. Galla and Rulua probably knew perfectly well what was taking place. This was Zindawba!

“A girl’s always better with a sore arse.”

“So I’ve heard,” Trudy agreed politely.

Nikola had choked her way to a screaming climax and now lay panting, but still tied, oblivious to all save her own sensations. Warrant Officer Ringbolt had withdrawn from her doubly punished sheath and thoughtfully wiped his penis. “It won’t be ready for a minute,” he apologised. “It’s something a man can’t hurry.”

“I understand, sir. I don’t mind.” Trudy did not mind! She was wracking her brains to think of some expedient by which she might evade the imminent piercing. But there was nothing! Previous attempts to escape this female obligation had ended in disaster. If she made too much fuss the rest of them would regard her as stupidly prudish. “Perhaps you would like to untie me, sir?” she ventured timidly.

“Eh? Oh yes—see what you mean! Not a good position, eh!” The W.O. was pleased by her thoughtfulness. “It’s hard to beat a girl on her back with a pillow or two under her arse,” he said conversationally as he untied her arms. “May as well leave these on.” He flicked her handcuffs. “They look good on you.”

There came an awkward pause. Two pairs of interested eyes examined the military phallus. It failed to rise to the occasion.

“Age tells on a man,” said the W.O. bitterly. “There was a time . . . !”

“I’m sure there was, sir. Please don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying, but I’m not pleased. The damn thing needs a bit of inspiration.” Its owner looked around vaguely for an aphrodisiac. “Would you mind standing with your legs apart while I whip your cunt a couple of times? That always does the trick.”

“Could I not do something manually, sir?”

“No you can’t! Spread your legs. It’s not much to ask.”

“Of course not, sir! I’m sorry.”

Trudy sighed. She was becoming accustomed to these sexual absurdities. What did two more strokes with a whip matter! Best not to make a fuss. She obligingly separated her feet and clasped her handcuffed wrists at the back of her neck.

“By Jove, that’s perfect! You’re really a smashing girl!”

It was miraculous! But Trudy had to believe her eyes. Ringbolt’s penis was on the way up, its lethargy lost in admiration of the shaming posture she had assumed. It was definitely approaching rigidity. Its owner was less astounded, no doubt accustomed to its whims and stimuli. He had picked up the small whip and was fingering its supple lashes. He struck her from behind, a slashing upward cut squarely upon her sex, then another so that she squealed in surprise at a new and fresh agony.

“As fine an erection as I’ve ever seen,” said the W.O. proudly.

Trudy lay on her back upon the floor and spread her legs. Obligingly she raised her hips for the cushion . . .

It was hinted it would be a big day. Something momentous and Zindawban in which they were to play a stellar role. There had been frequent drills. They were now camped a bare five miles from Tulabe so that in the morning they could march there and through the town streets without fatigue. The troop was pleasantly excited. Trudy was done with handcuffs and with chains. Her uniform had been returned and she was a trooper in good standing, once more trusted. She was never naked unless she wished to be, the cane marks on her bottom had begun to fade. She could think of escape only with distaste. It held no allure. She was a trooper and proud to be a guard as were all the rest. The future could look after itself. For now she was simply thankful not to be bound and not to be whipped. In the natural course of rotation she would not be impaled upon W.O. Ringbolt for quite a long time. She approached the march to Tulabe with pleasant curiosity.

There was a rousing thrill in the sound of their marching feet and the crisp commands of the W.O. as he shepherded his flock through the town. The populace was out in force, joined by country visitors. Their appreciation of the Guard uniform and its contents was vociferous and prolonged. It was a triumphal march indeed, but no one knew what the triumph was about. Reaching the Town Square they found the President’s Brass Band already assembled and producing a creditable rendition of Colonel Bogey. Trudy felt the vagus nerve tighten in her tummy.

There was a platform draped in gay bunting in the colours of the new Republic. On it a podium and chairs. The band took up position on one side, the Guard formed a double line on the other, facing the scene of whatever there was to come. It was a front-row seat. From time to time the W.O. had them do a smart about turn so that the male citizens could fully appreciate their breasts as well as their backs. Each turn was greeted by applause. A back is not alone: it has a bottom!

She should have guessed! When President Khalief Abhad appeared the crowd responded with frenzied cheers, and the band managed to reach a reasonable accord with the national anthem, the words to which no one seemed quite certain of. An omission thoughtfully foreseen by the girls’ choir from the local college who lustily paid vocal tribute to their new land and stuck out their breasts for the President to admire. Khalief returned the tribute with a fine baritone of his own. Zindawbans glowed with pride and sweated profusely.

The speeches were dull, mostly in the dialect Trudy did not understand. It was not until the President stood at the podium that the hush of expectancy truly fell. Whilst Khalief rambled through the inanities all Presidents must say, Trudy fell into a reverie remembering their last meeting. It seemed a long time ago. His formal attire today was in sharp contrast . . . Like a receiver with a loose wire she picked up intermittent words:

“This great land of ours . . . Foreign domination ended forever . . . stronger than our enemies . . . A new consciousness and a new voice . . . Today a dawn . . . a testimony . . . a courageous personality . . . A unique visitation of sincerity . . .”

From the lengthy preamble Trudy gathered they were about to hear someone speak about something that mattered. When the President stood aside and extended his hand, and the band blared forth in exaltation, she caught her breath in a gasp of pure incredulity. The woman Abhad led forward was Caroline Dowling.

The amplifiers were well tuned. Caroline’s contralto reached every attentive ear with clarity. It struck Trudy like a blow. This beauty with whom she had so long shared a cage was denying the divinity of the white and extolling the spirituality of the black. Attired exquisitely in formal white, she scornfully condemned the class from which she came. She was filled with gratitude to Khalief Abhad for rescuing her from a parasitic society now doomed. Those who listened now must look to Khalief Abhad for sustenance and leadership. “Follow where this great man leads.” There were dramatic pauses. Now and then Caroline raised a white kid-clad arm to emphasise a point. Her words crisply disposed of the Caucasian and heralded the rich new world of those with darker skins. In conclusion, and in the same ringing peal of sincerity, she told of her determination now to take upon herself the expiation of the sins of all her decadent race. She had asked the President of Zindawba to allow her to be publicly whipped.

It was the most portentous silence Trudy had ever known. She watched, spellbound, as the podium and the chairs disappeared, the bunting was withdrawn from a hitherto indeterminate structure to reveal it as a timber gallows with starkly outstretched arm. With superb showmanship Caroline advanced to face the multitude, her arms outstretched as though in love or the acceptance of a world of sin. Dramatically, she reached for the fastening of her gown and cast it far aside. Beneath it she had been naked. She stood naked now, glorious and unashamed. She had retained her nylons, shoes and gloves. They added a shockingly erotic emphasis to her bare body.

It was Tulabe’s day! The citizens were both hysterical and awed, scarcely believing their good fortune. The President was undoubtedly the greatest man on earth if he could provide entertainment like this! The cheering was frenetic.

On the platform the players and the props moved with rehearsed precision. The scaffold was heaved into place. A hooded man in black tights, bound Caroline’s eagerly proffered wrists, positioned her beneath the end of the scaffold’s arm, and drew them high so that she must stand on her toes with hands and arms tautly tractioned above, naked for the excoriations of the whip which would cleanse Zindawba of the sins of white iniquity. The President bowed and retired. The stage was starkly held by the man in black and the white girl he was about to whip.

Trudy wanted to close her eyes, or to break ranks and fly to the rescue of a girl she loved. She did neither. A girl cannot fight a nation nor close her eyes to the most dramatic and awful scene of her existence. Her own whippings and canings paled into insignificance beside this vivid sacrifice. She watched, breathless, as Caroline allowed her quiet serenity to sweep across the multitude from side to side. And then, looking back over one shoulder to nod.

The black arm swung, a band of scarlet sprang into vivid life around the narrow waist. Caroline smiled and twisted sensuously. Once more, this time traversing the lovely shoulders with a furrow of red. The writhings of the bound beauty were sinuously sweet, her smile serene. As the blows and the weals mounted, Trudy felt certain the white sacrifice must be drugged. Or some injection . . . ! She had read . . . ! A hard shrewd blow revolved the white hips to bring Caroline’s gaze directly into focus with that of the agonised trooper. She smiled with love and recognition, tense in greeting . . .

It was then the shots came from the rooftops and the two trucks roared into the Square. Nicholas Nykobe had staged his raid for maximum effect.

Pandemonium, hysteria and panic! The crowd surging from the focal point of the attack gave Warrant Officer Ringbolt his chance for glory. His commands were crisp and clear, they too had been rehearsed! In cunningly disposed formations his troop of girls opened fire. Each one of them now thankful for the caned bottoms by which he had persuaded them to become marksmen. Their rifles snapped and cracked smartly. Bodies fell from roofs, a truck careened into a wall, its occupants leaping, then falling as the rifles snapped. The other truck wavered and turned, then blazed afire, its armed cargo dying singly as they fled before the bullets of a troop of girls. The President’s Guard, standing now and forming a square, sighted carefully as they had been taught, pulled their triggers and snapped their bolts in rapid fire.

Suddenly the gunfire stopped. There were no more targets. The W.O.’s “Cease fire” was a declaration of the cessation of hostilities. Once more the multitude, or what was left of it, became only curious. The local police came out of hiding and took custody of such raiders as had survived the troop’s prowess. The President of Zindawba reappeared on the stage, his arms raised in benediction, the sun of his benevolence shining directly upon the girls of his Guard, their rifles hot and at the ready in his service. It was almost a minute before it was noticed he stood alone.

The rope by which Caroline had been suspended had been cleanly cut by a knife.

Of Caroline herself there was no trace.