Chapter 5
In the full heat of the early afternoon, they were taken out of the hut and marched across the dusty compound to the ominous triangle to join the girls from the other huts. Nearly thirty strong, they were lined up in front and to one side of the platform, with their guards behind them. Directly in front were the rest of the female guards and on the other side a score of more of the men in green drill battle-dress who had invaded Cynthia's island and escorted the prisoners over.
"I suppose this is the whipping coming up," Sylvia whispered. "See? It all figures-the humiliation kick thrown in with it."
The woman doctor came out with Hakim and both mounted the platform. Then one of the wardresses, a hefty negress, climbed up beside them and uncoiled a shiny black whip, some four feet in length.
Finally, the victim was dragged on to the platform by two guards. She was a slim, lithe-limbed mulatto, with breasts like over-ripe peaches that quivered as she was hauled before the doctor. She had a pretty face, with large dark eyes, frightened, now, at the coming ordeal.
Like the rest of the coloured girls, she wore only tight briefs now she was turned with her back to the doctor and made to take them off. As she drew them down and stepped out of them, the doctor ran her hands over her back and down over the round, firm buttocks of her thighs. The girl was turned again and stood quietly while the doctor drew a stethoscope from the pocket of her white coat and sounded her heart.
The doctor nodded and then the girl began to struggle futilely as she was dragged across the platform to the triangle. A third guard came up to help and her wrists were held up to the apex of the triangle to be bound with the leather thongs that hung from it.
Julia and Margaret gasped as they watched the girl's legs being forced apart until her ankles reached the two corners of hte base to be similarly bound. Now she was stretched taut, in the shape of an inverted 'Y\ the sinews of her thighs taut and strained. The very position was a punishment in itself. With the triangle being three feet off the ground, the unfortunate girl's sex was exposed to the entire assembly, the lips pulled open with her wide-legged position.
The woman doctor had one more chore before the beating began. She took a bottle and a wad of cottonwool from her pocket, soaked the cotton-wool with the contents of the bottle and wiped it all over the girl's back and shoulders, the side of her right breast and all down her right flank, then she shook some more liquid on to the pad and anointed hips and buttocks. When she stepped back, she nodded to the guard who was to carry out the punishment.
The negress unbuttoned her tunic and took it off, revealing a massive pair of breasts that strained the white hammock-like aertex brassiere she wore to the limit. Powerful muscles rippled under the shiny black skin as she picked up the wrip and slashed it through the air experimentally.
Hakim and the doctor stood back, then, out of range, as the guard half raised the whip and positioned herself behind the girl she was about to flog.
The pretty mulatto twisted her head and looked back with frightened eyes, quickly turning her head away with a scared, hopeless whimper, as she saw the whip lifted and ready to begin lashing her naked body.
There was a deathly hush as the girl waited for her punishment to begin. Hakim seemed in no hurry as he stood watching her, prolonging the fearful anticipation as long as possible. Finally, he looked at the guard.
"Ten good lashes. Save the last four for her backside. Begin when you're ready."
The shapely body tensed, the guard's arm came back, then swept forward. The whip whistled through the hot, dusty air and lashed into the cringing olive-skinned back with a sickening force. The choked scream was an anti-climax as a long weal appeared from the top of the girl's right shoulder to her left armpit.
She jerked forward in agony as the second stroke sank into the sweat-filmed back, the tip of the lash biting in under the right armpit. Another lash seared her flesh and she writhed as the flogging went on, moving down her back. Each full-blooded lash brought its own cry of anguish and branded the smooth back as it was laid on with the full power of the negress's muscular arm.
One lash licked at the side of the straining right breast and the resultant contortions shook even the stoutly erected triangle.
Julia's eyes went from the tortured girl's wealed back to the tense, excited faces of those watching. She looked at the woman doctor's face and found it quite impassive she showed no emotion whatever, though her eyes were on the mulatto girl's writhing body the whole time. She looked back at the girl and saw the lips of her vulva now hanging open between the stretched thighs.
The sixth stroke was inflicted, landing across the top of the buttocks and spanning both twisting hips. The female flogger paused as the girl's head drooped sideways on to an upper arm. The doctor held up her hand and went to her. She examined the whip-marks, then stepped round in front to look at the girl's face. She lifted one eyelid with her .thumb, then slapped the girl's cheek sharply, so that her head jerked erect again and her eyes opened. She held her hand against the sweating body, just blow the left breast for a moment, then nodded to the guard and joined Hakim again.
Up went the whip again to crack loudly across the still unmarked buttocks, a vicious stroke straight across the centre of the two rounded spheres. She jerked her hips frantically, sobbing with pain, and the sadistic guard timed a backward jerk of the hips to lash in another brutal cut.
A third stripe cut the skin on the right cheek of the poor, tortured bottom to the fleshy underside, where bottom curved inward to meet the stretched thighs.
Only then was the lash lowered, to leave the flogged girl hanging limp in her bonds, back and bottom shiny with sweat and streaked with the red stripes of punishment.
They released her from the flogging triangle and two of the guards held her drooping body between them. Her breasts heaved as the doctor came forward and sounded her heart again and cursorily examined the weals on her back and buttocks.
"Take her into the hospital and have one of the nurses bathe her back-I shall be along shortly." Then she walked away with Hakim towards his quarters.
The guards responsible for the girls in the huts took over and marched them back across the compound.
"The beasts!" Margaret choked when they were back in the hut. She sniffed and dabbed at her wet eyes with a handkerchief. "They-they can't be human!"
"They're human-only they oughta be in straightjackets!" growled Sylvia.
Cynthia and Moolah were strangely silent for the rest of the day and kept to themselves most of the time. When they went to bed that night, Sylvia whispered to Julia and Margaret.
"I don't know if you saw the faces of those two as that poor kid was being whipped, but I did, and I'm certain Cynthia almost had an orgasm. Five'll get you ten one of 'em sneaks into the other's bed tonight!"
"You think they actually enjoyed it?" whispered Margaret. "I felt sick. T thought the whistle and crack of that awful whip was never going to stop."
All three lay awake that night, until long after the light had gone out, they heard the creaking of a bed and saw the shadowy figure pass the window, moving towards the opposite corner bed...Cynthia's. Then fol lowed more creaking, hushed whispers and stifled gasps. A faint thumping was heard, followed by a moan, quickly choked off.
There was a silence for a while, then it all started again. There came a sharp whimper, as of pain, quickly converted a into cough, followed by heavy breathing and urgent movement...a soft gasp...a sigh. Then silence.
Presently, after a short whispering, the shadowy figure stole back to its own bed.