Backpacking

BACKPACKING

By Lew Daxx

Amber Wilson awoke with the sunlight streaming through the balcony windows. She ran a hand through her long blonde hair and looked over the rumpled sheets and discarded clothes for, what was his name? Steve? Dave?

Whoever he had been, he had gone.

"Shit!" She suddenly remembered; I'm going to miss that plane. She pulled on a thong and denim skirt, slipped her T-shirt over her head, put on her short leather jacket, and bundled all the rest of her belongings into the backpack that was lying at the foot of the bed. There wasn't much. She'd been travelling light and had worn next to nothing most of the week.

She smiled as she picked up the backpack; it had an elaborately embroidered monkey on the back, several large external pockets as well as a roomy main compartment. Inside were smaller secure zip up pockets for items such as keys, passports, and money. It had managed to carry everything she had needed this break with room to spare. It never seemed to get too full. The owner of the little Chinese shop she had bought it from had promised the monkey would bring her 'much luck for travelling'.

Handing in the keys at reception, she was relieved to hear that the bills for the hotel, restaurant, and bar had been settled by her father as promised, and she was able to grab a cab to the airport with no further delay.

In the cab she thought about Steve, or was it, Dave? Christ, she thought, smiling to herself, those guys had both been so hot! She could have fucked either of them, or even both! Hell, maybe she had! She'd been so out of it. They'd hung out at a bar on the beach and after flirting with them for a couple of days, a final drunken evening had led to her sneaking Steve into her hotel bedroom where she had finally let him fuck her, after leading him on all week. Then the alcohol and drugs had finally caused her to pass out. It could have been Dave though; it was all still a bit hazy.

She had been a total slut last night, but this was part of her eighteenth birthday present from her father, and she had just needed some fun after all the restrictions at home. The security conscious home of a prominent politician wasn't the best environment for a girl to get laid. She wasn't a virgin but the few times she had managed to have sex had been hurried, furtive, and ultimately disappointing. The guys she'd been with had been inexperienced, and always been too in awe of her father and fearful of his security retinue to satisfy her. She had always felt they only really wanted her because of who her father was. It rankled.

This week however, she had been the centre of attention. A total star, she told herself. She had been good for the first day, spending it by the hotel pool but the other guests were just too old and boring. A couple of wrinkly sad old men had leered at her and the women had simply regarded her with ill-concealed envy. So, they should, she thought. Dried up old harpies! She could have had any of their husbands anytime she wanted. Not of course, that she did.

The next day She'd found a spot on the beach, with a bar nearby, that was the favourite hangout for the young, mostly penniless backpackers that flocked to this sunny and easy-going country. Never short of money herself, all she had to do was sit at the bar sipping expensive cocktails and waiting for the guys to flock round. They always did; the effect her bikini clad body had on all males was so predictable. She knew she was so much prettier, and of course richer, than any of the other girls on the beach. She would tease and flirt with the boys, bask in the flattery of the girls and then mysteriously waft back to her expensive hotel, leaving them all hanging. She could get what she wanted from any of them; drinks, a little bit of this, a little bit more of that, and of course sex if she wanted it. That was always on the table, but always just out of reach. Each day she had taken it a little bit further. She had been a completely spoilt bitch, but her newfound power and freedom had been exhilarating and she revelled in it!

She checked in at the airport, got her passport ready and sauntered towards the two police officers, with AK47's hanging on their shoulders and a vicious looking dog on a lead. They stood between her and her plane. They watched her as she approached, and she swung her hips suggestively. It always worked and just came naturally to her. They didn't appear to be stopping anyone and were indeed smiling affably at the passing passengers. As she approached however, one of them spoke into a walkie-talkie and their demeanour changed dramatically, as unslinging their rifles, they moved to bar her progress.

"Excuse, miss," The one with the dog said sternly. "We look in bag, yes?"

"Of course. Officer." Amber said giving them a coquettish smile that usually was enough to have petty minions like these eating out of her hand. She remembered that this after all was a backward country with odd rules, and an unpredictable police force. She handed over her backpack and arrogantly confronted them.

The other man emptied the contents out onto a counter and grunted lasciviously as he ran his fingers through her underwear, holding a particularly skimpy pair of panties up with a grin for his partner to inspect before returning to examine the inner zipped pockets of the bag.

Amber Watched with haughty amusement. These disgusting little creeps were so pitiful.

Triumphantly they held up the two plastic bags of white powder that slid out on to the counter and spoke excitedly to each other, the panty fondler levelling his gun at her.

"What the fuck!" Amber screamed, her arrogant superiority suddenly evaporating.

"They're not mine! I've never seen them before." Amber knew, even as she said it, how lame it sounded.

She stared at the discovery with total disbelief and mounting horror. The walkie talkie crackled, the men talked urgently, and within minutes they were surrounded by more armed police.

After a whirlwind of explanations, denials, confusion, bluster and threats, Amber found herself in a police interrogation room facing a grim-faced police inspector with an older armed guard on the door. At least she thought, as she tried to rally her thoughts and compose herself, he speaks passable English. He was big, with broad shoulders and a powerful build. His wrists were extremely hairy she noticed with a shudder of disgust.

"So, you say it was Steve, or maybe it was Dave, put drugs in bag? He smiled unimpressed by a story he had heard a hundred times before.

Well, obviously it fucking wasn't me! Shit. I wouldn't even know where to get this crap from. You arseholes are going to be sorry when my father hears about this."

"Best be polite miss; We not like rudeness here!"

He turned his cold eyes on her and enquired unexpectedly.

"So; Steve, Dave? You like much sex, jiggy jiggy. Many boys, yes?" He licked his lips and eyed the outline of her nipples pushing against her tight T-shirt. She pulled the leather jacket across her chest and began to wish she'd had time to throw on a bra to keep her breasts at least one more layer away from his probing eyes.

"That's my business not yours." She declared indignantly, shamed by his correct assumption and annoyed by his unwanted scrutiny. Suddenly infuriated she added.

"At least I can still get it when I want it! Who'd fuck you?"

"Many girls fuck me, my wife; she not like, she is pig!" He laughed ruefully and the old guard on the door grinned, displaying a missing front tooth, which he covered quickly with his hand as the police inspector glowered at him.

"And you like to fuck pigs?" Amber retorted unthinkingly. The room went deathly silent.

Amber realised with a shock that she had just made a seriously bad mistake in insulting this man. In a wheedling tone that stopped well short of an apology she continued.

"Sir. Look, can I please just ring the embassy? They can sort it out. My father will be worried, he was expecting me home." The Police inspector was, however, stonily unresponsive.

Amber realised she had dug herself a deep hole but didn't have the wit to stop digging.

"He has power, money. He important man! You want new car? Big house? New TV? he can get for you. Just let me go. This is all mistake!" She patronised, echoing his speech pattern. Surely this ignorant oaf would see reason.

The hairy wristed officer stared at her with ill-concealed hatred.

"Ring embassy maybe. Your Father? We know him: he is arsehole! Princess, this your home now!" He grimly made a gesture to the door guard who ushered in a hatchet-faced woman, with what looked suspiciously like a faint moustache on her upper lip. Amber noticed apprehensively that she was carrying a pile of folded clothing.

The woman walked up to the table and placing the none too clean pile in front of Amber, announced in an emotionless flat monotone

"You undress. Put on uniform please."

The inspector settled back in his chair and with a triumphant sneer watched Amber expectantly. The guard on the door stiffened, watching attentively.

"NO! Fuck you! Please? NO! I can't..." Amber screamed.

"...Not in front of them." She appealed to the woman who surely would respect her right to privacy in front of the men. The woman simply shrugged and looked over to the door guard.

"He help you maybe?" She said impassively, the guard looked only too eager and started to walk over.

"Stop. Ok, I'll do it!" Amber said with resignation and peeled off the jacket. She paused and then angrily lifted off the T- shirt, throwing petulantly it on the table in disgust, and not wishing to prolong the humiliation or afford them the satisfaction of her discomfort, unzipped the skirt, adding it quickly to the table.

Standing in just her skimpy thong and spotting the blatantly obvious bulge in the inspector's trousers, she hurriedly reached for the prison uniform overalls the woman had brought and started to climb into them. The inspector indicated she stop. The guard, who was now standing about six feet away started to grin widely his missing tooth making him look even more grotesque.

"No Thong. Prison panties only." The officer announced.

For all her attempt at bravado, Amber was now almost at the point of tears. She stood for a moment horrified and then reached for the thin white cotton panties from the prison pile. Horribly unglamorous, baggy and slightly discoloured, she examined them with obvious distaste and placed them close to hand. She paused and then decisively pulled off the thong. Her short sparse pubic hair prickled as she shifted her weight and the men all stared greedily at the tiny pink tongue that peeked shyly from her only partly obscured slit. Why the fuck couldn't she grow a proper womanly bush? Sarah thought, not for the first time.

She pulled on the prison panties and white prison T-shirt quickly and stepped into the thankfully unsexy orange overalls and slip-on trainers.

She was allowed a phone call to the embassy and was then led to a cell.

-----

Back in the interrogation room the next day, after a sleepless night in a tiny cold windowless cell and after an unimaginably inedible breakfast, she was at last, allowed a visit from a lawyer. The embassy had called her father and after a frantic night of phone calls, it had managed to secure her the services of the best lawyer this pitiful little country had to offer.

He was a young good-looking man with dark hair, a charming smile, and a lean athletic body, dressed in a smart suit. He didn't look old enough to Amber to be of much help. Another time, another place and you could fuck me, she idly thought; It didn't help.

What did help however, was that he knew the country well, spoke the language fluently and was totally conversant with the way the law, or what passed for the law, worked here.

"I'll be completely straight with you Amber; it doesn't look good." He said, a grim expression crossing his face.

"Can't you just find Steve?" Amber was grasping at straws and knew it.

"Or possibly Dave? No. Even if those were their real names, we have only a vague description, they could be anywhere by now and if we did by some miracle find them, they would simply deny it. As far as I can see you have only two options." He dashed her hopes with this bald statement and went on to try and explain.

"Look, they are under a lot of international pressure to crack down on their side of the drugs trade. A pressure that unfortunately has to a large extent been brought to bear by your own father! You are a prize to them, a chance to make an example of immoral westerners exploiting their country and embarrass outsiders who criticise it, the impotency of their police and corruption of their government. That you are the daughter of such a prominent anti-drugs campaigner is just the icing on the top of a pretty big cake. They don't get cake here very often!"

"Oh shit. So, I was set up?" Amber suddenly realised this would ruin her father's credibility completely. She was just a pawn.

"Yes. It looks like it. I'm afraid that's my conclusion too." The Lawyer looked sadly at the frightened teenager.

"So, what are the two options?" Amber was almost afraid to ask

"Simply whether you plea; 'guilty' or 'not guilty'." He shrugged.

"Well, that's simple! I didn't do anything, So I plead 'not guilty'!" She naively stated, wondering how good a lawyer he was to not have realised that.

"In which case it will go to court, the state will press for the highest possible sentence and the local population will scream for justice, much in the same way your father campaigns for higher sentences for drug smugglers coming in from this country!" The lawyer did have a point she conceded.

"And if I'm found guilty?" She tremulously enquired

"Which you will be, I'm afraid. It's a foregone conclusion. This would be an expensive, extremely sensitive, and embarrassing trial for them. They will make sure they find you guilty, they can't afford not to; You'd be looking at a sentence of at least twenty-five years." He saw the look on her face and decided to give her the even worse news.

"Served in their high security jail. Its unspeakably grim, the food is barely subsistence level and diseases are rife. You don't speak the language and the locals will be gunning for you. To be blunt; You won't get out." He added with obvious anguish.

"In fact, realistically you'd be lucky to survive six months." She nodded, realisation and desperation draining the colour from her face.

"Oh... and if I plead guilty"

"You'll be brought before a special court of atonement convening almost immediately, tomorrow in fact; one judge, a short court appearance and release immediately after..." He gulped; she wasn't going to like this.

"After what?" Amber sensed there was catch to this.

"Your 'atonement'..." He was trying to think of a way to put this gently.

"What exactly does that mean?" Amber was apprehensive and was getting the distinct feeling he was delaying telling her something she wasn't going to like.

He looked at her closely, took a deep breath and answered.

"Public flogging." She gasped in horror.

She had imagined him saying something along the lines of; A TV publicity appearance condemning her father, a sizable fine, and expulsion from the country. She'd look so good on TV! This, however, was not the kind of publicity she would have chosen!

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Amber couldn't believe what she was hearing

"Probably ten strokes." He continued and waited anxiously for this last piece of information to sink in.

"Jesus! They still do that? Fucking savages." She stared at him, horrified

"Unfortunately, yes. It's extremely popular with the locals, especially in the case of foreigners. The only thing you've got in your favour is timing. The judge sitting at tomorrow's court of atonement is not too bad by local standards, educated abroad and secretly thinks the whole thing barbaric. He won't go easy on you but he's the best you can expect. They have Three tiers of punishment: Lenient, Just, and Harsh. Lenient means the stroke is limited to a flick of the forearm and wrist, the cane can't be raised above the shoulder. You will probably get Ten lenient; it'll hurt like fuck, your arse will have tram tracks for a week, pardon my language, but you'll live and without any permanent scarring. Also, with Lenient, as you are a woman, modesty dictates you'll at least be able to keep your panties and t-shirt on. Just and Harsh are progressively more severe."

"And after that I'm free?" She couldn't believe she was considering this.

"Yes, the next court of atonement is tomorrow, the punishment is early the following day, and your flight would be that afternoon. We must get your plea in quickly; you have three hours to decide, after which I can't predict what judge, you will get." He knew she was going to have a hard choice ahead of her.

She was escorted back to her cell, where she paced up and down, the fear, horror, anger, and resentment welling up inside her. It was a long three hours.

Just before the door opened and the lawyer was shown back in, she came to her decision and turned to him as he entered. In a hoarse admission of resignation, she whispered.

"Guilty! Please Just get me out of here... after." Her voice trailed off as she said the word after." He hugged her and as tears welled up in her eyes, said:

"Try to be brave."

As word of her plea reached the prison authorities, Amber's world brightened slightly, the food that arrived that evening was, if not exactly palatable, at least vaguely edible. She was now given a filthy mattress and blankets to put on the bare concrete shelf that had so far been her only bed. The bucket in the corner was emptied and replaced and the guards treated her with a grudging modicum of respect.

-----

The following morning, she was led into the small court room in hand cuffs and leg chains. Awkwardly she shuffled to the bench in front of the stern looking judge. Her lawyer was already there, ashen face and trembling. He could hardly look her in the eye.

The judge launched into an unintelligible tirade and despite futile interjections by her lawyer, the whole hearing took a mere fifteen minutes.

As she was pulled to her feet to be led back to her cell, she desperately turned to the lawyer.

"It's over? What happened? I don't understand." She pleaded

"They changed the judge when you entered your plea! Harsh... Twenty-five strokes. I'm trying to reduce the sentence." He said abjectly.

She was led away broken and uncomprehending.

An hour later her cell door opened, and the Lawyer was shown in.

"I'm so sorry, God forgive me. He wouldn't budge, they brought him in at short notice to hand down a harder sentence." He was just staring at the floor, almost unable to articulate the horror of what he had to tell her.

"What does it mean?"

He just had to spit it out.

"Harsh is the top tier of punishment. Twenty-five of the hardest strokes, on the buttocks, naked in the public square. On camera. They want to make an example of you, so it's likely footage will find its way onto the internet. The Embassy has strongly protested but it's all happened too quickly for your government to respond." He held his head in his hand and started crying.

Amber went white.

"Can't we offer them money or something, my father could probably buy this whole shitty country!"

The lawyer looked at her incredulously

"Your father is what this is all about! It's not about money." Or indeed you! He nearly added.

"He's in an impossible position, his hard-line public stance on drugs means he would look hypocritical if he tried to intervene and the government here would make full use of that, they've no intention of backing down in any case."