Chapter 8

(In which there is Love for Clementine, a fight and more pain).

"It's been a month since your last flogging, Clemmy" said Alexia encouragingly. As she spoke, she was looking at that strong and much whipped back, running the tips of her fingers down the ridge of the spine, making Clementine shiver pleasurably. Her skin might have been thickened and desensitised after the savage treatment it had endured of late, but she could still enjoy those sweet caresses from Alexia!

No matter what abuse had been heaped on it, Clementine's back was still a very handsome sight - straight and strong as ever. Alexia felt the muscles beneath that scarred and roughened skin. They were responding to the hard work Clemmy had been forced to do. By now she was a different person to the already strong girl who had been plunged into this inferno of suffering just a few months ago. Alexia bent down and kissed the top of Clemmy's head.

"I think you're ready to fight Olga now. You look really strong, darling. Strong and beautiful. You are so powerful, Clementine! This terrible life of slavery is killing the rest of us, but it seems to agree with you."

"Yeah. I guess so!" she finally said. "I was always fond of the outdoor life and plenty of exercise. I'd sooner not be here, even so! And, yes I can take Olga now, but it'll be the mother and father of whippings this time. Certainly two hundred, possibly even more - who knows? I wonder if I'm up to it all! It gets no easier to bear, Alexia. Each time they order me to be punished I feel the same sick fear as they take me over to that wall and chain me to the rings. And it still hurts, even if my skin is thicker by this time than any other woman's here."

The others got whipped too, but less often than Clementine, and their punishments were counted out in tens. Clemmy often got hers in hundreds by this time. She had been told that she would never get less that a hundred in future, as a result of James and his mistress putting pressure on the staff.

"You! Of course you are up to it. Especially after what you've been through. And you never look scared when they take you to be punished." Alexia caressed her friend's back again. "That skin's like leather! Tougher than leather. You're a real iron woman, Clementine - better than any of us already! Go and smash that Olga and become the boss. We're all with you, you know!"

Clementine smiled at Alexia's fulsome praise. Alexia was a strong girl herself, like all the cage women, but she had taken to Clementine right away, being the same age, and the two had become lovers from the first. On the second day after Rashumba had come back and made the guards give her victim a second and more horrible thrashing, the two had stayed awake all night, as Alexia did her best to ease the newcomer's anguish, discomfort and distress.

They had exchanged stories and Alexia's had been a very sad one. Her husband had always beaten his child bride. He had been a drunkard and in his rages he would beat the girl to a pulp, despite the fact that Alexia was a big young woman and able to defend herself if she wished. But she didn't wish. She was a gentle person, despite her strength and had been schooled into thinking a woman must obey her man and submit herself to him. But she knew she was drawn to other women and this had led to her downfall. Her husband had found her lying with another young girl, an old school companion, and angrily thrown this person out of the house, but not before half-killing her. Then he had started on Alexia and this time she fought back like a tigress, not for her herself but because what he had done to her lover had finally driven her over the edge. Unfortunately she had hit her husband too hard and he was knocked out, never to recover.

The husband was still alive, Alexia had told her, but a vegetable. They had not been able to charge her with murder, but she had still got ten years. She had been here a year now and like Clemmy had been singled out for the cage, both because she was considered violent like all the other cage women and was strong and big for a woman. She had been working in the quarry for six months now after a stint at the gravel workings. She preferred the quarry, as she had been the sole cage woman at the gravel diggings and the other prisoners had constantly jeered at her nudity.

Clemmy still could not forget Viola, but there would always be a bond with dear Alexia. She guessed with a pang of misery, that Alexia was what she would have to make do with in any case! If only she could know that Viola was well and reasonably happy. She dreaded the idea that those two demons might go after her, but guessed that James's and Rashumba's fury was chiefly directed at her.

Her first week had been pure hell on earth. She might have been able to get out of the mire if Rashumba had not interfered with such effect. But that second terrible flogging had almost done for her. She got a dozen lashes on her second day at the quarry, and much the same daily for seven long weeks thereafter. She was not to know but Rashumba and James were in Paris.

Then, gradually she completed her quotas and went for days at a time without beatings. Her strength returned and she only got three really bad beatings over two months. Now she was well and strong again. Alexia was right! It was time to sort Olga out once and for all!

She walked deliberately towards Olga, who was surrounded by a half dozen girls, all huddled against the biting cold. Clemmy and Alexia had each other's bodies and wanted no other source of warmth, except occasionally when Sveta disengaged from the pack and they made an amorous threesome!

"Fight, everyone!" said Clemmy. "Come on you ugly stinking cow. Come and be half killed!"

Olga responded but not too enthusiastically. She guessed that she would have a hard job beating Clemmy, who already had a reputation for hardihood and strength. They had been upping her quotas for weeks now and she was fulfilling them with ease. Her body made everyone marvel, even the guards who were getting quite proud of the young foreigner with her fair hair and proud bearing. Clemmy was stamping her authority on her companions and gaining the grudging respect of the staff. The coming victory over Olga would lift her morale no end. That famous optimism was already beginning to help her rise above the miseries of her long imprisonment.

The women crowded around and the two started at it. Olga got in the first blow and Clemmy fell back into the crowd who pushed back towards the other woman and straight into a great punch which opened up the Rashumba created cut again. This time she kept her balance and rocked Olga with a lovely combination which had the women cheering wildly and Olga wilting. This was going to be SO easy!

James and Rashumba were just back from Paris and at her insistence, they had gone to see how the hated Clementine was doing. Rashumba looked at the work returns and punishment sheets and was angry to see that Clementine had not been whipped for a month.

"Can't you increase her quotas?" she asked the head guard, her eyes flashing venom,

"We are and she seems to eat work. She's strong, Madam. Very strong. We watch out for the slightest infringement and we pounce. But if she obeys the rules, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. Would you like to see the cage for yourself? They are all back from the quarry."

Rashumba and James followed the guard to the observation window. The guard handed a pair of powerful binoculars to Rashumba who adjusted them and trained them on the huddled group of shivering detainees. She saw that Clementine and another girl were standing apart.

"Why aren't those two with the others?" asked Rashumba.

"They seem not to feel the cold too much." lied the guard. She knew about the love affair and guessed that Rashumba would try to get Alexia moved if she found out, as a way of making Clemmy's life more truly miserable. She'd find out in time, of course!

This was when Clemmy made her move. Rashumba watched, spellbound as the fight started and Clemmy soon began to get the upper hand after that first bloody setback.

"I'd better go and break that up before Olga gets hurt," said the guard, but Rashumba motioned her to stay put.

"Let it go its course. Let that bitch have her triumph and then I'll have a very nasty surprise for her. Two nasty surprises!"

The three watched as Clementine mercilessly and methodically demolished the unfortunate Olga. Finally after a much shorter time than the famous duel with Rashumba, Olga lay unconscious on the frost covered ground. Clementine waved the others away from the fallen ex-leader, who was left to pick herself up and stagger towards the others, all of whom backed away.

"I thought so! Olga's now the ex-leader and Clementine has taken over. I'm glad, although she must be punished very severely. I wonder if one of them will be willing to use the whip on her. I doubt it! It will have to be a guard!. I'll see to it and get Olga moved indoors before she freezes to death." said the guard.

"Let Olga freeze!" sneered Rashumba. "As a punishment for not beating that cow. And now for my surprise number one! Give me the whip. I'll administer the whipping myself. I'm very good at it as that proud bitch is about to find out!"

The guard made to protest but James nodded. He had seen Rashumba at work many times and couldn't wait to see his present love flog his former girlfriend.

To the others' astonishment, Rashumba slowly removed all her clothes. She grinned.

"I do my best work naked. Ask James! I know it's bloody cold, but I'm going to warm myself up on that white back and make it red! Bye darling! " and she bent down and kissed James lightly on the mouth.

Clemmy stood waiting for the guard to come to flog her. None of the other prisoners would be expected to do it. She was the leader now and the guards would respect that. She did not have long to wait! Three guards came out of the guardroom and she was soon tied up in the by now familiar position. Her heart raced and seemed about to escape from her ribcage. She was frightened to death. She had not grown to like her whippings, although she was as hard as any of the women after all this time. Let's get it over with, she thought. It was the waiting that always played havoc.

She was not prepared to hear that voice again! Although she realised that that black nemesis had never been far away these last painful months.

"Hello again Clementine. How do enjoy being my guest?"

"Your guest! Since when are you in charge around here?"

"Well. Let's say I have influence and you are here and here for over eleven more long, hard and painful years, because of me and what you did to me in that wood."

"It was a fair fight. I beat you fair and square. And you survived. If you had won, I'd have had to live with it, hard though it would have been. Why can't you?"

"Because I'm ME! No one ever gets in my way and goes unpunished. So you're being punished, Clementine. How do you like your punishment thus far?"

"Not much. But I'm surviving, as you can see!"

"Surviving! Yes! And I intend to see you go on surviving. Surviving and suffering, Be honest with me! You have suffered, haven't you? HAVEN'T YOU!!!!"

"I have suffered agonies I never dreamed possible and always they can come up with fresh misery and fresh torment to surpass that which I've already endured. They're masters of pain here. I don't suppose I've seen the worst of it yet, either. Does that make you happy, Rashumba?"

"Happy enough, for now. In a few years time I'll be even happier. I'll keep coming back to make sure they make it harder and harder for you. You'll never know happiness again, you bitch!"

"And now for your latest in a long, long series of whippings. I won't kiss your back like I did to Viola. I loved her and I detest you. I only want to inflict pain on that back. Plenty of pain. Who was the best punisher you've known here? Who made every lash count and made you wish you were dead?"