Contributed by - Marabout

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Chapter 2

Eustace did not sleep well that night. Although he was exhausted after his exertions of the previous day, his feet were sore from his prolonged barefoot walk, and his body still smarted unbearably from the punishment he had received. Added to that were his fears for the coming interview with Miss Moyo. He had lied about the loss of his clothes, feeling too embarrassed to admit that he had been stripped naked and shamed by the village women, and there was also the matter of the missing bicycle to account for. The bicycle had not been mentioned either by Miss Moyo or by Thomas, but Eustace was sure it had not been forgotten. He decided, foolishly as it turned out, that his best course would be to deny all knowledge of it. He also realized that the very fact that he had been caught, the only male teacher in this girls� school, wandering about in the school grounds at dead of night stark naked, could hardly be considered a point in his favor. Eustace feared that the whole affair would inevitably end in his dismissal, especially if Miss Moyo had any say in the matter.

The following morning, therefore, Eustace was not feeling in the best of form when, with some trepidation, he knocked on the door of Miss Moyo�s office and heard her clipped order to enter. That lady was seated behind her desk busy with some administrative paperwork. She was clad, as usual, in her tight-fitting green and yellow ANP dress, which emphasized her generous bust and ample bottom, attributes on which Eustace had often secretly allowed his imagination to dwell. She did not invite him to sit, but kept him standing before her desk while she finished checking some papers. She then raised her eyes from her work and, without more ado, addressed him in stern tones.

�Good morning, Eustace. Well, I am waiting to hear your explanation for last night�s disgraceful behavior!�

Eustace once again began to recount his somewhat edited version of the events. Miss Moyo interrupted him.

�Tell me exactly where you stopped to swim,� she snapped.

Eustace tried to explain about the rocky headland and the small cove, but he was interrupted again.

�Yes, I know the place you mean. It is very close to my village, Gulembe. That place is forbidden to men. Only women are allowed to go there. Didn�t you see anyone there?�

Eustace was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Had she already seen through his lie?

�Tell me,� she said after a pause, �how did you get there? It is quite a long way. Did you walk?�

�Er � yes, that is � I � er �walked � I like walking.�

His obvious embarrassment seemed to amuse Miss Moyo, for then, with a grim smile, she uttered the words that Eustace dreaded to hear.

�So it was not you who removed the bicycle from behind Thomas� hut yesterday morning?�

Eustace stood there, red-faced and tongue-tied.

�Well, Eustace?� she said with soft menace in her voice. �Thomas tells me he saw you riding away on the bicycle yesterday morning. Do you still deny that? Is Thomas lying or are you?�

Eustace knew the game was up. It was useless to persist with the lie.

�I�m sorry, Miss Moyo,� he stammered. �Yes, I borrowed it. I thought it would be all right. I mean, I�ll pay for it of course.�

�You certainly will, Eustace,� she replied. �But that is not the point. The point is that you borrowed it without permission and now you have lost it, and furthermore you have lied to me. I strongly suspect that you have also lied to me about how you came to lose your clothes. Gulembe is my village. I know our customs. The head woman there is a good friend of mine. I will make some enquiries with her today. There is also the serious matter of your wandering about in the school grounds naked. This is the most important girls� school in Azanga. What would happen if people learnt that a male teacher was caught naked in the school grounds at night? I am sure Mrs Tembe will take a very serious view of this when I inform her. This is almost certainly a case for dismissal.�

Eustace stood there shamefaced and silent. What had started out so promisingly yesterday morning had now turned into disaster. He loved his work, he loved the school in its beautiful setting, and he loved Azanga, in spite of his humiliating encounter with the ladies of Gulembe village, which he recognized as being due to his own ignorance of the local customs. He could not bear to think that all this was to end in such an ignominious fashion.

�Oh please, Miss Moyo,� he begged, all but falling to his knees, �I know I was wrong to take the bicycle without permission, but the rest was not my fault � I just didn�t know. And I think I am doing a good job here, aren�t I? Mrs Tembe gave me a very good report and �.�

Miss Moyo silenced him with her cool, unblinking stare. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind. After a few moments she spoke.

�I will make enquiries at Gulembe,� she said. �I will also ascertain that your scandalous behavior of last night was not noticed by any of our girls who have remained here for the holidays. You may go now but report to me here tomorrow morning at nine o�clock.�

Miss Moyo returned to her administrative tasks and Eustace left the room, deeply worried. He went back to his bungalow and took off his clothes. After anointing his body once again with suntan cream, he lay down on his bed naked and tried to read but found he could not concentrate. The thought of the coming second interview with Miss Moyo would not leave his mind. He knew that the whole story of his humiliating ordeal at the hands of the ladies of Gulembe would come out and his lies would be exposed. Much more serious, he realized, was the possibility that some of the few girls who remained at the school during the holiday might have seen or heard about his wandering naked at night in the school grounds. He feared the worst � instant dismissal.

The rest of the day, and the night, passed slowly for Eustace. The following morning, at the appointed time, Eustace stood outside Miss Moyo�s office door. He knew better than to be late. He knocked and heard Miss Moyo�s voice bidding him to enter. He found her at her desk as usual, occupied with paperwork.

�Good morning, Miss Moyo,� he greeted her nervously.

�Good morning, Eustace,� she replied in a cold, distant tone. Again, she did not offer him a chair. �Well, as I told you yesterday, I paid a visit to my friend at Gulembe this afternoon. She told me what happened. So you lied to me again, Eustace, didn�t you? It was as I suspected. You trespassed on the place where the women were holding their traditional monthly ceremony, which is forbidden to men, so they stripped you naked and punished you. That is the custom. So that is how you lost your clothes, isn�t it?�

�Yes, Miss Moyo,� Eustace muttered, red with shame.

�Yes. And I can tell you that you were lucky. My friend told me she ordered her women to give you only a light beating with bamboo switches, just to teach you a lesson, instead of using the �ciboko�. That is a whip made from the hide of a hippopotamus and I can tell you if they gave you the �ciboko� you would be in a very sorry state! You will also be glad to hear that I have recovered the bicycle,� she continued, �and I have also ascertained that apart from Thomas and me, no-one seems to be aware of the disgraceful events of the night before last.�

She paused, looking thoughtfully at Eustace, before going on.

�In view of this, and taking into account your good record up to now, I am inclined to look upon your transgressions with a certain leniency.�

Eustace gasped a sigh of relief and made as if to say something. Miss Moyo silenced him with an intimidating look.

�However,� she continued ominously, �I have spoken to Mrs Tembe over the phone and we have come to a decision. Your conduct cannot go unpunished, so we are going to offer you a choice, Eustace. Either you can choose immediate dismissal from the college, or� �here she paused significantly - �you can choose to accept formal corporal punishment to be administered here at the college in the presence of witnesses.�

Eustace gasped in disbelief. �Corporal punishment? But I ��

Miss Moyo cut him short. �Yes, Eustace. Corporal punishment. Discipline is not only for the pupils but also for the teachers, especially the young and inexperienced ones like yourself. That is how we do things here in Azanga. From time to time, I find myself obliged to administer correction to a young teacher here at the college rather than dismiss her, and there is no reason why you should not also be given this choice. Well, Eustace, it is up to you. You may go now and think about it. You will inform me of your choice tomorrow morning.�

�No, please Miss Moyo!� Eustace blurted out. �I�ll take the punishment.�

Miss Moyo looked at him steadily and smiled. �Very well, Eustace, it is your choice. In that case, you will report to me here at nine thirty tomorrow morning when I will inform you of your punishment. Is that clear?�

�Yes, Miss Moyo,� Eustace muttered, half in relief that he would not face dismissal, and half in trepidation at the alarming thought of �formal punishment�..

�Good. You may go.�

Eustace faced another restless day. On the one hand, he was relieved that he would not be dismissed as a result of his misdemeanor. On the other hand, at nine thirty next morning he must present himself, like a naughty schoolboy, to receive his �formal corporal punishment�, the nature of which, given Miss Moyo�s notorious predilection for application of the birchrod, he strongly suspected might well be severe. He could hardly believe that he, a young white man, could be subjected to such indignity. Eustace had never experienced a beating in his life until his misadventure at Lake Malembe two days ago, which had been the cause of his present predicament. And now, two days later he might well be on the receiving end of yet another humiliating punishment at the hands of an Azangan woman. �Formal corporal punishment� Miss Moyo had called it. What did that mean? Eustace had heard about Miss Moyo�s disciplinary methods from his female colleagues, who, in true Azangan style, seemed to derive peculiar pleasure and amusement from recounting stories of her floggings of recalcitrant girls as well as from sending girls to Miss Moyo for punishment as often as possible. With sly glances at the blushing and embarrassed Eustace, they delighted in dwelling on lurid details of these �formal punishments�. It seemed that Miss Moyo�s preferred instrument of flagellation was a birch rod, though she also sometimes used a thin rattan cane. The women teachers also gloated over the fact that Miss Moyo insisted on the culprit�s being obliged to receive the punishment completely naked. From time to time Eustace had seen girls returning from an interview with Miss Moyo, ruefully rubbing their bottoms, shamefaced and weeping. Miss Moyo had mentioned �witnesses�. Who would they be? Would he be obliged to strip naked to be flogged before by a woman before female witnesses? Somehow Eustace could not bring himself to believe it.

Such were the questions which tormented Eustace�s mind as he wandered about his house naked, with the curtains drawn and the fans switched on in an attempt to keep cool, for it was the dry season and the temperature was beginning to rise. He examined his naked body in the bedroom mirror. At least, the marks left by the bamboo switches were beginning to fade and the burning sensation left by the peppers had subsided. On the other hand, Eustace could not suppress other thoughts that kept going through his mind, strange unconfessable thoughts which constantly resurfaced, despite his efforts to drive them away. Eustace could not help being overcome by an irresistible feeling of excitement as he imagined the ordeal which awaited him. This excitement had been with him, he knew, since his encounter with the village women at the lake. With a shudder, he tried for the thousandth time to drive from his mind the picture of himself, stark naked, squirming and squealing pathetically as the laughing women danced around him lashing his buttocks with the stinging switches and mocking and jeering at his undignified antics. Yet, at the same time, he had to confess to undeniable feeling of sexual excitement brought on by the sting of the switches on his behind, not to mention the more overtly sexual teasing of his private parts which the women had inflicted on him.

To this was added the strange excitement he had felt at being obliged to make his way back to the school completely naked, helpless and vulnerable, constantly fearing discovery, yet half wanting to be caught and further humiliated. Thus, when he was apprehended by Thomas and found himself standing naked before the angry and formidable Miss Moyo, his dismay and fear of the consequences were undoubtedly compounded with this guilty pleasure in the humiliation that his capture afforded. He remembered the expression of amused contempt with which Miss Moyo gazed at him, as he stood before illuminated by the beam of her flashlight, endeavoring to shield his nakedness with his hands. Had she ordered him there and then to lie down on the ground and submit to a flogging, he would have obeyed without question? Instead she had kept him in suspense, holding over him for a whole day the threat of dismissal, and now she had him on tenterhooks awaiting his punishment on the following morning.

As he stood there, surveying his naked body, the overwhelming vision came to him of himself standing nude before Miss Moyo and, perhaps, Mrs Kirembe, the matron or Mrs Mbele, the college housekeeper, who, he knew were usually required to witness serious formal punishments..

Later in the afternoon, Eustace decided to go down to the village, which lay about ten minutes� walk away from the college, to buy some food from the small general shop there. As he was entering the college on his return, he ran into Mrs Kirembe, the school matron, popularly know to teachers and pupils as �Aunty Miriam�. She was a plump, cheerful, motherly lady in her mid-forties, invariably smiling and laughing, and much loved by everyone at the college. She liked Eustace and often chatted to him about her time in England, where she trained as a nurse and worked in London hospitals for about ten years, which accounted for her rather racy command of colloquial English.

�Hello Eustace,� she greeted him in her usual breezy fashion. �What�s the matter? You don�t look very happy!�

�Oh, it�s nothing, Aunty,� Eustace replied rather uncomfortably. He did not really

feel like talking about his predicament to Mrs Kirembe at that moment.

�Now, come along, Eustace,� she said, taking him by the arm. �I know you�re in trouble with Miss Moyo. Let�s go to my office and I�ll make you a nice cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.�

Chuckling heartily, Mrs Kirembe led Eustace to her office in the college medical building, which was a single-story prefabricated hut behind the administrative building where Miss Moyo had her office.

�Now, sit down, Eustace, and tell me what happened,� Mrs Kirembe said as she set about making the tea.

Eustace sat silent for a moment and then, with a sigh, he started haltingly to recount a somewhat edited version of his embarrassing encounter by Lake Malembe, ending up with an account of his meeting of that morning with Miss Moyo. Mrs Kirembe listened, smiling, to the story , then, throwing back her head she uttered a full-throated peal of laughter.

�Oh Eustace, what bad luck! You chose the wrong day to go to the lake. That was the day when the women of Gulembe hold their monthly ceremony for the Spirits of the Lake. No man is allowed there on that day! Oh, poor Eustace! If they catch any man there they strip him naked and give him a good flogging! So that is what happened to you! Oh, those Gulembe ladies are wicked!� Mrs Kirembe laughed tolerantly at the thought of their wickedness. �I am sure they had plenty of fun with you, didn�t they? And then you had to come all the way back here naked and Miss Moyo found you walking about in the college grounds in the middle of the night in your birthday suit - no wonder you are in trouble! She was very angry when I saw her yesterday! I think you are going to get a good thrashing.�

Mrs Kirembe chattered on and Eustace sat there gloomily listening and watching her as she bustled about preparing the tea. She was a short, energetic woman, attractively plump with large, heavy breasts and broad, ample buttocks, which jigged and bounced freely beneath her thin white nurse�s overall as she moved, prompting Eustace to speculate whether she had anything on underneath. Her skin was almost jet black and glossy, and her round face with its appealing little double chin was almost invariably wreathed in the broadest of gleaming smiles. Her cheerful chatter soon had Eustace smiling wanly in spite of himself.

Mrs Kirembe set the tea tray down on the desk and sat next to Eustace to serve the tea. �That�s better, Eustace!� she said. �Give Aunty Miriam a nice smile now, and don�t worry, love!� She chuckled and squeezed Eustace�s thigh playfully, leaning forward so that he was afforded a good look down the front of her dress between her breasts.

�By the way, Eustace, did those Gulembe ladies beat you hard?� she asked. �Are you still sore? Let me have a look and I will give you something for it.�

�Oh, no Aunty,� Eustace muttered. �It�s all right, really.�

�Now come along, Eustace! Let me see!� she said, rising and taking him by the arm and leading him into the treatment room next to the office. �Now, undress and I will put some ointment on the sore spots.�

Though deeply embarrassed, Eustace seemed unable to resist and docilely did as he was told. He pulled his shirt off and showed Mrs Kirembe his back, which still bore fading marks left by the thin bamboo switches.

�Eustace, I said undress! Take your trousers off too!� Mrs Kirembe said impatiently. �I suppose those ladies didn�t spare your backside, did they?�

Shyly Eustace obeyed and stood naked before Mrs Kirembe, his hands held sheepishly over his private parts.

�That�s right, Eustace,� she said. �I am a trained nurse. Do you think I have never seen a naked man before? Now turn round and show me your bottom. Oh, this isn�t so bad. You still have some marks, but I don�t think they beat you too hard. I think they just wanted to have some fun with you, that�s all!�

Taking a tube of antiseptic ointment, Mrs Kirembe examined the marks on Eustace�s body and began gently to apply the salve to Eustace�s back and buttocks, chatting in her usual cheerful fashion as she worked.

�You are going to get a real birching from Miss Moyo, I can tell you!�

�Is Miss Moyo really going to punish me like that?� said Eustace anxiously.

�Oh, of course!� she replied. ��That is what she means by �formal corporal punishment�, but don�t worry! The birch doesn�t hurt too much, Eustace. It stings a bit and you�ll have a sore bum for a few days, but that�s all. And I will rub some ointment on your bottom afterwards to take away the burning. No, I think the worst thing about the formal punishment is the shame, because you get it on your bare arse so you will have to take all your clothes off. Hat is what the girls don�t like!� She chuckled gleefully at the thought. �Oh, Eustace, that will be a funny sight � Eustace being birched on his bare bum! Here in Azanga we all like to watch a good flogging!� She laughed, giving Eustace a playful slap on the backside. �But you�ll get over it. It�s not like the rattan cane which they use at Malembe Prison! Of my! Now that is real punishment! You know, my daughter is a nurse at the Women�s Prison at Malembe. She has to be on duty in the punishment room when a prisoner is flogged, and I sometimes go with other party women to witness punishments.. The Governor, Captain Florence Ndembe, is very tough. If any prisoner commits an offence, she will get twenty-five strokes of the rattan cane on her bare arse. And after that, she gets �naked regime�. That is a special punishment which they have there in the women�s prison. A prisoner on �naked regime� is not allowed to wear any clothes. She has to work completely naked in the village where the prison guards and their families live. They make her sweep the street and work in the oil palm grove and so on . It is a very good way to punish bad women because it makes them feel so ashamed that they will never want to be on �naked regime� again!� She laughed, and then went on. �Have you heard about that Englishman, William, who was sentenced to five years hard labor for selling drugs. You know, they keep him there in the Women�s Section,� Mrs Kirembe giggled at the thought of a white man in the women�s prison. �Judge Mary Kamanga also sentenced him to fifty strokes of the rattan cane. This was about three years ago. A lot of Party ladies went to witness the punishment to make it more shameful for him. We enjoyed it very much! It was a good show! Then Captain Ndembe gave him �naked regime� for two months. I saw him many times when I went to visit my daughter. It was so funny to see him working in the village street naked with chains on his feet. The young boys and girls used to enjoy making fun of him and teasing him and I can�t tell you what the village ladies used to do to him when they took him to the palm groves to work! Just like those naughty Gulembe ladies did to you!� She giggled again. �I don�t know if William is still at Malembe.� Mrs Kirembe lowered her voice confidentially. �You know, Captain Ndembe took him to work in her house..They say she made him go naked all the time and she used to beat him regularly at least once a week, but they say he really enjoyed being treated like a slave! Isn�t that funny? I remember my friends used to tell me about men like that when I was in London. We always used to laugh about it.�

Mrs Kirembe chuckled, shaking her head at she thought of William�s strange tastes, oblivious of the embarrassment her chatter was causing Eustace, who could only think of the painful indignities that might await him on the morrow. As Mrs Kirembe chattered on, scrutinizing Eustace�s body thoroughly as she applied the cream, Eustace was silent, unable to suppress the undeniable erotic feeling induced in him that he was standing stark naked before this cheerful, plump little lady who was clearly relishing the idea of witnessing his humiliating punishment. For Mrs Kirembe, as for most Azangan women, floggings and punishments seemed a quite normal, healthy topic of humorous conversation, whereas for Eustace the vision of himself, bending over naked in Miss Moyo�s office and being thrashed while Mrs Kirembe looked on, aroused in him a feeling of guilty excitement. This excitement was only enhanced by the thought that it would be Miss Moyo herself wielding the rod, for Eustace had secretly been in the thrall of Miss Moyo since he first arrived at the school. It was not only because of her tall, buxom, handsome figure, encased in the tight-fitting Azangan costume, which set off her ample hips and deep, heavy bust to perfection. It was also for the unmistakable air of authority which she exuded. Eustace had felt intimidated and cowed by her presence since he first set eyes on her, as if he had already committed some unnamable offence of which she disapproved and which was deserving of punishment. Now he had actually committed such an offence, so that he was in the frame of mind to accept any punishment that Miss Moyo might inflict as perfectly justified. He was finally beginning to face up to his own secret desires � in his heart of hearts he wanted to be punished and humiliated by Miss Moyo and he wanted Mrs Kirembe to be there to see it happen!

These thoughts, together with Mrs Kirembe�s account of the ordeal of the unfortunate William Maze, conspired to bring Eustace�s member to a state of excitement, which, in his state of nudity, he found difficult to conceal. Mrs Kirembe, however, did not seem unduly perturbed by the sight, merely giving him another friendly smack on the bottom. �Oh, naughty boy!� she said with a wicked twinkle in her eye. �What is Eustace thinking about?. All right � finished now. Put your clothes on. See you tomorrow and be good!�

Eustace hurriedly dressed and left, after thanking Mrs Kirembe for her kindness. He was really grateful to her for her efforts to cheer him, even if her choice of topic for conversation was not exactly tactful for one in his predicament! He wandered back to his cottage. Now it was a question of getting through the evening and the night until the hour of his appointment with Miss Moyo. He doubted whether he would be able to sleep, what with the thought of the painful ordeal which he was sure awaited him as well as the unavoidable sexual excitement that the prospect aroused in him.

Eustace  - Chapter 3