EXTRACT FOR
Lust For Power
(Ted Edwards)

      The dust was thick beneath her feet; she could feel it oozing up between her toes as she walked, or rather forced one bone-weary leg past the other in an exhausted near-shuffle. Dust. It swirled around her in a cloud, driven into life by the naked feet of the women in front of her, all trudging in a line that was forced on them by the shackles around their necks. An occasional crack and weak whimper told of a guard who felt the need to exercise his arm, for there could be no real reason to lash at any of the pitiful, spent creatures who'd just spent the last bone-aching fourteen hours weeding the garden. That's what they called it: 'weeding the garden' and always with a laugh. Or the men did, those who stood with whips in their hands watching the women doing the back-breaking work of prying up rocks from the flat, bone-hard ground and then carry them to the crusher that filled the air with its noise and yet more dust. From before dawn until early twilight they worked, with breaks of five minutes every two hours for water and fifteen minutes allowed for what they called 'lunch': a few dried scraps of meat and bread, washed down with more water. Or urine and/or semen, if the guards were feeling playful.

      Fourteen hours of pounding with those heavy steel crowbars, feeling the jar travel through the entire body as the point hit ground that was almost as hard as the rocks they were trying to shift. But for the gloves and boots, their hands wouldn't have survived the first day and their feet would have been cut to ribbons on the sharp shards that littered the ground. Gloves, boots, a floppy coolie-style hat and a coarse smock to keep the sun off and sometimes they had to take those off if the guards wanted to watch their tits swinging. The only rest they got was when it was time for water, which is how they measured the day, because those all-too-brief water breaks became their beacons. There was always the other sort of rest, of course, just as had happened to her today. She'd felt the tug on her smock , but her fatigue-dulled brain hadn't registered it until he did it again. Only then had she stopped in the act of lifting that thirty-pound steel rod and turned to see the man leering at her.

      "Come on, Blondie," he'd said with a sneer, "come and take a rest."

      He'd made her take the smock off first so that he could fumble her breasts. They all did that; they were good breasts. She'd stood there with her hands at her sides, head down and let him make use of her body. How good it had felt to let her arms hang like that. Then he had slapped her face and she'd cried out.

      "Look at me, Blondie! Show me how much you appreciate me letting you have a rest. Or..." His hand touch the coiled, plaited leather of the whip fastened to his belt and immediate panic seized her: she knew just what that felt like and didn't want it again. So she lifted her head and smiled at him with her whole being, inviting him with her eyes and praying that he didn't want her back entrance.

      He wanted her mouth, so she knelt in the dust and worked at him with lips, tongue and hand. He had been in another woman, she knew; she could taste her. But that was nothing and even this was better than the eternal, non-stop pounding against rock-hard earth. And then he had spurted into her mouth and she had held it all while looking up at him, adoring him as she knew she must.

      "Have you got it in your mouth, cunt?" he'd asked, looking down.

      She'd nodded and opened her mouth to show him.

      He grinned. "Gargle and swallow, filth. Then clean me and hold it in there."

      She obeyed, but something in his voice had told her that there was more to come. There was: he pissed, first in the mouth and then, pulling back, directing the stream to her face so that it cascaded down on to her body, stinking. But that would get worse later and wasn't an immediate concern as she held a mouthful of the vile, acrid stuff, waiting.

      "Gargle."

      She did, thanking her stars that she'd had the presence of mind to hold it. The first time she'd spat it out and had none to show him, so he'd called over two others and they'd spent ten minutes slapping her breasts before forcing her to her knees and making her suck them all off before repeating the piss. That was how she'd learned the right way. She gargled and swallowed when he told her to, then pulled on the smock and stumbled back to her work position, barely noticing that another woman was being taken to the side by another of the guards. But then you didn't notice any of that, not after the first few days; you just pounded away, waiting for that next blessed water break. Two more guards gave her a 'rest' after that; but neither of them wanted to sodomise her, thank God; one of them had her in the traditional ??" for this place ??" doggie position, while the other was a straight suck and swallow with no piss; perhaps the heat was getting to him.

      Now the march ??" if you could call that shuffle a 'march' ??" 'home'; and it was 'home' only because that's where you ate and slept. But before that there was yet another ordeal to go through.

      She was so weary that she was almost out on her feet and moved like an automaton, hardly registering the cloud of dust or the progress they were making. She knew that'd arrived only when she bumped into the woman in front of her, heard male voices and knew that they were there. Oh, God. Hands unfastened the shackle from her neck and another took her elbow and led her, stumbling but un-protesting, to her stall. Good name, 'stall', she thought, as she was pushed to kneel on the raised plank and rest her arms on the slightly higher board a couple of feet further in. Like an animal. Her legs were separated wide and her forearms tied to the plank in front of her, leaving her now glove-less hands free. And then the first one came to her from behind and thrust into her; moments later, a hairy belly and erect penis appeared before her face and her mouth opened to accept it, while her hands cupped the balls and the fingers toyed with them and caressed the penis. She had only two thoughts: how many this time? And: please God, not the bottom, or 'arse', as she was coming to think of it in the language of this place. Would she ever forget, she wondered, 'cock', 'cunt', 'fuck', 'bugger' and the rest? But words were meaningless. The acts weren't. How many?

      It was six, but fate was unkind: the last one wanted her arse and took her roughly, forcing himself into that tight passage. It was agony, but the man in her mouth seemed to enjoy the vibrations from her screams because he came fast, then sprayed her with his piss as she gasped and cried at the pain, aiming for her mouth so that she coughed and spluttered as she was torn apart and her world dissolved in agony. When it was over and she'd been untied, she could barely walk to her hut, with every step bringing a new wave of atrocious pain. Once there, she collapsed on to the stinking, straw-filled palliase that was her bed and sobbed herself into a fitful sleep. She was woken after an hour.

      It was a guard she didn't recognise, but he was holding a plate of the foul mush that passed for food. When she scrambled away from him, feeling panic, he smiled at her, revealing several bad teeth. "I saw that you hadn't eaten," he said, offering the plate. "You have to eat, or you won't survive out there," he inclined his head backwards. "Here."

      Full of suspicion and dread, she took the plate, eyed the contents suspiciously, but then wolfed the foul mess down, not really caring what might have been done to it. The guard leaned against the wall and watched her. When she was finished, he hitched himself off the wall with an elbow and looked down into her fear-filled eyes. "OK," he said, his hands going to his belt. "Now you've eaten, you can thank me with your arse again. You've got a very fuckable arse."

      

***

      

      "So now you know," he said, looking directly into her eyes.

      She had to look into those pebble-bright orbs, set deep in the sallow, narrow face with its high cheek-bones and thin, cruel mouth. Had to look while the sweat popped on her body and the stark horror twisted her stomach into a knot and the all-too-fresh memories of the dust-bowl, the pounding steel bar and the eternal, never-ending penises. She knew he wanted an answer, but her throat was too thick with terror and her lips fluttered helplessly. She swallowed, tasting dust. That dust. "Y...yes," she croaked.

      A smile twisted those lips; he shifted in the chair, the sun flashing on the gold of the stars at his shoulders, the buttons and decorations of his tunic. "Do you want it to happen all over again?"

      "No!" she cried, her hands going to the edge of the desk and clamping, her face distorted. "Please! No!"

      "Or to your sister? Or her darling daughter, perhaps? They'd just love to have them down there"

      "No! Please! No! Please, I..."

      He wouldn't let her finish. "So, Madam President, does that mean that you are going to come to terms with a whole new set of policies? Mine, for instance?"

      She stared at him, a vile taste in her mouth, worse than a guard's piss. But what was burning into her soul was corrosive acid; he had destroyed her and she knew she had to ??" would ??" betray the people who believed and trusted her. She felt an instant of fury, but that died the moment it was born when she felt the pain from her bruised hands and she knew she couldn't face that place again. "Yes," she whispered.

      "I am delighted to hear it," he said. And then, abruptly, he stood and walked round the ornate desk; she trembled, watching his easy, contemptuous nonchalance. "Your people," the word was a sneer, "are waiting outside to welcome you back from your illness."  He stood very close, his trouser belt at the level of her eyes. She stared at the buckle, knowing what was coming but dreading it. Then he spoke and she could hear both the sneer and the smile in his voice. "Show me who's in charge here," he said.

      She closed her eyes, but slid off the chair and on to her knees in front of him without a word. Her hands went to the zip of his trousers, lowering it and she leaned forward as her hands found him, her mouth opening as the tears tumbled down her face. He wasn't even hard; that was almost an insult in itself. But she took it into her mouth and sucked, swirling and poking her tongue as she'd learned in that hell of a dust-bowl that she'd known nothing about until she'd been abducted and sent there; for all she knew it wasn't even in the country. Not that that mattered: what mattered was that the man whose penis was in her mouth wasn't given the excuse to send her back there.

      The thought of the place made her re-double her efforts; she heard him sigh with pleasure as the thing firmed. "They taught you well, Chiquita," he said and her ears burned at the use of the diminutive. "I think we'll make this a regular thing. You can come into my office and do this every morning."

      She tried to close her mind to that and to the thoughts that tumbled through her brain, tormenting her: she was going to betray everything she stood for, everything and everyone who trusted her. The thing was big now, hard; he thrust forward a little, pushing the head to the back of her mouth as if asserting his dominance. "Pity they didn't teach you to deep-throat," he said, "but then they're savages. Though you'd know more about that then me, wouldn't you?" He laughed and thrust his hips forward again, forcing the penis into the entrance of her throat.

      She choked, but didn't pull back, though the choking had released the tears that she'd been holding back. They'd tied her, face up, on a low table with her head overhanging the edge and then one of them shoved his cock into her mouth and kept pushing until it was into her throat. She'd thought she was going to die, but he pulled out and they all laughed like hell as she gasped for breath and coughed and choked. And then he did it again. And again. They kept that up for hours, most of them pulling back to come in her mouth, but one of them came in her throat and she began to choke, so they had to untie her, turn her over and bang on her back. They hadn't repeated that game because they had strict orders to keep her alive and not to mark her face. They hadn't, but the scars of what they'd done to her were burned on her mind.

      

***

      

      This was the man who had responsible: Miguel Garcia Santiago, her trusted ??" oh, so trusted ??" Minister of the Interior had arranged for her to be abducted and sent to that hellish dust-bowl that she'd known nothing about until she arrived there. They'd dragged her, handcuffed, gagged and still dressed in the two-piece that she'd been wearing when she'd stepped into the car that was going to take her to the speech at the National Police Federation, in front of someone she knew and had thought she'd exiled: Fernando Lopez, once head of Castillo's interrogation unit. He'd been behind a broad desk and was smiling at her in a way that told her she was in deep trouble

      "Welcome, Madam President," he'd said. "I'm so sorry to hear that you're ill."

      'Ill?' she'd thought through the rising fear and panic. 'I'm not ill!'

      Something of that must have shown in her eyes because Lopez had laughed. "Oh, but you are very ill!" he cried, grinning. "You're suffering a bad case of liberalism, free speech, liberty and the rights of the individual! And now we're going to treat all those dreadful illnesses and make you better." His face had changed as something other than amusement entered his eyes. "Much better." He's gestured to the men holding her. "Get her over the desk and get the cuffs over the hook. The usual thing."

      'The usual...' she thought. How long has this been going on without her knowing anything about it? She'd found herself pushed forward until she was flat on the desk. Her arms were pulled straight and then down until the chain in the cuffs went over something the held them - and her ??" in place. Her hips were just over the edge, her feet off the floor. She wanted to scream, but heard his voice again. 

      "Spread her legs nice and wide. I've been waiting for this for a long time."

      Hands had taken her ankles and pulled them wide, straining her and filling her with the humiliating knowledge that her skirt was being pushed up, exposing her undergarments. At last she found her voice.

      "Naaaaagggggggggh!" she protested,

      Lopez had laughed from behind her. "She's woken up at last!" he cried. "Can't keep the bitch quiet normally! Make a speech as soon as fart! Hold her."

      She felt someone ??" it had to be him ??" move between her legs and his hands on her thighs. Suddenly, she'd known what was going to happen.

      "Naaaaaaqgggggggggggggggh!' she'd screamed, kicking her legs and twisting her body. They were held with ease.

      He'd laughed. "Don't bother! They've been holding cows like you over this table for years! Guess why?"

      His hands moved up, pushing her skirt with them. They got to her panties while she wriggled and yelled into the gag. His hand slid under the elastic and the material was bunched. Suddenly, it went slack. Cut!

      "That's one side, Madam President! Your dignity has almost gone!"

      "Ngggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggh!"

      "Sorry, you lost the vote! Now you lose the rest of your dignity!"

      She'd felt the cut and the material pulled away from under her. Desperately, she'd fought to close her legs. But they were held firmly. Tears of humiliation fell."

      "Oh. My! Look at that, lads! That's high-class presidential minge you're looking at! You should feel privileged!"

      She'd heard the zip and felt him grasp her thighs, high up. Then the pressure at her dry entrance.

      "Fuck! She's too dry! Why are they always fucking dry? You'd think these bitches didn't like fucking! Where's that oil?"

      Something squirted into her and she began crying in earnest, grunting when he thrust into her. He'd made it last, pulling out when he thought he was close, but at last it was over and he was pulling himself into her as he ejaculated inside her. But if she'd thought that was all ??" all! - she was wrong.

      "Right, lads; now your turn. But make sure she's cleaned out when you've finished. And no marks on her face, hear me?" He'd come round to the other side of the desk and wiped the head of his penis, slimy with juices, over her face. "Don't cry, my presidential puta. This is just the beginning; you're going to get more cock in the next month than you've ever dreamed of! Pity mine won't be one of them, because you're a good fuck for your age." A final wipe as another penis forced itself into her and began thrusting. "Come to think of it, boys, I could go for a second round with this one. Give me a shout when you've finished with her."

      

***

      

      That had been the beginning and it had got worse, much worse in that sun-fried hell-hole. And now the penis in her mouth was showing the signs that she'd come to know. She clamped her lips round it and sucked, moving her head in time with his thrusts as it spurted into her mouth, where she held it. He pulled out and tilted her head back with his hand, steeping back to look down at her.

      "That felt as if you enjoyed it, Madam President cock-sucker. Did you?"

      She could only look up and nodded while writhing inside. He frowned and then, understanding, smiled. "They made you hold it, did they? What wicked fellows they are. Show me."

      Obediently, she opened her mouth to show him the semen held in the dip of her tongue. His grin widened. "What an obedient little slut you've become! We'll have to find you a jar so that you can collect it and drink it when there's enough. But since that crowd outside sounds as if it's becoming impatient, why don't you keep it in your mouth while you're out there? It'll remind you who's master here, won't it? Now tidy yourself up, look cheerful and go and greet your adoring public. The people," he added maliciously, "that you're about to betray."