Rebel Alliance

Vance looked at Turner and saw his own thoughts reflected his long-time foe's eyes. Their alliance had been birthed out of necessity, failure for one meant failure for both. He turned to see Evie, his wife and Muriel, Turner's mate, in their skimpy convict skirts and cropped halter tops. He and Turner were clad in matching gray prisoner pajamas. There was nothing for anyone present, surrounded as they were by a phalanx of armed guards, to do other than to await the arrival of the despot, Karlsen, whom Vance and Turner, in concert with their wives, had attempted to overthrow.

Their partnership had been fully functioning but always wary. Had their combined efforts succeeded, Vance and Turner fully realized that they would then turn immediately to battle for ultimate supremacy between the victors. Both however, had chafed under the yoke of Karlsen, the only man they despised more than each other. Vance had been philosophical, reasoning that if Turner had slain him in the aftermath of assassinating Karlsen, the country he loved would STILL have been better off than it was under the thumb of the hulking, thuggish Karlsen. And if Vance had won? Even now, he tried to convince himself, HE could have held the alliance between his men and Turner's together through sheer force of will he could have restored order from chaos and misery! Killing the dream that had filled his day for as long as he could remember, was no simple task.

He could not even plead for mercy for his wife, Evie was involved right up to her pretty little chin. He was proud that even now, her petite blonde beauty remained unruffled. Little, if any, fear revealed itself in her huge blue eyes. On other occasions, Vance could have fully appreciated how wonderfully, her prisoner clothes, designed to humiliate, actually flattered her slim form Muriel, Turner's spouse was every bit as ruthless as her husband, some felt she was the real power behind her husband's politics. She towered over Evie by almost seven centimeters. Her fiery mane of red hair and alabaster skin had earned her the nickname, "The Porcelain Goddess." Truth be told, she had done much of the heavy lifting to engineer the alliance between Turner and Vance, serving as chief negotiator and author of their formal pact. During one of her diplomatic missions, Muriel had been quite forthright with Vance informing him that, if necessary, to seal the alliance that hoped to depose Karlsen, her body was his to command.

Vance had been sorely tempted, what man would not be? But he loved Evie above all things, even over the delight he could have savored from bedding his arch-enemy's woman. Gazing at Muriel now, nearly all of her long shapely legs revealed and her prodigious bust pressing proactively against the straining halter top, Vance wondered if he had made a mistake in not accepting her offer. Now, there was no chance that the alluring prize would ever again be promised.

A buzz went through the surrounding guards and Karlsen strode into the room. His countenance wore a look of triumph that Vance and Turner both wanted to punch off of his ugly mug. He gazed at Vance and Turner as though they were blisters or warts, took long appreciative leers at the forced exposure of the wives and allowed himself a small, unmanly, giggle.

"So, my enemies would unite to see the world rid of me? It is to laugh! As you can see, I remain firmly on my throne while you four have been relieved of everything!"

Karlsen awaited a reaction. Vance and Turner returned icy stares of defiance.

"Gentlemen, there is no shame in admitting that you lost to a superior tactician. This chess game called life can have only one victor. The least you men could do is confess "checkmate" or at least cry "uncle!""

Again the tyrant laughed, this time, a rafter shaking bellow.

After a time, Karlsen continued with "At the very least I expected you to turn on each other. For one of you to plead for clemency. You men, and ladies have more fortitude than I ever considered possible. However, very shortly, you will be the problem of someone else!"

Vance and Turner turned their heads at that, surely execution after show trials were their destinies. What could their enemy mean by someone else?

"I see that surprises you gentlemen. In fact, up until very recently, I would have had to deal with the headache of trials and executions. However, performing that task would only make martyrs of the four of you, causing you to become cause celebres, symbols for your followers to rally around, creating future headaches that may,one day, become insurmountable. However, if the four of you were to just disappear. Poof! No firing squads to attempt to bribe, no juries to sway, no bodies to dispose of, no way for any of you to ever be a thorn in my side ever again. Wouldn't that be a wonderful solution? I can proclaim that you took voluntary exile. I can invite your followers to examine the prison, to question the guards, to see if they can find any trace of you. When these efforts fail, your supporters will stand convinced that you betrayed them and your movements towards "liberation" die on the vine!"

"You bastard! You would toss us into acid or bury us alive!" barked Turner.

The huge Despot smiled slyly and replied, "Nothing so crass. Nothing that would leave a trace, no matter how infinitesimal. I would hope that you men understood me better than that. I'm not one to use veiled threats. I was being completely transparent."

Karlsen nodded and the vast majority of the guards left the room. The remaining dozen or so herded the four offenders together onto a round metal plate on the floor. Vance noted that above them, below the ceiling hung a similar metal plate. Karlsen began speaking once more.

"Now I have the four of you exactly where I want you. Notice the plates below and above you. A young scientist in my employ created them. I do not claim to understand how it works but I know it does. This device, ladies and gentlemen, will transport you far away and long ago. It is, in this case, strictly a one way trip. I have selected a perfectly ghastly place for the four of you to live out the remainder of your days. I am sure that in the endless months and years to come, you would have wished that I simply planted a bullet in your brains, but gentlemen and ladies, where is the fun in giving you exactly what you want?"

Karlsen strode over to a switch on the wall. Hemmed in by the guards, no one on the plate had a chance to escape. Vance witnessed a wall of white fog pushing up from the floor plate and down from the ceiling plate. There was a numbing coldness and then utter darkness as consciousness left him.

Vance awoke to the sensation of Muriel kicking him in the ribs. When he opened his eyes and gazed upward he quickly discovered that the prison underwear beneath the statuesque woman's skirt left very little to the imagination. As Vance rolled over and willed his fogged brain to force his body, first to all fours, and finally, erect. He spied Evie staggering like a drunkard while Turner sat on a rock clenching his forehead and grimacing in pain. They were no longer in Karlsen's fortress!

Above them, the sun sat at zenith, a fireball blasting the clearing to which the rebels had been exiled. All around the clearing there appeared to be nothing discernible aside from lush, green, and impenetrable jungle. Vance became sick all over himself and not just from the side effects of Karlsen's mysterious machine. The cowed quartet sat for more than an hour until their faculties fully returned.

"Where the hell are we?" asked Evie, at last, in her high, soft voice.

"The middle of nowhere, you doltish dwarf." replied Muriel harshly

"There's no need to be petulant." chided Vance.

"Petulant? Nice that you retained the large vocabulary, Vance, because that is all you can claim title over! I'll insult whoever I want whenever I want. Whatever social niceties we possessed we left at home. Look at us and how we're dressed. If the mosquitoes and malaria don't get us, the ticks leeches and wildlife will. We won't even merit an anonymous grave!"

"Perhaps it is not hopeless." ventured Vance.

"You never did see the bigger picture, Vance." opined Turner. "It may already be worse than hopeless don't you hear that?"

"Hear what."

"That low, steady, beat. Unless I miss my guess, that sound is of native drums, perhaps a hunting party. My dear Muriel, we may not have to worry about the ticks or mosquitoes. There are even odds we will end up as tonight's dinner!"

"Shouldn't we at least TRY to defend ourselves?" Stated Vance.

"With what?" Shot back Turner, "Blades of grass and vines? Neither of us were fighting men, Vance, we were organizers who directed other men's muscle. You were an intelligence officer, when's the last time you picked up a weapon of any kind? I prided myself on killing without getting my hands dirty. Face facts, we could not defend ourselves against a troop of determined boy scouts!"

Vance sputtered in reply, "But you were a war hero, at the Battle of Elk Ford you killed ..."

"Nobody! I had a very good and very willing press corps to inflate my stature. Once I had the reputation, the fact that I had done nothing remotely dangerous became irrelevant. Muriel was the driving force anyway."

"Yes and my taste in lovers failed me most when it came to you," stated Muriel bitterly before concluding with an acid drenched endearment of, "darling!"

"What a sad pathetic lot we are, now." whined Evie

"We were ALWAYS a sad pathetic lot, shrimp!" returned Muriel "But we could not see it as our ambition blocked our view of reality."

"But what do we DO?" asked Evie.

"The only thing we CAN do," replied Turner, "We wait. If we greet whoever is beating those drums in a friendly manner, they MAY decide to befriend us. If they befriend us, we stay alive. If, on the other hand, our heads are to be mounted on spikes in a few hours, fighting them just wastes our energy and can only postpone finality just so long."

"Your pithiness is the ONE thing I admired about you, Turner." stated Vance.

"That's one more thing than I admired about YOU!" returned Turner firmly.

"I'm already missing the firing squad." said Vance.

"How a man as feckless as you advanced as high as he did in Karlsen's chain of command is a profound mystery." mocked Turner.

"Go fuck yourself, Turner!" yelled Vance.

"Both of you shut up!" interjected Muriel. "The final confrontation between the two of you will have to wait, although, without your trigger men handy, I doubt that either of you has the balls to pummel the other. I've got more testosterone in my earlobe than both of you have combined in your hairy sacks.!"

"Shut up, you whore!" ventured Evie.

"What did you call me, you freaking midget? At least I'm a real woman and not some runtish child with tits!"

"Bitch!" spat Evie in response

"Ladies! This is getting us nowhere." began Vance.

What ever else he was going to say was interrupted by Turner jabbing him in the ribs with his elbow and pointing. The faces behind the drums had arrived!

There were more than a dozen of them. There already swarthy skin had been greatly darkened by the sun. Their coal black hair fell long down their backs. Their equally dark eyes slanted slightly in their handsome faces. Aside from simple fur loincloths and ornate necklaces the well muscled men were naked. All wielded stone-tipped spears, some also carried clubs and slings armed with rounded stones. A few had tom-toms on cords over their shoulders. Turner was first to throw his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender, the rest soon matched the gesture.

The men were not quite as tall as either Vance or Turner, both of whom were just above average height. However, even the shortest of them were far more muscled than either of the supplicant males. One of the natives seemed to be in charge. He quickly assessed Turner and Vance and had several of his companions level spears at their jugular veins. He then performed a close inspection of Muriel and Evie. He ran his hands over their barely concealed bodies, hiked up their abbreviated skirts, gently tugged their hair and finally sniffed them head to toe. Both women were appalled, but too terrified to resist. Turner guessed that about fifteen minutes passed as the wives were carefully inspected.

A flurry of activity followed. All four would be rebels had their wrists tied behind their backs by leather thongs. Then all four were compelled at spear point to march with the natives into the sheltering jungle. Instantly, the sun's heat diminished and everything took on a greenish tinge from the strong sunlight filtering through the abundant greenery.

Evie and Vance attempted to communicate but were quickly forced into silence by threatening gestures from the natives. For more than an hour, the four failed rebels were marched along an almost imperceptible trail deep into the jungle. Vance led, Muriel and Evie followed, and Turner trailed. All four were full of trepidation.

The forced trek ended at another, much larger, clearing. From out of the trees emerged a small village of simple huts abutting a gently flowing river. Naked children gamboled along the river bank and trim topless women wove fabric, tanned hides, or ground grain under the sun. The leader of the group whistled loudly and the entire village gazed in his direction, instantly taking in the four fair skinned additions to the scouting party. The village erupted in a loud language that the four rebels could not make sense of. From a centrally located, elevated hut, a very large and very tall native emerged.

Although he wore the same brief loincloth as the other men, he possessed far more neck wear. Atop his head, an elaborate headdress. Crimson paint or makeup coated his chin and lips. Every aspect of his being shouted, "chief."

With a presence that Vance and Turner found eerily familiar, the large man stepped down the few stairs of his hut to the ground. Wary, yet curious he approached the leader of the scouting party. As he neared the group, his eyes clearly devoured Evie and Muriel. He seemed much less interested in Vance and Turner. The chief and the head of the scouting party exchanged several long moments of animated conversation. The rest of village stopped whatever they were doing, gathered near, and gawked.

The chief walked with the scouting party to the center of the village, which seemed to be the front of the chief's more ornate hut. Vance, Turner, Evie, and Muriel were lined up apart from the rest of the scouting party. The chief seemed to be biding his time as nothing happened for nearly an hour. The delay was explained when a hunting party returned to the village bearing a dead tapir lashed to a pole. A fresh buzz of excitement went through the village and, very shortly, the new arrivals were gathered in a group where the chief spoke to them. Even though the rebels did not comprehend the language, they understood that the chief was giving the latecomers a recap of their capture. The same intense looks of curiosity graced every face of the hunting party. The chief gestured and the natives fell silent.

Vance chose this moment to try a bit of diplomacy. He got as far as "Hello." before the blunt end of a spear plunged into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out him. As he gasped for breath, the chief scowled. Once Vance composed himself, the chief began speaking rapidly at them. Several times he raised his arms and glanced heavenward. After a long interval, the chief spoke to his people. A number of young men donned smiles and hoisted stone knives and spear points. Two men, each bearing a spear stood behind and in front of each rebel, fixing them in place. Not that any of the four rebels could have resisted anyway with their wrists still bound. Vance gazed at Evie, trying to calm her with his eyes and mouthing, "I love you." before she vanished in a knot of warriors. Vance was surrounded at the same time and the natives began to carefully cut away his clothing. Evie cried out for a moment but was silenced as though someone had clasped a hand over her mouth. Turner and Muriel remained stoic as the tribe denuded them. The cluster of soldiers stepped back, exposing the four naked rebels from another place and time.

The chief took long lustful leers at the petite blonde Evie and the statuesque Muriel. His inspection mirrored that a few hours before by the head of the scouting party, except the chief, also inhaled deeply of the women's privates and ran his hands all over their bodies. Muriel, though rebelling inside tried to maintain a bored or blasé expression. Evie whined unpleasantly, especially when the chief concluded his inspection by burying his index finger in the pussies of both women simultaneously.

Vance shouted invective down upon the chief until one member of the tribe slapped him hard across the face. Turner seemed to be quietly noting everything, for the moment being the much better intelligence officer than Vance, the professional. Some things were becoming clear to him.

The chief issued an order and everyone's arms were freed. The four, prisoners once more, took a moment to rub their wrists and contemplate. Vance could not help but admire the naked glory of Muriel. Her body was truly spectacular. Finely muscled with large symmetrical breasts surmounted by two light brown areolas and fine pink nipples. Beneath her flat, toned tummy with its delectable navel, her female fur glowed deep red in the sunlight. Now Vince was positive he should have slept with her when he had had the chance.

Turner found himself contemplating the body of Evie. He had always wondered what the wife of his arch rival looked like naked. Despite her short stature, every adult female native in the village was taller than she, the the body on display was all woman. It seemed to Turner as though some warped scientist had shrunk a very tall model to miniature size. Everything was in perfect proportion, it just didn't extend very far. Turner thought her legs and straw colored muff were quite enchanting. Her breasts were not overly large in actuality, but they appeared to be enormous on her tiny frame. Abstractly, Turner wondered how a Vance made love to her without injuring her. Turner was sure, she would shatter under his weight just like the china doll she resembled. Her best feature, Turner decided at last, was her remarkable butt.

The village chief issued an order. Six very pretty native women materialized. Three surrounded Vance and three surrounded Turner. The spear men shifted the position of their weapons. Almost before either Vance or Turner realized it they were being herded into a small hut to the left of the chiefs'. Before Vance lost sight of Evie, he noted that the chief had taken both her hand and Muriel's and was leading them up the stairs into his own hut. Spear men made sure that the women could not elude the designs of the chief.

Once Vance and Turner were in the small hut, a wall of spears blocked the only entrance and the women doffed their brief garments and threw themselves at the men in carnal passion. Vance could not believe it when one of the bronze-skinned women leaped into his arms while another began kissing and licking his manhood and the third began stroking his hair and repeating what were obviously endearments. Confused as to resist or accede to the nubile women's entreaties he asked, "Turner, what is this all about?"

"Isn't it obvious, Vance?" replied the other man, "We have been presented these women as a sort of compensation; to partake of while the village chief has his way with our wives!"

"What! We have to stop him!"

"How are we going to do that "comrade?" asked Turner with mockery in his voice.

Turner then accepted a few sensual kisses from the predatory women before he continued. "I for one am not going to challenge those spears at the vestibule. And I suspect that we are being watched, rejecting the aims of these women might very well get us killed."