No silence was allowed to lengthen. Sporadic gunfire split the dusty air of the shattered room in repeated bursts. Or there were hesitations in which single shots would follow one another like too many punctuations in bad grammar. The crumbled wall and missing window gave Lindy Bestwick no sanctuary from the sound of strife. She embraced the four by four by which the sagging ceiling had been braced, and continued to tug and examine the handcuffs on her wrists as she had been doing for the past thirty minutes. Because of the steel circlets she was compelled to extend an arm to each side of the stressed timber to where her hands were linked by a facility she had always associated with crime. She was not entirely helpless but, on the other hand, she could not walk away.
Admittedly she had no business in Rabaul. But the attack was sudden, the populace vanished with a practiced precision, such troops as patrolled the streets took cover or moved to meet the enemy. Seeking advice, Lindy had grasped the first clean uniform to hurry by. Its wearer had gazed at her in surprise, and then with a scrutiny of suspicion. Without a word, he had dragged her within the ruin, produced the handcuffs and attached her as she now was. He had left without a word.
Lindy could raise her joined hands to the level of her eyes. For thirty minutes she had been looking at them in exasperation. She had heard of bobby pins and bits of wire being used by the crafty to slip the cuffs from delinquent wrists. But she had none of these things and her wrists were innocent. In desperation she had spit on her skin and tried to lubricate her wrists in the compression of a hand but the silver jaws were far too tight, tight enough to hurt if she fought them. Fear was constant. She was in a battle zone but compelled to stand helplessly and await a fate at which she could only guess. Rape seemed the most probable. The soldier would return when he had time.
Lindy had wondered a lot about rape. Since coming to the Middle East she had increasingly beheld her ravishment mirrored in the dark contemptuous eyes of those who saw her only as a busybody who should have stayed in Indiana, and who possessed a convenient female facility they would be glad to use. Beyond what she had between her legs she held no virtue.
A lengthening absence of gunfire made itself felt. A child raced down the street, then a jeep, an old man prodded a donkey along the dusty road. Suddenly, the aperture in the wall was shadowed by a presence. Thankfully, Lindy beheld a shawled woman of middle age.
"Oh, thank goodness!" The handcuffed girl was breathless with relief. "Please get someone with tools to get me loose. Or if you'd call the police." Then, as a needful afterthought: "I'll give you money. Do you understand, money?"
If the woman understood she made no sign. Cautiously, she circled the captive of the post, she fingered the handcuffs, nodding wisely in what seemed approval. Then her eye focused on Lindy's bag, thrown aside in the rubble when the soldier had cuffed her to the post. She picked it up and looked inside. Nodding in the pride of a fresh possession she headed for the street.
"My papers...! Hey, don't take my things! Take the money, but I need the rest." Lindy found herself again wrenching on the implacable circlets on her wrists as she watched her visitor scurry from view. She was still struggling against chrome steel when her uniformed captor reappeared. "That woman...! Grab her. She stole my bag." She faced him distractedly. "And get these things off my wrists."
He stood, gazing at Lindy with a scrutiny disconcerting in its intensity. It was as though he was committing her features to memory or striving to recall them from a previous meeting. With firm purpose he unlocked her hands and relocked them again, this time behind her back. Her struggles were abortive, handled with ease.
"Can't you speak? What are you doing with me? My bag...? It's been stolen." Lindy had never felt more helpless or more frustrated. "I'm with 'WRAP.' There were credentials in my bag--" The grip on her arm tightened, her protests unanswered, in an ominous silence Miss lindy Bestwick was escorted down the street. Because of the handcuffs she supposed herself under arrest. The passing populace of Rabaul eyed her predicament with obvious approval, none interfered. It was with an element of relief she found herself escorted into a building which wore the facade of authority. Rape seemed no longer imminent.
By Rabaul standards the office was neat. The Officer behind the desk was articulate in English. After an animated exchange with the soldier and further intense scrutiny he said, with evident relish.
"Miss Francesca Brunelle! Welcome to Rabaul." Lindy Bestwick felt only relief. Mistaken identity could be dealt with. "My name is Lindy Bestwick." She said politely. "I've just arrived with the "War Refugee Assistance Program, we call it W.R.A.P. for short." She gazed awkwardly around as though for confirmation. "My papers were stolen with my bag when your man had me... fastened." Twisting irritably to illustrate her condition, she added: "He kept me handcuffed to bring me here. Please take them off."
"In due course." A negligent wave of hand. "I am Lieutenant Murad. I know you are lying."
"But I'm not lying! W.R.A.P. will confirm -- "
"They will confirm nothing. We do not like these patronizing busybodies. They are a good cover for such as you, Miss Brunelle. Your apprehension is long overdue. You are much wanted."
"But I'm not this... this woman. I'm Lindy Bestwick--" The hand demanded silence. It also produced a dossier from a file. Horrified, the handcuffed girl read the statistics: they were her own. The accompanying pictures, full face and profile, were sufficiently a facsimile of herself to excuse error. Her heart sank in dismay. Lamely, she pleaded: "Please take the handcuffs off, they're hurting my wrists."
"So?"
"I won't run away while you ask me questions. It's doing no good to keep my arms behind my back. It's very uncomfortable."
"Stop pulling at them." His eyes narrowed. "Where is Raoul Broussard?"
"I've never heard of him --or that woman, the one you said -- "
"Think."
Frighteningly, there came a glimmer of memory. The names were real, somewhere they would belong to a man and a woman. Scraps she had read pieced themselves together. "They were terrorists, weren't they...?" Some sort of Crusade...?"
"You should know." The lieutenant's tone was contemptuous. "Would you care to talk to me? I strongly advise it. Otherwise I will obtain a directive."
"Look, there's no need. Our local Director is registered in the Hotel Latour right here in Rabaul. I was with him a couple of hours ago. He'll identify me. He's got all our credentials -- "
"I'm afraid not, Miss Brunelle. One of your sympathizers thoughtfully planted a bomb in the Hotel Latour during today's skirmish. Anyone who might have lied for you is dead."
Again the clutch at the heart. Fearfully, the prisoner's mind raced but found no answers. "Then allow me to speak to the United States Consulate." She demanded stiffly.
"We do not have one."
It was probably true. Rabaul was hardly a metropolis. Lindy cursed the zeal that had brought her to this plight. She had been warned...! Dolefully she offered: "If I knew anything I'd be glad to tell you. But I'm just a volunteer worker with W.R.A.P. You'll have to phone them... or the nearest Consulate -- "
"We have no phone. Your friends made sure of that."
"But they're not my friends --!"
It happened swiftly. The muscular woman, the wave of dismissal, and then the cell. Dirty stone and bars, the clang of a door and clash of lock and keys. No words. But, sitting on the tatty cot was a girl and the girl was white.
"Welcome to our crummy jail." The blue eyes were alight with interest. "What the hell have you done?" Then, in spontaneous relief: "Gosh, am I ever glad to see you!"
Her name was Poppy Evans, she came from Chicago, she had been in the cell three weeks. She was, unashamedly, a prostitute on tour. "They told me there was money in these dumps." She complained bitterly. "And I wasn't doing all that bad, when along comes these two guys who want it for free because one's the mayor and the other's the commandant. When the argument got down to me slapping their faces I land up in here."
"Incommunicado?" Lindy shivered.
"If that means you're not allowed a lawyer or anyone else, you're right. I think I've ceased to exist. It's scary."
"Do you know why they've left me handcuffed?"
"Oh that! They do it all the time, just to be mean. They may stick 'em on me tomorrow. Not that it matters much, there's nothing to do in this lousy cage, so who needs hands!"
Lindy was hating the handcuffs more and more.
They made her feel female and vulnerable. Handcuffed in an interview she would be less vehement, less plausible, feeling herself already condemned. Fearful of the answer, she hesitantly asked: "How do they treat girls like us?"
Poppy Evans shrugged herself out of the scanty prison tunic, then turned to give her new cellmate a good view of her naked back. Lindy gasped. "You've been whipped!" She stared aghast at Poppy's slender curves. "There's weals... all up and down --!"
"The two goons who didn't want to pay came and took all they wanted for free." Poppy explained matter- of-factly. "But they weren't satisfied with my ass. They tied my hands together and hung me up stark naked and whipped me to a fare-ye-well. I kicked and heaved up and down on my rope like a yo-yo and I howled as loud as I could. But they made a pleasant hour out of it, taking turns with the whip. When they let me down they used me again, still free, then tossed me back in here. I've been real polite to everyone since."
"But they can't just keep a girl here!"
"You sure about that?"
They stared at each other in bitter realization, two girls far from home and behind bars, terribly alone. Without volition, Lindy Bestwick quavered: "Will they... Will I...?"
"Honey, how would I know." Disdainfully, Poppy wriggled back into her prison slip. "If they want to fuck and whip you they sure as hell can. I get a bit of both once a week." Ruefully, she shook her head. "Could be they leave a girl in this cage long enough and she'll get so she looks forward to a bit of action. It's so damn lonely...! Honey, you've no idea what a blessing you are."
"You're the same for me." Lindy wriggled fretfully, tugging her wrists. "I sure wouldn't want to be alone in here right now. Fm frightened."
Poppy Evans eyed her wistfully. "You're what Ma would have called a 'nice girl.' Why the devil did you let that W.R.A.P. outfit send you here?"
"I'm not really sure. I --I wanted -- "
"You wanted to be noble. It's a disease at your age." Poppy Evans sounded bitter. "I'm not that much older than you in age but in experience I'm three centuries ahead. Honey, you been fucked?"
The girl from W.R.A.P. flinched. But Poppy Evans spoke of the unspeakable with disarming unconcern. "I... Well, I--I mean -- " Lindy blushed and vented embarrassment on chafed wrists. "I suppose I once -- "
"Okay. No maidenhead but still a virgin." Poppy laughed. "I know you girls. You try it with the wrong guy and it's messy and it hurts and you decide mother was right. I bet you joined W.R.A.P. in disgust?"
"Sort of... but, Poppy -- "
"With that body you've got, Lindy, I could make you a fortune. If we ever get out of here. Interested?"
"Well... really... I'm not--"
"Okay, okay!" Poppy eyed her sympathetically. "But there's one thing I'd better try and get you to understand. If the boys do fuck you for free you're not going to die. Once you get used to it, it's only something disagreeable you wish wasn't happening. If you get screwed enough, and if you've got any sense, you get so you enjoy it. Some of the guys are good at it. What I'm saying, honey, is, try and roll with the punch."
"What you're saying is they're going to do it to me?"
"Well, yeah I suppose. But, Lindy, it's been done to me more times than I can remember, and if we took pictures mine would look pretty much the same as yours. They simply don't wear out. The only real difference between before and after fucking is we learn a bit more about men."
To Lindy, this good-natured American girl was the only bright spot in a black nightmare, and even Poppy had nothing comforting to tell. The stone and iron of the cell was daunting, and she longed for her hands with an urgent yearning. It seemed outrageously impossible for steel circlets to hold them at her back and keep them there against her will. She had come to Rabaul to wield authority and dispense largesse. But no one wanted either...! And her supervisor was dead! Her next remark was killed before utterance by the reappearance of their female jailer and the unlocking of the door.
"You come. You behave." A dark finger pointed.
"Do as she says, honey." Poppy counseled resignedly. "She's strong as a horse, and she's rough. Her name's Amallah. Good luck, sweetheart."
Lindy comforted herself with the thought of being left handcuffed for exactly this situation, the walk to wherever she was being taken. Obeying the grip on one arm, she allowed herself to be escorted to a room, at sight of which her heart sank.
The man was a male counterpart of the wardress, informal in pants and shirt. He was bored and impatient. His English was good and left no doubt of intent.
"You are Francesca Brunelle, do not lie. Where is Broussard?"
"My name is Lindy Bestwick. I am American. I never heard of your Mr. Broussard."
The man nodded. "You will be given pain. You understand?"
Lindy Bestwick understood all too well. Before she could utter protest, rough competent hands tore at her clothes. In less than a minute she was stripped naked. Her chained hands mocked her shrinking modesty as she faced their amused regard.
"First I fuck you. It is told a thing you do not wish." The male voice was unemotional. "You may stop whatever I do by telling of Broussard."
It was like a well oiled mechanism, impossible to halt. Lindy gazed at the huge phallus in disbelief before she was dragged to the floor by cruel tugs at her hair and a booted foot kicking at her bare feet. "You be good for Sabor." The woman warned. "Then you tell Sabor what he must know. If not, there are other waiting."
She was about to be raped! Lindy Bestwick could have no doubt of that. But beyond the muscular male thing now separating her legs and insinuating himself between them there were more, more men with the huge pointing weapons by which she could be impaled. Laying on her prisoned arms, helpless against hands in her hair, the girl from Indiana could only cry, and cry again: "No! Oh, please, no, no, no--you mustn't! It's wrong. I'm not that woman -- " Her protest died in a gasp of agony as the male took her to the full depth of his ugly masculinity. Lindy Bestwick screamed in pain, then moaned hysterically until the end.
"You tell us now please?"
She could answer only with moans, there was nothing else. Her rape had been only a congestion of horror. Now there was another face and other hips thrusting... Then another and another. The girl from W.R.A.P. knew all of it impossible bit it was happening. Lindy Bestwick was raped and raped again. She no longer bothered to answer the sly question: "You tell us now? You tell?" It did not matter, nothing mattered any more at all.
But she was wrong! The faces and the instruments of impalement vanished. But, while she was still dazed, her hands were transferred from back to front. This time they were bound with rope, harsh stuff biting at her skin, unkindly tight. From it trailed a length...
"The question, Miss Brunelle?"
"I don't know! And I'm not--" The sudden stress and tug on bound arms, the bite on bound wrists now bearing her full weight as Miss Lindy Bestwick hung in space, writhing and kicking like a puppet on a string. Terribly aware of nakedness but also aware of too many other things at the same time to care. Draped across an upturned box was a whip.
At the moment of suspension Lindy's paramount emotion was horror at her multiple rape. It had taken so little time, she had been so shamingly helpless, and the perpetrators had been no more than Lecherously amused. She had wanted to scream, to lament, to hide, to sob out a moaning dirge for the violation of her sheath. But the pain and shock of being yanked off the floor to swing in a fresh and shameful exposure brought Poppy's admonition back into focus. She had been raped several times but her vagina was not hurting: a lingering something between her legs... but no agony. Her mind might be in turmoil but her body was unchanged. The insidious voice intruded on suspense.
"There is no need for you to be whipped, Miss Brunelle."
"Stop! Oh no... don't! I'm not --I'm not -- " Lindy had never been whipped. The word was abstract, something that did not happen, belonging only in fiction. The fire suddenly lancing round her hips transported her into a fresh dimension of terror and disbelief. For a moment she thought her heart had stopped. Then her cheeks flamed anew as Amallah casually separated the pendant legs and wiped dry the pubic lips and pubic hair, then did the same for the inside of captive thighs. Lindy was unable to see herself down there but shrank in mortification at what she had felt and could imagine.
"You wish for more, Miss Brunelle?"
This time the fire burned across the strained expanse of her bare shoulders, a streak of scald beyond endurance. Lindy screamed and twisted on the end of her rope in lewd gyrations the watching eyes admired. Without a word, Amallah wadded the cloth wet with secretions and emissions and thrust it harshly between her captive's lips and bound it within Lindy's protesting mouth with a strand of rope, brutally knotted.
"No scream. When you want talk, you nod head."
Gagged and mute, the girl from Indiana entered a new world of terror. These two were killing her but she could make no effective sound. Sabor and Amallah were without real authority and could not be reasoned with. For them, the whipping of her nakedness was a task to be performed with as much amusement as possible. Driven frantic by the flaming scalds across her pendant back and buttocks the suspended girl considered nodding her head to gain respite, to lie, to offer a bribe. But her courage failed. She was too helpless. They would only punish her more cruelly still. She was inexperienced but believed she was being whipped with an ordinary whip. Her feverish imagination conjured visions of a cat-o-nine-tails with knots and bits of metal! She moaned in desperation and kicked her welted nudity into a fresh frenzy beneath the seeking lash. When Amallah grasped a swinging ankle and dragged it far to one side and the thong entered the exposed 'V' of her most tender cleft Miss Lindy Bestwick moaned in desolation and abandoned hope.
* * *
"Sweetheart, they really let you have it. Gosh, and for your first time...!" Poppy Evans kissed and licked the wealed skin of the girl who lay face down and sobbing on the cot. "All I can do is kiss it to make it go away." She mourned, "But your skin isn't cut. It's like the rape thing, we think we'll die but we don't."
"They gagged me so I couldn't scream. Oh, Poppy!"
"Sure, I know. And with something filthy, wasn't it. It's an old favorite trick."
"And they hung me up by my wrists, all naked!"
"Yeah, that's par for the course too." Poppy laughed sardonically. "You likely haven't noticed but you're still naked. They keep us that way sometimes, so don't blow a fuse."
"And they put the handcuffs back on me."
"But, in front this time. They're not so bad."
"Oh, Poppy, I didn't know anything could hurt so much. It was worse than anything I've ever dreamed -- and they'll do it to me again, I know they will. They think I'm someone else and they won't believe -- "
"I was sort of lucky about the whip business." Poppy mused. "lid been whipped before, so when they whipped me here it was not the awful shock you've just gone through, the beastly first time when you know for sure they're killing you." She chuckled in retrospect.
"There was this guy... there's quite a few of 'em actually. But this was the first one to offer a thousand dollars for fifty strokes." She laughed bitterly. "Gosh, I was an innocent. I jumped at it. By about the fourth lick I knew I'd made a mistake. But it was too late. By that time he had me tied taut as a bowstring and when I screamed and wanted out he gagged me with my own panties and went right ahead getting his money's worth with whack after whack across my bare back and bare little ass. Half way through I was quite sure I wasn't going to make it."
"Oh, Poppy...! You poor -- "
"Poor my ass!" Poppy retorted happily. "I'd made a deal. I got my thousand--not that dough does a working girl a lick of good, and I was so happy to be still alive and know it was all over. The guy was so damn happy about the whole thing I couldn't even hate him. But I knew for sure I'd never do it again."
"Neither would I, not if I can help it!"
"Well, honey, don't laugh, but about six months later the same feller was back in town. My marks had faded and so had my memory. Girls are absolute idiots about pain. When he propositioned me for another fifty all I did was raise the ante to two thousand, and the first thing I knew I was hanging up again and well stretched out in all directions. Maybe he was mad about the extra money, but this time he let me have it up between my legs, my thighs and my crotch. Jeepers, it hurt! But my panties were in my mouth again so I got my fifty and walked bow-legged for the next two days." Reaching back into memory, Poppy added ruefully: "I think the worst of the whole deal is when you look up at your hands and see those cords tight round your wrists. It seems crazy you can't beat a bit of rope but there's no way... and it's the same when you look down at your ankles. There you are, helpless! Just because of a few circles of clothesline. Gee-whiz I struggled, but the more I heaved and tugged the more frightened I got in realizing what it means for a girl to be tied up. It isn't kid stuff. No way!"
Lindy's response was cut short by the reappearance of Amallah. With her usual economy of speech and motion she unlocked a cuff from Lindy's wrist, raised its opposite ankle, and snapped the two divergent members together.
"What the hell you doing that for?" Poppy demanded.
"Must be uncomfortable all time. Maybe she want talk." Amallah slammed the door and departed.
With Poppy's help, the hobbled girl sat up and arranged her tangled arms and legs. Ruefully, she assessed her plight: She could sit. She could stand dangerously on one foot. She had the free use of one hand. She could not walk or run or fight. In silent vehemence she cursed the names of Brunelle, Broussard and W.R.A.P. She eyed her solicitous companion and sadly shrugged. What was there to say!
"They're a bunch of bastards." Poppy consoled. "But don't take on about it. I mean... it doesn't hurt, and we aren't going anyplace anyway. It's another humiliation." She giggled. "And they've left me so's I can help. What you can't do, I can. I'm surprised they haven't fixed me the same way."
The two girls locked in the cell found a great joy in each other. Lindy's wrist and ankle remained linked. The two of them slept welded together naked on the cot. The cuffed girl adapted to the cuff. It was never comfortable, it was always a reminder. But Poppy's rueful humor lubricated the passage of the hours and the days. The girl from W.R.A.P. remained blatantly naked.
"It's hell to be a good looking girl." Poppy lectured in wry deprecation. "We're not really people, I mean, not persons. We're two tits and a twat, with a few curves and things the boys get thrown in as a bonus. On the other hand, it's crazy what men will do to get these bits of us. If only we played our cards right we'd hold the power. Not in this lousy cell, but outside, the way we were."
"I don't want any power." Lindy mourned. "I just want to go home." She looked down at her pubic patch, which the juxtaposition of wrist and ankle left more grossly exposed than is normal for a girl. "And I don't want ever to be naked or see a picture of handcuffs -- Oh, Poppy, what's the use of wishing in this beastly prison!"
"I told you about that bozo who whipped me, honey." The Chicago prostitute continued reflectively. "And it's best you know about men and girls. I mean about the part of themselves men hide in the Rotary Club and in the suburbs. Most of 'em have got some sort of notion about what they'd like to do to us. They don't all of 'em make the grade: there's the little woman, and money... and guts. But the ones who do something about it come to girls like me. Honey, they're a real hoot."
Once, Lindy Bestwick would not have wanted to listen or to know. She was not a prude, but she had never really believed in what was whispered and hinted and put in print. But now, naked and with her hand chained to her foot and her back marked with weals, she found herself in urgent need of whatever wisdom Poppy Evans might impart. She realized all too well she was being held captive for a purpose and the purpose would bring pain.
"One of the looney ones used to paint my bottom." Poppy continued. "He did different colors every time he came. Sometimes he'd switch to my breasts. He'd do me one green and one bright red. Then he'd play with my tits until they got real big and he'd paint them another color again. He was sorta' fun. A helluva' lot different from the guy who stripped me off, tied my wrists and elbows behind my back, tied my feet , then knelt me on a bunch of lousy nails so my knees got the full effect. I had to stay kneeling that way while he lectured me about this and that and asked a lot of fool questions like whether my pussy was getting wet on account of the pain from the nails and did I enjoy being whipped. It was awful hard to stay kneeling and not fall over. But he was awful generous about money... "
Poppy's stories were many and varied. lindy listened and hoped they would blunt her sensibilities if and when the time ever came. It came on the ninth day.
The man was ordinary enough but sharp-eyed and dressed to grace a Corporate Board Room. His English spoke of Harvard. Amallah deposited a chair, on which he sat. She handcuffed Poppy and led her from the cell. "My name is Eben al Saffra." The visitor announced. "It is best we talk in private, Miss Brunelle."
Naked before a man! It was different from the rapes, in its way, worse. Lindy sat cringing on the cot, her right leg doubled up to accommodate her left wrist. She longed to use her one free hand to cover some part of herself, but the furtive act would be observed and no doubt cause amusement. She sat still and blushed.
"You refuse to believe who I am?" She asked unhappily.
"We know who you are. The girl you pretend to be died with the Director of that absurd organization. The hotel burned, but there were identifiable remains... " I trust the wardress keeps you comfortable here?"
"You know she doesn't. She keeps me naked and chained. I have also been whipped."
"So I noticed." Mr. Saffra was charmingly affable. "It is done to keep you aware of your status. I am sure you will be glad to know the two officers responsible for your apprehension have been promoted for their inestimable service to the State. You are a rich prize."
"I am an American citizen."
Mr. Saffra waved the U.S.A. from existence with an airy hand. "I hope you realize, Miss Brunelle, your crimes make you a target for a firing squad?"
Once more the shrinking away of the Earth, of everything known and held dear. Lindy's heart pounded. "You're going to kill me!"
"Execute is the word. You will make a pretty target tied to the post, naked." Eben al Saffra smiled kindly. "I expect you will refuse the blindfold." He sighed. "The squad will be lucky men indeed."
"But, the United States --!"
"Will know only that a terrorist female has been caught and executed."
Miss Lindy Bestwick stared, wide-eyed, her nude breasts tumultuous over the pounding of her heart. She could not speak.
Mr. Saffra smiled amiably. "There are ways, Miss Brunelle. You need not die." He was suddenly intent. "I am empowered to offer you an exalted position on our Executive in return for full disclosure?"
"If I knew anything I would tell you."
"Ah, the nobility of the young female!" Eben al Saffra shrugged it into limbo. "I will frankly tell you, Francesca, I have no wish to see your loveliness hanging dead from a splintered post against a wall. I intend to try and save your life. I am going to have you tortured until you choose to speak. Then, if your information proves correct, you will enter a prison. You will not die."
It seemed a questionable humanity. Lindy stared askance at this suave individual who could thus dispose her life. Striving for control of her voice she asked pathetically. "Even if you torture me I won't be able to tell you what you want. I wasn't able to tell you when you had me whipped. So what happens? What will you do with me?"
Eben al Saffra smiled patiently. "Your question is academic, Miss Brunelle. At some time during the things we will do to you the moment will come. You will decide to speak. It is simple." He waved a regretful hand. "I wish there was something I could say now to gain your confidence, your cooperation? Is there nothing "Can't you understand." Lindy wailed. "If I'd have known anything I'd have told you when I was whipped. It hurt so bad I'd have told anybody anything. Please speak to any American Consul about me. Or let me use the phone?"
It was as though he did not hear. His voice was mellifluous. "There is the bastinado, Francesca. The soles of your feet are beaten with light rods. Few remain silent."
"No... Oh, please...!"
"You sit astride an edged board for many hours. It is a persuasion to which females are particularly susceptible. It has loosened the tongues of many young women."
It was awful enough to be a bluff, a testing. The naked girl handcuffed on the cot found it hard to believe that in this day and age: even in this place. Piteously, she complained: "And I was raped, again and again...! That would have made me tell--"
"Ah, of course! Rape, or one of the other words! We will arrange that for you too as a diversion between your agonies."
"Please... Oh, stop! Don't talk to me like that. It frightens me and does no good. Can't you realize I'd gladly tell --?"
"I realize you are a clever woman, Francesca. Perhaps to hang by your thumbs would lose its appeal after a few days?"
"You may as well kill me now and be done with it." Lindy looked Mr. Saffra in the eye, uncaring. "It's hopeless, you're hopeless. I'd have thought you'd realize -- "
"Perhaps you have noted, Francesca, none of the sufferings I have mentioned draws blood or leaves you permanently disabled. This is an earnest of my wish to leave you as lovely as you now are. I would hope to visit you from time to time in prison." He rose and lifted his chair. "Think about it for a little while. Reflection sometimes brings wisdom. Good-bye, Francesca." Lindy watched him go. She had never known such dark despair. Contemptuously he had left the cell door open, perhaps to mock her helplessness. She looked down at the handcuff locking her ankle to her hand. It was such a small thing by which to rob a girl of liberty. No matter how open the door might be she could not walk through it. And soon she would be tortured...? It seemed impossible.
"Yeah, they told me the whole thing." Poppy confided morosely when she was returned to the cell.
"They expect me to talk you into doing what they want. No way will they believe you're not that whatsit girl. Honey, I've never been tortured. I just don't know about it. I thought being whipped on your bare skin was bad enough." She made a rueful play with her hands. "That bitch left me handcuffed, refused to take 'em off." She sighed. "Well, I 'spose it doesn't matter. The two of us can get by."
"Didn't they give you any clues at all, Poppy?"
"Not any we'll like. I've got it figured they'll take us to some lousy prison they run for women only, young women. It's a whore house where the Government boys get theirs for free. They put on shows where they whip a girl before an audience, or do some other beastly things to her for fun. I'd heard of this place when I was outside, and now Amallah laughs about it. She says the girls there have a real big time. They never escape. They just vanish. Nobody asks questions."
"What's this place we're in?"
"Amallah was willing to tell me that. It's a cross between a police station, the local jail, and an army barracks. There's several wings. One of 'em houses male prisoners." Poppy laughed grimly. "They make damn sure the two sexes don't mix."
"They call it arresting us. Really, it's kidnapping."
"Sure. That's it. But Honey, we've got to get you off this torture hook. Why don't we tell 'em a story, anything to keep 'em guessing awhile?"
"I thought of that. But they'd only hurt us worse. They won't set us free. Oh, Poppy, I'm trapped! That picture of me in the dossier...! It's hopeless. I can understand their mistake--" lindy was interrupted by the arrival of Amallah. "You getting much pain, eh!" She greeted cheerfully. "Maybe I get to watch. See you squirm. You will not enjoy."
"Amallah, if you'll phone the American Consulate and tell them about us, I'll make sure you get five thousand dollars."
"I also get slit throat." Amallah beamed. "When soles of little feet are whipped it is much painful to walk. You not like."
"We don't want to hear. Amallah, think! Five thousand?"
"Amallah not stupid. Maybe they stake you out naked on ant hill. Is not nice when ants eat cunt."
"Oh shut up! Amallah, take off these handcuffs... Please?"
The Wardress went away, chuckling.
That night the two captive girls made their first love.
CHAPTER TWO - TORTURE
It was none of the things promised. Lindy was willing to believe it worse, even though Eben al Saffra had assured her personally it was merely a preliminary.
"There is no great urgency, Francesca. I prefer to take time rather than do you immediate injury. I have ordered a bandage for your wrist. You should be grateful."
Lindy Bestwick felt certain the preservation of her hand was to ensure it being in condition to use again. She had watched Sabor's tight bandaging of her wrist, noting the cleverly interwoven loop, guessing what was to come.
She had been suspended now for only a few minutes. The pendulum twist and sway had subsided. Passive in helplessness, the naked girl hung from her single wrist. Pain was already rampant, it would get worse. Lindy was alone in the ugly bare room. She wanted to wipe one tear wet cheek against her tractioned arm but dared not move. Any movement hurt, even to breathe.
She was to be visited in case she wanted to be 'sensible.' Too many screams, shoutings or pleadings would be rewarded by the whip, the gag, and a locked door. It would be best to suffer in silence... if she could!
Lindy's torture had been effected with a minimum of effort. She had been compelled to hobble, bent over and clutching one ankle, to where she would be hurt. The handcuff joining one hand and one foot was part of her punishment and required no change. Lindy Bestwick was hanging naked from one bandaged wrist and one strained arm. Her other hand hung down and supported the stress of her foot and leg bent up from the knee. Her nude loveliness was twisted and stretched, her seeking toes on her one free foot were six inches from the floor.
"Not truly relaxed for quiet reflection, Francesca." Eben al Saffra had sympathised before he left. "But still... you have much to occupy your mind."
"One breast up and one breast down." Amallah had mocked, then tweaked a helpless nipple before she too went her way.
The wardress was right, Lindy reflected bitterly. Her body was cruelly wracked, her breasts awry, tugged in divergent directions by handcuffs and rope. She could imagine the sight of herself twisted and contorted as she hung. Sabor had contented himself with a rough exploration of her sex. It was well exposed for his attention. Probably it too was wrenched out of shape. "Will fuck soon." He promised. "Be good girl and wait." He laughed. "Now must go."
It was a relief at first to have them gone. Lindy was still shy of being naked before strange eyes. She could not reconcile herself to nudity with the same insouciance as Poppy Evans. To have Savor or Eben al Saffra inspect her secret places at close range and to finger her as they pleased was a torture in itself. Lindy Bestwick still blushed. She did not expect ever to stop blushing. She suspected that if she was actually a girl with secrets to impart, those secrets would come tumbling from her lips the moment the tearing hands commenced to reveal her nakedness.
Lindy Bestwick had long cherished a secret narcissism for her own breasts and pubic hair. In puberty she had watched them form and flourish with a delight she had shared with none. It was wrong to be naked so she had not been naked except in private and in front of her own mirror. Reaching adult age she had become happily aware of firm contours and a development others visibly envied. She took an erotic pleasure from bras and various innovative panties. But these were her only excursion into the world of sensuality. It was Poppy Evans who made Lindy Bestwick more acutely aware of sex than she had ever been. Hanging in pain, the tortured girl thought back.
"But they're simply gorgeous, darling!" Poppy nibbled a nipple. "Believe me I know about breasts, I've seen a lot of 'em. Mine aren't so bad. But yours...! Lindy, you could make a fortune outta' those tits."
The possessor of the superlative breasts gazed down at them now. Like all the rest of her they were all wrong. She wanted no one to see them like this, but they had been rudely examined and would be again. She wished Poppy was with her, not a suffering Poppy, but around. Her lovemaking with Poppy had been a revelation, a new dimension of girlhood, of being female. Poppy could do anything she liked with her and she would not mind. Poppy had generated within her breasts sensations beyond anything she had previously known. The girl from Chicago had contrived by her own witchery to engorge and enlarge Lindy's nipples to a size and sensitivity positively spine crinkling. Poppy was highly skilled.
"It doesn't matter about your hand and foot being handcuffed, darling, I can get there. Just relax. I'll arrange you."
The narrowness of the cot did not matter: the two girls were one. Sometimes one of them thought of herself as a pretzel under the twin compulsions of Poppy's hands and the steel of the cuffs. But she moaned her way into a roseate world wherein she had never before set foot. For a long time in the early night she forgot she was to be tortured. Then she slept, her lips wet with Poppy's secretions, but for a little while at peace.
She was not at peace now. This was Lindy's first travail in punishment by attrition. Here was no flash of whip on scored skin to evoke the spontaneous scream of outrage at unjust pain. There was neither color nor drama in being stripped and suspended and left alone. There was only the slurring drap of moments and minutes to an end which might be hours or days distant. Lindy shrank in the knowledge and possibility of being abandoned to hang, and hang... on and on while her muscles and tendons screamed mutely in their agony of ceaseless stress without respite. She had been suspended thus for but a little while and already she knew she would do anything or say anything if, by so doing, she could be lowered to the floor. Her one free foot was the only part of her without pain, yet lost in air it hungered for a place to rest her weight.
"You wish you not silly girl?"
Amallah's voice came as from a mist, far away. The hanging girl focused painfully, hearing the wardress's reproof without hope, yet she could not forbear to try: "Please let me down... " The words came gaspingly. "Please... please...?"
Fingers busy between suspended legs, Amallah genially inquired: "You want to talk now?"
"I can't! Why won't you understand I don't know anything. Oh, please let my foot down on the floor."
"You only just been hoisted up, Francesca. You got long time--"
"For just a rest then? For only a little while -- please?"
the wardress thoughtfully tugged loose one of Lindy's pubic hairs, then another.
"Don't! Oh, don't do that!" Their owner wailed. "Please don't do that, it's horrible."
Amallah pulled two more. Playfully, she pinched the twin lips below. "You strong girl. You in good shape. You hang like that long, long time and you not die." With a childish cruelty she impelled the suspended nakedness into revolving from the single rope tethering the punished wrist. She went away, chuckling, while Miss Lindy Bestwick twisted back and forth like a puppet on a string. She moaned as each turn imposed its extra stress under a momentum she could do nothing to impede. Ahead, the hours stretched endlessly.
Eben al Saffra carried a thin length of cane beneath his arm in the same jaunty manner as a junior office carries a swagger stick. Lindy believed she had been hanging for hours by the time his suavity drew her back from her private place of pain.
"I have been speaking to the prison authorities, Francesca. They have assured me of a light and airy cell with some small additional comforts. Surely that is preferable to this?"
Lindy moaned and shook her head. It was all hopeless.
"It is senseless for you to go through the whole repertoire of what we can do to you when I can have you comfortably ensconced in the prison tomorrow." His tone softened further. "I can assure you of quite a number of privileges and pleasures behind the bars there... including myself."
His cynicisms scarcely penetrated Lindy's misery. Only one thing mattered: "Let me down, let me down... " She gasped the words through dry lips, adding plaintively: "Put me in your prison if that's what you want. I don't care--"
"But, Francesca, the prison is a privilege, a reward you must earn -- "
"I can't earn it. I don't know anything."
"Very well, Francesca. We have other delights for you when this is done. But you must understand there are others above me who will insist on the firing squad should you prove obdurate."
Lindy moaned again. She had no words, there were none.
Eben al Saffra sighed pleasurably. With his cane he struck a swift shrewd cut across one cheek of the suspended bottom. "These few strokes are not to make you speak, Francesca, they are simply for my own enjoyment." He slashed again across the roseate twin. "Your flesh possesses an amazing resilience. If you will pardon me once more... " He cut and cut at the defenseless girl until she screamed. Then tucked his cane beneath his arm and departed, as dapper as when he came.
Lindy moaned and wept as she once more turned in gradually slowing rotations. What did a scalded bottom matter compared to all the rest! It was all a package of malevolence she could do nothing to halt. She closed her young eyes and tried not to think of the post and the wall and the volley she would be too dead to hear.
* * *
"At least they didn't let you hang all night." Poppy busily massaged Lindy's hurt wrist while its owner lay in blissful surcease on the cot in their shared cell. "Looks to me like the bastards don't want to kill or injure you." She laughed bitterly. "I can think of reasons."
"I think he wants to put me in some kind of prison where he can come and use me. I don't care any more, it's hopeless."
Poppy Evans was inclined to agree, she had no illusions about their light. Both of them could be put somewhere out of sight behind bars to provide a useful sexual facility for V.I.P.s. There would be mild tortures along with the impalements, a good deal of whipping. Such men wanted diversion. A white girl's screams would be music. Miserably, she avowed: "If we get a chance to say, yes we'll be good girls and give all the boys a good screw, we'd better do it. It's about the best deal we can hope for."
"Try for it, Poppy. They're going to keep on torturing me.
"Oh sure, the S.O.B.s! Give you an easy night so you'll be in good shape for more pain tomorrow." Poppy directed an angry glare at her feet. "That laughing bitch, Amallah, she needn't have handcuffed our ankles like this!"
"But we've got our hands, Poppy."
"We need more than our hands, dear." Poppy mourned savagely. "Silly cow, she thinks she's stopped us having fun. All she's done is make it awkward, I can think of ways... I don't care if your feet are chained together, I'll get my mouth in there --Oh, darling, we'd better make all the love we can while we're together."
"They mustn't part us, they mustn't! Not ever! Oh, Poppy --!"
Poppy Evans set aside the wounded wrist and turned her attentions to slender naked legs joined by a link a steel. "Darling, if you draw up your feet, never mind the handcuffs, and then spread your knees way out...
the girl from W.R.A.P. yielded joyously to the only happiness she might ever again know.
"Is nice and simple." Sabor said chattily. "Simple easy to do but sometimes very bad for girl."
Lindy was sure it would be. She watched the leather bands strapped tight on her wrists, then two more round her ankles, replacing the handcuffs. All she could see to suggest torture was the pole. No doubt she would be made to sit astride...?
"You see, Miss Brunelle, so easy!"
Lindy was sure it was useless to fight. She allowed herself to be thrust back against the waist high horizontal bar.
"You hold on while I fix legs."
She obeyed. Her anklets were snapped by waiting clips, her feet well apart and slightly back so that she must indeed clutch the pole for support until her left hand was gripped and pulled and another snap announced the prisoning of its wristlet. Then her right hand was treated in the same manner to bow her back over the pole, feet wide, hands well apart and tugged cruelly back. She could not move.
"Is simple, eh! Just lean on pole. You no go away." Sabor made a final inspection, pinched Lindy's nipples and patted her pubic patch. Chuckling, he left her to her fate.
In shock, the naked girl assembled sensations, all were bad. This punishment would get steadily worse, discomfort would turn to pain, and pain to agony. She could not move, she could ease nothing. She was a nude bow held taut across the bar, her breasts stretched, her shoulders complaining, her hair falling back and down to the floor as she stared at the ceiling. She was blushingly certain that, of all her privacies, her pubic hair and pussy were the most blatantly exposed. They would invite attention and she could move them not one single inch.
Bent, stretched, the pole thrusting at the small of her back, her muscles and tendons starting to scream, the tortured girl wondered if the real Francesca Brunelle would endure or talk in this travail. Lindy knew she herself would concoct any kind of fabrication to gain release. But she possessed no insight by which to perpetrate a convincing lie. If those who held her captive refused to search for the truth of her identity she was lost. She would die under torture or tied to the post against the wall. The promised prison, held out as bait, began to seem infinitely to be desired. If she was indeed Francesca Brunelle, what could she do? She did not know. A naked girl being tortured could do nothing. Any word she uttered would be suspect as a lie.
"You are unfailing exquisite, Francesca." Eben al Saffra's fingers traced a loving pattern across Lindy's breasts and flattened stomach and down to her wide open crotch. They sought her armpits, her throat, the insides of her thighs. "I cannot bear the thought of wasting you." He said sadly. "Buried within you, a man would find all he ever sought. I would make you very happy in your prison cell."
Miss Lindy Bestwick gasped in an involuntary flinch as each of her erogenous zones was well explored. When a male finger inserted itself within her stretched sheath she moaned: "Don't do that. You're torturing me, isn't that enough!"
"A man could never have enough of you, Francesca."
"Then take me to the prison and use me there?"
"It is you who hold the key to that prison, Francesca, not I."
"I'm beaten. I'll do anything you want. But I'm still not Francesca Brunelle." Lindy sobbed in pain and frustration. "And no matter how you torture me I never can be."
"Ah yes." Saffra returned to his deadly suavity. "I'm sure you won't resent a few more stripes on your bottom?"
"I can't stop you, can I! I would if I could." Lindy helped as the first cut impacted its upward stroke on her skin. "Please don't whip me as well... as the rest. Please...!"
"A small thing for you to bear, my dear." Mr. Saffra struck again.
"It isn't! It isn't, it's a horrible beastly pain -- and I can't move, I can't do anything!"
"An excellent situation to have you in, Francesca. I am already giving some thought to your tomorrow."
"If I knew anything I'd tell you --Ohhhhhhhhh... Arrrragh!"
"You mentioned that before, Francesca. I suppose you are familiar with the water torture...? You drink and drink...? A funnel is employed. It is very simple and leaves no scars."
Lindy Bestwick moaned her way through the wounding of her flesh and the casual descriptions of torture still to come. Had it not been for the brutal burrowing of the pole into her back and the searing scorch of the cane on her bottom she might have believed this all a threat, a bluff. It was too horrible and impossible to be real. But the pole was relentless and the cane without mercy. She moaned in utter desolation as she was whipped, and then long after Eben al Saffra had gone away.
Morning brought pure shock.
"You dress yourselves real pretty." Amallah instructed amiably as she dispensed clean prison tunics, shoes and socks. There was also brush and comb. "You getting a visitor. Soon I be back."
The captive girls rid themselves of nudity with dispatch. In a prison cell clothes were better than naked any day. They combed and brushed each other's hair in delight. By the time Amallah returned they were quivering with surmise. But the wardress carried handcuffs.
"Hands behind your backs, girls."
"Oh, Amallah, do you have to?"
"Strick orders." Amallah chuckled. "Is good reason. No hands, no take off dress."
"But why would we want to undress?"
"Show whipmarks. You better behave real good."
"Who is it, Amallah? What's cooking?"
"Turn around... and them little hands?"
Sulkily they obeyed. When four wrists were tightly cuffed behind two clean tunics the wardress backed away and surveyed the result with approval. Swiftly, she held up a sheet of paper for them to read, her other hand placing a finger on her lips enjoining" silence. In bold symbols was the figure of five thousand dollars and a question mark.
It was stupendous, taking a moment to sink in. Two entranced heads nodded affirmative, girlish eyes shone with hope as their jailer folded the paper away and gruffly announced, in a hostile voice, "Some bastard tell American Consulate you here. Man come quick now. Must see you. Is nothing you can do, you both bad girls in prison. But Consul insist you have talking." She managed a monumental sneer. "It don't do you no good. Yankee don't never do nothin'." She winked broadly and slammed the door.
Harry Broadbent was everything a girl could want. Everything about him was right. He entered the cell like a breath of good American air. "You call when you ready come out, sir." Amallah was deferential as she slammed the door from outside. "You take lots of time, Mr. Broadbent sir."
"One moment!" Mr. Broadbent was distinctly on the bit. "These girls, they're handcuffed? Why?"
"They dangerous girls, sir. Very bad behave. They maybe do you injury." Beaming, she made a swift escape.
"Gosh, are we pleased to see you!"
"Please get us out of here. We've been kidnapped."
"They whip us and torture us --!"
Harry Broadbent held up a commanding hand. His manner was stern. "I have just been shown the records." He said with reproof. "You are both captured terrorists, awaiting trial and sentence--"
"We're not. The records are cooked. They've just grabbed us."
"Which of you is Brunelle?"
"They think I am." Lindy admitted miserably. They've got pictures and things. But I'm Lindy Bestwick. I'm with W.R.A.P."
"Miss Bestwick was killed and burned during a terrorist raid on this community, the same action in which you were arrested."
Both girls looked at their rescuer askance. Mr. Broadbent was not believing a word they said. Breathlessly, they poured out the full details of their woes, their names, their references. Their plea should have been heartbreaking. "Don't you understand! If you don't get us out of here we'll either be executed or sent someplace to be used as whores."
"Please, please!" Harry Broadbent looked pained. "We are on friendly terms with this nation. I cannot believe --!"
"We're handcuffed so we can't undress." Lindy said, blushing. "They don't want you to see the way we've been treated."
"Really...! I must ask -- "
"Lift my tunic up for me." Lindy felt she could blush no more than she already had. "Please? I won't mind. I want you to. You must!"
Mr. Broadbent looked distressed. He had the manner of a man who wished he'd stayed at home.
"Lift mine up too." Polly demanded. "Way up!"
"This time yesterday I was being tortured -- " Mr. Broadbent surveyed the flushed girlish faces, dismayed. Diffidently, he lifted the hem of Lindy's tunic...
"Way up --oh, please! Don't look in front if you're embarrassed, look at my back."
It was more effective than their words. Mr. Broad- bent looked at Miss Lindy Bestwick's naked back and gasped at what he saw.
"Holy cow!"
"Have a look at mine too." Polly invited. "They're fading a bit but they're real."
The three of them gazed at each other in wide-eyed questioning. Mr. Broadbent voiced a diplomatic quibble. "My superiors will never believe the authorities here marked you in--in--well, in the way you have just shown me. We have received every cooperation from these people, they have allowed me to come here and visit you, given us time to talk, shown me your records... " He waved a baffled arm. "Surely you can understand?"
"We understand cooked up records and that we're being tortured and sexually used."
Mr. Broadbent was busy making notes. He nodded absently. "I will ensure a record of all you have told me. I will have your origins traced. If you have been telling me the truth something will surface."
"In the meantime we'll be tortured and disappear."
"Really, I cannot believe -- "
"Take our home addresses and the names of our people."
The Consul's aide wrote busily. The captive girls watched him in a creeping despair, both hating the handcuffs holding their hands behind their back. They must appear silly, the whole scene incongruous. Lindy could understand official reticence. Harry Broadbent must be seeing them as convicted felons, one a terrorist the other a prostitute. Somehow they must break through the falsity of what, to him, seemed obvious. Uncaring of shame, she demanded: "You have seen the marks on our skin. You can look at the rope weals and burns on my wrists and ankles.
If you don't believe the people keeping us prisoners made those marks, then who did?"
He gestured helplessly. "How can I know! You both appear to have led unorthodox lives -- "
"Will you really give us the break of an investigation?"
"You may rest assured of it."
In sulky silence, they watched him depart. Poppy summed it up in disgust. "Aw shit, we're foxed!" Amallah beamed goodwill. "Now everyone happy. Now we torture you again. I take off handcuffs, you take off clothes. Sabor, he wait for you, so you come quick for nice pain."
Miss Lindy Bestwick did as she was told.
* * *
"I hope you appreciate the absence of force, Francesca?" Eben al Saffra inquired affably. "No blood, no screams, nothing you could call agony." He surveyed the spread-eagled nudity with approval. "You only enemy, my dear, is time, time is not on your side. But we have ample time to await the loosening of your tongue. We have ensured false leads to divert the U.S. Consulate for a long time. In any case, your movement is not in favor with them."
Under Saffra's intent regard Lindy Bestwick lay in shamed helplessness. Her third torture was introducing her to a strange and unexpected world of discomfort, mortification and immobility. Her wrists were spread high and wide and strapped down tight, as were her ankles to leave her crotch obscenely and invitingly vulnerable. The surface on which she lay was just large enough to accommodate her splayed out nakedness, it was a box or platform, in the center of which was an orifice precisely designed for a girl's buttocks. Her own were sealing it now.
"I trust the plumbing is satisfactory, Francesca?" She longed to ignore the sly jibe. But sulky silence was rewarded by the whip. Self assertion was not for such as she. Grudgingly, she affirmed: "I suppose so. If I have to be strapped here forever it's better than nothing."
"A pail of water over your loins night and morning provides sanitation?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"There is no need for you to lay there forever, Francesca. You choose your own time."
"I've been strapped here twenty-four hours. I'd say or do anything to be unfastened. I hurt all over."
"Ah yes, the boards are unfriendly." Saffra smiled indulgently. "But surely the social amenities...?" lindy's blush took over. She turned her head fretfully in the only motion she could make. "You mean the succession of rapes? No, I wouldn't say they helped. I can't move, so I have to endure them. They're part of my torture, aren't they? Surely you don --?"
"I would presume a modicum of pleasure here and there, my dear. Friction has its way of eliciting response. They have been giving you the pill, haven't they?" He smiled benignly. "I would not want you pregnant in prison."
Lindy's blush could become no more crimson. "Yes, they give it to me and make me swallow it --not that I wouldn't anyway." She gazed up at him wanly. "I suppose I should say thank you."
"I have not availed myself to your charming facility so well displayed, Francesca. I am fastidious in my use of a female sheath. Eben al Saffra said blandly. "Yours at this time is somewhat congested. I prefer to await its exclusive availability in prison."
She longed to die, to disappear... anything! Wistfully she tugged at her strapped wrists, but asked: "That's what the prison is for, isn't it? To keep girls in, girls to be used by V.I.P.s?"
"Of course! An excellent institution. After I tire of your charms you will still have ardent admirers for years to come."
"And then?"
He shrugged. "Who knows!"
"And I'll always be fastened like this, or chained, or tied, and kept behind bars like an animal?"
"My dear, you are far too colorful. But there is something in your immediate circumstances I would like to verify. When you are what you so delightfully call raped, what are the mechanics?"
"I am sure you know." The blush returned full force.
"In a general sort of way. But I wish to hear it from you."
"To shame me a bit more?"
"If you say so. I see it as part of a conditioning."
"To make me a whore!"
"Please... please!" Saffra chided. "Now. In your own words?"
Lindy knew there was no escape. Saffra had become a small boy pulling the wings from flies. He would insist on the explicit. "It's very simple." She said woodenly. "When they wish to invade me they thrust a board beneath... beneath--Well, over the hole. That way I'm laying normally like on a bed. If they want my hips up higher they use thicker bits of plank, or maybe double up. There's several bits of wood to choose from down beside this --this--whatever it is I'm strapped down on."
Saffra nodded, pleased. He did not whip her. He simply patted a bare shoulder and went away, leaving her alone.
The last thing Lindy Bestwick needed was time to think. She had had altogether too much of it already and was going to get a lot more. The insidious nature of her spread-eagled punishment was hourly more evident. She lay on boards as bare as she herself. At every point of contact they had come to hurt. Not at all at first, but as the hours went by...! She could not significantly change position. She simply ached from inaction. The straps binding her wrists and ankles were damp with the sweat she had expended in useless struggles. Buckled tight, they mocked her young strength. She could not free herself nor shift her posture. At first glance it had not seemed torture, but it was. And it could go on and on and on. There was no need to free her, the absurd sanitary arrangement was highly practical. She could be left strapped there for as long as she lived. She shivered at the thought, as she had shivered often through the long hours of the night.
It was hard, now, to think of the periodic impalements as rape. There were too many. Worse still, they had worn down revulsion and shame. Nature betrayed her, making her senses respond to the male thrusts, none of which were actually cruel, rigid with lust they performed their natural function, that was all! As Saffra had said: it was all so simple. She possessed a fleshly female facility. Men used it from time to time and went their way, leaving her strapped as they had found her, neither better, worse or different. The stark simplicity of what was happening shattered all Lindy's previous concepts of male and female. Grudgingly, she conceded that if she remained strapped as she was tomorrow and the day after and...! Inevitably she would welcome her ravishments as a human communion which no longer gave her pain.
She considered Harry Broadbent. He might not be as broken a reed as he had seemed. He may have been cautious, suspicious of listening ears. His honesty and decency had been bizarre in the cell, but she wished he could see her now! As for Amallah, she had shrugged and accepted that she would get her five thousand whenever they could reach a consulate. Naked girls in prison could not write checks.
She had not seen the man before. He was youngish, hawk-eyed, sardonic of feature. He looked down at her with keen appraisal as he tossed aside his clothes to disclose a member impressively rigid.
"You Francesca Brunelle, eh! I fuck Francesca Brunelle."
Lindy did not argue. Why bother! She was going to be violated no matter what her name.
"Should be good fuck. You cost big price."
So they were selling her! It made sense. The violation of her sex was a part of her torture, so why not show a profit! The prison staff, no doubt, used her for free. Spontaneously, and perhaps because he was young, Lindy Bestwick used female guile. Speaking as Poppy might have done, she said: "I can't make it much good for you the way I'm fixed."
He grinned. He had been briefed. He picked up a square slab. "I shove wood under your ass."
Lindy suffered it as she had suffered others. At least it gave one or two muscles a welcome break. Urgently she suggested: "I could make it so much better if I wasn't strapped down this tight. I can't move."
Her prospective rapist nodded thoughtfully. He was still scrutinizing her as though she was the first girl he had ever seen. Lifting her thighs, he inserted one more slab beneath her hips to project her vagina for his added convenience. "Get your cunt up where I can see." He explained politely. "Very nice cunt and hair."
"I suppose you know when you push those bits of board under me it hurts? It stretches me more against the straps."
He shrugged. "Sorry, cannot help."
"Unstrap my wrists. Just my wrists if you're scared. But it would be better for us both if I was free?" Her voice was coaxing. "I can't fight you. I'll let you strap me up again after. No one will know."
He was intrigued, impressed--and he had paid! "You fight, I hurt you bad." He promised. "But you better if free."
It was glorious. Lindy sat up stiffly, she stretched. She stood and stretched again, every motion a sensory delight. Her visitor watched, amused, as the naked girl he had purchased returned her limbs to life. "Maybe good you free." He agreed. "Me stiff is okay, you stiff is bad." He laughed at his wit. Discreetly, he placed a board over the orifice now glaringly evident, as evident as the ring it had made around Lindy Bestwick's derriere.
The freed girl knew the whole scene was as much farce as drama. The man who had rented her body for the act of sex massaged one of her wrists while she used her other hand to comfort the circular weal in her flesh. Both were busy and preoccupied. A month ago he would have seemed to her a rapist, he did not now. It was all crazy.
He was the best yet. Lindy was making comparisons and judgments she would have scorned. Her rapists had fallen into vague memories as good, bad and indifferent. This young man was more than good, he turned the disagreeable into something she would always remember. In a frenzy of sensation, mixed with the ecstasy of being free, Lindy rolled and thrust and clawed her sunlit way to the stars. At the end of it they both lay upon her prison bed panting and replete. "You damn good."
"You damn good too."
Having said the unsayable, the unforgivable, the quite impossible, Miss Lindy Bestwick compounded her sin by forthrightly asking: "Do it to me again?"
"You mean it?" Everything she said amused him. "Of course I mean it. After I'm strapped back down there's nothing. You're something. Really something!"
"They catch us, they punish you."
"I don't care. It's worth being punished for. I'm punished all the time anyway. Please... I want you to!" They did it again.
She had known it would be a bad moment. Lindy caught his dubious eye and grinned. "Don't worry. I'll be a good girl and sort myself out for you. I know I've got to go back down." She hesitated, but her shyness and her blush had faded with her inhibitions. "Put your arms around me for a moment, just a moment... please?"
Hawkeye was pleased and puzzled. He folded her nudity in his arms and whispered: "You want get out, eh?"
"I'll do anything to get you. Can you--?"
He kissed her forehead gently. "I know about you. I know about American girl." He held her at arm's length. "Now. You be good? You obey?"
"I promise." Lindy looked him in the eye. "I'll obey." It was the most difficult act Miss Lindy Bestwick had ever performed. It took all her will to lay down on her back and arrange her wrists and ankles for the straps. She was tensed, her mind chaotic, as the first two were buckled. But then, beyond the point of no return, she wriggled into the now familiar posture and relaxed. Dimly, she recognized that she might never again be free, these straps might hold her wrists and ankles for the rest of life. But she was in the grip of a tide she could not stem, why tax herself with visions! Anxiously, she insisted: "I think they were one notch tighter. Better buckle them up or they'll know I've been free." Impetuously, she pleaded: "Will you come again?"
He laughed down at her, glinting eyes and a white flash of teeth. "You expensive girl. But I get money I come."
After he had gone, Lindy cried. It was more lonely on the boards than ever and the straps mocked her loneliness. Her muscles and tendons reasserted their familiar ache.
It was Sabor who took her next. Hours had passed but memory had not faded. Sabor would erase nothing. He used her as a duty and a convenience, presumably twice a day. Lindy lay in her bonds, flinching under his thrusts but otherwise passive. Perhaps the day would come when she could laugh in retrospect over the placement of the bits of board to raise her hips and her pubic patch, and then their removal after the orgasm... until the next time! Each male who used her had his own preference as to the elevation of her sex. None offered to set her free for their mutual pleasure, nor did she ask.
It was Amallah who fed her and poured the pail of water into the cleft of her crotch. Lindy wanted little food but drank gratefully. Laying on her back all day and all night was not conducive to appetite, but the wardress's wide grin was welcome.
"That feller' he fuck you twice, eh!"
"How did you know?"
"Amallah hide and listen. Is very good he fuck you so nice. I ask him fuck me but he just laugh." She sighed heavily. "He let you loose too. But I no tell. I no punish. You think I get that money sometime?"
"If Poppy or I ever get to a Consulate. Amallah, we're so grateful. Do you think we ever will get to a Consul?"
"You sure don't look like it right now. Don't look like you go anywhere." Another sigh. "I'd let you loose for rests, Francesca, but I'm scared. Anyone catch you walking around free and we both in deep shit."
"That's okay. You can't stop me being tortured." Wistfully, the naked girl asked her sixty-four dollar question. "Amallah, what's going to happen to me?"
"They hurt you plenty. Then they take you to prison where you get fucked by Eben al Saffra first and a lot more later. Same thing with Poppy."
"I don't have a lot to look forward to, do I?"
"A lot of screwing. There's worse things...! You too damn good looking."
"That Mr. Broadbent -- " Amallah waved Mr. Broadbent into limbo. "Maybe he don't ever come again. But if he does -- I hate to tell you... " Amallah shrugged hopelessly. "Right quick you two gets took down below and gets tied and gagged tight in a dark place where the wall closes in on you until he's gone. That American guy he get told you've escaped."
"He wouldn't believe it."
"Be crazy if he did, but what can he do!"
"Couldn't you tell him?"
"And get myself whipped! Anyway, he no believe." They gazed at each other in wry resignation. Lindy knew herself prisoned by more than leather straps and the bars of the cell. Lowering her sights, she asked, pitifully: "Amallah, when you feed me? Couldn't you free one of my hands so I can lift a cup?"
"Maybe tomorrow." The wardress looked unhappy. "Tomorrow not good for you. I think maybe Sabor whip your feet."
Lindy's heart thumped. Obviously her feet were well positioned for such a cruelty. Their defenseless soles pointed invitingly in either direction. She could not move them. They could be whipped or caned or anything else at will. Her whole being shrank in horror at the thought. Amallah read her thought.
"You get them little feet caned, you not safe to loose. You fight. You not want to be strapped again. You safely strapped now. Best stay.
Once more Lindy wept.
CHAPTER THREE - STRAPPED LIMBS
Amallah may have meant well, but the girl strapped to the boards wished she had not been told. Immobility in the dark was bad enough and filled with nightmares in those brief periods in which she slept. But the knowledge of the whipping of the soles of her feet in the new day was a poor companion for the night. Often, in panic, Lindy Bestwick flung herself against the leather circlets on her wrists and ankles in a frantic revolt against the coming cruelty. She surged and heaved with all her young strength, but achieved no more than the creaking of buckles and the chafing of skin.
The punishment was so eminently practical! With beaten soles she could not walk. But she had no need to walk! She could lay, strapped as she was, for day after day and each day her feet could be hurt a little more, and each day the torture of immobility would increase! Those who believed her to be Francesca Brunelle could kill two birds with one stone--perhaps kill her too!
Once roving, her mind pounced on another obvious thought. Why not her breasts! The twin mounds of her breasts were as prominent and as vulnerable as the soles of her feet. Someone would think of it, someone was bound to think of something so easy to do to a naked girl spread-eagled and held fast...! Lindy moaned the night away in awful certainties of unbearable pain.
But at feeding time Amallah was kind. "You promise, Francesca? You let me strap your wrist?"
The tortured girl was tempted to refuse. The act of allowing herself to be strapped down again was devastating.
"Only one hand, Francesca, only one?"
It would be churlish and foolish to refuse! "Thank you, oh, thank you...! And I do promise! Honest, I'll behave."
Once more the ecstasy of surcease. It was a small thing to be given the use of one hand. But after the interminable hours it was utter bliss... Flexing wrist and elbow, Lindy admitted. "If I had a million dollars I'd give it all to you if I knew I wouldn't have to be strapped again--if my hands and feet were free... "
"Just one hand, Francesca!"
"Yes, I know, and I will behave. Honest!"
Miss Lindy Bestwick behaved. She ate little but drank feverishly. "Why did you tell me about whipping my feet, Amallah? I can't stop thinking about it. I'm frightened."
"Crazy, Francesca. It bothers me too. It make you scream."
Lindy had no doubt she would scream, it was the least of her concerns. Irrelevantly, she asked: "Do any of you really believe I'm Francesca Brunelle? I'm not. I'd have thought you'd have been convinced by now?"
"It doesn't matter much 'bout that. What matters is you too good looking. Your breasts too firm, the hair round your cunt so thick and shiny. You pretty nice piece of girl."
"So I lose either way. Amallah, today--my feet are going to be whipped...? Will the men use me too?"
"They use you. You nice easy fuck. Don't matter if you crying. Most likely a man fuck you while you get them pretty feet whipped. You can't move none."
It was the stuff of nightmare, a congestion of incongruous horror leavened with farce. While it lasted she would be no more than a receptacle for pain and lust--and afterwards...! Pathetically, Lindy asked: "I can't imagine what's going to be done to my feet. It's just too... too--Amallah, have you ever...?"
"Once when I very bad girl it happen. Several days I don't walk. I very good girl after."
"But your feet healed? Got better?"
"Girls always get better, Francesca. We made that way. You think you die but never do."
"But I thought this torture of being strapped down so I can't move was something all its own, so I'd tell you things after a few days when I couldn't stand these straps any more?" Lindy looked at her wardress in wide-eyed appeal. "What's made them decide to whip my feet at the same time?"
"It don't mean nothin'. It one of the things they do to you if you no talk."
Lindy Bestwick flexed her free fingers and free arm in the only pleasure life seemed to offer. Her mind revolved in a frenzied search for hope. "They must know I can't tell them anything. But if that man, Eben al Saffra, wants me for his own special property so bad in that prison of his, why doesn't he take me there? Why does he have every man in the place rape me? Why does he have me injured with tortures? I'd have thought he'd have wanted -- "
"What he wants is nice obedient girl. You getting that way fast. You finished your food now?"
"You want to strap my hand down again, don't you! Oh, alright, I suppose you might as well. But I really am grateful though." The nude prisoner wriggled back into position and thrust her hand through the loop of the strap. Unhappily, she watched it buckled tight. Along with three other strips of leather it would hold her secure through the most agonized moments of her life. Sometime today!
The wardress looked down in pity. "I sorry. Is nothing I can do. You stay buckled down there long, long time I give you one hand sometimes when safe. Is not much -- "
"Thank you, Amallah, It's a lot."
In the silence of being left alone, Lindy Bestwick fought the bindings on her limbs, fought in fury and in fear. Ruefully, she thought of it as her daily exercise, but there was always the faint hope something might come loose. With one hand free...! She knew the girl from W.R.A.P. had died somewhere along the way in this dreary prison. The girl she had become now would kill for freedom--if she must!
They made her wait. Sabor came and performed his mechanical duty within Miss Lindy Bestwick's vagina. He acquitted himself with his usual competence, but refused to speak. He carried neither cane nor whip. His violation of the helpless girl was only a domestic chore.
When Eben al Saffra made his smiling appearance Lindy knew her time had come. It was understandable the V.I.P. would wish to be inside her as the blows impacted her soles, a unique privilege for any man.
"I believe you are aware of what is to take place, Francesca?"
"Yes, I've been told." She stared up in wide-eyed appeal. "Can't you have any mercy on me?"
"I have been merciful. I think you know that."
She knew! Her tortures could have been more violent, more damaging. Woodenly, she repeated: "If I knew anything I'd tell you. I can't bear the thought of what you're going to have done to me."
Gently, he tickled the soles of her strapped feet. But, after the first flinch, her nerves refused to respond. Fear had nullified sensitivity.
"Not ticklish, Francesca?"
"I always way. It's gone."
"Ah well, I'm sure they'll come alive under the cane." Saffra used his fingers to trace the contours of the sweet small soles he intended to punish. "I find these two areas of a girl particularly erotic. So few men have the imagination to punish them--they miss so much. You know, don't you, I intend to be fucking you while the blows fall?"
"Yes."
"We may hope my contribution may alleviate your suffering."
"You know it won't."
"Come, come, my dear, you underrate my prowess."
Eben al Saffra seemed determined to milk the situation of every possible nuance of response from his bound victim. "Surely the duality of this experience intrigues?"
"Is it anything else than one more torture!" Lindy shook her head in hopeless resignation. "I think you know I'm not that girl, Francesca. I think you've guessed it for quite awhile. You have me tortured because you enjoy seeing me like this, it does something for you."
"I'm sorry, but I'm too frightened for analysis." The girl awaiting the caning of her feet no longer cared what she said. They could do nothing worse to her than what was already planned. "I don't know anything except I'm shivering with fear, the most awful fear I've ever known."
"Delightful!" Saffra continued his gentle massage of the soles so utterly at his mercy. "You exaggerate, but perhaps Amallah had drawn a too drastic picture. You are not going to die, or come anywhere near dying."
"I wish I was."
"You are now being petty, Francesca. If your death wish was real you should find comfort in the firing squad and the post. Both hover in your future."
"I don't even believe that any more. You're not going to kill a whore you enjoy as much as you enjoy me."
"Such frankness! The effect of a cane upon the bottom of a girl's foot is miraculous, even before it falls. I am valuing you more and more." Saffra affected deep thought. "I am wondering about a gag? What do you think?"
"I don't care. It won't make any difference to how I'm hurt."
"But, is there not a relief in screams?"
"You know there is. But I don't suppose you want me screaming in your ear." Tartly, she added: "I'm supposing your ear will be very close to my mouth."
"How considerate! An admirable young woman. But I can raise myself, y'know support myself on hands and arms and look down at you as you make whatever sounds you deem appropriate."
She was being played with, sucked dry of sexual response. Saffra's measured periods all held the taint of taunting. He was looking down at her strapped nakedness and vicariously, but pleasurably, sharing her agony of suspense, keeping as the main course of his feast whatever he would feel of her when his impalement was deep within her sheath. Thoughtfully, he selected a square of board: his voice exquisitely deferential. "If you please, my dear?"
Hating the act, Miss Lindy Bestwick elevated her hips, then settled back at the higher elevation, picturing herself as increasingly obscene. Eben al Saffra considered her changed posture with a knowing eye. "Perhaps one more, dear girl...?"
She repeated her shame. This time with less ease. She was strapped down tight, and the elevation of her sex now desired was a tax on every bare limb. "I can't help any more." She said bitterly, I'm sorry."
"You have done well." Saffra prodded here and there to achieve perfection in the exposure of Lindy's crotch. "As I said, you are a most admirable female. I look forward to your coming imprisonment -- "
"Then take me there now! Please? Take me there and use me before my feet are maimed and I--" Lindy's plea was terminated by the appearance of Sabor. She shrank in loathing at sight of the limber cane tucked beneath his arm. No one any longer had need of words. Eben al Saffra divested himself of clothes while his major domo stood deferentially to one side to await the caning of a girl's feet. The girl herself could think of nothing to say. There was nothing to say, nothing!"
It was nothing new. Miss Lindy Bestwick had been penetrated so many times and with such a variety of weapons that this piercing was without shock. Saffra's phallus was a formidable instrument and rigidly ready. She followed its progress towards her vaginal lips, fascinated, repelled, yet with a hateful sexual excitation she could not deny. Her Venus mound, raised up as it was, and her inability to lift her head against the stress of taut arms prevented sight of its final approach. But as its head made contact with her labia and was rubbed up and down to benefit from secretions she gasped and gasped again in maiden tribute to the male. As its thrust entered within and advanced slowly, inch by inch, Lindy moaned in a mixture of more sensations than she could comprehend. When Saffra's impalement of her was complete to the uttermost limits of their twin capacities she could glimpse what this must mean to him. Never had female loins known such a male conquest as hers were about to know! She surrendered totally as the intrusion within made careful withdrawals and careful thrusts until Saffra's voice betrayed her to the cane.
"Now."
Miss Lindy Bestwick's right foot shattered into fragments of vivid agony. Her scream flung pain into every corner of the room and beyond, nor did she cease, but pealed and cried out her travail again and again in disbelief at the awfulness of what had been done to her. Within her womb the giant phallus swelled as it received muscular messages of her anguish. Gazing down, as he continued his male thrustings, the suffused features of Eben al Saffra beheld, in a satisfied sexual savagery, the parted lips, the hurt eyes, and the wild tossing of a girl's head which conceded him the conquest of her sex.
"Again."
Pain on pain! Even the worst of it could be doubled for a girl, and for Lindy Bestwick it was doubled now as the limber withe cut the sole of her left foot with cruel precision. Her nakedness heaved and surged against the straps with no other effect than to further excite the invader within her belly. Most certainly it would be receiving messages and stimuli far beyond the norm. Eben al Saffra was a lucky man. The whipped girl fled into a welter of screams as her only sanctuary. The straps round her wrists and ankles creaked mockingly.
The shot was explosive in the room. Sabor dropped like a felled tree, his cane flying to strike the wall and lose its potency upon the floor. Eben al Saffra thrust himself erect, his glistening genital absurd as the second shot sent him into whatever houri laden paradise he deserved.
"I got the money. I came back."
Lindy looked up into the laughing eyes of the young man who had rented her body the day before. His finger was to his lips enjoining silence, his hands leaped to her straps. A moment later they turned her and bound her wrists behind her back, then roped her ankles. She did not care. She felt only a great thankfulness that the cane and her feet had parted company. Right then nothing else mattered. And, anyway, these male hands were comforting even as they bound her tight. Maybe he did not want her running around or getting in the way! Firing was heavy now, far heavier than it had been on the day she had stood in the ruin handcuffed to the post. Dimly, she wondered if it was on her account. Was this a romantic rescue? It seemed unlikely. Rescued heroines never got their hands tied behind their backs by the hero. Urgently, she said: "Poppy! Get Poppy--in the cell."
"She is already safe. Keep quiet."
He carried her with frightening ease. Lindy felt like a child again as she was tossed across a male shoulder and told to behave herself. There was a swift and scary journey past bodies sprawled in death, there was a jeep... Lindy was placed in the back of the jeep and had her feet tied up to her hands so she could not move at all, nor could she see much of the action as she was speeded out of the battle zone and into the desert. She got the impression that as they fled the town the firing also waned. Miss Lindy Bestwick was very uncomfortable but very happy. Her feet were still hurting, but one cut across each sole was a small price to pay for freedom. The fact of not being free at all did not seem to matter.
"Some introductions, Miss Bestwick. They are overdue."
To be called by her own name was the best thing yet. It was well worth the several hours of bound discomfort in the jeep as it defeated the dusty miles at full speed. Her carnal customer of yesterday was viewing her with the same amusement as then. He was still a hawk, but he was young, he was outrageously handsome, and even though he had left her naked and her hands were still tied behind her back she sensed no harm. Her feet had been untied, that was something on the plus side.
"I'm afraid I'm not a son of the desert, Miss Bestwick. My name is Raoul Broussard." He laughed openly at her surprise. "May I present the infamous Francesca Brunelle."
The hawk's mate! Two Latins! The woman beside the man glowered without cordiality at a younger facsimile of herself. But whilst their likeness was surprising Lindy saw an older and harder face, darker hair and an aura of authority she herself would never possess. The cords on her wrists felt tighter under the female scrutiny. The voice, too, was not her own. It was foreign, hard to place.
"Pretty little bitch. If they were going to execute her why didn't you let 'em. I'd have been officially dead."
"We can use her for that anytime. We needed the raid, it got rid of Al Saffra and several others. We got a good haul of arms and ammunition, and we came home with some female merchandise that's worth a pretty sum." He smiled enchantingly at his nude captive. "Or perhaps they would like to join our ranks."
"You've got French romance up to here, Raoul. This one doesn't look like a terrorist to me." Francesca turned her attention to her dubious double. "You'll have been fucked steady for the last while, I'm sure. Are you good for anything else?"
The good vibes were dying. Lindy understood why her hands were tied. The pain of standing on her caned feet reminded her to be thankful for escape from the prison. But here was a fresh captivity she did not understand. The woman was hostile, Raoul Broussard was a smiling enigma... perhaps he smiled at everything! She remembered the dead bodies past which he had carried her. He had made no promises but acquired her as part of the loot. Somewhere around this new but dusty settlement Poppy Evans would be bound and behind bars. Lindy took the only course she could discern.
"I don't suppose I am much good to you." She admitted demurely. "But if you'll deliver us to any American Consul there will be some money --?"
"How much?"
"Poppy and I each have about five thousand--?"
"You're kidding!" The American exclamation was incredulously amused. "Don't you have any idea what the two of you are worth on the right market?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Several millions."
The statement was shattering. Lindy could feel her world sinking beneath her feet. Lost, she looked imploringly at her captors and stammered: "But we're all white...! Poppy and I haven't hurt you. Can't you be charitable and help us?"
"No."
"You wouldn't lost. Our Government would be grateful. There would be favorable publicity for your -- your --Cause."
"Your Government subsidizes the bastards we took you from. They don't like us."
"But to sell us...! The tied girl looked desperately from one captor to another. "I don't understand! Who'd buy us? What would they do with us?"
Francesca chuckled at such naivete. "Some rich old asshole with a pocket full of oil wells. He'd screw you. The locals here like getting inside white skin: you should know that by now. If he's a bit old for much screwing he'll get himself an erection by whipping your ass or some other quaint deviation."
"You'd be much better treated than where you've been." Raoul offered encouragingly.
"But I'd be a-a-?"
"Yes, you'd be a slave. There are worse things."
"He'd probably keep your feet chained so you can't run." Francesca added her own cynicism. "But, you behave yourself and you might have a damn good life." Spontaneously, Lindy turned to the man, the nice young man who had been the best of all those who had used her. Her heart was in her eyes and in her voice. "I thought you were rescuing me, taking me away from torture. You were kind when you unfastened me... and today they were whipping my feet--you saved me from that. I liked you... I trusted you. I didn't mind you tying me...!"
"Take the silly little cow somewhere and fuck her, Raoul. She's aching for a good fuck and doesn't know it. She's in heat."
"Look, Fran', you know damn well -- "
"I can spare you in a good cause." Francesca Brunelle chuckled cynically. "If I get in the mood myself I'll take her later on. She looks to me like a tasty morsel. I can teach her what she doesn't know."
"We could each take one of 'em, Fran'. But you've forgotten Hamid. Hamid's due today, and he's important."
"Oh shit, yes! Alright, toss this in with the other one. We can deal with them tomorrow."
"Her parents were Italian and mine were French." Raoul imparted as he carried Miss Lindy Bestwick below. "But we were born in the U.S. I'm afraid we're a disappointment all round." He chuckled. "We operate here because it's the only place that'll put up with us."
"But why can't you be kind to us and set us free? You could!"
"In theory, yes --your name's Lindy, isn't it. But you see, Lindy, our operation is for profit. Fran' and I do very well for ourselves out of the Cause. The Cause is a big help, even if it is actually only Fran' and me."
"You're in love with her? She doesn't seem a bit nice!"
"You're beautifully feminine, Lindy--that question!" Raoul Broussard shook his naked burden playfully, then admonished: "You'll have to get used to the idea that I'm one of the bad guys. I simply refuse to look or act the part."
"Let me down. I can walk."
"Shut up. I like carrying you."
"Because I'm naked, I expect. Please give me clothes."
Raoul shook her again. "Look, Lindy, you're better off with Fran' and I than you were back in that army barracks being tortured. But only about fifty percent. We'll decide what to do with you, but in the meantime you're a prisoner."
It was a bitter disappointment. Tears welled. But what right had she and Poppy to expect anything else in this forsaken place! It meant little that this man was handsome and young and felt good to the touch. He was a laughing rogue and Francesca Brunelle was a spiteful bitch. Petulantly, Lindy complained: "I'd prefer to walk, if you don't mind? And you don't need to leave my hands tied."
"Like I told you, I'm a real S.O.B."
"I don't know what you are. But there's no profit for you in being mean."
Raoul Broussard laughed at her perplexity. "Being mean is like scratching an itch, it feels good. I like you with your hands tied so that's the way you stay." He turned into what was obviously a wash room, and stood Lindy's angry nakedness atop a drain. "Stand still, Miss Bestwick. You stink."
She was blushingly furious and bitterly hurt. Romantic dreams faded under a jet of cold water hosed up and down her dusty nudity by a hawk eyed imposter who was enjoying her gasping shock. Helpless, Lindy pleaded: "Give me my hands, oh please untie my hands?"
"You don't need hands. Turn around."
"I do so need hands! Please... please!"
"You want 'em to cover your cunt. They stay tied behind your back, it's a good place for 'em. Now, spread your legs."
"I don't want to spread my legs. I know what you're going to do."
"Spread 'em!" There was steel in the command. "And stand still."
Lindy spread her legs. Water jetted into her crotch, blasting her pubic patch and down into the secret cleft between her thighs. Involuntarily she bent double, longing for her hands.
"Stand straight. Get 'em apart!"
Miss Lindy Bestwick obeyed instantly. Ruefully, she reflected that obedience might well be her second name. She braced her pelvis against the cleansing impact. She had longed for a bath but this was just one more punishment. Hosed down by a laughing Raoul! She longed to stamp her feet and scream. Instead, in frustration, she tore and twisted at the wet rope round her wrists. As usual, everything was hopeless.
"Want your hair washed?"
"Not the way you do it!"
The jet modified to a fine spray. "Bend down, Lindy."
She bent, glad he could not see her chagrin and her blush. The kinder spray played up and down the cascade of her hair. From time to time, playfully, it thrust itself close upon her sex to evoke a fresh set of responses from her flesh. From beneath the waterfall Lindy tried again. "I need my hands! Oh, please untie me? Please, please, please!" But her only answer was a mouthful of water from a freshly directed jet.
"Feel any cleaner?"
The tap was turned off. The hose lay innocently on the wet concrete. Lindy flung her mop of wet hair from side to side to clear her face. She dared not be sulky, so said a stiff: "Yes, thank you."
"I'll get a towel."
"If you'll untie my hands I can dry myself."
"If you mention your hands again I'll thrash you."
She stood, wetly naked, breasts heaving under his threat. Furious but mute, she braced herself against the towelling he obviously intended to enjoy. Considering the condition in which she had spent the last several days her present treatment should seem mild. But Lindy was feminine and piqued. She wanted to make sharp tart retorts and to deliver disdainful sniffs, but she did not dare. She was willing to believe this irritating young man capable of using a whip on her, and whilst the prospect was vexingly exciting, she wanted neither the humiliation or the pain. She bit her lip.
Having stood nakedly to be hosed down by a terrorist, it seemed only fitting for her to stand stiffly to attention while the same terrorist towelled her dry. Raoul was neither rough nor gentle but his frictioning of her skin enhanced her flush and his rapt attention to her breasts and pubic hair taxed her stoicism to its limit. Raoul excited her, and he probably knew it. But she would try and show no sign. When he deliberately frictioned her crotch and its swelling mound she contrived to look steadfastly ahead.
"Sorry, no jail, not even a nice barred cell."
Raoul was caustic in his apology. He set the pinkly washed Lindy Bestwick on her feet in what was nothing more than a bare room containing but a single item of interest. Poppy Evans sat on the floor, her back against the wall, staring moodily into space. At sight of her visitors she leaped erect.
"Darling!"
"Oh, Poppy...!"
"Oh, damn!"
Poppy's welcome had been snubbed short by a heavy chain, padlocked round her waist and to a massive ring in the wall. Before there could be any further exchange Lindy found herself similarly attached. The snap of the locks was an old familiar sound. Raoul Broussard tilted her chin and kissed her absently before he went away, not even bothering to lock the door.
"Oh, Lindy, thank goodness! This lousy chain...!" They were fastened to opposite walls. Their iron linkage snubbed them just short of contact. But Poppy's hands were free, they bridged the gap their bodies could not span. Tenderly, and with a great hunger, they caressed nipples, lips, eyes --anything for the reassurance of Lindy's tangible presence.
"They don't want us making love. Oh, Poppy, I'm just as glad to see you. It's been awful --!"
"Are you handcuffed, darling?"
"No, tied with rope."
"Turn round."
It was one more of the good moments. Lindy's hands had been tied since Raoul had taken her from the torture table. Before massaging wealed wrists she clasped Poppy's reaching hands and kissed them again and again, nibbled them with her lips and caressed them lovingly against her cheek.
"The rotten bastards, they must have figured the length of these chains." Poppy surmised angrily. "I bet we're not the first two girls they've had in here." lindy was experimenting with her chain. It was tight round her tummy, its padlock mockingly solid. It was a simple and effective way to keep a girl prisoner. She and Poppy were free to do anything they liked except make love or escape. She found she could turn her belt of links to wear its tether back or front.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Poppy demanded breathlessly. "Get that damn padlock round by your navel, then bend down and back up."
Lindy was swift to obey. She was instantly rewarded by fingers magic enough to make her gasp. But she turned again, breaking contact, standing erect and tugging to rearrange her chain. "It's not safe." She declared dismally. "If they catch us, and they easily could, we'd be punished. I know what they'd do for sure. We'd get our wrists handcuffed behind our backs."
"But, darling, why would they care?"
"That woman, Francesca, wants to use us. She doesn't believe in sharing tongues."
They sat on the floor, holding hands, bringing each other up to date. "They're going to sell us." Poppy affirmed dismally. "I just know that's what's going to happen. It's the only thing to make sense." With questing toes she explored between Lindy's bare thighs. Giggling, she lamented, "You got all the screwing, darling. I haven't been fucked for so long...! Gosh, I'm horny!"
"Mention it to Raoul."
"I'm scared of that guy, he's too damn good looking. He could be habit forming but he'd never be good for a girl. Lindy, how d'you feel about being a slavegirl? Chained for life and whipped every Friday?"
"I doubt if it's like that, Poppy. I expect we'd be kept... well, sort of prisoners to be... used." She laughed bitterly. "A man would buy us so he'd always have it handy round the house."
"Darling, you've got used to being fucked! I can tell."
"I suppose I have. You were right about a girl not dying. Gosh, when I was running around free I had the wackiest notions." Lindy fingered the links around her waist. "Think we'll ever be free again?" She sighed resignedly. "I don't see how it's going to happen. They'll never let us go."
"This lot won't. But, Lindy, remember that nice guy from the Consulate? I wouldn't write him off."
"What can he do?" Lindy was seeing no hope anywhere. "If he looks for us we'll have vanished. And anyway, he wasn't buying our story. We can forget Mr. Broadbent.
But Lindy was wrong.
There was no wardress. They were tended by nondescript males who viewed them with lust but without hope. They were evidently the perquisites of authority, not to be shared. Lindy followed her guide without regret for the chain and padlock left behind on the concrete floor with an apprehensive Poppy.
It was Francesca.
The terrorist woman was alone. There was no greeting, only a fierce exclamation at the guide. "The damn girl isn't bound!"
"I did not know--"
"You never know. Never bring either of them to me unless her hands are tied. And behind her back. Understand?"
"It is understood--"
"Then tie her now! Cross her wrists behind her back and cord 'em tight." s It was an inauspicious beginning. Glumly, the captive girl turned and crossed her wrists. The motions were automatic. She did not speak. The stricture bit hard enough to make her wince. When the flunkey had departed, Francesca's demand was instant and peremptory.
"Suck my cunt."
It was like a blow. Sudden. Ill timed. Lindy quavered: "But you've had my hands tied. It's so hard to do without hands -- "
"Do it! I don't want your hands. I want your mouth." Francesca stood, feet apart, waiting. Lindy realized this was another punishment. She was going to have to perform her undesired task without help. Without hands it would be doubly shaming. But it would not be impossible. In mute misery the girl from W.R.A.P. sank to her knees before the shrine to which she must pay tribute. Bitterly, she bent her head to insert it beneath Francesca's skirt and then, in a pungent gloom, sought the moist slit her lips must conquer. She prayed there would be no panties.
But there were panties. They were snug and tight upon the pubic hair. Her muffled protest was piteous. "But you're wearing panties! I can't--"
"Yes you can. Tear them off me with your teeth. You will not be punished."
Lindy believed it the most hateful and difficult task she had ever essayed. But punishments had made her obedient. She had no doubt she would be treated cruelly now if she rebelled--perhaps that was what Francesca wanted! Grimly, she set her teeth to work, edging her knees and her nudity within the inverted 'V' of Francesca's straddled legs so as to gain the utmost leverage for her upturned mouth.
"If you pull pubic hairs I'll thrash you."
Lindy made no reply. Her mouth was gagged with chewed and torn fabric. But she could envision Francesca's sardonically twisted lips as she awaited service.
"You may as well take that as a rule --What's your silly name...? lindy? Yes, Lindy! Understand me now: I'll whip you every time you give me half an excuse. Damned amusing! If faces meant anything, I'd be whipping myself."
Lindy's teeth had disposed of the musky crotch, they were hard at , work on the more difficult circle above. She was working in a heated tent redolent of Francesca's musk, sweating and frightened. Her bound hands twisted ceaselessly in a futile longing to be free. If only she had been allowed her hands...! If only! But what was the use of wishing!
"You may as well know, I'm thinking of keeping you. You'd make a good slave, I can sense it in you. Maybe you've been tortured enough to get some sense in your silly head. Raoul can have your girlfriend to fuck. Most likely he'd sell her." The female caustic sneered, "He can dunk that gorgeous prick of his inside me any time he likes. He doesn't need a girl."
The words filtered to lindy's preoccupied ears through Francesca's skirt as, thankfully, the young teeth tore the last of the shielding panties from Francesca's hips. She spat out fragments and spared a quick glance at the plump slit she must now service. She dared not stop to think, she dared not gag at the overpowering musk, she thrust her mouth hard against the fleshy folds and sent her tongue upon its errand."
"Suck, you little bitch! Hard!"
Miss lindy Bestwick sucked hard. She was grateful for Poppy's tuition. Without it she would have been gagging and weeping on the floor and being thrashed by an irate woman without mercy. Vehemently, she plied her mouth, her lips, her tongue. Thankfully, she heard Francesca start to pant.
"You're not bad, girl. With a few thrashings I might make something of you." Francesca helped herself to a drink and surveyed the submissive nakedness standing before her with its bound hands. "Here, let me wipe your mouth, your lips are all--" Lindy submitted to the feminine attention. If she had her hands she could do it herself, but why speak of the impossible! She stood and waited. She suspected slave- girls did a lot of both.
"D'you know why we keep you naked, Lindy?"
"Isn't it because you like to see me without clothes?" Francesca laughed. "Know you've got a good body, don't you! I'll admit those tits of yours are something special. Ever had your breasts whipped?"
"No... never."
"Well, give me time and get me angry enough--"
"There's no need to be cruel to me, Francesca. I'll be obedient. I'll always do what you tell me. I know I can't escape."
"Hell, girl, I like being cruel to you." Francesca laughed. "You'd like to get those hands loose and claw me, wouldn't you!"
"I'd like to have my hands but -- "
"Oh, sure, sure, but you don't want to get your little rump beaten with a cane. I know!"
"That isn't what I meant at all." Lindy protested without much hope. "It's simply I realize I'm a prisoner who's never going to be able to escape, so I want to get along. I want to try and please whoever owns me."
"Amounts to the same thing, watching out for your ass." Francesca mused thoughtfully in silence. "But there's a job come up for you. We're going to have to get you into clothes."
"Clothes!"
"Don't sound so shocked." Francesca chuckled. "You sure must be used to nakedness. I've got a notion you like it."
"I don't like it. But it's so long since I wore clothes -- "You'll have to wear something now. Blue jeans, a shirt and sneakers should be about right. You've just become a terrorist."
"I haven't! I'd be no good--"
"You're getting a visitor, Lindy." The voice was again a sneer. "D'you know a guy named Broadbent?" Harry Broadbent! His name was a heart stopper. The tied girl gasped: "When... why?"
"You should know! He's tracked you down. His Consulate doesn't like us but we're half on speaking terms. He's asked to talk to you and Poppy."
"You mean you'll let us?" Lindy was breathless. "I'll let you. Not Poppy. Poppy's going to be busy."
"But he'll demand our release. Are you willing --?"
"Girlie, didn't I just tell you. You've seen the light. You've joined The Cause. You and I and Raoul are buddies."
"But I'm not --!"
"Yes you are, sweetheart."
They stared at each other, two girls on opposite sides, one bound. Lindy could feel her courage and her hopes sinking through the floor. Francesca knew something! "I couldn't ever be a terrorist." She said lamely. "You know I couldn't."
"Sure I do. But Mr. Broadbent does not. To him you're just a female who can change her mind."
"Do I get whipped in here somewhere?" Lindy asked pathetically. "I've got a feeling--"
"Hadn't figured on it, but it's an idea. If you want a burning bottom when you're talking to Broadbent, all you have to do is give me static."
"No, I don't want that. What I--"
"Here, put these on." Francesca tossed a ragged bundle on the floor. "If clothes can make a terrorist, you'll be one."
"But I can't. My hands are tied."
"Oh, you and your hands! Such a fuss! Come here!"
"Thank you. I've been tied up so much--"
"Sure, sure, and you'll be tied up again. But now, put those rags on."
The shirt was too small, her nipples would show. But it was better to look female than only nondescript.
Lindy wanted Harry Broadbent to regard her favorably. He seemed her only hope of ever being free. Her mind raced.
"Now get this straight, sweetheart." Francesca's voice was feline. "You'll be nice to the guy, and you'll be full of regrets... but you've decided to join up with Raoul and me. You know you're being a naughty girl but we've made you an offer you can't refuse. Understand?"
"Not really. It wouldn't be true."
"You'd better make him think it's true. Tart it up a bit, add whatever color comes to mind. Tell him this is the first time in your life you've really lived. You're very grateful to him but you don't want to go back."
"But I do! I want to go back to the Consulate with him, and take Poppy."
Francesca's sigh was an affectation of infinite patience. "That's all taken for granted, Lindy. But suppose you knew a gun was pointing your way all the time you were burning your bridges?"
"You wouldn't dare shoot me in front of an American Consul. You'd be crazy to do such a thing. It would be cheaper for you to let me go."
"Score one for you, sweetheart, you're not as dumb as you act. So now I'll show you why you're going to be a good girl. Come along."
Poppy Evans was naked. She was suspended by her wrists. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes wide in fear. But these things were incidental to the long slender blade of the sword protruding up from the block of wood between Poppy's legs. Lindy's shocked gaze drank in the cruel tableau in disbelief. To either side of the hanging nude a soldier stood to attention. The point of the sword blade was lost to view within Poppy Evans' pubic lips.
Lindy's hand flew to her mouth, her cry was a wail of anguish: "You can't... You mustn't! Ohhhhh... Noooooooh!!"
Casually and with delight, Francesca's fingers explored the impaled lips and that which went within.
She nodded wisely. "Let her down two more inches, Kasim--but gently."
"Please don't... Oh, oh, please! I'm frightened." Poppy's breasts were heaving but she dared not move.
"Swords have dull edges, girls, Remember that. You won't get cut. It's the point going straight on up that could kill you."
"But I haven't done anything! Why --?"
"It's lindy who's going to do something, Poppy. All you have to do is hope she does it right. If she blows it, Kasim cuts the rope."
In fearful fascination, Lindy watched the slow sinking of the terror-stricken nude upon the blade as a little more of it penetrated upward within her sheath. Francesca nodded and raised her hand. "Good enough, Kasim. She'll be too scared to move. If you get the signal let her down all the way."
Lindy knew she must deal only with the reality of what she saw. "But it's too cruel." She protested. "To have her hanging like this... waiting!"
"She won't wait long. Broadbent's having a drink with Raoul. I didn't tell you, but your star performance is about to start." Francesca smiled sweetly. "I suppose you intend to do your best?"
"Yes, yes... of course I will! But you don't have to keep Poppy like this. Please let her down away from that horrible thing. I promise I'll do whatever you want."
"You'll do it better, sweetheart, with that blade up her cunt."
Following where Francesca's firm hand led, Lindy Bestwick knew the cynical assertion true. She would behave. She would put on an act. She would convince Harry Broadbent she was a no good bitch. Through every moment of her lies she would behold a mental vision of Poppy and the blade. It was too, too cruel! Everything about this land was cruel and useless and vastly different from the promises of W.R.A.P.
Harry Broadbent was as she remembered. Safe, secure. Very much good old U.S.A. His tone was gravely disapproving. "I had hoped you would return with me, Miss Bestwick. Your bona fides have been amply confirmed."
"I'm terribly sorry--"
"My visit here is unofficial. Our Government does not recognize this group of... dissidents."
"They've been immensely kind."
"Perhaps. Their methods are, however, beyond the law. They kill ruthlessly. Their motives are open to question."
lindy had a quick recall of the sprawled bodies when Raoul had carried her from the shattered building. Her eyes beseeched pity as she blurted: "I --I don't know about such things. All I know is I don't want that awful prison."
Broadbent coughed awkwardly. "I had hoped to find you prepared to finish your sentence. All documents support the legality of your incarceration."
"But they were torturing me--awful terrible things! And every day I was ravished several times, one man after another!"
Again the embarrassed cough. "The results of our inquiries would have put an end to that. We could have shown them you were not Miss Brunelle. Your sentence would have run its normal course."
"I was kidnapped. They wanted my body. They'd have kept me in that prison for life --they sell girls... "
"Please, please!" Harry Broadbent held up a distressed hand. "The records show a sentence of six months, the same for Miss Evans. It is not a long time?"
lindy shrugged sulkily. "I'm sorry. I won't go back to that prison. They're too cruel to girls. Only the wardress, Amallah, was kind to us. You should talk to Amallah. She can confirm what I've told you about my being tortured and raped."
Broadbent changed direction. "Miss Brunelle, may I ask the motive of the raid on Rabaul, this second one in which you effected the release of two American citizens?"
"Simple curiosity." Francesca assured blandly. "The grapevines all said I was a prisoner in that dump and was about to be executed. I wanted to see what my double looked like."
"Admittedly there is a resemblance." Broadbent looked from one to the other of the two girls. "But were you justified in the killing and looting?"
"We think so." Francesca sneered. "We're outlaws. Lindy wants to be an outlaw. I'm surprised you want to take her back to prison."
"It would enable us, on completion of her sentence, to have sent her safely back to the States, her home." His eyes narrowed, his voice hardened. "More than one witness testifies to seeing Mr. Broussard bind Miss Bestwick hand and foot and abduct her in a jeep!" In the awkward silence Lindy had an agonized vision of Poppy impaled on the sword. It inspired her next lie: "I --I was hysterical. I'd just been tortured, and then all those guns and bodies...! I was so terrified I'd have fought him and run and screamed--"
"Might not that have been best?"
"Raoul didn't think so. He wanted me helpless so I couldn't interfere with his rescuing me."
"To me, it looks more like making you captive, Miss Bestwick?"
Lindy motioned with free hands and extended a free foot. "I'm not captive now, am I? I'm free. I'm free for the first time in a long while."
Broadbent slowly zippered up his briefcase. "I can't call up the Marines." He admitted morosely. "So I have to accept what you three tell me." He shook his head. "There's something wrong somewhere." Bluntly, he demanded: "I'd like to speak to Miss Evans." Another silence. Inspired by the sword within Poppy's sex, Lindy lied bravely. "I'm afraid Poppy isn't here." She giggled bashfully. "Poppy's a--she's a --well, you know the oldest profession. She wanted some money... and there was this fellow... Raoul may know his name -- "
"I am sure he does." Broadbent's tone was acid.
"This is my cue to wish you all good-day. I'll even add the cliche of: "Sorry I bothered you."
"You did okay, girlie," Francesca conceded. "Now, off with those clothes!"
"But, Poppy...?"
"Raoul, give the boys a shout. The little trick won't be worth much to us if something slipped. Damn that Broadbent, he's suspicious, he'll root around. I wanted to keep this one for a slave, but it's best we sell 'em both as quick as we can."
In complete dejection, Miss Lindy Bestwick returned herself to nudity. She was sure the visible thrust of her nipples, impelled by swelling breasts against flimsy fabric, had not made a favorable impression on her visitor. Broadbent had gone away thinking her a tramp. Tears welled at thought of how easily she might have gone with him. But even Harry Broadbent wanted to return her to prison! Everything was hopeless. She made a neat small package of what she had worn and asked, listlessly: "Do you want to tie my hands again?"
"You're not a bad kid." Francesca said grudgingly as she placed the obedient hands palm to palm behind the captive back and bound them tight. "I'd have given you a nice life if that asshole hadn't come snooping. You're good between my legs, and Raoul could have got between yours. Damn!"
"I don't want to be sold into slavery, Francesca." Linda said unhappily. "Please think of something else to do with us."
"Okay, kid, you name one."
"You could send us home. We'd always be grateful. We'd work to get your Cause some good publicity? Oh, please?"
"Try again."
"Well, I don't want Harry Broadbent taking me back to prison, that's for sure. Don't you have a friend someplace away from here who could look after us for you until everything's quieted down?"
"Nice thought, girlie. Then you and Poppy romping off across the desert."
"We'd expect to be locked up or chained or something. I don't ever expect to escape from you--"
"Oh, darling!" Poppy was suddenly a whirlwind of glad arms and tear wet cheeks embracing a girl who had no hands. "I'm safe! I'm off that sword thing. It feels so good --!"
"Tie her hands, Raoul, palm to palm. We're going to have to decide--"
"There's only one decision, Fran' my love. Get 'em away from us, and right now. Here, you tie her the way you like. I'll go and phone." He patted Poppy's bare bottom paternally. "Do as Fran' says, girls, or she'll skin you both."
"Come here, you. Turn around."
Some of Poppy's ebullience wilted under the bite of cord. But she stood erect and uncomplaining to be tied. When the young wrists were firmly joined Francesca found more rope and circled bare elbows.
"Ouch, that hurts!"
"Lodging a complaint, kid?"
"No. No, never mind."
"Good. I'd redden your ass if you were. Maybe I'll stripe it a bit anyway before I get rid of you."
Lindy watched while Poppy, sullenly, stood to be bound. Whatever else the binding of elbows might achieve it certainly enhanced a girl's bust. Poppy looked both helpless and beautiful and very female. When her own time she submitted to the same binding, making only one polite query. "Why are our elbows tied, Francesca? It hurts."
"Sure it hurts. Keeps you docile. Stops you wiggling to try and get loose."
Francesca's feline smile widened as she obtained even more rope and made a noose round Lindy's neck. "Don't be scared, kid, you're not going to be hung. Just a little togetherness." Having made one firm knot she repeated the rope collar on Poppy's neck too. The naked girls stood joined by a six-foot tether at their throats. They shared a wry smile at their new predicament.
The desert was rarely anything but banal. The Dodge van belonged in the U.S.A. but was sufficiently battered to blend with the dust. The two men who waited by its open door were sharp-eyed with the authority of solvency. They eyed their naked freight with approval. Their inspection of bound wrists and elbows and roped necks was thorough. From that point the two girls were excluded from communication. The four principals became animated in the local dialect.
She herself was the prize. Of that there could be no doubt. They approved of Poppy but they approved far more of her. Having explored Poppy Evans' breasts, her waist, her pubic hair, and then her teeth, they turned their full attention to Francesca Brunelle's double. There was some laughter as the Terrorist posed beside her alleged twin, the flood of words gained momentum. The bound girl was made to turn this way and that for inspection, her fading whipmarks were admired and discussed, heads nodded and white teeth flashed.
A box was provided as a step. A questionable blanket was spread, in their honor, on the van floor. "It won't be a fun ride, kids." Francesca assured cheerfully. "But they're not going to tie your feet. You'll be able to brace yourselves."
"If you were not no valuable we would have sent you home." From Raoul it was almost an apology.
"And if everything wasn't in such a hurry I'd have caned your little rumps." Francesca sounded genuinely sad.
"Are we allowed to know anything --I mean, will we see you again?" Lindy asked pathetically. She looked Raoul. "Are you really selling us?" She felt absurdly dramatic. "Is this the end?"
"There's never any end for a girl until she gets too old." Francesca said caustically. "And look: do what you're told. These boys wield a wicked whip."
"You will be bought by a rich man and be very happy." Said Raoul with his broadest smile. One of these days I sell Francesca too."
CHAPTER FOUR - SLAVE COMPOUND
A Courtyard. To one side trees and a high iron barred grille of a barrier against the world. Facing it, the stone wall of the main building, over which was the overhang of roof designed to provide shade and shelter. Iron bolts and rings had been incorporated in the construction of the wall, a long line of graphic promise of captivity. To about half the rings was chained a girl, a naked girl, collared and linked by metal. It was their only bond. It was enough. Miss Poppy Evans and Miss Lindy Bestwick enjoyed the privilege of being prisoned side by side, someone had been kind. To either side were chained dark-eyed maidens who viewed the newcomers with immense interest. One spoke English. "You fetch big price. You not be chained here long."
"Reminds me of the Chicago stockyards." Poppy mourned. "I suppose the bastards know these collars and chain -are going to frustrate us to bits. I could scream when I think how I could walk away if it wasn't for this thing around my neck. Aw shit!"
It was a vacuum. Behind each girl chained to the wall was the drama of capture, of being kidnapped or sold. Ahead of them was a fate at which they could only guess. Probably no two would fare alike. But now, in this brief segment of their life there was nothing but the chain. The chain governed them totally.
They learned a girl could remain attached to the wall for weeks before she was sold. There was no general rule. Most were bound and taken away within ten days.
Their informant had worn her collar for twelve. She informed them proudly it was because her price was high.
They were viewed. Scarcely an hour passed when a man did not walk the line, discussing merits, making obscene examinations. They had been warned to treat such visitors with utmost deference. Sulks or wrong words earned the whip. Several girls were vividly striped. The two white girls absorbed it all and shrugged. One good thing about the collar on their necks was they could do nothing about anything anyway. They had best content themselves with being merchandise. They were studiously polite to all males.
The second day elevated Lindy to an undesired eminence. In the afternoon her collar was unlocked and she was led away. In the medieval shambles of a weird workshop she was fitted with shackles to snub her wrists and snub her ankles. They would inhibit. She could not run. She could not fight. They were needlessly heavy for a girl. She sensed them as a badge of distinction or a symbol of shame. Either way it meant she must be carried. There would never be time for her hobbled walk. If she had ever dreamed of escape, those dreams were shattered now!
The Villa was exquisite. Moorish simplicity, the patina of wealth. Scent of incense and hibiscus mingling in warm air. The tinkle of a fountain somewhere out of sight. Then, at the far end of the huge room open along one side to the desert heat, the old man. He who carried her set his burden on her feet in front of the venerable scrutiny, then left. Lindy, still unaccustomed to the weight of chains, stood in her nakedness and knew herself appraised.
"You do my house honor, girl. You are superb." The English was perfect, faintly Oxford.
"Thank you... " Lindy was trying not to blush, and wishing she knew what to do with the chains heavily pendent from her wrists. "Are you... the...?"
"I am the owner of the Estate, my dear. I am also what you were too polite to ask. I am a trader in slaves."
"Girls...?"
"Yes, girls. Like yourself. I fear there would be small profit in men."
She held up linked hands. "Why am I chained? None of the others...?"
"It is a distinction. It sets you apart."
"But they're so heavy! They riveted them on me. They can't be removed!"
"Thus no one will be tempted to seek your freedom: nor you yourself, child. When you are sold your owner may take you as you are or we will strike them off for him."
"But there must be some other reason to put all this metal on me and set me apart?"
The old man smiled and shrugged. "Indeed there is, child. You are Francesca Brunelle."
"But I'm not!" Lindy could feel the world slipping away once more. "It was Francesca who sent me here. My name is -- "
"Miss Lindy Bestwick--yes, I know." He was gravely amused by her vehemence, her fists clenched in their irons. "But the gossip of the bazaars does not know. It is bruited across this land that the incomparable terrorist maiden, Francesca Brunelle, has run afoul of a man stronger than herself and is now a slave, a slave chained in a market place awaiting purchase."
"But it's all preposterous --!"
"In America, yes. But not here." The wrinkled features were sunlit in satisfaction. "Here, a dominant female is abhorrent to all."
"May I know why? Why I must impersonate --?"
"Because you will fetch twice as much money, and because you draw from hiding certain men who desire to possess the unattainable." lindy could glimpse desert logic. She was merchandise to be attractively packaged and presented. But she discerned a flaw: "But when they see me they'll know. And, anyway, I can tell them."
The ancient smiled. "Those we seek have either never seen Francesca Brunelle or will discover your identity too late." An expressive hand waved away her objections. "But remember this. Until you are safely purchased and taken from my house you are Francesca Brunelle. You will admit to no other name. If you utter any word to impede a sale of your person I can promise you pain such as Eben al Saffra never dreamed."
He seemed so kind, radiating a benign aura as might an indulgent grandparent. Lindy stared into his steely grey eyes in perplexity. She could not forbear to plead. "Why won't you send us back home to America? You'd be repaid. We're only a couple of girls who've been kidnapped... We can't mean that much--?"
The old merchant enjoyed her spirit. She wore her irons well, unconsciously fighting them all the time. She would fetch a magnificent price. Over the years thousands of girls had been chained to his wall, enriching him, finding their own destinies in a thousand strange captivities. His words were relentless, but spoken with compassion.
"You are not mine to send anywhere, child. I act as agent. In your country I might be called a broker."
"But you are powerful, I'm sure you are. You could influence--"
"My dear, you are but one of many who has stood where you now stand or worn her collar against my wall, all enslaved. Who am I to single out any one of you and return her to an unwarranted freedom she would probably misuse."
"Unwarranted...? Misuse...?"
"Slavery is an honorable estate, child. Fate has placed irons upon your limbs: let them be. What is it you seek to return to? Suburban gossip, mortgages, pabulum, and a husband you control by nagging. A man not always potent. There is nothing there to mourn."
"But freedom...?"
"There is no freedom in a society in which women rule." Humor glinted in the sharp eyes. "You are all enslaved by the Department Store."
Lindy Bestwick sighed. She supposed she was listening to the wisdom of the East. Certainly it was a philosophy to which her irons would compel her to conform. Without resentment she agreed: "I will do as you wish." She offered a rueful grin. "I have already been taught obedience. I'm sure you will approve of me."
"I would doubt those words from some, child. I believe them from you."
"Could you not keep me here, sir? Use me? I am fearful of being sold."
"You flatter me and do me honor, my dear. But alas, no. Your price is more than I wish to pay."
"Am I allowed to know my price?"
"A plurality of millions, child. To those with oil money is of little moment."
If the irons had been heavy before, they were doubly so now. If she was such a fleshy treasure escape became chimerical. The metal restraints riveted on her limbs became logic. Stolidly, she said: "Thank you for telling me. I--I had no idea of so huge a sum. It frightens me." She shook her hair aside to look him in the eye. "But you had me brought before you here for a purpose. Are there other instructions?"
The old man shook his head. "With others I would repeat and emphasize, perhaps threaten. But there is no need of that with you. I am glad to have had this opportunity to meet and to talk. I was curious... " They looked at each other in the sadness of immutability. Ships passing in the night. But when Lindy was once more picked up and carried to the wall she was strangely comforted.
Except for Poppy Evans, Lindy Bestwick's irons evoked only envy. She had become special and priceless and would be purchased by only the richest of men. But Poppy put her finger on the nub: "There's something about this Francesca kick, darling. They're setting you up."
"Well, there's nothing I can do about it."
"Are they very awful, darling? Those iron wristlets and anklets and all those links?"
The irons did not matter. Lindy made the gradual discovery with surprise. Had it not been for the collar and tether locked on her neck, the chains would have been a constant frustration. But, collared and chained to the wall as she was, they mattered little. She could not go anywhere, there was nothing to do except sit, talk and sleep. The chain between her wrists was about a twelve-inch span, the linkage between her anklets perhaps twenty. Since she was already captive they hampered her not at all. Their weight was a constant reminder of enslavement... but the collar had been that anyway. Soon she was wearing them with faint pride.
But the shackles made her the focus of unwelcome attention from the men who sought to buy. True, they all walked the full line of expectant girls, but they stood eyeing her with a knowledge of their own. If there were two or more of them they discussed her fervidly in a language she did not understand. Their communication with her was mostly by signs: 'Stand up,' 'Turn around.' Lindy postured passively for their approval. Bored by the long hours of sitting in chains, she finally got to asserting her breasts, her hips, sucking in her tummy. Or even to deliberately posing with her chained hands clasped at the back of her neck. Ennui was their enemy as other girls were sold and taken away but they remained. Lindy suspected many would have purchased her but did not have her stupendous price. She had the feeling of auction merchandise on which a reserve bid had been made.
The sale of Poppy Evans was a devastating blow. It happened with a prosaic absence of drama to leave Lindy utterly bereft. A customer and one of the trader's staff had stopped and carried on the familiar discussion of the white girls merits. Posing for purchase had become an amusing game. Both girls made a wanton display of naked charms, winking at each other but gazing at a possible owner with adoring respect. But this time they had done it once too often. Decisive words were said, rope was produced. Poppy's hands were bound behind her back, her elbows were cinched and knotted, her collar was unlocked to fall upon the sand. When it became obvious she was to be led away Lindy implored: "Buy me too. Please buy me? Please...?"
The customer was flattered and amused. He spread his arms in a gesture of impotence, dismissing her plea with three regretful words.
"Price too high."
Distraught, Lindy pulled to the limit of her tether. It was not enough. She fell to her knees and held out chained hands in supplication. "I will be a good slave... I will be obedient. Please buy me... Please buy me?" But there was only a shrug from the man and an anguished appeal from Poppy's eyes as she was led away. The purchased girl looked back over a bare wracked shoulder again and again in mute agony until she was taken from view. Lindy Bestwick looked down at the open collar with its chain trailing slackly to the ring in the stone, and wept. Great gusts of sobbing she could not control. She was alone.
The days were as featureless as the wall to which the girls were chained. The girls came and went. Men paused to examine and to exchange ribaldry about nipples and pubic hair. Lindy came to recognize the local dialect's appellation for a female's vagina. It was a 'puta.' She supposed it as good a term as any.
A new girl was now locked in Poppy's collar. She was little more than a child, somewhere in her early teens. She had been stolen from a convent in a distant part of the country, and thus spoke passable English. Her ecclesiastic background appeared to have enhanced, rather than suppressed, a natural prurience. lindy got an impression of lewd whisperings and exposures behind the backs of nuns. She was an enchanting nymph who embraced nudity as the obviously ultimate garb and wore Poppy's collar with immense panache. Her conversation was both uninhibited and naive. She appeared to regard slavery as a distinct promotion over the Nunnery, a move upward in social status.
"Now I get fucked." She announced with satisfaction.
"Not here, you won't." Lindy assured. "Wait 'till you're sold."
"You lucky girl, you been fucked very much."
Had she? Compared to town pushovers her carnal experiences were limited, most of them under duress, some in the category of rape. Offhandedly, she counseled. "Don't expect too much of a man pushing his thing inside you. It isn't always fun."
"But it feels so good with tongue! We use tongues very much when nuns cannot see." lindy remembered Raoul. Was he the only one! Idly, she wondered about Harry Broadbent. Would he be good in bed, or was he one of the inhibited suburbanites derided by the ancient slave trader whose chains she bore. She shrugged the image away. She would never know!
"Will I be whipped?" The young voice was eager. "Probably. We all get whipped sooner or later."
"I want it very much. It wets the cunt, does it not?"
"It seems to: I don't know why. But it hurts terribly. Don't ever ask for it."
"Can always ask by being bad. Nuns bare our bottoms and whip hard with cane. Is lovely." lindy wondered if any American poppet could voice such lascivity with equal relish. Girls from W.R.A.P. certainly had no such background. She herself had not found the whip an aphrodisiac. But, on the other hand, her pussy had been lubricated by the pain...! "They'll whip you harder here." She admonished. "You're a big girl now."
"And all naked! Is so nice. All along wall where girls chained are cunts. Lovely plump cunts, nicer than mine."
"Yours is lovely too. It will get plump soon enough. Can't you talk about something else?"
The youthful smile became puzzled. "Is nothing else. Maybe for nuns but for girls is only cunts."
It was a simple philosophy. Lindy envied its uncomplicated candor. But, for adults, it was sterile like the whisperings in washrooms long ago. Relentlessly, the nymphet voice returned her to carnality.
"Why you chained so? You dangerous?"
"No, I'm expensive."
"Nuns tie our hands behind back for punish when we finger clit." The young voice might have been discussing weather. "Was very bad. Cannot do much with hands behind back. But chains not matter for you. You still play with pussy." The tone became dolorous. "If chain not so short I come and play."
"They don't like us playing."
There was nothing else to say. On the following day the nymphet was sold. Her collar, still warm from the young neck, was locked on the throat of a curvaceous female package without a word of English who smiled and shrugged and shrugged again, but that was all. Miss Lindy Bestwick was more alone than ever.
Chains. A constant tugging at her neck from the links to the ring. Hot dry air, and a line of feminine breasts and bottoms in both directions. They were beautiful nudes, as was she herself, but lindy was tired of them. A man might have been enraptured but for a girl it was only bread on bread. Little by little she found herself longing to be bought.
The game she had played with Poppy had lost its zest. But Lindy played it now in a seeking for escape from the wall and the chains. Any male who appeared reasonably civilized was regaled by poses and postures she would once have rejected as outrageous. It was also a sport she might not win. The attire of Arabs was apt to be anything from Brooks Brothers to the robe of a mendicant. Their intimate inspections of her body could not be much less than offensive. To select a desirable owner was, in the end, very much a matter of chance. She tried to eliminate the unsavoury by a listless show of apathy while they scrutinized her breasts and sex. One of them surprised her.
"Your name, girl?"
Intuition sparked caution. Sulkily, she obeyed instructions. "I think you know who I am."
"Never mind that! Tell me your name."
"Francesca Brunelle."
"You were the terrorist, with Broussard?"
Lindy shrugged disdainfully. "If you say so."
It was enough. The man nodded and beckoned a guard. His words were crisply decisive. "I will buy this one. Were is the office?"
Lindy's heart pounded. She had been sold! Her purchaser was civilized. But she had no feeling he had bought her at all. He had bought a name. He did not want a female body, he wanted Francesca. Uneasily, she watched his retreating back. Halfway to the distant door it was joined by a second guard. Neatly and efficiently they used their knives, then dragged the lifeless body of her purchaser from the Courtyard. Half the chained girls failed to notice the event.
She was merchandise. But she was also bait. She remembered the old man's words that she would lure those who wished to own Francesca Brunelle, lure them to death! Breathlessly, Lindy glimpsed the possibility of not being for sale at all. They had made her price so high no one would pay. She was there as a tasty morsel, a terrorist female in chains... an erotic enticement. She could well understand a male desire to possess the nakedness of such a girl.
The incident left Lindy Bestwick trembling. There were dark forces at work with her, perhaps to keep her chained there indefinitely. Or perhaps some unknown evil was appeased, thus releasing her for an early sale. How could she know! And anyway what did it matter! She was held firmly in a tide she could not stem.
The days passed to the moment when, listlessly, she watched the guard and the customer approach slowly down the line. The buyer was very much Brooks Brothers but nonetheless prodded female flesh as lewdly as a robed lecher from the desert. It was not until the men were two girls distant that intuition caused her to raise his eyes. The prospective customer was staring straight at her, not at the girl by whom he stood, but at the slave named Francesca Brunelle. He held a finger to his lips and winked. It was Harry Broadbent.
Recognition had taken only bare moments. While Lindy's heart was still thudding painfully Broadbent returned his attention to breasts and buttocks and inquiries as to price. His inspection of the two nudities preceding her gave the chained girl time for composure. lindy fervently hoped the guard would fail to evaluate her blush.
She had blushed little of late. A girl can get toughened to anything. Enforced nakedness before a hundred eyes renders her immune to the lasciviousness of herself as an object of male desire. She had stood and posed often with her thoughts elsewhere than on the hungry eyes feasting on her flesh.
But now now! She was quivering in both shame and anxiety as she stood erect and proud for Broadbent's pleasure. But she could not control her blush, it mantled her mischeviously in spreading pink. When neither man appeared to notice her declaration of modesty she was piqued.
He had to use his hands on her. But when he did it was as though they were hot irons. The naked girl had to brace herself against the currents of both shame and longing Harry Broadbent's fingers generated in her flesh. Her nostrils flared as she sought his eyes, but he would not meet her gaze. He was beautifully casual. "This is the expensive one, eh? How much?"
"Three Million U.S. Dollars."
Broadbent laughed derisively. "What's she got that's so special?"
"Is white. Is Francesca Brunelle."
"Oh, that one!" Broadbent laughed. "They told me about her." Unseen by the guard, he winked again. "Too rich for my blood, I'm afraid. The way you keep her chained, she must be dangerous?"
"Has fine spirit. Very good to whip."
There was laughter, and a switch to the dialect in which the man from the Consulate appeared fluent.
They moved on to the next girl. Mortified by her own exposure of her own nakedness, Lindy rearranged her chains and sat back against the wall. He had never seen her naked like this before. She was trembling.
Miss Lindy Bestwick's deliverance from slavery was effected with expeditious simplicity. The slave compound maintained but a single guard through the night. Whilst two large robed figures dealt forcibly and silently with this custodian, Harry Broadbent used bolt cutters on the final link of Lindy's tether, picked her up and carried her from the Courtyard to a battered van waiting beyond the already severed grille of the wall. He tossed in the bolt cutters and then his female prize. On the floor of the van was a heavy rug. On this, the still chained girl, made her rescue as comfortable as she could as the anonymous vehicle bumped its way to whatever destination Broadbent had in mind.
Lindy saw her present discomfort as a definite improvement on the tether and the wall. But she was not free, she was chained. Neatly out of sight inside the van she was as much Broadbent's prisoner as she had been captive to others. The shackles were probably meaningless. He had not wanted to take the time to cut her free. Also he had not put her in the seat with himself because there she would be seen. It was so easy to rationalize. In the dark she felt for the bolt cutters, but they were heavy and awkward, she probably could not handle them successfully. In any case, if her rescuer wanted her chained, why bother! If he was going to deliver her back to prison there was not much she could do about it anyway. When the speeding wheels found the surface of a road, lindy Bestwick slept.
The crumbling ruin hid the van and gave shade to the man and the girl. Discomfort and doubt faded into an aura of romance as lindy watched swift male hands prepare the picnic and pour coffee from a thermos. The aroma of the brew was heaven.
"You were in the van to keep you out of sight, and you're chained because I have to talk to you." He grinned and winked. "D'you mind?"
"No, I don't mind." At that moment Lindy could not have cared less. Wryly, she added: "But it means you don't trust me?"
"Did our last meeting give me any reason to?"
"No... I suppose it didn't. Sorry! But how can I thank you for what you're doing! I can't yet comprehend--"
"Coffee?" He placed the mug for her. D'you want this rug?"
Accepting the proffered covering brought back her blush. But with it round her shoulders she felt stifled as in a tent. When it slipped on her bare skin she let it fall. She was surprised at herself but found it easy to say: "Don't let's bother. I can't be clutching it all the time, and you've had a good look at me naked. I can't be any more naked than I am. Let it ride."
"Okay. I'll look at you, but I expect you're used to that. C'mon, let's eat, drink and be merry."
"Are we safe here?"
"That was a seven-hour ride, and we crossed a border."
She sensed he was still assessing her, still unsure, still seeing her as a convict or an outlaw. But let him ask his questions! In the meantime Lindy joyously ate and drank. Her spirits rose.
"I couldn't get you out of my mind." Broadbent offered it as almost an apology. "But there was something wrong, I was sure there was. Tell me about it."
Miss Lindy Bestwick recounted the shames and pains of her captivities, and of Poppy's sale. Mischievously, she made much play with her shackles. Let him be embarrassed about them! She hoped he was. "I suppose I can't expect you to believe any of it?" She finished doubtfully.
"I can certainly believe the last bit." He grinned companionably. "Seeing is believing. You were most certainly up for sale. Sorry I didn't have the three million, and there's no way the consulate could dig it up."
"You did very well without it. I'm so grateful...!"
"Went off well, eh. Just a bribe or two. I borrowed the van and the bolt cutters. The Consulate is looking the other way, they don't want to know."
"If they weren't interested in me, then why --?" Lindy could feel the beginnings of another blush. "I mean--you didn't owe me--?"
Harry Broadbent tilted her chin and kissed her in a brotherly sort of way. It was nice. It was comforting. Lindy listened breathlessly.
"I'm a sentimental guy." Broadbent admitted soberly. "You have to admit our--let's call it an association. What we've seen of each other has been story book stuff. Damn romantic, if you're inclined that way."
"All girls are."
'Most fellows too, probably." He shrugged and gazed at his nude prize in amused vexation. "Anyway, I realized that if I did nothing more about you, just let you disappear, it would bother me to bits. I couldn't forget the handcuffed girl I saw in that cell. The more I thought about those handcuffs, the less they made sense."
"But you didn't believe a word I said?"
"Well... there were the records, y'know. Consulate staff have to consider local manners and customs -- and let me tell you some of 'em are damned odd. A pair of handcuffs on a girl here doesn't raise an eyebrow the way it would in the LLS.A."
He had remembered her! He had wanted her! He had rescued her at both cost and risk to himself! Lindy's heart was racing as he laid open the reactions by which they came to sit where they now were.
"Then came the Francesca Brunelle affair." Broadbent continued slowly. "You put on a damn good act. But I picked up vibrations from all three of you. Your transformation into a Terrorist was too swift and too pat. There had to be something wrong."
"But how did you trace --?"
"Oh, that's easy for a Consulate. We have feelers, and we sit on fences... That slave market I took you from is famous all over the place in an underground sort of way. There's more than one American girl been sold there. We have to be careful about heroic rescues, it's the last thing some of 'em want."
They picnicked. They exchanged grins. The ruin sheltered them and divorced them from the world. They were a man and a girl. The girl was naked and far from home, there was something she must know. Lindy lifted an ironed wrist and rattled its chain. Her voice was tense: "Are these shackles your way of telling me I must go back to prison?"
"That was the general idea."
"So that when you broke the news I couldn't... be difficult?"
"Right."
"But, even like this, I can give you trouble. I could probably break all this picnic stuff before you got me under control."
"Hmmmmmmm, yes. Well maybe. But you can't run away."
"That's the important thing, isn't it? To get me back behind iron bars?"
"If you don't serve out that sentence it will hang over your head forever. There's no extradition now, but there could be." Broadbent chuckled. "Would you want to cross half the world in a plane handcuffed to a wardress?"
"They treated me worse in that prison than in the slave compound. I've told you some of the tortures, hateful things. They hurt me so bad I'd have told them any secret, if I'd had one to tell." Her eyes pleaded. "I don't want to go back to either place. No way!"
"Suppose I could arrange it for you to serve your sentence in the U.S.?"
"Oh, no! That would be awful. I'd be a jailbird, a convict, and everyone would know--and anyway I never did anything. All those bits of paper, the records, were cooked up to delude you. I never did anything bad in this country at all, I didn't have time. Neither did Poppy."
Broadbent waited, saying nothing.
"And there's something else I want to know." Lindy demanded. "I've told you about being raped. I was raped so many times I lost count. Does that make any difference to men? Am I soiled? I mean, is it true men always think rape's a girl's own fault?"
"You mean does it make any difference to me?"
"Yes, I suppose that's what I mean. Does it?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Broadbent chuckled. "Again, we have to remember where we are. A girl as beautiful as you absolutely should not be walking around free and on her own here. W.R.A.P. knows that. They've been told that if they must use girls in their activities they should recruit only the homeliest they can find." Lindy relaxed. She allowed her chained hands to fall. But demanded. "Well, Harry Broadbent, what are you going to do with me?"
"Send you back home to the U.S."
It was stupendous. Earth shattering. Miss Lindy Bestwick was re-born. But she was feminine, and piqued! Once more lifting shackled hands, she inquired demurely: "Like this?"
"Sorry! I've been a bit of a bastard. But we needed this talk. I believe everything you've said." Broadbent picked up the bolt cutters. "Hold out your hands, slavegirl, you're about to be emancipated."
It was an exquisite sensation to watch the steel jaws bite through her iron bonds. When both spans of chain had fallen to the sand Harry was apologetic: "I don't have the tools for the bands on your wrists and ankles. They're too heavy and they're riveted."
"I don't mind. It's so wonderful to be free. What about the collar on my neck? The padlock?"
But the hardened steel of the lock defeated the blades. "You've got a necklace until we get back to town." Harry said ruefully. "I'll get everything off you right quick then, and you'll be clothed."
"I don't mind that either. I'd sort of like to keep this collar as a reminder never to come here again. I can put it on myself anytime I feel restless." She turned and faced the man. "Harry, I want you to love me."
"But, Lindy, you don't owe --!"
"It isn't owing, it's wanting." Seeing his hesitation, she added: "Take me. I'll be hurt if you don't." Slyly, she suggested: "You can blame my outrageous behavior on the country."
Harry Broadbent took her.
When they returned to the world he took a bag from the van. When Lindy had donned everything it contained she felt hot and overdressed and uncomfortable. I'd sooner be naked." She confessed. "I'm wanton."
"You can't be naked, not where I'm taking you." This time they shared the van's only seat.
CHAPTER FIVE - FREEDOM
The Big Apple absorbed Miss Lindy Bestwick as a sponge drinks water. It provided her with a job, a minute apartment, and enough money to send her shopping on a Saturday. It also offered a sprinkling of males anxious to offer her a bed or share her own. It was an exciting freedom into which she blended as an anonymous particle of a huge mass. New York was as different from Indiana or Rabaul as a girl could get. The girl who had been a slave soaked up its sights and sounds in a tremendous surge of liberation. It took her a month to realize she was lonely, and another thirty days to discover she was bored.
Instead of a comforting male presence in bed and a comforting male paycheck every week she wrote letters. She and Harry Broadbent had, with an absurd overconfidence in common sense, agreed their colorful adventure an insufficient base from which to leap into marriage. They could share his next leave together and take it from there. In the meantime they could write.
Lindy Bestwick was not the first girl to discover the falsity of the pen. The Harry Broadbent emerging from his letters was not the same man who had taken her on the sand of the ancient ruin in the desert. Assiduously she mailed her envelopes, but knew they did not contain the chained and naked girl who had offered herself wantonly to the Male. It posed a dilemma.
She kept the slave collar in a drawer beside her bed. The original padlock had been destroyed in its removal from her neck, but she bought a replica and carefully hid the two keys in safe and separate places. In her first days alone in the apartment she would sometimes lock the metal band upon herself and revel in its defeat. She could remove it at will. She held its key. It could no longer hold her captive to the wall. She fingered it before the mirror, deriding its impotence, using it as a symbol of her new freedom emphasizing her repossession of herself. Locked round her neck it spoke of slavery, but she was free!
Strangely, the slave collar became an obsession. Lindy knew she was spending too much time alone without excitement, but dismissed the ordinary trivia of entertainment. Slowly as the days passed she found herself taking the metal collar from its drawer more and more often, and leaving it locked upon her neck for longer and longer periods. It seemed inevitable that when she wore the padlocked circlet she discard her clothes. This, too, became a rite which eventually compelled her to sleep naked with the slave iron on her throat. It evoked the most exciting dreams for her, they should have been nightmares but were not. Soon, she spent all her time in the apartment nude and collared, assuring herself blithely it was not in nostalgia but in a joyous assertion of liberty such as other girls could never know.
It was into this oddly erotic isolation Fate dropped the letter. It contained an expensively engraved invitation to attend an 'At Home' at the residence of Mr. Shirraf Ben Maddara. The address was equally expensive. The time was for a Saturday afternoon two days distant.
The name meant nothing, but brought a shivering reaction. Lindy put away her collar and put on her clothes. It was not Eben al Saffra but it evoked the wrong memories. In spare moments at business she phoned. But her inquiries drew either a blank or a discreet rebuff. Mr. Shirraf Ben Maddara did exist, but was not for the likes of her. On Saturday afternoon she presented herself and her card. Miss lindy Bestwick was female and had to know!
Money. Good taste. A mixture of East and West. In an overpowering aura of wealth the girl who had been a slave followed the sleek but deferential maid through halls and patios to the door. It was thrown open with a flourish for her to enter.
"Poppy!"
"lindy, lindy, Lindy... oh, darling!"
They enveloped themselves on a fervour of arms and legs and thrusting knees. lindy's lips appeased a hunger too long denied. It was many moments before they broke apart to feast their eyes.
"Darling, isn't this wonderful!"
"But, Poppy, how--how --?"
Poppy wore gossamer pantaloons and a tiny vest of gold lame which revealed a breast every time she moved. Her neck was collared by a bronze band bearing a tell-tale bronze ring. She bubbled over into a cascade of words.
"He's wonderful, Lindy. He buys me everything. He's so terribly rich, he bought me off that guy you saw take me away. When I cried a lot about you he made inquiries and tracked you down. Darling... he can do anything--"
"But--but... you're in New York?"
"It shows you how rich he is." Poppy was bursting with pride. "He's got houses all over the world. This is his U.S.A. place. I don't think we're going to be here long."
"Has he fallen in love with you? Are you married..?" Poppy giggled. "He has to like me, for sure. We're simply terrific together in bed. There was this old boy who mumbled something over us in a mosque and I said yes to everything. But, as far as I know, I'm still a slave. He keeps me chained and whips me at the drop of a hat."
"Poppy, this is nuts! I don't see any chain?"
"Well, no." Poppy looked sheepish. "It shows you how kind he is. He gave me freedom this afternoon so I could entertain you."
"Good! Cover yourself and let's get out of here. You can come and live with me." Lindy was vehemently decisive. "You'll never have a better chance to escape."
"Escape!" Poppy appeared genuinely shocked. "I don't want to escape. I'd have to be nuts to go away from all this!"
Lindy gazed around at splendor. She gazed at a complacent Poppy. The two girls gazed solemnly at each other before dissolving into laughter.
"This is crazy!"
"Sure. Crazy and lovely and wonderful. Darling, you're going to meet Shirraf. You'll see what I mean."
"But, you say he chains and whips you! Who wants that!"
"I do." Poppy shrugged apologetically. "He can chain and whip me all he likes in exchange for all the rest."
"But what's he want you chained for if you don't want to leave?"
"He gets a kick out of seeing me chained, and I think it's something to do with his religion." Poppy grinned reassuringly. "Don't look so sad for me. Shirraf takes me out and around a lot. All the best places. We wine and dine--and I told you we're good in bed." She eyed Lindy hopefully, imploring approval. "Darling, I know the chains and punishments make me seem a nothing to anyone who doesn't know. But you know. There's a lot more to my Master and me than -- "
"Poppy!" Lindy was aghast. "You call him Master?" The slavegirl giggled. "He insists. I'm punished if I forget."
Lindy took a deep breath. Through her mind flitted a brief memory of the aged Slave Trader and her wish to be enslaved by him rather than return to the collar and the wall. Poppy was happy, and surely that was what mattered. Yet, doubtfully, she had to ask: "But, Poppy sweetheart, you're not really free! I don't think you're free at all. Isn't freedom what matters most?"
"Are you free?"
lindy squirmed. It. was the ancient platitude that no one was ever free, that life itself was a servitude. In a wry admission she agreed: "Well, I've often thought of my little pay check as I thought of the chain tethering me to the wall. It allows me to go just so far, then I'm snubbed. But I'm not sure the parallel's valid."
"Oh, it's true alright." The slavegirl shrugged. "How free would I be if I ran back to what I was. Hell, you used to think being fucked was the absolute end. But fucking was the only thing I ever got to do when I was what you call free."
"Okay, okay!" lindy held up a placating hand. "You're right and I'm wrong." She laughed ruefully. "After Rabaul I don't pretend to know anything. You're a tonic. I needed you."
Poppy waved a portentous hand. "I've just remembered something." She reached under the couch and dragged forth a set of leg irons. "If I'm not wearing these when Shirraf comes home I'd be in deep shit."
"Why-?"
"Because he took 'em off me so I could give you a royal welcome and you wouldn't be shocked. But he laid down the law they'd be back on my feet by the time he showed up." She snapped the heavy anklets on herself. "Aren't they gorgeous? All my chains have been specially made."
The heavy bronze links and anklets were beautifully made indeed. Everything about the place bespoke aesthetic appreciation. Remembering her own iron collar and padlock, Lindy could not deny envy. She laughed. "Now you can't walk."
"Yes I can. I've been made to practice. Watch me." Admittedly the chain was not short, but it was still a chain on a girl's feet. Poppy coped with it in a graceful saunter to the bar. She clinked musically. But, returning with filled glasses, she did not spill a drop. "You mean... he lets you drink?"
"Oh sure." Poppy sipped happily. "I only get whipped if I get drunk." She grinned and winked. "So I don't get drunk. Who says the whip isn't good for girls?"
Lindy raised her glass. "Here's to slavegirls!"
They drank the toast in solemn merriment.
Shirraf Ben Maddara was easy to like. Suavely middle-aged, intelligent features, gravely courteous, lindy suspected he was amused by his slavegirl and her guest. His eyes unashamedly stripped her bare and made an assessment of her curves she was sure was accurate. He undoubtedly was enchanted with his slave. Lindy, intercepting glances, could easily suppose them in love. Seated at dinner, he asked quizzically: "Well?" lindy twinkled back. "Yes, I envy her. She's a lucky girl."
"She does not always think so."
"I am sure such occasions are her own fault."
"You can stop talking about whipping me." Poppy pouted. "I am becoming the perfect slave. Soon I won't need to be whipped at all."
"An unwhipped woman follows no path." Shirraf quoted gently. "I will ensure she places her steps with care."
"Why don't you whip Lindy, Master? She never gets whipped now."
The master gave his guest his full attention. "I would be honored to be of service?"
They enjoyed her blush. It was Lindy's only answer. Shirraf returned to her. "The last few months have imposed extreme contrasts on you, Miss Bestwick. I am curious as to your reactions?"
"I wish I had some. I'm lost."
He was amused. "Proves my point, eh? But I must not belabour the obvious. If W.R.A.P. wanted you to return, would you?"
"No, I'd be too scared."
"Of what?"
"Of being kidnapped again, or put in prison for something I didn't do. I might even be mistaken for that woman again. Ugh!"
He enjoyed her vehemence, but persisted. "My slave is fond of you, I find you charming. If I offered you the protection of my house would you honor us both by a visit?"
"Of course I would! Oh, yes!" The response was spontaneous. Lindy heard herself make it as though it was another's voice. Then, memories prompted caution. "But would I -- ? I mean... Would you want --?"
"She's trying to ask you if she has to take her clothes off and wear chains, Master." Poppy laughed. "I can tell what she's thinking."
Shirrafs gesture was of unconcern. "The choice is yours, Miss Bestwick. Which would you prefer?"
"I honestly don't know."
"It does not matter." Shirraf waved her hesitancy into limbo. "I suggest you return with us: perhaps a week or two?"
"I'll have to give up my job?"
"Probably no loss. Oh, please understand, you will have no need of money."
It was warm. It was exciting. It was wonderful, lindy basked in Poppy's affection and Shirrafs interest. In vexation, she thrust away an erotic fantasy of herself and Poppy owned by this man, enslaved in splendor. Shackled feet and semi nudity seemed a small price. She returned to earth with a thud at her host's next words.
"Have you felt no concern about safety, Miss Bestwick? You have offended two powerful forces."
"Safety? Here in New York? You mean --?"
"Yes. The slave trader from whose premises you were wrested. His name is Raschid El Talif, a highly respected man, a power. And the Terrorist pair. The man is negligible but the woman is a force. It is not that they have any need of you, but pride and honor are involved."
"But they can't touch me here!"
"They can touch any girl anywhere, my dear." Shirraf smiled at lindy's dismay. "I could make a telephone call, and within a few days you would find yourself securely bound and on your way to whatever destination I choose."
lindy's spine felt the cold touch of fear. This man would know of what he spoke. She was glad he was a friend. Poppy's excited exclamation dragged her back from the abyss.
"Master! Please do that. Take lindy. She's a gorgeous slave."
"Do I need two of you, dear child?" Shirraf gazed at his possession with an indulgent eye. "What of jealousy?"
"I'd never be jealous of Lindy, not ever. Oh, please? It's such a wonderful idea." She turned imploringly to the embarrassed guest. "You'd love to be a slave here with me, wouldn't you?"
"Poppy, behave yourself." Lindy felt like a disapproving aunt. But, at the same time, she was feeling the stirrings of eroticism and seeing visions. Poppy was sweet and her owner was charming. But was there an iron hand beneath Shirrafs velvet glove! She did not think so. But still...! "I refuse to commit myself." She said demurely. "If your Master desires me he can obviously take me, I've nothing to say about it."
"You are quite safe, Miss Bestwick. It would be a case of you asking for the protection of my House. No other way."
Lindy glimpsed incongruity. "But then I'd be asking for a job, a job as a slave girl! That's crazy. We've got something backwards."
"There are those who ask for enslavement, Miss Bestwick. It is not an aberration."
"But I'm thinking of that slave market." Lindy was indeed thinking hard. "If men like yourself can have any one of us kidnapped and delivered as a package, why not? Why bother with the traders and the Market?"
He chuckled, pleased by her reasoning. "A tailor does not make his own shoes, my dear, he buys them from a shoemaker. We Arabs are a conventional lot. We are not kidnappers. The Slave Market is an old tradition and those who operate it are honorable men. So we do as our forefathers did. We do not create a slavegirl, we buy her. If the girl harbors resentment it is against her kidnapper, not against us."
"But you have to break her spirit, train her, whip her into submission --?"
Shirraf chuckled. "By the time we get her she is usually docile. Much has happened to divorce her from what she was." His eyes twinkled. "At the end of your chaining to the wall of Raschid El Talife would you have needed to be whipped into submission?"
"No." Lindy was honest but embarrassed. "I suppose it's what Poppy and I learned long ago: a slavegirl can't win. Her only hope is to be lucky. Every girl chained to that wall with me dreamed of a Master like you."
"Yet I am often cruel?"
"That's part of slavery. Girls adjust to it. It absolves us from decision and tells us what we are."
"Miss Bestwick, you are a jewel. A man who owned you would be greatly blessed."
This time, all three of them laughed.
Doubts were inevitable. Lindy discounted them. Life had shown her a strange new world, against which her apartment and her job shrank into insignificance. She returned to nakedness and the iron collar. Both had taken on a new plausibility. She looked often at her collared nudity in the mirror: chiding herself for believing it was how Shirraf would wish to see her. She puzzled over why bare skin and a metal band round her neck should be reassuring. It was! But the answer, if there was one, was obscure. It took her a couple of days to catch up with her letter writing to Harry Broadbent. But she did not mention her visit to Poppy, or the invitation. There was time enough...!"
Shirrafs call came on the fourth day. His voice on the phone set her spine to tingling, but she sobered at what he said.
"Poppy and I would like you to run over this evening, Miss Bestwick. My car will pick you up. Could you manage?"
"Of course."
"The visit is only partly social, my dear." She could tell he was amused and smiling. "The fact is, Poppy has misbehaved. She is to be punished. She has asked for you to be present."
"But why? Isn't it best between the two of you?"
"She wishes it. I wish it too." Again the humor. "I suspect our motives are different."
"If you're going to whip her, I don't want to see."
"Please? It means something to both of us."
Lindy could not refuse, nor did she truly want to. Excitement speeded her pulse as she followed the same maid, but this time not to the same room.
Poppy stood very straight and very nude. Her wrists were strapped to a bar above her head, her feet were separated and tied to rings in the floor. It was a familiar and cruelly evocative pose, screaming of intent. Seated to one side was the 'Master,' quietly reading.
"Miss Bestwick, this is so kind--such short notice. We have been waiting for you."
Without any trace of embarrassment, the girl to be whipped looked back over a bare shoulder. "Darling, you're so sweet. I'm so glad you made it."
Shock was absent. The atmosphere was relaxed. Once, this would have been a nightmare but now it was simply something that happened in which she was involved. A girl had been naughty and was about to be whipped. The room spoke of what it was, a place of punishment.
"Darling, don't ask me what I did. I was terribly silly. I deserve what my Master's going to give me." Poppy scarcely paused before asking: "Do I look nice? I mean, like this? I always think it shows a girl off to good advantage."
"You look beautiful."
"She always looks beautiful." Shirraf said blandly. "Please take this chair while I do what must be done." He cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "Or would you like to whip our naked delinquent?"
"Good heavens, no! I'd be no good -- "
"She and I would be grateful if you could?"
"Honest, darling, I'd love you to whip me. It was me who asked." The slavegirl again looked back, wide- eyed and hopeful. "I absolutely have to be whipped. You wouldn't be doing something that isn't going to happen."
Poppy was a sweetheart. A far sweeter girl than the one in the prison cell at Rabaul. Whatever her feelings for her owner might be, they had softened and changed her. Lines across her bottom bespoke previous punishments. Instead of making excuses, Lindy clasped the taut nudity in her arms and kissed it hard. Then retired to the chair as an audience of one. She was positive the culprit's heart was beating no more painfully than her own.
Black pants, a white shirt, and a whip. Shirraf Ben Maddara was attired for justice. He bowed formally to the guest, he kissed his slave. "You will forgive me...?" Even the first blow was punishment. What was happening was vividly real. lindy stared breathlessly as a pink line turned to crimson across ivory shoulders and straps creaked against a naked response. The Master allowed a leisurely pause before adding the second weal, and then a third. Poppy's stoicism broke before a strangled cry. The helpless nudity writhed and tore against its bindings.
It was too much! She had never wanted to witness pain. In all the cruelties of Rabaul they had never beheld each other's travail. With a gasp of empathy, Lindy sped to clasp the hurt loveliness in her arms and to plead. "No, you mustn't! It hurts too much. She's too sweet. Forgive her... Please, Master, forgive her." There was an electric silence. The welded girls could feel the beating of each other's heart. Poppy's tears were wet on Lindy's cheek. Miss Lindy Bestwick had used a word she had never used before. It had come naturally from her lips. It seemed a trifling slip, but it hung heavily potent in the room.
Shirraf s hand, gentle on Lindy's arm, released the spring of tension. He smoothed her hair, then patted the bare shoulder of his whipped slave. Without volition, Lindy allowed herself to be led slowly to the wall. It was as though she already guessed...! Passively, she watched her right hand raised and its wrist shackled. She was attached to the stone by no more than a foot of chain. It seemed natural and fitting this be done. In a trancelike receptiveness to the man's mood she supposed she herself would now be whipped too. The cogs and tumblers of her mind had fallen into place.
The Master returned to his slave. Poppy had recovered enough poise to wink at the shackled girl. "Isn't he wonderful, darling, he thinks of everything. You mustn't worry when I scream...!"
Poppy screamed. The Master's justice was without anger. It was not brutal, but it was unremitting. The measured cuts came slowly, one by one, marking the owner's authority upon the loveliness of back and bottom and thighs of his delinquent slave. Poppy did not plead. The sounds she did make were piteous, but it was in her writhings, her tuggings at her bonds that she found such surcease as is possible for a maiden beneath the lash.
Had it not been for Rabaul, Lindy would have gone berserk, torn at her chained wrist, become beseechingly vocal. But the desert and Talife's wall had taught her the discipline of metal bands and links. There was even a sense of peace and well-being in her inability to go to Poppy's aid. The Master had relieved her of decision. She could watch the whipping of a naked girl without guilt. She winced as each stroke impacted on quivering flesh, her prisoned hand splayed its fingers or clenched into a fist, holding taut against its tether. But that was all. Her breasts heaved tumultuously as she watched under the same trancelike compulsion as when the Master's hand had been upon her arm. Miss Lindy Bestwick was bewitched.
Twenty strokes upon a girl's bare skin! When it was done, Shirraf Ben Maddara embraced the panting nakedness of his punished slave and kissed her tenderly, again and again with an increasing passion as the slave strained against her bonds to kiss him back. lindy, watching, saw them as transcendent into a dimension of communion she had never known. Then, the Master drew away, turned and bowed again to his shackled guest, and left the room.
Neither girl burst into speech. For the moment, the pulsations of their heavy breathing was enough. When Poppy finally spoke, it was with the words Lindy had already guessed. "He's so wonderful! Oh, darling, you see what I mean about him." Then, anxiously: "You do see, don't you?"
"Yes, dear, I see."
"Did I make an awful noise, Lindy?"
"No, you were marvelous."
"You're just being sweet. I could hear myself howling. It was like I was a long way off somewhere."
"You were wonderful, and brave, and so beautiful. Poppy, I mean it. You were all those things."
"Gosh, darling, being whipped hurts something awful, doesn't it?" Poppy's exclamation was as though neither of them had been whipped before. "I wonder if a girl ever gets used to it."
"I don't think we'll ever get used to it, Poppy. We're not supposed to." Lindy was still half in her trance, her responses forming themselves on her lips. "It doesn't make you love him less, does it?"
"Gosh, no! I can't figure it. It works the other way. Along with the hurt it perks my pussy something awful." The whipped girl chuckled. "See how polite he's making me. Not long ago I'd have said cunt. Darling, I'm all sweaty from the pain. I glisten. Do I look a mess?"
"You look superb. I've never seen you more lovely. The sweat becomes you, you shine in splendor. Poppy dear, will he leave us fastened like this a long time?"
"I've no idea." Poppy giggled. "Aren't you enjoying it?"
It was a perceptive question. Miss Lindy Bestwick realized she was enjoying it very much. She looked at her shackled hand and the metal band around her wrist. It seemed more of a friend than an enemy. Someone had cared enough to lock her thus! It was a whimsical thought but it was comforting. She had not been going anywhere anyway. Poppy was far more stringently fastened but seemed unconcerned. The two of them were together. Why worry! In the same whimsical mood, she asked: "Will he whip me too, Poppy?"
"Why don't you ask him? You want him to."
It was preposterous. Her negative burst like a small but very conventional bomb. "No! Gosh, Poppy, what girl would ask a thing like that!"
You, darling. You know you're aching for attention. You've been lonely."
"Poppy, I'd have to be crazy to want that awful pain."
"But it's only awful for a little while. Poppy giggled. "If I was loose and could get at you I'd make you want it."
"Poppy!"
"Don't be Victorian, darling. Your trouble is you've got all those clothes on. You're terribly overdressed. Girls like us ought to be naked."
"What d'you mean; girls like us?"
"Slaves... "
"I'm not a slave."
"Think a bit, Lindy. You're a slave, alright. Sure, you're an escaped slave, but you're still a slave. I was sold, you escaped, but it didn't change anything." Again, it was preposterous, a thing of fantasy, a world not quite real. Lindy Bestwick clung to such a rationale. But her chained wrist was real. Poppy's bonds and wealed nakedness was real. Guiltily, she remembered the iron collar waiting for her in her apartment. All theses things pointed their finger at her derisively. They were real. It was she who wore the shadow of delusion. Sulkily, she vouchsafed: "Oh, very well then. When he comes back you can ask him to whip me."
Poppy giggled. "I'm not going to ask him. You'll have to."
But the Master did not come. It was the sleek maid who released them. Still deferential, still knowing her place, quite unshockable. She waited while the two girls exhausted their hugs and kisses and fervid assurances of phone calls. Then Poppy sped upstairs to her waiting Master and lindy was shown to the door. In the first darkness of the street a blanket enveloped her head and arms. She was dragged into a car.
Miss Lindy Bestwick was kidnapped.
CHAPTER SIX -ABDUCTION
They spared her nothing. First the blindfold, then the gag. Her arms were held while she was stripped. Then she was bound, bound with a cunning cruelty so that no matter how she turned or tugged, a cord was already there, indenting her flesh, mocking lost freedom, holding her helpless with a hopelessness Lindy recognized as final. Through the long hours of the journey she wished they had used a hypodermic on her. She would been just as safe for them and would have been spared agony. But she sensed intent in her bonds. Someone wanted her to hurt.
Apart from pain and fear, and a bitter realization of a bondage beyond the ropes, the kidnapped girl was plagued by the frustration of not knowing her abductors. Francesca or Talief? As the car sped across the hours and the miles she knew herself in the hands of underlings who spoke little, and when they did it was in the vernacular of the bowery which, supine on the back seat above the hum of wheels, she could not always hear. When she did pick up a few words they were not in reference to herself. Sometimes a finger tested the continuing tightness of her bonds.
After an eternity there came a stop. Lindy was picked up, bound, blind and mute, and carried to a bathroom. She was tended by rough female hands and told she was going to Chicago. There would be more hours and more miles. Nothing was said of her immediate plight. For all the bound girl knew, her nakedness was being ogled by a hundred eyes. Helplessly roped, she was tossed again into the back seat and the journey resumed. Lindy had never felt less of a living entity than now. She slept.
It ended frighteningly. She was carried a long way and set upon her feet. The female voice warned: "Stand still or you'll fall." Then there was silence and the smell of tobacco and liquor, a male smell, disturbing and disagreeable. But it was taking all Lindy's concentration to remain erect. Her ankles were bitten by the cord, she was stiff and in pain and tied so totally a fall was frightening. But in her helpless night vertigo was a constant threat. Somehow she must stand erect.
The gag went first. Lindy's mouth was too dry and too hurt for speech, but a large male hand supported the nape of her neck while a glass was tilted to her lips. She drank the juice gratefully, not realizing until it was gone that it had contained alcohol. Fingers fumbled at the bandage on her eyes, suddenly she could see.
It was an intelligent face, hard and lined from having seen too much. It was eyeing her now with the male assessment she knew all too well. The voice was as hard and unemotional as the face, but it chose to be jocular.
"Good trip, baby?"
It deserved no response. But the kidnapped girl sensed one was expected. Tentatively, she ventured. "It was pretty bad. The ropes are hurting terribly."
"Good. They're supposed to. It's called the 'Rocky' treatment for beginners. There's more to come."
"Could I be untied? At least, my feet?"
"When I say so. He surveyed her dourly. "You do what I say always, and you don't ask questions. If you're wondering why you're here, it's because a friend of mine got the job of picking you up for someone else, but when we had a look at you we figured you was too good to waste. I keep a stable. You're now one of my girls. Savvy?"
"Not really."
"You're now a whore, Baby. A prostitute, a chippie, a hooker. Pick your own label. You ever spread your legs for cash before?"
"No. Do I have anything to say about it now?"
"No, you don't. Every day the girls get taken to the Club. Each one's got a quota: she don't make her quota she gets whipped. I'm starting you at five hundred, rising to seven the second week." He laughed at Lindy's incredulity. "Don't look so shocked, kid, it's a cinch at a hundred a trick and tips."
Lindy understood why she had been left bound. Had she been free she would have been tugging at a door or window or hitting this cynical gangster with a bottle from his own plush bar. A whore! Working without pay for a brutal pimp! Captive in an unsavoury scene! At that moment Lindy would have preferred Francesca or Talief. They would have punished her cruelly, but she would not have been obliged to sell her body nightly in the sordid murkiness of a night club. Woodenly, she asked: "If I told you the name of someone who might pay ransom for me, would you contact them?"
"Someone value your ass that much, eh?" He was amused. "But, no way, baby. It's messy and gets the Feds in. Besides, you're a useful property. If I kick your butt enough to keep you on the bit you should last ten years."
It was the end of everything, the very dregs of fate. The bindings of her now told plainly there would be no escape. She thought of Poppy and longed to cry. Instead, she said without emotion: "Please don't whip me. There's no need. I'll do what I'm told." Seeing his disbelief, she explained: "I've been whipped a lot. I know about being whipped. I've been made accustomed to a bad time, and I've adjusted."
"I'll be damned!" He was more and more pleased with her. He pressed a buzzer. "You'd best meet my Old Lady. You know what an Old Lady is, baby?"
"Yes, I've read. She's your favorite."
The girl wore little. Had it not been for ill advised make-up and hair she would have been beautiful. She gazed on Lindy with contempt, and at Rock with adoration. "You want I should get her started?"
"This here's Dora, my Old Lady. Your name's Lindy, ain't it. When I ain't around she's the boss.
"Hi, cunt." Dora's voice was lazy. "I'm going to whip your ass."
"Great joker, ain't she." Rocky said proudly. "After the first while you'll get along with her fine. Just do as she says."
"But she says she's going to whip me --!"
"Hell, what's a whipped ass between your gals! Dora's real sweet when she's in the mood." He guffawed. "It's just a case of the right tongue in the right place at the right time."
It would be useless to protest. They had her! While her ankles were untied, Lindy grimly remembered the term: 'White slave.' She supposed that was what she now was. With Dora's hand on her arm she hobbled from the room. She was still fully bound, as she tried to walk the cords cinching her knees bit cruelly. Evidently Dora wanted her helpless.
It was the adjoining room, a semi office, semi lounge. Lush, plush and vulgar but expensive. Standing in the center of the rug, Lindy watched in misery as Dora took the whip from the wall. "You won't need that." She started to say, imploringly. "I've just told--" Dora slashed her across the shoulders, another round her hips. Lindy yelped, lost her precarious balance and fell. There, she writhed under lash after lash, the thong cutting her wherever her agonized contortions offered her flesh. In desperation she turned face down to save her breasts. The whip sang relentlessly.
"Gets us nicely acquainted." Dora observed nonchalantly as she coiled the whip and returned it to the wall. "A girl who hasn't been whipped isn't worth a fuck. Can't get their attention. Here, I'll take a few of those ropes off for awhile. The boys really fixed you. Rocky's a great believer in keeping a girl tied. He can get a hard on outta' a good tight bind anytime."
The peeling away of the ropes hurt but was wonderful, a glorious release. Lindy, still scorching from the whip, said pathetically: "I've promised to behave. I'll obey you, honest I will."
"Never believe a fresh cunt, baby. They're full of tricks, always sure they can make a break."
"I'm not, believe me I'm not. I've been a prisoner before."
"But you're loose, aintcha'? See what I mean. Wanna' bath and a pee? C'mon, I got my own private... " Dora tossed away the rope which had bound Lindy's wrists. "You give me one bit o' trouble or the least bit o' lip, and you'll wish you'd never been born." Ruefully, Lindy understood the validity of Dora's whip. She was now free of bonds, rubbing her weals, but there was no thought of revolt. She knew herself cowed, and wondered how many other girls had made the same discovery under Dora's discipline. She was grateful for the bathroom and the bath, uncaring of Dora's close scrutiny as she soaped and laved the body and limbs now dedicated to Rocky's profit.
"Going to let me tie you again, baby?"
It was a disappointment. But Lindy shrugged it off. "If you wish." She stood, erect and uncomplaining, while her wrists were crossed behind her back and bound by adept fingers.
"Like I said, kid, Rocky believes in ropes for his girls." Dora opened the door of a small dark closet. "In you go."
It was hard to do. But, somehow, she must impress this girl with her willingness to obey, her longing to avoid punishment. Inside the small compartment, she turned.
"On the floor, babe."
It was too late to argue. Lindy sat on the hard floor and watched her ankles tied again. Dora was competent, everything was unkindly tight.
"Now, roll over and lay on your tits."
This, too, was hard to obey. The naked girl had a terrible premonition. But she wriggled herself into the required posture and stayed there, breathless, while her bound feet were cinched up to her bound hands. Only then did she exclaim: "But this is a hogtie!"
"That's right, kid. I'll call Rocky."
Lindy lay, helpless and dismayed, while her new owner approved his Old Lady's work. Awkwardly, she looked up at his suffused features. "Please don't leave me like this a long time. It's torture."
"That right, girlie. All part of the Rocky treatment." Lindy Bestwick lay in shame and pain while her owner worked out the lust generated by her bondage. Rocky threw his Old Lady on the bed where they grunted and moaned their way to a climax in which Lindy felt no pride, but only a desperate loathing of her new condition.
"Pleasant dreams, kiddo."
"But you're not going to leave me like this all night!" Dora slammed the door and turned the key.
Except for the crack of light beneath the door, the hogtied girl lay in darkness. Her bound and arched torso filled the small space of the closet floor. She considered falling over sideways, but feared she would not move again. Her belly and breasts were taking her weight on the hardwood floor. No matter how she turned her head there was no comfort. Feverishly, her fingers worked to find a knot or an inch of slack. But there was none. There was only pain and an ache, steadily worsening, promising a night of misery. After what seemed hours of suffering she began to scream. "Stop that racket."
It was Dora, naked from bed, sleepy-eyed and prepared to be angry. In the open doorway she gazed down at her pitiful captive.
"I can't help it, Dora." Lindy was desperate. "I'm hurting all over, and cramped, and I can't move."
"Sounds normal to me, kid."
"But it's awful. I'm in agony. Please untie me."
"You aim to make any more of that noise?"
"I can't help it. I get hysterical here in the dark, unable to move."
"You want to be gagged, baby?"
The thought was unbearable. lindy moaned her negative and pleaded: "Not the hogtie, then. Please release the hogtie. My feet and hands will still be tied. I might be able to sleep."
"Rocky likes you as you are, girlie. If you're not satisfied, I can tie your elbows and knot your hair back down to 'em, maybe tie your big toes together, and I've got a peach of a gag?"
"Please...! I can't bear this. Don't do anything else."
"You gonna' shut up?"
"I'll try."
"You ain't gonna' die, kiddo. I never seen a hogtied girl die yet. So you better do more'n try. You shut your little mouth tight, see!"
The door closed, the lock turned. Lindy relapsed into tears. Surprisingly she slept.
The other six girls who made up Rocky's stable were all dissimilar in appearance and temperament, but had one thing in common. Their spirit had been broken, the word 'escape' excised from their vocabulary. They accepted Lindy and passed on to her the sympathy they themselves had received after their own initial 'treatment.' Their philosophy was simple: "Enjoy the fucking, sweetheart, and the food and drink and especially the clothes. Rocky goes overboard on clothes. They don't cover much but they cost like crazy. Oh, and one other thing, anytime Rocky says your name or barks, you come straight to attention and say 'yes sir' real quick."
It was sordid slavery, cruelly efficient, each day the same. They worked seven days a week. But the Club was more cheerful than their luxurious prison so they did not complain. 'Rocky's Place' was gaudy and expensive. It was also popular and well patronized by seeking males who made it possible for a girl to reach her nightly quota. If she failed to do so her excuse had better be good. Usually she was hung up naked by her wrists and flogged while the other six were compelled to watch. Rocky used the whip on them, he enjoyed striping their skins, claiming it made them more attractive to the clients.
They lived and slept in a vast apartment of several bedrooms, enabling the girls to sleep around with each other as they pleased. They never knew what or where it was. It had no windows, but it had a door to which a van was nightly backed up to load its cargo of exquisitely gowned beauties. The process was repeated at the Club. Loading or unloading, they had no chance of escape. The portals of the Club itself were well guarded. When Lindy approached, a husky male voice in a Tuxedo inquired. "Goin' someplace, kid?" The seven girls were prisoners.
Any effort to escape was an unforgivable sin, punished horribly. So too, was the importuning of the customers. To ask for help or to tell of captivity earned the girl a whipping. The seven girls became extremely well behaved and anxious to please. Rocky used their bodies at will. But the event was rare. Dora absorbed him.
In a wry comparison, Lindy thought of the punishment bench at Rabaul. This was better. She was not strapped down, there was a small element of choice in the men who would impale her sex and pay her cash. There was a bantering social communion. She was encouraged to accept as many drinks as clients would buy. But through the whole evening only two of them would contain alcohol. To become tipsy was another of the sins. Attaining her quota was easy from the start. Lindy's body was exquisite, easy to desire. Rocky accepted her nightly take and gave no praise. His attitude was: She had damn well better! No girl was allowed to forget herself as a money making sexual facility. On the eighth night Lindy fell short.
Perhaps she had become careless, or it may have been one of those days. But, without preamble, she found herself standing beneath the rope and the hook. Six girls lined one wall, sharing her fright. Dora held cord and the whip. Rocky was Judge and Jury.
"What's the story, kid? Make it good."
"I don't know --I just don't! I will try--"
"Damn right you will. Okay, Dora."
"Off with the clothes, babe."
Sensing hopelessness, Lindy stripped. She proffered her hands and watched them bound. Her breasts were heaving. The six girls were breathless in their enforced attention.
"Up on the hook, Lindy."
It was her final act before the beginning of the pain. Obedient, but in misery, the naked girl raised her arms and inserted the center of her bound wrists within the waiting curve of metal. A motor hummed above. In a few moments Lindy's toes could no longer find the floor, she was swinging in air. Not high, but enough for total suspension. Her wrists burned and she was curiously aware of armpits and pubic hair.
"I want you girls to take a good look at Lindy here. Could be any one of you." Rocky's manner was jovially pontifical, he was enjoying himself as the naked girl swung slowly on her rope. "Let's ask the little gal if she knows why she's getting herself all marked up."
"Because I didn't make my quota, Rocky. I'm sorry."
"See, she knows!" Rocky simulated gratified pride. "And she's sorry. Do you girls figure she should be sorrier than she is?"
"Yes, Rocky."
The chorus was ragged but unanimous. Beaming with pride, their owner turned his full attention to the suspended girl. "Now, baby, I want you to tell the girls what you figure you deserve."
Lindy had no thought of heroics. Ruefully, she admitted: "I deserve to be punished."
"Damn good! You figure that's why you're hung up thataway?"
"Yes, sir."
"You doin' fine. Now tell us, kid, what you think your punishment ought to be."
"I think I ought to be whipped, sir."
Rocky surveyed his slaves, absorbing homage, savoring the final nuance of the suspended girl's humility. "Wonderful!" He boomed. "Now, ask me." It was the cruelest yet. But if she had to do it she would do it well. If she pleased him it might save her a few strokes. lindy's voice quavered but came out clear: "Please, sir, I deserve to be whipped for not making my quota. Please whip me."
A sigh whispered its sibilance round the room. It was the prelude. Rocky accepted the whip from his Old Lady's hand and swung its thong in a swift punitive arc to crack it across the center of Lindy's back.
The hurt girl screamed. But was instantly warned to tone down her cries unless she wanted her breasts whipped too. Thereafter, Lindy clenched her teeth but went berserk upon her rope, expending what agony she could in the release of frenzied motion. She cared not how she looked, only that she might hurt less. She could not mute the panting and the gasps as her flesh was bitten by the lash, but she managed not to scream. The girls had told her she would only be beaten into unconsciousness, she was too valuable. The whip was one that hurt abominably but did not cut her flesh. If only she could hold out! If only...! She did not even know how many strokes she was to receive.
"This little trick whips well. Lovely action." Rocky sounded genuinely pleased. He struck the twisting nude another shrewd blow, and genially asked: "Think this is doing you any good, baby?"
Lindy did not care. All she wanted was cessation of the scorching cuts on her skin. Humbly, she said: "Yes, sir. I promise you I won't miss my quota again."
"Attagirl.' Now, me and the girls would like to hear how you aim to make the grade?"
"I'll persuade a lot of men to fuck me, sir."
"Now, that's what I call a good little whore. We'll make it fifty licks instead of a hundred."
"Thank you, Rocky."
The pain returned. The writhing girl had no idea of how many strokes she had received or whether Rocky's numbers were serious or in jest. Even fifty cuts with the whip seemed an impossible number. Grimly, now, she counted. It took an interminable agony to reach ten: at which point she stopped rather than learn a fearful tally.
"Beautifully marked!" The whipmaster stepped back to view with pride. "Baby, you get any guys tomorrow thinking they don't want a piece o' tail, you show 'em your welts. They'll buy your ass so damn quick...!"
"Yes, sir, I'll remember. Thank you."
"Gals, I want you to take a good look at little Lindy here. She's sweating and she ain't all that happy, but she remembers to be a lady. You ever hear anything prettier than the way she answers?" He paused for effect. "You gals think she's had enough for this time?"
"Yes, Rocky." Each girl saw herself hanging and whipped. Their sympathy was real.
"What say we give her one last one for luck?" He grinned amiably at his victim. "What d'you say, kiddo?"
"Yes, sir, please whip me once more."
It was, of course, the worst yet. Its agony robbed her of breath and set her bare legs to flailing air. But surcease was at hand. All Lindy Bestwick felt was thankfulness her punishment was done. Still anxious to please, she uttered a heartfelt: "Thank you for whipping me, Rocky."
He lowered her and, with her hands still tied, laid her on her back upon the floor. He kicked her legs apart and entered her with an impaling thrust to evoke a cry of shock. Then, before his Old Lady and in front of an audience of six cowed girls, Rocky pumped his way to an orgasm generated by the bruised flesh of a whipped girl. All Lindy could feel was a hope Dora would not be mad.
Miss Lindy Bestwick plied her trade and made her owner a lot of money. It was impossible to totally avoid punishments. She and the other girls accepted their vulnerability to caprice. If Dora or Rocky wanted to hurt them for pleasure there was nothing they could do but suffer humbly and profess gratitude. But Lindy could not forget freedom. Somewhere out there was Harry Broadbent, Poppy and Shirraf Ben Maddara. There were also those she feared. It seemed impossible that one or more should not track her down. Or had the blanket over her head that night severed her from mankind's ken forever! She did not know. But she dared not look down a vista of years as Rocky's whore. Such a fate seemed impossible. But still...! Dutifully, she made herself beautiful every evening and seduced as many wallets as she could.
The caprice of their owner and his Old Lady kept every girl alert. But they all knew they did not have to sin to suffer. Dora's beckoning finger drew them from the group to passively endure what they must. The summons or what it portended was unpredictable. Lindy's first experience left her shattered and without hope.
"No clothes, baby, and hands behind your back." Dora was cheerfully businesslike."
"What have I done? What's Rocky going to do to me?"
"You ain't done nothin', babe. But you're a girl, see. He'll likely rough you up a bit because he's mad 'bout somethin' else. Hold still now!"
Lindy stood for her hands to be tied. But having them fastened behind her back was always frightening. It made her femaleness wickedly vulnerable, she could protect nothing. Once her wrists were bound there was nothing left but obedience. "Will he whip me?" She asked unhappily.
"Nunnuh, it's just his idea of getting his value out of a girl."
"But he fucks me whenever he wants, and I didn't cost him a penny!"
"You know men, dearie." Dora tightened the last know. "Don't think I haven't been through the whole bit. Think you can get loose?"
"You know I can't. I won't even try. Dora... did you really?"
"Hell, yes! Rocky used to whip me 'till I thought I'd die." Dora shrugged. "Never did know how I come to graduate. He maybe came to like my pussyhair or my tits or the way I kissed his ass. Men are nuts."
It was pulse quickening and scary to stand in the center of the rug in Rocky's own room and wait for him to come. Being naked and having tied hands was the final cringe. No doubt it had been well thought out. Dora's admonition had been simple: "Just stand, baby. Stick them tits out. You know, sorta' at attention like you was a soldier on parade. If he knocks you down, get right back up."
"What! You don't know!" His open palm swung to impact Lindy's cheek and knock her sideways. Smarting and close to tears, she resumed her stance. "D'you know now, babe?"
"I think I'm here because you want me here, sir."
"She thinks...!" Again the slap and the stagger. Tears were wetting her cheeks as she stood to attention, breasts taut. "You ain't supposed to think. D'you know what you're good for?"
"To fuck, sir?"
"That's better. She knows! Better give you another little pat anyway, girlie. Stick your chin out."
It was a hateful blow, knocking her sideways to the floor. Her bound hands mocked as she scrambled to her feet and stood again. She could not stem her tears. "What would you like me to do to you now, lindy?"
"Fuck me please, Rocky."
It was the right answer. Miss lindy Bestwick lay on her bound hands on the rug and was completely ravished. It was routine, nothing to be concerned about.
"You're a good kid. Go on back to Dora and tell her I'm okay."
Dora laughed. "Sure he's okay. Why wouldn't he be! Now you can make me okay, too, sweetheart."
"Yes, Dora." lindy hesitated. "But my hands are tied?"
"So what! If you've never eaten pussy with your hands tied behind your back it's time you started. Get busy."
Lindy got busy. It was not her favorite task but was better than being whipped. She supposed her bound hands added a piquancy. She drove her mouth hard in the hope of getting them untied. That was a slave-girl's life. Doing or not doing something so you could hope you wouldn't get beaten or bound.
Into the routine of the life of Rocky's girls was tossed a sudden drama in the attempted escape of Dolores. Neither Dora or any other of the seven girls had suspected the isolated intent. Dolores had managed to acquire from feminine customers in the Ladies' Power Room a sufficient change of garb and hair-do to momentarily enable her to pass the guards and get as far as the street before one of the Tuxedo clad gorillas followed for a second look. Discreetly, he had picked her up, thrust a handkerchief in her mouth, then taken her round to a back entrance to the kitchen and a return to captivity.
For Rocky there was an acute enjoyment in the punishment of a guilty girl. It had a savour innocence could not provide. He made the most of it. Six girls went apprehensively to sleep and awoke fearfully the next morning to an atmosphere electric with dread. It was presumed Dolores had spent the dark hours hogtied in the closet. Dora marshalled them.
"Strip, sweethearts. Then into Rocky's room. Pass me as you go."
"But, Dora, we weren't in on it!"
"Maybe not. You can tell Rocky. Now strip." Gloomily, the six girls obeyed. Such garments as they were allowed to wear came off easily. Naked, each girl went to Rocky's Old Lady, turned and crossed her wrists behind her back and stood to have them bound. They knew it as a ritual, meaning little or a lot according to their owner's mood. In trepidation, they walked, helpless, through the dreaded door.
Dolores stood on the center of the rug. She too was naked, hands tied, but also her elbows. They were cruelly corded to clamp her forearms as one, her breasts jutted. She was a darkly beautiful girl, guiltily frightened. Rocky lounged on the arm of his favorite chair.
"Tell the gals what you done, Dolly." It was the voice of omnipotence, gloating. "Make it good."
Today Dolores, tomorrow one of them! The bound and naked girls around the room surveyed their delinquent comrade compassionately. But, perhaps they too...! Rocky was in great form, and their bound hands were not reassuring. They listened to what they must.
"I tried to escape." Dolores admitted unhappily. She looked around as though in desperation, still seeking liberty. "I know I shouldn't have done it. But, suddenly, the chance was there and I couldn't resist -- It was impulse." She gazed at Rocky imploringly. "I'm sorry... I know I shouldn't have."
"Aimin' to have another try, Dolly?"
Dolores fell abjectly to her knees, her breasts heaving fearfully, her voice broken. "Go easy on me Rocky. I'll be a good girl, I'll make you money." Lindy was becoming frightened, there was something ominous about the ugly scene. Her knotted wrists told she was not uninvolved. She watched Rocky select a whippy riding crop, and longed for liberty with an intensity mocked by her condition.
"Covered for the little bitch, eh?" Their owner's hand shot out to grasp a handful of blonde silk and drag a lovely head sideways. "Down you go, head on the floor, ass well up."
"Rocky, I didn't! Rocky... honest...!" The blonde was shocked and terrified.
"She didn't! None of them did. Rocky, it was only me." Dolores was wide-eyed in dismay. "Don't rough the other girls up. They didn't even know."
She was ignored. Rocky had found a diversion. He glared at the palpitating blonde. "Down you go -- pronto!"
The girl had done it before. She knew! She knelt, then bent forward to place her forehead on the rug. Her bound hands were in the small of her back, her bottom reared in round enticement. Rocky struck it savagely, then again. Lindy watched the pink welts form on the tight stretched skin, soon they would turn red and scarlet. The victim moaned pitifully but dared not move.
"Alright, get up." For a moment Rocky seemed content. Then his crop pointed at Lindy. "Now you." Obedience was instant. As she knelt, Lindy heard her owner promise. "Any of you want to tell me something, you can save your ass." lindy had nothing to say. She accepted three horrific cuts with such fortitude as she could muster. Then, with a scalded bottom, she rejoined the audience to watch Rocky hurt each girl in turn. All were passive, all moaned but endured. They were most definitely owned.
"Well, maybe you don't know nothin'." Their boss man conceded regretfully. "But them few licks won't do you no harm." He chuckled. "I can always let you have some more? Anytime, girls...?"
No one said anything. Six sheepish nudes tried to comfort burnt bottoms with tied hands. Finding the task impossible, they turned their unwilling attention to the girl who was going to be punished. In wan desolation, Dolores repeated her plea: "It was just me, Rocky, none of the other. Gimmie' a break? I promise I'll work twice as hard. If I don't, you can punish me then."
"I'm aiming to punish you now, baby."
With a strangled moan, the delinquent bent once more and reared her bottom. She was resigned to what would happen.
"What you doin' that for, babe?" Rocky asked, interested.
"So you can whip me."
"You think you're getting off with a whipped ass, honey?"
They saw Dolores tense. But, bravely, she asked: "You are going to whip me, aren't you, Rocky? I know I deserve it."
"Nice try, kid. You know damn well you got better than that coming." Rocky struck a pose and surveyed his shivering stable. His voice was loaded. "Escaping just ain't on the cards for you gals." He said heavily. "No way! Any o' you wanna' try, be my guest. I'll make you wish you'd never been born."
Lindy cringed in misery. No escape, no hope, no nothing! Only the Club and being pierced forever. Dolores was crying In response to a gruff order the condemned girl stood straight and offered Dora her hands.
Lindy watched, fascinated, as their Mistress bandaged Dolores's wrists. She performed the service with care, dragging each band tight as she progressed. Into each weave was incorporated a strap and a ring. The bandaged wrists were neat and very tight, the ring was unobtrusive.
"This way, ladies."
The vertical post with the crosspiece at the top was starkly graphic. A box at its base was the platform on which Dolores stood while Dora lifted each bandaged arm to affix its ring to a hook at the end of the horizontal timber. Dolores stood with arms out-' stretched to either side. Neither she nor any of the watching girls had any doubt as to her fate. When Dora took away the box from beneath the small bare feet every girl shared the gasp of the delinquent who now hung in the pose of crucifixion on the post. Dolores's feet were only inches from the floor, but it was enough. She faced them all in wide-eyed dismay, her bandaged wrists absorbed her weight as they also held her helpless.
"Real pretty, ain't she!" Rocky admired his creation.
Dolores's wrenched shoulders were already in pain. She looked at her master beseechingly. There could be only one thought in her mind: How long...?
"Lettin' you off light, kiddo. Bandaged wrists! Hell, you got it good."
The girls trooped back to their apartment. Dora untied their hands. None said anything. What was there to say! But Lindy took to work with her a vision of the naked beauty suspended warmingly against the tight sheath of her gown. Her clients all admired the scarlet lines.
In the morning Dolores was barely conscious. Her posture had not changed. She hung in pain and weariness as her audience assembled, scarcely raising her bowed head in greeting. "It's a real humane treatment, ladies." Rocky was mockingly complacent. "Look at the little darling's hands. Circulation's still good, those bandages are real kind to her wrists. Any o' you gals wanna' try it?"
There was no reply. Fear was tangible in the room. Their owner's mockery continued. "The little girl's just getting nicely started on her punishment. She's had her first twenty-four hours and she's starting on round two. She'll find it a mite tiresome by tomorrow. Give her a rest, Dora, while she's got company."
Lindy wondered if it was the worst cruelty of all: A brief respite and then a return to torture. Dolores managed to will life back to her legs and to make the box carry her weight. Her lined features visibly relaxed. She moaned in pain as she essayed small motions with her bound arms.
"Still thinking of escape, honey?"
"No!" The tired head shook in emphasis. "Oh... no!"
"This'll be a big help to her." Rocky said brightly. "Keep her thinking straight. Save her a lot o' trouble in time to come. Might do you all a bit o' good. How'd you all react to a day on the post once a month?"
They looked at each other uneasily. One volunteered: "We'll behave, Rocky. You've made your point."
"Is there anything we can do to get Dolores off the hook?" The query was frightened but heroic. "The poor dear's played out."
"Do tell!" Rocky surveyed the interloper benignly. "Tell you what, honey, you can have the job of taking that there box from under them little feet. Just to show us all 'bout good intensions."
They watched the girl obey. They beheld Dolores's passive nudity once more sag against her bandaged wrists. They heard her moan of misery... cowed and scared, they went back to their apartment. Dolores remained suspended on the post another twenty-four hours.
"You can stop feeling so damn sorry for the silly bitch." Dora admonished. "She's getting less than she deserves."
None dared argue. A week later it was Dora's turn. They never knew her sin. It was a transgression strictly between Rocky and his Old Lady, and because of it the Queen must temporarily lose her throne. Lindy learned it was not the first time the Mistress had fallen from grace. Rocky liked to boast of the impartiality of his punishments. But, even though Dora's sin remained a secret, her penance was not. As usual, it was an object lesson for them all.
"You can wipe them grins off your faces." Dora threatened. "So I'm gonna' have a bad time! Okay. But I'll come out the other side, and if I've had any lip or cute smirks, that girl's going to wish she'd had more sense." Dora was standing, naked, against the post, embracing it, an arm round either side, handcuffed. She was ashamed and angry, but she was still Dora. No girl smiled.
They had noticed the wooden box on the trestles, and distrusted it. Rocky enjoyed their unease. He was the Ringmaster, ready for the show. Genially, he tossed straps to a couple of the apprehensive girls. "Buckle 'em on her ankles, ladies. Tight!"
Dora held out an obliging foot. "Do what he says." She commanded regally. "Don't pay no mind to me." She looked down at the shame of what was being done, and gruffly ordered. "You can get 'em a notch tighter than that. Just forget it's me, and do it."
Sheepishly, they obeyed. Each girl fearful The Mistress would whip them in revenge after her own penalty was paid. All eyes turned towards the box. "You same two, open up the lid." Rocky was enjoying their puzzlement. He unlocked the handcuffs, then clicked them tight on uncomplaining wrists. "You, Dora, get yourself in there. Your ass hangs out." He turned to Lindy. "You! Stand between her legs and take their weight."
Suddenly, they understood. A simple concept, deeply shaming to a female. It was as much a revelation to Dora as the rest. Awkwardly, with linked hands, she wriggled her nudity to where she could lay on her back with her waist neatly fitting within a half circlet at one end. Dora's waist was as small as any, her figure as sleek and well endowed. Lindy, fearful of future wrath, got between the hanging legs and took their weight along with most of the weight of Dora's perky bottom. Without support, the wooden circlet would cut into the small of the victim's back most cruelly. She looked ruefully down at the Mistress's tight lipped stare, at taut breasts, and at Dora's well bushed sex which she was holding in such close proximity to her own.
"Down with the lid. Lock her in. Give me the key."
Dora's cuffed hands rose in momentary protest, then relapsed, quiescent below her breasts. She managed a grin before the darkness fell. When the cover was in place it provided the top half of the board circle by which the inmate of the box was prisoned. With the cover locked she was helpless, her bottom and loins outside where she could neither see or control them. The only mercy of the box was that none could see her shame. She could weep or moan in a strange privacy, more frustrating than kind.
"There's ropes for the rings on her ankles. Clip 'em on.
It was the final artistry, taking the effort of two girls. But when the ready ropes were snapped to Dora's anklets her visible anatomy was spread in total obscenity, her legs splayed out and raised to the point of splitting, her bottom and hips suspended in air, totally vulnerable. Lindy backed away with the rest and wondered at the sensations now rampant in the mind of the girl in the box.
"I borrowed this outfit." Rocky observed amiably. "Dammit' though, I'd best get one made. Lookit' that ass! Lookit' that cunt! Wot' I mean is... that little lady in there's offering us the best she's got. Hell, she fixed perfect for whipping or screwing." He guffawed. "And she won't see nothin' coming. Dammit', I'm a'goin' to have me a time."
That portion of the prisoned girl left visible was anonymous. Without knowing, it would be hard to guess its owner. But it was most competently postured for what Lindy could guess would happen. When the many tailed whip was placed in her hand she gasped incredulously.
"But, I don't know--I've never done --!"
"Get going, honey. Smack on her cunt. See if we can hear her howl in there."
Lindy knew herself doomed. Once authority was restored Dora would murder her for what she was about to do. She looked in loathing at the whip with its short slender thongs and handy stock. It was beautifully designed for just this purpose. But, to whip between those widespread thighs... it was unthinkable!
"You don't do your stuff, girlie, we'll hang you up and you'll get it right in there, same place."
Lindy flinched. It was a hateful place to whip a girl. She could almost feel the bite of the thongs within her crotch. She looked down at Dora's open sex. She sighed. What was the use, she was a slave. To get herself whipped proved nothing: Dora would be whipped anyway. In fearful resolution she raised her arm.
The thongs splayed out, splatting wickedly upon the plump and hairy lips. The tractioned legs vibrated, there were small sounds from within the box. Lindy took up a better stance and swung again, watching in fascination as the belly twitched and the red lines spread. A hair, uprooted by the thongs, drifted slowly to the floor.
"Okay. Next girl. Cindy, here's your chance to cut a cunt." Rocky was in his element, savouring power, knowing how the girl in the box would be praying for his mercy. "Lay it on, kid. See if you can't do better than Lindy."
Lindy relinquished the whip thankfully. It had aroused within her breasts strange reactions, a savagery unguessed. Heart thudding, she watched the splatting of the leathers across wet sex and the quivering of pinioned limbs. This was a punishment none of them were likely to forget.
After the fourth girl had planted her punishment on the empurpled pudendum Rocky took command. Sweeping away the whip, he advanced within the spread legs, unzipped, and impaled his Old Lady with a savage thrust. His excitation was such as to bring him swiftly to orgasm. He climaxed with a howl of triumph, then motioned for the whipping to resume. Within the box were sounds.
The splat of impact was wetter now than before, lindy reflected on the vulnerability of girls, they were always ready, or easily frictioned into readiness. They had no defense. A man would become limp and that was the end of him. But a female was receptive on and on. When the time came she whipped twice more. They filed out, leaving half of Dora in the box and her other half cruelly punished and awaiting more. Doubtless Rocky would use his Old Lady's facility from time to time. lindy was glad it wasn't her!
She often thought of her own pudendum and its nightly frictioning. She and the other girls averaged eight invasions of their sex nightly. Mostly she was not much aroused and was forced to simulate joy and orgasm. An early whipping had taught her the importance of the male ego. Her clients also wanted to be conquerors, strutting in the radiance of having made her gasp, moan and, hopefully, cry out in the anguish of fulfillment. To lie there woodenly was to invite complaint. H a girl's clients complained, the girl was whipped. The client could watch her whipped should he desire, but it cost him extra money. Everything was well thought out. A girl knew where she was at.
Ruefully, Lindy often remembered Polly's counsel that first day in the cell at Rabaul. A cunt never wore out. The thing was not to worry. If you worried or felt guilt it would show on your face. Otherwise, vaginas coped competently with male thrustings and male emissions. They became insensitive to the first and ejected the second as convenient. The four-letter word beginning with 'C' was a remarkable facility.
In each girl's spiritual isolation it was inevitable that loneliness would awake in her, here and there, a response to a male. Lindy came to know how each girl was susceptible to types. Her own weaknesses resembled Raoul or Harry Broadbent: utterly dissimilar, yet both had made her happy. Girls wanted to be happy. They had a most urgent need. These brief ecstasies were good for business: the man came back. They were also a bright spot in the dull routine of being Rocky's whore. Once a girl had given up hope of escape her main enemy was boredom. Even their owner's erratic brutalities became a welcome interlude. It was in this knowledge of the versatility of cunts that Lindy entered her great adventure. But, first, it gave her comfort in the punishment of Dora.
"Wouldn't want our little sweetheart to get lonely in that there box now, would we?" He beamed at his stable. "Twenty-four hours, and all she's had is a few swats and a few fucks. What say we give her a break?"
"Yes, Rocky." There was nothing else to say. "So each of you gives her a few swats on the inside of her thigh, and then you service her. That ought to do the trick eh!"
Such genial bonhomie! Such cruelty! At a nod from the Master the first girl took the whip and reddened the soft inner skin of Dora's widespread thighs. Instantly, she fell to her knees and applied her mouth to the flattened and gaping sex mound so blatantly offered. There were more indistinguishable sounds from inside the box, the clink of handcuffs, the twitching and trembling of stretched thighs and legs. Lindy found it easy to envision the wickedly contrasting sensations of the girl who had displeased their master. Darkness and helplessness and not knowing. As each girl whipped Dora's thighs and used tongue and lip to give unwanted joy she knew that one day she herself would be inside the box, disgraced, shamed, hurting.
It was almost two weeks later that the lives of Rocky's whores was suddenly shattered.
CHAPTER SEVEN - NO ESCAPE
Along with the predatory males who frequented Rocky's Club there was a goodly percentage of couples and an occasional woman on the hunt. It was not uncommon for one of Rocky's stable to be hired as a vehicle for whatever frustrations were pent up behind these female breasts. There was, in this fashion, a constant feminine presence as part of the scene. Rocky's girls accepted their own sex in the same manner as they did what they must with the males. It was permitted to accept a drink at the bar and to make conversation with a member of their own sex with a view to business. Thus, when a girl slithered onto the vacant stool, Lindy was receptive to an opening gambit.
The one hundred dollar bill frictioned her forearm on its way to her hand. It was an unsubtle approach, but not new. When Lindy turned to view her purchaser she found herself staring into the sardonic gaze of Francesca Brunelle. The voice was as caustic as the eyes.
"I'm buying you for thirty minutes, bitch. That's the rate, isn't it?"
Lindy's horrified attention dropped to the bag held open by the terrorist to make clearly visible the hand and the gun. Tight lipped, she led her unwanted visitor to one of the rooms. Her mind was making a quick comparison to tell her she wanted neither Rocky nor this girl with the gun. Both were bad news.
The bag held more than a gun. It yielded a wig and a gown. "Change over. I'm taking you out of here."
"But you can't! There are guards--"
"I'm taking you." Francesca was bitterly final. "You belong to us. There is money and honor. Talife, Raoul and I will relinquish neither. I will take you or kill you. The choice is yours."
"It isn't my choice." Lindy was desperate. "You have to understand --no girl escapes from here. It's you who may be killed."
"Shut up! I know the score here. Change."
Lindy looked at the pointing gun, and had a fleeting memory of the bodies on the sand at Rabaul. She shrugged. She could be no more a prisoner than now. Rocky and this virago could fight over her as they pleased, she had nothing to lose. She donned the wig and changed the gown.
"You just saunter out, bitch. I'll be behind you with the gun."
The two girls stared at each other without communion. Protests faltered and died on Lindy's lips. She was in the grip of a tide she could not stem. Francesca was a force. Obediently she shrugged her way from the room and walked slowly to the main exit.
The doormen too, the two women in their stride. Hamlike hands and steely muscles subdued the gun, Francesca, and Lindy with practiced ease. Within moments, the two escapees were safely trussed in the waiting van, wrists and elbows behind their backs and, for a final indignity, their bound feet crossed, one pair over the other, and tightly tied. They sat and glared at each other in the gloom.
"I tried to tell you." Lindy accused. "Now we're both in trouble. This bunch plays rough."
"They are pigs. I will kill them." Francesca was seething. She was also fighting her bonds in a frantic disbelief in helplessness. "Don't just sit there! Get loose."
"I can't. Neither can you. All we can do is scream."
"I cannot scream. You know who I am. The police here would imprison me forever." The Terrorist girl heaved lustily and savagely at the binding ropes. "I should have allowed Raoul to come. He would have shot those dogs."
"They might have shot him -- "
"No one shoots Raoul. Raoul is a killer." Francesca subsided, panting. "Damn, I cannot get free --and with our feet crossed...!" She faced the brutal reality of their plight. "What will these swine do with us?"
"We'll stay like this until about four A.M. Then the other girls will be put in here and we'll all be taken to where I've been kept prisoner." Lindy tried hard not to gloat. "Rocky will probably keep you prisoner too."
"We know all about this Rocky. We have friends, we have money. It was not too hard to track you down." Francesca snorted. "This Rocky... I will kill him myself. To have me tied like a pig taken to market...! And so tight! Damn, damn, damn!"
"Where would you have taken me, Francesca?"
"To slavery. Where else! You are a slave, bitch, and honor would be satisfied. Our Cause needs your price. I would have thrashed you myself, then given you to Raoul before sending you to the slave pen. You need not smirk. These things will still happen. I will think of some interesting things to do to you as well as the whip."
"But none of any of this is my fault." Lindy protested. "I keep being kidnapped, just like you kidnapped me."
"When that foolish American stole you from Talife's chain you had a choice. He would not have used force on you. Your proper course as a slave was to flee to Talife and surrender yourself. Had you done that you might not even have been whipped." lindy looked at her fellow captive sadly. Francesca was in a world of her own. Everyone except Harry Broadbent lived in their own special violence in which it was natural she should be whipped or tortured or sold. On that first day in the shattered room in Rabaul Miss Lindy Bestwick had lost identity and been replaced by a naked slavegirl who was costly merchandise. Rocky was no different from the rest. She wriggled unhappily. She was without guilt, but Rocky would probably whip her too.
But nothing is ever as a slavegirl expects. Lindy was untied and allowed to retire with the rest. It was Francesca who was trussed in the closet for the night. But morning brought Dora and the summons.
Francesca was suspended by her thumbs. She was naked. Her skin was wealed by the indentations of the ropes which had held her through the night. Her only response to any question was: "I will kill you, I will kill you all."
Rocky gave his first attention to Lindy. "You know what to expect, kid, eh?"
"I had a gun in my back, Rocky."
"Hmmmmmmm, well, maybe. But you could have done something'?"
"I was too frightened. Rocky, please go easy on me. She does actually kill. Killing doesn't bother her a bit."
"Could be, baby." He surveyed her paternally. "What say I let you off with a good whipping?" lindy swallowed hard. It was so unfair. But, obediently, she agreed to agony. "Whatever you say, Rocky."
"Who is this silly broad?"
"She's a terrorist. She's wanted by the F.B.I." Rocky chuckled. "Well, they ain't getting her. I got plans for that little lady. She's goin' to pay her way."
"Rocky, she's dangerous -- "
"She won't be when I get through with her." Rocky grinned pleasurably. "And now, baby, I want you to ask Dora to string you up. You get to watch." He winked. "In between getting a few licks yourself." lindy supposed it might be worse. She smiled wanly at the Mistress, and asked: "Please, Dora, hang me up to be whipped."
It was quickly done. Slaves who help in their own punishment are easily dealt with. Passively, Lindy proffered her wrists for the straps. A few minutes later she hung with her arms high and wide and her toes several inches above the floor. She faced Francesca at a distance of ten feet. But her travail was less. Lindy's wrists hurt, but were as nothing to the pain of looped thumbs sustaining the weight of a naked girl whose toes, like Lindy's, were well above the floor.
"It isn't that silly little bitch's fault." Francesca declared in sulky magnanimity. "She did what I told her. There's no need to slice her ass."
"Okay." Rocky held up an omnipotent hand. "We'll get started on you."
"Drop dead."
"The deal is you're going to be one of my girls. I'll have eight instead of seven. When you're ready to behave you just say the word."
"Go fuck yourself."
"It's a pretty fair job." Rocky continued imperturbably. "Everything's free for you. All you have to do is get yourself fucked ten times a night and hand me the cash. Oh, and you'd better be polite to the customers."
"I'd sooner die."
"That can be arranged, baby." Rocky smirked. "But it won't come easy. You ever been whipped?"
"Me? Whipped? Are you crazy?"
Rocky's lash curled and snapped round Francesca's waist. lindy, watching in reluctant sympathy, saw the stare of disbelief as the terrorist's nudity tensed and strained at its noosed thumbs and sought to comprehend an acuteness of pain and helplessness such as it had never known. The hurt woman's voice was choked with fury.
"You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! I'll kill you for that!!"
"Go ahead, baby." Rocky grinned. "You got me interested."
Francesca's eyes flashed fire. But she was utterly helpless. Lindy knew the feeling all too well. But she had to admire the tight lips, the contemptuous toss of a mane of black hair, and the sullen silence. Naked and suspended, Francesca was magnificent.
"I'll get some sounds outta' you, baby." Rocky was brutally male. "Try this for size." He slashed the thumb-tied beauty across her hips and then a second swift cut across the virgin back and over a strained armpit to spend its tip upon the slope of a taut breast. "You got some nice stuff, girl: you keep quiet thataway and I'll have me a time." He curled one more impact into the junction of unsuspecting thighs.
The whipped girl was fighting hard for control. Lindy understood the compulsion she would be under to defeat Rocky by silence, by a stoicism maintained even into unconsciousness as the thong bit and cut at her nakedness and the agony of the bound thumbs intensified with each blow. But as her captor struck again and again in a mounting crescendo of agony there came the first strangled sounds from stubborn lips, and finally a scream.
"Now we gettin' someplace." As though to punctuate his satisfaction, Rocky reversed his stance and cut the thong across Lindy's waiting bottom and the stretched skin of a hip. "Wouldn't want you to feel left outta' this." He said amiably. "Now I'll give you one across the shoulders and then you'll have something to tell me?"
Lindy endured the two blows in gasping contortions against her tied wrists, her feet kicking at invisible agony. But she remembered her lines and said her meek: "Thank you, Rocky."
"Now, that's what I call a good girl." Rocky told the tortured terrorist helpfully. "You do the way young Lindy does and we'll get along fine. You ready to peddle your ass, or do I start in on you again?"
"I will never be a whore for you--you must be insane."
The whip continued. Under its flagellation the lovely nudity swung back and forth from tortured thumbs and wrenched shoulders. Francesca Brunelle was screaming intermittently but remained adamant in the venom of her refusals to surrender. Her nakedness was becoming vividly marked with lurid weals and welts she would wear for weeks.
"Maybe you ain't gettin' the idea, baby." The Whipmaster suggested with mock concern. "Now, you just watch little lindy here. She loves to be whipped. Doncha', honey?"
Lindy longed to kill this hypocritical thug who possessed her body. Her hatred was as great as that of the girl suspended by her thumbs. But she was trained, and she was prudent. With sugary sweetness she lied: "I love to be whipped by you, Rocky."
"You see what I mean?" Rocky was being painfully patient. As though to keep her interest alive he flashed his whip across Francesca's concave belly, then continued. "She's goin' to ask me something, and I want you to listen carefully."
Lindy swallowed hard. She wondered if any girl could be brought to a greater degradation of obedience. Brightly, she requested: "Rocky, will you please whip me again?"
Francesca was, unwillingly, captivated. She stared in wonder at the passive beauty of her companion in distress, her eyes widening as the two searing cuts with the thong across Lindy's innocent back evoked a girlishly innocent response: "Thank you for whipping me, Rocky. I'm sorry I've been a nuisance."
The slave owner faced his new acquisition belligerently. "That's what I want outta' you, babe." He shook the coiled whip in promise. "You want me to stripe you with this 'till you're ready? Or have you got some sense now?"
Dark eyes glared fiercely. A haughty and contemptuous face turned away, lips clenched. Rocky laughed joyously and swung his whip.
The crack of the revolver shot was shattering. Rocky froze, then crumpled. Raoul leaped to one side, and as the two guards thrust their way into the room, guns pointing, shot each of them cleanly between the eyes. Without pause, he swivelled his weapon upon Dora. "Strip, bitch."
Rocky's old lady was frightened. One look at her dead master and his equally dead cohorts told her she was alone. Raoul's eyes were merciless. In feverish haste she shed her clothes and, tremblingly naked, faced the gun.
"On your face. On the floor."
Dora's obedience was instant. She wanted to live. Kneeling on the small of her back, Raoul tied her wrists and trussed one ankle up to her hands in swift sure motions to leave the former Mistress helpless on the floor.
"Felicitation, beloved. Sorry I'm late."
Raoul Broussard kissed Francesca Brunelle tenderly on her lips, cradling her suspended nudity with a protective arm. Francesca kissed back hungrily. "Raoul, get me down! Get my feet on the floor."
The terrorist stood back to admire. "You're almost too beautiful as you are, Fran'." He sighed regretfully before his knife blade flashed and he caught the whipped girl as she fell. Using her teeth, Francesca bit away the noosed cords from her thumbs. Savagely, she kicked the dead gangster and spat in the face that had gloried in her pain. Instantly, she resumed control and demanded of a bemused and still suspended Lindy: "Are there more men in this place?"
"No. Only the girls, and they're locked in their apartment."
Raoul nodded, satisfied. He clasped Lindy and kissed her as he had done his mate. Lindy felt the heat of him as she implored. "Let me down, oh please let me down."
"It won't hurt the silly little bitch to hang a minute, Raoul." Francesca had become businesslike. "About those girls, and this cow on the floor...? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Indubitably."
The smiling killer was jubilant. He kicked Dora's ribs. "How many handcuffs have you got?"
"Plenty. I can show you. Please don't kill me. I'll do whatever you want."
Her wrists burning from the bite of rope, Lindy Bestwick hung in naked suspension as an audience of one in the closing drama of Rocky's stable was brought to a swift conclusion. At the end of fifteen minutes seven girls stood in line, frightened, naked, their hands handcuffed behind their backs, their necks tethered by a rope controlling them three feet apart.
"Look at your boss-man and his bruisers. He's dead." They looked. They shivered. A sadly demoted Dora was added to their ranks. She tossed her head in distaste against her roped neck, but she was helpless. They were all helpless. They were slaves who had changed masters.
Lindy cold guess their fate, and her own. Her mind had been racing in conjecture as to whether she was better or worse off than she had been as Rocky's whore. She was inclined he prefer her present prospects to The Club. But she was fearful of punishments. She supposed all of them would be sold. In pain she listened.
"We're taking you with us." Francesca told the flinching nudities. "You'll be sold as slaves. That's what you now are, you're slaves, so get used to the idea. You need not get hurt or killed. Just do as you're told. I'll flog or kill any one of you who makes trouble." It was good to be let down. Lindy sighed in ecstasy as her feet found the floor. Her eyes were close to Raoul's as he untied her wrists and shared her gasp at wealed skin. But she was instantly turned and steel replaced rope as her wrists were handcuffed at her back like the others. She was pushed into line and her neck noosed to the next. Once more escape had never seemed less possible. The eight linked girls were a single unit of helplessness. Francesca's discovery of clothes mocked their nakedness.
The van was backed into its usual space. The toped file was shepherded into its familiar gloom, the door slammed. One of the captives summed up their situation in a brief but emphatic: "Oh shit!"
Lindy never knew the machinations by which a bevy of slavegirls were transported from one Continent to another. Talief and the Terrorists must have spent money and time and done much planning. The Plane was presumably chartered or loaned. The coffle of girls was herded swiftly from the van and up the steps into the open door of an aircraft well isolated at the far end of a runway. The van departed, the door slammed and was locked, motors roared to life.
The captive girls were neither comfortable nor uncomfortable in their flight. They were simply helpless, dejected, fearful and without hope. For each, this change of ownership cemented and emphasized the inevitability of her enslavement. They had been broken and subjugated by Rocky, this was only more of the same. Timid questions were snapped short by a preemptory Francesca who served now as jailer and stewardess. She tended each girl's needs with ruthless efficiency. When her hands were not otherwise engaged they flexed the supply length of a riding crop the girls remembered all too well.
It was a good many hours before the rope was taken from Lindy's neck. Her handcuffs were left on her wrists behind her back but, in addition, Francesca's strong and determined fingers wove bands of rope around innocent elbows and cinched them tight together. It was an old familiar misery...
"Oh please, not my elbows! There's no need. I can't get loose."
"Quiet! If I want to tie your elbows I will."
"But it hurts, and I was helpless anyway!"
"Good!" Francesca tied the last knot. "You're getting special attention. You're not one of the herd. I guess you know that.
Lindy knew! The others would not face the retributions which awaited her. She guessed her tied elbows were but a taste of things to come. Plaintively, she admitted: "So, okay, I'm in for a bad time. But do I have to hurt all the time now? For the rest of this trip?"
"Yes. If you keep beefing I'll gag you. What I want is that nice obedient little girl Rocky had so well trained." Francesca sneered, "Gosh, you were the most submissive little sexpot I've ever run into."
"I'm sorry. It's just that it hurts so, but I'll keep quiet. You don't have to gag me... Please?"
"Very well, no gag. But I want you blind." lindy submitted without demur as bandages closed her eyes and robbed her of vision. They were elastic and tight and excluded all light. She was thrust down into a seat where she hunched unhappily while her ankles were tied. Sometime later she heard the commands and commotion of a landing and the marshalling of Rocky's girls to some destination other than her own. She supposed she would never see them again. She shrank back into the seat in painful darkness as the plane resumed its flight. It hurt too much to move, so she did not try.
Time ceased to have meaning, sounds no longer mattered. lindy simply endured. When the flight ended and she was taken from the plane by a rope around her neck there was hot sand beneath her bare feet and smells she recognized. There was a jeep ride and a walk. The rope tugged cruelly whenever she paused. She longed to speak but dared not. Blindly, she followed where someone led. Finally, the rope was removed and replaced by a metal collar. The chain from it was heavy and its links were warm against her naked back. Their tug upon her throat revived old memories. The handcuffs were unlocked, her elbows untied. While she rubbed her weals a strange voice warned: "You wait two minutes, then take off bandage." Footsteps receded.
Lindy knew herself alone. She was content to massage her wounds and to finger the collar on her neck. She cared not for two minutes or for ten. She was a slave and would remain so all her life. What did it matter! When she unwound the bandage from her eyes and blinked against the evening light she knew what she would see. It was the wall of Raschid El Talife. The chain from her neck trailed firmly to the iron ring.
There were other girls, but none were close. Lindy found herself isolated in a space of her own. That might mean much or nothing. But she was alive with premonition. Somewhere punishment was hovering. She would not deserve it but would get it anyway. Her three captors did not see her rescue by Harry Broadbent as other than a blatant escape--and for slavegirls escape was the cardinal sin. Unhappily, she arranged herself and her chain on the warm sand and contemplated a bleak future.
For a couple of days Miss Lindy Bestwick was left ominously alone. There were those who tended the slaves and there were the prospective customers. Evidently she was still for sale, the proddings, the examinations and the eloquent shrugs continued as in her previous tenure on the chain. But those she feared most were notably absent. She thought much of Harry Broadbent and the ease with which his bolt cutters had sliced away her chains. She supposed it wishful thinking to suppose that what he had done once he could do again. But it was a glimmer of hope to cherish. If only rescue could come before her punishment...!
She had naught else to do but think. Her mind constantly roved back over the dreamlike fantasy of all that had happened to her since that first day in Rabaul when she was the bright and expectant young woman from W.R.A.P. At half of it she shuddered. She examined, again and again, her period of freedom in new York, asking herself just how happy she had been or if indeed she had been happy at all. She thought wistfully of Poppy and of Poppy's master, Shirraf Ben Maddara. She envied Poppy, and ruefully recognized her envy as indicative of a yearning within herself. But Poppy was gone, and with her a situation she had wanted to explore. As for Rocky, he was pure nightmare. Now she was back on it Lindy knew the chain and the wall preferable to Rocky's Club and Rocky's beatings. True, she faced an ordeal, but the ordeal would pass. She wondered idly if she would be whipped or subjected to some other horror she had not yet suffered. She prayed it would not be the caning of the soles of her feet. She remembered the two blows she had endured in Rabaul, she was sure the full punishment would have robbed her of her feet forever.
It was on the third day the feet and the shadow caused Lindy to break her reverie and look up into the lined but smiling features of Raschid El Talife. "Welcome home, child."
Lindy scrambled to kneel. She bowed her head. Her heart was pounding and she knew not what to say. "Thank you, Master." Then, tremulously: "Master, please forgive me."
"Forgive you for what, child?" His voice was gentle. "I was rescued, Master, but is it not thought of as escape?"
"Ah yes, you had your knight in shining armour." There was humor in the ancient voice. "Did it not occur to you to reject what is called freedom? You cold have come to my house and to me and sought protection. I would have greatly honored you."
How wide the gap between two faiths! Lindy ruefully surveyed the abyss over which she could not now retrace her steps. Kneeling in the sand before this patriarch she felt herself fleeing back through the millenniums to a time which, for Talife, was still real. Her voice was abject. "I was a foolish girl, Master. I did not think." Hopefully, she added: "I think I had not been slave long enough. My old life possessed me. I forgot what I had become."
"What have you become?"
"A slave, Master. Yours."
"There are elements of perfection in you, child." The old man sighed. "Yet you erred?"
"Yes, Master."
"You recognize your fault?"
"Yes, Master."
"And that you deserve punishment?"
"Yes, Master."
Lindy knew herself within the grip of forces beyond her ken. New York and America was gone. Everything had disappeared except for a penitent maiden kneeling in the sand before an ancient Arab who owned her body totally and could do as he pleased with it. Miss Lindy Bestwick had no defense and no protest. Humbly, she heard herself utter "I have been a bad slave. I accept your punishment."
There came a small silence, after which Talife said: "Not mine alone, child. A woman demands much pain for you."
"Francesca wants to hurt me terribly, Master, I know." The kneeling girl looked up pitifully and pleaded. "Please help me. I beg your mercy."
"She wishes the bastinado for you." Talife chuckled. "But her lover persuaded her that a girl who has lost her feet is poor merchandise. He suggested a brand." Lindy's indrawn breath and flared nostrils told of shock. To be branded! To have a heated iron pressed into her skin...! It was a thing too awful to contemplate. But she could guess the initials she would bear. Wanly, she asked: "Is that my punishment, Master?"
"It would please you?"
"No, Master, I fear it. I am not brave enough -- " The Slaver laughed. "I too have something to say, child. I want you whipped." lindy sighed in thankfulness. By the standards of her former life it was incredible a whipping should seem merciful. But so it had become. Her words were heartfelt: "If you wish me whipped, Master, it is what I wish too."
"Tomorrow, child?"
"Tomorrow, Master."
Talife patted her gently on the hair of her bowed head. He went away. For a long time after he had gone Miss Lindy Bestwick remained kneeling in the sand. She was to be whipped, and she was glad.
CHAPTER EIGHT - THE COLLAR & THE WHIP
"I got rid of Raoul." Francesca said contemptuously. "He things he's half in love with the little bitch. Look, Talife, d'you mind if it's me who whips her? I want to."
"By all means. Until I have disposed of her she is yours." Talife was benevolence personified.
"You're smitten with her too. You men...!" Francesca was venomous in disapproval. "A pretty, pretty little package of tits and twat and a good silky bush...! You're all the same."
"Perhaps you are right, my dear. But I am sure she will suffer adequately beneath your hand."
lindy hoped her tremblings did not show. She felt as must an animal readied for slaughter. She had been brought to this place of punishment by a menial, her wrists handcuffed behind her back. She stood submissively to await her punishment. To think now of mercy or escape would be silly. Her whole being shrank at Francesca's next demand.
"I want her strung up in an 'X' full stretch."
"Of course. I am sure she will accept your judgement." Talife nodded to the waiting escort. "Bind her so, her feet off the floor."
It was hateful, it was frightening, it was total. lindy offered her limbs to immobility, to the most shaming exposure a female could know, every inch of her vulnerable. When it was done she hung taut as a bowstring, feet far distant from each other, hands high and wide, wrists and ankles already burning from the cut of cords. She was positive her pubic hair was the most prominent thing in the room. It would be whipped along with the rest of her, she was sure of it.
"She's a real beauty. You should have no trouble getting our price for her."
"Perhaps." Talife chuckled. "If you leave enough skin on her bones to sell."
"You're getting soft." Francesca snorted. "This whip we're using wouldn't cut a child. I should know, I've used it on a few." lindy was a seething mass of apprehension. She had never been more blatantly delivered to the whip. She knew the pain was going to be unbearable and that she would scream shamelessly. Her heart seemed to pause at Talife's bland inquiry.
"Have you considered the number of strokes she must bear, my dear?"
"What d'you say to a hundred?"
"A hundred can mean death, Francesca."
"Not with this whip. Dammit, I don't want to kill her either!"
It was hard for the tautly bound girl to remain silent while her punishment was so casually discussed. Lindy wanted to plead, to say that a hundred strokes would kill any girl--that even fifty...! But prudence held her tongue. They would whip her as they wished. To protest might only add to the number of her strokes. Dismally, she heard: "Mind if we just play it by ear, Talife? I'll whip the little so and so until we both think she's had enough?"
"As you wish. I suggest you give her a little time between the strokes. A rapid crescendo is apt to make girls faint." The Slaver's voice was as unconcerned as if discussing domestic trivia. Probably he had lost count of the girls he had seen bound thus and whipped for the breaking of a rule. Lindy wished she was not one of them. Helpfully he added: "To flog an unconscious girl is loss. She must be acutely aware of each blow."
Francesca laughed derisively. "I'll make sure of it."
Lindy Bestwick would remember the whipping she from Francesca Brunelle all her life. It was a torment of subtle female cruelty in ways and places only a woman would know best. The last cut at girlish skin without warning and without pattern in scorching bites against which Lindy had no defense, either in movement or in stoicism. She screamed and fought her bonds to no avail. She was open and exposed to the mercy of a female terrorist who did not know the meaning of the word.
"A few up between your legs, girlie. C'mon' let's hear a few screams."
Lindy obligingly screamed as the thong cut her sex or snapped across her belly. Her Venus mound was swollen under the whip's caress. She heard her voice crying aloud: "Not in there! Oh, please not in there!"
"How about your breasts, Lindy? want me to make 'em bounce?"
"No!" The single word held all the authority of Raschid El Talife. "Her breasts must not be marked. Whip her elsewhere."
Sulkily, Francesca obeyed. In the pain of the ensuing slash across her ribs Lindy's heart went out to the old man. What he might permit could be called barbarous in other lands, but here he was just and merciful. He would order her whipped. He would see her for a high price. But, somehow, the punished girl saw him as a friend.
"How about your thighs, little bitch? Open 'em up for me." Francesca was gloating, triumphant in this punishment of an innocent girl. She willingly relinquished the welting of taut breasts in return for carte blanc over the rest of Lindy's nakedness. She cut measured strokes up the outside of one suspended thigh and down the inside of its twin. Every fourth stroke flashed up between the soft wealed flesh to bite viciously into the once secret female cleft.
"No... not any more! Stop, oh, please stop. I can't bear it. Master... please?"
"You belong to Francesca, child. Your punishment is hers to give. You will not be killed." Was there sadness and reassurance in the ancient voice? Perhaps...!
Francesca Brunelle applied herself to the whipping of her slave with an almost dedicated purpose. But she was enjoying each scarlet stripe she etched on girlish skin. The little bitch needed a lesson, a lesson never to escape: and she was getting it. Her whip flashed and snapped across and upon skin wet with the sweat of agony. The whine of the thong matched Lindy's screams.
The pause brought Lindy hope, but it was a false hope. Francesca was unappeased. "She's very well marked." The terrorist admitted grudgingly. "But it's not a real flogging. I'd have preferred the bastinado on her traitorous little feet. But if we're going to sell her... She shrugged regretfully. "May I hang her by her thumbs for the rest of the day?"
"I deem honor satisfied, my dear. But if that is your wish."
"It is my wish. When she has paid that penance she is yours."
Lindy did not fight, she did not protest. Glistening with sweat, hurting all over with the scorch of strokes, she stood passively when she was freed. She had been terribly whipped, but not as cruelly as she had feared. She had expected to be flogged into unconsciousness. She wryly supposed she could count a profit. She refused to think of the new punishment for which she was being readied. She would endure but the hours might seem the longest of her life. Cringingly, she watched the neat noosing of her thumbs with the soft leather strips below the knuckle. They were drawn tight and tighter still in readiness for her weight. Slavegirls learned much of punishments and their infliction The bar by which her hands would be separated was adjusted. In dumb misery she watched her hands rise and then her arms. These were the last treasured moments before her toes would leave the floor.
Talife had gone. For a minute or two he had stood and drank in the tortured loveliness of the hanging nude. Then he had nodded, satisfied, and left the two girls alone. To suspend a girl by her thumbs is a predictable punishment. Whether she fainted or retained full consciousness was of little moment. She would still be hanging helplessly when he returned. Lindy saw him go in trepidation and a haze of pain. It was terrible to hang by the thumbs: one of the oldest and cruelest of torments for a delinquent girl. But it was highly practical for a slavegirl being offered on the market. It left no marks. Her thumbs would be useless for days, but what did it matter!
"I know how it feels, little bitch. That bastard in Chicago had me like that for a couple of hours." Francesca's tone was pleasantly conversational. "But you'll be the way you are for a lot longer than that. I figure you're lucky. How d'you feel about it?"
The question was wickedly rhetorical, but point blank. lindy did her best. "I hurt. It's a terrible punishment... But I suppose that's the idea."
"Why not ask me for mercy?"
"I didn't think I was supposed to. I easily could." Francesca's palm cupped hard upon the swollen sex, grasping and kneading. "How's that feel, little whore?"
Lindy was shocked by the flare of lust enveloping her loins. Agony and concupiscence were strange companions. Fearfully, she lied: "It hurts. Everything hurts."
"You're wet!"
"I don't know why. I've nothing to be wet about."
"That's for sure. But it's true that a whipped whore makes the best lay for a man. Pity Raoul isn't here. He could screw you just the way you are." Francesca laughed. "I haven't tied your feet. You could help." She was suddenly curious. "You pick up any new tricks being a whore for that bastard Raoul shot?"
"Please let my feet down on the floor? I'm hurting so bad." Lindy was wistful in her plea. "I could talk a lot better. It's... it's hard to think when I'm strung up like this."
"Think I don't know! I should have had you up by your thumbs for your whipping. Anyway, tell me about being a whore? I've never been one."
"There's nothing to tell. It's just beastly."
"You've got a neat little slit. It's a bit raw and swollen right now, but that will pass. What I want to know is: did all those cocks shoved into you make any change? Did it get any bigger? Did it hurt?" lindy's responses were increasingly in the form of gasping exclamations. She was breathing heavily in pain. "Oh, please let me down! Give me a break. I'd love to talk but I can't like this."
"Yes you can. I did. You've only been hanging a few minutes. You've got all day."
"It's not possible." Lindy moaned. The vista of a day as she now hung helpless and in agony was more than she could bear. "Not all day." She pleaded, "Not all day!"
"You've nothing to say about it."
"I know. But it's too awful. You weren't sentenced to all day."
"I could make it much worse for you, little whore. I could put weights on your ankles. Would you like that?"
"No! Oh... no!"
"Or I could continue whipping you? It hurts a lot worse when every blow tugs at your thumbs?"
"Or perhaps I should gag you? Anyone who comes to enjoy your pain should not have to listen to your complaints."
It was hopeless. It was one more of those moments when Lindy beheld the full implacability of slavery. Her body was a vehicle, a receptacle for lust or pain. What went on in her mind did not matter. But even her mind was an enemy, mocking her with fear and apprehension and nightmare visions. It was easy now to understand the total obedience of a good slave. She had tried to be one. After today she would try harder still. Anguish was her lot. Abjectly, she muttered: "I'll keep quiet. I'm sorry... I'm sorry... "
"Good!" Francesca surveyed lindy's tortured nudity with approval. "We've placed a big price on you. Make sure we get it. D'you understand?"
"Yes... oh, yes! I'll be what they want me to be. I'll sell myself. I promise!"
"Well, well, I've got myself a good little whore!" The terrorist girl laughed. "Wonderful what pain does to us girls, isn't it! I really believe you will." Playfully, she tweaked two captive nipples and patted a swollen captive sex, then sauntered carelessly from the room of punishments. Behind her and alone, Lindy wept.
* * *
Lindy recognized it as one more lesson in her slavery that the collar, the chain, and the wall should seem like home: that she should kneel on the sand and accept the locking of the collar round her neck with a great thankfulness. When she had been made secure and left alone she stretched her nakedness on the warm ground and revelled in her release from pain. Her thumbs throbbed and refused to respond, her skin was tender everywhere from the bite of Francesca's whip. But her breasts bore no wounds and there welled from within a great joy in having served her sentence for an innocence this land saw only as guilt.
For a few days Lindy Bestwick was happy. She sat and dreamed, and knew without distress her dreams would never be fulfilled. She played with her chain and constantly rearranged the iron circlet on her neck in a search for comfort. Whimsically, she remembered the collar in the drawer of her apartment in New York. Someone would find it and add it to the enigma of her vanishing. She thought often of Poppy. But gradually she became restive. She could not stay chained to the wall forever, she was supposed to be sold. If no man bought her she would be punished again. She did not believe Talife would punish her, but Francesca most certainly would! In an increasing anxiety, she displayed her charms and her femaleness more and more provocatively before the deep dark eyes of the desert men who paused to assess her quality. She developed shaming rituals and shaming words she hoped would please. Standing, arms limp, head submissively bowed, she would say softly: "I will be a good slave, Master. Please buy me."
Or she would promise: "I will obey. I will make you happy." She knew it the pledge of a whore: but what else was she! The best a beautiful female slave could hope for was to become a concubine.
But she did not sell! Those who tended her laughed and jeered that she was not worth so much money as was asked. Lindy was inclined to agree with them. It was hard to reconcile millions of dollars with a naked girl chained to a wall in the desert. But somehow she must sell herself. Somehow...!
At first she blamed the whip weals, lurid on her skin. Customers were apt to inquire: "You have been punished?"
"I was a bad slave, Master. I will not be again. I will obey."
But they went away, shaking their heads. Others detected her wounded thumbs. They would pick up her hand and examine the bruised indentation of the noose. From their manner she deduced their belief she must have been delinquent indeed to have been so punished. Lindy had supposed the eroticism of her condition would excite a lustful desire to possess a girl in need of subjugation, a girl to be broken to their will. But, while their eyes desired, their prudence appeared to dictate a docile lubricity her wounds denied. Desperately, she added fresh poses and exposures to her repertoire, working hard to make herself appealing to the male. Daily she cursed Francesca's cruelty with the whip. It seemed probably her failure to sell herself would earn another flogging before her present marks had faded and gone. But perhaps her price was simply too high! She did not know.
Lindy Bestwick was happy in a reverie in which she was free and in the arms of Harry Broadbent far, far away, when she became aware of the shadow and the sandal. She looked up, guiltily, into the amused regard of Raschid El Talife.
"Greetings, child."
"Greetings, Master." Hastily she scrambled to her knees and bowed her head in submission. "I am your slave."
Talife drank in her loveliness, knowing it unique. His voice was soft. "It pleases me to see you kneel, my dear, but you may raise your eyes. There are things of which I would speak." He paused, then asked: "Are you happy?"
"I am happy, Master." The statement seemed absurd yet Lindy knew it true. Except for her need to sell herself, the past days had bestowed on her a strange peace. Whimsically, she added: "I don't know why a girl like me, chained and naked in the sand, should be happy. But it is so."
"You have found yourself, child. It is very simple."
"I have tried to sell myself, Master, but I have failed."
Talife chuckled. "It is Francesca's greed, child. I could sell you in an hour at your proper price."
"Master, will she punish me again?"
"No, she will not punish you, not while you wear my collar round your neck."
Talife was wonderful! The slavegirl's heart went out to him. But there was still a fear. "Master, if I do not fetch her price, will she take me away, take me for her plaything?"
"You fear her whip." His gaze rested on her in speculation. "Let us forget Francesca Brunelle. I am concerned with you. Come, tell me: How much of you has become slave, and how much of you remains the young woman in New York?"
"I do not know, Master." Lindy wriggled in distress. "It is a question I ask myself again and again. But in these days I have been wholly slave."
"But you fear you owe that serenity to Francesca's whip and her cords?"
"Yes, Master, that is what I do not know."
"But the question bothers you?"
"Yes."
Raschid El Talife unlocked the iron collar from Miss Lindy Bestwick's neck. It fell to the sand in a coil of links. She was free. "Stand up, child."
She stood, nude, lovely, but afraid. Her eyes enormous in their wonderment, her voice faltering. "But, Master...? I... I am free!"
"You are free." Talife conceded the obvious, amused by her dismay. "You can see the small gate in the far wall, child. It is unlocked. Beyond it is a bench, and on the bench are clothes, a handbag and money, a sufficiency of money. None here will harm or hinder you." Affection crinkled his ancient features. "Go with God."
Lindy wept. The surge of sobbing enveloped her in a wave of emotion she could not name. Somehow, she found her wet face buried in the folds of Talife's robe, his hands gentle on her back. They stood thus while the storm passed. When the naked girl's tears were reduced to sniffs and gasps he placed a square of cambric in her hand and disengaged their clinging intimacy. Quietly, he watched while Lindy did feminine things with his handkerchief, tidied her hair, and fingered in disbelief the faintly pink circle where the iron had embraced her neck.
"I'm... I'm sorry! I--I don't know why --!" I must seem so ungrateful--"
"Your tears do my honor, child, I cherish them." Lindy stood uncertainly, her fingers busy, but aware of a widening chasm she dared not face. Impulsively, she knelt and clutched the garment of he who owned her utterly. Into its folds she said tremulously: "Master, I am afraid."
He raised her to her feet. "Of course you are, my dear. Freedom is the most frightening spectre. It is as fearsome as death, leading us into the unknown."
"But you're so kind. Why are you so kind to me?"
"I am not kind, child. I am simply old. Did I not have thee whipped? Did I not allow the noosing of your thumbs?"
"Yes... But-"
"Am I kind now?" Talife shrugged in deprecation. "I give you freedom. It lies beyond the door. Clothed and with money, you will feel differently. Nakedness and the collar and the chain will be no more." He paused thoughtfully. "But that is all I give you. When you go from this place you will be on your own. You will possess decision. You will cease to be a slave."
"When I--when I... escaped... and went away... " Lindy Bestwick blushed at memories. "I thought I was free. But I was never free. In New York I remained a slave. I kept the collar that was on me when I was rescued. When I escaped. Often I wore it of my own will." Her voice quavered. "Master, was I free?"
"Child, let us not talk of freedom, it is an abstract, a relative thing only valued when believed lost. Let us talk of you." Again, he enfolded her in his arms, but his tone hardened. "We will have no -silly gestures, no noble renunciations. You will walk to the gate. You will leave this Courtyard and close the door behind you. You will dress. Is this understood?"
"yes, Master."
"If you fail me in this you will be whipped, and not lightly."
"But... Francesca?"
Forget Francesca Brunelle. I have dealt with her." On her naked walk across the empty yard, Lindy Bestwick tingled from an old man's kiss on her forehead. She wondered what the still chained girls must conjecture, but she did not look back. She opened the small door and closed it behind her, and in so doing exchanged her worlds. Talife was right; she had left slavery on the other side of the wall.
The clothes were costly and her own size. Lindy Bestwick put them on in the grip of a strange lethargy. She dressed slowly, savoring the sensuous return to femininity. But when her fingers had patted the last wrinkle into place and she stood alone beside the wall and the closed door she felt uncomfortable. Her breasts were irked by the bra, her crotch and hips disliked the clutch of panties, and her feet were resentful of the shoes. Miss Lindy Bestwick had lived naked for a long time.
She thrust away the captivity of clothes as absurd. Nakedness was an outrage for a girl, she should be glad to be done with it. Her body could damn well get used to being feminine again. Lindy picked up the handbag. In it was a passport, a handkerchief, a small bottle of perfume, a lipstick and compact, and thirteen hundred U.S. dollars: one hundred more than she would need to place herself back in the apartment in New York. Her eyes filled with tears.
Harry Broadbent should have been there. But he was not. No diplomatic pressure had influenced Talife's gift of freedom. Lindy needed a hero but none was there. Quite probably Broadbent had not the faintest idea of where she was. Her first mission was to find a phone. She looked about her at the wall and the screen of trees by which the place had been made private for her to dress. There was a footpath. For her, it led vaguely to North Africa. Talife had drawn a fine line between help and freedom and her own devices. He could have put her on a plane, but that would have been his decision and not her own. He had given her kindness and then freedom. She wondered if he was laughing. Hesitantly, she stepped along the path.
Within her first ten paces her ankle turned, it had been stranger to shoes for far too long. It was not a sprain, simply a painful irritant. Lindy hobbled back to the bench to let it pass. She must learn to walk again... to the office, back from the office, shopping on Saturday... When she bent to remove the shoe a too tight bra strap snapped. Removing both shoes, she was assailed by a terrible possibility. Suppose the door was locked! Suppose she was an Eve expelled from Eden...! But Talife's door was not locked, it opened to her hand."
He had not moved. Raschid El Talife had stood waiting, an immutable part of this, his land. He watched Lindy's approach, his features inscrutable. She stood before him, her eyes wide in pleading. "You knew I'd come back."
"Yes. I knew."
"Why did you send me away?"
"To discover yourself. You said you did not know if you were the girl in New York or a slave. You know now."
They looked at each other in silence. Lindy shrugged. "Yes, now I know. Will I be punished?"
"No."
Lindy felt a trancelike quality in what she now did. They were conscious acts but dictated by a compulsion she could not name. She removed her clothes, folded them neatly on the ground, and placed atop of them the handbag and shoes. She was once more naked, her skin grateful for the warm air, her feet rejoicing. She knelt and fitted the discarded collar round her neck, its chain providing a metallic chuckle at her foolishness. Deliberately, she paused before the determined thrust of her hands elicited an implacable snap from the iron circlet to which she was not captive.
"Master, I am a foolish slave. But I am yours. Please forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive."
"How can I show my gratitude--for so much?"
"By being you. It is enough. Can you give me obedience?"
"Yes... Oh, yes!"
Talife let a silence grow. The kneeling girl was beautiful, far too exquisite to disturb. He enjoyed her quietly, then said: "I remember once you sought to be my slave. You feared Francesca and you feared this wall and where it might lead you."
"I am your slave, Master, am I not?"
"You are a slave chained to the wall of my marketplace. You thought beyond, just as I do now. Would it please you to enter my House?"
Her breasts heaved joyously. "It would please me, Master." Lindy looked up appealingly. "I think you know how."
"Aye. Your heart is in your eyes, child. But your people have a ridiculous word for what I would make of you. You would become my concubine."
"I do not care. The man in Chicago made me a whore. You do me honor."
He nodded, satisfied. "But I have a dream I wish fulfilled before I die. To make this dream true is a price I would demand of you."
Lindy Bestwick felt only a pulsing excitement. "I am still your slave, Master. You can use me as you wish. Is it a punishment I must bear?"
"You would once have called it that. I want you chained."
"But, Master, I am chained now."
"Yes, child, you are chained. But not as I envisage you." Talife gave a deprecating shrug. "Men build visions and cherish fantasies of the mind. Mine is to chain a slavegirl in a manner no other girl has ever known."
The excitement spread. With it a tinge of fear, but the fear was spice. Lindy's eyes were shining. "I do not understand, Master?"
Talife smiled. "You are finding pleasure in what I say." He accused laughingly. "This pleases me. The only thing to understand about the chains I propose to place upon you is that they will never be removed. They cannot be removed. Having yielded to them you must dwell within their clasp all your days."
Once it would have horrified. But now it generated only heat within lindy's loins and a racing of her heart. She belonged to the Desert and to Talife. Such a captivity held logic in this land. But the girl who would wear such chains was puzzled. "But, Master, how is this possible? There are tools, machines, acids...? When I... escaped there was a cutter thing, it bit through metal as scissors bite thread."
"There are also steels, child, perfected in the land from whence you came. They are impervious to all the things you name. True, there are sophisticated ways of cutting them, but such sophistications are not to be found beyond the factories which give them birth. Granted, nothing is impossible. But such chains, welded on you by a secret formula, can not be coped with on this continent."
Again the excitation, a terrifying temptation, an exquisite eroticism! Lindy could understand such a wish, an aestheticism compatible with the life and nature of this man. She was trembling but had no thought of refusal. Instead, she asked, "My wrists and ankles, Master?"
"Aye, and your neck, and your waist."
"My waist...!"
Talife gestured blandly. "A small conceit, my dear. It secures you to nothing but is something of me upon you. Its clasp will be most intimate but there will be no pain."
"And the collar on my neck? Will that be to hold me as I am held now?"
"If it is desired." He looked down tenderly at the kneeling girl. "What I speak of is for my pleasure. But such metal upon your person will absolve you of decision. You are human. There will be times when you will look back with nostalgia, we all do this. Sometimes the horizon invites...?"
"When will this be done to me, Master?"
"Never, unless you wish."
"I wish it terribly. I don't know why. But I want it very much."
Talife was amused by her vehemence, but determined to test. "You may stay as you are, child, awaiting sale. But you will not again pass through the small door in the wall or wear the clothes you have no use for, so neatly folded."
America had gone. Escape was a thing never to contemplate again. Everyone she had known, save this venerable man, had departed into the mists. The only realities left for Miss Lindy Bestwick was the sand on which she knelt, the collar and chain upon her neck, her nakedness and Raschid El Talife. Simply and seriously, she said: "I want those chains, Master. You have made me want them."
Lindy looked up at her owner, her gaze was frank, open, and without fear. Raschid El Talife looked down at his slavegirl with something approaching love. For moments they held each other in total rapport. Fondly, he smoothed her hair, patted her head, nodded in farewell. lindy Bestwick watched him walk away. It was not really a parting, there was tomorrow and tomorrow... Absorbed in dreams, she fingered the metal circlet on her neck, she rearranged her chain as she was wont to do. Soon there would be others! She was sure they would be beautiful.
Raschid's concubine! It was a quaint term Lindy did not dislike. She wondered if, with Talife, it implied male potency and a sexual use of her person. She thought it more possible she would be a plaything, an amusing pet. She hoped he would make her decorative, feminine arts and wiles were almost totally absent for a girl chained to the wall. She and all the others did their best, it was a female need to do their best. But they had only fingers instead of combs. The only good thing to be said of their lack of toilette articles and cosmetics was that it gave them something to do.
As though keeping a tasty tid-bit to last, Lindy delayed a hard-headed assessment of her new condition. She would leave the wall. She would be an old man's pet, a plaything. But sometimes Desert play could hurt! Men enjoyed whipping girls, they found pleasure in tears of pain. There was something infinitely exciting to the Male in a naked girl, trussed in helplessness, beneath the lash. Was Raschid El Talife like that? Was he? He had allowed Francesca an almost free rein in her cruelties, euphemistically called Lindy's punishment. Had he found masculine pleasure in what he had watched of her agony? With Talife she could not tell. Doubtless she would find out. She had chosen a path: if her skin got striped because of it, well, it was no more than she expected. Slavegirls paid their dues.
When, on the following morning, the collar was unlocked from her throat, Lindy knew it one of the moments to remember. The iron circlet lay open on the sand awaiting its next girl, the hot pulsing throat of a female to be sold. It would hold her well. The maidservant who turned the key led her to the House, bathed her, and rouged her nipples. She then produced an unsuspected fluency in English. Waving to the luxury of the bathroom, she said brightly: "All yours. You do what you most like."
"But... but... I'm not chained or tied? Does the Master wish --?"
"Master not here. He say you not be chained. He say his House your house. You go where you like. If door locked leave alone."
"But I could escape --!" The fatal word leaped from an impetuous tongue. "I... I mean, what's to stop--?" The servant giggled. "You look funny, you run down street, no clothes."
Was it that simple! Was nudity as restrictive as rope! Quite probably it was. In this Land only slavegirls were naked, the rest always looked heavily overdressed. Before lindy could ask more questions, her informant made a friendly gesture of farewell and went away. Miss Lindy Bestwick was free in a strange house in a far land, an unexpected freedom she did not know what to do with. Again, she felt certain Raschid El Talife was laughing in the wings.
This freedom was Talife's gift to her, a prelude. Undoubtedly it was also one more test. But Lindy did not care. She revelled in motion. She had been chained so long that even to walk was a novelty. To walk wherever she pleased was a miracle. The promised chains were for tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
But in the meantime
There were locked doors, lindy left them alone. But the ancient house placed its benison upon her as she roamed its halls and patios. It was a place of charm and serenity. Raschid El Talife's house was a mirror of himself, wrought over a lifetime. The Caucasian girl found it a thing of beauty. Sometimes she walked, unhindered, through its portals into the gardens. From thence she could follow a driveway to the road on which a car could drive across the desert to a world increasingly remote. Here and there on the landscape were people, vehicles, a camel... suddenly she was Eve and naked. She turned back to the gardens and the house.
lindy Bestwick yielded to a temptation she could not resist. She went out into the Courtyard, flanked by its grim wall with its ringbolts and its chains. The collared girls eyed her only with mild curiosity. She was naked and therefore slave. She was unremarkable. She looked at their collars and their chains and the manner in which they wore them, then went to where she herself had knelt in the sand and felt the tug of links upon her throat. But a new girl was there, collared with her collar, chained by her own chain. She felt absurdly resentful of the infidelity of iron. On the third day she discovered the cell.
The woman may have been thirty. She was naked. She wore a pair of chrome handcuffs with an air of apology and disdain, fingering them constantly as though certain they would soon come off. The two girls stared at each other through the bars of the tiny cell in startled surprise.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Lindy gasped. "You're... you're American!"
"So what! A fat lot of good it does me." The voice softened. "How come you're running around loose and bare as a billiard ball? These monkeys sure do like to look at a girl's tits."
"While Lindy was searching for something believable to say, the girl behind the bard held up linked hands. "D'you have a key to these damn things?"
"I'm afraid not." Lindy giggled. "I'm a slave."
"Horseshit! You look free as air to me."
"Well, I'm not really. I'm... I'm... Well, it's sort of a long story."
"I bet it is. I can probably guess. You're covered in whipmarks."
"They're fading nicely." lindy spared a feminine glance at her weals. "Perhaps you'd better tell me how you got in there?"
"Shit, they just bunged me in and slammed the door. Oh, my name's Mallory--that's my first name. Mallory Blintz." Hell, I must have been crazy to marry a guy with a name like Blintz." She sniffed. "But they're the only kind with money." She sniffed again. "And look where it got me! That son-of-a-bitch...!"
"I'm Lindy. But your husband couldn't have put you in there. This is the house of Raschid El Talife! I... I... I sort of belong to him."
"I bet you do! Bastard sells girls, doesn't he. Dinny Blintz brought me out here on a business trip, he sells oil rigs, and he meets this gook of yours and finds out how they handle women here. So now I got a choice. I can go home and be a good little wife and have six kids, or I can get myself staked out on the sand and sold to the highest bidder. He give me thirty days: half of 'em must be gone by now. Gosh, I hate this lousy cell! And they put these handcuffs on me just to be mean. I keep asking them to take 'em off, but they just grin."
"If you've got a choice, why don't you go home?"
"What, and have six kids all named Blintz! Honey, what's this slave business like? You seem to be doing okay."
"I don't think you'd like it." Lindy grinned apologetically. "You get whipped a lot... and other things. Mostly I'm not free the way you see me now... and we don't get to wear clothes."
"Huh, might be better than Blintz even at that." Mrs. Mallory Blintz appeared to be seriously considering. "Being whipped? Does it hurt?"
"Terribly!"
"Yeah, I can believe it. I'm supposed to be whipped somewhere around half time. Must be real close by now. Blintz thinks it will help me make up my mind."
"I think you ought to go back to America."
"Hmmmmmmm, you don't know my husband! Look, can't you get this cell door open?"
"No. Honest! I'm only a slave, I'm not allowed keys. Besides, if you got out, what could you do? You can't run across the desert handcuffed and naked."
The older eyes became shrewd. "That's your trouble, isn't it? You've tried, and got yourself a licking --?" The Caucasian communion was broken by the arrival of Lindy's maidservant. The woman motioned reprovingly. "You should no be here. I forget door. You go." She turned to the handcuffed girl holding the bars. "Tomorrow I punish. You get whip." She took Lindy by the arm.
It had been a strange small interlude. Lindy felt it should have disturbed her but it did not. She realized the authority of masculinity in Talife's world. It was just one more affirmation of the desert in which Mallory Blintz would work out her own destiny. Amusedly she recognized in herself the opinion that a whipping would do Mrs. Blintz no harm. It might smooth rough edges and the acerbic tongue.
On the fourth day Raschid El Talife returned to his House and to his waiting slave. With him was a man.
Lindy was allowed to examine her chains, she was encouraged to give attention to the collar she would wear for life. It was the last time she would see it, save in a mirror. Busily computing, she was sure that by the time this relentless steel was locked upon her it would have cost Talife a fortune. The metal was neither bright nor dull but had a sheen of its own. Each circlet betrayed its locking mechanism by only a streamlined swelling in one side, scarcely discernable. There were no hinges, only an open gap into which she would thrust some portion of herself for imprisonment. Presumably the jaws would be closed by some magic she did not yet comprehend.
"They are very beautiful, Master. Thank you." Talife nodded, his eyes were bright in an excitement of his own. He motioned to the waiting technician. "A demonstration, child. It is important you see this."
They were in a workshop. Among its accoutrements was a massive anvil. Links and circlets were draped across the cold hard steel, the technician picked up a sledge...! The blows were cruel, making the stone chamber ring with the protest of tortured steel. Again and again the hammer fell, venting its force upon every part of every shackle the watching girl would wear. Lindy winced at each impact. When the new steel was again placed in her hands she could discern neither dint nor scratch. That which she must bear had defeated anvil and hammer without a mark.
"It's... it's wonderful!" Dazedly, Talife's slavegirl ran the heavy weight of links through her fingers, seeking flaws. But there were no flaws. She was led to a vise to watch a hacksaw blunt itself against a link and leave o sign. Bolt cutters shivered under the pressure of brawny arms, but their blades could make no indentation in the steel.
"They are unique." The Master observed placidly. "I am impressed as you, my dear. You are pleased?"
"Yes... oh yes... Oh, Master...!"
"We will join your hands first, child. Thus you may catch and know the manner of your confinement. Obey our friend here, his is not an easy task."
Lindy supposed it was a hydraulic press. She knelt and placed her left wrist within the waiting jaws. She was breathless in the grip of more than one emotion, none of them was fear.
It was fascinating. It was awesome. It was wickedly heating to the loins of the kneeling girl. Thus must brides feel as they too kneel...! Lindy watched the almost imperceptible closing of the metal band around her wrist. She was breathlessly aware of immeasurable forces exerting their power to implant a band of steel around the small slenderness below a girl's hand. When the divergent ends met in a snug embrace upon her flesh the three exhalations of breath were clearly audible.
But Lindy's captivity was not complete. Into the waiting holes in the unobtrusive swell of the band small metal rivets were pounded home. But the holes were not filled or closed. Into the small orifice was dripped a fluid... "It is an acid, child. Keep very still. It forms a seal." Talife's voice was enthralled. lie was a man watching the fulfillment of a dream.
Even now, the captivity of her wrist was not complete. Goggles were placed upon her eyes, her companions wore them too, the crackle and sparks of an arc weld almost instantly filled the remaining space. At each end the hole was replaced by an excrescence of dark metal weld. Another tool ground it down flush with the steel band, and yet another buffed and polished until all vestige of the jointure was gone. Lindy examined her flawless shackle in amazement. She felt childishly proud. "It's lovely! I'm--I'm so lucky!" Her spontaneous exclamation held no awareness of its incongruity.
Once more the magic of the press. This time, Lindy's willing wrist must be accompanied by its twin and a span of links. There was a finality about it now. It was not an altar at which Miss lindy Bestwick knelt, but she felt it might just as well have been. In a way, she had plighted her trothe and received her wedding band. She was certain her pussy was outrageously damp.
She stood and held up her hands to be admired. The slavegirl was inordinately proud. Three pairs of eyes were bright in aesthetic appreciation as Lindy playfully snubbed her wrists back and forth against the five links which would now and forever deny their separation.
"They make you a hundredfold more lovely, my dear." Talife's homage was almost reverent. He shared her amusement when she exclaimed: "But what about the one round my tummy? How --?"
A pair of stools made it surprisingly easy. When the girdled girl stood and took a deep breath the steel told her plainly of its presence.
"I must never get fat!"
"It would be unwise."
They shared laughter, then chained her ankles. The span snubbed her as she now walked: she would have to learn shorter steps. She would never run again! The thought was solemn.
The collar was a sacrament. Each knew it as such. The band round her throat would impede her movements not at all, but it would forever remind her and others of what she was. Clothes would not cover it, its pendent link would proclaim intent. She was a privileged slave, but still a slave. Sensitive to a moment's pause in time, Miss Lindy Bestwick wriggled her neck within the waiting steel.
CHAPTER NINE - FLESH & STEEL
The question of Raschid El Talife's potency was disposed of on the first night of Lindy's concubinage. It made no ripple on the waters of her life or his. "The years have taken their toll, child. Far too many years."
"I do not mind, Master. It would have been nice, but I do not mind."
"I railed against it once, my dear. But I have become wise. In your chains you give me far greater joy than in my bed."
"They give me pleasure too, Master." Lindy paused, diffidently, "I will do whatever you wish. If I can give you pleasure...?"
There was no ritual, no routine. The slavegirl could wander as she pleased. For the rest, they shared most of their meals, spent much time in converse, and sometimes shared Talife's bedroom, but only inasmuch as the slave slept chained upon the rug. Lindy's other slumbers were by the whimsical mood of her lord. Talife would order her locked in a cell, roped to a post, or simply left to her own choice of a place to sleep. It became something of a game they both enjoyed.
Lindy's new chains, the unbreakable, untouchable, uncuttable implacability of steel, generated strange reactions. She lived entirely in the present, refusing to think of the future. She knew herself possessed in a degree beyond any previous possession. She was totally the property of Talife. She was, moreover, doubly wedded to the Desert. The chains made a mockery of any other life. She had no wish to escape, and even had she cherished such a desire, the shackles of Talife would negate it. She had become the pet plaything of a venerable Arab and often amused herself by savoring on her tongue the names applicable to her condition: Concubine: Slave: Thrall: Leman: Odalisque: Bondmaid. She lived in a euphoric world of beneficent bondage.
She learned to walk anew. It took time and chafed ankles, but Lindy attained a new grace and poise. The close proximity in which her hands were held mattered little. With feminine instinct for effect she practiced poses and positions by which the linking of her wrists showed to advantage. She became aware of the eroticism of confinement for a girl and made the most of it. She knew the collar on her neck held fascination for Talife. But it held a magic for her too. The steel band snug around her waist was the authoritive touch of Talife's hand. But sometimes, admiring her shackles in the mirror, a tiny cloud would shadow the sun of her security with a mocking reminder of: Forever... forever... forever...! Lindy Bestwick was a slave.
The girls chained to the wall were unsure of her shackles, not knowing whether to offer her pity or envy. It gave Talife's concubine a pussy warming thrill to parade down the line of female merchandise. She could not talk to them, but it would give them something to think about while they waited on their chain for their new owner.
"You are happy, child? You have worn your chains a month."
"I am happy, Master." She gazed up in frank communion. "The world I came from would call me insane." She made a provocative play with her chained hands, then fingered the metal on her neck. "They would call these ugly and cruel. They would expect tears of me... " Lindy laughed unaffectedly. "I don't really understand Me myself--you have a magic here in the Desert."
He nodded. "You have fulfilled my fantasy, child. In you I find an endless enchantment, a daily refreshment of the spirit. I owe you much. Tell me, is the weight of your bondage hard to bear?"
"No, Master." Lindy grinned ruefully. "I have been bound and chained much since I was first kidnapped in Rabaul. I have easily become accustomed to the beauty of what you have had welded upon me. There has been no moment when I wanted to be rid of my chains."
"I have not had you whipped."
"I have wondered why, Master. Am I not deserving?" Talife laughed his pleasure at her naivete. "You speak of it as a reward?"
"Is it not so, Master? A whipped girl knows she is not ignored."
He laughed, delighted. "You will soon be quoting the Koran for me. I believe you actually want to be whipped?"
"If my striped back would give you pleasure, Master. You give me so much."
"You believe I would enjoy the searing of your skin?"
"I think all men enjoy it, Master--you have been kind. "She paused, embarrassed. "It is good for a girl sometimes to be whipped. It rids her of falsity, of pride... Lindy twisted awkwardly. "Forgive me, Master, if-" Raschid El Talife grasped the chain between his slavegirl's hands and led Miss Lindy Bestwick to where she would be whipped.
She was as shy as a Victorian bride, suddenly tenfold naked. Her Master had never whipped her. Now he would! Lindy blushed as her hands were raised and fastened. Her chains impeded nothing. She stood, a nude white statue, arms high, all of her exposed to the lash in an intimacy with her owner never before achieved. Her heart was pounding, and she knew it absurd. It was pounding in desire, a carnal longing for the feel of her Master's whip upon her naked skin.
Raschid El Talife whipped his slavegirl with pleasure and with care. He was not unduly cruel to the pale loveliness waiting to be etched by his hand, but he was severe. It was to be expected of such a man that if he did a thing he would do it properly. Lindy Bestwick would be whipped in a manner to remember. Raschid sighed in pure joy as his arm flashed with vigor and with skill.
Lindy Bestwick embraced her pain as she would have embraced an old friend. It had been many weeks since she had been whipped, but the last time had been under the spur of fear. Now it was love! She could not explain this need of the lash any more than she could explain her satisfaction in her chains. Wryly, she guessed it might be a surrogate orgasm, a trancendency of the flesh otherwise denied. The first stripe across her back told her she would climax before her punishment was done.
The pain was exquisite. The thong seared, burned and cut in remembered agony. There were no long pauses, but a steady rhythm of strokes by which the whipped girl mounted towards a crescendo forever one stroke away. At the sixth or seventh blow she came to the fulfillment of climax, her moans, her writhings, and her small cries no more than appropriate to either the wondrous pain of the whip or of the marriage bed.
But Lindy did not scream. It was neither stoicism nor bravado that muted the vocal tribute to maiden anguish. She simply did not want to. Her Master was whipping her and she was glad. To offend his ears with screams would be ingratitude. She gave him moans and gasps a'plenty as the thong bit, but when they became too loud she turned to one of her raised arms and buried her mouth in her own soft flesh.
"Twenty strokes, child. It is enough."
"Thank you, Master, oh thank you...!"
No one could doubt the sincerity of Lindy's words. She was joyous in what had transpired. She was fulfilled. Her body was slick with the sweat of anguish, Talife, playfully, harvested a finger wet with her excretion and offered it to her mouth. She sucked it hungrily.
"I am very salt, Master."
"The salt of the Earth, my child. You are beyond rubies."
He took his slavegirl in his arms, then held her long while his fingers traced the weals upon her back. Lindy gasped at each friction of a wound, but they were not the gasps of pain. When they mounted the stairs from the room of punishments, she begged impulsively: "Chain me to the wall, Master. Just for tonight?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm your slave."
Raschid El Talife laughed. But he understood. He chained Miss Lindy Bestwick to the wall, he kissed her then left her on the sand.
It was a palpitating feast of sensations. Lindy had never been more happy. She felt for as many of her wounds as her chained hands could reach, and gloried in each one. The feel of Talife's arms was still a thrilling presence and, for the first time, she felt not so much possessed as herself possessing the venerable man and all his desert wealth. Reverting to the lowliest of slaves, she had become a queen.
She was thrillingly aware of one more 'first.' The chain and padlock were heavy round her throat, an old familiar weight of slavery. But now they were attached to the steel band which had become so much a part of her. She was collared and chained to the Wall, but the collar would not come off--Never, never, never! She went to sleep in the sand and dreamed of being whipped. It was not a nightmare.
"This could become habit forming."
The American voice intruded on Lindy's dream. It was a voice demanding attention. Irritably, she sat up, rubbing her eyes to provide a clink of links. The voice persisted.
"Dammit,' girl, you've got a genius for getting yourself chained up."
"Harry! Oh, Harry...!"
"Lindy, you gorgeous little idiot!"
Broadbent's arms were deeply satisfying. He smelt of good cigars and expensive cloth. They held each other for a long time. A few paces distant a pair of soldiers stood at respectful but curious attention. One of them held an object Lindy had seen before. "Brought a bit of the local army this time, sweetheart. They won't touch this johnny who's held you, but they add a touch of the Law he won't be anxious to flout. Here, let me cut you loose."
"You can't!" Lindy paused in confusion, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of escape, of rescue, of this whole encroachment of her past demanding a mental adjustment she could not make. Lamely, she added: "It's some kind of special steel."
"Rubbish!" Broadbent reached for the bolt cutters. Positioning their blades on the link of her collar he exerted force. Nothing happened. "What the devil --!" He was irritated, chagrined and puzzled.
Lindy's heart leaped. If Broadbent would accept defeat and go, her dilemma would vanish. Her quandary was agonizing. But she belonged to Talife...! Harry Broadbent would never understand. Urgently, she whispered: "Harry, leave me here. The metal won't cut --and anyway you mustn't... All sorts of things have happened... Raschid El Talife has been kind to me."
"Yeah, I bet! Chained you out here for sale." Broadbent was angry. "And do I notice whipmarks?"
"Harry, you can't understand--and there's no time. Please, just leave me. I'm happy. Honest, I am!"
"You're nuts! Or brainwashed or drugged or something--" He paid her scant attention. "Dammit', I'm having another try!"
How could she forbid! How could she say or do anything! Wherever she turned, disbelief and frustration mocked. And how could she love two men or explain to either one? Lindy Bestwick was trapped! Unhappily she kept still while the cutters bit at the second link of her tether to the Wall.
"There, that's better!" Broadbent was jubilant. He held up the severed link. "Honeybunch, you're free!" Had Lindy not borne Talife's shackles she would have leaped and fled to her Master's House. But the irons on her feet made her as much Broadbent's prisoner as if he had locked them on her himself. Miserably, she pleaded: "Darling, please leave me here. There's reasons... I belong to Talife -- "
"Horseshit!" Broadbent was scarcely listening. "Now, if I can get your feet free we're on our way."
"But you can't. I don't think it's possible--" Her voice faltered miserably as she watched the blades approach her ankles. The two soldiers appreciatively watched her breasts.
"I'll be damned!" Broadbent looked at his cutters accusingly, then tried a different link. "I guess you're right--the old son-of-a-bitch! He sure must value you." He handed back the cutters and picked her up. "Honey, you can't walk, but I sure can. We'll deal with your hardware when there's time."
Lindy moaned inwardly. It was all hopeless, everything was spoiled. Whatever happened now would make her traitoress to one of two men, perhaps to both. And she was still chained and helpless! Inwardly, she muttered a heartfelt 'Damn!' A front seat in one of two jeeps. A desert ride. Two tents. In one of the Broadbent's anger turned to amusement. "Dammit,' you're right, sweetheart: bolt cutters won't touch that steel." He chuckled. "We'll look damn funny getting married with you in irons." Instead of laughing, Lindy wept. All she could feel was loss and the betrayal of two men. Manlike, Broadbent patted her and took her in his arms. To him, she was emotionally overtaxed, the relief of rescue must be shattering, the tears would do her good... When they subsided into isolated sobs he tried again.
"Mrs. Broadbent in chains...!" He contemplated an erotic vision. "You'll look damn cute around the house --you look damn cute right now--"
"Oh, Harry, please don't joke. I have to wear them. I want to be chained. They're a sort of pledge" lindy stumbled against divided loyalties. "I can't possible go back to the U.S.A."
Broadbent was hurt. He had reason to be hurt.
Maidens in distress were not supposed to tell their rescuers to leave them alone and go back home. They sat and looked at each other in perplexity. To bridge a gap, he explained: "We managed to track you to that place in Chicago. We got there in time to see dead bodies, that's all. We could not imagine you back here, so we've searched the U.S.A. from end to end. The other day the police here picked up a clue about you." He shrugged dejectedly. "So here I am--and not a bit welcome. I thought we were going to be married?"
"I thought so too." Unemotionally, the chained girl told him her story since last they met, ending dolefully: "I know you can't possibly understand. Oh, Harry, I'm so terribly ashamed and sorry...!"
Harry Broadbent manufactured an artificial grin. "Okay, something's gone wrong for us. But I haven't heard a word you've said, and you're going back to Rabaul with me whether you like it or not."
"As a prisoner?"
"What else! I can't get those damn things off you -- and anyway you seem to like 'em." He laughed bitterly. "Maybe they're a blessing. At least, you can't run away."
They left it at that. They slept. But not together. Lindy longed for Talife's serenity, his calm assurance. She was shattered by events. But in the morning was realist enough to recognize the intrusion of the U.S.A. back into her life. Harry himself was one hundred and fifty percent Washington. Everything in the tent bespoke U.S.A., even the food. No matter how she tried, she could never forget her origins. Broadbent was heavily practical.
"I could have Lieutenant Murad keep you safe in a cell until deportation to the U.S." He said morosely. "But you know I'm not doing that."
"Thanks, Harry. They didn't treat me all that well last time."
"How about a nice American home with a nice youngish American wife of one of the boys at the office? You'd like Betsy."
"Whatever you want, Harry."
"Gosh, you make it sound the absolute end!" He was irritated by her apathy. "Dammit,' sweetheart, you're going to love Betsy. She'll be good for you. You'll have a chance to think." He grunted in frustration. "As for those chains you're so fond of... If it's true they can't be got off outside the U.S. you'll have to wear 'em. But I'd be surprised -- "
"They won't come off, Harry. Leave them on me. I don't want all sorts of men prodding away and looking at me naked."
"Aren't you used to that by now." He gave a short hard laugh. "Betsy will figure something, she'll get you covered."
"Betsy sounds nice. Thank you, Harry. I'll be a model prisoner."
He ignored the jibe. "Good, that's settled. I want you happy and I. want to marry you. You'll return to normal. You may not think so, but you will."
"Harry, don't talk about marriage. Don't you realize I'm soiled. I was a whore in Chicago for weeks and weeks." Brutally, she added: "I must have been fucked by a thousand men."
"Stop that talk. I don't want to hear. I don't care how many men--well, never mind... " He gazed at her in desolation and left her alone.
Lindy Bestwick could not deny the immense potency of the U.S.A. It enfolded her in her chains as a mother hen enfolds a solitary chick. Even before they reached Betsy Ratcliffe, Lindy could feel the desert's retreat. Betsy herself was e a bright-eyed young woman who appeared to think everything hilarious and, if not of American origin, slightly absurd. She took possession of Lindy with joy.
"It's so damn good to have a girl from home."
"I'm not really from home right now--"
"Close enough. Harry's told me. I say, about those chain things, do you really like them?"
"Well, I've got used to them, and the man who put them on me was terribly kind."
Betsy giggled. "I like 'em. Don't let old sobersides take 'em off. He tells me you like them too?"
"Well, yes, I'm afraid so. You see -- "
"Don't apologize, Honey." Betsy giggled again. "I asked Matson, he's my husband, to tie me up. It was right after we got married -- He damn near blew a fuse. At home I buy those magazines with the bound beauties, mostly naked like you, and Matson tears 'em up. He's terribly square."
"I'm afraid I'm not really into--into--They call it B&D, don't they?"
"Honey, you're in it up to your eyebrows." Betsy was intrigued. "You're chained hand and foot, tummy and neck, and your back's all whipmarked, the weals look fresh...?"
"It's not just the way it seems--"
"Don't be shy with me, dear. I know I'm incorrigible, but the mere sight of you makes me goosey and wet between my legs. Does your pussy get damp when you see a girl tied up?"
"Well... I'm mostly tied up myself. But, yes, you're right."
"Those lovely shackles must keep you wet all the time?"
"I hadn't thought of it. I'm so used to being chained." Without ceremony, Betsy tested. Of course you're damp, I knew you would be. Darling, I do so envy you!"
"If you tell Harry that he'll think you've lost your marbles too."
"Men are ridiculous." Betsy sniffed disdainfully. "I'd love to leave you the way you are for Matson. But he couldn't take it--those lovely breasts of yours and that beautiful pubic bush! He'd think of us both as hookers. I have to cover you, honey, I just have to."
It was fairly easy. A sheath of flowered fabric was stitched into a sarong, anchored tight above Lindy's breasts and contoured with a bow tie at her waist. She refused bra and panties, such fripperies now seemed silly. The metal round her middle was hidden. "But my chained hands and feet, and my collar...?" Lindy wanted to laugh.
"Matson will have to put up with 'em." Betsy said maternally. "If they bother him that much maybe he'll figure a way to get them off. But, anyway, your Harry's told him the story --and this is Rabaul."
It was all comfortingly reminiscent of the world Lindy had supposed lost. But the chains were Talife's, they were his hand upon her flesh. She felt only misery and sadness at what he must be thinking, at what he might believe. Betsy's American kitchen made her feel as does a wife on a brief visit to her mother. She spoke of this confusion of loyalties to her hostess.
"Betsy, can you understand... I'm a prisoner?"
"You mean those chains--?"
"I mean Harry Broadbent and this whole thing. I've been snatched away from a life, a life I'd fallen in love with. I don't belong in the U.S.A. any more." She grinned ruefully, "These chains make me a sort of package. I can be picked up and carried around. I can't fight and I can't run. Betsy, I want you to understand: If my feet weren't chained I'd run away."
"Mmmmmmmm, yummy." Betsy radiated comprehension. "Like the white women the Indians used to capture...? They were always mad over being rescued--at least that's what the stories tell. Darling, I think it's wonderful. I wish something like that happened to me, Matson's so dull -- Here, let me look at those things on your ankles."
Lindy sat and, amusedly, watched the young wife's rapt features as she handled Talife's inscrutable steel. Betsy's breathing had quickened. "Gosh, Lindy, I wish they were on me instead of you. They're positively cunt crinkling." She spared an apologetic glance. "I'd thought maybe a hairpin or a pair of pliers... but that's silly. There's not a hole, not a crack. Brrrrr, they're beautifully scary."
"They were gorgeous... back where I was. Now, they simply make me helpless. Harry will do whatever he thinks good for me and won't listen to a word I say." Her voice rose hopefully, "Betsy dear, could you get me a driver and a jeep?"
"You mean...?"
"Yes, I'd run away and go back."
"But... naked... and chained!"
"I can't help that. I'm stuck with it."
"You must really love whoever it is out there?"
"Yes."
"Even when he whips you?"
"Yes, that too. Gosh, Betsy, it's crazy--and I don't know how to explain."
"You don't have to. I think I know. Darling, does it make you frightfully horny when you're whipped?"
"How did you know--?"
"See, I guessed right!" Betsy glowed happily. "I've never been whipped. No way Matson's going to do something like that for a girl. But I've read about it a lot, it just drives my pussy wild."
"Maybe I wouldn't need a driver." Lindy mused thoughtfully. "You get the jeep. You drive us both. I can arrange for you to be on a slave chain within a couple of days."
The two girls gazed at each other, awestruck, until Lindy guiltily backtracked. "I'm sorry. I'm being silly. I shouldn't give you ideas?"
"But, Lindy dear, a slave... chained? Mmmmmm!"
"You wouldn't like it. You'd hate it. I hated it at first."
"You mean, you've been a slave?"
"Of course. I'm still a slave, in a sort of way."
"How d'you know I wouldn't like it? Sounds groovy as all get out. Oh wow...!"
They strip you naked, they put an iron collar round your neck, that's padlocked to a chain which tethers you to a wall: there's a whole line of girls... "
"And men see you like that? They can touch?"
"And you have to be nice to them or else you're whipped."
"But, darling, it's all so beautifully romantic!" Betsy radiated visions. "And the jeep --I don't see why I couldn't--Oh damn, there's Matson!"
Matson was Harry Broadbent's rectitude multiplied by three. The shackles on the limbs of Miss Lindy Bestwick were socially unacceptable, so he ignored them. After dinner he spoke of the internal disorders of the desert and of foreign aid. In the morning, a trifle earlier than need be, he departed for the Consulate. Having met Matson, Lindy felt sorry for his concupiscent wife. Betsy was very ripe and very lush but he had not the sense to pluck her from the tree of boredom. Would it be so terribly wrong to persuade her to escape! Would it...? Betsy's lack of inhibitions, her blithe carnality made the thought deliciously plausible...!
* * *
It was the second day. The two girls were hot and a little tired, but still excited. The map was becoming tattered from much fingering as the jeep's engine throbbed their escape further and further from Rabaul and the prosy normalcy of Matson Ratcliffe. His youthful wife's ebullience still bubbled over enough to sustain Lindy's own confidence in an act which, to others, might seem one of mental aberration. She was soberly considering the possibility of punishment. Talife might assess her with guilt, believing that surely there must have been some way she could have repulsed or escaped Broadbent's good intentions. But, so what! To be whipped again was a small price to pay for a return to felicity.
It was when they were coming close to the oasis and the village of Raschid El Talife that Betsy glanced in the rear view mirror and exclaimed. "There's something behind us. It's been there too long. Honey, wouldn't it be a bust if it's your guy and mine with the strait jackets!"
It was not the American Consulate. It was a truck, in the back of which were men with guns, ragged grinning men who leveled rifles and waved them to a stop. Lindy's heart plummeted, she could guess the rest of the scenario. "Don't resist." She whispered. "They won't kill us." Bitterly, she added: "I think you're getting your wish, and in spades."
It was almost a meeting of old friends. The guerillas surrounded the halted jeep at a respectful distance while Francesca and the smiling Raoul sauntered negligently to assess their prize.
"Well, well, the little bitch!" Francesca was intrigued. "Look at her shackles, Raoul. They must be those we heard about. How come Talife let you off the leash, kid?"
"He didn't. I was stolen. I'm on my way back. Look, Francesca, leave us alone. Talife won't thank you for interfering."
"Who are they?" Betsy looked around in dismay. "Bandits?"
"Out on the sand, girlie." Francesca Brunelle motioned with her gun. "Let's have a look at you. Don't play coy."
Lindy slithered from the seat, chains clinking as though in protest. She motioned to a bewildered Betsy. "We have to do as she says, there's no choice." Francesca turned to her guards. "Okay, boys, we got 'em. We'll use the jeep. Take the truck and get away from here. Leave me some rope." She grinned at an open-mouthed Betsy and added: "Oh yes, and there's my riding crop in there somewhere. Leave me that too." Lindy watched the departure of the troops. They did not matter. But the riding crop and the lengths of rope upon the sand mattered a lot. She eyed them unhappily. Francesca's command to Betsy Ratcliffe was even less welcome.
"Okay, girlie, let's have a look at you."
Betsy stepped forward. Innocently bewildered, she vouchsafed: "Well, here I am." She turned full circle and apologized. "I'm afraid that's all there is."
"I told you--don't play coy. Strip naked."
Betsy's eyes widened in shock. "No way --!"
With studied effect Francesca picked up the crop. "You can be naked and nice, sweetheart, or you can be naked with marks, piety of marks... " She flexed the supple crop between dexterous hands. "Your choice." The chained girl knew herself audience to psychological shock in her companion who was still free of bonds. Betsy was computing odds and fighting a battle with her forces divided and in disorder. Suburbia dictated flight and resistance which could only end in manhandled shame. But as her eyes roved, the crop and the cords and Francesca's crisp command generated within her loins the heat of a hundred frustrations in her past. Here was reality! As in a dream, she made herself naked.
"Nice! What d'you think, Raoul?"
"Top price. Good breasts. Her waist's right. Healthy bush. We'll keep her."
"Sure we will." Francesca was still circling the new nudity. "Tie her, Raoul. The usual... "
Betsy's breasts heaved. Her heart was pounding, her eyes were bright. If she was going to run it would have to be now. But she eyed Raoul and his cords in mesmerized fascination. In palpitating docility, the wife of Matson Ratcliffe turned and placed her hands behind her back. Raoul knotted the slender wrists, then the unsuspecting elbows. Betsy's nostrils flared at the intimacy and the pain, but she said no word. Catching Lindy's eye, she smiled.
"Damn girl likes it." Francesca sneered. "Well, that's okay. Better loop their necks. We'll tow the other little bitch by the chains on her hands."
Comprehension dawned. Lindy was breathless in disbelief as Betsy's neck was roped and the strand fastened to her own collar. They were tethered six feet apart. Where one went the other must go too. When a longer length was knotted on her wrist shackle and trailed its way to the back of the jeep she wailed: "But you mustn't--you're not going to tow us behind?"
"That's the idea, girlie. We'll take it slow."
"But I'm chained! I can't run. I can't even walk properly!"
"Too bad, kid. You'll make out."
"I won't! I'll trip and fall--"
"Stop beefing." Francesca was enjoying her mastery of female flesh. "Talife's place is just over those dunes ahead. We're almost there. You move damn good in those chains. I want to watch."
Lindy's mind raced. She would be compelled to try. Perhaps it was possible to avoid being dragged--perhaps! As the jeep started to move she took quick steps against the snub of the chain. Betsy shook her head against the bond of the rope, but kept pace to maintain slack. Two naked girls were on their way to slavery.
It was a deliberate humiliation, a needless cruelty. There was room in the back of the jeep. To be dragged at rope's end across the sand on their way to captivity was a delicacy of female subjugation the terrorist girl could not resist. Whilst Raoul drove, Francesca sat sideways to look back and revel in Betsy's bewilderment and Lindy's travail.
"Can you make it, darling?" Betsy's voice was tremulous.
"I --I--I'm not sure." Lindy was panting in apprehension, her chained feet flashing in motion to a clash of links, her arms taut against the compulsion of the towrope they could not escape. "I'm going to try. Give my neck all the slack you can."
It was a desperate ordeal. The slavegirl could have wept at thought of her Master's chains bringing her to such a pass. Soon she would tire, soon her ankles would begin to suffer under their metal bands. It seemed impossible Francesca would make her suffer thus all the way to the village. Lindy felt sure it was not that close. But Francesca was unpredictable...!
A stone beneath her bare foot was the slave's undoing. Lindy cried out in pain, stumbled and fell. The two rope relentlessly dragged her nakedness across the sand. It was Betsy's voice that held the agony. "Stop! Oh, stop... she's fallen--and we're tied!"
The jeep came to a halt. The smiling boy at the wheel and the sardonic female at his side looked back to enjoy the spectacle of their nude captive's struggle to re-arrange themselves. Betsy was flustered in a helplessness such as she had never known. She was twisting fretfully at her tied arms and tossing a sulky head against a noosed neck. Her voice was indignant. "You're a couple of animals. You've hurt her. She can't possible --!"
In pure pleasure Francesca sauntered back and struck Betsy's surprised bottom a swift stroke with a crop. While the hurt girl was gasping in shock she slashed again. Betsy yelped in anguish. "You rotten bitch --!"
lindy had managed to stand erect. Now, her tethered neck served to snub and inhibit Betsy's frantic effort to evade the crop. They were in vain. Francesca did not stop the punishment until six crimson welts were well planted on the young wife's bottom and hips. "I want to hear your apology." She commanded firmly. "Make it good."
Betsy was scarlet with exertion and shame. Her bottom burned. Her tied elbows were a fierce restraint. She gulped back the exclamation on her lips, and substituted. "I'm sorry I was rude--good gosh, that hurt!"
"Didn't sound very contrite to me. Bend over."
"Oh, please...! Don't hit me again. I'll be terribly polite."
"Sure you will. Bend over."
Betsy looked around for help. There was none. The chained Lindy dolefully explained. "I'm afraid we have to do what she says."
Two more hard welts ridged the flesh of the young bottom so obediently bent and stretched to received them. The rope jerked at Lindy's neck. But Francesca was appeased. "Okay, stand up. Try and behave yourself. I won't tolerate lip. Take your cues from the little bitch here, she's been well broken."
Francesca viewed her helpless maidens possessively. Amiably, she suggested: "Raoul, why don't you screw this little trick who's ass I've just warmed? She might be okay."
"D'you mind?" He was boyishly eager.
"Hell no. I'll have little Trixie here service me while you're doing it. May as well get some use out of 'em."
"But you mustn't!" Lindy's wail was loaded with guilt. "She's married. It's not right! Ohhhhhh please, fuck me instead."
"Bend over, Honey."
It was hateful to be so helpless in such company. Lindy cursed her own impetuosity. Miserably she bent and took the three crop cuts across her bottom without complaint. Before she knelt with ready mouth between Francesca's straddled feet she glimpsed a wide-eyed Betsy sinking to the sand to lay on bound arms and scorched bottom and to obediently open wide her legs.
Lieutenant Murad's small force had never had so easy a victory. The half dozen soldiers grinned in appreciation as they circled the copulating quartette. No ambush could have been more successful. Francesca's eyes were closed in ecstasy, Lindy's face was deep in pubic hair. The male terrorist, the smiling Raoul, was busy sending waves of carnal sensation deep within Betsy's loins. Lieutenant Murad was obliged to cough gently to obtain attention.
Raoul leaped for his gun. He was instantly shot to thud lifeless in the sand. The smiling killer would smile no more. Two men grasped Francesca's arms. Another took a handful of her hair while handcuffs clicked upon her wrists. In prudent respect for her reputation they clasped a second pair of chrome steel bands above her elbows. The woman, interrupted in her joy, was a seething fury. But she was helpless. She would not escape. She glared speechlessly at the lieutenant as he took the floor.
"Mrs. Betsy Ratcliffe and Miss Francesca Brunelle, you are both under arrest." He informed courteously. "You will be taken to Rabaul where charges will be laid." He turned to Lindy. "You, Miss Bestwick, are the property of Raschid El Talife and will be returned to him in good order." He paused impressively. "However there are certain prerogatives of authority... " He beamed a white-toothed smile at his captives, then to his men: "Okay gentlemen, you may secure them." Lindy watched in horror as Betsy was untied, then staked naked and widespread upon the sand. Tent pegs were pounded with a will and cords were tugged on wrists and ankles to render Mrs. Betsy Ratcliffe tautly spread and available for carnal use. But the chained girl's horror turned to joy as Francesca Brunelle was similarly served. She fought like a fury when the handcuffs were taken from her arms. Her imprecations were fearful to hear as she was stripped. By the time she was well staked out as a naked offering to the male she had relapsed into a sullen silence of acceptance. Only her eyes still smoldered hate.
"Well, Miss Bestwick?" Lieutenant Murad was unfailingly polite. "Your master's shackles suggest an alternative? We can hardly spreadeagle you --?" Glimpsing a fresh and disagreeable shame, Lindy hastily insisted: "No, it's alright! I can lay down. You can fasten me. I'll show you...?" She gazed unhappily at Desert Law. "Please, the chains won't stop anything... honest!"
"Thank you, Miss Bestwick. But, nonetheless, you will kneel. I am sure you know what to do?"
His chained girl knew all too well. She knelt. But she said piteously: "Aren't you afraid of what I will tell Talife?"
"You might best keep silent." Murad said thoughtfully. "There are spheres of influence in our land, certain authorities and privileges understood beyond the Law. Complaints will be officially denied and severely punished." He smiled benignly. "I would explain to your honored master that we apprehended you fleeing in the opposite direction. I am sure that if I suggested, or requested, a hundred strokes for you he would be happy to comply."
She was trapped. Talife's love for her was going to be tested to the full without this extra lie from an official of the State. Contrite and obedient, she agreed: "Very well, I will do as you wish. Please don't be any rougher with Mrs. Ratcliffe than need be...?"
"She will receive the very best of our attention." The rape of captive nudity began.
They drew lots for a beginning. Seven men and three girls! A Male line was established and moved its length slowly in and out of waiting cunts and Lindy's waiting mouth. Adjustments were contrived beneath female hips... there was much laughter. Of necessity, the movement of the circle was slow. The kneeling lindy soon ruefully realized her function was more to regenerate flaccid members than to pleasure them. Immediately her lips and tongue worked their feminine magic the rigid and rejuvenated penis returned to spend itself again in female flesh. The operation had about it a military efficiency. Eventually the men grew tired and slept. But before they slumbered they handcuffed lindy's shackles to the jeep. Miserably she sat and looked across the ten paces separating her from the staked out girls. She could not help them. She disposed herself and her chains and tried to sleep.
In late afternoon there was a meal. Soldiers had departed and fetched their own vehicle, hidden behind a dune, and much equipment, including several bottles. Lindy was released from the cuffs and urged to partake. When she refused, it was tactfully suggested she should maintain her strength.
"You mean, you're going to do it to us again?"
"My men have admirable vigor, Miss Bestwick, and your mouth is of superlative quality. It is the fountain of eternal life."
She drank and was allowed to minister to the bound girls. "I shall kill them all." Francesca promised in deadly venom. The chained girl sighed. "I'm sorry I can't untie you," She said wearily, "They're watching." To Betsy she whispered: "They won't kill us, and being fucked this way won't kill us." She smiled bitterly. "Believe me, darling, I know."
"Lindy, they've got me tied so wonderfully tight!" The two girls gazed up and down at each other in an ancient wisdom.
The second round of ravishments flowed its course in the same slow penetrations as the first. Never had men possessed more easily available feminine sheaths in which to expend the frustrations of their lives. Men gasped and women moaned, tugging in futile writhings at the cords and the stakes. Lindy wondered if she would ever have other vistas than close-up's of male genitals.
There was no respite. When lust was appeased, cruelty picked up the gauge. Francesca was freed, but immediately turned over the re-tied. With her breasts and chin thrusting into the sand she was as helpless as before. Everything available was positioned beneath her hips to rear her bottom into a stretched prominence of sinister intent.
"I'm a political prisoner. You dare not whip me." She glared up at Murad. "I'll show the marks. I'll--I'll--"
"You will do nothing, Miss Brunelle. Your behavior before and after arrest warranted discipline.".
"Damn you... damn you!"
"We will use your own riding crop across your buttocks, Miss Brunelle. It will be your best opportunity to test its quality. As for your back, we have an army issue item which you will find most adequate."
"Look, lieutenant, can't we make some sort of deal?"
"No, we do not make deals with terrorists. But to give you something to look forward to, we may turn you again and whip those female portions of you then revealed. Should my men wish to bother, they might service you between strokes...?"
"You rotten son-of-a-bitch!"
Lieutenant Murad struck the first blow. Francesca's own riding crop cracked across the taut rounds of her bottom with a fleshly thwack. He handed the crop to the next in line. The discipline of Miss Francesca Brunelle went forward with the same army precision as her rape. She did not scream. Even when her back was scored by the whip she cheated her captors of her screams, but her moans were piteous enough to touch Lindy's heart.
"Please, not any more. She's had enough. Look at her bottom, it's bruised purple and black."
"Perhaps you are right, Miss Bestwick. We will baste her a bit on the other side."
It was too cruel. But Lindy was chained and Betsy was tied to four widespread stakes. From their dual helplessness they watched the whipping of Francesca's breasts and the cropping of Francesca's loins. They also heard the screams of a woman who could stand no more. When the army was satisfied with the marks it had placed on the lovely body, they let it loose and helped it to its feet. Francesca stood, panting, wet with sweat, but free of all bonds. Her head was bowed, her arms listless. She was shamed and hurt and without the will to fight.
"Tie her arms."
It was the usual binding. Lindy winced as she watched the ropes cut at wrists and elbows. Francesca had met her match. When she was roped she was also handcuffed as before. The army was taking no chances.
"Now the crupper for her crotch."
Ropes wickedly tight in a belt for the whipped waist. From the bound hands at the back another rope to bisect the cheeks and down between whipped thighs to be carefully tugged within the whipped lips of a swollen sex, and then cinched up to the belt below the whipped navel. Francesca was not only helpless, she would hurt!
"Hobble her."
It was done with rope. A short span. Then they tethered her neck to the army truck. The terrorist leader was as helpless as a woman could be. She was naked and punished. She could stand there in full view to await their convenience. She did so, sullenly, refusing to meet eyes or return a smile.
Betsy Ratcliffe was next. But she was not whipped. The lieutenant had a nice eye for protocol. He allowed the violated wife time to massage her rope burns before ordering her bound.
"Lieutenant, please not her elbows and that crupper thing! Why can't you just handcuff her? She can't get away."
"She will be properly bound, Miss Bestwick. If you protest again she will be whipped. Perhaps you would like your own elbows tightly roped?"
"No. Never mind. I'm sorry."
"Ah, that's better." Murad stood with her to watch the securing of a truant American wife whose desert adventure would end in a prison cell and an ignominy she might never live down. "I find Mrs. Ratcliffe a most attractive young woman. My men and I will use her several times before taking her to Court."
"But, what can you charge her with? She's done nothing."
"Consorting with terrorists, and also prostitution." Murad assured blandly."
"Don't say anything, darling." Betsy warned, wincing at rope. "I expect I'll survive. "Oh damn, fancy tying up a girl's cunt!"
Watching the binding of the willful wife, Lindy realized the roped beauty was awash in a sea of tumescence. The harsh entry of binding rope within the much used mound was only the fulfillment of a female fantasy. Betsy was breathing heavily in lust. The girl in chains knew herself alone.
"Lieutenant, would you please take me to Talife now? I'm not doing anyone any good here."
"Why, of course! You are a most charming captive." She sat beside him in the jeep, and said frankly. "That girl wants to stay here and become a slave like me. Couldn't you let her?"
"Alas, no! There is the matter of a reward. There is much credit for me in her return to Rabaul."
Lindy sighed. This was a man's world. Demurely, she asked: "Lieutenant, would you do me a kindness: a thing to also please Talife? Please, now, chain me back on my Master's wall where he will find me as I was before I was stolen?"
"Why?"
"I suppose it's a feminine conceit. It won't absolve me from punishment. I will explain to him your V kindness. You will earn his gratitude!"
"Ah! I too am amused." Murad patted her arm. "Perhaps it is I think you a nice girl. It shall be as you wish."
It was a re-entry to a dream. The House of Raschid El Talife was closer than she thought. The trees loomed in the dusk... Murad picked her up and carried her to the door. Lindy never knew what keys he used to open it, but open it he did! In a maze of happiness she was carried across the Courtyard to where she pointed. On the sand was her own chain and a padlock. Off to one side was the severed link by which Broadbent had bestowed unwanted freedom. Set upon her feet, she immediately knelt and bowed her head. "The collar on my neck, lieutenant... please?"
The sudden weight of chain, the snap of lock! lindy sighed in a vast relief. Impetuously, she grasped a male hand and kissed it hard. "Thank you... Oh, thank you!" Demurely, she asked: "Do you wish to use me again? I am grateful. I will position myself?"
He bent and kissed her forehead. "I suspect you are a witch." He laughed. "It is best I go."
Miss Lindy Bestwick watched lieutenant Murad cross the Courtyard, she heard the small door close behind his back. Off to either side were sleeping slavegirls, chained by their collared necks to the wall. She arranged her own chain to suit her pleasure. She could not escape. She sighed with a total intensity of relaxation. She had come home. True, she might be terribly whipped. But that was a spine-tingling suspense bestowing its own delight. She knelt lovingly upon the sand.