Island Paradise

In Two Parts

By Joshua Ryan

 

This is a story about adults, and for adults only.  It is entirely a work of fiction.

PART 1

Chapter 1: Greetings from Your Vacation Planner

I’d never heard of the place before Roger mentioned it.  Roger was my online friend.  We’d been chatting about BDSM stuff; that’s how I met him, on a BDSM site.  That night. we were getting into prisons and chain gangs.

“But if you are seriously interested in the study of penal servitude,” he said, “I would recommend that you examine St. Bevons.  It has, allow me to suggest, appropriate ideas on the subject of penal labor.”

That’s the way Roger wrote.   I hadn’t been chatting with him very long, but I’d learned a few things about him.  He came from an Indian family that had settled in the West Indies, and he’d been sent to school in England.  It wasn’t natural for him to use contractions or not to spell an idea all the way out.  “If you are seriously interested in the study of penal servitude . . . . ”  I could imagine the way he pronounced the phrase: in-ter-EST-ed, PEE-nall, SERR-vi-tude.  He never discussed his profession except to say that it involved “international investments, that sort of thing.”  When I replied, “That’s what I did too, before I’d made enough money to quit,” he didn’t rise to the bait.  He wouldn’t say much more about himself—although his reference to “staying in Switzerland for a while—business again” and his comment that “the hot men in Paris always seem to cluster around the Ritz, especially if they have no money” let me know what social class I was dealing with.

“What’s St. Bevons?” I asked.

“It is an island in the Caribbean—rather obscure, I must say, but not far from my current residence.  Oh, sorry!  I am becoming too personal, perhaps. Too close to revealing true identities.  I hope you will not take advantage of me.”

“Remind me to do so,” I wrote.

“You are always so cute.  I imagine you might be very sweet in person.”

“Some people think so, perhaps.  And some, perhaps, do NOT.”  It’s funny how you learn to talk like the person you’re talking with, even when you can’t actually hear him.  Or as Roger would say, “the person with whom you are conversing.”

“I have been called a bitch,” I added.

“Then it would be the taming of the bitch, and I would have that pleasure.”

Hot?  Yes.  And the idea of actually meeting Roger—very hot.  He wouldn’t tame me, that was for sure, but it would be fun to watch him try.  And more fun to see it turn out the other way.  But I knew it would never happen.  I wouldn’t let it happen.  I didn’t need any entanglements.  They never seemed to work for me.  If I didn’t like a guy, I’d soon get rid of him.  If I did like him, I wouldn’t want to do all those things it made me happy to do to guys.  Or in this case, imagine doing.

“Go on,” I said.  “What about the island?”

He didn’t miss a beat.  “Typical, very typical of the region.  British dominion.  Climate is nice.  Banking and tax laws favorable.  Usual large ethnic mix—black, white, Indian, Chinese.  And so on.  But I am surprised that you have never heard of its unusual solution to the problem of crime.”

“Tell me.”

“I said ‘unusual,’ but you will be interested to learn that this solution was inspired, like so much else in our modern world, by certain innovations in your own country.  I refer to the so-called WORC programs that have been initiated in some of your states.  Let me see, how does that acronym go?  Work Options for Rehabilitation and . . . ”

“For Recovery and Correction, I believe.”  It was always a pleasure to know something that Roger didn’t.

“Precisely.  I thank you.”

“I thought everyone except Americans thought those programs were cruel or sadistic or something.  Not that there’s anything wrong with sadism, of course.”

“Indeed.  You may remember that in such programs offenders are enrolled and trained and . . . so on, and then leased out for labor.”

“And YOU may remember that article I sent you about them.”

“Oh yes, Thomas.  We DID chat about that, some time ago.”

“Indeed.  But I should visit one of those states and take a look sometime.  Maybe I could see an actual chain gang.”

“An excellent approach to employer-employee relations.  Especially if the employees are attractive.”

There followed a long discussion of what would constitute an ideal world of masters and slaves–typical BDSM chat, which like all those chats got a little repetitious.

“But,” I interrupted.  “Tell me more about this place you mentioned . . . . ”

“Oh yes.  I hope you will be interested.  As I said, the St. Bevons idea is partially inspired by these North American, shall we say, customs and provisions.  With some differences, of course, because we Caribbeans are a tropical people.  And the St. Bees, as they call themselves, are one of our more conservative tribes.  They do make some provision for volunteers who wish to enter the State Labour Program, and I believe the numbers of those are growing somewhat.  But most enrollees are criminal offenders.  Of which actually, St. Bevons does not have enough.”

“Enough?”

“Enough to fill all the positions that might be filled in a robust penal system.  No, Thomas, they do not have enough.  St. Bevons is small, and as I said, conservative.  So crime is rather low.  Naturally, there are some that are called punks and crazies and chavs and so on.  These no island can avoid, though not all of these are subject to disciplinary employment.  There are, in addition, the young people that they call gangies, and the professionals that prey upon the tourist trade.  A considerable number of them are present, I believe, whenever cruise ships land.  And the traders of drugs.  The St. Bees do NOT like traders of drugs.  And of course there are the usual others.  They who have killed their spouses, for example.  Still worse, they who–like myself–have somehow failed to remember what you mentioned on chat, and the article you so thoughtfully forwarded.”

“You’re forgiven, Roger.  You won’t be prosecuted.  Even for typing nonstop for five minutes.”

“Thank you, my friend.  How delightful to be forgiven by such a hot and horny dude.”

“You MAKE me horny, Roger.”

Which was true–although I wasn’t a guy that just hangs on the net, trying to hook up with people.  It may sound sad, but I’d found that fantasy is better than real-life hookups, and Roger was an excellent source of fantasy.  He seemed to know all the good sites, all the good pictures and stories.

“I thank you,” he said.  “I would love to see you, and not simply in words.  I would love to see you–wearing appropriate restraints, of course . . . . ”

“Not likely!” I said.  “Maybe if it’s the other way around . . . .”

We went on like that for a while.  Finally one of us–I think it was Roger–brought the conversation back to St. Bevons.  “So,” I asked, “they don’t have enough offenders for their penal program?”

“No, my friend.  They do not.  And this program seems very popular with those in search of labor.  Wages on these little islands can be very high for free labor.”

“Is that true?”

“Oh yes.  Particularly around some of the beach resorts.  Personally, I detest such places, which is good, because should I wander through the gates of one of them I fear that some fat man from Chicago would expect me to bring him drinks.  Native help, you know.”

“I doubt you could be mistaken for a cocktail waiter.”

“Anything can happen, Thomas, if you are in the wrong place.  The moral is to find the right place.  But why, can you tell me, are you North Americans so fat?”

“I’m not.”

“Surely not, my friend.  Nevertheless . . . . ”

There was that unfortunate side to Roger.  He could really get off on a tangent.  Although I shouldn’t complain.  That was why he was chatting with me in the first place.  I was a tangent.

“Roger, you were telling me about St. Bevons, and how it doesn’t have enough offenders for its penal program.”

“Ah yes.  But the solution is very simple: import the goods!”

“Import crime?”

“Import criminals.  Others of these small islands, and even some places elsewhere, find it cheaper to export their offenders than to keep building institutions to house them.  So they pay the St. Bees to take such persons.  Whom the St. Bees lease out and get paid for again.  We islanders are cleverer than we seem.”

“Indeed you are.”

“Of course the fact that all commitments to the program are lifetime commitments means that there are no losses by means of some penal revolving door.  Once you are in the program, you will stay in the program.  But really now, this suggests an idea.  You are retired, at the young and virile age of 33 . . . ”

“Thirty-five, I’m afraid.”  Might as well be honest.

“Thirty-five.  In any event, I am sure you have nothing more entertaining to do than to visit St. Bevons and inspect the merchandise.”

“Merchandise?”

“The indentured employees of the State Labour Program, the SLP.  They call them slappies.  A product of the acronym, of course, but I consider it an appropriate as well as colorful designation for a servant.”

“They get slapped around?”

“Yes, certainly corporal punishment is allowed, though always within the laws of what is, after all, a very civilized society, a product of British tradition.  But you cannot run a system merely by corporal punishment.  There must also be what may be termed psychic slaps, continuously administered.  I imagine that one’s existence in a servant class, immured on an island, under the supervision of men who have a strong interest in working one to one’s full potential, with the prospect and guarantee of a lifetime spent in such conditions–all this would have a strong cumulative effect on a slappie’s brain.”

I was getting hard, very hard—way too hard to be distracted by his complex way of putting things.  “Oh yes!” I wrote.  “That would be total!”  Then was embarrassed by what Roger might regard as overenthusiasm and a lack of true perspective.  He believed in “relishing” his pleasures, not diving into them.  But I was imagining what it would be like for the offenders—or, God help them, volunteers—to exist in those conditions of complete control, complete and endless.  What an experience that would be!  “I’d like to know what these . . . slappies feel about their life on St. Bevons.”

“Many, perhaps, appreciate it as you do.  But it is an interesting question.  I will soon be there myself.  I will not be personally involved, of course, but I may make some observations.”

Interesting.  Despite what I said about not wanting to meet any online friends . . . .

“Really?”

“Yes.  By good fortune, I have some business dealings on the island.  The financial environment is favorable.”

“When will you be there?”

I found myself chatting about available times.

“So,” he said.  “It is settled.  You will be my guest at the King George Hotel in downtown Wellington.  Comfortable and convenient.  Tomorrow I will reserve two rooms.”

Well. Two rooms.  Probably he felt as I did—two doms should not be looking for romance.

That took the pressure off.  “Good,” I said.  “But I insist on paying my share.”

“We will discuss that at an appropriate time, my friend.  Meanwhile, I will use my contacts on the island to arrange for a tour of the SLP operation.  As I have found, prospective investors in St. Bevons receive a cordial welcome.”

“Do you think I should invest?”

“A good place for retirement properties, perhaps.  As they say in their local patois, their ‘islan’ talk,’ you can get a ver’ nice house, an some ver’ good slappie boy in thee house . . . .  You understand that the Program is entirely male and largely staffed by young offenders.  18+ , as I believe you say in the States.”

“Yes, that’s right.  I see we have the same legal age . . . . ”

I thanked him and agreed to his plans.  And that was a ver’ good time for me to go offline and relieve the increasing pressure on my junk.  The next morning I made plane reservations for St. Bevons.

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Metal would like to thank Joshua Ryan for this story!