‘… and not one move, not in her face, not in her legs and then this one moan, when the old lady cut. I still not believing, how can twelve year old girl be brave like that.’

Mila couldn’t stop raving about the tribal chief’s daughter, whose duty as the first one to be cut was to serve as an example to the other girls. Sylvie had seen it in different variations, but it still tore her heart each time.

‘Mila, the water.’

‘Ah, the water, oh so sorry, I talking and talking.’

Sylvie grabbed two of the jerry cans and passed two to Mila. Now she had to help anyway as otherwise they would stay dirty and thirsty during the night. Mila’s usual protest that two jerry cans were too heavy for her failed to materialize today as she recognized that Sylvie wasn’t in the mood for complaints. Elisabeth, the pastor’s wife and Madeleine, the local nurse, were just filling up their cans. There were strict rules that no one was to be treated as a servant and therefore everyone had to take care of her or his own water. There were no cooks, no maids, no drivers either ... Pastor Jones was very adamant about this. He had this rather egalitarian understanding of the scripture and a yearning to lead by example.

That was also the reason he was trying to find diesel for their generator himself by driving the two days to the provincial capital, after picking up Mila in the main capital hadn’t solved their problem due to general rationing. Sylvie was worried they might end up like two months ago, when they had to use the hand pump and couldn’t shower for weeks. She was used to strong smells, when visiting the villages. But when her own smell overwhelmed her, though, being cut, her pussy’s flavor still was comparatively light, she understood the power of a woman’s smell in the cramped quarters of a tribal village. Madeleine had smiled at her, ‘Now you even start smelling like us’, she said, referring to her recognizing very early during Sylvie’s stay in the mission that Sylvie also was a cut woman. From that moment Madeleine took care that all the doors were open for her and that she could film even the most secret initiation rites.

She longingly looked to the enclosure, where Toni and Ktlosi, the local male nurse, were frolicking in the trickling water. Today was men’s day. And she had her period. And her tampons were running low. And thinking about Toni didn’t help either as her knickers were already saturated from watching the cutting ceremony, the long trip, fantasizing what she would do to him as a farewell present. He was such a dork. They lived together on this compound for nearly 10 months, him looking at her like a lovelorn puppy and she using all tricks in the book to get into his pants. But no! He kept on talking about true love and losing one’s virginity on the wedding night. Sweet … but so stupid. Now she knew: She might let him sodomize her. Much safer and he wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

‘Mila, could I borrow some of your tampons?’

Mila actually blushed?

‘I …pads. Tampons … I not use.’

‘Why?’

‘I .. small.’

Whispering into her ear. Sylvie had this experience of déjà vu with Cassie and her hiding under the covers playing show me yours and I show you mine. Mila’s brown deep eyes in her Italian aristocratic face now conveyed a mixture of innocence and Swiss boarding school mischief. Oh no, not another virgin! Lugging the two jerry cans to their room Sylvie threw one last look at Toni’s long wet hair and muscled shoulders, listening to Mila’s sexy huffing and puffing as she was struggling with her own cans. Her determination was set: ‘I so have to corrupt this place.’

‘How … you know much … about this cruel business?’

Mila always needed her bed time talk. Sylvie was missing Lydia, the heavy set German girl, who was replaced by this Italianated Paris Hilton clone. Lydia always fell asleep the moment she hit the bed. Lydia had been down to earth, with a hearty laugh, her English as rudimentary as her French, but ready to touch and gesticulate and therefore able to communicate with everyone much better than Mila with her perfect French. Ok, she had a rather strong body odour, but everyone started to smell funky here due to the strange food and the hot climate. And she longed for Lydia’s fist. Sylvie still remembered fondly, when sitting on the bed cutting her toe nails, Lydia suddenly stood up, kneeled in front of her and without further ado brushed her new grown forest away opening her outer lips to reveal the empty cleft.

‘I knew it’, she smiled, her ruddy cheeks glowing even stronger.

‘Here?’

‘No, at home.’

‘Mhm, schön.’

Lydia had to swallow, it was obvious she was salivating. From there to finding out that Lydia not only was a hardcore lesbian well known in her hometown leather scene but also the odd combination of an ardent fighter against FGM and a clit torture fetishist with the pedigree of a trainee midwife took only minutes. Half an hour later Sylvie had her first orgasm due to the knuckles of Lydia’s fist rubbing on her cervix. Just thinking about it, made her pussy tight. It had become a kind of routine: coming home, sweaty, grubby, dusty and horny, taking off each others dirty panties to use them as gags, and then Sylvie would sit on Lydia’s fist, while pinching Lydia’s clit with her sharp finger nails, often till she would draw blood and they would both first try to hide their screams and then their well fucked looks, when they joined Elisabeth and Madeleine in the shower. Basically that was the reason Toni stayed a virgin. And now she was stuck with another one in the bed on the other side of the room.

‘Well, I’m here for some time already. And secondly I want to specialize in sexual anthropology, when I go to college, so I started reading about these customs at home.’

Save answer, to early yet for the truth. ‘Hopefully she’s bored to sleep now’, because the three fingers up Sylvie’s ass and the little finger trying to enter her pee hole certainly had the desired effect of making her groan, which would raise further questions.

‘You … ok?’

Oh no, she heard it.

‘Fine … just tired.’

‘If you … you know … want to play …’

Blushed silence. What did she just say?

‘Qu’est ce que j’ai dit? Mais comme je suis conne … ’

Another embarrassing silence. Sylvie held her breath, while Mila was trying to hang herself.

‘You know … in internat …girls like sisters … so there always sighs … and one needs …. comme on dit … relief?’

Was she talking self pleasuring or helping each other out, so to say?

‘So you had a girlfriend?’

‘Many … in my class everyone good friends …’

‘I mean real girlfriend, a lover?’

‘Oh no …’

She couldn’t stop giggling.

‘So sorry my English … no I’m no lesbian, no sorry for mix up. We only talk … and hear … each one, you understand?’

‘Ok, so you don’t mind if I frig myself just now and have an orgasm?’

She would show this little teasing hussy. Mila kept on giggling.

‘Now if I do this, you have to do it as well and I want to hear, ok?’

‘Si.’

The answer was giggly and breathy at the same time, someone obviously was wetting her knickers already. Sylvie answered with a second groan, her little finger finally lodged up to its first knuckle in her pee hole. Lydia had helped her train it with a urethral sound, warning her not to overdo it as she might end up incontinent. Still the burning feeling of stimulating her G point from the inside in combination with the stretching of her asshole never failed to trigger one of those slow-train-coming orgasms, which seemed to go on forever. Like her last crazy day with Lydia. They actually didn’t talk about it, but it always was a forgone conclusion that Lydia would give her clit as a farewell present. So putting out her toys on the last morning just before making her final rounds of all the health clinics happened without a spoken word and both of them smiling like on Christmas morning. The clamped off catheter really hurt going in, but not as much as Lydia’s big but plug. Sylvie always needed 10 minutes to get it past her sphincter. Then Lydia handed her the surgical threat and the clit pump they had constructed from a cut off syringe. Pumping out Lydia’s clit as far as it would go was one of their favourite games, but today Sylvie would tie off the clit behind the pump just as close to the skin and as tight as possible and fix the knot with super glue, which wasn’t easy with Lydia’s fat outer lips and her big hood. At that point Lydia started to flop around on the bed and Sylvie had to save herself, the syringe popping off her clit and flying through the room. Lydia’s grunting became really loud, so Sylvie grabbed a pillow and pressed it on Lydia’s face just in time for the scream of all screams. This bed needed a change of sheets that was for sure. Sylvie had her own little orgasm just looking at Lydia in pain and pleasure as her clit slowly started to die.

‘Oh … tu te régale …’

There were sighs and giggles coming from the other side of the room. Sylvie was lost in her memories, Mila’s little moans blending with her recollections of Lydia’s orgasms, which continued to get fainter and fainter during the day, while hers grew more urgent the more her bladder filled and the more her asshole was abused with every bump in the road as they did their rounds, no one suspecting what was going on under their skirts. Finally standing on top of the hill overlooking the mission with the African sun setting on the horizon Lydia passed Sylvie the nail clipper and dug five little holes in the ground with a stick. Bend over from the urge to pee and the pain in her ass Sylvie knelt between Lydia’s legs looking at the huge whitish clit towering out of its hood. Pulling the tip of the clit into the clipper wasn’t easy, but Lydia didn’t show any reaction. Looking into Lydia’s eyes Sylvie pressed the clipper together with all her might, while her other hand tried to serve as receptacle. What it received was a lot of juice and one little piece of flesh, while Lydia’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, her fists banging against her temples, a howl just stuck in her throat. Breathing heavily, Lydia looked on as Sylvie put the little piece in the ground. With Sylvie groaning, Lydia opened the clamp on Sylvie’s catheter and closed the hole with a first torrent of Sylvie’s pee. Five times she pressed the clipper, each time more painful, till closing the wound with wart’s tincture brought Lydia shrieking to her knees, while tearing the catheter and the but plug with one mighty pull from Sylvie’s holes, making them bleed, both of them sobbing from pain and loss and saying good bye and that never ending tightness in their pussies.

‘You … ok?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

Her voice raspy, she must have screamed into her pillow, coming again and again, the picture of her aunt overlapping with her recollections of Lydia and the girlish sighs next to her.

‘Wow … I never … strong like that.’

‘Sorella, sorella mia …’

Someone was crying. Someone was stroking her pubic hairs. Her eyes felt like lead, her head a train station. This blurry face must be Mila’s.

‘Elisabeth, viens vite, elle s’est réveillée …’

Mila’s voice was too loud.

‘No, not you …’

‘Oh, sorry …’

That must have been Toni. She was naked. He probably died of embarrassment just now. Ah, she still could laugh, even if her head was bursting.

‘She’s laughing. Oh, you gave us all a fright.’

Elisabeth’s warm English voice and the stroking of her hair felt so good. Home. She reopened her eyes.

‘Yes girl, that’s good. Now stay alert, we have to make sure that if the concussion makes your brain swell, we know immediately. So Mila will keep you company and if it means she tells you her life story three times over to keep you awake, ok?’

Elisabeth surveyed her body as if to make sure that she hadn’t overseen any other injuries, her look lingering just a little too long on her wild blond reddish pubic hair. Elisabeth knew. She had found out early during one of their communal showers. She had hugged her right there, wet breasts to wet breasts, just telling her how sorry she felt for her. She never asked questions about it, but every time she saw Sylvie naked she stared holes into her pussy. And although day in day out she treated the local women, who all were cut in one way or another, she was mesmerized by Sylvie’s empty pink slit peeking through that forest. She looked up into Mila’s olive face, who averted her eyes. She sighed.

‘Let’s cover her up, I know it’s hot, but Toni is walking up and down like a wounded lion and he’s not gonna stop till he sees that his driver is fine.’

The single sheet they used as a cover actually accented her nakedness even more and poor Toni didn’t know where to look, when he finally was allowed to visit.

‘I know I told you never to swerve with a jeep as they always have a tendency to roll over, but that bull would have taken out my side even with a bull bar. And thanks for having the car fall over to your side.’

That was one of Toni’s typical clumsy jokes. He was rather good at them.

‘It’s ok, shorty.’

She liked to tease him that they were the same size. Her finger followed the scratch on his arm.

‘That’s nothing, just the door when I tried to get you out.’

It was obvious that his hard on was getting massive.

‘Jones will not be happy that I totalled the car.’

She wanted to keep him talking to see how big the tent in his shorts would grow. Mila had a look of utter fascination and disgust on her face.

‘But no, there’s not much damage. The Meringo boys, who were supposed to herd those cattle, which ran on the road, helped with the lifting of the car. …But I should check on it now.’

And off he went, bend over like a pretzel, trying to hide his erection. She had to hold her head with both hands, it hurt so much to laugh. The look on Mila’s face had her nearly doubling over again.

‘What?’

‘You want to fuck him.’

Her voice full of venom, her eyes glowing black with anger, her cheekbones turning ochre.

‘You want to fuck him with that?’

With one snap of her hand she had removed the sheet and pointed at Sylvie’s pussy. Sylvie nearly confessed that she actually had thought of offering her asshole, but Mila’s look of betrayal stopped her humorous reply.

‘How can you want to do this like that … for fun …it’s bad enough for having babies.’

‘What are you talking about …’

‘You know what I talk … and I know what feels like …’

Sylvie was dumbfounded. Mila’s sudden Mediterranean outburst culminated in her ripping off her dress and standing there in the nude, beautiful like always, but not as shameful as before when they went to their common trickle shower. Her olive skin blameless, her female form perky and mellow at the same time, her thick black bush glowing in the evening sun, her look defiant and full of sadness as she moved closer to the bed and opened her legs, her bush, her … Nothing there, just a small pink oval of flesh, slightly wet, closed, smelling of dark un-showered chocolate with a rose filling. Sylvie gasped.

‘Jesus, now I understand. But that’s not your usual cutting job, that looks like a major surgical procedure, but it’s one hell of a pretty pussy.’

Sylvie was so surprised, she forgot all inhibitions and started exploring without even asking. She prised open the oval, finding a hymen with just one tiny hole in the middle, so perfectly formed it could only be artificial. Probing its thickness with her little finger elicited a gasp from Mila, who looked at Sylvie with wonder and worry.

‘Now that explains everything. Let’s see …’

A moan, a grin, more rouge to her cheeks.

‘They didn’t cut you, they reconstructed you. They basically put your clit under the skin and if I press here …’

A shriek, a giggle and Mila hopped away, her own hands covering her pussy.

‘Come back here, I was just starting to have fun.’

‘No fun, not good.’

‘What are you talking about? We had a lot of fun every night with our little wanking sessions. Come here, beauty, and lie with me. You know Elisabeth gave you the grave task of telling me your life story. And I just found the reason, why I really want to hear it now.’

Against all prejudice about Mediterranean temperament, reminding Mila of duty always worked with her. So she lay her head on Sylvie’s chest, her legs straddling Sylvie’s leg, her knee grazing Sylvie’s pussy teasingly as she started talking in her broken Italian English, a melancholic melody, which fit so well with her pouting lips and the tears, which kept coming and going.

When her mother left with a younger man, her father became obsessed with revenge and making an example of female servitude out of his own daughter. Being rich and from old family, no one could stop him. Mila was convinced that even her mother’s deadly accident was everything but coincidence. It gave her father now all the possibilities of a sole caretaker. He used it to send her off to a Swiss boarding school at 12 years of age. On the way, however, they made a short stop in this private clinic, supposedly for a health certificate. When she woke up, her sex was basically gone. She raved and screamed for one week, not from pain but from the sheer terror of her modification, not from loss, as she had been trained even by her mother never to touch down there, but from the feeling of betrayal. On his return her father found a numb soul, ready to accept that this was the necessary procedure to make her the perfect wife that she was supposed to become right after boarding school. This year in Africa was her revenge as she had eloped secretly the day before her father was supposed to pick her up for presentation to eligible bachelors. Her worry now was that he might find her and force her to marry one of those brutes, who would try to tear open her little hole to make babies.

‘But do you fake it? I mean it sounded like you’re having fun as well.’

‘I rub up here and it feels good, but you press … feels … very good.’

Mila giggled bashfully.

‘Oh, we’re going to have so much fun experimenting. I think your father’s surgeon played a little trick on him and you can have much more pleasure than your father intended and you think.’

Mila’s eyes sparkled in their special boarding school mischief way, when a shadow crossed her face. She stood up and walked across the room to Sylvie’s computer.

‘I’m not sure … I trust.’

This girl changed moods like the African weather changed during rainy season. She tossed printed out mails on Sylvie’s belly, Aunt Agnes photo on top.

‘Elisabeth asked to contact your family … no connection … but I found that. Your family … one of them. Cutters.’

It was spit out with utter contempt. And it hit Sylvie were she herself felt very vulnerable at the moment. She remembered now that she was pondering exactly these questions, when the bull jumped on the road. She should have seen him coming from further away, but her thoughts were with her aunt. And why she was making a film to denounce the traditions of these tribes as barbaric and in need to be changed, when her own family had a similar tradition. And why she had troubles condemning practices, where in all inevitability there still was this moment of free will, when these young women decided that this is what they wanted. And why even in situations of forced circumcision, where she felt like being raped herself, the moment the blade touched the clit her pussy convulsed.

‘Yes, we are. My family is in the female circumcision business for many generations. But nowadays it is exclusively voluntary. It is one of many possible body modifications, people ask for, like piercings or tattoos or also male circumcision.’

Somehow that sounded lame even for her own ears.

‘Have you read it?’

Mila had lost her original enmity, her hands not on her hips anymore, but one playing with her smelly pubic hair, the other scratching her hipbone.

‘Only the picture. Who is it?’

‘My aunt. She was the cutter in our family and now as she has handed the role to her daughter, she was finally free to cut herself.’

Mila had sat down, shaking her head.

‘Cut herself … crazy. Why? How?’

‘She build a machine, actually Uncle Bernie, a friend of my father helped her built the machine. You see there. Her breasts are stuck in these metal circles and you see on the side? That looks like laser scalpels and they are already halfway through her breasts.’

‘Mama mia … sick, sick …’

Despite her obvious disgust, Mila couldn’t stop looking.

‘And down there, it’s not very clear, but her pussy really looks very puffed up sticking out of the middle of this metal grip. And these two robotic arms they have laser scalpels on top and they must be … yes look they basically must have cut already through her whole pussy, outer lips and all, and are just about to cut her clit. That’s what Cassie meant with the moment of truth.’

Mila had taken the photograph, looking at Aunt Agnes’ grimacing face. Mila’s big eyes were conveying confusion.

‘She … happy?’

‘You know what? My head is hurting, my eyes are hurting. Why don’t you read me my sister’s mail? It’s good for your English and we might find both the answers we’re seeking.’

Mila sat cross-legged on the bed, starting to read in her girlish, raunchy voice, which would have enticed Sylvie to close her eyes were it not for the tantalizing prospect to steal some pink glimpse in a black forest. Not easy in the oscillating light of one pulp, which in itself was already a luxury, due to the successful negotiations by Pastor Jones in the big town. One more hour of electric light instead of candles.

‘What was that?’

‘What? …”She said she failed me …”.’

‘No, before:’

‘…”one hour earlier to cut all her hair.”

So Cassie had the privilege to prepare Aunt Agnes for the big day. Sylvie’s cousin Mandy had confessed that they had cut Cassie, but instead of being mad, Aunt Agnes apologized for not being there for her niece when she needed her. This was her way of saying sorry.

‘…”All the hair went into a bag. She asked me to make sure that together with her body parts they will be buried in the garden and to plant a tree on top and she hopes that her grand children will play under it and remember her that way as she will be living far away with the Skoptsy.” Who …Skoptschi?’

‘Skoptsy. Originally a Russian orthodox sect, which nullified themselves, so they could be closer to God. Nowadays not all of these groups are really religious, they just enjoy each others sexless company, often living in commune like situations.’

‘Skop … Skoptsy. You’re … one of them?’

‘Oh no. But it seems my aunt joined them and don’t ask me why, I haven’t got a clue.’

‘Here it says: “We helped Aunt Agnes into Wendy’s car and off they went.”’

‘But you left out two pages:’

Mila squirmed, shrugging her shoulders, pouting.

‘But it’s … troppo orribile, I’m not sure I can read this.’

‘Please, please, my head is killing me.’

Mila grunted in half protest, flapping her legs, each time revealing wet pinkness unintentionally, which made it even more salivating, helped by each gust of female aroma mingling with Sylvie’s own.

‘”It was just us women and she asked us to honour her with our nakedness, standing in front of the glass cube which contained the machine: Mother, who nowadays seems to totally shave, so her seamless cleft beckons everyone to touch. Uncut Mandy with her pale skin, her silky black hair crying out to be parted, so I could lick her clit. And then Wendy: I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Neutral, like the day she was born, even less so as her pubes were flat like a doll. I so wanted to touch her, when everyone gasped. Aunt Agnes had mounted the robot and it came to life, cradling her, prodding her, forcing her into obscene positions. We saw a wand approaching her spread pussy, penetrating her. When she opened her mouth for a silent scream it must have penetrated her cervix and started to fuse her ovaries, neutering her forever. There were tears running down her face. Although in tears herself Mandy tried to explain to mother that she should stop the attempts to enter the glass cube as for hygienic reason it would only open at the end of the operation. Mother was desperate, she so wanted to hold, to comfort her sister.”’

Mila had tears in her eyes and started raving in Italian, ‘pazzo’ figuring prominently in her tirade, which ended with ‘Who’s Wendy?’

‘My aunt’s best friend. But she took my aunt’s husband and as a prize she paid with her sexuality. Well, at least part of it because what I heard, she and Uncle Jeff fuck like crazy, I assume she lets him fuck her ass.’

Her eyes big like wheels, Mila’s mouth emptied another round of rather elaborate sounding Italian swear words. Sylvie used the time to look again at this incredibly powerful image of her aunt. Now she knew, the photo reminded her of one she had seen before: The last Chinese being executed by being skinned alive. The same grimace of unimaginable pain and the pleasure of oblivion.

‘…”It seemed to take forever. Mandy and mother were holding each other, they couldn’t look anymore. I was hiding behind my camera, shooting photo after photo. Wendy was at the glass, straight as a rod, her eyes linked with Aunt Agnes. When the moment finally came and her breasts fell from her body at the same moment as her clit died and the metal tray received the whole pouch of her sex and her screams could be heard even through the sound proof glass, Wendy shook like a leave. I don’t know, if it was the sympathy of true friendship, the pity of the equal or the feeling of final revenge, but she was in there with Aunt Agnes every second of her suffering. The moment the door opened with a hiss, she was at her side stroking her face, while Mandy, all nurse again, checked on her Ma’s vitals and kept on shaking her head, while looking at her closed pussy: ‘Look at that scar. This machine is totally out of this world. No doctor could make perfect stitches like that. Even the catheter is set in correctly.’” What’s … catheter?’

It took some time till the question registered as Sylvie was holding images in her head that played very well with the rubbing her G spot was taking from the two fingers in her pussy. They had just snuck in there by accident. Mila’s look said it all: Disgust had transformed into lust, her own fingers playing unconsciously with her wet pubic hair.

‘It’s a plastic tube, which drains your bladder, to prevent any problems from the swelling or the scaring after a cutting. That’s often the problem with the mutilations they perform here: That they close up the pee hole and then the girls die from renal failure.’

Mila’s interest in medical explanations had waned the moment Sylvie’s pussy made a squelching noise, painting Sylvie’s fingers white.

‘That feels good?’

Sylvie nodded, while Mila had to force herself to return to the mail.

‘”Aunt Agnes was barely conscious. Mom kept repeating to her, how much she loves her and how much she will miss her. It reminded me of Grandma’s story with Aunt Margaret. We helped Aunt Agnes …” I read that already. There is still …”PS: Do you think, Dad is gay? I saw him holding hands with Uncle Bernie. And I think Mom is even in on it, she was standing there looking at them smiling.” Your father … homosexual?’

‘What shall I say? My family, always good for surprises … Oops.’

They both laughed. The generator had just cut out and darkness enveloped them and gave the sounds of the African savannah even stronger resonance. Sylvie felt a finger pressing on the empty spot on top of her pussy. She cooed her agreement.

‘Sorry, but out of work. No surprise there. I think, however, we should pay a naked surprise visit to dear Toni and have a serious talk about virginity.’

Their eyes slowly adjusting, they clung to each other and giggled their way to the door.