Chapter 7

The woods seemed to go on and on, broken only by the odd deserted cottage and broken stonework which must have represented some old temple or other. The two friends found very little to eat, but resourcefulness was a new skill they'd learnt: they'd actually prepared for this long walk by buying more food with them than they could eat in a single sitting. And fucking heavy it was too. As they plodded along, they wondered whether there might not be some wild animals in the wood, but the fiercest animals they saw were feral dogs who seemed as frightened of them as the girls were of the dogs.

Their route ran parallel to a tall wall, some twenty feet high, which delineated the purple area on the map. They walked close by the wall for a few hours, as it was a sure way of ensuring they didn't lose where they were on the map; but then they caught sight of some police marching along the edge of the wall in the distance. They were striding aggressively forward in leathers, carrying sub-machine guns and wearing dildos strapped around their waists. They were making no effort to avoid being seen, but even so Sharon and Tracey thought it would be unwise to encounter them. They'd learnt enough from Tiger Lilly what police attention might entail.

So, while the police were still several hundred metres away and loudly talking to each other, the two girls took the diversion of a lesser path through the woods that was clearly enough marked, and from which could still be seen the shadow of the wall. They hid behind a tree as the police marched by, trembling slightly at the thought of being discovered. It was only when they were sure the police had gone, they emerged and continued their scrambling, stumbling walk through the shadows of the forest; all the while being able to glimpse the unwelcoming grey and granite brickwork of the wall through the snatches of light through the trees.

The two girls continued their walk through the forest for all the rest of the day, often regretting the comfort of the ciggies they'd finished and missing the familiar taste of chips and burgers. It was a dispiriting day's walk. The woods went on and on, with only the occasional gap in the trees where they could rest in the sun on the slightly damp moss, amongst weeds and the occasional small flower. Their legs attracted stings and scratches which left unhealthy bluish colours amongst a lattice of small reddish lines and the occasional reddish or even yellowish blemish. At least it wasn't so hot, but they still didn't risk putting on any more clothes than the small blouses Primrose had lent them. They worried about the midges and other small insects that nestled in the growing hair of their vaginas, but the odd sting between the thighs was as nothing compared to the constant ache of their legs and the far more unpleasant stings that their bare ankles seemed to especially attract.

As they walked, the only evidence of their not being lost was the wall, and the only recognisable land-mark on their map; so whatever they did they didn't stray too far from it. But the penalty of walking through the woods were even more scratches from the odd brambles, bruises, stings; and now they were getting awful red marks on their shoulders as a result of the weight of the food pulling down on the shoulder straps of their bags. Sharon had a nasty scratch from a tree that trailed across one of her breasts. Tracey had a bruise just above her eye where she had hit a branch which was beginning to swell up and was starting to challenge the prominence of the one Tiger Lilly had bestowed on Sharon's eye.

They had an uncomfortable night's sleep in the shadow of the trees, heartily tired of the food they had brought to eat, gasping for ciggies, as nicotine withdrawal began to really kick in, and finding it impossible to find a patch of ground where there were no insects, mulch or brambles. They had seen no one during the day except the brief sight of the police, and no evidence that anyone lived anywhere near where they were. On the map, the purple patch delineated by the wall stretched on for dozens of kilometres, whilst in the other direction, the green which marked the forest they were in seemed to stretch even further in all directions. But eventually, the map showed both forest and purple enclosure coming to an abrupt end by an area of light blue, which must be a lake or reservoir or something.

The following day was no less dispiriting, as Tracey and Sharon continued their bare-arsed walk through the woods. They were no less tired, and irritable, and found even the smallest conversation more and more difficult. Sharon comforted herself by swearing constantly, while Tracey found that she was somehow unable to stop herself from a miserable kind of sobbing. Whenever it was necessary to talk to each other, it was in monosyllabic grunts relating to practical things that had to be done. Both of them feared the consequences of vocalising the increasing desperation they were feeling. They were lonely, hungry, tired, aching and anxious.

Despair was steadily growing at the sight of yet more imposing trees and the monotony of green, with no human company. And then they came to a clearing in the woods lit by a golden beam from the sun which burst through the shadows of the trees and illuminated some blue and yellow flowers that flourished in the glow. And there, like a dream or an illustration in a fairy tale, was probably the most beautiful girl that either Sharon or Tracey had ever seen.

She was walking about uncertainly, and seemed as glad as Sharon and Tracey to be in such a relatively beautiful part of the forest. She had golden hair which cascaded to her waist. She had a beautiful slender figure. Her breasts reflected in the sun with contours normally only seen in classical sculptures. She wore no clothes at all; and the lightly tanned flesh of her skin radiated a faintly golden glow. Neither Sharon nor Tracey had spoken to anyone for nearly two days, but they were both struck by a sudden shyness. Was it reluctance in meeting a stranger. Or perhaps it was the feeling of being utterly outclassed by a stranger.

The girl looked in their direction with no fear and no similar shyness. "Hello there," announced the girl, smiling broadly and welcomingly. Her teeth shone in the dappled sunlight with a whiteness the girls had only ever seen before on toothpaste commercials. "My name's Buttercup. What are yours?"

"Tracey," announced Tracey, dropping her bag and feeling a strange burning warmth creep up from her breast to her forehead.

"And I'm Sharon," said her friend, approached the girl and taking note of just how different from all the people in Buggery they'd seen since they'd left Throb. Just like the people they'd seen on Buggery television, she was totally naked with no hint of any tan-lines or clothing. Similarly like everyone on television, all her pubic and other bodily hair was shaved off, although a trace of stubble betrayed a couple of days of neglect. And there was the ubiquitous small ring dangling from the lips of her vagina.

"Where am I? Am I near a town?" Buttercup asked innocently.

"No fucking way," said Sharon. She pulled the map out of her bag and opened it up on the ground. Buttercup knelt down and looked at it with a quizzical air. She frowned as if trying to comprehend what she was looking at. "It's a long fucking way to the nearest town, I'm afraid," Sharon continued circling a finger over the approximate area that they were. "How come you don't know? Don't you live round here?"

Buttercup looked at Tracey and Sharon with a frown, as if she were only just beginning to realise that the girls were not themselves local. She examined their faces and smiled broadly at Tracey, who still stood several metres back, perhaps aware of the curious affect she was having on the girl. "Can't you guess?" she asked. "Isn't it obvious? Don't you know who, or what, I am."

"No," Sharon answered bluntly, looking up from the map. After showing the map, she was more concerned by the fact that although she knew that on the map they were in the green bit around the purple bit, they had no idea how much of the green bit they still had to walk through. She hoped it wasn't too much more.

"We don't come from this country," offered Tracey as a sort of explanation. "We're tourists."

"Really! I can't believe it! Are you really?" asked Buttercup, looking at Tracey's friend for confirmation. Sharon nodded. "I suppose it must be true if you say so. But what you doing so far from the tourist resorts? At least, I didn't think there were any tourist resorts near here."

Tracey spoke and was surprised by how cracked her voice was and how thick it was with an emotion she didn't really understand. "We were on holiday in Throb. And we couldn't pay our bill. So we done a bunk. And we've been walking to Gomorrah."

"Even though there's a war?"

"Apparently, we stand a much better chance than by going via the normal channels. And anyway there's only the sea or Sodom to choose between otherwise."

"No choice at all," admitted Buttercup. "Unless you're very good swimmers."

"We've had a fucking awful time since we left Throb," Sharon elaborated. "It's been so fucking hard. We got beat up by a fucking teacher. And we've had nothing decent to eat. And we ain't even had any fucking ciggies. Buggery's a fucking awful country. No fucking disrespect meant. It being your fucking country and all. But it's one fucking shitty, pissing awful place. There's been fucking nothing to recommend it to fucking anyone."

"So you're fugitives," smiled Buttercup warmly as Tracey nervously walked towards her. "I'm a fugitive too, you know. From the Royal Court. Well, not quite the Royal Court: but from behind the Big Wall. I've just escaped."

"How did you manage that?"

"It wasn't easy. But I used to make love with one of the guards quite often and I managed to steal her keys. I had to kill her, though. It wasn't pleasant and it certainly wasn't easy, but when you've been behind the wall that's not so difficult. There was so much blood though. She took so long to die! But she'd have been killed anyway when they'd found I'd escaped. And I've been free for two days now. No food. No people. Nothing. But free!"

"Was it so fucking awful behind the wall?" wondered Sharon. "It's been so shitty on this side of the wall, we just couldn't imagine it being worse on the other side."

"It is hell! You just can't believe! And you foreigners probably can't believe it anyway. I'd never believed it possible. Like all my classmates I'd been brought up to believe in a much more pleasant world than this. Like all the other girls in my school, we'd been prepared as sacrificial virgins. We were taught how to love, and never even knew that clothes ever existed. We watched Buggery television: and as far as we knew that's what real life was really like."

Buttercup sat down cross-legged, and the two other girls sat down beside her: Tracey stretched out on the ragged grass and Sharon with her knees pulled up to her chin. "I enjoyed school. I was good at lessons and was always amongst the best girls in the sex lessons. We all looked forward to the day when we'd go to the Royal Court and meet His Royal Highness. Our only dreams were to be fucked by the King and maybe his Queen. We masturbated every day in Regal Studies over his image and believed that he would be the greatest lover in the world.

"When we were fifteen, just two years ago, our school years were over. Most girls (the ones we didn't think were so lucky) were taken out of school to become teachers, actresses or sex hostesses for the tourist industry. We thought we were the blessed ones as we were packed together in luxury carriages in such a frenzy of excitement to head to the world behind the wall."

Buttercup sighed, and then smiled broadly at Tracey. "Oh! It's so good to meet some friendly faces. I've not met anyone since I escaped. I thought I'd never meet anyone. How long have you been in the woods?"

"Too fucking long!" grunted Sharon.

"What was it like behind the wall?" asked Tracey, somehow too shy too use perjoratives as freely as her friend.

"We'd been told what to expect. It would be such a glorious place to be and above all we would have the privilege of serving at the Royal Court. We'd lose our virginity, and then we'd live in a world of luxury several times greater than that we'd been used to.

"At first when we'd arrived behind the wall, it seemed that it was true. The degree of luxury the nobility enjoy is incredible. As we were driven along we saw enormous palaces, gardens, swimming pools, gold statues everywhere. It seemed like we'd died and gone to heaven. The carriage stopped and we were escorted out of the carriage by women wearing clothes. It was the first time in our lives any of us had ever seen clothes. And it was a shock. The entire concept of clothing had just never occurred to us. The idea was so totally foreign. In actual fact, these women weren't wearing that many clothes and what they were was all made of rubber. They certainly didn't cover their groin or breasts, but they were skin-tight. They also wore make-up (which we'd seen on television) but not applied so thickly and unnaturally. Each of us were chaperoned by a single woman who took us away from our friends. I've never seen any of my friends from school ever again.

"The woman who took me was quite rough. She took me into a chamber and started making love to me in a loveless way I'd never had love made to me before. When she'd finished, she washed me with soap and cream in the most solicitous way. Then she announced that I was officially classified as a Beta Plus. 'What does that mean?' I asked. 'It means, my love, that you won't have your virginity taken by the Royal Family. And certainly not by His Magnificent Royal Highness (May He Live Forever)!' At that time there was a different King. He certainly didn't live forever. 'Only Alpha Plus girls get that privilege.' She said. 'But you're still very lucky. You're assigned to the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, His Grandiloquence, The Baron of White Flower.' And indeed that's where I did go. And nobody ever told me that sex could be so horrible!"