CHAPTER 1

 

Andrea shivered with cold and fear. She had a headache from the searchlights which were bathing her in a harsh light. She would normally have sought relief by turning away from the cruel luminance which burnt into her eyes, painting a sharp crisp shadow of her body on the cold earth beneath her bare feet. She would normally have moved around to keep warm, or worn her thick fur coat, or indeed not have been standing in that courtyard at 5am on a winter's morning. However, this was not her normal world. If she or any of the other women standing in orderly rows beside her so much as moved, a guard would stride across and lash out with his baton. Protesting was equally impossible. The last girl, a teenager, who muttered under her steaming breath, had ended cowering on her knees under a series of sharp cuts from the guard.

The whole ordeal had been made ten times worse because of their tiredness from an exhausting and unaccustomed march of around 200 miles over the last few days to this camp in the North of England, with only snatched sleep and minimal food. There was absolutely no choice but to march briskly in line like soldiers, as the guards demanded, trying to ignore the looks of shock, amusement and contempt from the people they passed. Andrea's back and legs still ached from several blows she endured from a guard's baton yesterday when she objected to marching straight past public toilets in a town and instead having to squat shamefully by the roadside - at the time decreed by the guards for a break. No one who had been on the receiving end of the guards' fury ever stepped out of line again on the march - that now included just about every woman present.

She felt tired and filthy. With little sleep and no opportunity to wash during the march she gave thanks for her sensible boots, warm clothing and several pairs of spare knickers she had used to at least provide clean underwear at her morning toilet.

Perhaps even worse, however, was the humiliation and shame they had endured three hours earlier. After passing through the huge iron gates of the camp they were made to strip completely naked in the chill night air and then remain stiffly to attention. At least they had been segregated from the male prisoners but Andrea and the other fifty or so remaining women in their weary band stood freezing, behind the pile of warm, discarded clothes, swaying with fatigue, tingling with fear. To amuse themselves and dispel their obvious displeasure at the night duty, the guards, mostly swarthy, fierce-looking Oriental men mixed with a few obviously of Western origin, swaggered around in their thick warm uniforms daring any of the women to move from their rigid positions. Although not all could speak English, their eyes, roaming indolently at will over the shivering flesh of their terrified victims, needed no translation

Fat, thin, beautiful and plain, they all stood stiffly to attention, in terrified silence before their harsh captors. It was probably even worse for the mature women amongst them. Just ahead of Andrea, a pretty but large woman in her forties or fifties, had to endure the mocking comments from a couple of young guards, one British, one Korean.

"We could start a fucking dairy herd now, sell milk!" Batons jabbed the woman's large, sagging breasts as tears of shame glinted down her red cheeks. "Look at her arse, don't stand behind her if she farts, she'll blow us all away," they chuckled. Then, tapping the large clenching cheeks of her buttocks, "still she'll lose that flab here under our slimming regime." They prodded her belly, giggling again like schoolboys before the woman old enough to be their mother.

Andrea's whole world, and that of Leanne, her eighteen year-old daughter standing nude beside her, had collapsed into this nightmare. She stiffened with apprehension, cold breath quickening and steaming through her lungs as a guard strutted before her. In the normal world she had left she would have screamed and retrieved her clothing, or at least crossed her hands over her jutting breasts to hide them from his openly lecherous gaze. And then probably slapped and berated him. Instead, having painfully learnt her lesson, her thigh still stinging from a previous cut from a guard's cane, she pulled her aching body upright, trying to ignore the way her shapely breasts thrust even further forward with her posture, almost pointing at her tormentor.

"Nice tits." He spoke in broken English, grinning as he lightly jabbed them with his cane.

"Nice coat!" A female guard, also Korean, with a cruel, angular face picked up Andrea's discarded fur. "Just the weather, eh?" she held it up before Andrea, "And you not need here, I take."

Andrea bit her lips to stop her teeth chattering but also to prevent the beginnings of a protest as the grinning woman paraded round in the warm, expensive garment her husband had bought her last year. It somehow left her feeling even more exposed in her nudity. The only good thing was that the leering guards finally walked off, leaving Andrea alone with her thoughts.

In an attempt to wrench her throbbing mind from this incomprehensible madness, Andrea sought refuge by going back to a saner time, only a week ago, her last happy memory.

 

***

 

On what would transpire to be the last day in her house, Andrea was examining herself critically before the mirror in her large, beautifully furnished bedroom. She knew that she scarcely needed the make up to enhance her already pretty and sensuous face, framed by long dark hair falling to her creamy shoulders. At thirty-five she understood from the many looks and comments that she was an extremely attractive woman, still in her prime. The daily sessions in the gym attached to their large house helped her to maintain the stunning and curvy figure reflected in the mirror. Bending to tug on a tiny pair of blue panties showed there was no sagging of her 36b breasts nor any discernible bulge of her belly. And when she had tugged the thong knickers up her long toned thighs, they showed each smooth firm globe of her rear, dissecting the spheres perfectly. She was stunning and knew it.

Yet as she dressed in her alluring clothes she felt a tinge of guilt at having such an expensive wardrobe in such austere and depressing times. Britain had been conquered a year ago in 2030, by the forces of the Korean and Moslem alliance. Britain had ignored the growth and hostility towards all things Western at its peril. The slow, drip-feed 'invasion' had taken place over ten years with Britain being too complacent until it was too late. Now the screw was tightening and the English Prime Minister was only a puppet to the Koreans, who were financed and supported by the Arabic world. Many in the country found times hard. Andrea knew there was some resentment towards her in Kent. People knew that her husband, Peter, a former police inspector, was now a deputy to the Korean State commander for Southern England and that as such their family enjoyed certain privileges.

What she couldn't also tell the people to dampen and probably reverse their resentment was that Peter used his position with their conquerors to also lead a secret life as head of the local resistance movement. Indeed, as a result of his influence, many areas of Southern England were hardly affected by the Korean invasion and the troops stationed from the North didn't often bother them. They relied mainly on disaffected or previously disadvantaged members of the English community to run things in key positions down South for them. In any case, Andrea justified to herself, wasn't she too taking risks by virtue of her husband's secret life.

Her daughter, Leanne, came into the room as Andrea was zipping up her elegant black dress.

"Hi Mum, you look nice. Is this OK for the do?" She ran her hands down the short low cut red dress that hugged her figure. The same beauty shone from the young girl as it did from her glamorous mother.

"You'll give the old fuddies a heart attack at the ceremony." She smiled at the sight of her daughter's cleavage and long legs. "But what the heck - perhaps they need a little excitement. I suppose I can't talk," she leaned forward a little to emphasise her own generous display of bust above her dress. "And what's the harm in a bit of glam to cheer ourselves up - it's not as though we want to be at the stupid opening of the new barracks. Your Dad managed to get away from it all for a few days to drop us in it," she laughed only half-jokingly.

The only fly in the ointment had been Jung, who had recently been appointed ostensibly to work for Peter as one of his inspectors but Andrea knew it was a sham. He was an obnoxious Korean, probably a political appointee sent to keep an eye on things first hand for the new rulers. He had made it clear since his arrival a few weeks ago that he resented being subordinate to Peter and also it seemed he entertained an unhealthy interest in her. Still, Andrea had satisfied herself with the knowledge that Peter was planning a set-up to make Jung appear guilty of subterfuge against his masters and collusion with the conquered English and thus hopefully rid them of his ghastly presence.

This set in motion another reflection in Andrea's memories to a week or so before then, around two weeks before she ended up in the horrible camp. Peter's plans had not been in place in time to prevent their house being raided by a special army squad. This frightening incident followed what they later gathered to be a tip-off from Jung. Andrea still flinched at the memory of the raid when one quiet Sunday afternoon, awaiting the arrival of relatives, her life had turned into a nightmare.

Their first inkling of trouble had been the hefty crash on the front door. Peter had gone to investigate and her hand flew to her mouth when she heard the raised voices.

"Who? What is this, what do you?"

"Shut up no talk back into house!" the soldiers had snarled at Peter.

"But, oooff!"

"Shut it!" the soldier snapped, giving him a hefty push to cannon straight into Andrea who was also tentatively making her way to the door. "Into house, no talk, hands on head, do it now or get plenty hurt!" the guards screamed into both of their shocked faces.

"Watch it, look I'm a policeman and ... haaghhh," a rifle butt jammed into his midriff silencing Peter's further protest. Andrea tried to cradle him before her hands were wrenched away and she was forced to clasp her neck.

She attempted to guide her winded husband ahead of her into the lounge with her elbows.

"Side by side! Face window! All clothes off, strip now or we do it for you!" the orders were barked at them. Although there was no chance to consider or resist, Peter received another vicious punch when he hesitated. "Both strip - all clothes off - everything- hurry, then hands back on heads. Stand with legs wide apart. If you move or talk you get plenty hurt," a thuggish-looking Korean soldier snarled.