Wedding in Paradise
by Lindale

Because of a long lost family relationship, Tom is offered the chance of an expenses paid trip to the West Indies, commemorating the role of a man who not only released slaves, but gave them a proper life as well. Except that he also has to commemorate the role of the man’s bride.

****

“Hello, you’re Tom Deccan, aren’t you?”

On my way into my offices, I turned to face the attractive middle-aged black woman, smiling at me from the reception desk. ‘Alice’ her name badge said. “That’s right. I’m surprised that you know me as I don’t get many visitors; I’m in the Techy department.”

“When I heard your name, I thought we might be related. Have you ever done research on your family history?”

She looked of West Indian descent so I thought any family relationship unlikely but, in a company mostly full of young people, it was nicer talking to this woman of about my own age, rather than going back to my desk.

“My sister did,” I said, answering her question, “years ago when she was still at school. She thought our name was an Anglicisation of De Caen, apparently barons who came over with the Norman invasion in 1066. It sounded a bit unlikely to me.”

“No, I think she was right,” Alice said. “The other part of the family dropped the De and just became Cane, which is my surname. From what I know of our ancestors, the name matched their preferred method of dealing with the locals when they got out of line – a good thrashing with a cane.” She grinned. “Apparently, they were early entrants into the slave trade.”

“Oh.” The realisation hit me that her connection with the family had not been a voluntary one. “Sorry.”

Her grin widened. “No need to apologise for having ancestors who were evil. The family weren’t all bad. In fact your namesake, Thomas, ended slavery on Cane Island in the early 1800s. I was born there, but came over here for schooling and have never gone back.”

“Cane Island?” I queried. “I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s such a tiny island in the West Indies, hardly anybody’s been there. It was given the name by Thomas’s father and I heard they were trying to find old family members to help them with a commemoration ceremony. Would you be interested?”

“You mean on Cane Island? That’s quite a long way to travel.”

“They’d pay the air fare and all expenses.”

“Really! That’s a serious amount of money.”

“Thomas used part of the family fortune to buy a few acres of farmland on the edge of the City of London, which he put in trust for the islanders.”

“A few acres in the City of London,” I echoed. “That should pay for an air ticket.”

“If you’d be interested in helping the islanders, they would want to do a DNA test, just to ensure you really were related. I could put you in contact, if you wished?”

****

You hear of so many scams, nowadays, I’d been a bit suspicious, but the trust had paid for a solicitor who had researched and vouched that it was genuine. My DNA had established that I was a member of the Cane family. We had a very generous open contract, and I’d already received pay for three months, having being told that I may only need stay for a week, or they could invite me to stay longer than three months.

Eight weeks later, I’d flown first class from Heathrow to Antigua. From there I’d got on a ferry which spent most of that hot Saturday wandering from island to island. I was hot and tired and had been travelling for around 24 hours. Now, at almost the last stop of the day, the ferry nosed its way up to a small jetty, where it off-loaded me and several loads of supplies. I’d barely walked off the jetty to the shore before the ferry was reversing away. Too late now to change my mind.

“You must be Thom-ass.” A broad West Indian accent greeted me and I turned to find a sexy young black woman smiling at me. All hesitations immediately evaporated as she added, “I am Matt-ilda Cane. You can call me Matty.”

“Hi Matty. It’s good to meet you. You can call me Tom.”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. You had your name changed, didn’t you? So you’re now Thomas.”

That was one of the stranger parts of my contract; the trust had wanted to state that Thomas Cane from Britain was here to represent the old family, so my name had been changed by deed poll from Tom Deccan to Thomas Cane. I was going to object until I heard how much they were prepared to pay me for the inconvenience. Then I simply shut up and so now I am Thomas.

“Thomas it is,” I agreed. “Can I get a drink before we go further?” I nodded towards the shack on the beach around which a number of schoolchildren were clustered. Clearly, this was the post school meeting point.

“We sure can. You can meet some of the children, as well.”

We wandered over and we both ordered beers, and she introduced me to half a dozen children whose names went out of my head as soon as they were spoken. But they all looked nice kids with big West Indian smiles.

“Is the secondary school not out, yet?” I asked, noting that these kids all looked of primary school age.

“All the secondary school children go to boarding school in the UK,” Matty said. “The trust pays for that.”

Lucky islanders, I thought.

“A few of us return,” she continued, “but most stay in Britain for the rest of their lives. The original Thomas Cane left a tremendous legacy for the descendants of the slaves.” She gave me an even wider smile. “And that’s what we want you to commemorate and re-enact during your stay here.”

“I’ll try my best,” I said, “although I’m still not really clear what it is you want me to do.”

“That’s deliberate,” she said. “We want you to act spontaneously, although we’ll always be there to give a guiding hand, and I’ll explain some of the back story, now.”

She talked as we started to walk up the hill towards the small church, with a plantation house behind it.

“The Cane family were naturals as slave traders in the West Indies,” Matty said, “and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, Jacob Cane and his family were rich plantation owners in Antigua. Jacob had three sons, but the youngest, twenty-one-year old, Thomas, had been a continual embarrassment to the family since he was born, far more interested in nature and spending time with the local natives than in thrashing the slaves to work harder.

“When Jacob won this tiny island in a game of cards, he’d seen it as an opportunity to get Thomas out of the way, and told him to take a few slaves and build a fine house here, where Jacob and his wife might eventually retire. And it was to be called Cane Island from then on.

“Then, the British Parliament got serious about ending the slave trade and passed the 1807 anti-slaving act. Jacob thought it the end of the world and decided to sell up his plantations on Antigua and move the family to Virginia. The 1807 Act allowed him to continue to own slaves but not to trade in them so he sold up the estate, planning to take his family along with his big chest of gold. He chartered a slave ship and packed his 512 slaves onboard in horrendous conditions,.

“He initially decided that Thomas should continue developing the house here on Cane island but, a few days before they were due to set sail for Virginia, they heard that Thomas had fallen in love with Beatrice, a slave, and was going to marry her. There could have been no more abhorrent thought to the Cane family than their son marrying not just a person of low descent, not just a black woman, but a slave, a person hardly thought to be a human being.

“Jacob sent immediate word ordering Thomas not to marry the slave, but he was twenty-one; he could marry without consent. So Jacob ordered the captain of his slave ship to sail here so they could interrupt the wedding and carry Beatrice away from temptation. The captain initially refused because of a forthcoming storm, but faced with being fired and losing his ship, he finally consented.

“So,” Matty turned to smile at me, “we have reached the point where our story begins and here,” she swept her around to indicate the solidly built church which they had just reached, “is the church where you are due to marry Beatrice on Monday. Come inside and meet your bride.” She pushed open the solid church door, oblivious to my mouth, gaping wide.

“Er,” I said, but Matty had already entered the church and was striding down the aisle towards where a bride stood before the altar with a stillness which could not be human. Phew, I realised. It was a dummy. I hurried after Matty and caught up with her at the altar.

“Meet Beatrice,” Matty said. “Beatrice,” she said to the doll, “meet your husband to be.

“She’s wearing the original dress made by Beatrice and her friend in 1807,” she added, although to be honest I wasn’t noticing the simple dress she was wearing, more the iron ring around her neck with the chains leading to the manacles on each wrist. “Of course, because of the chains, all slave women had to have dresses which were pulled upwards and tied around the neck or over the shoulders.”

Beatrice was large and had one of those voluptuous West Indian figures which look stunning at her age, supposedly seventeen. With those huge breasts revealed to perfection by the scoop neckline of the dress, a slimmish waist with the skirt flared out over wide hips, it was easy to see why the original Thomas had fallen in love with her. I certainly had. The apprehensions I’d been experiencing all day completely evaporated. This, I decided, was going to be fun.

“She looks so lifelike,” I said.

“The Trust can afford the very best,” she vaguely replied. She waved her hand around the church. “You can see that this is a very simple church, but very robustly built to withstand the tremendous storms which can cause waves to break right over the island. The house also, is very strongly built. Come along, it is time I showed you to your room.”

****

As Matty had said, the house was very solidly built but it was without any modern air-conditioning. There was a gentle breeze that flowed through the house but it was always hot. It functioned as both a residence and a schoolroom for the dozen or so young children, and there were five female staff who seemed to do a mix of schooling and other duties around house. I was, I realised with a start, the only adult male on the island.

“That’s right,” Matty said when I questioned her about that. “Storms occasionally wash right over the island and it simply isn’t big enough to be self-supporting for a community of people. So the trust fund that Thomas set up stipulated that no adult males were allowed, except under special circumstances, of which you are one.”

“So, whose children are these?” I queried. “And what about you and the other staff. Do you not have a boyfriend?”

Matty gave me an enigmatic smile. “It will become clear in time. You’ll see. But I’m a lesbian so I’m happy to live here with the other females.”

“Oh.” That disappointed me. Matty might be twenty years younger than me but a guy could still dream and… But not in this case.

“I’ll show you to your room. After your journey, you may want to have a rest for a while. However, when the children have gone to bed is a good time for everyone to meet you and we can discuss your role over the next few days of the celebration. Would nine pm in our dining room be convenient for you?” I said that it was.

****

The five adults were waiting for me in the dining room when I entered. Apart from Matty, I was introduced to Suzy, who was the doctor, nurse and school matron; Peggy, primary teacher and also seamstress; Alice, the cook, and Betty, the handyman and person who did everything else.

Matty started the explanation. “So we’ve already talked about the events leading up to Thomas’s wedding to Beatrice and what we’re going to reenact over the next few days commences on the Sunday, just before Thomas is due to marry Beatrice on the Monday, at midday. Due to the reading of the banns, this is the earliest day they can be married. When Thomas receives a message from his father instructing him not to marry Beatrice and that he is sailing there to intervene in the wedding, Thomas brought forward the wedding to the very first minute of that Monday.

“The wedding ceremony begins just as the clock chimes midnight and Peggy will be officiating as vicar. You, Thomas declare your vows. Then, your father’s men suddenly burst into the church and carry Beatrice away.

“One of your father’s men bars the door until Beatrice has been carried down to the sea and is in a boat being ferried to the ship anchored off shore. Then you all run down to the sea where the you find the storm is upon you. The boat carrying Beatrice is in danger of sinking and Beatrice it thrown, tied, into the water as unnecessary ballast. It’s too rough to enter the water and she is dead by the time she is brought by the waves to the beach.”

“Oh how terrible. Is this all true?”

Several heads nod and I’m left pondering on the evil of man.

“What follows next,” Matty continues, “is seen as an Act of God. The storm is suddenly on them, the rowing boat is turned over, and the ship torn from its anchor, and cast onto the rocks on the headland. None survive the storm.

“Thomas has Beatrice’s body taken to his workshop, which is still here today in the basement of this house. We’ll never really know exactly what happened there. What we do know is that Thomas was always interested in natural history and had become a proficient taxidermist whilst a teenager. Then he met a tribe of native Indians on Antigua who showed him new techniques that had never been seen before. But the tribe was eradicated a few years later by some disease they’d caught from the newcomers, and Thomas later decided to burn all the notes he’d made of the process, saying they must never become known to the academists in England. But what we do know is that Thomas preserved Beatrice’s skin and some parts of her body. It took him the whole day, working throughout, but just as midnight was approaching, Beatrice appeared, ready to continue the church service which had been interrupted almost 24 hours before.”

“Holy shit!” I burst in. “He put the skin on someone who took over her role? My God! That’s…” I stopped what I was about to say, aware that I was commenting on their highly respected ancestor. “…interesting.”

“It certainly beggars belief amongst modern taxidermists. Maybe poetic licence was taken with the timing and it took much longer than one day. Whatever, the skin survives to this day. You saw it this afternoon in the church.”

“What! That was the real Beatrice. Oh my God!” Again I stopped from saying anything that would offend my hosts.

“And so,” Matty continued, “The wedding of Beatrice and Thomas was completed before Monday ended. They went on to have many children together.”

“Except that,” I said, “it was somebody else in Beatrice’s skin.”

“She was only ever known an Beatrice, and after their first baby was born, Thomas decreed that she be called Queen Bea from then on.”

“And the entire family riches,” Peggy broke in, “which went down with the ship were recovered and invested in land in the City of London, which although fiendishly expensive at the time, Thomas believed would become even more valuable. And it has, which is what pays our keep and salaries, and for your expenses.”

“That’s some story,” I say. “Even if the time it took was stretched, it’s still phenomenal. So you’ll need me for the wedding at midnight tomorrow night and the night after, and presumably all the preparation for that.”

They all nodded assent, looking rather relieved about something. I wondered what I hadn’t asked them that I should have done.

****

It was the next morning, a Sunday, and we’d had breakfast in the communal dining room, which had included screaming babies, toddlers racing around the room, and all the other children staring at me – probably the first white person they had seen – with a mixture of fascination and terror. By now, everyone else had left the dining room, leaving Matty and me to talk. But a couple of children had just re-entered and they walked over to me.

“Please, sir,” the little girl said, “I have brought a message from your father.”

My father? My father had died three years ago, so… Then it hit me. This was a message from the original Thomas Cane’s father. I smiled at the rather nervous girl and nodded at the paper she was holding, “Can I see it?”

She handed it over and waited whilst I read it.

Thomas.
I am most disturbed to hear of your plans to marry a slave. I instruct you to do no such thing. We are all on our way to Cane Island and will be there tomorrow morning. Do nothing until then.
Your father

Matty and the two children were looking at me expectantly. She had told me the previous day I was expected to act spontaneously, and I was clearly supposed to say something, but what? Then my thoughts got in order.

“Summons the vicar,” I said. “We must bring forward the wedding to today.”

Suzy was to be the ‘vicar’ for the ceremonies, and she’d already told me she’d be leading today’s Sunday church service, as well as ‘marrying’ Beatrice and I tomorrow. Clearly, she’d been waiting outside the door, for she appeared as soon as I’d uttered the summons, complete with clerical collar.

“You wanted me, sir?”

“My father is arriving tomorrow to stop the wedding,” I said. “Beatrice and I must get married today.”

Suzy shook her head. “I am sorry, sir, but your final wedding banns are to be read at our service today, and I must allow the rest of the day to pass before I can marry you.”

She was waiting, hoping I was going to say something and then the idea came in a flash. “In that case, Beatrice and I will be married at one minute past midnight, tomorrow morning.”

From the grins that appeared all around, I had clearly spoken as required.

“I’ll see to it, sir,” Suzy said, and withdrew with the two children.

“Well done,” Matty said. “You’re going to make an excellent Thomas.”

****

Apart from the church service, the first I’d attended in decades, I spent much of that day preparing for my wedding. Peggy functioned part time as a seamstress, and she took a suit already tailored on the original Thomas Cane’s wedding suit and made a few alterations so it would fit me better. Suzy took me through the wedding service and made me rehearse my wedding vows. She also reminded me that the children would again be playing the parts of adults, so I must be careful for them at all times. Suzy also said that since Beatrice wasn’t always co-operative, I would need to sign the marriage register before the wedding rather than after. I didn’t understand the logic of that but I obediently nodded. Then, Alice, the cook, asked me about my food favourites, and started preparing a wedding feast which bore little similarity to any of my favourites!

With my internal timeclock still set to UK time, I went to bed in the late afternoon, with a request to wake me an hour before midnight.

****

The first part of the service went well after I’d signed the marriage register with my bold, new Thomas Cane signature. Beatrice continued to look as beautiful as ever (well, she would do, wouldn’t she?) and I remembered my lines.

But it was after I’d finished my vows, and Suzy, the vicar, turned towards Beatrice that everything changed. The door burst open and a boy’s voice, trying to sound like a man’s said, “Stop this service.”

All of us except Beatrice turned to stare at the collection of children standing in the doorway, holding cardboard daggers and swords. Clearly, my ‘father’s’ ship had arrived at the island and his ‘men’ were here to prevent the marriage.

“Beatrice is a slave belonging to Sir Jacob, and he demands she be returned immediately,” the boy declared, and he and his friends marched up the aisle, grabbed hold of Beatrice and pulled her off her feet. She was obviously a lot heavier than the children had expected as she almost fell to the ground and I had to catch her.

“No, you can’t take her,” I said. “She is to be married to me.”

“She is a slave,” another child said, “and needs the permission of her owner to marry. That permission is denied. We are taking her back to the ship and to slavery in Virginia,”

“No,” I cried. “You cannot take her.”

But a child of about ten had stepped forward to push me away. Remembering Suzy’s advice, I pretended to stagger back. “Please don’t take her,” I repeated as they pulled Beatrice along the aisle and out of the door. I made to follow, but the child stood in my way at the door, not allowing me to leave – at least, not without picking him up and moving him to one side, which was clearly against the rules.

Finally, there was a shout from the beach. “Come now and hurry. The storm is almost upon us.” The child turned and raced down to the beach.

****

There was, of course, no sign of a storm when we got to the beach, just a beautiful moonlit evening, but by then they had pushed the boat off from the shore and were mimicking waves rocking the boat. Peggy was in the boat using the oars to pull away from the shore.

“Oh no,” one of the girls cried. “We’re too heavy. We’ll never make it back to the ship. Throw the slave overboard.”

“No!” I yelled. “Bring her back to the shore.”

But I was ignored. Instead the kids struggled a bit but eventually managed to push Beatrice over the side and into the water.

“She’ll drown,” I cried. “I must save her.” I was about to strip off when Matty said, “It’s no good. The waves are too high.” She grabbed my sleeve to prevent me moving forward. “You’ll never make it. I’m afraid she’s gone.”

“No! No!” I wailed. (OK, I was a terrible actor but it was all in good fun – or so I thought at the time!)

Eventually, the tiny waves brought Beatrice’s ‘body’ to the beach and we all gently carried her up the hill towards the house. A child ran up, handed me a piece of paper and proclaimed, “A terrible storm has thrown the ship onto the rocks. Your family, and everyone else on board has perished.”

The child motioned for me to read what was written.

“Oh no!” I obediently exclaimed, “my father, mother and brothers are all dead, along with all those poor slaves.” It also meant, I realised, that I (that is, Thomas) was now the only inheritor of the family silver.

“Bring Beatrice into my workshop,” I continued reading. “I need to preserve her.”

I hadn’t been into the workshop before, but it was in the basement at the rear of the house. Inside was a large bench upon which Beatrice was gently laid.

“Here is the key to her chains,” I said, following my script and Suzy conveniently pushed a key into my hand which I gave to one of the children. “First remove her chains and then her clothes and have them washed and prepared for the continuation of her wedding later today.” That puzzled me a little as my internal time clock was still terribly confused after the transatlantic journey, and the events over the last few hours. Then I realised that it was still very early on Monday morning and we could presumably go ahead with the rest of the wedding later on in the day, after Beatrice had been preserved, whatever that meant.

Beatrice’s clothes were removed, exposing her naked body. The girls all took no notice, but I saw several of the older boys staring, whilst I tried not to. She certainly was a beautifully voluptuous woman. No wonder the original Thomas had fallen for her.

When she was completely naked, I had to read the final part of my script: “Slide her into the preservative tank and we will let her rest for a while.”

I didn’t understand what that meant but the kids appeared to. They slid her body along the bench and into a tank of murky water at the end, where she floated for a little time whilst the children used sticks to submerge her. Eventually, she had disappeared beneath the surface and it seemed time for us all to leave the workshop.

I asked Matty about the preservative tank as we left the workshop and climbed the stairs towards our bedrooms.

“We’ll never really know what the preservative was,” she replied. “We’ve used water coloured with food dye to make it look like that. The main point, though,” she continued, “is that we re-enact what took place; we don’t have to go into every detail.”

Whatever, I realised that with my body clock completely confused, I was suddenly very tired again and I needed to get some sleep.

****

I must have slept for much of Monday, for it was around three in the afternoon when Matty woke me, telling me it was time to get ready for the second half of the wedding ceremony.

“Was there really this time delay between the two halves of the wedding service?” I asked. “And did Thomas really marry a clinically dead woman? It sounds positively creepy.”

“The vicar at the time decided that the ceremony must all take place within the space of one day to be a proper wedding, but the rest will become clear as the event progresses.”

“Hmm.” I wasn’t convinced but I was really just a bit player in their show. I simply had to do what I was told and enjoy the experience.

Matty took me back to Thomas’s workshop and she used a stick to hook the body out of the preservative tank, and I helped her pull it up onto the bench. Except that now it was completely limp, as though there wasn’t a bone inside it.

“What’s happened?” I asked. “You told me this was simply a tank of coloured water, not something that dissolves bones.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Matty said. “The original Thomas had to do all kinds of very gory things with Beatrice’s body which we skip for the re-enactment. Just imagine that you’ve spent all day preparing her body for this moment when she is ready to be brought back to life.”

“You’re going to put someone inside her skin, aren’t you?” I said, suddenly working it out. “That’s what Thomas did back in 1807. He took another slave woman and forced her to wear the skin, and he then married that other woman pretending to be Beatrice.”

Then another thought hit me. “Is it you who’s going to take Beatrice’s part?”

Matty smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s not me but that’s the general idea. Let’s now wash off Beatrice’s body and prepare it for the next stage.”

Of course it couldn’t be Matty, I realised. She was a lesbian and would hardly marry me and… And what? After the sham marriage ceremony, was I going to seal the marriage in the conventional way? I could always hope.

We washed off the skin; whatever had previously given the doll structure had been removed and it was now just an empty skin. I kept thinking of the other adult women on the island and I can’t say there were any which particularly thrilled me as stand-in brides. It didn’t look like I was going to be taking this pretend marriage through to a proper result. Still I was being paid a lot of money for what appeared to be a few days swanning around.

“OK, Thomas. Are we ready for the next stage?”

I smiled at her. “I certainly am. So who’s going to be wearing the skin?”

“You are.”

I did a double take at her smiling face. “You are joking?”

She shook her head. “No, this is exactly what Thomas did. He dressed in her skin during the second part of the wedding ceremony, so he kind of married himself.”

“Phew.” I shook my head. “No wonder you wouldn’t tell me what was involved.”

“It’s not a problem, is it?” she wryly asked. “Turning from a white man into a black woman?”

I stared at her, unwilling to display the incredible excitement surging through me.

“It’s really not that bad,” Matty added, seeing my face.

“I guess not,” I said. “Just a bit of a shock, that’s all.” I picked up the black skin, which I now realised was much more than a skin. The breasts and buttocks were still padded out with something (and I hope it wasn’t the original flesh, and were incredibly heavy. Was I even going to be able to move with this on me? “Will it fit me?”

“Of course,” Matty said. “You remember that you provided your measurements to the Trust in advance. They have made certain this will fit you.”

“It’s a bit sneaky,” I said, more for the sake of appearance because I certainly wasn’t going to object.

“But you’ll do it, won’t you?” Matty said.

I nodded. “I guess.”

****

She made me go behind a screen and change out of my clothes and put on a tiny thong and a dressing gown. When I returned, Matty was sitting on a bench seat, the skin dangling over her knees.

“Come and sit here, Thomas,” she said, patting the bench besides her with a reassuring smile, except that suddenly I didn’t find it that reassuring.

“It’s going to be a bit strange, isn’t it?” I said.

“I’m sure you’ll soon get used to it,” she said. “Come on. Sit down here.”

I sat next to her and she turned the skin around so we were looking at the bottom.

“Look, she said, “The fastening holding the anus together is open, so slide both your feet in there and down her legs.”

I did so and found my legs slid down inside the legs of the skin quite easily, and I was able to pull the suit up to my knees.

“This is now the tricky bit,” she said. “You need to bend right down and slide your head inside her anus too. You’ll find it is quite stretchy.”

So I bent forward so my chest was flat on my thighs, and she pulled the skin over the top of my head. It may have been stretchy but it was extremely strong elastic and once it was over my head, there was no way I could sit upright.

“It’s alright,” she said, “don’t panic.” Which was how I was feeling. “I want you now to slide your arms inside and I’ll pull it right over your shoulders. You’ll soon be fitting right inside it.

So I squeezed my hands up besides my head and into the skin and Matty continued to pull it over my shoulders and then down my body. I managed to get my arms inside the arms of the skin, and then suddenly, the squeeze began to get easier. I could even sit up a little, which forced the thing even further down my body until I was completely inside the skin.

“I just need to remove your thong,” she said, untying the cords which held it and pulling the cords through, and giving the whole thing a yank to remove it which was quite painful.

Finally, Matty was pulling the two sides of the buttocks together around my own backside. “There are eyelets here so we can feed in cords similar to shoe laces and pull the two sides together.” As she pulled the laces, my testicles felt bloody uncomfortable for a bit and I asked Matty to stop.

“Don’t be a baby,” she said. “Just imagine what a woman has to go through in childbirth.”

Which wasn’t much comfort.

Eventually, she’d pulled the laces as far as she could and tied the ends together and was stuffing the whole lot inside the remaining bit of the crack.

“Stand up now,” she said, “and you can look at yourself in the mirror.”

“Oh my God!” I looked for all the world exactly like that model which I’d ‘married’ hours earlier, except that I moved like a woman, and my breasts and buttocks delightfully wobbled like a woman’s.

“What do you think?”

“It’s incredible. I’m incredible.”

“One more thing before we get you dressed. We have to put on your chains.” She picked up the neck ring and manacles, shackled together with chains and held open the ring me to put around neck.

I gulped. “Surely, Thomas didn’t wear the chains of a slave?”

“That’s the kind of person he was. When he first came to Cane Island, he removed all the chains of the slaves, but at this moment in his life, he wanted to be treated as Beatrice had always been treated until he came along. So, he put on the chains that Beatrice had always worn.”

“Well it seems a bit extreme. I’m not certain…”

I would have argued some more, but Matty swiftly swung the open ring around my neck and it clicked shut. Just as quickly, she was flipping the manacles around my wrists, and they too clicked shut.”

“I’ll need to keep the key.”

“If you keep the key,” Matty said, “you’ll hardly be in the same position as a slave, which is what Thomas wanted. Now come on. Step into your wedding dress and let’s get you to the church on time so you can be married.”

****

Most brides will spend hours getting dressed for their wedding. I took about ten minutes. I stepped into the simple white dress and I pulled it up above my breasts. A belt tied just beneath my breasts to provide primitive support and Matty spent some time adjusting the material and my breasts to maximise their appearance. Then she tied the halter strap around my neck, again adjusting it several times to get it just right. Then, I slipped my feet into mules, Matty put her arm through mine and we stepped out of the workshop into the bright sunshine, and strolled towards the church, the chain clinking as I walked.

As we approached we could hear the chatter of the children and the adults, who were clearly awaiting us. As we stepped through the door, the sounds of the bridal march played on the organ and we walked down the aisle. A male dummy had appeared, dressed in the suit I had worn earlier when the wedding ceremony had commenced. I thought he was rather more handsome than I had been in his place!

And so the wedding continued, with me reciting my lines as a bride whilst Thomas remained silent. Then Peggy, the vicar, pronounced us man and wife and I signed the register as Beatrice, immediately next to the Thomas signature I had made in the early hours of the morning.

The wedding feast followed and plenty of alcohol was consumed by the adults, and the children chattered and sang throughout.

“Lady Beatrice,” Matty said, and it came to me that with Thomas’s family all now drowned, he was the new Lord Cane and I the lady. I grinned at Matty, rather foolishly, I suspected.

“I’m afraid that Lord Cane has had to disappear for a while, but I will lead you to your wedding chamber.” She gave such a wicked smile that suddenly my heart was pounding. She was a lesbian but I was now female – is that how it was going to work? Please, please, please, let that be, I silently begged.

That’s exactly how it worked.

****

I’d better say that there were a few physical limitations. Firstly, that dratted neck ring and manacles meant that I could never get my hands down to the important bits of my body which wanted to participate. Secondly, I’m pretty certain that even without the chains I wouldn’t have been able to get that particular part of my anatomy free of the bodysuit.

But having said that, there are some pretty good ways that a female can bring joy to such a restricted male and I can tell you, Matty did them all and then some. She knew exactly how to bring me to a peak, keep me there for a while, and then let me have my head. And somehow she kept it going for time after time. It may not have been a conventional wedding bed but I wasn’t complaining!

***

Talk about a honeymoon, this was even better. Matty and I spent endless hours pleasuring each other just like newlyweds. I’d assumed that after the wedding, I’d be returned to acting as the original Thomas, but I was told that Thomas continued to act as Beatrice for some time. I lost track of the days and I continued as Beatrice as the days turned into weeks.

Then one day I was taken violently sick. Matty thought it highly amusing. “Oh my darling, Beatrice. Perhaps you have morning sickness.”

“Ha-ha. I think I’d better take off the skin now that I’m ill.”

But Matty had insisted that I await a visit from Suzy, the island’s doctor. She prodded me, took samples of blood and urine and then pronounced that I was pregnant, as though Matty hadn’t already made that joke.

“It’s really not a joke,” she persisted. “I’d better explain your own position in a little more detail. You know that you are wearing the skin of Beatrice, which Thomas Cane had preserved and removed from her dead body within minutes of her death. The preservation technique utilised a process known only by native Antiguan natives, which was later lost to mankind. But, as you must be aware, he preserved not just her outer skin. Your breasts, for one, were Beatrices original breasts, as are the fleshy parts of your buttocks and hips which give you Beatrice’s original shape. Also preserved, was her womb.”

“Sorry!” I jerked into life. “You are saying I am carrying Beatrice’s womb around inside my body? But surely, it cannot still be functional. Her supply of eggs can’t last forever.”

“A woman is born with thousands of eggs,” Suzy said, “so the supply of eggs isn’t an issue. The preservation technique which Thomas used certainly shows no sign of fading with time. Beatrice’s skin and organs appear to be as healthy today as when she originally lived. As are her eggs.”

“But the eggs still have to be fertilised…” I broke off as I realised what had been happening since the wedding. “That’s what Matty has been ensuring, isn’t it. She has been bringing me to orgasm several times a day, but instead of ejaculating as normal, from my body into someone else’s, I’ve been ejaculating into Beatrice’s womb. I have made myself pregnant. Is that possible?”

“I think the best way to describe you is a true hermaphrodite, capable of impregnating yourself.”

“You mean like an earthworm?” The only thing I remembered from Biology lessons.

“Same idea,” Suzy said, “but in this case, we have merged two bodies into one, so we have the healthy mix of genes that sexual reproduction gives us.”

“I’m not the first, am I?” The magnitude of what had been happening on this island for over two hundred years suddenly hit me. “Initially, it was Thomas who conceived the idea, and no doubt made himself pregnant many times. Then, after he passed, someone else would have been recruited to substitute for him inside Beatrice. And again, and again. How many new fathers, over the two hundred years? How many children has Beatrice given birth to?”

“Two hundred and fifteen children,” Suzy said. “There have been eleven previous fathers over the two hundred years. For much of that time, the male part of the body gave out in middle age after the trauma of several childbirths. It was risky enough for a female giving birth and most males died in early middle age. Nowadays, we have much more skill at avoiding such catastrophes. The last father died at the age of eighty-six, and fathered over fifty children.”

“Fifty! At what age did he start?”

“He was about the same age as you when he came to us, but in recent years, we have developed the technique of producing multiple births, so in later life he averaged two babies each year. Not many women of that age can say that, never mind the fathers. Hopefully, you will have a nice pair of twin babies, inside you, maybe triplets.”

“But suppose I don’t want to be pregnant.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Suzy said. “You are pregnant with your two children, which you fathered and you will mother right up until childbirth.”

“But suppose I want a… an abortion?”

She smiled. "You can barely say the word. Remember that the most powerful love of all is a parent for their child. But you are not only the father of these babies, but also the mother. That means your normal love for your children is doubled, or maybe squared. Whatever, there's no way you could go ahead with an abortion. In any case, abortion is not legal on this island, unless for medical reasons.”

“Then I’ll go home.”

Another shake of her head. “On your passport? I don’t think you match your photograph, and I’m afraid that Beatrice is the only adult on this island who does not have a British passport so she’s not going to be permitted entry.”

“But I must be able to remove Beatrice’s skin from my body?”

“Over the last seven weeks, her skin has bonded to yours. It would take a surgical procedure to try to cut the two bodies apart.”

“Then I am trapped into pregnancy?”

Suzy gave a beautiful smile. “Look on it as being able to live in this wonderful paradise, whilst fathering more children than almost any other man alive.”

“But mothering twins will be incredibly uncomfortable.”

“Yes, there will be some discomfort, but the reward is unbelievable.”

“Shit!” I mutter, as Suzy leaves me, saying she will be keeping a very close eye on me.

***

“It was all a trick to get me here, wasn’t it?” I ask of Matty, when she returns.

She gives me one of her wonderful smiles. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“You admit it?”

“Yes, there’s little point in denying what is obvious to see. When his father’s ship went down, carrying 512 slaves with it, Thomas decided that his family had to make retribution. When Beatrice became pregnant, clearly with his baby, he decided that her children would be given decent lives in England. Later, when he realised that Beatrice wasn’t ageing, but he was, he set up the trust to enable 512 descendants of Beatrice and his extended family to do this.”

“So it wasn’t chance, was it, when Alice chatted to me at my work?”

“Of course not. The trust has carefully researched most of the De Caen family tree. You were chosen as the most suitable member of the family to undertake the role.”

“And I’m going to be here forever?”

“It’s a lovely place to live.”

“But I’m going to be pregnant with twins for the next nine months. And after that…”

“You’ll quickly become pregnant again, and again and again.”

“Just like the Queen Bee,” I said, the light dawning. “That is my role to continually produce babies. And all my children…”

“They will all be the children of you, Thomas, and you, Beatrice. They will have the right to British passports and they will go and be educated there in good schools and then universities, and the trust will pay for their education. Eventually, 512 children will have gone and the trust will be drawn to a close.”

“And I have no choice at all?”

Matty grinned. “Of course you do. You can choose to have sex with me later on, or you can have it now. What other choice does a man need?