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Chapter
155 The Claws
of the Cat
During
the interval between the final searing stroke of the thorn-switch and the sounding of four
bells, Captain Andrew McMahon, alarmed by the way Erika had nearly strangled
when she had slipped off the blocks, ordered Deng-shan to remove the hangman's
noose that encircled her pretty neck.
In
order to do so, though, Deng had to undo the Mermaid's Necklace first.
The
handyman of the Yang-tze Dragon approached Erika, gratified by the tugging
upward pressure the nipple-chains of the Necklace had put on her luscious
tit-mounds. He stared hungrily at her upthrust breasts, transfixed by the way the crimping chain
links had compressed the delicate pink tips of Erika's voluptuous
pleasure-globes into thick, throbbing buttons. Earlier, when he had used his
pincers to crimp the edges of the wire mesh painfully tight around the bases of
Erika's swollen nipple buds he had given little thought to how he would undo
them. His only interest then had been to insure that the bits of metal bit into
her engorged nipples with merciless tenacity.
Taking
up his pincers Deng began the job, and to Erika's dismay, she found that the
removal of the nipple-crimpers was every bit as distressing as their
emplacement had been. The long-legged
beauty gasped in pain as Deng-shan tried to insert the edge of the jaws of the
pincers into the infinitesimal gap between the slender ringlets of wire and
Erika's inflamed right nipple. Time and
again his efforts misfired, and he managed only to stab Erika's aching nugget
with the edge of the
sharp-pronged pincers.
Finally, however, Deng managed to secure a grip on one end of the
slender metal band, and he slowly began to peel it away from Erika's throbbing
nubbin.
Staccato
bursts of pain accompanied the rebirth of the nerves in Erika's newly liberated
nipple as Deng, still holding the end of the chain in his pincers, unwound it
from Erika's pretty neck. Then, after
giving Jasper Slegg a furtive wink, he let the end of
the chain slip through the jaws of the pincers. The free end of the chain slid
quickly down the front of Erika's body until its descent was pulled up short by
its other anchor the tip of Erika's left breast.
The
tenderness of Erika's nipple multiplied the scant weight of the chain several-fold. Every instinct, every muscle, every nerve in
her body directed her to lean forward to ease the stress on her swollen
love-button, but the noose around her neck precluded any such notion.
Smiling
wickedly, Deng-shan swatted at the end of the chain, making it swing back and
forth like a pendulum, adding to Erika's misery, while he unknotted the noose
around her neck and slipped it off.
Moments later he kicked out the foot-blocks on which she stood, allowing
her nude body to swing free. Erika's
long, shapely legs flailed futilely in the air for a long moment before Cheng and Kai eased their grip
on her wrist-ropes, lowering her slightly so that her bare feet could just
reach the brine-moist deck of the ship.
And
there Erika waited, naked, panting, defenseless, on the restlessly rising and falling deck of the Yangtze Dragon, her lash-marked body a
sailor's offering to the capricious gods of the
As Erika struggled in her bonds, her blonde
hair tossing lightly in the wind, she tried to take sustenance, as
sun-worshipers have done since the dawn of time, from the healing warmth of the
sun, hoping to coax from the golden globe in the heavens enough strength and courage to endure the next cycle
of her punishment
.
********
During
the interval Jasper Slegg had puttered about on deck,
pretending to supervise some of the routine shipboard activities, but his
thoughts and his
eyes never left Erika Weiss's nude body for long. Despite the considerable liberties he and his
fellow crewmen had taken with their stunning young prisoner, Slegg still found it a bit remarkable that the men of the
Yang-tze Dragon hadn't already brushed aside Captain McMahon's orders and
gang-raped their full-breasted captive on the spot. Clearly it was as much the promised
pleasures of the General's island citadel as Andrew McMahon's stern discipline
that had kept the crewmen more or less in line.
Apparently the more level-headed members of the crew had instructed
their brethren that it was far better to wait for the legendary carnal delights
of
But
as Jasper Slegg eyeballed Erika's ripe, tempting
breasts, her long, supple legs, her well-whipped buttocks which would have
seduced a saint to sodomy, and the enticingly furry grotto between her
widespread legs, he still considered it something of a miracle that the men of
the Yang-tze Dragon had been able to confine their sexual pleasures to what
amounted to foreplay, however violent.
**********
For
the lusty mariners of the Yang-tze Dragon the interval between three bells and
four seemed to take an eternity. But for
a beaten and bloodied Erika Weiss, the minutes raced by all too swiftly, and
soon Erika heard the first of the four ominous bells that signaled the renewal
of her seemingly endless ordeal.
Moments
later the now-familiar bellow of the Laird of Dornoch, rumbled across the
deck of the Yang-tze Dragon. "Chuise! Which shall it be, Lassie?" barked Captain
Andrew McMahon.
Erika's
sky-blue eyes moved disconsolately toward the array of instruments of
discipline that had not yet been used during this final phase of her
punishment. Three whips were still
there, including the dreadful cat o' nine tails which General Wang had used to
inflict the punishment for the third count of her sentence. There was also an odd-shaped leather belt and
a nasty-looking bamboo rod. The
nine-clawed cat seemed by far the most menacing of the implements, which meant
that Erika really had little choice. It
would be far better to suffer four more strokes of the cat than five or six or
seven.
"The
the
." Erika stammered. She could not bring herself to say the word.
"Speak
up, Lassie!" McMahon was several
feet away from her, but even from that distance she could detect the robust
aroma of Scotch whisky on his breath.
"Can't ye see ye've gat thray dizzen men o' the sea a-waitin' on ye?"
Erika
was well aware that the sailors had gathered around the scaffold again; she
could feel the heat of their lustful gaze on her body. But her throat, still dry from an hour in the
noose, failed her and she still could not find her voice.
"Daft wench! What'll ye hae?"
Mcmahon fumed. "The Lochgelly?" The captain's blue-sleeved arm
gestured toward the peculiar belt.
"N-no."
"The blacksnake?" He pointed to the menacing single-tail so innocently
coiled around one of the hooks.
Erika
shook her head, 'No.'
"Will
ye ha'e the cat, then?" McMahon boomed, grabbing
the handle of the cat o' nine tails?
A shudder of fear swept Erika's naked
body, but she nodded her head resignedly.
"Well,
it's aboot time ye made up yer mind, lassie," the red-bearded mariner
asserted. "Nou where's that cursed tam?"
A
gust of wind had tossed the colorful woven cap which contained the names of the
men on deck off Deng's workbench and onto the deck of the ship. Tranh hastily
retrieved it and replaced it on the bench..
"Fower bells, wisn't it?"
mumbled Andrew McMahon who leered at Erika as he moved toward the cap. "That means fower
lads'll get tae swing the cat." He reached into the cap, and grabbed a few of
the scraps of paper residing therein. Then, upon seeing that he had grasped
only three, he reached in a withdrew a fourth.
As before McMahon stared at the markings on the paper
uncomprehendingly for a moment or two before handing them to his trusty
translator, Deng-shan. Deng sifted through the slips of paper, and
whispered the names into McMahon's ear one by one.
Nodding,
McMahon rose to his full height and announced, "The fower
will be Buddha,
Yong Li, Mahlik and Mongkut." The captain scanned the ranks of the watching
sailors with bloodshot eyes.
"Where's the Buddha?"
" 'Ere
'e is, cap'n," Slegg
replied, pointing abaft.
Erika
lifted her head to look sternward. Barebellied, a saturnine scowl embedded deep
in his jowls, the man they called 'Buddha' waddled across the deck, swathed in
an off the shoulder orange robe the size of a tent, his multiple chins and
immense belly jiggling with every stride.
Despite his immense girth and his tortoise-like gait, the Buddha's broad
shoulders gave undeniable
evidence of his prodigious strength. He took up the cat-o-nine tails and held it
in his fat fist as if it were a child's toy, before swishing it lightly across
the sensitive skin of Erika's upper back. Erika trembled uncontrollably as her lacerated
flesh renewed its acquaintance with the knots she had been forced to tie with
her own delicate fingers.
"Give
the wench summat to meditate on, yer
holiness," Jasper Slegg snarled mockingly out of
the corner of his mouth.
The
imposing figure they called 'Buddha' glowered darkly at Slegg
and planted his ponderous bare feet firmly on the deck of the ship, slightly
behind and to the left of Erika. He
stood there silently for what seemed to the impatient crewman a long time, his
heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Erika's tempting bottom-globes. Then he closed his
eyes, and brought his hands, one of which held the knotted whip, together in
front of his chest as if he were praying.
For many seconds he stood motionless, the only clue to
his consciousness being the gentle rise and fall of his huge belly. His face was completely expressionless,
leaving every man on board to guess whether he was addressing a solemn prayer
to some ancient kami or enjoying some sort of
depraved mystical vision.
Perhaps
because of his monkish reticence a week in which the 'Buddha' spoke twenty
words was considered chatty aboard the Dragon
-- shipboard
rumors about the Buddha's past ran the gamut of human experience. Some held that the pot-bellied deckhand had
once been a holy man whose faith had crumbled under the weight of human
suffering. Others, far more cynical,
whispered stories that the orange-robed behemoth had been banished by his holy
brethren for subjecting the nubile and trusting young virgins of his
mountainous homeland to unspeakable depravities.
And indeed, when the obese giant finally
parted his hands and opened his eyes, the cynics were sure they were
right. For the thick-lidded gaze of the
man they called 'Buddha' was fixed on
Erika's inviting buttock cleft as if his silent mystical vision had consisted
of himself spreading those delicious demi-ovals so
that he could bury his huge yak-like
phallus in her forbidden passage.
But aside from the fixedness of his stare and the
prodigious swelling just beneath the waistband of his robe, the former monk was
as impassive as ever. He appeared to mutter a strange chant under his breath as his
massive arm drew the whip back as if it were a toy. Then with a mighty lunge, he swept the nine
tails of the whip across the bare skin of Erika's upper back, with a thunderous CRACCKKKK!!!! that shot flames of
agony across Erika's gently protruding shoulderblades.
"Aaaiiiaaahhh!!" The claws of
the cat were no less sharp than they had been before and the mighty swing of
the Buddha drew fresh blood. The men to
her rear could see that the once-fair skin of Erika's whip-reddened back was
once again flecked with crimson. For
Erika the pain was mind-bending. General
Wang was a strong, solidly built man.
But the Buddha was a man of twice his size, and nearly twice his
strength.
Freed
from the constricting grasp of the noose, Erika's nude body spun around
slightly, and she saw that her shudder of agony had transformed the Buddha's
morose scowl into a mocking smile. His labor completed, the huge man silently
placed the whip on the workbench and without a word or a glance he began his
slow trek back to the stern of the Yang-tze
Dragon.
"Yong
Li!" McMahon called out, his voice
growing thicker by the minute. A moment
later, another Chinese stepped forward, baby-faced and bashful. A crooked smile
blossomed on his face as he approached Erika from behind. His roaming eyes
drank in the
irregular patches of crimson and streaks of scarlet on her back and buttocks
with adolescent ardor. But as he passed
her en route to the whip-rack, Yong observed that there were only faint
striations on Erika's breasts, belly and thighs, souvenirs of her frantic run
through the gauntlet in the morning.
Viewed from the front her body was peaches and cream perfection save for the swollen, cinnamon-colored nipple that peeked
out of the chain dangling from her left breast.
"Show
us what ye're made of, chappie,"
Slegg snapped.
Yong
took up the whip, regarding it uncertainly.
Then he stepped closer to the fair-skinned beauty hanging so helplessly
from the scaffold ropes. The celestial
arc of the afternoon sun had swung around to the west and Erika's blue eyes
squinted slightly in the brilliant sunshine.
The heat of the day had coated the front of her body with a glistening
film of perspiration; the bare skin of her breasts and belly seemed infused
with an almost palpable warmth.
Shyly
at first, and then more boldly, Yong studied every inch, every curve, every contour,
every pore of Erika's taut-stretched body. From even a few feet away the faint rings
encircling the bases of Erika's breasts had seemed no more than subtle shadows,
as if an erotic artist had created them to enhance the shape and size of
Erika's opulent mounds. But now that he
was closer, Yong Li could make out the textured pattern of hempen rope embossed
in her creamy pleasure-globes.
Like most of the crewmen, Yong had watched
from some distance while Deng had coiled the rope around Erika's breasts during
the ordeal of the Wooden Lady. It was only now, seeing the telltale imprint of
coarse-grained rope on soft flesh, that Yong could
appreciate how cruelly the cords had bitten into Erika's succulent
tit-globes. Yong Li's fingers were
almost twitching with desire to caress her soft flesh when he turned to Slegg and
gave the ferret-faced first mate an imploring "Do you mind if I
" glance.
"Sure,
laddie, give 'er a bit of a rub-up if ye like. She's not bloody likely to catch the next
train to Paddington, are ye, luv?"
Erika
threw an icy-daggered glance at her tormentor, but with her arms stretched high
over her head, she was powerless to rebuke the first mate's insolence.
The
smooth-cheeked Chinese held the whip in his right and reached out with his
left, the back of his fingers lightly grazing the soft, sweat-damp skin of
Erika's stomach. His hand jerked once or
twice, as if he expected a shock, but when none came, Yong stepped closer and
turned his hand over, letting his fingertips feel the warmth and softness of
Erika's bare flesh.
He
caressed her stomach in slow circular motions for a moment or two, pausing
briefly to explore the silken notch of her navel. He grinned playfully when his hand brushed
against the chain hanging from the nipple of her left breast. Erika's wince
seemed to embolden the young man and his free hand began moving in wider
circles, smoothing her trim belly-flesh from her waist to the top of her
ribcage, the tips of his fingers just kissing the baby-soft undersides of
Erika's proud-jutting breasts.
Yong
Li soon grew bolder, sliding his bare hand into the mossy triangle atop Erika's
mons, and then lower still, supinating
his hand so that it was palm upward as he felt between Erika's legs. Though not intentionally brutal, his
insistent fingertips probed sensitive tissues which had been raked bloody by Orang's thorn-stick. When he continued to paw Erika's
lacerated flesh, she unburdened herself of a stream of German invective and an
angry stare that provided ample translation of her words.
Irritated
by the venom in her glance, Yong decided that as long as the beautiful blonde
despised him anyway, he might as well give her reason for her enmity. Stuffing
the handle of the cat into the waistband of his leggings, Yong took hold of the
chain hanging from Erika's left nipple and wrapped it around his wrist several
times, coiling the chain tightly around his lower forearm. Then, after signaling Cheng and Kai to
tighten their grip on Erika's wrist-ropes, he began to pull on the chain.
"Ahhh
.aghhh
agghhhh!!" Erika groaned softly as Yong increased the pressure,
slowly tugging her left nipple, so tightly crimped by the bent, broken ends of
the chain link, away from her body. With
her arms stretched high by the wrist-ropes, Erika was powerless to stop her
tormentor as he reached behind her and seized a handful of her blonde
mane. Then he jerked her head backwards
and down, while still maintaining his grip on the breast-chain.
Erika's
body was torn between the opposing pressures of the ropes that pulled her arms
upward and Yong's grip on her hair, jerking her neck downward. The terrible strain bowed her spine in a
sensual arc, and tightened the gluteal muscles in her
buttocks and the well-toned muscles of the back of her thighs into an alluring
tautness. Erika's right breast was thrust skyward, its rounded perfection
seeming to challenge the admiring sun and sky.
His
diffidence conquered, Yong tightened his grip on the chain imprisoning Erika's
left nipple even as he lowered his mouth to her other breast. He fed on it greedily, moving his open mouth
in aggressive circles around the sweet, succulent orb. The other sailors of the Yang-tze Dragon
watched enviously as Yong attacked Erika's breast with his lips and
tongue. He seemed intent on taking her
entire breast into his mouth, as he had dreamed of doing a hundred times to the
pert-breasted Asian beauties who had been transported
to dens of sexual slavery in the Birdcage.
Try
though he might, though, Erika's pleasure-globe was too big for his gaping
mouth and Yong had to be content with mouthing it hungrily. The scent and taste of Erika's breastflesh was intoxicating and Yong lapped at her sweaty
mound like a thirsty dog. When Erika's
entire breast was coated with his slick saliva he curled his tongue into a
stiff prod, and worked his way slowly around Erika's aureole, exploring every
millimeter of its grainy texture.
Without easing the pressure he was applying to the chain dangling from
the tip of Erika's left breast, Yong circled the pebbly halo of her right
breast with the tip of his tongue again and again, teasing the tasty nipple at
its core with his hot breath.
Despite
her predicament and despite the continual pressure on her left breast, Erika's
sensual nature could not help but respond to Yong's oral caresses. She felt her
wanton nipple responding to his ministrations, thickening and swelling,
offering itself to his greedy mouth. As
the delectable bud stiffened, Yong stabbed at it with his long, predatory
tongue, teasing it until it stood out proud and firm and quivering. Then he moved in with his lips, capturing it,
tugging it, sucking on it like a starving infant.
When
at last Yong had nursed Erika's nipple into bold and quivering erection, he
unwound the chain from his wrist, letting it hang free for a moment. He watched the chain sway lightly in the
breeze like wind chimes at the portal of a shrine. For her part Erika breathed a sigh of relief
that at last the dreadful tugging pressure on her left nipple had ceased, at
least for the moment.
But
Yong was not quite done.
He
seized the chain still dangling from Erika's swollen nipple at is midpoint,
combining his motion with a quick tug that once again sent darts of pain
shooting through her breast. Every muscle
in Erika's body contracted in response to the harsh treatment and she shifted
her feet slightly, trying to ease the pressure.
It
was just as well that she could not see Mahlik and Mongkut, the men who were next in line, edging closer
behind her. Both men were short but
solidly built, their dark complexions suffused with an ill-suppressed
eagerness. Each man was tantalized by
the spasmodic clenching and unclenching of Erika's brick-red buttocks. And each
was impatient to take his turn, to play his own small part in the cruel
subjugation of this long-legged beauty
The
struggling blonde watched, puzzled, as Yong Li, holding the chain by its
midpoint, lifted his wrist up to the level of her face. It was only when he cocked his wrist,
flipping the lower part of the chain back over his forearm and gave her a
gloating smile that she divined his malicious intent.
He
was going to whip her breast with the end of the chain!
WHAPPP!! Yong snapped the foot-long length of mesh
down on Erika's right breast, aiming for the nipple he had teased to a
succulent tautness. Only Erika's
reflexive shying away from his blow caused him to miss his target, the chain landing flush on the upper slope of
her breast, an inch or so north of her nipple.
The
young Chinese flipped the chain back and prepared to swing again. WHAPP!!
"Aaaghhhh!" Again Erika's desperate lurch threw off his
aim but the whizzing metal mesh still found the sensitive rim of her
areola. Erika cried out in pain, for not
only was the chain-whip a fearful weapon, but her every attempt to escape its
cutting fury exacerbated the biting grip bite the other end of the chain had on
her left nipple.
WHAPP!!
"Unggghh!" The metallic whip was very light, but it
struck with cutting force, biting deeply into Erika's luscious tit-flesh. Her breasts were quivering uncontrollably
now, the faint bluish tracery of the veins beneath her lovely skin more
pronounced.
"Please
please
. No more
" Erika moaned. Every nerve ending in her sensitive
love-mounds was awash in a sea of fire.
From a few yards away, Jasper Slegg looked on with grudging admiration. Despite his
inexperience at sea, the young swabbie seemed to have
an instinct for how to handle a trouble-making tart like Erika Weiss.
WHAPP!! 'Ngghhhhhh!!" Once again Erika's nude body shuddered in
agony. The sound of the wire mesh making
impact with Erika's firm young breast sent jolts of erotic electricity surging
through Slegg's lust-heavy lugnuts.
WHAPPP!! "AAIAHHHH!!"
At last Erika tortured writhings had slowed enough
for Yong to find his true target. The
venomous end of the chain-whip bit fiercely into Erika's bold-thrusting nipple,
drawing an agonized cry from his victim.
"All
right, ye've had yer fun, laddie," Captain McMahon bellowed. "Deliver yer straik and let anither man hae his shot."
His
eyes ablaze with predatory lust, Yong released the nipple chain and stepped
back. He reached into his waistband for
the handle of the cat and pulled it out.
Erika glared at him defiantly, seemingly daring him to do his worst.
And
that he very nearly did. The smooth-cheeked Chinese swept the cat in a powerful
arc, aiming for the inviting vertex of Erika's sweat-moistened thighs. Only Erika's frantic last
second quarter-turn spared her delicate sex from the fury of the cat. Even so the fearsome CRAACKKK!! of the whip left a
fiery trail across her flank, stretching from her rounded hip halfway across the smooth flesh of her thigh.
.
An
exultant cheer rose up from the ranks of the sailor and Yong saluted his
comrades with an upraised fist. Then he
quickly tossed the cat to Mahlik, the squatly built Malayan who had positioned himself behind
Erika.
Mahlik, who had been waiting impatiently
while Yong had worshipped and whipped Erika's breast, wasted no time. Erika's nude
body was still trembling from the impact of Yong's punishing lash when Mahlik struck. The
wild-eyed deckhand slashed the cat o' nine tails across Erika's huddling bottomcheeks with every ounce of strength in his
possession.
CRACCKKK!!! "AHAIAAHH!" Mahlik's lash
seared flesh already ravaged by the whip and Erika nearly swooned in agony. Her
naked body twisted and turned in a lascivious dance. Entranced by the salaciousness of her
movements, Cheng and Kai skillfully eased their grip on the wrist-ropes
allowing Erika to crumple to her knees.
She knelt there for a moment on the hard-edged planks of the scaffold,
her ripe breasts pendulous and heaving, her red-wealed backside ablaze.
"Aye,
that's where ye belong, ye filthy whore.
On yer bloody knees!" Slegg's voice
dripped with malice. He leered down at
the tortured blonde as he pictured her on her knees servicing the throbbing
cocks of the crewmen of the Yang-tze
Dragon with her soft lips and delicate tongue. He moved closer so that only
she could hear his gravelly whisper.
"Ye know, luv, if I was master o' this floatin' palace, I'd 'ave ye on
those pretty knees until until every bloke aboard 'ad
'ad his fun."
Her
stomach churning with revulsion at Slegg's words,
Erika struggled to rise from her position of debasement. She had just managed to lift herself on one
knee, and was
still slightly off balance when Mongkut took the
blood-smeared scourge from his comrade and delivered a withering blow that
strafed her tender flesh from the small of her back to the top of her
buttocks.
CRAACCKKK!! "Aaaaaaaaagghhh!"
The
violence of the blow sent Erika sprawling face down on the scaffolding, her
soft, tender breasts crushed against the rough-timbered floorboards. With perfect timing the men holding the
guy-ropes had let them go completely slack just as the blow by the man from
Mongkut
raised the whip aloft, so that all could see that a third of its knots bore
traces of crimson. A robust roar of acclamation greeted this revelation. The Siamese was greeted with another cheer
when he straddled Erika's prostrate body, facing her feet, and dragged the
bloodied whip between her legs, daubing Erika's parted thighs and genitals with
blood he had whipped from her buttocks.
"Good
work, lads," Slegg muttered to the two Asians
who hovered over their fallen prisoner congratulating themselves on the
effectiveness of their strokes. At their
feet Erika lay gasping, for the moment too weak even to bring her wide-spread
legs together. The sight of Erika's nude
frame lying flat against the scaffolding led every man aboard to picture himself atop her body, his pelvis grinding against her bare,
bloodied buttocks while he drove his cock-weapon into her tempting love-sheath
from behind.
"Fower bells doon, and fower tae gae!" Captain Andrew McMahon thundered, as the
Laird of Dornoch turned to head back to his cabin and
his waiting pint of Dalmore. Just before reaching the forecastle, he
turned back and called out, "Seize 'er up!"
At
these words Cheng Lao and Kai Pu grasped the
guy-ropes and with three mighty heaves they jerked Erika's tortured body back
into an upright position.
Once again she hung from her wrist-ropes, her
limbs stretched taut, her bare feet just finding purchase on the floor of the
scaffolding, the
fierce-biting teeth of the nipple chain still gripping the tip of her left
breast. Although her body was ravaged
with pain, Erika congratulated herself for having survived the thorn-stick and
the cat o' nine tails. But as she looked
around at her leering admirers, among whom the likes of Froggy, Yim, Khasar, Deng, and Jasper Slegg had yet to strike, she knew that lesser weapons did
not automatically preclude heavier blows.
Her cruel ordeal was far from over.
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