Pleasure Island [The Chronicles of Lidir] (11 page)

Very slowly and with the weight of the world upon her shoulders, Anya did move; her leaden feet lifted. A slow smile began spreading across the girl's face. She released the plait and drew her blonde strands back and tucked them behind her ears. Again, the finger at the table beckoned. Anya edged towards it. The captain waited until she had reached the opposite side of the table. Then the bushy eyebrows frowned and the hook twisted, glinting, indicating that she should come round. She felt like crying. Once again, her legs could hardly move. The chains between her wrists tightened as she twisted them in anguish. Very haltingly, she obeyed, walking the length of the table, round the attendant, then back again until she stood beside the chair, which now seemed immense, and the figure dressed in red, seen in profile, with black hair down to his shoulders and eyes staring intently now at the hook in front of him, as if Anya's presence had been temporarily forgotten again and the hook, having mesmerised him too, would suddenly swing down of its own accord and embed itself into the table.

'He is following you, Princess ...' The voice, though deep, trailed away to hollowness. Anya's head made a quarter turn to right, then left; each time, the pupils of her eyes moved down and to the side. The captain's gaze remained fixed on the hook. 'He is persistent.' Then she realised. Suddenly, she knew. Immediately, she turned and looked towards the heavy orange curtains. The captain, awake now, turned and sighed: 'Go on. Draw the curtains. Look.' She ran across, then hesitated at the bed which barred her way. She looked over her shoulder. The captain nodded. She climbed upon the bed. He smiled wistfully as her knees and elbows sank into the softness of the sheets, their creaminess so stark a contrast to the iron chains about her wrists. She reached the opposite side and drew aside the heavy drapes and stared against the deep magenta skyline, thickening beneath the blue-black clouds of swiftly sweeping night.

Now the captain stood to Anya's left, at the head of the bed, watching not the view but her face in profile, illuminated with a deep glow from the last rays of the sun - the red hair burning, the full breasts gently rising and falling and the delicate fingers pressed against the thick glass, tracing a fine line of tender supplication. He saw the eyes suddenly widen and light up, the full lips open, the breathing quicken and the fingertips stretch and press very lightly to that glass again as if to kiss it. And the captain was pleased, because he knew from her expression that he had stirred the girl to a need much deeper than that of the flesh. The sight of that ship had moved her to the heart pangs of wanting. Soon those pangs would become inseparably merged with the pleasures that he would force upon her and in due course - in retrospect perhaps, as she lay in the silence of her cell - would add an extra depth to her shame. Then later, that very shame could be used again to force a pleasure that was overwhelming. And so it would continue.

'Close the curtains.' The muted voice was beside her. Anya hadn't even known he was there. Then he returned to his chair. 'Come here,' he said and again she was afraid. His eyes had become staring. His appearance was harsh and the hook forbidding. 'There are things we must discuss, Princess. Step closer.' He waited until she had done so. 'This man - the Prince - he does not give up easily.'

'No ...' She lowered her eyes. She watched the right hand dig into the armrest.

'The constant shadowing makes the men uneasy. Some of them agree with Travix - that we should have dispatched them straight away.' Anya looked up pleadingly; she felt the colour draining from her face. He leaned towards her and his eyes seemed to glow. The lines deepened on his craggy forehead. The lips moved slowly, so each word was clear and biting: 'If your Prince persists -' the lips hesitated - 'I will destroy him.' The hook dropped; with a sickening thud it stuck itself into the table.

Anya jumped. Her hands lifted to try to hide her face. 'No, please. I beg you ...' she whispered through her fingers. As her hands gradually lowered from her chin, her upper lip began to tremble. The hook pulled out and reached. Anya shied away. 'Stand still!' The green eyes flashed maliciously. And now she could not stop the tears. Though she did not move a muscle and her hands hung limply, chained together, her vision swam and the tears rolled silently down her cheeks. And it seemed her tears were a potion to this hard-hearted man. His breathing slowed and became deeper, as if a calming drug now surged through his veins. 'Stand still,' he said again, but this time it was a whisper. 'And you may in time convince me that he should be spared.'

The attendant was dismissed. The blonde girl on her stool turned and sat cross-legged. Her fingers plaited quickly as, by rapid alternation, she watched the work, then the two immobile figures at the table.

The captain looked at the hunched and trembling form beside him, with her red hair hanging down but pushed aside by the swollen breasts, tipped with perfect blackness. Gazing down, he saw the wrists chained across the belly and the yellow stockings working up to cup against the buttocks. He decided that he wished this woman round - curved, in the way that he had envisioned her on the crewdeck, with her wrists fastened above her head, her back arching forwards, her toes - for the heels of her feet would certainly never have touched the floor - wide apart, gripping precariously on the rough and sawdusted floor. Though she was slim, he wished her curves to be emphasised, with a rounded, pressured weight distending every protrusile part.

He made her stand with legs open, and on her toes, though he could not see the toes buried in the thickness of the yellow woollen stockings. But now he could see the pouch, gripped about her flesh lips, swollen and round. He made her raise her wrists and place her hands upon her head. And now, above the bellying breasts and to the sides, the hollows appeared, deep rounded hollows filled with moist dark copper curls. He savoured those wet curls with his fingers. Then he touched the roundness of her breasts, the warm tips. Though she tried to edge away, though the tears rolled freer still, he touched them with the blue steel, pressed the converging double curve of coldness about them, like two smoothly rounded fingers not quite touching at their tips, and lifted, slid the steel across her skin until the nipple was necked between the shiny metal cusps. And in turn, each nipple swelled polished black until the hook had to be eased back before the nipple would squeeze between the prongs and slip free. Then he made her arch her belly until the thong about her waist was tight and the thong that descended along the line of faint curls, through the thick curls and to the pouch, was even tighter. The point of the hook had now to impress against the tight skin first, then slide beneath this second thong while he carefully folded the stocking tops down to leave two fingers' width of bare tight skin before the crease. He twisted the hook, which tightened the pouch until the skin upon it stretched and assumed the appearance of a hard carapace rather than fur. He did not touch it yet, but removed the hook and made her turn to the side, facing the table, though a little way from it, and open her thighs and bend fully down.

As her hands dropped, the chain between her wrists fell against the floor and now her body was doubled. He pushed the flat of the hook against her lower back to encourage it in its curvature, until even from the side, he could see both belly and pouch pushed between her open thighs. He touched the pouch, feeling its extent, measuring its girth between fingers and thumb, pressing to test its resilience, then urging her backbone to a deeper hollow to make the pouch stand out even more. He drew the outer lips away from it, held them back with thumb and little finger, to keep this part of her - the inner lips, closely clad with warm damp fur - completely isolated while the middle three fingers explored and kneaded it. And he listened for the breathing, pausing at times to roll the stockings perhaps further down and to touch the newly bare inner thigh, or to roll them up again until the woollen lip lay against the crease and nothing of her legs was visible, just her buttocks and her pouch, which then stood out harder by contrast - dark wet brown against the sunflower yellow of the stockings. The captain's gaze would at times return to the double thong that lay within the groove, to watch it lifted slightly by the small black mouth which pushed and pulsed against it as the belly between the open thighs writhed, as his hand diverted to touch that soft belly skin, warm pink between the yellow, before returning to flick or sometimes pull against the pouch.

Anya felt the pressure of the cord suddenly burst from round her belly. 'Keep still,' he said. He eased her legs apart. The thongs, unknotted at her back, dropped and swung to the front, hung across her belly and touched her upturned breasts. But the pouch still gripped about her bursting flesh lips. The loose cords between her buttocks were lifted. She heard the captain call to the girl. Slim feet appeared beside her. Slim hands touched the cheeks of her bottom, then held them open. A heavy finger pressed against the mouth, which tightened. The large hand moved down, stroking her belly as if to soothe it. When it withdrew, she tightened. The slim hands held her, encouraged her. She heard a loud metallic click. Then she felt something, round-tipped, thick and firm and cold but smooth, like a naturally oily animal skin, pressing assertively against the small mouth while the slim fingers brushed against the inner cheeks until the soft cold smoothness gained a purchase and her tender inner skin at last submitted and opened to form a gently kissing cup.

'Lift up. On your toes.' The cool-skinned firmness kept coming; her bottom was distended until it was filled. The coldness lay heavily inside her whilst the cords were gently pulled. The pouch began to peel away. She murmured, her bottom squeezed about the unyielding thing inside her while her sex lips slowly burst free from their extra skin. And those lips felt very swollen, soft and moist. They wanted to be touched. Then the thing inside her bottom moved. Though she tightened hard, it made no difference. Like a snake, it shed its supple skin. She felt the coolness sliding while the oily skin covering was left in place until the thing slipped free and the muscle of her bottom necked about the skin. The remaining short projection of the sheath was moulded into a soft fur cup that mirrored the tighter black cup beneath it. Anya was made to stand.

She averted her eyes from the blonde girl standing beside her. On the table, she saw the chart, coloured pale blue with, in the centre, a small elongate patch of yellow with a fine ink line drawn round it. To the left of the chart was a cockstem, intricately worked, life size, complete with ballocks and fashioned from polished iron. She knew that this was the thing that had been inside her. But as the captain drew back his left arm, she realised that his hook now lay detached on the table and it was instead the cockstem that was attached at its base to the stump of his wrist. And suddenly, a horrible fear played across her mind - that to the captain, this thing might be to his manhood as his hook was to his hand. She shivered. She was pushed forward; her buttocks were parted and the soft skin cup was touched.

There was a knock and the door opened. Anya was facing it as Travix entered. Though Anya tried to back away, wanting to hide herself, she was pushed forward deliberately until her elbows came to rest on the table and her hands, still chained, spread out on the parchment. The blonde girl, no longer confident in Travix's presence, edged away from Anya.

'What is it?' asked the captain coldly.

'Sir - I have come for the chart.' Travix had spoken through her teeth. Anya's hands tried to lift. The captain stood up but he held her pinned down with his right hand. Anya watched his left arm lift with the polished iron thing attached. Her heart was beating wildly. He stroked her hair back. 'Lift your chin,' he whispered. She did not want to be made to do it. But the fingers rasping beneath her chin demanded that it lift. She wanted to close her eyes. Travix stood across from her in her pale blue suit, her face drained, her gaze as fixed as if she were chiselled from marble stone, with the line across her cheek picked out in narrow shadow as if re-incised. She did not appear to breathe. Travix's gaze did not falter as, with Anya's chin lifted but her belly touching the table top, the funnel-mouthed sleeve was spread back and the rounded iron was pressed against it. But Anya gasped; the iron slipped and the sleeve within her body was filled out quickly with its rigid coolness. The iron bulbs lay coolly against her throbbing sex lips, yet Anya burned with shame. And there was no sound other than Anya's breathing for many long seconds until the captain spoke.

'She is beautiful, Mister Travix - do you not think so?'

Anya closed her eyes. Travix did not answer. Anya felt a tug inside her, then heard the loud metallic click. The captain, his left hand now only a stump, lifted Anya aside. The iron stem was still inside her. Its ballocks rested on the table where she lay, her belly pressed down against its surface and her legs drawn together, hiding her disgrace. She heard a second click and, peeping, saw the hook attached now, moving the bowl aside while the right hand rolled the chart then threw it. Travix caught it with one hand. 'Will that be all, Mister Travix?' Travix threw an icy stare at Anya, who looked away but could feel that freezing stare still washing over her until she heard Travix turn and go, slamming the door behind her. Then she felt the iron stem being slowly withdrawn, the fur skin cup being shaped against her and she heard soft grunts of approval from behind. She did not move but lay upon the table, afraid now of what Travix would do to her when she got the chance and afraid of the feelings in her belly. For when the captain had slipped the cockstem fully home, he had touched her between the legs; she had squeezed hard against the cockstem, she had tried to push her hot wet flesh against his finger, taking pleasure from that touch. Travix had witnessed it, Anya was sure. And the captain had felt that signal too.