by Carl Muller
He rolled down her knickers. ‘You haven’t done it before?’
She shook her head. ‘Wait a little . . .’ and raising herself, shook off her knickers. She sat back, spread her knees as his finger found her clitoris, felt it throb as he pressed into the little ridge under it. He was wet and very hard. He knew she would be very tight, and his knees trembled at the thought. She was wet too and made little sounds between her teeth as he massaged her.
‘Will it—will it pain?’ she asked.
‘You actually haven’t done it before?’
‘No. Only between my legs. At home my uncle does it like that.’
‘But there’s no feeling for you then. Only I will enjoy it.’
‘But I’m getting a nice feeling now,’ she whispered, ‘when you touch like that.’
He pushed her back gently. He had to have her. He had keyed himself to a pitch he could no longer deny. What had northern patrols yielded—a hurried encounter in Trincomalee and no opportunity to go ashore at Talaimannar where Carmencita would have made him very welcome. He lay over the girl and gently rubbed the head of his penis against her. She gasped. Up and along the cleft, and he felt her hips jerk as he kept masturbating her. Suddenly her eyes widened and her body arched. He knew she was coming, and with a swift movement, kneed her legs wide apart, put his forearms under her thighs, raising her up as he thrust down, he entered her almost effortlessly and she gave a sharp cry, and he put his weight on her, covered her mouth with his. She lay pinned, and a tear began to trickle from the corner of her eye.
He raised his head. ‘Did it hurt?’
She nodded.
‘It won’t hurt for long. Just lie still.’ They lay together for a long while. He did not move. He was encased, sheathed in firm, tight flesh that gripped his cock and he wanted to keep it that way.
‘What will happen?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Shh,’ he began to move.
She hissed slightly. He moved slowly, gently, and he felt the warm stickiness cling to the bottom of his stomach. She was so tight. He did not have to work hard over her. Every movement was so delicious, almost Tantric. He knew he was fucking her in her own blood . . . and then he felt a bursting within him and withdrew, dropping a blob of semen on her thigh. There was blood on his stomach, his bush, blood rich and red issuing in a thin streak from the lips of her vagina, running down to the cleft of her buttocks.
‘It will soon stop. Is it still paining?’
‘A little,’ she said, ‘how to clean?’
All he could find was a sack of clean cotton waste. She cleaned as best as she could and he made a thick wad of the waste and told her to place it between her legs. When she put on her knickers he pushed more cotton waste into them, packing it tightly around her, ‘Even if it bleeds a little now, it won’t come on your dress.’
She nodded.
‘How do you feel?’
She smiled. ‘You liked it with me?’
He embraced her. He had to get her out, for he knew he wanted her again.
‘Most of the other girls have done it. I’m the only one. I used to tell lies sometimes that I did with a boy but they just laughed and asked who. Now they won’t laugh.’
It seemed to be a sort of badge of honour for the senior girls of the Sacred Heart. To be unfucked was to be unaccepted.
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘All right. Must go now, no? Don’t know if they’re looking for me, even.’
They emerged, and found the rest of the girls on the boatdeck where a buxom teacher was calling names and looking quite sheepish. She had been invited to view the sick bay by Warrant Officer Rodrigo. She, too, had lost track of time, since Rodrigo was a very good performer and liked women who were fat.
Ranjini smiled, held Carloboy’s hand as he helped the party down to the launch. ‘It was lovely,’ she whispered.
Carloboy winked. ‘Same here. Can you come again?’
The girls giggled. One said ‘Ah-hah, Ranjini, what were you doing so long with him?’
Ranjini kept smiling. The little minx would undoubtedly tell all. She would enjoy that very much.
The master-at-arms was not in the best of moods. Civilians had no idea how a warship needed to be run. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. This was carried out good-naturedly enough. The men had things to say. Nathali had scored in the heads, of all places. Hughes and Ryan had taken a brace of women under the canvas of the big gun. Peculiar things had happened in the wireless cabin where Yusuf had found relief with a portly Muslim woman old enough to be his mother. The shipwright’s stores, the electrician’s office, the galley, the sick bay had all witnessed the many frantic moods of sailors on the make while the wardroom, too, had had its moments. Chickera got full marks for his performance on the bridge. He had actually used the tiny signals office, sealing himself in with two sisters. ‘They are twins,’ he said casually enough while many stared and said, ‘Go on, you’re lying, you short bugger.’
But Chickera wasn’t. The twins, Malay girls, simply had to do things together. They agreed that Chickera was ‘cute’. He admitted it was uncomfortable. The girls had stood against the slab in the bulkhead, side by side, their shoulders back against the steel.
‘Had to fuck them standing. In the dark also and not easy men, because I am short also. Everytime I had to say, come down a little, come down a little, but I managed. My God, we were sweating buckets when we came out.’
Carloboy went to the Captain’s office. Someone would find the lumps of bloodied cotton waste and raise eyebrows. He sat, put his feet up. Tomorrow was an off day. He would go ashore, post some letters. He thought of Ranjini. Girls. This attraction for girls; the attraction they had for men ... a peculiar thing, he thought. You look at them, note the way they are, admire their legs, their bodies, their features. But all this is lost in the act of sex itself. You don’t even see the hole you invade, you cannot admire the body you take. You just lie over it, use it, drive into it and spill yourself, propelling your passion into a hole made for the purpose. And then it’s over and you can go back if you wish to that beautiful, fanciful occupation of admiring those fine lines of thigh and the way the smile touches the corner of the lips and the upthrust of breasts and the roundness of the bum. ‘It’s a fucking trap,’ he murmured and smiled to himself. A sailor’s philosophy, maybe, but to Carloboy the realization did come that a man in his rage could fuck anything. ‘Even a bloody letterbox,’ he said to himself and grinned.
They went ashore the next day with two weeks pay burning a hole in their pockets. Chickera, Aubrey, Hughes, Ryan, Daft, Carloboy, Arnie . . . and it was decided unanimously that nothing would be more pleasing than a monumental booze. They skirted the esplanade, the public bus station. The hotel they chose was the largest they could find. The Sydney. A genteel watering hole much frequented by southern planters and gem merchants and known for its excellent food and its well-stocked bar.
It was the fifteenth of November. In the arched foyer, a weedy girl in a saree of shocking pearl was having her cuticles for supper. The airy restaurant-cum-bar had its fair share of locals, mostly the beer and cutlets variety who scorned rice and curry whenever they had the opportunity to show how civilized they were. The boys opted for a iong table and told the waiter that all he had to do was keep the arrack flowing.
‘And some chillied potatoes and devilled beef,’ said Aubrey who ate like a T. rex. He it was who had stolen a twenty pound slab of smoked gammon from the wardroom galley and devoured it in one sitting. Cooks wilted when he came for his meals.
A few tables away sat a spivvy looking character with a real silk tie and cuff links and a moustache that would have given Errol Flynn second thoughts. He was not alone. Around his table sat three women, each built like a steamer trunk. They were Borahs or Parsees or something, Carloboy hazarded, and Arnie told a story of the midget who had married the circus fat lady.
‘You know what the bugger did on the wedding night?’
&nb
sp; ‘Wore a lifebelt and dived in?’
‘No, men, he put the woman down, then began to walk all over her, hitting his chest like Tarzan.’
‘For why?’
‘Wait, I’ll show you—’ Arnie rose and began a circuit of the table. He beat at his chest and howled, ‘Acres an’ acres of arse. An’ all mine! Acres an’ acres of arse—’ and he had still to take his first drink! The boys roared and the three fat ladies crimsoned and muttered to the spiv who glared.
Soon, pretty soused and very voluble, everybody wanted to say something, sing something, tell a dirty story, shout for more arrack. Carloboy rose to squint and declare that the Ceylon Navy could drink any bugger under the table— that’s right—any Galle bugger under the table, so there!
Hughes was singing while Ryan kept tune with a fork on a tumbler:
I’ll tell you a story
That’s certain to please
Of a great farting contest
At Shitters-on-Tees;
Where all the best farters
Paraded the field
To win for their own
The Fartingale Shield . . .
An interesting song, although they had no idea in what pub they had picked it up. It told of sundry fat-assed ladies who had vied for honours and how eventually the parsons’s wife had to be carried away by men in gas masks because her effort produced a lot more than wind.
The spivvy character was suddenly upon them. ‘Don’t you know there are ladies present!’ he shrieked. He also quivered. So did the fat ladies. They couldn’t help themselves. Each had a derrière as big as a grand piano.
Good sense, even decency should have prompted them to move to another table. Or their escort could have taken them upstairs where the main dining hall was. As for the boys, they were drunk, getting bawdier by the minute and had no excuses to offer.
‘Ladies?’ Aubrey burped. ‘My God, I thought they were whales. I wanted to ask also why whales were wearing sarees.’
Ryan never favoured arguments. He banged down his glass. ‘Fuck off!’
The spiv curled a lip. Then he reached out and took up a chair. The waiter fled, which was a very wise thing to do. In the next moments, the fat ladies were streaking away, others rose in aid of the spiv. Aubrey had swung a mean fist, breaking the spiv’s nose, and two men who had appeared as if on cue at a Punch and Judy show, were running blindly into the wall, their faces plastered with devilled beef.
The management had its bouncers—very necessary in any place where arrack was served. These worthies closed in and that was their mistake. Oh, they had this reputation. They were thugs. They were paid to remove any threat to the peace and good order of the hotel. They wore nylon shirts and broad belts around their sarongs and favoured Indian film star moustaches.
Carloboy did not pause to make selection. None of the boys did. The idea was that anyone approaching them had to be swatted. They had despatched a forward guard of waiters and Ryan had pushed a man’s head into the piano keyboard and slammed down the lid. The lid it was that broke and the manager had screamed and telephoned the police. He screamed again when Hughes drove a fist into an ornate wall mirror which had been a proud Sydney Hotel possession for many a year. The receptionist ran to the washroom and locked herself in.
The bouncers bounced against the furniture. The Navy was now in full cry. Everything that moved was pummelled into immobility. Suddenly, they realized that there was nothing more to destroy. Ryan grinned. Aubrey sucked his knuckles. Carloboy tested his shoulder. Chickera was eating devilled beef. There were a few pieces in the dish.
‘Better if we go,’ Carloboy said, ‘can you see the crowd at the door? Whole of Galle must be outside.’ He knew they might have to fight their way through the mob. It could turn very nasty. There were street thugs who carried knives. And then the police strode in—three policemen who pushed through and waved their batons and shouted to the boys to come with them. This, to the boys was wholly unacceptable.
Hughes grabbed the first policeman by the tunic. ‘What did you say!’ he roared, ‘go with you where?’
Aubrey and Carloboy closed on the other two.
‘Here! You let off! You come go station!’
‘No. You come go ship!’
Aubrey cackled. ‘Shall we take the buggers to the ship?’
With a vicious heave, Hughes tore open the policeman’s tunic. Brass buttons popped like corn. Then he gave the man a butt on the chin with his head that almost snapped the man’s jaw. He dropped with a croak, and even as the other two policemen leaped, two well-placed body blows stopped them in their tracks. It was like running into the edge of an open door.
Carloboy had fists of iron. Even as a schoolboy he would split open wooden lockers with a blow. When he struck his prey it knocked the wind out of the man. He fell without a sound and rapidly grew purple. Aubrey found his policeman easy meat. Outside, the crowd sucked back. These sailors were devils!
‘Let’s go! Now!’ Carloboy yelled, grabbing a bottle. ‘Take bottles. Anybody gets in the way, split his bloody head!’
They strode to the door, eyes glowing. The loafers dispersed. The mob broke. They walked through an honour guard of gaping men and not a voice was raised in challenge. They found that they were also very sober. Somewhere a clock was striking ten.
Aubrey peeled split skin off his knuckles. ‘Damn! We missed the last boat!’
Chickera said something like ‘Yowgh’. He had his fingers in his mouth. When he could make sense he said a tooth was shaking.
Stuck ashore, they looked at each other helplessly.
‘What to do now?’
‘We’ll go to the jetty. Must be having a boat we can hire even.’
‘Good idea.’
They went.
46
History—Disloyal Politics and the Anti-British Mood
The Ceylon Communist Party did its damndest to fan the anti-British flames in Ceylon in the 1940s. The Ceylon National Congress went about it in a most Gandhian manner. At a meeting of. the CNC’s Working Committee on March 31, 1941, it was decided that:
Congress members and the public be advised to support locally made goods and stores, and foster the use of Sinhalese as the mother tongue.
That members will refuse to accept imperial or local titles, honours and ranks emanating from a foreign ruler.
That they refuse to attend imperial functions, levees and parades and other functions when the British governor is present.
That they will not support Britain’s war effort.
The loyals, mostly of the planting community were appalled at the unrest being spawned on the estates. An organization in Kandy, which called itself the Comrades of the Great War, decided to send a memorial to the Secretary of State. This is what was sent:
To the Right Honourable Lord Lloyd, PC, GCSI, GCIE, DSO, etc.,
His Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies
My Lord,
The committee appointed by a meeting, of Comrades of the Great War and their supporters in Kandy, Ceylon, on 4th June, 1940, beg to state the following facts and make the following submissions and requests:-
The complete loosening of the reins of government by, and the laissez-faire attitude of those in authority in the government in the past three years has allowed the communist party in Ceylon to stir up strife and disaffection among His Majesty’s previously contented subjects until the labour unrest which commenced in April 1939 has, since the commencement of hostilities, reached a critical and alarming stage.
The following are only a few of the instances of labour trouble which has been stirred up among contented labourers since the war started. January 10—A major riot on Mooloya Estate where the police were called in and after having their car damaged had to fire and kill one man in self-defence.
April—Seven hundred excited and rioting labourers armed with clubs and sticks surrounded the bungalow of a married superintendent on Ramboda Estate. The superintendent was stoned and hit wi
th a stone.
April—On Vellai Oya Group, the labourers rioted and injured an estate conductor.
May—Strife occured between two lots of labourers on Naseby Estate. Five of the injured were admitted into hospital.
May—There was serious trouble on Needwood Estate and the police were attacked, one being seriously injured and others less seriously.
May—In a riot on Weywelhena Estate a large number were injured, as many as forty being removed to hospital.
May—The Kangany (labour supervisor) on Uda Radella Estate was injured and removed to hospital.
May—The police were assaulted by armed labourers on Wewesse Estate and the superintendent was asked to leave the estate as the police would not be responsible for his safety or that of his wife.
May—The superintendent of St Andrew’s Estate was assaulted by labourers and both his arms were injured—one arm being fractured.
How the trouble is increasing will be seen from the above instances, and it needs no imagination to see that a far more serious state of affairs is likely to occur in the near future if strong action is not taken immediately by the government. Bloodshed and rioting will become prevalent with undoubted repercussions of the utmost seriousness in India.
The members of the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps have been allowed to retain their arms, but all ammunition has been removed from them and sent to headquarters, Colombo, so that these members, divorced from their ammunition, are rendered powerless to defend their wives and children.
Members of the state council who have taken their oath of allegiance have forsworn their allegiance by making subversive and anti-British speeches, of which we submit some extracts as examples: Hansard 12-12-39.
‘But British imperialism is a unique kind of imperialism which is smeared with the loathsome slime of hypocrisy in order to deceive the misguided among us. ‘I would call upon the House which was misguided enough to pass a vote of loyalty, even at this moment, in the face of things like this, of insults, not to ask us to pay money to get those kicks.’