Beloved Bonds

F.E. Campbell

Prologue

The rich sweep of Board Room mahogany. Seated at its end as Chairman, a girl. The corporate chairs, mostly empty. Five men. Four of them amused or embarrassed, one stony-faced with distaste. All eyes upon the only female present.

“The meeting is called to order,” announced Mrs. Caroline Dowling sweetly. “The Chair is open to offers.”

McIntyre, of the Devereaux Corporation, was decisive, faintly mocking. “I’ll assume the debentures in default and take four million in unissued stock,” he said crisply. “That should put Dowling Ltd. in pretty fair shape.”

Simard was more cautious. “My company will certainly go that far,” he agreed slowly. “But has this—this . . . whole incredible affair the blessing of . . . ?” He turned to the cold features of the man, aloof and alone, whose lips were a thin line of disapproval. “Mr. Dowling . . . ?”

“I’ll contest nothing.” Dowling’s statement was sardonic. “I’m here to watch and—you may have questions.”

“My husband and I understand each other.”

Caroline’s focus turned upon the youngest male present. “Mr. Dexter, you arrived late. You are bidding on Dowling Ltd. and me, my husband to remain as Chairman of the Board.” She made a pretty moue of disparagement. I go along with the deal as a sweetener. Whichever of you buys Dowling buys me.”

“Can’t possibly be legal.” Stafford of Altodox was prepared to be amused. “You mean to tell us—?”

“I do tell you!” The feminine reproof was incisive. “As an earnest of good faith I bought these.” Caroline Dowling held up for their inspection the shining chrome of a pair of handcuffs. The successful bidder can lock these on my wrists when he takes me with him at the conclusion of this meeting.” She exhibited a tiny key, and added demurely. “The man who sold them to me assured me they were of the finest quality.”

“I’ll be going to hell!” Lassiter Metals’ Ambrose thumped the solid table in extrovert enjoyment. “I’ll up the ante on the stock a couple of million and guarantee the debentures and those shaky first mortgage bonds.” He laughed jovially. “Dammit. Dowling, you’re the luckiest failure in the market.”

“Please resume the bidding,” said Caroline Dowling firmly.

It took exactly eight minutes to make Dowling Ltd. financially secure. The girl who had been Mrs. Robert Dowling watched amusedly as the handcuffs were locked upon her wrists. She had, thoughtfully, provided a cape to hide her enslavement from the world.

She left, without a backward glance, smiling.

1

Zindawba

Trudy Ramsay hated to be left alone in the cage.

When Caroline was a fellow prisoner the lewd and curious stares were mostly for her. When she was taken away Trudy got them all. There was nothing she could do about it. The cage was circular and stood exposed in the marketplace, its feminine content protected by a vast padlock on its door. Whichever way she turned her breasts could be viewed by someone. She had long ago ceased to cover them with her hands. Besides, the chains joining her wrists were heavy . . .

Trudy was constantly nagged by the belief she should discard the small Union Jack which was her only covering. It just snugly managed to shield her loins with the aid of one safety pin. She had an uneasy conviction that to use her national flag as a covering for her pubic hair must surely rank as lèse-majesté or some form of treason to earn her the disapproval of the reigning monarch and the House of Parliament. But to be totally starkers in a cage in an African republic she had never previously heard of . . . ! It was just too much! She diapered herself with the Union Jack in prideful defiance and a good deal of guilt.

The flags had been caustically provided and were a ‘must.’ Caroline wore her Old Glory with an amused wiggling of hips to cause the stars and stripes to undulate and evoke erotic comment and much laughter. If there was adverse significance in this sex-soiled symbolism, she did not appear to care. The republic of Zindawba seemed to have an adequate stock of the once-prideful rectangles, and provided a change of flags often enough to keep the derrieres of its two captives colourfully patriotic.

Zindawba! Trudy hated the name. It sounded contrived and far from home. But she accorded its ruler and first President, Khalief Abhad, a mixture of awe, erotic curiosity, and pure fear. There was also a touch of pique. Her duties, such as they were, constantly brought her before his attention but he had signally failed to ravish her with the immense codpiece which was now a legend in his land. Not that she wanted him to, of course! But still . . . ! Caroline had all the luck.

It was the same with the press and the guys with the cameras. Their attention was for the woman whose seeming self-immolation had whetted the curiosity of the world. Their questions were always tinged with erotic suggestion and innuendo. They did not exactly snicker in her presence, but Trudy felt certain their articles and film probably did, not that she ever got a chance to see them! Caroline Dowling was news, she was ‘hot.’ That very morning there had been a small group, peering beyond the bars of the cage. One of them, a most earnest journalist impeccably overdressed and perspiring in Zindawba’s heat, had seemed sincere.

“Mrs. Dowling, is it true you are in this cage by your own wish?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course not!”

Caroline was always so much in command. Trudy envied her. She contrived to infuse most of her rejoinders with laughter or sly jibes. She had viewed the sweating feature writer with sympathy, as though it was he who was behind the bars. Always she managed to convey the hint that the truth they sought was an elusive intangible, not to be politely mentioned.

“Mrs. Dowling, are those chains, those fetters, on your wrists and ankles, real?”

“Of course. D’you want to feel their weight, they’re quite heavy, you can reach through the bars?”

“But you have a key secreted? You could take them off?”

“No I can’t, nor could you.”

“Is it true that the President is the only person who holds the key?”

A trill of laughter. “That’s hardly likely, is it.”

“Surely the State Department has made representations on your behalf?”

A shrug and a clink of restless chain. “I’m afraid I’m just an embarrassment to them.”

“Would you describe yourself as an activist, Mrs. Dowling?”

Caroline had laughed and wryly held up her hands to display the heavy links joining the metal wristlets. “Does this look like activism?” She kicked with a shackled foot to send her ankle tethers swirling. “Or these . . . ?”

“Mrs. Dowling, your—your—semi-nudity . . . ? Is it . . . ?”

Caroline looked down at her peerless breasts as though noticing them for the first time. She stuck out her chest mischievously. “Oh, I think that’s just what the well-dressed captive wears in Zindawba these days. Don’t hesitate to look.” It had been too much for Trudy. To be ignored was bad enough, but such calm acceptance of enslavement was intolerable. “What are you men nattering about!” she demanded angrily. “Get us out of here. Get us out of this asinine little movie set. If you’d an ounce of chivalry—!”

“You do not share Mrs. Dowling’s whimsey, Miss Ramsay?”

“I’ve been kidnapped, you idiot! And stop ogling my breasts.”

“But ladies, Zindawba insists you have committed crimes against the new republic? Crimes you wish to expiate—?”

“Expiate my—my—my—oh damn!” Trudy was close to tears. “Just get me loose and send me home. Call the army . . . !”

The media stood abashed, sweating with more than Zindawba’s heat, exchanging impotence with two chained and nearly naked girls locked in a cage. Around them the marketplace slowly pulsated beneath the tropic sun. Oddly clad citizens paused in passing to behold the wages of sin in Khalief Abhad’s new republic. Their curiosity was less for white breasts and sun-drenched skin than for white reactions. Females who demanded of their lords, angry and argumentative, wearing the chains of Zindawba with disdain. Abhad was right, they merited penitence. Their day was done. Soon they would be sentenced. It was the promise of a president.

“Poor Trudy!” Caroline’s voice was soft, her gaze roved the inquiring group. “I wish you’d do something for her, try and secure her release. She doesn’t deserve to be held prisoner. I’ve tried, but I’m helpless.”

They sloughed the appeal, just as everybody sloughed everything in this hateful place. Trudy wiped away a tear, hating the clink of her chain, hating everything. Hating most of all the next query, it scared her half to death.

“Is it true, Mrs. Dowling, that some sort of dramatic punishment awaits you at the president’s whim?”

“Like what?”

They were uneasy, ashamed. They should have been angry but were not. They felt less than men. “Something barbarous, medieval . . . ! There’s a rumor you are to be publicly whipped?”

“Is that all!”

“There is also talk of branding—”

“My, I am a lucky girl! I thought at least the headsman’s axe.”

“Mrs. Dowling.” The remonstrance was patient.

“Your insistence on jesting robs you of a good deal of sympathy.”

“Sympathy!” Caroline’s exclamation was suddenly bitter. “I haven’t noticed any sympathy to be robbed of. Neither has Trudy. As far as the British Empire and the U.S. of A. are concerned we’re just a pair of call girls without a phone. That ridiculous Consul, I could have kicked his—!”

“Mrs. Dowling, what about, your husband . . . ?” Trudy sighed. It all added up to nothing. She and Caroline were two spicy tidbits for the delectation of the erotically inclined. Undoubtedly, with Caroline, there was something more, a purpose not divulged. It would affect her too. Surely it must! They were kept so close, a shared captivity in which each was thankful for the other. To be wholly and totally alone . . . ! The younger girl shuddered.

It was shortly after the retreat of their countrymen that the soldiers had come for Caroline. It was a frequent enough break in their captivity to be without significance. Caroline was escorted away, and in an hour or a day would be escorted back. The soldiers were more for her protection against the rabble than to inhibit her escape. Her hands were always left chained, but to enable her to walk properly the shackles were unlocked from her ankles. They lay now on the ground in the centre of the barred prison, a mute promise of their wearer’s return. When she came back, she would be wearing a clean fresh flag.

It was nearly seven weeks since her abduction, but the event was still vivid in her mind. She had been walking down Laburnum Lane, minding her own business, when the expensive car had stopped and the two men had neatly lifted her from the sidewalk and placed the potent wad over her mouth and nose. When she returned to consciousness she was face down on some sort of seat and someone was tying her hands behind her back. The cord was cruel, but when she protested a heavy hand thrust down upon her shoulders and a harsh foreign voice said: “Quiet! Keep still.” She had wakened to darkness, tightly blindfolded. She had never been so frightened in her life. It took her a minute to realise she was stark-naked.

Obediently, she kept quiet and kept still. In her blindness she envisioned knives and guns pointed at her defencelessness. When the firm deft fingers moved from her wrists to her elbows she whimpered as the soft rope cut and pinched her flesh as her forearms were forcibly joined and bound as one. It wracked her shoulders terribly and caused her naked breasts to tauten against the fabric on which she lay. The sudden roar of engines and the rumble of a jet aircraft seeking the sky told her all too clearly that she might never walk the flagstones of Laburnum Lane again. It was not until the jets had subsided to a silken purr that they gave her back her eyes.

Trudy Ramsay blinked at the interior of an aircraft, almost empty save for two men and a woman. They were not exactly black, but had she passed them on the street she would have thought of them as ‘niggers.’ She was sure it would not be politic to do so now. They were expensively dressed, their features intelligent. Each was assessing her, as at a package freshly unwrapped. The drone of the jets told her England was receding into limbo. Awkwardly, she sat erect and stared. The cords biting her flesh hurt atrociously.

“A good choice. She’ll serve the purpose excellently.”

The woman was in command. She exuded authority. Incongruously, her English was cultured. She laughed at her captive’s puzzlement. Her information faintly derisive: “Girton, my dear. Then Cambridge. Remarkable what they do with niggers these days.”

“I—I’m kidnapped?” It was the paramount thought in Trudy’s mind, all else was curious but irrelevant. “I—I—can’t move.”

“Yes you can, dear. But not enough to be a nuisance. If you kick we’ll tie your ankles.”

“But—but—!” Trudy was still bemusedly grappling with priorities. “My elbows hurt something awful!”

“That’s to keep you tractable, dear. My name is Rulua. If you prefer you may address me as Miss.” The dark eyes twinkled. “It establishes our social divergence.”

She was handsome. A lithe sensual creature in her thirties. She contrived to make Trudy’s twenty years feel like childhood. Full firm breasts thrust at nipple-indented silk. Dusky fingers felt testingly at Trudy’s own twin girlish cones. “Quite beautiful. Did you know you were beautiful, Miss Ramsay?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Trudy lied, then blushed. “I’m—I’m just a girl.”

“I suppose ‘just a girl’ is exactly what we want.”

“But look, I’m naked . . . ! And there’s men . . . ! Someone’s taken my clothes . . . and the way you’ve just tied me—!”

“You have no further need of clothes, dear. Besides, we cannot evaluate you with them on.” Again the flicker of humour. “If it will make you easier I will remove my own?”

“Oh no!” Trudy was shocked. Quickly she returned to her most pressing need. “Please untie me. I don’t understand why I’m tied up like this, it’s terribly painful.”

“I’ll get her a drink.” It was one of the men. Trudy swallowed the strange and potent brandy, coughing and feeling silly that the cup must be held to her lips. “I’d thought perhaps a cup of tea—?”

They laughed at her innocence. “Why not!”

Rulua agreed indulgently. “Let’s all have one.” She winked at a companion. “Assad, d’you mind?”

The captive watched the male depart on his prosaic errand. The brandy was a fire within her veins, it gave her courage. “I could cope a lot better and be less of a nuisance if you’d just untie me—”

It was as far as she got. Rulua rose languidly to her feet and reached up into a luggage compartment. The whip she produced had two leather thongs and was short enough to be used effectively in a restricted space. “If you mention being untied again I’ll use this on some of that pretty skin, dear. England’s gone. Forget it.” She flicked the lash at a taut breast.

Incongruous, incredible, frightening! Trudy Ramsay sipped the hot tea held to her captive lips by a coloured gentleman named Assad. Pain was constant. The woman had been right, hurting like this she could not conceive revolt or argument. She wanted to cry but the circumstances were not quite right for tears. The sting where the thong had pinked her breast was strangely erotic. “What’s going to happen to me?” she inquired politely. The girl, shackled in the cage, jerked herself away from her memories. They had not told her then, or since, what Zindawba held in store. She had come to suppose she had been provided as company for Caroline Dowling. It was Caroline who ‘mattered.’ Trudy Ramsay was part of the scenery, shackled and caged with perfunctory disinterest. Even her punishments were meted out in casual routine.

The punishments had been a shock. But Trudy Ramsay had come to understand them as implicit to her new condition. She earned them by impertinence and small verbal indignations against her captivity. Once sentenced she was appalled, but after the pain had faded they fell into a perspective no longer horrific.

“Tomorrow, dear. Three strokes on each hand.”

“But, Rulua, I only said—!”

“It was the way you said it, dear: and you have been warned.”

“But, Rulua . . . Miss—Ohh please! I haven’t had my hands caned since I was a child in school! And then, it was only one on each!”

“A nostalgic memory, dear. These will be somewhat more painful. You will receive them in the Market Square.”

“O-h-h . . . N-o-o-o! Oh Miss, not with all those people watching!”

“They’ve all seen you in the cage, Trudy. What’s the difference?”

“But I won’t be able to be heroic, I know I won’t! I’ll cry and make a fuss and you’ll be angry with me!”

“Silly girl! You’ll probably come through splendidly. Your hands will be free, of course, but we’ll keep your feet chained so you can’t be foolish and run.”

“O-h-h-h . . . Oh, Miss Rulua, punish me some other way? P-I-e-a-s-e ? There are other ways, aren’t there?”

“Indeed there are, dear. I am letting you off lightly this first time.”

“Lightly! You call that lightly: three on each hand!”

“It is now four, dear. For all this commotion.” Trudy bit her lip. Rulua was steel, and she knew her transgression. Back in the cage she wept, cradled in Caroline’s arms, knowing the suspenseful wait until the morrow a part of her punishment.

By Zindawba standards it was no big deal. Minor wrongdoing was commonly punished in public. The fact of it being a white girl to receive the strokes generated only a slightly larger circle of the curious than was customary. Trudy suspected that had it been Caroline Dowling to be caned the audience would have been larger.

It was the most demeaning moment of her life.

Four soldiers kept guard and controlled the spectators. A street vendor hawked sweetmeats for small sums. In the centre of the Square stood Rulua with the hateful cane, a limber length putting to shame Trudy’s memories of her schooldays. The palpitating delinquent clinked her shackled steps to where she must stand to receive her pain. Exchanging a glance of total understanding with her Mistress, Trudy Ramsay held out her hand.

It was not until the cane rapped demandingly upon her bent elbow for the second blow that the punished girl fully realised her reaction to the first. The pain had driven her to her knees, clutching her hurt palm within the haven of a damp armpit, sobbing in shock.

“Ups-a-daisy, dear. The first is always difficult. On your feet!”

Trudy looked around. The crowd was enjoying her shame, the soldiers smirked. She hated them all. She was white and they loved to see her knees in the dust, her Union Jack soiled . . . Bitterly, she scrambled erect and thrust out a sacrificial arm. The cane whirred joyously.

She stood firm, unbelieving what she could will herself to do. The pain was sickening, but she stood docilely with hurt hands passive at her side until the dreaded command. When it came she looked only at the sky as she proffered an already wounded palm.

“You did wonderfully, dear. I knew you would.” Rulua’s tribute was sincere. She too had made herself bare from the waist up. Her skin glistened. She was a magnificent creature.

The caning was over. Her hands had each received their four strokes. Trudy was fighting down the waves of nausea and a compulsion to hug herself in agony. Her eye was apprehensively upon a length of cord in Rulua’s hand. “Miss . . . oh Miss, what now?” her voice quavered.

“Your hands are to be tied behind your back. It is part of the punishment.”

It was indeed! But the caned girl had no will to demur. Dolefully, she turned and arranged her wrists for the cord’s convenience. Then bit her lip at a fresh but familiar pain. Walking her shackled way back to the cage she knew herself trebly naked for being robbed of hands. She had not thought of her breasts during her caning, but now their nippled tips seemed to fill the horizon for all. She felt certain the crowd’s remarks were ribald. The Mistress’s grip upon her arm was firm but gentle. It was hard to believe it the same hand that had dealt the blows . . Back in the cage, Caroline had been warned not to loose her companion’s bonds. It was an order they both knew she had best obey. The delinquent wrists remained firmly corded for two days and nights. It was the two girls’ first lesson in Zindawba discipline.

Trudy, alone in the cage, separated her chained hands as far as the links allowed and examined her palms. They should have been scarred for life, but they were not! That too was a lesson, a girl could be punished and punished and punished . . . Girls healed their hurts with a daunting rapidity, leaving them again virgin for infliction. Lonely, her thoughts drifted to Caroline, wondering what was done to her in these unexplained absences, about which she had been warned to ask no questions, and which Caroline herself was firmly unwilling to discuss. At first she had suspected torture or some sort of coercion. But Caroline was a far too happy prisoner for this to be. The wife of Robert Dowling was an enigma to the world. Robbed of news, Trudy could not know the degree in which the fate and behavior of this white woman in darkest Africa had intrigued all and sundry in a speculation as to her motives and eventual destiny. If the State Department knew aught of either they divulged it not. Robert Dowling spoke curtly of divorce, otherwise he was silent. Robbed of certain facts, the media luxuriated in erotic fantasies of illicit love and defection to an unfriendly State. There was also the theory that this woman, often judged the most beautiful in the world, had taken upon herself the guilt of all the whites and was expiating their sins by debasing herself in captivity to a black ruler whose politics were still in doubt. Cautious reference was made to the vigor and quality of Khalief Abhad’s male genitals.

Trudy Ramsay’s puzzlement was compounded by the fact that her companion in captivity, privileged though she might be, was also punished. Caroline’s mischievous tongue, plus a taste of arrogance, had more than once provoked Rulua into handing out a sentence. The penalty was always the same, and Trudy could imagine why: the whipping of the delinquent’s feet. It was a punishment the younger girl dreaded and hoped never to suffer. It seemed too, too awful, and would indeed have been so had not the Mistress held her hand and levied strokes upon the upturned soles of Caroline’s feet light enough to be borne without injury, but usually eliciting a satisfactory modicum of screams. The moral to be drawn was that Caroline Dowling must not be marked: at least not where eyes might search her skin! And Caroline was always tightly bound for her punishment. She did not go to it or endure it with joy.

The captive reverie was disturbed by the voice of a grubby girl child against the bars. “Missie, why you in there?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

The child nodded sagely as though accustomed to being fobbed off with disclaimers. “Why you got them chain things?”

“To keep me from running away.”

“You can’t run! You locked in.”

“Well then, it’s to make me behave.”

“Hmmmmm, you know you get big whipping one day?”

“I’ve heard about it.” Trudy fought down the fear always ready to pounce. “Do you, know what day it’s going to happen?”

“No. But I goin’ ter watch. Big fun ter see yo’ get whip’.”

Trudy’s angry retort was cut short by Rulua’s curt dismissal in the dialect. The child skipped away, laughing. “Fiendish little devils, aren’t they!” the Mistress commented lightly. “How’d you like to get out of that cage?”

“Oh, Rulua . . . free?” Trudy was breathless.

“Well, not really, you’ll still wear a chain.”

“I don’t mind. It’s so nice to get out without being punished.”

“Hands through the bars, love.”

Trudy knew the drill. She was never given a chance to be difficult. The Mistress played it safe. The heavy wristlets were unlocked, the clanking shackle tossed back into the cage and replaced by handcuffs.

“Got you a new pair, dear. All black metal. More prettily made, and damned expensive. I’ll use ’em on you for dress occasions.”

The captive heart beat faster. ‘Dress’! It was a magic word. She examined the black circlets snug on her wrists. Compared with what she usually wore they were a thing of beauty. She was absorbed with her admiration while Rulua entered the cage and unlocked the metal from her ankles. The two sets of irons lay open on the ground like a malign promise for her return.

Trudy had been there before. The residence of Khalief Abhad was as magnificently extravagant as was to be expected, so was the bath, the perfume, the careful attention to her hair by a couple of young and dusky maidens whose sole vocabulary appeared to be giggles.

“Pay no attention to them,” Rulua advised sardonically. “They think because you’re getting a cleanup you’re also getting the President’s penis.”

Trudy flushed. “You mean, I’m going to—that he wants to—?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, dear. You get to serve the drinks. Here, put this on. Oops, sorry! Forgot the handcuffs! Let me . . .”

‘This’ was an apron to comfortably cover Trudy’s pubic hair. It left her bottom pertly bare, adorned only by a disproportionate bow which the Mistress took some pains to perfect.

“Is that all I get to wear?”

“It covers your bush, dear, that’s enough.”

“Not even as much as my Union Jack.”

“The President will accept you naked if you prefer?”

“Oh all right, I’m sorry! But it’s such a suggestive trifle. Anyone can lift it and look.”

“Of course!” Rulua’s agreement was coolly pragmatic. “If he wants to, let him. You’ve done this before. Remember, be seen and not heard. Serve him prettily—” She chuckled drily. “I mean with the Scotch and soda. He’s not likely to honour you with the other today.”

Trudy had played the serving wench before.

That time she had been stark-naked and bedecked with chains, collars, armbands, and a shameful ring clipped into her nose as though she was pierced. It hung over her upper lip as a badge of servitude. ‘Slave Girl,’ that’s what she had become. The uncrowned monarch of Zindawba had been entertaining the British Consul, and there was little doubt in Trudy’s mind she had been ‘laid on’ in nudity and chains as one more opportunity to rub the Empire’s nose in the dust. The Consul had been careful to avoid her reproachful eyes.

Khalief Abhad was versatile. His sense of humour was often Puckish. Like most of his breed, expensively educated, he could devastate his visitor with the impeccable accent of Oxford or the husky vowel sounds of his negro origins. With the Consul he had worn nothing but a loincloth, flaunting his colour in an offensive diplomacy of his own. But today he was the moneyed man of leisure. Bond Street and Paris had joined forces to clothe him casually in silken elegance. He lolled negligently with one knee bent over the arm of his chair. In one hand an empty glass. His greeting was cordial: “Yo’ come to git yo’ ass whipped, honeychile?”

He would always be disconcerting, there was so much of him! He radiated power but was not gross. ‘Khalief the Magnificent’ was a title drumming in Trudy’s mind as she spanned the vast rug to sink on her knees before her lord and bow her head in obeisance. Her “If it please you, sir,” was a husky whisper. She reached out her ebony-fettered hands for his depleted glass.

“Nice handcuffs, I like’ em.” The royal voice was now British and crisp. “Where’d you get them, girl?”

“Mistress Rulua, Sir. She recently acquired them.” She looked up shyly. “I like them too.”

His mood was benign. “Do you, now!” He chuckled expansively. “And d’you like my country and your cage?”

Holding the glass he had surrendered, Trudy searched for tact. Her dilemma was cut short by a familiar voice.

“Don’t tease the darling, Khalief. You know perfectly well she wants to go home.”

Trudy Ramsay pivoted on her knees to gaze in awe at the exquisitely gowned figure of a woman who had sat hidden in the recess of a huge wing chair. A woman who smiled and gestured with a welcoming hand.

It was Caroline Dowling.

2

The Gorgeous Rape

It was not strange they should have underrated James Dexter. He was an unknown, present that day in the Board Room by the invitation of Silas Ambrose. When he had, with immense panache, locked the handcuffs on Caroline’s tendered wrists and smiled down into her excited eyes, he had left upon the table a written offer in millions to leave speechless and chagrined a group of men whose wealth should have taken the prize he had whisked from beneath their fingers. Caroline was enthralled. James Dexter possessed the indefinable quality of class. He was intensely male. His smile was as devastating as her own. With a long-considered determination she had burned a bridge. Dexter was a bonus she had not expected on the other side. In the limousine she held out her cuffed wrists and the key.

“They’ve served their symbolism, Mr. Dexter. Would you mind . . . ?”

He took her locked hands, raised them to his lips and kissed them gently. Studiously he tightened each metal band another notch to make them more than snug. He laughed at her surprise, and repeated, mockingly. “Would you mind . . . ?” Thoughtfully he took possession of the key.

She could not deny the thrill. She would not plead. In fact, she did not care whether her hands remained locked or free. If a contest between them must be resolved it would be with words.

“Going to keep me chained, Mr. Dexter?”

“Make it James, please. And yes, the handcuffs stay.”

“Shouldn’t I call you ‘Master’ or something?”

“Perhaps later. James for now.”

Caroline had a good feeling about him, the sort of ‘good’ feeling she had never quite managed to have for Dowling. There was a rock-like strength, tinged with humour. “Am I shameless, James?” she asked demurely. “Doing what I’ve done?”

“You are shameless.”

She was a little shocked by his ready agreement.

But it was nice not having to dissemble. She clinked her handcuffs and gave him a sideways look of enquiry. “Despise me?”

“I am quite prepared to adore you. But you’ll still wear chains. I’ll get some for your ankles.”

Intrigued, she queried: “Were you thinking of such things before the meeting? I bought these handcuffs as a bit of a joke. They’re such a stodgy bunch, I thought it might excite ’em a bit.”

Without answering, he produced from the pocket of his jacket twin circlets joined by a link. They shared spontaneous laughter and were suddenly close. “Pity not to use ’em,” he said thoughtfully. “Wonder if they’ll fit . . .”

They were tight on her ankles, a strangely reassuring grip. There had been only two clicks before the metal was deep in her nylon. She knew herself helplessly his captive.

“Always watch a girl with slender ankles,” he said pleasantly. “She’ll be a fox.”

“Are mine that slender?”

“You can’t handcuff virtuous ankles.”

“You’ve tried?”

“Of course. True virtue is a bit heavy down there.” He grinned disarmingly. “Mean to tell me you’ve never been handcuffed before?”

“Goodness, no!”

“A bit of rope . . . ? a strap . . . ? A chain . . . ?”

Again the thrill. Her laughter pealed. “With Robert! You’re dreaming.” She was suddenly curious. “You mean—? Some girls do? A sort of love play?”

“Right! It’s fun.”

She lifted her hands, tugging them against the steel bands in a closer scrutiny than she had previously vouchsafed. Her eyebrow lifted at him. “My first lesson?”

“Call it that. Any erotic response?”

“Dammit, yes! How’d you know?”

“That’s a lovely blush. Try and hold it. And I know how you feel, it’s a fact of life.”

“Handcuffs make a girl horny?” She was delightedly incredulous.

His retort was dry. “Ask yourself.” Her blush deepened.

The house fell just short of being a mansion. Its address was enviable. The chauffeur discreetly saw nothing when James Dexter, refusing to use the key, carried Mrs. Caroline Dowling, safely handcuffed, within. He did so with astounding ease.

“The servants have the day off. We go straight upstairs.”

It was pleasant, a little frightening. Caroline felt more female than she had done in a long time. James Dexter was a force. He had purchased her.

“My bedroom?” she queried, close to his ear. “Mine.”

A splendid room. But male! Dexter tossed her on the huge bed with deliberate unconcern. She landed with a bounce, the handcuffs inhibiting feminine grace. Refusing to be untidy, she swung around and sat up. “The captured bride?” she queried caustically.

“Yes.”

His use of the one word was enough. He stood back to look down at his prize. Despite the cavalier treatment the current between them was still strong and still good. They were playing a game. Both were excited. Caroline arranged her helplessness to its best advantage and asked demurely:

“Instant rape?”

“Can a man rape what he owns?” He made the question rhetorical.

Caroline giggled. “I’m not sure you can rape me at all like this.”

“A pity.” He sounded genuinely regretful. “I hate to take those handcuffs off. They become you.”

“Leave them on then, I’m happy.”

“You don’t want to be raped?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m saying it’s something nice to look forward to. Girls are never in the hurry you men are.”

“You’re ready. I can tell.”

He was right. She was quiveringly excited. It was the loveliest sensation she had known in a long time. This man would be hard to best, but she would try.

“Curb your ego, James Dexter, it’s the handcuffs! I’m not always this obvious.”

“But you are wanton, aren’t you? C’mon, tell me?”

“Oh sure, in my responses. In the act, I’m choosey.” She twinkled up at him. “Don’t worry, you’d be eligible.”

“Pity about the rape though.”

“I’ve heard tell it’s enjoyable anyway.”

He set her free. The small key fitted both pairs.

He gave her time to be feminine with her hands. Then his command was crisp.

“Strip naked.”

“Don’t you want to tear them from me in a frenzy of lust?”

“I want to subjugate you. I intend to savour your submission with lecherous gaze.”

“Want a slow tease, or a quick strip to my skin?”

“The latter. Coyness isn’t your bag.”

Caroline refused to pretend: even to herself. She was living intensely, loving every word and implication. She had been female and carnal, in her own immaculate way, before the meeting in the Board Room. Now she could throw decorum to the winds. She trembled with eagerness as she stripped, feeling his intent regard like an impact. Happily bare. Caroline clasped her hands at the back of her neck, thrust out her breasts in deadly aim, and posed for her purchaser.

“Like me?”

“I like you too much.”

She was not to understand his remark until another time, but she perked beneath its sincerity. “Think you got value?”

“Many times over.” Dexter nodded thoughtfully. “It’s true, you are the most beautiful . . .”

“In the world? That’s just a figure of speech. But I know I’m nice. I’m not a bit modest about me.”

“A few good thrashings will look after that.”

“They’re supposed to make a girl horny too. Do they?”

“You’ll find out.”

Would she! Or was he kidding. Caroline hoped he could not observe signs of the sudden flood of lust in which his words submerged her. Thrashed! She shivered deliciously. “Would you really thrash me? Do I have that to look forward to?”

“I’ll thrash you now if you ask me nicely. You’re eaten up with curiosity. I won’t be rough on you the first time. I’ll use my belt.”

“James, don’t—don’t—oh, just don’t! You’ve got me vibrating in every move. You’re a new experience.”

James Dexter drank of her nakedness with appreciative hungry eyes, Caroline was more than beautiful, she exuded an aura. Her woman scent reached him in heady waves, a perfume all her own, owing nothing to a bottle. She was still, unconsciously, posing for his approval. If he was a new experience for her, she was most certainly a fresh dimension of sexuality for him.

“On your back, on the bed. Get those legs wide apart.”

Dexter deliberately made his coarse command brutal, testing her. Searching for a chink in the armour of her sophistication. Caroline laughed in his face and flung herself in a sprawl of nudity on the cover. “I’ll even turn over on my tummy if you want,” she teased. “There’s lots of pillows. They do help.”

The current between them intensified. Dexter had cast aside his shirt and was reaching lower when her suggestion stopped him in arrested motion. There was a moment’s silence before he agreed, his words tense, without emphasis. “Do that. Flat on your face. Use a pillow or two, you know where.”

He was not safe to tease. She would never be allowed the initiative. Trembling with anticipation she arranged her ready nakedness upon a pillow, then another, spreading her legs apart outrageously from the invitation of her loins. She was suddenly ashamed of her temerity, hiding her encarmined face.

Caroline’s yelp of outrage was almost a scream, so sudden and unexpected had been the thwacking impact of his belt across the twin cheeks of her behind. The pain of it was such as she had never known, a shrieking protest from her flesh. Striving, absurdly, to hold her wound, she rolled over and glared.

“Never suggest that—that—thing again.” His cold fury dripped distaste.

The girl on the bed was flooded with happiness. Dexter’s acceptance of her mischievous offer had been a disappointment. Had he pierced her in that manner he would have dropped in her regard. The pain of her strapped bottom was a small price to pay for something nearly lost. Caroline glowed and said. “Thank you” with a sincerity he could not mistake.

“Have you ever done it that way?”

“I’m afraid not. I was being a fraud.” She eyed the belt he was looping back into his discarded pants. “Thank you for hitting me with that. I’d no idea it could be so—so—well, anyway, it was my first time. This is turning out to be quite a day.”

“It’s scarcely started.”

Their eyes locked, laughter possessed them. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her savagely so it hurt, a beautiful hurt she did not want ever to stop. When it did stop he tossed her again upon the bed, a slave woman, owned.

“Dammit, those handcuffs got to me. I want to put them back on you. They’d be even more potent with you naked.”

“I don’t mind. But it’s not very practical, is it? I mean, my feet . . . ?” Her blush returned, she made a quick amendment. “I’m not sure it’s possible . . . But I’ll try . . ?”

They compromised on her hands. James Dexter locked the handcuffs back on her wrists with his own tender cruelty, one notch too tight. Caroline did not complain. In a sudden feverish welter of longing they possessed each other again and again and again. Time stopped. In the arms of the man who had purchased her, Caroline Dowling discovered a world she had never known.

Returning to a sweat-drenched normalcy of tangled arms and legs, Caroline found an ear and whispered into it. “James Dexter, you’re good! Terribly, terribly good.”

“Handcuffs spoil anything for you?”

“Gosh no! Wait ’til you see your back. I don’t know how I got there but I did.” She giggled happily. “You can lock the other pair back on my ankles now.”

“I’m too lazy.”

“Mmmmmm, just a moment—”

The handcuffed girl slipped from the bed but was back almost instantly. “Here they are. Put them on me.”

Dexter sat up, chuckling at her earnestness.

“Dammit, girl, they got to you worse than they did to me!”

“Not worse, better! Click them tight.”

“Lovely sound, isn’t it.” His fingers firmly notched the bands of steel upon the slender ankles. “You sure you’re not a frustrated masochist?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s just a lovely feeling: to know I can’t run away from you.”

“You wouldn’t anyway.”

“All right then! it’s a lovely feeling because I can’t run away from me.”

“O.K. So you love being helpless. I’ll keep you handcuffed, permanently. How’s that?”

“Gorgeous . . . ! And, James . . . ?”

“What now?”

“Let’s try it? I think it may just be possible. I mean, with my feet locked together . . . ?”

“You’re a carnal kitten.”

“Yes, isn’t it lovely!”

They made a fresh experiment. It hurt Caroline’s ankles but she did not care.

“I am replete with rape.”

They had yawned their way to a late breakfast.

Caroline had had to be carried. When she placed her weight on her feet her tendons thrust too painfully against the metal. She could neither shuffle nor hop. Neither cared. Dexter did for her the things she could no longer do for herself. Cautiously, she was contriving to place marmalade on toast. She picked up her sentence: “Wasn’t that a gorgeous night!”

“Mmmmm, you’re shameless.”

“But rape’s so nice. I want more.”

“Handcuffed?”

“Oh yes! Oh please . . . ? I know my ankles are chafed, but they can put up with it for another day.”

“That all that’s chafed?”

“Don’t be vulgar, James. A girl never gets chafed there if she’s properly loved.”

“I’ve got a new eroticism for you. Want to play?”

“Of course! I have to, don’t I!”

“O.K., sweetheart. You want rape, that’s what you get.” Caroline Dowling wondered if the thrill of Dexter’s lovemaking would ever pall. So far it had mounted steadily. What he was doing to her now was so wickedly appropriate to the fantasies he evoked. She was making herself supinely passive to his will, trembling.

“Spreadeagle! Oh. James, it’s such a gorgeous word!”

“Functionally practical—with a pillow or two.”

“But I’ll lose my handcuffs!”

“Not entirely.”

Dexter used his key. A moment later Caroline’s arms were spread out and up, a wrist cuffed to each corner of the bed-frame. He looked down at her new helplessness approvingly. “That looks after your hands. I’ve rummaged in the closets and found some rope. Stick your foot out.”

She had never been so involved in anything! Every fiber of Caroline Dowling’s being was vibrant with sensation, with a sensuality giving life to every erotic fantasy she had ever dreamed. She gasped, quivering, as rope circled her ankles and was tugged and tugged until her nudity was spread wide in a lovely ‘X’ of feminine arms and legs.

“Try and get loose.”

Caroline struggled . . . hard. “Oh, James, I can’t! I can’t possibly. I can hardly move at all. It’s wonderful!”

Dexter thoughtfully adjusted a pillow. His helpless prey giggled.

“Say, wouldn’t this be a chance for one of those poor chaps who never get a proper look at a girl’s do-funny?”

“You mean that lovely cunt of yours?”

“Well, if that’s the word you like Mine must be positively standing up and winking. It feels as exposed as a sunset.”

“Surrounded by a fleece of dark cloud.”

“You like my black bush?”

“Every part of you is superlative.”

“You don’t feel any wicked urge to take advantage of me and shave it bare—or pluck ’em one at a time?”

“You’re indulging in wishful thinking, you wanton hussy. Which would you prefer?”

He was right, as always. This helpless exposure was multiplying her feminine responses a hundred-fold. The approaching rape was not enough, her flesh screamed for pain, for things to be done to her she was powerless to stop. She was ashamed but glorying in her plight.

“I’d sooner be shaved. But, James, don’t indulge me. I’m in some sort of fantasyland where I’m not responsible.” She pondered a moment. “Last night—when you strapped me . . . ! It made it better, I mean—my sore bottom on the pillow.”

“That’s a known clinical fact.”

“You make me feel so damned naive.” She giggled again. “It’s for sure I’d never get a strapped bottom from Robert.”

“You want the belt again, sweetheart?”

“Oh James . . . ! Not this side up?”

“Why not! There’s no part of you, below the neck, that isn’t whippable.”

“If we go on talking like this I’m going to orgasm without being touched: this stretch . . . and these ideas, James, you mean a girl’s breasts . . . ? Or her tummy . . . ?”

“Why not! Your breasts are exquisitely tautened out the way you are, and your belly’s positively concave.”

“Oh, James . . . !”

“And you were just remarking on the vulnerability of what you call your ‘do-funny’.”

“There! You really mean ?”

“Of course! It’s got nice plump lips. Want me to have a go at it?”

“No!” The explosive negative was not of fear, but of astonishment that such things could be. “James, I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never heard of such things.”

Dexter chuckled. “You’d probably never have run that auction in the Board Room if you had. Considering who and what you are you’ve lived a damn dull life.”

“I never thought so. I’ve been outrageously promiscuous.”

“Oh that!” His tone was contemptuous. “Kid stuff. Call it the High School Syndrome.”

Caroline could now believe his promise of a thrashing. It was an eroticism destined to happen. She would not provoke it at this moment: her capacity for sensation was already boiling over. Besides, when she got it she wanted it on her other side—the first time! She closed her mind to the vision. She was already far too close to orgasm for comfort. She did not want Dexter to see her writhing and gasping under the impetus of her own fevered imagination. “Rape me now—quick!” she demanded. “Oh, James, James, James . . . !” He leant down and kissed her forehead, then her proffered lips. “I love you very much,” he said gently. “I hadn’t expected to—”

“Please . . . ! Do it to me now . . . James, I’m so helpless!”

“And so you should be, beloved. I’m going to leave you in heat. You’ve got lots to think about while you wait. Or amuse yourself by trying to get loose. If you can, there’s a prize—”

“Don’t go! Don’t leave me . . . ! Oh, James . . . !”

“Part of the discipline, sweetheart. You need it.” Caroline watched him go. It was hard to strain her head up to see him pass through the door. He did not look back. In resignation, her head relapsed. She lay in her bonds, boiling with lust, feverish with longing. She longed to use a finger to give herself relief, but the metal cuffs on her wrists denied. Her sex blazed with heat, demanding fulfilment. She could not see herself down there, but she imagined her vulva demanding attention, swollen with desire. But, she was utterly helpless, she could touch no part of herself. Her widespread legs were a mockery in loneliness. She sighed in submission to Dexter’s mastery, knowing it best to savour and enjoy the strange bondage he had imposed. He would return. If the heat in her loins subsided she would dare to dream . . .

Soon she fell asleep.

Caroline Dowling awoke to the feral awareness of being watched. There had been no sound, but she was no longer alone. She allowed her lips to smile but kept her eyes deliciously closed. James would be looking down at her. Again, the heat between her thighs burned hot.

“The tributes about you are deserved. Mrs. Dowling. You are delectable.”

The deep base voice was not James’s. It was not that of any man she knew! Caroline’s eyes opened wide in shock. What she saw drove her into a paroxysm of panic, battling her bonds uselessly until, sobbing in frustration, she lay still, awaiting what must inevitably happen.

The man was blackly magnificent, wearing only shorts about his loins. Above six feet, muscularly powerful, his belly flat. His features were ebony granite, chiselled. They evoked memory. He moved down to the end of the bed and stared, with frank concupiscence, at the juncture of her parted thighs. “My name is Khalief Abhad,” he rumbled pleasantly. “You may have heard of me.”

“Go away. You shouldn’t be in here. Mr. Dexter—”

“I own this house. Mrs. Dowling.” The deep musical African voice was amused, savouring power. “In a way, I also own Mr. Dexter.” He flashed white teeth. “And of course we mustn’t forget, I own you.”

“You don’t own me. Have the decency to leave.”

“You have a truly splendid cunt, Mrs. Dowling. Chivalry forbids I should ignore its possibilities. And yes, I do own you. I also now control Dowling Corporation. That was my money yesterday. James Dexter is my agent in America.”

“I don’t believe a word. Get out of here.”

“You do believe, Mrs. Dowling. Come, be cheerful. Nothing has changed. You’ll become accustomed to the colour of my skin.”

“Very well then.” She fought to keep her voice even. “Unfasten me from this bed and let me dress—we can talk rationally.”

“We can talk rationally as you are. It is by my order you are thus bound.”

“But how absurd! Why . . . ?”

“So that I may fuck you without the bandying of words or an unseemly scuffle.”

From James, the four-letter word had been innocuous. From Abhad, it was a promise of the unmentionable. Captive eyes followed the length of strained captive arms to where the handcuffs bit savagely and implacably at captive wrists. The shining gyves had ceased to be erotic toys. They would lock her safely for this man’s pleasure. There was no way she could escape. She took a deep breath.

“That word you used? Why must you do that to me, and in this manner, and at this time?”

“I suspect you know that too. You are not a child. I am going to fuck you in order to get the inevitable out of the way and done with. It was implicit in your sale. It will be an irritant anxiety until it is dealt with. When the act is consummated we can deal with our business, giving it our full attention.”

“That’s the cockiest excuse for rape I ever heard.”

“Yet it has merit? Come, be a realist.”

“I damn well have to be, like this,” Caroline admitted bitterly. “Say, are you really that guy from—that African—?”

“Zindawba! Yes. I’m real. And Black.”

“Fucked by a president! Holy cow!” Caroline looked up appealingly. “Look, before I get impaled, could I speak to Dexter?”

“Mr. Dexter has gone. You may not see him again. He has left a note you may have at a later time.”

Misery and a terrible loneliness made her bonds intolerable. “Please, please, untie me?” she pleaded. “I promise I’ll behave.”

“I prefer the symbolism of the present situation, Mrs. Dowling. It also has the virtue of relieving you of the onus of consent.”

“Oh shit!” Caroline uttered in disgust. “Fuck me and be done with it! I’m all ready.”

The ruler of Zindawba’s shorts fell to the floor. The bound girl gasped and said, flatly: “I don’t believe it!”

“It is a legend in my land,” said Abhad proudly.

“It is also another good reason to keep you bound.”

“But it’s—it’s enormous! Unreal! All that in a girl!”

“I am highly skilled, Mrs. Dowling—and you are wet!”

She closed her eyes, absurdly remembering the joke that gentlemen, when mounting a female, rested their weight on their forearms. Khalief Abhad was a gentleman. He was also highly skilled. His immense phallus entered her slowly and with caution. She was sure there was no room inside her belly for all of it . . . ! And yet . . . ! The gentle pressure continued inexorably. She gasped, and gasped again. But not with pain.

3

Forever Chained

“To the most beautiful of women,” said Khalief Abhad gravely as he lifted the cool glass Trudy Ramsay had returned.

“I’ll drink to that,” Caroline laughed. “You’re a lucky devil, Khalief, to get Trudy and me. Please let the poor darling get herself a pick-me-up. She’s scared to death of you, she’s trembling.”

“Of course.” The president of Zindawba made a lordly gesture towards the bar. “But as for luck. there was none. I purchased you with planned forethought, and kidnapped Miss Ramsay by a competently executed maneuver. I desired female samples of decadent Colonialism on one hand and of decadent Capitalism on the other. I have them.”

Trudy flitted to the bar. She had been taught the evils of alcohol, but at that moment would have drunk anything to quieten her pounding heart and the turmoil of her mind. She splashed amber liquid into a glass, frighteningly conscious of the perils of bartending with handcuffed wrists—girls got whipped for spilling drinks in Zindawba! Then, hoping she was doing everything right, she returned to kneel submissively before her Master and to gulp optimistically.

“Isn’t she sweet, Khalief! Why don’t you let her go home? You’ve got me.”

Abhad bestowed a frowning regard upon the woman who had been Mrs. Caroline Dowling. His words were heavy. “Did I hear you right?”

“Oops!” Caroline’s hand went to her mouth.

“I’ve done it again.” Her tone honeyed: “Can I say I’m sorry?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Must I fetch it?”

“Yes.”

The kneeling girl was a speechless spectator as Caroline went to an alcove and returned with a cane, yellow and supple and wicked. She knelt, kissed it, then handed it to the seated man. Her motions were fluid and controlled as she stepped away, gathered her dress beneath an arm, and bent forward to expose her pink bottom on which there were already marks.

“Please, Khalief, not too hard!”

“Quiet, woman! Curve that spine.”

It was both obscene and beautiful. Caroline parted her nylon-clad legs and protruded the innocent curves to be beaten. Plump lips and fronds of black hair peeked shyly back. Khalief Abhad struck the female flesh one whirring cut, then resumed his chair. The punished girl stood erect, allowing her dress to fall back into position. In a warm and casual voice she said: “Thank you, Khalief, that was sweet of you.” She turned to Trudy. “And let what you’ve just seen be a lesson to you, saucy pants. Our Master takes no nonsense.” As though returning a book to a shelf she replaced the cane where she had found it. “Darling.” Her gaze upon the president was one of pure adoration. “That’s made me horny. You knew it would.”

Trudy was shocked yet entranced. She sensed between these two a current she did not share. She viewed them with awe. To share a cage with Caroline had become a privilege, an approach to royalty. Stupidly, she looked at her empty glass, she must have gulped it, unknowing.

“You may refill all three, my dear.” Thankfully, she rose, but was instantly halted.

“Stand close, little English girl, and lift your apron.”

“He wants to see your cunt, dear,” said Caroline helpfully.

The cage had withered inhibitions. Yet the act demanded now was surprisingly shaming. The tiny apron seemed a shield for all her modesty. With an empty glass in each hand she looked around distractedly.

“I told you, Khalief, the poor child’s shy. Trudy, stop being pathetic. Here, give me those glasses!”

Caroline swept the empties to the bar. Returning to Trudy’s side, she chided: “Look, darling, it’s no big deal. Every girl has one. Watch me.” Once more she raised her dress, this time to protrude her pudendum in all its tufted glory’.

Trudy lifted her apron.

The president of Zindawba was delighted. “You can cover yours up, girl. I’ve seen it before.” He dismissed Caroline’s pubic offering with a wave of the hand. He focused his full attention upon his impromptu maid’s dark triangle. Chuckling with some thought of his own, he demanded: “What d’you call it, girl?” Trudy wished she’d had the second drink. “My pubic hair, Sir?” she ventured timidly.

“Hell no! The slit. You call it something?” Trudy was lost. “It’s never been christened, Sir—”

The lord of Zindawba exploded into a huge guffaw. “Dammit, Caroline, give the girl a hand.”

“Trudy, grow up. You know perfectly well it’s a quim, a fanny, a twat, a manhole cover, a cunt, a—”

“But I’ve always called mine a pussy.” Trudy hoped she would not be whipped too hard. Another burst of merriment.

“Why not a cat?”

“I could call it a cat, sir, if you wish. May I drop my apron?”

“You can take it off completely,” said the nation’s president grandly. “Then serve those drinks.”

“Can I undress too, please?” Caroline asked. “I think it would make it easier for her. It’s a bit of a shock for a girl to make herself naked in front of a president.”

“No you can’t! I want one with and one without. And are you asking for another mark on your rump?”

Trudy was glad to occupy her hands, even if they were chained together. She pulled the bow round front and tugged, the tiny apron fell away. Her fevered anxiety saw her pubic bush twice as luxuriant as she remembered it last. Placing the discarded trifle on a chair, she felt as though half the world was scrutinizing her loins.

“Don’t kneel again. Stand up facing me, legs well apart. Sip your drink and keep your hands away from your cat.”

It was worse than the cage, more personal. Trudy caught a fleeting glance of reassurance from the older girl and hoped for the best. She could not conceive the afternoon passing without punishment. She hoped alcohol was all they said it was.

The head of State sipped enjoyably and gave his full attention to Trudy’s pubes. She judged him a connoisseur of cunts. Tiring of her black fronds and pouting lips he turned to the lounging Caroline.

“You still horny?”

“Yes. I’m sitting on the stripe you gave me.”

“Go on up to the bedroom.”

The older girl was undismayed. Trudy suspected she was happy to be honoured. The naked maid felt abandoned.

“Stand just the way you are, eh! Don’t move. No drinks.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

It sounded trite, but he seemed satisfied. Having sentenced the servant to an indefinite period of tiring ennui, Khalief Abhad followed his concubine from the room. Trudy sighed. She longed to sit, but knew she lacked the courage to do aught but stand and exhibit her pubic bush to a nonexistent audience. It was an unkind punishment: presumably to keep her out of mischief. Dolefully, she looked down at the empty glass still in her cuffed hands, and wondered if she was allowed to place it on the rug. Probably not! Sighing again, she held onto it and gazed at the wall. It seemed a frighteningly long time before Rulua appeared. She held handcuffs and two flags.

“Standing to attention, eh! You do it well.”

“Oh, Rulua, it’s been so long! Where are they?”

“They’ll be right down.” Rulua chuckled. “You know damn well what they’ve been doing. Stand just as you are, dear, and I’ll put your Union Jack on for you.”

It seemed impossible that Caroline should look the same after what she had been doing, but she was radiant. She was also naked. “May I put my flag on before you handcuff me?” she asked sweetly.

Trudy watched the stars and stripes shield from view a feminine facility she was prepared to swear was swollen and engorged. Caroline held out her hands prettily to watch the handcuffs locked upon her wrists. She never seemed to care whether she was chained or not. To the watching girl she was more of a mystery than ever. Abhad watched Rulua take charge of his slaves, nodded absently, and departed.

Rulua led her nude and handcuffed charges back to their cage. The Market accepted them with its usual lewd curiosity. The heavy chains were locked on their ankles, then their wrists. The Mistress pocketed the discarded handcuffs.

“Why can’t we just wear handcuffs instead of all this iron?” Caroline asked jauntily.

“You know perfectly well, dear,” Rulua told her drily. “These lovely chains on you symbolise the subjugation of your race. You’ve no idea how pleased the citizenry is with the two of you in this cage.”

“But our race isn’t subjugated—just us!”

“You sure of that! Anyway we’re working on it. In the meantime you’re profitable propaganda. Nothing personal.”

“These chains are awfully personal.”

“Want to complain to the president, dear?”

“You know I wouldn’t dare. I got a stripe today without even trying.”

“Got something else too, didn’t you!”

“Do I detect envy?”

“So O.K. I’m envious! You’re a damn lucky girl. There’s lots here who’d trade with you, cage and all.”

“And my forthcoming Grand Tour—all those Town Squares I have to entertain in?”

Rulua paused, beholding a vision in her mind. She shook her head. “Nuhnuh! I don’t suppose they’d want to go that far. Anyway, they couldn’t. It’s you who’s qualified. For that job you’re probably the best there is.”

“What the devil was she talking about?” Trudy demanded after the Mistress had locked the cage and disappeared.

“Oh, just something . . .” Caroline too was seeing visions. She turned, impulsively, to the younger girl who shared her nudity and her cage, and placed her shackled hands lovingly on bare shoulders. Her voice was tender. “Darling, I want so much for you to know how glad and thankful I am for your being here. You help me stay Me. It would have been awful alone.”

“That’s all I’m here for, isn’t it, a little pussycat to keep you company?”

“Don’t be sulky about it, sweets. You were Khalief’s idea before I ever happened. He wanted an English girl for—” She made a vague gesture that sent her chain swirling and tugging at her wrist. “For—oh, for some idea of his own. It’s probably a crazy idea. But it isn’t crazy to him.”

Trudy stood on her dignity. “Am I allowed to know?”

“Well, not really. He doesn’t want it talked about. Besides, there’s not much you have to do except wear that Union Jack and keep me from falling into a depression.”

“And be chained in a cage in a wog Market Place for gooks to gawk at,” Trudy tittered. “Gosh, if my family could see . . . !”

“Khalief’s got his own State aircraft. It was parked at Gatwick anyway, so picking you up and bringing you here was no big trick. He brought me in it too.”

“Tied up and naked.”

“How’d you guess! He said it was good for my soul.”

“And the chloroform?”

Caroline shrugged in a gesture of helplessness.

“No, I didn’t get that. I’d made a choice. It’s turned out a bummer, but how was I to know! Look, darling, don’t push about it. If I seem happier than I should be or manage a laugh here and there it’s because I did once exercise a free choice. I’m trying to look at all this as simply a remarkable experience.”

“Being ravished by a giant black?”

“Don’t be melodramatic. Khalief’s an amazingly tender lover.”

Trudy sniffed. “Is it true about—about his—his—?”

“Yes, it’s true,” Caroline giggled. “I didn’t know we girls are—well, the way we are. But it all goes inside somewhere, and it’s—it’s simply—oh, never mind!”

“You were going to say he’s simply gorgeous.”

“Oh all right, I was, and he is! Darling, if you feel a bit left out, would you like me to persuade him to—?”

“Caroline!” Trudy was shocked. “Absolutely no!”

“O.K., O.K., I just thought—well, anyway, I suppose my life’s been a bit different. I never was a strictly good girl.”

Trudy pondered. “There’s something between you: I know there is! Something’s going on, and you’re a part of it. Something’s going to happen to us?”

“Well, I suppose so.” Caroline surveyed her younger companion sympathetically. “But don’t let’s get bothered. C’mon, sit down. Don’t let our audience think we’re having an argument. You’re bored and feel slighted, so how about . . . ? Oh damn! I’ve been meaning to ask you but you’re so British. Ever tried the lesbian thing?”

“I’m not all that naive,” Trudy pouted. “I’d love to, you’re a darling. But in a cage, and chained! And surrounded by dirty old men in nightshirts . . . ?”

“Sometimes when I wake at night there’s not a soul in sight.”

“W-E-L-L-oh, darling . . .” She shook her head in sorrow. “Don’t you know . . . ? About Mohammedans? Your Khalief’s a Mohammedan. They do the most awful things to a lesbian. If they catch two girls—doing it, they . . . they mutilate them terribly and mete out the most shocking punishments.”

“No, really! Oh damn! Darling, I’d take a chance, but I don’t want you—oh shit!”

That night, consumed by a desperate feminine longing, they made their love. Their chains were a nuisance but stopped nothing. They did not perceive the watcher in the shadows who beheld their act. They heard nothing of the witness until another time.

“Damn smart, don’t you think?” Rulua visibly preened. “We got new outfits for the whole troop: just arrived yesterday.”

Two bored captives clutched the bars of their cage and examined their Mistress with a new and amused interest. Rulua had become resplendently military. The uniform and the woman who wore it was an eye catcher by any standard anywhere. She carried a swagger stick, imparting to the ensemble an impeccably British tone.

“It’s the President’s female Guard. Twenty of Zindawba’s finest. Care to join?”

“But, Rulua, when did this happen?”

“Only last week. I’ve been promoted to Captain. It was the President’s idea. He thinks it’s another bit of good publicity for Zindawba: Woman’s Lib . . . emancipation. He’s had a British sergeant drilling the girls for the last few days. They’ve become an absolute precision Squad.”

“Oh, Rulua, what fun! You look absolutely stunning.”

“Thank you. The girls are even better—more sexy. Abhad designed their uniforms himself. They’re about half skin. But the Captain has to have dignity, so bare knees and a braless bust is as close to comfort as I’m likely to get. Unless I’m doling out discipline. Then I can strip to the waist.”

“Discipline?” The two captives put a wealth of feeling into the exclamation.

“Of course, discipline! You’ve heard the old military expression: ‘Whipping ’em into shape’, it’s literally true. Saves a lot of talk and drawing charts on blackboards.”

The chained girls exchanged an amused glance: They would not be recruits!

“I’ve got nineteen girls.” She pointed the swagger stick at Trudy. “You’re number twenty.”

It was like a blow, a premonition proven. Trudy gazed askance through the bars and blurted out the most obvious impediment. “But—but, I wouldn’t be any good! I’m—I’m—!”

“White!” The newly created Captain chuckled. “Don’t give it a thought. You won’t be alone, there’s two others.”

“But how did they come to join?”

“Simple! They didn’t want their bottoms striped.”

“You mean that if I—?”

“Exactly, dear! If you insist on argument I’ll whip your bottom, and a few other spots, until you decide you’d like to be a recruit.”

“That’s plain coercion!”

“We call it the new patriotism, dear.”

Trudy examined her dilemma. At least, with Rulua, there was no hypocrisy, and she had a sense of humour. But she was dedicated steel. The bemused captive clutched at straws. “But with us two the troop will be twenty-one?”

“Mrs. Dowling is not invited to join. She has other ways in which to prove her loyalty.”

Trudy bit back the catty response of: ‘Yes, in bed!’, but allowed prudence to govern her tongue. Instead, she enunciated firmly: “If Caroline doesn’t go, then I won’t go either. I’m not going to leave her chained alone in this rotten cage!”

“Hush, darling!” A chained hand was placed on an impassioned arm. “We don’t have choices: neither of us. Look at the way we are, naked and chained and caged!” The older girl strove for a touch of humour. “There’s no use putting on that lovely new uniform on top of a collection of whip weals.”

“A wise counsel,” said Captain Rulua approvingly.

“I don’t want to be a Storm Trooper,” said the chosen recruit disconsolately.

The Captain decisively unlocked the door of the cage.

“I’ll admit it’s nice to be free of those chains,” Trudy concurred as she kept pace with her guide and mentor. “Thank you for only handcuffing me, and thank you for this cloak. I wouldn’t want to take this walk naked. Is it far?”

“The President has been generous. We have the former Cricket Club premises. The Club House has been replaced by a modern facility. The cricket field itself is our drill and training ground. It is well contained by a high electric fence.”

“To keep the public out, or us in?”

“Don’t be facetious, dear. Military life must be taken seriously. A girl like you could go far.”

The guard at the gate was an eye opener. A coffee-coloured Juno attired in a nice compromise between Buck Rogers and Star Trek. Hollywood would have put her on the payroll instantly. She saluted briskly as she raised the barrier.

“Ten days ago she was selling nylons in a department store,” the Captain informed complacently. “Just look at her now!”

Halfway across the former playing field they came to the Post. It was a stark timber well planted in the soil. Here and there around the field there were others. This one was in use. To it was tightly bound another coffee-tinted maiden. This one minus uniform. The symmetrical curves void of any covering whatsoever, no doubt to enable the binding ropes to cut deeper into the lovely skin. At ankles, knees, waist and above the conical breasts, the strands bit and cinched the prisoned girl into total immobility—except her hands and arms which were free. No knots were visible: no doubt contrived at the rear where questing fingers could not reach. “I want you to watch this, dear,” said Captain Rulua pridefully.

It was worth watching. It welled sympathy into every fiber of Trudy’s being, and a flicker of fear. This girl today, perhaps herself tomorrow! When they came within ten paces the bound nudity swelled against the ropes and a hand and arm rose smartly to a precisely executed salute. A salute which the Captain acknowledged with panache.

“At ease!”

The command ended the salute but had no effect on the rest of the girlish figure which could not move. The free arms hung at each side, palms flat against prisoned hips.

“This is Nikola, dear. You’ll get to know her when she returns to duty after her punishment.”

“But, poor dear, how long—?”

“She was tied as you see her at 0.8 hours this morning. She will remain tied until tomorrow evening. She has a lesson to learn.”

“But—but, that’s—!”

“She will be hosed down at appropriate intervals.”

So simple! Everything sanitary. Two days and a night of immobility and pain, the free arms and hands nothing but a frustrating mockery.

“Having the use of her hands enables her to slap the mosquitoes.” The Captain made it sound a major concession.

“But what’s the poor girl done?”

“Nikola dear, I think it would be nice if you told Miss Ramsay how you misbehaved. Feel free to speak frankly. Miss Ramsay is our new recruit.”

“Yes, ma’am, thank you.” It was as though the need to speak had been a pent-up urgency. The words which followed were devoid of resentment. Trudy caught a glimpse of something unexpected.

“Come, Nikola, Miss Ramsay is sincerely interested.”

“Yes, ma’am, I was a foolish girl. I deserve very much this punishment. I was rude and impertinent, and I struggled and fought.”

“Yes, Nikola?”

The young voice quavered. “I tried to break out of Barracks at night so as to go and see a boy I knew before I became a guard. It was wrong. The President’s Guard does not have such foolishness as boyfriends. A guard girl has nothing to do with men at all. I am very sorry for what I did.”

“And you are learning a lesson?”

“Oh yes, ma’am! Being tied like this is very good for Nikola. I am thinking very much of how I must behave.”

Trudy was prepared to be cynical. Any girl, hurt enough, might be disposed to say anything. But, emanating from Nikola, was an air of tremendous sincerity. For the tied girl there was a logical sequence. She had erred, thus she must suffer punishment. Both factors were, to her, extraneous incidents in no way affecting her first loyalties. She was a selected member of the President’s Guard, one of the Chosen. Her heart was there. If her flesh proved weak she would approve its scourging.

“I hope you will take a hint, dear,” Rulua said gently.

“You mean it could be me tied to that post?”

“Only if you are foolish. There are other things too.”

“I’m sure there are!” Trudy tugged at her handcuffs to assure herself it was all really happening. They had resumed their walk to the barracks. “Are you going to keep me handcuffed always?”

“Don’t be bitter, dear. Most of the time you will enjoy a dangerous amount of freedom. You will be tempted.” A sympathetic hand was placed on a captive arm. “Always think twice. I want very much for you to become proud to be a guard. Try and embrace the esprit de corps that made the old British Army what it was.” She sighed. “We declare otherwise, but actually we miss them sorely.”

“Love my fellow troopers! All of us chained!”

“Stop that! You will find it easy to love some of them if you let yourself. None of you will be chained unless you invite restraint. If you insist on cynicism you can be flogged as often as you choose.”

Trudy bit back the words she might have uttered.

Within her terms of reference, Rulua had been kind. It was hard to evaluate the bite of handcuffs as a leniency but they were a concession: she could have still been wearing the heavy shackles. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “It’s all so new and difficult . . . and nobody’s really told me what it’s all about. I will try to be what you want me—I will! Honest!”

“Thank you, dear, that pleases me. I won’t be with you all the time, you will see far more of Sergeant Galla—ah, here she comes now!”

With the departure of Captain Rulua, Trudy’s indoctrination into the President’s Guard took on much of the colouration of opéra bouffe. Sundry dusky maidens, a glowing blonde, and a raven-tressed Caucasian eyed her with hungry curiosity as they went about their tasks. But, for the moment, she was Galla’s. Eyeing the sergeant and her brood, Trudy realised the entire troop would have qualified for any chorus line anywhere. Pulchritude had obviously been the only test in selection. “You’ll do nicely,” said Sergeant Galla as she took away the cloak, and then the Union Jack. “Has the President fucked you yet?”

The new recruit found it difficult to relate military discipline to a sergeant who giggled. Sergeant Galla found most things amusing and bestowed upon them a feminine titter which was inclined to bubble over. She employed it now. “I got to spray that bushy little cunt and take yo’ fingerprints, love. Yo’ want to object I get some help?”

“I don’t mind, but wouldn’t you like to take these off?” She held up her locked wrists.

“Not right now, love.” A pleased titter. “I sort of like to see ’em on a white girl. Makes me feel good.”

“I’m so glad I make you happy.”

“And I can whip yo’ little arse for insolence, love.”

“Thank you, I’ll remember.”

“Yo’ sure yo’ weren’t insolent right then?”

“Quite sure. Er, do you want me to spread my legs or something for that disinfectant?”

“Spose yo’ might as well. Waste o’ time doin’ yo’ but it’s in the book.”

Trudy allowed her loins to be purified with Lysol, and passively suffered her fingers to be inked. “Now yo’ gets washed down and scrubbed, love.” The sergeant’s giggle reduced the whole endeavour to its proper absurdity. “Seein’ yo’s handcuffed I’ll give yo’ a hand.”

The guard uniform came off with surprising ease. Beneath it Galla wore nothing. She proved erotically lovely as the rest. “I won a beauty contest in the village,” she explained modestly. “That’s how come I got picked for a guard.”

“And you got immediately promoted?”

“Not exactly. The President fucked me four times before he decided.” The giggle intruded again. “Girls from my tribe all got real special cunts. Men like us a lot.”

For Zindawba it was probably as good a gauge as any. Trudy wondered how long it would be before she too was impaled upon the Head of State. She stood, well braced, and not knowing what to do with her joined hands, while her superior officer hosed and scrubbed her defenseless skin with great vigor, washing her own mahogany polish at the same time. They shared the feminine rite of washing and drying their hair. It formed a bond. “There’s not always that much to do here,” Galla admitted. “I can make the girls work at something, but I ain’t supposed to do nothin’, ’cept keep ’em spry.”

They were spry indeed. Sergeant Galla lined them up in the dormitory for a formal introduction to their new comrade. There was a good deal of tittering. They were a smart bevy of beauty, making Trudy feel awkward and foreign in her nakedness, and whatever she did with her handcuffed hands they seemed restive. “I’ve told her about how to behave, and what happens when she’s insolent,” Galla said severely.

“Yes, Sergeant.” Butter would not have melted in their mouths. The response was dulcet. One of the white girls winked.

“They’re insolent half the time,” Galla addressed Trudy as though imparting a State secret. “The only one they pay attention to is the W.O. That’s Warrant Officer Ringbolt. He drills ’em. He’s not here at the moment.”

“I think they look lovely,” said Trudy, feeling like a small child on her first day at school.

“Oh, they look all right, but it’s what they’re thinking that matters. They’re a foxy lot.”

“I think they’re sweet. Could I have my uniform?”

“No you can’t! And it’s time you learned a lesson.”

The sudden thud of Trudy’s pulse was needless.

It was at the first girl in line the sergeant’s finger pointed. “You there, go and fetch a cane.” The digit swung one notch. “And you, Gertrude, prepare for discipline.”

Smiles vanished, lips pouted. But the troop was not mutinous. They accepted what they must. Gertrude stepped forward, saluted briskly, did a sharp about turn and bent down to touch her toes. In the process she contrived some small dexterity with the guard uniform by which her rounded derriere became poignantly exposed.

Trudy giggled.

It was lèse-majesté. All eyes focused on the new recruit. Sergeant Galla demanded: “What’s so damn funny?”

The giggle refused control. Choking and flushed, Trudy Ramsay tried to convey her vision of the ridiculous. “I’m so sorry . . . !” She looked around desperately, but Gertrude’s bare bottom added fuel to the fire of her hilarity. “It’s—it’s—well, it’s all so—quaint.”

“Gertrude! Resume ranks.” Galla frowned at her humour-stricken neophyte. “Take her place. Knees stiff, back bent well down.”

She’d asked for it! Trudy made the wry admission to herself as she obeyed. The whole thing was comic. But not to the sergeant who was herself striving to meet new and strange demands. Bending to her posture of shame, Trudy was witness to the arrival of the cane. She cringed at what she saw. She was going to hurt, hurt bad!

“I’m sorry to have to do this,” said Sergeant Galla.

Trudy was sorry too! She arched her back to protrude her impudent behind, hoping her pendant breasts would not betray her trembling. The handcuffs shone brightly on her wrists where her fingers touched her toes. When her world exploded into pain she gave a startled yelp and fell forward on her knees.

“Still think we’re something to laugh at?”

“Oh no, Sergeant.”

“Stand up straight, then bend over again. I’d better start you out right.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Trudy stood, her cuffed hands ineffectually seeking her scorched flesh. Once more she bent over for punishment. It would be worse this time—the knowing . . .

But she managed to hold, position as the cane thunked into her innocence, the pain of it choking her throat and tying her stomach into knots. If this was life in the President’s Guard she did not want it.

“Stand up and apologise.”

“I really am sorry, Sergeant! And thank you for caning me.”

Galla smiled, In anger, obviously simulated, she barked at her troop. “You can stop grinning. Stand at attention for discipline. You needn’t think you’re getting off just because she got a couple first.”

With burning bottom, Trudy stood aside to witness feminine agony inflicted and endured for her edification. She was sure the girls would all hate her. She longed to massage her wealed skin, but the handcuffs and Galla’s eye inhibited. Her bottom blazed.

Sergeant Galla enjoyed her work. The girls were docile and resigned—and seemingly without resentment. Each bottom, as it was revealed, bore evidence of previous inflictions. Their salute was unfailingly smart, their thanks sincere. The cane whirred, thunked and splatted, weal after weal sprang into scarlet. Some pouting pudendums pushed themselves into rearward prominence and were painfully rewarded for their temerity.

After it was all over, Trudy had to fight back more giggles. The sergeant, from some sense of what was proper to the occasion, insisted on a shaking of hands all round. Miss Trudy Ramsay must be properly introduced. The handcuffs jingled incongruously with each handclasp.

The uniform was fun. “Suppose I’d better take these off.” Galla unlocked the handcuffs with obvious reluctance. “What’s your dress size?”

The guard uniform was sparse. It was designed to emphasise every female feature. But after total nakedness or the Union Jack, Trudy actually felt covered. In her hometown she would have been arrested for indecent exposure.

“You’ll be a credit to us,” Galla approved. “And now I suppose you’d better have the interview with the W.O.”

“What do I have to see Mr. Ringbolt for?”

“It’s more a case of him wanting to see you, love. Butter him up a bit, he’s touchy: still mourning the good old days.”

Warrant Officer Ringbolt was indeed a relic of times past. Enduring his fierce inspection across his office desk, Trudy longed for Galla. But she was on her own. The probing male eyes reduced the guard uniform to total indecency. Momentarily they switched to the sheet of paper in his hand. “English, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So’m I. But don’t expect favours.”

“Oh no, sir!”

“Off with that uniform.”

The demand was a shock. Trudy gazed fearfully upon the bristling handlebar mustache and bleary eyes. Her voice quavered. “But, sir, why?”

“So I can have a look at you, of course.”

“But, sir, is that allowed? I’m a girl . . . ?”

“So I notice! Off with that uniform!”

It was Zindawba. After the cage, did anything matter! The curves of the girlishness had been ogled by a thousand men. But the W.O. was different, more personal—and he shouldn’t be using his authority to have a look at a girl’s breasts and pubic hair. But still . . . ! Trudy shrugged and unfastened her newly acquired splendor.

“Trim!” The W.O.’s exclamation was approving.

“I do like a girl to be trim! No sags! Turn round slowly—put your hands behind your neck!”

The exposure was blatant. Trudy knew herself reddening. She postured slowly for Ringbolt’s enjoyment.

“Couple of stripes, I see—on your arse! Fresh?”

“Yes, sir. I was not properly respectful.”

“But you will be now, eh?”

“Oh yes, sir!”

“Spread your legs—out wide! I want to see your quiff.”

“My what, sir . . . ?”

“What you pee through! That’s right. Lean back, but forward with your hips.”

It was cruelly demeaning, reducing a girl to a pouting vulva.

“Nice! Very nice! All right, at ease, girl.” Trudy stood before him, limply naked, longing for Caroline.

“His Nibs fuck you yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Not anybody?”

“No, sir. I’ve been chained in a cage.”

“Oh yes, of course!” he pondered morosely. “Well then, I suppose I’d better do you.” He made it sound a dreary chore.

Trudy had no wish to be ‘done.’ Feeling a giggle imminent, she hastily interposed. “Please don’t feel you have to, sir, I won’t be offended if you don’t ‘do’ me, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“No bother, really.” The military voice was sad.

“But there’s twenty-one of you—I do the sergeant too! And I’m not as young as I was . . . ! His Nibs doesn’t help much either—”

The giggle was boiling over, Trudy quenched it with words. “I think you’re to be admired, sir. It’s not every man who could ‘do’ a whole troop.”

The W.O. visibly preened. “Think so! Well, nice of you to understand. Damn girls . . .” He fixed her with a more benign regard. “It’s the chutney, y’know. If a chap puts a bit o’ chutney on everything he eats he can do wonders—probably the mangoes . . .”

“I’ll try and remember that, sir.”

“Hell, you don’t need chutney!” he pondered.

“Suppose I’d better do something with you though . . .” He searched an invisible repertoire and sighed. “May as well whip your arse. It’s a good old standby.”

“But, sir, I haven’t done anything!”

“Who said you had! Touch your toes.”

“I don’t want to be caned again, sir. It hurts terribly.”

“That’s the whole idea. Look, girl, go over to the rack and pick your own tool.”

She had noticed the rack The things it held were shivery. None seemed less lethal than another. She picked one at random and tendered it humbly. Adjusting her nudity into the punishment posture she longed to cry.

“Spread your legs a bit more.”

She had scarcely obeyed when the cane bit. She moaned pitifully but held still.

“Good girl! Hold it for another.”

The snickering whirr was frightening, the pain exquisite.

Trudy Ramsay screamed.

4

Zindawba Jail

The two men sat, ill at ease, in a room provided by Zindawba’s Foreign Ministry. Its appointments indicated Zindawba’s approval of foreign visitors, provided they arrived bearing gifts. Americans were always viewed with hopeful expectation.

“The damn woman’s a pain in the ass,” Irwin of the State Department scowled at the Consul. “Look, Blakeney, how far do we have to push?”

“I’ve already pushed. There’s a resistance we haven’t assessed. I’ve fallen back on just being curious.”

“But we can’t just abandon the fool girl!”

“Why not! You’ll ask yourself the same—”

The sentence died with the opening of the door. The two men stood and gaped askance at the woman who entered. It was Irwin’s first glimpse of Mrs. Caroline Dowling. He absorbed a brief flashing impression of great beauty artfully and tastefully attired, an impression dashed into oblivion by the chain.

“Do sit down, gentlemen. I’m flattered.” Deliberately, she raised her hands to give a full view of the metal bands locked upon her wrists and the considerable length of shining links by which they were joined. “May I ring for tea or coffee?”

“Nothing, Madam, thank you. We are—” Caroline laughed direct at Irwin’s startled face.

“You’re shocked, aren’t you! Poor dear men! I’ll make it double whiskies.” She beamed glowingly. “You won’t mind if I have a martini?”

They did not mind. They sat and sipped, generating disapproval.

“Mrs. Dowling, that chain . . . ?” The Consul was sweating.

Once again Caroline lifted her shackle into prominence, making a play with the clinking tether by which her hands were confined. She examined it mischievously as though seeing it for the first time. “Oh this!” she beamed brightly. “Beautifully effective, don’t you think!”

“Mrs. Dowling, you are being whimsical. Who holds the key to that—thing?”

“It isn’t me. So I can’t oblige you by taking them off. Just pretend you don’t notice. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

“But why are they on you?”

“They keep me from being naughty.”

“That’s absurd!”

“You must tell the President. He had them specially made for me. He’s a very sweet man.”

“The media is convinced you are the President’s Mistress?”

“I don’t mind.”

“That appalling cage, and the semi-nudity . . . ?”

“Well, I did have company, and we got along very well together. She’s a most charming girl. And, of course, these market places in Zindawba are so colourful and full of interest—”

“Mrs. Dowling, please!”

“Well, you did ask!”

“We very much wish to take you back to America.”

“O.K. When do I start packing?”

The visitors exchanged embarrassment. Irwin cleared his throat as though about to make a speech. “Our government is on the most cordial terms with President Abhad. We would not wish to imperil—”

“There! You see! You can’t! If I was going to be roasted alive tomorrow you wouldn’t do a thing. I’ve forgotten what it is Zindawba’s got: oil . . . or some sort of metal . . .”

“Mrs. Dowling, you do nothing to help.”

“Help what? I’m happy.”

“A woman in chains can scarcely be happy. We realise this room is probably bugged and that you are under coercion—”

“No I’m not! It’s sweet of you to want to do something. But there isn’t anything. Just forget about me. Robert didn’t send you, did he?”

“Mr. Dowling refuses to make a statement.”

“There you are, you see. Everyone’s happy.”

“We cannot possibly be happy, seeing you in chains.”

“Oh, bother the chains! Just look on them as being symbolic. I think they do something for a girl. Your wife wears a ring . . .”

Blakeney sighed. “We will convey your sentiments . . . It was only at Mr. Irwin’s insistence I came here today. I have told him of my previous attempts—”

“Poor dear! Looking at me in the cage you were so embarrassed by my breasts, weren’t you—!”

“Mrs. Dowling . . . please! You are being deliberately coy—”

“I know I’m difficult. Please forgive—”

Irwin was nettled. “If you have nothing serious to say to us—perhaps to someone else? He prefers to interview you alone. I will bid you good day.”

“I don’t want to see anyone. Take whoever it is away with you.”

“We have no authority over him. He appears privileged. Again, we bid you adieu.”

They departed in obvious dudgeon. Guiltily, Caroline watched their stiff and disapproving backs pass through the door. She had a disquieting premonition. It immediately took shape and form. James Dexter walked briskly in, lifted one of her chained hands gently to his lips. “I bet you’re real mad at me?” he queried without anxiety.

“If you don’t go away immediately, I’ll scream.”

“No you won’t.” He was as assured as ever, and as handsome.” Against his laugh she could not hide a smile of welcome. “I just dropped by to tell you my regret about our unfinished business. Remember?”

The memory made Caroline blush. “Yes, I remember. You went away and left me wanting.”

James Dexter lifted the links between her hands.

“I bet you had someone lock these on you just to give the boys a bad time.”

“How did you guess!” They shared the laughter that came to them so easily. “They’ll get irritated and forget me soon, won’t they?”

“How the hell can they, Caroline! You’re the hottest, sexiest news on the wires. That damn cage he had you in—and the stars and stripes . . .” His mood became somber. “Look, is it rough? I mean, more than you can take?”

“I’m taking it, aren’t I! I don’t understand myself. You woke a sleeping tiger that day you handcuffed me.”

“But with your handcuffs! You bought ’em.”

“I’ve wondered about that. The tiger must have nudged me in his sleep. James, am I too outrageous?”

“You’re made to order for Khalief. You know it. So does he.”

“And you sold me to him.”

“You sold yourself.” Suddenly serious, he asked:

“Has he had you whipped yet?”

“Don’t talk about it. I don’t want to hear.”

“But has he?”

“Just some small punishments—it was Rulua, not Khalief. They hurt more than I’d have believed.”

“How did they make you feel?”

“Guilty.”

He laughed at her sheepishness. “Guilty of your misdemeanour?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Guilty of my reactions.”

“So you got the hots! The President help out?”

“James, if you want to talk about Khalief and me, go away. I won’t discuss him.”

“How about discussing you and me?”

“We can’t. I’m sold. You blew it.”

“Not me. My lack of a great many millions of dollars blew it. Are you sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Was that ‘yes’ difficult?”

“You know it was. Isn’t there some sort of honour tied up in this for both of us?”

He rose, but her hand on his arm gave him pause.

“Don’t go.”

“I have to go. I’m in love with you. If I hang around I’ll forget about the honour thing—” He kissed her savagely. “If you ever need me I’ll try and be there.” A moment later he was gone.

On the day Caroline put herself up for auction she had no doubts about self-knowledge or the hazards of her desperate act. She believed herself sophisticated, blasé with men and affairs. Dexter and Abhad had catapulted her into a situation beyond her wildest imaginings. Instead of hysterics she had found herself hungrily curious as to her unsuspected reactions in an adventure wherein most women would have screamed for help. Wryly, she faced a half-guilty admission that she was erotically excited beyond any stimulation the other bidders in the Dowling Corporation Board Room would provoke. To go forward from where she stood now might be frightening, but she would not go back. Khalief Abhad might let her go if she demanded vehemently enough, but of this she was by no means sure. He was still very much the enigma he had always been. She smiled back at him now as he faced her in the Presidential limousine as it purred its way from the Ministry.

“Want me to unlock your hands?” he enquired blandly.

“No. Leave me chained. You know I’ve come to like it.”

He chuckled at her honesty. “I should have rope used on you. It hurts and is more confining. The chains are too feminine.”

“These!” Caroline held up the heavy links. “They weigh a ton.”

“You turn them into costume jewellery. You’re magic.” He gazed upon his possession pridefully. “What did you tell the boys?”

“To leave us alone.”

“Us?” He put a wealth of duality into the single word.

“Aren’t I your Mistress, your slave, or some sort of stock in trade?”

“I was lucky to get you. What about James?”

“He was nobly loyal to you.”

Abhad nodded soberly. “Did you wish he wasn’t?”

“Khalief, don’t make me answer that. Keep me chained.”

“That is an answer. You’re in love with him.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. You’ve had a powerful effect on me.” She grinned. “You’re fond of James Dexter yourself. I can tell.”

“He’s a rare bird. I’m lucky in him too. But I’ll keep you apart.”

“If I ran away with him, would you kill us both?”

“I would not kill you. I might make you very uncomfortable.” He affected his best Oxford drawl. “After all, y’know, I’m just a savage.”

Caroline shivered deliciously. It was involuntary, without guile. “You’ve infected me.” Her eyes became tender. “That first time I saw you—I wouldn’t have believed . . . !”

“Sure it’s not my unusual endowment?”

“Oh, that’s a part of it all right! Dammit, Khalief, with that cannon pointed her way, no girl’s going to take you lightly. I was wanton before you got me. I’m doubly so now.”

“You can wait ’til we get back to the Residency. I’m damned if I’m going to take off these pin stripes in the car.”

They laughed in their easy intimacy. Then, Caroline suddenly asked. “That uncomfortable thing you spoke of if I was unfaithful . . . ? What would you do to me?”

Khalief Abhad’s smile was wise. “You’re wetting your pants over the thought, aren’t you! I’ll swear, if I don’t horrify you too badly you’ll be tempted to try.”

“Would you have me tortured—mutilated—?”

“I shouldn’t indulge you,” he said affectionately. “But I will.” He picked up the intercom to the driver and gave an order.

Like most public buildings in Zindawba the “Correctional Institute for Females” was impeccably British. Each stone block was a fist shaken admonishingly at human frailty. It was disinfectantly clean, but the interior was most definitely Zindawba. The Matron was everything a Matron should be. She too was of Zindawba.

“A brief look around, Matron. You need not bother. I know the way.”

“Of course, sir. But you’ll need keys.” She handed over a ring. Her manner became diffident. “The young lady, sir? Will she be staying,?”

Caroline blushed. The President boomed appreciation. “Not unless she misbehaves herself on the tour.”

“The shackles, sir. They led to suppose—” They had both forgotten. Once more there was laughter. Caroline felt sorry for the woman’s embarrassment.

“I’m afraid I’m incorrigible,” she admitted demurely. “I’m thinking of having them welded on.”

“If she decides to stay in one of your cells, I’ll let you know on the way out,” the President assured expansively. “Mrs. Dowling would make you a most entertaining prisoner.”

“I am sure she would, sir—”

“Let the Matron guide us, please, Khalief?”

Caroline pleaded impulsively. “I’m sure she’d like to.”

“Thank you, Madam.” The woman was nervous.

“But this is a very personal matter for our President. I would not wish to intrude.”

“What did she mean?” Caroline asked when they were well down the first corridor. “Personal?”

Amidst the stone and the bars Khalief’s chuckle was grim. “There’s several old acquaintances,” he confessed. “I haven’t always been as lucky as I have with you.”

A prison is a prison. It confines those of whom society disapproves. Caroline peered through interminable bars into sad small cells, each with its own sad occupant. They were all female and of all ages. They wore a trim small smock, crisply clean. It was easy for a woman to know it as their only covering. On the younger ones it came with a belt, accentuating feminine waists and busts. They peered back at their visitors without recognition. Caroline decided she preferred the cage in the market place.

“All very drab and ordinary,” Khalief admitted.

“What you are expecting to see is in this next wing.” He used keys. The girl was naked. She was beautiful, possibly a quadroon. She stood in the centre of her cell, her hands crossed and bound behind her back. From the ceiling a rope ended in a noose about her neck as though she was about to be hung. But the rope was slack. It’s function to prevent the girl from sitting or reaching a wall against which to lean. She must perforce stand. Weariness and frustration were in every line and curve of her nudity.

Recognition was instant. Flesh and sinew became vibrant. “Khalief!” The girl took a step towards the bars until the rope upon her neck snubbed her short. She stood, gazing at them, her eyes wide in appeal.

“Her name is Penelope Cranshaw,” said the President blandly. “She was a prominent member of the resistance group who opposed my regime. On one occasion she fired a shot in my direction.”

“Khalief, you know I wouldn’t have . . . ! Oh, Khalief, it’s been so long . . . in here . . .”

“We had known each other as friends. I was disappointed.”

“Khalief, forgive me—please! Set me free?”

A firm male hand propelled Caroline forward.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to endure importunities,” he apologised. “Don’t feel too heartbroken about anyone of them. Miss Cranshaw has only two more months to serve.”

“Standing with that rope . . . ?”

“The discomforts are varied daily. It is more humane.”

“That must be awful for her! Just standing . . . !”

“Don’t become a social worker, my dear. Maintain perspective.”

“But she seems so sweet.”

“So would you in similar circumstances. But that young lady shot and wounded several of my men.”

Caroline choked back remonstrance. She was not Elizabeth Fry, and this was not the U.S.A. It was Zindawba. A stranger seeing her chained in the cage might have supposed her scarred for life, but she had endured the exposure with some zest and a secret thrill.

“This one used a knife, but the wound was not deep,” Abhad was saying affably. “Mrs. Dowling, may I present Miss Nancy Mogewba.”

This girl too was naked. It appeared that all the President’s former enemies were beautiful—and female! Miss Mogewba was collared against the cell wall, standing. Her right ankle was chained to the stone well above the floor, compelling her to a stork-like dependence on one foot. She too looked tired. “Yo’ come to make mock o’ Nancy,” she accused without any trace of hope. “I should have killed yo’ sure.”

“Miss Mogewba and I share a small pleasantry,” Abhad said drily. “She is to remain here until she can forget homicide. She has been our guest for seven months, a most dedicated girl.”

“He fix yo’ like this someday, woman,” Nancy prophesied darkly. “Yo’ already got chains. He no good for girls.”

“A simple confession and an oath of loyalty, my dear? Then freedom.” The President was magnanimity personified.

“Fuck yo’!”

“She is not a lady,” said Khalief regretfully. “A good upbringing would have made a great difference. I am afraid she will stand on one leg a long time.”

“You’ll really keep her like that until she breaks?”

“It will not be more than a few months longer. Her discomforts are scheduled to become less tolerable. When she thinks no one watches she weeps. The Matron is very competent.”

“Khalief, you make me shiver. Good gosh—!”

“Want the daylight? We can—”

“No! We’re here. I may as well—” Caroline detected his knowing smile. “So all right! I get wet pants out of this too. I picture myself in one of these cells. Am I depraved?”

“Just a female being honest, and delightfully herself.”

“If I thought it wouldn’t annoy you I’d ask you to let them all loose. They’re so young, and so lovely . . .”

“This female distributes pamphlets and makes speeches—”

“She’s white!”

“A misguided member of the Woman’s Liberation Movement from the United States. She decided to embroil herself in Zindawba’s affairs. Before she was, er, sequestered she had managed to infect many impressionable young. Her name is Harriet Stapleton. The name ‘Harriet’ has always struck me as—”

“She’s shaved! I mean, she’s—” Caroline broke off in confusion.

“Equal rights with the Male. She is shaved daily. She has to be tied down so that her cunt may be made to simulate a male cheek.”

Harriet Stapleton was as naked as the rest. She stood upon the narrow diameter of a two-foot-high pedestal, her ankles locked in metal clamps, a part of the ensemble. Her hands and elbows were tied behind her back. She glowered resentfully at the President, but gazed with faint hope at Caroline. She blushed and kept a sulky silence.

“Miss Stapleton placed herself upon a pedestal,” Khalief intoned enjoyably. “Both metaphorically and to gain elevation for the utterance of sedition. It is only proper therefore that we enable her to remain on one. The pedestal you see was specially fabricated for her benefit.”

“I’ll get you for this, you black bastard,” said the living statue conversationally. “If someone else doesn’t get you first.” She cocked an eye at Caroline. “Kick him in the testicles and run,” she advised bitterly. “Their genitals are the only place—”

“Only recently incarcerated,” the President confided. “Her animosity still burns strong. I intend, one of these days, to honour her with my phallus. My intrusion within her should prove interesting.”

“You don’t imagine she’ll spread her legs—?”

“She will be appropriately bound. I will have two small boys suck her nipples steadily for an hour before I appear.”

“Khalief, you really are something!” Caroline was glad to be out of sight of the undaunted damsel. “I wanted to giggle over that shave job—it would have been too unkind.”

A shining ebony hung tautly from roped wrists, the searching toes forever six inches from the floor. “I sorry, I sorry, I sorry!” The declarations surged from the full lips as she recognized her visitor. “Nettie do anything yo’ want now. Nettie learn lesson. Nettie glad yo’ got big cock. She take it. Nettie don’ care if it kills—”

“A case of lèse-majesté,” Khalief said thoughtfully. “And she was armed with a butcher’s cleaver. I suspect Miss Stapleton had a hand in the matter. Considering her naivete I am inclined to order her release.”

“Does the poor child hang like that all day every day?”

“I really don’t know. You can ask Matron on the way out.”

“Look, darling, I’m not as blasé as I thought. Are there many more? The way they look at me I just know they’re seeing me naked in one of these cells. It—it’s shivery.”

Khalief Abhad laughed, his arm gathering her close. “You’re about as far separated from them as any two females could be. I really don’t know what you’d have to do to make me put you in here.”

“You put me naked in a cage. That first hour I thought I’d die.”

“But it didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Just my pride.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I doubt if it will ever grow back.” She blinked up at him. “You’ve made me shockingly humble. I’m often ashamed of myself. I suspect I’d do anything you wanted me to. If you’re within a hundred feet I’m horny, and nothing else matters.”

“None of the girls you’ve seen could have said that.”

“So I’m safe!” Her sense of mischief was returning. It provoked imprudence. “But, darling, I’m curious. If you put me in a cell, what sort of awful posture would you leave me in for the day?”

“I hadn’t thought of it. Now I will.”

“Not really! I was just—”

“No you were not! I know you! You were pandering to your pants. I’ll give you what you want before we leave. But first, there’s a different sort of situation you should have a look at.”

Caroline was afire. Promise—threat! It did not matter. Once again she was involved, possessed by primitive lusts, entranced by the naked eroticism of the girls behind the bars. Cruelty . . . ! She supposed it was. But none of them was intelligently seeking freedom or accepting it when conditionally offered. Would she be like that! Suppose . . . !

At first glance the cell contained nothing startling. The girl, who was not quite white, stood facing the wall to one side. Her hands were tightly bound, her wrists hurting. They were raised and tied to a ring in the stone just above the captive’s head where her teeth could never reach. It was very simple, designed like the rest to inflict the ultimate in frustration through a long day.

But this girl had been whipped!

The weals were fresh. Their presence explained her pose. She would have to stand there while the whip searched her nudity. If she twisted round, at the expense of her wrists, she would expose her breasts! So she would face the wall and take what she must. She spared them a sideways glance of recognition.

“Mrs. Dowling, this is Rosalind Nahwali.” The introduction sounded absurdly pompous.

“Have you brought her to be whipped, Khalief?”

“No, my dear. And don’t sound so pathetic. You are where you are by your own choice.”

Dark eyes fixed on Caroline’s scrutiny. “Ask him to whip you, Mrs. Dowling. He’ll do it anyway.”

The President used his keys. Close in the cell it was easy to see the marks of previous whippings on the naked loveliness fastened to the wall. Every part of the girl’s body bore evidence of the lash.

“Matron gave me ten this morning. Are you going to whip me more, Khalief?” Rosalind contrived to make the query sound commonplace.

“What I want of you now, Rosalind, is to have you tell Mrs. Dowling why you are here and what happens to you in this cell. If you wish to be sulky I can whip you between your legs until you communicate.” Caroline did not bother to analyse her breathlessness. She knew her breasts betrayed her emotion, but she did not care. She beheld the whip, a black and snakelike cruelty hanging on the wall, and wondered at the pain it could plant upon a girl’s skin. Suppose it was she who was tied like this waiting! The carefully controlled feminine voice shattered the thought.

“I am here. Oh damn, I can’t talk to the wall!”

Rosalind Nahwali struggled round to face them, punishing her wrists. Caroline saw traces of blood upon the thin rope, the wrists were swollen, the strictures deep in the tied flesh. The girl must have fought her bond long before they came. She stood now, her back against the wall, her crossed wrists above her head, her elbows out to either side of her face. Her voice became savage. She looked at Caroline. “I’m here like this because I wouldn’t let him fuck me.”

“Come, come, girl!”

“Oh all right! I took Russian money for some papers from the office.”

“Is that all?”

“You know it isn’t! I tried to defect. The Russians wanted me for propaganda.” She looked at them sulkily. “I got caught, so here I am.” She focused on Abhad searchingly. “Do you still want to fuck me? I’d say ‘yes’ to it now. I’m no heroine.”

“The privilege is no longer yours to offer. I can take it.”

“Yes, I suppose you can.” She looked wearily at Caroline. “What have you done to earn those chains?”

“I don’t know.” Caroline felt foolish. “What have I done, Khalief? Can you tell her?”

“Damned if I know myself.”

There was laughter in which Miss Nahwali did not share. “You will not laugh after the whip finds you,” she said sincerely.

“Khalief, couldn’t she be untied while we talk? She’s in pain, I know she is.”

“Don’t be silly. All that trouble—and to tie her again after.”

“I’ll do it. I’m sure I can.”

“Caroline, be sensible. If those ropes on her wrists bother you, then you can give her a few strokes with the whip and we’ll be on our way.”

“Khalief, no!” Caroline was shocked. Not by his demand but by the sudden fire flooding her loins.

“Whip me. If he wants you to you must. It will be worse for us both if you argue.” Rosalind’s voice had returned to the matter-of-fact. Resignedly she twisted herself back to face the wall. Her back and bottom were an invitation.

“And anyway I can’t. My hands are chained.” Khalief produced a key. In moments the shining gyves lay on the floor and the whip had been placed in her hand. “Do it! Whip her.”

“But I’ve never done such a thing!”

“It does not require a university diploma, my dear.”

“But, Khalief, the poor dear’s been whipped so much already!” Caroline was fighting down the burn between her thighs, If she orgasmed in front of the two of them he would laugh at her forever.

“I don’t mind. Really I don’t.” The captive was concerned. “I get whipped a lot, I’m used to it. Go ahead and whip me. Khalief, how many strokes do you want her to give me?”

“You mean it doesn’t hurt!”

“Of course it hurts! But I suppose a girl gets used to anything.”

“I’d suggest just five, well laid on.” The President was enjoying himself. “We mustn’t impose on Miss Nahwali’s goodwill.”

The beaming President of a new Republic, a naked girl tied to a wall, resigned to a punishment she did not deserve. And herself! Herself holding a whip and surveying naked female flesh, and in her own loins a conflagration fierce enough to consume . . . ! Caroline looked around bemused. In a sudden wild abandonment of everything she had ever known she swung the lash . . .

“A lovely scarlet.” Khalief approved.

“It’s all right. Don’t feel bad. It’s only five.”

Rosalind seemed more anxious for the girl with the whip than for herself. She was gasping with pain but had not screamed.

Caroline struck the lovely skin again. With the eye of a connoisseur she beheld the weal which was her own creation spring up in carmine outrage of the girlish skin, heard Rosalind’s gasping moan. Then, herself, gushed into the fiercest involuntary orgasm she had ever known.

It was demeaning, humiliating, shameful! Caroline longed to disappear into oblivion. Instead, she clutched her sex and groaned her way back, slowly into the prosaic world of the cell.

“That happens often with girls,” Miss Nahwali consoled.

“I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t,” Khalief scoffed.

“You mustn’t stop whipping me,” Rosalind reminded dutifully. “That was only two.”

Caroline scanned her companions, more shy than she could ever remember. “I’m so ashamed . . . !” Within her another small fire was gathering momentum. She knew not which way to turn or what to do. In savage frustration she lashed once more at Rosalind’s waiting back. Then again . . . and . . again . . .

Miss Rosalind Nahwali screamed.

“A most successful effort,” said the President of Zindawba.

Everything would be anti-climax now—or would it! Carrying her discarded chains, Caroline followed her mentor down the passage. Her breathing would not subside. She was still in a state of excitation. From Khalief there emanated vibrations enough to keep her quivering.

The opening of the door to the empty cell said everything. Obeying his eyes, Caroline dropped the shackles in a corner and laid her clothes on top. Naked, she faced his reflective smile. “I’m ready.”

Khalief crossed her wrists behind her back and bound them tight with a rope from a hook in the wall. Another hung from the ceiling. He looped it under her wrists and pulled. Her hands and arms rose, she bent forward gasping with pain. Up, and up again! He tested carefully with the tension until her heels left the floor. She was not exactly on her toes but was unkindly wracked. He made his knot.

“Think you can stand it?”

“I have to, don’t I, Khalief?”

“No. If you ask me to release you I will.”

“No, I won’t ask. I wish to be as you want me.”

“This is worse than some of the others?”

Caroline was panting. “It’s not worse than some. I have to get used to such punishments, don’t I?”

“Academically, yes.”

“There’s nothing academic about this, It’s a brute!” The fire in her shoulders and wrists was quenching some of the heat in her belly but not all. “How long do I have to stay?”

His voice was studiedly casual. “I’d thought all day.”

She was trembling, aghast. “You mean ’til night?”

“That’s right.”

“I couldn’t possibly stand it. Oh, Khalief . . . No!”

“That’s what they all say.” The door clanged shut.

Caroline was alone in her cell.

5

Punishment Post

For Trudy Ramsay the day promised to be long.

She suspected it was no’ more than half done. She longed to scream at the injustice of what was being done to her. But she had been warned about screaming. It would be wiser to suffer in modest silence—perhaps an occasional moan.

The flat top of the post was about the same diameter as her bare bottom. Obviously they had been made for each other. The post was in the middle of the Barrack Square. Naked, she sat astride it for all to see. She had disgraced the guard uniform, so it had been taken from her. She would not have sat upon this four-foot-high perch had it not been for the ankle clamps. They were metal. At a cunning angle they fastened one of her feet to each side of the post, bent so that her knees stuck out and all her weight rested on her bottom. To complete the ensemble of penitence her wrists were unkindly tied at the small of her back. Trudy Ramsay was most definitely a fixture.

But, being Zindawba, there had to be more. Unhappily she recalled her first sight of the coarse sandpaper glued to the circle of wood on which she must sit. It would have been bad enough without Sergeant Galla’s dictum. “Sandpaper’s better with a tender rump, love. Lie over my lap.”

The spanking had been shaming and hurt more than she would have supposed. When the sergeant was breathless there was another girl proffering her knees and the impacts of her palm—and another—and another . . . In all, nineteen. By the time they were through with her, Trudy’s bottom was ablaze and a fiery red. There had been no animosity in any of the slaps but they had hurt just the same. They had then all helped hoist her up on the stub of timber and fastened her ankles in the clamps, tightening the bolts with a spanner. It was all very efficient and most unkind. Sergeant Galla had summed it all up succinctly:

“You shouldn’t have bit the W.O.’s dink, love.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to shove it in my mouth.”

But that had all been gone over at her trial. It was generally conceded she had got off lightly. W.O. Ringbolt had demanded she be flogged. He had been conciliated only by the sergeant’s insistence that she was very new to Zindawba and would probably be a more obedient girl next time she was so honoured.

“We have to, love. All of us. He’s a terror, he is! But it makes a change from getting it up the other place below.”

Trudy had gained no solace from the sophistry.

With her blazing seat solidly planted on the sandpaper, and quite unable to move it an inch, she saw no solace anywhere. The day stretched endlessly. After it there would be others. Making the best she could of her plight, she mentally reviewed her life, so far, in the President’s Guard. It was not all bad. The cots were comfortable: and if several of the girls got an ankle chained to hers for the night it served her right for entertaining silly notions, Trudy’s ankle had been chained the first two nights, but since then had become trusted. In any case, escape over the electrified fence was close to impossible. The food was good, there was a library and a TV. The girls were kind. They were all in the same boat and, with wry resignation, made the best of it. They had all been recruited with broad hints they had better join or else! The pay was good. Not that they had, as yet, much chance to spend it.

Their lives, including Sergeant Galla’s, were shadowed by two male figures. W.O. Ringbolt and the President. They were the sexual perquisite of both or either. Failure to joyfully yield her person earned a guard a flogging. Only one girl had braved the ordeal. After seeing her back and behind no other had drummed up the courage to resist. The President’s sexual demands on his troop were spasmodic and uncertain. He was much absorbed with Caroline! W.O. Ringbolt demanded his pound of flesh and made sure he got it. But there were twenty of them and only one of him. Their sacrificial journey to his hut to be raped, sodomised or caned was not frequent for anyone of them. He had a roster he adhered to and played no favourites.

The W.O. came closer to authority than the sergeant. Galla was a good-natured girl who was content to receive his attention and to hand over to him most of the reins of office. He drilled the girls with amazing competence and managed to infuse into them a pride in what they did and what they were. Their precision drill became a showpiece and was much in demand at public functions. He also taught them to shoot straight and far. He caned their bottoms until there was not one of them who did not get the bull at least one shot in five at five hundred yards. He was a martinet but they respected him.

Caning was implicit in their service. They were caned for everything. One, two or three strokes at a time, but in a week it mounted up. If the bottom of any girl became too inflamed the cane was switched to her hands or the soles of her feet. Since none of the troop relished the two latter inflictions there were few who did more than modestly infringe the rules. Had Trudy been asked if the troop was happy she would have had to say yes.

“Is it very miserable, dear?”

Trudy’s reverie was broken. Maisie Collins, the honey blonde member of the guards, had approached, curious but unheard. She was surveying her colleague’s plight with erotic interest. “Everything they do to us makes a girl’s cunt stick out,” she observed meditatively. “Have you noticed? The way those clamps fasten your ankles . . . ?”

“Of course it’s miserable,” Trudy wailed. “I don’t see why all you girls had to spank me so hard.”

“The sergeant was watching.”

“I think you all enjoyed spanking me,” Trudy sniffed. “This punishment might be bearable if a girl’s bottom wasn’t beaten first. Mine feels like I’m sitting on a hot stove.”

“You can’t move it at all, can you!”

“Did you come to sympathise or gloat? I hurt!”

“Don’t get shirty. I expect we’ll all get to sit there sooner or later. Have you noticed: it doesn’t matter how good a girl is she gets caught out on something or other.”

Trudy managed a giggle. “Are you all going to bite old Ringbolt’s cock?”

“I think it’s a carryover from the Old Imperial Army,” Maisie pondered. “They had to mind their P’s and Q’s. It’s supposed to keep us on our toes.”

“I’m not on my toes! Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“If you’re going to be irritable I’ll leave,” Maisie pouted. “I know it’s horrid for you but it’s not my fault. If I could let you down I would. But those clamps on your ankles . . . ! I say, they are ingenious, aren’t they! Do they hurt?”

“Not much. They just tell me I’m fixed for good. I don’t think an earthquake would budge them. They scare me.”

“Ever think of escape?” Maisie became serious.

“I don’t mean from that post but from the guards. Daphne and I talk about it a lot. Would you join us?”

“What’s the punishment if we’re caught?”

“A flogging. Then sent to a work camp.”

“No thanks. I don’t think I could stand being flogged. The very word makes me shiver.”

“That’s because you’re being punished now and you’re hurting and sort of sorry you misbehaved,” Maisie said wisely. “But the thing is: we need not be caught. All we have to do is get inside the Consulate or across a border—?”

“And I bet the work camp is pure hell.”

“Well, you’re not exactly comfortable where you are,” Maisie pointed out reasonably. “Do you want to stay a guard and be fucked by the drill master until you’re middle-aged and they don’t want you anymore?”

“Of course not, but it’s silly to talk of escape. We’re prisoners. That fence—”

“There’s a rumour we’re all going out on some sort of exercise. A maneuver or exhibitions or something. We’ll be away from here. If we keep our eyes open . . . ?”

The girl in pain upon her post twisted unhappily, then managed a sad giggle. “There are worse places than this, Maisie, and worse jobs. I was chained in a cage for weeks and weeks . . . ! This is better. And haven’t you noticed, there’s times when we’re all proud? When old Ringbolt’s got us to do something clever? Or when we’re all marching in step and sticking our tits out?”

“Yes I know, there’s that. But look, I’ve got to run. Darling, keep your chin up—and think about what I’ve said? Bye now.” Trudy pondered an improbable escape. There wasn’t much else to occupy her mind except her pain.

“I’m a reasonable man. You didn’t have to bite it.” Warrant Officer Ringbolt’s tone was conciliatory. He gazed with approval at the naked girl suffering her punishment for oral assault upon his genitals. “After you’ve served your time on that post I’m quite prepared to let bygones be bygones.”

Trudy morosely supposed it part of this punishment that she endure visits and scrutiny from all and sundry. Prudently, she decided to try and repair a damaged entente. “That’s awfully sweet of you, sir. I’m sorry I was so silly. Is it better?”

“Better? What—? Oh that! Ahem, yes—no damage.”

“I deserve every minute of what I’m getting, sir.”

“Do you now!” He fixed her with a baleful eye.

He was well aware of the predilection of damsels to cozen mature males. But his regard melted before the onslaught of Trudy’s breasts and Trudy’s pubic hair. Both were superlative and merited his full attention. “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” he rambled absently. “May make a guard out of you yet.” Struck by a random vision, he guffawed. “Damn good thing for you it wasn’t the President.”

Trudy tittered dutifully. “I’m so thankful, sir, I could never have forgiven myself. I don’t know what got into me—”

“Well, it wasn’t me!” This sally was delivered with a gargantuan guffaw to which she contributed a wan smile.

“I’m afraid I was nicely brought up, sir. My parents were very strict with me.”

“A pity! Poor judgment with a girl in my opinion.” He brightened. “Tell you what. Bring that little arse of yours to my place after drill tomorrow. I want to see what it looks like. What you’ve had takes a day to mature properly—should be a pretty sight. Then we’ll make a proper appointment for me to fuck you properly in the old-fashioned way sometime next week?”

“That’s very generous of you, sir. I’ll be there.” Trudy wondered if her loathing showed. But she was sick of punishment.

“Actually it is,” W.O. Ringbolt agreed modestly. “A conventional piece of tail is a bit of a waste, in my opinion. At my age a man wants a bit of, well, I suppose sophistication is the word, eh! But considering the stand your parents took with you I’m prepared to accept a plain ordinary, piece of tail.”

“You’re ever so kind, sir, I know mother would be grateful.”

“Well, that’s settled then.” The W.O. visibly preened. “Sorry I have to make you wait ’til next week, but I’ve already promised—”

“That’s quite all right, sir,” Trudy hastily interposed.

“But I expect by Wednesday or Thursday I’ll be ready for you.” He bestowed a heavy scrutiny upon her pubic hair. “Wouldn’t want you to feel you got less than my best, y’know.”

“I’m sure I’m going to feel a lucky girl.”

The W.O. donned an air of diffidence and raised his appraisal to Trudy’s breasts. “I suppose the girls have told you about the option?”

“I don’t know anything about an option, sir.”

“Hmmm, might have guessed!” He now emanated magnanimity. “There’s times when you girls don’t want. I mean, that time of the month and all that sort of rot. Or maybe they’re not in the mood. In cases like that I give ’em the choice of taking ten of the best instead.”

“Ten what, sir?”

“Ten strokes with the cane, of course!” His vehemence made her question sound silly. “You can have ’em on your seat, your hands, or the soles of your feet. I couldn’t say fairer than that, could I now!”

“It’s more than generous, sir,” Trudy lied manfully. “I’ll remember those options just in case.”

She remembered them bitterly as he stalked away. The distress of her raw contact with the sandpaper made the prospect of choosing to have her bottom caned impossible. It would have to be her hands or the soles of her feet. Either was torture. Perhaps it would be better to spread her legs and accept his sperm. She might as well get used to the idea. Sooner or later the President would choose her, and he was unlikely to offer options. Fretfully, she tugged at her bound wrists. The cords were deep in her skin, relentless. Sadly, she wished she had thought of some less dramatic protest than the biting of a Warrant Officer’s penis. Her bottom and the sandpaper continued their quarrel without respite.

Daphne and Maisie carried loops of the rope the girls had come to hate, thin supple stuff designed for the mortification of the flesh of girls. They looked despondent. Sergeant Galla looked determined, her lips a thin straight line. The trio’s approach sent shivers of apprehension down Trudy’s spine. They were going to tie her elbows, or her arms, or her knees, or something beastly to add to her penance!

“This fool girl want yo’ to escape, love?”

The sergeant clapped a hand on Maisie’s shoulder and cocked a querying eye at the punished delinquent. Maisie and Daphne looked at her too, their eyes imploring. The girl tied on the post wished she was a thousand miles away. “Escape . . . ?” She tried to look vaguely shocked.

“Never yo’ mind no lies,” Galla said forcefully. “I can tell by yo’ face—and I seen her over here a’ talking. They think Galla stupid, but I knows what they whisperin’ to the rest o’ the gals.”

“As if we would! Oh Galla . . . !”

“Shush now! Galla got yo’ figured. I just been too damn easy on you gals. ’Bout time I smartened yo’ up.” She shook Maisie’s shoulder admonishingly. “Off with that uniform!”

“Please, Galla, we were only joking.”

“Galla, we’re too fond of you—and Trudy doesn’t want to escape anyway. Oh please . . . !”

“Get yo’ self naked, love.”

“But what for? Oh, Galla, what are you going to do?”

“Yo’ soon find out. Strip!”

Trudy could have wept for them, just as she wanted to weep for herself. All three of them were in the grip of a force against which they were helpless. Zindawba owned them, they were slaves. She watched Maisie doff her guard’s uniform to lay bare a sweet and lovely nudity undeserving of what it was about to receive.

“Hands behind yo’ back, love.”

“Please, Galla, not too tight?”

Save for the small sad request, Maisie passively allowed herself to be bound. First her wrists, then her elbows. Trudy winced in sympathy as the cords bit.

“Sit yourself down.”

Maisie’s ankles, then her knees. The bands circled and were knotted tight. Then the final cruelty: hands and feet were joined in a hogtie. Maisie’s breasts thrust into the grass, her nakedness bent backwards in a bow. She twisted to look up at the girl who had tied her thus, her voice pathetic. “Oh, Galla, not like this . . . ! Please, not like this . . . ?”

The sergeant ignored the plea. Her attention switched to Daphne, drooping and despondent. “Now yo’, love. Off with everything.”

Daphne was obedient and resigned. She accepted her binding without demur. Where Maisie went, so went Daphne. They were comrades in captivity and in their punishments. Soon, she too was an ivory bow, trussed.

“Yo’ three can talk ’bout yo’ escape. Yo’ talk all yo’ want.” She looked down at the hogtied pair with a trace of sympathy. “Yo’ two can do a bit o’ thinkin’, yo’ got the time.” She turned to Trudy. “See if yo’ can talk a bit o’ sense into ’em. Yo’ got the time, and they’s a captive audience.” She departed, chuckling.

When the sergeant was out of earshot. Maisie relieved her feelings with a hearty. “Damn!”

“Oh shit!” Daphne contributed with equal vehemence.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Trudy said wanly. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“It’s our own fault, love. Don’t worry. One of the others must have snitched. Oh gollies, this is going to get bad before night.”

“Can’t you get loose? I mean, help each other?”

“We can’t move. I couldn’t reach Daphne’s knots—no way!”

“Oh, Maisie, I’m hurting already. What are we going to do!”

“We’re going to lay here and suffer, you little idiot. Right now I wouldn’t utter the word ‘escape’ if someone paid me.”

“See, we shouldn’t have talked about it! Trudy has the right idea. If we behaved ourselves the Guards isn’t that bad.”

“Oh sure! And we get fucked by a President too!” Maisie was parting with her dream of freedom with reluctance. “Sorry, darling. I expect it’s all my fault. If we ever get untied again I promise I’ll be the best little guard ever.”

Trudy, on her painful perch, realised with a sad clarity the efficacy of feminine punishment. By fictional standards the three of them should now be vowing vengeance and plotting freedom. Instead, their pain was moulding them to the status quo. All three of them wished to be good little girls, fervently condemning themselves for not having thought of it sooner. Galla was terribly sweet. They could not hate her for what she did to them. She, too, was just one of the girls. Three pairs of wrists twisted against cord, helplessly.

“Don’t mind if I cry a bit,” Daphne apologised wretchedly. “It’s all so—so—oh damn our foolishness . . . !”

“It was me who told Galla ’bout you. This serves you right.” The dusky maiden tendered her information and opinion complacently. “You didn’t ought to go round talking us into trouble.”

“That was mean, Dilly. What did we ever do to you! Now just look at us!”

“I lookin’. Is it hurting real bad?”

“Of course it is! How’d you like to be tied this way?”

“I got more sense. I knows when I’m well off. Them ropes round your elbows . . . ? Must be real bad, eh?”

“How’d you like to untie us?”

“I’m not that stupid. S-a-a-a-y . . . you can’t do nothin’, can you. Galla fix you good.”

“You don’t have to gloat, Dilly. What d’you come here for?”

“Galla say for me to tell you the way I feel ’bout the Guards. ’Taint just me neither.”

“So, O.K., you love the Guards. Leave it at that.”

“Thass what wrong with you two. You don’t think sensible: you don’t think at all. Look what we all got! Lovely uniform! We all belong to President Abhad. He look after us damn good in this place. We’s a troop o’ real smart cookies what every girl in Zindawba envies. You watch their faces when we do our drill and go marching down the street. We got the best girl’s uniform in the whole world.”

“It’s certainly the sexiest. Galla took ours away.”

“Talking the way you been doing you could have been flogged. ’Stead o’ that Galla just ties you up.”

“What d’you mean, ‘just’! I wish you were tied up like this.”

“I wouldn’t mind being tied thataway if I bin’ disloyal.”

“All right, all right, Dilly! You’re a nice girl, but stop preaching.”

Dilly turned her attention to the post, the sandpaper, and the naked girl who sat thereon. “I hope you’s hurtin’ too. That was real unkind to Mr. Ringbolt, what you did.”

Trudy was indignant. “Well, how would you have liked to do—do—that beastly thing he wanted!”

“It ain’t beastly.” Dilly sounded genuinely shocked. “Lots o’ people calls it a blow job. I know lots of fellers who like a girl to do that for ’em. I been sucking cocks since I was a kid.” Her disapproval was almost pious. “You just ain’t been brought up proper. I hope you got a real sore arse.” She beamed portentously. “You know what the rest of the troop fixing to have you do?”

“I don’t want to hear.”

“We all stand in a line in the dorm with our legs wide apart and you work yourself down the row eating our clits.”

“I won’t do it! You can’t make me—”

Dilly’s voice was triumphant. “Sergeant says it’s good idea. She says if you don’t do good job you come back and sit on the post some more. ” She giggled. “The sergeant, she’s going to stand right there with the rest of us.”

“You’ll have to do it, dear.” It was Maisie’s hurt voice from the grass. “It’s not as bad as you think it is. Daphne and I do it all the time. Some girls taste gorgeous. Dilly does, I’ve tried her.”

Dilly was flattered. “We’ll give her little rests along the line. A girl’s tongue gets awful tired if she hasn’t used it.” She looked down at the hogtied nakedness. “Maybe you’d like to eat me right now? I wouldn’t mind.”

Maisie giggled. “Sure! My tongue’s about the only thing I can use. You’ll have to do the rest.”

Trudy wanted to look the other way. But she could not move, so became a privileged spectator. She wasn’t all that prudish—she recalled with longing those nights with Caroline in the cage. But this was so blatant, so very unprivate. She envied the two girls their unconcern. She watched a third uniform join the others on the grass, then Dilly’s wiggling nudity as it knowingly postured its pudendum to the greatest convenience possible for the captive tongue.

“Don’t let me smother in your bush, darling.”

Dilly giggled happily. “You want air, you snort.”

With a practised eagerness, Maisie began to lap.

Her tongue was long. With the sounds of suction. Dilly’s eyes became faraway.

“It was the girls’ idea, love.” Galla looked up placatingly. “But I’m not going to say I don’t agree. I think it will do you good. You’ll be more at home together after.”

“Lesbians—!”

“I suppose so. But don’t say it like that when they can hear. There, the clamps are off your ankles.”

Trudy spared a glance at the distant figures of Daphne and Maisie carrying their uniforms and the ropes with which they had been bound. Galla had been merciful. It was not yet fully dark.

“You all right, love?”

Trudy supposed she was. It was a glorious feeling to have her hands and feet back. She was massaging her wrists gratefully. Her legs hung free. But her bottom and the sandpaper were still close joined by her weight. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “I burn so bad I’m sure my skin will peel off or something.”

“It will be bad for a moment. Look, lean on my shoulders and sort of hoist yourself.”

The captive of the post moaned and caught her breath as her skin and the sandpaper made a reluctant farewell. She slid to the ground and was glad of Galla’s supporting arm. “I’ll never sit down again,” she mourned.

“Yes you will—in a couple of days.” The sergeant chuckled. “Just as well there’s no mirror. You’d feel worse than you are.”

“Oh, Galla, that bad!”

“You needn’t put on your uniform. You’ll be easier without clothes. Here, give me your hands.”

“Handcuffs! But why—?”

“Just in front, love. They may save arguments later.” Trudy did not care. After the post anything was paradise. She watched the familiar locking of her wealed wrists. “I don’t mind, Galla, really I don’t. I know you’ve been kind. You could have left us out here for hours yet.”

“Well, you do have things to do, love. But don’t be anxious. I’m going to give you a rest and a shower and food first. How about a cup of coffee?”

The first steps were painful. Her knees had been clamped bent all day. Her punished bottom protested motion. But by the time they were halfway to the barracks she was walking naturally. The coffee was ambrosia, so was the shower, and then the food . . .

“I’d advise you to do what you’re going to with a smile,” Galla said as she watched her captive’s appetite. “They won’t take kindly to resentment. Make like you’re grateful for what they’re letting you do.”

“I have to be completely debased?”

“I won’t argue about terms, love. You’re a guard. Be one.”

“And Daphne and Maisie?”

“They’ll be there with their legs apart. They’ll be handcuffed, same as you: just a demerit for being bad.”

“Or to stop them trying to escape?”

“Maybe to show the rest that talking about escape isn’t a good idea.”

If she had not been so tired from her punishment and so ashamed of what she was about to do, Trudy would have giggled at the row of bare thighs and expectant pubic triangles. Dilly was standing to one side holding a whip. “That’s just in case, dear,” the sergeant informed darkly. “But I’m sure you won’t be silly?”

Trudy was sure too! Fatigue might defeat her but naught else. She had suffered a surfeit of penitence, she wanted no more. Halfway down the waiting line her white comrades wore their handcuffs with nonchalance. They bestowed a wink of encouragement. “Do Tessie first, dear. She always explodes with the first bite,” suggested Galla kindly. “It will get you started.”

Tessie ran true to form. After one cry of fulfillment she subsided, writhing. Trudy wiped her lips and moved on to number two. It was going to be hard on her knees as well as her tongue.

“Give her all the help you can, girls,” the sergeant ordered. “The poor dears never done it like this before. Just imagine!”

It was true! Girls were not all the same. The size of the pouting vulvas, the location of the elusive clitoris, the flow of lubricant, their scent! Each was different. Trudy’s tongue and lips groped questingly and humbly within warm wet sheaths of female flesh. Her handcuffed hands reached constantly for loose wiry pubic hairs truant on her tongue. But it was in their taste she found her deepest discovery. Some were sour, some were sweet. One or two left her wondering if such an individually intimate flavour might not spark a need, perhaps a union. Maisie and Daphne simulated rapid orgasms to give her a break. At the end Dilly set aside her whip with obvious regret but separated her thighs with gusto. At the finish there was Galla. A sweetly scented, sweetly tasting Galla who gently stroked her captive’s hair as the obedient tongue lapped its very best to give her joy.

The afterwards was like, the aftermath of any party. Camaraderie and a buzz of talk. No one noticed handcuffs, but everyone examined the scarlet and purple bottom that was Trudy’s penitence for an imprudent bite. It was much admired. She could almost believe it was envied. But that may have been due to the two bottles the sergeant contributed to the jollity. The owner of the scarlet seat became proud of what she would not sit on. She was still extracting hairs from her mouth at bedtime. She giggled with the rest when Daphne and Maisie sheepishly proffered a bare ankle to be shackled to their cot.

“You brought it on yourselves, dears.” Sergeant Galla was firm.

Trudy even giggled when Galla stood beside the cot and ordered: “Out with it, love.”

She stuck her foot from beneath the covers, and rested on her forearms and tummy to watch it chained. “Why me, Galla?” she asked innocently.

“Do I have to tell you, love?”

“No, I suppose not.”

They laughed.

Trudy slept face down.

6

Discipline

The Troop was grateful for its shoes. The issue had not been popular. But Warrant Officer Ringbolt’s insistence had been firm. The girls had put on the utility footgear with mutinous mutterings which had got several bottoms severely caned. But now they were thankful for an old campaigner’s wisdom. The President’s Guard could march with the best the regular Army could muster.

There were rumours. They were going to war; certainly their rifles had been loaded in with them in the truck that took them the first seventy miles. They were going to escort and impress a neighboring dictator. As far as Trudy could tell they were simply exhibiting their prowess for the edification of the voters. Beholding their excellence, no citizen could doubt Khalief Abhad’s insistence on only the best. They marched their circuit from village to village and were roundly cheered. Their uniforms provoked high praise and equally elevated erections.

Warrant Officer Ringbolt was in his glory. Since he was no longer a member of the ruling race he conceded leadership to Sergeant Galla and Captain Rulua. He himself, resplendent in uniform and medals, marched at the side of the column. His commands might have been heard in the next emergent nation. His bellow was impressive. Their route coincided with fairs, gala occasions, fiestas, the opening of public buildings and the like. They added a touch of class. They were serenaded by the President’s Brass Band whose martial music was easy to march to and whose trumpetings stirred patriotic fervour at every stop. Their rendition of the national anthem was often confused by the older members stoutly playing “God Save the Queen” whilst the younger recruits blared away with “Hail, Hail, Zindawba.” Trudy often wanted to giggle. But she also glowed with pride as the brass rumbled resonantly and the sound of their marching feet made a cadence of its own.

Trudy sensed an undercurrent. They were going somewhere, a destination as yet undisclosed. Sometimes she caught Rulua, Galla or the W.O. watching her speculatively as though in expectation of her seeing the tour as an opportunity to escape. Certainly escape was an ever-recurring thought, but it was impractical. She would be easily caught, and terribly punished. She seized an opportunity to confront the sergeant.

“Galla, if you’re uneasy about me, chain my ankles at night, I won’t mind, honest I won’t.” Galla was surprised. “More like I chain Maisie and Daphne than you.” She giggled. “None of you’s going to run.”

“But there’s something on your mind about me. What is it?”

Galla kissed her. “You do fine, love. Mr. Ringbolt, he’s real proud of you.” She groped around for something plausible. “We soon coming to a big town. You heard of Tulabe? The President’s going to be there and a lot of big doings. The troop’s going to have a hard day. We’s goin’ to be right out front.”

With that Trudy had to be satisfied. What did it matter! Her more immediate concern was the servicing of Warrant Officer Ringbolt.

“Never did manage our little tête-à-tête.”

“No, sir.” Trudy looked around the very masculine tent and at the man who surveyed her benignly from under beetling brows. She was trapped and knew it. She wished she could accept his insertion within her body with a better grace and less revulsion. She had thought a lot of his ‘option’ and recoiled from that too. As though it was the voice of a stranger she heard herself say. “I think I’ll take the cane this time, sir, if you don’t mind.”

He was surprised. She sensed chagrin. “Humph! Any reason?”

“I expect it’s all the marching, sir, and the excitement. I guess I’m just not—in the mood.”

“Huh! Damn gels and your moods! Well, what’s it to be: palms, soles, or buttocks?”

“Oh, not my bottom, sir!”

He laughed shortly. “Still sore, eh! That day on the post did you a lot of good. Off with that uniform and let’s see what your little arse looks like now.”

There was no help for it. Woefully, Trudy laid her lovely uniform across a chair and stood before her superior officer, naked. Letting him look his fill, she slowly turned and bent with hands on knees for his inspection.

“Damn me, you’re nearly healed! Not much left of that sandpaper.”

“No, sir, It’s been quite a while.”

“Sure you don’t want ’em across your rump?”

He sounded solicitous. “It’s the best place—and I do like to see a young rump bounce under the cane.”

“That hurt me so much, sir, I’d rather not. Could I have them on the soles of my feet?”

“You ever have your soles whipped?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s pretty bad, y’know—and the marching you’re doing? How about your hands?”

“Rulua caned my hands a couple of times, sir. It makes them all numb and fumbly for a couple of days.”

“Hmmmm!” The W.O. was obviously pondering the capriciousness of females. “Want to be tied for it?”

“Yes please, sir.”

Trudy did not want any of it. But she meekly lay on her back and allowed the military martinet to bind her ankles, one on each side of the tent pole at an elevation of about two feet. “Needn’t bother with your hands.” he said gruffly. “You can’t do much but watch.”

The watching was bad. She would see it all, every hateful stroke. The soles of her small feet were offered in poignant helplessness, she could scarcely move them. Agonizedly, her eyes followed Ringbolt as he selected the cane. A slender thing, vicious!

“Are you likely to scream, m’dear?”

She was! She knew she was! And in a tent . . . !

The whole camp would hear her shame. Trudy passionately did not want the troop to listen to the cries she would emit because the soles of her feet were being beaten. “I’m afraid so, sir. Can I please be gagged?”

“Not much sense with your hands free.”

“But something to bite on, sir.” The nude victim was feeling desperate and a little ridiculous. “I think in the old days they gave you a bit of wood or something . . . ?”

“Capital! Don’t want a fuss. Damn sensible gel!”

She wondered why, if he liked her, he could not forego this sadistic pleasure. But, no doubt, he would point out that if she liked him she would willingly spread and offer himself to be pierced. Perhaps this craggy-faced lonely man deserved pity. His life seemed barren except for the girls . . . The troop was all he had. It was while he rummaged in a box that sounds came from the entrance and Sergeant Galla joined the scene.

“Ooops, sorry!”

“I had it here somewhere,” the W.O. muttered absently. “The very thing. The gel wants something to bite on.”

“You mean you’re getting the soles of your feet beaten, love?” Galla was aghast.

“I’m—I’m afraid so. It’s a sort of option.”

“Yes I know!” The sergeant’s voice was terse. “You don’t want to be fucked. You’re crazy.”

“Does it hurt that bad?”

“You can’t imagine it, dear. Have him do something else.”

“I’m scared, My poor bottom !”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Galla was not much older than the bound and naked girl on the floor, but she easily assumed a maternal authority on a subject with which she was well familiar. “What’s so awful about our own W.O. shoving his dink in your pussy!”

“I make a nice job of it. Ask any of the girls,” Ringbolt offered patiently.

“You might enjoy it,” said Galla.

Trudy felt she had somehow been put in the wrong. She was being unkind, unappreciative and rude. But she was sure she should not feel, in this enforcement of the act of love, like a cow being escorted to the bull. The soles of her feet seemed a small price to pay for purity. “Must it be all ten strokes at once?” she asked plaintively.

“I can make it twenty,” W.O. Ringbolt said stiffly.

“Tell you what,” Galla the peacemaker suggested brightly. “Give the poor dear one to start with, and we’ll take it from there.”

“I’m disappointed in her,” said the W.O. sadly. “She seemed a real sensible gel.” He struck the bottom of Trudy’s left bound foot with a fearful accuracy.

Trudy’s ankles were tied tightly to the post. But the rest of her matched her scream of outrage and despair. She became a whirling tangle of flailing arms, taut belly and vibrating breasts. She beat on the ground with small impotent fists, her hair flew from side to side as she shook her head wildly in negation of her agony. She did not care how she might appear before her audience. She was possessed of a need to demonstrate the awfulness of what had been done to her. Pain was lancing into her being in great sweeping waves from her punished foot.

“Only nine more to go,” Ringbolt said heartily. “She can’t,” said Sergeant Galla decisively.

“She won’t be able to walk, let alone march. Look, I’m taking charge of this little operation—such a silly fuss!”

The W.O. watched with interest. Trudy was past caring, but she spared a dubious glance as Galla took the rope from the tied ankles on the pole and bound one alone at the base. She took the other and dragged it to one side. “Go ahead, Mr. Ringbolt,” she said helpfully. “She’s all yours.”

“Damn practical.” The W.O. removed his brief trousers. “Hold on to that ankle.” He surveyed his field of operation, no doubt mapping his strategy. “Pity the little dear’s so obstinate. Damn beautiful little trick, actually.” He knelt between the taut tanned legs.

The mind of the half-tied girl about to be ravished was awhirl with confused emotions. Paramount was relief. No more pain! Instead, there would be an act which, under different circumstances, could bestow great joy. She had experienced that joy a number of times under varying illusions of love. She was no virgin. Choosing pain had not been to protect a maidenhead: only a girl’s roseate concept of the immaculate. She looked up at Galla’s concerned features and smiled. This way was best. A whip had the power to direct a girl’s steps. In maiden indecision it was a friend. Girls should not have to make up their own minds, it should be done for them by their elders or by a rampant cock. Gratitude welled. In an emotion she could not fathom, she held out a welcoming hand to the craggy male features now so close. With an unsuspected gallantry the Warrant Officer raised it to his lips and kissed it gently before he mounted.

The next incident of their march across Zindawba concerned the girl, Nikola. It began with a whispered confidence in the washroom.

“Trudy, love, I’m in trouble.”

Trudy checked an involuntary glance at a taut dusky tummy. “Your boyfriend?” she asked with feminine intuition.

Nikola giggled. “No, I ain’t pregnant. But he aims to make me. He’s following right along. He’s got an old car. He says that, bein’ in a tent, I got a chance to escape. He say I must.”

“That’s easy,” said Trudy practically. “Just tell Galla and ask her to chain your ankle every night.”

“I already done that. She say I big girl now and don’t need no chain. She say I should play with my clit, then I not get hot for him the way I do.”

“O.K. Then tell your boyfriend to play with himself and go home.”

“Oh, Trudy, don’ joke. He swear he come to tent and get me.” She giggled. “Yo’ knows how’s men are when they got a stiff cock.”

“Then have W.O. Ringbolt talk to him. Ringbolt will scare him off.”

“Then he get in trouble, maybe go to prison.”

“Nikola, you’re letting this bother you. What d’you want me to do?”

“You run away with me? I scared alone.”

“Absolutely no! We’d both be flogged. I’d have thought you’d have more sense after that time when you were tied to the tree.”

“Oh, I got more sense but he ain’t! He comes to the tent at night to get me, and we both get caught. I’ll get flogged anyway and he’ll go to prison.”

“The whole thing’s absurd,” Trudy vowed without conviction. “Just to be safe I’m going to ask to have my ankle chained at night. Then you can’t prey on my sympathy.” She gently patted a dusky arm. “Don’t do anything silly. Run to Galla or the W.O. instead.”

“But I love him!” Nikola wailed.

“It’s a disease,” Trudy admonished. “One day they’ll invent a pill.”

It happened that night. Galla had laughed but provided a padlock: Trudy’s ankle was safely chained to her bed. It was a nice feeling to be absolved from decision or collusion. She slept. But the end of her slumber was abrupt. Somewhere in the night her chained foot was wrenched from beneath the covers, there was a loud snap and her ankle was free. Beside her cot a dark male shape pridefully held up a pair of bolt cutters. Beside him was a naked Nikola.

With disaster knocking at her door, Trudy could think of nothing more than: “Go away. Leave us alone. You’re crazy.”

For answer, the male grabbed her wrist and muttered softly: “You come.”

Later she was to bitterly regret her failure to scream. That was the time for it. But Nikola’s imploring eyes and something about the boy’s voice kept her mute. Fearful of disturbing the sleeping girls, she allowed herself to be led, naked, from the tent. The grip on her wrist was firm and strong.

“This here is George,” Nikola said pathetically. “Get away from the tent where we can talk.”

Trudy demanded.

The male fingers round her wrist led them to the battered car, a dark shape across the dirt road beneath a tree. When she opened her mouth to expostulate, a rag was thrust within, she was tripped to the ground, and a minute later her hands were tied behind her back and her feet stoutly trussed.

“George, you crazy! She my friend.”

Nikola’s shocked exclamation was lost in another whirl of motion. George was a very strong young man. After the ropes were knotted round her wrists and ankles, his inamorata wailed softly:

“Why you tie us up, George?”

“So you do what I want,” said George with relish.

“But poor Trudy . . . ? We’s both helpless.”

“That’s right. She do what I want too.”

“Let us loose or I’ll scream.”

“No you won’t. You scream, I gag yo’.”

Nikola did not scream. A helpless Trudy had little hope she would. They were doomed, both of them. She moaned and fought her gag while George tied her elbows tight together with a single strand of rope. The pain was instant, it would keep her pliant to his will. There was more to George than she had expected. Nikola escaped this extra infliction just as she escaped a gag. George sat his impotent girlfriend in the front seat of his car and tossed the trussed helplessness of Trudy into the back. He was lithe and swift and strong in all he did.

The gag was implacable, so was the elbow cord. They reduced the white girl’s nudity to a few useless wigglings which she soon desisted. They hurt! The pitch and toss of the car on rutted roads was bad enough. The sagging shanty in the unnamed village was perfect for their disappearance, anonymous! The bound and naked girls were carried inside.

Nine men, all varying degrees of black. George proud and grinning. Nikola weeping softly. Two kerosene lamps defeating the shadows from which there rose a man, a man with the calm presence of authority. Trudy, from the chair on which she had been uncomfortably positioned, sensed him as ‘The Leader.’

“I am Nicholas Nykobe,” he said in cultured English. “I bid you welcome. Miss Ramsay. I hope you will join our cause.” Deftly, he whisked the wadding from her mouth.

“I don’t want to join anything,” Trudy said bluntly. “Please untie me.”

Nykobe cut the cord from her elbows, that was all. “You have heard of us?” he asked politely. “The People’s Party?” Trudy sniffed at the hackneyed platitude. “Could I have some clothes, please, or something to cover me? I’m naked.”

“So I noticed,” Nykobe acknowledged drily.

“But we too are naked. It is no dishonour in Zindawba.”

George interposed anxiously. “That girl, she be mine, sir, when yo’ finish with her? She not be passed around . . . ?” Nykobe waved an imperious arm in the direction of the distraught girlfriend. His voice was contemptuous: “Take that weeping wench away and plant your seed in her, it is what you both want.”

“She be all mine, sir?”

“For now, yes. Take her and go!”

George picked Nikola up as though she was a doll. The girls exchanged one despairing glance before she was whisked away to loving ravishment. Trudy wondered, bitterly, if he would bother to untie her first. She looked up at one of the finest male physiques she had ever seen and asked despondently: “What do you want of me?”

“You occupied a cage, Miss Ramsay.”

“Not by choice,” she said warily.

“In a distant part of this land, an area we still control, there is a town, in it a market place, there too a cage!” His eyes glowed. “I want you in that cage. I want you to speak to all who pass of your admiration for our cause. You are educated, you are white. I want you to tell of the decadence and decay of your race and the resurgence of the African. Will you do this?”

“You have no problem, Mr. Nykobe. If you whip me enough I’ll do anything. Surely you understand I’ve already found that out.”

He smiled charmingly. “Ah yes, but you do hold cards, Miss Ramsay. In the cage you will be naked. It would be inconsistent with your affirmations that your loveliness bear the weals of whips . . .

“You could beat the soles of my feet.”

“Please don’t jest.”

“Isn’t the cage itself a denial?”

“Not if you explain you are in it by choice, that it is symbolic of what you preach.”

“But I wouldn’t be in it by choice!”

“A woman can dissemble, Miss Ramsay?”

“You want me to look cheerful and happy in a cage!” Trudy was frightened but she was also angry. “What will you do to me if I refuse?”

“You will be fastened by a chain to something solid in a public place. There you will be available to any of my men who wish to honour you with their sperm.”

“I’ll take the job,” Trudy said without humour. “I told you you’d have no trouble compelling me. Do I have to wear my country’s flag around my hips?”

“Thank you, we prefer to see your cunt.”

“I’m a lucky girl,” Trudy said bitterly. “I’ve got a cause.”

Surprisingly, they shared a laugh.

“Sir!” A male voice interpolated urgently. “The uniforms?”

“Didn’t that rutting dolt bring them?”

“No, sir, he forget. He thinking o’ something else.”

“Get him. Bring the girl too.”

Nykobe looked down at his still bound recruit. “I want a pair of those uniforms Khalief Abhad flaunts his whores in. Where are they?”

“On a hook by our cots. We sleep naked.”

“He could have got them?”

“He was busy dragging me, and he had the bolt cutters.”

“Hmmmm . . . and if I send him back?”

“Let me go. I’ll get them.”

“Oh come, Miss Ramsay, I was not born yesterday! What are George’s chances?”

“Possible. If a girl wakes she’ll scream.”

A sweating George and a flustered Nikola were ushered in. The leader gestured. “Fasten the girl, you know how.” And to George: “The uniforms, idiot! You forgot them. Go back and get them. If you fail, the girl is no longer yours.”

Trudy cringed at Nikola’s fate. Without preamble, two men took her, tied her hands, wrists crossed, behind her back, and hoisted her arms by a rope thrown over a rafter and tugged. Her fingers splayed wide as she bent forward against the wracking of her shoulders. When her heels left the floor the rope was snubbed and she was left to teeter helplessly. As an afterthought they spread her feet apart and tied them down to the floor. Her plight was grievous.

“Think you can hurry, boy?”

The boy took a frightened look at his tractioned lady-love then sped to the door. His car roared into the distance.

“Please, sir, don’t let nobody do nothin’ to me.”

the female hostage to George’s fidelity quavered. “What could they do, my dear?”

“They could fuck me, sir—the way I is.”

“Would you not enjoy that?”

“No, sir, I belong to George.”

“And George carries a vision of you just as you are.” Nykobe gestured. “Relieve her of the hoist. Leave her hands tied.”

Trudy sighed thankfully. No doubt George was sufficiently inspired. She looked up at her captor, seeing him in a different light. “Thank you. That was decent of you. The poor kid’s innocent of anything.”

“And so are you, Miss Ramsay.” Personally, he untied her ankles. “You won’t mind if the hands stay where they are?”

“No, I suppose not. And thanks again. Why do you want our uniforms?”

“Ridicule. Rub them in the dust as symbols of decadence, a rot within our own land.”

“And when I have served your purpose, what will you do with me?”

“Marry you.”

She stood erect. It felt good to have her feet. She thoughtfully flexed her arms against her corded wrists, looking at Nykobe in disbelief. “But that’s—that’s—!”

“Entirely practical, my dear, I am a Mohammedan. I do not have four wives.”

“But what good would I be to you! I’m just a girl—and white—and I haven’t any money—and, and—”

Nykobe laughed delightedly. “You underestimate yourself completely, Miss Ramsay. You have two of the loveliest breasts I have ever seen on any woman, a flat belly and a lush and shining bush. From what I can see of your cunt it is exceptionally neat and tidy.”

Trudy blushed and was suddenly naked. She had become so accustomed to nudity that, most of the time, she was unaware of it. But this man’s words and piercing regard made her flaringly alive to all her femaleness. Instinctively she tugged at her bound hand, a reflex Nykobe did not fail to note.

“Surely you would not cheat me with your hands?”

“I’m glad they’re tied,” she admitted wryly. “They’d have been tempted, and I hate doing it: a girl looks silly. Look at me all you want.” Mischievously, she stuck out her chest. “Look, I’ll even take a deep breath.”

“You are superlative, a treasure.”

“Not really. I’m just a pretty girl who’s had her inhibitions taken away. Mr. Nykobe: this marriage thing? You’re not serious?”

“Yes, I am.”

“As a Mohammedan’s wife? What would be expected?”

“You would serve me, and be subservient to my first wife, Ayesha.”

“She would beat me, wouldn’t she.”

“You have been reading fiction.”

“Supposing I failed to please you sometimes? Would you beat me?”

“Yes.”

His single word sent her pulse to racing. She laughed diffidently and explained. “I’ve already come to recognise how good that can be for a girl. We’re silly creatures.”

“I do not find you silly.”

“Yet you keep my hands tied as a precaution!”

She gazed at him wistfully. “Thank you for the offer. But—it’s not possible . . .”

Nykobe stroked her hair. “It is very possible.” He paused for effect. “Consider the alternative. You would return to your people and find them no longer yours. You would be discredited, ostracised, something of a pariah. Unjustly considered a traitoress.”

“Damned unfair.”

“The fortunes of war.”

“There hasn’t been any war. I was kidnapped, and since it happened almost everything’s been done to me.” She sparkled at his amusement. “I’ll admit you’re one of my nicer experiences.”

Nicholas Nykobe was pleased with her. Trudy picked up his emanations and was pleased herself. When he clapped his hands and ordered: “Bring refreshments,” she asked, demurely. “Are you going to hold a glass to my lips?”

He chuckled at her persistence. “You want your hands, don’t you! Very well, but you lose your feet.”

She sat and watched her ankles tied again, tied tight to forbid mischief. Then twisted to offer her hands. When he had freed them and she was rubbing chafed wrists she asked, innocently: “Why don’t you trust me?”

“I only met you an hour ago.”

“Yet you’ve already proposed marriage?”

“In the future, after you’ve proved yourself.”

“Naked in my cage?”

“Yes. It’s that simple. At the moment I suspect you cherish loyalties to that absurd troop of chorus girls from which I’ve rescued you.”

“They aren’t chorus girls, they’re girls like me.”

“Abhad has dressed you as sexual exhibits of his monarchy.”

“You’ll both stay tied. Be grateful for the freedom you have. Ah, here we are! Your glass, madam.”

Trudy accepted her drink with pleasure. “What about poor Nikola?” she asked winningly.

“She can kneel beside your chair. You can hold sips to her lips as required. Remember, she is under the influence of concupiscence. Girls in heat are unpredictable. She stays tied. If you seek to free her again I’ll have her back on the hoist.”

Trudy shivered. Steel beneath the velvet! She offered her glass to the girl kneeling at her side. Nikola giggled and drank deep. She finished it off herself in a couple of gulps.

Their host replenished the glass. “Dutch courage, my dears?”

The two girls drained their second glass. Its effect on Nikola was instantly sentimental. “Do you think George really will marry me?” she asked wistfully of no one in particular. She fixed an inviting eye upon Nicholas Nykobe.

It was at that moment the rifle shot split the night. The door was flung open to admit a wide-eyed George. He was clutching a wounded arm, there was blood.

“They’re savages! Hellcats!” His wild gaze traversed the room.

“Who, man, who?” the leader demanded.

“Them!” George’s finger pointed at Trudy and then at his own startled girlfriend. “Them girls! They’re crazy! There’s hundreds!”

The guns appeared from nowhere. A flap was raised in the floor. Before he disappeared into the underground passage, Nykobe gestured fatalistically. “I live to fight another day,” he shrugged. He kissed Trudy’s hand. “Your cage will be polished and waiting . . .”

The flap closed above his vanishing head.

The rifles in the room barked savagely at an unseen foe.

Two men prudently bound Trudy’s hands and Nikola’s feet. There came the crisp rattle of firing and the splintering of the shanty’s walls. Two men dropped to the floor clutching wounds, then another. The bound girls, helpless and petrified, slipped to the floor and lay flat. When one more man dropped his gun and clutched an arm, the rest of Nykobe’s small force raised the flap and followed their leader. George muttered savagely at the hurt survivors and at the two girls: “We tells ’em we’s all there is. There weren’t no one else, see!” A bullhorn blared as the rifles died.

“If the girls are hurt you all die. Come out with your hands at the back of your necks. No guns! You are surrounded. You have one minute only in which to obey.”

It was unmistakably the voice of Warrant Officer Ringbolt.

7

Nude Courage

For eighteen troopers it was a triumphal march.

For two naked girls it was a Via Dolorosa. Two badly wounded prisoners had been taken away in the truck. George and one other, bandaged and bound, trudged beside the delinquent girls, upon whose wrists well-clamped handcuffs replaced rebel rope. For Trudy and Nikola there was, as yet, no mercy and no belief in any of their protestations.

“Yo’ big damfool, George,” Nikola hissed as they marched in disgrace. “Look what yo’ gets us into! I never marry yo’ now.” Disconsolately, she added. “I never gets to marry nobody. Maybe I gets shot for runnin’ off.”

“The worst yo’ gets is a flogging, love, It’s me who gets shot.” George sounded aggrieved.

“My back will be all scarred—and it’s all your fault! ’Sides, what gal wants to get herself a floggin’?”

“Silence in the ranks!”

It was Ringbolt’s stentorian bellow. He was enjoying one of the happiest days of his life. He was certain of commendation and reward, both for the magnificent performance of his troop under fire, and for his own perspicacity in guessing where the fleeing George was headed.

Trudy marched in mute misery. The too-tight handcuffs behind her back were a foretaste of what lay ahead. If only she had screamed at that one crucial moment! But she had kept quiet. She supposed the best she could expect was to be flogged shamefully in some public place. Most certainly in front of her fellow troopers! She envisioned the scene all too graphically: Herself naked and tied in some awful exposure, unable to move, waiting for the fatal command for the lashes to commence. What constituted a ‘flogging’! Twenty strokes or fifty—or more! And what kind of whip! A cat-o-nine-tails? A sjambok? Her back would be lacerated and they would rub salt in the wounds . . . ! She gave full rein to all she had ever read about such horrors.

And what afterwards! She had no hope of being expelled from Zindawba. The new republic would want its revenge. Most likely a term in prison. She shrank from such a sentence as cringingly as she did from the whipping of her back. A stone room and bars and chains . . . !

“I’se sorry—I sorry real bad—” George’s grief for them was real, as was his guilt.

“Send that man to the rear.” The W.O. knew how to deal with mutinous mutterings. “Take the other with him. The girls march alone.”

They were not alone. Around them was the troop. The girls would shed tears for their comrades fallen from grace, but would do nothing to help them. Justice would run its course. A court-martial lay ahead. At that moment in the President’s Guard ‘escape’ was a naughty word. Trudy marched to her doom beside her fellow prisoner in a maze of misery.

“I have to make an example of you girls.” Rulua was terse.

“Yes, of course.” To Trudy, at that moment, anything unpleasant seemed logical.

“The posts for the day so you’ll be in full view. No clothes. You don’t get your uniforms back until you’re acquitted or have served your sentence.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve adopted a proper attitude. The sergeant will bind you. Don’t try and play on her sympathy.”

Trudy hated posts, but she obediently backed against hers. She saw Nikola back against another. Poor kid, she was bereft.

“I’m going to tie you tight, love. No hard feelings?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“You’ve got guts, Trudy. Not a single hysteric.”

“What’s the use, Galla! I haven’t a hope, have I!”

“There’s always hope, love. This here won’t be fun. But it’s not your court-martial!”

It was not fun! Trudy’s ankles were tied to the post, her knees, her waist, a rope came up through the lips of her vulva from behind and was cinched tight to her waist, rope below her breasts and above so they were framed and protruded by the stress, then her shoulders . . . Her wrists were handcuffed behind the post, then her elbows were circled and tugged back. “I can’t move an inch,” she said bitterly. “Is that what you want?”

“Not me, love, it’s regulations.”

“Is it regulations to cinch that rope into my pussy?”

“ ’Fraid so. It’s to shame you in front of the rest. They’ll all come and visit. They have to. It’s an order.”

“I hurt terribly. I guess I’m supposed to—?”

“That’s right, love. See you at nightfall.”

It was a long, long day! Both bound maidens wept. Sometimes a visiting trooper dried their tears.

When it came time for Trudy’s release the ropes were peeled from her skin in an agony of parting. Her lower labia lapped together gratefully when the cutting strand was withdrawn, but the burn of it would remain for hours. It was strange to be able to move, strange to draw a deep breath without the scalding ropes around her breasts. She leaned against her post in thankfulness that one day of punishment was past. She looked down. wryly, at the weals. The ropes were gone but the scarlet indentations in her skin were still vivid as though she was still bound by invisible restraints. To walk was a heady but unstable adventure.

The coffee and the shower were a surprise. Trudy had not known what to expect. Troops on the move do not carry dungeons. She was sure she would have been chained in one had it existed. The hot drink and lukewarm water revived her spirits. When she was handcuffed and taken to her tent and her own cot, and her ankle firmly padlocked to it she was in a whirl of hope.

“You have been a foolish girl,” Galla told her as she rearranged the covers over the fettered foot. “You think about it.”

Trudy did not think about anything. She went to sleep.

There was no great ceremony. Two meek and handcuffed girls stood nude before their peers. Nikola gently wept. Trudy wondered if a girl became unconscious when she was flogged.

“You could have screamed.” said Sergeant Galla.

“You allowed this young buck to walk off with you like a pair of sheep. One shout would have awakened the whole tent.” Captain Rulua surveyed them crossly.

“A hot crotch, that was her trouble.” W.O. Ringbolt glowered at a tearful Nikola. “Needs it thrashed.”

“The poor dear was in love with him and scared of getting him into trouble. I was just trying—”

“Silence!”

Ringbolt’s command shattered Trudy’s protest into fragments. She subsided into silence, fingering her handcuffs nervously, awaiting sentence, wondering if a girl’s back ever completely healed afterwards.

“We do understand the motives were not disloyal,” said Galla.

“It is a demonstration of the demoralising effect of so-called ‘boyfriends’ on members of the President’s Guard,” said Rulua.

“Need their arses kicked,” said the W.O. leaving it uncertain whose posteriors he referred to. “For desertion the penalty is mandatory, a flogging.” The Captain’s voice was hushed with regret. Trudy’s heart missed a beat. This was it!

“You both been good girls otherwise,” Galla mourned.

“Fine pair of troopers!” Ringbolt pointed at Trudy. “Especially her: a cunt in a million.”

“The Court is disposed to leniency,” the Captain interposed hastily. “Your story has been corroborated by the prisoners. The young man named George has accepted responsibility—”

“Yo’ don’t do nothin’ bad to George—?”

“Silence!”

“No dear, Your George will receive the same corrective education as any other prisoner of war in our enlightened Republic.”

“I sooner be flogged so he don’t take no blame—”

“Silence!!!” Ringbolt was in excellent voice. “Neither of you will be flogged, dear.”

The relief was a sensation beyond words. Trudy glowed. Nikola stopped weeping, and dried her cheeks, sheepishly, with handcuffed hands. The Court beamed.

“But your stupidity in allowing this whole affair to happen cannot be overlooked. The results of your meekly following that absurd young man from the tent were bad enough, but they could have been much worse. You will be punished.”

Trudy did not care. Just so long as she was not to be flogged!

“You, Nikola, will be corrected in the manner wisely suggested by our Warrant Officer. He will administer a sound whipping to that area between your legs which is the source of your libido.”

“Thank yo, ma’am” Nikola managed to sound grateful.

“And you, young woman, will receive twelve of Mr. Ringbolt’s best on your bare bottom. It is the lightest penalty I can invoke.”

“Oh, thank you. Captain!”

“I’ll make ’em sting,” promised the W.O. cordially.

“Thank you, sir, I’m grateful.” Trudy’s heart was singing.

“Well, that looks after that,” said Galla. “You girls trot along with Mr. Ringbolt and get attended to. I’ll expect you back in an hour.”

“The Court is adjourned,” intoned Captain Rulua impressively.

The handcuffed girls walked meekly to their pain.

“Here, have a tot of rum,” said W.O. Ringbolt hospitably. “And don’t think I’m going to ask you to stand still for it—the punishment. I mean, not the rum. I’ll tie you so you won’t embarrass yourselves.”

“Thank you, sir.” They sipped obediently. “Your hands and forearms against the tent pole, love.” The cane patted Trudy’s bottom gently. “Ah, that’s champion!”

The handcuffs did not have to be removed. In front of her face Trudy watched her wrists and forearms bound to the upright. As the ropes bit they told her how effective they would be. She would have to stand, there was nothing else she could do, while her bottom was thrashed with the officer’s cane. Fear returned. It was going to hurt.

“And you, m’dear, up on the cot.”

Nikola had become stoic. She lay on her back and brought her legs up and back. The W.O. looped her ankles and pulled to each side until she rested on her shoulders, her bottom reared and her thighs spread to expose the well-thatched labia presumed to be the source of her delinquency. In this obscene posture she was privileged to have a close-up view of her own punishment.

The W.O. tossed a coin. “Tails!” He nodded at Nikola. “That’s you.” He produced a short whip of many delicate thongs. “This will warm you up nicely, love.”

To watch was awful. It was also fascinating. The young loins took the striations of the whip with shuddering jerks at implacable bonds, the pale dusky skin scoring and welting across the puffed vulva, the flat belly, the creases of the groins, and the tender junction of thighs. Trudy watched, wincingly, in the knowledge her own skin would soon be similarly responding. She was wedded to the post by cords. She could not move away. Her nakedness waited in enforced patience.

“That’s right, m’dear, scream all you want,” Ringbolt magnanimously conceded. “I could gag you if you want. But, actually, we’d prefer you to make a noise so the other little fillies can hear. We want ’em to understand it doesn’t pay to be silly.” He took a deep breath. “Now, let’s see if I can’t get in the crease a bit harder.”

Nikola screamed lustily, her Venus mound aflame. Trudy cringed with every blow, longing for it to end. She could picture the girls outside, exchanging nervous glances, shrugging diffidently, wondering . . . ! Nikola’s vocals would be a stern deterrent to any maiden nonsense in any maiden mind.

“I think we’ll call that enough.” Ringbolt made it sound as though he had bestowed great riches. “Twenty’s a good number. A girl remembers twenty, and you’re a nice colour down there. Never seen a cunt swell any better or take the marks.” He turned his attention to Trudy. “Ready for yours, love?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s the spirit. I’ll use a cane, of course, and I’ll make it whistle.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How’s this for a start?” Trudy thrust her forehead hard against her bound arms as though seeking refuge. The blow drove it harder still, a fierce blow enveloping all of her in pain, a sickening frightful pain against which a girl had no defense.

“You can scream, y’know. It’s supposed to help.”

“Thank you, sir. But I want to try not to.”

“Understand perfectly! You’re a good girl. Guts!”

Trudy did not scream. She hoped the sounds she did make would not penetrate the canvas. They came to her own ears shamefully: whinings, moans and gasps . . . ! And sounds that had no name, the small animal cries of a naked girl in agony, a feminine admission not for other ears. She thrust her nudity against the post, holding it tight with cuffed hands, absorbing blow after blow, fearing they would never end.

“Seven, eight, nine . . . !” There were still more to come. And she had to stand! Meekly stand. The ropes mocked before her eyes, the handcuffs glinted. There was no escape.

“Ten, eleven, A-N-D. T-W-E-L-V-E—!”

It was a shocking stripe, a slash of pure horror slicing into her innocent loins with a punitive intent she should not forget. But it was the last! Flooding with thankfulness, Trudy hugged her stanchion of wood while the waves of pain swept back and forth, reducing her to a tied package of quivering flesh.

“Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, m’gel. You took ’em well. You’re good stuff.”

It was good to just stand and pant, knowing the cane had finished with her. Being bound did not matter. She was not going anywhere! But, in a final awareness, Trudy turned her head and was appalled. Warrant Officer Ringbolt was copulating with the girl tied, most conveniently, on his cot. Nikola was beginning to gasp in the oncoming throes of orgasm.

The girl tied to the post quenched panic. The W.O. was exercising a perquisite of his office. He was as entitled to it now as well as any other time. Their girls’ bodies were his on demand. They had been since the inception of the troop. It was useless to travail or feel injustice. Galla and Rulua probably knew perfectly well what was taking place. This was Zindawba!

“A girl’s always better with a sore arse.”

“So I’ve heard,” Trudy agreed politely.

Nikola had choked her way to a screaming climax and now lay panting, but still tied, oblivious to all save her own sensations. Warrant Officer Ringbolt had withdrawn from her doubly punished sheath and thoughtfully wiped his penis. “It won’t be ready for a minute,” he apologised. “It’s something a man can’t hurry.”

“I understand, sir. I don’t mind.” Trudy did not mind! She was wracking her brains to think of some expedient by which she might evade the imminent piercing. But there was nothing! Previous attempts to escape this female obligation had ended in disaster. If she made too much fuss the rest of them would regard her as stupidly prudish. “Perhaps you would like to untie me, sir?” she ventured timidly.

“Eh? Oh yes—see what you mean! Not a good position, eh!” The W.O. was pleased by her thoughtfulness. “It’s hard to beat a girl on her back with a pillow or two under her arse,” he said conversationally as he untied her arms. “May as well leave these on.” He flicked her handcuffs. “They look good on you.”

There came an awkward pause. Two pairs of interested eyes examined the military phallus. It failed to rise to the occasion.

“Age tells on a man,” said the W.O. bitterly. “There was a time . . . !”

“I’m sure there was, sir. Please don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying, but I’m not pleased. The damn thing needs a bit of inspiration.” Its owner looked around vaguely for an aphrodisiac. “Would you mind standing with your legs apart while I whip your cunt a couple of times? That always does the trick.”

“Could I not do something manually, sir?”

“No you can’t! Spread your legs. It’s not much to ask.”

“Of course not, sir! I’m sorry.”

Trudy sighed. She was becoming accustomed to these sexual absurdities. What did two more strokes with a whip matter! Best not to make a fuss. She obligingly separated her feet and clasped her handcuffed wrists at the back of her neck.

“By Jove, that’s perfect! You’re really a smashing girl!”

It was miraculous! But Trudy had to believe her eyes. Ringbolt’s penis was on the way up, its lethargy lost in admiration of the shaming posture she had assumed. It was definitely approaching rigidity. Its owner was less astounded, no doubt accustomed to its whims and stimuli. He had picked up the small whip and was fingering its supple lashes. He struck her from behind, a slashing upward cut squarely upon her sex, then another so that she squealed in surprise at a new and fresh agony.

“As fine an erection as I’ve ever seen,” said the W.O. proudly.

Trudy lay on her back upon the floor and spread her legs. Obligingly she raised her hips for the cushion . . .

It was hinted it would be a big day. Something momentous and Zindawban in which they were to play a stellar role. There had been frequent drills. They were now camped a bare five miles from Tulabe so that in the morning they could march there and through the town streets without fatigue. The troop was pleasantly excited. Trudy was done with handcuffs and with chains. Her uniform had been returned and she was a trooper in good standing, once more trusted. She was never naked unless she wished to be, the cane marks on her bottom had begun to fade. She could think of escape only with distaste. It held no allure. She was a trooper and proud to be a guard as were all the rest. The future could look after itself. For now she was simply thankful not to be bound and not to be whipped. In the natural course of rotation she would not be impaled upon W.O. Ringbolt for quite a long time. She approached the march to Tulabe with pleasant curiosity.

There was a rousing thrill in the sound of their marching feet and the crisp commands of the W.O. as he shepherded his flock through the town. The populace was out in force, joined by country visitors. Their appreciation of the Guard uniform and its contents was vociferous and prolonged. It was a triumphal march indeed, but no one knew what the triumph was about. Reaching the Town Square they found the President’s Brass Band already assembled and producing a creditable rendition of Colonel Bogey. Trudy felt the vagus nerve tighten in her tummy.

There was a platform draped in gay bunting in the colours of the new Republic. On it a podium and chairs. The band took up position on one side, the Guard formed a double line on the other, facing the scene of whatever there was to come. It was a front-row seat. From time to time the W.O. had them do a smart about turn so that the male citizens could fully appreciate their breasts as well as their backs. Each turn was greeted by applause. A back is not alone: it has a bottom!

She should have guessed! When President Khalief Abhad appeared the crowd responded with frenzied cheers, and the band managed to reach a reasonable accord with the national anthem, the words to which no one seemed quite certain of. An omission thoughtfully foreseen by the girls’ choir from the local college who lustily paid vocal tribute to their new land and stuck out their breasts for the President to admire. Khalief returned the tribute with a fine baritone of his own. Zindawbans glowed with pride and sweated profusely.

The speeches were dull, mostly in the dialect Trudy did not understand. It was not until the President stood at the podium that the hush of expectancy truly fell. Whilst Khalief rambled through the inanities all Presidents must say, Trudy fell into a reverie remembering their last meeting. It seemed a long time ago. His formal attire today was in sharp contrast . . . Like a receiver with a loose wire she picked up intermittent words:

“This great land of ours . . . Foreign domination ended forever . . . stronger than our enemies . . . A new consciousness and a new voice . . . Today a dawn . . . a testimony . . . a courageous personality . . . A unique visitation of sincerity . . .”

From the lengthy preamble Trudy gathered they were about to hear someone speak about something that mattered. When the President stood aside and extended his hand, and the band blared forth in exaltation, she caught her breath in a gasp of pure incredulity. The woman Abhad led forward was Caroline Dowling.

The amplifiers were well tuned. Caroline’s contralto reached every attentive ear with clarity. It struck Trudy like a blow. This beauty with whom she had so long shared a cage was denying the divinity of the white and extolling the spirituality of the black. Attired exquisitely in formal white, she scornfully condemned the class from which she came. She was filled with gratitude to Khalief Abhad for rescuing her from a parasitic society now doomed. Those who listened now must look to Khalief Abhad for sustenance and leadership. “Follow where this great man leads.” There were dramatic pauses. Now and then Caroline raised a white kid-clad arm to emphasise a point. Her words crisply disposed of the Caucasian and heralded the rich new world of those with darker skins. In conclusion, and in the same ringing peal of sincerity, she told of her determination now to take upon herself the expiation of the sins of all her decadent race. She had asked the President of Zindawba to allow her to be publicly whipped.

It was the most portentous silence Trudy had ever known. She watched, spellbound, as the podium and the chairs disappeared, the bunting was withdrawn from a hitherto indeterminate structure to reveal it as a timber gallows with starkly outstretched arm. With superb showmanship Caroline advanced to face the multitude, her arms outstretched as though in love or the acceptance of a world of sin. Dramatically, she reached for the fastening of her gown and cast it far aside. Beneath it she had been naked. She stood naked now, glorious and unashamed. She had retained her nylons, shoes and gloves. They added a shockingly erotic emphasis to her bare body.

It was Tulabe’s day! The citizens were both hysterical and awed, scarcely believing their good fortune. The President was undoubtedly the greatest man on earth if he could provide entertainment like this! The cheering was frenetic.

On the platform the players and the props moved with rehearsed precision. The scaffold was heaved into place. A hooded man in black tights, bound Caroline’s eagerly proffered wrists, positioned her beneath the end of the scaffold’s arm, and drew them high so that she must stand on her toes with hands and arms tautly tractioned above, naked for the excoriations of the whip which would cleanse Zindawba of the sins of white iniquity. The President bowed and retired. The stage was starkly held by the man in black and the white girl he was about to whip.

Trudy wanted to close her eyes, or to break ranks and fly to the rescue of a girl she loved. She did neither. A girl cannot fight a nation nor close her eyes to the most dramatic and awful scene of her existence. Her own whippings and canings paled into insignificance beside this vivid sacrifice. She watched, breathless, as Caroline allowed her quiet serenity to sweep across the multitude from side to side. And then, looking back over one shoulder to nod.

The black arm swung, a band of scarlet sprang into vivid life around the narrow waist. Caroline smiled and twisted sensuously. Once more, this time traversing the lovely shoulders with a furrow of red. The writhings of the bound beauty were sinuously sweet, her smile serene. As the blows and the weals mounted, Trudy felt certain the white sacrifice must be drugged. Or some injection . . . ! She had read . . . ! A hard shrewd blow revolved the white hips to bring Caroline’s gaze directly into focus with that of the agonised trooper. She smiled with love and recognition, tense in greeting . . .

It was then the shots came from the rooftops and the two trucks roared into the Square. Nicholas Nykobe had staged his raid for maximum effect.

Pandemonium, hysteria and panic! The crowd surging from the focal point of the attack gave Warrant Officer Ringbolt his chance for glory. His commands were crisp and clear, they too had been rehearsed! In cunningly disposed formations his troop of girls opened fire. Each one of them now thankful for the caned bottoms by which he had persuaded them to become marksmen. Their rifles snapped and cracked smartly. Bodies fell from roofs, a truck careened into a wall, its occupants leaping, then falling as the rifles snapped. The other truck wavered and turned, then blazed afire, its armed cargo dying singly as they fled before the bullets of a troop of girls. The President’s Guard, standing now and forming a square, sighted carefully as they had been taught, pulled their triggers and snapped their bolts in rapid fire.

Suddenly the gunfire stopped. There were no more targets. The W.O.’s “Cease fire” was a declaration of the cessation of hostilities. Once more the multitude, or what was left of it, became only curious. The local police came out of hiding and took custody of such raiders as had survived the troop’s prowess. The President of Zindawba reappeared on the stage, his arms raised in benediction, the sun of his benevolence shining directly upon the girls of his Guard, their rifles hot and at the ready in his service. It was almost a minute before it was noticed he stood alone.

The rope by which Caroline had been suspended had been cleanly cut by a knife.

Of Caroline herself there was no trace.

8

Torture of Tulabe

Caroline had begun her beatings with misgiving. Khalief had suggested that, since she must commence them sometime, it might as well be in this period when the absence of Trudy was a poignant loss, a loss she had protested.

“Khalief, why can’t I join the Guard too?”

“You belong to me. Even a President is entitled to some recreation.”

“Is that all I am, recreation?”

“Of course! Look at yourself!”

Caroline had seen herself in the mirror when she had stripped and placed upon her nakedness those bands and baubles which gave him pleasure. They were in the huge expanse of the mezzanine from which the terrace stretched into the sun. She was languidly serving drinks from the bar, her hands deftly denying the coercion of the handcuffs on her wrists. “I’ve seen myself—everybody else has had a look at me too. Khalief, how much longer are you going to keep me in that cage?”

“Are you in a cage now?” he asked drily. “I’d say you were a highly privileged prisoner. And the little girl . . . ? Is she not good company?” He chuckled. “I had her specially kidnapped from a Cook’s Tour for you.”

“She’s sweet but not like Trudy. She’s so scared! I wish you’d convince her she isn’t destined for something awful. She believes the very best she can hope for is the slave market.”

“Could I comfort her with rape?”

“Oh, Khalief! Just because you comfort me with rape it doesn’t mean that every girl—”

“Is a wanton?” He laughed at her grimace at his use of the word. “Before you diverted me we were on the subject of your beatings, I think they should commence.”

“I suppose they should.” Caroline sighed, picked up his glass, and proffered it on her knees. “Your drink, lord.”

“Stay on your knees, girl. You are becoming altogether too contentious.”

“Is that why you want me beaten?”

“Not really. I am remembering your mission—or have you forgotten?”

“How can I forget, lord, when you keep me in a cage!”

He surveyed her with affection. “If you mention the cage again I’ll use the cane on you.”

Caroline’s eyes widened in mock innocence. “My lovely cage, lord! Why would you do that?”

Khalief was about to speak but was forestalled.

Caroline, her eyes sparkling, fetched the cane and presented it to him on bended knee. Without a word, she positioned herself to present the inviting curves of her derriere.

Smiling, and unseen, Khalief took from a drawer a brown leather strap. Without comment he slashed it across the saucy rounds. It impacted with a truly horrific crack. Quickly, he reversed and struck again. Caroline yelped in dismay, stood erect clutching her seat, and eyed her master reproachfully.

“That wasn’t fair! You didn’t warn—what on earth is it?”

He handed her the strip of leather. “Your first beating, beloved. All sound and little fury.”

“Are you sure of that!” Caroline rubbed her bottom gingerly. “I’m absolutely on fire!” She examined the instrument of her discomfort. “What a bloody awful splat! I nearly jumped out of my skin.”

“The usual effect, I trust?”

“You have to make me blush, don’t you! Oh sure, I’m burning with lust—and just two strokes! Do you wish to help me out?”

“Rape or two more strokes? I can make them harder.”

“Don’t tease. Khalief, how does this thing mark me? I can’t see.”

“Go and find a mirror.”

When Caroline returned she knelt again and proffered the leather strap. “Darling, it’s a positive imprint on me. In the cage: d’you want me to wear ’em instead of the stars and stripes? I’m sure it would be an erection getter.”

“Not yet, unless you wish me to give you another dozen.”

She laughed it off. “Khalief, those beatings? I don’t want you to give them to me—I mean, I do want that but it wouldn’t be the right atmosphere. I’ve got to get used to being punished by a servant. You know the sort of thing: ‘My Lord and Master’s too busy to be bothered with whipping a slave girl’?”

The President laughed. “That reminds me. I actually have things to do. Back to the cage with you.”

She pouted. “Why don’t you just give me the key instead of an escort? I could lock myself up.”

“And lose that magnificent ritual! Never! It’s as good as the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.”

“You telling me!” Caroline grinned wryly. “Your people love it. I get mentally raped and the flag torn from my puss and trampled in the dust. You’re a sly fox. Damn good thing they can’t see me now.”

They had fallen into an easy affection. A thing volcanic when they coupled. But apart from the flesh they were still testing each other’s tolerance for what they were and what they sought. Caroline had laughed with him at the life from which he had wrested her. “Damn good thing you did,” she admitted, chuckling. “No chains, no cage, no whip! Nothing to live for at all . . . ! Poor Robert! I’d like to see his face.”

In the first days she had burned with shame when she was taken to the cage by the two soldiers, given her flag, chained, and locked within the bars. She was the cynosure of every eye. Briefly, the market forgot trade and gathered to observe her breasts, the clamping of the metal on her wrists and ankles, and the brief vista of her pubic hair as she adjusted the stars and stripes upon her hips. But the leers and gloating no longer mattered. Purpose had replaced chagrin. Khalief had given her something of which she had never dreamed.

Musingly, she stood now while the handcuffs were unlocked and replaced with the heavy shackles, her feet similarly joined. Brightly she said. “Thank you very much” to the grinning soldiers as they snapped the lock and left her to the lechery of eyes.

“I don’t see what you have to be so happy about,” her new companion complained. She clinked her chains. “You act as though you love these beastly things.”

“I do, Betty—oh, never mind. You can’t understand. But please, pet, do try and cheer up. We’re really quite well off.”

“Well, I don’t think so, I can’t ever get used to my breasts being bare and all these men looking at them. I can’t hold them in my hands all the time.”

Betty provoked mischief. She was sweet and pretty but overly concerned with what was ‘nice,’ a term Caroline loathed. “Why not take your flag off so they can see your do-funny for a change? It’ll give your breasts a rest.”

“Caroline! That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Easy, darling, look!” The older girl whisked away her national emblem and stood, stark-naked for all to see.

“Caroline!” Betty was truly shocked.

There was ribald approval from beyond the bars. Unable to resist, Caroline did a slow turn, waving the flag from two fingers as a scarf.

Betty gasped. Her cry was of outraged discovery. “Caroline, your bottom! It—it’s—oh—!”

Caroline had forgotten. “What’s the matter with my bottom?” she demanded irritably.

“It’s been—something’s been done to it!”

The owner of the bottom twisted to look at what she could of it. “Oh that!” Casually, she reknotted the flag upon her hips. “I got myself two stripes with a strap for being naughty.”

“See, I told you! They’ll beat us and—and—”

“It’s lovely. It gets a girl hot between her legs. If you want to try, I can arrange it.”

“I don’t believe—oh, it’s too awful—!”

They were still exchanging tease and exclamation when a quiet American voice said. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Dowling.”

“Robert!”

Caroline gazed at her husband askance. She had to force her hands away from covering her breasts. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

“No!”

They stood awkwardly, staring. Enough of the local gentry dressed in pants, tie and jacket to render Robert Dowling inconspicuous, and anyone was free to accost the captives in the cage. “I suppose you know you’ve created a national scandal?”

“I thought that had died down. I’ve told the Consul not to bother.” She looked at him with pity. “I’m sorry, Robert, honest! I’d no idea it would turn out this way when I put myself up for auction.”

“I’m going to get you out of this.”

“Robert, no! Leave me alone. Divorce me, I’m happy here.”

“Don’t be absurd!” He waved the suggestion aside as irrelevant. “Chained like an animal, nearly naked, locked in a cage . . . !”

“They beat her bottom too!” Betty was animated with hope, and righteously informative. “She says she likes it!”

“Dammit, Caroline, can’t you be a bit considerate!”

His wife lifted chained hands. “What can a poor slave girl do?”

Dowling was exasperated. “I’ll put a stop to this nonsense, I’m getting you out, of here tonight after dark.”

“I won’t go.”

“I’ll go,” Betty offered hopefully. “Please take me?”

“Yes, of course!” Robert Dowling spared a brief smile for the importunate girl, then turned to his ungrateful wife. “Whatever it is you’re doing, it isn’t clever or funny or anything admirable.” he said crossly. “I won’t expect your cooperation, but I’ve made the arrangements for you to be taken away from here, and that’s what’s going to happen. Force will be justified if you insist on being contrary.” He nodded curtly and walked away.

“Isn’t he lovely!” breathed Betty.

“He’s a pain in the ass,” said Caroline bitterly. The mind of the truant wife was busy. Bars and chains! She could not go to Khalief. He would not come to her. They had been left the fruit for their evening meal. It was unlikely that anyone from the Residence would come near them until morning. It was useless to importune the passers-by. She had exhausted that long since. They scorned her pleas. She was white trash undeserving attention in anything but the purely carnal. They would ogle her nakedness and her chains but were deaf to her voice. She was impotent! Caged! Sighing in frustration, she reclined on the ground and selected a pomegranate. “We’re in trouble,” she declared morosely. “Oh, damn, damn, damn!”

“I think you’re an ungrateful girl,” said Betty with conviction.

The four shadows in the dark were swift and well equipped. Robert Dowling was not one of them. They cut the lock from the cage but did not touch the chains by which the girls were captive. They picked up their naked prizes and tossed them in the back of a truck, on the floor of which someone had thoughtfully spread a blanket. They had obviously been appraised of intransigence. Taking no chances they placed a volubly protesting Caroline face down, brought her chained hands back over her head and tied them down to her chained ankles. It was not exactly a hogtie, it was even worse. When she opened her mouth to express indignation they pushed a rag inside and tied it tight. They rendered Betty helpless in the same manner but did not gag her. The girls spent their bumpy ride in struggles to get loose. Both failed.

Their abductors were practical. Having reduced their prey to impotent packages incapable of dispute they treated them in that manner at journey’s end. Two men carried a frightened Betty in one direction, the others heaved an indignant Caroline through doors and passages to finally deposit her upon a rug in a comfortable room smelling of cigars. They left her as she was and went away. She looked up speechlessly into the full stare of her husband’s disapproval.

Dowling reached down and removed the gag, casting the crude thing aside in distaste. “At least we can talk here,” he said heavily.

“Did they have to be so damn rough!”

“Would you have come any other way?”

“I hope you realise I’m hurting.”

“I would suppose you are,” he said sarcastically. “Described as erotic love play, I believe?”

“All right, have your fun! But I’m still hurting bad!”

He cut the rope which dragged her feet and hands together at her back. “There, that gets you back to normal.”

“Thank you.” Her tone was ungracious, even in relief from pain. From some strange instinct for tidiness she plucked away at the knots on the severed rope, still tied to her chains. “How’s Dowling Inc. ?”

“Thriving, thanks to you. Khalief Abhad holds the majority of the stock.” He made a sound of disgust. “He also holds my wife.”

“Well, you’ve got me at this moment, Robert. But probably not for long. I suppose you know you’re risking both our lives?”

“Mine perhaps,” he sneered. “Yours should be safe enough.”

“You idiot! How’s Khalief to know I was kidnapped? He’ll think I was glad to escape.”

Dowling shrugged. “Does it matter! I’m taking you back to the States—just as you are. I’m going to expose the whole fool business. If, afterwards, you want to return to him, you can. I’ll have done what I have to do.”

“The red-blooded American syndrome!” Caroline sighed in exasperation. Puckishly, she lifted her chained hands. “In these?”

“Yes, in those! They’re authentic. They tell your story far better than I can.”

“I love wearing them, y’know!”

“I know it. No one else will.”

Caroline giggled. “I told them at the Consulate and those guys from the press with their cameras.”

“You were under coercion. Nobody believes you are—what you are.”

“Gosh, am I that bad!”

“Yes.” He sighed drearily. “Hot pants over a nigger.”

“Why bother with me then! And, by the way, Khalief’s a President. Don’t sell him short.”

“There’s another of the same ilk hot on his tail. They never last long.” Robert Dowling rose wearily. “If the risk is what you say, we’d best lose no time. Come to the car. Want me to carry you?”

“No, I can manage. The leg shackles are generous and I’ve had a lot of practice. They’re real enough, and I can’t possibly run, but they’re largely symbolic.”

“I’d like to stuff his symbolism you know where! Come, it’s this way.”

Caroline clattered disconsolately to her doom. Halfway to the airport the President’s soldiers picked them up.

“I’ve had Robert Dowling deported.”

The President of Zindawba looked down at the woman on the rug at his feet. The most beautiful woman in the world to him or to any man. He sighed irritably. “Get me a drink”

“Yes, lord.”

“And one for yourself. I imagine you need it.” The heavy irons riveted on her wrists made bartending more risky than with handcuffs. Caroline sighed too. Everything was spoiled. “Why did you have me brought here from the dungeon?” she asked.

“Because I’m in love with you—damn you!”

“I’m not guilty, y’know.”

She knelt and handed him his drink. Looking at her own, woefully, she drained the glass. “May I have another, lord?”

“Was my dungeon that bad?”

“Much worse! Khalief, don’t put me back in there!”

“You will go back in there. And you may have one more drink.”

Caroline clinked her way to the bar and back, These chains were heavy on her limbs. Back at Khalief’s feet she sipped. “They locked a collar on my neck, it fastened me to the wall with a long chain. It wasn’t a bit necessary.”

“Nor are the fetters you wear now, but you merit them.”

“I’m being punished, aren’t I? For something I haven’t done.”

“Because I desire you more than anything on earth I will have you brought to me here daily.”

“And when I am taken back there and chained by my neck the dungeon will seem doubly awful.”

“Then would you prefer not to come here to this place?”

“Oh, Khalief!” She looked up at him reproachfully. “Even if it was only for two minutes, I’d want to come. I’m more than your prisoner, y’know. I love you. Khalief, take me to bed?”

“The oldest bribe in the world!”

“All right, don’t then! If you stay convinced I tried to escape what will you do with me?”

“I’ve thought of that. I’ll follow our original plan, I can make you make it work.”

“Dungeons and things . . . ! Oh, Khalief!”

“Show me some proof then. I catch you on the way to the airport with your husband—?”

“But in chains, Khalief! In chains—”

“With you that could mean anything . . . Get me another drink before I ring the bell.”

Caroline hated the dungeon with all her being. It was the negation of all she was. Not much light. Silence. Loneliness. The drag of chains upon her limbs, heavy ugly links and bands. The imposition round her neck! She hated the collar most of all, and the nagging tug of its chain. Now her jailer had locked limbs to join the others between her wrists and ankles so that, unless she sat and crouched, she could not raise her hands above the level of her hips. She cried a lot.

It was on the third day Khalief came to her. He seemed so splendid in that dismal place, and she so naked and forlorn. His presence made it more of a prison than ever.

“Oh, Khalief, not to see me like this? Not to mock—?”

“They have found the girl, the one in whom you found no pleasure.”

“Betty! Oh, Khalief, where?”

“Those your husband hired took advantage of his deportation and diverted her to their own amusement. She was servicing a dozen of them.”

“The poor child! For her that would be—!”

“She seemed grateful to be taken to the Consulate. She even appeared grateful to me. She will be sent home.” The silence he allowed to lengthen was unbearable. “Darling, don’t torment me.” Caroline shook her chains in frustration.

“She told me of every word and act. She is innocent and ingenuous. I believe her. Your guilt has vanished. It is I who am penitent.”

Even the chained girl was astonished by the radiation of joy in which she glowed. The President went to the passage and clapped his hands . . .

An hour later, bathed, scented, handcuffed and bedecked with jewels, Caroline served her lord as was their custom. When night came she was not sent away.

The cage stood empty in the market place. The President’s white mistress lived discreetly out of sight in the Residence. Phase two of the Plan was slowly brought into fruition.

“I’m sure I can stand it, darling. As a little reward for my suffering, can we make love after? You were right about it being better.”

“And you still wish it done to you by a servant?”

“It has to be to be authentic. If you do it I’ll enjoy it too much—before and after, anyway.” She glinted at him roguishly. “But there’s nothing to stop you doing it as well: in addition, I mean.”

“You’re a masochist.”

“No, I’m not. It’s my glands and you! Probably we generate a chemical. Even when the servant does it to me I’ll be thinking of you.”

“I will instruct Assad. He has a sense of humour but will be without mercy. He is also ingenious. If I give him carte blanche there is no telling what eroticism he may devise for your subjugation.”

“He sounds as though he’ll do nicely. But, oh Khalief, that word! Am I to be ‘subjugated’?”

“Probably impossible, but Assad will try.” When the time came Caroline was shivering in anticipation of she knew not what. Her quiverings were intensified by Assad’s choice of black tights to the waist and nothing above. “I am greatly honoured, madam.” There was a glint in his eye. The slight inclination of his head in the most condescending of bows held humour.

“Assad, I’m scared to death.”

“As is most natural, Mrs. Dowling. Since our mutual endeavours are to be a continuing progression I have prepared a room.”

“Not a dungeon, I hope’!”

“On the contrary. It is a rather pleasant compartment.”

Assad was right. A well-lit room, high above the ground. Its walls neutral, the floor smooth stone. At first glance it, seemed completely bare save for a low wooden bench. Then, following Assad’s gaze, Caroline beheld what might have been a truss rod spanning wall to wall. It was held solidly by ‘V’ braces from above. Threaded through it at about the centre point was a pair of short leather straps.

“Beautifully functional, Mr. Assad, I’m not going to look at those objects hanging on the wall over there. If I did I’d probably turn and run.”

“You are not the running kind, madam.” Assad’s regard paid sparkling tribute. “May I say how much I admire our President’s choice of attire for you.”

“Oh, my ball gown!” Caroline giggled. “It’s symbolic, y’know. The President felt it added a little flair.”

“It adds more than that. I find it highly erotic. Do you wish now to commence our proceedings?”

“If I don’t I’ll tremble myself to bits. I expect those straps up there are intended for my wrists?”

“You are most perceptive. I am grateful for your approach to this adventure. If you will position yourself I will use this bench . . .”

The height must have been measured. She could just reach. But then—there were her high heels . . . ? As the soft leather possessed her wrists she exclaimed: “Assad, my gloves!”

“On this occasion we will leave them on, madam. They achieve a certain effect . . . !”

Another giggle. “Are you sure you’re not a dirty old man?”

“All men adore beauty, Mrs. Dowling. You are beautiful.”

It was of the utmost simplicity. A strap round each slender wrist, tightly buckled, the end neatly looped. Mrs. Caroline Dowling would have to stand there forever, with arms high and wide, unless someone chose to free her.

“Oh gollies, I’ve sort of had it, haven’t I!”

“You have indeed! You are most exquisitely available. I am powerfully affected.”

“So I notice,” Caroline said drily. “Are you going to use that in me too?”

“You belong to our President.” Assad’s tone held reproof.

“The faithful steward! I suspect you’re a good man, Mr. Assad. Now! What about clothes? I’m curious.”

“You lose them.”

“Oh oh, the maximum shame!” The strapped girl chuckled. “Well, anyway I sort of guessed. I’ve put on all I can for you—it’s not much.” Caroline wished she was maiden and innocent, her flesh virgin to the sight of men. This moment, then, would be excruciatingly shivery, her blush a crimson cowl of cringing mortification. Inured as she was to nudity, some impact was lost. But not all! The choice of gowned elegance, her strapped wrists, the glowing regard of the dark eyes, now so close, and the deft dexterity of dark hands upon feminine fastenings was potent. Her pulse raced. She wished Khalief was present to witness his masterpiece. And yet! Alone with Assad—alone—!

The gown fell away, revealing the erotically teasing trifles she had deliberately donned. Mr. Assad stepped back in homage. He was in no hurry.

“You don’t think them a bit trite? I mean, they’ve been used so much in magazines.”

“They make you more than heart’s desire.”

“Thank you.”

“You do not mind if I—admire?”

“I’m afraid I like it. I’m thoroughly naughty. And isn’t this one of the reasons I’m strapped up nice and tight? I mean, I just have to stand here, don’t I!”

“I’m afraid so.” Assad had the absent air of an artist gauging perspectives with his model. “I will leave upon you the garter belt and nylons . . .” He gestured resignedly. “Trite perhaps, but on you a beauty to clutch the heart.”

Caroline was afire with sensation. She twisted ecstatically against the bands about her wrists. “See, I cringe before your lustful eyes,” she said demurely. “Isn’t it delightful! Oh, and the shoulder straps of my bra unhook . . . But tear them away brutally if you’d enjoy.”

Assad tore them from her in a sudden sweep of powerful fingers. The tiny panties followed. To sunder them took a wrench hard enough to hurt her crotch. She gasped, breasts heaving, hips swaying. More femalely nude than nakedness. “Mmmmmm! Oh—oh, you did that wonderfully . . .” She was breathless.

“And now I must thrash you, madam.”

“Yes! Oh yes!”

“You like it?”

“I don’t know. I—I—oh, I’m so silly! I have liked—. What are you going to use on me?”

“The President’s orders, ma’am. A strap.”

“Yes, of course. It won’t cut—?”

“Among those who deal in such matters it is considered mild.”

“Look, Assad, if I make a noise—”

“You are not to be gagged, madam.”

“Oh shit! I hate yelping. I’ll never manage to keep quiet.”

“You may surprise yourself.” Assad was fondling two feet of supple leather that looked somehow lethal. He smiled with a flash of white teeth. “You are in the enviable position of being completely uninhibited within the limits of your restraints.”

“Uninhibited, my Aunt Fanny! All I can do is kick and howl.” She wrinkled her nose at him provocatively. “Why don’t you tie my feet?”

“The rope would ruin your nylons and spoil the aestheticism of the femininity you wear.”

“Dammit, Assad, you’ve done this before—?”

It was a shock to discover that to use the strap on her there was no need to go back out of sight. The sweep of his arm was an instant flash. The impact of the leather on her skin began past one hip and cracked noisily across the near cheek of her rump. She squealed in shock.

“Ow, ouch! I wasn’t expecting—!”

He was behind her now. The air snickered. The strap splatted resoundingly across both curves. Fire exploded beneath the blow, but the willing victim had clenched her teeth and emitted only a muted moan.

“Oh wow! I say, Assad, give me a minute—”

“The executioner changes side after each infliction, madam. He will do this slowly, but these are the only pauses.”

“Oh jeepers! But this is just the first—!” Number three made the loudest sound of all. Beneath its scald Caroline raised her nudity from the stone by her strapped wrists, kicking wildly. “Dammit, man!” she gasped. “Can’t you start me a bit easier?”

“There is an element of shock in these first blows, Mrs. Dowling. One of the purposes of this exercise is to accustom you to this natural response so you can settle down to the main portion of your punishment with equanimity.”

“That fool word—! I’ll never manage—oh, wow! Ahhhhh—!”

Caroline managed. In fact, she managed very well. As she wryly told herself, she damn well had to! When it was done, her bottom burned but she was elated. When her wrists were released she kissed a startled Assad on his forehead and fled in search of a mirror in which to assess her bottom’s response to the leather.

It took only three days for her resilient flesh to ready itself for the next.

“The strap is dramatically noisy, its sting shocks, but the marks it leaves upon your skin are superficial, madam.”

“My bottom agrees with you, Assad,” Caroline admitted wryly as she inserted her hands within the waiting loops and felt them draw tight. “But I’m trembling almost as much as last time.”

“No one expects an instant adjustment, Mrs. Dowling. What you are undertaking is really an heroic progression to something most women would see as fearful beyond words.”

“Don’t think I don’t sometimes see it like that. What awful step am I promoted to today?”

“Complete nudity, Mrs. Dowling, and a greater number of strokes with the same instrument.”

“All hard, I suppose? And for Pete’s sake don’t call it an instrument! It sounds awful.”

“All hard, madam—harder—!”

The marks upon her scarlet bottom sped the days. The whipped girl knew them happy. Her hours with Khalief drove Assad and his straps into the mists. Caroline learned the lessons of her flesh in a steady advance to the day she dreaded.

“The strap is dead, madam. Long live the whip.”

“Oh, Assad, don’t joke! I suspect we’ve just been playing. Now I’m going to scream.”

“There are many whips,” he said soberly. “The worst are still distant.”

“If someone has to whip me, I’m glad it’s you. Oh, Assad, will I be all right? Will I be able—?”

“Yes you will.”

His calm assurance held tenderness. She received the same conviction from her lord. She would become Mistress of the thongs that striped her skin.

The strap had paved the way. But when the sinuous snake snapped across her shoulders it was a new and different pain. Without affectation she screamed.

“My back! It’s another Me. Different . . . ! Oh, Assad, it’s a different kind of pain . . . There’s no heat . . . only agony.”

“The effect on the subject is admittedly less erotic—”

“Oh damn! It’s no love play. Assad, feel me, I’m dry!”

“No, madam, you are not.”

“Oh, damn!”

There had been a procession of whips. From each, the flogged girl learned agony but also control. With female strength she perfected the exotic motions of her nudity by which she acknowledged her punishment but was not defeated by it. By special dispensation, Assad was permitted to find within her sheath relief for his loins, inflamed beyond endurance by his subject’s sexuality. They moaned together before the lash resumed.

Then, at the end of it, the ten days. Ten dreamlike days within the comfort of Khalief’s arms. When they were past, Caroline’s flesh was virgin . . . ! No audience would see or suspect.

And then Tulabe.

Caroline could not hide from herself or her lover that she was glowingly excited. She was well rehearsed. She was also at peace with her conscience. She had been conquered by a man, and would render unto him whatever tribute he chose to exact. Her nature was such that mischief was never distant from her scene. Mostly she approached her ordeal with laughter. It was she who insisted on the brass band. She also demanded Assad as her executioner. While being gowned and groomed for her appearance on the platform of Tulabe’s Square she sipped a stiff drink. Before she mounted the fatal steps she downed another. It was not until the time came for her to proffer her hands to be bound that she sensed something wrong. Watching the gauntleted hands knot her wrists in bondage, she knew disquiet. Behind the hood the eyes glinting at her were strange . . .

Her executioner was NOT Assad!

Fearfully, she looked around. Yet all was normal. Her sacrificial ceremony was a howling success. She could scarcely engage her whipper in conversation under such exposure. In a whirl of puzzlement she allowed herself to be bound, hoisted, stripped. She would spoil nothing for Khalief by female fears. She braced herself for agony.

It did not come.

The whip curled and slashed upon her nudity but the pain was minimal. It was a clever simulation of the real thing, light, supple, without the power to cut her flesh. Looking down at where it had curled beneath her naked breasts she saw the scarlet lines . . . But they too were a clever fraud, some sort of dye . . . !

Her lord had run the risk of discovery because he loved her! Joy welled. Almost she felt cheated in her role as the donor of her greatest gift. But she must not betray—let none know the deception! She writhed sensuously and smiled serenely as she had schooled herself to do. Her bound wrists were her greatest pain, but she did not notice them. Then came the shots, the trucks, the howling pandemonium. A knife cut the rope by which she was suspended. The hooded man picked her up easily and fled. His words were terse and urgent.

“Keep still. Don’t fight. We’re doing fine.” It was the voice of James Dexter.

9

Slave Chain

The President’s Guard basked in glory. Each was personally thanked by the President, and three of them were, separately, summoned to his bed. One of these was Trudy. In post-coital conversation she was assured that Caroline’s disappearance was the work of Nicholas Nykobe or his minions. Retribution and repossession was to be swift and merciless, but in the meantime Caroline had vanished. Whilst subject to this Presidential favour Trudy the trooper came to understand the older girl’s infatuation with Khalief Abhad. Having once been impaled upon the purple Presidential phallus no girl could ever be quite the same. It was like being granted a preview of Nirvana. The younger girl was never certain where it all went within her, but she was grateful for both its advance and retreat. She had survived a major invasion.

But their glory was by no means in the past. Their deportment under fire and the accuracy of their rifles now earned them a stellar role in the invasion of such territory still held by Nykobe and his troops. It was a job too long delayed. The Zindawban Army was mobilised and on its way to a strategic meeting within enemy territory with the Guard who was being sent ahead to rout and destroy an isolated but fortified outpost which might prove an obstacle to the victorious invasion.

There was much drill and the shouting of commands. Each girl was jubilant. The W.O. had never been so happy. Morale was at its peak. In order that they arrive to do battle fresh and alert, marching was dispensed with. The twenty eager Guards piled into a brand new truck with boxes of ammunition and rifles polished to a deadly shine. W.O. Ringbolt and Captain Rulua were to catch up with them later in a Jeep. Several hours of jolting took them well within enemy country without providing a sign of the enemy itself. Inhabitants of the dusty land had prudently retreated from the vicinity of the rutted road. They had things very much to themselves until they were ambushed.

Their downfall was overconfidence and the absence of their W.O.

Not a shot was fired. The four trucks had been craftily screened from view in scrub brush. Within a minute they had taken position, one on each side, one front and rear, to surround the vehicle carrying the President’s Guard and render resistance futile. Large calibre arms pointed from all directions.

The troop dismounted. Chagrined, dismayed, frightened. They were relieved of their rifles, their truck was stripped. But the men of Nykobe were disciplined. They surveyed their catch with wide and lustful grins and some ribald chaff but there was no brutality. Trudy guessed she and her companions were not just prisoners of war. They were a valued prize.

They were counted, their names and numbers recorded, they were handcuffed, hands behind their backs. They were then lifted, bodily, back into the Zindawban transport by men who enjoyed their work. Two armed soldiers took up guard duty with the captive girls. The convoy rumbled on in the same direction.

“The driver got us lost, or else he’s one of them.” Sergeant Galla said bitterly to her apprehensive charges.

“What will they do with us, Galla?”

“How should I know!” Galla turned to their grinning guards. “Do you two know what will happen to us?”

Their only answer was hilarity and the chuckling assurance: “You not like it one little bit.”

“I’d be a guard in uniform and be handcuffed!”

Trudy hated it. The bite of the steel bands on her wrists was like a house of cards falling about her head. A lovely dream was dying. The truck jolted the girls back and forth against each other. With arms locked at their backs they could do nothing but exchange glances of commiseration.

It was early afternoon when the wheels stopped turning. This time the prisoners were handed down to stand on a well-used road on the outskirts of a town. They were marshalled together and there began the most shameful chapter of their short career as members of the military. Sergeant Galla, as was her right, was elected to lead the line . . .

It was a slave coffle! Two of the enemy dragged into view a burden of links and metal bands the troop eyed with a terrible prescience. When the first collar was fitted round Galla’s neck and locked with a resounding click they knew their fate. Four feet of chain led to the next, a captive girl was thrust forward and was similarly banded—and the next—and the next. The President’s Guard became a single file of smartly uniformed damsels joined to each other individually. The three white maidens brought up the rear. Perhaps this too was symbolic!

“We’re going to be lined up and shot,” Maisie Collins whispered bitterly. “Oh, damn, I’ve never felt this helpless!”

“But surely they’ll rape us first!” Daphne offered with ingenuous optimism.

“More likely they’ll try and convert us to their cause,” Trudy rejoined thoughtfully. “It would be quite a feather in their cap. How d’you think the troop’s loyalty would stand up to whatever they did to us to make us say yes?”

One troop of the enemy took formation ahead, another behind the crestfallen column of captives. On each side there marched a soldier who had exchanged his gun for a whip which he cracked with skill and gusto and a delighted show of white teeth.

“We march into Moghata Town,” the senior officer ordered. “My men are directed to whip any of you who decide to lag.”

The cavalcade of triumph and disaster fell into step. There was much clinking of metal links from maiden throats and a good many gasps of dismay and distress from maiden lips as the coffle exerted its compulsion on their necks. Small hands wrenched desperately at the steel bands about their wrists, but none was dilatory. Soon, adjusting to their shame, they were stepping out briskly on streets lined with vociferous and enthusiastic citizenry who ogled breasts and buttocks, chains and shame, with lustful appreciation.

It was, of course, a gala occasion. Nicholas Nykobe vied with Khalief Abhad in showmanship. In either victory or defeat the President’s Guard was a feather in any mountebank’s cap. When they reached the Town Square it became bitterly reminiscent of their day of triumph in Tulabe. But Moghata was short on population. It also lacked a brass band. There was, however, the inevitable platform.

The coffle of captive girls was lined up to face the Square. The chain linking them was locked at each end to a convenient anchorage. They constituted a safe and captive audience and a highly decorative display. There was nothing they could do but stand.

Taking swift glances back over her captive shoulder at Nykobe as he made his speech, Trudy recognised power, perhaps some sort of faith. Certainly he was triumphant. From time to time during his resounding redundancies his eye glinted in her direction. Despite her plight she thrilled and felt him as a presence. He knew she was there! She was not forgotten. Nykobe would do something with her! She was sure of it. But what!

Since the speakers delivered their oratory in the dialect, the white captives could only gauge its quality by the rise and fall of dramatically emphasised periods. The festivities were officially declared with the lighting of a sizeable bonfire, Its fuel piled where the apprehensive troop was illuminated by its flames. When the conflagration was at its peak a sonorous command from the platform imposed a hushed stillness on all.

The Guard uniform was designed for convenience. They came off easily. Privileged members of Nykobe’s Army removed them from their chained and cringing owners. Others fought with laces to remove boots and socks. It took but a little while to render the prideful troop stark-naked. None could rebel. They endured their stripping in a mortified silence. In a space of minutes they had ceased to be prisoners of war and had been reduced to slavery. Behind them the sonorous voice declaimed in exaltation as the cherished uniforms of a decadent foe were ceremoniously burned before their wearer’s eyes. The citizens of Moghata howled in glee.

“The whole lot of them will screw us,” said Maisie in morose conviction.

“It’s better than being shot, love,” said Daphne. Trudy said nothing. She agreed with both.

But their nakedness was not an end. It was a beginning. Whilst vendors of food and drink were besieged with carefree coin and a platoon of drums beat out its paean of victory, the nude units of the coffle were herded upon the platform. There they were made to stand on its outer limits as a square facing whoever cared to stare up at their breasts and hairy triangles. The crowd was encouraged to look its fill but to keep moving so that this spectacle of pride brought low might be enjoyed by all. Two of the captives who strove to turn away their female treasures were soundly whipped by the grinning attendants. After that they all stuck out their chests, separated their feet, and tried not to meet any eyes. The whipped girls sobbed but could not dry their tears.

At the end of fifteen minutes of naked exposure the twenty girls listened in shock as Nicholas Nykobe, in ringing jubilation, informed his subjects that the captives were to be turned to the advantage of the State. They were to be sold as slaves, and the money so obtained used to purchase the armaments by which freedom would be achieved. Such beauty should not languish unprofitably in a prison but should make its own unique contribution to the glory of the People’s Party.

“I told you we’d be fucked,” Maisie said without gratitude.

“But who on earth would buy us all?” Daphne demanded.

“Probably a brothel.” It was all Trudy could think of.

Like all else in this torn and troubled land the proceedings were incongruous and faintly absurd. The merrymakers retreated to their food and drink, their places round the platform taken by an oddly assorted medley of bidders, mostly Arabs. Kaftans milled side by side with worsted and gabardines in a unity of intent. They had money and wanted girls. To the chained Trudy up on the platform they emanated a force, a tide which would engulf and sweep her to a fate she could only fear.

It was announced that, to expedite what might have been a lengthy battle of bids, the girls were to be sold as a job lot, their chains went with them. It was hinted that the forces of Zindawba were not so far distant as to merit delay.

The warehouse was cheerless. Their purchaser, a business type Semitic formally attired, addressed them briefly. They were to avoid panic. They would not be killed. Most of them would be sold into privileged and enviable situations. Whilst in his own possession they would he kept well chained in deference to their maiden fears and natural impulse to escape. Rebellion would be punished. He introduced them to the lithe female colleague who stood beside him with the whip. Lilith was their Mistress, she was to be obeyed.

The troop was dejectedly obedient. What else could it be! Passivity was implicit in their chains. At Lilith’s command they extended their coffle to its utmost length and each girl bent forward from the hips to present a row of twenty girlish and variously pigmented bottoms for the approval of their purchaser.

“You will keep still while you are beaten,” Lilith commanded evenly. “You may weep if you desire. Mr. Saud believes it for Your own good that you suffer sufficiently now to ensure your rational behaviour in what is expected of you later.” She made it sound like a sensible idea for which they should be grateful.

Mr. Saud used a cane. He applied it with businesslike deliberation and some zest. His task was formidable but he obviously desired no aid. He struck Sergeant Galla’s proffered posterior a resounding thwack His progress down the line was acknowledged with gasps and moans and small cries of hurt. As he approached the end, Lilith’s voice was incisive:

“Stay as you are. Mr. Saud is not finished.”

Trudy accepted her blow in mute misery. But, as one of twenty chained and helpless victims, expostulation could yield her only extra punishment. Couldn’t the silly idiot realise they’d all been caned and whipped enough to know what pain was like! But perhaps not. After all they were an elite!

Mr. Saud’s stock in trade was girls. From them he made his living. Their responses were vital to his trade. On his second journey down the line of bent behinds his hand sought evidence, testing.

“Separate your legs properly and keep them apart. Do not protest. Forget modesty,” Lilith’s instruction was faintly bored.

Mr. Saud’s hand probed pudendums. Pussies were palmed and kneaded to reveal secretions. They were also pushed and pulled to exhibit the degree in which they were capable of rear exposure. Each exploration of a girl’s most secret place drew a noncommittal grunt and a well-aimed cut with the cane.

“Keep well bent down, girls.”

The troop bent and gasped. Trudy was thankful for the interval in which Mr. Saud went up and down the line. A quick succession of such strokes as he dealt would have been impossible to stand still to receive.

“That is all, girls. Mr. Saud believes four stripes sufficient for this purpose.”

Trudy gasped thankfully. The four had hurt like forty. But each girl had accepted them without casualties. Her sigh of relief was cut short by Lilith’s next announcement.

“Three of you are white. We have found that white girls require extra cautionary attention. The rest of you will stand still and take note.”

Daphne, Maisie and Trudy were taken from the coffle. It felt good to lose the band from about their neck. But relief was short. Their elbows were looped, drawn tight together and knotted. They were positioned in line to face their dusky comrades, their breasts tautly pointing from wracked shoulders.

“One stroke across each breast. Mr. Saud is merciful.”

Mr. Saud was NOT merciful. Trudy longed to smite Lilith’s bland complacence. But she could strike nothing. All she could do was stand still with jutting cones to receive pain. She dismissed thoughts of kneeling and pleading for mercy. Lilith would love that! Mr. Saud would probably enjoy it too. If it was just one on each—!

The slave trader had discarded his cane. He now held a whip. A short stock, several thin braided lashes of no great length. The cringing girls realised that in this whipping of their breasts, accuracy was of the essence. No doubt, by the standards that governed such things, they were in good hands.

“Stand quite still. Extend your chests. Failure will earn you an additional thrashing.”

They stood quite still.

Trudy wondered about this new pain. She was soon made aware. The thongs bit savagely at her right breast, leaving clearly defined striations she would flaunt for many days. In its turn her left twin was similarly slashed. She was possessed by pain. Her elbows scorched ceaselessly. She was led away by a firm hand upon her prisoned arm. She had walked far before she realised the warehouse and the troop was left behind.

“I will not apologise. Perhaps it is as well you are seen to suffer with your comrades.” said Nicholas Nykobe as he thoughtfully removed the ropes from about his prisoner’s elbows. “Mr. Saud can be trusted not to exceed good sense.”

“Mr. Saud hurt me a lot,” said Trudy without rancour. “I’d hate to have him mad at me.”

“That is his motive, my dear. A deterrent,” Nykobe’s finger traced the lines across his captive’s breasts. He found them absorbing. “I’m afraid I have to say I find these extremely beautiful. They affect me.”

“I’m glad you like ’em. I expect I’ll wear ’em awhile.” She looked up appealingly. “It would be nice if you took off my handcuffs?”

He chuckled at her ingenuousness. “On the other hand it would be nice for me to leave them on. Your sweet helplessness is another potency.”

Trudy deliberately twisted against her fetter to illustrate her impotence. Demurely, she inquired:

“This time I expect you really will—” She allowed a pause to lengthen. “—What do you want to call it, make me service you? You service me! Ravish—?”

“What quaint synonyms! I intend to fuck you.”

“You like the brutality of that word, I can tell,” she glinted up at him. “It’s going to be awkward for me with my arms behind my back.”

“Your problem pleases me. I’m sure you’ll cope.” Trudy knew she would. She refused to admit her excitement. Provocatively, she teased. “Remember, I’ve also got a tender bottom.”

Again the tracery of fingers along ridged skin beneath her joined hands. Her shiver and wiggle was involuntary, a physical admission of sensation beyond control. Nicholas Nykobe laughed amusedly. “Saud’s principle is sound, dear child. He gave you four to instil respect—can I do less?”

Instinctively, Trudy’s cuffed hands sought her wounds. “Oh, not four more!” she wailed. “They hurt terribly.” She looked up at him, doe-eyed. “Besides, I’m innocent, and I’m trained, and I’m behaving myself like a good girl.”

“You are also longing for me to cane your pretty little bottom.”

“Oh damn, how did you know!” Trudy grinned sheepishly. “It must be Caroline’s influence—I never used to—!” She broke off in a sudden realisation. “Where is Caroline? I don’t see why you bother with me when you’ve got her, Caroline makes me look like the ugly duckling.”

Nykobe’s features were impassive. “It is my judgment of you that counts,” he said heavily. “Let us not concern ourselves with Abhad’s whore.”

“Please don’t call her that, she’s sweet! And she hasn’t had much more to say about what happens to her than I have.” Sensing a fading mood of felicity, she asked winsomely: “Would you like me to fetch a cane or something and bend over?”

The mood returned. Nykobe chucked his new possession under the chin. “It is you who make others seem dull,” he said affectionately. “Yes, you may fetch a cane.”

The slender instrument by which she would be given pain rested, with others, on a rack. Trudy used her teeth to remove it, drop it on a desk, then grasp it with her cuffed hands. She proffered it to her lord backwards.

He chuckled at her earnest endeavour. “You could have brought it to me in your teeth, y’know.”

She flushed. “How silly! I never thought—! That way I could have knelt . . . ? Do you want me to do it over?”

“I want you to do everything over. You are a delight. But enough of teasing. Take whatever position you like.”

“You mean I can stand straight to be caned? It doesn’t hurt so much like that?”

“If you wish,” Nykobe was enjoying her sincerity. “You would be easy to indulge. You have a way with you.”

Trudy bent forward, well down, back arched, knees taut. Her rosy round rump reared rampantly in invitation.

“You do like it,” Nicholas Nykobe accused, laughing. He selected skin Mr. Saud had not already used, and struck.

“Thank you very much,” said Trudy. She did not move.

He struck again, crossing a weal. “Thank you, sir. You do it beautifully.”

Trudy was possessed. Some demon of mischief sustained her against a pain normally too great to bear. The agony was fiendish on her tight stretched skin, yet she felt nothing. Or believed she felt nothing. She did not move. She was in a trance compounded of the chemistry generated between herself and this man she had seen but once before. When Nykobe’s third stroke spanned her flesh its cruel ‘thuck!’ evoked only the sweetness of an outrageous plea.

“If the next one is the last, sir, please make it a lot harder.”

“Are you real?” His voice was almost worshipful.

“Terribly real, lord. My bottom belongs to you.” He struck her for the fourth time, harshly cutting into her softest skin. The pain burrowed, burned and burst in a flowering of anguish. Trudy Ramsay slowly straightened up and looked roguishly at the man who held the cane.

“And now my breasts, sir?”

“No, not your breasts. It is enough.”

Like corn swept by the scythe, Trudy’s knees buckled and she was suddenly writhing on the floor, her chained hands vainly seeking to assuage her wounds. It was as though the pain had been pent-up during its infliction on her flesh and was now sweeping her in wave after wave of agony. With a tremendous effort of will she achieved immobility on her back, her shackled arm awkwardly beneath her waist. Her eyes were brilliant as they sought Nykobe’s. “Now!” she gasped. “Now, now, now!” He took her as she lay in the wild abandonment of desire.

“I betcha it’s like I said,” Maisie affirmed with conviction. “She’s been taken off on the side to be screwed. Remember, she was with him that time before when she got into that jackpot with Nikola.”

“What about us!” Daphne asked mournfully. “I feel like a pound of coffee on a shelf.”

The coffle was dissolved. The nineteen girls were locked in the warehouse as individual prisoners, their necks relieved of chain. Handcuffs had been moved from back to front, not from humane intent but so they might tend their own needs. They had been fed. From time to time a male or two would enter and move among them thoughtfully, asking ages, looking at teeth, feeling and cupping vulvas with wise and inquisitive hands. The girls were merchandise. Mr. Saud believed in a quick turnover.

“Wonder what he’s asking for us.” Maisie massaged her crotch thoughtfully as though to rid it of the last male hand. “I bet it’s high. D’you notice, we’re white, the bastards maul us more than the rest.” She sighed. “Gosh, what I’d give to have my uniform and my gun!”

“And no handcuffs!” mourned Daphne. She tugged in frustration at her bond. “These damn things on my wrists drive me up the wall—and there’s no getting rid of them.” Her plaint turned into a wail of despair. “We’ll never get rid of them! We’ll always be handcuffed or chained . . . ! Oh, Maisie . . . !”

“You will both follow me, please.”

It was the imperturbable voice of Lilith. She beckoned. “Follow me and stop feeling sorry for yourselves. There are those in this land who would envy you.” She led them through passages to the inevitable door. With her hand on the knob, she turned and said, with unmistakable kindness. “Be sensible and do what you’re told. You can never escape. If you choose to be difficult your punishments will be hard to bear.” She smiled thinly and shrugged. “And it will probably be I who must inflict them.” She pushed the door open for them and announced, as might a formal butler: “Miss Maisie Collins and Miss Daphne Weir.”

“This is Mr. Amtolah,” said Mr. Saud cordially.

“He is considering your purchase.”

He was bland, without age or nationality, heavy. But he smiled and motioned to the bottles and glasses on the desk. “A drink, my dears? I’m sure it would not come amiss.” Taking their startled hesitation for assent, he poured two generous libations. “While you sip these you will stand facing me. An erect posture please, your feet somewhat apart.” He nodded as though sharing with them a pleasurable experience.

They obeyed. They stood. They gulped. They tried not to show their tremblings as two pairs of shrewd male eyes assessed their nudity. Mr. Amtolah refilled their glasses, smiling benignly at the clink of their handcuffs on the crystal. “I operate the finest brothel on the West Coast of Africa. Would you care to join my staff?” he asked with the jovial assurance of a man betting on a certainty.

“Whores!” The ugly word sprang from Daphne’s lips clothed in shocked abhorrence. “Maisie and I aren’t prostitutes.”

“We’d be no good at it,” Maisie contributed cautiously. “We don’t know anything about it.”

“Everybody knows everything about it.” Maisie held up her linked wrists. “Do we really have a choice?”

“I would prefer girls who do not have to be constantly whipped.” Mr. Amtolah shared a conspiratorial wink. “Except, of course, for the pleasure of my clients.”

“You mean men pay money to whip a girl!”

“It is a basic fact of life, my child.” The prospective purchaser smiled at her incredulity. “I notice you have been whipped today.”

“A few cautionary strokes,” said Mr. Saud modestly.

“But nonetheless charming. You find the whipping of their breasts effective?”

“It gets their attention.”

“Ah, yes, I would charge a very large sum for such a privilege.” Mr. Amtolah scrutinised four feminine breasts, each with its own scarlet stripe. He was obviously doing rapid mental arithmetic.

“I don’t think we want to be whores,” Maisie said firmly.

“I would like you to bend over the end of the desk, my dear.” Mr. Amtolah nodded and beamed at Daphne. He turned to his host: “With your permission . . . ?”

“The two girls surveyed the slim length of cane that never seemed far separate from their African lives. They exchanged desolate glances. Mr. Saud laughed at Maisie’s obvious thought. “Your turn will come, girl. Save your nobility.”

“The willingness and ability of a girl to accept the cane is an important determination in her price,” the brothel keeper explained helpfully as he used the cane to tap Daphne’s reluctant rump in the direction he desired. “Come, come, my dear! No maiden modesty. We have all seen a girl’s bottom many times.”

“But I haven’t done anything!” Daphne’s plaint was tearful.

“You are doing something now. You are slow to obey.”

The reluctant brunette put down her glass and bent forward from her hips across Mr. Saud’s desk. She stretched her ironed hands out above her head and hid her face in her arms. There came a great stillness.

“An obedient maiden is above rubies,” said Mr. Amtolah sententiously, and struck the proffered flesh with vigor. Daphne’s world burst into a conflagration of agony. She screamed and came erect, cuffed hands reaching . . .

“Lean down again, my dear.”

“I can’t! Oh, it hurts so—!”

“Down!”

“Stop it! Damn you, leave her alone!”

It was an involuntary female protest. Maisie was appalled by her own temerity. But in the silence of disapproval her courage held. She glared defiantly, her voice bitter: “That’s no way to treat a girl.”

Mr. Saud pressed a buzzer. When Lilith came his words were terse. “Whip them well. In front of the others.”

As they were ushered from the office Mr. Amtolah’s suave voice followed. “Of course, with girls like that their price would have to be extremely low—”

The door closed.

“I was afraid of this,” Lilith said regretfully.

“You haven’t had time to adjust, I’ll have to be unkind to you. Do you want me to get male help or will you obey me?”

They obeyed. After the man Lilith seemed almost a friend.

It was quick, makeshift and painful on their wrists. A rope from their handcuffs to a rafter, pulled tight to stand them on their toes. They beheld each other’s taut nakedness, ten feet apart. The rest of the captive troop clustered in a wide circle, awestruck but fascinated, dusky hands tugging at the tight metal of their bonds.

“They were disobedient and spoke out of turn.”

Lilith’s explanation to the watching eyes sounded like an epitaph. She turned to the half-suspended nudities. “Open your legs and keep them open.”

With impersonal competence, Lilith whipped the inside of their thighs, their groins, the pouting lips of their pudendums. She stepped from one to the other to give them time to stop screaming and catch their breath. As an innovation for them she cut the whip into their strained armpits. “You’ll get enough thrashings on your back and bottoms from men in the future,” she told them casually. “Now I whip you as a woman whips—knowing where . . . !”

Maisie acknowledged Lilith’s skill with screams.

She had promised herself she would remain mute. But after the first blows the vow vanished, erased by agonies etched on female secret places which no whip should know. She howled and kicked, seeing a mirror of herself in Daphne’s similar responses. The watching faces did not matter. If she was disgracing the white race what did it matter! What did anything matter except that the whipping stop and her arms be freed! In one of the pauses in their punishment she choked out brokenly: “We’ll be whores—let us be whores—whores!”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that, girl.” Lilith’s voice was without emotion. She struck again.

The reappearance of the coffle chain was good news and bad. It would chafe their necks shamefully and keep them under control. But it meant none had been sold. They remained a group. Except for the absent Trudy the troop was intact. They stood abjectly as the metal collars were locked upon slender throats. The two white girls with their striated skins, shamed and hurting, made no demur. For them the collar was better than the whip. Once more the handcuffs were switched. The girls marched from the warehouse with wrists locked behind their back, breasts pointing, nakedly available to any man with cash.

“Oh shit!” Daphne muttered. “Another march through their lousy town!”

“Killing two birds with one stone,” Maisie suggested. “Advertising for old Saud’s business, and a boost for the Nykobe Cause. We’re a prize package any way you look at us.”

“Lilith was right,” Daphne moaned. “We’ll never escape, never! Look at us now! All the world to run to, not locked up or anything, and we can’t do sweet F.A. because of these rotten chains. If the girl in front moves, we move . . .”

It was a dreary procession kept moving by the whip. The townsfolk enjoyed it. The troop tried to look proud and haughty but failed. It is hard for a girl to keep her head high when her neck is constantly snubbed by a chain on her collar. Inevitably their steps led to the Town Square. The platform had not been dismantled. It had, in fact, been enhanced by the addition of two slender poles. Six feet high, solidly vertical. Between them stood a naked girl with arms outstretched so that one of her wrists could be tied to each above the level of her shoulders. She surveyed them with evident relief.

It was Trudy Ramsay.

“She looks awful pleased with herself,” Maisie muttered.

“Wouldn’t you if you’d been screwed all night,” Daphne accused. “And I got a look at her bottom. It’s been caned again but not much.”

“You know what’s coming, don’t you!”

“You mean all those speeches, and Nykobe, and then—! Oh, Maisie, do you think she will?”

Maisie was right. The troop, after its first surprise, was bored. People all over the world were bored with the same platitudes as poured forth now. It was only when the naked Trudy was left alone upon the stage that they came to life. They knew what she would have to say, but they listened.

Trudy Ramsay brightly and cheerfully confessed to all the sins of the entire white world. She told them all in much detail. There was intermittent applause as she twisted shamefully in her bonds and dwelt upon the superiority of all things dark: particularly the Cause of Nicholas Nykobe. At the finish she happily explained how fitting it was that she, epitomising pale decadence, should be sold into slavery, her prize augmenting the coffers of the Cause.

The crowd cheered wildly.

Trudy wore her most impudent smile as she was untied from the posts and handcuffed and chained at the tail end of the coffle.

They moved forward in single file.

10

Females Fettered

“I’m sorry I’m so disappointing.” Caroline used her teeth to tug at the knot of her bound hands. She cocked an amused eye at her companion. “I’m not behaving a bit like a girl should do when saved from a fate worse than death.”

James Dexter grinned wryly down at the naked woman on the rug. He had not bothered to cover her, guessing her mood. “I’m not too surprised,” he conceded.

“A gentleman would untie a lady’s hands.”

“So I’m not a gentleman! Are you sure you’re a lady?”

Caroline stopped nibbling, and let her tied hands fall to her waist. Upon her nudity were still the make-believe red streaks from the make-believe whip. She eyed the man in the chair with sorrow. “Where the devil are we—and how—?”

Dexter waved her query aside. “It doesn’t matter. We’re safe.” He eyed her with exasperation. “I had to do this, Caroline. I’ve been bothered from the start. I couldn’t allow you—”

“To be publicly whipped!” She laughed at his dolor. “Oh, James, if you only knew . . . !” She suddenly tensed at him. “How did you persuade the rebels to make that raid. ? Are you one—?”

“No, I’m not! I just took advantage of a situation I knew about in advance. A few bribes in this country—!”

“What did you do to poor Assad?”

“Poor! Good gosh, Caroline, are you that pally with your torturer! We drugged his drink. I expect he’s still wondering what happened.” He looked down at his lovely captive askance. “Dammit, that guy was going to flog your naked back!”

“He’s awfully good at it, and quite nice.”

“Can’t you be a bit serious! I’ve staked a lot on this—” he glowered. “Really, Caroline, you’re impossible.” He reached down and tore at the rope which joined her hands. But when he cast it aside he took handcuffs from his pocket and prisoned her wrists once more. She did not resist, holding still while he tightened them to the last humane notch. “I brought these just in case,” he said lamely.

Caroline, pertly, held them up to admire. “I don’t think I’ve worn this make before. Why am. I wearing them now, James?”

“I didn’t notice you struggling.”

“Don’t be cross. And that didn’t answer my question.”

“I brought them because of what I know about you. Remember our first time together! And your behavior at the Consulate—and in that damn awful cage.”

“It was a lovely cage. I’ve never been so admired.”

“You adore those things on your wrists. C’mon, be honest?”

“Sure I do,” Caroline admitted without guile.

“I’ve given up apologising . . .” She twisted her wrists this way and that. “These are beautifully made, much nicer than some.”

“I bought the most expensive I could find.” His voice was suddenly tender. “In fact, I bought several pairs.”

“Oh, darling, how sweet! Want to use one on my ankles?”

“No. I’m indulging you enough. What the devil am I going to do with such a bundle of unreasonable eroticism!”

“I’ve never been called exactly that before. How sweet! All you have to do, James, is let me loose somewhere where I’ll be found and taken to Khalief . . . I’ll think of a story. Trust me.” She flaunted the handcuffs. “If I’m found wearing these it will be even more authentic.”

“I intend to take you back to the U.S.A. If your marriage to Dowling is finished, then I’ll marry you.”

They surveyed each other in silence, a stillness pregnant with divergent thought. Caroline made a small moue of helplessness. “Gosh, James, we’re only about ten thousand miles apart.” She looked up at him in rueful disclaimer. “And don’t I have anything to say—?”

He was the man of decision. “In this country and under these ridiculous circumstances, no! You’re under the influence of your own cute little aberration, and the overwhelming personality of the strongest man I’ve ever met.” He sneered bitterly. “To say nothing of his sexual prowess. You’re not responsible. You need looking after.”

Caroline clinked her handcuffs ruefully. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let you put these on.”

“I could have done it by force.”

“And violated me afterwards! Oh, James—groovy!”

“Caroline, stop being adolescent!”

“Well, it was a nice idea.” She looked up woefully. “James, you know damn well I don’t want to go back. I’ve found something here—”

“I know what you’ve found.” he agreed savagely. “And I’ve bought you a boxful. Chains, whips, straps, gags . . . You name it! And I’ve also brought me.”

She was suddenly contrite. Hugging his knee she rubbed an affectionate cheek against the cloth. “I’m a bitch and I deserve everything I get over here.” she said quietly. “I was a bitch back home, and I would be again—”

“You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever known—!”

“There’s that side to me as well—” Caroline pondered. “You’ll hate this bit, but that sweet offer of yours—about the box and these handcuffs . . . ! There’s no use a white man using those things on me. It doesn’t work. I don’t spark.”

“You’re infatuated with a nigger?”

“James! Khalief’s your friend too! Don’t call him that!” Her protest filled another silence. Wearily, she tried to explain. “It’s simple really. Any decent white man—you . . . ! I can twist you, prey on your chivalry, make you feel a bastard if you’re the least bit brutal. I could talk myself out of your chains, or these handcuffs, or a whipping. With a few tears I can make you do all sorts of things . . .” She shook her head and sighed. “It’s not that you’re soft or decadent or any of that nonsense. It’s your background, schooling, religion, society. White men just don’t beat their wives!”

“Is that all you want of life, to be beaten?”

“You know it isn’t! The difference is that Khalief can do all these things without feeling a trace of guilt or making me feel brutalised. Sure, I can sweet talk him just as I can you. We play it as a game to see how far I dare go. When I go too far he does the things to me you wouldn’t really want to do, and from him they’re real, terribly real.”

“Hell, Caroline, any man can—!”

“In Africa my punishments are authentic. In the U.S.A. they’d have to be simulated. I know you’d try, but—”

“What d’you have to be punished for!”

“If you don’t know, then I can’t tell you.” She made a gesture of helplessness. “Just because I’m a woman, I guess.”

“So I employ a coloured major-domo whose chief duty is to discipline my wife?”

“James, you’re bitter. I understand that. But your joke . . . don’t you see! It pinpoints the whole thing. Your hired whipmaster would be working to your instructions: no spontaneity, no feeling . . . I expect he’d get an erection because I was naked, and because of what he was doing to me, and I’d hate it! I’d hate it terribly.”

“Maybe it would cure you?”

“No. It would be irrelevant.”

In silence they surveyed the battleground of James Dexter’s defeat. But he was still fighting, his eyes feasting on his captive, his voice reflective.

“If it had been my money instead of Khalief’s that saved Dowling? If I’d hung onto you . . . ? We’d have been O.K.”

“But you didn’t, did you! You sold me down the river.”

“Aren’t you being unfair?”

“Can you imagine my feelings when I woke up on that bed, spread out and tied naked, and there, staring up between my legs, the biggest black man I’d ever seen!”

“I knew he wouldn’t harm you.”

“I know it now, but I didn’t then. I was petrified.”

“You’ve certainly made a good recovery—”

“James, stop! No postmortems. Let’s stay where we’re at. Give me back to Khalief and retain his friendship. You need him. He’s your road to fortune. And besides, you like each other. If this crazy republic holds together he’ll make you richer than Dowling or any of them.”

“I want you.”

Caroline’s heart warmed to the primitive statement. She lay back, hunched and spread her knees and held out her arms. “Come, darling, Khalief won’t mind—even if he knew.” She giggled roguishly. “And bring a cushion or something . . .”

With a growl of defeat he threw aside his clothes.

Trudy was girlishly grateful she was not to be flogged. She knew that had he suggested it she would have said yes without a qualm. She was in that happy euphoria when a girl feels only nobility in complying with her lover’s requests, no matter how painful or how outrageous. But Nykobe had pointed out that her day as a sacrificial display piece tied to the posts would be arduous enough. She glowed and basked in his concern.

They had laughed at her confessions. Each had contributed to the script which she must memorise and deliver with feminine spontaneity for the edification of his subjects and the furtherance of his Cause. Trudy could take nothing about this crazy place seriously and saw no disloyalty. She would have done the same for Khalief Abhad. Though this was an admission she prudently kept to herself. What she was now enduring was bad enough. She was outrageously naked before a thousand eyes. She was compelled to stand for what would probably be a great many hours, and the soldiers had tied the thongs around her wrists with an overzealous severity. On top of this, and pending the oratory and her ‘confessions,’ the populace was encouraged to mount the platform, examine her female parts, ask questions, or read her a homily on white feminine behaviour. Nykobe’s guards below kept an alert eye for lecherous hands—mauling the exhibit was forbidden. But the tied and helpless girl still had to endure a good many sly prods and piercings she could have done without.

Two or three hours of the morning passed before interest waned. The crowd lost its density. Trudy’s visitors became desultory, and amused. They were of all kinds and in all garbs. The Arab influence was well represented. It was, of course, wholly male, its hawk-eyed assessments of her attributes causing her to wonder if they were potential customers for Mr. Saud.

She had seen the holy man among the crowd, his jubbah and kaffiyeh setting him apart, receiving deference. He was old and angular, his eyes fierce above his beard. He stood before her, taking stock, in no hurry to be gone. His words, when they came, were clear and concise. He emphasised them by clasping her head in taloned hands: no doubt in an effort to convert her innocence to the one Faith.

“Don’t blink an eyebrow, you silly little twit. I am slipping keys within your hair, they are gummed to stick and not be seen. They will release you and the troop when you are in the truck. There will be two men only. Overpower them and drive back on the same road until you meet us. Blink if you understand.”

Trudy blinked.

Warrant Officer Ringbolt drew his jubbah more closely about his frame, muttered a verse from the Koran in excellent Arabic, and went his way. He did not look back.

It was minutes before Trudy again took heed of the probing eyes and fingers. She stood, bound to her posts, in a mental whirl of excitement. The troop was not forgotten, it was not yet dispersed. Hope flared, and with it an anxious apprehension about the bits of metal in her hair. She could feel their presence. Could others see! She longed to touch and rearrange but the ropes denied her hands. Overriding all else was the calm authority of Ringbolt’s voice. Warrant Officer Ringbolt was dealing with wogs and had things well in hand. He was solid competence. His fierce anger at the captivity of his cherished troop rubbed off on the captive girl. Revenge would be sweet indeed!

She thought of Nykobe. Her feeling for him was unchanged. African politics were not to be taken seriously and, as far as she was concerned, had nothing to do with a black leader and a white girl. When he mounted the platform to make his speech he stood before her, briefly. His voice was for her alone. “You will be put back on the slave coffle, beloved child.” He winked. “It is best the people see you put to a profitable purpose. I repossess you in Botswalla.”

Trudy understood. If Moghata was to be abandoned to the advancing Zindawban army, Nykobe’s strength would hold the fortress of Botswalla, still further inland. Presumably Mr. Saud was fleeing there also with his recent purchase. Trudy beamed up at her lord and whispered not to worry. She would be a very good girl and would not mind the chains.

Mr. Saud stood ready beside his truck with his tally and his pencil. His coffle of nude pulchritude must be intact. He was not going to be shortchanged by a single girl. His maidens were lamentably helpless. Between the hands cuffed at their back and the collar on their neck they moved with caution. Boxes had been provided as steps for them to mount into the vehicle that would take them to their ultimate and hopeless slavery. The driver and one guard helped their fleshly cargo by hoisting arms and hips and whatever else came handy. Mostly it was a firm and knowing grip between the legs. When the tailgate was latched, twenty helpless girls were under the stern eye of a Saud henchman. Mr. Saud nodded, satisfied. The driver went to his wheel, the motor roared.

Trudy was trembling. Upon her slender naked shoulders rested the fate of twenty chained and naked girls. Yet she was as confined as any of them. She wrenched bitterly at the cuffs on her wrists. If only they had been locked in front! Behind her back they could do nothing. But she had devised a plan. Whispered instructions to Daphne and Maisie had left the two of them as excited as herself. The congestion within the truck was an ally. The coffle had become a tight-wedged confusion of damp femininity who remained upright by falling against each other as their vehicle swayed and bumped. Their guard, standing at the rear, was amused by their fleshy instability and the jouncing of breasts. His perception was for all. He focused on no single girl. When the end of the coffle gravitated to its most distant point from his observation, Trudy nudged her companion on the chain and whispered: “Now!” She slid to her knees in an excusable stumble, thrusting her head against Maisie’s prisoned hands. She held position long enough to feel the fumbling fingers find their treasure in her hair. Sheepishly she rose and leant back to back with the girl who now held the keys to their freedom—perhaps even to their lives!

It was agonising. All three of the white girls were breathless as Maisie’s fingers sought the metal on Trudy’s wrists, and in the metal the tiny orifice in which a key must fit. Against the pounding of the wheels and the sway of naked girls, relying solely on the sense of touch, it was a task well-nigh impossible.

“The little one! The little one—oh Maisie . . . !”

Trudy had never known such life and death anxiety. She held her arms as best she could for Maisie’s convenience, and prayed. “It just turns one way—just one way . . .”

It happened! The tiny thrust as the bit of metal entered its socket. Both girls tensed desperately as fumbling fingers strove to turn. When the metal band opened and released a captive wrist they sighed in unison. From that point the battle was won.

Two keys and a whisper. Freedom made its way around the truck’s human cargo. One key for handcuffs, the other for the collar. Five girls had released themselves by the time the guard grew suspicious. But five against one, and a chain dragged round his throat disposed of him, his gun disposed of the driver. A jubilant Sergeant Galla turned the truck around and headed back whilst excited girls fumbled with keys and fervid exclamations.

The rendezvous was joyous. A Zindawban military vehicle driven by a soldier. Inside it, the W.O., and Captain Rulua. When the handshakes and the hugs were done Warrant Officer Ringbolt came into his own. “Lousy wogs,” he said disgustedly. “The ruddy nerve of ’em—!” He lined his troop up into its familiar formation. Twenty naked girls, all happy, all imbued with purpose. When the driver broke open boxes and handed out sleek new uniforms there were cheers and handclaps. Within minutes the President’s Guard was resplendent. When the latest issue of automatic rifles was passed around they were ecstatic. The W.O. set up targets which were annihilated with unerring accuracy.

“Just to make sure,” he said jovially, “we’ll wipe the floor with those blighters at Moghata.”

“The main force is moving on Botswalla,” Captain Rulua explained. “The honour of subduing Moghata is ours.”

Militarily, their task should have been impossible. Under W.O. Ringbolt it was not. The girls adored this eagle-eyed and aging warrior. They thought nothing of odds, but listened shining-eyed to swift commands. They clambered back into the trucks jubilant in freedom and confident of victory.

Approaching their destination they beheld a strange and lonely figure standing in their path upon the road. It was a woman, wearing soiled panties and a torn bra. Her arms were behind her hack, wrists crossed and tied tight with rope. She could not wave, but looked up at them with wide and appealing eyes.

It was Caroline Dowling.

Captain Rulua took her President’s Mistress in stride. Waving away pathetic explanations, she attired the newcomer in a new guard’s uniform and presented her with a gun.

“I’ve never fired one of these things,” said the bewildered recruit.

“Hit ’em on the head with it then,” the Captain said tersely. “Stay with us, we’ve a job to do.”

The winning element was surprise. A truck roared down upon an unsuspecting garrison from each direction. From them came a withering rifle fire of deadly accuracy. Swiftly mobile and wise with knowledge, the roaring vehicles sought each pocket of Moghata’s defense and destroyed it with ease. In thirty minutes Moghata was theirs. Nykobe’s one hundred and fifty troops were dead or captive. The populace stayed indoors until the shooting stopped. They had seen this all before, and were prepared to cheer for any victor when the time seemed ripe.

“Unreliable bastards!” said W.O. Ringbolt.

To Caroline Dowling it had the air of a recurring dream. Not a nightmare, since she was where she was by her own choice, but a trembling fear with which she must now come to terms. She looked up the taut stretch of her naked arms to where her wrists were roped and raised to expose her body to the lash. From time to time she flexed a tentative knee: it was tiring to stand almost on tiptoe. Her wrists hurt, her shoulders protested, but she did not mind. The beloved possession of Khalief Abhad was happy.

“Once is enough.” Khalief had said firmly. “But, darling, I wasn’t really whipped at all that day at Tulabe!” She knelt beside his chair in her favourite pose and rubbed her cheek against the back of his hand. “Your Nicholas Nykobe made a fiasco out of that one. Moghata’s going to expect a bit of entertainment.” She giggled. “They’ve just been conquered and they’ll expect you to come up with something good. Publicly whipping the decadent white witch—that’s me—will show ’em you’re a jump ahead of Nykobe. The best he did for their day off was have darling Trudy do a confessional and sell her off as a slave.”

“You are a treasure beyond price.” Khalief stroked her hair.

“I’ll put on a good show, Khalief, I promise! All the time Assad whips me I’ll be a female snake, writhing lasciviously. Isn’t that a lovely word! I’ll harden every cock in the crowd. They’ll all love you.”

“Yes, they will,” the President of Zindawba agreed soberly. He looked down with love. “This is something you have to do, isn’t it?”

“Yes. A woman thing I can’t explain,” she laughed delightedly. “But remember my training! All those stripes Assad gave me so I wouldn’t howl at the wrong time—! Damn shame to waste my sufferings.”

“You are very wise and very beautiful,” said the father of his people gently. “It shall be as you wish. Afterwards I will make love to you forever.”

The woman to be whipped returned from reverie as Warrant Officer Ringbolt’s barking commands and the cadence of marching feet heralded the arrival of the Troop. Looking down she managed to catch Trudy’s eye and to make her smile as reassuring as she could in the brief moment before the President’s speech demanded she look contrite and altogether ashamed of herself and of the colour of her skin.

“You are very brave, madam. I will spare you nothing.” Assad’s voice was as gentle as his master’s.

The naked girl clenched her teeth and closed her eyes.

It was far, far worse than her training. But that was to be expected. Caroline was thankful for those other encounters with Assad’s whip in which the measure of the thong and of her own endurance had been matched. Almost joyously she writhed and contorted against her bonds so as to make the tethering rope from her bound hands sway and quiver as a thing alive. The populace beheld her agony in awe.

Whatever an onlooker’s views might be on the subject of whipping naked girls, there could be no denying the erotic beauty emanating from the two players on the stage. The fluid sweep of Assad’s arm as he impelled the leather’s snicker through the air: the shocked flinch of the naked back on impact: and then the flowering into vivid life of the etch mark upon the skin as its owner tore against her rope but made no sound louder than a moan. The lovely nudity twisted and turned and trembled but was forever tautly open for the lash. Panting with her pain, Caroline knew herself as the most vulnerable flesh in all of womankind.

When it ended she was not released. True, there was brandy, held to her dry lips by an adoring Assad. Thoughtful hands released enough of the tension on her arms so that her heels could rest upon the planks. The President’s Mistress smiled her gratitude. She knew herself too potent an exhibit to quickly discard. Her wealed skin would make a fine backdrop for the inevitable speeches. Breathing heavily but thankfully in an aftermath of infinite relief she leaned against the rope by which her arms were still suspended and listened, absently, to the flow of rhetoric.

Trudy listened too! So did W.O. Ringbolt. So also did Moghata! Listened not to a speech but to a rousing declaration of retribution by a ruler deeply affronted by injustice. The President’s Guard of Khalief Abhad had been stripped naked in this Square! In this Square they had been chained and forced to watch the burning of their uniforms. In this Square they had been sold into slavery . . . !

Khalief Abhad was enjoying his own thunder. So was Caroline. So was Trudy and the Troop. The citizens of Moghata were dubious. Their dubiety was justified by the final thunderclap. The President was in excellent voice:

“Retribution! . . . Justice . . . An eye for an eye! A bitter shame Moghata must erase by sacrifice . . . !” Within the next twenty minutes the twenty most pulchritudinous maidens of the town would render themselves naked to his authority within this Square.

The silence was electric. The President allowed just enough for a proper effect before explaining, casually, his confidence the good and loyal people of Moghata would prefer this relatively trivial tribute to the burning of their town and the bulldozing of its ashes.

Caroline watched breathlessly, the scorching excoriations on her skin almost forgotten in the drama of the moment. The Troop envied her the vantage of her view. The townsfolk looked at each other askance. Sundry damsels who, a few minutes previously, had been enthusiastic applauders of Caroline’s penance began a prudent shuffle to the rear. A retreat ruthlessly terminated by the firm clutch of a parental hand. A girl was just a girl, but a house or a shop was something else again! In Moghata it had suddenly become a bad day for daughters.

Not all the maids were modest. One superbly endowed young woman strode arrogantly forward. Declaimed in ringing tones: “Long live Nicholas Nykobe!” Threw aside her garments as though their touch offended. Then, disdainfully, offered her hands to the closest soldier to be hound, her whole bearing proclaiming scorn as they were handcuffed behind her back.

Several others followed her example, noble in their Cause. They stood, breasts heaving, heads high as their wrists were locked. For a little while they would bask in glory: and there was always the possibility the President would admire their breasts and wish to examine them personally. They kept their feet nicely apart to obstruct no view, looking jealously at each other’s pubic bush.

But their number was few! After a dragging lapse of minutes, middle-aged matrons broke ranks and delivered to the military a trickle of damsels who had to be physically pulled into a prominence they did not desire. Firm fingers on reluctant arms made it clear which way a daughter’s duty lay. The daughters wept to no avail and eyed the Army’s rampant cocks, clearly visible beneath military pants, with apprehension. Mothers walked back with the coverings of chastity over one arm whilst she who had worn them tearfully positioned her arms for the handcuffs. When the supply of metal restraints gave out, the soldiers resorted to rope and laughed enjoyably at the feminine protests as they tied the knots: “Please, suh, not so tight,” or, “That’s hurting me, you dumb ox!” and the inevitable. “Yo’ don’ need to tie me. I promise I be good.”

The stretching out of the length of the coffle chain and its metal collars caused sensation. The completed assembly of twenty youthful females eyed it with disfavour. Some struggled uselessly as the collar was raised to their neck. Others accepted the metal band without demur, their spirits already passive from the clutch of cuffs upon their wrists and an awareness of vulnerability. The soldiers’ hands left no fur unfelt! It took several of them to subdue the more militant adherents to the Cause while her throat was circled and locked and the trailing links joined her to her sisters in ignominy. When the order to bend and protrude their bottoms was fully digested there was a further fracas with the recalcitrants: a problem easily dealt with by whipping whatever portions of their person they exposed until their bottom was bent and shining with the rest. The twenty proffered posteriors was an impressive sight. The President of Zindawba was an opportunist.

He announced resoundingly that since a white woman had given her all for the Republic he could do no less. Warm as the day might be, he himself would personally thrash the twenty naked bottoms of a delinquent town. He would use the ignoble cane, as had been done to the members of his Guard, and would deliver the same number of strokes. Failure to hold still for the honour of his attention would earn a flogging.

It might be said that never had so many winced so well. The recipients of the strokes winced, their families winced for them, the Troop winced in bitter sympathy, and Caroline winced as the cane buried itself in young and girlish flesh with an outrageous splat. Tears flowed freely and feminine exclamations of dolor were loud and varied. Only the most hardy and optimistic damsels spread their legs and thrust back with their pudendums in the hope their pouting labia might spark an executive interest in what they had to offer.

But the biggest sensation was yet to come. The President, only mildly sweating after his exertions, resumed the platform and explained that since his Guard had been sold into slavery and the money received by unworthy members of the Republic, an obligation upon the nation remained unfulfilled. Zindawba believed in trade. It believed in trust. Its reputation for integrity must remain unsullied by default. Restitution was imperative, its means were obvious . . . !

The Troop’s heart bled for the surrogate twenty.

The twenty themselves shuffled and clinked their chains and snubbed each other’s necks until they desisted in a dolorous recognition of impotence. Tears flowed afresh. Caroline looked down in pity and wondered what their slavery would be.

Mr. Saud glowed. His relief was obvious, his gratitude effusive. Shaking the Presidential hand upon the platform he spoke glowingly of the New Republic and its ruler. He lied colourfully as to his conviction that his investment in Zindawban damsels would not be forfeit to the fortunes of war. He assured concerned parents of their daughters’ prospects in their new life. Each would achieve a bliss beyond the capacity of Moghata to bestow. Their brief discomfort in the coffle was but a conditioning prelude to glory . . .

Mr. Saud even got his truck back. The twenty hostages to a rebel Cause were loaded therein to the chime of chains, and Mr. Saud and his entourage departed in a cloud of dust. The President’s Brass Band played the Zindawban national anthem with elan.

11

Slave Girls in Penitence

Flexing against the discomfort of hands bound behind her back, Trudy Ramsay recalled the words of a fictional character, uttered in disgust to the effect. “The Law is an Ass!” She recalled references to the blindness of Justice, and an abstruse affirmation that “Justice must always SEEM to be done!” She sympathised with all of them. Particularly she sympathised with herself. When the Court asked her how she pleaded, she said she was sorry but she didn’t know. She wanted to cry but would not disgrace the Troop.

“You were specifically unlocked from the coffle, Trudy, and taken to the outlaw, Nykobe.” Rulua’s voice was troubled. “Please tell the Court why.”

“Because he wanted to fuck me.”

“Trudy, that’s awful!”

“Well, not really. You see—”

“I am referring to that shocking word.”

“Sorry. I thought that was the one you’d want me to use.”

“Do you wish to tell this Court you were raped?” The prisoner giggled. “Well no, I suppose not.”

“In other words you granted access to your body to an enemy of the State?”

“Mmmmmm, if you want to put it that way.”

“Were you bound when the act was consummated?”

Trudy giggled again. “I was handcuffed behind my back. It made it awfully difficult to lay down and sort of—sort of—lifted my bottom up a bit.”

“Trudy, are you being facetious?”

“Well, Captain, it does seem a lot of fuss about nothing.” Trudy looked around brightly at the stern, or concerned, faces of the court-martial. “If I’ve done something bad, couldn’t you just cane my behind or my hands or something?”

“The implications are not as trivial as you seem to think, dear.” Rulua strove to keep her tone ponderous enough to impress. “Not only have you given comfort to the enemy, but you have publicly made confessions beneficial to his Cause.”

“I was just doing what I was asked. And I bet none of the people in the crowd even bothered to listen. They were all looking at the Troop without its clothes on. There was one chap I noticed—”

“Trudy, pay attention! Do you wish to tell us you were tortured into complying with the enemy’s demands?”

“Gosh no! He’s really awfully nice. If you could just meet him—”

“That’s enough! And you were naked through these, er, experiences?”

“They burned my uniform.”

“Surely you could have found some covering?”

“I never thought of it. Being naked’s really awfully handy, and I’ve been naked so often.”

“You’re not taking this seriously enough, dear. You must—”

“Let me have a go at her, eh?” Ringbolt’s voice was testy, but his fierce gaze held affection for the girl on trial. His reasoning was a series of barks. “You’ve inked your blotter, dammit! Not so much yours as ours. You’re one of our guards, see! And all these wogs out there know damn well Nykobe shoved it into you, and then they heard what you had to say on that ruddy platform. Damn poor show! Leaves us with a red face unless we do something . . . !”

“I do understand, sir. You have to make an example—”

“Dammit, girl, that’s the word I was looking for. The wogs have to know our justice is fair to both sides. We’ve just sent twenty of their little pigeons off into slavery. The least we can do is show ’em we can punish one of ours.”

“You put it so well, sir. I won’t mind a bit.” The Court exhaled a collective sigh. Trudy made an admirable prisoner. But surely a defendant should—!

“I don’t want to put you to a lot of trouble . . .” The bound delinquent looked around smilingly. “Let’s just say I’m guilty. You can cane my bottom in public and everyone will feel better.”

“My dear, this means more than the caning of your bottom,” Rulua explained sadly. “We use the cane too much. It ill befits all transgressions.”

A cold hand clutched Trudy’s heart. “You’re not going to—I mean, you’re not thinking of—putting me in prison?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You mean locked alone in a little stone room with a little window with bars . . . ? And would I be chained?” Trudy’s query was tremulous.

“I’m afraid so, dear.”

The girl with bound hands was trying to glimpse the enormity of a vision too awful to contemplate . . .

“And I’d be locked in there for days or weeks . . . !” She peered further into horror. “Or months—? Or years—?”

“It is a possible sentence, Trudy.”

“But I couldn’t bear it! I just couldn’t! I’d want to die!” She swept an appealing gaze from one sympathetic face to another. “I’d sooner be flogged a hundred times.”

The Court sighed again. “But, dear, we don’t want to have you flogged. We have hoped to avoid—”

“Flog me! Oh please—not prison!” Trudy’s voice broke in the violence of her distress.

“Control yourself, gel!” the W.O. admonished severely. “How about a nice face—saving sentence of thirty days in a cell? And none of this hardware business. Your hands can stay tied the way they are.”

“No, oh no! Don’t lock me up!”

“Damn gel’s claustrophobic.” W.O. Ringbolt looked around aggressively. “Wouldn’t do to lock her up. Damn pity! She’s a nice kid. Ruddy shame to have to fall back on lacing her hide.” He paused thoughtfully. “On the other hand it does make a bloomin’ fine show for the wogs.”

The Court had decided on a compromise.

“I suppose it’s not a bad decision,” Captain Rulua said reflectively. “It makes a satisfactory display of you—and since you’re so frightened of prison . . . !” She surveyed the timber ‘T’ with distaste. “Personally I’d sooner put in that thirty days in a cell.”

“But I’ve only been sentenced to twenty-four hours of this!”

“It will seem like twenty-four days, love. Believe me!”

“Well, it’s settled now and that’s the end of it. Oh, Rulua, I didn’t want that prison thing! I’m sorry if I’m ungrateful.” The repentant prisoner gazed without joy at the structure awaiting her nakedness. “I suppose that’s what I get fixed to?” she asked wanly.

“Sergeant Galla will tie you, Trudy. Nice and tight.”

Galla had carried a box from the Jeep. She placed it against the upright post. “Let me have your hands, dear.”

Trudy turned and gazed at her punishment while the ropes were taken from her wrists. When her hands fell free she scratched her nose, her eyes mischievous. “I’m doing this now because I won’t be able to later . . . I guess you want me to step up on that box?”

“Your back to the wood, dear.”

Sadly, the sergeant found another box and used it to stand on herself while she completed her task. The ‘T’ was not six feet high, but she wanted to do a good job and present a well-bound captive to the community. She did not want to punish her trooper at all.

“My hands out along this bit across the top, Galla?”

“That’s right, arms way out.”

“I’ll look pretty, won’t I! I know I won’t like it but it’s better than looking untidy.”

They adored her as they performed their distasteful task. Trudy had a way with her: Trudy was special. The post had been set in the centre of a small playing area by the town school. No one need pass by, but the ‘T’ and its nude burden would be visible to all of Moghata. The children would soon carry word of a maiden’s penitence. Interested spectators could come as close as they wished and stay and ogle for as long as they liked. For the girl being bound it was as good a place as any.

“Gosh, Galla, you’re making my tummy tight. Why all that rope!”

“You see why in a minute, love.”

Trudy’s wrists were roped, her elbows were roped, her armpits were roped. Each group of bands was emphasised and made more tight by a circling cinch or two. From her hips up she was now immobilised, save for her fingers and her head she could not even twitch. Her breasts jutted, her cinched middle causing her lungs to inflate her chest . .

“Sorry about this one, Trudy love.” Galla was busy with strands between the unbound legs. They went down from the waist strictures one on each side of her pussy, protruding its lips in a pout, then up the back to be tugged and pulled so as to demandingly divide her crotch. “I’m afraid it’s part of the picture.” Thoughtfully, she tied a knot. Then took away the box.

Trudy gasped in shock. The ropes had become enemies indeed, biting at her wherever they touched. She understood now the circles round her tummy beneath her ribs, they were supporting the greater part of her weight. Her bare armpits and her female secret took the rest. Woodenly and without protest she exclaimed in bitter understanding: “Oh, Galla ! Galla—!” She looked at Rulua regretfully “You tried to tell me—you tried!”

They separated her feet, then placed one on each side of the post and bound them there, next, her knees. The separation of her legs displayed her black muff as a feminine challenge to the world. “Is my little do-funny wide open?” she asked woefully. “It feels like it.”

They assured her it was not. Its lips were puffed but chastely closed, within them there was no strand of rope to cut. Trudy said “Thank you” politely, then started to cry. Her superior officers stood on the boxes and dried her tears as they fell. When she stopped sobbing they put the boxes in the Jeep and drove away. The fact they had kissed her first was their captive’s only comfort.

Twenty-four hours! The sentence throbbed in the mind of the bound girl. She was already vibrant with pain. It would get worse. She could not know if after hanging thus for many hours she would become numb and inured to her punishment or if the nagging bite’ of the cords was progressively awful. Either way she was stuck with a penance she must pay to a concept of Justice, and affection for those who had bound her. She supposed the time must eventually pass. She looked about her world with dreary disinterest.

Warrant Officer Ringbolt was doing what he considered the ‘right thing.’ Had one of his girls been hospitalised he would have visited with flowers and said appropriate things. He visited his one delinquent damsel now, minus the carnations. Trudy was grateful but embarrassed to be so starkly naked in his presence. The W.O. had a habit of beetling his brows in a focus on her most female parts. She might easily have thought of him as a dirty old man, but his scrutiny was always such as to convey surprise that any human being could be so quaintly endowed.

“Sorry about this, m’gel.” He frowned at her right breast. “Bit uncomfortable, eh!”

“Thank you, sir. Yes, it hurts.”

“Uncivilised lot here.” He transferred his attention to her crotch. “The white man’s burden, and all that rot.” He guffawed. “In your case, the white woman’s, eh!”

“I expect so, sir.”

Trudy always felt sorry for Warrant Officer Ringbolt. His world had been male, no mark of matrimony had marred his record. He was a veteran of sundry wars and skirmishes, a relic of the British Raj in India and the days of District Commissioners in Africa. He was no longer quite real. Yet, considering what he had done with the Troop, who could say that the passing of his breed was not a loss! He was a solid bulwark of faith in something. That the something had slowly dissolved beneath his feet through half a lifetime diluted his faith no whit.

Inevitably he was a ‘father figure’. Ageless as the rock, he could well have been a grandfather. In their sexual encounters she had felt a child beneath his flinty eyes and granite features. Seeing almost as incestuous their fleshly couplings: and herself as a naughty little girl when he caned her bottom or her hands. But in none of the pain he bestowed upon her skin had he seemed a sadist. He was a lonely man seeking a communion he had never found. She was immovably bound but she longed to give him comfort.

“Wogs give you any trouble? I mean . . . can’t, move, can you! Any of ’em—do things—?”

There had been the girl child who had promised to return in the darkness and suck “that nice hairy cunny.” There had been small boys fingering her breasts and tentatively pinching her nipples. They had been enraptured by the discovery that manipulation could enlarge the pink and defenceless buds and make them hard. They had poked at her with bits of stick, then gone away, bored: Too young to value the treasure on the ‘T’.

“Not really, sir. Just children. The adults just look at me and make remarks I don’t understand.”

“Just as well, I expect!”

“But I think it’s working! I mean, sir, I’m here to prove a point, and the way I’m fixed gets it across to them.”

The W.O. nodded absently, allowing his regard to rove from breasts to parted legs, from belly to armpits. His voice was diffident: “Ever feel like going home—the Old Country? Making a run for it?”

“Yes, sir. But it’s not possible, is it?”

“Looked at in terms of ‘escape’?”

“Yes sir—escape! What would be done if I was caught?”

“Humph, see your point! Bit like Nelson’s sailors and Wellington’s army. Once they’d taken the King’s shilling they’d had it. Least you could expect would be a flogging and a spell of that prison you’re so skittish about.” He shrugged apologetically. “They’d have to make an example of you, see what I mean?”

“Yes, sir, I’ve seen all along. But the Troop’s made a life for me. I don’t know what I’d do without the Troop.”

He gave her a fumbling father’s kiss before he left.

“But, Khalief, the poor darling will be suffering terribly!”

The President of Zindawba chuckled at the vehemence in his Mistress’s anxiety. “Don’t agonise, love. She’ll survive.”

“I won’t sleep a wink all night thinking about her—out there tied the way Rulua told me.”

“Get me a drink and stop the emoting or I’ll beat your bottom.” Abhad gazed tenderly at his most prized possession. “I suppose they can put up another post and tie you to it the same way if you want to keep her company?”

“Oh, Khalief, don’t tease! And anyway, that wouldn’t do her any good at all. How about letting me take her place after a few hours?”

“I’ve been waiting for that. You’d do it too!”

“Please let me? Khalief, I’m serious.”

“No!”

The emphatic negative meant Khalief would punish her if she importuned again. She twisted irritably on the rug at his feet, searching for an approach.

“Caroline.” His use of her name was ominous. “You’re in a mood I don’t trust. Get handcuffs.”

Caroline obeyed her lord, but listlessly, her mind still racing. When she knelt and proffered both the chrome circlets and her wrists she bestowed her most winsome smile. “Forgive me, lord. I am but a foolish female.”

“Craft and designing. You should be beaten daily.” He slowly tightened the bands upon her, emphasising each click of the cuff. “I wouldn’t put it past you to do something really foolish for that girl.”

“Thank you, lord.” Caroline repossessed her hands and admired the shining metal now joining them. “Would you like me to fetch a cane?”

“No. Unless I’m brutal you enjoy it.”

“You are never brutal with me, lord.”

“You know damn well I am. You’d ride over me roughshod if I wasn’t.”

“You are too sweet to me, lord. Please be brutal now. Tie me for a while in Trudy’s place? It will teach me a lesson.”

The President of Zindawba shook his head sadly.

“Very well.” It was as though he was conceding a defeat. “You may go and fetch me the cane you like the least.”

Caroline Dowling knew herself privileged. She had become Mistress of the Residency as well as Mistress of the man who ruled Zindawba. That she was frequently demoted to the most humble of slaves bothered her not at all. The Residency staff was forced to make frequent adjustments to her unstable status, viewing her in costly raiment or nude in chains with equal aplomb. Their impersonal acceptance of her in any condition simplified her life enormously. Even when she was sent to Mr. Assad to be whipped he performed the delightful task with exceeding charm, marking her skin with an artist’s skill. They were the best of friends. The handcuffs did not matter. They would not stop her. She knew they had been locked on her wrists as a symbol, a warning. She felt guilty in abusing the trust they actually implied. Khalief often clasped them on her wrists, knowing she adored wearing them. For Caroline too they had a symbolism all her own. Within their confinement she had perfected a remarkable dexterity.

It was dusk, approaching night. Caroline’s only disguise was the black and anonymous wraparound. It hid her dress. It hid the handcuffs. It hid the knife. It hid even the colour of her skin, making her one with the Moghata evening. The town was no metropolis, her destination was little more than half a mile.

The two girls gazed at each other in shock. The bindings upon Trudy’s nakedness were even more cruel than Caroline had expected. But she herself was an incongruity in her frock, her perfume and her handcuffs. The girl tied to the post belonged, but Caroline was not of Moghata.

“Oh, darling, you shouldn’t have come! Or did he let you?”

Caroline laughed softly and kissed the taut breasts. “He doesn’t know. Poor dear man, he thought the handcuffs would prevent—a sort of stern warning . . . !”

“You shouldn’t be here, should you?”

“Well, maybe not.” Caroline nibbled a responsive nipple. “But it’s such ages since I had you, then, when they told me what they’d done to you . . . and the reason—I had to come.”

“You’ll be whipped, won’t you!”

“If he finds out,” Caroline chuckled. “I’m going to give you six orgasms, just the way you are! Then I’m going to cut you loose, give you this awful black thing and the knife, and then I’m going to run like crazy . . . could be I’ll make it O.K.”

“But you mustn’t! The risk—!”

“Want me to stop nibbling?”

“Well no, it’s lovely. But, oh gosh, this is crazy—”

“Nuhnuh! You can easily tell ’em some cock and bull story ’bout bad men cutting you loose to screw you: and you escaping . . . ! Besides, you haven’t a thing to say about it, you’re helpless.”

“You telling me! I can’t even twitch. Oh, Caroline . . . ! Oh, darling—! Oh—oh—oh!”

“That’s right. Just keep gasping. I’ll do the work.” Caroline’s admonition was muffled by pubic hair and the nuzzling of pouting lips.

For a long time neither girl said anything articulate.

When the last gasp had died away and Caroline had explored her mouth for tenacious pubic hairs she said with firm decision: “I’ll cut the ropes now, your arms first. Then lean on me as I cut on down.”

They clung, breathing heavily, wallowing in proximity. Trudy was sobbing tears of joy and relief. The peeling away of the strictures within her flesh had been agony, but it was done . . . past! Caroline’s assurance was infectious. Somehow everything would work itself out. She would think of a story, and in the meantime she was not hurting anymore. She had been bound to the ‘T’ for four or five hours: it had punished her cruelly, but it was done! Naughty little Trudy was reprieved, reprieved, reprieved . . . ! She clung and hugged her gorgeous Caroline in an ecstasy of love. It was the elder girl who first beheld their doom.

Caroline tensed, stricken. Trudy turned in alarm.

Both gazed in trepidation at the male statue, a black silhouette in the night, silent and accusing. With a despairing sob, Caroline flung herself at the feet of judgment. “Punish me. Don’t punish Trudy. It’s all my fault—I planned it all—” She clung in frantic appeal to the male leg with her chained hands, rubbing it with her cheek and moaning penitence. Suddenly she tensed again, thrusting herself away, looking up in horror. The man was not Khalief Abhad.

It was Nicholas Nykobe. It was a tense moment: the three of them assessing what they saw. A deep rumble of amusement welled from the rebel leader’s throat. In a pure female instinct Trudy sped to take the pose the older girl had relinquished in fear. She clutched the massive legs in thankful security, she had no need of words. It was Nykobe who spoke first.

“I came as soon as I heard.” He picked up the nude trooper and cradled her possessively, shrewd fingers finding the deep weals the ropes had left in her flesh. His arms held Trudy, but his scrutiny was fastened on Caroline. “And who have we here? What’s your name, woman?”

“She has to go.” Trudy was trembling. “She came to cut me loose. She’s in danger—”

In a sweep of lithe motion, Nykobe set his love upon her feet and grasped Caroline by the arm. “I asked your name, girl?”

“It’s Jenny Smith,” Caroline said blandly, hoping he could not hear the pounding of her heart.

With both hands he held her at arm’s length, looking her up and down in growing comprehension. “And why does Jenny Smith wear handcuffs?” he asked drily.

Trudy was tugging at his arm. “It’s her husband,” she said wildly. “They do it for amusement. Let her go so she doesn’t get caught—she’s been so kind to me. Please, lord . . . ?”

Nykobe seemed not to hear. “She’s caught already, beloved child.” His teeth showed white in a pleased smile. “This is my lucky day. I get my little trooper back, and also the President’s whore. The gods are kind to Nicholas Nykobe.”

Caroline wrenched herself free and fled. He caught her easily in four leaps, pinning her to the ground with a cruel knee while he pealed a bird call into the night. When the black bulk of the Jeep slid whisperingly and without lights to stop beside the strange trio, he spoke a single demand: “Rope.”

Caroline could not fight him. He was as strong as Khalief Abhad. She knew herself captured, a helpless prey, the spoil of war. Against the battering of Trudy’s small fists and frantic demands, she uttered a gentle: “Hush, darling . . . hush! He has to take me. Don’t you see—I’m too good a prize to pass up.”

“But it’s all wrong! It’s so unfair,” Trudy wailed. “Please, lord, let her go . . . Oh, please let her go.”

Caroline gasped at a familiar pain. Strands of rope had circled her elbows and were tightening inexorably. Deft dark fingers arranged her forearms and her cuffed hands at her waist before the ruthless cinching drew her elbows close at her back and knotted them safely. She was now helpless. The bite of metal on her wrists combined with the scorch of rope on her arms made her a subservient package easily handled. She thought of Khalief and knew the bitterness of despair.

Nykobe stood erect. Chuckling, he repossessed his distraught trooper and held her nudity close. “Do I have to tie you too, love?”

“No, of course you don’t! Oh well, perhaps you’d better—! Oh damn, damn, damn, I just don’t know! Let her loose—let her loose! Oh please?”

“No, child, she’s worth more than an army—”

“You mean you’re going to hold her for ransom to try and make the President do what you want? Then, if he won’t, you’ll do things to her—horrible things . . . ?”

“It is war, little one. Get in the Jeep, in front with me. The sooner we are gone the better.”

“Help! Help—someone help . . . !”

Trudy’s desperate cry echoed eerily across the open space and was lost in darkness. In swift gentleness Nykobe pinned her down and tied her wrists and elbows behind her back, thrust rag into her protesting mouth and tied it tight. Thoughtfully he gagged Caroline too. Both girls ceased to struggle. He lifted Trudy into the Jeep while his henchman disposed Caroline into the back. He tied her ankles and tugged them up to her elbows to make her the smallest and most helpless bundle of femaleness possible. He crouched beside her, smelling heavily of sweat. The motor came to life. Caroline could not move but she could weep. If the soldier noticed her tears he gave no sign.

“The President’s spies haven’t found this place yet.” Nykobe busied himself with the checking of blinds upon the windows and the adjustment of electric lamps. They had heard the purr of the generator as they had been carried from the Jeep. “Just an isolated farmhouse,” he chuckled. . . . loaned.”

Caroline’s ankles had been freed. The two tied and gagged females stood in penitence before their lord, mute but inwardly seething. Nykobe eyed them with the paternal benevolence of a school principal to whom a pair of delinquent damsels have been sent for correction. “If I remove your gags, may I expect a reasonable silence?” he inquired drily.

They nodded.

Endowed with speech, Caroline asked, woodenly:

“Punish me, not her. She was only trying to help—”

“It was I who cried out, lord. Punish me! Poor darling, she—”

Nykobe laughed at their concern, waving it away with a gesture. “Not that again, please! I refuse to punish either of you.” Amusedly, he untied his beloved’s hands and arms. “There! You are free. Are you going to run away?”

“No.” She sparkled up at him. “But please untie—”

He held up a hand to stem the flood. “Yes, yes, yes! I know! Please untie darling Caroline because her elbows hurt . . . !” He motioned to his hostage. “Come here.”

The President’s Mistress obeyed, turning her back and standing still while her elbows were relieved of their biting strictures. She sighed in relief and said a polite “Thank you.”

“You’ll have to wear those handcuffs, I don’t have a key.” He frowned at her. “I have to remember you’re a prisoner. I suppose you’d run if you got the chance?”

“Yes.”

Nykobe nodded. “A good honest answer. I’ll try and not burden you with opportunity.” He went to a cupboard, rummaged, and returned with a collar and chain. “Hold still. Tilt your chin.”

Caroline knew herself blushing as the strong fingers fitted the metal circlet on her throat and pressed it tight to make its lock respond with a daunting click. It was snug upon her neck, obviously fashioned for a woman. The chain tether was long, he dropped the handful of links on the floor and padlocked its end round an upright support for the roof. It would need an earthquake or a key to set her free. She felt shamed, but made no demur. It was Trudy who exclaimed:

“But you’ve chained her like a dog! Collars are beastly—and all that chain—!”

“Trudy, keep quiet.” It was Caroline the captive who admonished. “Mr. Nykobe’s being quite kind to me. There’s enough chain so I can sit at the table with you. I simply can’t run away. Look, I’ve got quite a lot of freedom.” She paced back and forth to the limits of her tether. “See, it’s not really cruel—I don’t hurt.”

“Mrs. Dowling is a sensible woman,” Nykobe approved. “She will make an admirable hostage. Help her remove her clothes, Trudy. She looks absurd attired for a tea party.”

“How can I get her clothes off, the way you’ve got her fixed!”

Caroline, ruefully, tore at her clothes herself, her joined hands making the task difficult. Why make a fuss! If Nykobe wanted her naked he would ensure she was stripped. “You haven’t a stitch on yourself, y’know, dear.” She comforted a sulky girl whose hands were reluctant to her lord’s command.

“With daylight we make a run for it,” Nicholas Nykobe informed his women soberly. “We cannot stay here. Now we sleep.”

“But, please lord, what are you going to do with Caroline?” Trudy persisted dangerously.

“She is a hostage. Her price is half of Zindawba.” The prisoner was stricken. “Abhad will never pay that! When he refuses, what will you do with me?”

“We will consider the means of your execution tomorrow,” said Nicholas Nykobe blandly. He stretched out on the floor. “The two of you may hold each other for comfort. If you utter another word you will both be thrashed.”

The silence in the room was heavy with unspoken words.

The sound of the trucks had no more than become audible when the door burst open, light flooded, and Khalief Abhad stood, huge and menacing in the glare, an automatic rifle at the ready. He wore only a breech-clout. At his back were soldiers, their rifle barrels hungry for the trigger. Two of the trio on the floor were prudent in immobility. Caroline was trembling in shame and longed only to die.

“We followed,” Abhad said simply. He smiled at the startled and naked member of his Guard. “My apologies, child. We used you as bait for the tiger.” He turned his regard upon his mortified Mistress but said no word, waiting . . .

Mrs. Caroline Dowling disengaged herself from loving arms. At the full length of her neck tether she knelt in submission before her Master. “I am guilty, lord,” she said without emotion. “I am guilty, I do not plead.”

“You will be flogged.”

“Of course, lord. It is only proper.”

“I trusted you!”

Caroline wept piteously.

“By setting your little sweetheart free you nearly ruined our whole plan—a few minutes either way—!” Khalief was angry.

The delinquent sobbed. “Yes, yes, punish me!” Khalief pointed a commanding finger at a nude trooper about to burst into speech. “Quiet, you! I don’t want to hear.” He winked sardonically. “If the just punishments of your lesbian love are too much for you to bear I may allow you to share them. But if you go to prison for five years it is by your own persistence.” Abhad smiled inwardly at the visible impact of this pronouncement upon the naked girl. “Or perhaps you would like to resume your twenty-four hours on that post?”

Trudy wept too. Their future seemed bleak. She slithered over to Nykobe and wet his chest with her own wet cheeks. “I am sorry, lord. Oh—oh—oh damn everything! It’s all gone wrong!” She nestled into the cradle of his arms.

“Most touching!” The President sounded genuinely regretful. “You will forget him, child. Believe me, time will erase—”

“When d’you intend to have me shot?” Nykobe inquired.

“Immediately would be pleasantly simple.” Abhad examined his enemy reflectively. “But I suppose I had best extract the most political profit from a magnificent trial as a prelude to the firing squad. Imagine what the world’s press will make of it!”

“This girl? Will you harm her?”

“No. Her infatuation for you is no doubt a natural reflex of her glands. Actually she deserves some honour. She is a member of my Guard. She will return to its ranks, esteemed by all.”

Caroline knew herself so totally condemned she could toss caution to the winds. Unconsciously she reverted to the Mrs. Robert Dowling of long ago. “Khalief, don’t be so mean! You don’t have to kill this poor man—or take his girl away. They love each other.”

“How kind of you to explain.” Abhad’s voice was cold.

“Oh, don’t sound so stuffy! Why don’t you offer Mr. Nykobe some sort of job? I’m sure he’d make a good—”

“Silence, woman!” Nicholas Nykobe was outraged. “I need no woman to plead—and as for working for this vulture—!”

“See, you’re just as bad as he is!” Caroline turned her feminine fury on the disgruntled rebel. “You men, you’re all the same—sound and fury! And we could have had the nicest wedding—!”

“Can you run a nation when you cannot control a woman!” Nykobe glared at his enemy, scoring heavily with sarcasm.

“Would you happen to have a cane or whip around this place . . . ?”

The warring males had become allies against a woman’s scorn. With thudding heart, Caroline watched her lord and master take the limber length from his enemy and flex it in satisfaction. Without a word, she tossed her head in disdain and positioned her ready nakedness, bent forward, her linked hands on each side of the post to which her neck was chained. Her pink bottom was a perfect target.

The President of Zindawba thrashed his Mistress with cold skill. Caroline knew he would not have hurt her so much had Nykobe not been watching. She kept her moans and cries to the barest minimum she could manage as the cane cut and sliced her flesh.

“Thank you, lord. I was impertinent.”

Caroline was panting with the pain, but was a woman possessed. Kneeling submissively, she looked at the two dictators impartially. “Please. please—don’t you see! You can be friends. You don’t have to keep killing . . . ! You’ve got Trudy and me: when you’re angry, whip us! That’s what women are for. Don’t you both feel better now for having cut my bottom half to bits?” She glared at a startled Nykobe. “Do you want to have a go at me now? I’ll bend over if you do. Or would you sooner use a whip on my back?”

“Abhad—this woman—!” Nykobe was groping. “Whip her yourself.” Khalief’s voice was sardonic.

Caroline, panting, watched the rebel go again to his drawer. This time he turned holding the black snake of a whip. Without thinking, she advanced to wrest it from him, but was snubbed short by her collar. In frustrated fury she followed impulse. She picked up the strip of rug and heaved with all the strength of her fettered hands . . .

The feet of Nicholas Nykobe followed the rug.

The massive bulk of their owner sat on the floor with a thud. The whip flew from his hand. Caroline picked it up. There was a terrible silence.

Trudy giggled. Within seconds the room was an uproar of hilarity. The man on the floor laughed loudest. Only Caroline remained sober. Dragging her chain until it was taut upon her neck, she proffered the whip to Khalief Abhad. “You whip me, master. I belong to you.” She returned to the post and flattened her nakedness against it, her handcuffed wrists above her head.

“The key to her collar, Nykobe: let me have it.” She stood, trembling, as the metal band was taken from her neck. She turned to see Abhad pick Trudy up and toss her at the man who had risen from the floor. “Take this child and the Governorship of the Province.” Khalief’s voice was fierce. “Is that enough?”

Nicholas Nykobe held mischievous nudity possessively. His words were firm. “It is enough, lord.”

The President of Zindawba picked up his thrashed Mistress and carried her out to the car.

Content

Beloved Bonds
F.E. Campbell

Prologue

1 Zindawba

2 The Gorgeous Rape

3 Forever Chained

4 Zindawba Jail

5 Punishment Post

6 Discipline

7 Nude Courage

8 Torture of Tulabe

9 Slave Chain

10 Females Fettered

11 Slave Girls in Penitence