Chapter 1
"Disappointing really," Meg Anderson said, gazing
about the courtyard of the ruined temple, evidently long since over-run and
half-obscured by the jungle.
"What did you expect?
Hereditary temple prostitutes and peasants still making human
sacrifices, like a Hollywood horror pic?" her husband grunted.
"It's remote and eerie enough," Meg shuddered. "Though the locals hardly seem up to it, too
wretched to be dangerous. Wrong sort of
Indians!" she said, repeating an old joke as Tom Anderson patted one of the
pockets of his bush jacket.
Oklahoma-bred, he was in the habit of carrying a gun on long journeys, a
habit that amused his English wife.
Still she would have admitted that it gave a degree of assurance in
these disturbed times on an unplanned side excursion.
"They are illegal squatters," Tom pointed out. "This is supposed to be a Forest Reserve with
only a few tribal hunters living in it.
There should have been a Forest Officer with a force of rangers, but I
suppose with so much unrest and the army chasing rebels all over the place
things have got disorganised. More
disorganised than usual!" he qualified.
The Andersons had passed the Forest centre that
morning, finding it stripped bare and unoccupied except for a passing patrol of
government soldiers making a brief halt.
It had been the friendly NCO in charge who had told them of this temple,
hearing of Tom Anderson's particular interest as an anthropologist in survivals
of ancient cults.
"We have an assured flight out of here," Tom had said
reassuringly as they walked the short distance from the woodcutter's track
where they had parked the 4WD. "We'll be
safely home in two days. Then if the worst comes to the worst, we'll be somewhere
that has organization enough to handle it!"
"That
makes me feel like a deserter," Meg commented.
"Whatever happens-" Tom said, repeating a familiar
argument. "The poor of the third world
are sure to suffer worst. You don't owe
them anything. Nobody in this country is
worrying about how the poor will make out.
A guy at the university told me outright that they would be better off
in the long run if they lost a lot of population. The third world knows it already, hence all
the crazy theories that it's a plot by the rich nations to get rid of
them." Tom grinned. "Rioters are
probably looting our apartment right now."
"They'll only allow hand luggage on the plane
anyway." His wife shrugged off the
recollection of the abandoned possessions.
"Anyway, some of them claim it's a coming judgement upon the rich
nations for our greed and that they're better able than us to subsist on very
little." She repeated her side of the
debate without thinking as they reached the temple ruins. It had been she who had picked up from one of
the students, to whom she taught English, the tale of a lost temple called
Annagaruyah where, her informant claimed, rituals of an ancient form of Kali
worship still survived. His father and
uncles had been contractors on the construction of the new highway that had
opened up access to the forgotten site.
There had seemed to be no harm in making an inspection
of the temple, now that it lay so close to the road with its regular army
patrols. They had been assured that
their route was safe, all this area had been declared 'pacified' long
since. This might be the last chance to
see the place in an undisturbed state.
It was worrying that they had seen signs of forest clearance and little
illegal settlements of huts by the wayside, apparently tolerated by the
military. Nevertheless Tom took the gun
with him when they left the 4WD, prepared, as his wife remarked,
half-deprecating, for any trouble.
Meg was right, however, in that the temple proved a
disappointment. Their attempts to
question the locals met with blank incomprehension, whether real or feigned it
was impossible to tell. Annagaruyah had
evidently lain neglected for centuries until the cutting of the highway had
revealed it. The outer walls of the
enclosure were broken fragments almost lost in the undergrowth, obscuring its
ground plan. Here and there a stretch of
carven frieze survived, but worn almost to formlessness, writhing figures in
barely distinguishable sexual couplings, no more than vague lumps where once
had been heads limbs and torsos. The
Andersons managed to trace the square of the enceinte and from that to work out
where in the overgrown interior the central shrine should be.
The trees that grew there pushed up from a great mound
of stone and earth seemingly with special vigour, so that enormous slabs had
been up-heaved, broken and toppled by the interlacing of root systems. Within this central grove was dank darkness
but the two explorers had found a definite path that led them into a small
cleared space at its heart. Where the
deity's statue should have been was a mossy stone plinth, its top swept bare
and supporting a deep brass bowl of the sort sold cheaply in any bazaar.
"A little mess of dried blood and bits of feathers,"
Tom reported and all that Meg found, poking about, was a couple of blackened
clay bowls that seemed to have been used for lamps, nothing more.
"Maybe a local hunter, praying for a full trap," she
suggested. They pushed back through the
trees, duly disappointed, discussing the nature of the stone carvings and
joking about the possible sexual postures now lost to learned research. As they emerged from the temple and came
within sight of the 4WD, Meg groaned.
"Even in an uninhabited jungle!"
In the interval of their absence, one of the ubiquitous beggars of the
country had arrived from nowhere and taken up his position, like a bundle of
rags squatting by the roadside, where they had to pass.
"How many people come past here, for heaven's sake!"
Tom said irritably.
Closer-to the beggar turned out to be a limbless man
strapped to a little flat cart like a shallow tray with wooden wheels, his bowl
set out on the ground before him.
"He deserves a reward for effort anyway," Meg
sighed. "He must have spotted us when we
passed that last bunch of huts. Are you
going to give him anything, Tom? Maybe
he knows something about the temple."
"It's your turn," Tom said firmly. "Give me your purse, Meg."
The beggar had begun to chant in an unexpectedly deep
voice at the first sign of their interest, his voice becoming more sonorous and
impressive as they approached, so that Meg found the hairs prickling on the
back of her neck. Legless and armless,
wild of hair and beard he sat like a solid block of carved wood, loosely
wrapped in his rags and immobile on his little cart.
"He might not be a local," she ventured. "He might be a refugee, a land mine
victim." She had noticed that the rags
had once been military camouflage cloth.
The man fell silent, lifting his face as Tom
approached him. Only a beaked nose,
glittering dark eyes and full red lips were visible amid the luxuriant growth
of glossy black hair, head and beard, moustache and eyebrows. Tom stooped, a handful of coins outstretched
towards the bowl. Then to Meg's
astonishment and then horror, an arm appeared like magic out of the ragged
garments, bare, brown and knotted with muscle, wielding a brass bound club that
whirled down upon Tom's bent head.
Meg heard the sickening crunch and Tom toppled forward
without a sound. The beggar's bowl
rolled away, spilling a few coins into the road. Tom lay crumpled so completely that she knew
instinctively that he was dead. Before
she had even drawn breath to shriek, the beggar, suddenly double-armed,
propelled himself swiftly forward with long sweeping thrusts. Caught up in the emotion of the moment, Meg
was slow to realise that he was after her and not the spilt coins, that she was
the obvious next victim. The hurtling
combination of man and cart was upon her in an instant and, as she turned to
run, her legs were taken from under her.
Down upon all fours she tried to scramble away but a large and powerful
hand arrested her and then a second held her immobilised, despite her desperate
threshing. The beggar's deep-chested
bellowing almost drowned her frantic screams, until suddenly men had materialised
all round them and further escape became impossible as they laid ungentle hands
upon her.
Later that day the bandit gang, leading Meg as captive
with them, approached something resembling a destination. Her hands had been tied behind her and she
was being led behind the men like a baggage mule at the end of a halter, bowed
under a backpack full of loot. It was a
most wretched place, a dozen bedraggled huts about a square of beaten earth,
but it seemed to the floundering prisoner to offer at least some temporary
relief.
Her captors entered the hamlet with every sign of
being at home there. They had been
walking non-stop for hours over the most rugged country, by narrow jungle paths
in a maze of forested hills and Meg was exhausted, not sorry to have reached an
end, supposing herself to have been preserved for the purpose of ransom. Though who would pay it in the present state
of affairs she wasn't at all sure. The
4WD, rolled into a brush filled ravine, might not be found for years and with
it all traces of murder and robbery concealed.
Women and children greeted the men's arrival with
shrill cries and shrieks. The pack was
carried into the largest of the huts, empty of furnishing except for a couple
of logs and a fire smouldering in the centre of the earth floor where its
contents with the rest of the booty was piled up. Every soul in the village seemed to have
crowded in to paw it over and to examine the prisoner. The women giggled among themselves, fingering
the clothing and eyeing Meg, the miserable pot-bellied naked children clutching
at their skirts or squabbling over some edible item thrown them by the
men. Presently the women and children
were chased out, Meg remaining, apparently as part of the loot and directed to
remain kneeling in one corner.
The men squatted in a circle about the fire eating
food the women brought to them. A woman
brought drink of some kind in a gourd that the men passed round, smoking and
spitting on the bare floor, rubbing out the result with a casual heel. There seemed to be a lively debate going
on. The mock beggar, who had made the
long journey carried on the back of a younger man with the vacant look of a
half-wit, seemed to hold the floor with great effect. The others seemed reluctant to agree to whatever
it was he advocated but unwilling to oppose him outright. Sometimes in a pause their eyes would all go
to Meg as if she were the principal subject of discussion. The drink was replenished several times
before the other men seemed all of a sudden to give up the argument, as if the
cripple had carried his point.
The bandits all rose.
The legless man was back aboard his wheeled trolley and rolling out of
the door ahead of them. Meg, who
detected a note of lewdness in the laughing and joking of the rest of the men,
tried uneasily to hang back and had to be forced to follow. Women hung about in the background giggling
and squealing as the men followed the swiftly moving cripple to a smaller hut. Inside Meg was pushed into a sitting position
with her back against one wall, facing the beggar on his little trolley. The rest of the gang trooped out, exchanging
sallies as they went with the half-man who busied himself with the straps that
secured him to his appliance.
Alone with her original captor, Meg stared at him,
aghast. It was clear now that the
cripple, having killed her husband, had put in some sort of claim to possession
of her. How did he propose to make it
good she wondered, a legless cripple?
Stun her with his club? She
looked at his abbreviated figure, and then with more misgiving at the long
arms, corded with muscles and ending in hands big and gnarled like tree
roots. He began shedding his rags,
revealing what lay beneath them; shoulders as broad as a wrestler's and a hard,
muscular, brown torso, like something rough-hewn from a tree stump. Upon the thick neck his head was an explosion
of glossy curling black hair amid which dark and lustrous eyes burned in deep
sockets. They met hers with such lust and
cruelty in them that she quailed instinctively, her nerve failing her.
Stripping the last of his rags the man flopped his
penis out before her with a gesture, red lips curling as if to say: In this I am normal! In fact, lolling there on the little wooden
platform between thigh-less stumps, without legs beside it for comparison, the
appendage looked unnatural and almost inhuman in its grossness.
Meg took a grip on her fear, resolved to make a fight
of it. She still shied away from meeting
his eyes however, and perhaps in consequence his speed of movement took her by
surprise once again. As she rose and
sprang towards the doorway, his arms swept down and the wheels shot him
forward. A large hand shot out and grabbed
her ankle, her legs were swept from under her and before she could recover she
was sprawled flat on the floor.
His terrible strong grip dragged her to him and then
slammed her down as she tried to rise. A
big hand took her by the hair and shook her this way and that, her legs
flailing. Her head was banged again and
again on the hard packed dirt floor until her own grip loosened on his thick
wrists and she was forced to concentrate upon protecting herself, overwhelmed
by his violence.
She was across his lap; or where that should have
been, up against his belly, her nostrils full of his smoky rancid odour. She felt strong fingers on the neck of her
dress and screamed in denial trying to prise him loose. Her small white hands tugged ineffectually at
his great dark fist, his strength was far beyond hers. Grinning, as if enjoying the comparison of
their relative power, the cripple stripped the dress from her in one continued
savage wrench. Meg tried to bring her
legs up far enough to kick him away but there wasn't enough of him to reach and
the straps holding him to the trolley gave him a solid base that she couldn't
upset. She realised that she had no hope
of defeating him at such close quarters.
The bandit's red-rimmed eyes amid the tangle of greasy
black hair gleamed with predatory intent like a beast from a thicket. Meg wriggled in his grip half-naked as the
great hands, brushing aside her feeble resistance, ripped her lace bra apart
like a thing of tissue. Her white
breasts tumbled into his big hands and were mauled with relish, the soft flesh
oozing between his squeezing fingers like dumplings.
He bounced them on a hard palm, thumbing the dark buds
of her nipples while Meg writhed in humiliation, unable to restrain him.
Grunting a few words incomprehensible to Meg, the
brute shoved backwards a few inches, dragging her further across his body and
reaching a hand down to her waist. She
fought wildly, aiming blows back at his head, which he disregarded, until at
last she got a grip on a handful of his disordered curls. Her fierce tugs sparked a fiercer
reaction. Swinging in his harness he
slapped her hard, a teeth rattling smack, then another, and another slamming
her head to and fro until she shifted all her efforts to defence, both arms up
against the blows, blinded by tears and strands of hair and dizzy with the
impacts. She had reached the limit of
her resistance.
Satisfied as to that, Meg's captor reached again to
the waistband of her knickers. Despite
her lack of opposition, he didn't bother with pulling them down but literally tore
them off. Tucking her body firmly under
his arms, his two thumbs hooked in at either hip and ripped the flimsy material
apart at the seams, tossing the remnant aside. Meg's hands went automatically
to her crotch but the cripple using one of his like a chopper, struck them away
in swift downward sweeps, numbing them with its force.
He swooped quickly before she could recover again,
hoisting her by the thighs and tipping her on her back in front of him, legs in
the air, arms flailing wide, still dazed and half surrendered.
Using his brawny arms as powerful levers the cripple
lifted himself and his tilted trolley together and hurled himself bodily upon
Meg, slamming her flat, flinging her legs wide and driving most of the breath
from her. His arms held her in a
vice-like grip pinned down beneath him, while his legless torso arched with
incredible muscular control to bring his rigidly thrusting penis into position
between her splayed thighs. Without the
leverage of a pair of legs the cripple had to rely upon sheer weight and
strength of arms to achieve his aim, but his powerful grip restrained and
manipulated his victim's own instinctive struggles. He had Meg by the upper arms, crushing them
together beneath her body and forcing her to arch upwards, thrusting her
breasts against his barrel chest. She
kicked wildly as she felt him penetrate her, heels and ankles coming into
painful contact with the solidly planted wooden tray, finding nothing human to
kick against and all her threshing merely leaving her more open to his thrust.
They struggled for a long time, the beggar plainly
enjoying her resistance, but quite confident that his strength would prevail,
Meg unable to believe that she could be subjected so easily to rape by a
legless cripple. Stubbornly she refused
to accept total defeat. She managed by a
great effort to heave him over, only to be lifted up on top of him as they
rolled and find that she was still impaled there.
He clung to her like a limpet, her own weight bearing
her down onto his rigid penis, his strength of grip preventing her from
levering herself off. His penis was now
solidly inside her, thrusting up, feeling as stiff as a flagpole. Every time her muscles were forced to relax,
she sagged a little deeper upon it, and was penetrated a little more and every
time she gathered herself for a fresh effort, she found that she had that much
further to rise.
At last she collapsed, panting and exhausted, onto his
muscular chest, then impelled by a feeling of humiliation in that position, she
summoned her failing strength for a last effort. Panting she threw herself this way and that,
rolling over, her long legs threshing, but her clinging burden only followed
her, chuckling, sometimes on top sometimes below, until she fetched up solidly
against the hut wall, this time underneath him.
She subsided at last with a groan of helplessness,
pinned into a corner. Grunting pleasurably, his lust only sharpened by the
delay in her conquest, the cripple began to drive into her again, using all his
incredible muscularity of waist and hips.
His shortened torso became a lever lifting and thrusting, with his arms
as the hinge. Meg was already well
penetrated and in six or seven quick thrusts he had buried himself to his balls
in her softly resistant sheath. A moment
or two to catch his breath and then he began to fuck her hard with long, deep,
strokes.
It was both noisy and vigorous but it didn't last
long. Meg held herself rigid and perhaps
the extended battle to counter and the subdue his prize had built up too much
excitement, for he came, sparsely and evidently prematurely after a mere dozen
or so thrusts.
In evident chagrin, he cursed and spat. Helpless underneath his weight, Meg could
only groan with obvious relief. She was
still half-dazed and had hardly credited her defeat. Surely a healthy full-grown woman should be a
match for a legless cripple! She felt
she would be better prepared if he tried that again.
Seeing her expression, her captor levered his torso
back from her, using his long arms like human spider, cursing steadily under
his breath. Meg started to sit up, but
if she had thought he would accept his disappointment, she was about to learn
another lesson.
He moved fast, one massive fist yanking her with him,
rolling her over and sending her sprawling face down. Before she could reorganize herself his other
hand had unshipped the broad and heavy belt like a weightlifter's cinch that
formed part of his securing harness. Meg
had hardly grasped his intentions, held in an iron grip with her arm doubled up
between her shoulder blades and his dead weight pinning down her head and
shoulders. From under his black eyebrows
dark glittering eyes were fixed upon the squirming pink rounds of her upturned
bottom. The belt was short thick and
heavy; gripped in his fist by the buckle end it left the flat tongue free for
business. He used it upon her
unprotected behind and at once restored her painfully to full awareness of her
position.
It was wholly unaccustomed treatment. Meg jerked her
head up her blonde curls flying, her legs kicked wildly at nothing. She greeted each stroke of the belt with a
piercing shriek that must have aroused the whole village. She humped desperately upwards, knees driving
at the dirt floor and only succeeded in making herself an easier target.
"Hah! Achaa!"
The brute grunted in satisfaction at her reaction. He balanced skilfully upon her back and
shoulders, pinning her down and using every ounce of his weight to best
advantage. As the blows multiplied,
Meg's shrieks took on a piteous note, her kicks declining in power and
direction.
"Achaa!
Good! Good!" He dropped the belt then with powerful wrists
and expert balance, threw his squirming and disheartened victim over onto her
back again. Meg squealed as her well-flogged
rump hit the hard earth floor and again on a rising note as her legs were
parted, knees doubled back and thighs spread wide by his thrusting torso and
muscular arms. This time she recognised
her inevitable fate. The weals the belt
had left on her behind were stretched by this treatment into fresh striations
of pain that served to demoralise her further.
The brute seemed as demonstrably rampant as when he
had started. She had been given a harsh
lesson in the consequences of resistance and surely she could only expect more
of the same if he found her unsatisfactory a second time. So by inexorable logic, Meg found herself
compelled to submit to a renewed assault.
"Hai! Achaa!"
He accepted this admission of his victory over her with an ignominious assumption
of its inevitability.
This time, despite Meg's reluctant humiliated
co-operation and her abuser's solidity of penetration, her rape seemed to go on
forever. Going up and down above her,
the plunging brute grunted incomprehensible exhortations. The effect of the rough floor grinding under
Meg's wounded bottom served her as an added incentive to do her best to help
him on to success. Panicking at the
growing ferocity of his tone, she spread herself to the limit and arched
herself upwards. Her heels, which had
been waving high in the air above the man's head, widening with each stroke,
buckled slowly at the knees, the heels coming rather uncertainly at first, to
rest in the small of his back. In a few
more strokes though, she was desperately thumping his buttocks with them in
time to each downward thrust.
Soon both parties became more urgent, though from very
different motives, creating between them nevertheless a noisy collaboration of
lust and encouragement. When at last the
amputated rapist rammed his last fast strokes into his shapely female victim,
pumping victoriously into her, both of them gave tongue in the uninhibited
expression of their quite contradictory reactions!