Chinese Justice

by Peter Marriner

  The office they were invited brusquely to enter was of a superior kind, carpeted and this time well lit. At a big, elaborately carved desk, a large corpulent man with a shaven head and unusually for a Chinese, a full moustache, was busy eating, with chopsticks in hand surrounded by stacked files and loose papers.

  Nicola’s conductor began an apologetic speech, which developed into a prolonged argument, the fat man jabbing with his chopsticks, her conductor still apologetic, waving his papers insistently and then putting them before the other man.

  Nicola’s nostrils quivered. In the space cleared amid the papers was a tray with half a dozen bowls from which a mouth-watering aroma had drifted. Mainly spicy pork she thought hungrily. She had thought of such food for days now, recollecting the last real meal she had eaten, the civic banquet, with regret for all the things she had refrained from eating.

  The feaster was heavily jowled, his fat neck bulging over his shirt collar. A napkin was tucked in between his double chin and his swelling chest. An even bigger belly kept him well back from the desk upon which his thick fingers drummed impatiently. Altogether he looked like a man who enjoyed his privileges. Nicola noticed a peaked cap and a uniform coat of tellingly superior quality cloth on a tall hat stand in one corner of the office next to a black leather covered couch.

  She had been conscious of his piggy eyes falling upon her from time to time during the exchanges. Suddenly he accepted the papers, waving the train guard towards Nicola. The man produced a key and unlocked her shackles, laying them on the desk, before departing with an air of finality as if glad to be rid of her.

  “I am Controller of Transport,” this new supervisor said thickly in English to Nicola, swallowing a last mouthful and returning her nervous glance with sparkling black eyes under heavy brows, both appreciative and callous. “So!” he leered, flourishing the papers. “Theft of antiquities and indecency with schoolgirls!”

  Nicola squirmed inwardly, rubbing her wrists and eyeing the shackles. That label would hang about her neck literally wherever she went. She knew how men were turned on by the thought of lesbian activities. “You were the mistress of this executed traitor and were convicted of helping him steal the antiquities for export?”

  “Er yes... ” Nicola faltered. She was wondering if it was worth attempting justification, when he surprised her by gesturing at the food.

  “Eat! Eat!” He pushed bowls towards her, inviting her to share with him, also pushing towards her the little porcelain spoon.

  Nicola was unhappily conscious that there might be a price expected for this, but she had gone hungry for too long to be cautious. Her host had ceased to take part, but pressed Nicola to eat her fill. A fiery liquid was pressed upon her too, some kind of rice spirit. Although it made her cough, she drank recklessly, feeling she might need it to give her confidence.

  “What is your name?”

  He guffawed when Nicola repeated it for him. “You wouldn’t be identified by these-” his fat hand slapped the papers on the desk, “-if you got lost on the way to Gansu!”

  “Is that where I am being sent? To hard labour there?” He nodded. All Nicola’s fears were confirmed - and worse. How could any enquiry as to her fate track her successfully through a maze of collapsing bureaucracy with misleading papers! She tried a desperate plea.

  “Can you... Is there any way...? Anything... I can... do to... to be sent... to some place where someone will help me...?” The official was shuffling through the papers left by her guard.

  “Wash! In there!” he gestured over his shoulder.

  Nicola had finished the last scrap of food and had been at a loss how to clean her sticky hands and mouth. He was casually dismissive, not answering her question, reading the papers with concentration. Nicola wondered where he had learnt his English, but not aloud. She was beginning to feel that her fate had been handed over to his control.

  She padded past him, now more conscious than ever of her battered and filthy condition. There were two doors behind him where he had indicated. The first she tried proved to the right one, opening onto a room containing a proper tiled shower and a squatter toilet, quite clean and with hardly any odour. She looked at the door

  but it had no bolt.

  She stripped quickly and used both the facilities, not lingering. The water was good and hot and she found herself almost relaxing in the steamy cubicle. She resisted the temptation, reminded by the label around her neck like a bizarre ornament, of the precariousness of her situation. Perhaps if she had long enough she thought guiltily, she could scrub the inked ideograms into illegibility. She had seen the fat official’s lewd assessment of her and she noticed in the plug shole of the shower, several long coarse black hairs; too long to be his. She guessed that she wasn’t the first woman to have been invited here and she remembered the black couch with a tremor of unease.

  What exactly was the fat man’s rank? How important was he? A Controller might be a policeman, she supposed, rather than a railway official. She had heard tales of high-ranking cadres taking advantage of their power to provide themselves with mistresses. A policeman, in particular, would be in a position to pick out unfortunate female offenders. Perhaps she wasn’t even the first female convict he had entertained.

  The notion made Nicola’s head whirl. Had she been selected as his prey? Surely it would be dangerous for him to take up with a Westerner in a time of such public hysteria! Would he help her to escape once he had been satisfied?

  There several small bottles and jars above the hand basin which might have been cosmetics, but one was certainly a lipstick, poppy red, not her usual colour but she tried it tentatively, examining the result in the small mirror, telling herself it would give her confidence, not admitting there might be a need to render herself desirable to her captor. At least she felt more feminine. She tried to rub the worst smears from her dress, finding it impossible to reinstate the upper half and then used the one, rather inadequate towel, as a turban.

  Finally she could delay it no longer. Sooner or later, she felt, the man would become impatient and it would be worse to be ordered to present herself. Nevertheless it felt like an act of submission as she re-entered the office.

  “So!” The fat official surveyed Nicola up and down in approval, pushing himself back from the desk. Daylight now showed under the slats of the bamboo window-blind. Most of the papers had been moved from off the desk top and the elderly wizened man she had seen before, was clearing away the remains of the meal.

  Standing before the desk she waited nervously until the old man had gone. “Please! I don’t want to go to Gansu!” She dropped her eyes from his lascivious grin. “If I got to Shanghai, there would be a consul and people who would understand my difficulty.”

  He frowned and picked up her wooden label from the desk, turning it over in his hands. “It is only necessary that the numbers be correct when your escort delivers his charge. I suppose that can be arranged!”

  Nicola glanced towards the window. The blind rattled a little in the breeze but the slats were closed. The door to the stairway too, fast shut. Desperately she committed herself. “What can I do?”

  “You can show me what you used to bribe your former collaborator.” He gestured arrogantly. “Strip naked and let me see what you have!”

  Nicola bit her lip, but as his dark brows drew together in a sudden frown, she dropped her gaze and, carefully not looking at him, reached back and unclipped her bra, then let the shallow cups slip away from her breasts to leave them toppling free, plum coloured nipples stiffening a little at the sudden exposure.

  “Good!” He smacked his lips.

  Self consciously, Nicola put her hands up and undid her makeshift turban, fussily shaking her damp curls down.

  “Naked!” He was suddenly curt and confidently in command. Nicola realised that it was no good trying to delay payment. She saw the cr
uelty in his piggy eyes and knew that he was enjoying his control of her. But she had no alternative. With desperate resolve she undid the knot of cloth at her waist with rapid fingers and let the dress drop around her ankles so that she could step out of it, quickly picking it up.

  “Long legs, big boobs, yes... ” he chuckled. “Put those here.”

  Nicola hesitated, holding the dress in front of her, looking at the waste bin by the desk, half full of crumpled bits of paper. Reluctantly she laid the two discarded garments across the top, the two or three steps necessary taking her almost right up to where he sat.

  “Here to me!” Stark naked before his devouring eyes, she reluctantly shuffled the few steps closer. “Turn around!” His fat forefinger made a brief twiddling gesture and Nicola slowly turned her back to him. “Bend over and spread your legs!”

  Conscious all the time of his proximity, Nicola did as she was told; presenting herself to the confident hand that patted her bottom.

  “Nice white arse!” She wondered briefly just how he had acquired his English. The hand moved quickly to restrain her attempt to straighten up. “It says here, that you were sentenced to twelve strokes of the cane.” Nicola’s hands flew automatically to her rear at that. “So you are quite experienced in the penalties for disobedient girls!” He lifted his hand and allowed her to rise, red-faced. He walked over to the couch, disposing himself comfortably upon its well-padded surface.

  “Since you are expecting a favour, you must do the work!” He sank back, putting his arms behind his head. “Do it well! Give me a good fuck and I will change your destination.” Steeling herself, Nicola told herself that she was being realistic, using her wits to exploit this man’s sexual needs to advantage. She went down on her knees beside the couch. The man’s trouser crotch had risen in an enormous bulge.

  “I am a hard bargainer!” He chuckled excessively and then gestured imperatively. Nicola’s hand followed his direction and closed upon the bulge.

  “No doubt you will have practised this with your lover!” She hardly knew whether it was wiser to profess inexperience or be considered expert. She was helpless to do other than please him either way. She knew she was subject to his will. Power had a priapic effect, she supposed glumly, and female equality had never been deeply impressed upon this culture. Reluctantly she set about unzipping his pants with hesitant fingers. His bulging belly burst the trouser flies wide as the zip slid downwards exposing that sharper bulge that lifted his pale blue underpants.

  “Take it out!” he hissed. Nicola’s fumbling fingers roused his erection almost too fast to give her time to drag it forth. The huge male member sprang out into her hands, suffused with blood, big veined, its purplish cone nakedly glistening.

  “I know how you Western girls like to do it! A blow job first, eh?”

  “No...! Ohhh!” Nicola squeaked, noticing for the first time out of the corner of her eyes the heavy wooden ruler that he had carried with him from the desk. He smacked it against the plump leather of the couch.

  “Go on! Get to it! Or are you the sort who needs warming up a bit first, eh?” Her hand clutched his wagging erection in reaction to the threat and she bent hastily over his loins, red hair falling over redder cheeks. She put her trembling lips to the thing. She had never actually done this before, but she reminded herself that she had already decided to do whatever it took. She knew how it worked.

  Better to do it then, than to give him an excuse to thrash her.

  Gingerly at first she began to suck the warm slippery acorn-shaped knob, then to run her tongue down the underside of the thick shaft, feeling it jump like a live animal in her grasp and nearly losing it. Her hair swept the man’s belly and thighs as she bent forward to take the knobbed head into her mouth. She felt him heave under her and she tried to jerk back as the whole shaft seemed to surge to the depths of her throat. His hand on her head prevented her and she gagged and gurgled around it, snorting for more air.

  “Enough!” His hand left her head and allowed her a proper breath at last. “Enough!” The flat ruler smacked her flank. Guiltily she desisted, panting and wild-eyed. She had heard the command without registering its meaning.

  “Mount me!” He squirmed backwards so that he lay full length on the couch. “You Western girls like to be on top, don’t you?” Wet chinned and dishevelled she hastened to obey, straddling the fat body right above the blood-engorged, glistening penis.

  “See you do a good job!” On her knees, Nicola leant forward until her dangling hair brushed his ribs, peering beyond her pendulant breasts to clutch and aim his swollen cock between her spread thighs.

  “Ahhh... ” His hands came up from behind his head to grasp her breasts as she sank down on his hot core, her sudden warmth and squeezing liquidity enveloping its solid maleness. Eager to keep her submissive act short and fast, Nicola gave it all she could, shifting and squirming around the masculine intrusion. Both she and the Controller hissed and grunted, in different tones but in simultaneous rhythm. Beneath her the fat belly heaved and quivered, as the man thrust upwards at her. She felt like a rider bouncing on a wobbling saddle, with each successive bounce lodging her a little more firmly.

  He shifted his grasping hands from her breasts to her hips and, for a moment, they fought one another. Nicola was trying to speed up, her manipulator to force her to steady and make it last. She submitted at last, realising that she had to placate him at all costs. Carried up and down in his firm grip she settled to the speed he dictated, resigned to her fate. Solidly lodged on his cock she rose and sank endlessly with measured rhythm and blank mind, gasping as she rose and making a little lady-like grunt as she descended.

  As it went on and on, she began to panic a little. The brute had almost completely relaxed and was letting her do all the work, his hands only lightly clasping her cheeks.

  “Keep... it... up...!” She panted, fearing to lose him now. “Keep... it...

  up!” She worked harder, pushing her weight up and down, driving the soft fleshy sleeve of her vagina up and down his knobbly stem. Her thighs and hips, squashing and bouncing, made softly yielding impacts on muscular male flesh. The spectre of failure began to loom in her brain and the probable consequences to herself.

  “You’re so... hard... You’re so... good... Ooohhh... hard... Ooohhh...

  strong...” she encouraged him sycophantically. “Ohhh... I never... had... it so... so hard...!” She fawned upon him, encouraging his performance so successfully that to her horror she began to feel its effect upon her was making it come true.

  Her tormentor, however, could hold himself in no longer. He was responding now with her every move. Feeling his urgency beneath her, Nicola worked desperately until he was swept away, giving himself up to a great burst of orgasmic release just as Nicola’s abject flattery became incoherent.

  Afterwards, he walked heavily away and resumed working at his desk as if nothing had happened. Nicola was made to spring up too and come to stand naked alongside him while he worked. Ignoring her, he checked through pages of incomprehensible ideographs, reports or memoranda she supposed, to which he added occasional scribbled signs of his own. From time to time he lifted the telephone and conducted exchanges consisting mainly of violent exclamations, exhortations and harangues. Evidently her self-appointed patron was in a position of authority, the boss of whatever web it was that she had become enmeshed in. It became clear that he couldn’t be described as her protector.

  “Please... can I... can I sit down?”

  “Did I give you permission to speak?” He stood up. “I will teach you not to interrupt me!” He took her by the arm and thrust her roughly up against the desk. “Bend over!”

  “But... I did what you wanted!” Nicola began indignantly. The Controller yelled angrily, slamming her face forward onto the desk-top.

  At his bellow the old man who had cleared the meal reappear
ed out of the other door and his boss, fishing out the set of handcuffs from her former shackles, directed him in clicking them onto Nicola’s wrists and then with a grip in her hair, drawing her flat across the desk. Up on her toes and bent over, she could do nothing to protect herself. Her naked belly and breasts adhered moistly to the polished surface of the desk, peeling like a postage stamp as she wriggled. Her thigh and calf muscles trembled with the tension; the beaded edge was hard across the crease of her thighs as her presented bottom rounds flinched in anticipation. Her face was up against the old man’s midriff but she sensed the officer positioning himself behind her and sure enough the ruler was laid flat and cold against the fleshiest portion of her behind. In that brief moment she was forced to weigh up her options.

  Then he drew back and swung hard, landing it hard across her bottom with a crisp smack driving her against the desk edge.

  “No... ooo... Owwwooo... Anything... I’ll do anything you like!” she shrieked in desperation, wrenching her head round only to see him raise the ruler again. She wriggled, feeling every inch of the stripe it had left on her behind, her skimpy shift had ridden halfway up over her bottom, leaving it bare to the flexing wood.

  “Did I give you permission to speak?”

  “Ohhh! Crackkk! Owww!” The inexorable ruler cracked hard across naked flesh and Nicola squirmed belly and hips on the desk top, her toes losing their hold on the floor, kicked wildly her knees banging the side of the desk.

  “Oooh... Owww!” Crackkk! “Ohhh... Owww!” Crackkk! Nicola strove not to offend further by voicing her distress in words. The old man let go his grip on her hair but she didn’t dare try to escape, only arching her back in an effort to cover at least part of her behind with her chained hands and then thinking better of it in case it was made an excuse for giving her extra. She wasn’t sure if it was ten or eleven times that the ruler came down upon her burning flesh before it was thankfully replaced on the desk top.