Contributed by - Marabout
Chapter 5 - Naked Regime
Naked Regime
�Out! Out! Out!� The guard rapped the bars of William�s cell. The door
was unlocked and he crawled hurriedly out to prostrate himself at the
guard�s feet. The only other occupant of the punishment cells, the fat,
older woman, was also called out and she and William were bustled along
the corridor, with whacks across their legs and backsides, to the
washroom to start the morning cleaning duties. William�s period of hard
labour had begun.
************
On the morning of the previous day, he had been taken to the medical
block for his final check-up. The doctor had not been present, so
William had found himself once again, naked and chained by one wrist to
the iron bed, alone with the young nurse, Veronica. As usual, she had
left him lying on his stomach with a cold compress for about an hour,
while she busied herself with various duties. Then, after she had
returned to remove the compress, she stated to massage William�s
buttocks while she chatted, bringing about the inevitable physical
reaction to William�s anatomy and causing him to wriggle uncomfortably.
�I think you are being a bad boy again!� she laughed and slapped his
bottom lightly.
�I�m sorry,� William stammered. �I can�t help it�
She laughed again. �It doesn�t matter. Let me see.�
William half turned on the bed to reveal the front of his body.
�Oh! Oh! Naughty boy!� Veronica said playfully. �I think I will tell the
guard and then you will get a good beating! No! Don�t worry! I am only
joking!�
She took William�s erect penis between her thumb and forefinger and
squeezed it gently. �You are the first white man I have ever seen
naked,� she said. She examined the stiff member curiously. �Why isn�t it
cut? All our men are cut. It is the custom.�
�I know,� gasped William.
�And it�s not very big. Our men all have a very big penis. But it�s very
nice!� She toyed lightly. �I think the people will laugh when they see
you on �naked regime.�
She chatted on, oblivious of William�s excitement. �Yes, you will be put
on �naked regime�, that�s for sure. I know this because Jane told me.
Jane is Captain Ndembe�s secretary. She was the one counting the strokes
when you were caned. Well, she is my cousin. We live together and she
tells me secrets. The Captain says you must be on �naked regime� for the
next twenty-eight days until your next flogging. After that, do you know
what is going to happen? Well, I will tell you. Captain Ndembe is going
to take you as her houseboy. Yes, you will work in her house and live
there. She already has two women inmates working there, but she wants a
white man as a houseboy.�
Hearing the sound of someone outside, she quickly turned William over on
his stomach again and resumed massaging his buttocks. No-one came in.
She carried on with her story.
�Yes, that�s what she told me. You are very lucky! That will be much
better than being sent to the men�s prison or even staying here in the
women�s block. Perhaps you will get some beatings, but nothing like in
the men�s block. And you will get good food and a place to sleep by
yourself. You are lucky. You have to take your punishment because you
have committed a very serious crime, but it will not be so bad if are at
the Captain�s house and if you are obedient and hard-working. And you
know, there is another thing about the Captain,� she lowered her voice.
�She doesn�t like men. She only likes women � I mean for sex. She takes
her maid, Josephine, to bed with her, and she would like to take Jane,
because Jane is very beautiful, but Jane doesn�t want to.�
William lay there in silence, thinking, listening to all this chatter
Yes, maybe it would not be so bad. He sat up and drank the cup of sweet
tea that Nurse Veronica brought him. She sat down opposite him, smiling.
Anyway, don�t worry,� she added. �Just do as you are told and take your
beatings. That is your punishment. Things will get better for you
later.�
The young women relieved him of the cup. Then, playfully she gave his
still erect penis a light slap.
�I think you are a very naughty boy!� she said. She went to fetch a box
of paper tissues. �Sit still and relax. I will do something nice for
you.�
A little later a much relaxed William lay on the bed, his member now
reduced to its normal size, when the guard returned to take him back to
his cell. As they left, the young nurse chuckled wickedly: �I�ll see you
again after twenty-eight days.�
************
.
Having completed their cleaning tasks and eaten their morning rations,
William and the woman prisoner were led outside into the yard. Sergeant
Mbenge was there together with Corporal Mbaya and a young woman guard.
Straightaway, the woman prisoner was ordered to kneel down with her
buttocks raised to receive her daily ten lashes with the ciboko. She
took the strokes with hardy a murmur. William was spared this
humiliating ritual. Then, both he and the woman stood to have their
ankles shackled. The shackles just permitted them to shuffle along
slowly, and in this way they were led out to work by the young guard,
who prodded them forward with jabs of her rubber stick.
During the first few days of his spell of �naked regime� William was not
taken outside of the prison grounds. For his first tasks, together with
the woman prisoner, he was made to pick up leaves in the two yards
between the punishment block and the reception block and between that
and the administrative block where the Captain had her office. This was
a daily task. The young guard sat in the shade of a tree watching her
two naked charges as they shuffled around the yard bending over to
gather the leaves, sweating with the hot morning sun on their backs and
the hot paving stones under their bare feet. From time to time she would
stroll over to check that they were carrying out their task adequately,
and dispense a lazy smack or two with her rubber stick across their
upturned posteriors. There was a constant coming and going of guards and
sometimes of female prisoners on various errands. The guards would
invariably stop to stare at William and make some joke about him to
their young overseer, who would laugh and respond in the same vein.
Following the yard cleaning duties, William alone or together with the
woman could be taken to the main compound of the women�s prison, where
they might be put to cleaning the latrines or kitchen. There were always
several female prisoners at work in the prison kitchen. Obviously, a
naked female inmate from the punishment block on kitchen chores was a
common sight for them and, apart from some joking or a playful smack on
the bottom, they would take little notice of her. The sight of a naked,
white male prisoner, however, was a different matter, and so William
found himself the object of much amused banter and teasing as he
scrubbed the floor on hands and knees. Undoubtedly, had the guard not
been there to prevent it, they would have gone beyond mere teasing. As
it was, poor William came in for a good deal of pinching, stroking and
slapping, which had its inevitable effect on his virile member. This
brought forth shrieks of laughter from the women as they crowded round
the hapless victim, pawing and squeezing, and it took a few sharp whacks
and threats of punishment from the guard to get them back to their
tasks.
Another prison task that William found acutely humiliating was cleaning
the offices of some of the prison officers, including that of Captain
Ndembe. She, of course, was not always present as she had to spend more
than half her day administering the male block, which was about a mile
away from the female section, where her main office was. However, the
young secretary, Jane, was always there, sometimes with the Assistant
Governor of the female block, a heavily built woman in her forties, who
had been in charge of the punishment block before her promotion. She
took pleasure in inflicting humiliation and indignities on William, and,
in spite of Captain Ndembe�s injunction to avoid further damage to his
buttocks, stinging cuts with a thin bamboo switch, much to the amusement
of the young secretary.
The days went by in this way, as William and the woman prisoner were
driven from one menial chore to the next, their only rest being the food
period around midday, or an interlude between tasks while the guard
sought new chores that needed doing. They usually ate their midday meal
seated on the ground outside the kitchen, and it was during such breaks
that William was able to talk with his naked fellow slave, for that is
what they were. Her name was Margaret, and she was, it transpired, an
educated middle class Azangan woman, wife of a government official who
was serving a prison sentence for embezzlement of state funds. It seems
that she had been arrested as an accomplice and, accordingly, had
received a stiff sentence of hard labour. Embezzlement of state funds
was another offence incurring mandatory corporal punishment, in her case
fifteen lashes of the rattan, and accordingly she had, like William,
been caned over the whipping frame before a number of female witnesses.
Later, Captain Ndembe had sent her to the punishment block for ten days
for attempting to contact the judicial authorities with a view to having
her case reviewed and her sentence reduced. Now, after nearly ten days
of the humiliation of cleaning the street of the village stark naked
with shackles on her feet, of daily thrashings with the �ciboko� whip,
of lying on the hard floor of the punishment cell, she had come to the
conclusion that it would be in her interest to resign herself to her
fate and try to become a model prisoner. William was coming to the same
conclusion.
Two days later Margaret�s punishment period came to an end. William was
witness to her �farewell� whipping, which she bore stoically, and then
she was allowed to put on her prison dress and was led away. Thus
William was, temporarily at least, the only inmate of the punishment
block. Now, for the first time, he was taken outside the prison compound
to work. A tall, good-looking young prison guard led him to a wooden
shed, just inside the high wooden, razor-wire topped fence which
surrounded the prison. Here he was obliged to load a wheelbarrow with
two cans of whitewash and a large brush. He was the led out of the main
gate to where two long rows of large, whitewashed stones marked the way
from the main road to the gate. His task was to re-whitewash each stone.
Slowly and methodically, William carried out his chore, dragging his
shackled feet from stone to stone. As he worked, he got nearer and
nearer to the red laterite road, which passed by the prison and led from
the village down towards the lake and out of the prison area. People
from the village were constantly passing by and every one, man, woman or
child, stopped to stare at the naked white man, hard at work paining the
stones. Some laughed and shouted some comment while others simply
stared. The young guard, who was basically good-natured, just shooed
them on from her position in the shade of the prison gate. Neither was
she especially hard on William. She did not take pleasure in using her
rubber stick, as did some of the guards, and when he had completed work
on one of the two rows of stones, sweating under the hot sun, she let
him rest in the shade for ten minutes and procured a bottle of water for
him to drink. William was allowed to take his time over the work and
when it was completed, the guard just told him to sit down under a tree
and wait until she was ready to take him back into the prison compound.
In this way, William spent the mornings of his month on �naked regime�.
The following day he was again taken outside the compound, but this time
the guard led him down the red laterite road to the village, where for
several hours he worked sweeping up leaves along the street and
collecting refuse. Captain Ndembe, it seemed, was particularly strict
with the families regarding hygiene and garbage collection. Each house
was issued with a garbage can and required to use it. Female prisoners
were employed to collect and empty the cans daily, either clad in the
drab brown prison smock or, if they were under punishment regime, nude
and in shackles. Male prisoners were not used for these tasks. They had
it much worse, as Nurse Veronica had told William, because they would be
sent to the stone quarries to work, naked and in chains. William,
therefore provided a novel and highly entertaining spectacle, toiling
away for several hours, exposed stark naked to the gaze of the dozens of
onlookers, mainly women and youngsters. In fact, the people were not
basically unkind. Although they all felt that, as a convicted criminal,
William should be obliged to suffer shame and humiliation, at the same
time there was no gratuitous cruelty. The most common form of
humiliation suffered by William at the hands of the village people was
to be surrounded by a group of laughing women who would scold him with
playful slaps or pinches on the behind. Later, however, these same women
might offer him a cup of milk or a piece of fruit. Sometimes he would be
pursued by a gang of young boys or girls with laughter and mockery, and
perhaps one of them, egged on by companions, might smack his bottom or
tease him between his legs with the leaves of a twig as he bent over at
some task. On the other hand, many would smile at him not
unsympathetically and even offer him a mango or a piece of bread as they
watched him at work.
Much depended on the guard who was designated to oversee him. An
easy-going guard would ensure that he was not subjected to real physical
harm and look the other way when someone fed him or even treat him to
food or a drink herself. However, sometimes William was unlucky enough
to find himself under the tougher type of guard who regarded it as her
duty or took delight in humiliating a prisoner. One such guard, a tall,
mannish-looking woman, who oversaw William on three occasions, derived
considerable pleasure from inflicting deliberate public humiliation on
her helpless victim. For no particular reason, she would order him to
bend over and touch his toes like a naughty schoolboy so that she could
lash his buttocks with a whippy green bamboo switch, cut from a hedge,
for the amusement of any onlookers who happened to be present. At other
times, she would use her switch mercilessly to drive him as he pulled or
pushed the heavy garbage cart. Curiously, those same onlookers, women
and young girls, who might earlier have given him a cup of water or a
banana would now watch him being beaten, laughing with glee at his
humiliation.
On another occasion, one of the guards took William to the oil palm
groves near the village, where a group of older village women were
pounding palm nuts to produce palm oil. William was put to work helping
them. The women were highly amused both by William�s inept efforts at
the task and by the way his penis jigged up and down with the movement
of the pestle. They encouraged him with much joking and laughter and
playful slaps on the behind. When they stopped their work for a rest,
they seized William and stretched him out face down on the ground,
taking it in turn to spank his bottom as if he were a child. This was
considered a great humiliation by the Azangans. During the spanking, one
of the women went to pick a small green banana, which she first dipped
in palm nut oil and then, having spread William�s buttocks, inserted
into his anus, to shrieks of laughter from her companions. His pitiful
wails brought the guard, who up to then had sat watching the procedure
with amusement, to intervene. The women, therefore, turned him over on
his back and spreadeagled him to play with his penis, pulling and
rubbing until eventually, to their delight, they induced an erection and
ejaculation. Despite their rough fun at William�s expense, however, the
women were basically good-hearted and afterwards sat him down amongst
them cheerfully and, together with the guard, shared some food.
This kind of explicitly rough handling was rare, however, and William�s
main hardships during these work details outside the prison compound
derived not from gratuitous ill-treatment but from the nature of the
heavy manual work that he had to do, stark naked in the hot sun, with
shackles on his ankles, exposed to the public gaze. He found it hard, at
first, to get used to going naked among so many clothed people, knowing
that these people regarded his punishment as fully justified and derived
satisfaction from his shame and humiliation. Gradually, however, as the
days went by, he became accustomed to his nudity. Not only did he come
to see it as normal that he should go naked, but also that he fully
deserved to suffer this shame, that this humiliation was what he needed
to atone for his crime. Even when he was being thrashed by the guard
before the village people, or when the women and youngsters teased and
tormented him, he submitted mildly, overcome by a feeling almost
tantamount to sensual pleasure at his own abasement. He realized that
the purpose of this enforced public nudity was to inflict shame and
humiliation. It was as essential a part of his punishment as the pain of
a flogging with the rattan cane.
This same feeling of atonement was also present when, after he had been
taken back to the punishment block each day, Sergeant Mbenge devoted her
time to �obedience training� of her special prisoner in the yard,
usually watched by three or four other guards who came along just for
the fun of it. This �training� took various forms. Often it just meant
exhausting exercise, such as marching, running or �duck-waddling� in a
squatting posture up and down the yard for an hour, urged on by stinging
cuts of a thin bamboo switch across his back or thighs. This was usually
followed by a spell in the pillory, where William had to stand, bent at
the waist, helpless and vulnerable, his naked body exposed to whatever
indignities the sergeant or her young women chose to inflict. Again,
William offered no resistance, submitting docilely, accepting whatever
punishment befell him almost with enjoyment. True, he squirmed and
squealed at the torments inflicted on him, which amused his tormentors,
but these torments were relatively mild and basically intended to
humiliate rather than harm. They might have their fun whipping him with
a switch, smacking his bottom, pulling at his genitals, or pinching and
twisting his nipples but in fact, Sergeant Mbenge controlled the young
guards closely, never allowing them to go too far. She knew that Captain
Ndembe did not want him seriously injured She knew that the Captain
wanted a healthy but completely submissive and docile male slave.
William was already well on the way to becoming just that!
************
Captain Ndembe was relaxing in her spacious lounge, sipping a glass of
beer and chatting with her friends, Charity and Ann. Once again those
two ladies had driven out to the prison that morning to witness a
flogging and were now cheerfully discussing the punishment. The culprit
on this occasion was a forty-five year old wealthy business woman, one
Esther Langana, well known for her extravagant social life, with whom
the law had finally caught up. She had not only been falsifying her tax
affairs for some time, but had compounded her offence by foolishly
attempting to bribe Judge Mary Kamanga no less! The tax offence would
have incurred imprisonment or possibly even just a stiff fine, but
attempted bribery of a high government official in Azanga meant jail
with mandatory corporal punishment. Judge Kamanga herself heard the case
and with considerable relish sentenced the miscreant to five years hard
labour and thirty strokes of the cane, the maximum allowed for a female
offender. The case had aroused enormous interest in Azanga, given Esther
Langana�s wealth and prominent position in society, but majority opinion
was that she thoroughly deserved her punishment.
Charity was particularly vehement on the subject. �Yes,� she declared
forcefully. �That woman got what she deserved! How many years has she
cheated our country of its revenue? How many years has she robbed our
beloved President of the money she needs to develop our country and help
our poor people. Oh yes, it gave me great joy to see that woman getting
her fat ass soundly whipped! It�s a pity they couldn�t have flogged her
in the main square of the capital! Sergeant Mbenge should have cut her
ass to ribbons!�
Captain Ndembe and Ann agreed, laughing, as usual, at their friend�s
forthright way of stating her opinions. The flogging had been carried
out in the yard in front of the Captain�s office, before about thirty
members of the Women�s Movement of the Presidential Party, who had been
especially bussed in for the event, and every one of them would have
echoed Charity�s sentiments. Charity herself had, as usual, busily
videoed the whole proceedings, from beginning to end, and could not wait
to have her film processed for later viewing.
�Oh, how I enjoyed seeing that woman standing there as naked as she was
born with her head all shaved! No more thousand dollar dresses from
France for her, eh Florence? No more hand-made shoes from Italy! And did
you see how fat she is? I think Sergeant Mbenge had to work extra hard
to make her feel the cane through all that fat on her ass! And didn�t
she howl! That woman certainly got what was coming to her!�
Captain Ndembe interrupted Charity�s peroration to call for more beer
and ask Charity about the video she had made of William�s punishment.
�Of course,� she said. �I have it here. We can watch it now.�
At that moment, Josephine, the maid, clad in her brown prison dress,
came in to serve the drinks. Charity grinned wickedly and pinched
Josephine�s bottom as she bent to serve her. Then, she went on with her
chatter, at the same time taking the video and placing it in the player.
�And I�m glad you didn�t stop the punishment half-way, as you did with
this white man, Florence. That woman deserved every one of those thirty
strokes!�
�Call Rose in,� said Captain Ndembe to Josephine. �Both of you must see
this. It�s the Englishman, William Maze being flogged. In a couple of
weeks you will have him here working for you!�
Fat Rose came in and stood to one side of the sofa with Josephine while
the ladies sat on the sofa to watch the film. Charity had made a
creditable job of it. Evidently she was improving her video technique
with each punishment that she filmed. They saw the naked William brought
in by the two guards and made to face Captain Ndembe. Rose guffawed and
Josephine giggled as the camera zoomed in on William�s genitals.
�That was very naughty, Charity!� Ann exclaimed, laughing.
They saw the culprit strapped over the A-frame. Again, Charity managed
to record this in detail and made a special point of zooming in on his
upturned buttocks. They saw Sergeant Mbenge selecting her cane and
testing it, and they heard the comments and laughter of the onlookers.
The highlight of the show, of course, was the caning itself. Charity had
done her best to record the impact of each stroke, together with
William�s frantic squirming and pathetic howls. She had also taken some
shots from the front of the A-frame to show the culprit�s agonized
expression as the cane cut across his bare buttocks.
The women thoroughly enjoyed the show, although Charity once again
chided her friend for suspending the punishment �just when it was
getting interesting�, as she put it.
�Don�t worry, Charity,� Captain Ndembe assured her. �He is being taught
a good lesson. I have him on �naked regime� for twenty-eight days. I am
told that he provides great amusement for the village ladies. I think he
has about one more week and then you�ll see him over the A-frame again.
I�ve instructed my women go light on his backside, so that the sergeant
will have a nice fresh ass to cane!�
Captain Ndembe turned to Rose and Josephine, who had been thoroughly
amused by the flogging of this white man, who was soon to join them at
the Captain�s house. �Well, girls, you have just seen your slave! Rose,
you will be in charge of him. He is going to work for you here. What do
you think of him?�
Rose and Josephine laughed. �We will teach him very well, Madam, won�t
we Josephine?�
************
William calculated that he had approximately seven or eight more days of
�naked regime� before his next flogging. By now he had become accustomed
to the grinding routine � early morning cleaning in the punishment cell
block, work detail outside in the village, �training� back in the
punishment block, and finally the long night in his cell, which was for
him the worst part of the whole ordeal. He found that he.was beginning
to positively look forward to being taken out to the village. The people
had now got used to the sight of this naked white man working among
them. As for William, he could not deny the fact that he felt a strange
thrill of masochistic pleasure every time a village woman took some
notice of him, whether just to give his bottom a friendly slap or to
give him a bowl of soup, or when the young boys and girls would gather
around him and smack and tease him as he worked.
His excursions to the village had also become more interesting because
he was now accompanied by a new arrival to the punishment block. She was
none other than Esther Langana, who had been put on �naked regime�
following the judicial caning she had received a few days before. The
unfortunate woman, instead of being pampered by servants, driving to her
hairdresser in a Mercedes or trying on her countless fashionable
dresses, now found herself stark naked with shaven head, heaving and
sweating as she pushed a garbage cart along the village street, driven
with stinging cuts of a bamboo switch across her buttocks, still sore
from the flogging, and suffering the mockery and jeers of the village
people, who were all aware of who she was and who all approved of her
punishment. Without her expensive foundation garments and shoes, without
her make-up and hairdo, she looked what she was � a fat, forty-year-old
African woman, with heavy pendulous breasts, rolls of fat around her
stomach and enormous thighs and buttocks that wobbled comically as she
walked on flat bare feet. William felt immensely sorry for her and did
his best to help her, and even certain guards would intervene to save
her if it looked as if her tormentors were going too far, but no such
sympathy was felt by the people of the village, or indeed by anyone in
Azanga.
As if Esther Langana�s tribulations in the village were not enough, they
were nothing to what the guards inflicted upon her back at the
punishment block. Captain Ndembe had given explicit instructions to
spare her no humiliation and, directed by Sergeant Mbenge and Corporal
Mbaya, they took these orders to heart. William had ceased, temporarily
at least, to be the chief whipping boy. The star inmate was now the
unfortunate Esther Langana and William, standing in the pillory as
usual, was witness to much of her suffering. He saw the wretched woman
made to run around the yard from guard to guard ten or twenty times and
bend before each one to receive ten lashes with the green bamboo
switches until her buttocks were raw. The punishment was only stopped
when Esther collapsed panting to the ground, unable to move.
************
Time, however, was passing and one morning, instead of being shackled
and taken down to the village, William found Sergeant Mbenge waiting for
him at the entrance to the punishment cells together with a young guard.
�Take this prisoner to the medical block. Doctor Patel will examine him.
He�s due for a judicial flogging tomorrow morning,� she ordered curtly.
Although he knew that this day would inevitably arrive, nevertheless
felt a sudden weight like lead in the pit of his stomach. It was a
mixture of fear of the pain and humiliation that awaited him together
with the sense of excitement and thrill that now accompanied every new
experience here in Malembe Prison. He was handcuffed and marched off by
the young guard to the medical block. The examination did not take long.
Apart from some marks left by the whippy green bamboo switches, the
doctor found his skin to be in a fit state to receive a further
flogging. He did not have a chance to speak to Veronica, though he
detected a look of sympathy in her eyes as the doctor announced her
verdict on William�s condition.
The guard now led him back to the punishment block where he was made to
stand facing the wall until Sergeant Mbenge was ready to take him to
Captain Ndembe�s office. Once again, William had that feeling of
unreality and deep humiliation as he stood in the quintessentially
normal atmosphere of this office, the kind of office he had stood or
worked in so often in the past, yet now he was standing there stark
naked before four African women who were discussing in businesslike
tones the details of his forthcoming flogging on his bare buttocks with
a rattan cane before an audience of several dozen women!
�Turn round and show us your behind!� Captain Ndembe snapped. She was
accompanied by her assistant as well as the young secretary.
William obeyed.
�Yes, that�ll be all right,� she said. �Well, 35469, you will receive
the second dose of your sentence tomorrow afternoon at two thirty.
You�ll get fifteen strokes. That will leave a further fifteen strokes to
be administered in twenty-eight days� time. Do you understand?�
�Yes, Madam Captain,� William stammered.
�All right, Sergeant. Take him away. Give him a rest today. Leave him in
his cell. He can think about what�s coming to him tomorrow.�
The four women laughed. William did not. As he was led away he could
think only of one thing.
Tomorrow!
