Chapter 128 Erika Weiss and the Sinister Scotsman ...
Erika Weiss was struggling frantically to wrest her naked body from the
grasp of General Wang and his crony Hsi Fong when she heard the throaty roar of
the engines of the Yangtze Dragon start up. The sadistic general had just
abandoned his claw-like grip on the half-erect tips of her breasts in order to
strip away the panties bunched around her thighs, and Hsi Fong had still been
holding her tightly by the wrists, when the two men were startled by the loud
blast of the ship's claxon. The rumbling sound of the ship's engines convinced
Erika that her only chance of survival was to make a break for freedom before
the Yangtze Dragon was too far from the relative safety of land. For once the
vessel was at sea, she would be utterly at the mercy of Wang and Fong and the
band of lecherous cutthroats who manned the accursed ship.
When Hsi Fong relaxed his grip slightly, the stunning young blonde summoned
all of her energy and threw a vicious elbow that smashed into his chin and
knocked him backward so that his steel-gray head struck squarely against the
edge of the map-table, stunning him slightly. Then Erika threw herself at the
general, sending him reeling into the row of bookcases near the door.
Erika quickly burrowed inside the warlord's long reach, hoping to smash his
face and shoulders with her flailing fists. Taken completely by surprise by
Erika's daring gambit, the general threw a wild punch that glanced off of
Erika's left ear before slamming into the corner of the bookcase. Wang grimaced
in pain and cursed just as Erika's charging head caught him under the chin,
knocking off his officer's cap and causing him to bite his tongue. The
shaven-headed warlord could do little but fend off Erika's desperate and
ferocious attack until the cabin door opened a few moments later and the
hulking, red-bearded figure of Captain Andrew McMahon stepped into the room.
Growling, "Aye, what's this, then?" the skipper wrapped a beefy arm around
Erika's neck from behind and pulled the naked blonde off of a somewhat shaken
General Wang. "Dinna tell me the lassie's gotten the better of you, General,"
the Highlander boomed derisively as he thrust his arms under Erika's armpits.
Grunting, McMahon laced his fingers together behind her neck, skillfully
applying a painful wrestling grip which immobilized the thrashing arms of the
bare-breasted beauty. Erika continued to try to break free, occasionally
throwing a spirited kick in the general's direction, but eventually the
punishing pressure of the Scotsman's inexorable grip crushed her resistance, and
she ceased her attempts to free herself. She faced the malevolent Chinese
warlord, panting fiercely, her face flushed from exertion, her nude,
sword-whipped breasts rising and falling enticingly on her chest with her every
labored breath.
There was an icy calmness in General Wang's thin-slit eyes as he replaced
his cap on his shaven head and straightened its visor, before adjusting the
collar and sleeves of his neatly pressed uniform. He reached into an inner
pocket, retrieved a handkerchief and dabbed at his bloodied tongue and lip for a
moment or two before wrapping the handkerchief carefully around the hand that he
had injured when he had struck the bookcase. All the while his menacing eyes
never left Erika Weiss's nude body.
Erika's bare feet were somewhat parted, and the cold-eyed general let his
gaze drop to her long, bare legs, which rose in a lovely inverted V toward the
enchanting juncture between them. He felt the pressure in his loins mount as he
eyed Erika's golden triangle which seemed to point proudly toward the exquisite
feminine treasure which lay just beneath it. Her waist was hourglass thin, her
belly a taut expanse of sword-striped woman-flesh indented by an eye-catchingly
deep navel.
McMahon used his cast-iron grip on her shoulders to bend Erika forward
slightly, causing her to gasp in pain. The blue-eyed blonde's pendulous
breasts hung downward like grapefruits ripe enough to bend a branch, the
alluring curve of their declination spearheaded by her prominent, pinkish-brown
nipples.
"Miss Weiss, it seems that we have not gotten off on the best possible
footing," the general muttered in an almost inaudible whisper, before balling
his bandaged hand into a fist and uppercutting Erika's left breast with a
punishing, nipple-crushing blow.
"Auugghhhh!!" Erika cried out as her breast exploded in pain. She would
surely have fallen to her knees, had not the brawny ship captain held her nude
body more or less upright. The breast-punch was as excruciatingly accurate as
it was swift, the dark mark left by the general's fist straddling the reddish
bands the baron's sword had left on her breasts like an oversized note on a
musical stave.
"Ah, a lovely pair of mangos they are, laddie!" McMahon boomed. "But ye
dinna want tae bruise those beauties up tae badly just now, did ye?"
Ignoring the red-bearded mariner, a malicious-eyed General Wang was just
about to drive his well-wrapped knuckles into Erika's other breast, when another
man burst through the open doorway, calling, "Captain!"
"Wheesht! Ah, I kenned it was ye, Slegg, the minute I heard footsteps!
I'll no hae ye running up and doon ma boot like a drunken Weedjie. Oot with it,
mon!" The angry Highlander lifted Erika bodily with ridiculous ease and threw
her face down on the bed. "Lie still, lassie," he barked, "while I sort out
what this fool of a Sassenach is so het up aboot, or it'll be the worse for ye!"
"I've got a score to settle with her, too," an angry Hsi Fong growled as he
lurched toward the bed, still rubbing the back of his head with one hand. The
orange-robed mandarin had armed himself with a sharp-tipped draughtman's compass
from the map-table. He was just about to stab the pointed instrument into the
roundness of Erika's left bottomcheek, when a glance from the black-eyed general
froze him in his tracks.
Jasper Slegg's beady hazel eyes had watched admiringly when Erika's naked
body had hit the bed and bounced most alluringly. Slegg was a man of average
height and build, an unremarkable man really, save for a pugnacious chin and a
pair of piercing gray-green eyes that seemed to harbor an ancient grudge. He
wore an ivory-colored shirt with an open collar, and a short blue jacket which
bore the markings of a garment which had once been issued to a seaman on one of
Her Majesty's vessels many long voyages ago. Slegg stood silently for a moment,
letting his gaze slowly make its way down Erika's tapering back, her shapely
buttocks, and her long, lovely legs as ....
"Slegg! If ye dinna keep yer mind on yer business, I swear I'll break ye so
low, ye'll be reportin' to a cabin boy! What brought ye bustin' in here like a
bagpiper on Hogmanay?"
"Aye, sir," said Slegg, reluctantly tearing his gaze from Erika's nudity
while the two Chinese looked on with some exasperation. "It's Blackie ag'in,
Sir. He's got the cough bad."
"Does 'e indeed? Who do we hae for the next watch, then?"
"Not a man, sir, not really. Everyone not already on duty worked through
the night last night unloading the .... " Jasper Slegg paused, eyeing the two
Chinese suspiciously, before rasping out the word "cargo."
The ruddy, red-bearded captain unburdened himself of a string of voluble
curses. Then he turned to General Wang, "If the weather takes a turn for the
worse, I canna hae ye on the island the morra, General ... unless ...," he added
as a sudden spark of inspiration brightened his sea-blue eyes.
"Unless what?" Hsi Fong interpolated sharply, still twirling the compass
in his hands, disappointed that he had been denied the pleasure of jabbing the
sharp-tipped implement into the quivering buttocks of the blonde who had driven
his head into the captain's desk.
"How aboot the wench, laddie?" McMahon asked heartily, pounding a
ruffled-looking Hsi Fong on the back as if they were members of the same
Highland clan. "She looks like a strong lassie - let her work for her passage!
Unless ane o' you wants to man Blackie's post?" he added with a toothy grin as
he looked from one of the Chinese to the other.
"Now yer talkin', Cap'n," Slegg said with an unmistakable leer. I'll see
to it that the wench pulls her weight, you can bet your last barnacle on that."
Wang and Fong exchanged glances. Much of the foregoing had been virtually
unintelligible to them, although both had had occasion to learn some English
during the decades of European interference in Chinese commerce and customs.
But while they had hired McMahon and his vessel, once they were at sea it was he
who most assuredly held the upper hand. It was his cutthroats, not theirs, who
manned the Yangtze Dragon.
Erika lay on the bed, naked and terrified, bemoaning her fate. She too,
only understood bits and pieces of the conversation. She, too, had picked up a
little English a few years earlier during her long sea voyage to the east, when
the only young woman of remotely her own age had been the chatty governess of a
well-to-do businessman from Manchester. But though she did not understand all
of the words, she understood the gist of the conversation - that she was going
to be put to work, probably at a difficult, dangerous and unpleasant task.
"What will she be doing?" Wang asked, at length. Erika Weiss was probably
worth more to him than McMahon's ancient vessel.
"Come along, lads, and I'll shaw ye," McMahon boomed. "On yer feet, wench!
It's time to earn yer keep!"
