Slaver's Bait: The Taking of Cheryl (7 page)

A half naked, emaciated, pitiful figure of a man was hustled into Kurim’s presence. His hands were tied behind his back, his legs joined by a foot long chain,

“This man has made war against the government and has dishonored this village,” Kurim continued. A few voices hesitatingly emitted protests, but the rest of the villagers remained quiet. They all knew that fomenting rebellion against the government was a serious charge meriting harsh, collective punishment.

Kurim continued. “By order of the central government, all females between the ages of 18 and 25 years are to be taken as hostages to secure the obedience of this village. I have a list of all such women in the village. For every one that fails to report, five people will be shot.”

A great groan rose from the village square. A few of the men, and there were few in the crowd, struggled vainly with Stoner’s soldiers. They were subdued quickly by the butts of the soldier’s rifles.

“All women between the ages of 18 to 25 will now move to the right so that they can be identified.”

At first, the crowd stood still. After a few moments, Stoner’s men began to advance through the crowd, combing out all prospective ‘hostages’. There was screaming and crying as women were torn from their families and herded to the assembly area. A few shots rang out, leaving resisting relatives bleeding on the ground.

It took about a half an hour for the eligible women to be isolated from the crowd. According to Stoner’s census, there should be 153 women of claimable age. A temporary compound had been established ringed by armed men. One by one, the women were lined up and checked off of a list. Then each were unceremoniously stripped of their native garb and a wide, bright red mark was applied to their chests, just over the right breast. The processed women were made to crouch on the ground, huddled together.

As the process of selection continued, six large trucks with canvas tops drove into the village led by an armored scout car mounted with a heavy machine gun. These contained more troops and had started out two days before. They pulled up to the center of the village opposite the assembly area and stopped. Uniformed men jumped out carrying chains and other bindings.

Meanwhile two teams of soldiers were methodically searching the villagers’ huts. From time to time they would emerge with a struggling, protesting young woman. She would be quickly driven to the temporary holding area and processed. In a few huts, suspicious literature was found. Suspicious literature was any newspaper, magazine or book not printed by the central government. Those huts were burned to the ground.

The men of the village had returned from their fields but were held at bay by the soldier’s automatic rifles. They screamed and yelled futilely as they saw their daughters and wives rounded up.

After an hour, 145 naked young women crouched in the dust, their hands behind their heads. There were eight women missing. Kurim resumed his stool and spoke to the remaining crowd. “Eight women have failed to come forward. You have five minutes to produce them. If they are not produced I will have 40 people shot.”

The crowd yelled and screamed frantically. Five women were pushed to the front of the crowd by anxious villagers. Another sweep of the huts produced two more. One was still missing. Kurim slowly counted the seconds remaining over the bullhorn, “5! 4! 3! 2! 1!” A moan went up from the crowd. Kurim nodded to his men and five male villagers were dragged from the herd. They protested and called out as they were forced outside the circle of troops. They were lined up, their backs to the soldiers, their hands on their heads. They stood there docilely, inured to their fates. There was a moment of silence. A grey haired old man struggled to the edge of the crowd. He wore the raiment of a village elder. He yelled out to Kurim.

“Please have mercy, General, please!”

Kurim looked down at him. “There is one woman missing,” he told the man.

“It is Takiya Ndapewa!” the old man exclaimed. “She left the village this morning. She is not here!”

“Rules are rules, old man,” Kurim responded ominously.

“Please, please, do not shoot these men. They are fathers, brothers, please!”

Kurim looked at Stoner and explained in English. The cruel man shrugged. After pondering the question for a moment, he said, “Okay. Take ten more women, the best you can find.”

Kurim shouted the order to his men. Again they waded into the packed-in villagers. In a few minutes, ten nubile women, fair of face, frightened and crying were assembled at the front of the crowd. The old man looked heartbroken. Kurim looked at him coldly. “It is one or the other grandfather,” he said.

The old man looked up at the heartless soldier. “Will they live?” he asked.

“For a time,” the soldier replied.

“Then so be it,” the defeated man muttered soulfully. He looked at the cringing women. “I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

The ten crying and protesting women were hustled off to the assembly area where they were promptly identified, stripped and marked. They joined their sisters.

One hundred and sixty-two young women sat crouched, naked in the scorching noonday sun. The time for selection had come. Stoner had them stand and face him. The girls were drawn into five lines. Quickly, Stoner went down each line. He examined the proffered breasts, felt the muscled thighs, fondled their sexes. These women had no doubt as to what their future held. ‘Hostage’ was a euphemism for slave. They were being abducted into slavery right in front of the families, their children. They would never see their village again.

The demeanor of the forlorn women ranged from angry to defeated. Tears flowed generously. No one resisted. As Stoner went down each line, he selected the finest, most beauteous of the women and had them pulled aside. When he finished, he then reexamined the women he had selected, winnowing a few. He ended up with twenty black beauties, standing in a group. These were the cream of the crop. They would be flying back to Stoner’s compound shortly. The rest would be taken by truck.

Stoner knew that although the trucks had taken two days to get to the village, they would be a couple more coming back. In fact, as soon as the trucks were a respectable distance from the village, they would be stopped and the youngest, most attractive women pulled out and raped by the side of the road. By the time the small caravan reached Stoner’s compound, all of the women would suffer a similar indignity. That was what they had been taken for anyway. Once at the compound, they would be parceled out to the various whorehouses that served Stoner’s mines and fields. Men far from home would squander a week’s wages for a fuck. And all the money spent would go back into Stoner’s coffers.

The unselected 142 women were, one by one, affixed with steel collars on their necks and leather bands around their wrists. Their hands were bound behind them and their necks connected by a chain to each other in groups of twelve. Two coffles were piled into each truck, the last truck holding only 22 women. Seeing that there were two empty places on the chains, Stoner ordered his men to round up two more women. They would be older than the rest, but they would do. After two more crying and moaning women were stripped, marked and added to the coffles, the loading of the trucks began. The naked, condemned women cried and wailed as they were led into captivity. Sharp blows with long rattan canes silenced some of them. The women’s bodies glistened with sweat from the torrid heat. Their clothes lay in a huge pile in the dirt. Gleeful soldiers herded them to their destiny, laughing and joking with each other.

The twenty elected women were similarly coffled. They were led to the edges of the village, ten to each side, where the helicopters awaited. They were forced inside.

When the trucks pulled away, the enslaved women jammed inside and kneeling on the floor, another groan went up from the crowd. It surged towards the trucks, thwarted only be a blast of machine gun fire at their feet. Kurim addressed them one last time.

“Here is the man who is responsible for your misfortunes,” he said, pointing to the bound, abject man kneeling in the dirt before him. “I give him to you to punish!”

Two soldiers dragged the man to his feet and threw him into the crowd. Hands and feet started to pummel him ruthlessly. All of the crowd’s sorrow was translated to this man who brought the terror from the government down on them. He could offer no defense to their blows and soon, it was over. He lay in the dirt, blood streaming from his face, his body twisted into a grotesque heap. When Stoner saw the end of his former prisoner, he signaled Kurim. Slowly, the soldiers retreated from the crowd, edging themselves backwards to the waiting helicopters. Twenty men had been reassigned to the trucks to make room for the women Stoner had selected. As they put distance between themselves and the crowd, the people gained courage. They began to pull up rocks from the earth and throw them at Stoner’s men. As the rain of rocks began to come down on them, shots rang out, striking down the boldest from the crowd. The villagers surged away from the retreating men, panicked by the rifle fire. The soldiers took this opportunity to complete their retreat. They jumped aboard the copters and they rose into the sky, their cargo: the feminine pride of the village.

* * *

While Stoner and his cargo of fresh female flesh were making their way back to the compound, Justine and Cheryl were suffering the promised consequences of their small rebellion that morning. Stoner had instructed Jeremiah to think of something appropriate. The tall, lean, but muscular man entered Stoner’s bedroom and viewed the two abject women still ensconced in their tiny steel prison. They looked at him forlornly, knowing that the major domo would faithfully carry out any instructions that he had been given.

Jeremiah unlocked the cage and allowed the women to avail themselves of the tiny slave’s bathroom that was appurtenant to the master’s suite. When finished, he tied their hands behind them and led them to the kitchen area. They were still naked, and the bustling servants looked upon them with amusement. Jeremiah added to their mirth by ordering the women to their knees, to breakfast out of two wooden bowls that he placed on the floor.

Cheryl and Justine readily consumed the mealy porridge that had been served to them. There was no telling when they would next get to eat and they knew that they must avail themselves of this opportunity. Heads bowed, their hair flowing down to the floor, they spread their legs to allow themselves balance as they licked up the viscous sludge. It wasn’t good, but it was nourishment.

When they were finished, Jeremiah washed their faces and directed them to the door that led down to the bowels of the mansion. The women followed him dutifully, knowing well that any reluctance to obey would only worsen whatever torment he had in mind for them. The three descended the stairs into the musty, dank dungeon. The Discipline Room was set off from the rest of the cellar by a large, heavy, oak door with large iron hasps. A small window was cut into the middle of the door, lined with bars. A small trapdoor swung on hinges, which allowed the curious to look in, but, when closed, sealed off the inhabitants of the room from all contact with the outside.

Jeremiah unlocked the heavy door and swung it open. Trembling with fear, the two women reluctantly stepped into the room.

The room was about 30’ x 20’ and housed a number of exquisitely painful torture devices. From a wooden “horse” which cruelly split the labia of any woman perched on its pointed top to the iron maiden, which was designed to distribute, through a complex system of wires and probes to be inserted on and in the body, random, fierce electrical charges to the woman sealed into its darkness. There was also a large mattress in the corner for the purpose of fucking the victim before, after or during a respite from the painful punishments inflicted.

Jeremiah turned to the trembling women. They had both been brought here before by the hulking black man. Each time, he had inflicted long, cruel and painful abuses to their bodies.

Jeremiah directed the girls over to a short iron bar that hung from the ceiling by chains on its ends. He made the women stand on either side of the bar, which was hanging about six inches above the levels of their heads. Jeremiah grabbed both women by the throat with his huge, powerful hands, hands that extended almost all the way around their pale, white necks. He raised them both up off of the floor to their toes. The women choked and gagged at the pressure to their esophagi.

“Naughty, naughty girls,” Jeremiah said ominously. “You refused to let the master honor you by the use of your measly mouths. You should know by now that your mouths belong to him. You will learn today what happens to white whores who are reluctant to suck their master’s prick.”

The two women’s faces were turning red from the cutoff of oxygen. Their eyes began to bulge and their feet began to shuffle and dance. Jeremiah enjoyed their torment. “I have a special punishment for you,” he said to them.

He released the women’s necks and let them cough and sputter as they recovered their breath. He measured their relative heights visually. Cheryl was about two inches taller than the diminutive Justine. Jeremiah looked around and found a small board about 2” thick and 2’ wide and long. He had Justine stand on it, bringing her eyes level with Cheryl’s.

“Stick out your tongue!” he ordered Justine. She did so hesitatingly. “All the way!” Jeremiah boomed.

When Justine’s tongue was extended to its full length, Jeremiah fastened a long, thin, wooden clamp on it. It was long enough to bar the retreat of the tongue into the mouth. Its bite was painful and Justine winced when Jeremiah snapped it closed. He gave a similar order to Cheryl. When had had finished affixing he device to Cheryl’s long, pink tongue, he ordered the women to stand still.

Both women had experienced the long and subtle torture of having devices clamped on tender parts of their anatomy. The pain gradually built to almost intolerable levels. But it was tolerable. The women expected Jeremiah to return with more clamps, which would be affixed to their tits, their lips or their vaginas.