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Chapter 153 The Flogging of the Bells
"Let
'er have it!"
Jasper Slegg's coarse bellow roused Erika from the faint to which
she had succumbed when General Wang's final whip stroke had found the delicate
folds of her sex. Her azure-blue eyes
fluttered open just in time to see Yim, the hulking
Malayan, muscle the second barrel of
brine to shoulder height, and a moment later she felt the chilling splash of another
four gallons of sea-water cascading down her face and chest.
Still
only half-conscious, Erika staggered under the shock of the onrushing water and
wondered dazedly why the massive onslaught of water had not driven her to her
knees. Half-blinded, she spluttered and
tried to shake her head from side to side to dispel the brine from her face;
she was surprised to find that it was difficult and painful to do so.
Deng-shan,
the carpenter and bondage rigger of the Yang-tze
Dragon looked on proudly, pleased with his conception. It had taken him only a moment to free an
unconscious Erika Weiss from the thongs that bound her to the grating, and not
much longer to ensnare her in the cruel bondage in which she was now enmeshed.
And
what a sight she was! Although the
The statuesque blonde stood upright on
the scaffolding Deng-shan had erected
overnight, the noose hanging from the midpoint of the crossbeam of the 7-shaped
gibbet above her tight around her throat.
Inch-thick hawsers of marine rope were knotted tightly around her
upraised wrists, tugging her arms and shoulders into an eye-catching Y. High overhead the ends of those same ropes
had been drawn through sturdy rings in the corners of the overhanging gibbet
and then pulled down to shoulder height.
There, a pair of dark-queued Chinese, their feet planted firmly on the
deck of the Yang-tze Dragon, tugged
on them manfully, lifting Erika onto her toes and stretching her well-toned
arms to their limits.
The
strain of that suspension flattened Erika's stomach deliciously and lifted her
mouthwatering breasts into superb prominence.
Her puckering nipples, firm and wet from the chilling brine, seemed to
challenge the Asian sky. Her legs were
slightly parted, her thighs still trembling slightly in response to the blast
of icy sea-water, her flaxen pubic air drawing every eye to the enticing slit
between her creamy thighs.
As her
awareness returned, Erika became more conscious of the constrictive noose
gripping her throat and of the men of the Yang-tze
Dragon gaping at her statuesque body. Despite the many indignities of her
long ordeal, a flush of shame washed over her nakedness, bathing her nude body
in a rosy glow. The salty brine had all
but washed the blood from her burr-ravaged breasts, but it nipped at the
countless abrasions on her body like a
hundred hornets.
Erika
shuffled her bare feet in an attempt to
stabilize her taut-stretched position, only to discover the true
direness of her predicament. For
Deng-shan had positioned her feet, not on the floor of the scaffolding itself
but on a pair of wooden blocks. The
blocks were perhaps ten inches square and six inches thick, and made her
position even more precarious. Erika
shivered as the realized that, given the tightness of the rope around her neck,
if she were to stagger even slightly she would be in imminent danger of
slipping off the blocks and dangling from the gibbet until she was freed from
the hangman's knot.
But as
Erika stared as the slippery platform she realized that the shallowness of the
blocks was such that such a slip would not grant her the quick, merciful
fatality of a broken neck. Rather, she
would hang by her neck, her long, bare legs flailing convulsively, futilely, slowly strangling until such time as her
captors, amused by her helplessness, restored her footing so that they could
continue her punishment at their leisure.
When a massive
sea swell caught the Yang-tze Dragon
amidships, Erika Weiss had to struggle to maintain her footing. When she righted herself she saw General Wang
and Hsi Fong swaying awkwardly near the starboard rail, both of them decidedly
paler than they had been only minutes earlier.
Erika remembered that they had retired early on the prior day due to
seasickness and she wondered if they would soon be sidelined by illness
again. Why, wondered Erika miserably,
couldn't the spiteful gods of the have sea seen to it that these waves of
nausea had overtaken the two warlords before General Wang had flayed half the
skin from her back and buttocks with the thief's cat?
Just
then a pale-visaged General Wang made an abrupt
signal to the two Chinese sailors holding the ends of her festooned
wrist-ropes. The seamen gave the ropes a
fierce tug that nearly lifted Erika off her feet. She hung, suspended, her shapely thighs
straining to keep her toes in contact with the wooden blocks.
As
Captain Andrew McMahon cleared his throat before announcing the imposition of
the fourth count of Erika's sentence, Jasper Slegg
slithered from one side of the deck to the other. The son of a seedy
As he
circled to larboard, Slegg noticed that the tautness
of Erika's wrist ropes gave the backs of her thighs the tense curvature of the
dancers who had teased the toffs at his father's
sleazy shows. Her dripping,
whip-reddened buttocks were of a roundness that Medusa-like, turned his rutting
erection to stone. In profile in the
bright noonday sun, every line and curve
of her body had the chiseled perfection of a statue carved to appease a priapic god of lust.
When he had completed his leering
circuit of Erika's taut-stretched body, Slegg once
again positioned himself at a frontal angle, where he feasted his eyes on the
shapeliness of her straining thighs, the slimness of her girlish waist, the
womanly roundness of her pelvis, and the proud thrust of her luscious,
pink-tipped breasts which rose and fell enticingly with her every panting
breath. Between her parted legs the
delicate petals of her golden-fringed sex were moist and inviting.
Erika
glanced from one to the other of the lust-hardened faces of the crewmen
encircling her. To her right Khasar, the brutish Mongol, and Froggy,
the croaking Chinese, were ogling her bold-jutting breasts like ravenous wolves
eyeing a tender fawn. Behind her she
could hear Yim, Raka,
Tattoo, and the other Malayans chattering excitedly in their strange tongue.
Lucky and Tranh and most of the Chinese were arrayed directly
in front of her, licking their lips as their eyes made the pleasant excursion
from her naked breasts to her blonde-tufted loins and back again.
Just then a wan-looking General Wang
crossed her line of vision, brandishing the blood-smeared cat o' nine tails
that had ravaged her back and buttocks.
He gave her the brief, contemptuous smile a slavemaster
gives to a slave and continued on toward the board Deng-shan had hammered to
the hull. The board from which hung
eight hooks, seven of them laden with various instruments of discipline.
The general raised the whip triumphantly, as
if it were a battle standard, and received a raucous cheer of support from the
sailors of the Yang-tze Dragon, before hanging the nine-tailed whip on the
vacant hook. Erika cringed at the seeming
certainty that her naked body might once again have to endure the
flesh-ravaging fury of the cat o' nine tails.
"Give the cap'n
your attention!" barked the gravelly
voice of Jasper Slegg, as the burly figure of Andrew
McMahon stepped forward.
"The preesoner,
haein been duly convicted o' four felonies at sea,
shall noo suffer the penalty o' the fourth count, the
murther o' little Mao. Knowing the wee bastard as I did I ha'e scarcely a doot that 'e
provoked the bonnie wench, but that is nayther here
nor thare. "
The red-bearded sea captain paused to
clear his throat and continued in a voice nearly loud enough to be heard on the
mainland. "The preesoner
shall hang by the neck while members o' the crew administer the flogging of the
bells during the afternoon watch. Deng,
prepare the preesoner! The rest o' ye thraw
yer names intae the
tam!" With that, McMahon reached
deep into the pockets of his pea-coat and removed a faded tartan cap of blue
and green. Stepping to his left, toward
a rough-hewn table, he pushed aside
several lengths of lumber and some coils of rope and chain to make room for the
tam on the workbench Deng-shan had used during the construction of the scaffolding.
As the captain's voice died away and the
men of the Yang-tze Dragon made their marks on the bits of paper that Slegg and Deng had passed among them, Erika took stock of
her situation. The afternoon watch, she
knew, began at
Erika glanced at the robust red-bearded
ship's captain. McMahon in turn was
staring intently up at the helm, where a pig-tailed Chinese was gripping the
rope that would sound the ship's bell.
Andrew McMahon glanced at his pocket
watch, and nodded to himself with satisfaction as the bell-ringer sounded the
bell at precisely the moment the second hand passed the
The immediacy of her impending
punishment sent a chill through Erika's naked body, but she tried to focus on
the moment. Apparently, the strange
ritual of 'the flogging of the bells'
permitted the prisoner to choose the order in which the eight ghastly
instruments hanging from the hooks would be used on her body. That being the case she did her best to focus
on the implements of correction that would be used to punish her.
From the first hook hung a gleaming
leather strap, dark, slender and supple.
From the second hook hung a long, coiled, braided leather whip which looked
as if it were powerful enough to strip half the flaking paint from the hull of
the Yang-tze Dragon with a single
stroke. Erika shuddered inwardly and
resolve to defer the lash of the fearful whip for as long as possible.
A broad brown belt fashioned from punishingly thick leather hung from the third hook and a
slender cane hung from the fourth. An
inch-thick length of split bamboo hung from the fifth. George Chan, she remembered, had whipped her
with bamboo rods from time to time, usually on her bare thighs, and the sting
of his strokes had lingered for days.
Perhaps it was only an illusion fostered by dread, but Erika could feel
the noose tightening around her neck as she contemplated the awful implements.
From the sixth hook a short but menacing
whip hung limply, its tough leather
thongs tossing gently in the stiffening breeze.
The seventh hook held a menacing
instrument unlike any Erika had ever seen before. Several thin, freshly cut switches had been
laboriously interwoven into a fearful device encased in a stout leather
handle. At first Erika was puzzled as to
why a bundle of switches would need a handle – but upon closer inspection she
saw its purpose. For each of the slender
switches, was as studded with spines and thorns as the rosebushes that George Chan had grown in his
pleasure garden.
From the eighth hook, of course, hung
the thief's cat, which had already driven her to the precipice of agony and
beyond a dozen times.
As Erika pondered her choice, the men of
the Yang-tze Dragon shuffled past her at a snail's pace. En route to dropping their names in the hat
on the workbench, each man lingered to admire close up the deep, dark crease
between her rounded, reddened buttocks, her fleece-lined pussy, and the sweet,
succulent mounds of her voluptuous breasts.
"By the sword of the Great Khan, I
hope I get another crack at those beauties," Froggy
croaked loudly as he limped past her.
And then, in a whisper only Khasar and Erika
could hear, he added, "And she knows how to use 'em,
too," he leered, winking knowingly at Khasar.
Erika flushed with fury, remembering how
she had been coerced into worshipping Froggy's ugly,
swollen cock with her ripe young breasts.
In her long nightmare of sexual subjugation she had rarely felt so
shamed.
The swarthy Mongol grunted enviously,
picturing himself astride Erika's naked torso, using the heels of his powerful
hands to crush Erika's malleable melons against his throbbing erection, while
he tormented her swollen nipples with his thumbnails.
"Chuise,
lassie, or I'll double the score!"
Captain McMahon's gruff voice was brusque, impatient.
As the two crewmen she feared most moved
past her, Erika's mind whirled . The cat
o' nine tails had left the flesh of her back and backside raw and burning, and
now her body was destined to receive another stroke with each of the evil
implements hanging from the ugly hooks.
But which one first? She could
not bear the thought of one of the whips tearing her ravaged flesh just
then. Later for them, surely, when her
tender flesh had had an hour or two to recover from the savage punishments of
the morning. And the cane and the
thorn-whip – surely they would be used on her burning buttocks. Perhaps the …
CRACKKK!!!
"Aaaaghhh!!" Erika's naked body shuddered in pain. At a gesture from Andrew McMahon, Deng-shan
had snatched a length of nautical rope from the workbench. Then, in less time than it takes to describe
it, the tattooed carpenter had doubled up the rope and dealt Erika a blow that
left an angry reddish trail from the base of her right kidney to the center of
her left buttock.
The force of the lash caused Erika to
stagger slightly on the blocks. She felt
the hangman's noose tighten around her neck.
The unexpected blow had taken her completely by surprise and her
anguished cry was loud enough to have won Slegg's bet
had she uttered it earlier.
" 'Chuise',
I said", McMahon bellowed. "D'ye think we're going to stand around wi'
ayr thumbs up ayr arse waitin' for ye, lassie? Chuise, damn
ye!"
"Th-the
strap," Erika stammered through
gritted teeth, as she prayed for the flesh-searing sting of Deng's lash to
subside. She really didn't know which
instrument of discipline to select first, but the strip of leather hanging on
the first hook seemed no worse than any of the others.
"Aye, the strap it shall be, then,
for the first bell. " McMahon turned toward the crewmen. "Ha'e ye all thrawn yer name intae the tam?"
Hearing no dissenting voices from the
crew, McMahon reached into the hat and pulled out a slip of paper. He unfolded
it clumsily and squinted disapprovingly at the markings on the paper before
handing it to Deng-shan, who glanced at the Chinese characters and then
whispered into McMahon's ear.
"Tiger shall deliver the first
blow!" the captain boomed. "Step lively now, laddie!"
Erika remembered the muscular,
sallow-skinned Malayan from her ordeal in the Bird Cage. She recalled how he Tiger dug his fingers
deep into her breast-globes and clawed at them with all of the animalistic savagery
of his namesake.
"The strap, laddie!"
McMahon grunted, gesturing toward the long, black strap hanging from the first
hook.
The brown-skinned islander grinned
through his bad teeth and swept the strap from its place on the hook. When he turned toward Erika, his eyes blazing
with excitement, she saw that he was chewing on betel nut.
Seeing her grimace of distaste at the
uncouth habit of his people, Tiger frowned and flicked Erika's thighs lightly
with the strap while he took in the gentle rise and fall of her tempestuous
breasts. Then he giggled in a strange
high-pitched voice and turned to his countrymen and cackled something in
Malayan. When his comrades shouted out
their encouragement, he threw his head back and spat a thick globule of
foul-smelling betel juice into the valley between Erika's close-set breasts.
Erika cringed in disgust, but the
Malayan had only just begun to degrade her.
Doubling up the strap in his left hand, he approached her and used his
right to smooth the oily reddish sputum into her tit-flesh, while his depraved
fellow islanders cheered him on. When
both of Erika's breasts were slick and rosy from his spittle, he gave them each
a smart slap and then stepped back and circled around behind her.
As Tiger took his position, the two
Chinese manning Erika's wrist ropes gave them a stiff jerk, exacerbating the
pressure on her shoulders. As the
jabbering of the Malayan contingent grew louder Erika sensed that the first
stroke would not be long in coming.
She was right.
"EEYAHHH!" Tiger's bestial cry drowned out the sound of
the dark strap cutting through the air, but an instant later Erika felt the
venomous bite of the strap across her upper back, and in the tender area under her arm. Worse, the very tip of the long strap had reached
for and found the sensitive outer curve of her right breast.
"Ahh-aaahh!"
Erika gasped, her nude body jerking violently in the neck-noose as the sailors
looked on with delight.
"A gud
strake it was, mon," boomed Andrew McMahon. "See to your duties, lads and we'll gaither
taegither agin at twa bells."
As the men shuffled back to their posts,
General Wang looked around irritably.
"What is this?" he snapped, his sallow complexion growing
paler by the minute as the creaking Yang-tze
Dragon contended against the
cresting waves.
" 'Tis a floggin' o' the bells, laddie,
and the neist bell is thirty minutes awa'. We'll conteena then."
Erika relaxed a bit as the grumbling
sailors went back to their posts; the pigtailed coolies who had been manning
her wrist-ropes tied them off securely, leaving her stranding tall on the
blocks, but without the added counterweight of their own strength.
"So you're just going to leave her
out here for half an hour?" the ill-tempered general barked.
"For four hours, mon. Dinna ye ken the meanin' o' the
afternoon watch? The lassie will stand
on the scaffold, bound by 'er wrists and her bonnie neck until the start o' dog
watch. " The veteran sea captain
stared contemptuously at the obviously befuddled warlord. "That's four o' the clock for ye
land-lubbers."
Just then a powerful wave lifted the Yang-tze Dragon high on the water and
when the ship pitched downward, the general and Hsi Fong staggered sideways and
covered their mouths with their hands until they made their way to the ship's
rail and added the contents of their stomachs to the timeless refuse of the
sea.
"Got
Davy Jones' collywobbles, d'ye?" McMahon asked
gruffly. "Perhaps ye'd better hae a lie-down."
Despite
her own misery, Erika was able to take some small satisfaction from the
general's miseries as he and Hsi Fong lurched toward their cabin. 'Schadenfreude' they called it in her own
country – the malicious pleasure one sometimes takes in another's misfortune.
"Cap'n?"
Erika's momentary triumph quickly
reverted to a deepening anxiety as she
heard Slegg's gravelly voice and his approaching
footsteps behind her. She tried to glance over her shoulder, but the chokingly
tight neck-noose prevented her from doing so.
"Aye, Slegg,"
McMahon snapped irritably. "What is
it noo?"
"Seein'
as 'ow the general is going to be below decks for a
while, 'ow about we 'ave
Deng make up a Mermaid's Necklace for the pretty wench?"
Erika wriggled in revulsion as she felt Slegg's hand gliding up and down her upper left thigh.
McMahon looked doubtful, but Slegg scowled and went on,
"Don't forget, cap'n. She kilt little Mao deader'n
Lord Nelson."
The red-bearded skipper seemed to
contemplate the blackness of Erika's soul for a moment before nodding his
approval.
"Ye won't regret it, cap'n. Besides, a
pretty girl likes a few trinkets. Isn't
that so, princess?" Slegg smirked as he
insinuated his groping fingers into the crease between Erika's spread-eagled
legs.
Erika writhed miserably in her
bonds. The noose, the ropes and the foot
blocks had rendered her helpless to resist Slegg's
vile caresses. She felt his thumb forcing its way into her anus even as his two
longest fingers probed the entrance to her vagina.
"Deng, whyn't you make up a nice little necklace for our
blonde princess," Slegg barked to his versatile
partner-in-punishment, as he slid his hands up Erika's flanks.
The ship's carpenter nodded and
retreated toward the workbench on the starboard side that he had used while
constructing the Wooden Lady and the scaffolding. As he sifted through a variety of sizes and
styles of chain, Jasper Slegg slid his hands under Erika's tender breasts from
behind and cupped them in his wind-weathered hands. "Ye didn't think we
were going to neglect these beauties, did ye, princess?" he growled, as he
gouged his fingers into Erika's flesh.
Erika could only whimper in abject
misery as the first mate fondled her ripe-nippled
treasures with obscene gusto, alternately crushing her soft breasts together
and then kneading them separately. Slegg devoted special attention to her nipples, tweaking
and twisting the pink nubbins until they stood out proud and firm, and then
pinching them some more. Erika was
almost grateful to see Deng coming toward her, carrying two yard-long lengths
of fine-meshed chain.
Upon Deng's approach, Slegg stopped manhandling Erika's creamy pleasure-melons,
deferring, for the moment, to his cohort in cruelty.
Upon his returning to the scaffolding
Deng-shan draped the lengths of mesh across the upslopes
of Erika's luscious breasts. Erika noted
that the two strips of flat, wire-thin chain were of slightly different
dimensions. Deng studied them with a
workman's eye, his intense gaze slowly comparing the size of the openings in
the respective strips of mesh to the fullness of Erika's aroused nipples.
When he had made his decision, he tossed
one of the lengths of chain to one side and took the one he had retained back
to the workbench, where he proceeded to
attack it with hammer and wirecutters. Meanwhile the villainous first mate resumed
his assault on Erika's naked breasts, standing behind her and reaching under
her out-stretched arms. He slapped the
outsides of Erika's wet breast-globes repeatedly, peppering them with a series
of crisp blows that provided a most entertaining show for Khasar
and Froggy.
The two sadistic crewmen had momentarily abandoned their duties to watch
Erika's succulent tit-mounds bouncing crazily on her chest.
Slegg continued
his assault on Erika's pinkening pleasure-gourds
until he noticed that Deng-shan was putting the finishing touches on his
handiwork. " 'Arf
a mo' luv,"
he chuckled gloatingly into Erika's ear, "and we'll 'ave
some pretty baubles for your boobies," before re-directing his attention
to the swollen tips of her breasts.
Erika could feel his hot breath on her back as he ground her
pinkish-brown buds between his fingertips until her nipples were once again
standing out boldly from her brine-damp breasts.
Moments later, Deng finished his
pounding and cutting and returned to face Erika holding the length of flat,
fine-meshed chain link. As he moved
closer Erika noticed that the Chinese handyman had cut the links on each end of
the chain. She stared fixedly at the
broken links for a moment, wondering at their purpose, until Deng pressed one
of the broken end-links against the base of her elongated right nipple.
Slegg, having
massaged the tips of Erika's breasts into eye-catching erectness, moved his
hands lower, under-cupping Erika's succulent globes while Deng-shan tried to
force the narrow jaws of the broken link around Erika's tender breast bud.
"Aaaahh!"
Erika's audible gasp as Deng pressed the sharp, unfiled
edges of the newly-cut link against her nipple drew the attention of the seamen
of the Yang-tze Dragon who had been
attending to their various duties. Erika
could see the men pointing and hear them chuckling with manly pleasure as
Deng-shan worked the jagged edges of the broken link back and forth against her
firm nipple until the swollen nugget was
imprisoned by metal on three sides.
Deng grasped the chain by its midpoint,
and gave it a swift upward tug, drawing another gasp of pain from Erika as she
felt the metal band tighten around her
nipple.
"It'll never stay," Slegg muttered disapprovingly. "It's already starting to come
loose."
"Patience, my English friend,"
Deng muttered softly as he worked the link back to its pre-tug position. Then he reached into his toolbelt
and withdrew a small pair of pincers.
"No … for God's sake," Erika
whispered, but there was no staying the Chinese handyman from his craft. He placed the ends of the pincers against the
sawed-off ends of the chain link and then pressed down, forcing the two prongs
of the cut link closer together.
"Aaaah! Aaaaahhh!!"
"Aye, now ye're
talking!" Slegg gloated as Deng's pressure
forced the ends of the link together around the outer aspect of Erika's nipple,
trapping its plump perfection in the tiny metal opening.
Deng continued to apply the pressure
until two thin strands of metal touched, and tears of pain we're streaming down
Erika's cheeks.
Once the link was secure, Slegg began to goad the ear-ringed Chinese.. "Give it
a bit of a twist, laddie; tighten it up."
"No… please … no…"
Returning Slegg's
evil grin, Deng took the pincers and deftly pinned the two ends of the link
together. He paused to admire the
perfection of Erika's entrapped nipple-nugget for a moment before adjusting his
grip with surgical delicacy and slowly rotating his hand, braiding the two
strands together, and enclosing Erika's breast-nubbin in the merciless vise he
had fashioned.
"Aaghhh! Agghhhhhhhh!!!" Erika thrashed in her bonds, but there was no
escape
Deng pulled back the pincers to examine
the imprint of the flat side of the chain on Erika's aureole and the way the
link compressed her plucky nipple.
"Christ, that's luvly,
inn'it? Her
nip's trapped tighter than a shillin' in a banker's
fist! Nice job, me boy. But don't go on holiday now, lad -- give 'it
another twist!"
A cruel grin passed across Deng's
face. He brandished the menacing pincers
in front of Erika's azure-blue eyes, relishing the fear that he found there.
Consumed by panic, Erika tore at her
bonds as best she could while still maintaining her precarious perch on the blocks
but Deng's wrist-ropes yielded not an inch.
The wily carpenter trained his hooded eyes on her naked body enjoying
her every contortion as Erika twisted and turned lasciviously, her long blonde
mane whipped gloriously by the winds of the
Finally, when Erika had exhausted
herself, Deng gently brushed away the golden tresses which a protective breeze
had draped defensively across Erika's breast.
He slid his left hand under her breast and lowered the pincers toward
the braided strands of metal.
Erika's blonde hair tossed wildly
from side to side as she tried to evade the terrible pincers, but the choking
neck noose held her firmly in place.
Closer, closer, closer the evil pincers came, until they were just touching the metal.
Erika, her creamy nude torso glistening with
fear-sweat, could only watch in horror as the jaws of the pincers closed again
on the braided barb that imprisoned her nipple.
"Bitte … bitte …" she implored the almond-eyed handyman, but
Deng ignored the plaintive whispers.
Moving with infinite deliberateness, Deng gave the braided link-ends a
quarter turn that slowly tightened the vise on Erika's nipple.
"Aahh! Aaaahhh!! AAAHHH!" Erika threw back her head as
far as the noose would permit and gasped in agony as Deng increased the
pressure. But, urged on to greater
villainy by a leering Jasper Slegg, the crafty
carpenter did not ease the crushing pressure on Erika's tortured love-bud until
both were startled by the clanging of the ship's bell.
Deng pulled the pincers back, and released the
other end of the chain, leaving the length of metal mesh dangling from Erika's
throbbing nipple.
"Twa
bells, lassie!" Andrew McMahon
rumbled as he emerged from the
forecastle behind her, while the sailors re-assembled to watch the second phase
of the flogging of the bells. "Chuise your instrument!!"
Erika, tried to ignore the strands of
metal imprisoning her nipple and focus on the matter at hand. Half-blinded by tears of suffering, she
scanned the seven hooks, knowing full well that any delay in her choice might
lead to another penalty stroke. But she
could not choose. Not the whips, not
yet, she decided frantically, and certainly not the frightful
thorn-switch. But which? But which?
"Chuise!!"
bellowed the red-bearded mariner, his Scottish accent all but intelligible to
everyone except Slegg.
"Das Rohr," Erika muttered miserably
at last. The cane.
By this time McMahon had lumbered across
the deck toward the hat which held the names of his crewmen. He reached in and removed one and frowned at
the Chinese characters. He handed it to
Deng-shan, who glanced at it briefly before calling out, "Li Piao!"
Within an instant one of the two dozen
pigtailed Chinese who manned the Yang-tze
Dragon stepped forward, grinning delightedly. McMahon gestured toward the cane and the
skinny little man picked it up and held it aloft for the approbation of his
shipmates.
A chorus of obscene catcalls ensued, as
the wiry Chinese man took his position behind Erika. He gave every appearance of being dreadfully
far-sighted as he placed the slender rod lightly against Erika's whip-reddened
buttocks, like a blind man feeling his way with a cane. Meanwhile the two Chinese manning the
guy-ropes gave them a powerful tug, stretching Erika's nude body, and bowing
her back slightly, accentuating the delicious curvature of her buttocks.
"Give 'er a good 'un!" Slegg's gravelly voice cut through the cacophony of
jabbering Chinese, and Li nodded excitedly.
But, intent on prolonging his brief moment of masculine glory, the
sailor turned his wrist so that the rod poked into the sweet crease at the base
of Erika's bottom-globes. Then, his eyes
bright with virile lust, Li drew the tip of the cane up Erika's tempting
buttock-crease with obscene glee.
Erika shuddered in revulsion as the
gleeful Chinese worked the cane back and forth, poking and prodding her
derriere, while his mates leaned closer to get a glimpse of the stiff tip of
the cane testing the fleshy ring guarding her nether opening. Erika gasped as she felt the tip of the rod
pushing inside her and was grateful when she heard McMahon boom out, "Get
on wi' it, mon, or we'll
all be here tae midnacht!"
Responding to the captain's impatience,
Li drew the cane back. He shuffled his
feet slightly, squaring his stance. Then, reaching out with the cane, he
addressed Erika's twitching bottomglobes with the
slender cane. Once, twice, three times
he took the cane back quickly and then brought it forward slowly, grooving his
stroke, letting the edge of the cane just kiss the crowning summits of Erika's
tempting nethercheeks. Then, after the fourth
backswing, he struck, whistling the cane forward in a blinding blur.
A split second after Erika heard the
telltale Whooshh! of the cane she felt it slam into
her burning asscheeks with a dreadful impact.
THWICKK!!! "Aaaiiyahhh!!"
The rod ravaged buttock flesh already
rose-red from the cat. The force of the
sailor's blow drove Erika's nude body forward with such violence that she
nearly fell from the blocks. The
noose-cords tightened ominously around her neck until she managed to right
herself and regain her balance
Erika's magnificent breasts heaved violently
and she exhaled a long breath of air as Li handed the cane to Andrew
McMahon. Two strokes down, she consoled
herself, and only six more to go, with
the next not due for another half an hour.
And then, perhaps, some hours of blessed rest until the docking of the Yang-tze Dragon's arrival at the general's island citadel, a
landing which would no doubt inaugurate yet another chapter in her odyssey of
sexual slavery. But for a blessed half
an hour, at least, she would have peace.
But a moment later an icy shiver of terror
coursed through her nakedness. For
Andrew McMahon was reaching into the cloth hat once again. And once again the burly, blue-coated
navigator squinted at the markings on the slip of paper he withdrew, shrugged
and handed the paper to Deng-Shan.
"Tattoo!" the carpenter called
out, and the brown-skinned sailor emerged from the circle of Malayans, several
of whom pounded him on the back excitedly.
Erika stared speechless as the animated
Malayan took the rod from McMahon's outstretched hand. It was Tattoo who had painfully pinned her
arms behind her while Raka the drummer had gnawed at
her nipples in the dark passageway leading to the infirmary.
"But the b-bells,' Erika stammered
frantically to Captain McMahon.
"You said it would be a flogging of the bells. Eight bells …
eight instruments."
"Aye, Lassie," McMahon
glowered at the squirming blonde who had redoubled her efforts to free herself
from her bonds, but without result.
"Eight bells and eight instruments.
But air ye sich a daft fool that ye thowt thare'd be only ane whang for each bell? For sich a wrang-daein as murther?!?" The heavy-set skipper chortled with such
infectious derision that his crewmen joined him in mocking laughter even though
most had little idea of what he had said.
"Sorry, Princess. It'll be ane stroke
for the first bell, twa for the second, threy for the third and so on." The captain turned toward Tattoo, whose
muscular forearms bristled with tattoos of naked women in obscene poses.
Erika's mind reeled with terror as she
tried to evaluate this new, far harsher interpretation of her sentence, but she
was unable to concentrate as Tattoo shot Andrew McMahon a bad-toothed grin and
ran the tip of the cane down the length of her spine, pressing more firmly when
he came to the cleft in her buttocks.
With his Malayan comrades cheering him,
he stepped closer, grabbing both of Erika's rosy-pink buttock cheeks in
his greedy hands.
He fondled her bottom-globes with
obvious relish for a few seconds and then stepped back and laid the end of the
cane across the uppermost curves of Erika's quivering backside. Just at that moment the two Chinese manning
her wrist hopes gave them a sharp tug, stretching the muscles of Erika's limbs
and torso deliciously.
"Give 'er a good 'un!" hissed Jasper Slegg.
Tattoo nodded to the first mate and drew the
cane well back to give his stroke ample time to pick up speed. "Yaahh!!"
he grunted as he swept the rod forward, delivering a cane-stroke that CRACKKed ferociously into the defenseless flesh of Erika's
whip-reddened buttocks.
"Aiaaaahhh!!"
the spread-eagled blonde gasped, as the pain radiated through her burning
bottom.
"Mon your stations, lads,"
bellowed Andrew McMahon. "We shall gaither agin at three bells!"
As the Chinese rope-tuggers
eased the tension on her body, Erika tried to ignore the pain searing her backside
by concentrating on the nature of her plight.
She reproached herself for having been so foolish as to assume that
there would only be eight strokes in this fourth and final round of punishment. Worse still, she had compounded her folly by
selecting what she believed to be the mildest of the eight instruments of
discipline for the first two iterations of the flogging of the bells.
Her tear-filled eyes regarded the ugly hooks with horror. The six instruments remaining - the braided leather whip, the belt, the
length of bamboo, the thonged whip, the
thorn-switches, and the cat – were all fearsome indeed, and it was those
implements which would now deliver all of the remaining strokes.
The two cane-strokes across her buttocks
had almost made Erika forget about the chain-link biting into the nipple of her
left breast, but as the flames in her bottom-globes cooled in the sea air, the
pinch of the wire band digging into her nipple seemed to grow ever tighter.
Erika slowly turned her shoulders from
side to side, offering her aching nipples to the coolness of the quartering
breeze. But her motions only served to
set the chain to swaying to and fro in the sunlight in a way that attracted the
eyes of the laboring crewmen's eyes to the swaying of her ripe breasts.
Flushing, Erika forced herself to remain
still, resigned to the fact that the fierce-gripping nipple-link would gnat at
her breast-nugget during every moment of the half hour or so she had to prepare
herself for the next round of her ordeal. The next cycle would call for three strokes,
she mused, cringing inwardly, followed by rounds of four, five, six, seven and
eight strokes. Counting the blows with
the strap and the cane she had already endured, the Flogging of the Bells would
consist of thirty-six strokes in
all. The punishment of the fourth count
of her sentence, which she had deemed to be the lightest of all only moments
ago, would likely prove to be the worst of all.
And a quick glance at the twisted grins on the
faces of Jasper Slegg and Deng-shan suggested that
they would do everything in their power to make it so….
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