[Agraf]

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

[Agraf]

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

[Agraf]

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)

[Agraf]

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

[Agraf]

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

[Agraf]

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.

[LeeRoyCrane]

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

[Agraf]

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)

[Agraf]

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)

[Agraf]

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)

[deity17313]

Really enjoyed the stories so far Raf. Hope I can continue reading any material you upload. Grateful to have your talent on this board.