“Ten what, sir?”
“Ten strokes with the cane, of course!” His vehemence made her question sound silly. “You can have ’em on your seat, your hands, or the soles of your feet. I couldn’t say fairer than that, could I now!”
“It’s more than generous, sir,” Trudy lied manfully. “I’ll remember those options just in case.”
She remembered them bitterly as he stalked away. The distress of her raw contact with the sandpaper made the prospect of choosing to have her bottom caned impossible. It would have to be her hands or the soles of her feet. Either was torture. Perhaps it would be better to spread her legs and accept his sperm. She might as well get used to the idea. Sooner or later the President would choose her, and he was unlikely to offer options. Fretfully, she tugged at her bound wrists. The cords were deep in her skin, relentless. Sadly, she wished she had thought of some less dramatic protest than the biting of a Warrant Officer’s penis. Her bottom and the sandpaper continued their quarrel without respite.
Daphne and Maisie carried loops of the rope the girls had come to hate, thin supple stuff designed for the mortification of the flesh of girls. They looked despondent. Sergeant Galla looked determined, her lips a thin straight line. The trio’s approach sent shivers of apprehension down Trudy’s spine. They were going to tie her elbows, or her arms, or her knees, or something beastly to add to her penance!
“This fool girl want yo’ to escape, love?”
The sergeant clapped a hand on Maisie’s shoulder and cocked a querying eye at the punished delinquent. Maisie and Daphne looked at her too, their eyes imploring. The girl tied on the post wished she was a thousand miles away. “Escape . . . ?” She tried to look vaguely shocked.
“Never yo’ mind no lies,” Galla said forcefully. “I can tell by yo’ face—and I seen her over here a’ talking. They think Galla stupid, but I knows what they whisperin’ to the rest o’ the gals.”
“As if we would! Oh Galla . . . !”
“Shush now! Galla got yo’ figured. I just been too damn easy on you gals. ’Bout time I smartened yo’ up.” She shook Maisie’s shoulder admonishingly. “Off with that uniform!”
“Please, Galla, we were only joking.”
“Galla, we’re too fond of you—and Trudy doesn’t want to escape anyway. Oh please . . . !”
“Get yo’ self naked, love.”
“But what for? Oh, Galla, what are you going to do?”
“Yo’ soon find out. Strip!”
Trudy could have wept for them, just as she wanted to weep for herself. All three of them were in the grip of a force against which they were helpless. Zindawba owned them, they were slaves. She watched Maisie doff her guard’s uniform to lay bare a sweet and lovely nudity undeserving of what it was about to receive.
“Hands behind yo’ back, love.”
“Please, Galla, not too tight?”
Save for the small sad request, Maisie passively allowed herself to be bound. First her wrists, then her elbows. Trudy winced in sympathy as the cords bit.
“Sit yourself down.”
Maisie’s ankles, then her knees. The bands circled and were knotted tight. Then the final cruelty: hands and feet were joined in a hogtie. Maisie’s breasts thrust into the grass, her nakedness bent backwards in a bow. She twisted to look up at the girl who had tied her thus, her voice pathetic. “Oh, Galla, not like this . . . ! Please, not like this . . . ?”
The sergeant ignored the plea. Her attention switched to Daphne, drooping and despondent. “Now yo’, love. Off with everything.”
Daphne was obedient and resigned. She accepted her binding without demur. Where Maisie went, so went Daphne. They were comrades in captivity and in their punishments. Soon, she too was an ivory bow, trussed.
“Yo’ three can talk ’bout yo’ escape. Yo’ talk all yo’ want.” She looked down at the hogtied pair with a trace of sympathy. “Yo’ two can do a bit o’ thinkin’, yo’ got the time.” She turned to Trudy. “See if yo’ can talk a bit o’ sense into ’em. Yo’ got the time, and they’s a captive audience.” She departed, chuckling.
When the sergeant was out of earshot. Maisie relieved her feelings with a hearty. “Damn!”
“Oh shit!” Daphne contributed with equal vehemence.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Trudy said wanly. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“It’s our own fault, love. Don’t worry. One of the others must have snitched. Oh gollies, this is going to get bad before night.”
“Can’t you get loose? I mean, help each other?”
“We can’t move. I couldn’t reach Daphne’s knots—no way!”
“Oh, Maisie, I’m hurting already. What are we going to do!”
“We’re going to lay here and suffer, you little idiot. Right now I wouldn’t utter the word ‘escape’ if someone paid me.”
“See, we shouldn’t have talked about it! Trudy has the right idea. If we behaved ourselves the Guards isn’t that bad.”
“Oh sure! And we get fucked by a President too!” Maisie was parting with her dream of freedom with reluctance. “Sorry, darling. I expect it’s all my fault. If we ever get untied again I promise I’ll be the best little guard ever.”
Trudy, on her painful perch, realised with a sad clarity the efficacy of feminine punishment. By fictional standards the three of them should now be vowing vengeance and plotting freedom. Instead, their pain was moulding them to the status quo. All three of them wished to be good little girls, fervently condemning themselves for not having thought of it sooner. Galla was terribly sweet. They could not hate her for what she did to them. She, too, was just one of the girls. Three pairs of wrists twisted against cord, helplessly.
“Don’t mind if I cry a bit,” Daphne apologised wretchedly. “It’s all so—so—oh damn our foolishness . . . !”
“It was me who told Galla ’bout you. This serves you right.” The dusky maiden tendered her information and opinion complacently. “You didn’t ought to go round talking us into trouble.”
“That was mean, Dilly. What did we ever do to you! Now just look at us!”
“I lookin’. Is it hurting real bad?”
“Of course it is! How’d you like to be tied this way?”
“I got more sense. I knows when I’m well off. Them ropes round your elbows . . . ? Must be real bad, eh?”
“How’d you like to untie us?”
“I’m not that stupid. S-a-a-a-y . . . you can’t do nothin’, can you. Galla fix you good.”
“You don’t have to gloat, Dilly. What d’you come here for?”
“Galla say for me to tell you the way I feel ’bout the Guards. ’Taint just me neither.”
“So, O.K., you love the Guards. Leave it at that.”
“Thass what wrong with you two. You don’t think sensible: you don’t think at all. Look what we all got! Lovely uniform! We all belong to President Abhad. He look after us damn good in this place. We’s a troop o’ real smart cookies what every girl in Zindawba envies. You watch their faces when we do our drill and go marching down the street. We got the best girl’s uniform in the whole world.”
“It’s certainly the sexiest. Galla took ours away.”
“Talking the way you been doing you could have been flogged. ’Stead o’ that Galla just ties you up.”
“What d’you mean, ‘just’! I wish you were tied up like this.”
“I wouldn’t mind being tied thataway if I bin’ disloyal.”
“All right, all right, Dilly! You’re a nice girl, but stop preaching.”
Dilly turned her attention to the post, the sandpaper, and the naked girl who sat thereon. “I hope you’s hurtin’ too. That was real unkind to Mr. Ringbolt, what you did.”
Trudy was indignant. “Well, how would you have liked to do—do—that beastly thing he wanted!”