Chapter Twenty-two

THE POLICE CHIEF OF the South-West Province, where Kengui was one of the largest townships, was, like most of the senior and mid-ranking officers in the military and police forces, a northerner. He was atypical of the area’s inhabitants in the comparative darkness of his complexion, his height, and the girth of his stomach when compared with the slighter, lighter brown shade of the native cattlemen and subsistence farmers of the region. He was of course a member of Kengui Sports Club, whose African and Asian members had for many years now outnumbered the dwindling ranks of European expatriates. The relationship between the differing ethnic groups had long since mellowed during the 40 years or more of independence, witness the relaxed atmosphere and mixed skin colours always to be found in the bar and at the numerous functions held by the club. Commandant Onama was quite happy to chat affably and share a few beers with Ant Van Reis and the good-looking mzunguwoman he had taken from her husband, and to enjoy, in their absence, like many others, a lecherous chuckle over the widespread scandalous rumour that the cuckolded fellow, along with another European girl deserted by her old man, lived under the same roof as the lovers. It had been hot gossip for quite a while, but that was months ago and had long been replaced by other scandals. Besides, Ant and his floozy were no longer habitués of the club, though they still attended the formal dances and special sporting events.

Onama quite liked Van Reis. Unlike many of the other mzungus, he was a man’s man – liked to get out in the bush, to hunt. Of course, as he would often tell you, he was a “bleddy mtu” himself – “born and bred in Africa”, even if he wasone of those red-necked Dutchmen. So the police commandant was quite dismissive when one of his constables informed him that they were being pestered at the front desk by some man with a complaint about Van Reis, accusing him of keeping people captive out at his place in the bush. ‘It’s some schoolboy, sir. He refuses to go away, says he must talk to you. Says these people are whites. They are being held as slaves.’

The commandant was about to order his man to drive the kid out of the station compound or throw him in a cell for making a nuisance of himself, but then the constable told him the name. ‘Patrick Odhiambo, sir. Says he mustspeak to you.’

So the lad was a northerner. There were more and more of them moving down south, to take up places in secondary schools – and a damned good thing too. The more the better. And the scurrilous rumours concerning the Van Reis household tickled Onama’s prurient imagination. Maybe it would offer an excuse for him to ride out and take a look at the stock farm. Maybe he could stir up this little hornets’ nest of vice. Memsa’ab Clio Dixon was a tasty piece of white meat. He’d danced with her a few times. Wouldn’t mind getting to grips with her in a more private setting. ‘All right. I’ll see him. Send him in in a few minutes.’ He settled himself down in his comfortable, imposing chair. He felt his crotch tighten and swell against the khaki cloth of his smart trousers, and dropped his large hand to massage himself titillatingly while he waited for his visitor.

What Patrick Odhiambo had to tell him stirred his senses even further. Patrick had gone back to his school after his re-encounter with Janet Thoroughgood in a confused and highly emotional state, veering from delirious joy to blank despair via sheer incredulity. Had he dreamt the whole thing? But no! His senses and his body remembered too faithfully the details of their sexual union to be the stuff of dreams. The only madness had been real enough, and that had been the crazy insistence of Janet and her companion that they were there of their own free will, voluntary captives, naked and shaven-headed, living in a cell off the kitchen.

He had left them because of her vehement, almost hysterical pleading for him to go, and also because he was in such a state of blissful semi-trance at the wonder of having made jig-a-jigwith the beautiful woman he had loved and missed for months now. She had forced him to agree that they could not meet again, that that one wonderful experience must be the one and only time they could ever have. And for days since his return to school he had struggled to keep his word, at first filled with resolve to obey her wish. But not only could he not forget her. He could not control his desperate sexual hunger, or turn his memory and his body from his addiction. Day and night his blood raged, his prick stiffened, his balls ached with want. Whenever he could he kept himself aloof from his fellow pupils, sought relief in feverish self-abuse, which eased that drumming physical hunger but left him desolate with despair and disgust. Eventually he convinced himself that she had somehow been bewitched. It was possible! Drugs, or even some other way of controlling her mind and her willpower had enslaved her. Her pathetic partner, too, though Patrick had no time for thought of Marty’s fate. Janet was all that mattered. Still he fought for several more days against his instincts, before he finally caved in, and left the school before dawn to head into Kengui, and the police headquarters there.

‘They are kept there naked. They live in what is really a food store, a tiny place off the kitchen, worse than the servants’ quarters. They are slaves to the bwanaand memsa’ab. I tried to make them leave with me, but they would not. She said they did not want to, but I could see she was too afraid. It is like they have put some spell upon them. Please, Commandant! You have to save them.’

Onama could feel his penis engorging, pressing against the restriction of his underpants and uniform trousers until he felt it necessary to stay seated behind his imposing desk. His imagination was filled with the images of the pretty mzungugirl. As a leading citizen and club committee member, he had gone along to see the play put on at the club, in which Jan Thoroughgood had played a leading role. She was hot stuff all right, in that skinny, understated European way, with scarcely any tits or ass, but somehow incredibly sexy, in that loose, randy way all the young white women had. Probably just a case of forbidden fruit, other pastures etcetera – something different. After all, most mzungumen couldn’t wait to get their dicks into some black pussy as soon as they got out here. And why shouldn’t their women feel the same about the male equivalent? Clearly this Odhiambo lad had dipped his wick into his ex-schoolmarm’s inkwell, even though he wouldn’t admit as much.

‘I’ll look into it,’ he told Odhiambo, ‘but we’ll have to be discreet. You get back to school, leave things to me. I’ll go out and take a look. If anything comes of it, you’ll be called in as a witness. But keep your mouth shut meanwhile, OK? Don’t breathe a word. It could cause one hell of an uproar if there’s nothing to it.’ He silenced the beginnings of Patrick’s indignant protest with all the weight of his authority and seniority. ‘These white girls like their sex very spiced up. They’re not village girls, eh?’

Patrick knew he could do no more. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He fled, glad to escape without being flung in a cell to cool off, or, worse, receiving a fierce beating for his temerity.

Onama was once again sitting behind his desk, once again feeling the mighty tightening swell of his cock and balls against the restraint of his clothing, as he stared at the neat, demure figure sitting opposite. Mrs Janet Thoroughgood crossed her legs, and Onama watched the crisp white linen of the short dress ride a little further up the shapely limbs, revealing more of the flesh whose paleness was virtually unmarked by the African sun. He stared, too, at the vividly dark red of the toenails daintily on show through the open sandals. So delicate those toes, and the narrow tiny foot, clearly a stranger to the constant contact with the hard earth, and the numerous devouring little bites of the sand fleas, the jiggas, which the hard-working local peasant women had to endure. Not exactly what you would expect from someone constantly kept a naked prisoner, even if she was confined to indoors. Nor would you expect such a captive to turn up in his office voluntarily, dressed enchantingly in that little white dress, through which he thought he could discern the faintest ghostly hint of the outline of a bra and pants – or was that merely his wishful lecherous thinking working overtime, causing his prick to strain so violently to escape the constraints of his own clothing that he dare not move from the shielding cover of his desk?

The only slightest hint of any shred of truth in Odhiambo’s fantastic story lay in the floppy-brimmed white sun hat she was wearing. It was the sort of unflattering headgear worn by members of both sexes on safari in the game parks, or on the beaches of distant Mombasa. It did her absolutely no favours, so at odds with the rest of her mouth-wateringly desirable appearance.

Onama had never been noted for his subtlety. It was not a quality appreciated in the police force. The favoured method of interrogating suspects or even witnesses was to make them stand on one leg during the usually lengthy duration of questioning, and when they inadvertently put their other foot down on the ground through loss of balance or sheer weariness to slap them hard enough to send them sprawling. So now, after staring disapprovingly at the ugly little hat, he said, ‘Take it off.’

Jan was relieved at the nod which indicated which garment he was referring to, but a flood of colour invaded her neck and features as she quickly obeyed. Clutching the hat tightly with her right hand, she raised her left and passed her palm lightly over the damp, shining surface of her skull. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve had some trouble – a skin infection. I’m afraid ...’

‘It also affects your partner? Mr Dixon , is it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jan stared down at the crumpled piece of cloth in her lap. She felt the heat in her face, the burning tips of her ears, mercilessly on show since she had lost her hair, so long ago, it already seemed. She had been prepared for an ordeal, had felt almost sick enough to vomit when Ant had told her and Marty about the conversation he had had with the chief of police, in which Onama had mentioned the scandalous rumour circulating about the Van Reis household. ‘He wants to talk to you, in his office. On your own. You’d better do it. Clio or I will drop you in tomorrow.’

All last night she had lain awake. She and Marty had clung together. ‘You’ll have to tell Ant about Odhiambo,’ Marty urged. ‘It must have been him who’s been spreading it around, about us.’

‘No! Please, Marty! Promise you won’t tell them anything about Patrick. I’ll talk to the police chief. Convince him.’ The tears came once more. ‘But I couldn’t ... I don’t want them to know about Patrick. What happened ... please!’ She wriggled in close, twined her legs around his waist, thrust her belly close, and reached down between them, to take gentle hold of his limp, damp little prick in her fingers. She began to tease and stroke, to move the sensitive tip of his glans back and forth across the lips of her own sex until she felt him stir, and swell, and thicken under her expert stimulation. When, eventually, she knew the time was ripe, she gripped more tightly, thrust her vulva hard against him, trapping his penis between their clashing bellies without releasing him, until he gave a whimpering cry and she felt his thickening surge as his appendage reared up and discharged its semen over their loins.

Now she had a sinking feeling she knew what had to come next. It wasn’t only her hat she would have to remove for the police chief’s delectation. Ant had said as much when they were preparing her for this meeting. ‘You do whatever he wants. Whatever it takes. He could make big trouble for all of us. I don’t know who the hell has been talking.’ (He had had a blazing row with Clio about it, accusing her of loose lips on the subject of their two love-slaves. Jan had been terrified that he would find out about Odhiambo’s visit, but it had not been mentioned.) ‘If I thought it was Adamu or Muriamu I’d flay the hide off them, but I don’t think it is. Anyway, I’ve had a chat with Onama and told him you’d go down to town and see him yourself. Convince him. So! If he wants to shag you, girl, you drop your drawers and say yes bwana, OK?’

Clio had been much more sympathetic. She’d even made sure she bought a bra of the right size and matching bikini briefs to go with it. ‘If you wore one of mine we’d have to put a pair of socks in there to fill it out,’ she chuckled. But she wasn’t being bitchy. In fact she’d been especially gentle andloving the day before, in a steamy after-lunch session in the bedroom from which even Marty had been banned. Nevertheless, the message had been the same as Ant’s: if it’s necessary, let him have you, any which way he wants. And one look at the police chief’s piggy eyes boring through the thin stuff of her few garments put the matter beyond all doubt for Jan.

‘There’s been some very wicked things said about you, Mrs Thoroughgood – or can I call you Janet?’

It was scarcely a question, and she nodded, as she felt the tide of colour flood her features. A blush like a rose, the symbol of innocence and purity. My God! She must be a pretty good actress after all, she thought. Except she wasn’t acting. She might be a debauched erotic, and homoerotic, participant in the kinkiest four-way relationship either side of the equator, but she could still feel all the genuine embarrassment of a Victorian virgin bride discovering for the first time just what it was sticking out like a tent pole beneath her hubby’s pristine nightshirt. She continued to listen as he went on.

‘Now, I could do this officially. Keep you here, bring the others in for questioning, call witnesses, but ... Van Reis is a good friend. He assures me these rumours are all untrue, that you are there of your own free will ...’ Another pause, even more significant and causing another enchanting blush to suffuse her face. ‘And that whatever you get up to among yourselves is entirely to your liking. Do I need to say more, Janet?’

She shook her head, murmured faintly, ‘No, sir.’

‘Please! No need for that. My name is Samwel. OK?’

‘OK,’ she whispered helplessly. ‘Samwel.’

His big shining face lit up. ‘Good! There is just one thing that worries me. One of the rumours – the most alarming one, as far as I am concerned – is this story of beatings, that you and the other fellow are whipped. I can of course send for a doctor, and a nurse to be present – and a magistrate, of course. But ...’

His pause was once again significant, its meaning plain, and produced the third pretty blush. ‘You would like to examine me here, in private.’ His big face shone with anticipation and he nodded, too busy licking his lips to utter a word. Instead, he rose, turned quickly away from her, all too aware of the straining bulge at his crotch, and drew the curtains across the window, even though they were on the first floor of the station. Somehow this action made the room seem to shrink, and to grow much warmer. He sat behind his desk again. Still he did not speak but held out his right arm, its pale palm uppermost in a gesture of invitation, like a sultan summoning his favourite concubine to perform.

Which was pretty much how Jan felt as she stood nervously before him. Her body felt bathed in sweat, her face burning. She groped awkwardly behind her, between her shoulders, and realised, just as she had when she had put them on, how unused to wearing clothes she had become. She found the zip fastener, and drew it down its full length, which ended at her coccyx. She hunched forward slightly, shrugged the sleeveless dress down off her shoulders and arms. It clung about her hips. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her breasts, which were cutely but decently concealed by the satin-strapped, lace-trimmed bra. Instead she helped the dress on its way with a push and a wiggle of her hips so that it fell in a clinging white band about her ankles, from which she stepped daintily clear.

Onama’s lips were parted, his breathing suspended. His hand rose once more, the great forefinger pointed downward, made a twirling motion, and Jan turned slowly, obediently, presenting her slender back view to his gaze, which she could feel sliding almost tactilely over her flesh, exposed except for the thin straps of the bra, and the few centimetres at the crack of her bottom covered by the briefs.

She turned again to face him, hot with shame, yes, but acknowledging that secret moist beat of excitement beneath the tiny silken triangle hiding her pudenda. I am the youthful Salome before Herod. She had to clear her dry throat before she could speak. ‘You see? No lash marks. No bruises, even.’

‘All of you! I don’t see allof you!’ he rumbled. Those narrow glittering eyes held her, and she nodded. Once again she reached behind her, and with that feminine contortionist’s skill, unhooked the bra and shrugged the cups clear of her breasts. Her thumbs slipped into the strip of material at her hips and she bent swiftly, with a little movement of her legs, and skilfully negotiated the passage of her briefs over her feet without removing her sandals. They were all she had on as she dropped her underwear on the chair on top of the dress and stood before him, resisting the urge to try to hide herself with her arms and hands. ‘I told you. I have nothing to hide. Everything that happens to me at Mr Van Reis’s happens because I want it to.’

He understood the import of her words but his eyes and his attention were chiefly drawn to that bare white spot where he would have expected to see the dark little triangle of her pubes. He nodded plainly towards it. ‘This skin infection you mentioned. Just what the hell was it? It affected you down there also?’

She had thought she was past the stage of blushing, but she discovered she was not. ‘No. It’s – I find it’s much more ... comfortable in this climate to ... to be bare. And my head–’ Her hand moved once more to smooth her skull again. ‘–I’m afraid I lied. It’s – I just wanted to see what it was like – what it would feel like. There was a girl – a singer – who had her head shaved. I thought it would be ... good. Different.’

He nodded distractedly. The vision of a white girl – a baldwhite girl – standing naked except for her shoes, in front of his desk, in his office, was becoming too powerful for him to handle. He had planned to take her somewhere private, maybe the Kengui Hotel, and book a room. But now he could not wait. To hell with it! He snapped on his phone. ‘I am not to be disturbed. On any account. Not even if war breaks out! Understand?’ He stood, moved round her and checked that the door was securely locked. He no longer cared whether she could notice the throbbing hard-on stretching his pants. ‘You know what I want now?’

She nodded, glanced round questioningly. There were two imitation leather armchairs and a low coffee table, but he nodded at the wide desk. ‘On there.’ She bent to slip off her sandals and he barked, ‘No! Leave them on! Come!’

The unyielding wooden surface felt cold and hard on her behind as she eased herself up onto its edge, then gingerly lowered her back onto the expanse which Onama had hastily cleared by the simple expedient of sweeping everything to the floor with his arm. Frantically he stumbled as he lifted first one foot then the other and flung off his highly polished shoes without bothering to untie the laces. He ripped savagely at the belt circling his jutting belly, clawed open his flies and thrust his uniform pants down. He kicked them free of his stockinged feet, and the voluminous striped boxer shorts followed a split-second later. He fought and tore his way out of his smart drill jacket and his shirt, before the last remnants of restraint failed him. The sole remaining garment about his upper body, the white sleeveless singlet, rode up above the rotundity of his stomach and clung like a brassiere about his substantial man-breasts, where he left it as he seized Jan’s raised legs and tucked them under his vast arms like the handles of a wheelbarrow. He launched himself in a blind stabbing frontal assault at the exposed bare vulva lifted for his penetration. The rounded helm of his large penis lunged like a bayonet towards the furrow of Jan’s cunt, and she reached down frantically between their clashing bellies, groped with blind but expert skill to seize his projectile-like cock and guided it to her narrow aperture. The lips parted with the miraculous ease of the Red Sea opening and swallowed the massive glans, more than halfway up the solid shaft, and she gasped, with fierce pain and intense pleasure.

It did not take long. They slammed together, with audible slapping eagerness, and bucked frenetically, his immense brown buttocks shaking and clenching, her slimmer ankles and feet waving either side of them until the white sandals flew free and her red-tipped toes wiggled and curled with savage ecstasy. Through her spinning, dissolving mind ran the shockingly indecent recognition of hitherto unknown pleasure at the feel of that huge dome of a belly hammering down on her and forcing her straining thighs so far apart. What joy to be fucked by such a truly fat man! Then thought spiralled away on the starburst whirl of coming, and coming, and feeling his manhood pumping and pumping away inside her.