Captives of the Colonel

Chapter One – The bearded Indian soldier wearing the uniform of a Sergeant in the British Indian Army spread his hands wide, palms up, in a gesture of apology, “I am very sorry, Memsahibs,” he murmured softly. “But there is nothing I can do. The escorted convoy to Peshlara left two days ago and there will not be another for a month.” “A month,” the taller and older of the two young women before him exclaimed angrily. “We cannot wait here for a month. It’s quite ridiculous. Don’t you know who I am? My husband is Colonel Mayhew of the 17th Lancers based at Peshlara, and my companion is the fiancée of one of the Captains of the Regiment. We are in a hurry and must leave at once, and you, my good man, must help us.” “I understand, Memsahib,” the Sergeant replied, “but you must understand, too. I have no troops to escort you until the return convoy arrives, so you have no choice but to wait.” Arabella Mayhew drew herself up to her full height of five feet seven inches and allowed a cold expression to mar her pretty face. “Oh, is that so?” she said waspishly. “Well, we will see about that. I am sure that my friend and I will be able to find someone to guide us to Peshlara, without your help.” A deep frown wrinkled the soldier’s brow. “That might be unwise, Memsahib,” he cautioned. “There are still bandits and worse in the hills; and, for two young English Memsahibs travelling without an escort, it could be dangerous.” “Then give us an escort,” Arabella retorted tartly, and the harassed Sergeant could only shrug his shoulders in defeat. “I cannot, Memsahib,” he repeated. “Not for a month.” Arabella turned away, “Come along, Belinda. There is nothing for us here. We shall make our own arrangements; and, when we arrive in Peshlara, I shall see that my husband hears of this Sergeant’s refusal to assist us.” Belinda Wallace hesitated then followed her friend out into the heat and dust of the Indian port at which their ship had arrived that morning. “That soldier seemed a little worried about us travelling alone, Arabella,” she ventured. “Maybe we should wait.” “What? For a month? I don’t know about you, but I’ve waited a long time to see my husband, and I don’t intend to wait for some unnecessary escort. After all, the mutiny was twenty years ago. is peaceful now, and I don’t believe all that nonsense about bandits in the hills. The Army will have put a stop to all that years ago.” “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Arabella,” Belinda agreed, her red lips curving into an attractive smile. “I can’t wait to see Philip again. He’ll be so surprised when he sees me and I tell him that I’ve changed my mind and I will marry him after all. When I turned him down, he stormed out and said he was going to go to with the Regiment and meant to forget all about me, but I know my Philip. He loves me madly, and I think I may even love him; but, even if I don’t, I’ll marry him and make him a good wife because I do like him a lot, and he is rather handsome.” “As good a reason for marriage as any,” Arabella chuckled. “I married because he was charming and well bred and comfortably off. I liked him then and I still do, but he is very set in his ways and a tiny bit pompous, I’m afraid.” “Philip’s thirty, seven years older than me,” Belinda replied. “But your is quite a bit older than that, isn’t he?” “Mm, yes. He’s forty one to my twenty six,” Arabella agreed. “I sometimes think it’s too wide a gap, but at least he’s kind to me, and he is still very..ah..active if you understand me.” Belinda flushed. “Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Men can be really insistent if we women let them. I always had to keep Philip very firmly rationed; otherwise, he’d never have let me out of bed. After we became engaged, I mean. I wouldn’t let him do anything before, of course.” “Of course not,” Arabella nodded firmly. “It is just as important to observe the proprieties in love as it is in polite society. We are living in the 1870’s after all, not the Dark Ages.” “Quite right,” Belinda smiled her agreement and turned her mind to the matter in hand. “Now then, Arabella, how are we going to find someone to guide us to Peshlara?” “Well, it can’t be that difficult,” the brunette said. “ always tells me that all you have to do in is find what he calls a middle-man. Every town has at least one and once you find him and offer a little money, anything is possible. So, come along, dear, let us go and find our middle-man and arrange a guide.” Side by side and secure in their unfounded belief that the vast sub-continent of India was completely safe, Arabella Mayhew and Belinda Wallace set off in search of a guide to lead them across the hundreds of miles of plains and mountains separating them from their partners, never suspecting that ahead of them lay an ordeal that would change forever the whole course of their entire lives. Twelve days later, 70 miles Southeast of Peshlara. In the dim, pre-dawn light of the thirteenth day, the guide and the three armed guards Arabella and Belinda had hired to escort them to Peshlara were occupied in striking their tents and loading the horses when a group of raiders swept out of the cover of the trees and galloped into the camp, their rifles trained on the four Indians and quelling any possibility of resistance before it could begin. In the sole remaining tent, still in their flimsy nightwear, Arabella and Belinda screamed in fear as horses’ hooves thundered outside and the deep, guttural cries of unknown men split the dawn peace. Then, seconds later, as the two women hugged each other in terror, the tent flap was hurled back and four Pathan warriors, all fierce eyed, heavily bearded, and armed to the teeth, burst in. Belinda screamed as she was ripped from Arabella’s embrace, but she was no match for the brutal strength of two of the warriors as she was dragged from the tent and thrown to her belly at the feet of a fifth warrior, a rough hand at the nape of her slender neck holding her face pressed to the bare earth. Blinded by dust and unable to see her captors or Arabella, Belinda’s tears splashed onto the dry ground, and she squealed in sheer panic as her arms were wrenched behind her back and she felt the painful rasp of coarse rope on her soft flesh as her wrists were bound cruelly tight behind her back. The hand left her neck but fastened, instead, in her long blonde hair, bringing a hoarse gasp of pain from her as her head was bent back….a gasp instantly cut short as a thick bar of wood was wedged crossways between her lips, remorseless pressure forcing her to open her jaws as wide as she possibly could until the gag lodged between her back teeth and stretched the corners of her soft mouth. Dragged to her feet by the hand still knotted in her hair, she trembled in awful terror and whimpered into her gag as she saw Arabella. Bound and gagged as effectively as Belinda herself, the taller brunette fought vainly against her bonds and the two warriors who dragged her writhing, twisting body from the tent and towards the man before whom Belinda stood helpless. It was a battle Arabella could never hope to win and as one of her captors drew a razor sharp knife from his belt and placed it against her slim throat. She froze in abject terror, her brown eyes bulging in fear. The fifth warrior, the leader, snapped a command; and, as Belinda watched in stunned disbelief, the knife slashed downwards, the flimsy material of Arabella’s nightgown parting instantly before the gleaming blade. Before the shocked and terrified brunette could react, the second man ripped the two halves of her nightgown back and down, leaving her stark naked in the cool early morning air. For a split second, nobody moved, Arabella staring numbly down at her bare breasts, and her captors seemingly transfixed by the slender curves of her palely gleaming body….but then her trance broke, and she gave a muffled, gasping moan of dreadful anguish as she understood the full horror of her situation. Belinda, too, understood what was to happen to her; and, as the leader gave a second order, she struggled frantically to tear free of her bonds and the strong hands which held her but to no avail. And as a glittering knife slashed and ripped her nightgown from her, the small blonde shuddered and wept in despair as her full breasts and softly rounded belly were exposed to the hot eyes of her captors. Held by strong and powerful warriors, the two women were utterly helpless as the leader of the raiders subjected them both to a long and intensely humiliating scrutiny, their garbled pleas and tears of shame and fear ignored as he examined their gag-distorted faces, weighed their breasts in his hands, tested the firmness of their thigh muscles and, horrifyingly, even forced their legs apart to send his fingers probing the moist clefts of their sexes. Seemingly satisfied with what he had discovered, he sent two of his men to fetch mallets and pegs from the packhorses. As the women screamed wordless pleas for mercy, he had their ankles lashed to pegs hammered wide apart into the earth and their throats bound to pegs on each side of their necks preventing any attempt to struggle. He walked over and gazed down at his two shamefully displayed victims then gave a cruel laugh and waved his hand; and, as they saw the gesture, his men gave a great shout of pleasure and fell upon the two sobbing women. Utterly at the mercy of the warriors, their bodies spread open and held by unforgiving rope, each woman screamed and wept as a thick, iron-hard shaft bludgeoned its way into her defenceless s*x, but neither could prevent her violation. As the warriors sated their lusts with savage lunges into the damp, soft heat of their victims’ bellies, neither could prevent the inevitable deluge of heated juices into their bodies as the men imposed their will and their power upon them. Mercilessly ravaged, Arabella and Belinda gasped for air through flaring nostrils as the warriors pulled from their bellies, but even that breath burst from their starved lungs in an explosive squeal of appalled misery as the other two warriors took the places of their companions; and, for the second time, massive erections speared into the wet, s*x-slick and hopelessly vulnerable recesses of each captive’s flooded belly. This time though, to Belinda’s shame and misery, her body was prepared for the brutal assault; and, to her despair, she felt an unwanted wave of fierce arousal surge through her belly as the second warrior buried his maleness deep within her. She tried to fight against it, to deny its very existence, but as the man began to thrust with great power and speed, she felt herself respond to the sheer eroticism of her terrible plight. Her n*****s stiffened and her internal muscles contracted around the rigid flesh penetrating her, her eyes growing wide with anguish as her attacker grinned down into her face as he felt her body’s instinctive reaction to him. He called to his companion; and, to Belinda’s helpless horror, the man knelt beside her and sent his hands to her naked breasts, his rough fingers rolling and teasing her tawny n*****s until they grew rock-hard, quivering and throbbing to his every touch and sending unbearable jolts of arousal through her pinioned body. Laughing at the frantic responses they forced from her, the two warriors built Belinda to a pinnacle of panting, straining need and only then, when her rolling eyes and shuddering body begged and pleaded unmistakably to be taken, did they permit her to come. The first man seized her buttocks and raised her hips, driving his shaft to the seething core of her belly and releasing a pulsing jet of juices into her body while the second alternately stroked and tweaked her achingly tender n*****s. The combination of devastating pleasure and cruel pain propelled Belinda into a shattering orgasm, and she screamed in sheer terror into her gag as hot love juices exploded into her belly. Never before had she come with such terrifying strength; never before had her power over her own body been so completely and so brutally taken from her; and, as she spasmed and pulsed and writhed in the throes of a climax she could not even begin to control, the blonde wept in fearful dread of the men who had taken her so ruthlessly and forced her to respond against her will. Men who, their immediate lusts satisfied, left her bound and shuddering in the aftermath of her passion, the sweat and silvery stains of her enforced submissions dampening the dusty earth on which she lay. Arabella’s sense of shame and despair changed to outraged fury as the second man began to pillage her spread-eagled body. She knew she was incapable of resisting him or preventing him doing exactly as he wished with her, but she did have one weapon, and she used it. Biting down hard on the bar between her jaws, Arabella stifled her sobs and whimpers and forced her body into complete immobility, lying as stiff and unresponsive as a log of wood and trying to pretend to herself that it was not happening to her. The tactic brought almost immediate results. The man lifted his head, scowled at her, and barked some sort of command she could not understand. She ignored him, even when he repeated his order and then prodded her with a rough finger. Arabella was overjoyed when he shook his head in exasperation and slid from her belly then strode over to his horse. For ten wonderful seconds, she thought she had saved herself, but then he turned, and Arabella shrieked in terrified disbelief as she saw that he held a coiled whip in his right hand. He strode back towards her and stopped some six feet away. She shook her head wildly, uncaring that the rope at her throat chafed her soft flesh as he casually uncoiled the braided leather and lifted his arm, taking careful aim. With a wristy flick, he sent the leather singing through the air; and, as it found its mark with pinpoint accuracy, a sharp “crack” echoed in the clearing and a thin red stripe glowed instantly across the stretched flesh of Arabella’s upper right thigh. The terrible shock and searing heat of the blow quite literally took the brunette’s breath away, and she could only gasp in pain as the whole of her thigh burned with a furious fire…and before she could really comprehend that the warrior not only could…but had…whipped her, he struck again. Her left thigh blazed with raging heat; and, as she gave a shrill scream of anguish, Arabella recognised her defeat and understood that she was not to be permitted to defy his will. She had attempted to thwart his desires and his immediate reaction had been to punish her with his whip, an action so alien to Arabella’s upbringing and experience as to be totally unthinkable. Yet, he had not only thought it but acted upon it with a callousness and arrogance that terrified the brunette because it showed that he thought little of it. As if it were an everyday occurrence to whip a woman… In pain and thoroughly frightened, she trembled as he moved between her spread legs; and, as he pointed at her and then at the whip he still held, Arabella knew that if she continued to resist him, he would not hesitate to punish her even more cruelly. Frightened to give in to him but even more frightened of his wrath if she did not, she allowed her hips to arch up to meet him as he thrust his maleness into her s*x; and, as he began to take her with long, fast strokes, Arabella forced herself to meet his lunges with internal contractions of her own. He gave a cruel chuckle; and, as he rubbed the braided leather of his coiled whip over her breasts and n*****s, her eyes widened in embarrassed surprise as her belly gave two violent kicks in masochistic response. It was in no way a reaction Arabella could have anticipated, and she flushed a deep red as he chuckled again then increased the depth and tempo of his thrusts until his whimpering victim trembled on the verge of climax. Helpless in her bonds and in desperate need, Arabella climaxed as his whip toyed once more with her exquisitely sensitive n*****s. As the warrior felt her begin to spasm around his embedded shaft, he lunged violently and his seed fountained into her belly as her own scalding juices showered down over him. Terribly humiliated by her enforced submission to his will and still in shock from her whipping, Arabella screamed in despair as her body convulsed to the power of a climax she could not resist, and her belly jolted in frenzied contractions as wave after wave of her surging juices flooded her quaking belly. Gazing down into her appalled and frightened brown eyes, the bearded warrior gave a great snort of laughter and nodded firmly and as she saw the signal of his approval, the brunette gave a low wail of pure misery, knowing that the man had understood and enjoyed the completeness of her surrender to him. When he rose from her and moved to his companions, Arabella strained against her bonds, fighting to free herself and flee from these men who had taken her so casually and made her submit to them…but the ropes on her limbs and throat were too tight and too strong. She whimpered softly as she met Belinda’s anguished eyes and saw her own helplessness mirrored in the blonde’s gagged face and inescapable bondage. Staked out side by side on the parched Indian earth, their bodies already shamefully violated, the two English women could only wait in fear and trembling for their captors’ next move, their fates resting entirely in the hands of men against whose ruthlessness and cruelty there could be no possible defence.