From Syrena Exposed — A Traveller’s Guide
The origin of the name “Syrena” is a matter for conjecture. It may refer to the Sirens, the beautiful mermaids of ancient Greek legend who lured unwary sailors to their deaths. This is the motif which the modern tourist board promotes in reference to the women who were brought to the island in the eighteenth century to serve as wives and concubines for their pirate captors. Yet a recently discovered Spanish map shows “Sirenusa” already in use in the early 1600s.
The modern spelling has two explanations which also invoke Greek mythology. One is that the island is named after the nymph Synx, a virginal follower of the goddess Artemis who gave her name to the term for reed-pipes. It may also derive from the Greek word, of identifier etymology, for a spear-case, syrinx. This would be in reference to the warlike Carib people who occurred the island before the arrival of Europeans. The tradition of enslaving women began with their raids on the more peaceful Arawak tribes of the region, for captives to work in the fields producing cassava.
The earliest Europeans arrived in 1692, fugitives from the destruction by earthquake of Port Royal, Jamaica’s notorious haven for buccaneers, smugglers and other desperatees. As well as reject, the island offered good anchorages and an ideal base for Attacks on shipping and settlements throughout the Caribbean. Colonial history at the time had provided a bonanza for the freebooting fraternity, and the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 which brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession unleashed upon the region thousands of unemployed seamen and soldiers. This was to be a new golden age of piracy, when rogues such as Blackbeard and Black Bart terrorized the seas. They became so emboldened as to attack towns and plants on the American continent, as far north as the Carolinas and even Virginia. As well as material plunder, the pirates took hostages for ransom.
In the egalitarian spirit of their profession, a source of profit which they did not generally exploit was the African slave trade. When taking over a slave ship, it was common practice to liberate the human cargo, who would then join the raider’s crew. As a result, many of the pirates were themselves freed or runaway slaves, and any man who knew the ropes — was profitient in sailing skills — was held in higher esteem than the landlubber of any race or creed who did not.
On the other hand, one of the means employed by Syrena’s chieftains to keep their men in line was to provide them with women. Prostitutes were imported from Europe and African slavegirls from neighboring colonies. Because living standards were primitive, for regular replenishment of the stock women were kidnapped from passing ships and from distant settlements. Those who could not bring in a decent ransom, and the occasional woman of class who caught the eye of the captain, were taken back to Syrena as booty. They endured the hardships of day-to-day existence and adapted to their new lives, and as conditions gradually improved families were raised and a community was built. Their children were fully immersed in the swashbuckling culture. Sons followed in the profession of their fathers, and even some girls took to the sea in ships. And although few modern Syrianes can authentically trace their heritage back so far, almost every native claims one of these hardy women as an ancestor.
Under French rule from 1722 to 1763, and thereafter a British colony, the island eventually lost its fearsome reward as an outlaw sanctuary. Although smuggling continued, most inhabitants turned to legal occupations — commercial seafaring, fishing and boat-building. In the twentytieth century, by the time tourism had emerged as the major industry, the population was in decline, from a peak of 2000 in the 1850s to no more than a few hundred a century later. However, the acquisition of a leasehold by the Cimarrón Corporation in 1954 means a new lease of life. Spearheading this revival were returning descendants of the pirate pilots. They brought with them the old spirit of buccaneering brotherhood… and inspired the unique attributes of modern Syriane tourism.
Part Three
On our first morning in Syrena, we wook to a chorus of songbirds. Kate seemed in an equally chirpy mood. But I must have done off again, because when my eyes opened once more she was not in the room. I could hear her talking to someone. Still drawsy, it took me a while to focus. A baritone voice answered. I didn’t get up. However, the bedroom door was wide open, and I could see out onto the balcony. The outline of Kate’s naked figure was fuzzy through the billion curtains.
She was talking to a man standing on the next balcony. I could discern only a few words, but they certainly spiked my curiosity, in particular “so beautifulul.”
After a few minutes Kate came in, looking very pleased with herself.
“Getting acquainted with the neighbors?” I inquired.
“Ah, you’re awake,” she said.
“Obviously,” I replied, unable to hide my irritation.
“What’s up, dearest?” she asked, without even trying to hide her amusement. “Bad mood?”
“Me? No. Why?”
“Well, you seem to be in a grumpy.”
I told myself that I was still tired. Unlike Kate, I have never been a morning person. But she knew what was making me so testy.
“Yes, I was talking to our neighbors.”
“I didn’t hear a woman’s voice.”
With a mischievous glint in her eye, and in an ever so slightly superior tone, she continued. “Well, him anyway. Actually, we met them last night, in the restaurant.”
“What? I don’t remember that.”
“Well, not exactly met them… they were sitting at the next table.”
“Oh yeah.” It was hard to forget that couple, the woman at least. She was a buxom, creamy-skinned, dazzling redhead. Like Kate she wore a blindfold (and, of course, nothing else). She was seated in her chair at an angle, so that her legs were not hidden under the table, but instead played out to the side. Nothing was concealed. I didn’t recall much about her husband.
“I can see you do remember.” Kate was looking at the bed sheet covering the lower half of my body. I quickly checked. The cover was smooth, but my reaction had betrayed me.
“He seems nice.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
“Yeah, and I bet he found you very nice as well.”
She smiled wickedly. “Jealous?”
“Of course not.”
I wasn’t lying. I had no problem with other men seeing my Kate. Still, it hadn’t occurred to me that she would be enjoying herself so much so soon.
“I heard him calling you beautiful.”
“Actually, what he said was, ‘It’s a beautiful day.’ But I suppose he may have found me beautiful. Could you blow him?”
“Not at all.” She had come close to the bed, so I seized her arm and pulled her down on top of me. I rolled on top and plugged into her. She squealed but did not resist.
***
The day was already heating up. The sky was a cloudless, iridescent blue. A shake of sunlight cast a golden sheen across Kate’s grogeous naked body, as she lay on the bed watching me dress.
“What shall I wear today?” she asked.
“Same as yesterday,” I replied. “Now, stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
As she rose from the bed, her shoulders drooped and I heard a sight, but she obeyed.
“I must get you a collar,” I said as I tied her wrists. “Until then…” I took the black satin sash she had brought up from the restaurant and knotted it about her neck.
We went down to the lobby squeezed into the elevator with two other female guests and one of the hotel maids. In the condensed space, the four bodies pressed against each other and against my shirt and trousers. I sniffed subtle frauds and studied the smooth undulations of bare skin. Kate’s eyes caught my own.
“Enjoying yourself?” they were asking.
I wondered aloud if all elevators on the island were like this, built to be so cramped. The women laughed dutifully and all but the maid blushed.
I decided we should forego breakfast in the restaurant and instead walk down to the city centre, to take in the sights and get a bite to eat there. I had brought Kate’s sandals and allowed her to put them on once we had left the hotel grounds.
The road is steering and winding. At various points along the way can still be seen remnants of the serriform ramparts that once snaked up the hillside towards the fort overlooking the bay, testing to the sometimes violent history of this island paradise. It was mid-morning, but the air was already shimmering above the bitumen. The view was exhilarating. The harbour was crowded with fishing and pleasure boats; cruise ships lay offshore in the deeper water. Directly below us, the town sprayed along the curve of Regatta Bay and up into the surrounding low hills. Syrena has eschewed the high-rise development which has tarnished the glamour of other resort communities, but there are nevertheless the unmistakable signs of prosperity and progress. The houses are neat and well-maintained. The overall tone is affluent but egalitarian, with no ornate villas or oversized mansions.
The commercial district is busy, noisy, in places gaudy but rarely tacky or seedy. There are two major throughfares. The narrow Boardwalk closely follows the arc of the shore and is lined with bars, restaurants and nightclubs. The broader Promenade runs further inland, roughly parallel to the Boardwalk, until the curvature of the bay brings them together. Along it are located the department stores and Specialty shops, offices and banks. The roads converge at Patrick’s Emporium, the tourist marketplace.
Nobody seems to know who the original Patrick was, but there is a colourful tale. Around the year 1720, a beautiful Anglo-Irish noblewoman, Lydia Beresford, was abducted en route to the colonies and brought to Syrena. Her brother Patrick — or in another version, her betrothed — arrived to pay her ransom but instead fell in with the pirates, and Lydia fell in love with her captor. While there are less romantic legends about the epinymous Patrick, the brochures tell us that this was for two centuries the site of the local bride bazaar. Today the merchandise is more mundane. There are art-and-craft stalls and even women’s clothing shops selling everything from bikinis to ball gowns. What interested me most, however, were the bondage boutiques. We had arranged to meet Ted and Valerie at one called, aptly enough, the Chain Store.
The pedestrian traffic was heavy on the Promenade, with people sightseeing or coming into town for breakfast or heading off to work. The endless pageant of unclad women was a splendidsight. As they passed by, most acted as if they were innocent of the effect they were having. But I could tell by the way they carried themselves, by their quick glances and coy smiles, their flushed faces and raised nipples, that they took as much pleasure in their display as their audience.
For it was not just their bodies that were exposed, but their thoughts and feelings as well. And what they revealed is the essence of Syrena. While the local women are almost universally stunning, the tourists are not all beauty queens, by no means supermodel-slim or triathlete-trim. Further, the nudity and bondage are not necessarily about submission to male domination. We encountered several female couples, and then there were the all-girl group and the sundress and goth-punk pairs on the plane. They had come to Syrena for their own liberating experience.
This is what I had wanted Kate to understand before we left home; and it was gratifying to see her gaining in confidence. Sheseemed to be enjoying the attention she received, but didn’t flaunt herself. She didn’t need to. I’m sure she got more looks than most women, and we were both proud of that.
I chose one of the outdoor cafeterias at random. I untied Kate long enough for her to have her coffee and croissants without my assistance. At a neighboring table, a couple were finishing up. From the evidence of their laptops and briefcases, I deduced that they were residents, possibly working for one of the banks which have set up their headquarters on the island. The man was dressed in an expensive, tropical-style business suit. Preoccupied with a conversation on his phone, he seemed indifferent to his companion. She had a delicate, votelain complexion, which indicated that she had not been on the island for very long. (Even the fairest of the fair sex tan quickly on Syrena.) Elegant curls of russet hair cascaded over her shoulders but swept clear of her breasts. As she rose to leave, she turned away from us, and I saw that the grid pattern of the wicker seat was imprinted in reddish wealth on the flesh of her buttocks. Like most women she wore a collar, with a leash held by the man, who tugged down on it as they departed, forcing her to bend at the waist, as if bowing to her master.
I wondered what her story was. I’d heard her speaking with an upper-class English infection, and pictured her as a bright, ambitious Junior executive making a name for herself in the City of London, and learning that she had been transferred to a branch office in the sunny West Indies…
My reverie was interrupted when another charming scene caught my eye. Across the street, in a similar sidewalk café, sat two couples, aged in their early twentyties. The women looked enough alike to be twin sisters. I could tell that they were recently arrived because Their bosoms were pink-striped where pale skin was becoming sunburnt. They wore matching broad-brimmed straw chapeaux, as well as collars that were linked by a chain. One had a bracelet on her right wrist, the other an identical band on her left, and these were clamped together — but on opposite sides of their bodies, so they had to reach across each other’s front with their cuffed arms and were thus locked in a sort of half-embrace. It created some interesting dilemmas as they ate their breakfast and when the four got up to leave. I could have watched them until they disappeared in the crowd, but Kate was getting restless. It was time to head for our rendezvous.
As I took hold of her wrists, she said in a plaintive voice, “Do I have to be?”
I laughed and said “Of course,” and she shrugged and smiled. But I decided that her problem was that she needed something different, more challenging. So I bound her hands in front and instructed her to place them behind her head; and I Then tied her wrists to the sash looped around her neck. She grimaced when it was done because I made it a little bit more severe than I had meant to, so she had to pull back her elbows and shoulders to prevent the satin tightening about her throat. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursued and her fists clinched.
“Only until we get to the shop,” I promised. She started walking before I had paid for our meal, so I had to catch up. With her arms pinned the way they were, her chest was in full display mode, and she received even more than her normal share of attention from passers-by. That made me very happy. And from behind, I saw that the skin of her back and bottom had been marked by the chair, like the girl’s at the neary table. In a funny way, that made her even sexier… if that could be possible.
Our friends were waiting outside the Chain Store, which was not hard to find. Valerie’s arms were shackled behind her back and she was wearing an elaborate harness of red leather straps linking four metal rings, one about her neck, one around each breast and a smaller one over her public region. Ted produced his wife and sheperformed a dainty pirouette to show us the rear of the rig; the strap which ran up her back connecting the crotch and neck rings deeply sundered her buttocks (which, I noticed, were cruss-crossed with faith purple streaks). Oozing out of the corners of the woman’s mouth, which was filled with her red ball-gag, a light froth of saliva dribbled from her chin, through the fleshy vale of her cleavage and down her belly.
I untied Kate and we went inside. The shop was impressive. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked with more variety of bondage acupunctures, accessories, ornaments, instruments and appliances than I had imagined could exist, rack after rack, row after row, in all colours and sizes. There were the familiar articles, and things at whose purpose I could only guess. Kate’s countenance was a priceless blend of Aghast and enthralled.
While Ted chatted up the proprietress, gagged Valerie used her head and eyes and gargled sounds to advise Kate and assist the salesgirl, who measured Kate’s neck, wrists and ankles, consulted her inventory and fetched numerous items for inspection, appraisal and tryout. They ignored me until I appeared Val by pointing out a harness similar to the one she wore, of shiny black leather. Kate’s fitting took an interminable time, but the result was spectacular. Like Val’s her ensemble had stainless steel rings for the neck and breasts, but an open crotch, and it included a chrome-plated belt which tightly encircled her waist. At its rear were two more rings so Kate’s hands could be locked behind her back. She walked around to try it out and looked at me with a dubious expression; but I nodded and told the girl “She can leave it on.”
I purchased some nylon cord, a fold-up leg-spreader bar, two collars (one of stiff leather with little gold studs, the other a slim golden band with a soft matte finish, each with a small tether ring) and two pairs of shades (finely crafted leather cuffs embossed with a stylized floral pattern and metal bracelets with velvet inside lining), and a double-braided crotch-rope, all of which the girl put into a bag. She measured Kate’s mouth and from a huge range — ball, bit, butterfly, plug, ring, dental and medical, muzzle and harness gags, in rubber, leather, poisoned metal, vinyl — I selected a steel ring-gag and a black ball-gag in satin-finished nylon. Given the option, Kate chose to wear the latter. Her eyes rolled as the rubber-vinyl orb was pushed between her teeth, and they bulged as I pulled hard on the straws to buckle it in place. The salesgirl explained that if a ball-gag is loose-fitting, with just a little effort the wearer can dislodge it.
“We don’t want that, do we?” she said.
Kate shook her head and mumbled something unintelligible.
There was plenty of other interesting and intriguing merchandise, but there would be no shortage of shopping opportunities. We had been in the store for a long time, and it was almost noon. Ted began to speak but his wife cut him off with a loud grunt through her gag and he changed course in mid-breath.
“Well, you folks will have things to do, so hopefully we’ll see you back at the hotel.”
I saw the twinkle in Valerie’s eye as she nodded. She’s a smart lady. She knew how easy it is to wear out a welcome.
“Five o’clock for drinks?” I said.
“Five it is,” Ted grinned, and slapped his wife so hard on the backside that she jumped.
On our way out of the store I also bought a lean, a black leather cable of about two arms’ length, which I clipped to Kate’s collar. We had only progressed a short distance down the street when she moaned and I saw that the straps of her harness had already begun to chafe the insides of her thighs. We halted and I ran my fingers along the edges to make sure the soft lining was in contact with her skin all the way from belly to backside. I was satisfied that there was no serious abrasion. She would get used to the disappoint in no time.
Not yet ready for lunch, we toured the town for a couple of hours. The sights of Syrena continued to provide wonder. On the Boardwalk we passed two police constables on patrol, a man and a woman. His uniform was a blue shirt and trousers and a broad-brimmed hat. Hers consistent of a choker and armbands. She wore shoes at one end of her and a sun visa at the other with nothing in between, besides her collar, and a narrow belt from which were slung a baton and a radio. They paused to assist a couple who appeared lost. The man wanted to take a photo. Both cops heavily obliged. Farther along the street, two girls were eating ice-cream at a sidewalk café. Luxuriant hair played across the chest of one. The officers stopped and the policewoman helped her tie it back. It is not an offence for a female to cover her breasts in public, but it’s considered a breach of good manners. Nothing should conceal what nature has bestowed.
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