On the Beach | women, island, breasts | free bondage stories

Dr. Rebecca Paldino would not have said she’d "gone native" after spending a year studying a Polynesian tribe on remote Godoromba Island. So what if she now went topless, like the local women? That was camouflage, to enable her to fit in better. Besides, if you looked at the issue scientifically, breasts were just modified sweat glands. It was ludicrous how Western society fetishized them. She was glad to be in a society where both males and females could dress sensibly in hot weather.

After a year on Godoromba Island, ethnographic data was piling up. Her fieldwork had resulted in a treasure trove of information on how the people ate, drank, socialized, dressed, worked, played. Her main area of theoretical interest was the locus of ritual and social control in a patrifocal society. As a feminist, Rebecca had come looking for cultural complexes she could use to challenge the sexist constructions of bourgeois Americans. She had hoped to find that behind a patriarchal facade, women were able to negotiate a position of personal autonomy. So far this was not the case. She was disappointed to find the Godoromba women followed the typical pattern of female subordination. To put it bluntly, they did most of the hard work of subsistence while the males goofed off. This was not the sort of fresh conceptualization that would make her reputation.

In any event, despite her meticulous apprehension of the native culture, there was still one thing that perplexed her: a ritual known as kuwatoraga. Her informants were so secretive she’d only recently become aware it even existed. In fact, they hadn’t officially told her. But she’d learned the language so well she could eavesdrop, and heard some women mention it. When she tried to bring it up, her gal-pals clamed up. Even her best friend Walova was mum. So Rebecca backed off (and continued eavesdropping). Gradually she learned the it involved swapping ritualized trade goods with the people on nearby Mifetolla Island. More than that she couldn’t tell; the references were too cryptic.

She could have let it slide. After all, there were many male-only rituals she was never going to see. Being excluded from certain crucial economic or political activities was a universal fact of human social life. But Rebecca sensed that women were key to the kuwatoraga, and that fact drove her wild. She had to get in. Perhaps there waited the paper that would make her reputation, that would catapult her to the forefront of feminist theorists.

A few days before the kuwatoraga, she decided to take a chance. She tailed Pumelto, the chief, until he was out fishing by himself.

Pumelto was a fat man who wore three or four acres of tattoos. Godoromba tattooists didn’t have delicate steel needles and sterile inks. They used shark teeth to implant ink made from burnt coconut husks. One of the reasons he was chief was his ability to endure pain. He looked like a carnival freak, but he was extremely canny, so she didn’t beat around the bush. "I hear the kuwatoraga is coming up soon," she said, brazenly broaching the taboo subject.

Pumelto pretended he hadn’t heard. He pulled in his line and examined the empty hook. "Maybe I should use grubs," he mused.

"I’d really like to see it," Rebecca persisted. "Please?"

"It’s for men," he grunted. "The only women allowed are those who participate."

"So let me participate. Please?"

He eyed her speculatively. "You want to be in the kuwatoraga? You?"

"Sure. I can do it. Someone will have to show me the steps, of course, but I’m a quick learner."

"Not much to learn," he snorted, smiling at a private joke. "Tell you what. I’ll ask the council. If everyone agrees, you can be in."

"Thank you." Rebecca walked away before he had a chance to change his mind.

Two days passed. She sensed a change in the society’s attitude toward her, but nothing she could put her finger on. Both women and men still refused to discuss the ceremony. She didn’t want to be pushy, like Malinowski or Levi-Strauss, so she pulled back.

As she waited, she suffered from a kind of performance anxiety. Despite the prejudice of modern societies, "primitive" did not mean simple. People who made their own entertainment instead of sitting around watching mass media came up with complex games. Every native ritual she’d ever participated in (in her previous field work in Cameron and Brazil) had been extremely complicated. If they didn’t let her rehearse, did that mean she was going to have to sit on the sidelines? Or would they stick her with something simple, like banging a drum? What a bore that would be.

On the day she’d predicted would be K Day, nothing special happened. She monitored the villagers carefully, to make sure no one was slipping off to a private kuwatoraga without her, but all were present and accounted for. The evening passed as usual: dinner, chores, talk around the campfire. Bilosasa had cut his arm trying to land a large fish; apparently that was a beginner’s mistake, and earned him a lot of teasing.

She went to her hut feeling cheated.

Before she went to sleep Rebecca always wrote up the day’s notes. She used a two-level recording system, careful to distinguish between objective data and subjective interpretations. Fact: The women had practiced a new craft that morning: weaving colorful braided ropes. Fact: Only married women participated. Interpretation: Well, she wasn’t sure what it meant. She left a blank space so she could fill it in later.

When she was done, Rebecca turned off her lantern and lay down on the mat. Maybe she had misunderstood when the kuwatoraga would happen. Maybe she still had a shot at it. But she felt sad. It was hard being an outsider. No matter how many friends she made, no matter how carefully she imitated their ways, she was always going to be located as an outsider, and there were paths through which she could never pass.

She heard whispers. People outside her hut.

The door burst open and four men rushed in. In her months on the island she’d never seen anyone trot, much less run, but these men moved like the wind. In seconds they ripped off her T-shirt and rolled her face down and yanked her arms behind her back and tied them with rope. Not roughly, but relentlessly. Despite the dark, they moved with practiced ease. When she opened her mouth to protest they gagged her with a strip of cloth and pulled her to her feet. Clutching fingers pawed down her underpants. She squealed, thinking she was going to be raped. But when she was nude they tied something around her waist: a rope belt, with a fan of strings handing down in front, like a Hawaiian miniskirt. Someone slipped a loop of rope around her neck and pulled her outside.

The attack took less than two minutes.

No lights were showing, but she sensed that the entire village was awake. Watching, listening.

As her eyes adapted to the moonlight she saw other women tied like she was. Walova. Titioa. Sebyopi. Reflexively she categorized them: young, unmarried.

The chief barked a command, and the men formed a line and set off, herding and tugging their prisoners through the village.

They plunged into the jungle. As long as Rebecca kept up with her captors, they didn’t seem to mind if she looked around, so she looked. In addition to the six young women, all the adult males of the village had joined the procession. Someone lit a torch, and the flame was passed from man to man, and soon a fiery snake was winding through the jungle. Like a raiding party, she thought.

Despite her professional objectivity, the predicament gave her an atavistic thrill. Nearly nude, bound and gagged, being dragged off to an unknown destination by a horde of men.... No wonder Pumelto was amused when she asked to participate. What was that saying? Be careful what you wish for because you might get it?

She flexed her fingers, trying to get at the binding on her wrists. The men had tied them in an X position, and wound the rope both vertically and horizontally. Any knots in reach? No, they’d considered that possibility, and tied the knots out where nimble female fingers couldn’t get to them. No chance of freeing herself.

Rebecca walked barefoot along the sandy path. She knew this path, and liked the feel of soft sand underfoot, but it was spooky by torchlight. Her hands bounced on her bare bottom, and the little skirt tickled her thighs. It was a weirdly erotic feeling. That and the breeze on her naked body were arousing her. She wondered what the men walking behind her thought of her bottom.

The path led to the beach. Six big canoes were pulled up on the strand, and strange men were waiting. She scanned the prows of the canoes, cataloging the symbolic animals. They were from Mifetolla Island, of course.

The two tribes faced off, and the chiefs took turns yelling insults at each other. After each diatribe, the men of the tribe roared in support. A classic performance. If only she could have brought her tape recorder!

Some sort of signal was given, and Rebecca and the other five women were brought forward. Triangular frames of bamboo were quickly set up. Her captors untied her arms, but she was unable to take advantage of her momentary freedom. A man grabbed each wrist, and held her firmly. They tied her to a frame in a standing position, wrists above her head, ankles spread out to either side, putting her on obscene display. In the torchlight she could see faces she recognized, and tried to make eye contact, but the men were in another world. They looked drugged.

The strangers from Mifetolla Island walked up and down the line, examining the women. The first time someone grabbed her breasts and pinched her nipples Rebecca tried to scream, but by the fifth or sixth time she didn’t bother. The language was different, but she got the impression the Mifetollas were making fun of her small tits and pink skin; she was glad to hear the local men defending her. Walova got a fair amount of attention, but Sebyopi seemed to be the hot item, judging from the crowd around her. And why not? Aside from being the chief’s daughter by his third wife, she was gorgeous. It was hard to believe that a man as gross as Pumelto could produce someone so hot.

Thinking back over the comments she’d heard in the last few days, Rebecca finally understood what the "trade goods" were. Talk about objectification! As short brown men examined her breasts and knelt to scrutinize her vagina (fortunately they weren’t allowed to touch), she wondered how they would valorize her. Was she an exotic, and thus more valuable? Or a freakishly pale albino, and thus worthless? The inspection lasted until every male in the South Pacific had a chance to fondle her boobs and peek up her snatch.

The men sorted themselves out into two lines, facing one another.

Time to bargain.

Walova was the first woman offered. Pumelto gave a speech about what a great worker she was, a fabulous cook, and funny to boot. He spread a cloth on the ground in front of her, and the Mifetollas put things on it. Pretty shells. Wood carvings. Feathers from rare birds. Pumelto sneered at their offering and demanded more. Grudgingly, the other side upped the ante. At one point Pumelto told them to take it all and come back next year. Eventually he was satisfied, and picked up the cloth full of goodies and handed it to Alinapro, his youngest brother. The Mifetollas swarmed forward and untied Walova and hustled her to a canoe. Rebecca strained to see what happened next, but her friend was lost in the night and crowd.

One by one the women were traded. Each transaction took a considerable time. Rebecca had seen Pumelto solve some knotty problems in the village, so she respected his political abilities, but seeing him in action as an auctioneer revealed another whole side to his personality. Sometimes he held out for a higher price. Sometimes he seemed to do the other guy a favor. But the drama! When he draped his arm around the man he was haggling with and mournfully looked him in the eye, it was like seeing a great Shakespearean actor. Even the Mifetollas, whose pockets were being turned inside out, seemed to appreciate the artistry.

For Sebyopi the chief got what appeared to Rebecca’s eye to be a fabulous price. Well, why not, with those breasts and hips and cheekbones? Even bound and gagged and helpless, she radiated an aura of female sexual superiority that was intimidating. As a feminist Rebecca was uncomfortable comparing women’s bodies. It smacked of biological reductionism. But the theory of nuanced gender hegemonies she taught in her graduate seminar didn’t seem salient here.

By now Rebecca was getting the hang of the bidding, and could see that the Mifetollas were operating in groups or syndicates. Young guys laid out the loot, doing the fetching and carrying, but clusters of older men seemed to be calling the shots. She wasn’t surprised to see that Sebyopi was bought by Chief Boltoga’s group. She sauntered toward the canoe, and even walking with her hands tied behind her back her pace was languid and her gait proud. The men capering around her looked like fawning guides, not victorious captors.

Then it was Rebecca’s turn.

Men crowded close, leering and licking their lips, jabbering excitedly. Biting her gag, she gazed back at them. Some of them had their cocks out and were stroking erections. Rebecca had never seen so many simultaneous hard-ons. For some reason she thought of firing squads. Instead of feeling threatened, she felt validated. They didn’t do that for the local women. She was the one pushing them over the edge. She, with her small breasts and pale skin.

Pumelto explained that Rebecca was very special indeed. He couldn’t say that she was a hard worker, because all she did was wander around talking to people. She couldn’t fish, she couldn’t find food. Her cooking was inedible. She didn’t know anything about village life, so on the practical level she was about as useful as a child. But. She hadn’t been with a man in a year, so she was like an overripe fruit waiting to be bitten.

Rebecca wasn’t thrilled with that metaphor (she was a rotting banana?) but she played along. She stretched sensuously, wiggling her hips and arching her chest. The men gaped at her, entranced.

She felt invincible, a black hole that could suck in infinite amounts of male sexual energy. Could she make someone come just from looking at her? She picked out a muscular fellow with a shark tattoo on his chest. She caught his eye, and licked her lips and tilted her pelvis roguishly. He did a doubletake, then reached in his shorts and got busy with both hands.

The Mifetolla chief opened the bidding with a coral necklace and three obsidian knives.

Pumelto scratched his nuts and looked bored.

Boltoga added some feathers and a pile of cured snakeskins.

Pumelto suggested he try again next year when the Mifetollas weren’t so poor.

They argued about the quality of the snakeskins. Pumelto pointed out Rebecca’s soft pink skin, and illustrated his point by stroking her inner thigh. She whimpered and moaned through her gag as if his touch were making her come. All over the beach men were whacking themselves off. Arcs of semen flashed in the torchlight.

More trade goods were offered. Pumelto pretended to kick sand on the pile. He turned his back on the Mifetollas and talked to his brothers about calling it a night. If those Mifetolla morons didn’t appreciate good merchandise... They screamed at him and shook sticks. The locals screamed back. It looked like riot time.

The other chief made a gesture, and silence fell. He spoke to someone. The man went to a canoe and returned with a bag. He handed it to the chief, who opened it with great ceremony, eventually bringing forth ... a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Everyone oohed.

All eyes went to Pumelto. Poker-faced, he eyed the whiskey. Then he smiled and nodded.

Rebecca was thrilled to realize she’d commanded a higher price than Sebyopi.

The chiefs clenched arms, all four hands in play, and thrust their stomachs at one another. Both tribes cheered. Men surged across the invisible line that divided the bargaining and began to socialize with the other side.

Throughout the ritual, Rebecca had been waiting for Pumelto to wink and untie her and usher her to the side. As the Mifetollas eagerly took her off the frame and firmly tied her wrists behind her back, it dawned on her that she was going for a ride in one of those canoes.

She tried to catch her chief’s eye, but he and the other locals were already arguing about how to divvy up the loot. Ignoring her muffled protests, the Mifetollas quickly bound her arms to her body. Then they flipped her sideways and held her in midair while they tied her legs. Rebecca had to admit it was a sensible solution to the problem of how to tie a woman on a beach without getting sand all over her, but she found it disorienting. When she was as helpless as a log, three of them handed her into the remaining canoe. She was braced for them to grope her or something, but they handled her fairly respectfully. Like a piece of cargo, yes, but no gratuitous feels. They laid her on a grass mat on the bottom of the canoe and tied her ankles to her wrists, bending her in an arch that made it impossible to move. Then they launched.

As they rowed back to their island, singing a song of triumph, Rebecca automatically analyzed how this ritual functioned. The practical side of kuwatoraga was obvious. Swapping women prevented inbreeding, and maintained ritual ties between the tribes. If the women were impregnated by men from the other tribe and bore their children, and if the Mifetollas reciprocated with their women, the two tribes were actually halves of a clan with an unusual form of exogamy. That was all well and good for them, but she had no intention of being knocked up by a local. How could she explain that she was a tourist, not a player, when she was gagged? Especially now that they’d paid a fabulous price for her?

Trapped, she let the rocking of the waves lull her. She even slept, awaking when the rhythm of the rowing changed and they beached on Mifetolla Island.

Rebecca was carried ashore, paraded around the village, and taken to a hut. When they untied her, she was too stiff from being bound to resist. Besides, what was the point? She was a small woman, and there was a strong man on each limb. They laid her face up on one of the rush-mat beds, and tied her wrists and ankles to its corners. They were using the special ropes she’d seen the women making that morning, Rebecca realized. Then they blindfolded her and left.

It was still night. Rebecca stretched and strained, but she was spread tight as a drumhead. Helpless, she awaited the man who’d bought her. The situation was straight out of one of those racist Tarzan movies from the Thirties. White woman captured by colored natives. Ludicrously retrograde. So why did she feel so wet?

Someone entered the hut. Male, from the heavy tread.

Lantern light seeped under her blindfold. He stood beside the bed, looking her over. Oddly enough, she found herself hoping he liked what he saw.

"Dr. Paldino, I presume?" said an American voice.

A familiar voice.

What the?

He raised her head and untied her blindfold. To her shock and embarrassment, the face looking down on her was that of Anthony Garlow, Ph.D., an ethnographer from Duke. She had read his publications, and had even chatted with him at conferences. She had to admit, his height and physique and aristocratic good looks were attractive. Too bad he was a patriarchal pig, a "big man" of the old school.

Smiling, he untied her gag. He straightened it out and folded it neatly and laid it near her shoulder. "Handy little thing," he commented. "Cuts down on backtalk."

"Thank you, Tony. Could I have a drink of water, please?"

"Why of course. I’m forgetting my manners." He held her head up while she sucked on his canteen. Then she slumped back and looked up at him. "How about untying me?"

"I rather fancy you like this," he said, pulling up a stool and sitting by the bed. "Spread-eagled, nude... Rather vulnerable, wouldn’t you say?"

"Listen, Tony. Don’t mess with me. I belong to the chief. He bought me fair and square, so you keep your grimy mitts off."

Tony smiled. "Haven’t you figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out?"

"Boltoga was bidding on my behalf."

"What?"

"When I heard you were going to be in the kuwatoraga it was too good a chance to pass up. But I couldn’t just waltz in and buy you myself. They know Americans are rich, and your chief would have charged me an arm and a leg. So I had Boltoga act as my front."

"To keep the price down!?"

"Hey, do you know how much labor it takes to collect rare feathers?"

"Duh. I am an ethnographer."

"Well, you should have thought about how your little lark would distort the economy of both islands. All those ritual trade goods over on Godoromba now? Basically you’ve deflated this island and inflated yours. It will be interesting to see how they restore equilibrium."

"Won’t they just drink the whiskey?"

"Not a chance. It’s too precious. It’s like the bars of gold at Fort Knox. In theory that gold could be turned into ear rings and or tie clips, but it’s too important as a store of value. I bet 20 years from now they’ll still be passing that bottle back and forth."

"I should have suspected something when that bottle showed up." Rebecca lay very still, lest she provoke him. She didn’t feel very ladylike, what with her legs tied apart and pussy covered by a few strings. His face in the lantern light was hard to read, but he seemed to be staring at her pelvis as if planning a leap from a high dive. "Tony. Would you release me, please?"

He shrugged. "I bought you fair and square, Rebecca. By native custom, you’re mine for the next three months. You wouldn’t want me to disobey native customs, would you? That would be a despicable act of cultural imperialism. Remember how you harangued me at the last convention about cultural imperialism?"

"I can make an exception in this case."

"Do you really want to? Boltoga said you enjoyed being sold. He said you were trying to arouse his men."

"He misunderstood my struggles to escape."

"Really?" Tony knelt beside the bed and caressed her breasts. It didn’t take much to get a reaction; a few flicks and squeezes and her nipples were erect. Rebecca had extremely sensitive breasts.

He kissed her, and after token resistance she kissed him back, eager, aching.

While they kissed his hand crept down to her pussy, and parted the strings, and his fingers slid inside her. Easily, since she was wet and ready. Moaning involuntarily, she arched her pelvis to push her clitoris against his hand.

"Are you struggling to escape now?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

"Aye aye, ma’am. Permission to come aboard."

He dropped his pants, donned a condom, and climbed on. After a year without sex, Rebecca squealed when he plunged in. People outside the hut cheered, but she didn’t care if anyone heard. "You bought me," she gasped, simultaneously outraged and intrigued, as he rammed home. She liked the way his weight pinned her to the bed, the way he clutched her ass with both hands as he banged his pelvis on hers. Her last lover was a meek theorist from NYU who only wanted to perform oral sex. Tony filled her to bursting. Shock waves rippled out to her fingers and toes.

"Yes," he gurgled, fucking her harder. "For the next three months... In this village. My slave..."

Your slave? We’ll see who enslaves whom, Rebecca thought. As she clenched her cunt to capture his throbbing cock, she had a vision.

On the beach: a naked woman, tied to a frame, torchlight glistening on her skin. All around her men spurt, then collapse on the sand, moaning her name. Men like little fish who hurl themselves out of the ocean to spawn and die. Her fabulous feminine power driving the fools to annihilation.

Then the drumming intensifies. A shark-god rises from the sea. He takes human form and strides to her. Smiling at what he sees, he opens his loincloth to unsheathe a huge member.

Rebecca smiles back, showing her teeth. She opens her legs, daring him to take the plunge.