Andy and I were both IronMan competitors — all
right, if you want to be pedantic about it, IronMan
and IronWoman, - and while we were not yet near the
top of the tree, we were both getting nearer and nearer.
We had
been sweethearts ever since school when we found we had so many interests in
common, not the least of which was a love of sport — hard sport and living on
the Gold Coast of Queensland, we had naturally gravitated to the Nippers Surf
Club and from it to the senior Club at Currumbin from whence we became
interested in the IronMan competition.
For those
who are not familiar with this gruelling sport, it involves swimming, cycling
and running — the classic triathlon.
About four kilometres swimming, nearly two hundred on the bike and over
forty in a marathon run so you can see you have to be ultra fit to even
complete the course let alone gain a place.
Andy and I
spent all our spare time in training but we were also good students
academically and this led us to aim for a university course in physical
education. This was where Sports Shoes
Unlimited came in. The pair of us had
been approached by Kerry Harker. Neither of us liked him but he came up with
the goods and we put our antipathy aside.
What his
company was offering was a full four year scholarship for each of us. They would pay our tuition and other fees and
also give us a living allowance. In
return, we would be required to feature in their rather racy ads and make
appearances as required but not so as to interfere with our studies or regular training.
We were a
trifle ashamed at what we would have to do in their advertisements but we put
it aside for it really was an incredible offer and in any case we were proud of
our bodies. They were, we thought, about
as good as you could get them and although we would be
naked, our private parts would not be seen — at least not by the public.
What we
didn’t know was that Kerry, that total and utter slime-bag, had private copies
of the unedited tapes — parts that showed us in all our naked glory. These, we eventually found out, he used not
only for his private sexual pleasure, but also to offer us to a small band of
very, very wealthy men who indulged in modern day slavery — slavery of a very
special kind — human galley slaves!
He was
paid very well for his position as Managing Director of Sports Shoes Unlimited
but he was also doing very nicely from the occasional sale of good-looking
sports stars on the white slave market.
Our first shoot was awful. Kerry
(whom we still trusted, even if we didn’t like him) explained that even a tiny
pouch to cover our privates would take away from the artistic merit of the film
but assured us that no indecency would under any circumstances be permitted in
the final shots and that we would have control over what went to air.
We
therefore reluctantly, in great shame, stripped off entirely and went out of
the dressing room to the studio where the first session was to be filmed. They all admired our bodies and if we thought
Kerry’s eyes were a little too bright for comfort, we
concentrated on what we had to do and minced around, wearing only the
admittedly very comfortable and highly advanced sports shoes.
They were
indeed well advanced but it was the series of ads, dreamed up by Kerry, not the
advertising agency, that had shot them to pre-eminence
in their field. Each one showed off star
athletes each wearing nothing but their shoes — otherwise stark naked - and
performing in their respective sporting discipline. None ever showed their genitals or in the
case of a female, her breasts (or at least her nipples, anyway) but each was
quite obviously totally naked and the ads drew an immediate following — much as
the early Coca-Cola ads of beautiful young men and women, half naked on the
beach, had.
We were
shown swimming with our butts on full display as we powered through the water
to the beach, then, our genitals hidden in shadow, sped up the beach to the
bicycles which we jumped onto and then took off up the road. There was just the pair of us but skilful
editing showed us cycling stark naked between thousands of fans. Again it was
tasteful and not a hint of our genitals or my nipples was allowed on to the
final version.
Then it
was the marathon and the same thing went there.
The editors were very good. In
the minute or so of the ad, they gave the illusion of the three kilometre plus
swim, the hundred and eighty km ride and the forty km run and never once did
they allow my vagina or nipples or Andy’s cock or balls to be seen — and yet we
were quite naked throughout the shoot — apart from those shoes.
Other
sessions followed and we became minor celebrities for them as well as for our
rising fame as triathlon competitors.
I suppose
our looks had been a factor in Kerry’s selecting us for his advertising
campaign. We are both blessed with
inherited good looks but our sporting activity had, no doubt, helped as
well. We are both blonds, Andy with that
rugged dirty-blond look that went so well with his really superb physique and
me a finer, ash-blonde with fine hair that flopped everywhere when it was
dry. We both had olive skins that tanned
well and set off our finely toned musculatures to a tee.
We had
decided, at the beginning of our university careers to move in with one another
in a small unit near the uni. We were
going to get married as soon as we finished the course and couldn’t see the
point in holding off until then. I
suppose we might as well had tied the knot then but we
didn’t, preferring to wait until our graduation as physical education teachers.
But then,
half way through the course, Kerry suggested we marry. He would pay for the whole thing and it would
be a minor celebrity marriage. The fashionable church, magazine photographers, the wonderful
reception and a really terrific honeymoon. Andy hadn’t been that keen, preferring a
small wedding but, ever the bride, anxious for a wonderful occasion, I
persuaded him and so it happened.
Kerry had
copies of all the photos, of course — as he did of the unedited parts of our
commercial shoots, parts that showed off Andy’s very large and prominent sexual
organs as well as my vagina and my naked breasts — all quite unbeknown to us of
course. He certainly didn’t give us
copies of them, making us believe they either hadn’t existed in the first place
or, if they had, had been destroyed after editing.
It was a
few months after our wedding when Kerry told us about the overseas shoot.
“It will
be a wonderful opportunity for you both,” he gushed. “You will start in Paris and have a day or
two shooting there followed by an equal number of days sightseeing. Then you will move to Spain and do the same
there. After that, Morocco, Ghana, South
Africa then up to the Caribbean. It will
be on your long university vacation … What do you think?”
I looked
excitedly at my new husband. He smiled
back at me and we nodded.
“Sounds
great, Kerry,” we said, almost in one voice.
And so it
happened, exactly as he had outlined. We
flew to England and then crossed to France and did the shoot, much the same as
those we had already taken part in back in Australia, then had a couple of days
seeing the sights of Paris and surrounding districts then flew to Spain and did
the same there. It was every bit as
exciting as Kerry had promised and as with our Australian shoots, the public
was kept away while we performed in the nude.
We were
never part of the editing sessions but Kerry always had us in to see the final
film for us to sign off on and this happened now as well, the first shots being
really good. As our working holiday
progressed we had reason to thank Kerry for the wonderful opportunity he had
provided for us — until we reached the Caribbean, anyway.
There, in
Haiti actually, we were kidnapped.
It had
nothing to do with our photo shoot — or so it seemed. We were walking together down the streets of
Port-au-Prince, trying to ease the hot damp rooms of our hotel when we were
suddenly set upon by two men who had us in the van that was following them.
It
happened so quickly we had no time to call out even but even if we had, at that
late hour there weren’t too many people around and in any case, such things
were never even seen by passers-by. It
was just too dangerous. We had told the
night manager of our intentions and no doubt he, bribed by our abductors, had
let them know we were on the loose and ripe for picking.
They had
placed canvas bags over our heads and upper bodies and tied them around our
waists and they kept our arms imprisoned as well. They also tied our feet then drew them back
and tied them to our wrists. We were now
face down on the metal floor of the van, hog-tied and
helpless. The van drove for what seemed
like hours to us but then stopped and we were roughly manhandled out and into
another metal-floored vehicle. This
turned out to be an aeroplane and now we flew for many hours, stopping only to
refuel, God knows where.
When we
landed finally, and they undid our bonds and removed the bags and we alighted
from the plane, we saw green grass, tall, swaying coconut palms and
sago-thatched cottages. We were
somewhere in the South Seas, where exactly, we had no idea but the tall bluish
mountain in the background and the overall scenery around us gave away our
general location.
“What …?”
began Andy — and received a brutal backhander from one of our guards, both very
tall and very muscular black men.
“Keep your
mouths shut!” he snarled and then, grabbing an arm each, they marched us across
the grass-covered landing strip to a Land Rover. We were pushed up into the rear and our hands
drawn behind the uprights that supported the canvas cover that could be fitted
over it, and then cuffed. Our guards sat
beside us.
The Land
Rover took off, heading towards a small settlement we could see in the
distance. This was comprised of a number
of splendid houses, each of which was surrounded by smaller and much less
salubrious buildings. The village they
comprised was on a small harbour and in it, moored to a series of jetties as in
a marina, were a dozen very strange-looking vessels rather like ancient Norse
longships, even to the oars.
But we
didn’t have much time to wonder about the harbour and its strange vessels for
our eyes were just about popping out from the other things we saw in that
village.
Naked people, for a start. Young men and women who were stark naked
except for an iron collar around their necks or attached somehow to their
genitals and all chained together walking towards the piers or back from them,
from or to one of the great houses set back from the beach.
We noted
that each of these naked people were extraordinarily athletic and I felt a cold
shiver — followed by a hot prickle of apprehension pass right down my body as I
stared at the coffle marching across our path.
Each was marching, not walking, with almost military precision and I noted
the black overseers who accompanied them, held small black plastic things in
their hands, things that looked like TV controllers. When I saw one of the naked boys leap into
the air clutching his groin I realised the overseer had done something with the
controller; something that had caused the boy terrible pain.
We also
stared at another aspect of their bodies.
Every single one of them was totally free of hair. Not even a small triangle at their
pubes. I knew of course that some people
are less hairy than others, but I had never heard of anyone past puberty who
didn’t have at least some pubic hair.
These people had none. Not a
single hair below their eyelashes.
I looked
across the Land Rover at my husband, my eyebrows raised in a question. He just shrugged but his face registered the
same horror I felt as I stared at the coffle and at other naked boys and girls
working on the streets or around the splendid houses.
What had
we come to, I wondered — and more importantly, what were our roles going to be
in this dreadful place?