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A word of introduction
The Silver Island Resort Project
Silver Island Resort is a two-part illustrated project of 1987 that died mid-way. It was to be a joint venture between Ajax (1938-2003) a good English writer, and Raf (1948-20??) who most of you never heard about. Ajax wrote about buxom, athletic women who engaged by desire or circumstances in wrestling, boxing, catfighting or armed combat; he started writing as a school boy, renting (!) the stories to his class mates, and progressed in technology to carbon copies, photocopies, and laser prints. He sent out his List of Rugged and Fighting Girls Stories, and made complex accounting to sell the stories by snail mail < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail > at the least possible price to cover postage and packing, and in exact proportion to the number of words in each story. His stories varied in length from 2000 to 25 000+ words. He kept a ledger book where he listed the story number, date of creation, title and author, as he also published people who sent him stuff, such as Cage and Raf, whom he would deem worth to be published. The ledger book had already 23 stories and titles for SIR, but the book project was bigger, and it remains unfinished – for ever.
Both authors had become friends and corresponded often, and had agreed to write separate stories, each introducing a prospective woman fighter and a man (eventually a woman) who (known to the girl, or not) was part of a hush-hush international club who owned Silver Island Resort (SIR for short), a private island in the Kiribati archipelago. After one story was concluded, it was sent to the other writer, who would have to create a woman from a different nationality and background, and create another story. We had agreed to 20 stories of this kind, and then – at a given date – all characters would be transported to SIR and a gala of various matches would follow. Eventually we had a group of catfighters, wrestlers, boxers and kick-boxers, karate fighters of different stiles, whip and sword fighters, emerging from contrasting cultures and clashing in a do-or-die final. Not to mention the staff side of SIR, and the rich ladies and gentlemen patrons who may not be as gentle as they assume to be...
The writing progressed fast and well from 1987 to 1989, and then it dragged on to a stop in 1991.
On October 1997, Ajax sent out his list failing to mark three stories of SIR as NYA (not yet available), and he had to explain to a customer, «Sorry about 906-908 getting listed as available. I don’t know how that happened as they are three stories from the major work Silver Island Resort, which has not been published. I had hoped to get the first twenty stories out as Volume I, but cannot get my co-author to agree to publishing just the first volume when the second is as yet hardly started. It is rather a pity as the first twenty stories have been finished for about seven years (...) but we are only three stories (also to be about twenty) into the second volume.»
I agree that I was sticking to the book project as a whole, and he was sticking too much about the illustrations. The artists were either not up to the task, or too expensive to what we were prepared to pay, given the size of the project. The last stories written between 1991 and 1993 were more spaced, and Ajax was more involved with other projects – Ajax's Fictionalized History of Female Combat, known as The History for brevity, in 8 volumes, each between 60 and 80+ pages long; Women of the Sword in 7 volumes; and The League of Pain, a series of 44 stories about endurance rather than fighting; health problems of family members, and then his own, and my own problems created empty time spaces in which we started losing the tract exactly when it was more needed – the interplay between our huge cast of characters.
On 14th December 1991, Ajax last saved his SIR Index file after a meeting with me in September. This was the project in our minds:
Part 1 - OIL AND VINEGAR IN THE MELTING POT
(An introduction by Ajax, which we had not discussed before.)
SIR01 - The Portuguese Mistress, by Raf
SIR02 - The Swedish Karateka, by Ajax
SIR03 - The Russian Spy, by Raf
SIR04 - The Arabian Concubine, by Ajax
SIR05 - The Thai Masseuse, by Raf
SIR06 - The Parisian Urchin, by Ajax
SIR07 - The Japanese Room Service Girl, by Raf
SIR08 - The Mexican Gladiatrix, by Ajax
SIR09 - The New York Anti-Drugs Squad Bait, by Raf
SIR10 - The Polynesian Initiate, by Ajax
SIR11 - The Pennsylvania Club Fighter, by Raf
SIR12 - The Quilon Convict, by Ajax
SIR13 - The Filipino Bar Girl, by Raf
SIR14 - The Texan Domina, by Ajax
SIR15 - The Hong Kong Dragon Lady, by Raf
SIR16 - The Mancunian Prizefighter, by Ajax
SIR17 - The Kiribati Letter, by Raf
SIR18 - The West Irian Cannibal, by Ajax
SIR19 - Journey to SIR, by Raf
SIR20 - Melting Pot Under 45º C, by Raf
Part 2 - SILVER ISLAND RESORT ANNUAL GALA
21 - Silver Island Sea-side Aside, by Ajax
22 - Fencing, by Ajax
23 - Boxing with 6oz gloves, by Ajax
24 - Indian Wrestling, by Raf
25 - Karate-Do, by Raf
26 - Boxing with studded gloves, by Ajax
27 - Wrestling, by Raf
28 - Kick-Fighting, by Ajax
29 - Bare-Knuckle Boxing, by Raf
30 - All-In Wrestling, by Ajax
31 - 2nd Round, 1st Combat, by Raf
32 - 2nd Round, 2nd Combat, by Ajax
33 - 2nd Round, 3rd Combat, by Raf
34 - 2nd Round, 4th Combat, by Ajax
35 - Semi-finals, 1st Combat, by Raf
36 - Semi-finals, 2nd Combat, by Ajax
37 - Final, or Ephedros, 1st Combat, by Raf
38 - Ephedros, 2nd Combat, by Ajax
39 - A gut wrenching good-bye, by Raf
40 - Combat after effects and after-thoughts, by Ajax
I tried in vain to bring him back to work and that we should reduce the length and number of stories in Part Two, but it was to no avail.
A recent exchange of messages with members of this forum convinced me to publish here some of Ajax's stories, and my choice fell on those he created for the never-to-be-published book. The Free Catfights Forum was not so much chosen, but also as a tribute for its administrators who keep it alive when so many others are gone. The forum has so many sections that I hesitated where to put the stories, but in the end, they all fit as No Holds Barred, taking the expression in a large sense. I intend to publish them according to their number order, with my stories as well, in subsequent posts under this banner.
The stories are of different degrees of violence and eroticism, and blood is expected to run from small scratches and deadly wounds. Both authors were writing about adults, for adults in Ajax Collection's list, in a time when the «politically correct» had not attained the current worrying degree. All characters are a creation of the authors but some SIR members may have been inspired by public personalities. No political or moral comment was intended by the authors, though they inspired by the historical events of the period in which they were writing.
So many things changed since then... Even Kiribati changed the country's date line for convenience over the current millennium, and its islands are submerging as the Global Heat is hitting us all. One of "their" islands, SIR, is somewhat re-emerging from the deep for you to read, and eventually, to enjoy.
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 01
THE PORTUGUESE MISTRESS
by Raf
To Willelm Nikvist, a stunning platinum blond in his early thirties, this was the first contact with Portuguese nature, and it was a superb experience. After finishing his task for his Danish company, which had decided to invest some krone into the new European country in spite of its dreadful bureaucracy, he felt more sure of himself, and, unable to punch the noses of a few dumb officials during the week, he now felt good jabbing against the soft breeze coming from the Atlantic while he jogged up the steep road.
The Mediterranean sun - he could not believe that it was the same sun which shone timidly and pale in Denmark's sky - was hot as hell, even at 7.30 a.m. He was sweating it out already, but he preferred this to unending talks with people who had a surprisingly low command of the English and an even lower practical and business sense.
He had got out of bed in the early morning, showered quickly in hot water (without having to turn on the water heater), put on his slip, jogging outfit and shoes, with a small cap to cover his head and gone down the steps of his small and comfortable hotel near Guincho Beach into the road leading to Sintra, already running. At first he had felt a bit chilled by the maritime breeze and the resting of the night mists over the ground and the dense vegetation. But after his first hour on the road he was already rubbing his chest with the cotton coat and tying it around his waist.
He was passing a bus stop, in the middle of nowhere, just nice for the birds to rest on for a while - the goldfinches which seemed determined to be his only companions on the road. These, and the bees, all busy with so many flowers around, the least of which were the marigolds in thick bunches bordering the road.
Some hundred metres earlier he had passed a small factory, as silent as the quiet, peaceful scenery around it, of trees, and a superb view to the west over the deep and rocky valley to the calm sea below. They were not yet using the low-noise machinery of the European Standards. They were simply not at work, for - after the 25th April Revolution - Saturday was as sacred as Sunday had been since the Pope said so. Up here, without the workers of that factory, and an occasional picnicker who came by car from Lisbon, some eighty kilometres to the east (it was too early for any of them), he was alone with nature.
Willelm stopped just before another bend of the road. He faced the sea until its shining blue and the strong sunlight made him close his eyes, and he started to doing breathing and arm exercises. Up here, three hundred metres above it, he could barely hear the sound of the waves crashing grandly against the rocks on the beach. He tried again to listen to the goldfinches, but they were gone. No sound at all. Then suddenly, the breaking of branches inside the wood, as if a boar was passing unceremoniously through it! Nonsense. There were no wild beasts in Portugal except for a few well-kept specimens of mountain goats and harts above the 1000 metre level in natural parks.
He turned round, crossed the road and peered, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He restarted his running and as he rounded the bend he saw a red mini car, and distinctly heard a cry from inside the bushes to his right. He slowed, stopped again, and retraced his steps. Perhaps another man was exercising like he was and had fallen from a treacherous footpath on the hill. If he had broken an ankle he could lie there and be rotten before anyone noticed him. He decide to find the guy and help him out. Around the improvised parking space for the mini there was no space for a picnic, nor a footpath - but he heard a piercing, high-pitched cry and a noise like a body falling to the ground.
Following the general direction of these last noises and keeping the lower branches of the pines and other shrubs out of his eyes, he penetrated the underbrush. He was now hearing an indistinct but continuous noise he was unable to figure out; he pushed aside a large red hibiscus, and then saw - but he did not believe his eyes.
Squirming on the ground, crushing each other in a deadly double bear-hug, two big she-cats were rolling over the pebbled earth, over tufts of grass and various shrubs, mainly ferns and nettles which prospered in that sombre and humid valley, darkened by the large, thick, very old trees. The two wild animals must have entangled themselves on the small plain area where he stood now, and rolled down the slope into the depths of the valley.
Apart from TV documentaries on wild life, he had never seen such ferocity between living things; much less between people, and those she-cats were obviously mature women in their early forties, with long manes of brown hair disheveled by their being pulled as a means of preventing a retreat from the foe, or inflicting pain on that (theoretically secondary) sexual attribute of the female of the species.
At his feet Willelm saw a red high-heeled shoe, and open leather handbag (also red) from which several feminine objects poured out over the ground, a pair of scissors with such large blades that they should have belonged to some tailor, and further to his left a ripped coat of cheap blue denim.
When he looked down the slope again (too steep and difficult for him to step down into the dove's nest) the heavier woman was squatting over her supine rival and pinning her shoulders down on the ground which was covered with small but sharp pieces of granite. He peeped at her face, round and sensual lips, with blood trickling from them in a dark red line, a blue bruise covering the lower half of her cheek; she was the Cinderella in only one red shoe. She had torn black nylons which had once been of a large net texture over the massive legs she was using to control the body movements of her foe. The legs ended in a rounded and most provocative pair of buttocks encased in an outrageously mini miniskirt of leather or the new rubber imitating leather. Her heaving breasts were putting their weight behind her dark nipples in a fight of their own against the thin yellow T-shirt, made of cotton too thin to stand up to that fight for long, especially since the nipples were becoming erect against the sweated cotton and the T-shirt had no help from the bra she had neglected to wear.
The underdog of the main fight - or should Willelm think of her in a more appropriate manner as the underbitch? - propelled the woman in red over her head, and she head-butted the rough surface of the nearest pine trunk. She gave another of those high-pitched cries, reduced in volume by the lack of air in her lungs, and embraced the trunk with her arms, hauling herself up it slowly to the upright position again. As the other woman stood up, a few feet away from the bigger one, Willelm saw that she was wearing a white bra, a pair of jeans which had certainly seen better days and a pair of cheap green shoes. Being the one with more skin unprotected against the ferns, sticks and granite pebbles, her arms and upper body were marbled by red dots and bleeding scratches; a particularly bad-looking cut on her right arm, from the shoulder to almost the elbow, gushed her life blood all over her, smearing her bra and chest. She was less appealing to the male eye apart from her lustrous mane of dark brown hair; her lips were thin, her nose a bit too long, and her ribs protruded from a pale skin, the chest almost flat in comparison with the big firm breasts of her opponent; her long legs were too skinny to stress her trousers where it mattered.
Willelm saw her panting and sobbing, and, in the next moment, scratched and battered as she already was, she leapt at her rival to scrape her face, now also dripping blood from the nose. What the skinny old girl lacked in the sex-appeal department she had in guts and determination. She clawed her rival's face for a brief moment, received a two-fisted attack under her breasts, stepped back, and in the ensuing flail of four arms the taller and heavier woman turned round to find herself grabbed from behind by a pair of tenacious pincers! Her rival had passed her skinny arms below her shoulder-blades and was clawing the two sexy mounds with her bony fingers, mauling them as an honest baker would do another yielding mass.
Above the rustlings of the women's feet, and the panting and groaning coming incessantly from their battered bodies, Willelm distinctly heard the big woman speak, although he could not make out her meaning.
"Arrgh! Puta! Se não me largas, mato-te!" [1]
"Puta és tu e só te largo as mamas depois de tas arrancar..." [2] retorted the smaller woman with a savage grimace.
Nikvist was not able to understand the words, but he could read the faces well enough (he was a good negotiator because of that) and it was plain to him that these two were on a path of mutual destruciton. From the few broken words of Spanish and Italian that he knew he assumed that there was a mutual accusation of selling their bodies for a price, and a discussion about the future of the heavier woman's boobs.
He thought of going down to interrupt them, but it was a difficult jump down there, and on the other hand, in his primeval man's heart, he was enjoying the sight of the disheveled women embraced in their private duel.
Supporting herself on the naked foot, the taller gal kicked back with her high heeled shoe to one of her foe's poorly protected feet, twice. The pain was so piercing that the skinny old girl let go of her double objectives and recoiled. She cursed, but suddenly the big woman had turned round and delivered a mule-kick to her belly, again using the foot with the high-heeled shoe, taking the retreating woman just below the waist. The cursing stopped abruptly and the girl doubled over, dazed, and grabbing her rival's extended ankle by pure reflex action. So dazed was she that for a moment all was black around her.
As she continued to fall forwards, doubled in pain, the short brunette pushed her back, and oblivious of her own luck, made her trip over a low branch and sprawl on her back, her rival between her open legs and bared to the crotch by a mini-skirt retreating almost to her waist.
The woman in red punched her almost unconscious attacker on the right temple, and as she tired to stand up, to the head, though that worthy kept both hands on the trapped foot and tried to dislocate the ankle. The bigger woman shouted her despair and delivered forehand and backhand slaps to the other's face, without considering the scratches she was suffering to her naked arms from the surrounding fern bush.
The bigger woman managed to get her naked foot under the other's body, and with her big, powerful muscles working, she kneed her under the jaw, straightening her torso, then kicked her away. The skinny woman toppled back in a heap and lay there motionless and speechless. The older woman fought against the bushes to stand up from her difficult position with her feet higher than her shoulders where the branch had grounded her, but she finally managed it. Her T-shirt was ragged at the back and she was now as bruised and grazed as her rival.
Contradicting all his first beliefs on the way the two women would fight - slapping and shrieking like girls were supposed to do - he saw with unbelieving eyes the skinny woman stand up, rocking from side to side, her legs wide apart, biting her lips and barely able to stay upright, one hand rubbing her belly, but the other extending its clawed fingers! And three meters away her rival, kneeling, unable to stand on her torn foot, was taking off her other shoe and searching the ground with both hands.
As the girl in jeans came closer to the kneeling woman she placed both hands around her throat and started strangling her. Willelm saw the fine design of her muscles straining under the torn skin of shoulders and arms, and he was afraid for the bigger woman's life. In a moment he was close to the edge of the small plateau and about to jump on the girl before she committed murder, but stood frozen as the big woman landed a powerful right hand punch to the spot where she had hurt her adversary seconds before. It was a rocking blow - she had a rock clasped in her bunched hand!
The wiry strangler screamed, icing the spectator's blood. Her fingers opened, but she did not fall; she was too close to her enemy's body. She tried to fend off another punch with her extended arms, failed once and screamed again, then she was down on her knees, the four arms entangled once more and the piece of granite rolling on the ground.
The loss of this prehistoric weapon, however, did not reduce the savagery of this fight.
They interlocked their fingers in an arm-wrestling contest, strangely fair after the foul moves used in the earlier phase of the duel. And it was the thinner woman who slowly pushed the other's arms to he side and down, pressing her chest against the T-shirted girl, and bending her back in spite of the fierce determination the heavier girl put into her resistance. They stood like this for a minute or so, in a silent struggle again, perhaps in a mutually consented respite from the more brutal attacks of the opening. Only the wiry arms fought now. Bosoms heaved against each other, hearts pumped as fast as they could, and heads rested on opposite shoulders as if in a loving embrace.
As she was bent back a bit more, the woman in red brought her head down between the breasts of her rival and bit one of the nipples through the bra. Instead of complaining about her breaking the rules the bitten girl tried to knee her in the crotch. She failed, lost her grip on the other's wrists, and was thrown aside to the ground.
Again, they were as Nikvist had first seen them, spitting and cursing at each other, rolling around in the small space provided by that valley through which a winter brook would make its course, hitting each other with elbows, knees and hands. Only now they were slower, their breathing heavier, and their skins almost entirely grazed or covered by bruises. He was an accidental observer of this pre-arranged fight to the finish. But could he, a 20th century man, go on watching and thrilling at the sight of two women locked in combat without stopping them? His compassionate heart said no, but his lurid mind and throbbing penis said yes. Democrat that he was, he ordered his heart to suffer the 2 to 1 defeat a while longer.
The two women rolled apart and stood up, the bigger one hopping on one foot and crying out every time her injured one made contact with the ground. She had a handful of her rival's hair in her left hand, and a hank of it falling from her mouth. For once, they acted as if they had had enough of each other.
They staggered in different directions, and Willelm thought to himself that he should stand back and go to the car, so that the women would not be embarrassed to know that he had seen them fighting. He thought they were so tired that they were going to sit down and rest before climbing up the slope - but he was glad that he had stayed peering at them this long, for they were throwing deadly looks at each other, the small girl with a branch in her hand held like a baseball bat, and the bigger one with a sharp-edged, heavy rock held high in her right hand.
The skirted woman spoke defiantly first: "Anda, cabra! Ou tens medo?" [3]
The woman in jeans immediately replied, "Puta reles! Falas muito, mas tu é que te acobardas. Sabes que não es mulher que chegue para mim!" [4]
They advanced towards each other, the shorter woman waving her improvised club, the taller limping and whimpering but prepared to strike with her Cro-Magnon axe. The stick swiveled towards her eyes. She feinted, shouted in pain as she tried to put more weight onto her injured ankle, and stumbled to the opposite side of the dell. The attacking fury closed in, in a rage too big to be contained in her small frame, and poked with the pointed branch to the navel of her unbalanced foe. The other went to fend off the branch with her left hand and smashed down with her rock. Neither her defensive move, nor the smaller woman's twist of the head were able to prevent the effect of the dual thrust. The stick raked the heavy woman across the stomach and ripped off the red-tinged remains of her tattered shirt, while the rock connected with a dull thud to the back of the head of the half-scalped woman in jeans.
This time Willelm cried at them to stop and jumped down. The shorter woman was knocked out, but still standing, her back against a tree, held up by the neck by the powerful and enraged victrix whose injured leg was thrust between the unconscious woman's thighs, assisting her left hand (which was close around the throat) to hold the woman while her right hand prepared to deliver a final blow with the rock, aimed at smashing in the teeth and nose of the defenseless loser.
Her vengeful mood was such that she had not heard the man, nor, at first, did she understand why her arm was not coming forward to crush the vermin who had injured her so. She turned and saw the tall Viking holding her elbow and wrist back. She spat rather than spoke to him:
"Quem és tu? Larga-me!" [5]
"Please. Be quiet. I'll not hurt you. Just let go of that rock now." He motioned to the rock with his eyes. The woman followed them, shrugged her shoulders, and dropped both the rock and the hold on her rival's neck.
First the rock, then the skinny woman, fell to the ground.
"It's alright. You can calm yourself now. Do you speak English?"
She moved her head from left to right. Her eyes were dark brown, big and bright; the right eye was puffed and almost closed, and her face was severely scratched and battered; her nose dripped blood, making her breathe through her mouth; but even so he saw that she was a beautiful woman.
"Parlez-vous Français?" he asked her. [6]
"Oui, un peu. D'ou... vienes tu?" [7] During her pause she eyed him from head to waist and put both hands on his biceps to help herself up on one leg only, contracting the other like a posing flamingo.
"Je suis un touriste. Tu comprends? Pourquoi t'es tu batue avec cette femme?" [8] he went on.
She passed one hand carefully over her nose, wiped a little of the blood from it, then massaged her lower breasts, peering at them after ripping off the rags of her yellow shirt. He looked down at them too. They were also scratched and marbled in blue. Her body was muscular and tanned, much more than the ordinary Portuguese women he had met. In halting French she explained that she and the other woman had decided to fight to the finish to decide who should keep a certain Portuguese man. The skinny woman was his wife, but although he was rich enough and stud enough for two women, the wife was not agreeable to sharing him, and challenged the mistress to a duel. They had agreed beforehand as to time and place, the wife coming on the 7 a.m. bus and the mistress in her red car - earned from the said gentleman. As she opened the door of the car the other jumped her and punched her in the right eye. She went down and lost her shoe and as she came up the other stabbed at her guts with the scissors she had been holding behind her back. The mistress was able to parry the thrust with her handbag, then grabbed the armed wrist and twisted until the other screeched and lost her weapon. They grabbed each other by the hair and kneed each other's thighs and bellies until they came to the edge of the plateau and dived over it together. As soon as they regained their wits they came together again, and most of the rest he had seen for himself.
Since the woman who had come by car had arrived at 7.20 a.m. - he looked at his watch, 8.10 sharp - they had been fighting continuously for fifty minutes, no quarter given, one moved by jealousy doubling her strength and cunning, the other motivated by a luxurious life she was being offered in exchange for her previous whoring, much more tiring, and now that she was forty-three and gaining weight, less rewarding.
He proposed a long holiday for her abroad, at Silver Island Resort, on a 4.5 km2 Pacific island, owned by an exclusive club of distinguished and enormously rich men. He explained to her that each member of the club was a fitness maniac and often promoted hand to hand combats between invited persons, more men than women (as the majority of the members were men). If she agreed to participate in those fights as his champion, he would pay her 100,000 escudos per month [9], plus a fee for each fight and the money from bets if she won. She merely asked if he would pay in escudos or American dollars. He told her he would pay in whatever currency she chose, and her eyes brightened some more, thinking of the black market - and not of the dreadful consequences of her future scraps.
Was he jealous? she wanted to know. Er... no. If the lady wanted to charm any of the gentlemen of the club she was free to do so. Among the fraternity of Borlax Computers International Inc, there were lots of them who would adore to get their hands on her, even for a price, whenever she was not as tender as she was now.
Willelm was sure that Maria de Jesus Figueiredo would give him enough compensation for his money and his trouble in lodging her until the next Gala.
She refused to help him carry the battered wife to the car, but she let him persuade her to take the woman home and to call her husband and inform him that his wife had suffered a bad fall and broken her head and one rib.
After that she brought her few belongings with her and joined him at the hotel. After the first weekend together she was much better, and he was needing a rest. But he had lots of things to teach her, like karate and savate, the usual techniques of the club fights. But there was time for that. The next Gala Entertainment was not to take place until eleven months from now.
Meanwhile, it was up to him and the other club members to find and train such good natural fighters as the one he had found that morning, to surprise and beat the others at the next meeting.
(C) by Raf (Macau 3/1987)
Notes:
[1] Arrgh! Whore! If you don't let go of me I'll kill you!
[2] You're the whore and I won't let go of your boobs till I wrench them off!
[3] C'mon, bitch! Or are you afraid? [Literally - she-goat]
[4] Filthy whore! You speak well, but you're the yellow coward. You know you're not woman enough to take me on!
[5] Who are you? Let me go!
[6] Do you speak French?
[7] Yes, a little. Where are you from? [last two words Spanish]
[8] I am a touriste. Do you understand me? Why did you fight with this woman?
[9] 100,000 Escudos = approx. €424. Above the highest grade of civil service officers, director posts excepted.
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 02
THE SWEDISH KARATEKA
by Ajax
David Solomon, Managing Director of Borlax Inc, and one of the world's richest computer industrialists, watched his yacht sail away from the harbour at Forquelle, then went to find some breakfast. Returning some time later, he walked over to the binocular telescope that was set on the balcony, and saw the yacht Solbor II just disappearing over the horizon.
Having lost sight of the Solbor he swung the scope about idly, looking for something of interest. The 20 x 120mm binocular setting gave him a reasonable, but not a vast field of view, so he knocked it back to 10x, a power of twelve, and swept it over the newly-developed and very exclusive little town of Forquelle, squeezed onto the hillside between the Alpes Maritime and the sea. Solomon liked Forquelle. He liked being there; he liked the lazy atmosphere and quietness of the place. No vulgar holiday resort this, but the resting place of financial giants. Where there had been scrubby grass and maquis ten years ago, there now stood neatly grouped villas, groves of lemon trees, exotic shrubberies, rich lawns, and shady harbours, none yet fully developed, but all on the way, fed by the hundreds of truck loads of rich soil brought from the north, and tended by a horde of gardeners, most of them young, and more than half of them female, and the fresh water piped through the headland from the desalination and purification plant that nestled hideously against low cliffs, and around which were grouped the low-rise apartment blocks that housed Forquelle's army of service personnel.
There were but three concessions to vulgarity in Forquelle; the spiral ramp that rose at the back of the town to connect it with the coast road to Italy one way and Monaco the other; the newly built marina-harbour; and the single Fr10,000 per night hotel of suites that the owners of the town had permitted. That was to the extreme east of the town, sprawling lowly over the virgin rock to which it was anchored, and from which some of it had been hewn. Near the other end of the town was the `business district' where were situated the few classy shops and the fewer classier banks designed to serve the needs of the very rich, and the enormously rich. Down there, too, were the restaurants, patronized frequently and very expensively by the residents. There was a fuelling station on the harbour side which served both boats and the few vehicles that were non-electric, and the rest was villas. The villas were of every sort, but all the best of their kind, spacious, tasteful and often spectacular. Trees began to rise between them, enclosing them gradually with a green wall of privacy that would become more and more highly prized as the years passed.
Yes, Forquelle was greatly to David Solomon's liking.
As his scope swung towards the hotel, the image of a girl suddenly moved fuzzily into his lenses. He checked, turned the focusing knob, and brought her into sharp relief. Smiling, he studied her. The excellence of his scope and the brittle light of the hot Mediterranean morning etched her physical beauty sharply onto his mind. He centred her in the middle of the field, and moved to 20x. At that magnification she filled his view, and the smile broadened as he noted her activity.
She stood at the side of the swimming pool of a villa some distance from his own, one of those that seemed to perch over the sea, carried outwards from the cliff on a braced concrete raft, though the pool was, of course, inboard of this. An out-part of the villa obscured his view leftward, and the girl moved into then out of view as he watched, herself obscured by it. This, he imagined, was why he had failed to spot her earlier. She was a handsome woman, young, and nicely built, hardly voluptuous, but substantial, with long, well muscled legs, and a taut body which moved in perfect response to her requirements. These were indeed, harsh, and sweat flew from her skin as she leapt and gyrated in the supreme athleticism of an advanced karate kata. Legs high-kicked, arms pistoned out slamming again and at empty air, yet tautly controlled the whole time. This girl did not lose her balance, spin-kicks and punches flowing smoothly from her.
As he watched, her long blonde plaits, topped with a white head-band and caught at their ends with a dark-coloured ribbon, swished as she move forward, out of sight behind the obstruction, to emerge a few seconds later and renew the spectacular kata she performed.
Solomon saw her in profile, her left side towards him, and he had early noted (with great satisfaction) that all she wore was the bottom part of a minute bikini, little more than a red tanga V slung from a string. Why she should be so startlingly unclad for her kata he could not guess, though her dress was not unusual amongst the younger female guests who proliferated about Forquelle in late summer. That was partly his reason for enjoying the town so much.
Her face set in the unblinking stare of the karateka, she went through the hundred-move routine again, this time, it seemed to him, a little grimly. How long she had been there he did not know, but even through his scope there was drawn look to her face that suggested the beginnings of exhaustion.
He did not know how long he had stood watching, but he became aware that his legs were beginning to ache, and that sweat was sticking his shirt to his back. He left the binoculars, dragged over an armchair, lowered them, reset them, and focused again on the girl.
She was still spinning and punching and kicking. Too far away to be heard, he could see the expulsion of breath she was making from the movement of her diaphragm. Beneath it, across the top of her stomach the flesh was bruised and reddened, and again below the navel. A trickle of blood had started from a scratch and then dried on her body.
Another flick of the set-wheel brought the scope to 40x magnification, and it was then that he saw that her breasts, taut and fine as they were, were also bruised and reddened. His interest quickened, and he went back to 20x to avoid the necessity to work so hard to keep her in the field of view. Again she disappeared behind the obstruction, and when she re-emerged, there was a fresh scratch near the other on her belly.
It was time, David Solomon decided, that he took a walk.
* * * * * * * * *
Kristl surged into the fortieth hundred-move kata unknowing. Knowing nothing but the drive of the discipline she was subjecting herself to. There was no other thought in her - could not be. Eyes red-rimmed from staring blinklessly, her body moved in the tight rhythms of the art, her muscles discharging controlled violence upon the uncaring air, her face blank of all emotion. Within her was a surging pain, a rising exhaustion, a consuming thirst. She could heed none of them, for there was the kata, the fortieth kata, to be endured.
Her legs cleaved the air just as viciously as they had three-plus hours ago when dawn had been expected, her punches slammed molecules of the oxy-nitro mixture that sustained her, and she ignored her exhaustion, abjured her pain.
Like a metronome she performed, her locked mind measuring seconds as well as any clock, thirty moves, forty, fifty...her chest tightening from oxygen debt as she came to the ninetieth, the effusion of energy draining her faster now that the sun seared her tanned form, and had drawn the moisture from her. Not light-headed yet, but nearing it, there were ten of these to go, another forty-five minutes of terrible work.
The hundredth move done, she stepped forward towards her teacher to accept the punishment that she had taken thirty-nine times. The teacher spun and drove a heel full into the pupil's right breast. Kristl felt the surge of agony, but her expression didn't change. Then another swift reverse spin kick assaulted her other breast. Turning square the teacher laced into her stomach with a volley of four thumping punches that her upper stomach took, and another volley at the area below the navel. The force stopped the girl's breath for an instant, but notwithstanding, she replied to the tougher belly of the trainer as she must, before taking the final punches, another four, to each of her breasts, using the consciousness of a burgeoning agony to stiffen the kicks she returned, thumpingly hollowly against another chest. The teacher, unconcerned, drove two more kicks into the upper then the lower belly, and saw Kristl step back to go into the forty-first kata.
She almost faltered as she went into the long routine again, and was now more aware of pain than she had been before. Again she drove it into its corner at the back of her mind, and the momentarily drawn face resumed its kind of blank serenity. She was aware of her pain without thinking of it, but knew it was not the teacher who had been inaccurate, but the first sign of her endurance failing - or her courage, for she had not held her position as the final four punches had crushed her breasts, and the fists had missed the cushioning bulk of her swelling glands and taken the rib-cage beneath. She had exchanged the hell of breast pain for the grind of extra pain in the kata as each breath was that much more painful to draw.
She hated herself for it. It must have been a conscious decision, but she had not known that she was taking it. It represented weakness, weakness that she was here to expunge, and must not happen again. The kata continued.
Her teacher watched every move closely. Kristl was here to be honed to the killing machine that she was to become, but there must be no relaxation, no dilution of the pure discipline of Katsun-Ruy with other less severe styles. The severity of Katsun must be maintained. The girl's evasion of those last punches might have been instinctive. Her agony of breast was already immense, and it was beginning to affect her concentration. The kicks that had thudded hollowly against the other chest should not have done. She had been a inch low, but whether through pain or exhaustion it was hard to tell. The girl had been under immense stress for three hours now, but the wresting of the title from its current holder might well take much longer. Meiling Chung, eighth dan of Katsun-Ruy, and co-founder of the all-female art, would not fall easily. May Ng, teacher of Kristl Christiansen, was no match for Chung, and she knew it. She pinned the hopes of her dojo on Kristl, having vowed to make her the toughest, hardest karateka in the world, male or female. What, as a woman, Kristl lacked in strength, she must make up in endurance. Already few men could compete with her for speed and accuracy maintained over a long period, and it was only the male heavier musculature and more massive bone structure that could defeat her. Twice in her career so far had Kristl lost, once to a punctured lung when a kick had shattered her left ribs, and once to a broken thigh. There were no signs of either injury now, for both ribs and thigh had mended quickly and stronger than they had been before. The muscles were back to the former power quite quickly once the breaks had healed, and Kristl's technique was better now than it had been. May Ng felt it unlikely that she would lose like that again.
Kristl Christiansen was already a remarkable woman. At twenty-two she had already had ten years of Katsun-Ruy, and had begun her fighting career at sixteen. At seventeen her ribs had been shattered, and at eighteen her thigh, both times by men old enough to be her father and highly skilled in the martial arts. Neither setback had dulled her fierce joy of combat, rather had increased it through the enforced inactivity she had suffered. There were few indeed left who might match her. Chung, certainly, Ng probably, and the American, Lucinda Mathers. Three that May Ng could think of and it was almost a year before she would have to meet any of them. They would spend that year profitably. Their rankings didn't matter in this context. Chung was eighth Dan, Ng sixth, and Mathers third. Kristl was a newly-achieved fourth Dan, having only been in the ranking battles a month before.
Ng was toughening her for two reasons. One was certainly for next year's rankings, the other was for more sinister reasons. For Kristl Christiansen was employed. Employed as a bodyguard to the unpopular Countess Maria d'Erche, whose success at the Monte Carlo casinos was legendary. D'Erche was too old to do her own dirty work, now well into her sixties, and dripping with diamonds wherever she went. Kristl had already beaten off four attacks and had hardly been employed a year. One had left her with a four-inch bullet scar along her right ribs. The man had fired an instant before he died with his throat staved in. The other two had departed the scene hurriedly, but neither had escaped the flying figure of the girl in the yellow trouser suit, who despite the bullet furrow, had overhauled and sent both into unconsciousness, while the Countess d'Erche had looked on aghast.
For a bodyguard of that quality there was a high price to be paid. And there were fringe benefits. Born in Sweden and bearing the passport of that country, Kristl had almost been nationalized the previous year when the Government had needed an operative who could dispose silently of a certain enemy of the state, but he had obviated the necessity by electrocuting himself accidentally at a Government computer installation, and she was still free-lance.
Killing, under the discipline of Katsun-Ruy, was easy. It was the avoidance of it that was skillful.
However, May Ng was thinking little of that as she watched Kristl perform the forty-first kata, and much of what would follow within the next forty-five minutes. The girl was pained-racked and exhausted, a dangerous combination in a karateka as skilled as she, and May Ng worried slightly about the degree of control she might display before the morning's workout was over. Her stomach would be aching, and her swollen breasts shimmied overmuch on her chest as she went through the exacting kata sequence this forty-first time. Had she not been so dedicated herself, May Ng might have felt for the dehydrated karateka. She was hardly sweating now, the salt beginning to dry on her body, and yet she stood beside several thousand gallons of water. Not until the fiftieth kata was completed might she dive into the pool and ease herself.
The braided hair was part of the discipline, as was the heat. The plaits gave her no protection from the sun as loose hair of her length would have done. Physically, of course, Kristl was a superb specimen; strong, lithe, and beautifully proportioned. She had a facial beauty that many models would have envied, but in Katsun-Ruy these things were incidental. It was her ability to strike with speed and accuracy, and to endure the privations of pain and injury that counted. Such endurance demanded a dedication given to few. May Ng believed that Kristl had it, and her performance in the morning's heat under the inexorable pressure of the work, the pain and the control would be showing it.
The forty-first kata ended and she stepped towards May for the exchange of blows that had been ritualized by the founders of Katsun, blows designed for the practice of a wholly female art, striking low to the ovaries, high to the breasts, and between to the solar plexus. It was necessary for her to abjure, and this time she concentrated, and took her proper position, enduring fully the blows she had earlier evaded.
Satisfied, May watched her pain-filled pupil start the forty-second kata, and smiled with her eyes. Kristl absorbed her agonies and kata-ed on.
* * * * * * * * *
Solomon had located the position of the villa carefully from his high vantage point on the artificial crag, and estimated a half hour's walk to reach it. In fact, it took him rather longer by virtue of needing a detour he had not foreseen. The name was blazoned plainly on the gate, the Villa Latour, beneath which was set a plate proclaiming the owner as one May Ng. There was, of course, nothing to be seen or heard from where he stood, and his ring at the bell brought a Chinese houseboy scurrying to his welcome. He asked to see Miss Ng, and was ushered inside the imposing premises. "She is on the terrace, but if you would care to wait..." the houseboy withdrew deferentially.
Solomon waited in the quiet stillness of the large room in which he stood. From somewhere outside he could now hear the expulsion of breath that he'd seen an hour ago, and then after a pause a series of loud thumps, replaced by the rapid expulsions once more. Almost immediately a woman in a yellow towelling robe flowed silently into the room.
"Welcome to my house, Mr Solomon," the woman said, and he turned, only then realizing that he was not alone. In his hands was the book he had lifted from the table and had been inspecting. It was in English and proclaimed itself as the `Manual of Katsun-Ruy'. The author was May Ng.
The woman was stately and Chinese, possessing the sophisticated air of the Hong Kongese. Her black hair hung far down her back. Clearly the girl he had watched was not May Ng. She still expelled her breath in short, taut bursts on the terrace.
Miss Ng caught sight of the book in his hands. "You are interested in Katsu-Ruy karate?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered truthfully, "though not personally."
May Ng raised her eyebrows. An impersonal interest in karate was rare. "Indeed!" she exclaimed pleasantly, then, "What was it you wished to see me about?"
David Solomon could see in a moment that this woman was not to be trifled with. He therefore came straight to the point. "The girl who is practicing on your terrace. I should like to meet her."
"She is Kristl Christiansen, fourth Dan Katsun-Ruy exponent." She nodded towards the book. "You may attend our workout if you have the stomach for it," she stated baldly. "Later, if she so wishes, you may meet her."
"I would be delighted," he said, bowing slightly to indicate that he understood the honour she paid him. Then he followed May Ng out onto the terrace.
May saw that during her short absence. Kristl's kata was coming to its halfway point. Solomon remained in the shadows of the out-part of the villa which had obstructed his view. His eyes were rivetted on the blonde girl, who laboured grey-faced through the long series of identical movements that he had sat watching an hour earlier, though now her exhaustion was terrible to see. Yet her beautiful body still responded superbly to the demands of the iron discipline she was under.
Close to, the damage she carried looked appalling. Her breasts were red-blue and empurpled as well a greatly swollen. The left nipple bled a little. Their agony must have been excruciating. Scarcely less bad was the heavy bruising and scratching that marked her belly, upper and lower. Her breath rasped in her throat in the extremity of her dehydration, yet she went on with the kata her face a serene blank, as the well practiced movements followed each other in rigid sequence. The girl was dying out there.
She stepped forward, slamming a kick at May Ng, whose own breast took it before she spun to heel-kick the girl mercilessly in the left breast. The blood-flow from her nipple increased, but no single movement faltered. She might have been made of iron had not Solomon seen the blast of agony blaze from her eyes at the impact. Then a flurry of punches, drummed off her belly; a received kick to May Ng; another flurry from the teacher; a reciprocating tattoo from the girl; and then the final heel-kicks to the student's breasts again.
She retired, stilled, and bowed, her fiftieth kata of the morning completed. May Ng nodded.
Almost instantly the girl seemed to relax. She turned, and unbidden dived cleanly into the pool, mouth open and bubbles trailing as she arrowed into its deep end. There was a swirl as she turned in the water, swam the length of the pool and then surfaced, breathing deeply through her moistened mouth. She turned onto her back, and swam with a powerful, lazy backstroke along its length.
Finally, after several lengths, she lay motionless on the surface in a perfect star-float.
May Ng turned to her guest. "One more task remains, then you may meet her. Chang!" she called, and the houseboy appeared carrying a fasces [1] made up of what Solomon instantly recognized as kendo sticks.
A moment later, Kristl Christiansen flipped out of the pool, and stood brace-legged before May Ng. The teacher took a kendo stick and flailed at the girl's head with it. She moved almost imperceptibly. The stick whistled past her ear and towards her deltoid muscle. Solomon braced himself to see her smashed down in a crippled heap, but instead she rose to meet the stick, flexing the muscle in the instant that the stick hit it. The inert wood was snapped clean through by the flexion, and two parts flew in opposite directions, the end falling into the pool. May Ng was left holding nine inches of stick as a second piece clattered to the terrace and rolled to Solomon's feet.
The display amazed him. The second stick was aimed for her right thigh, and met the same end, as did two to each arm, two to her calves, and one across her belly. Solomon saw the flesh whiten at the moment of impact, and only redden as the broken sticks sprayed about the terrace. Two were shattered against the upper part of each pectoral, and the final stick swiped across her screaming breasts. Only this one failed to break, lifting the girl off her feet and knocking her into the pool. As its agony assailed her Kristl knew immediately where she had failed. In her tiredness she had omitted to impel herself into it. As a consequence the stick had won. The twin cushions of her breasts had absorbed the impact instead of employing it to destroy the weapon.
May Ng handed the stick to Solomon and helped her from the pool. She sank to her heels in a meditative pose, her hands resting palms upward on her thighs, breathing deeply, a fresh purple bruise-line across her ravaged breasts.
"Karate must be total," Ng said to Solomon as though by way of explanation for her torturing of the girl. "Kristl's control is not yet quite perfect."
For Solomon it was perfect enough. He had never seen anyone so calm under such agony.
"But we shall try again tomorrow."
Solomon almost protested. It seemed inconceivable that she could endure such an onslaught again within twenty-four hours.
"You may now meet her." She paused. "You will, of course, stay to lunch?"
He nodded.
She spoke a word in Chinese, and Kristl rose smoothly and crossed to where he stood, extending her hand. He took it and was surprised by its hardness, though not by its strength. "I am Kristl Christiansen," she declared. "I understand that you wish to speak with me."
* * * * * * * * *
Not once during the course of that afternoon had the battered girl indicated in any way that she was hurt, though her breasts had continued to swell as lymph laved the damaged tissue. She drank copiously of fruit juice, and ate slowly, but well. May Ng had donned the yellow robe again for lunch. Kristl remained as she was. She had been so over-heated that any other course would have been foolish.
By the time he left, Solomon had persuaded her to perform again, this time in earnest, not in Forquelle, but in Norfolk, England, where he was founding a martial arts club for women. He wanted them, he said, to see what the ultimate in fighting karate was. The book by May Ng he took away with him, fascinated by an instruction manual devoted entirely to a female form. Before today he had never heard of Katsun-Ruy. He resolved that he would know much of it before he was a great deal older. And in the back of his mind was Silver Island. Kristl Christiansen, the Swedish karateka, could gain him much favour there. One of his ambitions was to attend a meeting with a champion of his own. He might, he felt, have found her.
By four, the girl had gone to her tatami to rest, and he was left facing the powerful personality of May Ng. For a time they talked of inconsequential things, before she brought their thoughts back to Kristl. "She needs," she said, "much severe competition. One day I shall match her against Meiling Chung. For that, she must be perfect."
"Invincible, you mean," he said, but she shook her head.
"No-one is invincible - not even Chung."
"Yet you drive her so hard?"
"That is karate. She has the dedication. Also the time to gain technique."
"Is she prepared to fight men?" he asked.
"Of course. Katsun is an extension of male styles. She has already mastered most of those. In Katsun a woman has many problems of technique. What you saw was only part of what she must learn to withstand. She has much of pain to endure."
"So I observed," he commented drily.
"There is yet more."
He almost winced at the thought, yet knew that mindlessness went hand in hand with skill. What she could give automatically she must also take automatically.
* * * * * * * * *
Country houses were a weakness of Borlax Ltd. They owned a lot. That is to say David Solomon owned a lot through his ownership of the company. Borlax had never gone public - it hadn't really existed long enough. It's field was too new.
Solomon considered it his duty as an Englishman to support his heritage, so he bought and restored them, then ran them as one thing or another. Evendean, in Norfolk, was a sports-club, a very beautiful sports-club, but a sports-club nonetheless. It was perfect for his purposes. Built for the second Earl of Evingdean in 1708, it was a classic example of a grand, Palladian edifice. Towered at each of its corners, it was square, and built around a large courtyard. One approached it down a beech-lined avenue from the west, where one was treated to the sight of a massive Palladian portico, letting onto an entrance hall of heroic proportions with a ceiling valued in itself at the price Solomon had paid for the whole house. From the centre of the hall rose a double balustraded staircase to the gallery that encircled the room, and from which led the corridors running east to west on the second storey. The the third and fourth storeys were reached by staircases in each of the corner towers, as were the extensive cellars. Coach and horses gained access to the courtyard through an archway in the centre of the east wing, opposite where, two hundred yards away, was set a stable block that was almost as impressive as the house. Extensively damaged by fire in the 19th century, the East Wing had lain derelict until the house had been bought and restored by Borlax out of cash that would otherwise have gone in tax.
Fortunately the rest of the house had escaped the fire, and remained very beautiful. Built by the little known architect, Nicholas Raven, it had had from its inception many features considered unnecessary in other houses, but the bulkhead effect of the towers had stopped the fire, and had ensured that Evendean had stood proudly for close to three centuries.
The living quarters were situated in the south wing, as they had always been. The second earl had been noted for his hatred of the British cold, so his main rooms had drunk in what sun there was. His own inability to withstand it had led the seventh earl to install central heating in 1864 - a very early occurrence of it in a house of this size. It was still in place as an historic monument to 19th century technology.
The sporting facilities were housed in the restored east wing. Evendean was a dojo, and a martial and combat arts centre, dedicated, like the Villa Latour at Forquelle to the furtherance of female sport. Students from all countries, and of many styles were seen in and about the deer park, or running on the track that extended the five mile length of the perimeter walls. Much of the enclosed parkland was woodland, some of it lake. Through it ran the Guise Brook feeding water gardens, fern dells and fountains.
Solomon drove into the main gate with Kristl Christiansen beside him, and May Ng in the rear seat. Clad in the yellow trouser suit that was almost her hallmark, the Swedish karateka was not at all like the hurt, intense girl he had watched and spoken with at Forquelle. Relaxed and happy at the prospect of a forthcoming combat, she had chattered almost girlishly on the tedious journey up from Gatwick. It did not seem to worry her that she was to be pitted against ten experienced women, as indeed it did not. Ten, twenty, it mattered little to a woman as skilled and as tough as Kristl. The blue eyes, which had been so clouded with pain at Forquelle, now shone with anticipation, for, for once, there was no pain within the girl. It seemed incredible that only a fortnight ago he had seen her brutalized on the terrace of the Villa Latour, and yet today she presented him with such a picture of robust fitness and liveliness that told more eloquently than any word that she was fully recovered. He would have expected it to have taken many weeks for her to return to normal.
He took them to the suite of rooms on the second storey that had been reserved for them as guests of Borlax Inc. Kristl, he knew, would rest before the evening's ordeal. After leaving them he went to the practice area in the east wing to check that all was prepared for the evening.
* * * * * * * * *
It was quiet in the combat room. At one side of the polished boxwood floor knelt Kristl's ten opponents, at the other knelt Kristl. They bowed to each other and rose. In deference to the tenets of Katsun-Ruy, all eleven of the contestants were clad in nothing more than a tanga-V, something that had embarrassed some the Evendean students, and worried others. They were unused to this naked combat, and did not look forward to the skin to skin contact that it inevitably meant.
Audrey Donoghue stepped forward. She and Kristl bowed, took up their stance, and on command launched into combat. Audrey fended off two attacks before a spin-kick to the ribs sent her sprawling. She rolled to her feet, hurt and shaken, her breathing already upset by the devastating speed of the fourth Dan Katsun exponent. She went to sweep at Kristl's legs, but the blonde pigtailed Swede seemed to step almost lazily over the scything leg, stamping forward at Audrey's belly. Her foot disappeared into the English girl's viscera, and Audrey flopped to her face, retching.
Kristl stood away, waiting for the other to recover. She stopped retching, drew herself up on shaky legs and turned to fight again. An arm flew out block the next kick, and Audrey threw a punch to the Swede's solar plexus. It hammered against her tough stomach muscles and failed to penetrate.
Audrey had been hurt earlier. Now she was scared as well. She had felt the shock of the punch right up to her shoulder. It should have hurt the girl. It hadn't. Appalled, she stepped back. In a kill-fight it would have been fatal, for Kristl was already going into a reverse heel kick. This, though, was only to disablement, and when the kick fired into the underside of the Audrey's left breast, and almost tore it from her chest, she screamed and dropped motionless to the floor. Two of the larger women stepped in and carried away her unconscious form. Kristl returned to the rest position, and bowed.
Next, Pamela Markham rose. She swallowed hard. Audrey was a green belt. She was only yellow. Until now they had thought Evendean a hard school. The Swede's speed and power seemed unreal to the young brunette, as she faced and bowed to the destroyer of Audrey.
Feared gnawed at her belly as Kristl came for her, but she was made of stern stuff. She swayed back to avoid the next heel kick, and straight-legged Kristl to the groin. The blow drove the tanga into her but she reacted just as quickly with a forward punch that drove a hole through Pam's muscle-shield, and caused her to sag. Another of the hard roundhouse kicks to the body took the brunette in the side, and lifted her off her feet, but she was already spinning herself. Kristl shot up an arm, flexing as the leg came towards her body, and there was a sudden agony at Pam's thigh as her flesh bruised straight through to the bone.
The leg would hardly hold her, and already she felt that she had been beaten with iron bars, but she refused to cease her efforts They punched simultaneously, Pam to the navel, Kristl to the breast. Twin thuds sounded loud in the awed stillness, and Pam's mouth fell open under the intensity of the agony from her crushed gland. Standing on her good left leg, she round-housed to Kristl's side with the other, accepting the pain it cost her, but even as she was knocked away to the dark girl's left, Kristl chopped to her diaphragm, cut off her breath and dropped her, gagging.
After a moment Pam painfully dragged herself to her feet, and took a wobbly stance. Kristl smashed through a forward kick to the guts and sent Pam down in a writhing heap beneath the large courtyard windows. She twitched twice, gurgled, and passed out.
The third and fourth bouts were short, and the Evendean girls went down to a wrenched spleen and a jarred neck, but in the fifth Kristl came up against a brown belt. This was the gnarled thirty-year-old, Agnes Worth, one of the few Evendean women at all familiar with the Katsun style, and a teacher most of the time. She suffered hell from bruised breasts and battered belly, but maintained her form well, even dropping the Swede with a side-head fly-kick that made Kristl's head ring. She was, nevertheless, equal to the strain, and respectful of the older woman's power.
Their battle raged the length of the room before Kristl caught her tiring opponent with another side-hand, this time to the jaw. Semi-conscious, Agnes reeled back to fight, and was rivetted by a flurry of knuckle punches to the upper belly and breasts that floored her in agony.
For a moment she knelt head down, shaking herself to free the pain before lack of oxygen overcame her and she slipped forward on her face unconscious.
This fight had brought the sweat to Kristl's body, and she shone almost eerily in the strong overhead lights and the next contestant, swallowing her fear, rose to face her.
Another green belt, Elvi Patterson, also blonde, though slimmer than Kristl, was prepared to take some punishment to gain an opening, and quickly had Kristl in her first serious trouble by driving a fierce punch, almost immediately followed by a powerful kick full into the tanga V. It was the first time the Katsun fourth Dan had been really hurt, and Elvi seemed inspired by Agnes's performance.
She pressed her attack and Kristl was forced to defend. The sickened Audrey, now partly recovered, was forced to watch her equally-ranked colleague fight so well that a faint hope was raised within the remaining four Evendean women that they might somehow force a victory.
Defence, though, was all a part of the Katsun style, and Kristl Christiansen used the time she was gaining to recover her composure. Elvi had undoubtedly hurt her and was a tough woman, but neither thing saved her, when, with a reverse elbow-smash to the jaw, Kristl knocked her clean out, the click of her meeting teeth reverberating in the quiet.
No.7 was the young novice Lisa Starbuck. A brave kid, but hopelessly outclassed here. But she hung in and fought, swapping breast kick for breast kick, and gut punch for gut punch until Kristl reversed heeled her in the vulva and sent her two feet into the air. The agony of this almost shattered her. She felt every nerve ending from groin to top of head burn and jangle at the impact, and landed on her feet by instinct alone. Even then she blocked the follow-up kick to the bush, and elbowed Kristl in the diaphragm, but was already fainting when the Swede punched her between the shoulder-blades, and dropped her half-paralyzed with shock onto the boards. The bearers trooped across and carried her away.
Solomon watched the destruction of the Evendean team with something close to incredulity. Woman after woman was being devastated by the Swedish karateka. Out of seven only one (No.4) had been able to limp away from the fight without assistance. Kristl's face and body showed bruises where she had been struck, but she was breathing easily, sweating freely, and remained perfectly poised to face Angela Court, the first blue belt to go in against her. He remembered that he had seen Angela savage a woman from another school who had visited here for a match. Now, he watched while she was brutally savaged by the fourth Dan. She left the scene of battle, bent double and with one arm hanging limply, either badly strained or broken at her side. Court had retired in less than three minutes.
The last two fighters were Evendean's best, Sally-Ann Roper whose speed and keen sight had to make up for her congenital profound deafness, and Tanzy Green, the only black belt at the house. A first Dan at Aikido, she, all hoped, might hold this Swedish destroyer.
Clearly, Sally-Ann was fighting as much for Tanzy as she was for herself. The fight between her and Kristl was one of the hardest things Solomon had ever witnessed between women. Sally used a fringe style, unrecognized in karate, for she could not afford, without hearing, to turn her back upon her opponents. This led to great problems for her, for reverse kicks and elbow smashes could not be included in her kumite. She was a solidly bodied girl, and large breasted. Thus she was extremely vulnerable to the skilled exponent of Katsun-Ruy whom she faced. Katsun was a female style, and used female areas of attack, amongst which painful damage to the breasts was prime. And Sally took that painful damage from the very start of her battle. Took it and endured it, agony though it was. Some of the reverse kicks she blocked or evaded. One or two she turned to her own advantage, and by holding her ground, twice threw Kristl off her feet. Working low to the Swede's body, Sally-Ann hammered her groin and ovarian regions until Kristl was forced to defend again. Never for an instant did the British girl lose sight of her opponent. Hand-blocks, chops and punches flew between the pair as though they were students of the Filipino art of arnis, and Sally suffered more than Kristl.
But at least, this ninth contest was a match. Each contestant scored off the other, Sally driving kick after kick towards Kristl's lower regions, and accepting punch after punch in return to her hard over-muscle at diaphragm and stomach, as well suffering the agonizing blows to her breasts.
Solomon was shocked by the raw sexuality of the fight. Little was delivered to the head or face, nearly everything driven and received in the groin and breasts. Arms were reddened, legs empurpled by blocks, but staggering thrust after staggering thrust went to the vulva, the pubis and the breasts.
Both women sweated freely as they fought. Even the concrete toughness of Kristl was exposed when she was seen to be staggering under the effects of three sharp kicks to her groin within a minute, and later Solomon saw Sally's breasts bleed under the murderous force of Kristl's punches.
In the end pain broke the deaf girl, a particularly vicious breast attack losing her her concentration long enough to allow Kristl to dispatch her with a combination of the punches to the belly. Sally went down, gobbled out her obscene agony, and lay limp in the centre of the floor. A fight that seemed to Solomon to last for but a few seconds, had lasted twenty-two minutes.
Now, Kristl Christiansen was hurt. Her face was becoming drawn. She had already been in combat for well over an hour and half, and at the end of all that she had to face Evendean's most dangerous girl, Tanzy Green.
Aikido's aerial skills were expected to give Kristl trouble. Katsun-Ruy was a ground-based style, and though capable of aerial manoeuvres, the Swede was no match for Tanzy in the sky. But, as ever, the Swede acted pragmatically, by searing Tanzy's legs, bruising her thighs and calves with sweeps and stamps until the Evendean girl lost height. Again the Katsun girl was knocked twice from her feet.
Arm blocks had saved Kristl the most punishment, and there she was very bruised. Yet she did not falter, blocking again and again, not counting the cost in pain.
Then, with an aerial leap, Tanzy almost got her in the dreaded aerial cross-neck scissors. She failed and paid for her effort by taking a straight-up drive-punch with all the Swede's strength and impulsion behind it full into the labia majora. Kristl's leading knuckles, for a moment almost penetrated her vagina, and Tanzy was screaming even as she somersaulted out of the leap and landed awkwardly five feet away and crippled by the pain of the punch. Her own momentum had coupled with gravity to increase the force of Kristl's blow three-fold. As she straightened from her landing crouch she was wild-eyed, and her whole visceral cavity was full of agony. Had she been other than she was, a tough, fighting woman, she would have been destroyed. As it was she felt ruptured and violated beyond belief.
Tanzy Green, her sexual being torn asunder by the vile punch, straightened, but could not walk. The blow had stunned the nerves in groin, hip and thigh into inaction. Hoping to hide the fact, she set her hands forward into a chopping stance, balanced on the columns of pain that were her legs, and waited, nausea rising within her.
Kristl Christiansen spun into a reverse heel with the right leg, and came hurling at the black belt. Still, Tanzy could not move. She needed to, desperately, but she could not. For she knew where the kick was going, and could do nothing but take it or scream out her surrender. As the fighter she was, she took it, knowing that she was destroyed, and feeling the point of the blonde's heel drive with terrible force into the same flesh that had just taken the punch. Katsun-Ruy! The female attack - Kristl had deprived her of her being as a woman. In the moment of striking she had ended every female desire of the Aikido queen except for one - to know this awful kind of penetration again. The aching legs splayed, opening herself for what she knew must come again - that electrifying punch.
Before it came, two others struck her breasts. She leant into them knowing they would come. Pain all but blew her mind, sweat leaping from every pore as glandular tissue burst against her ribcage - but that was nothing beside what had to come. Still she did not move, waiting, excruciated to the edge of consciousness, waiting for that final blow.
It was a left-hand punch, the knuckles even more penetrative than the right she had taken before. No penile thrust had ever given her such thrill, such agonizing stimulation, such a pleasure of torture as that single, terrible, blow. It could have been a red-hot iron bar driving into her being. Every nerve in her body exploded into fierce and passionate torment. Sweat drenched her as she stood in that orgasm of hell, her loins closing unbidden about the excruciating shaft that Kristl had thrust into her.
Still, she did not fall, or make any move to defend herself. Racked by an orgasm of such rending power, she threw back her head and screamed out her impassioned torture, while the blonde Swede, her braids swishing about her shoulders, removed her left and drove it deep into the black belt's underbelly. But still she did not fall. She leaned forward, consciously offering her breasts to Kristl's fists. The offer was accepted, and Tanzy screamed again, and orgasmed again, ecstasy born of agony.
Then, as Kristl, knowing her opponent was finished, stepped away, Tanzy took one agonized shuffle forward, and fell to her side, knees to her belly, her whole lower half jerking in the awful rhythm of her hell, before she slipped under the curtain of pain and down into the void.
Even there the hot agony of her loins followed her, and she knew her fate. Her voice gobbling insanely, she croaked out. "Oh Christ! She's ruined me."
Meantime, Kristl straightened to the rest position and bowed, unaware, it seemed, of the degree of carnage she had wrought. Her ten opponents, conspicuous by their grotesque and pained positions as much by their absence of clothing, were propped against the wall. Except Sally and Tanzy. Sally was still being worked on fifteen minutes after her fight had ended. Tanzy lay where she had fallen writhing out of her orgasmic agony. Within her, the flames of passion were being transformed into the holocaust of agony, an agony so bad now that the passion had begun to wane that it was taking four of the bearer women to hold her down.
A little flushed, a little bruised, Kristl Christiansen, on the completion of a two hour combat, stood quite relaxed and fiddling with the braid ribbons, undoing them ready for the shower. Solomon nodded to May Ng who led her away.
Then he turned to the assistance of the crippled Tanzy, who lay moaning in the centre of the combat area, trying to regain her will to rise.
Her belly seemed to be locked into a cycle of convulsions. Her tanga had been either driven or sucked into her - just a little showed free, the string stretched downwards to breaking point. Agnes had left her place by the wall, and was using her experience of injuries to try to stop Tanzy's lascivious-looking writhing. A fist in her belly below the navel, the other hand on the battered bush, she was using her weight to force Tanzy's loins to stay flat against the floor. Slowly, she was succeeding in stilling the convulsions.
"Ambulance?" asked one of the younger girls, seeming more hardened to the spectacle than her many horrified elders.
"No! Christ no! Just hold her down. She's in shock."
It took Solomon less than a moment to realize from the euphoric look in her eyes that it was not shock that she was in, but passion. He had seen that look often enough in a woman's eyes, and these gyrations. The women, it appeared, hadn't. He was mildly surprised that there was not at least one knowledgeable lesbian amongst them - lest it was Agnes. At least she knew what to do.
It took several minutes before Tanzy lay still, and Agnes drew the bloodied tanga from her body. She lay flat, arms wide, eyes closed. bruised breasts heaving, exhausted, weak, but it was not the fight that had exhausted her. Tanzy could put in an hour's combat any time against equal opposition. This was something different.
Her eyes opened, blazing agony. The passion had gone. Solomon smiled tightly to himself. Agony and ecstasy - those two related things. She had known the latter. She now came into the former. Holocaust had replaced flames, and the refining fire was gone. Tanzy Green, he knew, was finished as a fighter. Never again would she seek victory. Combat she would seek, but defeat in this manner would be all she craved. There were many who might give it her. Today she was coming back to reality. One day in the future she might not. How much torment, he wondered, had it taken to do this to a dedicated fighter? How close to her limit had she been ten minutes ago? Only she would know that. There would be no normal release for this Aikido black belt ever again. She had scaled a height of experience given only to the very few to gain - and he had found an instrument of destruction which he could never let go again - The Swedish Karateka.
For today it was enough. The image of Silver Island came to his mind. He must see this woman fight again, and not next time against a woman. Kristl Christiansen must face a man - a very desperate man. Or else Meiling Chung. He smiled again, and glanced at Tanzy Green. Might what Kristl's power had done to her be seen again. And against a man. `Oh God!' he thought, `the poor bastard!!'
And couldn't wait!
(C) Ajax 10/1987
Notes:
[1] fasces = the bundle of rods with or without axe borne by Roman magistrates of high rank.
[Katsun-Ruy] = Ajax named this style of karate Katsun-Ruy, but I believe it is currently transliterated from the Japanese as Kitsune-Ryu. I leave it as it written. (Agraf, 2021)
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This is amazing. Is there anyway to buy a digital version of the books? I think there will definitely be interest for it.
Anyway, huge thanks for bringing this treasure trove to the modern internet!
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This is amazing. Is there anyway to buy a digital version of the books? I think there will definitely be interest for it.
Anyway, huge thanks for bringing this treasure trove to the modern internet!
Thank you for your appreciation.
Please re-read my Introduction: the book project was not finished. No that my late friend and co-writer died, I do not feel like publishing it for money, nor would I know how. I'll post the other stories that we had finished here, though.
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Great skill and thought went into establishing the characters and story structures for these stories. Much respect for allowing us to read and experience ajax stories.
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This is a real Aladdin's cave! Well done, you, for keeping all these. :) :) :)
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 03
THE RUSSIAN SPY
by Raf
Lieutenant Varvara Leontieva was freezing to death in her spying position, suffering the minus 26 degrees Celsius, hugging her specially designed army coat to her body. The secret training camp, on the right bank of the Lena river, was far too distant from the Verkayanski range of mountains to be seen from her post, even if they were not covered by the same thick white mantle of snow that stretched endlessly over the steppe - on which she now squatted almost ankle deep, and intent on her mission.
Under the 70 degree north latitude, separated from the Pole by the Laptev Sea and the steppe which was once the homeland of dinosaurs, she was no part of a snow-white fairy-tale but was, in truth, living a private nightmare - because she had not been ordered to get out of her barracks and fasten her VR221 onto the window of Colonel Andrei Ivanini's quarters. She had acquired that pocket size infra-red viewer, cheap and over the counter, on her last holiday in London, as a preparation for her future undercover mission there - if she graduated from the special training course for spies. Only four out of the sixteen women were going to graduate, and only one would be immediately promoted. She was sure that she was clever enough to have passed the theory tests with flying colours. She was tough enough and expert enough in shooting, both with guns and bows, swimming, cross-country running, and in martial arts, but, among other good women, there were split decisions to be made and Andrei Ivanini was the man in charge. It was plain to see the man was a womanizer and she quickly accepted his advances when he told her clearly that he would give her the "very good" mark that would make the difference between her present post and the upper grade if he could inspect her physically and found her to his standard. She went to his room one night and offered him her body. He told her she was really the best, and that he was not going to have to lie when he gave the final marks to the group. They had sex three times a week over the next two weeks. Then he stopped having time to see her.
Tonight she had decided to find out who had taken her place on the top of the classification list. She had waited for forty five minutes out there. Then Lieutenant Irena had entered the room, her silver blonde hair cascading down her back, hands fighting back and teasing the naked colonel Andrei, who was a few inches shorter then Irena, but with all of his other inches standing up to attention before his Amazonian subordinate. He helped her to unzip the special outdoor coat and they slapped together. Varvara was hot during the two minutes of fondling and kissing, and she sweated during the next thirteen while her rival, head thrown back in ecstasy, galloped the powerful stallion to which she was firmly attached as if by by a large screw. The lovers came apart; the man shot his hot snow pearls over his companion; Varvara brought her gloved hand to her face to clear the melting snow and her tears of rage. Each one of the colonel's thrusts up the pinky shaft had been like the searing blow of a dagger into her heart. For two or three minutes more the blonde played with her cavalier, then she gave up reviving him for a moment and ran to the adjoining bathroom. The brunette swore that she would smash those uptilted tits as soon as she could be alone with the bitch. To hell with regulations! Irena did not have the right to take her man - and her promotion - and leave her alone... and poor. Although that was their fate, for all the sixteen women trainees, all volunteers for that outlandish post, so far from nowhere, with only four male senior officers to teach them, were squares and impossibly cool.
She fumbled with her pocket's zipper and ran quickly to the main dormitory before the others noticed her absence. She used a secret entrance to the back room she had carved herself for use in the final exercise to be announced soon, quite predictable as there were so few houses in the camp to serve as objectives for a mission.
* * * * * * * * *
"Staaand...up !"
In a minute, the sixteen women were lining up in front of the two rows of double cots, four to each side of the dormitory door. Some clacked their leather boot-heels, others still had their feet bare. All were in a certain degree of undress as they were dressing after the night's sleep. Two of them were topless, but as good soldiers, they were holding up their jaws and bosoms. They were in their late twenties, early thirties, a few barely passed their teens, but the majority were tall, broad shouldered, massively built, with waists trimmed by much exercise and careful diet. As future infiltrators into capitalist countries, they had been chosen from among the beauties of Russia and had had their bodies, faces and hair treated with specially imported make-up of the standard that only the Party elite were able to buy in Moscow.
The soldier at the door tried not to look at the women's nakedness and spat in the same high-pitched note: "Tovarich General Alexander Formanov!"
A particularly tall and strong-looking man in plain clothes entered and walked to the opposite wall, turned on his heel and went straight to the door, having looked into the eyes of every woman, both sides of the room. He faced the blank wall, intertwined his fingers behind his back and spoke: "Comrades ! I beg your pardon for coming so early and disturbing your beauty sleep. I see that some of you have not yet had time to enter your beds. A pity!"
His grin was received by eager, worried and void features of soldiers trained to be robots and not show human emotions, even if prompted to do so by their superiors.
"I see that comrade Euguenia Melnikova and Irena Miliutina were not able to sleep much this morning. Are you nervous?"
"Yes, comrade General, I admit being a bit nervous. But I am prepared and I hope that tomorrow I will not fail in..."
"Not tomorrow, Lieutenant Miliutina, today. It is now 03.57 a.m. and in exactly two hours and three minutes you and your team will attack this base, defended by Lieutenant Euguenia Melnikova and her blue team. All your movements inside the compound and in several outside locations are under scrutiny by video cameras, for later review by me and Headquarters. No matter who wins or loses we may find valour, courage, discipline, sacrifice, in girls - his voice softened slightly at the word - of either team, and thus be selected to go abroad, living `underground', until they receive our signal to activate the fifth column of the People's Army in their target countries. I wish you all good luck...especially those of you who are still under the effects of recent injuries. It will not affect your combat performance," he had walked softly forwards, "hey, comrade Natalia Kibardina?"
He had stopped suddenly in front of one of the women, the only short one, with long, blondish hair, and punched her just under her breasts, now held in the army regulation white bra. She gasped and staggered on her feet, but kept her position and answered, "Sir! My rib is still broken, but I want to stay with the red team, comrade General. Pain is no matter."
"What about you, Varvara Leontieva, what about your right wrist?"
"Sir! The colonel doctor wants me to keep it bandaged, but I already punch and shoot with it as with the left one. I feel almost nothing now. I beg you to let me go on with the red team, tovarich General."
"It is goodbye, then." He proffered his hand to shake. The woman extended her arm promptly, blushing a bit for the rare occasion such a high ranking officer chose to handshake a soldier like herself. She saw his eyes riveted by her own, both deep brown, but it was too late. He had her hand between his own, large and strong, and he was twisting her arm in a judo move that brought her down hard on her knees. He kept the pressure on and twisted the arm...almost to breaking point. Her anguished face was pressed against the top of his knee-length boots and, swifter than her thoughts about the matter, her left hand shot up and grabbed his testicles through the baggy trousers. She squeezed just so - enough to make his face go white and her right wrist go free. She jumped to her feet and stood to attention again. The general regained his composure and looked at her menacingly.
"How many times were you instructed not to use foul moves during training, Lieutenant Varvara Leontieva?"
"As many as the instructors thought necessary, Tovarich General; but just now I was not in training, with my instructors or my comrade trainees, and I thought it was my duty to protect my arm from further injury, because it is a weapon of the People's Army and just about to enter into action!"
"Yes, yes...your duty! You're always right, Varvara Leontieva, aren't you? Take good care of yourself out there. If you're at fault, I'll make sure that you're promoted to Chief of Labour Camp No. 4."
She blinked just once, keeping a straight face as she calculated the distance between the Far Eastern coastal camp, on the Bering Sea, and her home in Kiev - approximately half the circumference of the world. The other women looked down, terror stricken, their previous smiles washed instantly from their faces. Only Irena grinned at her, her lips pouting forward, her tongue licking them, like a cat being offered salmon.
* * * * * * * *
The red team had to obtain automatic guns from the depot guarded by the blue team; without them it would be impossible to attack and take the blue team's headquarters - simulated by the now closed women's dormitory. The team leader was giving instructions to her girls as to how they should approach the hut where the guns were. Varvara interrupted her: "Lieutenant Irena Miliutina, I will obey your orders without discussion, but may I suggest that we could infiltrate the main hut without starting a fight for the guns? I know there is a window in the back room which does not close properly and can be opened from the outside. I found that during the reconnaissance of the place we were instructed to do by ourselves. If we all go through that window, although we are not armed, we will outnumber those inside, perhaps even take them by surprise and defeat them hand to hand."
Irena looked at her suspiciously: "Has anyone else noticed that fault in the window? No-one! Would you volunteer to go first in the commando group? With your arm like that, I don't see how you will manage against women like ourselves in hand to hand combat, since you won't be able to use your grabbing techniques on them."
"I demand to go first! I know it's a risky entry but I made the suggestion, after all. Of course, the team leader must be spared, just in case the action backfires and we get beaten inside..."
Even the most distracted women of the team could now see the hate and the rivalry brewing inside those two felines. They eyed each other, amused by the fact that their mission was starting so well, with a dispute between the two best trainees... They tightened their heavy clothes and adjusted their gas pistols and rubber truncheons in their respective holsters, the equipment that was allowed to the red team at the start of the commando mission. They could not care less for the mission; for them the important thing was to get promoted and surpass those two she-cats.
Irena was quick to respond to her defiance: "Wrong as always, Lieutenant, dear! I am going close after you, with comrade Beatrice Nikolaev. Just in case anyone was thinking of treachery."
"You're accusing me of plotting something against the team? I demand..."
"You demand nothing, Lieutenant Leontieva! I am your team leader and I order you to shut up. Now! Beatrice, you'd better come with us." Beatrice was another of the best women and Varvara knew she had been chosen for this because she had refused Beatrice's lesbian advances several weeks before; since then, she had not looked her straight in the eyes. Irena went on: "Anna Chatrova, you'll lead Natalia Kibardina, Valentina Terechkova and Klara Korobova to the other side of the hut. It is now 06.02 a.m. and, if by 06.45 a.m. the front door is not opened by us, followed by a double flash of light, you may assume that our surprise attack as proposed by Lieutenant Varvara Leontieva has failed." Her tone made it clear where the blame would lie in the event of failure. "You'll run then to the gun depot opposite the dormitory and you'll try to take it as was planned in the beginning of the exercise. Irina Lapkina will stand alone near it, right away, observing any movement between the two huts, to warn your group. Irina, if you're able to jump upon the roof without giving yourself away, do so. Move!"
Varvara thought that either the bitch was stupid in not wanting to follow her advice (splitting the team and thus reducing the chances of winning the fight), or else she expected to sacrifice her two companions, retaining the glory for herself, assuming that the blue team had very few girls inside. There was no way she could know about that, unless she had had a word from her Colonel after the positioning of both teams. And - yes - she had been away for just a few minutes...
* * * * * * * * *
She was walking in front of her two companions, moving with difficulty on the rocky and marshy ground, already one meter deep in snow in some places. She looked back. The other two were several steps behind her and talking to each other in muffled voices. When she looked forward again she saw something white move on the white surface of the land several meters to the right of the path the three were taking.
She gestured to the others to lie down and crawled on until she could peer in that direction without being seen. Two women of the blue team were lying in ambush but they were both looking to the other side - where the trio would have been if they had not taken the route proposed by Varvara. She motioned her companions to come forward and surround the two scouts. One was Helena Telecheva, a powerful woman, one of the best and most loyal girls; the other was Froska Soukhareva, a heavyweight wrestler. When her friends (not Irena, no, she could not think of her as a friend), assigned partners, were close enough to use the gas guns on the scouts she stood up and walked noisily. The scouts turned round and stood up, aiming their dart weapons at her. They shot and missed. Varvara was running towards them as Beatrice emptied her gas container in Helena's face and Irena did the same to Froska. Helena went down, face forward, and Beatrice smashed her head and face with her rubber truncheon to make sure she would not be getting up, before wresting the dart pistol from her. There were red spots around the woman's head, but Froska was luckier, since Irena missed in spite of being so near her. Before Varvara and Beatrice reached them, Froska was smashing the butt of her gun on her attacker's head and shoulders, and Irena was pummeling the bigger girl to the breasts. Varvara thought that Beatrice was going to use the dart pistol on the powerful blue team girl's back, but she leveled it at Varvara's waist.
"Sorry, lover! No lucky award for you!"
She shot twice and missed by just a fraction, while Varvara, without stopping and reducing the distance between them, drew her gas pistol and shot at the other. The gas traveled less then three meters, cutting her attacker's breath. The woman fell supine and Varvara walked back to the pair of wrestling women.
Klara, who had lost her gun, bearhugged Irena and they traded punches on their feet. Then they fell and came apart. When Irena stood up, Klara, although being the heavier, was already up and took her with a high kick over the left shoulder, enough to make Irena roll into the snow and have to look up at the big girl from deep within it. Klara stood with her legs apart bracing herself to aim another shot at the now sitting female duck...
"Froska! Take me instead!"
Froska jerked on hearing her name shouted a few feet from her but shot instinctively at Varvara. The dart passed over Varvara's head, where her chest should have been if she had not gone onto her knees just after her shout, for she knew Froska was a good shot too. From her awkward position Varvara shot and Froska inhaled some of the gas. It was not enough for such a big girl to go down and she merely staggered on her legs, advancing drunkenly towards her. Irena stood up and looked on the scene, a smile fixed on her lips, while she took her truncheon and caressed it.
Varvara stood up and faced Froska, through eyes half covered by snow. Both women threw aside their empty guns and closed in, boxing each other. After the third punch of the heavier woman, Varvara's left eye was already closed but she kept her feet and her inside crosses to the breasts and the solar plexus finished the already weakened woman. Her arms were so heavy that she could not hold them up for protection any longer, but both knew there was no surrender. Froska went into a clinch, kneeing Varvara between the legs, but she managed to interpose her right thigh and headbutted her taller rival. As Froska stepped back, a trickle of blood spurting from her nose, Varvara looked at her with her right eye and threw a powerful left jab to the heart followed by a right uppercut to the jaw. The giantess fell supine without a sound.
"The poor baby..! Froska was unable to defend herself after the beating I gave her. I was expecting you to finish her sooner. I will note this in my report..."
"You'll do nothing of the sort! It's just you and me now. Either you leave Andrei to me or I'll tear you apart right here and now!"
"You're foolish! Varvara, don't come any closer, or I'll swear you'll be court-martialed"
"And, I'm sure, you and the Colonel, and the damn General, and anyone else who falls under your grasp. But before that, we're here alone, Irena! Will you give him up?"
"Of course not. It's 06.17 a.m. I can take you and dispatch you quick enough to surprise those two in the blue team's headquarters..."
"How do you know there're only two of them in there?"
"Never mind that! But woman to woman, Varvara. No weapons, eh? Look!"
Irena threw her truncheon away, at arms length. Varvara unstrapped her own and quickly disposed of it.
"I'll gouge your eyes out, you blonde bitch..." So saying, Varvara advanced, clawing her fingers, but Irena stepped back quickly, unbuttoning her padded coat and pulling out a pistol. Varvara looked at her in horror and jumped at her; Irena shot and put two rubber bullets into the woman's chest, before she grabbed her neck. If she had aimed at the eyes, Varvara would have been already dead; like this, she was only hurt, badly hurt to her left breast again, and in the pit of the stomach. She moaned as Irena jabbed at her navel with her weapon, while Varvara strained to choke her rival, clawing, at the same time, at her throat. The two women went to and fro on unstable legs. Although her army coat offered some protection from the blows, Varvara started moaning as these piled on one another each hurting more than the previous one. Irena motioned as if she was going to use her knee to the rival's crotch and as the thigh came up in defence she shot at it. Varvara's leg was paralyzed and she fell on her right side, groaning. Irena stood back, panting, inhaling the air she had been missing so much during this period. She walked to her truncheon, picked it up, looked satisfied at Beatrice who was seating on the ground, and came up to Varvara.
"Beatrice! Come and join me, dear! This traitor tried to jump at my throat and we must arrest her..." Speaking in a lower tone, she went on, "So you want a fair fight? I'll give it to you. Take this!" Swish - thwack; swish - thwack!
Taken over the right side, Varvara felt as if her lower ribs had ripped away her guts; she fell on her back, jerking uncontrollably, and gurgling horribly. In fact, it was not that bad; she had merely one broken rib and one beaten kidney; but she was in no condition to reason over this with Colonel Doctor, though she ached - oh, she ached alright - for seeing him right now. She saw nothing through her tears - only blackness, she no longer knew if she was looking at the black sky or if she was blind.
She heard two women chuckling over her.
"You can let Andrei Ivanini see her again, Irena. He will not choose this loser, ever!"
"Beatrice, do you think I would have the heart to leave the poor thing like this in the snow? No, ma'am. I am going to fix her face with this, because I am sure she will need a bit of surgery afterwards - and they can't mend all of her at the same time. I'll leave her only after she has past recuperation - see how she marked me?"
"But the time is coming to its limit..."
"Fuck the exercise! This bitch will pay with her life for jumping me. As I am a commanding officer now, and she's a rebel, it's okay with me, with us, when..."
Varvara was all numb. The cozy bed in which she now lay was like her feather bed in Kiev which she had left several years ago to enter the army. Irena had to shout at her to bring her back to the cruel reality of life - or death?...
"Stand up to attention to your superior, Varvara! If you don't, in five seconds I'll punish you! One... two... three..."
Varvara opened her eyes and wished she was blind. Seen from so close, Irena, standing over her, playing with her short but heavy truncheon, looked menacingly down. "I'm going to smash your face to a pulp, Pretty Eyes. Or cyclops with a pretty eye, as I can see only one of them... and four... and..."
The interruption in the counting gave Varvara an extra second or so to pull her last fighting strength back and concentrate all her will in her left leg - the only one she could use as a weapon for the moment. She kicked high, between the V of her rival's legs, striking up hard with the heel of the boot. The protruding nails in it for walking on the snow, did a job she would have been proud of if she could have seen it. Irena was demolished, twitching on the ground, knees pressed together and hands massaging her woman-mound, from where a searing pain spread in all directions through her body.
Beatrice came into Varvara's range of vision. "You also owe me, girl... And you'll not surprise me with the same old trick!" Varvara had nothing else to try, and kicked at the other's legs. She stepped back and searched for a weapon.
She did not have to go far and turned around, a dart- pistol in hand, only to stay mesmerized by what her eyes were seeing. Varvara had somehow managed to stand on her hands and knees and was crawling towards her foe, still twitching and moaning in her bed of snow. The two women were now almost in a snow cage, as with their heavy falls and exertions they had carved a large hole in which the lighter snow had melted around the combatants, leaving them upon the hard, icy surface below. Varvara, when she deemed she was near enough to her still prostrate rival, threw herself at her in a frenzy, delivering an animal sound that in itself contained both her suffering and her primeval hate. Hands, knees and head delivered blows almost simultaneously and in amazingly quick succession to the supine woman's head and lower body. Irena shrieked and used her arms as shields to cover as much of herself as she could while the brunette was searching for objectives on her body.
"Defend yourself, Irena! I'm gonna kill you!"
It looked as if this prompting from Varvara had some effect on the blonde's thought process, as only then did she try to surround her adversary's body with her limbs, reducing her punching power, and aiming her own punches to her attacker's torso. The blonde's fist buried itself deep in the region of the hurt right kidney and the brunette roared like the wounded lioness she was, immediately trying to get out of her adversary's punching range. But Irena had her now by her right wrist, using it as a lever to pull herself close to the brunette who was struggling to get up; she twisted the arm with all her might...
"You're not woman enough for me, Varvara! Beg me for mercy! Beg me!... I don't hear you, stupid Kiev cow!"
Varvara was crying and groaning, choking in her tears, whining and sniveling, breathing heavily; she bit her lower lip and she felt a gout of blood in her mouth, but she held the cry of defeat she was about to deliver, when her tired legs were faltering under her. Irena kept holding and humiliating her rival, now dominating her with the arm-lock and the weight of her body and murmuring obscenities with her mouth closed to the brunette's ear, calling her "Pretty Eyes", the expression of love that the Colonel usually addressed her in their most intimate moments. Her brown eyes were awash with tears but she was not yet pleading surrender. With firm determination, she decided that she was hurt - and that was all; pain is nothing when one has got a mission to complete. That was what she had been told over and over again in the People's Army - but could she believe it now?
"Shit! This one's already empty." Beatrice threw away her gun and came closer to the pit where the two women were straining against each other.
"Come, darling, let us finish this pretty-eyed cow with our bare hands; it's much nicer..." Varvara dominated, horrific pains coming from her twisted wrist, her broken rib, her shut eye, her bleeding kidney - and smashed the side of her head against her rival's face. Irena was taken by surprise with this sudden headbutt, "...Aaarrgh! She's broken my nose! Aaarrgh!..."
That was the most pleasurable music Varvara's ears could have heard in that moment. Now free, she tried to look at her rival's face, but though she felt the gush of blood against her own cheeks she was incapable of focusing her eyes.
From her higher position, Beatrice looked down on the two panting and smeared savage cats, coming apart on rubbery legs, after their long, primeval fight. She felt a twinge between her legs.
The brunette was the most wrecked of the two, with a lame leg, a smashed kidney, a broken rib, a twisted wrist and a closed eye. The blonde was still pressing her thighs together and her hands came off her face, all gory from her own blood, and sprang against her rival, clawing at her cheeks.
"I'm tearing you apart for this, you filthy bitch!" "It's a game two can play, Irena," was the brunette's hoarse reply. "Wrong, Varvara! It's a game three (Beatrice stressed the word) can play!"
"Good, Beatrice. You go for her legs and I'll pin her arms. We'll truss her up and then I'll put a rubber bullet up this whore's pussy." Irena's voice came also distorted, through her broken nose, deep and low with rage.
Beatrice chuckled. "That'll be nice. I had only thought of a dart through her good eye, to kill the beast! Accidents during these exercises do happen, don't they? But how do you think Headquarters will react? We can't shoot her through her trousers, and what you suggest is difficult to pass as an accident..."
"Of course we're gonna to strip the bitch naked. And never mind the consequences. I am covered (she repeated the word with ironic intonation) and I mean covered at high level - and from now on you're with me!"
Beatrice signaled her acquiescence to the sadistic project and Irena shot up her booted feet in a powerful karate kick to Varvara's jaw. Again, Varvara tasted her own blood, from her bitten lips; she had surprised Irena once more, coming at her sideways, although moving really slowly, and this way she had escaped the finishing kick, taking it over her left nipple. She had bitten her lips to muffle her cry of agony, and she was able to grab the rushing leg in front of her. Holding the leg, she felt a hilt taped with adhesive to the inner side of the knee-length boot, and grasped it with maddened strength.
Irena was breathing hard, through her mouth, her nose already closed and tumefied, and hopping awkwardly on her free leg. Beatrice had jumped into the small hole, positioning herself behind Varvara, and, passing her hands under the arm-pits, she applied a secure neck-breaker hold. Irena tried to kick the brunette with her imprisoned foot, but she only managed a gentle push that served to cram her fierce rival harder against the large frame of the woman who was holding her from the back. Beatrice was applying pressure to the strong neck of the sandwiched fighter while rubbing her pelvis against the buttocks of her prisoner. She demanded that Irena disengage her leg and attack the defenceless woman's belly. With another and stronger kick, Irena managed to shove her rival off her leg, and she stumbled back, only to come again, snarling in demented rage but with her arms crossed in front of her in a good karateka defence.
"She is not fighting back anymore, Irena. This cow loves the feeling of my hot tits against her frigid back!"
"Hold her well, now, because I'm gonna to fist-fuck the bitch before you break her neck. We must be on our time limit and... aaarrgh!"
Beatrice looked over her prisoner's shoulder, intrigued by Irena's strange shout of pleasure. It had sounded like the groan of a dying pig. "What is it, Irena? What has the bitch done to you?"
Irena was on her knees, gaping, her face distorted in agony, obviously unable to deliver a cry or utter a word. With a jerk and a supreme effort, she came erect and stumbled back, feet wide apart to hold herself up, arms extended forward, as if she wanted to prevent her enemy from reaching her - as if Beatrice's hold was not enough security for her. Irena's face and the proffered palms of her hands were darkened with blood.
The blonde wished to explain her accomplice that, in the heat of her confrontation with her foe, she had forgotten about the knife she had strapped to her inner leg, to obtain a treacherous advantage when she met the blue team's women. Her rival had ripped it off the leather boot, and concealed it against her left thigh when Irena came against her and in three quick movements, opened Varvara's belt and wrenched the trousers' buttons, preparing her assault on the girl. She was so close that Beatrice did not notice the short movement that took the naked six inch (15 cm) blade in an upward circling thrust into and through Irena's lower guts. It was the recoiling movement of the seriously hurt woman which freed the blade from its human target, as Varvara was practically motionless. Rage and surprise were etched on Beatrice's face when she saw the river of blood and gore oozing through Irena's ripped trouser and spilling on the icy ground between her open legs.
Irena's eyes went blank and she toppled down like a log in a forest, her blonde head brushing against the bosom of the woman who had bested her so decisively before hitting the ground in the confined pit. As if the brushing of the blonde's hair had been too much a strain to be piled on all the previous ones, Varvara's body went limp against the woman who was forcing her neck down, making her spine crack. Beatrice let go of Varvara and sidestepped her to approach the fallen body of her friend, terribly afraid that everything had gone wrong for them. And she was quite right, because she had been wrong in her assessment of Varvara's state. The woman had faked her loss of consciousness and from her crouching position her left arm came in a round circle, increased by the still dripping blade, aiming at her second attacker. Unable to see what she was striking, she cut Beatrice's left hip slightly and, as the woman turned towards the battered girl, for a moment offering her body to the searching blade, Varvara stepped in and corrected her aim, this time going higher, for a thrust to the heart. Beatrice was saved by the fallen trousers which made Varvara stumble sideways and miss, cutting her other over the breast but only superficially.
Beatrice felt the searing cuts and was afraid, but she only needed a few seconds to check through her ripped trousers and padded coat to see that it was nothing serious. When she looked at the brunette again she was already up, having discarded her trousers on Irena's body, her strong legs coming at her again in a drunken mockery of a knife-fight stance.
Beatrice evaded the knife-thrust with ease, and shot several karate punches to the staggering woman's torso. Varvara stubbornly tried to reach the other with her knife and for each failed attempt she suffered a powerful blow to her breasts, stomach and cheeks. Varvara had stepped back groggily, until her back was against the barrier of snow. Her armed hand fell at the side of her body, but she still kept a firm grip on it. Her coat was slightly draped behind her back, its hem now above the waist, her naked legs keeping her up, but already insensible to pain, transformed into two ice columns. Beatrice turned her left side to her victim, jumped in the air and, shouting a kiyai, delivered a kick to the brunette's lower guts, ripping her cotton briefs and grazing her skin with the snow-nails of her boot. Varvara screamed in agony but her knife went up, vainly aiming at the retreating leg.
"Stupid bitch! It's only half of you against all of me, see? ! I'm tougher than you, and you're gonna pay dearly for rejecting me, my pigeon... Give me that knife! If you beg to lick me down here (she motioned obscenely to herself) maybe... just maybe I'll let you live."
"N-o-o-o!" Varvara came off the supporting ice wall with the most speed she could manage, feinting a kick with her right leg, shooting her armed hand forward, but she was like a broken doll in the hands of the other.
Beatrice's hands grasped the advancing wrist, twisted it aside and the knife fell at the women's feet. Then she elbowed Varvara's left breast, smashing it deep into the chest and projecting her against the pit wall once more. Beatrice had felt the tip of the blade touching her under the left breast, lightly - and thought how lucky she had been in tangling with that woman when she was already in such a poor condition. Beatrice caressed her breast through the ripped coat.
"Now, even if you pleaded with me not to, I'd rip you open like the pig you are!" The lesbian smiled, seeing Varvara fighting with the buttons of her coat and divesting it, as quick as she could, using only the arm she could still move. Beatrice was quicker in picking up the discarded blade, just in case Varvara would produce another weapon from among her rags.
She poised, like a bull-fighter in front of the bull in the last episode of their unequal duel. Varvara's right side was no longer white, but blue and brown, from the hematomas and inner hemorrhages. She was holding the coat in her hand, not like a bull-fighter enticing a bull to charge, but as the shield knife-fighters are taught to use against the enemy's blade. Beatrice waited a minute. If it was not the will to finish the other woman herself, she could wait for the falling snow to turn the brunette into a block of ice. Varvara's good eye was fixed on Beatrice's.
Beatrice shouted a powerful kiyai and charged, her left fist going to the head, the right holding the blade tip upwards, to impale and rip the victim's belly. Varvara was acting on her instincts of survival, but her movements were slowed by an imense fatigue. She took the knife thrust into the coat, but the long blade passed through and opened a gash in the left arm; her face took the blow on a cheek and the side of the nose, starting a new fountain of blood and pain. Their bodies pressed together, they fought confusedly around Varvara's left arm, until the blade fell to the ground, tied up in the tangled and ripped coat.
Varvara slid down to the icy ground, her back raked against the irregular wall of the hollow in which the fight progressed. Beatrice went down, on top of her, inserting herself between the cold thighs and spreading Varvara's arms out and above her head, pinning her and making her feel the heaviness of her body. Both women were panting, but the downed girl was choking on her blood and coughing. The lesbian decided to help by putting both hands around the woman's neck and strangling her. Varvara pulled her left arm up and clawed at Beatrice's face, now only inches apart from hers, going for the eye. If the other woman hadn't pulled herself up and out of range, she would have been blinded. Before she was up, however, Varvara managed to knee her in her lower body, in a move the other would have thought impossible from such a hurt fighter.
She looked down, paralyzed by fear of the demoniac woman who, from the end of the ice cage that should have been her tomb, was thrusting her ice-cold legs up and closing them around the rival's waist! Beatrice slipped and fell between the powerful, hurt thighs of the brunette, tried to scratch them, jerked and shrieked hysterically, pulled her head up and looked at the gory face of the woman who kept holding her, saw a hand coming at her throat like a hammer and tried to interpose her arm.
Then, for both fighters, there was only blackness.
* * * * * * * * *
"From now on, you are stripped of your rank of Lieutenant and of your State silver medal for swimming, Varvara Leontieva. As for your Olympic bronze medal for archery, I would advise you never to show it again in public. Although Colonel Andrei Ivanine's report was not very detailed about the reasons behind your savage attacks on your comrades, it was enough to prove that your conduct was beyond mere insubordination. You are going to be court martialed after this. Do you have anything to say?"
"Yes, General Alexander Furmanov. I know you will not believe me and you will not change your bad opinion of me, but the truth is that the red team's assignment went down because Irena did not follow my strategy proposal properly. When we could have disposed of two blue girls nice and easy, she failed her part of the fight miserably and afterwards she and Beatrice attacked me. I accept the Army's punishment, not for my failure in that mission, but for my failure as a woman." She paused. "But this is none of your business!..."
"How dare you speak to me like that? Beatrice Nikolaeva was quickly revived after she passed out between your th... huhh... due to the pressure of the scissors' hold, and has applied to leave the Army. She, one of our best soldiers, told our psychiatrist that she can't see herself entering another physical combat after her confrontation with you. Irena Miliutina is still in and out of the operating room and we can't count on her again for any significant mission. Andrei Ivanine is going to be dismissed from the Army for messing too much with the female staff. And you have the cheek to tell me, after disrupting my special commando team, that something," He stressed the word and was suddenly shouting at her, "is not my business?"
"Since you already know, there is no point in not telling you about it." She sighed. "I was foolish enough to believe that Colonel Andrei Ivanine was in love with me. At first, I was not very serious about the relationship, but later... And then Irena came between us and he simply changed his bed partner."
"Do you still feel something for him?"
"No, Sir, I guess not. A woman once fancied that a high officer could care for a poor peasant from Kiev. Now, I've lost my virginity to him, lost my Army post to my rival in love, and I'll not get a damn civil job when I go back to Kiev, because you and your old generals will take good care of that, won't you?"
As she spoke, she was gaining more colour in her cheeks and her trembling voice was getting shriller and higher toned. She was fighting back her tears, trying to beat her lower lip, through all the adhesive tape and bandages that covered all of her face. She fell back against the cushions of her military hospital bed.
The General straightened his back and an ironic smile came to his lips. "This persecution talk and the age of Russian generals... You imply that the Army is under the same Stalinist methods of forty years ago, yes?"
"No, Sir. I simply said..."
"But you are wrong, Varvara Leontieva. The Army is not going to persecute you... I am! And I am not so old, as I'll be 44 next month - I am the youngest General in my Army branch. I own a datcha in Rumania, where I go several weeks a year, and I want to know that you are there waiting and expecting me. I'll pay you as if you were a Russian princess to be my secretary, so you'll need no job in Kiev. The money will come from the undercover missions fund - so, in a way, it will be the Army who pays you. Because I want you to be my personal secretary and bodyguard...and lover. I've played the videotape so many times that the picture is almost worn out..."
"Videotape?" Varvara was so astonished that that was the only word she was able to utter.
"Yes, the one we did from a distant tree, with a video-camera provided with zoom and remote control. We were able to see much of the fight you had, to the old Generals' appreciation. Your endurance and courage are past that of the majority of our elite men. The KGB wanted to have you, but I won. The Army throws you out officially, but I grab you. The Army strips you of your stripes, but I want to strip you of your bandages..." The General was about to press his lips to hers, his hands sliding from her breasts to the naked body under the sheets. "But before you think that you will lead a life of boredom, I must tell you why I am investing so much on you. I am a member of an important club - never mind its name - which owns an island, a small one, where it shows all kinds of fights among women champions. Up to now, I had to pay my entrance fee, because I was one of the few who could not present a champion to fight there. Now I can spare those US Dollars to bet on you - betting there is quite heavy. I will be good and share my profits with you, since I'm sure you'll be a winner!"
She did nothing to stop his large hot hands probing her muscles from the waist down, where she was wearing neither bandages nor the awful army knickers. He was handsome, big, unmarried - but was said to have come to his post with the help of the wives of some of the older generals. Why not? She knew she could absorb lots of punishment and return it. If this guy was prepared to offer her a good living on the Black Sea in exchange of a few scraps with other tough gals, why not indeed?
"One thousand US Dollars for each of your championship victories for you to spend in clothes or jewelry in Singapore, Delhi or London, when we travel there on my holidays. But you must keep yourself, and me!, in top condition!"
"You may count on me, Sir! I'l try not to let you down, as long as there are not four against me at the same time!"
"Do you still ache? Here?"
"Not if you go in gently, General!"
"No more General this, General that, my darling. You are my pet cat, now, and I don't want you to make me remember the bloody Army while we are together."
"May I hold my lion by his mane, like this?" She pulled his lips to hers once more, and kissed him hard. "Just wait for the cat to jump."
© Raf 8/1987
Typed and enlarged 11.10.87
Retyped to computer disc with additions and corrections, 9/1988
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 04
THE ARABIAN CONCUBINE
by Ajax
Oil! Oil! Oil! That was all his damned accountants ever talked about. Sheikh Afzal Riaz was fed up to the back teeth with oil talk. And now there was this stupid war to think about too. Damn Iran! Damn Iraq! They were disturbing the even tenor of his life, and Sheikh Afzal was by no means pleased.
He left the office, tore off his jacket and headed for his lounge. He had been interrupted during the sixth round of a very interesting boxing bout between Aracelis's Mexican girls. The blood was just starting to flow. He flung himself down amongst the cushions on the low sofa he favoured, punched in `Play' on the handset, and watched the round continue. It was October, evening, and cool, a combination enjoyed by Afzal, when he could relax and catch up on the female fighting performances from around the world. His was no ordinary combat though. What he watched was the best, always the best, conducted by members of one of the world's wealthiest clubs. Wealthiest and stealthiest. Two members came from the Gulf, himself and Abul of Ranj. Most of the rest were either industrialists, business people, or extremely rich aristocrats. They did not display their membership of the International Female Fighting Club. Rather they kept it close, and enjoyed their particular form of relaxation either in private, or in discreet groups, paying their large contributions to the running of things freely, and obtaining, as a result, such video tapes or films as Afzal watched now - a timeless bout fought to a finish in three minute rounds between women trained to deliver and withstand punishment that could only be dreamed of in public displays of the sports they practised.
Once a year there was the Gala Week at Silver Island, when those members who wished to could attend the meeting at the privately owned Pacific island, and see, in the flesh, the very best fight entertainment involving women. Probably the best in the world, though one never knew what went on in the Orient. Members from Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Taiwan, and lately Korea, plus a few who might appear from Indonesia and the Filipinas, rarely commented about Silver Island. It was probable that their own esoteric delights were as stimulating as those of the Occident. Certainly they seemed to produce fighters of immense toughness and ability, and that was what was at the heart of the IFF. Fringe activities - those of certain other organizations occasionally attended by IFF members, were known of but not highly regarded.
Being placed, as he was, as convenient for the east as the west, Sheikh Afzal enjoyed the best of all worlds. His recent visit to the island off Hong Kong at the invitation of certain Japanese oil people, had proved most stimulating. Those orientals certainly liked their entertainments elemental. Now, watching this tough boxing from Mexico, he began to feel that perhaps he should pay more interest to Central and South America. The steamy Latin temperament might well produce other delights as well as the tough fight he was watching.
It went twelve rounds before the smaller of the fighters was beaten to her knees for the ninth or tenth time, and was this time unable to rise within the twenty seconds that Aracelis used for her counts. The camera zeroed in with pleasing concentration on the fallen girl, after brief view of the leaping victrix.
Second and cornermen were trying hard to bring some semblance of sanity back to the writhing girl. With one eye shut, and both breasts swelling, it was clear that the girl (a comparative novice according to Aracelis's information sheet) had just about gone to her limit. She seemed paralyzed rather than KO'd, and the ice-bags were out on both face and bosom. Her nose was a real mess, and her moans as it was touched showed well enough what she had gone through. To Afzal it had looked a really gutsy performance.
Eventually the men and her female second got her up onto her stool and worked hard to ease the blood flow from her nose, but it was two or three minutes before she was fit to go to the centre of the ring for the victory ceremony. Even the winner looked quite battered, though her damage was probably only superficial. But the pair embraced after it, and the loser managed a weak smile. He felt certain that this was a girl he would be seeing more of.
The next bout on the Mexican tape was nude all-in wrestling, the pain of which he drank in avidly, and finally saw a blonde American savagely defeated by her lustrously black-haired opponent with a final back-breaker across her knee that left no doubt as to who had proved the better woman. Throughout the fight, knees, fists and feet had given them both a sexual assault which would take some time to recover from, and the weakening series of side-hand chops and knee-lifts to the vulva had left the blonde sagging on the ropes before the Mexican girl (he assumed she was Mexican) had snatched her off and slammed her across her knee. Now, as a final gesture of contempt, the black-haired girl drove her toe into the blonde's exposed groin, and swept out of the ring to leave her opponent's writhings of defeat flooded starkly beneath the searching lights. It was the final cruel act of a cruel victrix, though even she showed the exhaustion of an hour's brutal wrestling.
Sated for the moment, Sheikh Afzal lit a crown havana cigar and poured himself a very large whisky (he was not the best of Muslims, though he did give up the latter during Ramadan). He stopped the tape just as the pair of bare-fisters came to the ring. That was a pleasure that he might reserve for the darker recesses of the night.
Afzal dwelt in the huge Suleiman Palace of the Gulf State of Aqar, the domicile of his ancestors for a thousand years, wherein there was plenty of space for him to pursue all his hobbies. Oil was merely business, and of very little interest to the Sheikh. As long as the revenues flowed in as the oil flowed out, he remained unconcerned. A man of generous nature, he was very well loved by his people, for whom the oil money provided free telephones, medical services, education and television. Oil talk by accountants was about the only subject which could raise him to enraged boredom. He dispensed justice as fairly as he knew, was thought notable for his wisdom, and a good servant of Allah. He raised good horses, was a falconer of some note, and rarely rode a camel, preferring, as age closed about him, the air-conditioned comfort of three Mercedes cars and two Rolls-Royces.
Like all the Gulf States, water was a problem in Aqar, but the purification plant that he was building on the shore of the gulf should solve that one. He had even considered the cure-all idea of ice-berg towing, and was not yet persuaded that this wouldn't work.
On good terms with the Saudi King, and with a soulmate in Abul in the Sheikhdom next door, his life left much time for his pleasures, and he took them with some passion. One was the bevy of wives and concubines ensconced safely in the large harem to the north side of the palace.
He was about to lift the phone and call Abul when he became aware of a commotion outside his door. Wondering at the disturbance he moved to investigate it. Without, stood his Chief Wife, Azaria, arguing with his two security men. "What is it?" he demanded to know.
Azaria turned in his direction. "The girls are fighting," she told him worriedly.
"Are they?" he said incredulously, his eyebrows rising in sudden interest. "You had better take me there."
"It's that trouble-maker Yasmin, again," the worried Azaria informed him. "She stole a brooch."
He sighed. "Stole?" It didn't sound like Yasmin.
"Well, took without asking. I expect she meant to return it. Will you flog her?"
"Possibly," he replied. "Is it her third offence?"
"Her fourth," his chief wife declared pointedly. "You waived her punishment last time." Azaria was clearly not pleased by his lax discipline.
"Oh dear. It seems that she must suffer, then."
"She should have been flogged raw before now."
Azaria did tend to be a little testy at times, but he let it pass. Afzal disliked flogging his wives. It was sometimes a regrettable necessity, though. He could not have the harem upset by minor skirmishes.
As the neared the place, it was obvious that this was no minor skirmish. The noise seemed to indicate a full-scale brawl was going on.
The sight that met his eyes when he followed Azaria in was one to make those of a red-blooded combat fan almost pop. At least a dozen naked and semi-naked girls were murdering each other in the centre of the day-court while the others stood round egging them on.
"Stop it!" screeched Azaria, but was totally ignored.
"Let them have it out," he told her. "They don't get enough exercise anyway."
She looked at him as though he had lost his senses. "But they'll kill each other!" she declared.
"No they won't!" he said firmly. "They'll only knock each other out."
Azaria's jaw dropped. Allah had surely addled her husband's pate. He was looking at a dozen potential hospital cases, and didn't seem to care.
As they watched, a big girl, dusky skinned and wild-eyed, suddenly surfaced from the midst of the mass of struggling femininity. Yasmin, the trouble-maker. Her face and body was scratched and her hair a yanked-at mess. One of the girls with a bodice found herself hauled out of the pile by it, and punched across the marble. Her legs hit the rim of one of he four fountains, she lost her balance and fell into it, rendered semi-conscious already by the force of Yasmin's blow.
"Help her out," he told Azaria, but she was already on her way. The security men hung back, looking worried, as though the melee was cover for a threat to his life. Knowing of Yasmin's predilections for causing Azaria considerable anguish, Afzal himself was in no way concerned. He was merely enjoying the spectacle shamelessly.
A naked girl went to grab Yasmin's hair again, Bibi, whom had entertained two nights ago. The expression on her face was one of pure dislike. It shortly altered to one of pain as Yasmin hit her hard where she lest enjoyed it. Bibi staggered out of the fray clutching her breasts.
But her place was only taken by another and tougher girl, whose belly resisted Yasmin's knee before she caught the black hair and half dragged Yasmin down. Only half way, though, before Maria, his Maltese wife, and clearly in cahoots with Yasmin, elbowed her in the kidneys and she fell back into the melee.
Suddenly, there was space all round Yasmin as the others, seeing the fate of Bibi and the tougher girl fell back in fear. They were right to do so, for Yasmin began kicking at them. They scattered towards the fountains, Maria in pursuit of one group. She smashed a fist into Sefina's back, tripped Alima, and swung after some more.
Yasmin was left facing the black girl Orgwe, a wife sent Afzal by an `admirer' in Africa. If there was trouble in the harem that was not centred round Yasmin, Orgwe would be there. She and Yasmin disliked each other. Now, seeing a confrontation developing between these two, the others hung back. Getting between either and the object of her anger was likely to result in a disabling injury.
One of the security men was about to step forward to seize Orgwe, who stood with her back to them, oblivious of their presence. Sheikh Afzal restrained them. "Let them have it out!" he ordered. The man fell back.
A wild idea burst into the Sheikh's head. It was quite apparent that Yasmin and Orgwe had something to settle. He wanted it settled. Then, he would take the winner to bed. A night's love-making might well prove a greater punishment than the Azaria's proposed flogging. He would just flog the loser, that being the proper and prescribed punishment for troublesome wives in this land of Allah. A savage custom for a savage land he had always thought it. Perhaps he would flog them both.
There was no further time to think as the two women sprang at each other like spitting servals. Orgwe was heavily built, but not as big as Yasmin. Nevertheless their bodies met ventrally with a slap that made him wince. They each snarled, and seized each other in a deadly hug. Straining and swaying they poured their power into each other until their yowlings were cut off by shortness of breath. Though Yasmin was the bigger, Orgwe was the stronger, and the dusky skin was lightened perceptibly as the African's powerfully muscled arms crushed around the Arabian's ribcage.
Azaria looked away, shaking her head. This was madness. Sheikh Afzal had taken leave of his senses. The security men swallowed hard, poised to leap to the separation of the fighters the moment he gave the word. It didn't come.
The hugging battle went on, Yasmin's face becoming more and more suffused with agony. In desperation she thrust her forehead forward and down, butting Orgwe across the bridge of the nose. The black girl roared in pain and her force was lessened a little. A little, but enough. With a convulsive twist, Yasmin broke free, and kicked the African's legs from under her. Then she dropped onto the rolling girl, knees driving into back and right side, and forcing her heavy breasts into the marble.
Orgwe wore a pair of briefs, startlingly white against her black skin - Yasmin was unclothed.
The African lashed up and back with her leg, her heel driving painfully into the Arabian's back. Yasmin smashed a punch into the side of the black face. Blood was already flowing from the damaged nose.
Another snarl of passionate fury escaped Orgwe's lips as she turned under the bigger girl and slapped her round the right ear. Yasmin was knocked back and then came forward again, her breasts passing in front of Orgwe's face. Both her hands came up and locked into Yasmin's flesh, Orgwe wrenching her breasts down and sideways. Yasmin screamed, and threw herself off the African's lower body, her own hands curving into gouging claws and driving for the eyes. Orgwe released the right breast and her left fist thudded bone to bone against the left side of her foe's face. Yasmin, despite her size, was knocked sidewards, the movement increasing the pull on her left breast. She screamed in pain and grabbed Orgwe's forearm, trying to force her to release the breast. It tugged free leaving four bloody furrows across Yasmin's flesh. She rolled away and got up kicking. Orgwe, still on the cold marble threw herself this way and that to avoid the worst of the force of them, but was still hurt and cut, Yasmin's toe-nails leaving bloody trails and punctures in her sides and back.
Breathless after a time, Yasmin had to have a breather, and Orgwe, her eyes filled with a light of murderous determination, came to her knees, then stood, sweat glistening on her body. "Urtu!" she spat in her own language at the lighter-skinned woman, and although no-one knew the vocabulary its meaning was clear enough. Naked hate flared between them, and Sheikh Afzal thought of stopping it before either was more seriously injured.
The remaining girls, Maltese Maria amongst them, cowered aghast about the fountains. Azaria stood in misery, desperately wanting it broken up, but not able to do anything about it. Afzal was master here, and he said let it go on. One of the girls began wailing in fear.
"Shut up!" Afzal said sharply in her direction, and she fell silent. Mass hysteria he could do without.
Azaria had always spoken of Yasmin as a trouble maker. Orgwe was the same. Both the women were under twenty-five, and both detested their enforced incarceration at the Suleiman Palace. Not that life in the harem of a man such as Afzal was unpleasant. There was plenty to do, and these days wives were let out much as they wanted provided they wore the right clothing. Neither African or Arabian was trusted by the chief wife, so they got out least of any. Afzal began to wonder if he shouldn't be sending these two to Abul for instruction. Both looked natural fighters, and neither, it seemed, was put off by injury. Rage certainly seemed to be conquering pain. But then, reflected Afzal, it often did. His interest was in just how long it would continue to do so.
If she had not been here, the Arab, Yasmin, would probably have been carrying water and tending camels in the tents of the Bedouin, travelling endlessly bearing heavy burdens. She would have had no hope of avoiding that at her size. She would probably have been a great deal stronger then than she was now as a result, but infinitely more uncomfortable.
Orgwe had spent her childhood in the Cameroon, where she had been born. By now, in the ordinary course of things, she would have had a bevy of children, and tribal scars of an horrific nature. At least, Aqar had saved her that agony. But she was a restless woman and naturally strong. He had had her here for ten years now, sent, he suspected, because she had been too wayward for his friend to handle.
Both had been to Afzal's bed a number of times. Neither was particularly co-operative. Azaria would certainly have been glad to be rid of them both.
Having caught their breath, the two were fighting again, slashing with nails, and rolling around the marble, hips and shoulders bruising as they went, but unconcerned by that. Yasmin had had her face scratched along with her breast, and was looking a thorough mess. Her nakedness seemed fitting for the bitter struggle the women were putting up, and her acceptance of her total vulnerability stirred the Sheikh's loins.
Orgwe fought with a merciless ferocity that would have shocked the man had he not seen it so often on his video tapes. Once they rose she began to hurl punches at Yasmin, who stood into them, and hammered back at her. There was no attempt at defence. Both were out to hurt.
Breasts and bellies took the blows, but as their pain grew to unbearable proportions, they fell to the more female form of fighting, closing to knee each other in the groin, slash fingernails across their bodies, seize and wrench at hair and breasts, and cause whatever mayhem they could.
Eventually they tired, and then they wrestled hurtfully about the marble floor, blood smearing them, and bruises growing both in number and size.
When Orgwe seized the Arab's arm, and pulled her forward onto her driving knee, Afzal thought it was over. Yasmin screamed out her agony as it took her low in the guts, and seemed to fold across the shorter girl. Her weight took them back to the marble, and the Arab found herself astride the African, able to pummel her about the head and face with her free left hand. Orgwe threw her head from side to side in a vain attempt to avoid the blows until Yasmin leaned too far towards her, and her large breasts came again within range of the black girl's teeth. She raised her head and sank them into Yasmin's bloody left breast, bringing such a screech of tormented fury that Afzal realized the move had been unwise.
Yasmin was not prepared to suffer that with equanimity, and brought her full weight to bear, slamming the black head to the marble. Orgwe saw a cloud of stars, but chewed on grimly, the taste of Yasmin's blood bringing her extra strength.
It availed her nothing. Strain and writhe as she would, Yasmin's seat was too secure, and when the big Arab reached for Orgwe's ears, the end was not far off. Again and again Yasmin slammed her head against the floor and her consciousness started to slip. Eventually her teeth released the savaged flesh, and the black girl went limp beneath the brown.
Almost utterly exhausted, her body bruised and bleeding, Yasmin rose from the limp form, and kicked it in the side. She didn't even groan. Yasmin stood over her victim, swaying in her exhaustion, and at long last Afzal allowed his chief wife to take her away. As she went he called. "Send Yasmin to my bed at ten, and string the other up. Tomorrow they'll be flogged!"
Azaria was appalled again. Yasmin needed a week's bed-rest, and then the whipping she deserved, not a night in Afzal's bed on top of what she had already suffered.
"Alright," said Maria to the others. "Let's get them cleaned up." Apart from Afzal himself only Maria seemed unshocked by the vicious brawl they had just witnessed. His eyebrows rose quizzically at the realization. Azaria had not told him of any proclivities that Maria possessed in that direction. He must question her further.
* * * * * * * * *
Even by ten o'clock, Azaria's best efforts had been unable to do much to improve Yasmin's condition. She came in a diaphanous negligee looking bruised and battered, though bathed and tidied as best the chief wife could manage. Once the gown was gone, her condition showed starkly. Her scratches and bites were still red and angry-looking, and she was clearly still in a lot of pain.
Afzal had intended this session to be a lesson to the girl about the consequences of fighting, but her passion seemed unleashed by the condition she was in. The adrenalin must still have been flowing. Afterwards, Afzal felt raped for the first time in his life. But it made him realize the depth of feeling in the girl, and the violence of the release she craved.
In the morning she spoke. "Will I be whipped," she asked, "like Orgwe?"
Afzal turned to her with a smile. "Is there any reason why you shouldn't?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Then go and prepare yourself," he told her.
His concubine picked up her peignoir, slipped it about her shoulders and returned to the harem.
There was pain enough in her already. Her bruises ached, her scratches burned. As she limped her way back to her quarters, Orgwe stood against the whipping post that had been wheeled out into the centre of the day court. From her slumped attitude it seemed that she had been there all night.
The sound of Yasmin's feet on the marble roused the black girl. "Bitch!" she exclaimed with contempt. "Next time, I'll kill you!"
"You mean, you'll try," said Yasmin as she passed her. "You might end up there again." Clearly her night's suspension had done little to improve Orgwe's temper.
* * * * * * * * *
Sheikh Afzal of Aqar picked up the telephone, dialed, waited a moment and then spoke. "Abul? I think I've got a girl for Silver Island!"
On the other end of the line, Abul of Ranj, chuckled. "When can I see her?" he enquired.
"Noon," Afzal said. "There'll be a double whipping."
"I'll be there," stated Afzal's fellow member of the IFFC, and replaced his receiver.
© Ajax 10/1987
Note by Raf (2021) – The Sultanate of Aqar is the only fictional country in SIR, though Aqar exists as a location in the Sultanate of Oman.
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This is wonderful. A brilliant history of femfighting and a massively ambitious project. Thank you for posting these and I look forward to seeing the rest of the stories. My favourite so far has been the fight between the portugese women.
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This is wonderful. A brilliant history of femfighting and a massively ambitious project. Thank you for posting these and I look forward to seeing the rest of the stories. My favourite so far has been the fight between the portugese women.
May be because I was familiar with the setting, and therefore I could describe it well. When Ajax stood a few days in Lisbon with me, a decade after he head read The Portuguese Mistress, I drove him around by car and - without forewarning him - I took him to the place of the fight, entering exactly from the road the male character did in his jogging. Ajax had an incredible memory, and as I drove by the bus stop, he told me, «This is the road Nikvist took, hein?!" I was said that meanwhile a forest fire had destroyed in part the dense pine-trees on both sides of the road, but Nature being better then Humanity, the new pine trees were coming out of the black earth again. I parked at the very parking space mentioned in the story, and we went to peer at the hollow where the fictional fight took place. He was awed with my description of the site, as I was with his memory.
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Each theme and areas the stories take place in are so different to where it kept me invested while reading them. I wonder why i've never heard of raf before. Seems like he had a skilled hand in writing catfight stories.
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Each theme and areas the stories take place in are so different to where it kept me invested while reading them. I wonder why i've never heard of raf before. Seems like he had a skilled hand in writing catfight stories.
Thanks for the Like.
Ajax is the late friend of Raf, who lives on, probably not much more aka Agraf. You're right in talking of Raf in the past tense, as my writing inspirations are mostly gone :(
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The writing is absolutely superb, the descriptions paint such a vivid mind picture illustrations are unnecessary and could possible ruin the prose—Thank you for posting these, they are gems
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 05
THE THAI MASSEUSE
by Raf
December 27th, 2527, 7 a.m. [1]
He lay stretched on the sand, a large brimmed straw hat on his head, protecting his tanned face from the already powerful bite of the sun's rays. Running shoes and jogging outfit had been discarded, one piece at a time, while he reduced speed and bore away to his left on the road bordering the long, suave arch of the bay. Between the road and the sea, now peaceful, it's small waves kissing the smooth, white sand and a few sharp rocks gently, was a strip of land and sand, more sand than land pinpointed by an endless line of tall palm trees - useless as cover against the sun because of their size but precious decoration for a lovely, quiet, Edenic place. His heart was beating fast after the early morning exercise but he felt good now, after jumping down the small drop between the roadside and the beach wall - and lying down, luxuriously stretched, alone under one of the palm trees.
In a few hours the first tourists would come, each group larger than the one before, then the tuk-tuk [2], the taxis, the fake-jewellery sellers, the divers, the scuba-divers, the para-sailors, the water-skiers, the motor-boats, big, small and medium, to trans-ship the tourists from a narrow strip of sand to the clean coral beaches that surrounded the outer islands... plus, on the other side of the road, eight thousand hotel rooms and bungalows `manned' by eight thousand girls milling about the small, colourful, noisy bars, equal in number to the palm trees on this side of the road. From these bars came the noise of romantic Indian songs, hard-Rock from Hong Kong and Tokyo, and American hit numbers, and from the cable tv and pirate video-recorders, hot sex, female mud wrestling, car chases and destruction, cops, robbers and mayhem. It would be, day in and day out, six kilometers of hellish noise, until it subsided by 4 a.m., when the mass of humanity retired, drunk and with a hot partner for a few hours of sex and sleep. Sex without sin and without crime, for the girls were willing, ready and competitive, and not bothered by religious or social complexes. At least, that is what the tourist guide says, hand extended for his commission on the very special (only 201 like it) body massage parlour...
He was a loner, so he had to profit by his different habits and use the beach while it was deserted. He pushed himself upon his elbows and peered at the Gulf of Thailand in front of him. Overhead the breeze rustled through the tops of the palm trees, a tropical bird shouting something only his companions would understand. The smooth waves came up to the shore and broke up over the sand, their line as yet undisturbed by the crazy motor-boats lying further to the south.
What was that point on the crest of a wave? A black ball? Pushed down by the force of the ocean, it soon reappeared near the beach, larger, not exactly round and not floating but coming straight to the shore, with the help of... two arms. Decidedly, it was a swimmer. The swimmer walked out of the water, legs taughtened against the wave's undertow and started running in his direction.
There was no possibility of mistaking her for a boy, although she was fully clothed in boy's clothes, and dripping wet. As fully clothed as a local girl would be in such weather, hot and slightly humid, to face the even hotter competition from the army of girls whose simple objective of extracting from the tourists all the dollars, marks or yen they had on their persons. The sex-hungry tourists were easy prey for the hunters of this well-practiced army, who fought cleanly with their natural weapons.
As she came nearer he could see she was an exception, not by being taller than the average - about 5'1" (1.55 m) - but by her size, her rounded and heavy thighs and buttocks, richly muscled arms and legs, two large round breasts, swagging freely under the sleeveless and low cut bright yellow T-shirt. Her shorts had been cut from a pair of much used blue-jeans, a boy's blue-jeans, so washed and old that they were almost white. He imagined the girl growing up inside them since she had been twelve and had received them from her bigger brother, until she had graduated from that age of innocence, up there in a farmyard of the northern lands, to her present status of a mature young woman - to whose curvy body the shorts adhered so closely that they could not be undressed but would have had to be peeled off her.
When she was ten meters away from him she stopped and approached slowly, her large feet light on the sand, almost not disturbing him, as if she understood his desire not to be disturbed himself. He let himself drop back again, pretending not to pay her any heed - natural pearl sellers always came from nowhere and at the slightest sign of interest could stay pestering you for endless hours! But he was looking at her, peering under the brim of his hat. She stopped one meter away and bowed politely, although he was not looking at her eyes. He couldn't for a number of reasons. He had no angle of vision that would allow it. He had taken a lot of time on the bulge of her crotch where the cotton had designated her sex, adhering firmly and wetly to the labia (she was obviously wearing nothing under it). Then his eyes had crossed the almost narrow waist and refused to go higher than the invisible line uniting the tips of her breasts, protruding erect from their large dark areolas...
"Good moning, seer! You early! No slip tonight? No girlees?" she giggled. He liked her voice, and her attempt at humouring him... but what he really liked was the marble statue that the ocean had given him this morning. Certainly the ancient classicists knew what they were writing about when they described their meetings with nymphs and nereids. He kept silence and she went on, without a hint of annoyance, "Me, give good massage you. Me, reely good, seer look..." He couldn't help himself and pushed the hat back to look up. She was flexing her right biceps and it showed. He also saw her face, not pretty, rather plain but gentle, good teeth, very white and on show in her large, smiling mouth. Her hair was black, glistening with water, cascading down her back past her waist. And there was something strange in there, some quality he was not accustomed to in the hundreds of women and girls in that paradise of Pattaya. Could it be... a frank, loyal look? Her black eyes were shining on him as hot as the sun, pearls of water dropping from her head, arms and clothes... Just far enough away not to drop on him. "I can massage you like a man, reely relax you body. Me strong, see?" The girl went to her knees by his head, always careful not to spill water or sand over his body. He felt the strong smell of a healthy woman and salt water. She was offering him her upper arm, bending over him. "You touch! I no liar. Reely cheap. If you no happy after, you no pay. If you happy, you pay me lunch on the beach. A cheap one, yes?"
She was offering him a massage for a few baht [3]. If he accepted he could chose to pay just that or, according to local custom, buy other personal services from her, later, in the privacy of his four-star hotel room.
"O.K. You give me a good massage..." He had chosen his words carefully. He always tried to use simple to understand words but he never went into the gimmickry of changing his voice into the sing-song tone of the locals. All tourists did that and people seemed to accept that well. Did they not understand that they were being ridiculed by the "powerfully rich" or were they more civilized than their visitors and did not show their contempt for them?
"Me only massage you muscles, yes? Body massage I can do only at you room. Maybe later?" She had not started yet, and as the good businesswoman she needed to be to survive in that jungle of sand, she was already appraising her customer. Platinum wrist watch, high priced sports clothes carelessly thrown about and a suntan proving that he stayed longer in the sun than inside an office. Besides, she was jumping to the second and to her more lucrative trade. How old was she, fourteen, fifteen maybe? Those brown skinned girls matured so quickly...
"No body massage, girl. Just let me feel your muscles, in a straight massage. You understand?"
"O.K. seer. Me good girl. You say what you want and I do it to you. Now, you relax. Me wet, but I not wet you."
She started massaging, pummeling, nursing, using the palms of her hands, the tips of her fingers, the edges of her hands. Hard, sweet, strange - his hard lean body ached a little but in a short while, under her expert ministrations, he started to doze off. She had finished his legs and upper body.
"Please turn. I do you back, now. You happy?"
"Yes. You go on and..." Before he could say that he wanted her to keep quiet, because he loved the silence, the sound of the breeze and the waves, she cut in.
"I am happy that you happy! I like you, you no fat. You like me, all good muscle..." There was a short, embarrassed pause. "Well! I have big breasts, too big, so men not like me much. Other Thai girls prettier, yes?" Anxiously now. "They many are white skinned, almost as you. More prettier, yes?"
Could he explain that beauty was not an objective thing or even quality, that it depended entirely on the eyes of the subject doing the appreciation? And that all men were not Germans, like those who first colonized Pattaya after the US Army left Viet Nam, and like the Japanese, obsessed by the idea of making love to a blonde? Was it necessary to explain those philosophical matters to an illiterate girl, especially now that in applying her massage, her firing hot thighs had closed against his body and, to do his other shoulder, she was bridging over his torso, her pendant breasts piercing the T-shirt and touching his chest lightly, now and then, as she rubbed his muscular tissue? He was feeling constrained already inside his bathing pouch, his throbbing malehood piercing the sand under him - responding to her hot body. She was just touching him lightly and by accident. To prove to her that she was a beauty to him, he only had to roll over on his back and show her...
"Stand up and get out of here, you no-good fucking bitch! This minute!" He turned his face sideways. His masseuse was already up, on springy legs.
"I am doing nothing of you business. I do massage only. You see! Nothing more... As you told me!"
So, the girl was being harassed by a local community of gigolos. A young man stood, some seven meters away (c. 20 feet), looking at the sea, in tight jeans and a flower-patterned shirt. Two women, another teenager and an older one, had come very close to the lonely pair on the beach, their soft way of walking not giving them away until they were nearly upon them. The exchange went on in high piercing tones from the new teenager and in pleading, subdued tones from the masseuse. She looked down and sideways at her client, obviously embarrassed by the distress she was imposing on him with her own problems, through what she considered her fault. The other two advanced on her, pushing her back, the masseuse making herself small in front of them, cowering and stepping back. He could not follow the lengthy exchange, because the women had soon reverted to their own language.
The older girl was in her late twenties, with short and curly brown hair. Her face, showing the results of her adventurous life, already had two wrinkles. She was wearing a pair of tight white trousers, her torso encased in the red top of a one piece bathing suit. The teenager with her possessed a light complexion and a perfect, lissome body, her small but firm breasts visible through the two miniscule triangles of green, held in place by a green thong laced across the back. Her buttocks were bare, the half of her bikini consisting of a 6 square centimeter triangle over her Venus mound and a thong around her waist. She was obviously one of the competitors the masseuse was afraid of. Both newcomers were taller than the masseuse by 2 or 3 inches (5 or 7 cm).
In her deft attempt to escape the masseuse momentarily forgot about her client, and stepped back and over his extended legs falling over him and rolling on the sand to his left, while he finally rolled on his back to fully appreciate the situation. The hooligan girls acted as a perfect team. The mature one bent and grabbed the left arm of the downed girl, while the bikinied one got hold of the right ankle and, with these two holding points, lifted the heavy girl up and away from the European and threw her down, hard, on the sand. The masseuse was standing up in a crouching position when the bikinied girl positioned in front of her kicked with the heel of her foot to the solar plexus. The masseuse was thrown two steps backwards, doubling over at the waist and falling in a twisted bundle. The European observer winced as if he had been hit by the same bony heel in the pit of the stomach. The heavy mane of the lustrous black hair covered the fallen girl who was now on her knees, bracing herself, head lowered and pleading with her attackers.
The mature woman spat on the girl and got a good handful of her hair, hauling her up by it. The man saw the girl's face change quickly from the gentle and begging attitude to one of pain and agony and then, in a second, to that of an enraged tigress. In another second she was up and twisting around herself, thrusting her bosom against the one of her older attacker, both hands going to her enemy's curls, paying tit for tat what she was being dished out. Being the heavier of the two, the girl toppled the other supine under her, and controlled her jerking movements between her legs, mounting her as a horseman would a wild pony. Her hands were very active on the girl beneath her, pulling hair and scratching ears and around the eyes, only the jerking movements preventing her from ripping them out of their sockets, and although she had her own head on fire, the woman was the first to let go in the hair battle, to defend her face from more serious injury and pain. Freeing her hair the girl threw back her head, hair flying (a beautiful moment) and it was the very second the skinny bikinied girl chose to jump against her with another kick. It connected with her cheek with enough force to tumble her sideways and allow her closer foe to leap on her. In spite of being the heavier fighter, the masseuse reacted quickly, and the woman rushing upon her received a double knee blow to her lower belly which sent her back against the green-bikinied girl, making both bite the sand in a tangle.
He thought that he should intervene, being a civilized gentleman. This was not an entertainment put on at a disco-bar in downtown Pattaya, nightly showing female Thai kick-boxing. This was a serious matter and the menacing presence of the male hooligan reinforced this conclusion. But there were no policemen in the streets - the entire force consisting of a dozen or so men, working on the 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, who were all sleeping now. The city council knew that the different economic groups exploring the hotels and prostitution rings had their own private police forces, and he, a foreigner, was in no position to alter such a perfect arrangement. The gigolo had finally taken his eyes away from the horizon and rivetted them on the snarling threesome of she-cats, who jumped up again clawing their fingers at each other.
There was a simultaneous clash of the three fighters. It was so quick that the man did not see it all happen; both the masseuse and the skinny girl had parried their arm attacks, but had placed their Thai knee blows to each other's body. The masseuse took it on her thigh and winced while the lissome pretty took it fully between her legs, immediately closing her knees and using both hands to assuage the pain knifing up to her mind from that most vulnerable spot. Only the masseuse could not demolish her, as she could obviously have done in a fair duel of one on one, because she had received two punches on her right ribcage and swaying breast, and was retreating under a barrage of swishing blows delivered by the powerful woman to all parts of her body. The slightly longer rich of the taller woman and her quickness proved advantageous in this punching and kicking combat, as more of her blows connected to the body of the retreating girl, her well muscled body having to absorb a lesser degree of pain. The strength of the masseuse showed in the fact that the smaller girl, her face a study in anguish, had at last fallen on the sand, sideways, moaning and rubbing her crotch. The direct hit of the knee-cap had been devastating.
In his stay during this holiday the European had visited some stables of Thai kick-boxers, and had once seen a match that had been arranged privately for a group of heavy bettors. That time, there had been no crowd, no doctor, and no referee to separate the male fighters. It had ended when one was too tired to defend himself and went down under a barrage of punches to his heart and kidneys, and collapsed at the feet of his adversary. The winner had to be taken to the same hospital as his victim but that was alright because they were professional fighters and doing it for a large amount of money.
But what could possibly be the reason for this disagreement and equally bloody fight? As opposed to the skillful technique of the men he had seen fighting earlier these two women made the Thai kick-boxing moves alright, but only the attacking ones, as if they had not been taught any defensive ones or did not care at all to use them. The blows that were blocked seemed to be by accident more than tactics. The natural sounds of the wind in the palm trees and the ocean on the shore had been overcome by the thud of blows upon feminine flesh. The heavy panting of the two fighters was cut occasionaly by their muffled cries of agony when a punch penetrated to their breasts or smashed into their kidneys. The knee blows to the crotch (a most usual attack in this kind of fighting) had always been parried by the interposed thigh, either left or right, and the muscles of both fighters' legs were getting too hurt to go on without respite. It seemed that there was not going to be a sport's official to signal the end of a round for the battle by the sea-side had begun more than six minutes ago.
The women's feet were being bathed by the waves as the girl had stepped as far back into the water as she could. Both seemed undisturbed by the water rolling under their feet and covering their ankles. Now water splashed around them, as they went on their fighting moves - perhaps slower, both tiring of the fight. The question was which of them would have stamina enough to endure the blows received.
The European saw the young man walk over to the battling pair and put something into the hands of the recovered girl in the three green triangles. Now, his masseuse was finished. He stood up. In the next second the activity by the sea stopped and he saw, as in a slow motion film, the masseuse pulling back her fist from between her rival's breasts, the other's arms falling limp to her sides and no sound coming from her. With a shout, the masseuse pummeled the other girl's breasts simultaneously. The other stepped sideways where he could see half her face, mouth gaping, eyes wide open, being battered and hammered by piston like punches into her breasts, stomach and lower guts farther into the sea, until she fell back, arms and legs outstretched, her head and shoulders staying under water.
The masseuse turned her head to the woman she had just utterly defeated and shrugged her shoulders at the advancing pair. The young man was grinning evilly at her and the sun shone in a reflection on the switch-blade the wiry girl in the bikini was wielding and circling in front of her at arms' length. He had to do something, but this was so serious that he was not going to be knifed in a beach brawl for someome he neither knew nor cared for. His conscience made the man remember the pair of hot black eyes pouring honey over him, the pair of erect nipples grazing his back during the massage and the tension her expert manipulation had extracted from his muscles... He ran to the low wall bordering the beach and jumped over it onto the road. Not a soul yet. This was Sunday and the Saturday nights were particularly devastating. It would be hours before anyone arrived, and then it would be too late to get his girl any help. He looked back to the fighters. For a minute, the masseuse had kept the hooligans at bay using a variety of high kicks and jumps through the air, with something like karate fist blows all around her. Then the fierce gang girl, profiting from the tiredness of the masseuse, managed to approach her. The girl in the bikini was punched under the left nipple, but her blade ripped the yellow T-shirt and darkened it with red! In the next second, her blade went down to the masseuse's shorts but she took a knee to the jaw that jerked her up, stopping her in her tracks, with the switchblade still pointing to her rival's guts.
The young man was behind the bikinied girl and was unable to assist her, so she was alone against the still powerful darker girl who put all she had behind the next kick to the head. If the slim girl had been quick enough to thrust up her blade she would have split the masseuse's guts in two but she was paralyzed from the force of the first blow and this one cracked her jaw and sent her senseless into the young man, who roughly shoved her aside like a rag doll.
The man was obviously swearing has he punched his way in, searching for the in-fight that would give him a quick victory over the short, tough Amazon through his superior strength. The European jumped down onto the sand again and ran to the fighters. He was not a fighter, and he had never been involved in a real brawl but he had to help that girl. She was still holding herself where she had been cut, but was placing a kick blow or a punch for each one she had to take from the male thug. The European went to the girl in the bikini who was still unconscious, her fingers wrapped around the switch-blade and took it from her hand. Then he looked up. The masseuse received a crashing punch to her right nipple, winced, stepped back and as the male swivelled his right foot to kick her in the side of the head and finish her she suddenly went in and her hand pistoned down between their bodies. His high kick failed miserably and he fell against her; they stood for a moment as though in a clinch and he punched her again to the breast with his left hand but screamed and tried to jump back, the girl bearhugging him with her other hand. They danced like that in front of his astonished eyes until he saw that the masseuse had got a hold on the young man's bulging crotch and was crushing his nuts between her iron fingers.
Although she let him go he went on shouting for a second until she head-butted him over the mouth and he felt writhing on the wet sand. As he approached her to congratulate her on her victory she collapsed on the spot without even as much as a moan.
* * * * * * * * *
The European had never believed that he could be witness to such a fierce battle of physical strength and mental power in sustaining an uneven battle, yet to survive - survival, according to the Thai way being the difference between being the penultimate or the last fighter to go down, as their savage form of combat was more often than not devastating for both parties involved.
He closed the switch-blade and put it inside his bathing pouch already crowded by his throbbing penis - and now he noticed that his erection was unabated and asking for relief. What a way to start a Sunday, he thought, as he glanced sideways at the moaning thug and ascertained that he would not be jumped on while he was watching his girl's face.
He crouched by her and for the first time took her in his arms throwing water over her face and massaging her heart. How good her body felt in his hands, how perfect were those breasts, how sexy her long mane of hair. Her face was scratched and her right eye almost closed by a punch. He pulled up the T-shirt and saw an open gash some 5" (12 cm) long over her stomach. Provided it was not deep she would make it. Her legs were marbled in blue and cut and grazed.
"Where am I? Leave me! Go away!"
As she came to her senses she tried to free herself from his arms, pushing him away. Was she coy or just stubborn?
"Are you badly hurt, girl?"
"Naw. It's only a scratch. I cannot finish massage, you no pay. Go away! Before police come!"
"What!... You have been attacked by these... this gang and you do not want to report this to the police? I saw everything... No, wait a minute! Who are you after all, and why did they jump on you?"
"You foreigner, you no understand us. Sukhumvit there (she pointed with her jaw, since her hands were massaging her breasts) is friends with police and police will not be happy with Massupha (she pointed in a comic way to her head) knowing that I beat him and his girls..."
"But are you a criminal? Have you done something bad to them before?"
"I disobeyed them. I was told to get out of Pattaya or give them a percentage of my nights with men, but I came from the north to do massage only. I do not want to be a whore in the girl's bars."
"But you have asked me... just that... You're a liar, are you? And a bad one!"
"Nooo!" she shouted, tears rolling out of her eyes suddenly, and she jumped up, balancing precariously over her left leg as the right was still not responding to her will. "Me never lie! Me hungry, for they hunt me three days and I have nothing to eat and I slip on the beach at night. Me wrong when thought you different from other tourists. Leave me!"
The blood was pasting the once yellow T-shirt to her wound and already tinging the waistband of her tight fitting shorts. She was wiping out her tears with her left arm and walking lamely down the beach.
"Sorry if I hurt your feelings, Massupha, but you can't go off alone now, you must let me take you to the hospital."
She sniffed back at him. "You reely do not understand us. If I went to the hospital, the police get me and give me to the gang to have me finished somewhere." She shrugged her shoulders, and went away.
The young man suddenly remembered that there was a drowning woman near by, ran to her and pulled her by her feet and started the mouth to mouth resuscitation and cardiac massage. He looked up quickly and saw that the gigolo was trying to revive the other young woman, who was just starting to moan as she lay supine and spread-eagled on the sand, the three green triangles out of place and leaving her body fully exposed to the sun and the man's eyes. But neither she nor the woman he was himself trying to bring back to life had the slightest intention of inviting men to make love to them in the next few days. The woman whom he was reviving had her trousers and bathing top torn in several places but was as decent as local standards demanded. As soon as she came to with her first convulsion, he helped her vomit some water, holding her in his arms, then looked up at the masseuse.
She had stopped a short distance away to look back at him. He saw her frown as he held the mature bombshell in his arms. The masseuse started her lonely limping down the beach, moving towards the north, away from Pattaya's town centre.
"Hey, girl! Where do you think you're going? Wait for me!"
She didn't bother to look back. He saw her straighten her back and quicken up her tired legs.
"Wait, you fool!" He was running towards her; he reached and stopped her, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Me told you. Me go away. If I stay longer they will have me killed. You no understand. You no like Massupha. Why you hold me?"
"Because... because I like you a lot!" He put his arms down her back, her hair giving him an electric shock to his arms and he pressed his mouth on hers, kissing her deeply.
She looked him eye to eye when he left her. She was smiling. "Me better than the light colour woman over there, you chose to kiss first? Me no need you kisses. When I give myself to a man he will be man I want."
"Don't you understand that I want to help you out of here?"
"You, a foreigner, help me? ! Why that? I did not massage you... You do not like look of me... You kissed that killer first... What do you..."
"Killer? ! What killer?"
"The woman there. I saw you kiss her! Three months ago a girl from my village also refused to be in their organization and she strangled her on the beach. Police said my friend had drowned! She swam like a fish in our large river up there, in hometown! But you know nothing..."
"O.K., so I shouldn't have cared that she was left there drowning. But do you want to get out of this country or not? I can get you a passport."
Massupha stopped her resistance to the his hands. "You no serious, yes? You only want fuck me cheap, yes?"
"No... But I tell you the truth. I was excited by your natural skill and courage when you defended yourself against those thugs (he looked at the trio, now walking lamely in the opposite direction, helping each other to walk, the man with his left hand between his legs, the topless girl holding her jaw and crying, and the woman doubled over at the waist) - Christ! You did a wonderful job, alone against three - and I would like to contract you as a professional fighter... Are you afraid?"
"I not fight for money. Just to defend myself. My grandfather also taught me that!"
"You had learned kick-boxing?"
"Of course. I practice the Muay-Thai [4] since I was eight." She giggled. "That is the reason no boy got in my pants up to now. And four tried very hard!"
"You mean... that you really are... a virgin? Such a big girl?"
"I am sixteen, yes, but I do not fuck around. I know I am not pretty and men just want to use my..."
"You're stupid, that's what you are!" he cut in, "You have pretty eyes, wonderful hair, and a healthy and strong body; you're gentle and sweet, and tough and brave on top of all that. Any sensible man would like to have you for the rest of his life!"
"You sensible man?" She asked that looking at him eye to eye again. Her face was deadly serious. He vacillated, thought about his immense, rich, and empty house in Vienna and the surprise his friends would have when he introduced her.
But he was also serious when he answered, "Yes. I am a sensible man. I would like to have you for life. But we do not know a thing about each other and I wished..."
"I not want marry you. I just wanted to see how serious you were. You promised to take me out of Thailand quick?"
"Out of town today, and out of the country in a week. We will go to Bangkok and you will apply for a passport. I thought of paying you, so you could have your own room in the hotel... To show your fight techniques to the friends I have, on a beach like this one, but very far from here. It's called Silver Island."
"How much?"
"Five hundred a month, all expenses paid, of course."
"I want to get out of here, but to fight, I want more, at least a thousand baht and the food. No room, you can spare that if you like me as you say! If I fight only girls like me, yes? I fight four times a week."
"Wait a minute! You thought I was offering you five hundred baht? I am offering you US $500 and you'll fight only once a month or so and I'll provide you with professional training."
"A pity that you're not serious. I reely wanted to get out."
He grabbed her fiercely and hugged her, closing her mouth with his and kissing her again, passionately. The poor kid knew nothing of the outside world, of how much her presence would mean to rich people who were members of the International Female Fighting Club.
"I'm speaking the truth. Maybe here you're worthless, but in my country and where I'm taking you, you'll be worth what I'm offering you, and more. Now you come with me to my hotel. You're drenched in blood and we keep talking here out in the sun."
"And you are so hard..." she giggled, as her hand caught his maleness thrusting against her thigh through the wet cotton pouch, with the help of the close and already forgotten switch-blade. She caressed him gently and then showed the knife in the tip of her fingers. "I will keep as a trophy, yes. Now I go with you. I am afraid I am no good today to do you body massage. And I can see you need one. But you can go and find a prettier girl any time." He pressed himself against her, closed her mouth with another kiss, stopping the pain moans she would have uttered when he started his own body massage of her ill treated body.
© Raf 7/1987
Notes:
[1] This is not a sci-fi tale. This story was inspired by a real person, in a real place. The time is almost right but the year is given according to the Thai Calendar, equivalent to 1984.
[2] Tuk-tuk is a three-wheeled vehicle adapted to the transport of two persons and a driver, local substitute for taxis.
[3] Baht is the Thai currency, 1 Baht = US$ 0.26
[4] Muay-Thai is the art of self defense using various parts of the body, based on the principle of "doing no more than necessary to teach a lesson". It is equally suited to be used as a competitive sport as well as a fight to the finish
-
Silver Island Resort - Chapter 06
THE PARISIENNE URCHIN
by Ajax
The Countess Davina La Tours watched from the window of her first floor sitting room, looking out into the rainy streets of this none-too-salubrious District of Paris. The girl was crouched in a doorway opposite, sheltering from the cold wintry rain that slanted spearingly down from a sullen, louring sky. The girl was dark, pinched, and probably hungry. Undoubtedly, she was a gamine, and was ill-clad to face the penetrating deluge that had already driven most folk indoors, for she wore disintegrating sandals, dirty jeans, and a torn T-shirt that had once been yellow, but was now the colour of old brass. Her hair was short and ill-chopped as though the girl had hacked it off with a knife. Under better conditions she could have been pretty, her piquant face full of life and gaiety. As it was she looked miserable and hunted.
The ormolu clock on her mantelpiece tinkled three o'clock. Only a couple of hours of light left before the night closed in on the dismal scene, and hid the girl in its wet shadowy places.
Davina felt sorry for her, but she was one of hundreds like her on the streets of all major cities. A girl young and hopeless, who had probably come in from the country to find her fortune and had discovered only misery. She might have been escaping from an even greater unhappiness, but if wet Parisian streets were preferable to it, it must have been unbearable. Life, to a girl like that, could not have been good. She was facing winter without even as much as a coat. How, Davina wondered, would she fare?
She would have turned away had not she heard the sound of laughter coming from her left, and turned that way to see a group of three men coming along the paved and trafficless Rue Barbe towards her, one of them reeling. Drunks, men driven to the bistros to escape their own ill-fortunes. There were too many of those, as there were too many gamines. She stood to watch them pass, noting idly that the urchin-girl seemed to draw deeper into the shelter of the doorway as they approached.
The drunkest of the men caught her movement from the corner of his eye and turned to look at her. "Hah, boys! A whore! What luck."
He must have been very drunk. Davina had never seen a girl less worthy of the name. He lumbered at her. She dodged away.
"Give us kiss, love!" the drunken oaf mouthed at her and stuck his loathsome face towards her.
The girl pushed him in the chest and he fell back into his friends' arms.
"Aw, leave it, Raoul," one of the others urged, trying to steer Raoul by.
Raoul shook himself free, getting angry. "No silly little whore pushes Raoul Dessier around!" he declared and reached out for the urchin clumsily.
She hit him then, fisting him in the nose. His hand came away from it covered in blood. "She's smashed me! The little cow's smashed me!" he bawled.
The urchin-girl tried to dodge away out of the doorway, but the third man, bigger than the others, blocked her. "Apologize to my friend," he ordered her, in a voice loud enough for Davina to hear even through her closed window. Careless of the rain the Countess La Tours stepped through it onto the balcony intending to shout to the men and drive them off with the power of her tongue.
The urchin's next move stopped her with her mouth open. Her knee came up, going for the big man's balls, but he wasn't as drunk as Raoul, and he interposed his thigh. Ducking, the urchin smashed an elbow to his gut, but he was a tough fellow, and only grunted. She tried to twist away to the other side, but Raoul was having to lean against the wall that side to stop himself falling. She was trapped.
"Grab her, Martin," the big fellow said, "She needs a lesson in good manners."
Martin, who had tried to urge Raoul by, obeyed the big man's order without question, stepping past him to grab the girl's arm. She tried to drag it away, but he was too strong and had got a good grip. He stepped behind her and grabbed her other arm as the big man punched her in the belly. It half winded her, and she was driven back against Martin with a cry of pain.
"That's nothing - cow!" he expostulated, and Raoul seized her by the hair, thinking that he ought to do something to help restrain her for the one who was clearly the leader of the group.
"What ya gonna do with her, Dutch?" Raoul slurred out.
"What do you think?" he said pointedly.
"No!" shouted the urchin urgently. "Let me go!" She twisted and wriggled in Martin's grasp, and aimed a back heel-kick between his legs. But he was standing with them together, and she didn't reach her mark.
Dutch stepped forward and tore down her front-fly jeans. "Quite a bush!" he exclaimed, as by stripping off her jeans she stood revealed as being without underwear.
He struggled to free his belt, feeling his tool already half-up, while the urchin struggled on.
Davina watched it in silence. Standing twelve feet above them and across the street there was little she could do, but she couldn't let the rape proceed. She tore off her negligee, swung a leg over the balcony, let herself hang from it for a moment, then dropped bent-legged to the pavement. It was a long drop, but the landing was catlike. Four strides took her across the street before she rose into the air and smashed her right foot against the side of Dutch's head at the same time that her left slammed his left kidney. The right foot sent him into Raoul before he fell and rolled into the gutter. To her horror he rolled on and came to his feet. He still hadn't freed the belt, and that was unfortunate for the impudent Countess.
"You bloody bitch!" Dutch ground it out between teeth bared in a feral snarl, his left hand going behind him for a moment to massage his hurt kidney. His head was ringing from the power of her right foot, but he didn't allow another hand to stray there. There was something about this woman that worried him. It was a rare female who attacked a man like that, with power and precision. She must have been used to it - a fighter, a martial artist. Instead, his right hand dipped to a pocket and came out with a knuckle-duster. He slipped it on and came for her.
Davina backed off, leaving the urchin to her fate. Martin and Dutch were still mauling her, but it was this Dutch who was the dangerous one, almost savage. His regard for women, all women, was scant - she could see that, and his feelings about her were one hundred percent vicious. Any man who would whip out a set of brass knuckles that fast against any woman, and especially one as undressed as Davina Countess La Tours, had to be a serious menace to her sex.
She stood there in the Rue Barbe, wishing for the first time that road traffic could pass along it, but it had been bollarded at both ends and paved up to prevent it. The drone of traffic, now, was barely audible above the rain, which fell still, chilling the countess to the bone. She had just come out of the shower at 2:45 and was not dressed for street-fighting, her only garment, once she had discarded the negligee, being a pair of skimpy silver silk panties. Her breasts were bare, and her mules were on the other side of the street.
Despite her hopes for it, nothing stirred. No-one looked out of the other windows, no-one saw the spectacle unfolding in the street below them. Davina was committed now, and win or lose, had to see this through. She knew what she had to do - keep Dutch occupied while the urchin freed herself and escaped. But the girl was hampered by her half-fallen jeans and would find it difficult.
With a snarl of rage Dutch stepped in and aimed the brass knuckles for her left ribs. Davina moved to her right and kicked him over the heart. His thick coat absorbed most of the impact. As she went to move again, the knuckleduster struck her in the belly, doubling her forward. Instead of fighting it she went, making it into a head-butt and making the other side of his head ring. Then she was airborne as he seized her, lifted her high and threw her back over his shoulder, head first to the paving. She was less than a second from death or serious injury as she tucked her head, and took the crunching fall on her right shoulder, rolling back to her feet as she had been taught, and as Dutch had done when she had kicked him in the gutter.
As she righted, his heavily-booted foot drove into her groin and she experienced a blaze of agony within the silver slip that rose rapidly to her navel and held her transfixed with its intensity while he drove the knuckleduster, full force into the base of her left breast, its direction of travel allowing it to rip upwards through her sensitive glandular tissue.
She staggered back sickened, and Dutch smiled evilly again as he drove another kick at her, this time higher to her belly, aiming to breach her solar plexus and drop her in a gagging heap.
Trained Davina might have been. Brave she certainly was, but she had never been so brutally and cruelly hurt in her life. Her entire body seemed locked into a spiral of rending agony. Her stomach felt holed by the first punch, her shoulder felt broken by the landing, her vagina felt full of molten lead, and her left breast felt half torn away. Now, she saw the right leg rising to continue the spiral with a gut kick, and could have thrown up.
Instead, she acted. How she did it she would never know, but she reacted in spite of her riveting agony. Pain had not, as it had seemed to do, withered her mind from resisting.
She was helped by the urchin. Seeing herself rescued for the moment by a vision of femininity who seemed to have appeared from the sky, the girl thought she ought to do something. She straightened to back-butt Martin in the face, but was betrayed by the drunken scrabblings of the man Raoul. He slammed out a ham-like fist, and drove it as much by accident as design full into the girl's pert right breast.
The agony caught her and doubled her forward - the blow feeling as though it had filled her entire right chest with pain, though she quickly realized that that was an illusion - it most certainly had not. Martin, seeing Raoul getting to work on her, held her steady while he drove another punch into her, this time to the belly. Again the urchin gasped in pain, and felt her guts churning, but held on.
His third blow was more pointed, for he had seen the luxuriant bush at the pubis, and planted his blow into it. The sickening impact turned her rigid for a moment, and then she forced herself to do something about it. If she didn't the drunken slob was going to ruin her. She bit back the pain with a conscious effort, and slammed her head back into Martin's face. It hurt her again, but damaged him even more painfully. He still held on, but only just.
Raoul hit her in the chest again, this time crushing her other breast, and she yelped out her agony even as her sandalled foot, the left, drove into Raoul's groin, and crushed his balls against his pubic arch. He staggered back with a scream, clutching himself between the legs and wondered why Dutch's right leg kicked his arse so hard from the side that he was sent down, retching, into the gutter.
It was his stagger that saved Davina. Had not Raoul's buttocks taken the kick meant for her solar plexus she would have been finished, out of the fight and lying where Raoul was sprawled in his own vomit.
As it was, she was acting by instinct, moving away to her right, away from the kick, sending out her right fist in a small-knuckle punch to his diaphragm. Such was the power that she put into it, her body driving the blow at him like a ramrod that even its landing in the left ribs after the impact with Raoul's buttocks had unbalanced him, snapped one like a dry twig, and put him down onto top of the drunken oaf in the gutter.
Davina stepped away thinking him done, as the urchin wrenched her right arm free of Martin's grasp, reached up, seized him round the spinning head, and hurled him forward over her shoulder. He fell awkwardly and rolled onto his face. The girl leapt into the air and came down driving both feet into his back, one to the spine and the other to the right kidney. Though she was not a heavy girl she came from a height, and Martin experienced one convulsion and a scream before he rolled to his side and lay still. He was out of the fight.
Dutch was rising again, as the urchin stepped off Martin, but she never saw the right fist that drove the knuckleduster into her armpit from the rear, virtually paralyzing her right arm, and stopping her breathing dead. She swung round to face him, the jeans finally fluttering around her ankles.
Unable to move for the entangling jeans, the light urchin took another of the terrible blows, the brass finding and pulverizing the flesh of her small, taut, right breast. She fell away backwards onto Martin, and was lucky to have her head cushioned by his body. Dutch was ready kicking for her thighs, aiming to stamp into her vulva. Instinct alone brought her legs up, and as they rose so the jeans flew free, and allowed her to move again.
Almost sick with the agony from her right breast, the urchin backward-rolled off the recumbent Martin and backed down the street, Dutch following with a malevolent glare in his eyes. Someone was going to have to pay for the agony in his left side, and he had chosen the urchin.
Davina saw what was about to happen and tried to follow, but her legs wouldn't function. Raoul had wrapped his round her, and now he toppled her to the paving. She came down hard, and unexpectedly, her breasts taking the major part of the impact, for she was big enough in those regions for that to happen.
Raoul, his previously foetid brain half cleared by his experiences, had seen Martin taken out by the little whore, and Dutch get after her. Dutch would deal with her okay, but this other needed stopping. As she went down he rose and he stamped into her spine, the shock paralyzing her lower nerves. Now, she couldn't move her legs at all. Raoul stood and hauled the bitch up by her hair. Davina screamed in pain, and tried to get her legs going again to ease the torture in her scalp. She got herself propped on them, and the fear she had had that she had totally lost their use subsided. Her pain didn't, for the man used his other hand to punch at her already-bruised breasts, and belly. She began to feel sick, but he had forgotten that she still had her arms, and his throbbing testicles took another onslaught as she used them, then drove another small-knuckle blow to his middle. This blow found its mark in the solar plexus, and Raoul went down to agonized defeat when she finished him with a chop to the throat, cracking the hyoid bone and half-closing his airway. The breath rattled in his throat as he dragged her to the paving again, but suddenly her hair was free, and she realized that Raoul was limp on top of her.
She snatched a glance towards Dutch and the urchin-girl, and saw that the last of the attackers was having real problems. Freed from the jeans, she was lashing kicks to every part of him, around the head, spinning to thump him in the belly, and following with punches. Obscenely naked below the waist, and now soaked through by the still-slanting cold rain, she was using her speed and agility to soften up the lumbering Dutch.
Dutch himself was hardly aware of what was happening. This little cow was uncatchable, it seemed, and though he aimed kicks and blows at her, she either dodged or rode them, and hit him back. He had one success when he raked his brass knuckles across her forehead and drew blood. More than twice her weight, his blows carried a force that hurt her even as she rode them, but her blood was up, the adrenalin was flowing and she was slamming the guts out of him.
Hurt herself by the raking of her forehead, still agonized about her knuckledustered breast, and annoyed by the blood running into her eyes, the girl decided it was time to finish the creature. She allowed him to get close, whipped a knee to his groin, stepped back to kick him under the jaw, and as he began to sag, punched full in the solar plexus. He fell gagging to the roadway, and showed no inclination to rise. The girl looked for her jeans.
The Countess Davina La Tours hauled her cold, grazed, bruised, hurt and battered self from under Raoul's pinning weight, and went towards the girl. "Just bring the jeans," she said. "Come and take a shower."
"Who are you?" the urchin asked, half suspicious. "Why did you come to help me, and where from?"
Davina smiled. "I live across the street." She indicated her apartment. "I happened to be looking out and saw these three trying to rape you. It looked as though you needed help, so I jumped down and joined in."
"Like that?" the girl said, eyeing Davina's unclad body with amazement.
"I'd just taken a shower. It's hard to fight in a negligee. There wasn't time to change." She smiled warmly, and extended her hand. "I'm Davina La Tours," she told the urchin-girl.
The girl took it. "Yvette Lucas," she said. "And thanks. They took me by surprise."
* * * * * * * * *
Davina took Yvette into her apartment and showed her the guest bathroom. "Get yourself cleaned up. I'll be next door."
The women stood under the warm water, allowing it to warm them and remove the grime. Davina was soon done, and had dabbed her worst bruises with witch hazel before donning another negligee and going through to the living room. There, she took up Yvette's jeans and dumped them in the washing machine.
It was some time before the youngster emerged from the other bathroom, a towel around her waist, pert breasts fully displayed, and showing as much or more bruising than Davina's own. She looked clean and shiny, her short ill-cut hair plastered to her head.
Where the man's brass knuckles had crushed her breast she bore a huge bruise, almost as extensive as that which Davina herself carried. The breast must have been giving her great agony, but she showed no sign of it except for the drawn look on her features.
She carried the tattered T-shirt in her hand.
"Better?" enquired Davina, and Yvette nodded. The T-shirt followed the jeans into the washing machine.
"You look as though you'd enjoy a meal," Davina said. "How long since you've eaten?"
"Only a day or two," the girl said. "Borneaux paid me twenty francs on Tuesday for helping in the market. Coffee'll do."
"No it won't!" Davina declared, reaching a pizza out of the freezer. "That battle took a lot of energy. How badly are you hurt?"
"This cut and a few bruises. The tit's bad. Nothing I've not had before, though. I'll be okay."
Davina believed that. "Sorry I've no clothes to fit you," she continued, "wrong size."
"Doesn't matter," Yvette said shortly. "It'll be okay when they're washed."
"I've got plenty of panties. They should fit. No bra small enough though."
Yvette eyed her hostess's semi-revealed breasts, presently unbraed. A tiny smile played around the corners of her mouth. "No," she quipped, "you wouldn't have. No matter, though. I never use bras."
They had coffee while the pizza began to sizzle in the microwave. Once it was out, Yvette attacked it wolfishly.
"Another?" Davina asked as the second half was disappearing.
Yvette declined a second.
As she was still dressed only in her towel, Davina found out a cashmere sweater and tossed it to her. "Put that on," she invited, and the girl drew it over her head.
Scrubbed clean, and dressed in cashmere, the girl seemed less of an urchin - nor was she quite as young as Davina had thought. She asked her, and discovered her to be seventeen. Yvette, it seemed, had come to the city looking for work, and had nothing worth going back to. A weak father and a step-mother who either ignored or railed at her, and no prospect of a job where she came from hardly gave her much reason to return there. She jobbed about the markets humping boxes, mostly fruit for Borneaux, picked up a few francs for that, and lived rough.
"How would you like to live here?" Davina asked, hardly thinking that she knew virtually nothing about the girl, and could be letting herself in for all kinds of trouble.
Yvette looked startled. "You're putting me on," she said, then looked suspicious again. "What do I have to do? I ain't no whore!"
"Firstly, I'm #not# putting you on. Secondly, I've no need of a whore. What I need is a bodyguard. A girl who fights like you do would be great at that job."
Yvette, having seen Davina perform in the street, was incredulous. "You? A bodyguard? Don't be daft! Women who need bodyguards don't jump into a street naked to take on three thugs!"
"Well, I had counted on some help from #you#," Davina explained. "And I do need a bodyguard. I'm trying to get trained in the martial arts, but I've a long way to go there - as you must have noticed."
"Why should you need a guard?"
"Because I'm an easy mark for Black September - and others."
"They're terrorists!" exclaimed Yvette. "What interest have they got in you?"
"None in me. It's my father. He's Government."
"Oh, I see," Yvette said, though she didn't.
"They've already tried to kidnap me twice. I've been lucky. They failed." She didn't explain how.
"Why me? You ought to get yourself a bloke. Those terrorists are a mean lot. Alright, I fight a bit, but I'm no good with guns. Anyway, I'm too small."
"Quite. They wouldn't expect you to be a threat, and you are. No blokes, though. Too obvious, and there's always problems come bedtime. Where do you keep you stuff?"
Yvette laughed. "On my back!"
Davina was aghast. "You...you mean that's all you've got? ! You weren't even wearing a coat."
"Had a jacket. It was nicked. Down the market."
"But that's awful! How do you keep your clothes clean?"
"Wash 'em in a fountain in the middle of the night, but it's getting cold for that. Not the washing, the wearing them wet."
"You'd best keep that sweater, then. At least it fits. Tomorrow we'll get you some gear. If you're going to stay, that is."
"Haven't much choice, have I?" Yvette replied, but she didn't seem displeased about it.
Later, Davina broached the matter that had had her wondering since she had first seen Yvette tackle Raoul. After the fight Davina had solved the problem of the attackers by getting the gendarmerie to pick them up and charge them with attempted rape. In her position, that was easy.
"There is another reason for my interest in your fighting," she confessed. By now, though, Yvette had come to realize that her suspicions about Davina were unfounded. She was straight, whatever else she was, so she listened.
"I'm in this club," she confided, "an international female combat club. It's run by a group of very wealthy industrialists, and is very exclusive. Every year there's a week's gathering in the Pacific, at a private island, called Silver Island. They stage very tough fights, mostly between women, though some men appear too. I'd like you to come with me to fight. You'll have to train for something really tough, of course. I was hoping to fight myself sometime, but I won't ready by the next meeting. You might."
"How'd you know I'd be any good?" Yvette asked. "I won't say I ain't interested. It sounds great."
"Can be hell, I warn you," Davina said. "I don't know. I've got a feeling about you. Most would have cracked out there. You didn't. But if you come to Silver Island, you'll suffer. And in getting fit for it."
"I've been around a bit. Not much, but I've had to fight off the blokes ever since I got here. Not all of them, of course," she winked, "but most just want sex, and then drop you before you can get your briefs back on. They're bad news. You've already helped me out more than anybody I've met here. Sure I'll do it. You can't fight without getting hurt, but you come through eventually."
"If you've got the stomach for it," Davina reminded her.
"Yeah, if you've got that."
"And you think you have?"
"Yeah, I have."
Davina smiled, and reached for the telephone. "M'sieur Solomon? I've got another for Silver Island." She paused, listening, "Streetfighter. Seventeen. A Parisienne gamine. Yes, quite small," she declared.
Solomon put the phone down smiling. A streetfighter. That was something they hadn't had for a while. He just hoped she would be as good as Davina thought.
But then, time, as ever, would tell.
(C) Ajax 11/1987
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Enjoyed the latest chapters. Curious re the Thai girl - was there an actual fight in the real life inspiration behind it?
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Enjoyed the latest chapters. Curious re the Thai girl - was there an actual fight in the real life inspiration behind it?
The beach, the sun light, and the Thai girl were real, yes. The rest was the author's imagination at work. References to the political and social context were (unfortunately) close to real life then.
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You're both superb writers!
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 7
JAPANESE ROOM SERVICE GIRLS
by Raf
When the silver plated limousine rolled slowly down the road after the U-turn, the two men inside it were surprised by the serene, green valley, encased in a perfect frame provided by the grey and white hill tops in the far distance, and the modern but pleasant and unobtrusive complex of the hotel they were going to. A densely planted forest enclosed it, giving it the closeness and intimacy that western hotels could never achieve. A rivulet cascaded down from the hills, was compelled by the discreet engineering of the place to cross the valley chanting its song against the artificially placed rocks, to pass through a gorge under a wooden bridge and then to spread into a lake behind the main building, for the guests to admire from their wall to wall windows. Lines and masses of exquisite flowers, as well as bushes in various tones of green, bordered the road and the stone walks provided by the most luxurious architecture in the world, that aimed at refined simplicity above all.
It was very difficult to read the name engraved on an A4-size brass plate on the left of the main entrance, but all the people who cared to spend their wealth wisely knew that this was the Kowaki-In Hotel, a perfect jewel where a Swiss would find no fault, even the valley reminiscent of his home; but it was not Switzerland, it was the Hakone Valley, in the Prefecture of Kamagawa.
Niyom Lukmatuli, a short but muscular Thai, opened the door for his taller and much bulkier guest, and addressed himself to the reception desk. Formalities of check-in were quick but he asked his companion to be patient, while he had a rather long talk with the floor manager. He handed a fat cheque to the man and they stood, as good Orientals, bowing to each other for what Verwoerd took as an eternity. Lukmatuli excused himself, mumbling something about having to make sure that they received the V.I.P. treatment he had promised his business partner... no, his friend.
They were shown to their adjacent rooms, communicating with each other by means of a sliding panel. The rooms were not Swiss, but Spartan; six by eight meters, no furniture except for a one and a half by one meter table, about a foot (30 cm) high, and a wooden bench embedded in the walls all around the room, not more than fifteen inches (40 cm) from the floor.
* * * * * * * * *
Verwoerd looked around, scratched the back of his head and addressed himself in a deep, powerful voice, to the tiny, shy, rosy cheeked girl who had come to show them their rooms. "Where's the furniture?"
She puffed, put her hand up to cover her mouth and looked aside to her companion, who was coming from the Thai's room, her small hands inside the large sleeves of her kimono, arms crossed in front of her stomach.
"If this is my room, I want a bed! Where - is - the - bed?"
The Thai was smiling nonchalantly at the connecting room's door. The room service girl bowed twice to each gentleman, kneeled gracefully and passed her delicate palms over the smooth service of the floor. "This, Japanese style hotel. No need western beds. Tatami good for sleep. Later me show you, yes?"
"Yes..." muttered the giant, unconvinced. "But I wonder if I am getting any sleep, after all. What do you think of this? Did you know about this... this peculiarity?"
"Mr. Verwoerd! I assure you that even if today is the 1st of April 1985, I did not intend to play a joke on you. These tatamis are more comfortable then they look and tonight these girls are coming to put the sleeping bags (Verwoerd winced) out for us and prepare everything for the night. It is not the first time for me and I assure you that you'll have a good night's sleep. After the good deal we've signed this afternoon I swear that I'm doing my best for you to remember this day as the best you've ever had in your life."
"I'm afraid that you're letting me know gently that you have me by the balls under that export contract, but I don't want to think any more about it now. What the hell are they waiting for? Of course, the tip..."
The blond Afrikaaner was already reaching for his wallet when the embarrassed girl answered looking at the floor, her cheeks turning from rosy to crimson.
"No tips, please. We wait gentlemen are ready to go to Japanese sauna. Me, Suzuki, and..." she motioned delicately, almost imperceptibly, with her head, "...Yoko will help you to your wood sandals."
The Thai merchant cleared his throat and translated to his unsophisticated South African partner, "She means that they'll take our clothes and shoes off, dress us in kimonos, and have us put on high-heeled wooden sandals. It's the custom here, nothing unusual, before the common sauna..."
"Wait a minute! You mean that these blushing, petite angels are waiting to see all of me? I wont believe you!"
"But they are. Japanese men, as the old customs go, don't bother to change their clothes as long as there's a woman to provide the service. And don't you let yourself be fooled by their size, their kimonos, pony tails and white socks. These young ladies are no longer virgin schoolgirls - although Japanese men love their partners very young-looking - they're sexually liberated as, say, Thai or South African women."
"O.k., if you say so. Ladies! Go ahead!"
Yoko came forward and invited the giant to take a seat on the wooden bench along the wall, and Suzuki did the same with the Thai. They bowed to their masters of the moment before sinking gracefully to their knees as synchronised dolls, slid open the panels of the wooden bench exposing mattresses, kimonos, pillows, sandals... They selected the kimonos and sandals, closed the sliding doors, then, in a few practiced movements, got the shoes and socks off the men's feet, smiling pleasantly, as if it was the most agreeable task in the world, then peeled all the clothes off them except for their pants. Both girls arrived at that point at the same time, knelt back on their heels motioning both men to stand.
"Up, please. You would be better to get everything off before you go swimming!"
Verwoerd's ears were bright red and he looked through the window - the sunset over the far away hills putting strange shades of green and black on the lawn in front of the window pane - and when he looked down again the girl was rising on her springy legs, her face as impassive as if she was not only two inches (5 cm) distant from a big, naked man. She passed the kimono quickly around him and tied the silk belt. He saw that Suzuki did the same for the Thai, only for him the silk had passed around twice as he was much thinner.
"You have a healthy, strong body. You like a samurai!" Yoko's gallantry surprised and embarrassed him and he didn't know what to answer, but Suzuki saved him - "Now, to the bath!"
The corridors were long but comfortable, with almost no steps. The buildings were planned in such a way that there was not much walking to do in between each of the hotel's facilities, although there was only one floor. The room service girls said good-bye, bowing gravely from the waist, and the men went ahead to the bath-house where they were greeted by several girl monitors in tight fitting white mid-thigh kimonos. Verwoerd appreciated some of the small but well shaped forms before they were disrobed again and sent into the main bathroom, a pool carved into the ground, tiled all around with benches round the edges. Hot water poured continuously into it coming straight from a source in the distant mountains. There were some Japanese men swimming or doing yoga exercises in the water. Verwoerd felt a bit embarrassed to find himself among so many naked men - an experienced he had not had since his military days - but after a short glance at them nobody seemed to notice that he was there. He got used to the pleasant warm water and the strange feeling of freedom he felt with nothing on.
After a while, the attendants brought in a pair of giggling tourist women and the atmosphere changed. Instead of the silent ways of the all the others present they were talking in high pitched voices, pretending they were not paying attention to the men but obviously parading their bodies in front of their audience before they went into the water. They had tall, strong, curvaceous bodies, more muscular than usual in women, their arms and legs evoking thoughts of competitive swimmers and gymnasts, yet their breasts and buttocks were indisputably feminine, and their body hair completely nonexistent as was plain for everyone to see.
As if that was exactly their purpose, to show off their most intimate parts, the blonde one stood poised on the pool side on the balls of her feet legs apart then bent over, slowly introducing the toes of her right foot into the water. Her bending posture attracted as much attention to her breasts as the depilated mound, a great compliment from the male Japanese who would normally have been obsessed by her vulva. The brunette came from the left and playfully pushed the blonde forwards. As she was trying to pull back she spun round, her right leg describing an arc from the water level to the waist of her companion. Her left hand grabbed the right wrist of the other firmly and the brunette tried to pull away but the hold on her wrist was too firm. The bodyweight of the blonde was totally unsupported and the two flew over the side crashing thunderously into the pool, splashing water all around them.
They came out of their plunge shouting and slapping each other, pulling each other's head under water, screaming and shooting water from their mouths when they re-emerged. The Japanese looked at the two playing kittens for a short while but as they kept their noise and high-pitched screams going, they ostentatiously turned their backs on the badly behaved barbarians. Besides, in the water, they weren't showing more than an occasional nipple when one jumped out of the water trying to mount her friend's shoulders and head. Verwoerd kept ogling the two women, though.
As if his eyes had some magnetic power, the blonde was stroking powerfully in the direction of his corner of the pool, closely followed by a cursing brunette. She submerged, not far from him and he could see her arms and shoulders working like beautifully oiled pieces of machinery. She didn't stop in time to avoid running into his thighs and belly as she was chased forward by the rushing brunette. He felt the naked female body crash against his genitals and his response was automatic. He squeezed her against him standing half erect under the water. The blonde forced her way up but the brunette rose out of the water as if she was on a springy mattress and forced the blonde head down again, this time brushing him all the way down, against his chest and waist and even lower. Verwoerd was trapped between the tiled wall and the well built swimmer. She was too old for the kids' games she was playing with her friend but sexy enough and hot enough to have him sexually ready in these few moments.
He tried to tell himself that the brushing of these naked females against him was nothing but an accident and that he was acting almost indecently towards the blonde but he couldn't. She surfaced again gurgling water out of her mouth and shaking her head. She was also slapping her friend's arms and erect nipples, which the other seemed to invite by merely floating on her back in the water circling her arms at her sides. They seemed to be so engrossed in each other's activity that they were about to go away without as much as a second glance at the men.
"Hello, are you Americans?" Verwoerd forced himself to ask this because he would hate himself later if he failed to engage these uninhibited girls into... some interesting talk.
"Stop that, Ingrid! You've disturbed these gentlemen!" The brunette grabbed the blonde, hugging her ventrally but keeping her eyes rivetted on the transparent water, not deep enough to cover the throbbing muscles under it.
"Hi! I'm Ingrid. Sorry about the push, but it was all Ilona's fault... I'm going to milk this cow's udders as a punishment."
Verwoerd was used to being called a gentleman, although his young life on a Transvaal farm and the dialogue between gold diggers, just a little above last century's slaves, and the Afrikaaner guards had quite prepared him not to object to the girl's language.
"Shut up. You know you shouldn't talk like that," objected the brunette, pressing her chest firmly against her friend's as if to provide both him and the Thai with a standard to evaluate the lack of accuracy of the blonde's description. True, the round rosy mounds of the blonde seemed larger and weightier than Ilona's.
"What did I say wrong? How do you say cow in English?"
But the blonde's struggle was coming to an end. The women stopped in front of the two gentlemen and presented their excuses. They were Ingrid, 27, and Ilona, 32, both single and good friends since their teens when they had learned to swim. Now in the national Danish team, they were alone, on a holiday all by themselves, and were obviously enchanted by their accidental meeting with the bulky South African and the smaller but attractive and sexy Thai.
The two men looked at each other for some idea of the way to go on and they saw the same sexual hunger in each other's eyes. Only then did they look at the place where the Japanese group had been only to see that they had gone, not interested in further annoyance in the middle of their bubbling bath. The water was not flowing any more as the supply had been cut while the four were engaging in light conversation, and the two men were trying hard to suppress their erections before getting out of the pool.
Four girl attendants were coming, with bath towels in hand, trotting and giggling among themselves.
"Solly, you vely late. We crosin' now. You reave, prease."
The two young women went first to the plastic-covered metal steps to climb out of the pool. Unconscious of the men behind them they took their time moving up the ladders. The brunette practically stepped back, Verwoerd's nose almost poking her muscled rump where not an ounce of fat showed. The Jap attendant smiled and helped each one of them dress in the short toweling robes, the two attending the men looking all the way down, either coyly at their own naked feet or viciously at the pulsating members that the hot water had done nothing to relax.
Crossing the lawn, already dressed in their kimonos, the Thai proposed that the women join them at dinner since Mr. Verwoerd would certainly appreciate their presence, they being the only European women around tonight.
Soon, they were sitting on the floor of the Japanese restaurant waiting for the teppanyaki to be served. Hot Jasmin tea and hot saki were freely served even before the delicious vegetables, fish and prawn cutlets and cubes of meat, all roasted in front of them. These were in porcelain dishes of exquisite shape for them to help themselves to their individual portions. The women were drinking as much saki as the men, and the precious tea was soon left cold in the small cups. The waitress who was cooking signalled imperceptibly to a servant and a second dose of sea food was brought and cooked while the four were chatting happily together, the women tending to whisper silly things at the man nearest to them, the purpose of the exercise being to get closer to him and brush their sensuous lips on his ears while pressing their fronts against the nearest male arm.
At last there was just one more prawn, a large one, to be picked up. The dinner had been very long because of the drinking, the socializing, the amount of food, and also because under the direction of the Thai man and two of the girl servants, the three westerners had learned to eat with the bamboo hashi (chopsticks) provided instead of knives and forks. Ilona went for the prawn with her twin short pieces of bamboo positioned according to the rules and held it up proudly for everyone to see before she started to bring down her hand and put the prawn between her lips. However, the weighty piece of food escaped from between the tips of the hashi. Ingrid clapped her hands wildly, laughed even louder than before and took her own hashi in hand, saying that the last piece would be hers. Both women went for the prawn at the same time. Ingrid being closer to it, but less expert in the use of the implements, allowed Ilona to successfully pick it up again. Only this time it was Ingrid who pulled it down, beating her hashi against Ilona's. Instead of trying to go for the prawn again, each girl let go of one of the hashi and held the other up like a very short sword and started to beat it against her friend's hashi , first slowly, then faster.
"I'm going to kill you with my katana, then I can eat my prawn in peace," Ingrid teased while she knelt on her knees, putting her left arm around Verwoerd's neck for support, as he sat at her side.
"Your prawn? I had it when you made me drop it, you scoundrel. I'm going to show you one or two things with my sword..." and Ilona, who was also kneeling, extended her torso over the dining table, pressed her left thigh to the Thai beside her and faced Ingrid.
The Thai put his arms around the woman's hips saying that he would hold her to prevent her falling over the table, but the way he was holding her, Verwoerd noticed, had some non-declared purpose. Verwoerd had put his big right arm round Ingrid's waist, his eyes fixed on her heaving breasts, bouncing up and down freely inside the loosely tied kimono when Ilona's attack pierced the blonde's defence. The tip of the hashi went in under Ingrid's left breast tilting up its nipple. Ingrid stopped her laughing and both were frozen in a tableau that the men's eyes drank in avidly, then Ingrid let the hashi fall, opened her kimono, pressed both hands to the tumescent breast, and fell back on Verwoerd's lap.
"Aaarrgh! I'm dying. I'll bleed to death if you don't stop the gush of blood." Saying this, the woman pulled Verwoerd's right hand between hers and pressed it against her breast.
Verwoerd looked around, only to find the four of them alone in the small compartment, all the servants having left as unobtrusively as they had appeared. Ilona had the casus belli in her mouth, half of it pouting from her lips, and was pushing it into Niyom's gaping mouth, while two pairs of hands were busily caressing the opposite nipples through open kimonos.
Verwoerd thought that he would appreciate the situation more if he had been alone with the blonde, but on second thoughts decided to take just what he was being offered. There was not much point in going to a room where there was no bed, was there?
In the middle of the caresses that he was ministering to the `dying' girl, he heard Ilona demanding her `victory kiss' from the Thai, but he was so occupied ministering mouth to mouth resuscitation to his companion that he didn't bother to look.
As the men were panting and rubbing against them, first Ingrid, then Ilona, stood up and pulled them along out of the room saying into their ears (while chewing on them lushly), that they wanted to be in the rooms quickly, and to have all of them. Kimonos were wrapped around bodies, waist belts loosely trailing behind the two pairs, supporting each other through the corridors, stopping only for an intimate fondling or a deep kiss, as if they needed some prompting to go along the silent and deserted space.
Arriving at their rooms, Verwoerd noticed that there was a bottle of twelve years-old Scotch, opened, and two cups near it. He unscrewed the top and poured some into a cup extending it to Niyom, who drank it like water. Verwoerd was about to pour some for himself when Ingrid took the bottle from him and putting it to her mouth, drank a large quantity. She then put the bottle on the wooden bench and her mouth onto Verwoerd's; when he kissed her, she passed her mouthful of whisky into his mouth. Madly he fought with her kimono, ripping it open, and fell on her, finding her as ready as he was.
The sliding doors were carefully closed from the outside by two tiny, delicate hands and someone tip-toed down the corridor in order not to disturb the rather noisy lovemaking of both couples.
Ilona was the first to stand up. Verwoerd had fallen asleep on top of his partner, spread-eagled on the tatami. Ingrid winked at Ilona, who looked askew to ascertain that Niyom was also asleep, then went out. In a minute, her fast steps were heard coming back, her open kimono flying around her as she came in and closed the door quickly behind her. From a large handbag she took two pairs of metal handcuffs, a short leather whip with a long rubber handle whose tip was shaped like a penis head, and a Nikon auto-focus camera.
Ilona stood over the South African's hairy torso and put his left wrist inside the handcuff, then the other wrist. With the second click the man rolled sideways, fell off Ingrid's body against the strong legs of the standing woman, menacingly tall especially when seen from his lower position. He tried to pull down his arms but the handcuffs clinked and then he was fully alert coming out of his alcoholic stupor.
"What the hell!... What do you want? ! Niyom! Niyom!" Ilona kicked him in the chest with her naked toes sending him onto his back again. Then she twirled round, and squatting on the astonished Niyom, she put the second pair of handcuffs on him while he blinked.
"Now, gentlemen, don't get upset. We're among professionals here, so we don't anything to go wrong." Ilona was making the exclamations while Ingrid squatted over Verwoerd's face and Ilona took her picture, in close up, of the man's face under the rosy labia. "You two have been enjoying yourselves with us, two innocent and defenceless virgins, and it's only fair that your family and friends partake of the same joys, after we send them, absolutely free, mind you, the pictures that we're going to take."
"Damn blackmailers!" the blond guy ejaculated now that he couldn't find the male strength needed to stand up. "You wouldn't dare with all my power and money!"
"That's precisely the point. We know that you've both, perhaps too much of them. Power we don't want. We have enough over male suckers like you two. But the money we don't mind partaking of."
Ingrid was placing herself in different poses and turning the heavy man this way and that to present a better shape to the camera, always careful that the face was clear in the lens's focus. Then they changed positions. Verwoerd felt his head throbbing and was astonished that the woman could handle his weight single handed. When they went to Niyom he sat upon the floor and shouted for help. In a split second, Ilona was on him like a bird of prey, a short dagger on her hand, taken from the folds of her kimono. She crouched over him and put the tip of the dagger to his right eye.
"You do that again, pal, and your eye doesn't go home. It stays here in Japan! This blade may be only four inches (10 cm), the handle carved artistically as a decorative piece, but this same dagger enabled two women to pierce their hearts before American soldiers took them at the end of World War II. If they had their hearts pierced, your eye can easily suffer the same fate, you dig?"
"Careful, girl, careful... My wallet is down there in that shit... you take it, there's a lot of dough there. But you leave us alone... and the negative."
"Negative, sucker! Of course we're taking some for our expenses, but the address book is much more valuable than your wallet. The kind of money we want you don't have on you tonight."
The Thai went pale under his dark skin.
Verwoerd was so nervous that he didn't look twice at the rosy buttocks of Ingrid, bent at her task of going through the men's clothes and pockets. He kept looking sideways at the menacing tip of the short but sharp blade a few centimeters away from his left eye.
He heard a swishing sound nearby and the blade went out of his range of vision, as did Ilona. The petite Yoko had jumped her from behind and fell with her to the tatami covered floor, timing her move so that the big brunette was taken by surprise and was thus unable to wound the man she was watching. But his attention was immediately held by another commotion a few feet away where Suzuki had kicked Ingrid's rump, projecting her head-first against the wall with considerable force.
Verwoerd certainly knew what to do and although he had a lot of rice wine in his blood and was manacled with his hands in front of him he went straight to the fallen feminine dagger. Before he had the chance to get near it, Ilona, still entangled with Yoko, shot a powerful kick at his legs, making him trip and fall back. His head collided against the hard tatami with enough force to worsen his slowness and he saw, upside down, the image of Suzuki being forced back by a karate chopping Ingrid, already recuperated from her headbutt. He rolled on his right side and saw Suzuki gain speed in the short distance available from the open connecting door, and fly forwards, pulling her kimono up to her waist, receiving two karate chops to her neck and chest but placing both her knees into the blonde's breasts. Both women cried out and tumbled in a heap over the supine Thai where they grabbed each other's hair with one hand and punched viciously at each other's ribs, breasts and head with the free fist, at the same time working their legs like pistons between each other's thighs, aiming at crotches and stomachs. The lower parts of their bodies were across the man's legs so that their exertions were making a friction on his hairy legs. Verwoerd thought of shouting to Niyom to help Suzuki, as Ingrid seemed to be overpowering her smaller foe while the Thai looked mesmerized and inactive at the two fighters.
He lost his breath when Ilona kicked at his waist. He felt sick and pained, and as he instinctively assumed the foetal position and he saw through his half closed eyes Yoko, her kimono open, the belt fallen at her side, coming for the brunette who surpassed her in height by more than a head. Ilona took the Japanese girl with a kick to the white triangle of cotton covering the love bush. Yoko tried to interpose her thigh, failed, gave a high, piercing cry and doubled over, Ilona smashing an elbow into the faltering girl's spine sending her face down on the floor.
Verwoerd looked at the other pair of fighters just as Suzuki took a punch to her right eye that proved that Ingrid was not only a good swimmer but was certainly more than initiated in the art of boxing. He was dismayed. Although he had thought that the intervention of the two servant girls had saved him and the Thai businessman from their predicament he now saw that they were lost again as no one seemed to hear the noise of the fighting in that empty corridor.
Ilona was throwing aside Yoko's kimono but the girl was springing up from her crouching position and driving her two tiny fists into the lower guts of the taller aggressor. Ilona merely winced and grabbed the girl's arms, clinching. The Jap was no fair fighter either and this time her knee-cap collided with a pubic bone, painfully smashing the sensitive female organs in between. Ilona screamed and her nails scratched both cheeks of her diminutive but fierce opponent. However, she threw aside the brunette's arms and used her knee again, this time for the stomach. As Ilona gasped and tried to draw away, Yoko closed in on her, clawing with her tiny hands at the generous breasts of her older rival, as if wishing to rip off the nipples. She delivered a succession of knee blows to the kidney region and the stomach as the Danish woman closed her knees tight and crouched on legs that were refusing to hold her up under the agony spreading from her crotch to all parts of her body.
Suzuki was being thrashed under a squatting Ingrid, much too heavy for the girl to dislodge, vainly bridging under the Danish blonde who dominated her between her muscular thighs and punched her small hard tits and the stomach beneath her unmercifully. Verwoerd decided that the Thai was certainly too stunned by the alcohol to be of any help and grabbed the knife lying on the floor. Ingrid landed two more powerful punches to the waitress's exposed belly and looked back at him. Seeing him with the knife in his hand, she sprang up, possibly with the intention of jumping him and of wresting the dagger from him, when Suzuki, with a cry of rage, shot up her wiry leg. The heel of her foot caught the big woman full on her lower labia and she stumbled back, groaning, against Verwoerd. He couldn't force himself to stab the woman in the back and turned aside his tied hands, merely shoving her forward with his elbows. Suzuki had picked the whip from the floor and used the sex toy in a most devastating fashion, using its handle to strike at the tottering woman's guts. Ingrid fell on her knees in front of Suzuki and tried to wrestle the whip from her, her head butting her on the nose. Suzuki tumbled back, a double trick of blood coming from her nostrils, but she gave her foe a tremendous blow to the jaw with the hard rubber handle.
Looking at the two fighting she-cats Verwoerd forgot about the danger he and the Thai were in, and felt a strange excitement that was reviving his lust again to some degree. So different in size and shape, but so even in the primeval ferocity and sex-appeal that he didn't know what to admire more, whether the larger and somewhat more muscular build of the Danish swimmers or the deceiving femininity of the two smaller waitresses who were now about as naked as their rivals, for Suzuki's bra had been lost almost immediately after her kimono.
He threw the knife through the open door of the connecting rooms and went to the blonde's back to pull her off by her mane of hair and give Suzuki the chance to finish her.
Once again the action was taken out of his hands. Suzuki, although again under her heavier rival had got into a breast punching contest, her smaller fists certainly being helped by the whip-handle, and the blonde was thrown aside gasping in pain, both hands assuaging her scratched and blue bruised breasts, shouting between her tears, "No more, please! No more!"
Verwoerd was happy with the end of the nightmare but he turned round and his blood was iced by a freezing cry of despair. Ilona, battered and bloody, was up with a cruel smile on her lips and a ripped white slip in her hand. Yoko was moaning and twitching spasmodically on the floor, her hands between her thighs where she had obviously been violated by some devastating blow.
"You bastards... It's only one minute to finish the other broad and I'll do to your balls what I've just done to this girl's slit!" Ilona said and walked as if she was at the start of a fight and not the end towards the younger Suzuki who was standing slowly, helping herself up against the wall. In two strides the brunette was upon her, giving such a shove to the heavy South African that he fell seated to the bench by the wall. She braced herself and shot a powerful roundhouse kick to Suzuki's breasts, who cried out and flew three meters back, sliding against the wall and tripping over the fallen blonde to crash backwards onto the lower table, hitting her head as she went. Ilona bent, grabbed the whip by the handle and thrashed it down on the inviting body of the unmoving Jap girl.
Suzuki winced, gave a short gasp of surprise and pain when the short length of leather crisscrossed her bare breasts and stomach. Then she put her arms in front of her body taking the next series of swishing thrashes across them. Verwoerd stood up and jumped at Ilona, but she acted as if she had eyes in the back of her head, turning aside and crouching and evading the extended tied wrists. She shot her whip at his navel opening his skin in several places. He gasped and fell twitching on the floor not wishing to see the end. His end.
But he was inside the ring, not merely in a front row seat. He forced himself to watch the end of the two room service girls.
Both were standing, tears rolling down their cheeks. Suzuki's nose and Yoko's mouth providing enough blood to smear both pretty faces. Suzuki was the most decent of the four fighters, her black triangle of short satin hairs still covered by a clinging white slip, wet with sweat. Yoko looked the most naked of all with her bra still on but totally exposed below.
Ingrid was recovered enough to forget her previous plea and was coming at Suzuki, teaming up with her friend to finish her when Yoko faced her and they started kick boxing together, while Ilona fell on Suzuki, forcing her head back with her forearm while working on her lower guts with the terrible rubber truncheon. Instead of defending herself with her arms, Suzuki slowed the attack with her thighs and tore at the woman's breasts with her clawed fingers.
After several attempts, Ilona managed to penetrate the Jap's sex with the large rubber handle, just an inch (2 cm), pushing in the torn cotton slip. Suzuki cried out in terrible pain but its violence gave her the surge of energy necessary to rip open one of her rival's luscious breasts. The two shouts were almost simultaneous. Ilona took a step backwards and Verwoerd saw the whip held obscenely between the battered girl's thighs and she, her hands bloodied, karate chopped her foe on the throat twice as she staggered back. Before Ilona's body hit the floor, Verwoerd was shouting at Suzuki "Run for help, girl, run! Help!"
"No need, sir, Yoko can finish job."
Yoko was wrenching handfuls of blonde hair in between trying to get a proper stranglehold on the big girl. The blonde was also pulling her rival's black hair but still had one hand left to scratch Yoko's breasts which had finally popped out of the useless bra, now wrapped round her stomach. Suddenly her hand went down and Yoko found herself grabbed by her short curls as well as by her long ones. She raked at her rival's face, strips of skin being clawed away between eyes and cheeks. The pain and the risk of disfigurement made Ingrid break the hold and stand back. Shouting a kyai, Yoko stabbed her over the heart with her open hand, fingers forward. The big girl stumbled back and Yoko brought up her left leg. Ingrid parried low with both arms and in a second Yoko had placed her left foot and pivoted on it, turning her back on the larger woman. Either the blonde didn't see the back kick coming or didn't stop it in time. Her left breast was ground into her chest, she crashed onto the wooden table, slid over it and onto the tatami. Yoko went after her, pulled her up by the hair, her tiny but wiry biceps showing, and as the other woman rocked there sobbing, Yoko finished her with an uppercut to the jaw.
Meanwhile Suzuki had found a pair of small keys and was opening Niyom's and Verwoerd's handcuffs.
Verwoerd saw Yoko's eyes rolling up and stepped forward just in time to grab her as she passed out exhausted. Over her shoulder he saw Suzuki looking at them, her hand covering her mouth, "Sir. If you want massage I call others now, but Yoko no can. She and me in much pain in cxnt and tits, no can make good body massage..."
He could see what had misled the girl. His penis was standing to attention, pointing to the female belly crashing against him. On the contrary to his idea when he had fallen asleep awhile ago he was not finished for the night.
He couldn't answer. His brain was remembering other moments of the fight he had seen, so quick at the time that he hadn't registered them properly. Yoko being held by her neck at arms length by the superior strength of Ilona, her arms too short to fight back, but screeching a `banzai!' and kicking her attacker's bosom. Then Yoko going down from a punch to the temple, so strong that it would have killed an ox. Then Yoko's vagina being ravished by Ilona's probing claws... Verwoerd winced feeling the pain these girls must have gone through, ashamed for being aroused by their savage fight, caressing the fragile body he was lovingly holding. Fragile? Certainly not, as it had endured much more than he himself was capable of.
The big blonde man kissed Yoko's swollen lips gently, hugging her as carefully as he could without letting her fall to the tatami.
"Sir, you alright? Me can leave you now, yes?"
"Well, yes! But you must send for the police..."
Niyom came forward and objected to this procedure as... the two blackmailers had been under his contract, to put on a show. After robbing both men they were to start a fight between themselves over the sharing of the money and the gold rings and watches of the two tycoons. In the end, the one who would have proven the better woman was to be selected to accompany him as a pro fighter, for he was a member of a very special club in a certain Pacific Island. That was the reason no one in the hotel had acted on hearing the noises of the fight. Only, as it was to be discovered later, the manager had forgotten to warn the two waitresses that they were not to go to the men's rooms again to perform their usual task of preparing the beds on the floor. And they had reacted spontaneously to what appeared to be a genuine assault.
Verwoerd was amazed and agreed with Niyom that the idea of seeing those superb Danish women having a fight in the nude after making love with them had been an interesting one. But as things were, with both amateur wrestlers still sound asleep and Yoko moaning but already standing on her feet - to say nothing of Suzuki, still covering her mouth with both hands but otherwise not objecting to the Thai's hands pressing her against him - the two petite servant girls had proved better than the two contestants.
Practical man that he was, the South African asked what the other intended to do.
"Dismiss both of the European girls as soon as they wake up and take Suzuki as my champion to Silver Island, of course!"
"Good. I thought so. And I'm happy about it because I had intended to keep Yoko with me, as my secretary and bodyguard. I'm applying to join your club and will be there to compete with her, even against you. I hope there will be no hard feelings."
"Certainly not. I must warn you that to enter the club one must be a member, or at least have paid the membership fees for two years."
"No problem there, I'm sure!"
"And the competition is very, very tough. Suzuki came out of this real fight against two highly recommended pro fighters battered but on her feet, but Yoko didn't have the same endurance, she passed out in the end. That would have been enough in a Silver Island fight for you to lose your bets!"
"Yeah, but I do not only want to make money betting on her. I also want to see this small bundle of energy fighting for me. Besides, she had the toughest job here tonight and I'll make sure she receives proper training between now and her first fight in Silver Island."
© Raf 11/1987
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 8
THE MEXICAN GLADIATRIX
by Ajax
The City of Cuernavaca, some sixty miles due south of the greatest city on earth, was noted for little. It sprawled hideously over what had once been the beautiful mountains of central Mexico, and had been, purely coincidentally, the birthplace of Elvira Reyes. In Cuernavaca they bred their women tough, especially the area in which Elvira was born and, after a fashion, raised. Hers had been no idyllic, gentle childhood, but a fight for survival amidst the filth and degradation of the place. She had never known her mother, though her father had had a string of women through his bed who had become numberless to the young girl. She was fed now and then, whipped now and then, and abused constantly. Though she had not known her mother, her father had certainly known Elvira, carnally, at eleven. So had both his brothers, and at least two of his women. At twelve, the young Elvira had had enough of Reyes and his brutalities, his twisted appetites and those of his friends. She had stolen a pair of sandals, a T-shirt and jeans, stuffed her burgeoning hips into the latter, and her developing breasts into the former, and left, on foot.
A year later, and several years wiser, she had ridden into Acapulco on the back of a rundown truck, and lost herself in the shanties at the rear of the town. Faring no better there than she had fared in her numerous stopping places along the route, she had rolled a pair of teenagers single-handed, stripped the clothes off the one closest to her size, and begun a tour of the bars.
In one she had met Bronson, and the meeting had changed her life. Later that same evening, trying to steer the semi-drunken American ex-patriot to his lodgings they had run into a band of thugs intent on two things - rape and robbery, possibly garnished with a little murder.
Incapable of defending either his pocket-book or her honour, Bronson had leant stupidly against a wall while the thirteen-year-old B-girl had beaten off the attack, the unfortunate perpetrators having left, one broken headed, and two sore-bollocked and semi-emasculated, while the fourth, his sternum split by one of the girl's spinning heel-kicks lay whimpering and coughing up blood in the gutter. Elvira returned to her task and eventually did steer Bronson to the mean hotel room where he was laying his ugly head.
To her amazement he didn't try to take her. She lay beside him, but he let her sleep. She could easily have taken his money and slipped out in the early dawn. For some reason, she never knew what, she hadn't. Instead, she had taken some money, sought out a delicatessen, and returned with food and drink for them both.
Since that day ten years had passed, and now neither Elvira nor Bronson had the slightest need to steal. Both were sitting on tidy bankrolls, and they were still together. For in Bronson she had discovered a guide and mentor who had, in the three years following that meeting in Acapulco, trained Elvira Reyes in half a dozen fighting arts, and at the age of sixteen, had presented her as a fighter to the Mexican promoter Aracelis. Of her twenty-three years, Elvira had spent ten happy ones - all of them at Bronson's side. Quickly, he had become more father to her than her own, and she had repaid the endless kindness she had received from him by becoming Mexico's greatest female fighter.
She had been good to begin with, as four thugs could readily have testified, but Bronson was better - a master of several oriental martial arts. Now she was the better, mistress of these and several other arts, and probably one of the toughest women in the world. She performed now for fees which would have bought half the district of Cuernavaca where she had been born, and her past in that stinking sink of iniquity and vice was but a dimly-remembered nightmare.
Not that it hadn't left its mark on her. It had, but the scars were not physical, and in her life with Bronson, the absence of sex had been a relief.
She had grown into a handsome woman, a true reflection of the sturdy stock from which she had come. Not over tall, she was heavily muscled, full-hipped, and large breasted. Her hair, long and black, now fell half-way down her back in a lustrous cascade. She was not pretty in the general sense - her face, wide-mouthed, broad-nosed was too characterful for that. Showing a little scar-tissue about her eyes, and the corners of her mouth, she looked what she was, a superbly fit, and very strong fighter.
Like Bronson, with whom she was working out, she stepped over to the rack at the side of the gym and replaced gauntlet-like plate cestus that she had had on her right hand and forearm. There was a throbbing bruise showing on her left breast, and a bloody graze over her ribs. She was in pain from both, but did not show it, chatting amiably with the man who had just inflicted both injuries on her as they trained. "Of course," Bronson was saying, "when you wear both of them, you are in a better position to protect yourself."
She nodded, understanding his point perfectly. "I still think it's going to be a tough problem. They say she's a fearsome hitter."
"Doesn't have your strength," he told her. "You should handle her okay. Aracelis has got the problems. She's got to sell it to the club."
"I can't see her having any problem with that. The Europeans love seeing us fist-fight."
"Cestuses in the 20th century?" he asked. "That might be a lot to swallow, even for them."
"Well, the whip and sword-fighting was well received. No, Jake, we'll be okay with the cestuses."
Looking at her, Bronson could not see how anyone could resist her appeal. What she wore, the standard costume devised for displaying this latest style of battling, would have turned almost any man's head.
She was clad in bind-on sandals, thonged up to the knee where they were secured with a buckled leather strap. From there, her thighs rose completely bare. Over her vulva and bush, moulding her mons veneris in a taut embrace was the bottom of a black leather harness that consisted of the triangle of leather that preserved what little modesty was preservable, from which rose two straps. These were secured by a waist-strap, and another beneath her breasts, before running over each shoulder to join below her shoulder-blades in a Y-fashion to a single strap that passed between her buttocks and was secured to the bottom vertex of the vulval triangle. The harness from the front looked like an upper case H with an inverted block-vertexed capital delta conjoined at the bottom. Called the HY harness from this odd construction, it performed a useful function in thrusting her breasts into forward prominence without offering them any protection, and served to cover her lower belly with reasonable modesty. At the same time it protected the ligaments in the fold of her groin from the potentially devastating effects of the cestuses, but left almost all of her belly as well as the thrusting breasts bare to the strike of the metal. To add to its sinister appearance the HY harness was studded with conical studs which lent it weight and solidity. It was, in effect, an erotic prop to attract the interest of those who needed this kind of titillation. For a full battle with the stud or plate cestuses, a helmet could be worn, the design of which was based on that first used by gladiatrices of Ancient Rome for the self-same purpose, a design, probably, that could not be bettered.
Elvira was very aware of the enormous risks attendant on such a style of fighting. It required not only immense toughness, but superb muscle-control too. She had heard of fighters with brass knuckledusters performing in earlier years for the nobility of various countries, but had had no idea of how they functioned until Bronson had instructed her. "The body," he had said, "can absorb only so much of the damage caused by such devices. The rest has to be resisted."
What that meant she had come to learn through the next few years as the range of her gladiatorial skills had increased. All the previous modern knowledge about this `resistance' came from the experiences of male fighters. Bronson had had to go to the only two sources of female experience that he knew of - the orient and Ancient Rome, to discover the secrets of how it was that women had once been able to fight with steel-laden hands.
When the information had been gathered, Elvira, and the other women whom Bronson taught, had had to learn how to both generate and apply the necessary resistance. It had been a long and painful process for them, and one only possible for the most dedicated of battlers.
Only muscular areas could be employed in resistance, so for women, the breasts were an additional area of absorption that were likely to prove very important in the conduct of a battle.
There were three main techniques involved in cestus-dueling, resistance, riding, and absorbing. The first and second were part of the same need to avoid as much of the damaging punishment as possible. The hurtful bruise on Elvira's left breast presently was the result of her failing to withdraw quickly enough from one of Bronson's blows - part of the second technique had failed her. As a result she had had to absorb it, thus weakening her resistance to following blows.
Riding was used mainly to avoid head-punches, and all cestus gladiatrices had to be highly skilled at that. It was precisely the same technique as used with ordinary boxing, but refined, the fighter's reflexes having to be honed to perfection when it was steel coming at them and not just leather. A fighter of Elvira's experience could ride blows so effectively that she could face a steel-gloved battle with something approaching confidence.
Resistance was a technique that was very difficult to acquire, and needed a muscle-control normally found only in advanced martial artists. The principle was simple enough. When a blow was about to land the muscle it was aimed at had to tense at the exact moment of contact. It was the timing of this that was so difficult. Unless it was immaculate, the technique failed to work, and the struck muscle had to absorb the impact, for it was then too late to ride. It was a hard technique to acquire when the concentration was solely on it. In the heat and thrust of combat it was almost impossible, and it was totally impossible to resist everything. Modern cestus battles tended to be short and brutal as a result, only the very best fighters managing to avoid having their bodies totally smashed for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. To the women involved, even that time seemed an eternity. Aracelis had decreed that the material shot for club sale in this style should be without rounds, for she saw the break as too much of a temptation for even the most courageous women to retire.
However, the participants knew that in Ancient Rome, highly trained gladiatrices had endured this type of fighting for upwards of an hour. As yet, it had not been discovered how they had been able to do so. Various ideas as to how it might have been possible were bandied about, but none had been found right, and it was a thing that Elvira found herself thinking about often after a cestus-duel. How? How had they been able to stand it for so long? She didn't really expect to find out, but she kept thinking about it.
Now, though, she was more concerned with getting off the harness, and treating the graze and bruise that she had collected. It wasn't too long now before she would have to meet an American from Detroit in the most serious cestus-fight that Bronson had yet contemplated. Up till now, all her fights had been against girls from their own stable. An outsider might prove a decidedly different proposition. They knew very little about her prospective opponent other than that she had accepted Aracelis's proposal for a bout conducted according to the Mexican rules, stud cestuses, and wearing protective helmets. It would be, like all cestus-duels, a fight to a finish without breaks, an inability to rise to fight on after one minute being decisive. Harness, the approved HY, would be supplied by Aracelis. One had already been made to Ulrike Scheider's measurements and sent for her to practice in. Elvira wondered how Ulrike and her trainer might be reacting to its Spartan brevity, though no complaints had been forthcoming from Detroit. From that they had to assume that Miss Scheider was fully aware of the consequences that her decision to fight entailed and that she would be trained well enough to match Elvira Reyes. The prospect of the Reyes/Scheider fight was keeping the camp abuzz with interest and speculation, chief amongst the latter being how good the Detroit group might prove.
It was later that day that excitement about the camp rose to fever pitch. Gomez had gone into San Cristobal to pick up the mail, as he did twice weekly. The bulging letter with the Detroit postmark was opened and read eagerly by Bronson.
Ulrike, it seemed, was very keen to come for the cestus-duel and accepted the conditions, but Detroit was also offering two other `gladiatorial' contests, a whip fight and a sword battle. They invited San Cristobal to put up contestants for these fights too.
"What are they doing up there?" enquired Bronson. "I thought we were the only group to be into gladiatorial bouts."
"It seems we're not," remarked Elvira with a hint of worry. After all, it was she who was going to have to fight this Scheider woman, not Bronson.
"I suppose we could send in Camilla for the sword fight, but we've no-one up to the whip yet."
"Luisa might try," she suggested, but Bronson shook his head.
"I don't think she's up to it yet. She is a little young."
"She's eighteen. She's a big girl now," the black-haired principal fighter remarked.
"Could you have faced a whip fight five years ago, let alone stripped off as Detroit suggests. Pain'd kill her."
"No it wouldn't," she demurred. "It didn't kill me when you had me in with the solid gloves. I was no older than she is."
"You'd had five years to acclimatize. Luisa's only had two."
"Sure - whips hurt. But Luisa knows that. why don't you ask her? She ought to know whether she could take it or not by now."
He laughed. "Ask her? You know perfectly well that she'd say yes just to get a fight. I never doubted that she was keen. Only whether we ought to put her in."
"I think we should take a chance on it. Ask her, and if she agrees, accept their terms. Aracelis might be pleased to get the extra gladiator footage. She seems very sure she can sell the cestus bout. We might never get the chance to see three gladi-bouts in one might again."
It was that, and the chance of making a bit extra for the club that swayed Bronson. No use turning down good video-money if Luisa was willing to meet this Detroit girl. And he couldn't expect to turn out only stars of Elvira's and Camilla's quality. There had to be some middle-stagers. Middle-stage because not even Luisa could be termed as a beginner after two hard years at the camp.
Predictably, both were delighted by the chance to fight. Bronson's girls were all keen - no-one who couldn't stick the pace would have lasted more than a week or two at the camp. They had several girls who had come to train, but once they had realized the degree of commitment required had soon decided that the life of a fighter wasn't for them, and had left again. Those who stuck it out had to be the cream of the cream, and Camilla, like Elvira, was. That Luisa had had only two years training merely meant that she hadn't developed the skills to as high a degree, nor become quite as tough as they, but after that long there was no doubt whatever of her dedication. "Ouch!" she had said when told. "What kind of whip?"
"Single thong dog," Bronson had told her. "Nasty, but not too destructive."
Luisa had nodded. "I'll give a fight with that. But don't swing knouts and coach-whips on me just yet."
"Or flagella," smiled Elvira.
"Or flagella," the youngster confirmed. "I'm not ready to be ripped to pieces yet."
"Is anyone ever?" asked the trainer, spreading his hands. "You can't train for that sort of thing."
"There're plenty about a lot tougher than me, is all," Luisa explained. "This Detroit women might be one of them."
"Well, we'll not know that till it starts, and it'll be too late then. You don't have to do this Luisa."
She shook her head, negating that. "I do, you know. Who's going to offer the chance again? I could never look myself in the face again."
Really, that said it all. Bronson could not fight against that sort of determination, nor did he wish to. The girls were being trained to fight, and if their standard was good enough to give them a chance, he shouldn't expect them to refuse a challenge. They were not the sort of girl who was easily scared by the prospect of pain. In fact, they faced it squarely, were well aware of the risks they were running, and eager to get on film, or in this case, tape. That was only proper. Elvira, in the forefront of the gladiatorial bouts had seem it a lot quicker than he had. She knew what the girls were thinking.
He looked Luisa full in the eye. "And you're sure you want to take this on?" he asked.
"Yes," she nodded. "I am."
"Okay, I'll tell him we would be glad to accept, and we'll have the three bouts provided Aracelis agrees."
"I'm sure she will," Elvira opined.
She was right.
It was the next day that Bronson had the thought. "I wonder," he asked no-one in particular, "if Bill Berry's behind this?"
"Bill Berry?" enquired Elvira. "Who's he?"
"Used to run umpteen fight clubs in the States around fifteen to twenty years ago. He could still be in the game. His girls were always good, and he was tending towards the gladiatorial style. It was him who devised the solid glove fights. He's been quiet for some years, but if he's been training some toughies, he could have been just letting things tick over in the clubs. He never minded travelling either."
She felt the butterflies stir deep in her interior. "How good were they?" she asked with some trepidation.
"The best," Bronson told her shortly. "I was one of his trainers."
"Will they be too good for us?" Elvira asked, becoming more concerned.
"No, of course not. We're better trained than anyone."
"How do you know? We're in a vacuum here, There hasn't been any outside competition till now."
Bronson smiled. "Nobody could be better trained than our girls."
Elvira hoped fervently that he was right. Again, she was thinking that it was her hide on the line, and now that of Camilla and Luisa too. They didn't know for certain that it was this Bill Berry, but Elvira would have laid bets on Bronson being right. He had some sort of sixth sense about that sort of thing. But he knew his fighting, too, and if he said they'd match these Detroit girls, then she was reasonably sure that they would. It didn't stop her worrying though, for all that.
Training slackened as the time of the encounters approached. Elvira found herself doing all her roadwork, strength- work and training wearing the HY harness. Bronson had told her that it was to become a second skin to her, and it more or less had. Costume for the whip and sword duels was not decided until a mere two weeks away from the day, but as soon as it was, the girls who were to fight were put to doing everything in it.
The sword-fight was to be fought wearing what Detroit (who suggested both sword and whip costumes) called `erotic armour'. The whip-fight in `minimal protection'. Bronson received sketches of both, and as they had done for Detroit with the HY harness, the Detroit people offered to provide a set to measure. Bronson had taken them up, and when the gear had arrived, had put Camilla and Luisa straight into it.
The youngster's `minimal protection' was fairly much what it said, though she had been known to train in less. It consisted of five defensive items, a pair of mesh goggles, a gorget, a pair of heavy thigh boots, and the largest protective item, a full armour sleeve for the left arm, this secured by a strap which passed across the tops of her breasts, and down to pass under the right armpit before being cinched in the back. Mostly for modesty's sake, but useful, too, as her main protection was a V-plate secured about her loins to defend against any vulval slashes. The gorget, sleeve and loin-plate were fashioned expensively from brass, the sleeve being of such a weight that unless she was to become used to it, Luisa would find it unbalancing.
Predictably, Bronson immediately told her that she must work, eat and sleep in the sleeve, and familiarize herself thoroughly to the feel of the costume. It was a cruel outfit to fight in, leaving the whole upper body bare to the whip-strike, and more than half of the thighs. So Spartan, in fact, was this costume, that Bronson considered rejecting it for a time, but Luisa faced the prospect of a fight so vulnerable with characteristic courage. Though he would have preferred breast-protection for the whip-fight on account of the ease with which a whip could cut this tenderest of flesh, he accepted Luisa's decision to fight without it, though warned her direly about what the consequences might be.
Camilla, by contrast, was surprise to be offered so much protection. Based round a semi-breastplate, she was offered an armour that gave her thorough protection for the crotch area, the upper body and head. In addition she was provided with a left-arm cuff and shield-plate, a metal cuff for her right forearm, greaves and a left thigh-greave and a pair of bicep-rings. Made of burnished copper the `erotic armour' was a beautiful piece of workmanship, which when taken with the thonged-bound Roman sandals, made her look a real knockout.
The heart of it was the special semi-breastplate. Epauletted integrally, this guard enclosed her chest and back from the diaphragm upwards, her breasts being projected through a pair of holes in the front of the plate in order to present them to the opponent's sword. Unprotected was the stomach below the diaphragm, the right thigh, and the very upper part of the left above the greave. Her arms were bare apart from the forearm cuffs and bicep rings, though she didn't regard that as a problem. They would fight using the heavy gladius, a blind sword without edges, able to inflict heavy bruising, but nothing worse than broken bones. Fights to the death were not over-popular with the authorities. Not even in remote parts of south-east Mexico.
Camilla could see that there would be a great deal of pain to deal with in her fight, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as Luisa's, nor, of course, as Elvira's. The exposed breasts would be the key to the struggle. That part of it was going to be hell, but win or lose, she wasn't going to die in this fight, not as long as she kept the Detroit girl's weapon out of her face and throat, and that shouldn't be hard.
They were generally well satisfied by what they would have to wear. Camilla found her get-up a particularly good fit, and quite surprisingly comfortable, though it felt weird to have her breasts hanging out of the plate. The ridged helmet with jaw-plates was particularly well-designed, giving her excellent vision as well as good protection. It was an improvement, even, on the Roman-style ones they had been wearing. A metal crotch-plate was a new experience, and one that she was not fancying much, but it turned out not to be too bad. Its presence was reassuring, too, for with her breasts so beautifully presented to the blade, she could certainly do without a sword internally.
The process of getting the Detroit party and their gear from San Cristobal to the camp was a nightmare. The jeep-track was always wet, and that day proved more than usually miry, with the result that the Detroit girls, their trainer (Holden), and Bill Berry (their manager), who, as Bronson had suspected was the power behind the Detroit throne, found themselves manhandling the vehicle out of the mud several times before filthy and well warmed up by the exercise they drove into the camp.
Bronson and the others were waiting to receive them. Holden, the trainer, introduced first Bill Berry (his boss), and then the three women he had brought with him. All were impressive, and Ulrike Scheider particularly so. Bronson could tell in a moment that if the fight was anything half as good as it could be, Aracelis was onto a real winner. Ulrike was a very promising- looking woman. Like Elvira herself, she was solid and not over tall, no more than 5'6" or 1.68m, and was as blonde as the Mexican was dark. For the video, that in itself was a good start. The fact that she was as powerful as Elvira was a bonus.
It had already been decided that the fight between Elvira and Ulrike would be the climax of the match, for both were their team's most experienced fighter. For the second fight, Camilla would face the Detroit swordswoman. She, Terri, looked the least impressive of the Detroit party, but there was an economy of movement about her that told Bronson much of her ability. Dark, and taller than Camilla by an inch or two, her beauty was in her grace and build. Facially she was no better than averagely attractive, but clad in that special armour, that shouldn't matter. She was a powerful and dangerous-looking woman. He felt that she should give Camilla a hard battle.
The Holden-trained whip-fighter, on the other hand, was outstandingly beautiful. Tall, lissome, red haired and green eyed, she was the kind of scintillating beauty whom no-one would ever have suspected of either wanting to, or being capable of facing the torturing hell of an almost-naked whip-fight. She towered over Bronson, and Luisa was forced to swallow hard at the sight of her. Her name, Qvelle, the German word for spring, was well chosen, for she seemed to emanate the freshness of spring water. She managed, at the same time, to be both beautiful and handsome, was clearly highly intelligent, and shook hands with a powerful pride that instantly made Bronson wish that he had not been persuaded to let Luisa take her on. At 1.78m tall or 5'10", she was a good four inches taller than Luisa, and a good bit older, being perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. The decision, though, had been taken, and Luisa, scared as she was of Qvelle, was not about to back down. She did have difficulty in stilling the butterflies in her stomach all the same.
* * * * * * * * *
The camp was hidden in the high-forest land of south-east Mexico, and was of considerable extent. Built up over the years by Bronson and his former partner, Zeke Lambert, it now belonged solely to Bronson (Zeke's death had thrown him off balance for a time, during which Elvira had rescued him from the Acapulco bar), who, with the able help and effort of Elvira, had renewed the place over the last ten years, building from the local wood, and brick brought up from Tuxtla Gutierrez and San Cristobal at considerable expense. There were living and training quarters for upwards of thirty people, and it would not have been too far out to have said that between them they had sunk at least a half-million dollars into it. It was exactly what was required for the conduct of their unusual activities, remote, quiet, and hard to reach. The jeep-track up from San Cristobal passed for the most part through the damp forests so typical of the isthmus almost to where they gave way to the high grasslands. The setting for the fights was the `large hall' of the camp, really a specially constructed arena suitable for all kinds of combat. Normally holding a boxing ring, which for these fights had been removed, the floor was sanded to simulate the Roman arenas.
Bill Berry, whose vague recollection of Bronson was much improved by the provision of such facilities, but who had been a little less than happy at having to push the jeep so much of the way north east from San Cristobal, became less icy as the two rest days before the battles passed, and began to see more and more the possibilities of the Bronson set-up for training girls to high standards for harsh conflict. Indeed, it was far better than the Detroit region for keeping the sort of spectacle they were about to witness well contained.
Aracelis had sent up two cameramen with Sony 8's and a plentiful supply of charged batteries to capture the whole thing on tape. Lighting was provided from the diesel generators' output of electricity. Bronson had installed four of these, all in a power-station well out of hearing range from the main part of the camp, and with a spare generator that could be switched in when one went down, there was never a shortage of juice about the camp.
Berry had high hopes of this meeting. Three gladiatorial bouts at the same time was the most he had ever heard of outside Silver Island, and it was his hope that there might be something here that could provide a much-needed gladiatorial element at the next meeting, when it was hoped that the island's own arena would be perhaps nearing completion under the direction of the famous woman architect, Joline Ellis. Miss Ellis had already constructed at least three grand buildings for a feministic fighting club which had included superb arenas in which they staged bouts that were said to be the ultimate in female fight development. As a man, Berry had never been privy to any of these activities, but he knew that the Club President, the Countess Imogen de Lysset Colgreavance, a woman whom he had met in the course of his business once or twice, had herself appeared in a feminist ring more than once, and was very interested in female combat in the wider sphere. That she had recently joined the Borlax IFF group spoke much for her dedication to the pursuit. It was likely that she would be at the next Silver Island meeting herself, possibly with a fighting guest. Berry would certainly be there. He never missed the Silver Island Convention, and was hoping that as in other years he would be able to take a guest from the gladiatorial sphere to raise (as he saw it) the tone of the proceedings. Out of the six who were to perform that day, he hoped to find one fighter of high enough standard.
Berry was obsessed by unusual fights. In his clubs years ago he had featured almost everything that he could get away with, and a great deal that he shouldn't have. Those clubs had continued to put on the best of whatever could be devised, but the tastes of the punters had changed from the real tough stuff that Berry himself delighted in to nude mud-wrestling and foxy boxing. Both disgusted him, and although he had fulfilled the demand for such rubbish, he had reserved some of the more esoteric displays for his two top clubs, one in Jacksonville, Fla., and the other in San Diego. He had also spent much time touring the world investigating further possibilities. He had visited private clubs in Japan, the Gulf, Africa and New Zealand, and had seen various displays there which had given him some hope for the future. But for now, he was very much wanting to see how these gladiatrices would perform here.
Due to fight first were the whip-girls, Qvelle and Luisa. Presently, they were preparing for their battle - a fight either to surrender or one minute's inability to continue. To both, the prospect was frightening. Neither had fought in earnest before with whips, and they had very little realization of what it would prove to be like. They donned their costumes with great trepidation, the brass V-plate over the crotch, the gorget about the throat, and the large, heavy left-arm sleeve armour cinched tight across the chest. With boots and goggles on, they stood ready to fight, long dog-whips coiled in their hands.
Together, they left the dressing rooms, and walked side by side to the arena, torsos completely open to the strike of the hide. The set look of worry on both faces thrilled Bill Berry, for here were two girls, both young, both pretty, stepping together so utterly vulnerable into the unknown. Their stomachs must have been tight knots of fear, but they nevertheless conquered it, and stepped onto the sand with their heads held high.
Bronson gave the signal to begin. Holden stood with them to perform the function of referee. Whips were unfurled, and the girls circled each other warily, watching each other for he slightest sign of weakness. Neither found it, and Qvelle snaked out her whip, aiming for the Mexican girl's stomach.
The first smack of dog-whip against flesh raised a weal, and had Luisa jumping back stung. She replied with a low sweep that cracked across the tops of Qvelle's thighs.
The redheaded girl stepped back herself, the shock of the pain showing on her face, and at that point they both knew that they were in a fight that was going to demand all their courage to face.
Qvelle's next attempt was higher, threatening to cut into the dark girl's breasts. As she had been trained to do, she brought across her left arm and the armour took the strike of the lash, the whip winding itself around the brass sleeve, its end only just touching her flesh and doing no damage. Qvelle yanked Luisa towards her, swung her booted leg, and brought her to the sand, dragging her whip clear as the Mexican rolled away.
The dark Luisa was just rising as Qvelle's whip spoke again, and thrashed her over back and right shoulder. The Mexican rose, biting her lip against the stinging pain and sent her whip out towards the redhead's stomach in a snaking wave. It bit into her flesh and drew a gasp before Qvelle replied with a back-hand slash that fell too low to damage the smaller girl's breasts, but laid a red line across her lower ribcage.
The wave-motion of Luisa's whip enabled her to control it and strike down with a high action, and Qvelle felt an agonizing fire across her breasts. The left arm came over too late to save her, and whilst striking into the softer flesh of Qvelle's breasts, the whip had cut it, and left a blood-weeping weal across her naked chest.
The tall girl did not allow herself to be stopped by that, and forearmed a whip-slash down Luisa's right side, cutting her cheek, and laying another weal, this time a vertical one across her, marring the right breast.
Though they were both fit women they were panting as they broke away and eyed each other behind the mesh goggles that covered their eyes - the pain, all could see, was reaching them.
They closed again, their whips tangling before they were able to draw them clear and strike again at the exposed flesh.
Bronson watched with rising concern as both his girl and the Detroit redhead slashed and cut at each other with their whips. Many were stopped by judicious use of the armoured left arm, but there was so great an area of flesh exposed that there was no respite from a mounting agony that affected both girls. He was very aware that no-one could be trained for this sort of thing. It was down to how much they could take of what must be a searing torment as the dog-whips closed around and clased their bodies until the pain within them was a living thing. Blows landed to bare torsos, and naked thighs, blood drawn here and there, sweat soon laving them under the combined effects of heat and suffering, all combined to make the fighters endure an appalling agony that was bound to slow them very soon. He was bitterly regretting allowing the young Luisa to get involved with this, and when she fell to her knees retching after yet another brutal cut across her breasts, he hoped she would stay there for the full minute.
Qvelle stood away, waiting. She too was panting in the extremity of her own suffering, and the realization of what the shock and agony of whip-fighting was like.
Berry's feelings were quite unlike those of his host. He had found the spectacle exciting and exactly to his taste. Perhaps more aware of the severity of what had been offered than either of the participants before the bout had started, he had felt the girls' performance first class, and their courage great. Luisa was clearly a weaker fighter than their own Qvelle, for with her extra height, the red haired fighter hit harder and fuller. It was significant that although Qvelle had suffered the first cut, from which her rent breasts were still bleeding, it was Luisa who bore the more and deeper ones.
Luisa, half-stunned by the appalling crack across her breasts that she had just taken, and racked with pain, fought to control her heaving stomach while Qvelle waited patiently for her to rise. Her natural courage was forcing her to fight for control. She did not want to fail yet, for she had much to deliver upon the massive frame of her opponent, but though she tried to rise twice, she was rubber-legged from shock, and ended the minute collapsed in the sand, quite unable to make herself get up.
A white-faced Holden strode across and raised the arm of the victrix Qvelle, almost as shocked himself as the fighters. The sight had shaken him badly as the young Luisa, her torso slashed and torn by the power of his own girl, strove so hard to rise, and failed. Bitter would be her defeat to the girl, he had no doubt of that, but he felt Qvelle trembling herself as he raised her arm, and knew that she too must have been carrying a weight of pain that few could have withstood. Like Bronson, he had always known that there was no way of readying a girl for an agony this intense, yet both his girl and Bronson's had performed with little regard to their suffering until the the strain had brought Luisa low. He began, in that moment, to fear for Terri in the sword duel, and dared not think of what smashing horror the cestus fight would produce.
With the whip-fight done, both contestants had to be helped away from the arena.
It was perhaps as well that the next pair had not seen the whip-fight, for although better protected than the almost naked whip-girls, they still had their breasts fully exposed to the blunt swords of battle, and Holden began to worry that they were expecting too much of girls to face such brutal agonies as Qvelle and Luisa had experienced.
These, though, proved a tougher pair of girls than the first. It was soon clear that Camilla, an identical physical match for the muscular Terri, was the better swordswoman, and from the first few minutes, Camilla was mostly in control of the exchanges. Several lusty blows were absorbed by the copper- and silver-coloured armour they wore, Terri's silver, Camilla's copper. They fought with gladii, replicas of the Roman short-sword, but without point on edges. The edges were rounded, as the were the points, and the weapons took on the form of painful bludgeons rather than killing weapons.
This was never better displayed than when near the commencement of the fight, Camilla scored with an up cut that passed Terri's parry and ran up into her left breast, driving the flesh before it and piling it against the upper part of the silvery breastplate. A scream was wrenched from Terri, but she had the presence of mind to strike at the forward, ungreaved, right thigh and draw a grunt from Camilla, who for some time afterwards was limping from its effect.
Nevertheless, they battled on well, several thrusts to the belly hurting, but held by the iron muscle-control they had each developed. Though Camilla was more skilled, the slower Terri was a dour fighter with a solid defence. Once Camilla stumbled, and Terri was able to smash her sword across both the juddering breasts of the Mexican and drive her, writhing in hell, to the sand. She knelt there on one knee fighting to pain for thirty seconds before she was able to rise to fight on. Camilla had not named herself after the Queen of the Volci for nothing, and was not short of courage. She fought herself back into the fight, ignoring the pain of her bluing breasts, and keeping her left forearm with its attached shield plate high enough to protect herself from Terri's attempt to follow up the lucky paining of her breasts.
Once Terri drove her blade against Camilla's crotch-plate, and the shock of its landing was sufficient to show her that without that crucial V-piece she might have been in serious trouble.
Gradually, however, Terri was worn down, and after fifteen minutes of continuous hard action, her concentration began to fail as her exhaustion increased. She hurt practically everywhere above the knees, for even areas protected by armour were still bruised by the sword impact, and her breasts and stomach had taken such a pounding from Camilla's blind-sword that she could hardly stand straight. She knew that had they been fighting with real swords she would have been dead long ago, although Camilla would have been little better.
Terri used her shield-plate well, but the end came when another of Camilla's up-cuts, her most devastating move, took her just beneath the left bicep-ring, and numbed the arm totally. Without protection she was wide open to two stabbing blows to her breasts from Camilla that sent her to her knees in overwhelming agony, and she failed to rise within the time allowed.
At the end of this fight, both Bronson and Holden were somewhat reassured. The girls had suffered terribly under the massive bruising of the bludgeon-swords, but both had carried their agonies well, and fought strongly from start to finish. The victory by Camilla was well deserved, but Terri had emerged with much honour, and had endured more than Holden would have expected her to. Camilla had performed much as Bronson had expected. She was hurt, but not so much that she couldn't carry it on, and the sight had not been nearly as harrowing as the bloody spectacle of the whip battle.
The fighters came through it with considerable respect for each other, and though beaten, it was unlikely that Terri would feel much bitterness. She knew she had been out-skilled by the Volcian-named Mexican and was content to know that she had some way to go in her training before she could match her. She did not believe that that would prove impossible.
Berry had enjoyed this bout too, and had been singularly impressed by the way they had both taken thrusts and chops to the belly that had been controlled by a well-trained and developed musculature. Also, they were both extremely strong girls who had found the weight of their armour relatively easy to handle, and who had wielded swords of such a weight that many men could not have fought non-stop for the time they had been in action. Like the whip-fighters they had been exhausted by the end of the session, but there had been none of the sickening shock for them that the Qvelle and Luisa had had to endure. The sword-fighters were well practiced and had known what was expected of them, and what the effect of such a fight was likely to be. They had been prepared for it and ready and were fully up to the standard that Berry had wanted.
The first two, though, had been only preliminary fights, arranged quickly, and of nothing like the importance of what was to follow. It was the proposed cestus duel that had set the train of events that had unfolded into motion, and it was on that that Berry an Bronson would draw their conclusions.
Both Ulrike and Elvira were very experienced, extremely highly trained and durable fighters. They had already suffered untold agonies in even reaching the standard that were at, and it was how they conducted themselves that would decide whether there was any future in women's gladiatorial combat.
If the fight proved good enough, Berry was intending to try to get the winner to Silver Island, for he knew that any woman who could win through against another well-trained female using cestuses and wearing nothing but Bronson's HY harness must be capable of facing the hellish torments she would find there. It took fanaticism, courage of the highest possible order, and inordinate endurance to step onto the sand with these body-smashers thonged to her hands. To Berry's mind, there was nothing quite like the spectacle of women fist-fighters enduring the hideous impact of punches aided by steel or leather. He had witnessed many kinds of fist fight in his time, and all of them could be seen as the most elemental and brutal of struggles. Once, he had thought solid gloves the zenith of the art, at another time bare-fist battling. Now, he had been persuaded by Holden that the fight with the gauntlet or stud cestuses was that zenith. For a fight of this nature, which was technically sporting, the studded cestus would be used. Plate cestuses were to be reserved for the ultimate in death battles. This was to be a fight to disability only.
None of them had much idea of what the the length of the fight would be. It might last from five or six minutes up to a half hour or more, but however long it lasted, he was about to see in action two women whom he would admire for evermore. Of that he was sure before they even started. Neither trainer would make the claims they did for these two without certain knowledge of their abilities. Holden he was certain wouldn't, and Bronson did not seem the sort of man to make extravagant claims where fighters were concerned. Both had trained men in their time, and both had gone on to women because they could not find the vehicle for the endurance they wished to imbue outside the fair sex. The night ten years ago when Elvira had fought off the muggers and saved Bronson from lying robbed and in a drunken stupor in that Acapulco alley had finally convinced the man that his future lay in training girls like her to become the fearsome fighter she now was. With the death of Zeke Lambert he had come into the sole ownership of the camp, and there was no-one now to please except himself, and later, when she came of age and joined him in a partnership, Elvira herself.
So he had started with Elvira, and she had worked harder than any of the male trainees they had ever had at the camp. In three years she had surpassed him in knowledge and control in all the arts he knew, and was an impressive sixteen year old to offer Aracelis for her fight-tape business, then in its infancy, and struggling with film. From the beginning with Elvira one or two girls had joined them. One had been Camilla, whose real name was Carmen, but who had changed it to the name of the female warrior of the Aeneid which she had once read. Like Elvira, Camilla had settled to the life of the camp with the greatest ease, and had found it more of a home than she had ever known. Luisa was part of an influx of newcomers who had only begun to arrive at the camp within the last three years. Some did not stick the pace, others proved ultra-dedicated, but all were given the chance to find the style of fight they most enjoyed or were best at. Many were courageous but inexperienced, such as Luisa had been before the clash with Qvelle. Many more were in the early part of their training, and some had become proficient in arts other than those that were involved today.
Now the cream of Detroit stood facing that of San Cristobal, and there was an air of electric excitement about the Large Hall as the two cestus fighters moved onto the sand.
Without further ado they saluted each other and waded in. there was, indeed, very little other way to begin a cestus bout. Tentative feeling out was a rather pointless exercise when an opponent could be rendered totally crippled within a minute.
As it was designed to do, the HY harness gave no protection whatsoever to the fighters except immediately adjacent to the mons veneris and the crotch, where they were leather-covered, but not armoured, of course. The chest straps of the thing pushed the breasts deliberately outward and forwards so that full strike could be brought to bear the more easily. It was a strike that Elvira immediately made use of, driving Ulrike back at the first exchange with a vile pain in her crushed bosom. The marks of the four studs set in a line straight across her left breast showed plainly against her lighter skin. Tow headed and fair skinned, Ulrike was bound to show her marking more than Elvira, but her pain would be no greater.
As it was, she stopped the Mexican girl's advance with a left low into the belly that brought her up short, and tipped her forward to take a right cross against her left jaw plate and staggered away to the side. Elvira caught herself and drove a left towards the diaphragm that landed with a dull thump against the blonde's tautly tensed belly, and set her back on her heels while Elvira stepped away.
They circled briefly before moving smartly together again and driving studs again towards the torso. Elvira felt her right breast skinned by a glancing blow, and ripped another into the Detroit girl's guts, feeling the strength of the toned muscles that held out against her powerfully-impelled blow. It was no more than she had expected, and she took steps to draw her grazed breast clear of the next encounter, whilst exploring the possibility of landing to Ulrike's. Shielding herself with her right arm, the tow-headed girl evaded the attempt and they came clear again.
Next to attack was Ulrike, powering three heavy blows towards the darker-skinned Mexican. One drove to the solar plexus, the second to the breasts again, the third to the belly. It was a good combination and delivered at speed. It was vital to block the plexus punch, and the belly blow could have been very damaging, so Elvira was forced to block that too, leaving the second to half mangle her outthrust breasts. The move cost her agony aplenty, but she was minded of the constant adage of Bronson `when you have the choice being taken by pain or disablement, select the former'. A throbbing breast was nasty, but it didn't do any internal damage. Either of the other blows could. Raised in the same adage, the blonde girl was in no wise surprised as Elvira blocked the lower blows and drew back gasping, knowing that she would have done the same under the circumstances. Elvira used combinations for defence, but had used none in attack, at least, not yet. She was hurt by the breast blow as any woman would have been, but did not allow the pain to stop her reacting, even for a moment. She had known it would happen and had mentally braced herself to take it, so she was quick to step to the right, and belly-thump Ulrike from the side. That hurt, and sent the blonde sideways, back-handing with the left cestus as she went. The blow rang against the side of Elvira's helmet, but did no damage, and for a moment she found herself in a position to drive to the Detroit woman's kidneys.
Much to her opponent's relief, she desisted from that course, and turned to face her again. They fell to with a dual combination that dropped them both back, hurt and spent, Elvira's breasts now also showing the dark spot-marks of the landing studs. Both were infinitely relieved that they were only using studs, and not the plate gauntlets that under that attack would have had them battered breathless, and probably down. Stretching themselves high they drew back then closed again, cestuses driving towards viscera, to land just above the mons, and induce in them both a sickening shaft of pain.
They were, however, supposed to be used to that, and Elvira was proved the most used if her rightward twist and the hurled roundhouse to the side of the head was anything to go by. Her guts were ablaze but she had been trained to fight through this, and Ulrike was caught totally unawares by the Mexican's reply. She tried to jerk her head back, and only let Elvira's studs pass her jaw plates and slam into her mouth and nose. Blood flowed from both instantly, and the blonde stepped back, her head feeling on fire, and spitting shattered teeth as she went. Elvira raised her hand in apology and stood away until the other was recovered enough to fight back. Ulrike returned the salute, but her whole face now ached, and there was not much chance of that pain subsiding while the fight was in progress.
Consequently, she looked to go high for the breasts and try to prevent Elvira catching her there again. She knew that this one had been a mistake, and unintentional, but it had severely weakened her and caused fear of disfigurement to flutter in her stomach again. She had always known that she was mad to do this, mad to and made to - an interesting thought. But every time she stepped in for training she was risking the sort of injury that no woman wanted to collect - her face smashed in. It was said in these circles that it was whether you care that mattered, and Ulrike sensed that Elvira might not care. There was a hardness about her that spoke of total dedication to this awful art, and the Detroit girl felt fear where she should have controlled it.
The flash of fear in the tow-headed girl's eyes was immediately spotted by Elvira, and in the nature of the contest, she exploited it, stepping forward to fight open chested, inviting Ulrike to strike her where she was most sensitive.
The psychological advantage this gave her was not lost on the other, and she was forced to redouble her efforts to score on the offered breasts or lose the psychological battle to her lasting detriment. This wasted valuable energy, but she had to show Elvira that her momentary flash of fear had been quelled again.
Elvira instantly regretted her bravado, but it was too late to draw back. She had offered herself to Ulrike and now had to suffer the consequences.
The blonde took her opportunity hard, and Elvira was put to a hellish agony as both her cestuses buried themselves deep into her breast-flesh. Calling on all her resistance she stood up for it, and lunged for the solar plexus again. Occupied in torturing the Mexican's breasts, the Detroit girl was too slow to block, and Elvira cut off her breath as though a door had been slammed in her face. Doubling in the agony of total disablement, Ulrike's head came to rest on Elvira's shoulder with her heavy breasts swinging between them. Quickly, Elvira, disregarding her own surging breast-pain, whipped up her studs and buried them into Ulrike's flesh, before stepping away to let her fall, tortured in all three places.
Ulrike fought against the pressure that was upon her to stay down to fight her way, inch by inch back to her feet. They had been fighting for barely ten minutes, and she viewed the possible end of her challenge coming so soon as a disgrace.
Holden, acting as referee, was in a quandary. Wanting to save Ulrike any more of the searing hell she was enduring, he hoped that she wouldn't make it, yet at the same time wanted to see her conquer the agony and rise to capitalize upon her own torment of the dark girl's breasts.
In the event she did rise, but was definitely groggy and very short of breath. Elvira stepped forward and drove again for the solar plexus. Ulrike blocked that one, but not the following right that smashed into the leather at her Mound of Venus.
With a gurgling cry, the Detroit girl staggered back, blood still streaming from her mashed mouth and her breasts still alive with the torment inflicted at their most relaxed position. She could hardly think and fought back by instinct, going for the diaphragm of her tormentrix. Elvira, though, had expected that, took the studs on her tensed muscles, and hooked again for the belly with her left, not at the mound, but at that favoured spot just to the right and below the navel where the abdominals crossed. The loaded fist drove through into the viscera as though Ulrike's shield was butter, and dropped her at Mexican's feet in a writhing heap.
Convinced that the Detroit girl was finished, Elvira stepped away for Holden to call the minute, but she reckoned without the blonde's tremendous spirit and will to fight. Again she struggled up and went into a deep defensive crouch.
Elvira reviewed her strategies. Should she cut loose and batter Ulrike down, or should she prolong the woman's agony to see how much she had left? The latter was not a course that would normally have appealed to her, and she rejected it on two grounds. First that it was unnecessarily cruel in what was essentially a sporting contest, and secondly, an attack now would not only impress the visiting impresario, but do her confidence a power of good into the bargain.
So without further ado, she stepped in and dealt the suffering Ulrike a combination that left her sickened and gagging in a half-conscious heap. The terrible damage that the studs could do was never better shown than now, for with five punches, Elvira reduced Ulrike from a proud and spirited fighter to a semi-conscious wreck. The deep crouch made the task difficult, the harness eased her problems. Between the two she first delivered a crunching left hook to the lower ribs. The next drove up between her arms, and crushed her right breast with agonizing force against the harness studs, bringing another cry of desperate pain from the blonde girl. These were both lefts, a hook and an uppercut. Next the heavy right, driven with the force of Elvira's massive shoulder power tore into her spleen and caused another bombshell of pain to break over her as she staggered away, already beaten, and holding herself up only by the strength of her remaining will. The fourth, a third left, drilled full into the spot near the navel and started the final scrambling of her guts, and the last, a murderous right drove down into the top of her mons veneris, the studs bruising through to the bone, and causing her ovaries to scream a sheet of brutal agony in a fire that seemed to consume her brain. Her legs, half-buckled by the punch, were totally ruined by the agony, and failed to hold her a moment longer before she was on her knees first and then on her face, her fists opening and closing weakly, as all she was aware of was the need to retch up the devastated guts, and to get relief for the searing torture at her crotch. She made no attempt to actually reach for either, but just lay there fighting for the breath that would give her a chance to find enough oxygen to stave off the approaching unconsciousness. A black cloud of despair hovered over her as she thought for the merest moment of rising, for she knew that whatever else she might manage to do, she would never stand again.
There was no need for Holden to count. It was clear to everyone that Ulrike, after having fought a good fight was finished. She knew it, he knew it, Elvira knew it, and above all, Bill Berry knew it.
Berry had sat entranced right through the fifteen minutes the fight had taken to reach this conclusion. The power, the skill, and the courage had been proved beyond all doubt, and he felt that a certain Mexican gladiatrix was on her way to Silver Island.
Bronson sat stunned by the immense power that his girl had put into those last five punches, and shuddered inwardly. For a moment he wondered what sort of creature he had made here, in this black-haired, broad-faced, powerhouse of a woman, his partner if not his lover, and a woman who thought as much of his art as he did himself. It had all been there, fierceness, courage, ruthlessness, the whole gamut of the qualities needed in two women who were both, in his opinion, born fighters. Though Ulrike had lost this time, she had done so with honour and great dignity, fighting on until the will to do so had not been supported by the condition of her body. There were probably no bones broken, only a cracked rib or two, and Ulrike had fought agony until her mind had been totally saturated with it, and she could fight no longer.
For Bronson it was a proud moment, and it was also one for Holden, who had produced a girl whose spirit was unbreakable. Only her body, driven beyond all normal endurance had let her down. Holden would know what to do about that.
The fights were over, the honour on all sides satisfied. No-one had failed here, no-one had performed less than amazingly well. The inexperienced Luisa and Qvelle had found courage to endure pain the like of which they had never known, Camilla's power and skill had been almost matched by Terri's, and now the two principal gladiatrices had put on a battle of such intensity and agony that they could have given no more.
Beryy was delighted, Bronson and Holden proud. Everyone, even those six who had suffered so much, was aware that all had been given, and no more than that could ever be asked for.
It was indeed a spectacle of pride that might find it hard to surpass itself.
The audience left slowly, as though in a daze to return to their training or their duties about the camp, and Berry sought out Bronson to ask his permission to use Elvira in the Silver Island games. He felt that he was assured of a fine spectacle!
(C) Ajax 11/1987
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That Raf is fantastic. I'm surprised he wasn't more active.
Love these stories, though. They come from a simpler and grander era.
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 09
NEW YORK ANTI-DRUGS SQUAD BAIT
by Raf
"Take this [slap] and this [back hand slap], and this [resounding slap] and this!... [back hand slap]"
The slapping hand was large, heavy, and hardened by boxing and karate exercise, and the rings on it were heavy, gold, and decidedly feminine. It was the ring that gashed the skin in the second backhand slap. That hand was proportionate to the body behind it: the woman was 1.95m (6'4"), her shoulders square as those of a powerful male wrestler, her arms thick with muscle, her body and legs also muscled and thick but not rounded by fat. The woman was not a body-building champion - but only because she did not choose to attend the inevitable public exhibitions. As she was the second in command of a drugs and prostitution racket that would not have been wise. In fact, she could have matched any female, muscle to muscle, without any fears. Indeed, she could do that against most members of the opposite sex in her gang, and she sometimes had had the opportunity to do so, when they made advances to her. She was not at all responsive to the charms of men, taking her kicks only from her sadistic beatings or - if an opportunity arose - the killing of unfortunate competitors or members of her own gang when, occasionally, some made the #very wrong# decision of starting a straight life. She was a beefy 189 lbs (86 kg) of woman but though rather harsh-looking, she was attractive, her auburn hair falling to her eyes, shading the two black diamonds - that were now shining with her evil pleasure.
Mary was no longer being asked to talk. Jane, the big bitch, had realized some thirty minutes ago that Mary was not a woman of the talkative kind. She had thus resorted to breast mauling, clubbing her buttocks with a golf club, and even cigarette burning, before she was fully convinced that her prey was not an ordinary woman. Jane was even starting to feel a certain respect for the small woman's guts. But she had to break her, as she was sure she was a spy for the anti-drugs squad, the new one, formed by the recently elected Governor, with some difficulty - as almost all of the previous bunch of police officers were on her payroll.
But she was wrong in her assumption. Mary had been dismissed from the police force, after being disciplined for lack of respect to her superior officers. That had happened after two cops had been killed in a shoot-out with the gang and the fact that one of them had been her man. The fact that the other cops had done nothing to hunt for their murderers had sprung her to action. She had criticized this lack of support from the police corps, of which she was then an undercover bait to catch the higher brass of the drugs ring, which put her into conflict with her chief, another corrupt officer - and the enquiry about her lack of respect for him had been quick and conclusive. So, Mary was now another unemployed girl, but, in her desperate search for revenge, she had gone on prowling the streets as before, when she had been in her police job. She wanted to get close to the guy on top, to kill him, no matter what happened to her afterwards.
She looked into Jane's eyes again. Her swollen lips were closed tight. Her burned nipples ached terribly - so that she didn't feel the pain from her broken rib. Her blue eyes showed both pain and defiance, although the blood trickled down her cheek. She was being held against the burly chest of a man who weighed twice her 125lbs (57 kg) and the hold he had on her head could be used to break her neck in a moment. Her hair was sodden and disheveled, after suffering a long session of pulling and yanking. The flimsy shirt had been ripped during the fight she had put up when they had snatched her outside a night-club, and the bra had followed, just after she had been pushed into this basement of one of the ring's warehouses. It had been quite a show, as she had been one of the best police trainees, which had helped her a lot, though it had been of no avail to her against four of them and having been taken by surprise.
"You talk, girl! If you go on playing toughie with me, you'll just end up like those two stupid guys of your department last month..." said Jane. She was already dressed in her evening clothes, a black rubber motorcyclist outfit with nothing beneath it, hugging her body like a second skin, studded with metal pins and with zips galore, the use of which the lesbians in the gang knew well, especially those crossing her breasts and thighs. - "You are a girl, so I'll give you a special treatment before you go down into the river sewer. [She punched her hard under the navel again] You ain't seen nothing yet... Who are the other underground cops in this district? Spit out their names quick, while you still have teeth and a tongue!"
Acting on impulse, Mary spat at Jane's face, a mixture of saliva and blood from her broken lips.
"Bitch... you... How dare you?" Jane spat, in her turn, at the proud and defiant face under the forearm of Joe "Strangler" Kininski and, in a fit of rage, fired a long salvo of brisk, close range punches to the underside of the breasts, to the pit of the stomach, on the belt line, finishing with a tremendous right uppercut to the crotch. Her stomach was protected by a good shield of muscle, but her female organs weren't and this time Mary had to open her mouth and cry out her pain. She strangled her sobs but tears rolled down her cheeks.
"How do you like it, bitch?" - Jane was coming up from her crouch, into which she had gone to hit the smaller woman better. - "I see you love it, baby. Wanna some more?" - Without waiting for a reply, she delivered another punch to the throbbing pubis. This time the sharp edge of the ring got stuck in the zipper. Jane pulled savagely, opening the zipper and wrenching it from the jean's seams and at the same time pressing her closed fist harder into the girl's guts.
"Jane, stop it. She's passed out..." - The big male was pleading with her. He had sent many men into the hospital and several directly to the morgue during his life of thuggery, sometimes quick jobs, sometimes using the longer, more refined ways this lady was using now, but as he felt Mary's body going limp against his, he felt pity for the tough little woman he was holding.
"Maybe you're right. If I go on so quickly, you and Rick will not have a piece of ass for your male enjoyment, eh? Alright. Strip the gal. I'll stay and watch, while you and him" she motioned to Rick with her chin "take turns going down on her. I wanna see the bitch going mad or begging me to finish her - so try not to be gentle when you're entering... Go on!"
"Sure, Jane... the pleasure's all mine!" Although he preferred his women to have oversized breasts, he was not one to complain under the circumstances. He let the young woman slide down to the cement floor, bent over her, opened her heavy leather belt, pulling it out and throwing it aside. He fumbled with the broken zip and pulled the jeans down the pretty, well-shaped legs of the motionless woman. He looked at her and confirmed that her eyes were still closed. The calf length boots were preventing him from taking the trousers off easily. He positioned himself in front of her legs, took hold of one foot and wrenched the boot off it. It came so unexpectedly that he stumbled two steps back with the brown leather in his hand.
Rick was grinning at the heavy wrestler, "Er - do you need some help? It looks as if that big girl has kicked your balls..."
"Shut up, you monkey! I ain't used to strippin' 'em, they melt down when I shows 'em me Peter, that's all. It's not easy to skin this chick's legs, that's all..." - He was already working on the other boot.
"Yeah, yeah!... That is not one of your bags of lard..."
At this last remark, Kininski turned his head to Rick, and glared at him, his face full of displeasure. Mary, through her half open eyes, was spying on him and as he stood in front of her on legs wide apart for balance. She delivered a perfect kick with her free foot. He fell backwards, closing his knees and rocking from left to right in the foetal position.
Rick moved away from the wall he had been reclining against, with the speed of the pro knife fighter he was. A knife fighter could retain his title only when he as alive after a duel or there were no other contestants in the vicinity. He was slim, tall, and dark-skinned. Before Mary was half-up pulling up her trousers he was on her, and shooting a kick at her hanging breasts. She was straightened up by it, winced in pain and toppled against the wall, protecting herself with her arms. Rick was on her again and fired his bony fists into her kidneys, turned her round, and head butted her to the forehead. She fell back, her head making a dull noise against the wall. He caught her by the throat and was about to knee her to the crotch when three women burst into the room holding a man between them.
"You've signed your death warrant, gal. I'll have your guts for this."
"Look what we've found outside in a garbage can!" one of the women said, pulling the curly black hair of their prisoner back.
Another man, a fancy-looking and perfumed pimp came in holding a .45-calibre pistol in his hand and closing the door behind him. "Jane, when I was coming in with Jean and Sandra we found this black dude spying on the premises. We thought it would be better to convince him to come in and as he liked them kind manners and even offered his toy..."
"Shit! Another cop. I wanna know how many more are out there!"
"No more, as far as we could see..."
The black cop was tall and handsome, his shirt ripped in front, and he was gritting his teeth to avoid crying out in pain, after one of the whores had applied the same feminine touch to him as Mary had used earlier on the Strangler.
"These two were badly wrong in coming against us." She turned towards the cop. "You should have known that our trade is too good to be stopped now, and those who'll suffer if this business ends are your own bosses in City HQ, you know?"
Jane searched the black man's pockets, and passed a pair of handcuffs to the big-breasted black woman who was a step behind her. This one was dressed in black rubber, but her large and muscular body was almost bare, as she was wearing only her `working outfit' of bra and mini-skirt, plus high-heeled knee-length boots. "Take these 'cuffs, Domina, and put them on him." She paused. "You can play with him until he sings us a song. Meantime I'm gonna finish the other cop I've got here."
Jane threw the cop's badge to the floor, even without noticing that it was a Fed and not the local police badge. She picked a cigarette out of the man's pack and tried three times to light it with his lighter but failed, swore again, and threw it against the wall of the small and crowded basement. It was then that the micro-transmitter ceased to function - and a few blocks away a special Anti Drugs Squad decided to do something about it.
John Carmichael was sweating and praying God that his team would come quickly, although he knew it would not be easy to get there fast.
The black, Domina, was biting his lips, and pressing her huge body against him, while her hands were expertly opening his trousers and taking hold of his sensitive and still aching genitals. The two whores were holding him, one on each side, with judo holds on his wrists behind his back. He had seen the white woman against the wall, and bloodied, and thought gallantly but vainly of helping. Just now, he was badly in need of help himself.
"Oh! What a lover boy we've got here, Jane. You tell your mamma who are the other bulls in our playground, lover boy, or you'll not need a peter-bag ever again!"
In spite of himself, the hard naked thigh pressing against him had brought an erection and Domina was using her nails on his throbbing organ. He stiffened and butted the woman's face, managed to jerk one hand free but the three women started kneeing and punching him wildly, but the second whore kept her hold on his right wrist.
Mary was still against the wall having a badly needed respite. Jane couldn't take her eyes off her black lover, as Domina's fury now took its toll on the black cop. Carmichael was punched back against the opposite wall while the redhead took the pistol from the pimp's hand and pointed its muzzle to the man's groin; she pressed the barrel against the semi-erect penis and the muzzle hard against his nuts.
"Easy, boy! We girls would hate to see you go limp this fast!"
The black man's shout reverberated about the room when the redhead punched his testicles with the gun still in her fist. He puked and choked on his vomit, held up the by the grinning black woman and the skinnier whore. Now Rick made the mistake of taking his choking hands from Mary's throat and turning his eyes away from her.
She had buttoned the top button of her trousers and now she pushed him aside with the redoubled energy of someone about to die without fulfilling her revenge. He stumbled into Jane's arms and she beat him off in a wild reaction but they fell in a heap as Mary gained momentum in the six yards that separated her from the redhead's back, using Kininski's shoulders as a springboard. She hit the gun-toting whore feet first, her naked foot against her back and the booted one to the base of her neck. The redhead fell forward against the blackman's chest and fired her gun between the two bodies instinctively. Unluckily, she shot herself in the foot, immediately falling at the man's feet.
The shot paralyzed everyone in the room for it had been a loud and unexpected noise, and was followed immediately by the screeches of the wounded redhead.
Only Mary, her broken rib knifing in her chest, sprang into action as she recovered herself on landing on hands and feet, breaking her fall the best she could under the circumstances. She leapt on the redheaded whore and wrested the gun from her. "Stay put," she ground out, "or I'll shoot you all!"
Mary's knees were shaking. Two women stood behind her, Domina and the skinny whore; the redhead was to her right, the three men closing in on her in front. Jane, behind them, ordered in a raucous voice, "Jump her, and finish her, you mule-heads!" Hesitant, they remained rooted to the spot. "What are you waiting for?"
Rick's blade flickered under the light, the pimp and the Strangler closed around her. They came forward slowly, almost simultaneously. The gun roared three times, the pimp jerked on his feet and fell in an untidy heap, a black hole in his throat; Rick kept coming forward, but his knife tinkled onto the cement; the Strangler made it to the battered girl and closed his huge hands around her throat - but it was a futile gesture from one with a gaping wound in the stomach. The girl put another hole in him before he let her go. She straightened up, her blue jeans no longer blue but soaked in dark blood. She tried to level the gun at Jane but the skinny whore behind her let go of the cop's arms and punched her viciously from the back. Mary turned and emptied the gun into the girl's body. The whore swiveled as she was hit at close range and was dead before she collapsed.
The cop had turned against the black dominatrix and they were fighting tooth and nail. The way the blackwoman was placing her jabs and kicks showed she was not only a sex entertainer but her mass of muscle had been built for practical purposes.
"I always said that men are useless." Jane opened both zippers over her breasts, exposing and caressing them, her eyes mad with bloodlust. "It will be the two of us, now, woman to woman, and you know'll be mine in the end!..."
Rick had gone to the door, tried to open it, and slid to the floor, leaving a patch of blood on the door panel.
Mary heard the wrestling, grunting pair, rolling away from her, and looking straight at Jane, she threw her empty gun at her face - saw it evaded with ease - and bent to pick up Rick's knife. The bloodied Mary stood up holding the five-inch (12cm) blade, tears of pain washing the blood from her nostrils and the corners of her mouth. "Killer! You have killed my man, but you are finished. I'm taking your heart out, if you've got one!"
"Come, baby. I'm all wet waiting to have your body close to mine. Sweetie!..." As Jane's left hand motioned obscenely between her thighs, her right went behind her back and came forward in an arc bearing a nine inch (20cm) double-edged hunting blade. "You see, my tool's bigger than yours. I hope you still wanna play with me..."
Mary's attention was distracted by a tremendous groan, and she looked at the struggling pair. Her blood was iced suddenly. The huge black woman had lost her mini-skirt, but she had a stranglehold on the man applied from behind and he was slowly being choked to death. The brown skin of the woman was bruised but it was rippling with bulging muscle and even if the man was no weakling, he was certainly in a dire predicament. Mary forced herself to look at Jane again, her sideways glance over the redhaired whore informing her that that one was already on all fours and pulling a switchblade from her left garter.
Carmichael hoped against hope that his colleagues would come before he had his neck broken, or the white chick lost her soul in such an uneven duel.
But miracles don't happen in New York.
He saw the redhead get up on her good foot and jump at Mary's back timing her attack with Jane's demented advance, breasts exposed through the false pockets in her black outfit. Mary side-stepped, evading the switchblade and swiveled her arm, taking the redhead in the stomach. The girl groaned and went running and limping until she fell, twitching, over the strangler's body. Mary had a long deep gash on her right arm and was now facing Jane, who had her back to the black cop, her broad shoulders cutting off his view of the tired, smaller girl.
As he grappled with the semi-naked Amazon, he saw Jane freeze for a moment, then giving vent to a sudden high-pitched cry of "Die, bitch!", charged at her broken toy, her weapon held high, to cut her down with a powerful blow. He heard the slap of two female bodies. The movement stopped, a groan coming from the centre of the silent room. Jane held up her armed fist, her blade awash with blood, and pushed Mary aside like a rag doll. Mary's knees buckled under her, her blade gone, as well as her will to fight, a deep cut from her left shoulder running down over her left breast opening it in two. Then, she toppled motionless to the floor, face first, mouth gaping in a soundless cry.
Jane walked slowly to the door, and pulling Rick's body aside by the collar of his shirt opened it.
Carmichael's rage at having seen the death of his heroine doubled his strength, and profiting from the distracting of the black Amazon by the end of the knife-fight, he grabbed the powerful Domina by her neck and hurled her over his shoulder with an expert judo throw. She tried to seize him by his ankles and pull him down, but he kicked her in the left eye and she was forced to let him go. He jumped towards Mary's body intent on picking up her knife to kill her murderess, who was now framed in the doorway, hand still on the handle.
He didn't find the knife so he picked up the discarded leather belt, and rolling it around his right fist he marched across to the gang's head girl, seized her right shoulder, and hauled her backwards intending to smash her jaw with what he hoped would be his best punch - but the woman fell in a heap on the threshold, Mary's knife impaled to the hilt between her bloodied breasts. Her fixed stare showed well that she had paid with her life for all her killings - though Mary had herself suffered the consequences of those who dared to fight against uneven odds.
He lost his nerve...them cops that are never around when one needs them! - but he was a cop, and he had let them get him. He had managed to escape alive just because the tough white girl had done a terrific cleaning up job - while he, the poor male, had not even been able to render the blackwoman unconscious. As he remembered his tormentrix, he sobered up and turned to look at her. With a trail of blood behind her, Mary had crawled to the place where the handcuffs had fallen, near the black Amazon, and was punching her vagina with them. He couldn't believe his eyes! He had thought the woman was dead - and she was half gone, anyway, pools of blood all over the cement marking her stops on her way towards the bigger woman. Domina was sitting on the ground and she had lost her nerve when she saw that white ghost crawling up to her. Domina grunted under the savage attack and forced Mary's head back away from her, but doggedly Mary tried to mount the seated girl and continued to punch at her exposed womanhood feebly. Domina cried hysterically but her piercing didn't stop Mary, neither did scratching hands, tearing pieces of skin off the enraged woman's face and arms. Mary managed to throw the other on her back and let herself fall on her in the 69 position. And then the black cop saw, as he closed in on them to put an end to that desperate fight, Mary's fists, small and bloody, enter the big woman's body despite Domina's trying to close her legs to prevent the violation of the hand.
He went forward, but now unsure of what he wanted to do. Never in his entire life of entertainments of a strong kind in the exclusive Silver Island Resort had he seen such savagery, and on the other hand, such courage and stamina from an underdog.
* * * * * * * * *
When Mary re-opened her eyes she found herself in a hospital room, all wrapped up in bandages, only one eye peering though the white cotton. She moaned, and tried to move one arm, but Carmichael stopped her. He had refused to leave her bedside, even when they were doing the first six-hour operation on her. Now she was in a critical condition, waiting to see a new day. If she survived, there were other operations to follow before she could resemble a woman again.
She saw a black man by her side, someone she did not know, and was afraid. But the strength used on her arm to prevent her from moving it, and the care in his eyes, reassured her. Her body felt like hell. She recalled Jane throwing her down after having slashed her breast in two and walking away - and tears rolled down Mary's cheeks, invisible to him under the bandages and adhesive tape.
* * * * * * * * *
Every time she opened her eyes, she saw him.
When the doctors took the bandages off her mouth and let her have a talk with someone else, they naturally asked him to come in again. Mary was sobbing under the bed sheet.
"Mary, I am John, the cop you saved in that basement of hell. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your courage, although only after that night I received news about your reason for entering that place."
"Now I remember you coming in there, when I had already been badly beaten. I know that I tried, not exactly to help you, I'm afraid, but to kill that bitch who had killed my man a month before...and she had me instead. Or rather, I would have preferred to die instead of being reduced to...to..."
"To what? You are going to be alright, Mary."
She came to a sitting position on the bed, pushing the bed-sheet away, presenting her awful scars on face and chest, a crisscross of patient needlework by the doctors.
"I'll never be a woman again. Never! As soon as I come out of here I'm going to look for that Jane woman again and then I will not fail!"
"But you are doubly wrong, Mary! I saw the end of your knife duel and I thought that Jane had killed you too, but it was you who killed #her#. She was able to walk to the door, but she didn't make it out of the room. You also killed the three men and two of the women, the redhead having bled to death before the special squad arrived..."
"What special squad?"
"The one I am with. A bunch of veterans who vowed to put an end to the pushing of drugs in our state. You remember the big black woman who fought me while you were doing all that...."
"I remember seeing her seated and going up. I knew that if she made it up to her feet I would be in trouble, but I don't know what I did next."
"You did quite a job, considering that you had lost nearly a pint and a half (750ml) of blood! You jumped on her and attacked her...her..."
"I attacked her - how?"
"You punched her right inside her...I still shiver when I remember that. You were awash with blood, and you put your fist right through her womb! I heard that you ripped her inside, and she is still under psychiatric help. I can't understand how you managed it."
"I loved Anthony very much and had vowed to avenge him, that's all. Now, no man will look at me twice, but if one does, he will flee away like the wind!"
"That is another point in which you're all wrong. Do you think no man will love you again?"
"Love me? They will not even come near these scars, nor screw me in a dark room. They would have the creeps seeing this." She tried to rip the adhesive tapes holding the bandages over her breasts. John stopped her doing it, gently, but firmly. "I would have to fight a man and win to make him lay me..."
"Not if I am around, you don't! I am rich enough to pay for the cosmetic surgery you'll need. And I've been horny for you for weeks. Look!" He pressed her hand to his crotch. Mary giggled, and winced in pain immediately.
"That whore sure was a failure! She was not able to crush such a small thing."
John pressed his mouth on hers, silencing her with a big kiss. She was surprised to feel a powerful embrace of an interested male again, in the poor state she was in. Why did she allow him to?
He was a good talker. And he also talked her into a new job, to act as a decoy for the Anti Drugs Squad he was leading. That would provide her with a high income, a house, a car, and with high standards of training in unarmed combat and the use of different weapons.
For companionship she would have John - and if she was so willing his friends in a certain exclusive and secluded club in a paradisiac and pacific island.
© Raf 11/1987
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 10
THE POLYNESIAN INITIATE
by Ajax
They came from many islands - had been doing so for several days, a group arriving here, another there, and all making their way towards the meeting place upon the shore of Eritu, where would take place the biennial Meeting of the Virgins to face an ordeal through which all the girls must go before they could become women and marry. In blood and pain they would prove themselves worthy of the life ahead.
Mothers and their daughters, some of them had paddled for ten days or more to reach the appointed place, for Eritu was sacred to the Spirit of the Earth, upon which woman gave birth, and which she tended throughout her life.
For the girls it was an exciting time, not untinged by fear. For their mothers a most worrying one, for it was here that their bringing up of their daughters would be tested. Some girls failed to pass their test, and when that happened it was her mother who was blamed. "You have not trained your girl in the bearing of her pain," it would be said. "You must take the thorns yourself!" And they would beat her to her canoe with thorn-sticks and spiky fronds so that she should not forget, and bring her daughter back next time to try again.
The girls knew they faced an agony, hard, hot and long, to prove themselves worthy of the bed of any man, and to gain the right to bear children of their own. All must see their worthiness for that, and it was their duty to come to the Thorn Battle and to survive it. They were judged by their peers, and dared not succumb to weakness on the earth of Eritu. They were hardened from their infancy for this, their mothers remembering their own ordeal, and being ruthless to a girl who cried too much for too little. "You will not face the thorns when your time comes," they would be told, and beaten if they failed to cease their lamentations. "A woman must be strong. She must be brave. She must endure her pains." was another warning often heard, such that a girl hurt in play came to endure her pain stoically, or to face its prospect well. Or when she worked as though her back would break, her mother would be merciless. "Another hour is required. You must work on till then. You must not be tired when you face the thorns."
And so, for years the pressure mounted on the young shoulders of the girls until at puberty, they came to Eritu to face the thorns, knowing now what that meant, and how they must perform. From tiny children they had known the punch and throw of combat play - all geared to the great day when they would land on Eritu and `face the thorns'.
It was said that in the islands a woman's lot was pain and toil, and so it was. On Eritu a woman at last became herself. It was she, not her mother, who paddled the canoe back home. As she came the others watched, and cheered her as she made the shore, but should her mother be at the paddle, then they lined up to jeer, for then it was known that the girl had not been proved worthy of her place amongst the women of the tribe. The girl must go to Eritu again, and then once more, but upon the third departure she was told, "Return a woman, or not at all." Few there were who did not return, for if she failed three times to pass her test, she would be taken to the Savage Island of Ismaru, where she was left to fend for herself. Their were men on Ismaru who cared not whether their women were brave or not, for there they were little more than slaves and deserved, it was said, no better fate.
Avati had borne three daughters, and now took the third, Criami, to Eritu for her initiation. Both Ignuma and Holaa had passed the test first time. Criami, Avati believed, would make that three, for she was a sturdy girl and brave, skilled, like her sisters, with the fist. But until the Battle of Thorns was ended none could know how a girl might perform. It was not unknown for such a girl to quail before the awesome power of the occasion, afraid of the baying crowd that would surround her as she fought. As yet, Avati's back had not felt the stinging thorn-whips of the other women, and indeed, many never did. Yet she thought of Imdi, the hewer of coconuts, whose back was scarred by the cowardice of three of her five daughters, two of whom, to her sorrow, had gone to Ismaru. Since the loss of the pretty, but effete, Coaan last year Imdi had not been the woman that she once had. Twice she had been scourged for Coaan's failures, though on the third occasion, the women believed the mother had done her best to raise her girl bravely and the fault lay with the daughter, who was scourged herself before delivery to Ismaru. Avati shuddered to think of the dishonour to her name to have a failed daughter, for theirs was a proud people who had possessed the greatest number of Feii [1] in the islands. Even now, they worked hard upon their coconuts, gathering, stripping and drying many for sale to the shipping co-operative who plied the islands collecting copra and coconut oil.
Like all the proved women of the tribe, Avati had suffered the Tree of Excruciation* for five pregnancies, and in praying to her gods for strength for Criami (her youngest child) to pass her Test of Thorns had promised to stand again should her sturdy daughter succeed, and she herself escape a scourging. #*[Tree of Excruciation = so called by early Christian missionaries, its island name was the Tree of Pain. Basically two young trees bent inwards towards each other to which every woman, in her third month of pregnancy, was secured by arms and legs, and left for twenty-four hours. The intense and continuous pain of this treatment was intended to ensure that the child she carried would be aborted if it (or she) was not strong enough to survive the ordeal. A woman might undergo this rite voluntarily at anytime to give thanks or as a religious offering. Now largely stamped out, it is believed that it is still sometimes practised on remoter islands. It has a generic similarity to a method of execution used very occasionally in the Pacific Islands in times past, of which seafarers had an almost pathological fear. A severe form of this self-mortification was used as a punishment from time to time.]#
Like most girls approaching her test for the first time, Criami was happy and radiant as they stepped ashore on Eritu. Her life, so far, had been geared to this ordeal, and she came with little fear of it, though she realized the extent of the suffering she would have to bear. She had, after all, had two sisters return triumphant from Eritu who had borne their pain well and who had found lovers almost immediately. Both now had sons and daughters of their own, and Criami looked forward to joining them in the Love-Gardens of the island, perhaps with Papatu, who proclaimed his love for her, and waited only for her initiation to be done before he might lie with her.
The Glade of the Thorn Battle lay in the centre of the Island of Eritu, and it was a place visited with some awe by the initiates as soon as they landed on the island. Even Criami, brave as she was, was affected by the aura of the place, and shivered slightly. The glade was a natural amphitheater, around which the other initiates and their mothers would stand while the fights took place.
But there were two days to wait before Criami, in company with the other girls now gathering on Eritu would step, two at a time, into the dell to try to prove that they could face and bear the ordeal of the Thorn Battle.
"You must ask the gods for help," Avati told her daughter, "lest we be scourged back to our canoe in disgrace."
Disgrace, Criami decided then and there, would not fall upon either her mother or herself.
* * * * * * * * * *
Blake's schooner had put into Eritu the day before, after sweeping down from Tahiti before the storm that had petered out eventually down in the archipelago. Otherwise it had been a good trip. The oil deal with Vasquez had gone well, Trina had conducted herself wonderfully, and had had the Venezuelan big-wig eating out of her hand in hours.
Things were going well. With at least a couple of weeks to get to New Zealand before Vasquez could fly home, there was no hurry. They had radioed their position and Vasquez had satisfied his staff that he was in good hands and would be returning as soon as they made landfall in NZ. Nor was he overly concerned with being back in Caracas before the end of the month.
A stay on Eritu would be a bore for Trina, but Blake himself had always loved the islands, and enjoyed walking the strands and headlands of the more notable ones. Though not notable, Eritu was interesting. It was one he had not visited before, and being volcanic in origin had far more to commend it than many a stinking atoll he had encountered. Trina would just have to lounge about the deck with Vasquez - he might enjoy having her alone for while anyway, while he pursued his interest in islands.
He found it a relaxation from the pressures of business - no telephone, no radio, no appointments with boring go-getters trying to swing him a bum deal. Just the forest sounds, water, and the sough of the breeze.
It was just such day as that when he left the quay to stroll across the island. Clad as he was, in shorts and a bush-shirt with a machete at his hip, it was difficult to think of him as one of the world's wealthiest magnates, with a fortune in shipping and oil imports and able to purchase practically anything he desired. He could have bought Eritu outright and hardly noticed the dent in his bankroll. But today he was John Blake, visitor to Eritu, a man strolling through the open woodland towards the centre of the island.
As he neared the foot of the hill that dominated the centre of the island, he was attracted by the sound of many light voices raised in excitement, and shifted his course to veer towards the noise.
He had not quite burst from the undergrowth, slightly higher on the hill than the source of the sound, when he stopped, an looked down into a clearing, where were gathered thirty or forty women in the midst of whom he could see a pair of youthful girls fist-fighting.
It was as well that he had not burst forth from the undergrowth, for he realized suddenly and with a profound sense of shock, what he was watching - the initiation rights of the island girls, a sight not permitted to men, even of their own tribe.
Blake was not a man to scare easily, but he suddenly knew fear. If he was discovered here it would surely be the end of him. No part of his millions could make up for the breaking of their privacy. He remained very still, lest there be any guards about. It was better to remain where he was, unseen, than to risk discovery by moving, so he settled down to wait it out.
He was forced by his interest and his position to watch the rite unfolding before him, and the sight that met his wondering eyes was like nothing he had ever encountered before.
Blood smeared the bodies of the girls who fought, and there was not far to look for the answer. Both fighters, and a number of other girls, who sat about the natural arena made by the defoliated dell into which he looked, wore on their hands the binding of heavy thorns demanded by the ceremony. He had once heard about this kind of contest, but had thought it had died out years ago. Before his eyes was proof of that error, and startling proof.
The girls fought hard, tigerishly almost, as though the infliction of pain and injury on their opponent would ease their own, and the sound of fists thudding home to young female flesh was loud enough to rise above the shouts of encouragement and the general buzz of comment that was going on amongst the crowd.
Blake was utterly enthralled within moments, and his mind flew forward to the next meeting of the IFF on Silver Island. Either of the girls he saw smashing fiercely at each other would have done credit to the scene there, for their effort was great and their agony acute.
Few men had ever seen this sight, and most who had had not lived to tell of it. At times the anguish on the faces of the older women, mothers of the fighters undoubtedly, was almost as great as that of the youngster who fought so bravely in that dell.
* * * * * * * * * *
Criami came to watch the fight before hers in a state of high excitement. This was the day - the day that she had been brought up to face. They day where she would have to undergo more in a single half-hour than she had ever had to endure before. She felt strong enough and tough enough to face it, but the actual fighting, she well knew, was not as easy to withstand as many thought. Two sisters she had had return torn and battered from this ordeal, their hands and bodies all but ruined by the dreadful nature of the initiation fight. She had seen, but had not yet borne.
Again she was seeing, this time at close quarters, for always first were taken those whose second fight this was - those who had been scourged back to their canoes upon the first occasion. It seemed that it was done deliberately to quieten down the excitement of the first timers, and to build their fear, for to see the pain at close hand was an experience calculated to still most girls' excitement, to see the fierce style of fight, to watch their peers suffer the hell they went through, to smell the blood and sweat.
Each girl who was to fight was clad, like herself, in nothing more than a strip of cloth wound about her loins. That, and the thorn wreathes bound about her hands. Painful merely to wear, with thorns poking into the flesh as they were bound on, they were agony to fight with, agony to both the giver and receiver of the blows. Avati had trained her daughters well in the art of the thorn fight since they were little girls. "Hit to hurt, and drag your blows, for only then can you take less than the receiver," was her advice, and Criami saw it being followed amongst all those who fought before her.
The two second-timers who began the day had fought long and well, each having gained much from the experience of failure on their previous try. Perhaps they had not been brought up to it as she had, maybe they had had a bad day on the first occasion, but neither failed upon this one, and both ran off to bathe their wounds in the sea with joyful hearts and tormented frames - women at last. Their mothers, back bared like all the mothers of the initiates that day, heaved huge sigh of relief. By their girls' success not only were they spared a scourging, but also the paddle on the journey home, for all successful girls were expected to get their canoes home under their own power.
The second fight that Criami watched frightened her much. Again second timers, the two fought for a few minutes, the larger of the two quickly gaining the upper hand, and then the other cried out in pain and ran off into the forest. She had no stomach for the contest. Her mother wailed loudly in her shame as the others reached for thorn boughs and for prickly fronds, and beat her from the clearing.
Then a smaller girl than most, seeming hardly developed at all, fought bravely against a larger girl and both were passed. After that the first timers, the great majority of the two dozen sitting there, began their fights. One passed bloodily before her eyes before she herself was called to perform.
She rose, her heart pounding, butterflies filling her stomach, and stepped into the cleared dell to face the other youngster who seemed almost as well set up as she. Her excitement was suppressed by fear, but she was nonetheless determined.
* * * * * * * * *
Blake watched the two girls come to the centre of the dell with great interest. He had already witnessed several fights, and had seen the one girl break and run for the forest. He could hardly blame her. The whole thing looked the most agonizing of ordeals, but the scourging of the mother had shocked him until he realized the purpose of such an action. Her daughter should have been ready to face the ordeal - though he did not know, of course, that this was the second scourging the poor woman had received as a result of her daughter's inability to face the thorns.
The two who now came to the field of battle both looked edgy and worried. Their fear was real enough, and he did not wonder at it. But they looked determined to do well.
He watched as they saluted each other, and then began to fight. They could hardly have been trained for this kind of fight, or at least, not practised, but even after the first few blows had fallen, their pain was very evident. The thorns had cut into their hands, and ripped the opponent's body painfully. Blood dripped through their fingers, and faces were strained as well as bodies sweating. Unable to prevent the grimaces of suffering showing, they still fought with a fierce pace and constancy of purpose that impressed the watcher.
Blake had already been secreted on the hillside for the better part of an hour, and now there was a fight beginning that seemed likely to last almost as long again.
As the fight progressed it was very clear that the girls were studiously avoiding striking towards the eyes, though there was nothing to prevent them so doing if they had wished. It was the body that was taking the worst of the punishment, and the larger of the two about the bosom suffered a nasty ravaging from the other.
Their long hair was bound up with a piece of liana and the cloth about their loins was made up of two strips in the form of a breechclout. They moved with the lithe grace that Blake had always associated with either the martial arts arena or the ballet, holding themselves well and balancing neatly as they drove punches at each other with great power. The agony from their hands must have been great. Blood continued to run from their hands, and the effect that the thorns was having against their bare bodies was devastating. The skin was sliced and torn, grazed and bloodied by the sharp points that delivered cruel and savage blows to each torso.
* * * * * * * * *
Criami's opponent was named Insaa, and she was a strong girl. Twice, Avati's daughter, slightly smaller and lighter than the determined Insaa, was driven back across the dell, Insaa's thorns ripping cruelly at her body. Twice she steadied and fought back, swallowing down the pain that threatened to weaken her resolve and coming forward to match blows with Insaa.
Her mother looked on, face drawn with worry. Criami seemed to be performing less well than either Ignuma or Holaa in their initiation fights, and was getting hurt and scarred the more. Her fear was lessened somewhat by the fact that her daughter did not seem to be failing to face the thorns, but she could not know how well she might endure her agonies. Insaa fought hard, and Criami was hard pressed to match her for strength.
Then Criami was knocked off her feet, two blows bringing about her downfall, one, a left, searing across her body and ripping the flesh of her left breast tearing it from the inside outwards, and knocked over by a blow to the side of the face that left punctures and streaks of blood on her. One thorn lodged in her cheek, and was so long that it might have penetrated right through the flesh. Avati prayed for her to rise, and watched.
The girl knelt on the ground in agony, her breast sending sickening waves of pain through her, and the pain in the side of her face causing her to wonder whether she could face much more of this. As she knelt, so she remembered the courage of her sisters, both first timers, and recalled her thoughts about disgrace. Nothing, she had told herself, would bring disgrace upon her or her mother, yet that had been then, before she was faced with this all- pervading pain that was weakening her muscles and causing her to want to break and dash for safety and comfort. It was a feeling she must overcome, and she spent more time than she really needed to recover from her knockdown, using it to harden her resolve, to tell herself that she must face the pain stoically, and that it would be very little to bear now compared to having to go through it again. Papatu would be waiting for her to return triumphant. She wanted him to be proud of her. The only way was to get up and fight to the end of her strength, not to break down because a stronger girl had sent her to the earth. She picked the odd thorn from her cheek, and rose to clash again with the stronger Insaa.
The bigger girl had waited impassively for her to rise, aware of her own suffering and hoping to shorten it by having more success. She moved forward, but was deceived by Criami's speed, as having made her resolve stiffen, the girl attacked quickly after her downing.
Insaa was driven back now, taking blow after blow from the lighter girl, and replying as she could. A half-minute later the furious action eased as they stopped for breath, and the blood ran over both like a red curtain, obscuring the minor scratches with its covering. A murmur of approval came from the gathered crowd at the sight, and they circled warily, each looking for another opening.
Avati was much relieved. If Criami could take that awful pain and come back in as she had, to deliver more and worse to the body of the bigger girl, she would be able to carry it off and impress the judges with her courage.
The girls fought on agonized for several minutes more before it was Criami's turn to score a startling success. Coming close in to the bigger Insaa, she drove a blow low into the other girl's belly, ripped an uppercut towards her breasts, doubling her over, and then dropped her to the earth with vicious scything left cross that ripped open the stronger girl's chin and lips and felled her as a bloody mass in the centre of the clearing. The sheer force of the third punch robbed Insaa of her senses, and she lay twisting and writhing in three sorts of agony at Criami's feet, that of breached belly, scoured breast and ripped mouth. That she was badly dazed, and close to being unconscious was quite clear.
Criami stood back to await developments, her body, like Insaa's, slicked with gore, and ripped and torn in a hundred places. She had passed from the pain-conscious level that had seen her go down in a state where more hell had little effect on her performance. Blood poured down her riven arms, and flowed over her scarred body. Her past as a little girl, fighting in the coconut groves, seemed to have given her an ability to endure what few could have emulated, and Insaa writhed in the short grass, having shown a steadfastness in the face of privation that few girls unused to facing suffering could have shown.
They had both impressed the judges, and had fought long enough to convince all three of the old women who stood in judgement that they were worthy to be called women of the their respective tribes.
The eldest of the three, a veritable toothless hag, spoke the words that both mothers had longed to hear - their daughters had passed.
Criami's thorns were cut from her savaged hands, and she helped the dazed Insaa to her feet, both girls raising a smile now they had been adjudged worthy of their position as women. Too exhausted to dash from the clearing as some girls had, they limped away to wash their wounds in the salt of the sea. Tomorrow, they would paddle back to their own islands, to be greeted with pleasure by their peers and prospective lovers. Their mothers would be honoured, none more than the proud Avati whose three daughters had all passed their test at the first attempt. Tonight would be a time for celebration, though before that the exhausted fighters would be allowed to rest.
* * * * * * * *
Not only had the performance impressed the judges. Blake, too, had seen a sight that he had at first found shocking, but had now discovered equally impressive. Just a paltry couple of thousand miles from here was a place he had visited more times than he had set foot on any of the other islands. That place was Silver Island. He was convinced that he must take at least one of these girls to that island for the next meeting. They had the courage to face as much as most of the girls who appeared there, and he wanted one of them.
He did not forget his plan, and later that week, as though by accident, the schooner bore down on Criami's native island. It was a small and insignificant island. It did not even have a quay, but he went ashore by boat and sought out a very special girl.
It was several hours before he saw her, and several more before he could persuade her to sail with him - both she and Papatu, to go first to America, and then to Silver Island.
What would happen to her before she returned home to the islands was something that few people would know about, and yet each one of those would know that Criami was a girl very worthy of the respect she had won on Eritu.
© Ajax 11/1987
Notes:
[1] Feii = the hand-cut hard volcanic stones some two to three feet across, carved circular with a hole in the middle and decorated with specific patterns for each island. Formerly used by the islanders as both a currency and as an indication of wealth. The cutting, carving and carrying of these stones to the House of Feii was a desperately difficult task whose completion merited great honour amongst the men as did the Thorn Battle amongst pubertal girls.
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 11
THE PENNSYLVANIA CLUB FIGHTER
by Raf
"Ladies and gentlewomen. Tonight is the night so many of you have been waiting for so eagerly, for so long! Tonight you are going to witness the competition between our school's afternoon and night classes, in all of the six disciplines that are currently being taught here. As you know, the students in each class have selected the best representative in each discipline to be matched now against a counterpart of the other team. I am going to announce only the names and ages of each one as they enter the arena, as you have got other personal and technical data about the girls in the fact list distributed to you with the admission ticket, as is our club's usual procedure. There will be about ten minutes between matches, so you can make your bets, after you've made your judgements from the previous scores of the girls and their behaviour today. After a first round of combats, the winners of the matches will face each other in a final royal contest. And now, as the mat seems to be already secured to the floor properly, I am going to call the first two contestants. In the blue corner, Mrs. Anne Johnston, 32 - and, in the red corner, Miss Gabriela Biggles, 35."
Mrs. Johnston was a mother of two and the trainer of the afternoon class in that very exclusive suburban housewives' club. These women had started with aerobics and cookery lessons, to keep both their bodies fit and their husbands attentions after they had reached the old age of 25, but they had soon discovered new and unexpected pleasures and thrills when unarmed combat and fencing classes had been introduced. The proximity of their bodies in wrestling and the two attractive and liberal minded studs who happened to be the fencing masters had provided the housewives with two new interest centers - well, at least one - which, in due time, made of them fitness fanatics. Anne was tough, and rather ruthless in her teaching methods, which made her respected and feared among the afternoon women, who came mostly from the upper crust of the sorority. The so-called night shift was composed of working girls, made stronger and coarser by their unfavourable social and economic environment. As Johnston was an instructress and had such a reputation for toughness, most of the betting of the all-female audience went in her favour.
Biggles was smaller and older than Johnston, but she looked stronger. She also was ugly and looked like a bag of potatoes compared with the curvaceous Anne, in spite of her breasts sagging a little, due to the recent breast-feeding of her two babies.
Without preamble, both women came to the center of the mat and interlocked the fingers of both hands, straining against each other. Anne soon won this test of strength and forced Gabriela's arms outwards. Then, with sudden impetus, she pulled them down and their bodies clashed. Their topless torsos slapped together, the breasts suffering most, smashed between the two jamming bodies. Biggles jumped high, closing her legs around her adversary's waist, thus unbalancing both of them. Gabriela fell backwards, bringing Anne down on top of her, but her stocky body sustained the impact well and she was able to use the momentum of the fall to roll sideways without losing her leg-lock. Then she was on top pressing as hard as she could onto her rival. The married woman freed her hands and used them on the soft breasts of the girl in red, clawing them - an infringement of the rules - but almost no-one could see this, so close were they to each other.
Gabriela gaped in awe and pain and stood up still seated on Anne's thighs, trying to grab the attacking hands. Anne's right passed between the two arms and slapped Gabriela under the jaw, pushing her back so that the older woman toppled backwards and sprawled on the mat. Anne was up in the nick of time and wriggling up the stockier body, to squat on the red-knickered belly and use the old but still effective "school-boy" pin.
Anne jumped up, but not before pressing her right knee into Biggles' stomach and was ready to deal with her rival as soon as she stood up, slightly dizzy. Anne trapped her and grabbed her wrist, then propelled her around using her own weight to give her speed before tripping her and letting her go in a wild run. Gabriela extended her arms, unable to stop, and crashed against the first row of spectators. Several screeches later, she was brutally returned to the mat, for she had "chosen" to fall into the laps of a group of the afternoon women. Anne was waiting for her again and took her with a fore-arm smash to the breasts that resounded throughout the auditorium. Gabriela took it, jerked up and moaned, but this time she kept her position and tried to apply an arm-lock. But her arm slipped on the sweaty arm of her rival and she took two other fore-arm smashes to the bosom that sent her reeling back. Jumping up high, Anne kicked Gabriela's belly as she was going back, her arms wide apart and trying to keep herself upright. The well-timed kick made the older girl crash on her back again, her head cracking on the boards beyond the mat with a dull thud, as Anne finished her somersault and dived knees first into Gabriela's guts. Quickly, the younger woman grabbed the outstretched arms of her pinned rival and pressed them down above her head, pinning the shoulders to the floor boards until the heavier girl cried uncle.
"The winner, Anne Johnston, by two pins."
Anne stood up to a round of applause, proudly throwing back her head. A few bets were settled. Gabriela came to her hands and knees and left in the direction of the dressing-rooms without taking her reddened eyes from the floor.
"For the second match, in the blue corner, Britt Silvermore, 17, versus, in the red corner, Helen Thompson, 40."
The comments among the spectators rose as the two contestants entered the ring as announced. The afternoon women did not like Anne's choice of Silvermore to represent the blue team in boxing. Helen Thompson, of the red team, was an obvious champion, an old veteran who had never lost her ability, stamina or guts. Besides this she had an enormous weight advantage over the bony and lissome Britt, although she was short in comparison to the 1.80 meters (5' 11") of the afternoon girl. Britt was tough, but that was all that was known about her as she had enrolled only quite recently.
As was the custom in the club, the boxing took place on the same mat as the wrestling, with no ropes around the square mat, and the fighters had no more protection than that offered by their differently colored knickers. Britt presented herself in a minuscule G-string, barely covering her pubis, a wisp of auburn hair visible against the pale skin of her left inner thigh. Helen was a contrasting sight, both in size and appearance, attired in old-style cotton knickers. Helen looked at the girl with contempt. How could she not be trembling in fear of her massive woman's muscles? The young girl looked at the three year champion without betraying any emotion, detached, as if she was not the frail looking girl she was and about to enter a bare-knuckle scrap like those of three centuries before.
On the signal, both fighters came forwards, closing their hands tightly on the dollar coins they had been given at the ring side. They threw tentative blows at each other from afar, to study the opponents reactions. When they decided to really start the fight a quick flurry of punches was traded, many being deflected or taken on the arms of both, but several punches connected noisily with ribs, cheeks and backs, some thudding against the softer tissue of breasts and bellies. They kept the attacking pace for a few minutes, then both recoiled in mutual understanding to replenish their lungs. The spectators tried to count the red marks on each woman's body because up till that moment they had struggled toe to toe without respite, the pistoning of the arms being too quick to be fully appreciated by the untrained eye.
Britt started back pedaling under a new surge of blows - perhaps tiring under the heavier woman's punches or finally starting to fear the consequences of losing a fight such as this. Helen pressed in, connected with a powerful jab to the navel, doubling the girl over to clinch with her attacker. Helen jammed her unmercifully with two powerful blows, right and left, to the kidneys. And, as the crowd jeered from the back benches, she stepped back to see the girl falling to her knees - or to finish her with a last punch to the jaw.
Britt was reeling on her feet but instead of going down, she came up in a fit of fury, delivering a left uppercut to the pendulous right boob of her adversary, who was old enough to be her mother. Helen was taken by surprise and screamed out in pain but reacted with a left to the girl's stomach. She managed to parry it with her right arm and shot another left to the heavy and already injured breast. Helen cried out again and stepped back, looking agonized at the small fist held proudly in front of her.
As she stepped back she heard the uproar of the crowd more easily and understood the meaning of her rival's defiant gesture. In pain from the twice attacked breast she had opened her right hand to massage it and had thus lost one of the dollar coins they were holding like the 18th century prize-fighters had done. Britt attacked again, in response to the blue team's supportive shouts of "Silver - more! Silver - more!!" and Helen had to call upon all her experience and ring toughness to hold up against the younger's proud and quick attack to her head and face. When the veteran's guard went up she had to suffer a renewed frenzy of clobbering to her guts. Britt had to take several hammer blows to her own belly and the mid-section and, when they exchanged short distance blows, two punches to her small, firm breasts, almost like a boy's, but she gritted her teeth and kept trading punches as if unaware of her own pain. It was Helen who went off the mat first, under the barrage of blows from the younger fighter and they were both ordered to stop.
Silvermore crouched and grabbed up the dollar coin and, like an experienced exhibitionist, she tucked it inside the front of the diminutive blue G-string. The crowd roared of laughter, shouting the name of the younger girl who was doing so well against the experienced boxer; only a few boos attested the loyalty of the older champion's followers. Thompson came in, head low, her face more red than her body where the small fists had landed. She was hot with fury and shame and decided to finish the doll with a K.O. soon.
Easier thought than done, too. Helen tried to outwit Britt so that she could land one or two of her heavier and more damaging blows, but Britt was constantly on the move, dancing away too quickly in spite of the older woman's stamina and good movement. After ten minutes of the hide and seek Britt's mouth had a trickle of blood coming from it, running down her chin. The pale skin was all red and blue where she had suffered her rival's heavy blows, but she went on jumping and swiveling about, and giving no hint of being tired. The champ was having some difficulty in breathing through a bloody nose, had a deep cut over one eye, and her face and breasts were also very bruised.
They were in the middle of the mat again, dancing around each other. Helen punched very low, hitting the tall girl right on the small triangle of blue silk, but as she was protecting her own breasts she was not able to stop the brutal punch that took her full under the nose. She grabbed the tall girl behind the neck and gave her a second punch to her vulva, but suddenly she heard no more cries from the audience. For the girl, agonized as she was, had smashed her tiny fist to the short woman's temple and downed her for the count.
The heavy champion was sprawled at the girl's feet, jerking and moaning, while the pale skinned Britt fell on her own knees both fists (still closed round the victorious coins) pressing her aching love mound. She had paid a heavy price for defeating the older woman. But at the cries of "Silver - more, Silver - more," she thrust her pain away, took the second dollar now lost by her rival, and at her second try, was up, placing the second coin with the other.
"Well now, if that was not a surprise I don't know what is. Let's hope that two losses in a row, including that of their trainer, Mrs. Thompson, won't affect the night team too much. Now, for the karate-style match, I call Katherine Healling, 23, from the blue team and Indira Goodwear, also 23, from the night team."
It was an active moment for putting on bets, then all subsided to an attentive and expectant silence. These matches were usually very quick and short lived, like those of the competitive men's events. Besides, as the girls of the clubs had insisted on fighting without protective gear or even without the traditional heavy trousers and coat of this sport, the abrasion of chops and punches, even when they didn't land with full force, would quickly sap both girls' stamina.
These were both well muscled girls who fought fiercely and evenly for five minutes. The blonde Katherine swiveled on her left leg and shot a kick to Indira's stomach. She took it full force and stood there on her feet dazed for a moment. The copper-skinned girl grabbed and twisted the ankle which had so injured her, then both young women fell. Indira fell on her back, winded; Katherine crashed forwards, on her face and her naked breasts, unable to break the fall after the unexpected leg twist.
Katherine stood up slowly, clearly unable to support herself on her injured leg; Indira was blinking, unable to see her adversary properly. As there was no Olympic committee or referee to stop them they went at each other despite their injuries. They chopped at each other, parrying the first two attacks with their upper arms, but both failing to defend a third time. Katherine hammered Indira's stomach muscle-shield as the Indian-looking girl smashed her mouth in, breaking two of her front teeth and sending the blonde reeling back and off the mat. Katherine was grabbed by two spectators before she fell on them, while Indira fell in a heap, poleaxed on the exact spot where she had been hit. But the blonde was as knocked out as her darker adversary.
"Will you please take these girls out and revive them a bit? Thank you. Thank you. Now, while the mat is being rolled out of the room, let me tell you of the surprise we have for you. Two of the fencing girls will appear in full garb, with their masks, knee length boots, padded trousers and coats - please, wait! Don't boo me yet...thank you. But instead of using the buttoned rapiers of the normal duel, they will fight with real rapiers [applause] and, for each touch recognized by a referee, they will have to remove one piece of protective clothing, as they choose. The duel will not end at first blood [long applause and cheers]. May I remind you that we are all bound to secrecy about our small games and we are not going to babble it out next Monday at the laundry or the supermarket. Now, for the first of the fencing duels, with buttoned rapiers but topless, to a count of ten touches, Denise Darrieux, 23, for the blue team and Janice Burton, 27, for the red."
Denise Darrieux started well, with two touches to Janice's right arm but, as the buttoned rapier, though hurting, did not pierce the naked skin, Janice could make her come back and pressed Denise almost endlessly, until she fell panting on the floor, already losing 6-2. On the last three points she had lost, she had been impaled through her left breast, thrice in succession, which was most depressing, because it was a killing point in a real duel, but because the successive hits had caused an enormous amount of pain to accumulate.
After the great courage shown by Indira Goodwear, Janice, although nervous, was gaining some confidence again. Indira had paid a heavy price but put one blue girl down and out, and so would she! Denise stood up, crossed her rapier with Janice's, and then limited herself strictly to defence, waiting for the slightly older woman to tire herself, waiting for her to leave an opening for her decisive attack. When it appeared, Denise scored to the stomach but left herself open to a breast hit. She cried out in pain, but knew that she had to fight on as there were no brakes in this type of duel. Janice was full of confidence and at her best dancing and striking left and right, touched DD again, twice, to the throat and on a leg.
They were now 9-3 when Denise, by a mere chance, hit Janice right between the legs. Although buttoned, the tip of the rapier went deep through the flimsy red silk and through the small covering of flesh and fat over the pubic bone. Janice sent her rapier flying through the air. It fell several meters away and she fell twitching spasmodically to the floor, groaning hoarsely. Denise was terribly worried about the effect of her lucky hit, and the women stood up and looked on, mesmerized and in complete silence.
"Well, ladies, it's a pity, but we have got another knock out ending, as Burton is too hurt to continue..."
"No!... Aarrgh... I wish - to fight on!" Janice's voice came in bursts and deeper than usual, as she was trying to suppress another cry of pain and standing up, only to fall again, rubbing herself between the legs.
"I don't think you can, really. I was close enough to see those 3 cm of hard rubber covering the steel point going into you... Now, you can't..."
"I am okay! See? !" Janice made it to her feet with a superhuman effort and held the rapier that was being proffered to her by one of the red team's girls. "I am holding the rapier firmly - I am on my feet - and the touch didn't produce blood. The rules say that I can fight on if I wish to do so, and I certainly do. Although that cow should be reminded that the rules should not have allowed a hit to a clothed area!..."
"There is no point in you calling me names!... I didn't do that on purpose. It was Janice..." the girl was addressing now her audience, deviating her eyes from the white faced and sweating opponent "...who deflected my sword tip down, when..."
"Ladies! You're not supposed to exchange words, only sword thrusts." The announcer thought it better to get between the arguing duelists, as Janice, in something of a temper, was coming closer to the blue girl. "If Burton wants to go on, Denise, take your rapier and fight on."
Denise was riled at Janice; Janice was fuming with rage and infuriated by the pain radiating to all parts of her body from her womanhood. The girl was so hurt that she could barely move, her brain too slow to match the speedy attacks of her rival. Thus, she suffered three more hits, to the breast, to the stomach and to her face, the last being very close to her right eye. A nasty red weal stood on her cheek but there was no blood yet.
"Stop it - Stop! I say, you're not going on any more. Janice, you're not defending yourself. You can't move and you're only endangering yourself. I'll not permit it!"
"Bullshit, milady! You're protecting the blue team, that's what! I want to fight! If that treacherous lady pierces me through an eye, you don't have nothing to do with it. It's my eye, we accepted to duel without goggles, and you don't have the power to stop this duel or any other that is in progress... I demand to fight on!..."
"You're not being reasonable, Janice, you know I was just being compassionate, but you can have it your way. You'll lose anyway. You're just a bundle of nerves. You're not a duelist any more..."
The last remark by the woman announcer riled Janice even more. As the other left the shooting piste, she took the on-guard position and called herself to reason. The weal had opened, as the cheek tumefied and went bluish, and a trickle of blood ran down her face; the other was strong, and all the points she had touched were already showing the bruising caused by the hits; but the one which hurt her most was not visible to the audience. The Darrieux woman was like a pirate, using the sword with great strength but less accuracy, and Janice decided to use that in her favour. When they restarted the match, Janice feinted, clearly opening her lower body to an attack, and as Denise charged - lowering her head and extending her torso and right arm forwards - the girl in red side-stepped and chopped at her exposed neck.
A resounding clapping of hands was heard from the night class girls, who were desperate for something that could return them some confidence and some of the money they had lost in the previous bets. Denise was gaping and dazed on the floor where she had landed breasts first. Janice was upon her in a second, rolled her supine with a foot under her belly button and then she did something quite out of sportswomanship. The winner of the match took off her bikini bottom, smeared in sweat and blood, squatted naked over her astonished adversary and forced the bundled cloth into her gasping mouth. Denise fought back, grabbing Janice's wrists and trying to knee her bush, all the time moving her face left and right and back. Janice sat upon her stomach, protecting her injured labia, and grabbed the other's head by the hair, smashing it on the floorboards several times. Then she pushed the panties into the mouth of the dazed woman. The enraged she-cat was prevented from further mayhem by four women who pulled her off her prey, each holding one limb securely and hoisting her up. But her fingers were so tight on Darrieux's curls that the loser was coming up from the floor held by her hair. Two other women wrestled with the winner's fingers which finally opened and the loser tumbled on her back, screaming and sobbing.
"I hope this will not happen often, so that we do not have to put on more restrictive rules of combat." declared the mistress of ceremonies. "Now, ladies and - I think I will skip the `gentlewomen' for the moment - the club's first death duel, that is, the first to go on until one woman can't stand up. There is no question of ending at first blood, as I said before. Besides, we've seen it already today and on some other occasions, due to natural accidents." She paused. "In the blue corner, Edwina Tinkleton, 20, and in the red corner, Karen O'Connor, 28."
The two women entered the piste simultaneously and were received by a heavy round of applause. The real weapons they were holding in their comparatively small and delicate hands reflected the light on the deadly points and sharp blades. The long period of training was not yet fully apparent, but there was plenty of courage in the women's faces.
In the first engagement, Tinkleton's sword point pierced Karen's left biceps. She cried out and stopped, sat on the floor and took off both boots, already in some trouble from her injured arm. A trickle of blood running down the outside of her padded coat hinted at the veritable river that was running inside it. The cut had been a severe one.
Karen positioned herself on guard, her naked feet now a sharp contrast with her rival's fancy hussar boots. They crossed swords and for several minutes the iron blades tinkled against each other, with alternate phases of defence and attack. The two young women started sweating under the heavy lights of the club's gym, as both were still encased in their heavy, protective clothes. Karen tried gamely to keep her left arm up for balance, but it was giving her hellish pain. Then end thrust successfully at her left side, this time only a flimsy cut. The referee checked there was no blood, peering through the hole in the coat, so the duel went on without the touched girl paying a new penalty. She was touched twice more on the upper body but once again the coat was protection enough. Twelve minutes of dancing around the piste, measuring each other by the distance of the two heavy swords they were holding, in a no respite and hectic battle were taking their toll on the women's stamina. Sweat was pouring profusely from them both, their faces red and shining; Karen's feet were leaving marks on the floor boards and she was also bleeding profusely, as blood was already dripping from her left cuff.
Suddenly, Karen abandoned the classical techniques and, plunging forward to her knees, thrust high with her sword, under Edwina's guard, extending her arm forward and up, at an incredible angle. Edwina took the point full above the navel. She was thrust back with the impetus of the cut (and her terror) to jump back, somersault, roll on the ground about three meters and stand up waving her arms - still holding her sword and thus almost beheading the approaching referee. Her cry of pain and surprise was still reverberating on the women's ears. She wrenched off her mask, crying in pain and rage. From a small gash in her coat, large drops of blood turned into a quickly enlarging stain.
"She's a killer! That woman impaled me on purpose...I'll not fight a mad woman...I thought we were all normal persons here!"
"Calm down, Ed. Let me look at your wound... Take off your coat." The referee helped the girl to remove it. About 2 cm of blade had gone through the fat and muscle tissue - but nothing else was done to help her except the application of a large Band-Aid.
"Now, listen. Do you give up? Your team is losing 1-2, but you are the one to decide if you can go on..."
"Shit. I don't want to die. I want to win for my team, but fencing properly. And with these naked swords she can do me another damage like this - probably worse!"
"Heh, miss? ! You quitting or not?" O'Connor, fists closed against her waist, taunted her rival, jutting her bosom forwards. "Who says what is or what isn't proper sword-fighting to me? I was defied to a death duel, to end only when one us is rendered incapable of fighting on. You're yellow! You get out of here..." A heavy silence fell among the spectators. "Now, if you're woman enough to take me on, you put on your gear minus whatever piece you choose and you attack me as soon as you want! I am directing my sword at your openings, kid, wherever I see one. If I touch you, it's your fault! You dig?"
"I'm not a coward!" Edwina quickly stopped her sobbing, her face much redder now than in the heat of the battle. "But I'm saying that...I thought..."
"You're not here to think, but to fight. Shit! Are you coming at me or not?" While she spoke, O'Connor was pressing Tinkleton away from the centre of the piste and the referee interposed herself between the two young duellists.
Edwina, her face pearled with tears, declared that she would take on that `cocky bitch'. Karen shouted at her that she could not wait `to bloody the yellow virgin'. And amid these friendly remarks, the youngest fighter put on her mask and protective coat, removing her boots as the penalty demanded.
When the two women crossed swords again, they did it with tremendous force and shouting at the tops of their voices. Such was the force of the clash that both swords were wrenched from their grip and went flying to the floor. They recovered them in silence but there was more electricity flowing between them than inside the 100 watt ceiling lamps.
Straight from the re-start, Ed cut Karen's left arm again, as she was using it as a shield. Ed stood back, expecting the break for the referee to check if there was blood from the new cut, but Karen didn't wait for that and in a continuous movement threw her sword tip through Edwina's chest. This time the argument took three full minutes to solve and Anne Johnston had to come into it to convince Edwina to go on. The touch to Karen's arm had not resulted in blood and, as she said, "there was no point in stopping the damned fight on its account". But the riposte had resulted in a cut to Ed's right breast, so she opted to remove her trousers to go on.
Tinkleton started full of shame and rage, attacking wildly, yet forcing Karen to step back time and again, slowly. When her back was almost upon the first row of spectators' chairs, Karen managed to thrust her blade below Ed's armpit, tearing her coat again and, below it, the skin. The referee was careful not to allow the interruption to be longer than was strictly necessary for Edwina to remove her mask; she had to help the duelist do that, as she was not in condition to move both hands easily behind her back to get it off.
Then they engaged in combat again, after some thrusting and parrying from both girls, already slowed down and panting in exertion, Edwina was nicked again, on her right forearm. She delivered an agonized "Ooohh..." and fell on her knees, her left hand pressing her gashed arm. The rapier went reeling on the floor until it collided with the naked feet of her opponent. Ed's hair was soaked with sweat and plastered to her face. The ref looked at the tears bubbling from her eyes and asked her if she was now giving up the fight.
She wiped the tears off her face and left streaks of blood from her smeared left hand behind, and then, proudly facing her opponent with a courage she didn't know she had, she shouted at her: "Not before she kills me!" Her voice was still trembling from her silent crying, though, and even the women on the more distant benches could perceive the state she was in. She was trying to unbutton her coat but the referee had to help her once more, wondering to herself how could she hold the rapier again.
The referee had seen some women fake a courage that they didn't have, but usually they gave up acting before they were reduced to such a beaten state. Now dressed only in a tiny blue slip, she looked more unprotected than ever. In that, even the small triangle of silk was failing her, as with the violent exercise she had been doing, it had rolled itself up between her legs, leaving nothing but a thong-like crisp of tissue on her back and a crisp of silk plastered to her lower labia. When the referee turned to Karen, to pick up the lost sword, she saw Karen putting down her own and starting to unbutton her coat.
"Now, what do we have here? Are you giving up the fight?"
"Certainly not! I'm merely taking off the coat - it's too hot in here..." The pause she made whilst answering the ref betrayed her lie.
"You were the one invoking the rules just now. You know very well that you can't take anything off unless you're paying a penalty!"
"Oh - shut up, will you? ! If I know that, you should know that I can't face her so defenceless while I've got this cuirass on!"
"Either you leave it on, or you and your team are dis- qualified. It's your decision, stubborn lady!"
"You have made such complete and perfect rules, haven't you? No one can say nothing to you about these damn rules... Can't you simply let us alone, woman to woman, to fight as we please?"
"No. And this is final. You fight according to my rules or you get out!"
"O.K. - I'll fight on." Karen picked her rival's sword and walked with large and detached steps to her opponent, giving it to her from a distance, hilt first. Then she turned her back on her and buttoned two of the six buttons on her coat, picked up her rapier, swiveled round and attacked in a rush.
Edwina had been looking at her back with mixed feelings, because she had perceived a loyalty in the other she had not expected to be there. She already had a firm grip on her sword and protected herself from the wild thrusts delivered by Karen. Karen slowed down as unexpectedly as she had started the attack and Edwina, in spite of being very tired, tried a long shot at the bosom. In a split second she knew she was defeated, but to her surprise, Karen's arm went down, leaving her breasts open to the invading blade. Inevitably, she was cut across one of them. In a moment she was out of her trousers, and inviting her opponent to the centre of the piste, totally oblivious of her injured breast: "Ready!"
Edwina accepted the challenge and thrust her sword in a downward smash. It was obvious that Karen's defence was inadequate, both because her sword didn't came to meet the other blade and because she didn't threw herself aside or to the ground, merely going one step back and interposing her left arm between the blade and her breasts, into which it would have carved a fatal wound. Nevertheless, the cut to the arm opened a gash almost to the bone.
The attacker looked on, in as much agony as that that made the injured girl greet her teeth, while struggling ineffectually to divest her coat, blood pouring freely from her cuts. To remove the coat two of her team mates had to cut the sleeve off. Bandages were pressed and tied to the deep cut, but it was plain to all that the bloodletting was too great for the girl to go on on her feet for much longer.
Karen, now covered only by a red tanga, little larger than her foe's body covering, advanced to the centre of the piste. She looked long and deeply into her opponent's eyes before she assumed the on-guard position. The tips of the rapiers kissed each other, and from then on, the spectators looked on, astonished, at a duel so fiercely contested that it looked as though it had just begun and that the two duelists were fresh and not the tired and blood- covered women they were. At each expert thrust and parry that was exchanged, the audience applauded in delirium - some of the women had sore hands from 20 minutes of continuous clapping - while the tireless gals strained against each other, divided by two moving walls of steel. Yet, their bandages were now dark red, unable to prevent the continuous loss of blood.
Karen was to prove herself the better woman in the end. She beat aside Ed's sword, and before the other could defend against a second stroke, or even step back, Karen lunged at her, thrusting right into the exposed belly. At the last moment, she pulled her sword arm back, but 10 cm of her blade came out of Edwina's guts covered in gore. The badly injured girl gasped in horror at the fountain of blood coming from her, opened her legs and stuck the point of her blade in front of her, holding herself up by the hilt as if it was a walking stick, but she was already collapsing when the referee, Karen and another women ran up to support her.
The women doctors present jumped to help quickly, trying to stop the deep hemorrhage and to conduct her to a clinic where an operation room was ready for this kind of emergency. Others were trying to convince Karen to leave the arena that had almost been an arena of death for one of the girls, but she refused until the audience was quiet enough to hear her.
"I'm sorry I've hurt Ed so badly, but I think we were both prepared to take the same. But you, you were the ones who led us to the verge of mutual destruction. You bastards! Ed and me proved that we've got the guts to face a naked sword - and that's much more than any of you would dare, in spite of all your "Blah - blah - blah"! - Wait, don't push me! I'll not go before I say this. I hope Ed will live, but even if she doesn't, I'll never do this again, no matter what the enticement or the accusations for being yellow you may throw at me. I was better than her with a sword, this was evident to her, so she had more guts than me when she decided to go on despite such a disadvantage and well-knowing what was in store for her in the end..."
Now, after the sad ending of the death duel and with both teams with two victories each, there was only the party surprise to come. Most of the women were discussing the previous fight heatedly including the words of the victrix, who had retired to an adjacent room to be mended herself by a woman surgeon. Almost no one was paying attention to the next event.
Yet it had been projected with some care. Each team had visited the other during a training session and had selected the woman that, in their opinion, was the worst fighter, no matter why: age, weight, fitness... The decision of each team had been kept secret until tonight, the true rivalry between the two groups having proved superior to the feminine inability to keep secrets. Now, both chosen women were in the audience, waiting to hear her name being sung by the opposing team girls, calling them to a mockery of a fight. Then either she died on the spot of her shame, for being considered the least worthy of all her companions, or she would step up into the piste - now being cleansed carefully of the blood, sweat and tears that had stained it - and prove herself so good as the women who had fought before.
"Will the red team tell us who is the blue team's black sheep?"
"Flaccid Florence, that's who!" - That was sung in a pleasant tone, yet the unattractive woman didn't take the call and her selection lightly. Past her 40s, being overweight and less pretty than most, she had to sell her charms cheaply as a part-time prostitute, which was bad enough without being reminded of the sour fact. She felt utterly humiliated in front of the others.
"Blues - who's the red champ?"
"Lame Louise, that's who!" - It was the time for a skinny factory worker of 21 to stand up, her left arm in bandages, her left ankle and knee in medical stretching bands. Last week she had been devastated in her first competition at the club, and the others knew it.
"I don't think it's fair of you to have chosen a girl who's still hurt..."
But the speech of the announcer was interrupted by much booing and shouting from both sides, a minority supporting her, against a majority of whistles and catcalls of "yellow!" being thrown at Louise.
Louise stood up, her pale white cheeks now blazing red, her nostrils quivering with emotion, suppressing her tears and already anticipating the renewal of her last week's ordeal at the hands of a much more experienced girl who had thrashed her around for the twelve minutes that she considered the worst of her life. Florence, on the contrary, was suddenly confident, seeing how her weight advantage could be used against this newcomer, worn down, bruised and with almost no self-confidence. Against a strong, even if lighter woman it would have been a totally different matter. The blue team had chosen - unmercifully - someone who was going to be defeated quickly, whatever the choice of her opposition. And due to the kind of fight it was going to be, the loser was perhaps be destroyed mentally as well as physically. There was no doubt that the red team was going to pay dearly for recalling the ugliness of Flo.
Anne Johnston stood up and declared emphatically: "Of course, if the red team gives up, according to the rules of tonight's championship... we'll not have our pièce de resistance (she pronounced it as a Frenchwoman might have done), the stripping catfight to the buff, so the title reverts to the blue team!"
"Oh, no, Mrs. Johnston. I'll fight..." Louise's thin voice came as a whisper, so low that few of the women actually heard her, but her striding towards the centre of the room was unequivocal as to her determination, and it was enough to put an end to the women's brouhaha.
As both women were in their normal clothes and trinkets, each one was allowed to demand that the other took off five items off her attire, before they started the catfight. This was to ensure some security against dangerous jewellery but also to facilitate the stripping of presumably overdressed ladies.
Florence was the first to announce her choice: "She takes off her boots, her hairpins, her dress, her arm-bandage and her knee-bandage."
This list started another uproar in the room. Helen Thompson came and talked to Louise, her mouth close to the lame wrestler's ear, who nodded her assent, her eyes cast low towards the floor. Helen was helping her younger trainee to remove all the required items, but after she had removed her dress, she drew on her belt again, a large leather one, with a metal buckle in the front of it. Florence immediately objected to this, in her low, guttural voice, but Louise answered that she had already take the five garments she had mentioned. Florence kept looking suspiciously at the belt, but had to satisfy herself with the fact that her prey - because she was eyeing her opponent as such already - would be an easy one. The young gal was not wearing jewelry, which her low pay couldn't afford, nor a bra, which her small, pert breasts didn't need.
It was now Louise's turn: "Florence will take off her rings, her belt, her coat... and..."
"What else?" asked the referee, riled by this hesitation on the part of the night team's girl. She was keeping her eyes low.
"...And the skirt... and... and her undies..."
It was Flo's turn to feel a surge of hot blood rushing to her face. She tried to concentrate on the job of stripping the required items of clothing and not to hear the crowd laughing. The psychological victory in this battle of the war between the two teams had been won. The embarrassment of taking the undies from under a belly-cinch and possibly an underskirt in front of everyone, allied to the fact that that was the last frontier of a woman's modesty, were having their toll on the fat woman. In a fit of rage, Florence extracted the knickers from below her second skirt and threw them with contempt at her adversary.
"Taste them, love. As an appetizer for the real thing I'll give you in just a minute!"
To everyone's surprise, before the announcer had left the centre of the room, the injured girl came across the mat, running and flying through the air, feet first, to penetrate the open arms of the unsuspecting adversary easily, and to deliver two simultaneous kicks, to the stomach and one breast. Both fell, in opposite directions, the 85 kg she-cat rolling like a ball, the skinny mouse everybody expected to see eaten in a minute landing on hands and knees, suppressing a cry but coming quickly against her rival and kicking her again before she had made it to her knees. Flo fell supine under the impact of the naked foot with her jaw and was immediately mounted by her opponent. The spitfire attack she was not expecting ripped of the front link between the two large bra cups, before the heavy woman bridged and toppled her attacker sideways. Florence tried to roll onto the frail looking girl, but Louise was no longer there and only her lame leg was almost reached by Flo, while Louise got up again and back-pedaled away from the enraged heavyweight. As she stood up her pair of jittering melon-like breasts fell to her waist, the ripped bra coming completely apart and leaving the upper body completely vulnerable.
Now, the she-cat was really wanting to catch the mouse in her mouth. Louise managed to keep away from her rival for some time but she was not tiring as fast as the lighter girl needed. And inevitably the cat and mouse game came to an end, among cheers and boos from the spectators. Louise failed to dash sideways and the huge arms grabbed her and pulled her in a tight hug that could be properly described as a bearhug from the moment Louise's bones started creaking. She could not breath, and being 30kg or more lighter, and with her right arm caught between their bodies, the lame girl was left totally at the (un)mercy of the other fighter. Only her left arm was dangling free of constricting arms twice the size of her own thighs. In desperation, Louise used her claws on the eyes of her tormentrix who bellowed out in terror, letting the mouse out of her mouth.
Louise showed she had brains, and before tumbling out of range she shot up her right leg aiming at the other's lower guts. The giantess groaned but did not move, prepared to take Louise's next attack. The lighter girl closed her right hand around Flo's flaccid left breast and squeezed hard, whereupon the giantess replied with such a punch to the lighter girl's solar plexus that she doubled over and fell to her knees, her head resting against the massive thighs of her powerful foe.
Florence smiled to the crowd, grabbed the small girl's curls in her left hand, pulled her face up, and punched her viciously in the right eye, cutting her with her knuckles. The younger woman winced and fell sprawling on the floor at her rival's feet, jerking and spreading her legs, trying ineffectually to stand up or to push herself further back.
"What are you doing? If this is an invitation I'll only accept it if I like what you have between your legs..."
Some of the blue ladies gently counselled Florence to muss her up good and the heavyweight crouched between the girl's legs easily ripping the knickers of the dizzy fighter. She smelled them, and grimaced in disgust to the audience, who fell off their seats laughing. Flo felt avenged, as she had stripped the other fighter raw, thus avenging her honour and gaining a victory for her team.
As Florence approached the referee to receive her prize, she saw many of the spectators transferring their attention from her to the fallen girl. She was on all fours, and getting up, her eye swollen and her face bruised.
"Come on, fat cow! You've not beaten me yet. See? I'm still wearing my anklet! And my belt..."
Cheers, catcalls, boos and applause came confusedly from the audience. Although this was a great show of sportswomanship - and she was right according to the rules - Louise was preventing the collection of many bets.
"Oh yeah? I'm gonna fix you for good, so you don't ever come into this or any other ring!"
Flo punched at Louise's bosom, but the girl sidestepped and applied a good neck-hold on her - but she proved too light and fragile to achieve her aim of bringing her adversary down. Instead, the heavy woman walked around carrying the other woman at her side, elbowing her to ribs and stomach. Louise was naked but for her anklet and belt, the black triangle of hair between her legs contrasting with the paleness of her skin. Florence still had on her shoes, underskirt, belly-cinch and wrist-watch. It was clear to all that the lighter wrestler had neither the strength nor the time to strip the other completely before Florence could take her anklet off and the leather belt.
Confident of victory, Flo got careless and forgot the size and nature of the metal buckle of her adversary's belt. She remembered it the hard way when her left cheek was right on it and her face was pressed against it, her neck being still imprisoned by the titanic effort of the lighter girl. She was surprised when she felt the large gouts of blood sliding down her face, and her rage gave her the strength needed to break the hold. She renewed the bearhug, Louise trying to duplicate the move but her arms were not long enough to reach round the huge mature woman. The girl lost the air from her lungs and stood dizzy and defenceless in the arms of her foe. Flaccid Flo waited a few moments then dropped her hands and unbuckled the belt. Louise felt herself go to the floor again.
The winner sidestepped over the left leg of her fallen rival, picked it up and started pulling the anklet off, twisting the injured limb between her hands. The pain sharpened Louises's senses, making her cry and sob, "Stop! Please stop! Let me go. Aaarrgh!..."
Florence went on with her job but the untying of the anklet was proving difficult because Louise, resting her shoulders and back on the floor, had almost the rest of her frail body vertical, left leg held between the rival's arms and the right leg kicking feebly at Flaccid Florence's fat stomach.
Then, by accident or vicious design, the pale foot found its way between the open thighs of the heavyweight, making her hesitate in her job of untying the long bandage. Despite being used to opening her secret box to men of all sizes, Flo now tried to close her legs when she felt a toenail scratching her and the toes parting her labia. From the sudden rigidity of the standing woman, and by the angle of the right leg of the upended one, many of the women understood what was going on beneath the underskirt. The word passed quickly through the audience and the heat went up again.
For a minute they worked on each other, one determined to unwind the anklet, the other to prevent that, inflicting what distress she could from her handicapped position. Not for a moment did either of them think of changing tactics, for thinking is the privilege of rational human beings, and they had come to the brink of savagery - stubbornly aiming at what was at hand... or foot.
Both women cried out loudly as Florence disengaged, holding the anklet in her hands. Louise's legs fell hard to the floor; Flo also fell, on her rump, jerking on the ground, pressing her hands to her mound and adding tears to the drops of blood from her raked face. Louise tried to stand up, but failed, unable to stand on her damaged leg.
"We women are prepared to suffer a little for the pleasure of attaining victory, are we not, Florence?"
"A little? I shall be off work for two or three weeks because of what this slut did to me," sobbed Florence, painfully getting up.
"Wait until I'm able to stand on my two legs and I'll show you who is the slut, you... you... Flaccid Florence!" mumbled Louise, between the arms of those helping her out of the ring.
"Louise! You knew this fight wouldn't end by a submission but by the complete nakedness of one of you. And you taunted her, remember? You learned today that you can only do that when you're prepared to back up your words."
Janice and Karen helped Lame Louise out of the room. They told her they could still win, although it would not be easy, and if they did, they would help her out of her financial problems in the factory with the prize money, because Louise was now rendered unable to work where she had to stand eight hours a day on a factory line.
"Now - a battle royal between the survivors. Only the last woman standing receives the prize money. There are no teams now! Let the best five women stand for our final ovation!"
Anne Johnston and Britt Silvermore, both in their blue knickers, came quickly to the centre of the mat, completely at ease after a long rest. Britt's body was marked with bruises, dark spots where her adversary had landed telling blows but looked as powerful as ever. Flaccid Florence was dressed in a tight mini, unable to stand the contact of a slip in her aching lower labia, a thin pearl of blood running down the inside of her massive thigh. She was walking with her feet apart, her lips pressed tight to suppress her moans.
Janice Burton also had several marks on her body and she knew what being down meant. She had changed her bloodied slip for a yellow tanga; adhesive tape was holding a bandage over her own mound where she had been pierced by the rapier and several quickly stitched cuts were covered by sticking plaster. Her companion, Karen O'Connor, was an even worse mess. A few strips of skin appeared between adhesive tape and bandages, and even those showed blood stains.
Although as stated by the referee any girl could attack any of the others, it was clear that the blues intended acting as a three-aside team to dispose of the two reds before turning against each other. Anne took Janice and Britt and Florence ganged upon the more battered Karen to dispose of her quickly.
Britt didn't wait for Florence to attack at the same time as she did, and engaged Karen in boxing, but Karen met her with a savate kick to the guts, followed by a karate chop to the neck which downed her. Florence then changed her loyalties, and seeing that Janice had her back to her decided to attack her instead of the mean-looking Karen.
While Janice defended against the powerful and experienced Anne, Flaccid Florence passed her hands behind her back successfully imprisoning her in a strong headlock. This left the girl defenceless, her front exposed to Anne's hectic attack, a succession of punches and knee blows to head, breasts and guts, until Janice fainted. Florence then let her fall like a sack of potatoes and turned round.
Britt was coming up from the floor a second time to face terrific knee blows to the head (which had already dazed her) and to her breasts, which dangled in the direction of the boards while she was still on all fours. Before she could rise she was crippled by a karate chop behind the right ear, and flopped down again, finally kayoed.
Karen looked at the bloodied face of her friend in awe, as she lay in a heap on the floor. The two blue girls came in in a joint attack and Karen ran away from them. They ran after her confidently, one calling her "Yellow", the other "Coward" and they were surprised no end when she turned on them, flying through the air legs wide apart in a double kick. Anne was the luckier of the two and took hers on the shoulder. Florence tried to pull her face away, but the heel of the foot broke her nose and she fell writhing and crying dementedly, a river of blood spurting from her nostrils. Several women rushed forward and pulled her out of the ring, rushing her to hospital. Now, she would be off work for many more weeks than she had expected, and her price would be lower as her broken nose would certainly not add to her beauty.
Anne jumped on Karen before she could stand up again and was straddling her while she bridged, trying to dislodge the woman on top of her. Anne jumped and landed with her buttocks on the girl's stomach at the same time that she punched her to the injured breasts. The floored girl took that with grimace of pain while she freed her arms and grabbed Anne's hair, pulling her sideways by it until she tumbled off her belly, and responded in kind.
This led to a real catfight, both women tugging each other's hair while their faces came close together and they were spitting and biting at each other's cheeks and lips - and the throat. Anne won this in-fighting and stepped back far enough to deliver a powerful head butt to Karen's forehead. Karen went limp and Anne stood up before the cheering crowd.
Anne's arms went up to acknowledge her ovation a moment too soon. From the floor, Karen pulled at her ankle and Anne lost her stance, crashing down on Karen's body. The downed girl was waiting for her and punched her between the legs. Anne felt the terrific impact of the knuckles against her vulva, and screamed, but held her position and retaliated with a hammer bow of her own on the top of Karen's head. For a minute they stood frozen in tableau. Anne was fully aware of what was happening to her, but could not move away from her enemy, because she couldn't walk. She stood on her wobbly legs, arms supporting her on Karen's shoulders. Karen was in a comparatively better position. She didn't feel the pain surging up her body from different blows and gashes. For her the world had stopped when an iron fist had blown all the fuses in her head. She was dizzy, no, groggy, and the only reason she didn't fall on her back was that she was resting her head on the inside of Anne's right thigh, and she was sitting on the floor.
There was a moment of silence, then the two groups of women started calling the names of their respective champions, trying to bring them back into action. Anne was the first. She pulled her right arm up slowly, that is, as quickly as she was able to, and brought it down again on Karen's head, aiming at the defenceless centre of the mass of hair. She failed miserably, and her punch raked the left ear producing a new sharp pain that helped to revive the other girl's feelings. Bad as they were, those feelings changed into a closed left fist that went up duplicating the other punch with the right; though her power was much reduced the point of impact was almost as precise as before and this time Anne groaned and tumbled back like an abandoned rag doll. Karen fell in the opposite direction.
As there was no time limit to this fight everyone had to wait to see who would be the first woman to stand and win the evening's trophy, but it was not for several minutes afterwards that the two started to move their limbs in an uncontrolled, unco-ordinated way. Anne was the first to come to all fours, after staying down rubbing and nursing herself for a moment, and she was much cheered by those who had bets on her, and by the blue team. Karen made three last attempts to rise and was lying on her left side pushing her body up very slowly with her back to Anne; those women facing her could see she was still groggy and that she didn't know here she was or why. Two blue girls tried to throw water on her but were grabbed by other spectators before they had done so.
Anne was up and coming at Karen's back, walking unsteadily, but already pulling her fisted hands up. The roar of the crowd was answered by another effort from Karen to stand up, which left her seated on the floor, and by a larger step from Anne who then crashed on her knees behind her adversary.
Anne knew that she was in no condition to fight on her feet, not even to stay on them; so, sensibly in this savage fight to exhaustion, she simply tried to crawl over to and mount the other woman. She seemed to be invited to do so, for, as soon as her hands touched Karen's back, the woman fell sideways again allowing Anne to position herself on top of her. Karen had been moving her head just a little and now, their bodies espousing each other and face to face, both women started using their hands against each other, each punch delivered so feebly as to seem like a caress. But even if they had been intended as caresses, on such damaged bodies they were intolerable! The two she-cats had fought and suffered, almost in silence, several blows which had sapped their energy and will to fight, but now they were unable to stop a continuous sobbing and moaning which came from deep within them - but this didn't stop the movement of their elbows or the pistoning of their closed fists in and out of breasts, ribs and every other part of the body within their range. They kept exchanging blows for several minutes, and ineffective as they seemed, their meaning was the same as those delivered at the start of the fight; they were meant to show the supremacy of one of the contenders. The crowd was delighted with this seemingly unending fight.
Unexpectedly, Karen's head rose from the floor where it had been resting and cracked against Anne's forehead with a dull thud. Anne stood transfixed and Karen's head fell back again, but now only her hands were at work raking at Anne's body, clawing at her midriff between their entangled bodies. Karen rolled sideways, with Anne still on top of her until the other's body rolled limply away from her. The two were motionless again. The referee approached them and inspected them; both were breathing heavily, and completely exhausted. Anne's breasts now showed the marks of Karen's claws, but Karen's sword-cuts had re-opened and her bandages were now crimson instead of white. Her agony could be only guessed at.
Anne was again the first to move. Her hands came to her breasts and she massaged them for a while before sitting and looking at her rival, just alongside her. It would be enough to roll over onto her left side and she would be on top of her again; Anne brought her right leg up to cross over Karen's legs, but when her lower body was already over the downed woman she pulled her right knee up, in a a precise move, though no-one could say if it was a reflex or a planned one. Karen's knee and Anne's mons veneris crashed together and as Anne was still too sensitive down there to take that same pain again she slumped back groaning hoarsely and nursing herself.
For several minutes they stood like that, now one then the other trying to climb onto the other, stubbornly, only to be pushed, kneed, or elbowed back into a lying position. The crowd had never seen such endurance and determination or such a well-matched pair of fighters. Their surprise was more on account of Karen than of Anne, who everybody had acknowledged as the better woman in the club - up till today.
This time it was Karen who tried to jump on Anne and restart punching. But Anne was a little recovered from moments before and she delivered what seemed to be a forearm smash to the throat. Karen fell on her back soundlessly.
Anne moved with a determination that she had been lacking in her previous attempts, placed herself between Karen's spread-eagled legs, threw her hands to the thong that kept the tanga in place and ripped it off, then attacked Karen's mound and breasts, adding to the frightful wounds received earlier. Several women started shouting and bawling for someone to stop her, and one blue girl and three reds stood up and moved forward, but before they walked the distance that separated them from the ring centre, Anne's claws had already ripped off the bandages and she was gouging Karen's wounds. Karen jerked spasmodically and sat on her rump when she suffered this attack; the maddening pain electrified her and supporting herself with her left arm on the floor she threw a punch from behind the shoulder to Anne's left eye. Even so, with her eye immediately starting to close, Anne's fingers probed the sensitive labia again, looking for revenge for what she had suffered, to the point of rendering her incapable of winning the match conclusively, as she had always hoped. And as the four women were about to grab her she was propelled back by a second hard punch to her face which opened two fountains of blood from her nostrils.
Anne was jerking on the floor. The nude Karen was slowly coming to all fours and pressing her tanga delicately against her pubic mound. The referee placed herself between the suffering women and asked first Karen, then Anne if they wished to give up. They both snorted "No!" and she ordered the other women out of the ring.
"Both contestants are still alive and willing to fight. All knew that this would be a `no time limit' and a `no holds barred' fight to a finish so we must let them go on and finish it by themselves!"
There was discussion and shoves and pushes, but the ref imposed her discipline in the end. The crowd was making a maddening noise, booing and harassing the referee, but finally the cheering prevailed.
Anne was down again on hands and knees but Karen was already up. As Anne was crawling towards her she turned her back on her, then swiveled and delivered an almost perfect karate kick to the jaw, thoroughly dislocating it. Anne fell supine and motionless at last. Karen was walking like a drunken sailor in a hurricane moving about the decks without a lifeline.
The ref grabbed her right arm shot it up before the riotous audience: "Karen, from the red team, our new champion..."
The referee felt the heaviness of the naked woman falling against her. Karen had passed out too, the referee seized her in order to hold her up until the girls of red team, took her by each limb and carried her to the dressing rooms. The crowd was so excited that even the majority who had lost their bets were now cheering Karen and shouting out her name. Anne was not suffering by it as she was still out cold, forgotten on the sorrowful floorboards of another dressing room.
* * * * * * * *
"My, no!! What would I have to do, then? That's the part I like best in my job, besides testing the newcomers. No... It's far more serious than that. I'm a member of this international combat club, you see. Each member presents a lady fighter to be pitted there against others, this being part of a show, to provide entertainment as well as being a basis for heavy betting - and for this, the fights are not faked or their ending arranged in any way. Everybody there wants the real thing, and members - as well as the fighting champions - can live out their most secret and savage fantasies, of the kind one can't find in the most refined of the New York clubs... Do you remember when I was off the scene for two months? That's when I lost a fight there against a 2 meter tall bitch, with rubber truncheons this size (she was showing the length of her arm, pointing with her long carmine fingernails, at the end of a hand as large and strong as a man's)... But I'm fed up of paying the higher fees just because I never introduced a champion to the club - so I'm prepared to contract you to battle there for me. You must be prepared to enter any kind of fight, unarmed combat, sticks, blades... and it's always anything goes! I saw your guts when you fenced with Edwina and I know that you have the guts for this but... you must put aside the kind of chivalry you showed in there - unless you want to be killed or maimed for life."
"How much will I be paid ?"
"I know that the company in which you're working will be out of business in two months... Darling! What's so surprising about it? (Karen was sitting painfully, wide eyes rivetted on the face of the black woman.) I know their bankers and my house is - well, has been - under the patronage of all the administrators of your company. They spend so much energy and dough in my rest house that very little is left to invest in new machinery! But as I was saying, I'll pay you $1200 a month, plus $500 per fight and a bonus of three times that if you win. If you get crippled or suffer a fatal accident while working for me, your little girl will receive the $1200 as an allowance until she's 21, plus the pay for university studies - and if she does not use that money well, she can earn money afterwards working in any one of my houses. After all, our money is to be spent among us girls, eh?"
"For that kind of money, you may have all me, Johnson!"
"Call me Sugar, Honey!" said the black Amazon as she pressed her hot lips on Karen's, hugging her close to seal their contract for Silver Island.
© Raf 1/1988
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 12
THE QUILON CONVICT
by Ajax
Hernandez was disturbed by a pounding on his office door. Quickly, he shut off the video on which he had been watching the latest offerings from the north, from Aracelis up in Acapulco, and bawled "Come in!"
"Ramirez is rioting again!" the woman told him as she burst through the portal, sweaty and dishevelled.
"Pull yourself together, Hoch!" the Governor of Quilon prison, Central Chile, insisted. "And straighten your uniform."
Chastened, Hoch did as she was bid. Her Officer's tunic had been badly disarranged and the top two buttons gaped. "Sorry, sir," she stammered. "I wish to report that Convicts Morales and Ramirez are fighting in D-corridor."
"Rioting, you said," he reminded her.
"Yes, sir, Ramirez has locked Officer Anders in her cell, and is threatening to release all the other inmates."
Pedro Hernandez leaned across and punched an intercom button. "Yes, sir?" snapped a male voice, incisively. Boro was on duty.
"Get an armed detail over to D-corridor. Bring nightsticks and the bull-whip. Ramirez is raising hell again. She has an officer entrapped. You know what to do."
"Very well, sir," clipped Boro and the machine went dead.
"How did it happen?" the Governor asked Officer Hoch.
"Returning from work detail. Anders was conducting Ramirez to her cell, and..."
"Alone?" snapped the Governor. "How was that?"
"No, not alone, sir. I was with her. When I stopped to lock the corridor door, she turned on Anders. Bust her mouth in and shoved her in the cell. Morales went for her. I lit out, fast."
"Just as well," the Governor admitted. He smiled slightly. "How was Morales doing?"
"Badly, sir. Ramirez had her down before I got out. She did give me time to get clear though."
"I'll see she is rewarded, Hoch. What was eating Ramirez this time?"
"Says she's not being given full rations for chain-ganging."
"Isn't she?"
"No, sir. The Deputy Governor ordered her on inside rations."
"Umm," he mused, "I expect she had her reasons."
"She did, sir. Ramirez was causing trouble in the laundry. Another fight, against Aijos. That's why Madame Billarde put her to the gang."
"How's she doing on the rocks?" he asked.
"Strong as a bull, sir. You know that. Handles the 10-kilo sledge like a paper weight."
That was what the Governor liked to hear. Carlotta Ramirez had been a thorn in his official side ever since she had been sent to Quilon Women's Prison for subversive activities. Though her ten-year sentence was only two years old, the girl (for she was little more) had already lost more than half her remission time. This little episode could see her go to the whipping post if he so chose. However, he was not eager for that to happen. Hernandez had ideas for the use of Carlotta Ramirez. She was always fighting. Female fighting was one of Hernandez's favourite hobbies. He was amongst the best of Aracelis's customers, and a member of the IFF Club. Someday soon he would have Ramirez exactly where he wanted her, and that was eating out of his hand. The whipping-post might have been the break-point for many women. Ramirez, he felt, would not fear that. But this matter of remission time - that might be a lever. Ramirez was young, only twenty-two. She should have been out at twenty-seven - a big chunk of her best years gone, but with a few still left. Now she was certain to be thirty-two, and if it happened again much more she could find herself rotting in Quilon till she was forty or more. He could slice her with a bull-whip weekly, and it would make no difference to her rebellious and mercurial character. Saving `inside' time might be the key to persuading her to fall in with his ideas.
Not only was Ramirez tough and aggressive - she was also highly attractive, dark, solidly built, well and firm-breasted, and above all, strong. Hernandez could use a girl like that on Silver Island - if, and it was quite an `if', he could persuade her to go there as his champion. He was not totally sure of her yet. She had great potential, but she was raw. For what he had in mind she would have to be trained and brave. She had to have what it took. He was reasonably sure, and this lapse might well give him the chance he was looking for.
He turned to Hoch. "When Boro gets her controlled, pit her, Hoch."
"Pit her, sir?" Hoch was aghast. She knew only too well what that meant.
"Yes, Hoch. Pit her. Put her in the tank. Let her sweat it out there for a couple of days. Strip her, and pit her!"
Moments later the intercom buzzed an Hernandez leaned over to answer it. It was Boro. "We've got them both 'cuffed, sir. What should I do with them?"
"Is Anders freed?"
"Yes, sir. She's with us."
"Bring them all up here. Anders too."
Hoch hovered. "Shall I wait, Governor?"
Hernandez nodded.
Boro and his two assistants practically threw Ramirez and Morales into the office. Both were in poor shape. Morales was half-stripped, Ramirez had her clothes ripped, but the rags were still covering most of her. Anders followed looking dishevelled, and with a lump the size of a small egg on the left side of her jaw. Ramirez had given her a good clobbering.
Hernandez leaned back expansively and surveyed the scene. "Fighting again, Ramirez?" There was, of course, no answer required. Boro stood holding the handcuffed prisoner, and the other, Morales, was held by one of Boro's assistants. Both women looked still to be in murderous tempers. Anders, standing between them got several sidelong glances which were certainly not pleasant.
"It is time to make an example of you, Ramirez," he went on. "Morales, you are confined in solitary for two days." He turned to Boro's assistant. "Take her down. Oh! And leave her as she is. If she wants to get her clothes ripped off, she can live with it."
Morales was dragged away protesting loudly at her treatment. He had to can her, she knew that, but there would be something out of it for her later.
Ramirez's conduct was a rather more serious matter, and he told her that in no uncertain terms. The prospect of being an `example' at Quilon was not appealing, even to a girl of Ramirez's courageous disposition.
She had heard talk of the pit before, of course, amongst the other prisoners, but no-one had committed a serious enough breach in that time for her to have seen the results of such a pitting.
The physical process of pitting an inmate was unpleasant enough. First, she was stripped naked and scrubbed down, still 'cuffed - they were taking no chances with Carlotta Ramirez, and then led out to the exercise compound, beside which lay the `pit'. A rope sling was put around her, and she was swung out over the pit on a small derrick, and lowered into it. The rope-sling was then disengaged, and drawn back up, leaving her standing naked in the bottom of what had once been a static water tank.
The pit was ten feet deep and circular, twenty feet in diameter. It was tiled upon the sides and bottom, the bottom sloping at a steep angle to a central, circular drain. Alone, Carlotta Ramirez explored her domain. With some difficulty, she climbed up the slope from the drain, to find that where the walls met the bottom there was a two foot wide rim of almost level tiling on which it was possible to sit or lie. There was, she saw immediately, no chance whatsoever of climbing out of the pit. Open to the sky, it offered no protection at all from the elements. Since it was evening, no sun reached the bottom of the pit, but it was summer, and warm, and she only shivered slightly as she settled down cross-legged on the ledge, her back against the wall, waiting mutely for the hours to pass.
Within seconds she had seen and noted the entire details of the pit. The only way out was the drain, and although large, that would hardly take her hefty body. Carlotta was proud of her strength, and she couldn't maintain that from a skinny frame.
Once dark, it began to cool rapidly, and she knew she was in for a miserable night. With no corners to hide in, she was bound to feel desperately cold. Just before darkness had fully fallen she walked around the pit ledge, seeking the greatest shelter from the night breeze which stirred the air in the tank, and there was one place where the angle of the wind caused it not to disturb the air. There she settled down, lying flat on her back and looking up at the stars. The darkness of the sky at Quilon was amazing after the lighted sky at Santiago, and as a girl brought up in the north, close to the edge of the Atacama, the sight of a sky filled with clouds of stars brought back sad thoughts of home, and the disappearance some years ago of both her father and elder brother. Now only her mother and her younger brother would be left to keep her home together. She would never see either again. She had fallen foul of Chile's Generals, and had become a non-person, to be stripped and striped at Hernandez's whim. She did not doubt that she deserved this punishment. If anything, Hernandez had put up with more from her than she could have hoped, but she would never knuckle under to these thugs even if she died in the attempt, as die she surely would once they got round to torturing her. Schmidt, it was said, broke every woman who went down to the `gym' - the torture chamber so-called because the torturess who dwelt therein had had wall bars fitted around the room. It was rumoured that that was because it made her feel more at home. What had she been before, Ramirez wondered? A school-mistress? Here, at least, she was safe from that. She was in the prison, and though it was only a short step across the compound, Gee's place, where Schidt operated, was technically a correction centre.
Later she slept, though fitfully, and awoke stiff and sore from her night stretched uncovered on the buff tiles. She slid down the inverted cone and relieved herself over the drain. Hunger assailed her then. It had been more than eighteen hours since she had eaten, and a day on the the rocks used up calories at a frightening rate.
It was too early for the inmates to be astir, and more than an hour passed before any sound broke the silence. As the sun rose higher towards the east from its almost south-easterly rising position, warmth crept down into the tank, and she moved into it seeking to ease the chill from her body. At the same time she knew that the sun, on this clear summer day, would be an enemy long before noon. Fortunately the tank was deep enough to provide some shade on the north side, and she would be able to hunker there on the rim, leaving the north-facing wall to take the full brunt of the glare.
They did not offer her water till an hour before noon, and no food till evening. She spent a long and uncomfortable day before, shivering, just before midnight, the derrick swung over the pit, and she was drawn out.
Hoch and Anders, this time ensuring that she was 'cuffed to them both, led her from the pit to the Governor's Office. Hernandez sat behind his heavy mahogany desk, smoking a cheroot. "Leave us," he ordered the jailers, "but wait outside. Anything untoward and you get back in here quickly."
Once they had gone, he motioned for the naked prisoner to sit down, and eyed her openly.
She glared at him. "Forget it!" she hissed. "I may be stiff, but I'll bollock you the minute you come near me!"
He smiled, and offered her a cheroot. She took it and let him light it for her. "I thought it was time we had a proper talk," he told her. "And don't worry. You're safe with me."
Carlotta Ramirez wondered about that remark, but said nothing. Then she listened, rapt, to his careful exposition of her position.
She had been sentenced to ten years - in closed court, naturally, but that stuck these days. Her fighting had lost her all her remission time and had added another two years to her sentence. If she went on as she was going she'd be fifty before she got out. But, and he was eager to let her see her a way out of her predicament, he could help her to be out in five years or less.
That interested her, but the rest of the tale sounded crazy. By the time he had finished they had smoked three cheroots each, and Carlotta was amazed and staggered by his proposal.
"You mean," she said, "that you will have me out of here in five years or less if I will come with you to a Pacific island and fight other women taken there for that express purpose?"
He nodded. "Yes, exactly that."
"What's to stop me escaping there and hiding out in the islands till doomsday?"
"Nothing except that then you would be an escaped convict and likely to be rounded up and sent back to Chile. That, I assure you, would be tantamount to a death warrant. It's not pleasant to be hunted."
"You don't know that I would be any good in that situation," she stated.
He agreed again. "No, I don't know that - yet. But I strongly suspect that you would. I already know that you have the guts for it. And if you agree, I shall see that you start training now, from later today."
"What? In Quilon prison?" she scoffed. "Everybody would know it within the hour."
"It wouldn't be here," he told her. "I have a large estate of my own on the mainland. I would have you transferred there."
"On what grounds?"
"A Governor is entitled to use convicts to engage in prison projects. "It's a Chilean pine forest. Very workable and highly profitable, And we replant."
"So I get to be a lumberjack instead of a rock-breaker? Some choice." The last sentence was expressed bitterly.
"Lumberjill, actually. But yes. Pay's better, conditions are better. No chain gangs at Forest Home. You won't do a lot of that though. Mostly you'll train."
"To do what?"
"Boxing, Thai fighting, bare fist fighting, martial arts, strength-building. Anything they think you can do."
"They?"
"Yes, the trainers. Employed, of course, by me."
"I see what's in it for me. What do you get out of it?"
"Satisfaction primarily, but you could save me $20,000."
That sobered her. The amount was colossal to her mind. "Twenty thousand dollars!" she exclaimed. "U.S. Dollars?"
He nodded. "We get paid a bonus for bringing somebody. It's a very exclusive club."
"It must be," she concurred, but he would not elaborate. "If I agree, when does it happen?"
"Boat's going over today. Sleep on it."
"You don't sleep too well in that tank," she reminded him.
"Okay, solitary cell for tonight."
Hoch and Anders conveyed her to it, and left her to think it over.
* * * * * * * * *
When the ferry left at noon, Carlotta Ramirez, still in charge of Hoch and Anders, went with it. It hadn't taken much thought.
Forest Home was fifty miles east of the coast, nestling in the foothills of the Andes, and was large, rich, and impressive. Ramirez was taken to a block of cells kept for the purpose of incarcerating project-workers such as she, and left there before a coffee pot and a tray of food. She ate and drank voraciously, then stretched out on the bed to sleep, an attempt to regain the rest she had lost at Quilon. Hernandez, she was told, would see her in a couple of days. Till then she rested.
She was eventually brought out and conducted to a sumptuous library, where she was left to browse for a time before Hernandez appeared. It was the most interesting library she had ever encountered, full of books about Amazons, combat both male and female, and a large section on the ancients. She was reading a learned tome entitled "The Soul of Minoan Civilization" by Eleutherios Panzelos when Hernandez joined her.
"Take your time," he offered, and she did just that, having found, in Chapter V of the volume, a most interesting passage.
"Unlike the agile and slender girls of the bullring, these pugilistic champions were sturdy women of matronly proportions. They approximate the type we find in the statues of the snake-goddess, whose votaries the athletes were, always represented with buxom breasts and full-rounded hips. No doubt this was the Minoan ideal of feminine bodily development, the perfection of female health and beauty, fitness and strength. Again from the strongest and most vigorous physical specimens amongst the women of the aristocracy. The Minoan lords were not ashamed to have their wives and daughters go stripped into the arena and were proud to pit them against each other as champions in the pugilistic games. Great ladies did not fear to bare their bodies for the strenuous sport, nor to suffer bruises in the rough contests but sought eagerly the honour of being chosen as champions to fight in the arena, so that they might display their prowess in naked combat and drive for the glory of bodily supremacy.
"These female contests must have been violent, bruising fights. The entire city assembled to watch these high-spirited women fight for supremacy, savagely battering each other, the shouts of their husbands and lovers spurring them on to strike yet fiercer blows until at length one woman lay bruised and battered at the other's feet and the victrix having proved her physical supremacy, received the acclaim of the throng. Trumpet flourishes heralded the entrance and withdrawal of each pair of champions in and out of the arena as the flower of Minoan womanhood met in virile competition. How the excitement loving Minoans must have been stirred by the dramatic scenes at the beginning and conclusion of each contest - the opening blast of trumpets as two women walked proudly into the arena, their bare bodies gleaming in the sunlight, and finally the concluding blast of the trumpets as now one woman alone, the victrix, walks proudly from the field of combat and the vanquished woman is carried senseless from the arena.
"These pugilistic contests, violent and exciting, must have profoundly stirred the blood of the Minoans and aroused their fiercest passions. The fact that the contestants were women heightened the excitement, and their nakedness inflamed the emotions of contestants and spectators alike to a higher pitch."
It could, she decided, have been the central philosophy behind the gathering of this club on the Pacific island, and putting the book back in its place, she turned to Hernandez. "You've a solid historical basis for your club, I see," she remarked.
Hernandez nodded, pointing to another section of his shelves, whereon lay publications connected with what she had been reading - a section labelled "Nom de Guerre", another "Ajax & Raf" and others filled with magazines with exciting cover pictures, and titles like "Aggressive Women" or "Amazons in Action". Carlotta Ramirez had found her Aladdin's Cave, and was loth to bring herself back to earth.
"I pride myself on having one of the finest libraries of its kind in the world," Hernandez told her, reaching for a ring-file which held some hundreds of original drawings and paintings by the finest artists in the field. Most impressive, and directly above his desk so that anyone sitting her side had the full benefit of it was a six-feet by four-feet reproduction of a work entitled "The Last Punch" by the semi-anonymous artist TG, one of the most dramatic fight-pictures she had ever seen. Behind her was a parody of a Bellowe's work, changed to make the contestants female instead of male, at right-angles to which, on the wall to her right, was a magnificent painting of a pair of tortured female prizefighters battling in the last stages of exhaustion in a muddy 18th^Century English field. Fight art was everywhere, and the room exuded wealth. Perhaps the most startling piece of all was an exquisitely cast bronze paper weight, at least eight inches high, of a battered and desperate gladiatrix, a cestiata, nude save for a wisp of cloth about her loins, kneeling on one knee as she fought to regain her strength, the frightening cestuses lashed with thonging to her hands and wrists, the upraised face showing all the bitterness of her hell. Carlotta almost felt the woman's agony, and shivered slightly despite the summer warmth of the room.
"This room," she said soberly, " is not a library. It's a temple."
He nodded, as he so often did. "I own some of the finest fight-art in the world," he told her. She believed it. "You may have the run of the library at any time," he told her, realizing that here was a woman who would appreciate what she saw about her.
She turned the conversation back to the point in hand. "You did not bring me here to be a student of female pugilistic theory," she reminded him. "I gathered that you intended a more practical approach."
He laughed, and it was a genuine, happy laugh. "Yes, but first you must regain your strength and fitness. Let's say two weeks. Then we'll test you with a fight. Then, if you are still keen to go ahead, the tough work will start. Or you'll return to Quilon."
She smiled rather wryly. "I do not believe that I shall return to Quilon for some time yet."
In truth, Carlotta Ramirez was very impressed by what she was seeing at Forest Home, and she worked with a will towards her test. The trainer Maria Reyes was to test her, not as she had expected, in a modern discipline, but in what amounted to a prizefight, a display of aggression with bare fists that could have her reduced to the condition of the women in the library picture, a prospect that was hardly fetching, but one that she had to face, for the longer she remained here, the more she wished to. She was, she knew, still a prisoner, but the locking of her cell at night was now no more than a formality. She no longer wished to escape. someone was at last supporting her to do the two things she most enjoyed - fighting and studying.
Even so, she would not have been human had she not had some misgivings about stepping into the picket with Reyes. The test, she knew from Hernandez, would be a tough one. He was on the estate very little because of his duties at Quilon, but always attended the tests. A woman in Carlotta's position could be called on at any time to perform one, and so had constantly to be ready to face a fight. She, though, proved lucky, as Hernandez arrived at the estate in the afternoon before she was expected to perform in the evening, and so she was at the peak of her fitness, as clad in nothing more than a V-cloth and stout shoes, hair tied back behind her ears, she stepped out to face Reyes.
It would have been fitting if Reyes had been a gnarled old hag of twenty-five years experience in the ring, half-punchy, and well-sagged. She wasn't. Instead, the twenty-two year old Carlotta Ramirez faced a very handsome black-haired beauty of thirty, whose taut, firm, voluptuous body, and strongly-featured face, square, wide-mouthed and determined, looked a candidate herself for this island place, and for all she knew probably had been. Reyes was hard. Brought up through the Chilean prison system she had been a jailer of strict mien, and now, as a fight-trainer, still believed in driving her charges as hard as they could bear.
Typically, she tossed back her luxurious black hair, stepped forward and drove a straight right at Carlotta's face. The girl swayed past it, brought her right foot forward, and slammed a low left hook against the woman's belly, low, below the navel and landing in a spot that would often double a woman in agony. The taut resilience of the abdomen under her fist took the blow - not comfortably, but easily enough, before a driving left uppercut, homing in under the prisoner's left breast, lifted it half-way to her shoulder before pinning the glandular tissue between bony knuckles and solid ribcage in an explosion of the kind of agony freely associated with the prizefight.
Ramirez whirled away half-sickened by the pain, but keeping her feelings under control, shot out a right to the trainer's eye, and sent her back on her heels. The follow up from the uppercut fell short and light, and they turned to face each other within the picket, before moving together to slam low blows into the body.
When they broke away, Reyes was smiling ruefully for the pain in her belly, and Carlotta Ramirez's face was contorted from the effects of a second blasting uppercut to her breasts, this time the right.
They circled each other waiting to pounce on any opening. Ramirez, straightening and leaning forward placed a vicious and shoulderful straight left through Reyes's guard and into her face. It smashed into the right corner of the wide mouth and brought blood immediately. It also drove the older and somewhat heavier woman back on her booted heels again, but she blocked the following right, and smashed through to the prisoner's diaphragm.
For Ramirez that spelled trouble. She felt her breath stopped, but fought the urge to double, striking two-fisted to the trainer's chest while she had breath for it. A moment later, with the pain of the breast-blows suffusing her, Reyes stepped forward and planted a right cross on the girl's jaw to send her crashing to the grass.
"Thirty seconds!" called Hernandez, and watched Ramirez carefully. She had to rise from this to show herself tough enough to train for what he had in mind.
Reyes, already beginning to sweat from the sustained effort of the first half-minute of the contest, stood back and waited. She wore a prison-officer's summer uniform without the upper garments, flat-heeled knee-boots, light linen trousers, belted tight about her waist, and a red banda at her throat. A second banda caught and held her long hair about her head, fastened back behind the ears. The bare body, rising from the waistband of her trousers, flared upwards and outwards to broad shoulders via a swelling rib-cage and firm, high, self-supporting breasts. They were already marked, even though the fight so far had been so short. As she waited for her opponent to rise, she swept the blood away from her mouth with her left hand and remained poised to strike.
Carlotta Ramirez was only too aware of what was expected of her here. Either she rose and fought on half-crippled and breathless, or she went back to Quilon and the tile-pit. That, and the revenge of Hoch and Anders. She saw very clearly in that moment when she was down and failing that her very freedom depended on her conquering her agony and getting up within the thirty seconds she was allowed. She also knew that it wasn't the pain that was keeping her on her knees, but the inability to breathe. She could feel her injured diaphragm unknotting and wobbling as it tried to draw air again, and the daze was clearing from her brain. So she chanced it and rose, knowing that Reyes would be straight into her again, and trying to tense all the muscles in her belly and stomach against the expected enervating attack that she might launch to the region.
She was right. As she came to her feet, Reyes was slamming low blows into her again. Without even the belt that Reyes had about her waist, Ramirez was totally exposed to the strike of those heavy fists, and they drummed against her muscle-shield as she drove to face herself and drew the satisfaction of sending the jailer-cum-trainer back further and further across the picket.
Without a sense of position in the ring, Reyes suddenly found the rope at the back of her knees, and a moment later crashed over it and backwards out of the circle, ably assisted by a long raking right hook that crunched under her left jaw, and snapped her teeth together. Carlotta knew what Hernandez was looking for - spirit - and she showed all she had in that powerful succession of blows that resulted in Reyes's fall.
Maria Reyes was disgusted with herself for falling so easily for that, and cursed the fact that her henchwomen had set the picket so well. This chunky young prisoner was an able fighter, and she could take her lumps. This, she felt, was not likely to be a long test. Viciously hard and painful, but not long. She already knew the calibre of the girl she faced, for it had taken a young woman of great character to force herself upright with a twisted diaphragm and as dazed as Ramirez had been. To come back at her the way the youngster had, had already given her the knowledge that she could be developed into a first rate battler. This year's selection for Silver Island seemed likely to prove better than most.
Hernandez would not be satisfied yet. He would want to see Ramirez bloodied before he decided. It was essential, Reyes knew, that trainees for Silver Island, as well as being physically fine and courageous, did not scare easily. Ramirez might have had few skills yet, but she was a natural battler, born for it, and she would prove a rewarding trainee for her trainer.
So, when the older woman rose to continue the battle and stepped back into the picket, it was her intention to batter Ramirez bloody and await Hernandez's decision.
It was not difficult for a fighter of the trainer's skill. They came together powerfully again before blows to the head were exchanged in rapid succession, both women scoring, and Reyes drawing blood from the youngster's nose. Fighting through a cloud of stars, Ramirez pressed, but was beaten off, and then caught full in the mouth with a blow that not only shredded her lips, but split the trainer's right knuckles.
Carlotta fought on through a haze of pain, driving short, clubbing blows into the taut resilience of Reyes's breasts, noting, as a thousand prizefighters before her had noted, how much more comfortable this was on the bare knuckles than the head blows.
After another long series of exhausting exchanges while they each strove to attain the condition depicted by the artist of the library picture, Carlotta pitched pain-racked to her knees, while Maria Reyes stood away, breasts heaving and belly convulsing in her own need to draw air.
Again, the young prisoner fought her way to her feet through a cacophony of quit signals that she forced to the back of her mind as unworthy before rising again to face the continuing savage onslaught from the thirty-year-old. She did not know how much more of this she could take, but was perfectly certain that she had to go on taking it until Hernandez was convinced of her endurance. She was not about to fail now, even if she passed clean out from agony before the end of the contest.
He made her go through it for ten minutes before calling a halt, and declaring her to have passed her preliminary test. The relief was enormous, and yet, even as she left the picket, the girl knew that when the chips were really down, and if she went to this Pacific island there would be no relief for her this side of victory. And that was a challenge that appealed to her.
"Tomorrow," Hernandez told her later, "you go into full training."
She almost laughed through her pain. Tomorrow, she would be lucky to be able to stand! It was significant, she hoped, that he shook her by the hand.
© Ajax 12/1987
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Mostly loving the jealousy induced catfights. Great read raf ;D
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 13
THE FILIPINO BAR GIRL
by Raf
Those of a peaceful nature tend to stay in green pastures and valleys, those with hot blood tend to go away in search of.... of what? A better way of living maybe, but certainly a new way of life, a new environment, a defiance to one's daring and imagination. And that's the way it has been since humanity appeared on earth. Thus, the more restless tribes passed from the north to the south, from the innerland to the coast, and many of them passed from such limits to the vast - and to others terrifying - sea. Some used boats, some passed through lands that are no more (submerged thousands or millions of years ago) and the first inhabitants of islands appeared. This is true for the Melanesians and also for the former peoples of the Filipino archipelago.
Recent history - a mere four or five hundred years back - shows how that archipelago was cherished, and envied, and bought, and conquered, by the most warring and wandering peoples, such as the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Arabs from North Africa, the southern Chinese. In spite of the bad weather conditions during some terrifying months of the year, their strategic position made the archipelago an important stronghold for every potential nation with the will and the strength to hegemonize other peoples.
From these facts derive both the present political situation of the Philippines and the troublesome nature of their peoples. Today, as long ago, the strategic position is envied by the USSR - which keeps a constant agitation going by means of third parties, greatly helped by the iniquity of the economic and social systems - and by the USA, which keeps it under control by means of a terrific financial debt burden and the presence of a great military naval power, including, though not admitted as such, nuclear armed vessels.
In 1986 the Goverment of Corazon Aquino announced a campaign to shed the country's sex and sin image by replacing `girlie power' with `people power'. "We want to change the image," the Tourism Minister was quoted as saying at a press conference. "We can promote tourism without sacrificing the quality of our life." Asked what he would do to discourage prostitution, he said: "I will clamp down on agents promoting that aspect of tourism. Sexy shows are not part of our culture."
Whether a sex industry as large as that practiced during the old regime of Marcos (especially after the American soldiers left Saigon for good and concentrated their reserves of strategic potency at Subic Bay and Clark USAF Air Base) is or is not part of the country's culture is debatable. That the new Government wished to give its people, and its women in particular, the dignity lost for economic reasons was a commendable purpose, but unfortunately difficult to substantiate through a lack of new jobs - or the will to work hard for a few pesos. [1 peso = £0.03]
In what looked like a three-pronged attack on the good policies of the Government, three things occurred simultaneously:-
Brigadier General Charles Luigs, Commander of the US 13th Air Force decided not to pay several workers, and dismissed them. This occurred in a situation of labour dispute with civil workers at Clark Base. A week of negotiations was started but not an inch was given before the workers union.
The workers' union leaders' temper against the `bloody imperialists' went up as easily as most wished it to go, spurred by inflamed (`red'...) oratory from Manila. The decided to boycott the base, putting up barricades, and thus prohibiting the sailors, soldiers and marines from crossing the few yards between the high walls and defenses of the base and the Angeles City, a village populated by the civil workers at the base and their families (about 22,000), the bar hostesses working in more than three hundred night clubs and bars (about 10,000 girls) and a unknown number of taxi drivers (whose function is not only to provide transport for the `angels' around their nightspots, but also to supervise their gains, and `tax' the `taxi-girls' for the profit of the above mentioned racketeers).
Last, but not least, these gentlemen didn't take kindly to the loss of easy income for more than a week, and decided to react by sending three hundred of their girls (`hungry and missing their boyfriends') to protest peacefully against the strikers manning the barricades - about two hundred and fifty.
* * * * * * * * *
This is an historic moment. Inside the air base, Brigadier General Luigs stands up once more, and declares with a straight face to the strike leader Roberto Flores: "Not on your life! I will not discuss the workers' demand for severance pay until the barricades are lifted. This is an outrage. I will not consent!"
"I see. But the workers are not going back on this demand before they get an assurance that they will be paid after they lift the barricades! I will go and tell them this, sir."
"So be it. But remember that the Army Police have orders to act if there is a disturbance in the vicinity of this base or any of the smaller compounds around it."
"Why do you say that?"
"I think that about now [the Brigadier looked at his watch] there are more demonstrators in front of this base than you think."
"What do you mean?"
"I have received a memo informing me that while our meeting has been going on about fifteen hundred taxi drivers and bar girls have appeared at the barricades to protest at you disrupting their work."
"Ah! That is why you refuse to see reason. You hope that those Filipinos will make us step back from our just demands! Just in exchange for a few drinks and kisses..."
"It may not be much to you, but according to my rough estimate my men are richer by $US 1,000,000 [20m pesos] just because they have not paid for those few drink these last few days! The problem with you is that you have learnt Marxism without paying attention to real-life economics."
"Good day, sir!"
The union leader went off abruptly, mumbling something to his companions about the damn Yankees not being able to differentiate a union man from a communist. But as soon as he arrived at the gate his mouth opened in awe and he stood speechless.
The Military Policemen were grinning behind their wire defenses, looking at the crowd. The two hundred and fifty workers or so who stood at the barricade, shouting slogans with the help of several sound-speaker systems mounted on cars and posts, were being overpowered by a tumultuous and vociferous crowd of fifteen hundred women, taxi drivers, and restaurant and bar owners.
Opposing slogans and vituperations were exchanged in disharmony for a considerable time. The union leader came to the barricades and told the bad news to his friends. Now they were sandwiched between the policemen - these beating their long sticks against their legs of the palms of their hands in eager anticipation - and the mostly feminine crowd, their high pitched voices drowning the raucous sounds coming from the few loudspeakers.
After an hour and a half of this, with the sun coming to rest on the western sea, the majority of the crowd (from the nightclub workers) went away. The unemployed workers thought that that was it, and they could be tranquil again for another night of vigil against the soldiers.
But the calm was of short duration. Now that all the `top people' had left, three hundred of the more ill-tempered girls (and some of the taxi drivers) were staying, and they started to approach until they came within pushing distance of the barricaded men and women.
"You have no right to demonstrate against our strike. This is a dispute between the US military management and the labour union. It's none of your business!" Roberto Flores shouted at them.
"It is our business because you're too greedy, and because you want too much from the military. We're not having our share now!" a tall well muscled woman in shorts and a T-shirt voiced from the front row.
"Yeah! We're hungry!"
"Now, we're angry!"
"Step back!"
"You take those bars and posts out of the way! Now!!"
"No! Step back, or else..."
"Or else what? If you want to fight us, we will fight you. Right girls?"
Saying this the tall Filipino woman bent down and took up a piece of rock from the uneven ground. When she stood up she brandished it, cheered by the girls backing her. The macho Filipino workers got mad at the women and positioned their placards and sticks in offensive postures instead of keeping them up.
"We don't want to see Filipino hurting Filipino even though we do want you to leave us alone!" Flores stated.
But this plea of the union leader was submerged by the first pushes and shoves between those in the front line of the demonstration and the workers in the back line of the barricade. Some taxi drivers and girls attacked the cars and wrenched the loudspeakers from their precarious fixings. Many men had started punching the girls, and these started paying tit for tat.
* * * * * * * * *
"Shall I order the men to go out and clean this mess up, sir?"
"Not yet, Colonel Rogers. Let's see what those girls can do all by themselves."
"Aanhn! With your permission, sir. I have seen some of them in action, alone, or by twos and threes against some of our men, and they're brave enough in action."
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" chuckled the Brigadier, "But look. The red bastards are giving way already, after just five minutes slapping."
"Yeah, the show didn't last long...Ah! No! The guys are throwing rocks from that pile there! Take my binoculars, sir. Now, I think we should..."
"Hmmm! I can see some of the girls limping and bleeding. But I don't think they're willing to go home - or wherever they sleep at night. They're picking up the discarded stones and throwing them back, and...yes...I would say that I would like to have them as grenadiers! Colonel, do you by any chance know that girl in shorts who started this melee?"
"There were several, sir. You mean the tall one with the big boobs - sorry sir, with the large red T-shirt."
"You guessed correctly, Colonel. I just saw her punch a girl full in the mouth and she's not getting up again. Ooops! she is being assaulted by two now..."
"I happen to know her, sir. She is Miss Marley Aldeguer, a popular girl, though she isn't very young - about twenty-five I guess. She's a stubborn girl; very strong minded, but compassionate with the other girls - and with our boys!"
"Strong bodied, too. She's just outwrestled the two workers who had her, and she's started kicking the rumps of some more who're slapping the other girls around."
"Possibly, sir. She has good muscles. These lissom girls usually do."
The Brigadier laughed out loud.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I really think so."
"What? No, Colonel. I was not paying attention to you. It's that...that lady Aldeguer of yours has just put a man down in a most distressing manner! You should have seen his anguished face. I should pay him his severance pay. He's almost had his balls severed now for the sake of it."
"Those girls are really tough and mean. Even against each other. If you saw one of their catfights in a pub...." his voice tailed off as though he was loth to put his tongue to a description of such activities.
"What of it, Colonel?"
"They are so aggressive, sir. Only our marines would be fit enough to face them."
"I understand that they usually do that nightly - and win. Do they not?"
"Of course, sir. But in a rough and tumble situation, like this, they are quite good."
"Yes. They are superior in numbers, but the majority of the strikers were men - and these are losing by the minute."
"Well, sir. You know that the Filipino men are fierce with a blade or toting a gun in their hands, but when it comes to hard work or using their own muscles it's a completely different thing. The women are different. They do the logging, the carrying, the cutting of the sugar cane - everything! And their legs! With the distances they are used to covering in the bush, when they turn go-go dancers they are so fit that they can endure from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. gyrating on those small round tables."
"Your wife is not staying here in the base, is she?"
"Aaahn... No, sir."
"I thought not. That's very fortunate. I could get all this information from an authorized source, Colonel! Ah! Ah! Ah! You'll pardon me, Colonel, but I would like you to go out now and disperse the few strikers who are fighting, and bring me that woman we just talked about."
"The one in the T-shirt, the red one? The red T-shirt I mean!"
"No, Colonel, the one who has just lost her T-shirt at the hands of a striker woman. The one who is kneeing her in the crotch."
"Jesus, sir! I'd better get going!"
"Yes, you ought - before our bar-girl kills her rival with those claws around her neck. The other is already on her knees, and I can see her tongue hanging out."
The Colonel heard the last remark as he was crossing the doorstep. He went out at a dead run.
* * * * * * * * *
After nine days of enforced confinement within the air base, the Military Police were anxious to get out and kick some ass on their own account. When they saw the Colonel running at them shouting for them to open the gates and put an end to the nonsense going on outside, they hurried to obey.
Jeeps ready, they manned them and were at top speed in a minute flat, crossing the few yards that separated them from the fighters.
The bar girls and the drivers of taxis and jeepneys had already dismantled the workers' barricades. Several men and women were scattered on the road, and on the ground bordering it. Some were motionless, sprawled or seated on the ground, unable to move after being clobbered or beaten with stones in the hectic twenty-minute battle. Some were moaning and crawling aimlessly around. The majority of the remaining strikers were fleeing, and the last survivors were still in groups, assailed from all sides by gangs of young women, with an unrestrained and unabated fury that had proved decidedly superior to the workers' own.
Several women were tangled together, either because they could not distinguish their foes any longer, or because one was a bar-girl and the other a lady of another profession.
The Colonel saw the last stages of the fight of which the Brigadier had given him some oral glimpses. A couple was coming at the heavy-set riot leader from behind while she floored another foe with a knee to her face. This one went limp on her back, obviously finished. The man grabbed the bar girl's arms from the rear while the woman rushed past her to punch her breasts, now hanging free from a completely shredded T-shirt (she was braless, not yet needing the comfort of that supportive piece of clothing) and the bar-girl screeched in pain.
Before the colonel and his sergeant came near them the girl received two more punches under her round, firm tits, then she lifted her powerful swimmer's leg and took her attacker to the groin. The tight-fitting jeans of the female striker were no protection against the large, sandalled foot, and the other woman groaned and stumbled back.
With a shout of `Whore!' the male worker head-butted Miss Aldeguer's head, stunning her, and as she stood dazed, repeated the move - full in the mouth. She fell on her rump.
The sergeant grabbed the man by one arm, yelling at him to stop, but he kicked the surprised soldier's testicles and wrenched his nightstick from him. Brandishing it over his head he threatened to break the downed woman's skull. She bravely spat aside a lost tooth and a trickle of blood and jumped forward taking him around the waist with her arms and butting him to the solar plexus.
The stick beat ineffectually at the air, and both fell to the ground, entangled.
They rolled on the rocky ground, the women supine, her back lacerated by the mean-looking stones, while the male worker put the frustration of his nine days without pay into his punch to the woman's bosom. But she took it on the arm and used her legs to force him to tumble sideways off her belly, then rolled on him and pressed her knee into his groin, at the same time delivering a downward punch to his stomach. He was winded, and she stood up, bringing him with her by his long and oily hair. The colonel grabbed the woman's arms from behind, but she kicked back at his lower leg while headbutting her prisoner's mouth which sent him down hard, his own mouth equally bloodied.
Although she had been fighting already for twenty minutes and was half the size of the colonel, she struggled hard against him, her bloodied back dirtying the front of his army-green fatigue shirt.
Several shots were fired by the soldiers to calm down the struggling women, and at last the fury abated. The workers fled while the girls cheered and fraternized with the MPs. Two soldiers came in to help their officer, but before they could grab the wiry girl she toppled onto her back, falling in the man's lap. The air left his lungs while her rump somersaulted and she was up and kicking at the colonel.
* * * * * * * * *
"You may leave now, Colonel. Thank you for your trouble in convincing Miss..."
"Miss Aldeguer, sir!"
"In convincing Miss Aldeguer to come and talk to me. I'm sure that she didn't mean to harm you. It was only a minor misunderstanding, quite natural under the circumstances. I will talk to her now, and I think she will direct all this energy at a more rewarding target."
"You're sure that I can leave you alone? With her, I mean, sir?"
"I am sure Colonel. She comes from a type I happen to know well, and am used to seeing on another island - another Pacific island such as this one."
© Raf 3/1988
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 14
THE TEXAN DOMINA
by Ajax
The clatter of the armourer's trolley passing through the hall on the way to her study excited Leah Raines like nothing had since the last time it had happened. A new suit of armour, especially with a full scale society meeting coming up shortly, was guaranteed to send a thrill through her. She did not know why it happened, but the greatest things in her life were the society and the IFF. In a way they were related. Fighting, more specifically, personal combat, was something that fired her blood like nothing else and on which she would spend more than in any other aspect of her life. She had few clothes, and did not follow an expensive way of life. She had a few horses, but studied them more as a means of conveying herself in society meets, armoured, than for any other reason. She neither raced them, nor rode them much off the tournament field.
Enormously wealthy from her father's estate, she left the running of the oil business largely in the hands of the company vice-presidents, both able men, and more than capable of sustaining the day to day running of Pier Oil.
Now twenty-five and still unmarried, there were few suitors whom she would consider, for most men she encountered were either macho characters or on the make. Many would have liked to have got their greedy paws both on her (for she was an extremely attractive woman) and her money, for she had so much of that that the odd million or two could well be appropriated for private purposes without its absence being quickly discovered.
She turned as the armourer, Ollie Heldt, was ushered in ahead of the trolley, bowing and scraping as was his wont.
"For God's sake cut out the kowtowing, Ollie," she chided. "I'm no queen."
"Ah, but you are, Miss Raines. You are. Queen of the Lists, Maid of the Gauntlet, Damsel of the Lance. Choose your own title."
"Come off it, Ollie. I don't know if I'll get past the first round this quarter. Brindore Golden Dime, Countess of Aracourt, might not stay in the saddle when the lances start flying. As I'm constantly reminded by the Grandmaster Dragon Horde, I'm only a woman, and should not be even riding in tournament."
"The Grandmaster knows nothing of the dedication of a Domina," Ollie defended stoutly. "I, on the other hand, am more than sure of her ability."
"With armour at $10,000 a suit, you can afford to be," she quipped.
"It is a fair price for such exquisite workmanship," Ollie answered shortly, pseudo-miffed by her jibe.
There was a serious note to that remark, though, and she realized it at once. For making armour, especially female armour, was indeed a highly skilled job.
Oliie was a rotund little man, built in width rather than height, and six inches short of Leah's impressive 5 feet 11 inches [1.82m]. He was also a craftsman of consummate skill, his probably the most difficult of any metalworker's art. Armoury, the art of designing and making weapons and armour. This would be the fourth suit he had made for her in the last six years, and the third of her combat suits. Her dress-suit stood in one corner of the room, the combat suit in another corner, the first resplendent with gold and silver inlay, the second battered, dented and scored, worn out by the smashing of maces, the slash of swords and the driving of the lance. It's chemically blackened surface showed the marks of vigorous combat, and Leah was proud to have withstood many of them.
In the society she was called Brindore Golden Dime, Countess of Aracourt, bearing the style and title of Domina of the Dragon Horde, one hard won and painfully held through three years of full combat discipline. Upon the left arm of the her dress suit of armour hung the tournament shield, which like her surcoat, bore her heraldic device, Sable, a bezant within a bordure engrailed Or. It was an honourable coat, and a differenced variety of the ancient arms of Raines, Sable bezanty, a fleur-de-lys Or. It described her rank exactly, like all heraldic bearings, as an unmarried gentlewoman, for the arms (previously borne by her father upon a shield) were displayed upon a lozenge, ensigned with the bowed ribbon of her technical maidenhood. The helm was the closed, left-facing tilting helmet bearing upon a wreath of the tinctures, the golden disc, the bezant, of her crest. The Lady Brindore had been her chosen name, the addition of Golden Dime alluding to the coin-like principal charge born upon the shield and also as her crest. Now she answered to the title of Domina rather than Lady, for Domina told of her combat rank, that of being in all respects a female knight. `Ladies' did not enter the Lists - `Dominae' did.
And that was the purpose of this new suit of armour - to enable her to meet other `knights' in combat. To the everlasting chagrin of the Grandmaster Dragon Horde, Leah had been one of those women who had made their mark in the society by researching and proving women to have taken part as equals on the mediaeval battlefields of Europe. The Grandmaster had not liked that - he had always been under the impression that no women ever fought in the ranks of chivalrous knights. He should, of course, have known that whatever men have done, women have also tried, and generally succeeded at. Succeeded so well in Leah's case that she was the current combat champion of the society, having battled to the honour over several men. It had not been easily achieved, and once the contest was over she was as bruised beneath her armour as that was scarred without. She had endured a hell of pain and sweat that would have exhausted any man, but had, through her fine strength and endurance, won through to take the champion's chaplet of olive leaves, a depiction of which she was now allowed to show encircling her patrimonial coat of arms on her letterheads for use in society business. Were she to hold the honour twice more successively, she would win that most desired of all things, an augmentation of honour. Grandmaster Dragon Hound, Leader of the Texan Hoard, and her enemy, had set out to ensure that she failed in that endeavour. Ollie's armour was intended to improve her chances.
The Countess of Aracourt, as befitted her rank, wore plate, as did all those who were Barons or Baronesses of the Dragon Horde or above. Lesser knights wore chain-mail. Ollie's new endeavour remained to be proved, but the noble Countess had faith in him. This new design would work.
Ordering coffee for three, Leah slipped away to change into her jerkin and trews so that the new armour could be fitted. Excitement burned within her as she slipped off the jeans and T-shirt she had been wearing to replace them with the undergarments of a domina and the leather moccasins that fitted beneath the foot-armour.
To say that Ollie's creations were intricate was to understate the case. Leah was not easy to build armour for. She was big and she was well-endowed at breast and hip, problems not normally encountered by armourers. Essentially she was a woman, and before this suit Ollie had striven make her plate as light as it could be made. Her first combat suit had weighed little more than forty pounds, the second sixty. This, his third and best attempt, would clothe her in one hundred pounds of steel, a mighty weight for any girl to bear. Yet she needed armour strong enough to stand the force of brutal power. Whether she could wear it with ease enough to fight in was unknown to Ollie as he'd laboured, attempting to eliminate the weaknesses of her earlier suits.
In fitting armour one started at the feet and built upwards, foot guards, greaves, thigh-plates, codpiece, armguards and finally breastplate and helm, a visored helm for this. Assisting Leah into the new suit was a lengthy business, and her squire, Leoni, was instructed in the fitting of the various pieces.
Leah's arming doublet and trews had also been made by Ollie Heldt, the top part of the trews being sewn inside the waistband of the padded doublet. The padding was not thick - it would have been too hot for combat otherwise, but it had to be capable of absorbing some degree of the armour pressure. It could do little to ease the pain of the bruising when struck hard with lance or mace, and that was the part of the tournament scene that all contestants had to be ready to come to terms with. Many felt that it was worse to be battered in armour than without it for there was nothing to be done to ease that pain until the armour was removed, perhaps after several hours of combat. Leah was no different from the others in that regard. Indeed, she knew better than most the torment of armoured battling.
The sabatons were round-toed, not long and slim like the Mark II battle armour, for Leah had found them a nuisance, and a discouragement to fast footwork. The greaves protected the back of her legs as well as the front, were beautiful made and slipped over the sabatons before being secured by swivelling catches at knee and heel. Secured to the same upper catch was the flared poleyn that protected her knees, though this was attached after the thigh- greave, or cuisse, had been strapped on, the part lying along the front of her thighs overlying a special pair of plates that covered the rear of her thighs, this an addition to the normal suit of armour made specifically by Ollie to counter the Grandmaster's rear thigh attack using his spiked mace which could send an opponent down crippled, effectively hamstringed.
Her cod was especially important, for the crueller members of the society were prone to trying to mace a domina in the vulva to teach her a lesson. Ollie had produced a very effective one for the Mark II suit after Leah had been agonized out of a combat wearing the Mark I through this very reason. The Mark III bore a heavier and stronger vulval cod, which plated in her mons veneris as well, and was fixed to the detachable `relief-flap' that was slung, rather in the manner of a breech-clout from the belt of the arming doublet.
Next came the breastplate, around which the whole suit was built, and which had given Ollie his greatest problems. Leah was large-breasted, and found the normal flat breastplate very compressing of her tenderest tissue, leading to her suffering greatly when struck in the chest. Ollie had cured this by welding breast-cups to the Mark II. Here, in the Mark III, he had managed an even better structure, hammering the cups into the plate itself, and fluting the metal of the plate in a large vee from the shoulders to the belt. The belt fitted her slim waist snugly, and depending from it by means of a line of swivelling catches was the fauld, the short skirt-like garment that protected the hips and buttocks. This too was fluted to give extra strength, and was a hard piece to make for the width of Leah's womanly hips.
After the breastplate came the dorsal, slip-hinged to the special female plate, and of a thicker than usual metal. That was followed by the vambraces for the arms and the couters that protected the elbows. A high gorget fitted around the neck, and pauldrons sat over the shoulder part of the breastplate, again strengthened by extra thickness against the weight of the men's maces.
Ollie had been tempted to do away with the bessagews, the rosette-shaped plates that covered the gap between the breastplate and pauldrons, to save weight, but had resisted the temptation on the grounds that should a lance or a sword be thrust at Leah in that area, and slip through that gap, she could suffer a crippling injury. So he had had to make her carry the extra five pounds or so that these meant.
Once the gauntlets were fitted, only the helm remained. She already possessed a more than adequate tilting helm, and for Mark III he had provided a superbly made close helm for foot combat, fluted and visored. With the visor closed the Texan Domina was completely encased in metal, generally a thicker metal than she was used to, but a suit pliant enough for free movement, and more comfortable than either of her previous combat suits. The suit was fitted with a lance-rest and shield-groove in the inner plate of the left vambrace with a shorter couter on that side to accommodate the shield, which could be either clipped to the vambrace or held more firmly, her left arm slipping through straps. On the whole she preferred to clip it as there were times when it was advantageous to be able to unhitch the shield in combat, perhaps to use two weapons simultaneously.
As she went to move she noticed the difference immediately. "God, Ollie! This thing's heavy!"
The armourer nodded. "Yes, but it's stronger. You may need the strength, and it was the only way I could give it you."
The answer, she knew, was to get used to it. Leoni, who had been spinning catches and fixing latches now for ten minutes, made the obvious suggestion. "You'll have to wear it continuously for a few days to get used to carrying the weight."
"It's just over a hundred pounds," Ollie told her, very aware that it was two and a half times the weight of her Mark I. "Will you be able to fight in it?"
Leah withered him with a look. "I'll have to be able to, won't I?"
He nodded again. "Yes. But I still worry that I'll have spoiled your chances."
Leah shook her head. "If I'm not strong enough I shouldn't be doing this," she said, not unkindly. "Women who want to be dominae have to take the consequences."
Leoni shuddered. She had squired Leah quite long enough to know better than anyone but the domina herself what those conse- quences were. Bruises, cuts, pain and exhaustion filled the day when the Dragon Horde met to cross swords and drive lances at each other. It was tough and brutal, painful and wearing, and only the bravest of the Horde's women took to the lists themselves. Most were satisfied to sit in the stands and offer favours, walking about in extravagant and comfortable silk dresses with gold-wired girdles and no bras. That was quite a different scene to the sweat and suffering of the combat pavilions. But Leah had always wanted to take an active part in the Horde's meetings, and she was prepared to suffer for it. `It took a hard struggle to get women into the combat,' she would say, `and it's up to us to see that we don't lose the right.'
For a week, Leah Raines, Brindore Golden Dime, Countess of Aracourt, Combat Champion of the South West Dragon Horde, lived, rode, and practised against Leoni in her Mark III suit of combat armour. She wore it sixteen hours a day, and slept the other eight. By then she knew everywhere that it chafed or pinched in extended movement, and became acclimatized to weighing an extra hundred pounds. The first three days was an agony of exhaustion for her, but she was young, fit and adaptable, and by the end of the week the armour was part of her. She could run, jump, twist and fight in it, and emerged determined to hold her position as champion of the lists.
In the tilt she did well. She did not win, but saw off five riders before she was herself unhorsed to become one of the two losing semi-finalists. But the tilting was for fun and favours, and she took her bumps and bruises in good part, breaking ten wooden lances in the process.
It was when they came to the metal lances that things got serious. These were blind-tipped aluminium lances, and on the first pass she took one in her left breast, and the cup held, the fluting running her opponent's lance away. There was fire in her chest on the second pass, when she scored but failed to unseat her opponent. The third was a double with another smashing drive into her bosom, while she bellied the knight she was up against, but neither was unhorsed.
Her opponent, styled Sir Dodinas le Blakeley, was an honourable opponent. He treated her as an equal, and was one of the few `knights' for whom she had much time. It was a combat that she enjoyed, as he did, but on the fourth pass they veered just before impact, and both missed.
Tearing down into the sun, with Charger, her favourite tilting horse, running freely beneath her, gave her a feeling of exhilaration that was completed when she took Sir Dodinas on the bessagew and lifted him cleanly from the saddle. His lance skewed off her left pauldron and bent against her gorget as she dashed by.
Quickly, she reined in Charger, and leapt from the saddle, discarding the blind-lance that had lifted the knight from his saddle. She drew her sword and forged into battle. Sir Dodinas thrust up the shield he carried and took her first attack whilst striving to rise.
With the breath knocked out of him in the fall, he had barely risen when she reached him, and only his strength brought him to his feet as she bore in. He was groggy, though, and a kick from her left sabaton sent him sprawling, the impact lifting his visor. Before he could snap it shut again, Leah extended her arm, and stopped with the tip of her sword between his eyes. He went white instantly, the colour draining from his face as he realized the real proximity of death. Had this been a real fight instead of a joust, Sir Dodinas le Blakeley would have been no more. The Countess of Aracourt was quicker than he had believed possible, and he did the only honourable thing available to him. He raised his arm in the signal of submission, and the Domina Brindore Golden Dime was through the first round.
Several mouths went dry at the sight of Leah's speed and accuracy. Female or not, the others feared her skill, and most respected her for it. The Master of the Dragon Horde did not. Already through himself, and likely to meet her in the final if they both came through the remaining three rounds, he licked his lips with anticipatory fervour. If they met he was going to enjoy battering her to a wreck. Last quarter they had not met as he had gone out in the penultimate round, and he had a load of ground to cut out from beneath this upstart woman, who, like the Baroness of the Gray Veil, the nun whose joy and delight this combat was, dared to put herself forward in the lists. Veil was in Golden Dime's half of the draw, and if either came though to the final he would torture them.
Two other women had gone out in the first round, and the Master felt that that was what should happen to women who dared to practise this most male of all activities. He still was not convinced that a pair of dominae had clashed at Poitiers, or that there had been a French domina in the crusades. Also, he regarded the legends of Bradamante to be based on nothing but fanciful thought. Women, he felt certain, had no place in this kind of hard and vigorous action. The sooner he proved it to the rest of the society members the better.
He was called first to the second round of combat, meeting a knight who had had to go through a preliminary round, since forty had stood forth for competition, and battered his way through to the last eight with comparative ease.
Leah's second round battle was rather harder than that against the honourable Sir Dodinas. She was up against the Viscount Sheer, a big man with shoulders like a barn door. She was unhorsed on the third pass and fell painfully, rolling to her feet smoothly enough but having hurt her left shoulder. Sheer had no charger as good as her own Charger, and it took him longer to rein in than it should. The result was that when he approached whirling his morningstar, his favourite weapon, she was set and ready. She had a mace at her belt, but had again chosen to use a sword. Relieved to see his use of the handled spike-balled chain-mace, she stepped forward and took the first blow with a great clang on her shield. Sheer was strong, of that there was no doubt, and with a hurt shoulder, the impact of the morningstar on her shield numbed her left arm. In reply, she thrust towards his codpiece, but found her sword running across his fauld as he turned into her. He brought his shield round in a powerful arc, trying to knock her off her feet. She took on the right couter, spreading her left leg wide and held her ground.
Surprised by her ability to withstand his strength, the man was slow to react, and the Countess of Aracourt drove her shield up under the chin of his helmet, straightening him up as he drew back the morningstar. A more prudent fighter than Leah would have withdrawn under the threat of another strike from the wicked mace-head, but instead, she stepped closer and drove her sword upwards towards his left armpit. Without the bessagews that Ollie had reluctantly fitted to her armour, the man was vulnerable to such an attack, and her sword passed cleanly between the plates and cut the strap that held on his leftside pauldron. The plate slid off his shoulder and impeded the arm, the sword-point following through to slice into his flesh.
Staggering back in pain and shock, he involuntarily shortened the stroke of his morningstar and bounced it off Leah's helmet. The padded cap beneath took most of the sting out of it, but it still made her head ring as it landed and drove her to her knees. Sheer smashed his knee into her chest, the poleyn contacting painfully with the left breast-cup where Sir Dodinas's lance had already bruised her, and she went over backwards with a pained cry.
A downed fighter facing a powerful opponent with a morningstar was in great difficulty, and the Master smiled as he waited for Sheer to slam Aracourt out of the contest. He did try, but Leah's head was clearing, and her shield came across to save her body the crunching force of the mace.
She took it on the shield and came to her knees. Again the man underestimated the courageous resilience of his woman opponent, as he stepped closer to bring the 'star down on her head and knock her out of contention.
He had, though, forgotten that she still held her sturdy sword, and his move came to nothing when she swung it with a horizontal forearm chop to his left knee. Though unlikely to injure him, her intention was to unbalance, and she succeeded better than she had hoped. The left leg was raised in a step just as the sword struck, driving the leg over to tangle with the other. Unable to regain his balance, Sheer's macing attempt missed and the impetus of the heavy weapon dragged him forward. He fell into the sand on his right side, and from her kneeling position, Leah whipped the point of her sword over, and ran it through the tiny space between close-helm and gorget, laying the edge against his neck, nicking the skin as she did so.
Feeling the sting of her cold steel against his jugular, Sheer went instantly rigid, freezing lest she be tempted to drive it deeper and finish him. Leah Raines, Countess of Aracourt, was through to Round 3!
Seeing this reversal of fortune, the Master cursed. Sheer should have had her there, and he cursed him for his clumsiness.
Twice injured in the combat, the Viscount Sheer congratulated Leah before making for the first aid tent to be patched up. Though no supporter of dominae, Sheer could see when he had met a skilful one, and though there was a hint of bitterness in his bearing at his defeat he had to give her credit for despatching him.
Leah followed him, circling the bruised shoulder, and removing her helmet to let the air get to her sweaty head. Sheer's mace had left some nasty dents in her shield too, and they needed knocking out before she met her third opponent. She felt sore in several places beneath her armour, and was wishing that she could strip off the rest of it. Sweating heavily from heat, weight and exhaustion, she was glad to don her surcoat and drop on the bench near the first aid tent to watch the rest of the second round.
In the third, she went in before the Master to face the Count Otto de Terra Nova, who wore full Gothic armour and carried a partizan in preference to a sword. This weapon, with its barbed blade, and used like a short spear, was a dangerous one to face at any time, and she thought for moment of drawing one herself, before realizing that her skill with it would not approach that of Count Otto, whose pig-faced helm carried a Gothic spike and reminded her of that of a German officer from World War I. She was, after all, better to stick to the sword which she knew and used so well. Worrying, was the spike-ended haft of Otto's weapon. Offensive at both ends, it was precisely the kind of weapon that Ollie had been trying to guard against when making this suit armour so much stronger than the last. Spikes were an armourer's nightmare, especially the reinforced one of the estoc, which was built as an armour-piercing weapon, and in skilled hands could drive through a breastplate and into the wearer's heart.
Most societies of the Dragon Horde type fought with wooden weapons to avoid serious injuries, but from the first, such thoughts had not been entertained by this one. It was meant as a serious combat society, and though no member ever tried deliberately to kill another, injuries were common, and were seen as part of the price paid to fight like this.
Thus, in facing Count Otto, Leah was very aware of the need to be ultra-careful. It was important not to be downed by the Count, whose charger might not be as uncontrollable as Sheer's had been. The Countess of Aracourt was determined to win the tilt, though it took her five passes again before the neo-Goth was unseated.
He went down with a great crash, and she reined in Charger as quickly as before, dismounted smoothly, and was over him before he rose.
Because she was there so quickly, she drew out her mace, and paled him vigorously about the head and shoulders before he was able to gain a stable enough base to rise. She hoped, by the use of her spiked mace, to shatter the haft of his partizan before he could bring it into use, and thus force him to the sword, with which she was reasonably sure she could beat him.
Though not as large an opponent as Sheer, Otto was formidably strong, much stronger, certainly, than she was. But his armour was even heavier and thicker than hers - not unexpected considering his liking for the vicious pole-arm that he bore. Unlike the majority of knights, he was shieldless, for the partizan was wielded by both hands and a shield would have been an encumbering nuisance.
He raised it to protect himself from her macings, and she brought her spiked ball smashing down onto the middle of partizan, hoping to break it. To her horror her mace met a steel shaft with a clang and a juddering impact that ran up her arm to reach her right breast before the energy was absorbed. The force of her strike had knocked him backwards, though not down, and she was quick enough to draw her sword after transferring the mace to her left hand before he was ready to strike on his own account.
His first effort was clumsy, since the impact had partially numbed both his arms as well as almost breaking hers. She dodged it, but dared not get close enough to use her sword.
Noting her disappointment and impending difficulty, Count Otto smiled ferally inside his pig-faced bascinet and kicked her left knee, hoping to down her and drive his partizan into her body until she gave in. Sabaton struck poleyn but Leah did not fall, having moved her right wide to stand the impact. Though it was a clumsy effort with her having to wield her shield as well, she brought her mace round stiff-armed to his bascinet and clouted him on the ear.
Head ringing, he broke clear, staggering leftwards, and appalled by the woman's ability to improvise as well as plan. Nevertheless, he jabbed at her fauld with the spiked haft-end of his weapon, and knocked her off balance.
She spun away, using the impetus of his thrust to escape, and they stood glaring at each other through the eye-holes of their helmets. His pig-face, she thought, suited him, for she caught sight of his beady eyes through the metal. Then he charged her with a wild screech. If he had hoped to unnerve her, he signally failed to do so. The partizan head jabbed out for her helm, and she swayed and flexed her knees, allowing it to pass over her shoulder. Her sword drove for his pubes, but he took it on the cuisse, and their bodies clashed with metallic clunk as he came up to her. Shouldering him away, she stood clear, but he was not done yet, and swinging the partizan downwards, he struck with the haft-spike at the back of her thigh. To his surprise, the weapon skidded off the special rear plates that Ollie Heldt had purposely fitted to the Mark III suit to counteract such an attempt. Clearly, Otto had not noticed she had that extra protection, and he was left for a moment with nothing to do save withdraw. It was then that Leah brought up her right elbow, and though too close to use her sword, she crashed her couter under his chin and knocked the visor clean off the front of the bascinet.
He staggered away with a vile curse, and irritably slashed at her legs with the partizan. The woman was strong, and a lot braver in combat than he had expected. Also, with a hundred pounds of armour about her, she was heavy and her shouldering packed a heavy wallop.
Taking advantage of his unsettlement, she unsprung the shield clips from her arm and let it fall, using the mace as a second weapon. With the shield's encumbrance gone, the mace was more deadly, though since she wielded it left handed, not of first accuracy. It was accurate enough to worry a visorless knight though, and he brought up his weapon to parry the mace.
Its design betrayed him. In an attempt to get more puncturing spikes the side-fluke of the partizan had been lengthened, making it almost a narrow trident. The mace passed between the longer middle blade and a side set one and wedged there. Quickly, Leah slipped the securing strap over her wrist and stood free, her mace lodged immovably in the grip of the tridentine partizan. Not only did this prevent the head end from being used at all, it also unbalanced the weapon so seriously that Count Otto could hardly wield it.
As Leah stood back she picked up her Brindore Golden Dime shield, and reclipped to her left forearm. Otto blundered after her, trying, and failing, to shake her mace clear of his battle-tool. At length he gave up and began thrusting with the haft-spike, though clumsily. It was useless. One thrust slid across her ribs taking the blacking from her breast-plate, but not piercing it as he had intended, so he used it next to try to trip her, driving the haft down between her legs. Instead of backing up she stepped forward and Otto found his shaft driving against her vulval plate.
The result was to divert the blade downwards, driving the spike deep into the hard-packed earth. Upon which she stood on the shaft and her weight wrenched the thing from his hands. It was a brilliant move, disarming her foe in exchange for a bruised vulva, which though unpleasant, was bearable. In a flash her sword was up before his now unvisored eyes, and again, her opponent was forced to yield to her winning position.
She dropped her sword, and Count Otto de Terra Nova, defeated, bowed gracelessly and withdrew after they had extricated her mace from his partizan with some difficulty. The Countess of Aracourt was into the semi-final.
There she met the quick and supple nun, Baroness of the Gray Veil, unseated her first pass in the tilt, and suffered through a long and gruelling bout of sword action before the other woman was driven to her knees exhausted, with Leah's sword across her neck. Another victory, but hardly won, and the champion was wringing with sweat beneath the armour as the full heat of the day began to boil her inside her suit. The Gray Veil had taken some beating and a lot out of her, and she faced her fifth and hardest bout against the master of the Dragon Horde, the Grand Duke Harewood of Illorn, a real enemy and a man who would go to any lengths to beat her, tired and overheated.
She had a half-hour to wait before they met, and went to the rest pavilion to remove her armour and try to dry out a little before taking him on.
This time she felt that victory in the tilt was essential. Seven passes it took before Duke Illorn left the saddle on the end of her fifth lance, with each taking three full strikes in the chest before she triumphed. He took that better than she, for her breasts were bruised to the ribs for her pains, though the armour had held against the force of the Illorn aluminium.
Slipping from the saddle, she faced Illorn with her mace, noting that he drew his as she had expected, and seeing that he used a really vicious instrument. Lantern shaped, it was not a solid ball like her own, but made of eight stoutly forged flanges, all sharpened at the lantern projection, and having a spiked finial at its end that looked as deadly as an estoc. That sharpened projection, driven by the head's weight and Illorn's terrific strength could rip apart her $10,000 suit of armour like a tin- opener if she was not very careful, and she knew that this was not the sporting kind of battle she had had with Sir Dodinas, Sheer or the Gray Veil. It would be like that against Otto, rancorous and even more deadly. Illorn would stop at nothing to bring her to defeat, and she had to be ready for a long and painful struggle.
It proved all of that and more. The crash and bang of mace against mace, and mace against shield, went on for fifteen minutes of non-stop brutality, the flange-mace ruining her shield, and cutting through it twice. Every moment was a hell of jarring impacts and exhausting evasions as Leah strove to match the taller, heavier and stronger man. Illorn was not Dragon Master for nothing. He had earned his position hardly, though long before the younger Leah had joined the Horde.
Once or twice he got through to her head or body, and she had a blinding headache within ten minutes as even with the part-protection of the padded cap her brain was rolled around inside her skull. Yet, remarkably, she stood her ground, her female hips giving her a wide and solid stance, and the man was unable to smash her down. Her left arm was bruised to the bone, and every parry of his mace was sheer agony, but for twenty-five minutes he was unable to best her, and only then because an upthrust to her vulval plate lifted her clear off her feet and dropped her in a dusty heap to the earth.
Illorn was convinced that she would not have the strength to rise, and he was almost right. She felt like death, and only blind determination brought her back to her feet.
The macing began again, and Leah's left arm was failing to hold her shield up as high as it had at the start. Illorn sensed her weakening and pressed his attack harder. A second smash to the vulval plate almost crippled her as she dropped back moaning in hell, the labia smashed hard against the pubis even with the outer protection. Studiedly, she returned the blow to his cod-piece and was rewarded by a feral roar of agony that gave her new heart. Leah Raines, Countess of Aracourt, Brindore Golden Dime, had struck a blow for womankind.
Sickened by the agony in his pubes, he staggered at her in a wild rage, aiming to cripple her in the same way to the breasts. The eight flanges of metal set radially around the shaft of his weapon, each cut with three concave bites like the profile of a holly leaf, and sharpened at both points where concavities met, maced towards her chest.
Leah knew that the break-point of the fight was fast approaching - either he would agonize her out of the contest, or she would need to stand it and use his indiscretion to somehow beat him. How, she did not yet know, but she was mindful of the dreadful danger to her health and beauty posed by the vicious flanges, and dangerous spike. Ollie had protected her fairly well, but she was tired after a long day's combat, the weight of the armour was getting to her at last. She had seldom felt as exhausted as she did now, and Illorn was flailing at her with his dreadful mace with the intention of taking her out. The ruined shield went up to stave off his driving smashes, and she felt the pain running along her bruised arm with a keenness that bit through her exhaustion and forced her to react.
Damn the man! She had a mace as well, and she was not going to stand there and let him displace her organs within the armour as he liked. Taking him by surprise she parried the next smash, stopped falling back, straightened in annoyance, and with a cry of temper smashed at his gorget with all her strength.
Cursing, he slammed at her chest and Leah was conscious of a terrible searing agony from her right breast as one of the flanges deformed her armour and drove the metal into her flesh. Swallowing it down she paled him round the head again, and he staggered away half-dazed. Driven to reply through the pain that was still racking her bosom, she brought her sabaton up into his loins, and whaled his helmet a third time. He roared within the steel skull, brought his shield round into her side, and as her sabaton stamped again into his cod-piece, he tripped and fell.
His flanged mace, unsecured, was lost, and Leah bent swiftly to pick it up and drive it full into the front of his breastplate. The agony in her breast had hardly subsided before she had cut through his plate with his own flanges, and saw blood seeping from the rent. Twice more she slammed the mace at his head, appalled by its weight, and drew a frightening scream from his throat. She finished him with another drive of the thing, full into his cod, crushing his testicles against his pubic arch and leaving him a silent, motionless hulk on his own field.
It was likely that the Grand Duke Harewood of Illorn would never be the same again.
Having reduced him to an unconscious wreck, the Champion Domina sank to her knees, swaying and keening in her own pain until Leoni dashed in to lift her to her feet, and lead her, still pain-crazy, to the podium for the placing of the chaplet about her close helm.
Illorn was lifted, and carried away by four of his cronies, including the earlier defeated Count Otto de Terra Nova, who glanced towards the Victrix of the Field with ill-concealed awe.
Exhausted unconsciousness came to Leah as she stripped off the last of her armour and left Leoni to bathe and anoint her massive bruises. The young squire had much to do, for the smashing of Illorn's mace had totally blackened her lady's right breast. It was no wonder that the girl had gone berserk at the end of the contest and had left the Grandmaster of the Dragon Horde a broken wreck. Even Leoni, used to this sort of fierce combat, shuddered to think of the agony Leah had suffered at the end of the final encounter. That she had been able to endure that and act at the same time engendered in her the same awe that Otto had felt at her display. Leah had been driven beyond the limit of her control in this bout, and the squire feared for Illorn's recovery. Getting his own mace in the balls must have turned him greener than an unripe lemon, and she guessed that he would be walking bow-legged for a week or two. But her job was to tend the unconscious twice-champion, and that was what she did.
Later, Leah tossed in her unconsciousness, but it was not the battle with Illorn that was filling her mind - it was the encounter with Gray Veil.
That had been a difficult bout, long and elegant, courtly even. The lissom nun's dangerous dancing sword had been a challenge to the champion's skill. Most of the men concerned themselves with smash and dash - not Gray Veil. She had stalked, fought, matched, tried to outwit and down Leah. Woman fighting woman in the combat, was anathema to Illorn, but worrying to both contestants. Probably, Leah had been the most skilful. She had parried more effectively and thrust more dangerously than Gray Veil, but they had enjoyed a cat and mouse sword-duel that few had seen the like of in the Dragon Lists. Saved, again and over, by the finely crafted armour Aracourt wore and the crudely crafted suit of Gray Veil's, there had been a tight seeking for supremacy, the deft flick, the quick feint, that had not gone unnoticed by those like Sir Dodinas, who admired them both for their skill and applauded the fact that women had been able to acquire it. What had most impressed him was the length of their battle, forty minutes of constant concentration and swift movement - in a hundred pounds of armour not easy, nor comfortable. He had seen Gray Veil, less fit than his own vanquisher, slow, stumble, and finally fall exhausted before the finely crafted victrix. Leah Raines had won through, but the cost had been great in sweat, pain and energy.
That had shown in the final battle, when driven to desperation by the pain Illorn had caused her, she had reacted desperately, and downed him as he deserved. Sir Dodinas le Blakeley feared that he was beginning to fancy the tough, brave Countess of Aracourt more than somewhat. She possessed a wild and desirable beauty, though showed little interest in men - a female squire was unusual in itself. He sighed. Perhaps she was of the homosexual persuasion, but he took courage in the knowledge that she did not appear to have a `girlfriend'.
It was with some hope of making closer contact with her that he called at her pavilion shortly before the feast began to speak with her.
She received him kindly enough, though looking tired and battered. But that only encouraged him to sit and talk with her over a certain matter that had been gnawing at his mind since the last meeting of the Horde.
After the usual introductory pleasantries, Blakeley came straight out with it, surprising himself by his forwardness. "I am a member of an exclusive club," he offered. "We meet at a Pacific Island once a year for a female combat series. I always go, but have never been able to take a champion with me. Would you consider going with me for the next meeting?"
She laughed, and his heart sank. He felt that he shouldn't have mentioned it so boldly.
"It is very exclusive," he went on, hoping that the thought might lead her to reconsider her laughter.
"I know," she said shortly. "I'm a member too. If it's the IFF and Silver Island you speak of?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, covered with confusion, knowing that he must have sounded like a love-sick calf. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"Whyever not?" she asked. "Though I'm surprised that you haven't seen me there. I always go. But I've never thought of competing myself. It's usually fist fights, wrestling, catfights, and that sort of thing. I don't practise any of them."
"I...I thought...perhaps...that you and Gray Veil...."
"Both of us? Go there are fight again you mean?"
"Yes," he said lamely.
"What a superb idea!" she enthused. "Gray Veil is great at this game. She gave me quite my hardest fight today. I should love to take her. Will you ask her?"
He did, and she agreed.
As her choice of escort, the Countess of Aracourt, Brindore Golden Dime, twice champion of the Lists of the Dragon Horde, took the humble knight Sir Dodinas le Blakeley to the champion's table at the feast.
The Grandmaster, Grand Duke Harewood of Illorn, sent his apologies, and spent the evening at his ranch resting his swollen balls. Count Otto and the Viscount Sheer, however, took their appointed places below Gray Veil and appeared to bury their differences with the twice champion, at least for the time being. But, they thought, if the vicious and powerful Illorn could not beat this stately girl, who on earth might? That they both had the same idea, the other woman, the Baroness of the Gray Veil, gave neither any comfort at all!
© Ajax 12/1987
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Just read the Japanese girls v the Danish girls. Wonderful. My favourite so far! Brutal and sexy as hell. Thank you for sharing.
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 15
THE HONG KONG DRAGON LADY
by Raf
The powerful beat of two enormous drums and a shrill, noisy sound, in a strange harmony that was far from corresponding western idea of harmony, produced by dozens of different metallic instruments, put to silence all the talk among the respectable gentlemen in the club. The lights on the bar and restaurant zones of the club, constructed around a large dancing space, rectangular in shape and built in four flours so as to give the most open view to all customers over the arena - were dimmed; two red lights and two yellow beamed from powerful projectors, placed one in each corner of the arena at the height of the second floor - following the electronic commands - searched madly around the piste and up the sound and bullet proof glass windows.
From a hole at the ground level the terrifying saurian appeared, the four legs opened almost at right angles with the body, pulling him from the deep pools, streams or caverns which only he could hunt; the cost of such a specimen should have been high, but money was produced by each one of the patrons of that exclusive club and they were paying heavenly for tonight's' treat.
It was a perfect dragon, lacking only the wings, but even that was proper, considering that he belonged to the Chinese tradition, as opposed to the West Asian and Indian custom. The `Di Long' (Earth Dragon) has a head like a camel's, horns like a snake's, scales like a carp's, the eyes of a hare, belly of a frog, feet like a tiger's, and - as he came up now on his hind legs, all could see - eagle-like claws.
He started moving his head slowly from one side to the other, while four projectors flooded him in orange light; he started moving awkwardly on his feet, then faster and faster, until he started to jump, his front legs weaving large circles or cutting and thrusting, or grabbing and gripping gestures; green, blue and violet lamp projectors joined the first group, and the music was now at a brain-smashing high. No one, inside the private cabinets of the top two flours or the common restaurant and bars on the lower flours, did anything to turn down the sound, carried to them over a digital hi-fi stereo system. Their eyes were glued to the female figure so well disguised down there, dancing a man's dance. It was a sacrilege to let a woman play the part of a dragon - or at least it had been hundreds of years ago or was it earlier this century?
Richard Li, 58, was a man to brake rules - but also to have the inauguration of this year of the dragon starting with a traditional (well, almost...) dance of the dragon. Instead of a 40 or 50 meter long dragon, this 2 meter one was enough; the replacing of the dozens of men needed to make the long `long' walk and dance for this tall and powerful woman, herself a dragon, both for having been born in 1964 (a year of the dragon) and because she had graduated by her own driving power from starvation to queen of the underworld kick-fighters.
In the Club Volvo, currently listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange - of which he was also the chairman - he had started something big, perhaps too big for a single man, though enormously rich and powerful. He put in his side both Wu Xiatun, representative of the Bank of China's interests in the colony, but also several British officials, either from the homo or the heterosexual groups, thus preventing attacks on his activities from any of the three authorities' groups. With the underworld, the traditional triads and the many criminal gangs, he had nothing to fear, for he knew almost all the `heads' and offered them V.I.P. cards to the club, and employed people from them as a front to their real income sources. He was as used to buying protection as any other commodity and he could pay for it, since everything came cheap to him. He didn't have to work or sweat for it.
Teresa Mui, gyrating endlessly alone on the piste, following or leading the electronic music, on the contrary, had had to sweat for it all her life and - after this important man had taken her out of jail and given her shelter and good food and a superb villa in the New Territories - she had to sweat everyday of her life.
Born of an exceptionally tall and beautiful mother, whose free spirit didn't go along with the repressive ideological campaigns in the Shanghainese Opera, where she was a dancer and from a middle-cadre who fell in the Party's consideration after his liaison with the non-Maoist dancer, she was carried by them on foot from her home town to the South, in the hope of crossing the border to Macao or Hong Kong. But it was a difficult task, for they had to stop mid-way, and work in the field for several years. She was eight when her father thought it was possible to pay a merchant boat to Hong Kong, in the ancient traffic of people as forbidden as that of guns and opium or modern drugs.
The junk came for them on a winter night, they boarded it with all their money ensconced in her mother's heavy clothes, except for the agreed payment which her father handed to the captain. They were sent down and covered with rags. After an hour the sailors came for them and said that they had arrived; she saw a surprised look in her mother's eyes, and something she would know later was anguish in her father's. They went upon deck and it was obvious that they were too far from the coast, a dim light barely shining in a dark line, marking the coast of the Starling Inlet or maybe the coast of Crooked Island, too far from her destination, and too far from the crowds in which they should get help from and dissolving.
Her father started arguing, two sailors walking slowly behind him, while her mother grabbed her against her trembling body. Then her father pleaded, tears in his eyes, something she had never seen. She heard the captain order him to jump overboard, the father's angry voice, then her father jumping and grabbing the captain's throat in his now callused hands. Her mother cried, the sailors grabbed him from behind, one getting hold of his right arm, the other struggling him with his arm passed in front of his throat, pulling him forcibly back. The captain, as soon as he regained his breath, had a short knife in his hand and ripped her father's belly with it, from side to side. She heard him gurgling, trying to fight with his left hand against the second blow of the knife which took him in the upper chest.
Her mother jumped at the fighting men and bit the captain's naked arm, then she fell under his powerful left handed uppercut to her face. She crawled to him, while her husband was thrown overboard. He let her get up, only to grab her and rip her clothes apart, searching for her few possessions. Teresa was amazed how those clothes that were the very best she had ever seen could be ripped in such a short time, without anyone seeming to bother about such a loss. Her mother's only intent was to flee to the side of the boat where the girl was. One sailor was divesting himself of his trousers, which looked most inadequate under the circumstances as Teresa saw it, while the captain pinned her mother on the deck. Her mother shouted at her to swim ashore, her voice strangled with tears. The man found the money and the two gold rings in her mother's underclothes, made some comment about her light, soft skin, then the captain lowered himself upon her struggling form. Teresa tried to come forward, but she was grabbed by one arm by the half-naked sailor and was sent flying overboard.
She was a good girl. It was awfully cold in the water that winter night - about 2 degrees C. But her mother had ordered her to swim ashore and possibly her father was already heading that way too. She was to join him, so she made the swimming gestures she had learned since she was four years old in the river by the communal village she called home.
She was not strong enough to swim ashore, but the waves brought her to land, though she was senseless when her body was left on the Yung Shue Au coast. When she woke up, she looked for her mother and father, found neither and cried until exhaustion claimed her again. When the sun came up she started looking for them once more. She was dazed and had destroyed her poor sandals on the rocky ground of the eastern coast of the colony when some fishermen saw her. They called her and tried to approach her but she ran away, for they were two alike the others she had known and who had separated her - for ever - from her parents. But eventually they caught her.
They took care of her, made her learn more about cooking fish and meat - rice she knew as well as vegetables, chicken and pork - and she paid for her shelter that way while her body developed and her mind too, hearing the tales of the bad people who put Chinese refugees in prison and of other bad guys that - in spite of being Chinese themselves - wronged those same countrymen, robbing and killing them and raping the women. What this was, she didn't know, nor dared to ask, never asking anything from anybody, just grabbing everything she heard said around her.
Her body was so tall and well developed despite or perhaps because of her frugal meals and hard work, that she looked much older than she was when she was left alone in the fishermen's village one night. It was a special night, the year of the dragon, the day corresponding to the one she had been born, twelve long years ago and so far away. The first to return to the village were three teenage boys, heavily drunk from rice wine. They saw her alone in the house and forced the door open. They grabbed her but she fought back, because they were not being gentle and because of the bed smell from their mouths and bodies.
She had seen how the boys fought among themselves, and her body was lean and hard; she was the same height as one of the sixteen-year-old boys, but the others were taller; they fumbled with her clothes and exposed her breasts; she remembered the resistance of her mother and tried the same futile movements to repel them.
They already had her on her back and ripped her cotton skirt. That was bad, because it was her only one. She was able to place a kick with the heel of her right foot in the belly of the boy kneeling in front of her thighs; she saw a jet of vomit coming from his lips, while he tumbled apart, but then she was severely slapped by one of the bigger boys; tears came to her eyes, and her tongue felt the salty taste of blood in her mouth. She fought like mad, but the shorter boy held her arms while the other exposed himself and mounted her. He was so excited that he came over her belly, before he had penetrated her. She had the short boy giggling, the other one cursing, while the first she had hit moaned. Feeling her arms free, she pulled them forward and went with her nails to the boy's eyes as the right hand grabbed his testicles.
She knew the boys were very proud of the part of their bodies which distinguished them from girls, and thought it would be good pay for her skirt if she wrenched that from him. She didn't achieve her purpose, but on her trying the young man shouted as loud as she had never heard anyone shout before except her mother on the ship that night. He tried to free himself from her, but it was she who persecuted him while the other boy beat and punched her from behind.
She turned on the last one like a lioness while the taller one fell on his knees shouting for help. The first who had been floored by her, came with a menacing look on his face and a jack-knife in his right hand. The girl looked from the shorty to this one, heard the click and saw the blade jumping forwards and the memory of her father came to her. Perhaps this was the moment that she would see him again in heaven. Fearlessly, she shouted and closed in on the knife-wielding boy. He was astonished by her move and before he circled the hand to split her bowels, she had butted him on the jaw, her hand grabbing his wrist and pulling it away from their bodies, then - as he stumbled back - twisting his arm and turning the glittering point towards his ribs. She fell on him, his back impaled by his own blade and she was pummeling his face and body unaware that his convulsive twists had finished. It was all very quick, her fight and her defeat, as the short boy had come from behind once more and crashed a large pot on the girl's head, breaking her skull.
She was found much later, alone with the boy who had bled to death, herself bloodied in the head, the mouth, and, of course, the thighs - as the short boy had finally proved his `superiority' by raping her. The fishermen made the body disappear and saw to her, but in the morning she was expelled from `home'.
Barefoot and clothed in rags, she wandered up the valley and in the direction of the main road that led to Pat Sin Range. She knew that that way was the way to Hong Kong Island, as yet very far away, but she was young and she could walk.
Her mother and father had not found her, but she would search for them there, in the big village where people got rich. First she heard the dogs, and in a second they were after her. She ran at their speed for some time, hearing shouts and whistles behind her. Suddenly, two uniformed people jumped into the road blocking her escape; they were another team of policemen hunting for refugees, the boat people of which she would forever be a part in the colony.
She swiveled round so fast that she fell and rolled in their direction in her first impetus. The dogs were on her, ferocious and bigger than her, or so they seemed, as they eyed her so closely, their fangs dripping saliva.
She stood up and tried to run away between the policemen, elbowing one in the stomach. She wrestled with the other one, who grabbed her and she fell on the ground with him - no, it was a woman, a policewoman! She was so surprised that she stopped struggling and took a powerful punch in her face, splitting her upper lip again. That woman had more power than the boys who had attacked her.
She was caught. In the Juvenile Educational Centre, where she was taken for a few hours, she was given clothes and shoes. Summarily heard in a court and then being locked up in Tai Lam Centre, she was happy to see such a large world going by the window of the detention car which made her cross so many miles in such a short time. She grew up and learned a lot; friendship, love among women, gymnastics, self-defence (the warden gave her a special permit, after she had told her sorry tale to the institution's woman doctor), English language (definitely easier than Chinese, but not so beautiful, she thought), and housework (which she found most boring, although she was considered a good cook).
She worked harder than most of the women in the kitchen, she got in trouble twice and had fights against other women, all grown-ups, for she could not stand to see a gang beating the hell out of another inmate - even when she had done some mischievous deed. But the trouble never came from the hands of other women, as they all recognized her fighting superiority, though she was only 16, but from the punishment - afterwards.
Her complete record - and photo - went to the right hands. A triad boss rescued her and contracted her as a dancer in one of his topless bars. She was given an ID card with her true name but with the other facts duly forged so as to make her `citizen of Hong Kong". She paid her benefactor that same night by allowing him to have her body and doing a sex-show for him with another young woman who was there to encourage and initiate her into the sophistication of HK.
She had heard and learned a lot in Tai Lam. Her body meant nothing to her except that she tended to feel bad after several hours without food or drink. She knew that to have them everyone had to perform their duties properly.
Her skills as a fighter were discovered during a gang fight in the bar, when it was attacked by a commando group from another gang. She was the only dancer who helped the triad members fight off the stick and knife- wielding attackers. She downed two men on her own, and helped several other fighters to defeat their adversaries. Her name came up so many times when the triad members were later recounting their own fights that the leader of the security team understood she had gone from one pair of fighting men to another grabbing or otherwise unsettling the attackers so that the defendants were able to beat them. Also, it was noticeable that she was now a hefty woman.
He was very pleased with that and mentioned the fact to his boss. As a result, she was promoted to law enforcer of the triad. But she used her charms - long hair, long and shapely thighs, ivory skin, large mouth, sweet and sensual eyes - to get out of the job, as she didn't like to beat hell out of lazy working girls.
For that, she had to accept doing what she had learned quite well - fighting as a professional, against other top girls from Japan, Korea, Thailand, and a few from far away countries quite different from the women she knew, either by colour of skin, size or dress - Lebanon, India, America.
Her first fight night was tremendous. She had been shown videos of other female fights, and trained hard, even against men. But when the Thai girl came for her doing her slow-motion movements of the Muay Thai, she got herself trapped and slowed herself. She took an elbow to the jaw and stood transfixed while the Thai girl used her right knee as a piston, delivering some ten blows to her fallen body - thigh, groin, guts, solar plexus and breasts - as she was going down slowly, rubbing herself against her opponent's hot body.
The Chinese who had bets on her were so damned annoyed that she was not helped to her corner, and knelt there in the ring twisting and moaning in agony, while the Thai went to her corner and got her victory hugs and kisses. The referee looked at Teresa and didn't bother to count the two minutes agreed upon for a girl to recover after a fall; he turned his back and went to congratulate the Thai champion himself.
Suddenly, there was a roar from the audience - 1 minute and 45 seconds from her fall Teresa was crawling up to her opponent's corner, passing between the men's legs! When she came to the small bench where the darker skinned girl stood she pulled herself up and groaned in Chinese, "Come, come and finish me properly!"
The men stood back, surprised. The Thai girl seemed incredulous and was failing to understand what the battered girl had said. Some tried to prevent them fighting on, the Thai men saying that the time was up, but all those in the audience who had good watches and wanted to see some more action (the fight was to be to a 2 minute K.O.. or surrender only) vociferated their opinion in no equivocal terms. Off their own turf, the Thais agreed, but from the gestures accompanying their advice to their fighter they were certainly wanting it to be a quick and demolishing defeat.
Teresa was punished again but all the punches and kicks she received were taken well on her arms, legs and ribs and delivered from a distance for she was constantly back-pedaling and evading the attacks of her opponent. But the Thai girl was almost as tall as she was, though lighter, and she had the stamina to endure a cat and mouse game for hours. Finally, Teresa got trapped in a corner and though fighting back, and placing some good uppercuts to the Thai's small breasts, she took a good thrashing and stood dangling between the second and third ropes. The Thai stepped back, swiveled round and kicked backwards. Teresa took the heel full in the pit of the stomach and her rump went through the ropes so that she fell 4 feet (1.5 m) down into the laps of the first row of spectators.
A young man fell with her on top of him and while he helped her up he breathed in her ear, "Go and get her! I love you and I've put all my money on you!"
She felt his hand under the hem of her T-shirt, but he was considerate and was pressing and rubbing some sensitive points to ease her pain, not exactly what others had tried when they were so close to her body. When she could focus her eyes again she looked up. The Thai was teasing the audience, pouting her lips in a kiss and jutting her small tits forward.
When Teresa got back into the ring she received her first good round of applause. She walked on wobbly legs towards her adversary who eyed her with annoyance and charged with full force. The Chinese waited, bracing herself, and took a heavy blow to her mid-section, answering it with a vicious punch of her own to the guts. They stood toe to toe for a moment trading blows until Teresa caught one on her right arm and made her own pass between the Thai's guard and smash into her softened left tit again, just near the heart.
For the first time in the fight the weight and endurance of the Chinese girl paid off as the thinner Thai stumbled back. The Chinese high-kicked at close range, the Thai girl lifted her leg to protect the groin but Teresa's leg went up and up to a surprised roar from the audience and the foot took the Thai in the throat. She was falling, arms waving about, when the big girl stepped forward and kicked again, this time crashing her heel into the dark girl's nose.
The Thai was tended quickly but she was in a terrible condition, with her nose bleeding a lot - her people were unable to stop within the two minute time limit - and it was apparently broken. Her mouth gaping for air, she got up, blood streaming down both cheeks, her yellow shirt now patterned in red. Teresa eyed her with fear and respect. In that state, would the girl be capable of fighting back or even of defending herself?
Doubting it, she advanced and shot her arm forward, slamming her a hard punch below the waist line and took a blow to her left eye that almost closed it there and then. With that short exchange she learned more than she had in several months training. She stood back but the Thai went running to her left while she was unable to see properly and shot punches at the big Chinese with both fists to the kidney. Teresa was turning on her heels trying to face her adversary but she was circling her all the time.
Teresa shot her elbows back and made enough time to face the Thai. The darker skinned girl was gulping for air, her face a mask of red anguish and hellish suffering. Without giving Teresa any respite her leg went up and the Chinese girl's groin suffered for it. The two women clinched, but Teresa's thigh was not prepared to take the knee-cap of her adversary on her mound again and didn't defend it well.
The Thai stood back throwing another punch to the puffing left eye and Teresa went down, massaging her vulva for about a minute. When she came to all fours, her adversary was close to her left side and she was kicked in her breasts twice before being hurled sidewise out of the ring.
The battle see-sawed for more than an hour. Both women were so battered that they were no longer able to damage each other much. Yet, Teresa's left arm had been broken by a tremendous kick in the thirty-seventh minute of the fight and she was now equally bloodied in her nose and mouth. Both girl's thighs had been so battered that they were both limping instead of walking, and neither was able to run or dodge any more. The battle of attrition ended when Teresa, moved more by instinct than skill, pressed the Thai into a neutral corner, and there, as the thinner girl used her legs on the lower body of the wretched Chinese, Teresa smacked an uppercut to the jaw.
The Thai's mouth was shut forcibly and the blood returned to her broken nose making her choke in her own blood. The legs stopped moving. Teresa made a desperate effort to move her own right knee between the open thighs of her foe and though it seemed like lead to her it had a similar effect to a lead piston on the girl's pubic bone. The Thai's mouth opened to shout her distress or surrender but it was forcibly closed again by another right punch before she could do so.
Her eyes closed, and the Thai girl had passed into blissful oblivion. She fell slowly to the ring apron, sliding between the ring post and her unmoving rival. Teresa tried to step back, her left leg failed her and she tried to move her broken arm and cried a she fell against the ropes, where she stood dangling, her body arched, and crumpling. The referee was upon them, inspecting the dark girl first, who was knocked out, and then Teresa, whose eyes were open though she was unable to move by herself.
The young man knocked over two security men and was immediately up in the ring at the same time as Teresa's cornerman was. Both men helped her up between them, holding her under the armpits, and by the waist, while the referee read the letter of recognition of the new regional kick-fighting champion, and then lifted up her arm. The Chinese crowd was roaring and applauding loudly, which was something to remember in an eastern crowd. The team of the Thai's came to pay their respects to the Chinese girl.
* * * * * * * * *
It had been four years ago - ages, as in between she had fought about a hundred bouts, many of them ending in utter humiliation of an adversary fleeing from the ring or sobbing her defeat after receiving the initial blows from the Queen of the Ring, now with 78 victories, 16 draws and 5 defeats (one against a Korean heavyweight and four against Japanese, all lighter women but used to a fierceness that even the Thais lacked), although none of these had been championship fights.
The ringside seats had been paid for with gold when she faced, for the second time, one of the Japanese women who had downed her after twelve minutes. This woman had put Teresa out for two and a half minutes with a kick to the heart. She had gone to Japan and defeated all of her opponents in a row, gained the national championship and they had faced again. In the first minute, the Jap dug her fist wrist-deep into Teresa's guts, and she was writhing in the arena for almost the full count. The large audience, half of it Japanese tourists, went to fever pitch. The Chinese woman came to her knees and the Jap was upon her with a devastating punch to the head, repaid by an uppercut between the legs that wrecked the young woman. Fighting without any protection, as opposed to male kick-boxers, the Japanese went down and both girls knelt side by side, moaning their pain, while the referee wanted to decide that it was a draw, as neither one was able to stand up and fight.
Then, the Jap was on her knees and crawling towards Teresa, who was also on all fours, waiting, her left hand holding her lower guts. When the Jap threw a right punch to the head she was surprised to see the left hand spring to life curled in a fist and pass between her arms to crash from close quarters into her own right temple. The Jap was dazed and transfixed for a moment, long enough for Teresa to smash a right punch into her adversary's feminine triangle again. She pitched forward, sobbing against Teresa's breasts, and only she could have heard her plea to finish her off quickly. Which Teresa did, with an uppercut to the jaw that sent the other rolling and knocked-out. Only then did the champion gain her feet, and receive another ovation.
She had learned from experience and from all available masters. She had gained weight, now 165 lbs. (75 kg), to her 5'10" (1.78 m) - which was very tall for a Chinese person - and all of that was muscle, which she had developed and turned to a beautiful shape by doing aerobics and body-building. Her admirer from her first fight night had become her lover and trainer, accepted for the job by the powerful Richard Li, both for his dedication and qualifications. Yet she was incapable of any sweet feelings towards him, as all men were the same to her, all like the one who had knifed her father to death and raped and certainly killed her mother - as she now knew what her childhood memories meant in the jungle of the frontier life.
Several weeks had passed without bouts, for no woman dared to have another go at her title, fearing her power and savagery. For the first time in the history of kick-fighting Richard Li had imagined something to reactivate his champ. She would be confronted with one of the best Muay Thai male fighters, the current contender to his national male championship. But the man had made public that he could not accept the challenge from the Chinese team, as he always fought topless and his adversaries too. The rich Chinese had to chew this for weeks as he had never considered the idea of showing girl fighters topless, but since it would be the only way to put the Thai guy against the wall, he convinced Teresa to strip and start intensive training with her breasts exposed before his entire stable of male kick-boxers.
Heung Chin Sing, the `Dragon-Head' (boss) of the triad was there in person to check the training, led by a very nervous and irritable Peter Wah - Teresa's lover - while the men were battered in succession, unable to concentrate on defense, eyeing her generous breasts bouncing from side to side, as if they had never seen a naked female - which in this sort of action they hadn't.
Her top assets were more generous than was normal with Chinese women, round and firm, with small hard nipples, very dark and always erect from the start of her fights. Yet they were marred by bruises and grazes received during the fights, produced by some of the worst scorching blows, and even by fingernails that had not properly cut before the bouts in her bare-knuckle fights. Her body was also a study in scars, some of them from opponents, and some from doctors who had had to operate to fix two ribs and her left arm. She wore her hair very long, so it fell over her face and covered her once beautiful features, for her ivory skin was now marked by small but visible cicatrices, under the eyes, on her upper lip, and near the right ear.
* * * * * * * * *
Her dragon dance ended, intended by her as a propitiatory ceremony, but imagined by the heartless Li as a good-bye, since he had visited the male fighter's gym and seen how powerful and well trained he was. Li was sure his girl would lose in the end, and she would have to be discarded. He was already negotiating to take the Thai champion to the USA with a lot of his own men. It would be so easy to get rid of the girl, merely requiring to erase a file as a citizen of HK since it was a false one.
Two bikini clad girls entered the arena and helped Teresa Mui out of her dragon costume. She was left with her high cut red briefs that were shorter than her usual boxing shorts. Since this was to be a battle of the sexes Li wanted it to be a confrontation between male and female anatomy all the way. As he had contrived, after her long dance she was sweating profusely and the silk was wet and sticking to her body, moulding every curve of her pubis and stuck high between her buttocks. Li reviewed the audience. All the men, and even the females present, were already concentrating their binoculars on the legendary champion to view the details they had been missing the previous years.
Accompanied with the traditional ritual music of Muay Thai the male heavyweight appeared, dancing in the acrobatic, but artistic and poised movements. Li had played a last card, imposing a change of the Thai shorts by invoking a problem of colour. Since the visiting team had brought only a blue one he opposed, arguing that it was the wrong shade of blue - the Chinese being quite mad about the meaning of colours, and one of the blues meaning death. The Thai team accepted this false reason - and he had it changed for a smaller sized light brown silk pair with almost no legs. When the Thais argued that it was so tight that it was impossible to dress in it wearing the crotch protector Li sent word to them that he had never understood that there would be any protector as girls always fought without one, and it was the Thai that had imposed a written clause that "both fighters are to appear dressed and equipped as is usual, that is, both with their feet and torsos naked, and a headband and a pair of shorts."
A battle of lawyers and translators on the interpretation of the words "as is usual" went on for thirty minutes, and the Thais agreed to Li's terms, under the convincing argument of a concentration of triad members around their room doors, with menacing looks.
The male fighter was most distressed by this, as he now had to fight without protection for his nuts, but otherwise he was confident. Besides, he would smash her tits first. He was slightly shorter than the woman at 5'9" (1.76 m), but slightly heavier, beating the scales at 172 lbs. (78 kg), all of it hard, bulging muscle.
Although he had trained three weeks against Thai girls, equally topless, in his stable, the size and firmness of Teresa's breasts, and her light skin, and the exquisite beauty of her face got him, and while he prepared his muscles making each of them bulge in turn, arms, legs, shoulders, back and belly, he sensed that he was getting a hard on just looking at his adversary, and it would be quite visible through the silk shorts, almost the same colour as his dark skin.
When the gong sounded to announce the start of the fight they approached each other warily, jumping from one foot to the other, balancing their bodies and barely touching the ring apron with the balls of their feet. When they were two metres apart their arms guarded their heads the more closely, but the male contender, Khaosai, was almost crouching to protect his sex lest there be a low kick aimed in that direction early in the bout. There was. He immediately raised his body, his left thigh aiming at the kick that didn't arrive, as Teresa's left fist penetrated his guard and grazed his right ear. He shot a punch to the girl's guts which she took with a groan but repaid at close quarters with a right to his mid-section. They boxed toe to toe, taking each other's measure in the power of their arms, and then both fell back, eyeing each other. His right ear had been scratched and both torsos were reddened by the heavy blows that had landed both sides of the imaginary line separating them. Those who could see the girl's front saw that both her breasts had suffered in this encounter. But for her, this was just the same as ever except that only in her dozens of previous encounters the suffering in her breasts was not so openly visible to the public's eye.
In the third minute of the fight Khaosai high-kicked at Teresa's head, which dazed her. She was reeling on her feet as he approached her and pistoned his right fist into the left breast. She gasped with the shock but the crisp pain revived her and as he pulled back his arm to deliver a second blow the girl lifted her knee and jammed it against his inner thigh. People thought that he had taken it in his crotch, as he cried out in despair, and aimed a rain of blows to the woman's face and lower belly while she was reeling back without falling but also unable to protect herself. Caught against the ropes, she was taking a tremendous thrashing, and he finished her with a low punch to her vulva which doubled her over and made her fall against his shoulder. He went into a clinch, forbidding her an escape or a fall to the ground which would have stopped the slaughter. He put punch after punch into her kidneys until he was tired and pushed the woman away from him. He saw her eyes closed and her distorted face and was at first happy that he had finished her without his genitals being touched - that would have embarrassed him as well as almost certainly finishing him - and, yes, sad, for he had felt the tremendous courage of the girl in the short-lived but hectic fight.
He went to his corner and demanded water. He knew he couldn't hear the cheers of the crowd because they were insulated by the security glass walls but he was eyeing his manager and second while he was being toweled. He asked his opinion but he was slow in giving it. "Well, how was it? It was less than five minutes, wasn't it? I was great!"
"Yeah, sure. You can go and finish her. She is very battered, and if you protect yourself like you did in your first round you'll have her. Use your full power this time. Hit her full force. She's shaken, but stubborn. You can take her like those Japs did."
"What's this mumbo jumbo about? She's not..."
"She's moving, Khaosai, she's being revived by her trainer and it looks as though she might beat the two minutes. But don't worry, she's panting hard already. You've got more muscle and more staying power!"
The male boxer turned round. The red marks were turning to blue on her breasts and ribcage, her hair was in slight disarray, but she was coming out of her corner after the gong for the two minutes rest. He was appalled. She was waving her arms, fists closed in front of her face like a male boxer at the beginning of a fight. She didn't show how shaken she was. He had to kick her senseless.
He approached, guarding himself carefully, and shot his arms forward preventing her from starting an attack. Then, he turned his back on her and sensed her coming at him. Her trainer cried out as he anticipated the low reverse kick to the groin that the male fighter was about to - and did - shoot at her approaching figure. He had perfected it over the years but the girl was quick enough to deflect it with her right thigh. But he was so powerful that she went down unable to move her leg while he turned quickly and hammered a fist towards the top of her head. She was on her left knee, waved her head aside and took the heavy blow on her upper breast. Crying in pain she shot her right fist between the male's legs. He groaned hoarsely and stood transfixed and paralyzed; the soft cushion of his testicles and his turgid member felt like heaven to the girl's knuckles. He was rocking on wobbly legs, precisely as she had been a few minutes earlier, but she was unable to get near to him as she fell on her still paralyzed right leg.
To the awe of every spectator, she immediately dropped on her back shooting her long left dancer's leg into the rocking man's groin. He groaned again and this time stumbled back, twitching spasmodically, with both his balls and his male pride smashed in.
His trainer helped the referee take the man to his corner, to revive him with salts and water while the Chinese champion crawled to her own corner to have her leg massaged. Li was already receiving table phone calls from several patron's of the Club Volvo to buy her, either to perform privately for them or to be their bodyguard or to be their second or third wife.
Li was amazed at the capacity of the girl for taking punishment after the treatment she had received in the first round of the match.
When she was ready, well before one minute had passed, she went to the ring center and waited, exercising her footwork diligently and stubbornly. At the gong signaling for them to fight again the man approached slowly, limping, each step a tremendous effort. With his legs apart - for he still felt the continuous and sharp pain coming from his genitals - he edged across the ring. His guard was down, real down now, completely upsetting his usual boxer's pose. The girl let him come on, faked a punch to the head, intending to renew her attack to his guts, but he went closer in and punched her right on the belly button, causing her to expel a rush of air from her lungs.
He heard it and gained some confidence as he saw her going down and prepared to demolish her with another punch to the side of the head. Before he understood what she was doing, though, she shot her left leg between his legs again and destabilized him. He winced in pain as he backpedaled quickly to prevent himself falling, but she was limping on her right leg and shooting her left kick to his solar plexus that he was no longer prepared to stop. He gasped and fell on his rump, rolled over and stood up but she was pirouetting behind him and shooting a kick like his preferred one, but this time so high that she took him to the nape of the neck.
After 2 minutes 10 seconds the referee called for the doctors, who had to work hard to revive him, as he ended up with a severe concussion.
Li himself came to congratulate the girl, though awfully sorry for having lost almost a million HK dollars in bets on the male fighter.
"Good girl, Teresa! I always knew that you would win. Didn't I say that to you?" He paused, and smiled down at her. "Now, my girl! It's time that the two of us took a holiday together. It's the best time to go to one of those Pacific islands..."
"Thank you, sir, for being so considerate with your humble servant. I think I need a rest."
"Oh, don't you worry. Besides, you'll at least have one fight there, so as not to lose your fitness. But, Teresa, you're going with me by yourself during these weeks! Peter is staying..."
She looked at him suspiciously. She knew that he was not a good man - at least not so good as Peter Wah. But she was condemned to be his possession and he treated her fairly - though extracting from her a high price for his protection.
She had started this year of the dragon very well but she was getting old through her twenty four years of endless fighting for survival.
(C) Raf 3/1988
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Silver Island Resort – Chapter 16
THE MANCUNIAN PRIZEFIGHTER
by Ajax
Iren Barrett's eyes flashed sparks at Dave Chance as he drove another bag-glove blow at her stomach, and felt it bounce off beautifully. She stood with her body exposed to his strike, leaning on the steel bar that ran between the beam guides in the gym at Gorton. The whole of her abdominal region was coming under his attack, for she was under training for a fight the like of which had not been seen in Manchester for four years, when a tinker group had been reported for using under-age girls, and rounded up by the police. It had been an unpleasant and tasteless episode which had but the serious girls like Iren in jeopardy, for in Britain, prizefighting was still illegal.
"No," he said irritably, "I'm not coming round tonight. It's not sex you need. It's rest. You've got to be at top strength on Friday. Those people won't stand for a woolly performance, even in York Rules." He punctuated his remarks with another probing thrust into her navel. She held it.
"Christ, Dave. It's been ages! Training ends today. Let's have a ball - just for tonight?"
"No!" he said again, very firmly. "You fight better strung up. After now.... that's different!"
"Damn you!" she expostulated. She knew how Dave liked to devour her at any time, and it was very hard for him to leave her alone when she invited, but his job was to train her to perfect fitness to face one of the hardest exertions a woman could ever go through. Even childbirth was mild compared with York Rules. Those who had experienced both, constantly declared it to be so, and Iren was to face the gypsy girl Tani Thacker at the picket on Friday. It was now Tuesday, her last training day before the battle.
Dave had brought her steadily to her peak since the time she had last fought, three months before. Friday's battle was likely to be one of her toughest for some time. Thacker was a real tough woman, and amongst the strongest females around. To see her hauling scrap was to realize that there was little soft and feminine about Tani Thacker. At twenty-two Iren was in her prime as a battler. Tani was three years older, and as Dave like to put it, about ten years tougher. Zal Thacker, her father, had brought her up to be as tough as teak and as hard as nails, and she was. Dave had seen that dark-skinned body with its sun-tanned and weather-beaten limbs suffer agonies so crushing that none would have thought a woman capable of enduring it. She trained on fell-running carrying a sixty-pound load. It put steel in her legs and leather in her lungs. To acclimatize her to the rigours of the picket, Zal Thacker breast-punched her constantly. She wore, summer and winter, nothing more the a thin vest over her torso, and running shorts on her lower half. Her musculature was developed by scrap metal hauling from dawn till dusk, and post sinking with a pair of twenty pound sledge-hammers, one in each hand. Tani was known to have fought five Yorks in two years with five straight victories to her credit. In spite of this, she was a woman of great beauty, tall, imperious-looking, proud-standing and full figured, her breasts thrusting high and proud though they had never known a wisp of support and frequently ached from Zal's hammerings. Her hair, sumptuously long and almost black, fell below her shoulder blades, and was always worn loose in her fights, being secured back from her face by a plaited ribbon that lay across the nape of her neck. Physically, she was perfect for prizefighting, and frequently took challenges from other gypsy girls hoping to improve their status within the group. Few men could match her for strength, and her muscular shoulders and strong forearms bespoke it plainly. Not many of the girls lasted against her long, though two or three were striving to approach her standard. It was a moot question whether they would make it.
Training Iren to meet this paragon had been a nightmare for them both, Iren because she had had to suffer more in the last three months than she had ever borne, and Dave because he had had to watch his well-loved girlfriend reduced to such exhaustion at the day's end that she had cried for the pain she was going through.
Born and bred in the great city of Manchester, a Mancunian, Iren had had ambitions to be a fighter since she had been a small girl. Off a background of mill and factory, she had battled her way through school, and had suffered three expulsions and innumerable punishments for her waywardness. Even now, at twenty-two, she was difficult and coltish. Like Tani, she was naturally hard, had been made so by her lifestyle in the first place, and had been developed more into that way by her long time mentor and lover, Dave Chance. Eight years they had been together, since Iren had been thrown out of the house by her mother, who could no longer cope with the fourteen-year-old's `crazy' ideas. She had found her way to the Gorton gym, looking for an outlet for her physicality, and Dave had first seen her playing with a medicine ball, tossing it up against a wall and killing its energy against her body as it rebounded. It had been such bizarre behaviour for a well developed fourteen year old that he had taken an interest in her straight away. "I want to box," she had told him baldly. He had trained her and had been amazed by her resilience. Many a girl had come with the same request over his years at the gym, but few had been able to take the punishment the sport meant. Not only did Iren take it, however bad it got, she looked to increasing her resistance to it, and when he had found her lying on a mat one morning throwing an even heavier medicine ball high into the air and bracing her pectorals as it fell back with a resounding and painful smack onto her bare breasts, he knew that she was determined to harden herself to a degree that he had never considered proper with girls. Her ability to do five hundred sit-ups without rest had impressed him, but when she strove to make it a thousand, he knew he had a fighter who could tackle the underground art of prizefighting. Always fascinated by the prize-ring, he had turned Iren's training in that direction. She could already box at that stage, and very well, but the picket was another matter altogether. Bare-fist fighting was hell, and was worse for women. But by seventeen, when they became more to each other than trainer and student, Iren was able to enter the picket with a hope of victory. He started her gently (for prizefighting) with the London rules. It took a further year, by which time she had three fights under her belt, to get her tough enough for York, and now, four years into the York grade, and with twenty-three prizefights gone through, he had at last felt that she might hold the legendary Tani Thacker. She had fought every three months without missing since her seventeenth birthday, and Dave felt that she was as tough and resilient now as he could ever make her. It would need someone less involved with her personally to take her further, and he had already been in touch with certain Continentals about that. Two, Fassbender and Urtello, were to attend the Friday night fight to judge her suitability for harder treatment. In his heart of hearts, Dave Chance felt that his tough Mancunian prizefighter might go on to even greater things if she was willing. Her outstanding looks had immediately attracted Fassbender and Urtello, for in their business, no matter how tough a girl-fighter was, she had to be beautiful as well. Iren was.
Underground prizefighting was carried out in various places in and around the City of Manchester, though none of them was public. The law was quite specific about it - prizefighting between either men or women was illegal in Britain. Friday's venue was still secret, but would almost certainly be at one or other of the tinker encampments in the environs. Neither Dave nor Iren would know where until they were picked up. Fell Edge site was the most likely, being generally remote and not near any other buildings. Iren had already fought there twice.
Fassbender and Urtello arrived on the Thursday evening from Amsterdam where they had been viewing some kickboxers, and were put up by Dave at his house. Both were immediately impressed by Iren's looks and carriage, and were promised to watch a training session the following morning after which Iren would rest for the day before awaiting pick-up, ready clothed for the picket at seven-thirty. Fassbender and Urtello would be conveyed to the scene at the same time, and would have the opportunity of seeing two bouts that evening, though that between Iren and Tani was their chief concern.
The two men got to see prizefighting in its purest form very rarely. Both members of the exclusive IFF, they were empowered to judge the standard of fighters for possible transport to Silver Island for the yearly meeting. Each was highly experienced in the spotting of likely material, and the standards they demanded, both of beauty and toughness, were very high. If they could acquire skilful fighters to boot, that was a bonus. A correspondent of Dave's had put him onto Fassbender, who had been to a local fight-night in his area and had on that occasion acquired the services of a girl who had appeared at the last Silver Island gathering, and who had returned far richer than she had gone. Also far wiser, for she had suffered a brutal thrashing at the hands of an experienced German kick-boxer, the former mistress of another of the members. But she had been paid extremely well for her pains, and had been satisfied that she was well-treated.
Watching Iren train stripped to a pair of brief shorts at Gorton the following day, both men had declared themselves more than slightly interested in the conduct of the fight that night, so while Iren slept away the afternoon, they were in deep conclave with Dave.
"We shall fly her out to San Diego, where we have a charter plane to take us down to the islands. From there it's a two day boat trip to Silver Island. The meeting there lasts a week to ten days after which your girl will be returned by the same route. You can reckon on her being away for fourteen days or more, but we will give you an itinerary nearer the time. She will be paid at least $50,000, but this may be greater. There are, however, grave risks. Fights on Silver Island are controlled only by the IFF Club. No outside agencies are involved, and serious injuries have occurred. The club, will, of course, look after any medical expenses incurred, and should it be necessary, any fighter may be referred to one of America's leading cosmetic surgeons for tissue reconstruction. In that case, your girl may be away rather longer. No expense will fall to her or yourself for this treatment, naturally, but she must be made aware of the risks before she accepts the offer. Fights are very severe at times. A high standard of behaviour is demanded from all the girls we take to the island, but there are good training facilities available. She must be prepared to accept the trainers we provide since there is deliberately very limited accommodation available, and personal trainers cannot be invited."
"Fifty thousand dollars!" Dave was staggered. "That's a fortune!"
"Only about £30,000, and she may earn it extremely hardly," Fassbender declared. "In the end she may feel that even fifty grand is poor recompense for the agonies of Silver Island fighting."
The man's use of `only' in connexon with a sum so large that Dave Chance almost trembled, gave him a better indication than anything else of the league into which Iren might be moving. But he could not claim to be unworried about the commitment she would be making to these people. It was clear that once her agreement was obtained she would literally be putting her life in their hands. The IFF was clearly far too well-off ever to be troubled by any claims of ill-treatment - they would just bribe the authorities to let things through on the nod. Being privately owned, it was doubtful whether any goings on on Silver Island would ever be known about outside, and if it was two days boat trip away from an airstrip, it was more than remote enough never to be visited by outside agencies. It sounded very much like a modern Pitcairn Island, but far more exclusive than the humble abode of the `Bounty' mutineers had been two hundred years before. Dave did not like the thought of Iren disappearing into the vastness of the Pacific for the better part of forty years. He had need of her in Manchester!
Nevertheless, the final decision was a matter for her alone. If she fought well enough it was clear that these two would offer her the chance of earning herself upwards of $50,000. He rather thought that she would be a mite put out if he were to stand in her way.
Promptly at seven-thirty, the car that would lead them to the venue drew up, and the party set off in pursuit of a run down Volvo driven by a pair of evil-visaged tinkers in Dave's equally run down Marina. It was thought better to leave Fassbender's brand new Mercedes at the gym lest it attract rather too much attention where they were going.
It turned out, as expected, to be Fell Edge, the picket made in the midst of a large square of neatly maneuvered caravans so that even had an inquisitive eye lit upon it, nothing would have been seen, though there might have been some wondering about a floodlit square in the middle of a tinker site.
Both Iren, and the tough-looking Tani Thacker were similarly clad, in abbreviated boxing shorts and stout shoes. Their hair, for both normally wore it long, was tied back, and they came to the picket looking fit and solid, their bare torsos rising from dark waistbands most attractively. Iren wore her white shorts with red trim, and Tani appeared in red shorts with green grim, a colour combination that did much to set off the tanned skin of her powerfully muscled torso. Somewhat taller than Iren, Tani bore the high, firm breasts cultivated over the years by her tough, almost Spartan, life-style. The heavy fists and strong forearms and shoulders threatened the sort of power that Iren had been training to take. It was clear that Tani would be the heavier, and she weighed ten pounds more than the Mancunian. Iren's advantage lay in the size of her breasts which were smaller by a couple of inches than the tinker-girl's, and that much less of a target as a result.
There was a noisy and appreciative crowd gathered between the vans, as many of them female as male, plus a large number of children, to whom this was a great entertainment, comparable to a video film, or a salty punch-up of their own. From the look of the tough faces about the picket, the next generation of fist-wielders was well on the way to its own cultivation.
The audience was of less interest to the fighters than to Fassbender and Urtello, both of whom were fascinated by the rough cut of the people about, and by the vast quantities of beer that seemed to be pouring down a hundred throats. It was easy to see why British football clubs had so many loutish followers. A good portion of the crowd appeared to be born louts.
Iren and Tani studied each other with a sort of detached calm that boded ill for their health. There was little here in the way of passion as yet; they were not angry with each other, nor incensed in any way. They planned their clinical destruction of the other much as duellists might have planned to run each other through. Both were experienced in the way of the prizefight, aware of the desperate cruelty of the York Rules under which they were to fight, and ready to battle to a standstill.
At times like this, Dave found it difficult to suppress a shudder. He knew every one of Iren's sensitivities, and was only too aware of the condition she would be in after the fight. Dreadfully, so was she. Iren Barrett was under no illusions as to what she was taking on. Had she been, she could never have faced it. In female fighting the worst thing was the unknown. Once a girl knew what she was up against she could adjust her feelings to suit her trial. Iren's chief emotion was black fear, but it always was before a fight. Before a fight with Tani Thacker it had to be even greater than usual, but once they began her fear would turn to determination, and once she was into it her powerful personality would override the urge to avoid taking the hell of flying fists in knuckle-bursting punching.
Prizefights could be long. Some had been very long, upwards of an hour. One or two had, in the past, been known to exceed a second hour. Not that this was very likely here. Both Iren and Tani were too hard hitters for the fight to slip into an exhausted scramble. Nevertheless, looking at Tani closely, Iren was hardening her mind towards thinking of an hour's action. Tani's feeling was much the same.
The President in this fight would be Dil Coley, a well-known hard case who was unlikely to show much compassion towards the pair. Not that there was ever any place for that in York rules. The women would fight to a standstill, and that was all there as to be said about it. In York, there was virtually no limit to the cruelties that might be inflicted upon the participants. They would not even have to come unaided to the scratch. It was quite common for fighters, even women, to be carried to the scratch to start a round, even when they could not stand. Provided they were able to kneel, the fight would be permitted to continue.
But there was worse. Under these rules it was possible, upon mutual agreement, for the fighters to be allowed running repairs in order to prolong the spectacle. Two of the tinker women had already been assigned the task of stitching up the combatants if such assistance should be required. No degree of damage could bring such a fight to a conclusion. The only requirement for victory was that the opponent should be unable to fight on thirty seconds after a knock-down. Amongst aficionados of this kind of battle dangerous injury was merely something to be overcome. Broken ribs, broken jaws and broken hands were the common currency of York prizefighting. Burst noses and ruptured muscle shields were merely minor matters, hardly worthy of comment. Concussions were common, and again, were something that had necessarily to be tolerated.
In short, once into the fight there was no going back. A fighter could surrender at any time, but no-one else could make the decision for her.
This was a smaller picket than was sometimes seen. The tinker fraternity liked their women's fights tightly confined for they gained the maximum punishment that way. Little more than ten feet square it was double-roped, steel fence-posts driven hard into the ground earlier that day by Tani herself forming the corners, the ropes threaded through them, and the corners still the naked steel of the posts with no padding or other covering. It was crude and solidly effective. Boxes were provided for the seconds and bottle-holders (a couple of young teenaged tinker girls), but in York, the fighters did not sit between rounds unless it was on the ground.
Once the fighters stripped and came to the picket, there was no reason for delay. There were no preliminaries. The President called "Fight!", and Iren's toughest test yet began, with Fassbender and Urtello looking on, fascinated by the crudity of the setting.
The bigger Tani strode in completely open-stanced, and struck out at Iren's face, expecting to suffer a blow to the body in exchange for a grazing blow to the cheekbone that had the light haired girl's eyes watering immediately. The thumping left that Iren drummed off her ribs sounded hollowly in the quiet atmosphere of the fight's beginning, and the higher right made the softer sound of a blow bruising a breast.
For several seconds they pounded each other to face and body before breaking away to study the effect of the drubbing they had each handed out. Satisfied that the opponent had taken it without undue weakening, they set themselves to get down to the serious struggle and approached with determined strength.
Neither woman had taken the prospect of this fight lightly. Tani felt that she was certain to win it in the end, for she knew that there were very few women in the north west who could stand the stress as long as she could. Her father had ensured that she could handle the pain of this kind of hammering. She did not know what Iren had gone through to toughen herself, but she had a good reputation, and so had to be tough. Also, the smaller girl had a fine strength that she had felt heavily against her belly in the first exchange, and a respect for her was growing with every punch given and taken.
They fought like prizefighters rather than boxers, head punches being employed sparingly, the greater proportion of the fight concentrating on the weakening body blows.
Quite early in the fight, blows began to fall below the waistband of the shorts as each strove to hurt the other about the pubic mound and groin, as much to slow the leg movement as to cause the maximum pain. Twice in the first few minutes they closed in, and dealt each other hard low blows, though the breasts were most eagerly sought, as they always were in female prizefighting where the softer parts of the body were that much easier on the hands. Both were soon working up a good sweat, and bringing the pain to the body of the other that they would use to sap her resistance, and perhaps, hopefully break the tension of the abdominal muscle-shield long enough for a blow to drill through into the vitals.
When Tani pressed, the tinkers cheered her on, but were almost equally appreciative of Iren's efforts to break down their own girl's resistance to breast-pain. And she was doing it well. For a city girl, Iren was tough and effective and they could see it building up into quite a struggle. She was also very fit, and maintained a pace that Tani rarely encountered in her opponents.
It was ten minutes before either girl tried anything but straight punching. The pace was telling on them both, but there was amazement amongst those used to watching Tani, when it was she who tried to upend the city girl, showing that she was feeling the pace the worse. Iren broke loose and clubbed Tani to the jaw, sending her back against the ropes. Annoyed, the bigger girl attempted to swing back with a hay-making right, but Iren ducked it, and drove a straight left into the solar plexus that turned Tani rigid and set her up for the right cross to the jaw that knocked her off her feet and into a heap beside the ropes.
The first round had ended after eleven and half minutes of fierce battling, and not to Tani's liking. However, she did not hold it against Iren. Fortune of war. Her turn would come.
The light haired girl went across to Dave and the young bottle-holder grateful for the few seconds rest, and pleased with her success in winning the first round. Not that it was of any great importance. By their lights, the fight had hardly started yet. It was nice to stand still and breath normally for a while, though, and while Tani picked herself up and went to her father, Iren listened to Dave's advice for what it was worth. It merely confirmed that they were both thinking along the same lines. Tani was likely to redouble her efforts to bring her low, and she would need to be prepared to take a heavy drubbing in the next period. That she was smarting about the face and hurt to the body was of no consequence. She was in no way disabled yet, and really felt quite sprightly considering the pressure from Tani's size and strength.
They restarted without difficulty and clashed in a hard exchange at the center of the picket before Iren began to give ground under the weight of Tani's blows, having taken one to her right eye that had disorientated her for a moment, and let the gypsy girl rip a right uppercut into her left breast that had brought forth a surge of pain which she had not felt so keenly before. Clearly the bruises of the early part of the fight were beginning to set, and once that happened the pain element of the fight would increase dramatically.
Tani did not managed to force her quite to the ropes as Iren dug in her heels, took the thumping force of the big girl's punches, and dug back to the body on her own account, going perilously close to the solar again, and frightening Tani into easing up. Iren slid away to the side behind a series of fast lefts that had Tani's head rocking, and was felt keenly by the lighter girl's knuckles.
She rounded and moved forward as Tani recovered her composure and forged back in. It was a break point of great importance, and there was a psychological battle going on that only one could win. Would Tani impress herself on the fight and manage the pace of the round or not was the question it raised, and Iren, despite the pressure she was under, and the pain that was increasing to softening-up proportions, knew that she had to stand here and hold her, or be bustled around at Tani's will.
It cost her much in impact and breast-pain, but she held out until Tani's lungs needed resting and she withdrew. No-one was on top and they battled on dourly, hands beginning to split and swell as blows went more towards the ribs and pubis, and less at the breasts where they were both needing to recover their pain-resistance. While they could do so, neither would be a serious trouble, but in the end the round did go to the big gypsy when after a crunching blow to the mouth that drew an effulgence of blood (no gum shields in prizefighting), she was distracted for a moment - quite long enough for Tani to bury her fist wrist deep into her bowels and send her retching to the earth. The round had lasted fourteen minutes.
Nevertheless, her guts stopped churning before Dave had reached her and helped her to her corner where the remaining fifteen seconds was spent wiping the blood away and sponging the grime off her breasts.
Both girls were beginning to show the most evident signs of the struggle, the darkening marks of bruising stark upon Iren's lighter skin, though Tani was beginning to look almost as battered.
This was the point of the fight where the beginnings of success or failure were being laid down. So far, their toughness and fitness had enabled them to stand up to a degree of punishment that though appalling on general grounds was normal for this kind of fight. Now, though, they would be entering the period where the pain and bludgeoning would start to wear them down, and they would be fighting hard against their own suffering to score off the other. The effects of stamina would become more important, and the courage required to endure the hell they would find themselves in would grow and grow until its need exceeded the supply. There were four possible ends to a prizefight - a clean knockout (rare), a physical weakness so great that a woman could not stand to the scratch and was hammered in oblivion from a kneeling position (regarded as a dirty knockout and only available in York), retirement (generally through extremely disabling injury - the only grounds upon which it would be accepted by other prizefighters as anything but the last), and the last category, the one all prizefighters feared, that of being without the courage to face more of the agonizing torment of the picket. Though rare, when this one did occur, it was almost always the end of a career, and such breakdown took the most unexpected people. Anne Hamling, the very tough Wirral woman, for instance, when after ten years at the very top of this hardest bracket of fighting suddenly lost her nerve and caved in against Tani when Tani was only nineteen. But so excruciating was the pain of the latter stages of a prizefight and so enormous the physical stress, as a woman drove herself way beyond her limit, that such things could happen. Fighters were right to fear it, for a loss of nerve of this kind was a disgrace that could ruin their reputation for ever. Nor did they often get a second chance.
Neither Iren nor Tani were thinking such profound thoughts as they came out to face each other for the third of their unknown number of rounds, but they were very much in Dave's mind as his hurt and battered girl took her courage in both hands and went out to lay herself on the line. He knew that Tani, at this stage, would be looking invincible to Iren, and that she was going in there to hang on to the bitter end. Iren might well look the same to the gypsy girl, but neither had any recourse but to hammer each other as hard as they could in the hope of bringing the other low.
They got down to it with a courageous verve that made both Dave Chance and Zal Thacker wince. Zal was a rough type and of low principle, but he had feelings for his daughter, and when things got really tough in her fights he bit his knuckles as hard as her opponent's handlers, and hoped that she would not have to take more than she could stand. It was at such times as this that the tough life Tani led helped her so. She was used to carrying on when many another would have given up and rested. Here, that ability to battle on was of the utmost help. Unfortunately, Iren's training under Dave had been of much the same kind, and she was less advantaged by it then she might have been. The result was that they tore into each other again with power and elan, and within a minute of the third period Iren had levelled the blood-score with a flurry of blows that ripped Tani's lips.
Then they settled down to the battle of bodily attrition, punches sinking into breasts and drumming against tensed stomachs and aching ribs until they each began to slow under the immense pressure of the pain and the fatigue that was creeping up on them. Strength levels reduced as they slammed on, first one gaining the upper hand and than the other, neither weakened sufficiently as yet to keep the advantage. Blood dripped steadily from faces, and Iren's right eye took two more heavy blows that started it swelling again.
Iren concentrated on powering into the gypsy's breasts, and even though toughened there as she had been for years under her father's fists, the girl was wincing violently as the fight passed the forty-minute mark, and into the area of time that was reserved for the better quality of prizefight, when the contestants were evenly matched and peerlessly brave - as both these girls were.
For Fassbender and his Italian associate, the spectacle was almost as exciting as it was bizarre. Neither had thought to find such bloody savagery on a quiet fell bottom in Lancashire, least of all in such unprepossessing surroundings, but there was force and power and courage aplenty being displayed in the picket before them, and under the powerful lights rigged up by the tinkers from their somewhere-purloined diesel genny. The fight began, after fifty minutes of furious mayhem, to take on an infernal quality that reminded Urtello of his Dantean heritage - perhaps not the seventh circle quite yet, but certainly the fourth.
Faces set in exhaustion and agony and bodies looking almost raw in the sweat of torment as they struggled there under the searing lights, Iren Barrett and Tani Thacker were reaching the climax of their desperate efforts. Hands were failing, and knuckles were a sea of blood as they plied punches at each other still with an innate and desperate strength that would bring them soon to a condition where their pain would overwhelm one or the other and she would fall writhing to the bare earth across which they battled.
Sublimated into that state of awareness yet unawareness that prizefighters knew in some of the more desperate fights, they fought on heedless of the damage they were causing and suffering and continued to slam blow after agonizing blow into breached bellies and bursting breasts until the cloud of torment that surrounded each of them seemed unlikely to allow either to down her opponent without the most dire consequences to herself.
It was doubtful whether they were still thinking or able to even think of so doing. The desperate wrenching pain and the sheer exhaustion that they fought through was no longer a testament to their fitness but to their courage. Yet neither could down the other. To get close enough to Iren to slam a blow to her jaws or belly, Tani faced the crucifixion of her breasts on the bleeding knuckles of the city girl, while to reach her opponent's head brought Tani's iron fists into Iren's stomach and threatened to tear out her very guts.
Sometime, somewhere, one of them was going to falter, and it was a missed footing that betrayed the gypsy. As she stumbled forward towards the reeling lighter girl, Iren slung a blow to the belly that split the abdominals and skewered her entrails to her spine in such an explosion of agony that all sense left her for a moment and she stood transfixed as Iren's clumsy right cross, impelled by a right arm so bruised and aching that it seemed that there was no power left in it, swung through to topple the bigger girl to the canvas in a welter of hell, and to kneel there dripping blood from torn lips and battered face onto the ground.
Immediately, Zal Thacker was in and treating his daughter where she lay across the scratch. Smelling salts were pressed to her nose in an attempt to scorch the wool from her brain, but it was all of twenty seconds before she came out of her daze, and was able to realize what had happened. Too short a time remained for Zal to get her in any state to stand, and with a roaring pain in her guts that she tried to force down, Tani was dragged in agony towards the scratch. "Kneel!" commanded her father as Coley called time and Iren lurched from Dave's ministrations to the center of the picket again, looking blearily through her remaining good eye to see where Tani was. Seeing her still on the ground, and only able to kneel, she was more relieved than she could have expressed. She smashed her down again with two blows, the first a left to the angle of her jaw, and the second a right to the left temple.
The shock wave from the letter blow, travelling through the gypsy girl's skull, brought a tortured groan from her bloody lips, and even though she sent an uppercut searing into the city girl's groin, she was unconscious before she keeled to the ground. Iren staggered back to Dave praying that Zal Thacker would fail to bring Tani round again.
Zal, feeling hurt that Tani should be so devastatingly floored, worked like a madman to revive her, but all his efforts were useless. Tani continued to lie, still, and not writhing in the classic convulsions of a downed fighter, while the pungency of the sal ammoniac assailed her nostrils but had no effect whatever on this occasion.
"Time!" called the President tonelessly, and Dave pushed Iren away towards the scratch. She made it and stood there swaying while Zal Thacker spread his hands in acknowledgement of his daughter's defeat.
"She's done," he said, and so she was. Against the odds, and in fifty-six minutes, Iren was the Victrix of the Picket.
Thacker stood and raised Iren's arm, before urging her gently back towards Dave. He knew something of what she was going through, and had no ill-feeling towards her. Her victory had been well-merited, if a trifle lucky at the end. But he was desperately concerned about Tani, who still lay where she had fallen, limp and barely breathing. He feared that she had been driven past the point where she could take the two blows with which the city girl had finished the contest. The young bottle-holder hurried away to return moments later with a bucket of icy water which her father emptied slowly over his unconscious daughter. Still she did not stir.
"Get her to the van," he ordered with a catch in his voice, and the limp form of a girl who lived for this savage form of combat was lifted gently and carried away.
Iren had sunk to the box on which Dave had been sitting, and leant back against the post while her trainer, assisted by willing hands from among the formerly vociferous tinker crowd worked to clean her up. Though she was conscious of what they did, she was clearly in an advanced state of exhaustion, and slumped mutely, shuddering in a pain the depth of which, now that the adrenalin had stopped racing through her veins, reached to her very soul. It was all of ten minutes before she was recovered enough to as much as stand, and with a towel draped around her she was led to the old Marina, and placed in the passenger seat.
"How's Tani?" she managed to gasp out when she had found her voice again.
Dave shook his head. "Pretty bad," he told her. "I think she's still out."
Leaving her in the hands of the young bottle-holder, Lizzie, he made for Thacker's van to find out what he could. The crowd gathered about it let him through. They were unusually quiet, almost cowed by the suddenness and completeness of the disaster that had overtaken their champion.
Someone let him through and into the van. Tani Thacker, soaked and glistening, lay on the long seat at the end of the van, her father working on her furiously. She still lay unmoving, and appeared very white-faced in the propane light of the caravan, but he was relieved to see that her breathing looked stronger, and the mess that her face had been was now cleaned back to some semblance of humanity.
"Is she okay?" he asked Thacker worriedly.
The man, ruffian though he was, spoke concern in every aspect of his bearing. He looked up. "I'll think she'll come out of it," he said.
Dave stood and watched while with smelling salts, vicious slaps and cold douches, the man tried to bring his daughter back to reality.
"I've never seen her this far down," another man said to Dave as Thacker worked. "Your girl worked her over good."
As though on cue, the remark was punctuated by a series of groans from Tani before her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes opened. She stared up blankly for a moment, the world a fuzzy ball of pain, and then, as her natural resilience re-asserted itself, she focussed on her father, and looked dazed. "Sorry, dad," she whispered, and at that, a buzz of relieved conversation broke out.
Dave excused himself, bid Thacker goodnight and left the van. "She's okay," he told Iren when he returned to the car.
Fassbender and Urtello stood waiting. They nodded to him knowingly. "It was a fine contest," Fassbender acknowledged as they slid into the back seat, and Dave took the car slowly off the site and turned back towards the city and home.
Once there the IFF men left with a promise that Iren would be hearing from them, and Dave had to face a night of trying to keep her agony within bounds, before, sometime in the early morning, she might be easy enough to snatch a couple of hours sleep.
Silver Island most certainly had another recruit.
(C) Ajax 2/1988
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 17
THE KIRIBATI LETTER
by Raf
International Female Fighting Club (IFFC)
Silver Island Resort
Polynesian Archipelago 160º W 4º30' N
Kiribati State
Silver Island (date as postmark)
Dear Member,
1. The Board of Directors of the International Female Fighting Club (IFFC) has the pleasure to invite you to attend our annual Gala Festival, August1988, in Silver Island as usual, where you will be our honoured guest.
In addition to the Gala programme (Annex A) the Managing Director will be pleased to provide you with any form of active entertainment or leisure games, if you would be considerate enough to let us know your preferences this year, in advance on our confidential fax number.
2. The Board of Directors is sorry to announce that because of the acute discrepancy of opinions between the States signatory to the Nauru Agreement on the co-ordination of negotiations of fisheries with the American Tuna Association, the Authorities of the Federated States of Micronesia are putting some renewed pressure on the other signatories - the Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New-Guinea, Nauru and the Solomon Islands, and the Kiribati State to agree with their own assessment of the situation. Among other smaller inconveniences, people now travelling through or to these States, or trying to obtain a visa for access to any of the mentioned States, are not receiving the co-operation they were used to in Micronesia and the US. You are advised not to ask for any services in those islands, and should plan your journey in some other way, if you are not using the recommended itineraries below.
3. The Authorities of the Kiribati State are being most co-operative to all club members, which may be helpful if you plan to stay a few days, or to travel through the Kiribati archipelago: Canton, Caroline, Christmas, Enderbury, Fanning, Malden, Phoenix, Starbuck, Vostok, Washington, and Silver Island, the private property of BORLAX INC. You are welcome to cruise with your own ships, yachts or hydroplanes, or hired craft from BORLAX INC., anywhere within the large boundaries of Kiribati.
4. The IFFC, at the request of the majority of our members, has engaged Ms. JOLINE ELLIS, designer of SIR's sports arena and hotel accommodations, to supervise the construction of a new facility in the lowest, sandy, East coast of Silver Island. It has been devised as an open-air, oval sports arena, designed in the early Greek amphitheater model, rather than the standard square shaped arena.
The Board of Directors has started negotiations with the ARACELIS and DRAGON HORDE Clubs, in order to inaugurate the new arena with three inter-club events: Greek wrestling, Cestus boxing, and Roman gladiatrix versus retiarius. For this ceremony, all members and their distinguished companions are required to wear epoch costume, which will be provided by the Management.
You may meet the Treasurer General, the Secretary for Fisheries, and the President of the Phoenix Appeals Court at our Gala Week, to which they are specially invited guests, and will be enrolled as Honorary Members, by the unanimous decision of the Board of Directors.
5. The weather forecast for August 1988 is in the range of 30º C to 36º C, 68 % humidity, cloudless sky (but for three days in the third week) and wind from zero to 30 kph [knots per hour].
Please check the five enclosures:
Annex A – SIR 1988 Gala Championship Sketch Programme
Annex B – Events and Contestants (in order of appearance) for the 1st Round of the Championship
Annex C – Menu (including Vegetarian menu)
Annex D - Enrollment Form (for new members only)
Annex E - Map of Silver Island (isometric and hypsometric map)
We wish you a stay to be remembered!
Sincerely yours,
The Board of Directors, (Signed)
Countess Imogen de Lysset COLGREAVANCE, President
David SOLOMON, Managing Director
Richard LI, Acting Treasurer
Annex A
Silver Island Resort - 1988 GALA CHAMPIONSHIP – Sketch Programme
Sunday, August 7
08:00h - Group West meeting point for Members without transport of their own, at The Hilton's Penthouse, 387 Central Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA. An IFFC Officer will provide escort service, transport and help with proceedings at the LA's Airport. Latecomers may still meet the Group at the Domestic Flights check-in desk of U.A.
09:00h - Los Angeles Airport. Departure for Honolulu, Hawaii (USA), aboard "The Amazon" (by special courtesy of Miss Leah Raines, of Pier Oil, Inc.) Flying time approx. 4h 30m. Further deduction of 2h for crossing the International Date Line (IDL). Meal and drinks available. Please notify the Manager if on diet.
11.30h - Honolulu. Transfer from the airport to the seaport; American (only) passport control.
13.30h - Honolulu Airport. Executive jet The Amazon flight to Brisbane, to meet the Eastern Group. Arrival time approx. 23:30h Monday (due to crossing the IDL).
Honolulu Seaport. Hovercraft Myrina departure to SIR. Travel time approx. 26h. Meals and drinks available. Members accommodation in de luxe double cabins, with in-flight video programme (Club's selection of each registered contestant in the Championship in training and sparring).
Monday, August 8
15.30h - SIR, Kiribati. Arrival of Group West. Members will have a car (operated by solar energy, courtesy of Mr. Richard Li, of Solar Investment Co.) to bring members to restaurant and lodging area. Members are advised that the western path to the hill has been repaired recently, for security reasons. (Members of the Group West will have a day and a half for practice and leisure, waiting for the East Group.)
Tuesday, August 9
08:00h - Group East meeting point, at the 2nd Fl. Lounge, The Excelsior Hotel, 1 Carpetbaggers Plaza, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Travelling arrangements as per Group West.
09:00h - Brisbane Airport. International Flights check-in desk of U.A. Flying time approx. 5h 30m, plus 3h, minus 1 day, due to crossing the IDL).
18:30h (Monday 8 ) - Pago-Pago Island, American Samoa. Time allowance for quick trip to Tatuila, capital of this US possession.
20:30h (Monday 8 ) - Pago-Pago seaport. Departure to SIR aboard the hovercraft Penthesilea. Travel time approx. 26h. American (only) passport control.
22:30h - SIR, Kiribati. Arrival of Group East.
Wednesday, August 10
07:30h - CONTESTANTS: individual training, and outdoor sparring with Club's experts; mid-morning snack at the Main Arena restaurant area; ring or piste intensive work-out and sparring with Club's experts. - MEMBERS: gymnastics and bodybuilding, under the supervision of Club's trainers; solarium or outdoors activities (South beaches only, for security reasons). Facilities for eventual meetings in the Main Arena restaurant area.
12.30h - Lunch (see Annex C).
13:00h - CONTESTANTS: recommended rest. MEMBERS: time free.
15:30h - CONTESTANTS: indoor individual training and sparring (non-stop till dinner time).
21:00h – Dinner.
22:30h - CONTESTANTS: recomended rest. MEMBERS: reception party to introduce new Club members, and visiting officers and members of the Aracelis and Dragon Horde Clubs.
Thursday, August 11
08:00h - Annual Gala Championship 1988, 1st Round Events (Fencing, Boxing with 6oz gloves, Indian Wrestling; see Annex B).
12:15h - Lunch.
14:00h - 1st Round Events, cont. (Karate-Do, Boxing with Studded Gloves, Wrestling).
16:30h - Time free.
20:00h - Dinner. Video-tape review of the day's matches.
Friday, August 12
08:00h - 1st Round Events, cont. (Kick-Fighting, Bare Knuckle Boxing, All-In Wrestling).
12:15h - Lunch. Draw to sort order of contestants in the 2nd Round of the Championship, including a bye. Type of combat to be decided afterwards, by vote of the members.
14:00h - 2nd Round Events (1st and 2nd combats).
20:00h - Dinner. Video-tape review of the day's matches.
Saturday, August 13
08:00h - 2nd Round Events (3rd and 4th combats).
12:15h - Lunch. Draw to sort order of Semi-final contestants, including a bye. Type of combat to be decided afterwards, by vote of the Members from a list of combats not entered into in the 1st and 2nd Rounds.
14:00h - Championship Semi-Finals.
18:00h - Video-tape review of the day's matches.
19:30h - Dinner.
Sunday, August 14
05:23h - Inauguration of the Greek Arena, at day break (sunrise will be visible from the main gate and the south gate; members are requested to be in place by 05:00h). Pankration by Aracelis Club members.
07:30h - Cestus Boxing by Aracelis Club members.
09:30h - Championship Ephedros Finals, 1st combat (woman with least combats yet in Championship vs woman with quickest win in Semi-Finals). Type of combat to be agreed upon by the two contestants, or decided by the vote of club members between types of battle different than the preceding ones.
12:00h - Roman Gladiatrix vs Retiarius by Dragon Horde's members.
14:00h - Light snack served at the Greek Arena stalls.
15:00h - Championship Ephedros Finals, 2nd combat (winner of 1st combat vs third woman). Type of combat, as for 1st combat.
17:30h - Light snack served at the Greek Arena.
19:00h - Main Arena: Video-tape review of the day's events. - Greek arena: non-stop party till sunrise, including Roman sword duels to the death (simulated), Martial Arts show by Korean, Japanese and Philippino female masters, and Survival game.
Monday, August 15
05:19h - Sunrise. (Transportation not available to Main Arena and lodging accommodations.)
09:00h - Departure from SIR by hovercrafts Myrina and Penthesilea for members who are not staying for the ensuing Monthly Gala.
ANNEX B
Silver Island Resort - 1988 GALA CHAMPIONSHIP – Events and Contestants (1st Round)
Contestants will retain their identification number for purposes of any draw in further Championship Rounds.
FENCING
Épée de combat, white sneakers, white cotton trousers, white padded coat, and gauze facial masks.
1. Leah RAINES (Texas, USA), aka Brindore Golden Dime, Damsel of the Lance, Maid of the Gauntlet, Domina of The Dragon Horde Club, and Countess of Aracourt; Queen of the Lists (twice) - 25, white, 1.82m, 78kg, blonde, green eyes.
2. Jennifer VEIL (Ontario, CANADA), aka Baroness of the Gray Veil; 33, white, 1.80m, 74kg, dark brown hair, black eyes.
BOXING WITH 6oz GLOVES, blue/red 6oz gloves, black leather boots, white silk trunks, sleeveless blue/red silk T-shirt.
3. Iren BARRETT (England, UK), aka The Mancunian Colt; 22, white, 1.72m, 66kg, light brown hair, blue eyes.
4. Carlotta RAMIREZ (CHILE), aka The Punch-bag; 22, American Indian, 1.74m, 76kg, black hair, dark brown eyes.
INDIAN WRESTLING black/white cotton 'chedi'.
5. Yvette LUCAS (FRANCE), aka Parisian Urchin; 17, white, 1.65m, 52kg, light brown hair, blue eyes.
6. Hoikochi YOKO (JAPAN), aka Atomic Bomber; 19, white, 1.65m, 55kg, black hair, black eyes.
KARATE-DO white harsh linen trousers and hip-length jacket, double fold black belts, blue/red headband.
7. Kristl CHRISTIANSEN (SWEDEN), aka The Destroyer; 22, white, 1.78m, 64kg, silver blonde hair, green eyes.
8. Mary JACKSON (New York, USA), aka Jack-Knife; 34, white, 1.74m, 57kg, black hair, blue eyes.
BOXING WITH STUDDED GLOVES, natural coloured leather gloves, with two rows of 1mm copper bolts, black boots, white cotton trunks, sleeveless cotton blue/red T-shirts.
9. Karen O'CONNOR (Pennsylvania, USA), aka Pennsylvania champ; 28, white, 1.74m, 60kg, red hair, brown eyes.
10. Elvira REYES (MEXICO), aka Mexican Gladiatrix; 22, American Indian, 1.67m, 60kg, black hair, almond eyes.
WRESTLING, black/white monokini.
11. Marley ALDEGUER (PHILIPPINES), aka The Angeles' Devil; 25, Philippino, 1.80m, 70kg, black hair, dark brown eyes.
12. Maria de Jesus FIGUEIREDO (PORTUGAL), aka The Fiery Mistress; 43, white, 1.74m, 66kg, brown hair, dark brown eyes.
KICK-FIGHTING blue/red knee-length shorts, sleeveless bright-yellow T-shirt (black boxing boots optional).
13. Massupha ANANKATUL (THAILAND), aka The Thai Masseuse; 16, Thai; 1.55m, 50kg, black hair, black eyes.
14. Yamamoto SUZUKI (JAPAN), aka Sweet Geisha; 18, Japanese, 1.67m, 58kg, black hair, dark brown eyes.
BARE-KNUCKLE BOXING, pair of US dollar coins, white cotton trunks, sleeveless blue/red T-shirt (black boots, white socks, optional).
15. Varvara LEONTIEV (Russian Soviet Federation Republic, USSR), aka Light Panda; 23, white, 1.77m, 65kg, light brown hair, brown eyes.
16. Teresa MUI (Hong-Kong, CHINA), aka The Dragon Lady; 24, Chinese, 1.78m, 75kg, black hair, black eyes.
ALL-IN WRESTLING (nude)
17. CRIAMI Avati (French Polynesia, FRANCE), aka Thorny Black Rose; 16, Polynesian, 1.60m, 49kg, black hair, black eyes.
18. YASMIN Serafin (Aqar Sultanate, UAE), aka Trouble-Maker; 24, Arab, 1.72m, 59kg, black hair, brown eyes.
Annex C
Silver Island Resort - 1988 GALA CHAMPIONSHIP – Menu
Main Arena Restaurant – A variety of fresh sea-food and vegetable dishes will be available at all times.
Wednesday 10th, at 12:30h, a royal-buffet will be served in the restaurant near the Lobby Desk; at 21:30h, a dinner will be served, of grilled giant prawns, and a variety of meats; French champagne and Haitian cocktails for members, non-alcoholic beverages for contestants.
Vegetable Dishes
Red and Yellow Peppers with Rocket (cold)
Stuffed Mushrooms with Goat Cheese and Spinach
Yogurt and Pimento Sauce
Cold Asparagus with Orange Vinaigrette
Cucumber Mousse with Gazpacho Sauce
Charcoal-Grilled Vegetables with Herb Marinade
Jacket Potatoes with Soured Cream
Broccoli and Asparagus Custard
Marrows Stuffed with Sweet Potato Purée
Creamed Spinach and Sautéed Shiittake Mushrooms
Spinach and Spiced Sautéed Potatoes
Cucumbers with Red Leaf Lettuce and Dill
Ragout of Mushrooms with Goat Cheese and Spinach
Spring Greens with Smoked Turkey
Spring Greens with Raisins and Pine-Nuts
Grouper with Sautéed Shiitake Mushrooms
Spinach-Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Capellini with Chilled Tomatoes
Black Olives and Garlic Raisin Cheesecake (120 calories per serving)
Three-Tiered Vegetable Terrine (90 cal/serv)
Sea-Foods
Prawn (boiled, grilled)
Salmon (fresh or smoked)
Dogfish (fried steaks)
Tuna (boiled, fried, or salted)
Turbot (fried in butter or grilled)
Squid (boiled, vinaigrette)
Lobster (boiled)
Snacks
Food to be served at Greek Arena stalls, consisting basically of Turkey and Pickle sandwiches, and Leeks and Cheese in Phyllo Packets (served with a selection of mixed salads).
Individual servings will be made available to all spectators by Club's personnel, as well as non-alcoholic sparkling, iced drinks, and plain water.
Please use disposable bags for environmental protection.
Sunday 14, Dinner Menu
Cocktail Snack and Canapés / Amuse-Gueule and Canapés
Caviar Sevruga Malossol
Hors-d'Oeuvre de Luxe
Mixed Green Salad with Choice of Dressing / Salade Mixte, Assaisonements Variés
Pork Soufflé Thai Style
Prawns and Scallops au Gratin / Fruits de Mer au Gratin
Apricot Duck with Brown Caper sauce / Canard aux Abricots, Sauce aux Câpres
Garden Vegetables / Jardinière de Légumes
Steamed Rice / Riz Vapeur
Roll, Garlic Bread, Full Fibre Bread, Butter / Petit Pain, Pain à l'ail, Pain complet, Beurre
Crackers / Biscuits Salés
Cheese Tray / Plateau de Fromages
Basket of Fresh Fruit / Corbeille de Fruits
Lemon Meringue Pie / Tarte au Citron
Darjeeling Tea, São Tomé Coffee (ex-Portuguese)
Annex D
Silver Island Resort - 1988 GALA CHAMPIONSHIP – Enrollment Form
1. INTERNATIONAL FEMALE FIGHTING CLUB (IFFC, hereby known as The Club) is an exclusive Member's club, founded by Borlax, Inc. (USA), and directed by the appointed Board of Directors.
2. The Club has its siege, and conducts its activities in Silver Island, a privately owned property located in the Polynesian Archipelago, 160º W 4º 30' N Gr., under the sovereignty of the Kiribati State.
3. The object of The Club is: - to actively promote all types of genuine female combat; - to arrange private meetings for members viewing or participating in matches; - to publish and distribute regularly a digest of the best amateur and professional female combats as covered by the media or any enterprises; - to arrange an Annual Gala Championship for female members or female contestants sponsored by members (pro training necessary, either by outside master or available from the Club); - to research history, sociology, anthropology, medicine and other fields of science related to, and in order to develop the female fighting spirit.
4. The Club Members shall be persons of any sex, race, religious denomination, political ideology, or nationality status, provided that (a) they apply for membership; (b) they can be sponsored by an active member; (c) they return with this application form, a photocopy of a legal identity document and payment of the enrolment fee (US$ 400,000,00 for five calendar years; credit cards accepted), and a valid International Bulletin of Health.
Statement of Application
I state I am 21 years old or more, and that I am not an active or passive agent of any transmissible disease, and wish to enter IFFC as Member. I hereby declare, for all legal purposes, and to whom it may concern, that no illness, temporary or permanent injury, or fatality, which may occur to me at Silver Island Resort, either during the practice of sports, or training sessions, or leisure activities, is to be ascribed to the responsibility of equipment, or personnel, by action or omission of IFFC, or Borlax Inc. (USA), and I hereby renounce the right to prosecute The Club, Borlax Inc. (USA), or any of their employees or Club members. I will be available to mental and medical doctors at The Club's premises, to be subjected to tests they may deem sufficient to certify to The Club that I have the necessary strength of mind and body to endure the severe strain of combat sports.(Full name, I.D. Number, Date, and Signature)
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 18
THE WEST IRIAN CANNIBAL
by Ajax
The struggle up the Kepulauan river, followed by fifteen twelve-hour jungle-hacking days, had brought them well up into the Nassau Mountains, approaching the area where the tribe was supposed to be located. That only a single member of the last expedition to the Nassaus had returned hardly worried the leader of this new expedition, Lao Xing. That survivor had told such an incredible tale that no office of the Indonesian Government, even, was prepared to delay another investigative trip. They were, as they had always been, very concerned about their country's image abroad, and tales of a large tribe of cannibals dwelling only a couple of hundred kilometres into West Irian was the sort of thing that had to be stamped out completely and quickly. Quite why Lao Xing's expedition had been selected to go was something of a mystery. Even in these more enlightened days, the IRG were no trusters of women, as was attested by the forcible dressing of the formerly bare-breasted Balinese.
Maybe it was Lao's associate who had persuaded them. Bukko Iharto was a respected anthropologist in Djakarta, and a Lao-Iharto expedition had no doubt seemed the most likely to succeed in getting at the truth. The more so, perhaps, since it had recruited Gretl Waldhaus the world-famous explorer-anthropologist, whose classic work "Some Anthropomorphizational Aspects of the Bornean Orang Utan" was hardly missing from any of the world's most obscure scientific libraries.
After two week's hacking into the jungle, Iharto felt like a man browbeaten from every direction. One woman on such an expedition as this had seemed a trial - two a nightmare, and his expectations had been more than fulfilled. Officially in control of the expedition according to the Government, he had lost that in the first week, when visited by a fever that had kept him in the bottom of a boat, he had seen Lao Xing take over the reins of control, ably assisted by the handsome German, whose sheer physical drive seemed to know no bounds. They had left the river, and with Iharto slung in a hammock, had begun to hack their way upwards into the Nassaus. The women seemed tireless, taking their turn with the machetes as they went, and driving the men to exhaustion every night.
Neither Lao Xing nor Gretl Waldhaus needed to be here. They were both born women of substance, Gretl the daughter of a German industrialist, and Xing of a wealthy moneylender. They were explorers by inclination, whereas Iharto was one by profession - to him the physical side of the exploration business was merely a necessary evil. Unlike the women who swung machetes from dawn till dusk, he did not enjoy this.
But after twelve days of muscle-cracking effort without either sign of or contact with the cannibals, even the women were becoming disheartened.
"Are they avoiding us, or are we in the wrong area?" Xing wondered.
Gretl flipped a chicken bone into the thicket. "I don't know. Salus was pretty sure it was around here that the rest of the expedition came to grief. I can hardly believe that every man jack of them was eaten. I've never seen any direct evidence of cannibalism, nor, as far as I know, has anyone else. It seems that there is never anyone left to tell the tale."
"Well, there wouldn't be if they were all eaten, would there?"
"But a whole expedition, Xing. Thirty men! They'd take some eating."
"Depends how hungry the tribe was, and how big. From the game we've seen on the way it appears likely that they would have been very hungry." There had been no game.
"So, how many deep freezes have they got out here? No, Xing, I don't think the rest of them are dead. Kept prisoner I should imagine. You'd expect them to make some signs. We've seen none. I don't think they can be a big group or someone would have come across them before. Unless, of course, they've moved in from Papua." [The Papuan side was noted for being less explored than the Indonesian]
"I hope you're right. We'll just have to keep looking. Stores for another eight days, and then we'll have to turn back."
* * * * * * * * *
It took them five.
On the fourth day after the conversation had been held, they hit a track running up and north east into the mountains. It was going in their own general direction, and Lao Xing cursed that they might have been hacking their way parallel to it through the jungle. If that were true, they could have lost days. For the rest of that day they moved at speed along it, the machetes only required to cleave a way through the very new overgrowth. It looked as though the track had been used within a few days of their passage, certainly no more than two or three.
Gretl and Xing, their working shirts sodden with sweat, almost walked straight into what they were looking for early on the fifth morning after the conversation, on the twentieth day since leaving the river. A clearing containing a village. An occupied village that.
Xing knew instantly that all was lost. She stopped dead and turned to the German, her face drained yellow. "Gretl, we're dead women!"
It was inconceivable that their progress would not have been noted. Whoever controlled this village knew that they were here. The natives held all the cards.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by fierce faces, some with filed teeth, all with woolly hair, and some with very wild eyes indeed. The warriors carried shields over which they eyed their captives, and short, deadly-looking barbed spears, quite unlike anything Lao Xing had laid eyes on before. They seemed to be Papuan negritos, though these had smaller, softer faces than she was used to.
"Do you recognize the type?" Xing side-mouthed to Gretl.
"No, but they look fierce," she whispered back.
Hearing her speak, one of the natives stepped forward and prodded Xing in the breast with the end of the highly decorated spear - the sharp end. Lao Xing winced, but made no sound.
"Abban!" said the spear-holder in a light, but unmistakably female voice. The voice was tinged with surprise. The speaker's eyes widened as she prodded at Xing's smallish bosom again, before neatly cutting her shirt open and peeling it back to reveal the feminine contours beneath.
Gretl braced herself, knowing what was coming. Whatever happened it seemed to be important that she should be seen to be a woman. At the same time her brain was working overtime. Female warriors! It would be as well not to wince or flinch before them. Warriors of either sex respected courage. The spear-woman moved across and did the same to her. Gretl did not move. An excited babble broke out between the captors who now dropped their shields and crowded forward. "In abban! In abban!" they kept saying.
Having no idea what the words meant, both women were keen to obey their captors. There was nothing to be gained by doing anything precipitate. Spears prodded them towards the clearing, in particular towards a larger hut that stood at the far edge of the village. They were thrust in and two of the warriors stood themselves at the door, spears across the entrance precluding any chance of escape.
As their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and their senses adjusted to the foetid smell that filled the place it was possible to see a number of stilt-beds, upon which lay as many figures. There must have been upwards of a dozen such beds occupied, and as many again empty of any burden. As far as the women could see, all the other occupants of the huts excepting themselves were male. And all seemed to be lying in a dull stupor.
"Who are they, do you think?" Gretl asked, though she had a pretty good idea, even though there was insufficient light to see faces.
"We are the queen's drones," came a voice speaking in faultless Dutch. It originated somewhere in the darkness. "Who are you?"
"I am Gretl Waldhaus. My companion is Lao Xing. We have an expedition somewhere behind in the jungle."
"Had," said the man hopelessly. "The warriors will have rounded them up by now. But how did you get here?"
"Salus from the Coltan expedition spoke of cannibals. We came to investigate."
"Cannibals, eh? I wish it were that simple."
"Who are you?" Lao Xing wanted to know.
"I'm Kurt Jonkers. The others are what's left of the Coltan expedition and some of these women's drones."
"Drones? I don't understand."
Jonkers laughed bitterly. "You will. You will."
"Left of the expedition? What do you mean, left?" This was Gretl asking.
"What I say. Left. The others are dead. Eaten, most likely."
"You're not serious!" Gretl went on, but her tone made it a question.
"I am. Perfectly."
Both women made their way towards where the voice was emanating from. Another question in both their minds was why Jonkers appeared to be able to speak, and the rest lay comatose.
The answer to that was soon forthcoming. Almost urging from the vile stench in the hut, they sat next to Jonkers while he explained what he knew of the situation.
He was undrugged because he had eaten nothing that day. The drug that kept the men under was served in their food. The Coltan group had discovered that soon enough, and had adopted the policy of keeping one of their number in a communicative condition each day lest help ever arrive. Today just happened to be Jonkers' day. But, as he pointed out, help had not arrived yet, and now that they were here they would be just additional fare in the tribe's larder. Gretl was unwilling to believe even yet that the women who had captured them were cannibals, but as Jonkers' tale unfolded she began to think differently. She had always thought cannibalism a myth, yet if what Jonkers was telling them was correct, it did indeed look as though the tribe was eating their way through the Coltan expedition. Of thirty captured, only thirteen were left. The other seventeen had been taken out and never returned. Wild screams had been heard coming from the centre of the village.
The women shuddered at the prospect of what Jonkers outlined. There was one ray of hope, however. One man, a rather pitiful little Javanese who had been an interpreter on the expedition had been taken out once, and then returned to the hut. That had been a month ago and he had not been taken again. All he could tell them was that he had been expected to serve the queen sexually, had failed because of his abject terror, and had been flung back into the hut. He had no idea of what happened to the others.
Gretl felt very disturbed by this. She and Xing were no good to the queen as deliverers of sexual favours. Their fate seemed likely to be quickly sealed, and they could be roasting on the tribe's spit in hours.
"And don't try to escape," Jonkers reminded them. "One tried and they flayed him then skinned a drum from his chest. These babies play rough!"
So much was all too evident. Lao Xing's greatest frustration was that they had no means of communicating with their captresses, unless one of the native men had any pidgin or a language they could understand.
She tried "Who belong mistress?" No response was forthcoming.
So they waited, and it was not a long wait. They had been there barely two hours before they were dragged away and taken before the queen - a very impressive woman indeed, tall, elegantly built, and dressed to kill in a sampot of bird of paradise feathers and a head-dress of humming-bird beaks. Between a pair of breasts worthy of the universal mother hung a human femur decorated with bird skulls. She was much bigger than most negrito women, and extremely muscular. Her imperious bearing on the throne gave not a doubt of her royalty. Her vigour was underlined by the larger-than-normal shield that stood to the left side of her throne, and the very solid spear at the right around which her hand could clench as she rested it on the arm of the throne.
Those conducting the two women to the throne made signs that they should kneel. Purposefully, they refused to do so. This clearly irritated the queen who gestured peremptorily that they should do so. Both were forced by their handlers, though the shoulders of both bled from the pressure of the spears before they went to their knees. This seemed to please the queen, who smiled briefly, then stood. She took the spear from the side of her throne and hurled it at a shield that hung on the wall. A perfect cast, it hit the shield dead centre, buried its head into it and quivered. She then made a sign to the left-hand handler to hand a spear to Lao Xing, and pointed to another of the shields, of which several hung around the walls. It was an open challenge and very clear to Xing that it was. She was no hand with spears, but she tried. She struck the shield but the spear she threw was smaller and lighter than the queen's and thus that much harder to control. It didn't penetrate but held there for a moment and then fell out. The queen did not seem very concerned, and had a spear handed to Gretl.
The big, strapping German woman knew that this was where she had to make a big impression. She hefted the spear. It was a good one, again lighter than the queen's but well balanced. For a former champion javelin-girl, it was an ideal missile. The queen pointed to a shield close by. Gretl shook her head and pointed at the most distant one, perhaps sixty feet away, stood back, bounded forward and hurled the missile with such force and accuracy that not only did it strike the shield dead centre but split it in two halves, passed clean through the woven grass wall of the hut and out into the jungle.
The queen, who had raised an eyebrow at Gretl's change of shield, now smiled hugely, stepped down from the throne, rested both hands lightly on Gretl's shoulders, and still smiling, brought back her right fist, and slammed the German to the ground with a right hook that would have done credit to a leading contender. The other women raised their shields and banged their spears against them in what sounded like approbation. At least they were smiling and looked pleased. Gretl picked herself up and stood straight. The queen appeared to have no objection.
When the noise of the shield-banging subsided, the queen motioned them outside, striding along herself. She had a long, straight, powerful stride, with no hip-swing at all, and was clearly a supreme athlete.
Two spears, of the same design as that which the queen had used from the throne were brought, one being handed to the queen, the other to Gretl. The queen handed hers to a girl nearby, and divested herself of head-dress and sampot, finally removing the decorated femur, to stand forth clad in v-cloth alone. Thus seen, she was even more impressive than clothed, and Gretl eyed her with interest.
She had little time to do so before two of the warrior girls began to strip her. Realizing what was expected, she motioned them away, stripped off her bush shirt and trousers, and stepped forward in boots and panties. She had lost the hat she had been wearing somewhere along the way, and her blonde hair, and the silvery sheen of it on her legs and arms glinted in the midday light as she took the spear and waited for the queen to cast hers.
The queen was a powerful woman and the spear winged its way high towards the fork of a tree and it buried itself in the cleft of the trunk where it split into two major branches, looking for all the world as though it, too, possessed vulval lips. The queen's weapon had surely penetrated its figurative vagina. Gretl performed exactly the same cast, her spear coming to rest nestled beside the queen's.
Gasping at her skill, the warriors fell back, almost in obeisance. Even Lao Xing was startled by Gretl's ability to throw a spear - not a skill one much associated with anthropologists.
The queen then spoke to one of her warriors, a capable looking girl, whose powerful shoulders seemed likely to give her a good cast, and bade her repeat the feet. Her throw was strong enough, but lacked accuracy, and the spear sailed through the fork and was lost in the forest. The warrior looked crestfallen and worried as the queen stepped towards her, removed the necklace of bird-skulls from around her neck and placed it upon Gretl's.
Once that was done, the formal part of things seemed to be over. The queen withdrew to her `palace' and the warriors milled about Gretl, fingering her light straight hair, and trying to pull their own out straight. The moment it was released it sprang back to its former shape, and they looked disappointed. They were fascinated by the pink tips to her breasts, and their size and weight, for Gretl had a bosom as large or larger than the queen's.
Smiling, Gretl suffered these indignities with the best face she could put upon it, for it was clear that these strange warrior girls wished to assure themselves that she was, as she seemed, as much a woman as they were.
Even Lao Xing's straight hair in its almost blue-tinged blackness was of interest, and they rejoiced in the pinkness of her breast-tips too, placing their own deep brown nipples against her breasts and laughing about the difference. Her eyes too, were fascinating, and the cannibal girls (if such they were), tried to pull theirs into a slant, and watched as Xing blinked to show them the epicanthic fold that lent extra protection to her eyes against the sand and sleet of her sub-native Mongolian regions. Lao Xing was of the tall Shanghainese branch of the Han peoples, and though not as big as Gretl (who stood a solid 5'11"), she was herself of much greater size than their captresses.
Clearly, both women had been accepted as equals by the tribe, which was to turn out very fortunate for the rest of the expedition, including the bemused Bukko Iharto, when they were hustled into the village in mid-afternoon. Instead of being conveyed to the stinking prison hut, Iharto and the other men were led into another of the larger huts, part of which was partitioned off within to make quarters for the women.
Discussion with Iharto led to belief that these female warriors, neo-Amazons Iharto dubbed them, were totally foreign in habit and culture from the mainstream of native island peoples. No other Indonesian culture would permit sleeping facilities containing both sexes, and it was also extremely strange that there were so few native men. Almost none as it turned out, for in visiting the other hut, Iharto (an expert on Indonesian racial divisions) found Papuans, Kanakas, and even a Dyak, but only two men who seemed to be of the same race as the women. They were, in fact, a very small group, the warriors not seeming to number more than a hundred or so, and as he studied them in the succeeding days, he began to get very excited in the possibility of having discovered a totally new race. His delight was somewhat tempered, though, by the possibility of being eaten before he could report his findings, but true scientists all, he, Xing and Gretl made copious notes about their captresses. Many of them were crossbreeds between their own race and the Papuans and Kanakas who were kept as drones, a strange term which they were to discover the reason for only on the second night of their incarceration. On the other hand, the queen and a few of the others bore no characteristics of the other races, and seemed to be pure specimens of this new group.
On the second night, Xing and Gretl were taken to the queen's dwelling hut (the `palace' as they had come to regard it) again to witness the drone's performance. Trying to satisfy the queen seemed difficult, and several of the men who were brought failed to please her and were handed to her warriors. The one she finally settled on was one of the Coltan men who ended the night screaming out his agony when after coitus had taken place several times, she ordered him castrated and led into the forest. He never returned, and they began to understand what had happened to the others. Those who had been passed around the warriors had been offered to the foreigners, but both declined the favour, pointing to their own hut and men. The Amazons took no offence whatever at that, and seemed to respect their right to choose with whom they would lie.
* * * * * * * * *
Their stay became more and more protracted. They were trying to find some way to get themselves and the few remaining Coltan men out, but had no success. It would have been most unwise to upset the queen, the results of whose pique they had seen twice in a few days, and that in addition to the castration and banishment of the Coltan man. He, of course, had not returned, and they just hoped that he had made it down to one of the more friendly villages towards the Lorentz River, for as they knew only too well, there was no help on the upper reaches of the Kepulauan. If they ever managed to get away from here, it was their intention to strike further west for the Lorentz, from where it should be easy to make the trading post at Flamingo Bay.
The expressions of pique from the queen made their flesh creep. On the first occasion a warrior had come before her and had been banished to the forest for six days, with a spear thrust horizontally through both breasts, and bound in position by a pair of ropes twisted around the spearhead and the handle to prevent its being removed from her flesh. With the spear projecting two feet each side of her body, every movement in the jungle would be agony, but she was led away dry-eyed by a pair of keepers, who were instructed to take her a day's travelling into the jungle and then leave her. They saw her bear the impalement with silent courage, and were present when she staggered back into camp six days later and was allowed to remove the spear. She was so exhausted by her ordeal that she could barely stand, yet within three hours, she was back on guard duty at the prison hut. It was a piece of calculated cruelty that the Government party would be a long time forgetting.
The other expression of the queen's wrath was less spectacular, but just as vicious. Another of the warriors was whipped on three successive days for some misdemeanor, and left hanging suffering from the `whipping' tree (the same one on which Gretl and the queen had shown their spear-throwing skill, and in whose fork the pair of spears still lodged) for twelve hours each time.
After fifteen days in the village, and now more than a month since they had left the coast, Lao Xing, a natural linguist, had picked upon enough of the tribe's tongue to be able to converse at a low level with the warriors. She was able to get one of them to explain to the queen who they were, and what they were doing there, and begged her to release them so that they could tell the world about her greatness and the power and sway of her tribe. Flattered, the queen even agreed to allow one of her warriors to accompany them (a great coup for Iharto), but insisted that `the Great Golden One' (Gretl) should remain with them.
Gretl was used to long periods living with the various more savage peoples of the Indonesian islands, and was one of the few Europeans to have gained acceptance by the headhunters of Borneo, with whom she had lived more than three years whilst writing "Some Anthropomorphizational Aspects of the Bornean Orang Utan", that classically obscure and very useful work on which her not inconsiderable reputation rested. Indeed, the scars on her upper arms, into which scroll and diamond patterns had been agonizingly cut with pieces of sharpened rock was a legacy of her acceptance by that people.
There were several of the warriors with whom they had become friendly, and whilst Iharto studied them very carefully, Lao Xing watched them closely for other reasons. Unknown to her companions, Lao Xing was a member of a very exclusive club, the IFF, whose annual gathering on a private island in the Kiribati archipelago she was determined not to miss, and to which she would have dearly loved to have taken one of these warriors. She had a particular warrior in mind, a tall pure stock girl known as Heema, a girl who seemed both strong, skilled and courageous at the only sport they had seen the tribe indulge in - a kind of all-in fighting that went on until one of the contestants was unable to rise to fight on. This seemed a very popular pastime amongst the warriors and was evidently a greatly revered activity, since the queen herself always attended. Several times, both Xing and Gretl had been invited to take part. They had refused, but Xing knew from her conversations with the warriors that they would each have to take part one day or lose the queen's favour. Upon talking it over, it was decided that the first to take part would be Gretl, and once they had the queen's permission to leave, along with Heema, provided that Gretl remained, it was decided that when they were next invited, the blonde German would take part in the sport.
Having always been athletic, and being noted for her toughness, Gretl thought that she should be able to compete with one of the better fighters, and upon her next invitation it fell upon her to fight with Hara, very much one of the better women, one whom Iharto declared to be part Dyak, and likely to have a savage streak in her that would make her a tough opponent. Gretl, prepared for that, made ready to meet the warrior, and stepped forward clad in a tribal v-cloth, the garment they had taken to wearing most of time since the tribe found their more civilized clothing strange.
From the first, Gretl had her hands full. Knowing something of jiujitsu and a fair amount about Thai boxing, Gretl felt capable of beating Hara ultimately, but getting to grips with her would be likely to prove difficult. It was. Gretl was down in the mud twice from powerful kicks before she managed to dodge in and bury a fist into Hara's belly. The warrior rode it well, and cuffed the blonde about the ears before they locked in each other's arms and fell to the ground, knees driving for groins and mounds in the hope of gaining an advantage. Somewhat the larger of the pair, Gretl came out of it best, sitting astride the dark-skinned tribeswoman.
Hara must have been at least thirty years old, and a very experienced battler. Sharper featured than many of the women, she was wide-mouthed and had a well-formed nose which Gretl proceeded to strike hard enough to make bleed, before, with her warrior strength, the older woman (Gretl being only twenty-six) bucked her off and they both stood up and circled.
Having had enough of each other's main strength at close quarters, the two began to fight as Gretl had wanted - at a distance. Hara's kicks were long and accurate. Above all she was powerful and quick and Gretl knew that she was no easy mark. They had noted her as a fine battler before, and though she did not have the fistic skill of the German woman, her agility, coming from the large frame that she was blessed with, made the European fight mindful of the vulnerability of her large breasts. Twice the Dyak caught her there and drove her back pained, but Gretl set her face against any more withdrawals, absorbed a third and most agonizing kick and using her fists in combination stepped through to treat Hara to a left hook to her right breast, and a right cross to the jaw that spun her away. She turned back to close, and was delivered of a powerful foot to the groin, that brought a feral snarl of pain from her and caused her to launch herself furiously at the blonde.
Gretl withstood the storm with difficulty, kicked her legs from under her and dropped on her with her right knee driving full into the left breast. She felt the resilience of the tribeswoman's tissue ground into her ribs, and was not surprised to see her fling herself onto her belly clutching at the mulched breast and howling in pain.
Quickly, the German threw a leg across her, sat down hard on her buttocks, and drove her mons veneris hard into the earth. Hara moaned and twisted under her, reaching to seize a pink-tipped breast, and bury her fingers deep into it. It was Gretl's turn to keen in pain, for she was already bruised there from the kicks Hara had landed earlier, but she punched her in the face again in the hope of freeing the hand from her sensitivity. More blood flowed from the finely shaped nose. It didn't work, and Gretl risked rolling away, the weight of her rolling body dragging her nail-scored breast out of Hara's hand. She rolled again and stood, only to find the bleeding half-Dyak up again and coming for her.
Gretl spun as she came, and reverse heel-kicked her to the diaphragm, cutting off her breath in an instant, and dropping her to her knees. The queen screeched happily at the move, and saw Hara rise to her feet very unsteadily.
Gretl tried to kick her out of it, but only drove her shin into the older woman's ribs, it being doubtful whom the blow hurt most. She limped back out of range of Hara's kicks, one of which would have scythed off her right ear had it connected, and leaning forward, punched again for the belly. Again Hara pitched to her knees, the kick to the diaphragm having robbed her of the ability to tense her abdominals, and it was a very groggy woman whom came to her feet this time.
Gretl was now looking much the fitter of the two, and the tribeswomen looked on awed at the speed and skill of their visitor.
Hara, however, was a very courageous woman, and though badly hurt and weakened was not about to give up her attempt to win the fight because she had suffered a set-back. She retreated, drawing Gretl towards her, and very mindful of the effect that the German's educated feet could have. Reluctant to use her painful left shin to strike with again, Gretl closed to use her bare fist upon the other. It proved a mistake, as Hara leapt high to drive a knee into the upper part of Gretl's belly, seized her long hair, and pulled her forward. Hara hit the ground on her back, her left straightening in the blonde's belly to send her wheeling over her head. Huts, trees and sky whirled crazily before Gretl's eyes before the ground came rapidly up to meet her. Instinctively she tucked her head and landed on her shoulders rolling under the impetus of gravity and Hara's impulsion. She did three backward rolls, then came to her feet shaken and half winded by the crashing fall. She was grateful not to have broken anything, but even as she was trying to find her bearings again, her groin exploded in a sheet of agony as Hara drove a kick full into her vulva, and she was down again. A red haze of pain-exhaustion began to rise before her.
Knowing what that meant, Gretl realized that she could not take much more without having a rest. She was short of oxygen, pain-racked and weakening, and there was but one thing she could think of to do. As Hara's flying body descended towards her in the drop that would take her breath, break her ribs, and finish the fight to the tribeswoman's advantage, the blonde lashed up both feet, and was rewarded by a hideous scream as Hara impaled both her breasts on the rising feet in her descent. She was thrown to one side, and fell with a `sclunch' into a softer and damper patch of earth four feet away from where Gretl now lay flat on her back and totally spent.
This time, Hara did not rise, the terrible agony of the double crush of her breasts having knocked her clean out. Half dead herself, Gretl hauled herself upward after a few seconds and stood there swaying, as though she was waiting for Hara to rise to attack her. But it was quite evident that that worthy was not going to fight again today, and two of the other warriors stepped in to lift her out of the mud-hole and carry her away.
Gretl, the Great Golden One, had just raised her stock to incomparably high values with the queen. She was led away and cleaned down before being escorted to the `palace' hut to spend the evening with the queen.
Iharto was even more excited by this battle than the several others they had seen. Such behaviour, this hard and remorseless fighting amongst the tribeswomen was something only rumoured about West Irian. He began to wonder whether, indeed, this group was in any way associated with the Papuan matriarchal stone-age culture that had been reported some fifty years earlier, and whose activities he seemed to remember were quite comparable with those of the queen here and her warriors. Most exciting of all was that they seemed to regard this sort of behaviour as quite normal and unremarkable. His was going to be a most important paper. Yet he was, in a way, disappointed. They had been in the village nineteen days before Gretl's narrow victory in the free- fight, and had seen no evidence whatever of what they had come to find - cannibalism. Perhaps Gretl had been right all along; perhaps cannibalism was a myth.
There was to be a feast before they left with Heema, and it was set up in the queen's quarters. With the rains starting, most of the activities of the village were now being held under cover, and the anthropologists noted with some interest that the sides of the huts were being rolled up to admit the air to them, whereas earlier they had been down to keep the sun out.
The feast was a marvellous one. These people certainly knew how to treat honoured guests. Like most of the tribes of New Guinea generally, the pig was the chief source of animal protein, that and the chicken. Iharto preferred the former, and ate heartily of the stew he was presented. It was not until his fourth gourd-bowlful that the finger-nail came to light, and suddenly, he wondered whether it was indeed pork that he was eating. For a moment he did not know whether to urge or to finish his bowl. It was Xing who convinced him. Sitting nibbling a chicken wing daintily she looked him hard in the eye and motioned for him to finish his stew. "Do not insult our hosts," she warned him in Dutch, and he dipped his breadfruit in the mess and struggled on. He made one discovery then. Whatever he was eating, it was still delicious. Perhaps, he concluded, it was better not to know.
They left the following day, all save Gretl who remained behind with their promise that they would return in six months.
Once back to civilization, Heema was thoroughly cleansed, studied, measured, blood sampled, and through Xing as interpreter, was given a series of psychiatric tests, and allowed to show her warrior skills to all who might be interested.
Xing assured her that after they had finished with her, she would take her on an extended holiday in the islands. Later, she picked up the phone and got into contact with a certain wealthy Swede. "We shall be at Silver Island right on time," she told him. "I have a West Irian cannibal to show off."
The Swede put down his phone gently, feeling the passion for `the gathering' rising almost tangibly within him. Whatever could Lao Xing mean - `a West Irian cannibal'. That was a rough part of the world okay. But a cannibal? He must remember to get in some special dishes for her.
Heema herself was looking forward to taking part in what her new friend outlined to her. It would certainly make a change from talking into magical machines that spoke back at her, and to being carried about in litters that made so much noise that her ears were hurt.
She felt sure that she would enjoy herself!
(C) Ajax 7/1988
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 19
JOURNEY TO SILVER ISLAND
by Raf
Los Angeles, 1988.08.07 - 07:55h
"Look, the short one, with the large moustache! It must be him!" Ingrid said as she elbowed her equally tall and shapely friend, who was leaning against while walking on unsteady legs, over the 5 cm deep carpet of The Hilton's Penthouse.
"Where? ! I can't open my eyes yet, after this stunning travel, jumping from international airport to another... And this is a damn bad hour to meet a guy, and a short one at that, to make things worse."
Ilona Jacobson was growling, but she knew well that Mr Urtello Bicherino was an important man, despite his size. He was their `passport' (for her and her friend, Ingrid Wolfgrund), to a month in a Pacific Island full of shine and US Dollars. They had lost their first `passport', and found some bruising and lumps on their otherwise perfect bodies, not to speak of broken egos which tended to be very egotistical indeed, when they had met two hyper-active room-service girls in a Japanese classic hotel. But, with all the influence of their good friends in high places, they had contacted Mr. Urtello who, on knowing of the two young women's grudge against two girls who were already registered as contestants in the coming Championship, immediately thought it would be great to put their fire to the straw. He was in charge of organizing and preparing situations that would eventually lead to action outside the arenas... So he carefully managed by that Jew Solomon, that almost no fun came out of the girls fighting.
Urtello was short, but slim and powerful. He was a boxer himself, and was able to enjoy more than most men the capacity of women such as these two sex-kittens when put up to box each other, or roll around the floor like tom-cats. He had fought an inside battle in Borlax to have the Board of Directors' agreement to present all-in wrestling in Silver Island, a type of fight that was getting more popular every day, as more uninhibited women choose to let clothes fall and reveal all of their perfect bodies before entering the ring. Besides, what could be more natural under the burning sun of Silver Island?
He saw them looking around for a short man in the middle of 1.90 m ones when they entered the room, and came quickly came towards him. They shook hands. The official sent by the IFF to convoy the West Group to the airport was glad that he had put these two stunners on his pay-roll. What a pair of firm, strong, virile hands-shakes! And what a pair of breasts. How could these two have been demolished by two diminutive Japanese girls? He knew the Danish girls were good, as he had made a few phone-calls to a gentlemen who had employed them before, and gave excellent references about their sexual and fighting performances. But if their skills were really good, what should he expect of the two Japanese then? He had already studied the medical records of all the registered contestants for this Annual Gala, and the two blondes he was facing now would have been at the top of that lot, if they had been entered as contestants. Although, experienced as he was, he knew that neutral scientific tests were rather far from the real thing, when the rough stuff started to be dished out.
In his halting English (despite his frequent use of the language, the Italian idiomatic expressions were still a great barrier to him) he presented the two Danish swimmers to the group of Europeans who had come dressed in strict, conservative clothes - and were waiting with some anxiety for the arrival of the Americans, now slightly delayed.
"May I present you Mr Nikvist, Miss Maria the Jeezus..."
"Maria de Jesus Figueiredo!" With a broad, happy smile up at the two taller girls, the older woman offered her hand to the two blondes. Her correction of his pronunciation went unnoticed.
"...May be you have already met this neighbour of yours, Miss Kristl Christiansen. She is a karateka and is now entering the demanding school of Katsun-Ruy. And Mr. Malko Lorre, an Austrian plutocrat, and a very good friend of The Club..."
This time both sexy blondes melted as they looked at the handsome, virile man, in his mid thirties. They prolonged their hand-shakes as much as they could, their eyes throwing honey and sugar by the tons upon him, to the obvious displeasure of the young, pretty and curbed thing fretting just behind him - a negligible girl barely past her teens, too dark skinned to be a real competition to the immaculate blonde Amazons.
"He is introducing a new contestant to this Gala, Miss... Miss..." Obviously the kid had not impressed Mr. Urtello much, either. Lorre came to his rescue - trying to assuage the pride girl's spirit which he knew would be badly damaged by now.
"Massupha, Massupha Anankatul. And she is very shy, although she has been living with me for some months now." He felt his left arm caught in an iron grip by the girl's right. She was badly shaken at being forced into planes and airports again and again, since her departure from her native land. His efforts to make her believe she was a person like all the Austrian blondes she had met were coming to nothing as the Danish lasses eyed her down and put her in her place - a piece of jungle scum that really shouldn't be holding this rich, sexy guy's arm! In fact, through months of training in Lorre's mansion, Anankatul had floored many judo and karate women fighters, and beat the hell out of them, while they were fighting in their gym slips, or in the nude - which they did a lot outdoors on the snowy lawn - but after their vanquished opponents showered, put on their beauty cosmetics (more than their usual, to cover the bruises she had inflicted them) Anankatul didn't there to look up at them any more, feeling insecure again towards any woman who was one inch taller, and lighter skinned then herself.
"I am sorry, ladies, it is such a difficult name!" Urtello broke the spell of the tantalizing eye-to-eye fight the two Danes had just won against their possible rival. "Here, Countess Davina la Tours, and her friend Miss Yvette Lucas - and my own discovery, ah, yes, yours too," he added eyeing at his companion, the German promoter Fassbender, "Miss Iren Barrett, and my colleague in IFF, Mr. Volker Fassbender."
"And what do you do out of office time, Mr. Worker?" The `how do you do' buzz that had underlined the flow of hand-shakes was changed to a forced giggling, both from those who understood the joke around the man's name, and those who didn't. Then all eyes turned to the door, from which a noisy group was coming in their direction - and attracting everyone else's attention, too.
As usual, Agnes Johnson, aka 'Sugar', was making an entrance as theatrical as possible. The black rubber mini-skirt, and the sleeveless jacket, with a deep V-neck, were almost the same shade as her skin. Her naked arms were carelessly covered by an extra-long ermine fur, draped around her neck. How she could walk on such spiked heeled, bright red shoes that matched her painted lips and finger- and toe-nails, only another woman with her training would know. Arm in arm, came a slimmer, younger white beauty ten years her junior, in a white executive coat and trousers, red tie not matching her nails (merely polished), nor her lips (free of lipstick), but her mannishly cut, flaming red hair. She was wearing black low heeled shoes which made her look much smaller than her dominating companion.
After embracing the German promoter, Agnes extended her hand to the Italian agent, then introduced Karen O'Connor, the 'Pennsylvania Champ', "until she defeats all of you, ladies... and girls!" she added, looking around her to measure how much competition her prize fighter was facing this year. Apparently she was not impressed - that the competition wouldn't amount to much - and she was already smiling to herself, and was about to say a nasty, biting remark about that, when her eyes focused on the door and her expression changed into one of anger and uncontrollable fury.
One tall man, slightly paunchy in the belly, but well built and obviously strong, probably a former athlete, was opening the large door to facilitate the entrance of three women. Fassbender and Urtello were rushing towards them, to meet them half way - to the obvious displeasure of the black lady.
"How do you do, Countess Leah, and you, Baroness Veil? Mrs. Lucinda Mathers... it has been so long since we've been together!... Great tournament it was, two years ago in Germany, wasn't it? But I'm afraid we have not much time to be here - Sir Dodinas, you are a bit late, we were expecting you sooner."
The three Texans exchanged firm hand-shakes with the two SIR Officials, almost breaking their hands in the process. But it was not them who had attracted the black lady's attention. Lucinda, 1.96m of athletic woman, beautiful but for a disfiguring scar under her jaw, and a divorced woman, had come alone but met the party of the Texans in her way to the Hilton's Penthouse. Precisely two years ago, when she was only a 3rd dan in Katsun-Ruy, she had been harassed by the big black bull dyke, and after refusing to have sex with her, she had been defied to a rubber truncheons' duel, accepted, and thrashed the black woman so much that, despite her bruising having disappeared in a month, the woman's spirit still bore dark thoughts of hate and revenge.
"I didn't know you were coming, Mrs. Lucinda Mathers. Is our Manager expecting you for the Gala?" asked Urtello.
"Yes, he is. I talked the other day with Mr. Solomon himself on the phone. Since he had invited Mei Ling Chung to Silver Island I decided it was time for me to have a go at her title. He said it was OK with the Club if I went there and gave the new girls some intensive training."
"Excuse me, Urtello," said Agnes, pointedly interrupting his conversation. "Is she [a finger stuck crudely towards the brunette's head] coming with us? I refuse to be forced into the company of a treacherous coward, a woman that..."
Urtello Bicherino started talking fast, putting himself between the two ladies, whose eyes were throwing daggers against each other's bosoms: "Well, lady Johnson, I don't think I can do anything about it. I would like to please you, you know, but it is so late I cannot get any other means of transport that would reach SIR in time for the Gala... You must understand I was not aware of this. Don't put me in trouble because of some past misunderstanding. Ms. Mathers has been invited by the Manager himself, so I cannot leave her behind..."
"Precisely! It was from behind that..." Agnes cut in.
"Lay off, Johnson! Please. Let's not revive that... unfortunate incident. It's true Mathers didn't stop beating you when you were down and had lost your weapon - but you had set the rules yourself and had done the same earlier in the meeting." And lowering his voice, and putting his head close to the imposing black's, he added: "I remember that fight very well, as I cannot forget the perfection of your nude body... Please don't make more fuss!"
"Urtello, I'll do this for you. I will go with her in the same plane. But don't let her come close to me at any time, because I'll not be responsible for what happens then!"
Urtello's pleading eyes turned to Lucinda Mathers, who simply smiled at him, and said in a mocking tone intended to hurt Agnes' feelings even more: "Mr. Bicherino, don't let this upset you in any way. That `lady' should know by now that I can take care of myself - I'm not easily scared by her or her lizzies!"
Urtello's eyes went to the ceiling, in a silent prayer to the gods, then he started pulling everybody towards the exit.
"We shall go now, ladies and gentlemen. It's a long journey to SIR. The executive jet will take us to Haiti only, then it has to fly to Australia to pick the other group. I'm afraid some people were not able to co-... ah, I see that the latecomers are arriving, fortunately just in time. Let these girls bring your luggage. They're employees of the Club, and they have come just to give you a hand with that. Will you all please follow me! You, yes, Mr. Hernandez, and Miss Carlotta, I presume? How do you do! I'll present you to the other members as soon as we get to the airport, yes?!"
* * * * * * * * *
Brisbane, 1988.08.09 - 07:30h
"Where are the Club officers that we were supposed to meet here? It is not proper for them to arrive late!"
"Alexander... I understand that you do not like parading in a public place like this when you are off duty, but you are over-reacting a bit. We have come too soon."
Varvara Leontiev tried to smooth down the temper of her lover and sponsor. He had already signaled to her the bad company they were expecting to have. He had seen the Sheik Afzal Riaz in the coffee shop, being fed in public by two very young girls, covered from head to foot by a light blue, and a pink chadors (the most incongruous colours for clothes designed to nullify women's bodies). That and other capitalist Sheiks, Emirs, Sultans, Sharifs and whatever, congregated in OPEC, were the real dominant class - not the soviets, not the Red Army, and dedicated soldiers like him, Alexander Furmanov. To make things worse, the new member of the Club, a South African industrialist (Furmanov had his antenna inside IFF and already knew everything about the man) was sitting at the same table with the rotten Richard Li, and they were talking very friendly together.
Furmanov hated them, and preferred to look at a very beautiful and light-skinned Chinese woman, sitting very uptight and self-conscious two seats away from Li. One advantage of arriving earlier than the others, as Furmanov had, was to observe things like this. She had come with Li, one step behind him, like it was her due as the female company to a traditional Chinese man of some importance, and she was either his playmate or his fighter for the Championship. If she was in the second category, it would be in her own interest that she was really good - as Li's previous prize-fighter had been destroyed at May Ng's feet. The Russian General chuckled to himself, reviving the scene: the Thai (whose name he know longer remembered) had gone down literally at the Vietnamese woman's feet, as it was with a last kick to her ovaries that she had been doubled over, then caught by a reverse side-kick to the forehead, in her last two seconds of life. May Ng's name he remembered well - as he remembered the other girls who were still alive... and kicking! He kept his eyes on Ng (so to speak) in a professional way, because the authoress of 'Manual of Katsun-Ruy' had been a Vietcong agent infiltrated into Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party some years ago. Unfortunately, she had defected the socialist camp, and killed three agents successively sent to neutralize her. Since she had promised she would not blabber what she knew about them, and apparently she was keeping her promise, the Service had decided not to make a fourth attempt to end her... career, as master of Martial Arts. But Furmanov couldn't help dreaming of how perfect it would be, if one of these ladies would accidentally break May Ng's neck or spine. Accidents did happen in competitive body contact sports of the kind these ladies engaged in...
His eyes moved to a more Western set, and lit upon two Japanese girls, sitting together and chatting happily with one another, each with a Japanese camera that was the epitome of technical complexity and miniaturization, yet so easy to operate. Dressed in blue jeans and open denim coats, showing bright coloured T-shirts under them, of the kind the (relatively) open-minded General hated most, with `Kiss my..' written in red over the design of a hole that rested upon Suzuki's belly button, and `I'm a sex-bomb'. `U melt me down' was the nuclear ad on the breasts of the diminutive Yoko. The General knew better than to laugh at them, for he was a student of the Japanese female fight scene, and was familiar with the videotapes of these small women's achievements in savagery, both on public television (twice a week) and in private prize-fights to the finish, that usually came only after a prolonged see-saw battle. Westerners would never understand how people, and women in particular, could be so detached from life, and expose their bodies to pain and injury in exchange for a moment of physical victory over an opponent. One would have had to have been a descendant of the Scythians and Mongols to truly understand that life was only fight, struggle, strive, contest, battle, victory or death.
Furmanov came out of his reverie and stood up, giving an absurd military salute (as he and the man who was coming towards him were both in civilian clothes) to a heavy set man, and his Filipino woman escort. The man, the Brigadier-General from Clark's air-base, returned the compliment - they were enemies on duty, and friends off duty, when they attended IFF events, though they had never spoken with each other in public. Furmanov appreciated the Filipino woman as being taller than most of her race, and looking too confident and wild for his taste. He didn't want his own woman, Varvara, to loose this Championship.
A Malaysian girl, 1.70m, and looking very young, but with a hairdo as disheveled as Tina Turner's, a bosom as imposing as Marilyn Monroe's, and an air of wildness about her like Martine Beswick's, had already been talking with some of the other men, and now came towards Furmanov.
"Good morning, General. I'm Sahara Yaacob, Mr Volker Fassbender's deputy. He asks you to forgive him for not coming himself, but he had to stay longer than he expected in the USA, and he couldn't be here on time. Please accept me as his humble substitute!"
Big eyes, perfect nose, sensual mouth, slim waist curving down to strong hips, head high, meeting his eyes without false modesty or timidity - oh, yes, Volker could go to hell whenever he pleased, if he would always send such substitutes. Although the General had made love to Varvara about two hours earlier, his loins were already heating up at the sight of this sexy wench.
"Oh, but I am delighted that Volker could not come, Miss Sahara." He was holding her hand in his, prolonging the hand-shake, feeling her firm grip, and her skin, not so soft as he would have anticipated in an office girl. "The only thing that is wrong is your name, you look like an oasis, not like a desert! I regret only that we are not alone in this journey to SIR."
In fact, he was promising himself to leave Varvara in `quarantine' during the days of the Championship, as all contenders were expected to have all their accumulated energies to endure and spend at the combat ordeals to come. Yet he had already failed to keep his hands off her this morning. The Eastern girl giggled (a sure sign of embarrassment that the Westerners took for granted as the acknowledgement of a joke), extracted her hand from between his, and pointedly looked towards Varvara. The General became immediately formal again, before he had an impromptu jealousy fight on his hands in a country which the police force was not under the control of his nevertheless long arm.
The General saw Sahara address all the other IFF members present, whom she seemed to know as well as himself, possibly because she had studied their files at IFF very carefully. She was cordial but formal with them all, only the Thai businessman, Niyom-something-or-other, taking the liberty of hugging and kissing her. Then she was directing three other girls to carry the luggage and travelling suitcases to the lift, and from there to the limousines awaiting in front of the hotel. He saw the astonishment on the big Australian bell-boys and women servants, who were cleaning the hall at this early hour, as they interrupted work and looked in awe and with envy at the small Eastern girls who, without any apparent effort, were carrying big and heavy bags, two in each hand, their backs straight, tiny breasts thrusting forward, faces calm and proud. Those small women were concentrated packages of vital energy, animal strength, and gym training. How would Varvara, his sweet and tough `Panda', do against one of those, he wondered, slightly worried.
Two Americans were coming in, one he had met before (Jake Bronson), and a fat bloke he didn't know (Bill Berry), and their `nieces' whom they kept enveloped in their arms: a well built Mexican woman, and a teenager, very dark skinned, looking around her almost in panic, pulling desperately at the fat man's sleeve as if she wanted to hide behind his light jacket. One would say she had never been in a civilized hotel before. Really, what was one to see in Silver Island next, the General wondered.
The General was about to get into the lift, with some other hotel guests going down, as the other lift had already gone down. Verwoerd was just behind him in the small queue, still talking with the Chinese financier. Another lift stopped, and as its doors slid open, Verwoerd automatically moved ahead, shoving the General aside, eager to get in first. But he was stopped in his advance and changed colour as, by the door and almost blocking the entrance into the otherwise empty cabin, a couple was kissing, entwined in each other as if their arms and legs were tentacles of an octopus.
"Stop that, this minute!" exclaimed the red faced giant. But it was obvious the couple didn't hear him, or they were in such a trance that they could not let go of each other's bodies. "What a disgraceful exhibition! This is a scandal! Do you think you are in your ghetto, you filthy xxxxxxx?"
Sahara had been talking to an employee of the hotel, and she was trotting hurriedly to the lift-gate, but she was weighed down, carrying the last five travelling bags of the group, and she arrived too late.
The black man who had been kissing the white woman in the lift passionately, was pushing her out of the way, and asking Verwoerd with malevolence: "Were you talking to me, white master?"
"Yes, and I'm going to teach you to pay respect to other people..."
Verwoerd's fist is cocked up to deliver a good punch, but the black man, who looked athletic enough, uppercut him first to the jaw. The heavier man staggered back, and a discreet shove in the back by the Russian General propelled him towards the black again. The two men traded a few hard punches to ribs and belly in a confused melee inside the lift, destabilizing it. Sahara dumped the bags on the floor and went in, pulling the giant's arms back, while the woman in the lift grabbed her black cavalier's arms and talked to him to calm him down.
"Stop that, Mr. Verwoerd, please! We," Sahara put her best diplomacy in stressing the plural pronoun, "are not in a position to create problems here. Besides - you had no reason to attack Mr. John Carmichael, who happens to be an IFF member like yourself!"
"Ah, well, you may be right, but he was - he was - grabbing that white young lady..."
"I don't know you, mister, nor do I care to!" exploded Mary Jackson, while Sahara pushed everybody into the lift forcibly so they did not have any space left to fight, and pressed the `close' button on them, then marked the `ground floor'. "Maybe you did not notice, but I'm not a white lady! I'm a woman, and I was kissing a man! It's not exactly the scenario of a white virgin being raped by a black gorilla in the jungle you came from!"
Sahara was living through difficult moments. She had to keep a straight face as she heard Mary's shouts, and tried to calm everybody down so they could leave the hotel without any more incidents. Yoko had noticed the racial hatred that had moved Verwoerd into action, but she kept her loyalty to him. Verwoerd was in a fit of sulking, and recalling every step of the past incident, including the shove in his back by the Russian, who actually had sent him into the hands - fists, of the xxxxxxx.
Sahara's eyes went to the ceiling of the twenty-passenger cabin as if it was the sky of her gods. She wished to be in her small, comfortable hut on Silver Island, training and wrestling and pole-fighting for endless hours. It was much less demanding than calming down these guys, and making them take the hovercraft in time!
© Raf January 1989
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 20
A MELTING POT UNDER 45º C
by Raf
Penthesilea galloped without rest over the smooth, rockless surface, her hooves carving a double white stream on a blue valley long enough to disturb the silver flying fish. Inside her body, in spite of the air cooling system working hard since the departure, the heat was being felt by everyone. Some of the men were rich enough to have more than one holiday per year in Silver Island, but most of them could afford - either for economic reasons or the need of keeping this association a secret - only a single visit to the island and, as connoisseurs, they always came for the SIR Annual Gala Championship. Eager, their minds heated in anticipation, of what the next gala would add to the thrills and excitement of the past, they fretted the whole way.
This August 1988 was receiving them as never before. They were used to having an almost permanent dark cloud over their heads, reducing the effect of the direct strike of the Equatorial sun on their heads and body. Even then, the average temperature of 30º C or more had a devastating effect on them and was the first hard test to pass for the athletes that came to put their fighting techniques to the ultimate challenge. But this year, no clouds were visible for the endless kilometers around, and the outside thermometer announced 45º C.
Like her sister Myrina, Penthesilea was a De Luxe hovercraft where the ultimate electronic gadgetry was tested by the Japanese companies whose big bosses had links with the club. Designed for the long course, it had comfortable chairs around the deck, even those provided with digital tv-sets, capturing both the satellite transmissions over the Pacific region and the in-flight videos. Except on the forward deck, reserved for the pilot's cockpit, the inner-side contained small cabins accommodating two persons each, provided with a video monitor and twelve video tapes, selected for the specific taste and needs of both the sponsor and the fighting woman who was about to arrive at Silver Island. For more than a day, they were secluded inside the ship, many times crossing smiles with their opponents, so the club provided them with the last expertise by the masters of each martial art, the training videos of the opponent (when that spying job had been paid for separately and well succeeded), and comment on videos of championship fights of the past in their own kind of combat. Without space for exercise, before they got down to the nitty-gritty, each pair could view and discuss theoretically the problems that the women were about to dealt with within the next two days.
Mary Jackson and John Carmichael had been literally pushed into one of the inner-deck double cabins by the worried Sahara Yaacob, who had directed her 2-I-C Virginia de Guzman to lead the South African giant and his companion to the opposite end cabin. For her, after the brief respite of the air-flight from Brisbane to Pago-Pago, which unfortunately for her had arrived one hour earlier than scheduled, she had had to convey the group through a city-tour of Tatuila. And there the two men had almost clashed twice, over the silliest of things - precedence to enter a curiosity shop, and going out of a mini-bus. The second time there were severe pushes again, and Sahara and the bus driver, another SIR girl, Virginia de Guzman, had had to act physically to separate the women fighters, as Mary had started applying a strangle hold from behind to Verwoerd and Yoko had attacked her with her tiny fists to the ribcage.
Now, away from the US authorities' long arm, Sahara felt more assured about what to do. Discretion, discretion, always discretion, was The Club's motto, and this time, acting without her supervisor near at hand, she was facing two of the most uncooperative couples she had met coming to Silver Island! Damned bad luck, but she was going to complain to Mr. Fassbender as soon as they came ashore.
But that was a long time from now. The first hours aboard were easy as usual. The first half hour, everybody was up, noses squashed against the large pane-window of the deck, filling their eyes with the immensity of the sea and their attention intermittently focused on the large oil-cargos and the small fishing canoes that ventured a bit more far off the islands. The next hour, one by one, they collapsed on the desk-chairs and stood, still wide-eyed, at the blue sea around, and started asking the escort girls for newspapers or putting their ear-phones on and choosing their video-programs. The girls from SIR had to counsel them to drink water and leave the small liquor bottles in the cabin fridges, because they had to settle for a 26 hour trip.
The two Japanese girls had settled over a Channel 4 transmission of the new women wrestling group that was making a furore in japan; side by side they were making low toned comments to each other, as a double flying kick to the breasts hit the target, or a figure-four leg-lock was applied for five minutes. Blake Goodman had paid for one of the channels to show wild-life documentaries from all over the world, and as always a glassy eyed Criami stood at his side, glued to him, drinking in all those superb images and his patient explanations. Marley Aldeguer had befriended Virginia de Guzman, and they were talking of their respective Philippine towns and experiences; they knew that if they traded enough information, they would discover some family link between them, as Filipinos had always some family connection or other. Afzal Riaz, Yasmin to his right and Orgwe to his left, was once more punishing his two slaves, forcing them to view a French hardcore show; each time they showed a lesser degree of interest in bed with him, they were either flogged - which his fellow citizens recommended as the traditional way - or he forced them to remain, eyes open, in front of his porno videos - which he had found the girls hated even more than the floggings, as their skins had been well toughened through severe exercise.
Three hours after that, the clicking of the video buttons was being heard more often than before. As usual, the changing of channels did not improve much. The American dominated satellite media did not provide much diversity, and this lot was not one to be much interested in the late developments of the American foreign policy, the American balance of trade, the American grain producers' pressures on Congressmen, and American so-called afternoon comedies. Yet, strange things do happen. And when everybody went to the common dining room, sitting thirty, Sahara found there were two persons missing. Going back into the darkened rows of chairs, she found General Furmanov and Miss Aldeguer tied to their respective video-chairs. She tip-toed first to his, then to her place and discovered that he was seeing a CBS live-transmission of a speech by the Soviet ambassador to the UN about the changing of the old-guard in the Kremlin, and the woman was sobbing while viewing a B-grade jungle movie where there was question of (badly acted) torture, rape and killing of prisoners in some banana's republic; machine-gun fire by the nazi-type soldiers was putting a quick end to a failed escape attempt through a (painted cardboard paper) jungle. She waited for a break in their attention, only then making her presence known, and told them they could come and have dinner if they wanted. But they did not go into the dining room until several minutes later.
After dinner, with the SIR staff carefully distributed among the members and guests, to provide conversation in their own languages (when possible), everybody went to the assigned cabins to rest. The cooling system went on, although at reduced power now, for even during the night the temperature was above 26 C. Two adjoining rooms had been provided for the sheik, as he had informed them he was coming with two of his women. Sahara came and asked him if there was any fault with them, as the three stood talking in front of one of the cabin doors. He assured her everything was alright, she went away and turned her head at the end of the corridor in time to notice that he had sat down again on a deck chair, and the girls had gone inside - Sahara saw Orgwe's pink flimsy robe trailing behind, as she pulled it inside before she closed the door.
Sahara went quickly to her room, which she shared with the tall Indian PR girl, Aruna Shankar. Aruna had gained first admission to the shower, and was singing one of the beautiful Indian melodies, while moving her hips and belly-button sensuously under the soap.
"Will you please remember that I'm here waiting, Aruna dear, and I own half of that shower cabin?" she taunted the naked girl, while kicking off her boots and peeling off her sweated sweater.
"Yes, Miss Yaacob, I remember that very well. But I like so much to see you fretting out there, so hot waiting for me, that I'm going to stay a little longer..." She turned her luscious buttocks on her chief and friend, and turned on the cooling water again.
"I'm ready, Aruna. Don't tease me tonight, because I've had a hell of a day with that new member, who I think is a damned racist pig!" Sahara was already naked, her towel over her well rounded shoulders, leaning against the shower door-frame; the door was but a plastic curtain, through which she was appreciating the taller and equally muscled body of her partner.
"Me, tease you? I don't like you, you know? I prefer big, blond, macho racist pigs who can give me what you lack... I already asked the Countess to put Maria Palm with you instead of me!"
"Shut up - you - you scoundrel. Her sexual mores are not for you or anyone to comment, and if you don't get out of there in five seconds, I'm going in and I'll shove this towel up your..."
The low but imperative calling of the phone cut the sentence. Aruna turned her head over her shoulder and adopted a crouching fighting position, thinking that the break of the sentence was the start of the attack, and even in friendly tussles she didn't like to give the advantage to her opponent. But Sahara was on the phone, a puzzled look on her face.
"Coming from what cabin?" she paused. "Let me see, if they say it's just next door, either it is one of the Sheik's rooms, or it is Mr. Li's room. It's better to go and check it immediately. You go - I am naked too, my dear. You go now, you hear, and I'll be there in a sec! Take the pass-key with you, just in case." And turning to Aruna, who was finishing her toweling at her side, she explained. "Mr. Goodman called, saying that disturbing and loud noises have been heard for several minutes from one of the cabins, and he wants to rest. The only thing that puzzles me is that it is neither the South African nor the black American cabins... I told Virginia to go and check it, but I'm going to have a look myself." Sahara had her boots on and her cotton slip up her legs already; she had her sweater around her neck, pulling it down over her ample breasts quickly as she crossed the threshold.
The playful tone was gone, and both women had changed into two perfect execs, conscious of their responsibilities towards the highly paying members. The Indian stood by the phone, but she was already dressing up.
Sahara turned around the corner and peered at the darkened corridor. The Sheik was apparently in the same position she had left him, seated on the soft cushions of the deck chair by his cabin. Either he was sound asleep or he was sure the one to hear the noises, unless... Sahara's heart gave a jump and she half-ran down the corridor. At the other end, her dishevelled black hair flying behind her, long legs naked under the pareo she had thrown around her, her 2-I-C made a hurried appearance. Mr. Afzal Riaz startled as from a dream in his chair and looked first to his right, than to his left, at the two rushing women.
"What - what is it? Is something wrong?" he asked them, his eyes going from the Filipino's muscled legs to the pair of pointed tits threatening to split asunder Yaacob's sweater.
"Excuse us, Your Excellency. But have you heard any strange sounds around here, coming from the cabins, maybe? ..." Sahara thought that she saw a flash of a smile illuminating his eyes, but it could be only the effect of her on him.
His voice was casual and neutral as always. "No. Of course not. And I've been here since we came from dinner, if you care to know." They had been talking in low, muffled voices, as if neither wished to break the quietness that engulfed them. The muffled continuous noise of the ship's engines, the nearer noise of the air coming from the ventilators - but nothing more.
"I beg your pardon, but I think someone played a prank on us. I think this was in a poor taste. Good night, sir! Come, Virginia, please."
Virginia tried to pass in front of the Sheik without touching him, but as he did not stand back, she had to brush him, asking her excuses and thinking that the bastard had done it on purpose to have a feel of her hard half naked body against him. But her mind was already concentrating on that stupid American, Goodman, who had decided to complain about nothing. She stood behind Sahara, who was already knocking on the American's door. he opened up almost immediately. He had his shorts on, but Criami was by his side as naked as Eve, and her face obviously as pure and curious as a child's.
"Excuse us, Mr. Goodman. Was it you who phoned Miss Virginia about some noises?" Sahara enquired.
"Yes, indeed. Almost since w came in to sleep, they started. Criami said she heard a cry - I didn't - but then there were noises, apparently people moving furniture about the room, without the least concern for their neighbours. Soon the sun will be up, and then I know I'll not be able to sleep. Nor Criami here, and she needs all the rest she can bef..."
A muffled but distinct bumping sound was heard.
"Was it from Mr. Li's cabin?" asked Sahara.
"You heard it too, didn't you?" interposed Blake. "But what we have heard before was much noisier than this."
Virginia was sticking out her ears towards the right hand side door. "No - I don't think it came from this side."
More of the same bumping sounds were heard. They came from the left, not the immediately adjoining room, the Sheik's, but the one after, retained for his second girl.
"Let's go. There is something fishy in here." Sahara stepped back quickly, standing arms akimbo in front of the peacefully resting Sheik. His eyelids half open, he was drinking in the beauty of two pairs of legs dimly lit by the security system of night lights, his hands crossed above his belly, almost purring like a sleepy cat. "Excuse me, Your Excellency. But don't these knocking sounds on the inside of your cabin disturb you?"
He opened his eyes in dismay, as if hearing banging sounds on the heavy wooden door for the first time. "Ah! You mean - that?" As he talked, a particularly loud noise underlined his question, followed by a few moments of silence, as if to punctuate his line of dialogue.
"Yes, sir. That was what I meant. Would you please care to open the door to that cabin, so we can make sure that everything is alright?" As the SIR officer spoke, a thud and a sound of splintering glass heard in quick succession added to the urgency of the inquest.
"I'm afraid I can't help you. You see, I do not have that key just now. But I assure you everything is alright. My two young ladies are in there having an argument, before one of them comes to rest with me..."
Another loud noise and a muffled scream cut his assuaging phrase. Sahara with an imperative look to Virginia made her move forward with the pass-key. The Sheik tried to restrain her, putting his hand on her wrist, but she had the key in already. She received the teak wood panel in her face and fell back against him, both stumbling back, as Yasmin rammed forward, completely naked, hitting Sahara's stomach like a bullet. Sahara fell with her back against the double glass window of the hovercraft, and reacted quickly to the attack, chopping the exposed neck in front of her. Yasmin Serafin was at last justifying her seraphic last name, sleeping like a baby at Sahara's feet. Sahara knew that it had not been her chop to the neck which had downed the girl. She had fallen against her, not on purposeful attack but as the result of a tremendous propulsive power...
Virginia was getting free from the entangling arms of a Sheik too cautious not to let her fall - nor go away - and she looked at the naked black silhouette in the door frame. Orgwe, blood trickling from her head and her right breast, had a snarling smile on her face, as she massaged her crotch with her right hand. The Sheik moved towards her, and she delivered a short sentence in Arabic, of which Virginia only understood Yasmin's name, and turned her fine heifer buttocks on him. Behind her, Virginia had time enough to see the telephone receiver, the video recorder, and the teakwood drawers lying about in pieces, among the bathroom towels and the bed shits.
She expected the Sheik to enter the room and give Orgwe the victory kiss, but instead she saw him closing the door on the girl and taking the key from her, then return to assist Sahara picking the bruised and battered Yasmin from the floor. She was also totally naked, and her back had a long cut, and her head and face had several lumps, bruises and grazes.
Sahara told the Sheik: "Take her in. I'm going to fetch the medicine bag, and I'll come in a minute."
"Please don't worry with her. This is nothing! They are used to this form of deciding who will sleep with me, when I do not want both at the same time. But I think I shouldn't have allowed them to, tonight, with Yasmin having a Championship fight so soon. Well... It was the will of Allah that she should lose tonight, so she will be the one to stay. Good night, miladies!" So saying he entered his cabin, Yasmin draped over his left arm - still sound asleep.
"It's not possible! This ape is going to lay that wrecked girl because she lost the fight with the other?" Virginia was shaking her head in disbelief at the prospect she now saw as part of a slave's duty.
"Yes, my dear. Unless you decide to go in and let Yasmin beat you, so he has an excuse to dispense her punishment and fuck you instead." Sahara answered her friend, half serious, half amused, as she trotted down the corridor to escape the rebounding slap of Virginia's long arms.
* * * * * * * * *
The next day, even the summer clothes were being felt as oppressive, as the sun heated the hovercraft to melting temperatures. The deck to the sun side was avoided, and people either crowded on the other side lounging in deck chairs or stood inside their private cabins doing their homework on tactics to win the coming combats.
Maria Palm, the crew girl whose lesbian tendencies had been referred to last night by Aruna, was the only one wearing her slacks and boots, and her man's shirt buttoned up. A Chinese Malay, her features were attractive, though not beautiful. She kept a straight face to everybody, although she did everything she was asked to, and quickly. In spite of her being the only female aboard who had not shed her outer clothing, it was clear that she possessed a good body, though the transparent material of her shirt proved that she had almost a plane chest, her large black aureoles sticking up more than her breasts because of her chest muscle development.
The other women had gained first access to the lounging chairs, and were in tiny bikinis enjoying the sun, after applying the protective oils. Criami had caused an uproar when she forgot about social conventions and, feeling perfectly at home in front of the sun, threw down her slip (she had come out of the cabin already topless) and started playing with it, winding it round her big toe. Varvara Leontiev, almost dying of heat, gave a sideways look at the little savage, there unashamedly exposing herself, and commented about the fact to the nearest person, Elvira Reyes; they fell into conversation, only momentarily stopped when Mr. Carmichael's black body interposed between them and the window, as he passed to reach Ms. Mary Jackson. The two women appraised him, eyes going up from his feet and legs to the hard virile body, now clothed in a tiny swimming pouch, black as his own body. When Mary took him by the hand, refusing his proposal to get up and go inside with him, and pulling him down to her, until she forced his mouth to hers, the two women giggled simultaneously.
"The Black Adonis is not strong enough to resist the Caucasian Amazon..." said Varvara, in a muffled voice, without tearing her eyes from the kissing pair.
"I guess that a pretty broad always wins in that kind of arm-wrestling." Elvira Reyes answer came calm as usual, but perhaps with a slight taint of sadness that the perceptive Varvara noticed.
"Have you noticed the scars in her body? They say they have used the best techniques on her - and in the USA they are pretty good at that surgery - but under this crude light you can see them, I'm sure..."
Elvira nodded her assent, and added: "Much more damage that woman suffered, than you - or me." Her right hand going by itself to cover her mouth and her lower cheek where the scars of multiple cestus fights had accumulated for years. "But look how that pouch is moving up - it reassures us that sexuality doesn't end when a woman's skin is ripped to shreds!"
John was an awkward position, bent over his reclining girlfriend, who kept pulling him down now holding him by both wrists, as she explored the depths of his mouth with her tongue.
Afzal got out of his cabin holding Yasmin's hand, as he would have done with a schoolgirl reticent to go to school in the morning. He was beaming with happiness, smiling to everyone, and bending his head to each of the ladies, slowing his step to have a good eyeful of all those well stacked bikinis concentrated along the passage to the restaurant room. Yasmin was wrapped in a brown robe, her body too hurt to have anything tightening her body this morning. She stiffened when her master stopped in front of Criami, the girl she was to fight on the Island. She didn't want to look, but as he stood there for a moment, curiosity vanquished her, and she glanced at her opponent. The 'Thorny Black Rose' had no thorns about her! She was a very young girl, much smaller and lighter than herself. If the Orgwe bitch had not taken her by surprise as soon as she had closed the door from the inside, smashing her head on the door so many times as she hold her right arm twisted behind her back in a judo hold, she would have been sure to defeat this one any time. But just now, she couldn't force herself to think about fighting; she needed rest, from the fight and the endless sex session the Sheik had imposed on her afterwards, to teach her not to lose her fights. The man was obviously enjoying the sight of Criami, her pink sex open like a rose under the sun, surrounded by a curly black furrow that was even darker than the girl's skin, and her small pert nipples were erect with her nubile vigour. She was keeping her game of rolling the panties around her toes, passing it from one foot to the other, keeping her legs straight forward and wide apart, like two wood planks. From his harder breathing, and his unconscious pressure on her arm, Yasmin knew he was ready again to make love, and she wanted to kill the dark native girl for that, there and then, because it would be she, and not her, Criami, who would have to go with him again.
At the opposite end of the corridor, Verwoerd and Lukmatuli appeared, to call the two Japanese girls. The derisive snort of Verwoerd when he saw the black man embracing the white chick again was loud enough to call everyone's attention. But fortunately, not that of the couple. From the Sheik's side, Blake Goodman came out of his room and called for Criami by her name. The girl stood up startled and ran to him, slip in hand (so quick had she been that no one saw her sending it with a kick in the air into her hand), shoving Yasmin aside against the Sheik as she passed them. Yasmin let go a cry of pain and surprise, and immediately felt sorry for it, as the Sheik's powerful hand closed fiercely on her biceps.
"Can't you at least keep quite any longer? I thought that you were better than most, and you're trying to disgrace me in front of these women champions - you do go on behaving like that, and I'll tear you apart, you know that? !"
While he reprimanded the girl, two things happened at the same time. The kissing pair stood up on hearing Yasmin's cry, and thus blocking suddenly the passage of Yoko and Suzuki who were walking quickly towards their sponsors. Although they halted before collision, it was a bad moment in which Mary and Yoko eyed at each other defiantly. Verwoerd approached them, mumbling obscenities about the 'naked ape', with Lukmatuli hanging on his left arm, trying to pull him back. Goodman had already closed himself with Criami in his cabin.
John heard the blond invective against him, and faced him. "O.K., mister. Let's solve this once and for all. If you are man enough to put me out of your way, you show it! I am ready for you whenever you say so..."
But before he could say the conditions of their duel, Verwoerd disengaged his left arm and brought it forward in a fist, a block of cement rather, that hit John under the jaw, knocking him down for a long spell. Long enough for the bikinied Mary to deliver a mule kick to the tall man, taking him just above the belt of his white trousers. He staggered back, expelling air in a great 'houff', trying to catch her foot in his hands. He had an apparent success, as her right foot stood caught between his two iron hands and his stomach, but she was in the air like a ballerina, having jump so high that she hurt her head on the deck ceiling, before she dropped on him, straddling him with her left leg, her arms around his neck, throwing the giant down with her weight upon his shoulders. Lukmatuli stepped aside, to avoid the two bodies crashing on him. The crash shook the boat and everyone crowded around the brawlers to see what was happening.
Mary had caught Verwoerd's neck between her thighs, and was straining her muscles to strangle him, her body pushed back, resting on her elbows. His big hands were now clutching her legs, pushing them apart, so far unsuccessfully. As Verwoerd was not wearing a shirt or a sweater, the thighs had a perfect hold on him. Yoko let go a war cry and, before Suzuki could hold her, she jumped over her prostrate sponsor and landing in a perfect drop kick to the reclining Amazon's breasts. Mary cried in pain and surprise, opening her legs, with Yoko falling immediately on her , straddling her and keeping herself up by two firm grips on Mary's black tresses, forcing her head to bang several times on the floor. Mary was fortunate the Club had decided to have the ship's teak wooden floor covered with industrial carpet, to test its resistance to heat and for noise insulation, as she would have been too dazed to fight back otherwise. She grabbed Yoko's breasts in a double claw hold, and squashed them. Her hair got free in a moment, as Yoko's wiry arms passed between hers, forcing them wide open to free her mauled breasts. Verwoerd's weight was no longer upon her legs, so Mary now pulled her left leg up, to knee her opponent between the legs and the back, and as Yoko fell forward, she received her with a head butt to her breast, immediately followed by a bone crashing head butt to her chin.
Yoko moaned in agony, as her adversary's strong arms twisted her body off her and got up, applying a twisting leg hold to her right leg. Yoko had tears in her eyes due to pain, as the white fighter spread Yoko's legs apart in the air, and maintained her face crushed into the thick carpet. Yoko thought the bitchy woman would split her body at the crotch, as she kept her pressure and now added to it with her own weight, doubling the Japanese girl's back in an unnatural reverse arc. The on-lookers seemed reluctant to intervene, enjoying the spectacle provided by the two pairs of fighters, at last having something to take their minds off the melting sun.
In fact, while the two gals were churning over each other, another fight had started. The South African stood up, shaking his head, only to be confronted by two black fists. Escaping from a left to the face by pulling back his head, he felt the smaller man's power as a right uppercut into his solar plexus felt like a hot rod perforating his muscle shield. He waved his arms, and started throwing his own punches, at close range as the space provided no area for the combatants to back up to the ropes. With quick movements of arms and body, the black caught both demolishing blows on his forearms. The churning girls were behind his back, so Verwoerd could not step back either, and he defended the black's new onslaught the best he could. He had more power than the black man, but he was not placing a single punch, while the other had already spread a red mark over the spleen, and touched him twice more (causing him a terrible pain) as he kept defending his face, assuming wrongly that it would be the black's next target.
"Stop this nonsense immediately!" Sahara's voice boomed from behind the curtain of the vociferous on-lookers. Suzuki was aching to participate, and help her friend out of her predicament, but her careful sponsor was restraining her, with a strong hug around her shoulders. Sahara and three colleagues were pushing them and the other members and Championship contestants aside, and started policing the place. First they shoved the spectators aside making more room around the fighting pairs.
Verwoerd used a slight distraction of his foe to place a good shot to the eye, paid with a punch deep under his belt which dropped the untensed man to his knees, gaping for air. Carmichael ungallantly, was pulling a right uppercut from behind the shoulder that would hurt the blond giant badly, but Maria Palm grabbed his arm in the air, using his strength to force him in a right turn towards her, then applying a left hook under his heart that stopped him in his tracks. He stood on his tip toes, as if hanging from the ceiling, as the woman hold his right arm up, and pressed her left palm against his heart, staring him eye to eye. He saw the big lass, in a smart man's shirt with necktie and all, and shook himself from her hypnotic stare and started to move, in order to hit the bitch's with a left uppercut.
"Drop it, mister, or you'll regret it." Her cold stare, and her ferocious snarl helped to calm him down, but anyway, before he could have reached her with his punch, she had forced his back against the cabin's outer wall, and caught his left wrist in her hand, plumbing him against the wall with her own body. He glanced around him and saw that order was being quickly restored.
Miss Yaacob was holding Verwoerd's right arm in a judo lock while telling him crisply to behave, if he really wanted her 'to let go'. A few feet away, Yoko was coming to her knees, panting a little, while Mary fought against the Phillipino and the Indian girls of the crew who were using their conjugate efforts to dominate her. Virginia, her slip torn in two hanging from her bronzed left leg, was holding the American Jack-Knife's right arm down, while Aruna, her hair in a tangled mess, fought to keep her hold on Mary's left arm. Carmichael decided to call his fighter back.
"Hold it, Mary. The girls are right. You shouldn't..."
It was then that Yoko, a fixed stare in her impassive face, came between the two crew girls and thrust a vicious frontal kick into Mary's unprotected lower belly. It was then that the two SIR employees really showed their mettle. Possibly alerted by the change in Mary's eyes and screams, from anger to terror as she saw Yoko advanced on her, well pinned to the wall between the strong women's arms, Aruna pivoted on her right leg and thrust her left foot in a heel kick to the attacking leg. Yoko's leg was diverted leftwards, and it caught Virginia's shoulder with such strength that she went face forwards against the wall with a scream. But Yoko renewed her war cry and shot her right leg down, this time to kick Mary's right breast. Aruna's left leg didn't come down to the floor though, as if she expected to need to use it again soon, and she shot a second kick, this time to connect with Yoko's groin. Mary had not had time to escape, and she felt her arms again in a lock, as Yoko twisted in the floor in agony. Mary and Carmichael stopped struggling, and immediately the women holding them let them free. The SIR employees were a torrent of humble excuses to the 'much honoured guests' - mow that the storm was over - but they had acted with perfect sense, applying effective restraining holds, though in a confined space, and never loosing the objective of protecting the brawlers' safety first, before their own.
"Tell me, my friend, do you have your boys so well trained as this A-team?" General Furmanov asked rhetorically, almost misty eyed, turning to Charles Luigs who was just one step behind him.
"Well, the MPs maybe, but they would not be paying so much attention to the brawler's safety, even if they were a rank above their own." The American General passed his hands around Marley's shoulders, but rivetting his eyes on the other Phillipino woman's bush as Virginia de Guzman trotted past them, careless of her nudity, escorting Mary quickly into the restaurant room. Virginia said something in tagalog that made Marley Aldeguer laugh.
"What was it the young lady said to you, Miss?" asked the Russian General politely.
"She said she should receive a higher fee this month, because it is dangerous to hunt lionesses without your pants on!" answered the woman, giggling again.
"Oh. I'm sure she is right. But I wonder why we take so much trouble to train women as fighters, if they come so naturally so out of the Philippines. General Luigs here has told me about your own prowesses, and now I see this marvelous athlete, Guzman isn't it?..."
"Yes, that is her name. We have many Portuguese and Spanish names like those in our land." After a short pause, the tallish woman added, "A difficult place to live in, you know, one must be brave from one's teens, or else..."
"I'm sure it is... I'll be glad be seeing you in training, and maybe you could arrange to have a training match with her - she is your friend, isn't she? - so I could watch both of you together on the mat."
Marley smiled coyly, putting her left hand in front of her mouth, to prevent the lack of her tooth being seen so soon by the handsome and virile General. She knew he was Russian, and she did not very much like the communists in her country, but this one did not look to be of the same bad lot, and her sponsor was not evading him.
"Maybe. I'll talk with her later, sir." She looked to 'her' General as she answered, waiting for a grimace of distaste, but she saw Luigs was smiling, and winking at his adversary and friend. Marley thought that she and Virginia could perhaps unite the two conflicting super powers in the same bed, or mat, sooner than the UN could.
They were still very far away from Silver Island, and yet the temperature could not be higher, nor the cultural melting pot could produce more disparate pairings.
* * * * * * * * *
After Miss Yaacob's lecture on bad manners, given at the restaurant at lunch time, she asked the four brawlers to regain their cabins and remain there as long as possible. She would not allow them to put theirs and their sponsored contestants safety at risk just because they were unable to control their emotions. She promised a full report to her superior officers in SIR, and they would certainly find a way to settle this dispute of a personal nature. Of course, she could not admit it was a racial prejudice that was at the root of the problem, as all members had signed the same registration form.
The Sheik choose to sit at the top side of a table sitting eight persons, with Orgwe and Yasmin facing each other, respectively to his left and right. Their flimsy robes draped around their otherwise nude bodies did not completely cover the bluish marks they had inflicted upon each other fighting in the restricted space of Orgwe's cabin.
After the desserts were served, Blake Goodman came to the Sheik's table. "Excuse me, sir, but I am the sponsor of Miss Criami Avati, the girl scheduled to meet your at wrestling in the first hand of..."
"Yes, I know. I saw her exercising this morning." The American startled at this statement, and the Sheik went on: "She was exposing her body to the sun - totally. As that is the equipment she will be using when she wrestles, I assume it was all part of her training!"
Afzal chuckled, and that further embarrassed the American, who tried to put up with the difficult mission he had imposed himself the best he could. "Oh, I see - it was when, well, just before that argument started at the corridor's end. The fact is that this girl is rather primitive, and she speaks only a little French - besides her native language, of course, which is useless to us! She was coming at me, on the run, and I think she may have hurt Miss Yasmin by accident. In our cabin, she kept saying time and again that she heard your girl cry, when she brushed past her, and now - well, she wants to apologize to her. If you think it is alright!..."
"Yasmin, did that girl hurt you?" Afzal's voice was full of mockery.
"No, master. How could she? I'm stronger than she!" Yasmin's back straightened up, looking across the room at Orgwe, proudly and defiantly.
"You see. Apparently your little savage wanted to boast about her capability to induce pain in my champion, but that is all. Go and don't think about it any more!"
"But I do. She has been worried all morning. She says that if she does not apologize to your girl, the spirits of her tribe will not help her in her fight... She would have come here already if she knew your language. It was me who asked her to wait until I had explained her intention to you."
As the American spoke, the mocking stare of the Sheik made him avert his eyes, and inadvertently he turned his head back, towards Criami. The girl took that as the sign for her to join them, and she trotted to their table, as the Sheik was saying: "If her spirits don't help her, so be it. I couldn't care less!"
Criami was at Yasmin's left side, bending her body at the waist, towards her Championship rival, her very long hair falling forward and covering completely her face.
"Moi demande pardon. Moi heurter toi. Toi pardonner moi. Moi tres tres triste. Beaucoup triste." [a]
Yasmin looked derisively at the other teenager. "Get lost!"
Criami immediately looked at her sponsor, anxiously waiting for his translation (a proceeding she had accustomed herself since he had taken her out of her tribe). Goodman looked at her watery eyes, and didn't know how to deal with the situation.
"Go on. Tell her to go away. After all, she already played her act!" The Sheik said, as he looked amused by the poor sight of his champion's adversary. He was almost sure now that, in spite of her beating by Orgwe, Yasmin would pass the first hand of the Championship.
"How can I? Why don't you have passion of her? I'm telling you that this girl is genuine, pure, and she is really hurt by the thought that she may have hurt this young lady..."
Criami's eyes searched Yasmin's, and she insisted: "Toi pardonner moi, oui?" [b ]
Yasmin placed her left hand under the girl's jaw, stared her eye to eye and screamed a brutal "N-o-o-o!", shaking her head left and right, and back, as all attentions in the room centered in their table.
Criami's tears sprang from her eyes in two silent rivers, as her small breasts heaved in deep sobs, kneeling at Yasmin's feet, kissing them and rubbing them gently with her hair before the other could react.
Orgwe stood up. The Sheik looked up at her pointedly, demanding that she stay quiet. Yasmin didn't want to back on her attitude, but she was trapped in a completely new situation she could never have imagined herself to be in: a superior, a dominant person, who could give or take another person's happiness, just like her master did. And she was acting like her master did with his slaves. Just like him. She tried to free her legs, but her robe did not help much. The girl at her feet kept wetting her feet with her tears, as she kissed them and caressed them with her hands, but now she was saying between sobs one word only, a word Yasmin knew, although in a different accent: "Pardon... pardon... pardon..."
The message passed. "Get up! I forgive him." Criami stopped sobbing and looked up at the other girl, showing fear and anxiety. Suddenly the Arab slave decided to rephrase her answer in the broken English she used before the Sheik's teaching, and said: "Me (pointing a finger to her bosom) pardon you (pointing a finger to Criami's taut breast)."
Goodman felt an immense relief as Criami stood up and looked at him for confirmation. "Oui, elle dit qu'elle te pardonne. Elle pardonner toi."[c]
Criami's face was beaming with joy. "Maintenant, les esprits des ancetres vont etre favorables. Je vais te vaincre!" [d]
The Sheik asked suspiciously: "What did she say?"
"She says she can die in peace now, thanks to the spirits. Good afternoon sir, my ladies..." Goodman trotted away to his cabin, pushing Criami in front of him, thinking that even on holidays it was good to use the diplomatic skills of the negotiating table.
With one more incident to talk about, the small group dispersed to their respective cabins, and their research work on their adversaries weak points. The immensity of the sea was now and then broken by an island, more often by mere islets and rocks, and then again nothing but the blue sea and the blue sky.
* * * * * * * * *
Compared with its start, the last of the journey of Penthesilea's journey was uneventful. It was almost 23:00 pm, Tuesday 9 again (a strange sensation, that of being twice in the same time period, and how confusing) when they were asked to prepare to disembark. Penthesilea was approaching carefully the dimly lit western pier; a few meters ahead, Myrina was sleeping against the eastern pier, completely immerse in shadows.
About forty men and women, dressed in bathing shorts and suits, were waiting for them, half of them holding burning torches or flashlights. No sounds were heard, but the rocking of the sea against the piers.
Fassbender came out of that mass of people and presented himself to the new club members. Sahara came near him as soon as possible, murmuring something that put a wrinkle on his face.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I know that a hovercraft is not the best way to make a trip as long as this one, in spite of us trying our best to provide the best possible accommodations. But for such a large party, it still is the only means we have. The worst is that you still have quite a long march to do before you reach your bedrooms. Our solar energy car is useless at this hour, so we shall walk through a path in the western shore, and then up the steep hill, some 200 meters. You may leave all your luggage to our personnel. They will escort you to your chambers."
Yoko, in spite of the expert ministrations of Aruna, still felt her leg aching, but the others tottered forward, quite happy to walk freely after such a long term in prison within the ship. The men stared at the SIR male and female personnel, carrying the heavy bags with great ease. They were of varied origins, Hawaiians, Filipinos, Indians, Malays, Chinese - but they had been carefully chosen for their athletic build, men and women alike.
Fassbender was pulled back by Richard Li, and the two men engaged deeply in conversation.
While the group deepened their feet on the sand covered trail around the northern beach, they looked up the hill trying to see the eagle's nest that was the main arena and its associated buildings, but it was impossible to see them, as they were low, and in darkness, and surrounded by several lines of trees.
"Be careful not to get off the trail, after that bend in the way. These rocks are so sharp, that even with your shoes on you could hurt yourself on this uneven ground!" It was one of the local girls who gave the advice, being the one marching ahead of the group, and the word was passed back in Indian file style.
Besides, the men holding the torches had positioned themselves at intervals along the line, their arms relentlessly high above their heads, so everybody would have a clear perception of the narrow foot-trail.
A few kilometers after, the trail bent left, and the up hill climb started. Those following Yoko and Suzuki had the clear notion that they were getting a few feet behind the first half of the group. Suzuki came closer to Yoko and asked her if she was sure she could make it by herself. The second part of the escalade through the brushland looked much steeper than the first.
"You're limping badly. If you keep stressing that leg more than it is, you'll lose in Indian wrestling even if your adversary was a baby. Don't be stubborn! Get on my back, I say."
"No. Don't you dare say it again. I'll make it."
"Excuse me, are you Miss Suzuki - and Miss Yoko?" a deep voice asked behind them, forcing the two young women to stop. "I'm Fassbender, Volker Fassbender, a match promoter working for this club - both for the Club's profit and my own pleasure. I've heard about the accidental way in which you were discovered by your sponsors..."
As he spoke, he had unobtrusively pushed them aside, and made them stop, as the other guests and porters climbed past them. He went on speaking, until they were the only remaining ones, and two native men and two girls. "I met yesterday Misses Ingrid and Ilona, whom you two have beat conclusively when you thought they were attacking costumers in your hotel. The point is, I was not in favour of their coming. I do not approve of that kind of girl. But our paying guests and club members usually favour an impromptu fight out of the arenas, and my associate promoter, Mr. Urtello Bicherino, has won his point about having them and you around... Either they will provoke you just for the sake of revenge, or you'll accept a proper match with them - for an extra fat cheque, of course, since these revenge fights usually get out of control."
"We are not afraid of them. Any time they want, we'll tangle..." It was Yoko's voice, shrill in the peaceful night.
"Of course. I understand you. As a German, I would prefer myself to die than to back off from a fight. But, Miss Yoko, now that no one else can see you, you are going to make the rest of the journey on Joe's back. please do it for me. I will put some money on you to win, and I don't like losing money by the sheer stubbornness of a girl..."
Joe was a sturdy looking Hawaiian, who was evidently very glad at the prospect of surcharging his companion with two large bags and taking the beautiful Japanese girl up the hill. Embarrassed, Yoko looked at Suzuki, and her companion giggled.
"I know that you suffered a painful hold during your fight with Miss Jackson. You'll be given extra massage tonight by Ivoa." A tall native islander was smiling openly at Yoko, showing her perfect white teeth. "Tomorrow, you will be marching on your feet again, but not tonight! Joe, take the young lady on your back."
The man said something in his native language, and Ivoa laughed aloud. The other man took the extra luggage, gave the last bag to one of the women, and they departed quickly up the hill, the woman torch holder closing the march.
"What did he say, Mr. Fassbender?" asked Suzuki at last, incapable of controlling her curiosity much longer.
"He said that he would take Miss Yoko to hell if she told him so, so it would be the least of things to carry her up the hill. And you know how this islanders are afraid of the hell!"
Suzuki slapped Yoko's bottom, as she was being taken on Joe's shoulders, her face flushed crimson at the compliment the porter had given her.
"Lucky girl!" said Suzuki. "I think I should have broken one or two legs myself, so a strong guy like yours would carry me up the hill to my bedroom, too!"
"Don't worry, my dear," Yoko snapped at her. "I'll break both of your legs as soon as we'll be left alone..."
* * * * * * * * *
At 07:00 am sharp the morning call disturbed only those who had come last night. Everybody else was looking through the north windows at a female figure in stone.
"A fantastic piece of sculpture, that is! Look at the perfection of the head... the impression of strength it gives, from the position of the bent arms and legs..." Alexander Furmanov was delighting his eyes again, as he showed the sculpture in a clear area between the short palm trees that spread over the hill top. It was big enough to be seen clearly from a distance such as the major part of the bay windows in the top floors of the duplex.
A seated woman, defined in a few strokes of the chisel, yet a beautiful face, a firm, round breast, arms bent back as if in a muscle-building exercise. Her long legs were firm, the muscles not apparent, but a mere suggestion. [e] She was not alone, other statues bordering the line of palm trees' wood, statues of healthy, exercise-prone women, full of vigour and action, as if to perpetually defy the female eyes that would look upon them from the bedroom windows to come out and pitch their arm muscles against the strength of the granite Amazons.
The sun was already high, and heating up the rooms. The exposure to the North reduced a bit of that problem, but only during the early hours. The complex air conditioning system, which would reverse the solar energy to refresh the inner rooms during day time and recharge the power batteries for use during the night time applications had cost a fortune but those who were getting up now certainly could afford it.
The sound proof walls were keeping secret those typical noises of every hotel room in the world at a similar time: the almost continuous splash of showering water over naked bodies, still half asleep, or the energetic toweling before bathing suits or slips, flimsy silk or satin negligees covered nude bodies, and wood or plastic sandals encased feet that trotted down the corridor to the main entry. There was not much talking between the couples, or friends who had banked together in the duplexes. The strategy of the fights to come had been discussed and reviewed once more before a short night's rest. Now, it was the anxiety of the first meeting of all contenders, and the exhibition or contention of their power during the individual training, in order to improve the power of each participant in the battles to come.
The Club officials had taken measures to keep each sponsor and female fighter away from the others as much as possible, to avoid their mutual perception of the fighters' present status, capacity and mood. Not an easy job, since they had to live so close in the south building, and share each other's company in the dining room.
After taking some fruit juice from the bottles provided in each room, participants and sponsors said good-bye and went out their separate ways. Downstairs, several men and women assistants were waiting to escort them up the hill a bit more, along the foot path similar to the west coast they had climbed the day before. This was steeper, and better maintained than the other. The women fighters could not help themselves looking over those male assistants from top to bottom - they were all dark-skinned, medium size, with ugly or plain faces, but their naked chests and arms, above trim waists and large, cotton white trousers, showed that they were all fit and strong athletes themselves. The girls looked at the men's feet, and saw they were calloused like those of poor peasants or kick-boxers. The thin men, who were usually also the taller, with almost no body hair, were Indians; the bearded ones, with eyes slit like the Chinese, but stockier and with a feral look about them, were Malays and Filipinos; those with thin moustaches but no beards, supple but well muscled, and just a bit better looking than the others, were the Thais.
Soon, in groups of two, sometimes three, when the presence of an interpreter had been deemed necessary, the Club's Championship challengers for this year and the trainers appointed to them disappeared, jogging down the hill, either by the road leading to the valley by the Hesperides Hillock, or cross-countrying through the brushland and the forest in direction of the deep Ocean below.
"Good morning, gentlemen! I'm Uhla Schein, Ms. Imogen de Lysset's secretary. I hope you've all enjoyed a good night's rest before these morning exercises. The President bids the presence of two of you, Mr. Verwoerd and Mr. Carmichael, will you both please follow me?"
"With that luscious body, under that leather bolero and mini... no, micro-skirt, I would follow her anywhere!" Niyom Lukmatuli tried to make a joke out of the situation, but his worried face betrayed his real feelings, as he was aware that the behaviour of those two members would not be received by the President in the best of humours. Verwoerd put up a non-committal look and pushed aside the two nearest sponsors to be the first to approach the young Swiss lady.
"There's no hurry, gentlemen - the Countess is waiting for us in the first floor meeting room." As she said this, she turned her back on them and departed in firm, long strides, amazing the men, for she was walking on 5" (12cm) high heeled boots, on an uneven and rocky path.
"What about us?" General Furmanov wanted to know.
"You, gentlemen, are going to get rid of your paralyzed limbs. Those who choose gymnastics will follow Miss Aruna there..." Sahara Yaacob, her usual smile again on her face, was taking command of the rest of the sponsor's group. But inside, she was savouring what was about to happen to the disorderly members, her tongue actually moistening her lips in anticipated pleasure, as she pointed to the Indian girl with her chin. "...and the others will follow Miss Maria Palm to the basement, to the body-building room."
Agnes Johnson was the only one to follow the Chinese Malay girl with evident pleasure. Some of the men who had previously enrolled for the body-building programme this morning were put off by their bad luck, as the cold stare of the woman contrasted markedly with the cattiness of the Indian girl. Besides, the cut-off legs of the jeans Aruna was wearing this morning showed that she was not one of Bombay's living skeletons, while Maria Pam was overdressed as if she was about to climb the Everest: loose sweater, with a collar up to the neck, faded slacks, straw hat down to her ears - making it almost impossible to say if she was of the feminine gender. But Alexander Furmanov, Jake Bronson, Willelm Nikvist and Malko Lorre had enlisted and willy-nilly had to follow her.
The other group was trotting up the large and comfortable wooden staircase to the top floor, covered by a wood-tiled ceiling, Japanese style.
"Caramba! Que pintura mas formosa es esta!" [f] Pedro Hernandez exclaimed, as he stopped suddenly and Richard Li bumped against him. Both looked up at the wall to wall picture of two naked women, drawn in black and white, wrestling like pros.
Mr. Li did not know Spanish, but he sure partook of the same view as the Chilean boxing fan, perhaps even more so, as he liked to see the long sustenance of pain that only wrestling holds could afford, not the standing duels with fists and feet. He had already seen several reproductions of works by the same American Artist, Casey, but he had never seen such a large picture by him. The other members had stopped now on the platform, all admiring the way the artist had conveyed the strength and suffering of the women, with full, well muscled bodies, and the distorting effects of the wrestling hold on their limbs, thin layer of fat, and the muscle shield beneath it.
From the top of the next flight of stairs, Aruna taunted the group: "If you ladies and gentlemen are staying there all this morning, you'll not be allowed to have refreshments later in the day!" Then, changing her tone, she added: "Come. If you like him, you'll have more of his reproductions on the Club's walls. It's one of the improvements we have had in the last four months, after refurbishing the Artemis gym, and the main building. You'll see that the dining room is now dominated by an even larger picture, with the ladies using their knees and feet on each other to devastating results..."
Either the men, and Ingrid Wolfgrund, Ilona Jacobson and the black Orgwe (looking diminutive at the side of the blonde giantesses), suddenly recalled that they had to keep fit, and shook away curiosity. Hurried steps took them all up and they entered the panel sliding doors to the L-shaped gym built and connected with the main arena.
"Put yourselves at ease, and lets work." The Indian woman threw her sandals away against the wall, jerked off her clinging T-shirt, and stood in her black bra and shorts. "If you're going to keep all those clothes on, you'll not be able to cope for more than thirty minutes of what I'm going to demand from you!"
The men were taking off shoes and shirts, then trousers - they all knew what to expect and they were using bathing trunks or gym trunks, but they had not expected to see the two Swedish girls stripping down to their slips, too. Orgwe looked at them with her hand over her mouth. She was used to parading like that in the harem, among the other women, or in front of the Sheik - but in front of other men!... She was keeping her light shirt and baggy cotton trousers, laced at her ankles.
"Down on your backs, quick! Now, lets start with fifty sit-ups, legs straight, the arms well extended above your heads. First, slowly, one-two-three... and four... one-two-three... and four..."
By 08:00 am, they were all sweaty.
By 09:00 am, Aruna started kicking Li's belly from under him, as he was not doing the push-ups fast enough, and then she had to help Ilona the same way.
By 09:30 am, Aruna looked sadly at the prostrated bodies around her; only Orgwe and Ingrid were still moving, although that could hardly be described as running any more.
"Stop! You had already stopped, anyway! You're going to stay here, while I go downstairs to bring you the refreshments - which you do not deserve. Meanwhile, you do breathing exercises. And, Mr. Li, and Mr. Hernandez, you came this year most out of shape!..."
With that, Aruna trotted down the stairs, as if she herself had not been doing all the exercises she had imposed on her class.
Pedro Hernandez immediately disobeyed her and engaged in conversation with Ilona, half reclining over her supine body, almost nude as her slip had moistened with sweat and rolled itself up between her crotch and buttocks.
Li walked slowly to the balustrade over looking the west coast and looked down. Three floors below, and several metres away, in the middle of the bush, there where a wall of trees bordered the Ocean, in a small open area in the brushland, two women were rolling on the ground, and a tall man was looking at them, hands on his hips.
"Yasmina! She number one! Me beat her!"
Li looked surprised at his side, Orgwe cleansing her sweat from her neck, armpits and breasts - her shirt open, as she had forgotten he was not one of the eunuchs in the harem - looking at the same spot he was looking at. Yes, possibly it was Yasmin, her dark skin a perfect contrast with a pink skinned, much heavier and taller woman, rolling this way and that on the rocky ground. He saw Yasmin apply a neck hold on the bigger opponent, who retaliated with a crotch hold that obviously had made Yasmin cry and push her away. The white woman kicked at Yasmin, who fell sideways, and the other flew and landed on her, punching her face repeatedly.
He turned to Orgwe, and said: "I'm glad that our training is so light, compared with that of the fighters... I wonder if that kind of training we are going to see all the combats tomorrow."
Sahara and three servants, two women and a man, came with refreshments, juice and cold fruits.
"Ladies and gentlemen. We must train a bit more, before I allow you to go cavorting to the beaches south of Lesbos Tower! The car will be waiting for you in about one hour, and will bring you back just in time for a quick shower downstairs and have lunch at 12:30 sharp. As you are going to know then, the President was displeased with two member's behaviour, who had insulted each other yesterday, that she decided they will fight it out this afternoon, after lunch time and in private. The loser will leave Silver Island next Thursday, and lose his membership, too. I regret to inform you of this, but strict discipline must be imposed, otherwise..."
"I hope that the black Adonis will win. It would serve that big swine well, for what he has done to us," Ingrid told Ilona.
"Yes, but in either case I hope the two Jap broads will stay, or else we'll not have time for our revenge," Ilona retorted.
"Don't drink any more! Enough is enough. Now, on the double - run! One-two! One-two! One-two!"
© Raf 1989-03-07 02:04am
NOTES:
[a] Broken French, meaning, "I beg your pardon. I have hurt you. You pardon me. I am very, very sorry. Much sorry."
[b ] Broken French: "You pardon me, yes?"
[c] French, followed by broken French: "Yes, she says she forgives you. She pardons you."
[d] French: "Now, the spirits of the ancestors are going to favour me. I will vanquish you."
[e] Inspired by António Duarte's Female Nude (1960), green granite. Museum of Modern Art, gardens. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisboa, Portugal.
[f] Spanish: "My goodness! What a beautiful picture this is!" - The description of the painting is inspired by two photos reprinted in Casey's Sketchbook, a regular section of "Fighting Hellcats", volume 7, January 1988, published by London Enterprises Limited, USA.
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Excellent. The fight between the Japanese service girls and the Danish playmates was the best one, imo. Now, there's opportunity for a second round which is all the more fulfilling. Cannot wait to read it
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 21
GLORIOUS MORNING
by Ajax
The sun rose in blood-red glory, brightening gradually to orange, as its fingers spread out across the Pacific Ocean from the east to touch the speck in its vastness that was Silver Island. Arrogantly, the whited sides of its buildings hurled back their reflections towards the fiery orb that sought it out and brought it light.
At first, its rays did not touch the two figures who loped gently southwards along the island's eastern beach, then it picked out the spears they carried in their hands as they reached the rocks where they would take their morning exercise.
For the resident staff of the island, this was the most hectic time of all, when the duplexes, arenas and gyms were filled with the wealthy members of the IFF Club and the women they had brought to fight. These two women knew well that need, for they were born of warrior stock, and there was nothing that fired the blood or loins like the keenness and danger of combat either with or without weapons.
They were each aware that they had a bare half-hour to exercise their skills today - yet within a month all the bustle would be done, and they would return to that idyllically lazy existence they enjoyed for the greater part of the year. They felt they deserved it. This year had seen them toil long hours to build the new arena, the so-called Greek Arena, constructed at the north-eastern tip of the island by the ever-energetic and constantly employed IFF Chief Architect, the talented Joline Ellis, whose red hair, as ruddy as the morning sun, bobbed here and there as she hustled them about their work from morn till noon and on till night. A bare week ago they had finished that enormous task, having constructed with no more than bare hands and block and tackle the splendid structure that would likely stand a thousand years about its rock-carved bed. In architecture, Jo Ellis was of a fundamentalist turn of mind. Nothing had stood the test of time so well as the buildings of the Greeks and Romans, lest it be the ancient and jungle-protected masonry of South America and Asia. No jungle would protect her masterpiece of rock and stone. But that, she knew, would survive here long after the main buildings had been razed. What imported workers there had been had been whisked away by Myrina and Penthesileia the moment the last block had been placed, for such persons could not be allowed to remain for the August Festival. Only trusted staff, like these, like Ivoa and Re-laa.
A bare six hours ago, the guests had marveled at the ease with which the two women had hauled the heavy luggage from pier to duplex block, but such displays of strength were little enough for women who had toiled with immensely heavy rock and stone to build the amphitheater.
Ivoa and Re-laa had to be strong, for they could be called upon to fight in the main arena at any time for the gratification of the wealthy guests, often against those very guests, when they were expected to show all their expertise. At other times, when the island was left to them to clear and renew, they enjoyed all the best facilities; their lives were easy and contented. Yet practise they must.
There was much speculation upon the first encounter of the games, when the two warring men, the black one and the giant white, would fist it to a conclusion in the arena with membership at stake, and one would be forced to leave before the real action started. No-one gave the black much hope. He was too small to stand against the white, a giant of man, blond and bluff, whose fists seemed capable of smashing down the very columns they had newly built. Yet Ivoa had her doubts. The black was neatly built and tough. He was probably brave, and might give a better account of himself than many thought. But even she who admired him could see the difficulties he faced.
She should not have cared in her feudal role as serf, but she did, and would seek to watch the important fight after she and Re-laa had striven to best each other on this sand.
Not evident from any distance was the fact that the eight-foot spears were in two halves, each a metre and a third in length, and screwed together in the centre between two separate short sheaths of leather (once their peoples had used rattan) which give purchase on the shafts for throwing. These two were close in skill and power and would vie in two kinds, the throw and the close attack.
They laid aside the broad-bladed spears to divest themselves of the single garment each wore, a white cotton peplos, merely a long piece of cloth with a head-hole embroidered round in each wearer's style. When placed about the shoulders, these open-sided garments dropped to mid thigh, and were secured about the waist with gold-coloured chains. They were perfect wear for the sultry Silver Island clime.
Reflexively, Ivoa measured out the run, placing a long scratch in the sand with her foot, the mark from which they would throw, then stood to watch the well-built Re-laa hurry up to the scratch and hurl her spear high and true towards an imaginary distant enemy. Ivoa was concerned to note her friend's technique. One less concerned by that would have seen an altogether more stimulating sight - that of a female warrior in all but name, running hard, her spear held back in hand, the muscular arm a delight to the eye. The rest of her naked form was no less fine, jerking breasts virginally firm, but of perfect size to accompany the stockiness of her figure. She ran well, did Re-laa, her stride straight, the hippy swing of her sex reduced by years of practice with the spear which had stretched the pelvic ligaments to allow her the straighter run.
Ivoa sighed. Re-laa's arm was in good trim today. Her throw would take some matching. She took her own spear, and whilst Re-laa remained to see she did not overstep the mark, made her own run down the firm sand, as beautiful and fluid a movement as her friend's, then launched away her missile against the morning breeze. It climbed, and hung long there in its travel, but was short of Re-laa's hurl by more than a spear's length.
Several throws more they had before, on her last attempt, the tremendous effort causing her breasts to vibrate painfully, she almost reached Re-laa's mark - but not quite, and honours that day went to the younger woman.
It had taken a while, throwing and recovering the spears, and they came to the second discipline, the close attack, with less time than they had wished. For this, the spears were unscrewed, and the bladed ends laid aside, the heavy brass ferrule playing the part of blade in the exercise.
Each holding the spear-ends with the ferrules to the right and in the manner of quarter-staffs, they circled around each other, wary of a swift attack, and aiming to parry any lunge. This was a painful exercise and all parts of the body could be struck except the head.
Re-laa, perhaps encouraged by her successful throws, moved forward first, and they crossed weapons powerfully. The younger woman slipped to the side and brought the end of her spear round to sweep at Ivoa's legs. She jumped over the sweep, and the end of her weapon caught Re-laa above the breast, bruising her left pectoral muscle and knocking her off her feet. She rolled away and got up pained, but still ready to parry Ivoa's follow-up. She was sweating slightly, and sand was sticking to her olive skin as she waited for her opponent to strike again.
A quick dodge to the right fooled Re-laa into believing the spear was coming left, and Ivoa furthered the impression by leaning to that side before swiftly changing her line, and instead of driving with the ferruled end to breast or armpit, brought the blind one up between Re-laa's legs, and slammed it to the crotch. The stockier Re-laa, perhaps the heavier of the two by a few pounds, seeing herself deceived, went up on her toes to lessen the impact, but it was still enough to bring a yelp of pain from her, though not, on this occasion hard enough to put her down. Slipping her right hand down the shaft towards her left, converted the stick into a long stabbing tool, and a moment later, the ferrule end darted out to take Ivoa in the belly and halt her in her tracks. Her tough abdominals took the force, but the brass broke the skin, and left a bloody trail as it slipped off to the left.
At the mooment the spear struck Ivoa, then slid away, the younger woman leapt back and avoided the replying lunge, spinning on her left foot to smack the wood cross Ivoa's left shoulder and pitch her forward towards the rising right knee. Ivoa twisted just in time to evade the intended knee to her left breast, and dived to the sand, knocking Re-laa's left leg from under her.
They fell in a grappling heap, spears forgotten for the moment as each tried to best the other at wrestling. Re-laa's heavy fall to the sand had half winded her, but there was plenty of fight forthcoming as Ivoa squirmed on top of her, and attempted to hold her down.
Recovering from her partial winding, Re-laa hurled herself upwards and to the side, sending Ivoa slithering off, before breaking clear and coming to her knees. As luck would have it, her spear lay beside her right hand, so she snatched it up and drove it into Ivoa's side. The older woman, hurt by the thrust against her lower ribs, cried out and rolled herself, sending up a shower of sand that almost blinded Re- laa, but she closed her eyes in the nick of time and avoided the worst of it. Not allowing Ivoa to rise, she sprang towards her, moving with great agility for one so stocky, trapped her friend's legs, and with the spear held as a quarter-staff again, rammed the shaft down across Ivoa's breasts, pinioning her where she lay.
It was a kind of fighting that would have been very familiar to Criami had she seen it, for her tribe practised the almost identical style, though it was the young men of the village who engaged in the `everything-goes' fighting that Re- laa and Ivoa practised, not the maids. Of course, they did engage in it also, but it was never approved of by the Council of Elders, who considered thorn-fist fighting the woman's art, always discouraging the girls from using weapons of war.
Whether engaged in by men or women the spear-fight was most exciting and could be very deadly when necessary, but Ivoa's struggle with Re-laa was only a friendly tussle. The odd cut and bruise amongst friends was everywhere accepted, and pressed as she was, and slightly outweighed by the younger woman, Ivoa signalled her surrender, for it was nearing the time that they were required to be on duty up the hill. After a moment's washing off the intrusive sand in the rolling surf, they replaced their peploi, took up their spears and ran lightly back to their quarters.
They were met there by an impatient Victoria de Guzman, who had come to fetch them to their duties, unusual on a recast day.
* * * * * * * * *
Wednesday 10, 12.30 h
The strong voice made itself heard above the brouhaha that had filled the restaurant room as participants and non-participants arrived, some keeping the fast paced step of their morning jog, others almost pushed in the back by their trainers and companions provided by the club. It was obvious that, in spite of the fact they were all in advanced kip-fit classes, the pace in this Island was too fast for some of them.
"Women of Silver Island! For all of you that are here for the first time, I wish you to win your next fights, or to loose well. The only thing we despise here is a cowardly retreat. The trays here are full of sea-food and every variety of vegetables and oils chosen to replenish your body with vigour, stamina and sexual drive you'll need in the first hand of the games tomorrow. If their effect on you is so intense that you feel like you are going to explode, just ask for a sparring partner and leave this hall to the private rooms that have been assigned to you. That extra energy will be taken care of."
The president looked even more powerful and dominating, being the only woman dressed up in black leather, from neck to toe, only her hair falling free over her shoulders, for once free of the usual leather bandana, and her strong, big hands naked but for a heavy gold ring in her left hand middle finger. "As for the male sponsors of this club, I am proud to announce that we have a surprise for you. A cage has been built with bulletproof Plexiglas, measuring 4 x 4 x 2 meters, around which you may sit more comfortably than your counterparts of 2000 years ago, to enjoy the fight for survival of the inhabitants of the sea. At tonight's get together you'll have the chance to see a sea-urchin fighting a sword-fish." There were grins from the oriental men, each one of them thinking how funny it was to substitute cobras, cocks, dogs and such trivial fighters for such different species. The westerners didn't know what to think. They had had higher hopes for tonight, like a desperate death-fight as sometimes the club arranged between women who had come to hate each other's guts - the club's president being always glad to provide them with the means by which to wrench off those guts from each other's bodies. But sea-urchins, who would care for that?
"For now, I urge you to eat fast, and beat it to your work. For those who want to do so, I am inviting them to watch an honour duel that has been arranged to put an end to a sad start in the relationship of two of our members. The event will take place at my private training room in -" The domina looked at her watch, "say, 45 minutes. Good lunch to you all!"
Everyone knew that the South African was going to fight it out with the black lover of white chicks. It was the strangest thing to happen, to have a boxing match between men, because of racial prejudice, in a high class, international private club which cared only for women's fights of all kinds. The talks of the various groups went that way, naturally, and not to the fancy idea of the President to present later on such a non-erotic event as a fight between fish.
For now, they were eating them. The island girls were serving the food in individual dishes they prepared from the long trays spread on the large tables for the guests. The girls, even those that could be considered small, that is, below the average 1.76 m of the trainers and fighters of the club, now looked tall and smart on their high heeled shoes or sandals, some in pure white silk bra and knee-breeches, others in white cotton coats, buttoned to the neck, but in very high cut and body hugging shorts. Thus they called the male audience's attention to their respective best assets. The common denominator was the navy-like white cap they wore on their hads, this uniform being designed to distinguish them from their female visitors and other SIR female personnel.
First they were served a shrimp cocktail and caviar Sevruga Malossol - and they immediately resented the fact that there were no alcoholic beverages served before the sun-set. The bloody-maries they were served had only tomato juice in it. A sort of deluxe hors-d'oeuvre was served next, an enormous choice of cold asparagus with orange vinaigrette, baked asparagus with pine-nuts and gruy#Š#re, saut#‚#ed spinach and spiced potatoes, brussels sprouts with caramelized onion, cauliflower in toma to-curry sauce... About twenty more of these were to be chosen, creating that impossibility of rational choice that arises from not knowing the names, not even the contents of the dishes.
Maria de Jesus Figueiredo threw herself to the spinach and potatoes, because she had recognized her hometown food, the small potatoes, but these had been baked in a hot sauce, that did not show at all - but after she had had the second mouthful, she had tears in her eyes. She went to the trays with glasses full of liquids and, not accepting the mint juice she was given by a hostess, she picked up a glass full of what she expected to be milk. To her further disarray, she tasted a large gulp of yogurt and pimento sauce that left her throat aching for water, which she finally got from the helpful hand of Nikvist.
The Vietnamese May Ng picked up a dish full of red and yellow peppers with rocket and was eating it cold like she was a child eating salted crackers. She was approached by Varvara, "Is that thing good?"
"Yes, I prefer it served warm, but it's delicious any way. Try some." The small girl looked up to the bigger brunette. Neither looked now the killers they had been prepared to be. The Asiatic girl coughed to prevent her smile when she saw the big brunette choking with the very hot content of the red peppers.
"But it is very hot!", the Russian complained.
"It is hot. I simply told you before that they served it cold." But it was clear the Russian was not finding her point.
One of the best things being served were the jacket potatoes with soured cream, broccoli and asparagus, but some didn't want to taste them, either because of their noncommittal aspect or because of the soured cream. The last of the stuffed mushrooms with goat cheese and spinach, served on small pieces of toast, were being fought for. The hostesses had to promise there would be more of those at dinner time. The men were stuffing in all the spring greens with smoked turkey that was on the table, the only meat that was being served at lunch, though it was mainly a vegetable dish, too. From the casseroles came a divine smell, and they passed to the stir-fried vegetables with sesame seeds.
The Japanese were doing well. Up to the point Ilona Jacobson and Ingrid Wolfgrund came to stare at them across the table, mimicking their gestures. The two short fighters tried not to take their eyes from the food, but they wanted to somersault over the table and pick a fight there and then.
Elvira Reyes came sniffing to a large dish and found the gazpacho she was looking for - but she was amazed, for they were serving it almost dry, and as accompaniment to cucumber mousse. She tasted the gazpacho sauce carefully, identified the tomatoes, olive oil and Tabasco, the garlic clove and the fresh coriander, well chopped, found a strange taste in it she could not identify (lime juice) and decided to eat the white thing in the middle. Apparently there was chicken in it, but the cucumber and the powdered gelatin were too much for her taste.
Two other great successes came from the kitchens in the end; leeks and cheese in phyllo packets, again served with a mixed salad, and spinach-stuffed chicken breasts.
But of course, all the fighters were now mostly stuffed with cooked prawns, not salted, served with soy sauce mainly for the Asiatic tastes.
Jasmin tea was served in the end. They had had such a variety to chose from that some felt the 20 or 30 minutes they had been allowed in the restaurant room had not been enough to explore all the beautiful things there were in sight. At the door, the hostesses were forming two parallel lines, offering to the visitors the most beautiful and delicate flowers. But they were the works of art of the club's kitchen; apples carved in the form of flowers, and stuffed with red cherries, red roses and white lilies carved of other tropical fruits, melon and water-melon disguised in the most fanciful forms - and everything so neat and fresh that you would forget the hellish heat outside.
Mary Jackson had been the first to leave the room, taking John Carmichael by the hand. He had a sorrowful look in his face, she a determined one.
"Please, Mary, don't come. I don't want you to -" he started.
"I am going with you, and I will stay with you. I believe you can beat that bastard, but if you don't, I want to pick up your pieces from the floor and mend you, as you once did for me, remember?" And she closed his mouth with a deep kiss. He pulled his arm round her waist, and they went with an escort girl to the President's quarters.
© Ajax Ajax 7/1990 (Revised 10/10/1993)
NOTE – According to plan (please, re-read the Introduction, on page 1 of this thread), Ajax wrote the chapter SIR 21 – Silver Island Sea-side aside. In doing so, he committed two continuity errors, and it was overlong. Thus, he slit it in two: SIR 21 – Glorious Morning, and SIR 22 – Hellish Afternoon. In doing so, only one paragraph was sacrificed. However, there was a change in the development of the two male sponsors grudge fight: in the Aside version, Verwoerd lost his life, and in the new version (SIR 22), Carmichael loses by KO. (Raf)
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Silver Island Resort - Chapter 22
HELLISH AFTERNOON
by Ajax
The gym section was large enough to accommodate ten or fifteen people around the walls, but it consisted mainly of a square room, with padded walls, sound proof, and a floor covered with tatamis. In came Carmichael and Mary Jackson. Behind them arrived Imogen de Lysset and her luscious secretary Uhla Schein, Maria den Hahn, Agnes Johnson hugging Karen O'Connor and one of her lesbian friends within the club personnel, Maria Palm. Then came the group of the two Japanese fighters and Verwoerd and his Thai friend. The last couple to enter the silent room was David Solomon and Kristl Ramfelt with Richard Li bringing up the rear.
Yoko stood aside and hugged her burly chested sponsor, than gave him a slight push forward. The giant went in and stood at the side of the black clad domina who looked him straight in the eye.
It was perhaps a little harsh on the relatively blameless Carmichael, but he had failed to control Mary Jackson whilst she was under his sponsorship, and that was contrary to the spirit of the sponsorship system. He might have put in a plea for her to have been disciplined, but could not think that she was other than perfectly justified in her attacking of the odious South African. He was therefore honourbound to accept responsibility for his girl's outburst.
The President was to officiate at the `hate-fight' as it was becoming known, though her duties were minimal since the fight would begin and then carry on to a finish without breaks. She would only be called upon to announce the fight, and if necessary enforce the rules and declare a winner should both men be mutually disabled simultaneously. That was a responsibility too great to be borne by any member but the President, for with loss of membership at stake, feelings would be running high amongst the whole company. It was even possible that the President might be called upon to physically defend her decision, though with her reputation as a renowned fighter in Intex there were few who might dare to make such a challenge.
Both men had elected to enter the gym wearing nothing more than a posing pouch, Carmichael's the same black one that he had worn aboard the Penthesileia. Verwoerd's was of brown leather. More than a few of the members felt that it probably went well with the sjambok [1] he was reputed to use to discipline his women (and his blacks) on occasion.
The President enunciated the announcement in her clear ringing tones, a voice that had chilled the heart of many an Intex battler down the years.
"In view of the disgraceful incident aboard the Penthesileia on the run here from Pago Pago, it has been decided that John Carmichael, who takes responsibility for Miss Jackson's attack upon Mr. Verwoerd, and Patrick Verwoerd for his ill-considered remarks and lack of constraint upon that occasion, shall by combat, decide which of them shall remain a member of the IFFC, and that the matter will be decided here by me should no result be forthcoming.
"Well, gentlemen!" There was a clear hint of derision and irony in the French Countess's words. "As I have told you before, it is enough to have the money to enter Silver Island, but it is necessary to have the manners and the guts to stay on it.
"You will fight to a finish - that is to unconsciousness lasting more than one minute, disablement as judged by myself, or surrender - in the Club's bare-knuckle boxing style. Upon the outcome being decided, the loser will be formally expelled from this organization, without recourse, for a minimum span of one year from this date, and will be transported from Silver Island on the instant.
"However, to prevent disappointment of members and participants, their sponsored fighters will remain to complete their contracts with the club. Mr Richard Li has agreed to act for Miss Jackson, and Mr. Solomon for Hoikochi Yoko should the need arise."
Beside him, David Solomon felt Kristl Ramfelt stiffen, then hiss in his ear, "The need had better not! Why you?"
David knew that Kristl was quite aware of why, but could not help feeling uncomfortable all the same. Whilst it was unlikely that Verwoerd would lose, if he did, the Managing Director of the IFF Club would have a very difficult furrow to plough. Kristl was enough of a handful by herself.
"It has been agreed that the loser shall also leave on the island any possible winnings from bets on his fighter he may have to collect at the end of the Games. Right?"
Each man signaled his acquiescence with head signals. The Countess asked again in a powerful voice, for such a small audience. "Right?! I couldn't hear you!"
"Yes. These are the terms I have agreed with you beforehand... President." It was John Carmichael who answered first. Though tall by normal standards, well made and strong, Carmichael seemed slight beside the huge lumbering form of the Transvaal farmer and businessman, Patrick de Groot Verwoerd.
"Yeah. It's OK with me. I am staying, anyway..." Patrick Verwoerd couldn't prevent himself from railing at the black man facing him. The blond giant was a half a head taller than the negro, and from his swaggering demeanour and open contempt of the American, it was clear from whom most of the hatred was emanating.
"Will everybody else stay back, please. I am going to referee this myself." The splendid woman President came to the middle of the square room and looked at the two men in front of her.
Carmichael's feet were good, he obviously had a good training in karate, but he was not permitted to use those, or even his hands in the chopping karate blows that were able to paralyze or kill an opponent. He had good pectoral muscles and a lean, tough body. Even without seeing how much he had between his legs - and the word had come to the island about that too - she could understand Mary Jackson's interest in him.
She looked at Yoko, than at the white South African. Yes, there was the canine dedication of the Japanese girl that could be mistaken for loyal ty, but there was no love in the eyes of the diminutive but powerful "Atomic Bomber". The President's eyes were appraising the giant too, about 1.90 m, taller than herself now that she was on her naked feet as well, and taller than his opponent, with an extra reach of his arms that could make a difference. He was heavy, though, and the muscle in his arms was recent, and there was much fat around him. He had been training and trying to reduce weight, possibly because of the new sexual thrills he had come to enjoy with his new sex slave - a non-white. But that's when double standards are called for. And it seemed this big brute was also a terrific lover. Now, she was going to see if they could use that extra sexual energy on each other.
"Show me your hands. Take that off." The South African had forgotten to take off his gold wrist-watch. "Now, remember. You can punch your adversary anywhere, with your naked fists, until he is unable to stand up. You can not use your elbows, knees or head as a means of attack, or use your open hands to strangle, push or divert blows." She paused, and stepped back, her extended arm between them. Then her arm came thrusting down: "Let battle commence!"
With that, Imogen de Lysset Colgreavance withdrew from the field and the two men approached each other.
Carmichael shot a right-left combination to the stomach that the giant left unprotected, and escaped the relatively slow right punch to the head that came in return. But the South African didn't accuse the blows, and pressed the negro with several punches to the head. Using his arms and forearms as shields, Carmichael stopped several of the assaults, but at last he took a left to the forehead that rocked his head. As he was swinging on his heels, the giant closed his two hands in a hammer blow and chopped him on the neck. Even before the negro fell like a bundle of clothes, Imogen was over him, shooting a right cross to the white man's jaw that sent him back a few steps.
"Mister, YOU told me that you were able to follow the simple rules of boxing. If you try one of those again, I will disqualify you. Understand?"
"I used my closed fists! Simply, the two of them together."
Carmichael groaned in agony, and lay writhing in a heap, his senses completely gone.
Verwoerd would have knee-dropped him to a crackle of bone had not the President intervened. She was barking "One!... Two!..." then more quietly, as standing there in the shimmering white shirt and black leather trousers, she seemed to defy Verwoerd to go through her to finish his man.
Behind her lay Carmichael, suffering the agonies of purgatory, and in no way cognizant of her count. His senses came in and out of focus for several seconds, each moment of clarity intensifying the torment of his neck. Something was gone there for sure, and the left side of his face was an enormous swelling sore. He damned Mary to hell for putting him to this agony, rolled to his side, and finally heard the President's clear voice intoning the count - "...thirty- three...thirty-four..."
With another groan he subsided to the floor again, gasping his agony. "...forty... forty-one... forty-two," steadily the count was mounting towards that fateful sixty.
Mary Jackson was annoyed and upset, the two Japanese girls embarrassed, and the rest of the company around the gym walls were clearly enjoying the President's intervention. Some had hoped the snivelling black would last five minutes against Verwoerd and were disgusted by the sight. Others also had, but had room for sympathy for the man, facing an almost impossible task. Almost no-one had expected the fight to end with as little as one punch, but shuddered at the prospect of having to take it themselves.
"...forty-seven...forty-eight," and Carmichael rolled to his knees. Lights still danced before his eyes, but he could tolerate those. It was the hell in his head that was holding him down. He knew he had to fight it. His pride would not let him be counted out so soon.
"...fifty-two... fifty-three..." He was teetering to his feet, shaking his head, the cheers of his supporters and the groans of Verwoerd's loud in his ears as he finally came upright, two seconds before the Countess Imogen would have counted him out.
"He is up now. Fight him and don't you dare argue with me, Mr. Verwoerd. I'm not used to it, and you wouldn't like to see me really mad. Box on."
The combatants kept away from each other for a minute, tentatively testing the respective reactions to long range blows. Then the white giant pressed closer, and many punches landed on the two male torsos and upper arms. Slowly, the arms were tiring, the bodies started to cover with sweat, and several attempts were made to hit the head. Their knuckles were more damaged by now than their bodies, and Carmichael at last shot a left cross to the nose that Verwoerd evaded by turning his face to the right, but he was unlucky and the knuckles scorched his left cheek and eye, almost blinding him. He closed his eyes and stepped back, took a powerful punch to the heart, tried to cover his body, opened his right eye and stepped back - only to see in horror the negro crouching and delivering a right punch to his crotch between his now open legs. He closed his knees, but was too late to diminish the impact of the knuckles in his balls.
The South African let out a screaming roar louder than the trumpeting of elephants in must as Carmichael's fist crushed his testicles against the pubic bone. But he didn't fall, just stood there paralyzed, eyes bulging in the extremity of his agony. His breathing had been arrested by shock, and his face darkened to purple as the black fell into him, his fists seeking guts and head. Robbed of all muscular control, Verwoerd was staggering back and falling, even as Carmichael hit him in the throat and ripped a solid left into his now-flaccid gut. The accumulated pain was too much for him, and he fell on his knees. John mercilessly punching him again, now to the right eye and the nose, making blood flow down the opponent's face. The giant roared and his hands left his injured malehood to punch at the negro's groin, but he danced aside and only his left thigh was grazed. The right leg of Carmichael went up for a kick to the head that was a possible karate finisher, but Imogen's black leathered leg came as quickly as his to meet the foot in mid-air and deviate it from target. John swivelled to face her, instinctively throwing a karate punch to the guts of his new attacker. The Countess was shaken by the hard hit below the left breast, but her muscle shield held it well, and she used a judo hold to grab the extended arm and throw the negro over her left hip.
"Mr. Carmichael, I don't object to you having a go at my body, but not while I am trying to be... neutre!" Her words brought some laughs and the audience was relieved to see that the President was not going to stop the fight there and then. "Mr. Verwoerd, are your family jewels broken or can you go on?"
"The bloody bastard hit my balls when I could not defend myself..."
"That's true. And I did not stop him from doing just that, because in a naked fist fight, as you very well know, a fighter may hit and be hit if he or she is still on his or her knees, or elbows, or whatever. If you had been lying on your back or on your belly, I would have stopped him." She looked at the negro, who had made a good fall three meters away, rolled on the tatami and stood up on springy legs. "I see that you're both still willing to fight. I hope that you will obey the rules. Box on, but remember there are rules."
Black John feinted a low punch, blond Patrick (still pained downstairs) shot both his arms down for protection, and a right punch hit his left eye again, cutting his eyebrow and starting a large blood flow. Besides, his eye was immediately puffed around the edges, and in a few seconds was closed. He was backpedaling under the pressure of continuous body punches, that John was faking, too, because his right knuckles were almost broken after the heavy punch he had just delivered. Each in his own fashion, both men wanted to gain time.
The blood of the white man was pouring now all over his face and chest, and spilling to the ground. Yoko was growing restless in her place. Then, the white cyclops managed to place two quick punches to the negro's belly button. Enough to disturb him, and take his left arm down for protection of the belly. The left fist of Patrick probed the negro's defence of the groin, but Patrick was unable to see from his left, so it was a feeble attempt. John shot his damaged right fist to the white man's liver - but was unable to stop the behind-the-shoulder punch to the jaw. Both punches connected and showed results. Verwoerd stood up, gaping, both hands gripped around his middle, spittle running down from the corners of his mouth, his body trembling spasmodically. John's head snapped back with a loud click and he dropped like a felled tree.
Imogen was on him in a moment, manipulating the muscles and the bones of his neck, and placing herself behind his head, extended his body and arms down, then quickly grabbed his head, placed her fingers where it mattered, and snapped back his head in place. Everybody was on their feet, in silence, waiting for a signal that he would live or not.
The President motioned to her orderlies to take Carmichael out in a stretcher, and reassured the audience, "He lost his senses, but I think he will be OK. He was lucky that I'm well versed in martial arts."
The eyes of Mary Jackson were bright with tears. She passed her arms around John's waist and buried her face in his chest, while Ivoa and Re-laa took him slowly from the room. She looked over towards the Count ess, and saw sympathy in the cool eyes of the powerful woman.
Then the Countess stood at her most regal and announced to the small crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr. Carmichael is incapacitated. Therefore Mr. Verwoerd wins by default." She paused. "Mr. Carmichael will now leave the Club."
"Congratulations, Mr. Verwoerd. Your fists proved your point. You're not to meet Mr. Carmichael again on this island. Now, will you please leave this area, and the others too?! This game is over and we've other important business to attend to this afternoon."
Mary Jackson burst into hysterical tears when she was gently stopped from leaving the room by Richard Li. It seemed to her in that moment that her quick temper of the journey had killed him, for she was certain he would die. Li was a hard man, but even he softened in that moment, and ushered her away with him.
Kristl Ramfelt hissed a quick "Good!" between her teeth, and strode away. Hoikochi showed no emotion of any kind as she left.
"You stay, of course," she said directing herself to the group of Agnes Johnson and her lesbian friends, who were placed along the wall to the left of the door. "There is no point of you leaving to re-enter again. For a moment, I thought we would have more deaths in here than we were expecting, hein?! That big brutal male sure has a punch!"
"Yeah, and what a pouch too," giggled Agnes, "but I wonder what he would do against one of us ladies, in an all-in." She laughed and shot her hand flashing to the crotch of Maria Palm, in a tight-fitting sleeveless shirt and breeches.
"Arrgh! You're tearing off me balls!" Maria was mimicking, to the happy all-girl audience.
"Shall I send the others in, now?" Uhla asked the President.
"Yes, as soon as these are out of sight," she answered.
Several young Fillipino women came in, each with two naked swords in hand. They gave swords to each woman in the room, and kept one for themselves. Ivoa handed one to the President, and Re-laa imitated her with her 2-I-C.
"Who are they, this time, Imogen?" Maria den Hahn asked.
"I hope these are good men. Chikamatsu Yasunari, of the Fang gang, is a yakuza, convicted for the killing of seven men and two policemen in a single incident - but he is supposed to have killed many more. It seems that he used his blades quicker than the other yakuza of rival gangs, and the police were using their own blades #and# guns. The other is a yakuza too, of the Sekigun clan, but these being smarter have not been exposed by the police yet. This member, Murasaki Kafu, was arrested by two policewomen posing as prostitutes. He is said to have raped and killed fourteen women with his long dagger in the red district of Tokyo. They are now waiting their death sentences to be executed."
"Have you given them some training?" Karen asked.
"Yes. As usual. Although the master found that they were quick learners. Only Kafu needed some coaching on the use of the short samurai sword. The other was better than our master in the use of twin blade fighting."
"So, Yasunari is your favorite yakuza?" Agnes asked, smiling.
"Yes, but the master said that Kafu was very good in deception, and that by the end he had attained a very high standard with the sword, too. We're going to see the result in a moment."
The women had been hugging each other, striking playfully at nipples through unbuttoned shirts, while they were waiting. The Fillipino attendants had been posted at two or three meters distance from each other, and had been squatting on their heels. But when Uhla Schein entered, with two naked swords, that she placed on the ground, symmetrically and at the distance of three meters from each other, they all stood up, and their hands wrapped around the handles of their weapons.
Uhla smiled at them all: "Watch yourselves, sisters. These guys are dangerous. In spite of the cold showers we gave them, as soon as they see a female, they are prepared to screw..."
"If one of the bastards tries it, I'll cut his advances short!" snapped the big black Johnson, who had been caressing Karen's head on her shoulder.
Two other women entered, with a Japanese man between them. They placed themselves near one of the swords on the ground. Another trio entered, and acted similarly. One of the women took two daggers from her belt and extended them, handle forward, to the men.
The crowd was looking appreciatively at the two beasts that had been set there, completely naked, to fight to the death - thus quickening the step of the Japanese justice [2]. They had been told that if one of them survived, he could stay on the island, choose a woman for himself, on condition he would never pick up a gun or blade. They tried to avert the eyes of the women, now all on their feet and with the swords in front of them for protection against a possible demented attack from the duelists, or a misguided thrust. But the flimsy covered bodies and the heat coming from the women that came escorting them had been enough to arouse them, as Uhla had said.
Although they had been trained like Neo Gladiators to fight fully naked, the sexual repression to which the two men had been submitted was still troubling them. Yasunari had a very good body, and several cuts on him made by less experienced fighters who no longer lived. His penis was throbbing and parallel to the tatamis. Kafu was showing his aggression both in the sideways glance to the women around the walls and the way his short but thick organ pointed up to his belly, leaving his scrotum in full view. Both were in their late thirties, and they had accepted the only door that had been open to them to escape the death row of a Japanese penitentiary, well knowing that they could be finished quickly this way, or live on.
Their iron fingers had firm grips on their respective knives' black handles. They were 5" long, and the black, Teflon tainted blades were just as long, yet they were sharp and deadly. They had been well in structed beforehand, and they knew that the deadly duel was on the moment the four escort girls had stepped back. It was for them to attack or go for the sword on the ground, as they choose. The women were now silent, for they knew these cocks were there to really strike death around them, and they respected that.
The shorter Kafu jumped forward, his left hand searching for the eventual attack by his enemy and the right circling swiftly to prevent defence. Yasunari kicked at his belly and let himself go down on his back, expecting to hit the foul who was attacking him without further study. For they had been kept apart always, and this was the first moment they had together. Kafu had only made a trick, though. With the heel of his foot he had sent his own shoto [3] sliding back to the feet of the women behind him, while he picked his adversary's sword from the ground. He was snarling as Yasunari rolled and stood up several meters away, in a crouch.
The two men knew that they were sworn yakuzas to rival gangs, and that added to the mortal rivalry separating them. Yasunari had his eyes wide-open, not in fear, but in sensual anticipation of the deadly strikes to come. He was approaching slowly, and just as Kafu threw his two weapons from hand to hand - he always preferred to have the far- reaching blade on his right - Yasunari gave his high-pitched banzai and charged, Kafu had merely time to grab his sword hilt but lost his knife and took a long gash below his left ribcage. Yasunari closed with him and made Kafu fall on his back, using his weight as a wrestler to wind the man under him, then rolled on his own back, over the armed hand, preventing Kafu from using his sword, and elbowed the struggling mass under him in the stomach, twice, before he had changed his grip on his blade and stabbed low to his right side. Kafu groaned and tried to strangle Yasunari with his left hand, but Yasunari was up and running towards the women, wiping his right hand clumsily on his chest. He dived for his weapon, the women pointing their own swords at him - but he was already turning to his wounded adversary, hate and excitement in his eyes.
Kafu had been hit on his right leg, the black blade impaled through the muscle about 3", and he was still on his knees, gnashing his teeth and trying to get up. At the approach of the other yakusa he parried the downward blow, and from his awkward position he kept parrying blow after blow, which Yasunari was delivering, turning around him, making the other dizzy. The flow of the blood from his two wounds was damping the tatamis around his knees, and Kafu knew he was simply getting tired and he was going to be killed there when he was too tired to have his arms up. When he saw Yasunari step back and wield the shoto up to strike again, he rushed forward again and thrust his own up. Being too far away he didn't kill Yasunari immediately, but he stumbled back and his left hand grabbed at his belly, where he had been impaled by 5" of the point ed blade. The fine stainless steel left his body without ripping the belly, but his intestines had been punctured and a gush of black gore came from them. Kafu managed to pick his lost knife, and just in time, because as he was on all fours, with the sword down, to get extra lever age to stand up, Yasunari, a river of blood coming from his belly, charged again, and it was his short knife that turned a fatal stroke from his neck. His enemy's blood spilt into Kafu's eyes, though, as Yasunari's belly collided with Kafu's head. The standing man wavered back, through his slitted eyes he saw that Kafu was making it to his feet but was not seeing well, and thrust again, this time passing through Kafu's arms, and spitting him to the hilt between the lower ribs. With an expert samurai move he ripped open his enemy's belly, as the steel cut through the inner viscera like melting butter. Kafu had gutsu [4], though, and, before he fell, his left hand ripped Yasunari's throat from side to side. Then the two reddened bodies collapsed in a tangle on the ground.
There was a round of applause, as the spectators approached the naked corpses.
"Imogen, you're simply marvellous. You always satisfy our smallest wishes!" Agnes was enthusiastic about it, but the more demure Maria den Hahn had obviously enjoyed the raw butchery as much.
TheFhillipino girls were collecting the defensive swords again and taking them out, and four of them were placing the bodies inside two large plastic bags, while others brought new tatamis to substitute the badly smeared ones.
"I say, I do this to honour the Amazon spirit much more than to entertain you, my dear Agnes. You see, this propitiatory offering of male lives may help our fighting spirit in the next days, as in ancient times the Goddess was offered sacrifices of males during the Women's Mysteries. What do you say?"
"I say that many would not agree with you, but it's a great idea to dispose of criminals like these in a quick way. By the way, where is the guy who survived last year's death fight?"
"I'm afraid he did survive only the sword duel, my dear. He didn't survive the love session with the woman he chose. Apparently he chose the Black Widow."
"Great. I would hate to know that he was spying me in a corner of this island to jump me and rob me of my jewels!"
Imogen put her arm around Karen's shoulder, hugging her close, in a friendly manner, but exerting enough strength to measure the other's. "Karen, you've a splendid body and you're in a great condition, but you should not lose any more of your training session. I understand you are here to win?!"
"Oh, yes. Positively so! At first I was a bit reluctant, but Agnes has really talked me into it. I am aching for a real confrontation."
"Well, here you'll find many opportunities to be aching... For now, you shall do like the others. Use only the live punching bags we can provide you with... See you later, at dinner time."
* * * * * * * * *
Ilona Jacobson was troubled. Not a participant, but brought here to enjoy herself, she could not settle. The victory of Verwoerd had meant more to her than most. She, after all, knew him. The manner of his victory had aroused her baser instincts, as the sight of such blatant violence always did. Given the chance she would have leapt onto the tatamis after the spectacle and taken on all-comers. But there was no such chance for her.
So, instead, later that afternoon she attacked her run with her greatest vigour, and eventually found herself alongside the handsome Nikvist, who was amazed to discover that there was a woman present capable of staying with him over as long a course on as hot a day. Furthermore, the woman was threatening to overhaul him. For some reason she was driving herself beyond all reasonable expectation, running braless and in a very skimpy vest, the armholes of which descended almost to her waist. The toss and throw of her splendid breasts was making Nikvist's running harder than usual, and only the restraint of his jock-strap was allowing him to keep pace with her. They had already run two kilometres side by side.
She had joined him on the road near where the New Greek Arena stood swathed in awnings, waiting to be inaugurated on Sunday morning with the first rays of the dawn. Stride for stride she stayed with him down the eastern beach past the point where Ivoa and Re-laa had vied earlier in the day, had turned west with him along the southern shore and onto the ill-defined path through the southern succulents, where there had been no proper path and yesterday's runners had had to battle their way along. There was then a spell of more arid land, before it thickened again to brush on the final pathless section before the runners hit the path that ran down from the front of the duplexes to the impassable rocks of the western shore. This was a steep and rugged way which crucified the legs and lungs as they rose from sea level to a height of 100m, some three hundred and fifty feet, in less than half a kilometre, before diving down again (almost as great a strain) to the path through the north western rocks, around to the docks and back to the road that skirted the northern coast, before toiling up the final section to the main buildings and the finish of the test.
Incredibly, she stayed with him through the heavy succulents, and up the vicious path, her skimpy vest tearing several times as it caught in the heavy brush. She ran like a woman possessed, her very breathing a searing agony yet not fierce enough to kill the spark of venom that lay within her. Once on the easier section, the rock path, she ventured to speak to him, though from where she found the breath was very questionable indeed. "You heard about Verwoerd's victory?"
He nodded as they strode along, not trusting himself to speak.
"Served the Black right," she declared.
He ignored that.
"It's my guess he is the best man here," she went on. "As a lover, that is."
Nikvist turned his head to look at her, and again felt his loins stir, for she was practically topless now, and totally unconcerned, the tatters of her vest streaming from her luscious body as she powered her way along. Running like that could not have been comfortable for any woman. It seemed that she was torturing herself, as though elated for some reason. At last he managed to answer: "I couldn't say. He is just a name to me."
They approached the outer harbour with Nikvist feeling like death. He longed to ease the pace, but feared that if he should the woman would power past him and away, her personal battle against fatigue and stress won at his expense. She surely must break soon, and yet she had time to talk with him. The long run home along the northern road was the only easy section of the trek, and here he was able to answer her.
"I would have had him already but for the Shankar woman," she stated viciously. "It was she who shopped them both."
"Of what interest should that be to me?" he asked between gulps of the overheated air.
She sxxxxxxxed as she ran and then fell silent to recover her breath. The run was crucifying her too, but she wouldn't let him know it. Refused to. "Do not deny that you have been eyeing me," she said.
Nikvist was shaken. He hadn't thought she had noticed. What he had seen in her was a cool poise not shared by Maria de Jesus Figueiredo. "I don't," he gasped out.
The road was beginning to dance before his eyes now as total exhaustion crept up on him, but there was a bare kilometre to go. He might last that long.
"Just so," she said.
He was perceptibly slowing now. She allowed her own pace to fall, grateful for his failing strength. She often wondered why men bothered to run any distance at all. They had neither the drive nor the physiology for it. Women, on the other hand, were built for distance work. "It could go further than eyeing - if you will assist me in my desire to thrash that upstart PR girl."
Nikvist was sorely tempted by her offer. "This is hardly the time to discuss it," he managed to get out.
The crossroads was approaching and after it came the agonizing climb up to the main buildings.
"Meet me at the private training room No.2 before dinner," she said, lengthened her stride, set herself at the hill, and left him for dead.
He watched with incredulous horror as her powering legs, and driving buttocks climbed to his eye level and beyond as she breasted the hill, and headed for the ladies' showers. He did manage the climb, but only just, and was close to collapse as he all but fell into the dressing room. By the grace of God there was no-one there, and he fell to a bench, sobbing for breath and almost passing out.
It was a further half-hour before he emerged, still swaying, from the shower rooms, and went to the duplex where Maria was resting after her afternoon stint.
From the rear of the arena, a perfectly composed Ilona watched him with a tiny smile playing around her lips. She had taught him one lesson today. She would teach him another later. She knew that he would not be able to resist a woman who could run him into the ground. The final humiliation he had suffered on the hill would bring him faster than anything else - looking for revenge in bed. She was satisfied that she could grind him into the ground in that other sphere just as easily. Nikvist, she had deduced, suffered from an overconfidence in his own abilities, a neurosis that she would find easy to correct. Aruna Shankar was about to know the depths of despair. Nikvist she would allow to watch. It was only a pity that Hernandez seemed to have little interest in her, though she had flaunted herself before him all day yesterday. The man seemed impervious to her wiles. Maybe Nikvist could give her what the sadist wouldn't.
The pre-dinner discussion between Ilona and Nikvist at the empty training room was brief and to the point. Ilona had noticed that it was Aruna's habit after dinner to stroll about the island for half an hour or so. Nikvist was to arouse her curiosity and lead her to the inner harbour reception hut by appearing to make furtive progress in that direction. Once there he would meet his `lover', Ilona. The tall Danish woman was convinced that the Shankar bitch would follow and watch them. She would be spotted, dragged in by Ilona and given the thrashing she deserved. It would seem that Nikvist could not afford to intervene lest his activities get back to Maria de Jesus.
Like most simple, direct subterfuges, the plan worked like a dream. Nikvist had scarcely taken the responsive fellow Dane into his arms before she broke away, cursing, and hurried outside. A moment later she returned dragging a wretched Aruna Shankar after her.
It seems," she said to Nikvist in English, "that we are caught in flagrante delicto. I saw this bitch spying through the windows."
"I was not spying," declared Aruna. "Just checking the building."
Ilona laughed mirthlessly. "I can recognize a spy when I see one," she declared. "Bitch! Voyeuse!" And she flung the frightened girl away from her, slapping her around the head as she went.
Aruna Shankar looked at Nikvist as though for help, but he stood there dithering, seemingly not knowing whether to leave or to assist his doxie. Slowly he backed away towards the door, and Aruna realized that she was very much on her own. The file on this Ilona Jacobson flashed through her mind - fighting specialities all-in wrestling and karate. Aruna's ill-developed Muy Thai was little to defend herself with against a woman eight inches (20 cm) taller and a great deal heavier than she. Nikvist was escaping, no doubt hoping that Aruna would forget who he was.
Just as he slipped through the door, Ilona's fist smashed into Aruna's face and knocked her down, her skirt ruckling up above her waist, and her white blouse becoming dislodged.
"Get up, you snivelling whore!" Ilona ground out viciously, and aimed a foot to help her.
With a small cry, Aruna came to her knees, and began to rise. "Please..." she began, only to have her breath cut off by a karate punch below her diaphragm. She doubled forward, and Ilona would have hit her again, but restrained her instinct to do so on the grounds that to smash her to unconsciousness now would be letting her off far too lightly. Instead she stood back and allowed her to recover.
"Fight, you damned little coward," she spat out, and stepped forward. Aruna, wisely, withdrew. But the big Dane followed her.
Ilona was certainly the better clad for fighting, dressed as she was in bind-on sandals, brief and very elegant pink shorts with turnups, and a loose sleeveless white cotton vest, under which it was very evident that her breasts thrust unsupported. Aruna's yellow skirt and white blouse, with bra, the neck secured with a neat red dickie-bow was working strip, and about to get ruined. Court sandals finished her dress, sandals which she now kicked off as she forced herself to straighten against the pain in her stomach and the aching in her face.
While Ilona stood waiting, the PR girl drew a series of deep breaths, fighting down the pain that the karate punch had caused her, and seeking the fastener that allowed her to unclip, then unwrap her skirt and belt, and toss them to one side.
"I was not spying on you," she said. "What guests do between themselves is not my business."
"But you reported Carmichael and Verwoerd soon enough," snarled the big Dane.
"That was a matter of maintaining harmony. That is my job."
"You need a pretty face for your job, girlie. I think you'll soon be looking for another."
"I do not wish to fight you," Aruna stated simply. "It might go badly with me."
"Ha!" Ilona snorted. "You work for the leading female fighting club in the world, and do not wish to fight?" It was tinged with deliberate incredulity, and not a little contempt. "You can always say I forced you."
"Who would believe me over the word of a guest?" Aruna said, looking sad. "I like this job. I do not want to lose it."
"A little late for such high thoughts I would think," the Dane commented blandly. "John Carmichael paid dearly for your `job'."
"That decision was not mine," the girl answered sadly.
Ilona Jacobson had heard enough. She stepped forward aiming a kick at Aruna's thigh. The Indian girl took it and hit out into Ilona's belly. Her small fist smacked against tough muscle, only bruising the surface. The Dane smiled, and slammed a blow to Aruna's left breast, a wicked straight left that drove the smaller girl backwards and brought instant pain-tears to her eyes. Only a quick blocking movement of her left leg prevented the following kick smashing into her groin.
She staggered away agonized by the breast blow, trying to find the courage to face the woman again, but the look in Jacobson's eyes was iron hard and cruel.
Aruna could never remember being more frightened in her life, but she knew, even through her pain, that she had to act, or the tall Dane would just keep smashing her and smashing her until she would no longer have the chance to fight back. 'Karate and All-in', her specialities, kept roaring through her brain, telling her that whatever happened she must try to stay on her feet. If she went down, the size differential and Jacobson's wrestling skill would lead to her being defeated and probably badly injured in moments.
She looked up through her tears at the towering Dane, all 6'3"+ of her, and could see only one hope - to hurt her the same way that she had just been hurt. Aruna's pain was all the more bitter for being undeserved. Ilona Jacobson wouldn't have that cross to bear. Thus, driven by pain, fear, and desperation, Aruna stormed forward into the attack, hurling her left leg high towards the bigger woman's breasts.
All the power of her back and thigh muscles was in that kick. Jacobson did not expect it. Her mind had already written off the Indian as a patsy, and she was standing waiting to finish her at her leisure. It took her to the under outside of the right breast, ploughed through the flesh agonizingly and finished under her jaw, knocking her off balance and dazing her. No sooner had the left leg connected and fallen away than the right drove powerfully into Jacobson's left ribs, hurling her sideward towards the window outside of which Nikvist now stood watching.
The woman rebounded from the wall and rounded on the Indian. Aruna was still pursuing, her left foot already in action, going for the seared breast again. The Dane blocked it with her forearm, it's force deadening her whole right arm for a moment as she leant forward to piston a straight left into Aruna's face. The PR girl swayed inside it, and their bodies came together hard, Ilona's free breasts squashing against Aruna's face, Aruna's tight, smaller bra-held hemispheres forcing into the Dane's diaphragm. With her left foot back on terra firma, the Indian was able to use her basic knowledge of Muay Thai to drive her right knee into the crotch of Jacobson's pink shorts and slam full into her vulva, crushing the labia against the pubis.
Howling in agony, Jacobson fell back against the wall, ruing her habit of shaving her pubic hair, for there had been nothing to cushion the knee-lift, for whilst the knee-cap had crushed her labia, the bone above had bruised her Venus mound cruelly.
Aruna slammed her small fists up and into the firm breasts that juddered before her, bringing gasps and moans before the bigger woman's ham-like right fist hammered the slight Indian behind the left ear, and impelled her rightward and momentarily out of range.
Utterly infuriated by the PR girl's fight-back, Jacobson hurled herself at her, intending to bring her down, and smash her to a pulp. Aruna dodged away, and dead-legged the Dane as she passed. Ilona missed her stride and fell sprawling, howling anew as her full breasts were slammed flat against the tiled floor of the reception area. To add pain to agony her impetus and the sweat that laved her caused her to slide across the tiles to slam her skull hard against a stanchion, and daze her completely.
Aruna again stood back, her head still ringing from the punch, and her smashed left breast throbbing pain at her still. But her tears had gone, replaced by a determined glare as she set herself in the centre of the area, and waited for the Dane to rise.
But Ilona Jacobson was listening to sweet song-birds singing above the soft lapping of the waves against Myrina's belly, and was not cognizant of her situation. Her own fury had led to her downfall, assisted no little by Aruna's desperate ploys to avoid her own destruction.
Fearing that the women would tear each other apart, Nikvist had quickly re-entered the hut. Aruna had her back to him, and he seized her round the chest, intending to hold her off his fallen compatriot. Misreading his intention, she acted with the kind of deadly aim that fear of Ilona had engendered, and brought her hard heel up between his thighs bringing him to his second defeat at a woman's legs this day. He gasped a long, gobbling semi-scream and slid to his knees.
Immediately, Aruna turned to lay him out with her other foot, saw who it was, and went very pale. Ilona lay forgotten in her senseless heap as Aruna backed away from Nikvist. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I thought..."
"Wha..." half-hissed, half-spoke the man, his eyes still bulging with the agony of his pubes. "What... did... you think?"
"I thought you were another attacker. My thousand pardons." she bowed to him, looking extremely chastened, then hurried to her skirt. She removed a bunch of keys from her belt, and skirting round where Ilona lay still and silent, a bloodstain from her split scalp sullying the cleanliness of the terra cotta coloured tiles, and whilst Nikvist attempted to haul himself to his feet and lurch and stagger over to the door, she quickly entered Myrina's cabin, and poured him a stiff scotch in a paper cup. Nikvist reached for the cup, and the drink never touched the sides as it passed down his gullet.
"Another," he gasped, "with ice." He didn't expect to get ice - not here in a deserted reception hut at ten in the evening, but she surprised him. There was a working refrigerator fed by a propane cylinder aboard. It was filled with wine, beer and a fair quantity of crushed ice. She placed some in the same cup and poured the scotch over it, bowing again as she handed him the drink.
His pain was subsiding to reasonably bearable proportions by now. "Where the hell did you learn to kick like that?" he demanded angrily.
She looked hurt. "It is a very basic move in the Muay Thai," she offered by way of explanation.
"Is that what you used against Miss Jacobson?" he asked, nudging his prospective lover in the right side with his left foot. She didn't stir.
"Well, no. I was frightened. I just kicked. Perhaps the little training I have had helped."
He looked down at the fallen Ilona. "Yes," he ruminated, "perhaps it did."
Thoughts of the fallen woman raised the PR girl's fears again. She looked as though she was about to cry. "She will get me fired," she said.
"No, she won't," Nikvist stated. "I witnessed the attack. I could speak on your behalf."
"If...?" she spoke resignedly.
He shook his head. "No. Not that. I'm already involved enough. And if we are to ensure her silence..." He let the sentence tail off. His meaning was clear enough. They both knew enough of Ilona to realize that when she came round, there would be only one thing certain to assuage her temper.
Once Nikvist had said his piece and his privates had cooled sufficiently for action, they moved the unconscious woman to a chair, and cleaned the blood from the tiles. The cut on her scalp was not large, but it was deep, and she would have one hell of a headache when she finally came round.
"Why do you do this for me?" Aruna asked him. "I am nothing to you. Just a PR girl."
"Maybe I just believe that good personnel are hard to find," he said noncommittally. "Maybe I did not care for Carmichael too much either." He paused, staring at her fixedly. "You didn't like him, did you?"
"No, but Verwoerd is a racist pig!" she declared roundly. "Tonight, it could have been a better world."
Perhaps it was even, but for sure the IFF Club had lost a colourful character.
* * * * * * * * *
Ilona Jacobson awoke to a consuming passion, and looked up to see Nikvist standing over her. The Shankar bitch had gone, no doubt back to her personal rat-hole. Screw her! But Nikvist was another matter. She was half-surprised to see him still around.
He proved eager to see her fulfil her part of their bargain. Jacobson loved as she lived - violently. Even under the weak light of the unclouded moon in a night of balmy breezes the dark marking on her fine breasts could be seen and felt as extra heat radiating from the bruises. She winced as he touched her, both there and elsewhere. Yet the pain of her injuries drove her to heights of passion (and athleticism) that the man had rarely encountered, and he ended the day with pubes aching from other causes than Aruna's kick.
They parted soon after midnight, after swaying exhaustedly up the hill from the inner harbour.
Maria de Jesus lay on the bed covered only by a single silken sheet, the wonderful lush lines of her body projected rather than concealed by the wrapping. She had indicated her intention to retire early at dinner, and had clearly done so. Nikvist showered and retired. She had not stirred except to allow the sheet to reveal one awesome breast, resting quiescent upon the bed. Wrung out, Nikvist ignored the stimulating sight, douted the light, and tried to ease into a peaceful slumber.
Not so Ilona Jacobson. She lay luxuriating in the aching of her body. It had been a pain-filled day, but had ended wonderfully. Her large frame had had to bear a weight of discomfort that she was rarely lucky enough to have to endure. Breasts too hot and sore to touch, had been tossed and jerked on the run, battered in the fight, and ravaged on the beach. Her crotch thrilled with pain, yet she felt strangely sated. She smiled and jiggled her breasts, feeling the discomfort renewed, and remembering the thrusting of a fleshly pillar, which she had ridden to blind extinction.
She must run with Nikvist again - and soon.
Ingrid Wolfgren looked over from her bed and saw her friend's gyrations. She turned and sought sleep again. Her services this night would not be required.
© Ajax 7/1990 (Revised 10/10/1993)
NOTES:
[1] The sjambok in South Africa is a long, stiff whip, originally made of rhinoceros hide.
[2] A non-solved mystery up to this day in democratic post-war Japan is the destiny of so many men condemned to be executed and that disappear within the walls that should keep them to execution-day. Execution does not come, neither does pardon, and no-one sees them again. There are some reasons to believe that there are ways to dispose expeditiously of them without the public mess of an execution.
[3] The shoto is a samurai sword with an 18 3/4" (47.6 cm) blade and 8" (20.3 cm) handle. It is the short sword, usually used in the left hand, with a daito sword, 29" (73.7 cm) blade and 12" (30.5 cm) handle, in the right.
[4] Gutsu in Japanese means spirit, fight spirit. Literally, guts.
[Editor Note] In note #2 above, Ajax explains from where he took the idea for a death fight between two Japanese criminals. In the 1980's there was a recurrent rumor about such things, and the story was written in 1990. The public at large would not be exposed to such a horrific possibility until the year 2000, when, coupled with juvenile delinquency, it was brought to the screen by Toho Studios in “Battle Royale”, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. All the mayhem between the women contestants enrolled for the gala, and many other characters with different grudges to settle – were never to be, as explained in the Introduction to this thread. (Raf)
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Silver Island Resort – Chapter 23
THE GALA OPENS
by Ajax
Furmanov awoke on the morning of Thursday 11th August 1988 a long way away from his troubles. These were the days he schemed and planned for for the whole year, ensuring that he should be available to leave the USSR at this time each year for the Gala on Silver Island, and that he should have with him a woman of suitable status to appear as a contestant. Now, whatever was happening in the Kremlin could not affect his enjoyment of the Gala here. Varvara, he noticed, lying beside him, was sweatng even in her nudity, her body, so long used to the temperatures of Siberia, still having problems adjusting to the heat of Kiribati in August, for although the rainy season was not yet upon the region (when the humidity combined with the heat to produce exhausting conditions) the night temperatures did not dip much below 30øC, a level scarcely endurable for the Russian Spy.
It worried Furmanov slightly, for he guessed that her performance would be impaired by enervation, but she had been so rugged and durable under training that he believed that even impaired she would come through against her opponent in the bar-knuckle boxing she was faced with. Ever since the Kiribati Letter had been received, some three months previously, Furmanov had made it very much his business to see that Varvara Leontieva had sufficient opportunity to acclimatize herself to the rigours of the bare-knuckle ring. He had had her in against men twice her weight and size, who had hammered her till she could hardly stand, and nothing had weakened her spirit in the least. She had, contrary to his expectation, become even more resistant to pain and stress than before, and it would take a very special fighter to defeat her at the sport which had been chosen for her. Yes, he thought, the Hong Kong Dragon Lady (her opponent in the first round) would wish that she had never set foot on the island. He would not discover this till tomorrow afternoon though, as they were to provide the penultimate combat in the round.
He was lying there ruminating, not even having visited the bathroom, when he heard a pass-key in the door, and in came the coffee-coloured, soft-eyed girl, Re-laa, who had been ordered to the service of himself and Varvara whilst they were resident on Silver Island. She bore, on a silver tray, the steaming mint tea that it was his habit to take first thing every morning, and which the kitchen had laid on especially for him. There was a pot and two cups, together with hot water and milk and sugar, of which the latter was essential to his taste, but the former unecessary. A bowl of chopped mint to add to the infusion completed the array.
Re-laa slipped the tray on the bedside table, wishing both occupants of the large bed a very good day, smiled at the general, and evaporated from the room with such silent grace that he was amazed. He failed to realize the years of training that had gone into that departure, and the studied self-effacement that Re-laa was able to employ in her duties about the island. That she had had a brisk run and wrestle on the beach in the early dawn, as she had practised spear-throwing the day before, was something that he would never have guessed from her demeanour now, some two hours later. She locked the door behind her as she went, and the Russian general chuckled to himself - the IFFC certainly had well-trained staff. They must all know what went on at Silver Island, yet none, he fancied, could be induced to reveal that information with the most assiduous torture.
So thinking, he rolled to his side, and with no more than the tip of his index finger, began to rub Varvara's right nipple gently, feeling it rise to his caress, and nothing the sinuous stirring of the woman against him. Opening her eyes, she reached up, seized his hand and pressed the finger full hard into her swelling breast, as her mouth sought his in a morning kiss.
They melted against each other briefly then rose, Furmanov watching the woman as she flowed to her feet and strode purposefully to the bathroom. The flush sounded as he was pouring her tea, and she re-entered the bedroom, tantalizing him with the gentle vibration of her firm and beautiful breasts, nakedly sweat-sheened and inviting as she came towards him.
Unlike the woman, Furmanov had slipped on a dressing-robe in red silk decorated with gold embroidery, hiding his strong, stocky figure from her gaze. Varvara smiled at the mat of curly hair bubbling out from the lapels of the robe. Given the chance (as she would be after her fight tomorrow) she would tug out many of those as they rode each other to the near extinction of ecstasy once more - as they had done on several occasions since the winter, when nude in the snow, and risking frostbite, she had overcome a worthy opponent to receive the general's invitation to this Gala. Varvara did not delude herself about the task facing her tomorrow. She had seen the tapes of Teresa Mui in action, and knew with certainty that once they met across the scratch to fight in bare-knuckle boxing style she would be at full stretch to defeat the strong Chinese girl. Mui had come up through a tough school, took suffering well, and seemed strong. The idea of having her pounding one's body, whilst immeasurably exciting as a prospect, nevertheless demanded a certain stiffness of the spine to envisage. Varvara was enjoying the vision. For a fleeting instant she allowed herself to think of the hellish agony that would follow at the hands of Furmanov as he fondled her desperately battered body, but almost fainted with pleasurable anticipation, and forced the developing picture to the back of her mind, way out of her consciousness.
From behind she closed, and pushed her left breast against his right shoulder-blade. With unerring accuracy he slammed back his right elbow and struck her hard in the right breast. "Not now!" he hissed, and she, taking pleasure from his pique, laughed and drew away massaging her hurt breast. Again she was aware that by Saturday she would not be accepting his elbow in her sensitivity with such aplomb. Again she thrust the wonderful vision from her, took the tea (in her case with milk but no sugar) and tossed herself provocatively into an arm chair.
Furmanov turned, smiling. "Damn you!" he exclaimed happily, "You'll drive me insane." He paused, almost biting his lip. "Tomorrow night I shall repay you with interest!" So saying, he took the rod under his robe to the bathroom - after taking a gulp of the tea and setting the cup back down on the tray - and took a cold shower to cool his ardour ready for the beginning of the contests at eight o'clock.
* * * * * * * *
Nearby, Leah Raines, in her own single occupation of the room, prepared herself for the forthcoming battle against the Canadian nun, Jennifer Veil, on the piste. She was very aware of the risk she was running today. But it was worse, for she was the only female members taking part in combat at this year's gala. Last year, the Johnson bitch had put herself up as well, but today Leah was alone and very conscious of the fact. Ossie had done the best for her in the armour stakes for the Greek Arena show on Sunday, but though tough, that was a show. This wasn't. She was well aware that she could die here. Unlikely, perhaps, but possible, for all IFFC performances were hard, and Jenny would be looking to reach the second round herself. Leah had already resolved that the Canadian wouldn't, but there was a fine line between being run through, and throat-pointing the opposition.
Leah was pleased enough with her preparation. She had never been leaner or fitter, and her cardio-vascular endurance was far better now than it had been the previous year when she had been eliminated in the first round at Indian wrestling, almost choked to death by a woman brought in from the Phillipines by Charles Luigs, who again this year seemed to have a very formidable tall girl with him. She had known nothing of her defeat till she had come round in the infirmary some half hour after it, and had wondered how she had got there.
Today, there was no time to watch the others and judge her fitness beside theirs. She was the first to fight. In a way that was good because her involvement would be over soonest if she lost, and if she won (as she intended) she should have plenty of time to examine the others.
She dressed slowly and carefully, first socks and panties, then the outer gear of white cotton trousers and padded canvas jacket. The épées de combat and face masks would be available at the piste. It seemed very little with which to face one of the most exciting moments of her life, but Leah forced herself to breathe evenly and steady herself down before leaving the room and making for the arena at 0745 hrs.
She emerged upon the piste at one minute to eight, clad in mask, and carrying her sword, and was met by no more than a murmur of sound. At first she thought it was because very few of the guests had bothered to rise to see her fencing bout. It was not too surprising. Fencing was very much a minority activity, even amongst such as the IFF C members. But there was a solidity in it that seemed odd until she looked around. Then she could see that she was quite wrong. Almost everyone was present, but quiet. Principally the President, the Countess Imogen de Lysset Colgreavance, was there, waiting to announce the first combat. There was a moment's wait whilst Jennifer Veil entered from the other side of the arena, then the Countess introduced them. Leah found herself bowing to the crowd as her name was called, and getting restrained applause, as was fitting from such a company.
EDITOR NOTE – It was here that the tales of the second part of SIR project got stuck, as told in the Introduction. The first part had gone smoothly, while Ajax and I created characters for the gala in alternate stories (in which we had no need to communicate with each other before each story was ready) but the second part needed more interaction and, as I assumed, the length of many chapters in the tentative programme of the gala would better be shortened. A pity because, as a few of you readers noted, some characters were rather promising in future women combats. (Raf, 2021)
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Really enjoyed the stories so far Raf. Hope I can continue reading any material you upload. Grateful to have your talent on this board.