Abroad

The next day was much like the one before it. On her hands and knees, Anne finished washing the courtyard down before noon. Bianca pointed out a few spots she missed and stood over her as she redid them before being led to the stake.

Pilar was there, dressed in her loincloth as before; Anne grew amorous at the sight and wondered for a moment if this was part of her reduction to an animal, until the whip drove all thought from her mind.

Starting earlier, Bianca was able to work her over for longer. When she stopped Anne remained stupid and confused for a quarter of an hour, and the two women were pleased.

Her mind softened and diminished to mere physical perception. Tied in the shade of a tree, tropical breezes on her skin, fed and watered by her masters. Life was good.

Like a pet she followed the girl to her cell and entered it after dinner without a word, sinking into a dreamless sleep until morning.

Anne made progress in her training, and within a few weeks Pilar ordered two changes.

Bianca substituted a more pungent oil for the phallus. Anne did not know this; she had become used to applying a thicker coat to increase the effect, and on the first day the extra heat made her lie on her back and writhe like a worm before she was able to fasten her chain and stand up.

It stayed with her until the evening, when she refreshed it before entering her cell. This was good because her brands had ceased to burn after a week; it focused attention on her belly.

And she was fed only once a day, at sundown. Her evening portion was increased so she got as much as before, and Pilar agreed with Bianca that it should not be withheld as punishment; but the schedule left her hungry from the moment she got up in the morning until dinnertime.

The result was to drive all thought from her head other than hunger and desire. Pilar and Bianca noted this with approval and reported it to Cesar.

Soon it was time for the village festival. Anne was taken from her cell and led out to the plaza. She shared the crowd's excitement as she was hung up and beaten by the community, then put over the log for the men's enjoyment. If Rico was one of them, she did not notice.

Afterwards she was presented to the women. She knelt with lowered head while they stood in a circle around her. Her unwashed body was caked with dust and her hair matted and filthy. Most of the village bathed at a spring on the island, but it was forbidden to pollution by the white whore.

Some of the younger women took pity on her; one held out food and Anne ate it from her hand. She touched her forehead to the ground and kissed the woman's feet.

* * * * * * * * * *

The rainy season came a week or two later. Anne was scrubbing the courtyard outside the temple when the rain began, a warm downpour that covered the area with a sheet of water. Oblivious to it, Anne continued at her task conscious only of the tile before her, and her hunger and the phallus.

Bianca and Pilar came outside to fetch her. Like the other village natives, they coped with the rain by shedding their clothes and going naked.

They told Anne to follow them. She did, admiring their bodies and yearning for one or both of them to possess her, to the stake.

Already the dust on her skin had turned to streaks of mud; they tied her to the stake and when the rain ceased an hour later she was rinsed clean. Bianca even brought out a hairbrush and did her hair, standing close before her while Anne grew warm with feral lust.

The beatings went on until Pilar and Bianca decided she was ready and went to see the priest.

Over the next few days at his direction a group of men - the same four who held her down at her branding - built a large pyre of logs and brushwood in the village plaza.

Anne was washing the tiles of the outdoor courtyard one morning when the temple bell summoned the village to gather. After everyone was assembled, Cesar emerged with an unlit torch in one hand. Standing next to the stone ring in which a fire burned, he told Anne to climb onto the pyre and lie down. Without hesitation she ascended it and lay motionless.

Holding the torch aloft, he asked if any of the people here wished him to light the pyre. One old woman began to speak but her sister touched her arm and she was silent. After a minute he told Anne to come down to him, which she did as placidly as before.

The villagers formed a circle around the pair; Pilar and Bianca held hands as she knelt before him and he opened his robe. Tears of joy streamed down her face as she received and served him.

* * * * * * * * * *

After that Anne's position as the temple prostitute was secure. She was no longer kept in her cell but spent her days and nights outdoors. When she was not scrubbing tiles or tied to the stake for whipping, her collar was chained to it.

This left her accessible at all hours. For the same reason, the phallus was removed to make all the openings of her body available. Rare was the day when less than half a dozen men used her. Farmers returning from a day in the fields, shop assistants on their break, peddlers passing through town.

And boys. The gang that approached her fearfully on her first night now took her regularly, egging the others on as each possessed her in their favorite way. Some of them pulled gently on the steel ring between her legs to warm her up first; she liked that.

Even the old woman who wanted her burned on the pyre mellowed towards her. One morning she appeared before Anne holding out a piece of fruit in one hand. Anne thought it might be poisoned, but she opened her mouth and took it.

It was wonderful; the sweetest most flavorful mango she had ever tasted. She touched her forehead to the ground in thanks and kissed the woman's dirty feet.

They became friends in a way. Cesar must have cautioned her about feeding Anne, because the next morning she appeared instead with a hairbrush and combed Anne's tangled locks with it as she knelt.

She never spoke, and Anne felt it was not her place to initiate a conversation, so she smiled and submitted with eyes closed. Afterwards she felt the woman stroking her breasts, and bony fingers gently squeezing her nipples. A moment later the woman was gone.

Under Pilar's tutelage, Bianca developed into a master of the whip; she could play Anne like an instrument, pulling expressions of whatever emotion she chose from her subject.

This idyll of perfect happiness, surrendering to the will of the lowest peasant in the village, fed and watered like livestock, lasted for weeks as she lost track of time.