"Summer in Paradise" by Fox
Chapter 20
It was dusk. That time when the predators have roused and are searching for
fresh blood; when the prey begin to slink back into their hideaways. When the
lines between life and death are blurred.
The first scream froze the jungle creatures like a snapshot. It stilled the
cacophonic symphony of birds and beasts and breeze the way no other sound had
ever achieved.
When the screams continued, and the shouting and drumming joined in eerie
harmonies, the jungle creatures returned to their familiar ways, yet remained
ever vigilant, for some new terror was loose, and they did not want to cross its
path unwittingly.
Bonfires burned in the clearing like red and yellow blossoms of some giant
plant. Men and women congregated around each one, singing, dancing, swilling
fiery liquid from large jugs.
A small platform had been built in the center of the ring of fires. A cross
had been stationed to one side of the platform; an altar-like device was
situated just slightly off center.
Summer tried to lurk on the outer circles of the clearing. She did not know
what was going on or what was to happen. She was confused, overwhelmed, afraid.
Along with a number of the dancers, Summer had been hustled from the hall and
herded into the back of an army truck. The others were jabbering in a mix of
Creole type French, Spanish and Indian, with the occasional English phrase
thrown in. She gathered they were on their way to some kind of celebration,
somewhere deep in the hills of Las Brisas.
Bottles of liquor were passed around the truck. The sweet smell of marijuana
quickly blossomed in the crowded environment.
One of the dancers strode across the truck, and straddled a man's lap. She
kissed him, offered him her breasts, grinding her hips against his crotch.
The man across from Summer leered hungrily. A joint was passed her way.
Summer shook her head no. The man passed a jug, slopping some of its contents
across her leg. Again she shook her head no. Laughing, he made drinking motions
to her, rubbed his belly as if he were contented, then pumped his hips
lasciviously. Others, watching, laughed. Summer could not help herself. She
laughed - it was a comic scene. He offered her the bottle again, and this time
she took it.
The liquor was sweet as honey, thick and ripe, as it flowed down her throat.
Then all fire as it burned inside her. She felt her face flush.
Her fellow passengers laughed. Rising, the man gestured for her to drink
more. When she said no, he scowled and advanced toward her. He placed his hand
on his crotch, menacingly.
She threw the bottle at him.
A roar of laughter as the bottle bounced off his arm, the truck bounced on
the road, and the man was almost knocked off his feet. He stared hard at Summer,
then roared out his laughter.
There was a surge of bodies toward the center of the clearing. An aura of
excitement shot through the gathering. Summer found herself being jostled, and
slowly pushed forward through the sweaty partying bodies, until she found
herself near the front.
The same barefoot, regal woman who had been the centerpiece of the dancing at
the club appeared through the glow of the flames. Her ample physique glistened
in the firelight. She wore the same full, black skirt and billowy white blouse.
Her braids of ebony hair now gleamed with bangles and feathers. Her eyes shone
like the burning coals of the bonfires.
Summer watched transfixed as the large woman climbed the three stairs to the
platform. The clearing slowly went silent as the woman took command of the
night.
"Mes amis!" The woman's voice was surprisingly powerful. It was hot as a
summer breeze, soothing as a mother's prayer. "Mes amis! L'heure de notre
victoire sont arriver!"
The clearing erupted with cheers and frenetic pounding of drums.
"La grenouille! Apportez moi la grenouille!" she shouted.
The crowd parted. Two men, dragging a third, his body mottled in red and
yellow and black paint, emerged from the jungle. They thrust him forward into
the throng, forcing him through a gauntlet. The celebrants spat at him, slugged
him, knocking him to his feet. The two men pulled him to a standing position,
pushing him forward.
"l'hibou!" cried the woman on the stage. "L'hibou!"
A second man stumbled from the jungle. Covered with feathers, he followed the
first through the gauntlet, staggering like a fighter who has been hit several
times too many. The throng hooted as he stumbled and crawled by.
Each was grabbed by several men, and hustled to the cross on the platform.
Nooses were placed around their necks. Ropes thrown over the crossbeams. Seconds
later, each danced on tiptoe, straining to keep from strangling. Bloody spots
appeared around the rough hemp as fingernails pierced flesh in desperate
attempts to loosen the noose.
The woman, whom Summer recognized as the priestess from the supper club,
laughed at the efforts of the two hanging men. She took a mouthful of drink,
then spat it in the face of the one she called "l'hibou".
Turning to the assembled throng, bottle in one hand, walking stick in the
other, she raised her voice yet another time.
"Et maintenant, apportez ici la chienne!"
It was the spectacle from the supper club all over again. A line of dancers,
beads jangling against bare breasts, skin slick with fragrant oils and sweat,
led the procession. A tumbrel pulled by two women in traces, wearing bridles and
harness followed. Summer recognized the woman standing in the cart. Dressed in a
leather outfit and brandishing a vicious looking cat of nine tails, was the
nurse Marissa. She looked imperious, haughty, her wicked grin an evil Cheshire
cat look that made Summer uneasy. As the cart passed, Summer could see a naked
form lying at Marissa's feet. The pony girls continued toward the platform at
the center of the clearing.
A touch on her breast. Rough hands, kneading her ass flesh. Summer turned to
see who was assaulting her. As she did, a hand clasped over her mouth, another
hand thrust her skirt up above her hips. Twisting, Summer jabbed an elbow behind
her. And struck air.
A man's laugh, as brutal as his hands, burst forth.
"You don' like that, gringo puta?" the man sneered. "You try dis , den."
A puff of smoky stuff in Summer's face. It tasted awful, dry like powdered
bones. She coughed.
He laughed, and thrust a flask before her lips. Grabbing her hair, he pulled
Summer's head back and poured a vile thick wine-like liquid into her throat and
across her face. She choked and coughed.
Still laughing, the assailant slipped back into the crowd and disappeared.
Eyes tearing, still coughing, Summer turned to see the tumbrel had reached
the platform. Using a booted foot, Marissa pushed a body from the back. The
celebrants cheered as it tumbled to the dirt.
"Mes amis, la chienne!" crowed Marissa. "The bitch!"
Summer thought it must be the heat, the excitement, for her vision suddenly
shifted diagonally, then righted itself. A burning heat started in her loins and
belly, then slowly crept throughout her body. The drums were hypnotic, the
woodsmoke and sweet smell of marijuana and sweaty bodies mingling with the musky
dankness of the jungle. Another racking coughing fit doubled her over.
Struggling to straighten herself, Summer saw the form referred to as la
chienne being partly dragged partly carried to the platform. She recognized her
former mistress Angelita, as la chienne was placed on her hands and knees and
strapped to the altar.
The world turned kaleidoscopic. Summer did not feel herself fall in a heap on
the ground.
It began as an itch, evolved into a torment of a thousand ants biting her
skin, the fiery lances of a thousand bees jabbing her. Summer groaned, the
sensation unrelenting. She wanted to scratch herself raw, to rip the burning
flesh right off, but her hands would not work for her.
She hung like a rag doll against the center post of the cross, between the
two hanging men, a rope wound around her waist holding her upright. Women were
painting her naked flesh in bright reds and yellows and blacks, like the frogman
to her right. A woman would dip a rag into a bowl of colour, then smear the
colour against Summer's skin. At first, the sensation was normal, like a gooey
liquid. Then, it started to itch, and the torment began.
"Ah, you are returning to us," came a deep voice from nearby. Hands grasped
her hair, and pulled her head up. Summer looked into the mad face of the large
woman.
"Unh" Summer replied, her muscles refusing to allow her to speak.
"Ha ha ha!" The woman cackled, "you will make plenty of noise soon enough!"
She thrust her cane between Summer's legs, roughly jerking it upward into
sensitive flesh. "Paint her here too," the woman commanded. She looked at
Summer's now fallen head. "Imagine what she will feel, when her skin is so
painful even a breeze will cause her agony, and that is when she will be given
to la grenouille to be fucked!"
Hearing every word, feeling every touch, unable to move or resist, Summer
sank deep into terror.
Headlights appeared along the dirt track cutting through the jungle. A green
Toyota Landcruiser rolled into the clearing. A large square shape filled the
pickup bed. Firelight reflecting off its side exposed it: a big metal box. The
Toyota stopped at the edge of the crowd.
Soldiers, well armed and in camouflage, began to appear from the shadows of
the jungle. They advanced slowly, like molasses creeping across a tabletop.
In seconds, the only noise in the clearing was the crackling of burning logs.
The soldiers moved forward, circling the clearing in a pattern of crossfire
that could only mean certain death to all in the center.
One stepped to the driver's side of the Toyota and reached for the door
handle.
The door swung open.
The soldier stepped back, saluted.
Lieutenant Mereille, still in his dress uniform, dismounted.
Snapping back a salute, he marched to the passenger side. Opened the door.
The red of the bonfires glimmered against the deep red of the hooded cloak
worn by the woman who descended from the cab of the truck.
First kissing the Lieutenant, the woman turned to the hushed and still crowd.
Cassandra threw back the red hood.
"Elle est arrive!" bellowed the large woman from the platform.
Screams and cheers and drums and gunshots erupted. Men and women dropped to
their knees, reaching out to touch her hem, as if for blessings, as Cassandra
majestically strode to the platform.
Fighting through the constant pain, Summer managed to raise her head enough
to see Cassandra's entrance. Her heart lifted - perhaps now she would be
delivered from this horror in which she was now enmeshed. She watched through
tangled hair and lidded eyes as Cassandra strutted and preened like a haughty
queen, the red cape swirling around and around.
"Please" Summer moaned. She could flex her fingers, the unpleasant tingling a
sign of life restored. The strangled gasps of the two men hanging beside her
drowned out her feeble noise.
She looked to her right. The one called "la grenouille" was an agony. He
twitched and shuddered. Unbound, his hands raked his body. Long bloody
scratches, raw red streaks were carved in the multicoloured paint. His neck was
bleeding too, the harsh hemp slowly sawing through the skin.
Their eyes met, fleetingly.
Summer shuddered. Closed her eyes.
Leon had looked back at her.
The large woman raised her cane. An expectant stillness slowly settled over
the throng. A handful of soldiers stood ready at the base of the platform,
Lieutenant Merieille among them. The drumming slowed, then stopped.
An eerie quiet settled over the clearing.
She started speaking in her broken French, her voice soft as a mother's kiss.
"Mes amis," she began, "we are here to celebrate the birthing of our new leader,
and the death of our oppressors. The ones who have come in the night for our
wives and daughters and lovers, and stolen them away. Now it will be their
turn."
Murmurs of assent echoed in the night. "Vive la mort!" cried one voice.
"La chienne!" cried another. "Give us the bitch!"
The noise began to rise when the large woman again raised her staff.
"Soon enough!" She roared. "You will have your turn, all of you, soon
enough!" her voice quieted, and she smiled a rictus smile.
"But first, before you cut to the bone where the meat is sweetest, you want
to try some of the other slices, non?"
She pointed toward the cross. The crowd screamed its approval. The sound
raced through the jungle like grape shot fired from a cannon.
The large woman turned to Cassandra.
"Maintenant, notre reine! La Maitresse! Priestess Cassandra de la Huerta!"
Wrapping herself in the red cape, Cassandra stepped to the edge of the
platform. The worshippers below screamed their adoration, drums pounding
frenetically like hearts at the climax of passion. Cassandra stood still as the
sound built around her.
Then, slowly like a bird of paradise revealing its plumes, she raised both
arms, the cloak rising and opening with her.
Naked breasts, painted gold, nipples rouged a bright red, were revealed as
the folds of the cloak fell away. Her entire body was painted a lustrous gold.
Flames from the bonfires made her flesh shimmer and move, burnishing her form as
if she were a golden idol to be worshipped.
She whipped about, seeming to fly across the platform to the altar. She
grasped Angelita's hair, thrusting the head back almost to the breaking point.
Marissa handed her a long machete like knife.
Cassandra placed the flat of the blade against Angelita's throat. Flicked it
ever so slightly.
Droplets of blood appeared against the pale skin. Smiling, Cassandra slashed
down with the blade. She held a tangle of severed hair aloft as a trophy.
Angelita's head slumped back down.
Cassandra crossed the platform. She stopped before le hibou. Stepped in front
of Summer. Then continued to le grenouille.
Turning to the crowd, she gestured to le hibou.
"Un!" she cried.
"Deux!" pointing at Leon.
"Trois!" she said, slapping Summer's face with Angelita's hair.
"Et finalement," she paused, then threw the handful of hair out into the
crowd.
"Finalement, la chienne!"
Summer cried, tears burning her face as the salty fluid mingled with the
paint on her cheeks. Marissa had given her a vile tasting liquid, and she had
regained more feeling in her body. Now she was truly on fire.
"Pig slut," Marissa had sneered. "You thought you could replace me with La
Maitresse? Ha!" She grabbed Summer's hair, banging the back of the girl's head
against the cross. "Do you have any idea what has been done to you?"
Summer blubbered in terror.
"You think you are in pain now, with just the effects of the poison frog
paint on your skin. It burns, doesn't it, sweet one? It is a horrible way to
die, the poisons slowly eating their way through your skin to your inner organs.
I assisted with the experiments, you know. It takes about two days ..." Marissa
raised her arm. "And until then, you are mine."
Her arm flashed. The knotted leather strands of her cat-o'-nine-tails raked
across Summer's thighs. Summer screamed as little spots of blood formed in the
fresh welts.
"You think this hurts," Marissa crowed. She struck Summer again, this time
across the breasts. "Wait until you feel the kiss of the djambok - the whip of
elephant hide. It will peel the flesh from your bones."
She stepped close, her nose almost touching Summer's.
"Two days, if you're strong." She thrust the handle of the whip against
Summer's now painted, inflamed labia. The pain was worse than childbirth. "But
before you die, you are going to be fucked and bruised and cut in so many ways,
you'll think this" - she ground the whip into Summer's vagina, the hard leather
scraping tender flesh - "is a reward."
The orgy was frenzied. Dancing, drinking, fucking, kissing, groping,
squeezing, kneading, lusting. Through her tears, Summer could make out a scene
that looked more like a Daliesque nightmare fantasy than reality.
Angelita was being brutalized. Marissa had whipped her, slowly, methodically,
each stroke exactly the same force as the previous, until Angelita's ass, thighs
and back were the same shade of red. Then she had switched to something that
looked like a carpet beater made of bamboo. Each time Marissa touched her with
this new device, Angelita howled her pain. Marissa kept tapping it quickly, over
and over on the same spot, then moving over just inches to the next.
"Be glad, sweet Summer, that she is not doing that to you," Cassandra had
whispered. "When Marissa is done, Angelita's skin will be so inflamed, so
tightly swollen the touch of a feather will cause it to split." She paused.
"Oh poor Summer," she cooed, seeing the girl's tears. "You are so frightened!
But dear, what did you think was going to happen?" Cassandra looked Summer in
the eyes. "Did you think this would have a fairy tale ending, that you would
live happily ever after? Foolish, foolish girl!"
She stepped away, leaving Summer dangling.
"Marissa!" Cassandra shouted so the crowd could hear. "Is the bitch ready?"
"Wiping hair from her brow, Marissa turned to her Mistress. "Soon", she
replied.
Cassandra turned to the large woman.
"Have those who want to participate draw lots to determine the order of
fucking the bitch. Then, when the lots are done, we will pluck the owl."
Summer's mind was on the edge of shattering. She was dying, she knew it. She
could not stand much more pain, yet every time she gave in, every time she said
enough and tried to slip away, she was revived. Given a respite.
Then it would begin again. Each time just a fraction more horrible than the
last.
At the same time, she knew the others were suffering even more than she, if
that were possible.
"How do you pluck a bird?" had been the cry to the throng. "Fire! Knives!
Tongs!" had been the answer. L'hibou, who Summer knew now to be Angelita's aide
Miguel, had been lashed to a spit. A fire was lit beneath him, tongs and knives
heated, and then the tar and feathers and chunks of flesh were slowly cut from
him. He was not allowed the luxury of death, however. He had been cut down, his
flesh further tenderized with coarse salts and pepper sauce and alcohol, he was
pounded into unconsciousness with the butts of pistols, then he was thrown into
the large metal box that had been moved from the back of the Toyota to near the
platform.
When they were done with Miguel, the rape of Angelita began. Cassandra was
right - the woman's flesh was so tender, the touch of a feather could cause
extreme agony. The rapists were told to do as they like.
But she was not to die, not yet.
Leon's fate was as horrible. The poison had been on him long enough to drive
him insane with the pain; he had literally ripped his own skin away as he tried
to ease the burning itch.
His skin was slowly flayed from him. He was castrated, emasculated, the wound
cauterized. When he passed out, he was revived, each time the resurrection
taking just that little bit longer.
When at last he did not recover right away, he too was tossed into the steel
bin.
Marissa advanced on Summer, still bound tightly to the center of the cross.
A pool of urine appeared at Summer's feet. Her terror was absolute.
Marissa raised her arm. Metal hooks glinted in the night, dangling at the
ends of the leather strands.
Summer raised her hands to cover her face and breasts.
Cassandra's hand grasped Marissa's wrist.
"Wait."
Marissa turned to her Mistress,
"But ..." she began.
"No, the slut was useful to me. She deserves mercy."
"Mercy, Mistress?" queried Marissa, her disappointment obvious.
"Be quick. And do not over use your toys. You had your fun with Rasquedo, did
you not?"
Marissa's smile was broad at the memory. "He squealed like a pig, Cassandra."
"Then do as you are told, Marissa", warned her mistress.
Cassandra called one of the soldiers over to her. She instructed him, then
turned back to her servant, her nurse.
"When he is done, she is done, and you are done with her. No more." With
that, Cassandra stepped back into the shadows.
Marissa nodded obediently. Turning back to Summer, she raised the brutal cat,
and lashed forward. The fishhooks ripped the burning flesh from Summer's
breasts. She thrust her head back in a scream of pain.
The soldier slipped the garrotte about her exposed throat and began to
tighten. Summer's feet drummed against the timber.
Marissa struck once more, across the other breast, then dropped the cat.
"Soldier!" Marissa shouted. "What are you doing?"
"Obeying orders," he grunted. "She goes into the box."
Marissa placed her hand on his arm. She could feel his strength.
"Then do this for me," she oozed. "Take her breath, and take her to the edge,
then throw her in the box. Let the jungle sun cook the meat from her bones,
along with the others."
She turned, and walked to join Cassandra, the Lieutenant, and her new
cabinet.
A week later, Marissa returned to the clearing on inspection. The crew had
done a wonderful job of cleaning the evidence. Ashes from the bonfires had been
scattered, the grasses and weeds already poking their heads through the
blackened debris. The platform as gone, without even a ripple on the earth.
All that remained was a large steel box in the center of the clearing.
An army truck rumbled along the dirt road. Several soldiers dismounted, and
ambled over to Marissa's jeep.
"Dump the contents of the box into the bay for the fish. Then get rid of the
box."
"Yes ma'am!" the commanding soldier responded. He ordered his men to begin.
One of them complained about the stench of burnt rotted meat emanating from the
steel container.
"Oh sergeant," she said as he walked away. The soldier turned back.
"Yes ma'am?" he asked.
"When you empty the box, gather up any bones you find. Crush them into
powder. And bring them to me. "
The soldier looked hard, his eyes turning into slits.
"Yes ma'am."
Marissa smiled.
