Chapter 12

Sharon's recollection of her rape and that of Sweetness by the Buggery soldiers was confused and painful. She had never known that sex could be so horrible, and she was sure she'd known horrible sex before. Even non-consensual, when the bloke in the car park who she'd been avoiding all night had fucked her in that brutal way. But that was almost fun compared to the horrors of the brutal and seemingly never-ending rape she'd endured on the Buggery battlefield. She knew that her arse and cunt were being violated repeatedly, but it was only pain and humiliation and fear that she was fully aware of. Surely by now they'd had enough, she'd thought as once again her dry and unwilling cunt was penetrated by which prick she didn't know. She could see through the tears that clouded her eyes and the blackness that threatened her consciousness, that Sweetness was being treated no less brutally than herself. How could sex be so bad? She'd always associated it with pleasure, and now all she could do was hope and pray that it would be over soon. But no chance! Yet another of those peculiarly permanently stiff penises pushed through the bruised and ripped lips of her cunt and pushed into her far deeper than she was properly able to take it. And the violence wasn't just restricted to just her arse and cunt. She was forcibly held down and her arms stung from the force of the soldier's grip while she her mouth and nose burrowed into the dry earth. Every time she stirred in any way that could be interpreted as resistance, and resisting was what she couldn't help doing, she was punched or kicked.

She barely registered the world around her. Was it day or was it night? Sweetness was screaming in misery and distress. "Joy! Joy!" she gasped as another man's khaki-coloured buttocks fell on top of her and thrust brutally in and out of her. It was with an extra degree of disgust that she noticed that the soldier's sexual attentions were not limited to the two girls. They would grasp each other's balls, suck each other's dicks, and she was sure she saw two soldiers fucking each other. In fact, she was fucking certain, as one soldier's buttocks descended onto the buttocks of the soldier fucking Sweetness, pushing his prick in with far less resistance than he'd have found in Sharon's cunt and pushed backwards and forwards in a manic fashion gasping orgasmically in the same rhythm as Sweetness' cries of pain.

And then, she didn't recall how, they were dragged along, their knees bleeding from when they staggered and fell, just as did their orifices from their punishment, away from the smoking ruins of the bombed factory for how long Sharon didn't know. But each step was an agony. Each stumble, and its attendant kicks and blows from the soldiers, another even greater agony. She could barely see where they were: the tears in her eyes clouded everything despite the bright sun. She repeated Tracey's name again and again without knowing why, punctuated by every fucking shitting bastard swear word in her vocabulary. Loud enough she was sure to be heard by anyone with an ear to her cut lip, but not to the soldiers. Occasionally, a drop of blood, from her nose or from her cheek, she didn't know, would trail into her mouth and cause her to cough despite the pain this gave to her bruised ribs.

And then, at last, no more walking. Sweetness and she were in a dark tent where only the patches of sun through the black tarpaulin allowed sufficient illumination for her to see where she was. She collapsed from pain and exhaustion, pleased only that the worst agonies were over; and then the darkness that had bubbled in the recesses of her mind overwhelmed her and that was the last she could remember.

When she awoke, she didn't know when, she was able to examine the tent where they had been left. There was very little to it. There were some wooden boxes and crates, and the bare uneven ground on which the tent had been erected. Behind her was a metal post pushed into the ground, and from that came a metal chain which was attached to her left ankle and restricted her to less than a yard in which she could crawl, and was not long enough to permit her to stand. She wasn't alone in the tent. She could see the shadowy figure of Sweetness, similarly chained to a metal post, just outside her reach, and she could hear an incoherent sobbing.

Not wholly incoherent. Occasionally, Sharon could distinguish the name 'Joy', but otherwise there was nothing that made sense. Despite her own pain and misery, Sharon felt an overwhelming emotion of pity for the girl. Being blind, her shock and horror must have been compounded by her helplessness and by her ignorance as to exactly what horrors had been meted on her. Sweetness raised her face and looked in her direction, her eyes registering nothing, a black bruise swelling on her right cheek and eyes, and dried blood and snot on her upper lip. "Joy! Joy! Where are you?" she moaned, and then buried her face into the palms of her hands.

Here they were, somewhere. Alive at least. With nothing. This hadn't worried Sharon before. Her very life had been her chief concern. But now she was sure. Her blouse was removed, thrown aside no doubt in the rape. Her sandals that she'd bought in the high street when she and Tracey were happily planning the holiday: gone forever, trampled into the dusty fields outside. And her bag, with her passport, money and possessions, gone also. Never to be seen again. Along with her last hopes of ever leaving Buggery by the normal process of border control. Would she ever see home again? Would she even survive to see the world beyond the tent? What would become of her?

Or of Sweetness? Did she even know that Joy had been blown to pieces? Or that the factory where she'd lived was now nothing but rubble and smoke? She gazed at the young girl sadly. So thin. So helpless. And she must have led such a sad life. Fucking for a living. And a living that had been a dank hole in the ground, in a Kingdom where her very blindness was as good as a death sentence. Whose situation was worse? Sharon who'd had at least some good times in the smoky night-clubs and damp car parks of home? And even had the best fucks of her life not so many days ago? Or Sweetness who'd known nothing but misery and despair ever since her sightless emergence into the world? Strangely, contemplating Sweetness' dire straits made her own seem the more bearable and in a curious way a source of some guilty comfort.

Sharon pulled her naked bruised body over the earth and leaned out a hand in Sweetness' direction. She couldn't quite reach the girl, but Sweetness heard her movements. Her face lit up and her sightless eyes looked in her direction with a disconcerting vacuousness. "Joy! Is that you?" she gasped.

"It's me. Sharon."

"Sharon? The tourist. Where's Joy?"

"Joy's dead. There's no more Joy."

"Dead. No Joy!" Sweetness weeped, but she'd clearly already half-reconciled herself to this possibility, not erupting into the hysteria of tears that Sharon had feared. "How did she die? What happened? Where am I?"

Sharon explained to Sweetness as best she could what had happened and where they were. And rehearsed as much to herself as for Sweetness' benefit the horrors they had been through. She talked and she talked, disjointedly, ramblingly, punctuated with questions of how Sweetness was, less from a need to know and more from a need to hear Sweetness reply through the globules of tears, mucus and blood in her mouth. Every now and then, Sweetness would interject with "Joy. Joy's dead. She's dead." She was evidently trying to comprehend the enormity of her situation.

The flaps of the tent briefly parted, letting in a flood of daylight, and the tall slim figure of a young man entered. He seemed peculiarly delicate and somehow awkward. He was clearly a soldier, and like the soldiers who'd raped the two girls he was naked and his entire skin was dyed khaki. He differed only in that he carried a holster around his left shoulder and had several stripes tattooed onto his right shoulder. He was also had a normal flaccid penis. He walked over to the girls and crouched in front of them.

"I'm Sergeant Moss. I'm the commander of this camp since the colonel was killed yesterday. How are you? Not feeling too bad I hope?"

Sharon stared at him, barely able to hide the hostility from her gaze. "What do you fucking think? I feel fucking awful. And when are you gonna let us go, you bastard?"

The young man sighed. "I'm afraid that's not possible. You're spoils of war, I'm afraid. Escape is just not possible. The soldiers need some R&R, you know. And you're unfortunate enough to have to provide it for them. I'm deeply sorry for you. It wasn't my choice. But war is war. And you are victims of it."

"You fucking shit! Fucking let us free. I don't fucking care about what your fucking soldiers want. And anyway haven't they fucking done enough?"

"I can't apologise enough for the violence and brutality of my men. What they did to you was inexcusable. Rape is one of the worst crimes there is. Short of murder, of course. But this is war. We've sustained a colossal amount of injury in the last day. The colonel's gamble just didn't pay off. The Gomorrans gave us far more of a drubbing than we'd expected. At least a thousand men died yesterday and last night, and most of our supplies were destroyed by the bombing raids. But I don't expect you to sympathise with my men. All I can offer as comfort is the observation that at least my men didn't kill you."

"Didn't what they do to us... wasn't that fucking enough?"

"Rape is normal in war. My men haven't had sex with a woman for years. Many of them have never fucked a woman before. But like it or not my men probably saved your lives. The Gomorran soldiers are not known for their mercy. They would also have raped you - just as they would have raped any of my soldiers - but it's unlikely they'd have let you live. And you were in the heart of a battle field. Gunfire, mines, bombs. Your chances of survival were very low. I doubt whether very many others in that settlement of yours managed to wake up this morning..."