ERICA: PROPERTY OF REX
BOOK ONE - ACQUIRED
Chapter 1-PRELUDE
Balik, the capital of Your Majesty's Sahdist Kingdom of Balikpan, would pass for a
normal Oriental city if one could ignore the constant molestation of the nubile young
street cleaners, who wear nothing but short smocks and broad-brimmed coolie hats, and the
street vendors who pester passing tourists to finger some beautiful young creature
standing on tiptoe with her feet astride a couple of orange boxes.
Tourists here are not the normal family group, but the rich, the discreet and above all
the cruel of this world, come to practice your diabolical religion. I know that they are
gathered by subtle promotion and word of mouth and very carefully screened before they
receive the impressive visa without which they cannot pass the soldiers who protect the
unobtrusive departure lounge of Balikpan Airways at Bangkok’s International Airport. There
is no other way in or out of Balikpan, since there is no deep-water harbour and fast
patrol vessels guard the fishing fleet - and that suits you, does it not, Your Majesty?
There are many casual tourists at present, attracted by the annual Festival of
Obedience just concluded, though not many will have done as I did and entered a
competitor. Some, the more knowledgeable or maybe richer, come and go frequently and
maintain establishments here, and would not deal with street vendors when the auction
rooms offer better bargains.
Your ornate palace is a magnificent gilded structure within massive walls: one has to
admire it from the outside even if one detests the perversities that are practiced within.
A rather fine miniature of itself, standing on stilts between two ancient rain trees at
the front gates, provides the customary spirit-house. The palace is a many-storied
building and the royal quarters are, of course, at the greatest height: no structure in
the city may rise higher than the lowest spires of your palace, Great Lord.
My balcony, as Your Majesty knows, looks out on a paved way bordered on one side with
colourful bushes cloaked in lazy butterflies and on the other with flowering reeds that
sway in the gentle breeze. It divides the outer bastions of the palace from the muddy
banks of the broad slow-flowing river Baliknahm, beside which sacred white peacocks strut
up and down: the area is an enclave of the past in the midst of the modern city.
And here, along the river bank, comes a ceremonial procession, its stately progress
flanked by two lines of marching soldiers in full regalia.
First come seven tall naked black women, magnificent specimens, matched for height,
with plumes and strings of pearls in their long black hair and perspiration sheening their
ebony skins. They are chained together ankle to ankle and wrist to wrist so that they step
forward together and the palm leaves they are carrying rise and fall in perfect unison as
they sweep the dust from the dirt road, baked hard by the heat of the blazing sun.
They are followed by a man magnificently dressed and wearing a conical hat, who sits
cross-legged upon a sacred white elephant that is richly caparisoned with rugs and jewels.
Diamonds and rubies sparkle in the bright sunlight.
Behind are lesser elephants bearing lesser mandarins, and on foot come the trumpeters,
the courtiers and a long retinue of slaves.
More slaves run out from the heavy golden palace gates, swinging them apart, striking
gongs, then prostrating themselves on the steps as the Barcalon is helped down from his
great beast. A naked woman walks gracefully before him as he mounts the palace steps, this
one blonde and white. His insignia, a silver betel box and golden parasol, are balanced
upon her head, which is held high by a wide jewel-encrusted leather collar. She is very
erect because her arms are bound behind her straight back with golden cord so tightly
drawn that the elbows are pressed together, and each knot is sealed with the Imperial
dragon seal that may not be broken.
Now he passes from my sight - he will be entering the first courtyard, where fifty of
the elite guard, holding swords of gold, squat on fine Persian carpets.
Thus, Your Infinite Majesty, comes your Chief Minister. He is here to collect the few
poor pages I have written so far. Soon he will bear my words upstairs on a golden platter
so that his hands may not defile what his master is to touch.
As I scribbled away for you in my cell at the palace, at least one armed soldier always
in sight, I have had reason enough to sweat even if the climate were different. Cell? How
could I call this magnificent apartment a cell? The gorgeous view of the brightly painted
high-prowed boats that come and go from the palace quay, the huge iridescent dragonflies
that hover over the slow stir of muddy water, the fine verdant mountains defiled by the
sleeping volcano which dribbles ominous traces of dark black smoke, these form a
spectacular backdrop but are no comfort.
I find it hard to write because of the way you use women as decoration throughout the
palace, specially the one with stumps for legs and no arms which balances upon a slim
pedestal in this very room, making sport for the soldiers whenever she loses her balance
and falls. It is a constant reminder of the cruelty that is worshipped in this evil island
paradise of yours, unique, surely, in the world of today.
Here, Radiance of the World, you are the ultimate authority and in you cruelty knows no
curb: you do great credit to the Marquis de Sade whom you worship so ardently.
So - I hope Erica's history will please you, Oh Mightiest of Kings. Do with me as
you will for the Lord is my shepherd, but I humbly beg of you, in the name of the Marquis
whom you hold sacred, release my girl Erica when you tire of her. She might yet recover
even from so traumatic a beginning and find happiness in a life without me: in my
foolishness I brought her here for your accursed festival and doubtless I shall die for
that, but she is innocent.
I have done as you ordered, I have twisted the facts to suit your perversities, and
embroidered my tale to your taste. In actual fact, Erica is the supreme masochist - the
worst thing you can do to her is to withhold her daily beating or humiliation. You know
this and I know it, but you instructed me to conceal the fact and I have done my best to
obey. I suppose it will titillate you more that way, and it would be her wish too, no
doubt, for it is pretending to hate what secretly turns her on that gives her the biggest
'buzz' - her word not mine. But not here, no, not in your Court, Great Lord, not
with a cruel tyrant who abuses for amusement - no no, it should be with someone who loves
her dearly, as I do.
And, as you wished, I have made her seem even younger than the delicious but oh so
naïve young eighteen-year-old she really was when I first met her.
In falsifying my writing in these ways I seek to please you not for myself, but for
Erica. My mission to save her crippled soul is genuine, it comes from the true Lord, and
He will support us in our present peril. If I do not mention my God again, do not forget
that He is there: with His help lesser Monarchs may be toppled from their thrones, however
permanent those thrones may seem, however many jewels may be woven into them.
Chapter 1-1
Paint was peeling from the woodwork of the dingy inner-city terrace house at the end of
the pathetic strip of unkempt garden. The family might well have gone away after all that
publicity: neighbours get very militant when youngsters are abused, even in this foulest
of London slums.
The front door was ajar. I thought I heard crying from inside, or perhaps this was an
abandoned kitten. Nobody answered my knock. The noise that had disturbed me stopped
abruptly, that was all.
I pushed open the creaking door. It led to a bare narrow uncarpeted passage. In front I
could see into a cheerless kitchen with unwashed dishes piled high in a sink with a
dripping tap. There was a narrow uncarpeted staircase on my right, and a half open door on
my left. I went in, and there she was, lying naked on her stomach on a shabby green couch,
her slim body shaking with inner sobs, her face turned away from the door into a mass of
gorgeous long red-gold hair, or was it auburn, it seemed to change tint with the light.
Her legs were apart and bent up at the knees by the shortness of the couch, ankles crossed
over a luscious little bottom.
Her arms were held high up behind her back, bound in such a way that each hand held the
opposite elbow!
She drew up her legs as she turned over and sat up in alarm, an extremely pretty girl,
extremely frightened. For a moment big bewildered blue eyes peeped through glorious long
red hair, now falling over her face in a haze, then she jumped to her feet and scampered
to a corner as far away from me as she could get, turning to face me shyly, shaking her
head so that the hair swung behind her.
She had a perfect little figure, slim but nicely rounded. With her arms secured behind
her so tightly she stood unnaturally erect, which drew attention to those budding breasts,
so high and firm.
There was no heating or comfort in that bare room, apparently no one else in the
house.
"Are you Erica?" I asked.
"Yes." It was almost a whisper. She was shrinking into the corner as if she
would like to vanish into the woodwork, and she was shaking all over. She had the wide
sort of mouth that so easily shows the upper teeth, and hers were good, regular and very
white.
A very kissable mouth!
"Where's your step-Mother?"
"G-gone to the pub."
"Does she always leave you like this, no clothes?"
"That's so I don't run away."
"Why would you run away?"
"Because -"
"Because what?"
"Oh God!"
It was the first time I heard her blaspheme, but I decided to overlook it. This was no
time to upbraid her, even for so serious a fault.
"Because what?" I asked again, gently, easing my trousers where they had
tightened very inconveniently at the crotch.
"Uncle Willie -"
"Yes?"
"He - he's coming to punish me -"
I stood up, and as she cowered away from me, caught in the corner, my eyes dwelt on her
skin, so very smooth, a beautiful light brown, maybe olive, verging on golden, inviting
the fingers to slide over it, all over it, to explore its shyness and secret places slowly
and at leisure...
I licked my lips. "I think I'll wait for your step-mother," I said.
After all, there are limits. "Will she be long?"
"What - what time is it?"
I looked at my watch, the one I had won at Sunday school. The thought of Sunday school
should have made me turn round and walk out of that evil house, because the sight of her
nakedness was doing bad things to my mind. "It's just after three," I
said.
"Oh God!" she said again. Her delicate face - elfin, perhaps, one might call
it - her face screwed up. She had stopped crying, but now she began to whimper: she was
still pretty when she did that, it was cute, somehow appealing, and I didn't want her
to stop.
"They - they'll be back any minute!" she said despairingly. This was in
the days when pubs had to close at 3 o'clock.
"And your Uncle Willie is coming to punish you?" It seemed incredible.
"What do you mean, punish?"
She hesitated, quiet for a moment, biting her full lower lip, as I waited for her to go
on. "He - he'll beat me before – he’ll beat me first, I think, and then - yes,
he'll beat me with the belt I expect, he usually does."
"THE belt?" I repeated, for that was the way it had sounded.
"Yes," she said, as if it was obvious, "the leather one, the one that
hangs by my bed."
I tried to suppress the illicit excitement that the image of her being beaten aroused
in me: my feelings were totally unworthy, not at all Godly, yet not easy to brush aside.
She was whimpering even more now, in between speaking, and I was edging closer to her
despite myself.
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