Chapter 13

(In which she starts Year Five and has her worst moment yet)

The dreaded time of her fourth anniversary came around. It was a Friday and that meant her usual one hundred and a further five hundred from Rashumba. The guard gave her the hundred and wanted to go easy, in view of what she still had in store for her later in the day when Rashumba and James came visiting, but she knew Rashumba would spot it if she hadn't given Clemmy her due and so she was sore and softened up for Rashumba's marathon session.

Rashumba prefaced her whipping with her usual insulting remarks about Clementine's rank stench and verminous condition, which made her feel low and despicable even though it was hardly her fault. Then came the five hundred lashes. Rashumba might have put on weight and be too slow to beat Clementine in a fight but she was still strong. She paused after every fifty in order to recoup her strength and get her breath back. When she had finished she was near to collapse and went straight to bed as soon as James had driven her home.

"I am getting a bit too old to whip that bitch, darling! But I did a good job on her, didn't I? She was out cold at the end. That'll teach her to cross me. Next year I'll get the guards to share the task with me. And that silly little whip isn't heavy enough for her. She needs something a bit more cutting. Something longer, not like the one Viola and I used for our act, but better than the one we use on her now. It's getting too easy for her!"

"She did pass out, darling."

"True. But I want a bigger whip for her, all the same. These Friday whippings are a joke, James. The one she got today before I really laid into her, had hardly broken the skin. I want blood on a Friday, James. Blood! Her blood! Do you hear me?"

James indicated that he heard her only to well.

As for Clementine, Rashumba had indeed been laying into her unconscious body for much of the last hundred, despite constant dousing with ice cold water. When she was cut down the wretched girl collapsed, unable to move. It was obvious that she could not work next day. To her surprise, when she regained consciousness, she saw that she had been brought into the sanatorium rather than being unceremoniously dumped back in the cage. They allowed her a week to recover and treated her back with something which stung at first and made her scream but took away all the pain within minutes. Alexia told her that, although still scarred, her skin looked better than it had for years.

Then she was told something that made her exult. Rashumba was to be her next opponent! This was a stupid move on the African girl's part and James knew it as well as Clementine. Even if she got badly flogged before the fight, Clementine was sure she would still win. And, in any event, the authorities would almost certainly not allow her to go into the ring showing fresh scars. Even her regulatory weekly whippings, of which she had now received over forty, were always suspended the week before a fight and doubled up next week. There was no way she would lose!

James and Clemmy were right! Although a naked Rashumba was still a great sight, she was not the Rashumba of four years ago. That ridged abdomen was fleshier and she looked to Clemmy like an easy opponent this time. It would take more than a few visits to a gym to get her up to Clemmy's standard!

All the horrors of the last four years and two months were expunged from her mind when she stood in triumph over her unconscious tormentor. She had worn the black girl down with a merciless attack and suffered very little herself, being almost unmarked and Rashumba was a mess. Clemmy could have knocked her opponent out in seconds if she had wished, but chose instead to inflict dreadful injuries before delivering the brutal but merciful sledgehammer blow that finally felled her. Rashumba thought of giving up but her pride would not let her. So she vainly tried to avoid Clementine's fists as they aimed blow after punishing blow and her feet as they slammed into all parts of her body. She was knocked down many times but kept getting up again in the vain hope of getting back into the fight, but it was hopeless and finally she went down and stayed down. After ten minutes, Rashumba recovered consciousness and was taken away by James, sobbing in rage and shame. On getting home she took to her bed where she spent three weeks recovering. Clementine went back to the cage and the applause of all the other women, who knew too well, just what this had meant to the tortured girl after so many months of humiliated agony.

Clementine overheard from a conversation between two of the guards that Rashumba had gone away again, presumably to Paris and wondered when or if she would get to revisit the city where she had met Viola and so painfully won her love in that wood. She was beginning to doubt it, knowing that she would never get another chance to escape. Her only hope was rescue and everyone at home thought she was dead. All her thoughts these days were concentrated on survival. At the end of her sentence, if her behaviour from now on was satisfactory, she hoped to become a guard herself. But she would never forget Viola, even though she no longer had any hope of seeing her again.

Two weeks after Rashumba had hauled her disgraced carcass off to Paris, Clementine was in the ring again, this time fighting a new opponent and in a fight with new and exciting rules. She jogged up and down and watched her latest foe. She was a big girl, this one, and it looked like she was facing a real challenge for once! She was glad about that. The danger of losing and the pain of being on the receiving end of good hard blows was all part of the thrill! She looked down at her hands and her stomach churned inside her.

"That sort of glove is called a heavy cestus, darling" Alexia had told her. "The Greeks and Romans wore them in their boxing contests. They do awful damage. Aren't you scared? I am. I'm bloody scared and I don't mind telling you. But I'll fight bravely, darling, as I always do. I just wish it wasn't Olga again!"

"Nothing scares me, Alexia. Only losing and being thought a coward." Clementine spoke the plain truth here!

These gloves were going to wreak havoc on that body in the opposite corner! And then she looked at the other girl's hands and wondered what a few good punches from them would do to her. She was soon to find out and she couldn't wait to get started.

For the first time in her fighting career, Clementine was not to fight bare-fisted. Her hardened, scarred hands had gloves on this time - and what gloves! These were not only leather, but studded with metal and designed to cut skin and break bones. As long as the broken bones weren't hers! Then the bell went and both fighters stepped into the middle of the ring.

James was alone this evening and he was relieved not to have Rashumba's voice next to him, hysterically urging whoever was up against Clemmy to knock her out. He no longer expected Clementine to be defeated, sensing how vital it was for the girl to keep winning in order to stay at the top. This new refinement had been suggested by the company marketing the fight videos. The earlier fights had sold well but not well enough. James had been told to spice them up by fitting the women with these lethal gloves and that Clementine's fights must be included in any future videos.

"She's far and away the best, James. I can't think what it is that makes you leave her videoed bouts off the final product. From now on, she's the star. OK? And clean her up a bit before future bouts. The wild look's fine up to a point, but can be overdone!"

James was forced to agree, although he was not too worried. It was highly unlikely that Clementine would be recognised. She had few friends and none of them was likely to buy a video and see one of her fights. It was very much a minority interest and the chance of Clemmy's death being questioned after four years was not worth losing sleep over.

He watched apprehensively as the two fighters came to the centre of the ring and circled each other tentatively, each trying to get the measure of her foe, now that they were facing each other for the first time. Clemmy struck first and the other girl moved her head in time to avoid the blow, at the same time lashing out at Clemmy with her left and bare foot. Clemmy was not so worried about feet making contact but she winced as this particular foot struck her. It was not going to be a walkover for her. She staggered slightly and then the other woman's glove rammed into her.

Clemmy had the merest split second to dodge that flying fist and the impact was a fraction of that intended. It hurt, though and that wretched cut had been opened again, and only seconds into the fight! This was a poor start and she could feel the disapproval of her fellow cage women.

"Come on, Clemmy" muttered James. "You can do better than that!"

He was soon reassured as his former girlfriend got into her stride and landed a beautifully timed straight right on the other woman, making her blink and drawing a stream of blood from her rather experienced looking nose. James could see that both these young ladies had seen plenty of action in their short lives. He judged them to be about the same age. The other girl was called Amanda and she was a visitor to Abhlovia and here by courtesy of James's boss. She had only agreed to take part in the fight on condition it was time limited and broken into three minute rounds with one minute intervals. She had reluctantly agreed to the absence of both seconds and a referee. The two fighters came to the end of the first of fifteen rounds with honours even. Clemmy had a cut over her eye - again - and Amanda had a bleeding and possibly broken nose. Both looked as if they couldn't wait for the bell to sound for the second round.

The crowd were not as noisy as some that Clementine remembered. But this was because both girls were being cautious. They both knew, after the first exchange that it hurt to be hit with the gloves they were wearing and were less keen to trade punches than they might otherwise have been. It seemed that the old bare fisted fights were better and more full of action. Then Clementine decided she was bored with this pussy footing around. She liked a proper fight, not this tentative stuff, and if that meant getting hurt, then so be it! She opened up with a series of four rapid-fire punches, all of which landed on various parts of the fast moving Amanda, although not on her jaw where Clemmy was aiming.