Contributed by - Marabout
Chapter 4 - In training
In training
For the remainder of the day, following his flogging, William was left
lying face down in his cell, groaning with the pain from his bruised and
swollen buttocks. Later they brought him some food and tea, which he
forced himself to consume in order to keep his strength up. At some time
in the evening, Sergeant Mbenge paid a visit. William was brought out of
his cell to the entrance hall, where he was subjected to the humiliation
of being obliged to present his behind for inspection by the sergeant
and a couple of her young women guards. They took full advantage of the
opportunity to enjoy a little fun at his expense, after which he was
conducted back to his cell and left in peace for the night. As may be
imagined, he did not spend a very comfortable night, but, strangely he
could not help feeling a kind of powerful and irresistible erotic
excitement at the thought of what was happening to him, unbearable
though the pain and humiliation might be. While on the one hand he was
filled with trepidation at what they might do to him on the morrow, on
the other hand there was no denying that the thought aroused him
sexually. Once again he was tempted to consider the possibility of
simply surrendering himself in total abasement to these women who now
wielded complete power over him. Surely he had no choice. What was the
use of resistance?
************
At the same time as these thoughts were buzzing in William�s confused
mind, Captain Ndembe was relaxing on the sofa of her comfortably
furnished house, which stood on a hill with a delightful view looking
out, on one side, on the lake and, on the other, on the well laid-out
village where her prison officers, male and female lived with their
families. She had changed out of her smart uniform and was now wearing a
loose yellow African gown, which people called a boubou. Standing just
behind the sofa was her cook, Rose. Rose, a long-term prisoner, was a
buxom, cheerful negress in her late forties, with very black skin and
very white teeth. She was clad in her brown prison dress, white head-tie
and white apron. Curled up snugly on the sofa, next to Captain Ndembe,
was her maid, Josephine, a handsome and statuesque young woman with
shaven head, who was a more recent inmate of the women�s prison. Unlike
her fellow prisoner, Josephine was completely naked. Captain Ndembe held
one of Josephine�s heavy breasts in her hand, toying with the nipple, as
the three women watched proceedings on the screen of a large, modern
television set.
What they were watching was the video which Charity had made of the
flogging of a young female school-teacher, who had been convicted of
sedition and insulting the President of the Republic. The unfortunate
young woman, stripped naked, lay bent over the A-frame, wrists and
ankles bound to the cross bars, receiving a sound thrashing with the
rattan from Sergeant Mbenge. Among the spectators, besides the Captain
and her friend Anne, Doctor Patel and her nurse and the young secretary,
who was counting the strokes, were half-a-dozen teenage girls, in school
uniform, who had been brought in to witness the punishment, partly to
add to the victim�s humiliation and partly as a warning to them not to
meddle in political matters. The cane was swishing down steadily and
remorselessly on the writhing young woman�s bare buttocks, and her
piercing screams echoed through the room. Josephine and Rose were
watching with that fascination that Azangans invariably showed for
exhibitions of corporal punishment, and they celebrated each stroke with
laughter and humorous comments. Captain Ndembe was also clearly aroused
by the scene, squeezing and kneading Josephine�s breast excitedly. The
young woman squirmed and giggled while Rose looked on laughing heartily.
She was quite familiar with her mistress� predilections, and, indeed,
was herself often called upon to pleasure the Captain from time to time
with her skillful massage.
�Oh yes, madame!� said Rose, �That woman is really getting a good
beating! Look how she is twisting and turning and what a noise she is
making! I don�t think she is enjoying it!��
�Sergeant Mbenge knows how to make that cane sting like fire, I can tell
you!� added Josephine, laughing. She had herself been on the receiving
end of the sergeant�s cane, having been sent to the punishment block for
insubordination when she first came to the prison. She also knew that,
in spite of her present favored inmate status, she could still be
subjected to corporal punishment if she offended her mistress in any
way.
�Yes, Josephine,� said the Captain. �I think Rose knows too, don�t you
Rose?�
Rose laughed and rubbed her generous bottom ruefully. She remembered
vividly the formal public flogging she had once received before the
assembled women prisoners. Several years ago, before she became the
Captain�s cook, she had been unwise enough to assault one of the prison
guards, for which she had been sentenced to fifty lashes with the �ciboko�,
the traditional Azangan whip made from hippopotamus hide. The punishment
had been carried out in the main yard in the old-fashioned Azangan way,
in which the culprit was stripped naked and spread-eagled face down on
the ground with her wrists and ankles bound to four wooden pegs.
Following the flogging, she had been given six months in the punishment
block. Rose had endured this for only a few weeks, however, because
luckily Captain Ndembe, who had just been appointed governor of the
prison, got to hear that she had been a cook in one of the better
restaurants in the capital before she had taken it into her head to
stick a kitchen knife into her boss. Straightaway, Rose was taken to
Captain Ndembe�s office and told that from then on she would be the
captain�s cook, living in the captain�s house. Naturally, she did not
object, and had now been in this privileged position for the last six
years.
When the video came to an end, Captain Ndembe gave Josephine a final
squeeze and pushed her off the sofa with a smack on her firm, round
bottom.
�Back to work, girls!� she said. �I want my dinner, Rose! And Josephine,
you will not put your clothes on! I want you naked this evening.�
Josephine giggled and followed Rose out to the kitchen. She knew what
would follow later.
************
The following morning, William began his period of discipline and
obedience training in the punishment block, under the gentle guidance of
Sergeant Mbenge. At the usual early hour, the cell doors were opened and
the prisoners were obliged to crawl out and abase themselves in the
regulation way before the guards. William, his body stiff and aching,
was not exempted. Once again, as on the previous day, he followed the
three naked women inmates to the washroom to collect buckets and
brushes, and once again, on hands and knees scrubbed the floor of his
cell and part of the corridor. Two guards watched with amusement as the
four prisoners worked, heads down, bare bottoms up, and William�s black
and blue backside came in for some especially humorous comment. This
task was then followed by the regulation hosing down of the prisoners
before they were led back to their cells. In fact, this was the routine
that William came to expect for the next twenty-eight days of his
incarceration in the punishment block.
A little later the prisoners� breakfast was brought by an inmate and
then they were taken out to the yard for their morning exercise and
daily beating, after which they would be shackled and marched off to
work inside or outside the prison compound. On this morning, however,
and on the next two mornings, William was made to stand, face to the
wall, opposite the guard�s desk until it was time to take him to the
medical block in order to have his buttocks treated. This duty was
performed by a plump, mature guard, whom William had not seen before.
She did not seem unkind and spoke to him in a cheerful, somewhat
motherly way as she led him across the yard to the medical building,
asking him why he was in prison and why he had been flogged. When he
told her, she clicked her tongue: �Ts-ts-ts � oh, that is very bad! Then
you deserve your punishment! Our President says that drugs are a very
wicked thing! People who sell those things must be punished very hard.�
The young nurse was alone in the medical block as Doctor Patel only
visited the women�s prison three times a week, having other
responsibilities in the guards� village and in the surrounding area of
Malembe. She greeted William with quite a friendly smile.
�So how is your bottom?� she asked brightly. �Well, lie down here and
let me have a look.�
William lay face down on a bed while the nurse carefully dabbed surgical
spirits on his bottom with cotton wool. The guard stayed watching the
treatment and chatting cheerfully with the nurse. The two women laughed
when William winced as the alcohol stung his sore backside.
�Oh, what a coward you are!� said the nurse, jokingly. �This is nothing!
Why are you making such a fuss? And what a lot of noise you made
yesterday when you were being flogged. He was screaming just like a
young girl!�
�How many strokes did he get?� asked the guard.
�Only twenty,� replied the nurse. �He was supposed to get thirty, but
the Captain stopped the punishment after the doctor looked at him. The
ladies were very disappointed. He was lucky! But he still has to receive
another thirty. He will get another fifteen strokes after twenty-eight
days and then another fifteen after that!
�Ah, that is very good,� said the guard. �He must pay the penalty for
his crime. I hope you will learn your lesson,� she addressed William.
�You must pray to the Good Lord to help you.�
After a while she left William alone with the nurse and went off to
perform other duties, while William lay on the bed with a cold compress
on his bottom. The young nurse, who seemed to have nothing special to do
at that time, sat chatting to him. He learned that her name was Veronica
and that her brother was a guard in the men�s prison.
�It is very lucky for you that they are keeping you here in the women�s
block,� she told William. �In the men�s prison you would have a very
hard time.�
She regaled William with some gruesome details of the hardships suffered
by male prisoners, describing the stone quarries, where they sometimes
worked naked and in chains, the fields, where they worked digging
irrigation ditches up to their waists in mud, and the floggings and
other punishments inflicted on recalcitrant inmates.
�Captain Ndembe is a very hard lady,� she said, �but you are lucky to be
here, even if they cane you and keep you on �naked regime�. It will be
better for you than in the men�s place.�
�What is �naked regime�?� asked William somewhat nervously.
�That is a special punishment for very bad prisoners who commit the most
serious offences. It means that you will not be allowed to wear any
clothes at all. You have to go completely naked all the time, just as
you are now. Then, every day they will take you outside the prison and
make you work, with shackles on your legs, in the village where the
families live, or in the plantations near the prison. They will make you
sweep the street, or collect the rubbish or work in the fields or in the
oil palm groves all day under the hot sun. Oh, it is very funny to see.�
She chuckled. �The people in the village all enjoy making fun of a
prisoner on �naked regime. You are sure to get �naked regime� because
everyone will enjoy seeing a white man working naked in the street.�
She chatted merrily on, while William contemplated his immediate future
with, once again, a mixture of fear and curious excitement. He was
acutely conscious of the fact that he was lying, chained by the wrist to
a bed, stark naked, in the presence of this rather voluptuous young
woman in her tight nurse�s uniform, listening to her prattling
cheerfully on about the humiliation and indignity that would be
inflicted upon him. Clearly, she was expressing the perfectly normal
feelings of a typical Azangan woman with regard to the punishment of
offenders. She was quite capable of chatting in a friendly way to
William as a patient, while at the same time she would be quite prepared
to jeer at and mock him as a miscreant to be punished. This dichotomy of
feelings somehow excited William strangely. His penis was starting to
stir and harden, and he found himself unable to resist furtive glances
at Veronica�s well-filled white uniform.
After about half-an-hour, Veronica removed the cold compress and
examined William�s buttocks again.
�Your bottom is still a bit bruised and swollen,� she announced, �but it
is getting better. I will rub some coconut oil on it.�
She took a bottle of the pungent oil and poured a little on her hand.
Then, to William�s pleasure, she began to massage the cheeks of his sore
bottom, gently applying the oil to the places most affected. This went
on for about ten minutes and, by the time she stopped, William had a
full erection, concealed, for the moment, by the fact that he was lying
face down on the bed.
�All right,� Veronica said. �Now I will make a cup of tea for us.�
William lay somewhat uncomfortably, his penis refusing to subside, his
eyes glued on the young woman�s shapely behind as she busied herself
with the task. In order to drink the tea, William was obliged to half
turn and sit up in the bed, thus revealing his embarrassing tumescence,
which the nurse could not help but notice.
�Oh oh oh! Bad man!� she said, laughing and patting his penis. �Oh, you
will get a good beating if the guard sees that!�
She laughed again and, seeing the look of alarm on William�s face, give
the offending member a playful squeeze and added: �Don�t worry! I won�t
tell her. Now, drink your tea. It will make you feel better. You have to
come here two more times. Then I think your bottom will be better.
Tomorrow Doctor Patel will be here.�
William was sorry to hear that he had only two more visits to the
medical block. Here he could lie in comfort. Here a pretty young woman
spoke kindly to him and even flirted playfully. Soon he would have to
return to the punishment cell and to the rough treatment and humiliation
of the tough, cruel guards. Soon he would be set to work, perhaps out in
the village, naked and shackled, just as the nurse had described. Almost
in tears he muttered his thanks to her.
Shortly after this pleasant interlude, the guard returned to escort
William not immediately back to the punishment block but to the
reception building, where he was to be photographed for the prison
archives. There, in a small room adjoining the long reception room, a
young woman guard took identification shots � head and shoulders, front,
back, left and right � of the naked inmate, followed by full body
pictures. William was also fingerprinted and his body was examined for
any distinguishing marks. He was finally assigned a prisoner number �
35469 � which, since he was naked, was written with an indelible marking
pen across his belly. He was told that he must memorize this number. The
young woman carried out these tasks with brisk efficiency and William
was then led back to the punishment block.
His fellow prisoners in the block had all been taken out on work
details, so William found himself alone at the mercy of Corporal Mbaya,
who immediately marched him out into the yard, where, watched by the
older woman, she made him squat with his hands on his head and waddle in
this fashion up and down the yard ten times, until his legs gave way and
he fell back on the ground. The older, more sympathetic woman, who was
not a regular guard in the punishment block, looked at William with a
worried expression, as if she would like to help him, but did not dare
to interfere. Then, William was led to the pillory, which stood on one
side of the punishment block yard. It was a heavy piece of apparatus,
made of black wood, designed so that the unfortunate delinquent was
immobilized, bent over at the waist with head and hands through holes in
the top board and feet held apart in stocks at the bottom. In this
undignified position, with his backside jutting out prominently, William
was left standing in the hot sun for two hours.
This kind of treatment was to become a regular routine for the next
twenty-eight days, and was part of William�s �training�, although at the
time he did not realize that he was being �trained� for anything in
particular. He just took it as part of his punishment, devised by the
guards, which indeed it also was. It was only much later that he
understood that he was being put through all this humiliation on the
orders of Captain Ndembe for the explicit purpose of inculcating in him
total submission and obedience. His formal judicial flogging, by women
officers in the presence of female witnesses, was also part of this
systematic plan of subjection to female authority.
During the afternoon of the day after his first flogging, William was
brought out of his cell by Sergeant Mbenge to be conducted once again to
the office of the Prison Governor. Once again he found himself standing,
naked, in this office before these two uniformed African women, legs
apart, hands clasped behind his head in the regulation position for
prisoners on punishment regime when in the presence of authority. Jane,
the attractive young secretary, smiles wickedly at him, while the
Captain regarded him with her usual cool contempt.
�Well, 35469, turn round. Show me your behind,� the Captain said
sharply.
William obeyed.
�Hmm � not too bad. Is he going for treatment?� she asked the sergeant.
�Yes, Captain, the nurse saw him at 9 o�clock,� the sergeant replied.
�Good. Two more days of treatment, then put him on work details. Oh, and
sergeant, I don�t want his buttocks damaged again for the next four
weeks. Remember he�s due for flogging again in twenty-eight days. I want
his ass to be in good shape for that. Make sure your officers understand
that. Take him away.�
The secretary tittered. Sergeant Mbenge saluted and with brisk orders
led William out of the office and back across the yard to the punishment
block and his cell, where, once again he was left with his thoughts.
Curiously, William did no think of family or friends as he lay in his
darkening cell. His parents had both died some years ago and he had not
seen his only brother for years. He did not seem to miss his friends
either, although, surrounded as he was by African women, both the
guards, with their power over him, and his fellow inmates, he certainly
experienced an ever sharper sexual desire and nostalgia for the Azangan
women that he had known in the past. At the same time, he cursed his own
foolishness in putting faith in the crafty Lebanese who had brought him
to this state. He had loved his life in Azanga, he loved the country and
the people. In fact, the sole reason why he had fallen into the trap set
by the Lebanese crook had been to make enough money to enable himself to
buy a house here, ironically, on beautiful Lake Malembe, and surround
himself with lissome, shapely Azangan women. Well, he was now dwelling
near that beautiful lake, surrounded by Azangan women, though not quite
in the way he had envisaged!
His thoughts were now continually turning towards Captain Ndembe, in
whose hands his fate lay, towards the powerful Sergeant Mbenge, before
whom he must bow down, and towards Doctor Patel and Nurse Veronica, from
whom he might perhaps receive some relief. In fact, William was already
beginning to feel that this jail was his world and that somehow,
although he could not explain to himself how or why, this was what he
had all along been destined for. His life was out of his hands. He had
only to surrender and let things happen.
************
The next morning, after the usual cleaning chores and washing, William
was led out into the yard with the three women inmates by Corporal Mbaya
and two other guards. He was placed in the pillory and treated to the
spectacle of the two younger prisoners receiving their �farewell�
thrashing, since they had completed their seven days punishment. They
were both made to kneel down, with their faces to the ground and their
backsides raised to receive twenty sharp lashes of the �ciboko� from
Corporal Mbaya, who obviously derived the greatest of pleasure from
hearing them squeal, after which their prison dresses were returned to
them and they were marched off by one of the guards to rejoin their
fellow inmates in the main jail. The fat, older woman was now the only
prisoner left in the punishment block, apart from William. She was given
the daily dose of ten lashes, shackled, and then led away for work
detail by the other guard, leaving William standing in the pillory alone
with Corporal Mbaya.
Slowly the corporal walked over to the pillory, smiling and lazily
swinging her short �ciboko� whip. William froze, hardly daring to
breathe. She came round and stood behind him William was sure that from
one moment to the next he would feel the vicious cut of the tough hide
lash. He flinched and let out an involuntary whimper as he felt the lash
come swishing down, just missing his bottom. The corporal laughed and
let the lash dangle between the cheeks of his buttocks.
�You are lucky. The Captain wants to see this behind in good condition
for your next flogging,� she said. �Otherwise I would enjoy taking some
skin off your fat ass!�
She turned on her heel and walked across the yard and back into the
building, leaving William sweating and trembling in the pillory. He
remained there, his naked body exposed to the hot morning sun, for about
an hour before the older, more sympathetic guard from the previous day
came to take him to the medical block. He was released from the pillory,
somewhat reluctantly, by Corporal Mbaya, handcuffed by the guard, and
led off. Again, the woman lectured him like a stern aunty on the evils
of drugs and the need to suffer just retribution, divine and human, for
his sins, sentiments with which William heartily concurred.
The guard left him in Nurse Veronica�s care, chained to the metal bed.
She made him lie face down, examined his backside and declared that it
was on the mend. However, she placed another cold compress on the still
sore cheeks and left him lying there to await Doctor Patel, who, when
she arrived, also pronounced herself satisfied and confirmed, to
William�s disappointment, that only one more visit would be necessary.
Since the doctor was present, Nurse Veronica was unable to remain
chatting with William, who had been fantasizing about the possibility of
some more personal attention from her. However, she did massage his
buttocks again with oil and brought him a cup of tea and, while the
doctor was on the phone in the adjoining office, gave his thigh a
friendly squeeze. �So I�ll see you tomorrow,� she murmured. William
almost wept.
William endured the rest of the day, locked for most of the time in his
cell, thinking of Nurse Veronica, grateful for that small sign of
tenderness that she had shown him. He had no clear idea of what he might
expect. He was just happy that a woman had treated him with a little
kindness in this place where, up to now, he had expected and experienced
only humiliation and pain.
