The Meradka Quarry was an ugly grey slash in the landscape. It looked completely out of place set amongst the green wooded hills of the Ausitanian countryside, surrounded as it was by four high observation towers and three metre high electrified razor wire. It was a miniature version of the Soviet Gulags and was reserved for the most dangerous and vilified criminals. The newly elected all female administration had identified just seventy nine men, all of them serving sentences for murder, rape or serious violence against women. Between them these men were expected to mine and dress fifty tons of a granite every week. Virtually all of this was exported to become the kitchens and bathrooms of the wealthy, providing a healthy income for the exchequer.
Conditions within the penal colony were unremittingly bleak. All the men were routinely dressed in orange jumpsuits emblazoned with their numbers on the backs. Once booked into Meradka their names became a thing of the past. Apart from the quarry itself the site contained two large wooden dormitory huts and a canteen for the men as well as a small modern office block. Martina Kokoska the chief officer at the camp watched from her window as the working parties headed out to the quarry to begin their day’s work. They were being marched in columns of six, strung out in long lines. Each man was burdened with a heavy steel collar, locked into place around his neck and connected by a stout chain to the next man in line. Every column of six was accompanied by a black uniformed female guard carrying a heavy braided leather bullwhip, a weapon that none of them had any compunction about using should any of their charges provide them with the slightest excuse, and occasionally with none.
Martina Kokoska turned to Arianne. “The numbering system is good”, she said.
“It removes any trace of individuality and serves to remind them of their situation. It is an integral part of the Meradka project. Every slave has to realise that he is a zero in here, a worthless slave only to be exploited and punished, even on a mere whim.”
Arianne nodded her complete agreement to this viewpoint. The man at the rear of the final column bore a number “82” on his back. Despite his roughly shaved head Arianne noted with satisfaction the now shambling figure of Janacek. He moved uneasily, a legacy of the previous night when, as a result of answering back to one of the guards his genitals had been kicked black and blue, her heavy laced combat boots finding their soft target time and again as he lay on the floor, his wrists cuffed helplessly behind his back.
All the men adopted the curious trotting gait that was required of them when on the move, it conveyed the impression that they were running. “We encourage our guards to treat them harshly. Such men have nothing to learn from kindness. They understand only cruelty and harsh treatment, they either bend to our will, or they break.”
Arianne smiled. ” I agree, they deserve harsh treatment.”
Martina had a file open on her desk. “We were pleased to receive 80, 81 and 82”. She said. “With an operation such as this there are sure to be losses to natural wastage and we lost three prisoners over the winter. 43 succumbed to a rockfall, 27 committed suicide by jumping into the quarry and 72 suffered a heart attack.” She smiled. “Actually he froze to death after being chained up all night in the open in ten degrees of frost, but officially it was a heart attack.”
“You seem to have a very well run colony” observed Arianne. ” I will note this in my report to the Director of Justice when we next meet.” Martina smiled her satisfaction at this comment as she poured coffee for them both.
After coffee they wandered up towards the quarry workings. On the way they stopped at a small timber building with a corrugated iron roof. It was no more than a shed. Martina opened the door and they went inside. A pair of orange prison overalls with the number 18 on the back lay across a chair and a naked man stood suspended from one of the roof cross beams. A bright steel choke chain was wrapped around his neck and he was forced to push himself up onto the balls of his feet in order to relieve the pressure enough to breathe. His face was red and he emitted occasional gasps and groans as he struggled to take in sufficient air. His arms were pinioned behind his back by a pair of prison issue steel handcuffs. “The standard field punishment,” said Martina. ” Either half an hour or an hour depending on how his guard is feeling”.
The two women regarded the man for a while. A tall, strikingly attractive woman with long black hair tied in a ponytail entered the hut and checked on him. She was in her late thirties and Martina introduced her as Florica, one of her senior guards. Florica checked her watch and said “You can have an extra half hour”. She turned and left.
“Florica understands male violence”, Martina said. She comes from the Roma community herself.” Arianne’s raised eyebrows showed her surprise. “Yes”, Martina continued. “A most remarkable woman Florica. She suffered under a violent father and then to add insult to injury she was forced into marriage with a man who also beat her. Unfortunately for him under the new regime he was quickly brought to justice.”
“Really?” Asked Arianne. “What became of him?”
Martina smiled. Her eyes turned towards the suspended man whose face had now taken on a purplish hue as his weakening calf muscles allowed the choke chain to tighten a little more, his head angled sharply upwards in a desperate attempt to draw even a little more air.”
“You don’t mean…” Arianne’s finger pointed towards the gasping figure.
Several days later Arianne Voric was eating breakfast on the terrace of her chalet overlooking the verdant pine covered hills. In the distance, perhaps a couple of kilometres away the surface of the lake glistened like liquid silver in the morning sun. Apart from the chirping of birds and the occasional bark of a distant dog it was silent here. Alex Morgan knelt on a mat beside her breakfast table. As usual he was dressed in his houseboy outfit that consisted of a heavy black leather collar and stainless steel chastity lock. Arianne had enjoyed the company of the young journalist over the last fortnight, as much as anything the intelligent conversations they had enabled her to brush up on her English.
He had served her well and diligently, starting work at seven every morning. Her meals had been cooked, the house kept clean and tidy, and he had even submitted with good humour when she had teased him by deliberately walking across his freshly cleaned floors in her muddy boots. He was totally unaware that of late with the improvement in the weather she had taken to squirting the hosepipe along the footpath that led from the driveway to the house, keeping the deep red earth soft so that her boots spread far more dirt than was necessary. This had become a kind of ritual, Arianne spread the mud and Alex obediently got down on his knees and cleaned it off again. It invariably ended with him being ordered to kiss her boots and clean them to a pristine shine with his tongue, feeling the harsh grit invade his mouth as he licked it off at her behest.
Alex had tried hard to hide his discomfort at this point, but they both knew that he found it difficult not to gag as he dutifully licked the soil from his Mistress’ boots. For her this had become the crucial part of the enjoyment, he hated it, but he did it without complaint. It was, she felt, a perfect illustration of the natural balance between a masochist and a sadist. She found this new experience thrilling, it touched the very core of her being, infusing it with a strange joy. Even when she found some fictional misdemeanour as a reason to punish him he accepted it all with good grace. She had not used the sjambok on him, thinking that it was maybe a step too far. This sort of consideration was new to her and she was enjoying it’s difference. The Dragon cane had been enough to draw blood from his soft and rather tender skin, although it didn’t stop her from imagining just what the harsher weapon might have done. She nevertheless kept the wildest excesses of her sadism in check, reserving that for prisoners at the vineyards where she supervised discipline and punishment.
Now she regarded his pale torso as he knelt upon the straw mat, waiting for her to finish breakfast before he cleared the table away. “So today completes your fourteen day sentence then?” It was more of a statement than a question, both of them fully aware that today was his last day.
“Yes, it does Mistress”.
Did she notice a slight tone of regret in his reply?
Her job satisfied her wilder sadistic urges very well. If she felt like using the sjambok to thrash somebody that was easily arranged, but this was different. Alex gave of himself completely freely. Whether that was out of respect, love or just a sort of hero worship she didn’t know, or care, but this openness was refreshing and she found it totally delightful. She regarded the angryred weals across his buttocks, the result of her white wine being over chilled at dinner the night before. She had called him to her table and accused him of it, even though in reality she had found it’s temperature perfect. His head had dropped in silent apology. “You do realise of course that such an elementary mistake has to be punished?”
“Yes Mistress, of course”.
He had wanted it every bit as much as her. He had meekly followed her from the terrace down to where the heavy timber post was sunk into the ground in front of the chalet, feeling the frisson of fear run through his body as hehad watched her descend the steps before him. The slightly hypnotic sway of her black leather clad hips, the elegant laced knee boots with their finely pointed stiletto heels. She had quickly shackled him hand and foot, his wrists held tightly to the post by the steel manacles mounted at head height, their counterparts on short linked chains holding his ankles. She always tightened them slightly more than was necessary, causing Alex to wince at the bite of the cold steel. Her footsteps had then receded as Arianne returned to finish her dinner, his naked body pressed hard up against the wood, awaiting a punishment that was surely out of all proportion to the offence, but which served to underline her complete power over him, no right of defence, no appeal. Arianne was judge, jury and executioner.
The noises as she continued her meal drifted down to him through the warm night, the cool evenings of the week before now driven away by the gentle southerlies that had moved up from the Mediterranean. From above, the clink of her knife and fork, the sound of her coffee cup being replaced in it’s saucer after every sip served to torment him. Finally the scrape of her chair as she rose from the table and the distinct tap of her stiletto heeled boots on the concrete steps as she returned to mete out his punishment, a punishment that would follow the course of her choosing and would be completed only when she decided it would.
Then she had been beside him, the last rays of the setting sun imparting a fiery tint to her neat auburn bob exposing the soft alabaster neck and reflecting from her skin tight black leather jeans in a thousand mobile pools as she walked slowly towards him. Her breath fell warm on the nape of his neck. He heard his own soft breaths as her leather gloved fingers idly traced the outline of his back muscles. “You wish to please your Mistress boy?”
He felt his head nod, almost imperceptibly, accepting her authority over him, her right to punish him as she saw fit for such a tiny, maybe even an imaginary failing. The heavy rattan cane was gripped in her gloved hand, a full metre in length and as thick as his little finger. She flexed it slightly between her outstretched hands, feeling it’s resistance, fully aware of it’s potential to inflict pain.
His answer to her question was freely given. “More than anything in the world Mistress”. He knew what pleasing her meant. It involved gritting his teeth and managing the pain as best he could as the heavy Dragon impacted his buttocks time and time again. He would try hard to restrict his cries, fighting not to scream for mercy, keeping it within until such time as the strange fury contained inside this beautiful woman dissipated itself. He braced his body and his mind for that first, explosive stroke.
Arianne’s mind returned to the present. “What time is your flight?” He confirmed what she had thought, it was early evening. “Well I shall be back in good time to drop you off. You are quite sure that you want to go back?” Her enquiry exploded like a bombshell being detonated in his brain.
“What are you asking me?”
She got up from the table and wandered across to stand beside where he knelt. She rested a hand on top if his head. “It’s not impossible that I could find a reason to delay your release from my service. I am a woman of considerable power, what I want I usually get”.
“And what is it that you want Mistress”. She stood, long leather clad legs set wide apart. Surreptitiously he eyed the tight leather crotch of her jeans. He was unsure as to whether the thrill of inflicting pain was a sexual one, a mental one, or both. But Arianne was the ultimate Ice Queen, her inscrutability knew no bounds. “I shall be back this afternoon, we will discuss it then.”
Copyright DL Media, November 2018
Artwork http://ladycaroleart.com