"But the argument… how-?" My darling Mistress was instantly indignant, "About six of them walked in and took over — just like that?"
"But what did they say?"
"Damn little. Some shocking gangsters were after you, and they'd been sent to intervene. They called in help. When I told them this was England and the police handled things like that, they produced the handcuffs. I'm sure that Lotta female enjoyed snapping them on behind my back. It was while I stood there tugging at the damn things on my wrists and not quite believing any of it that they told me they were staying and that I must brief the servants and have them carry on normally. I had to make a plausible story so I could be absent a day or two here and there without raised eyebrows. Lotta was the chatelaine in my absence."
"Absence'!" Yola sardonically shook her fettered hands at me. "I'm not exactly present right now, am I!"
"And you said no."
"Of course! I was outraged. That's when they whipped me. After they'd whipped me quite awhile it didn't seem quite so preposterous and I said yes." My heart went out to my darling. How well I knew! "But why the dungeon?" I asked, puzzled. She shrugged. "They don't trust me. Suppose you can't blame 'em. I haven't been very polite." She gave a brief giggle. "Phone calls have been a bit of a poser for 'em. With those they wanted me to take — those referring to you, Lotta dashes down, unlocks my waist band and carries me to the nearest phone. She told me what to say. Afterwards she carries me back and locks me to the wall again. I suppose it is a neat disposal of a nagging female."
"They don't need all those chains on you." My Mistress gave me a wry grin. "I put this many on you often enough. It's been a marvellous opportunity for me to gauge their effect. It's quite potent, isn't it?"
"Keeps a slave girl in her place and lets her know what she is."
"Sure. That is actually the way it works on a girl. It's having that effect on me, and I didn't have a predilection the way you did."
"But, darling, you can't possibly be a slave girl, you're not the type, and you don't want-" Yola gazed at me solemnly. "A few days ago that's what I'd have said myself. But now I'm not sure. I just don't know!"
"There's a difference between a slave girl and just a prisoner. You're a prisoner." Yolanda looked at me with love. "You're being sweet, Phemie. But look at the two of us. We're both locked in and chained, aren't we. What's the difference?" There wasn't any. In a second frenzy of wanting we fought our chains to appease our hunger with avid lips upon the hot wet sex. At night we slept peacefully entwined. The days and nights of our imprisonment slipped by. Each morning I was taken, by a solicitous Lotta, and bathed and perfumed and loved. I could tell she was genuinely pleased to possess me again. To her I would always be a slave girl, our status was normal. She refused to change my handcuffs. She had shrewdly divined their presence on my wrists. It amused her to keep them there. I did not argue. I'd asked for them and I'd damn well got them! I thought nostalgically of James clicking them on me. It seemed a million years away. Whilst Lotta treated me with affection, she had nothing but an indignant scorn for my Mistress. Yola had offended some deeply ingrained sense of what the Arab woman considered proper. Quite probably Lotta saw all Western females as slaves and had no patience with one of them who refused the appellation. She flatly refused my plea that Yola enjoy the same privileges as myself. No bath! No removal of a single shackle! She was adamant. I dared not push too hard for fear I'd earn us both a whipping to keep us quiet. With my wrists handcuffed behind my back I could perform no service for Yola that she could not manage herself. Apart from the indignity of their weight and intent, her chains actually gave her more scope for the use of her hands than my handcuffs granted me. Despite our metal bonds we gloried in a veritable orgy of making love. On the day when, after I had been bathed, I was taken to Yola's bedroom and bedecked in the flimsy exquisiteness I remembered so well, I knew what to expect. Lotta smiled but would not tell. My handcuffs stayed. I pleaded for their removal, but was laughed at. They had not impeded the trifles which now adorned my breasts and loins. Lotta saw them as appropriate to the other bangles she placed upon my person. I was propelled into the huge drawing room with something of a flourish. He was there! The same lined face that had no age, the same kind wise eyes that glowed with delight at the sight of me. With a small cry of pure love I sank to my knees at his feet and sought his hand. The cuffs prevented me clasping it, but he pressed it to my lips and held it firm while I kissed it again and yet again… I cannot tell you the quality or name of the affection I bore the Sheik Inman Azzam but it was deep and it was without lust.
"My child, my dear child!" He raised me to my feet and kissed me softly on my forehead. "Let me look at you." He held me at arm's length for a long time. "You are more beautiful than ever, a dream of loveliness." He turned me gently around. "Come, come! You have been a bad girl?" He fingered my handcuffs. I confessed to my erotic folly.
"And you wish to wear them still?"
"If it please my lord."
"It pleases me. You are a treasure of delight."
"Master, there is Yolanda, Miss Harding. She is chained in a dungeon." His eyes lit with humour. "It appears our esteemed Miss Harding had offended my trusted Lotta."
"It is a difference of cultures, lord, a misunderstanding."
"Ah yes. A difference you overcame most readily as I recall."
"Not before you had me whipped, lord."
"Even so, your adjustment amazed me."
"I am a slave girl, Master. It was born in me. Your lash explained everything I had not known,"
"Are you certain your adored Miss Harding cannot find grace by the same path?" I must have looked startled. Azzam laughed at my dismay. "Come, come, you exquisite creature! Stand out before me while I sit and feast my eyes and tell why I am here." I did as bidden. I arranged my femaleness to its best advantage. I wanted most ardently to please this man who had once owned me.
"Money, child. Always money! In that time when my delightful guest: the daughter of an old friend, stumbled on you in your chains I had a need. Because of it I gave you away." He gestured testily. "Fifty thousand pounds… to any of us now it is a bagatelle." I clinked my handcuffs and looked bright and attentive. "It is the oil. Since I sold you the oil has flowed from beneath my desert. I am richer than your King or your Queen." He gave the sigh I knew so well. "Where there is oil there comes the jackals, Their leader is Ashad."
"He is in London, lord."
"Ah yes! He is indeed! He is in England for you."
"Only for me? But Master-"
"This Ashad is a fox as well as a jackal. He had become aware that you possess my love. How he knows does not matter. He knows! He believes that with you as hostage he can wring concessions from me for his tattered Communists."
"Me?" I was askance. "For me-"
"Do not dissemble, child. I have loved you from the moment Lotta marched you before my eyes. As a father perhaps… but a father's love is strong."
"My lord-" My voice broke. I was crying. He must have pressed a bell. When Lotta came his order was terse: "Her handcuffs: remove them." When she had gone with the steel bands warm from my flesh I was trembling, "Master… may I?" The sheik Inman Azzam held out his arms.
"I think you get bathed and perfumed tomorrow, darling." Yola knelt in her chains and eyed me with amusement.
"What are you doing back in this dungeon wearing those pretty trifles? They belong in a Pasha's bedroom."
"I can't take them off, darling. They handcuffed my hands behind my back again."
"You mean they actually took them off for awhile! I wish I could be so lucky."
"You will be tomorrow."
"Why not today?" I felt a traitress. "They seem to feel you don't have the right attitude."
"I take it you have?" I moved up within the radius of her chain. "Strip me, darling." For a moment I thought Yola would angrily refuse. But, sulkily, she used her fettered hands to take from me all that Lotta had used for my adornment. Naked, I felt less guilty. Impelled by the same longing for beloved flesh we sank to the stone and, once again, tangled ourselves in each other's chains, Our mouths wet and seeking.
"I'm a decoy, darling," I explained afterwards, "Azzam believes Ashad's men will come and try to get me back. They know I'm here, but they don't know about the half dozen soldiers. Azzam says they can pick Ashad up anytime. It's the others they want most. They're dangerous types. They're out there somewhere, sort of hovering."
"Hmmmm! Wouldn't someone like to kidnap me out of my own dungeon! Phemie darling, I'm tired of being chained up down here." I was still on ticklish ground. Azzam had told me more.
"Darling-" I choked on what I found hard to tell. "It isn't just Ashad," Yola knew instantly. "No, Phemie, no! Not you!"
"He's going to take me back with him,"
"And you're willing!" Her voice was pure heartbreak.
"I don't have anything to say about it. He has a private plane and I'll be loaded on board in a big wicker basket, tightly bound, of course." I let a giggle slip by, "It's probably the same basket they used on me that other time, I'll be gagged too. He said it will save me the agonies of decision, About screaming, that is."
"You don't sound too put out about it."
"Darling, you know Azzam, I think I love him in a daughter-like way, In fact I know I do…" I tugged fretfully at my handcuffs. They're useful at such times as an expression of frustration. I wished ardently it was someone else who would say what had to be said, "But that isn't the crux of the problem. He's going to take you along too." It was the deepest dungeon silence ever. Yolanda broke it with an emphatic and outraged "No!" I did a bit more clinking, and hoped I looked as unhappy as I felt. "I don't think you'll have anything to say about it either."
"But it's… it's… nuts! And by their code and standard it's dishonest. I paid money for you."
"He mentioned that. He says he could easily give you a million for me if he was leaving you here. But he says it's not possible to buy a slave from a slave."
"What century does he think he's in!"
"He spoke of that too. He says the oil has created a whole new morality. The ones who have it possess unlimited power. He is quite sure that even if the authorities know he has taken you — I suppose abducted or kidnapped is the word. He says they won't do a thing. They won't want to offend him. He says it's going on all over that part of the world," Yola gave a tremendous sigh of impotence. "Oh damn! Damn these chains and damn this dungeon. I'm sure Azzam is a decent old fart in his own Arabian way but he's got delusions of grandeur. He's misjudging things, and one of the things is me. I'm not a slave, I'm the wrong type. Can't you tell him what a rotten slave girl I'd be for him?"