Pam-Ann

by Lindsey Brooks

  “You were satisfactory,” he said. “What’s the name of that big-titted girl you’re always hanging around with?”

  Her belly shrank and her heart with it. “Daisy,” she said hoarsely.

  Rafael seemed to look right through her. “Maybe I’ll try her next time.” He nodded towards the door. “Back to the slave quarters.” He let her struggle unaided to her feet. She took a painful step. “One more thing. You call me ‘Sir’. Forget again and I’ll punish you.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Pam said.

  *

  “If you weren’t wriggling so much I’d be finished by now and you wouldn’t have anything to wriggle about,” Daisy said, smoothing ointment on Pam’s throbbing backside.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Pam said through gritted teeth, but the numbing effect of Persephone’s salve was far greater than that of the Company’s and already making a difference to savaged skin and stiff muscles.

  “At least you didn’t have to put up with the Count again, like I did,” one of the girls clustered around Pam’s bunk said. “Talk about weird. After the dildo and pussy clamps and what those girls did to my ass I’ll never be the same again.”

  “It’s not like it’s your first caning,” another said. “And we’ve all been there.”

  “Yeah, but not with Lieutenant Drake,” a third added. Silence followed. All of the girls had been surprised when Pam had limped into the slave quarters the previous afternoon. None of them had ever felt more than a few taps of the rod from Drake’s hand. They seemed reluctant to believe he was capable of more. Pam knew better.

  Daisy had generously refused to use any of the special salve on her own whipped breasts and instead applied it liberally to the American girl’s hindquarters and aching pussy-lips and, when their hurt had eased, to her wickedly buzzing breasts. Even so, she had spent a long, uncomfortable night and an equally restless and disturbing day lying on her thin mattress with the slave routine going on around her, feeling despondent and painfully alone.

  Not only her welts and bruises troubled her. Her inner pain was beyond the reach of any medication, an ache of regret contracting like a steel band around her heart. She had hurt Rafael, not physically as he had her, but in the same way that she had been hurt herself – by rejection and betrayal. Rick had cheated on her with girls she had thought were friends, had lied, deceived her and never cared. The heartache he had caused had changed her, isolated her, shut her off from feeling, from hope and love. Pam was not fool enough to misunderstand what Rafael had been saying. She had told herself a hundred times that none of her own feelings were real. She could not possibly want to submit to Rafael Drake, give herself willingly as his slave, forever in his power and under his control. She could not possibly want to sacrifice the independence she had worked so hard to secure in her own world and remain in this one as a chattel, a thing not a person, and owned by someone else. She could not possibly have fallen in love with Rafael Drake.

  “Your bum’s finished,” Daisy said. “Want me to do your tits?”

  Pam blinked and gave a shudder. “It’s not worth the discomfort,” she said, and the girl began smoothing the salve left on her hand onto her own reddened breasts.

  “I’m sorry, Mistress, she’s not available. She’s excused duties.”

  The girls looked towards the doorway and the raised voice of Christine’s replacement as overseer.

  “Maybe you’d like to come and explain that to Miss Peake yourself, lover.”

  Pam’s stomach turned over. The overseer took a step back and looked nervously in her direction. Eve stepped into the room, clad in her usual leather and silk.

  “Miss Peake sent me. She says you know why.”

  Heart racing, Pam struggled off the bunk and Daisy helped her to her feet. She took a few tentative steps.

  “Ouch! That must hurt,” Eve said, looking at her purple rear cheeks. “Don’t worry, I’ll see she isn’t beaten any more,” she told the slave girls.

  The salve had turned the fire in Pam’s buttocks to embers but their deeper ache and stiffness slowed her pace to a crawl. The bodyguard scooped her into her arms and made for the door. Pam looked back. The slave girls disappeared as Eve stepped into the corridor. There had been no time for farewells. Perhaps it was for the best.

  *

  “So maybe you’ve found your perfect girl at last, Rafael,” Alex Riley said.

  Drake sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe not, but she does feel different to the others somehow.” She was that all right, though if he told the Chief how different the man would never believe him. But that particular difference was not what troubled him. “I shouldn’t have beaten her. Not when I was angry.” And hurt. It had felt like a knife twisting in his chest when she had backed away with that look on her face.

  Riley shrugged. “She’s a slave girl. They get beaten. She’ll get used to it. Buy her if you want her, I say.”

  Rafael sighed again and looked out over the engine room through the office windows. The orange glare of the furnace flared and he saw the lithe, gleaming bodies of the girl stokers, all highlights and shadows as they toiled in the heat. “I do want her,” he said, “but…. Ah hell, I’ve got this strange feeling, and this even stranger idea in my head. I want her, but I want her to want me too.” Suddenly self-conscious, he looked away from the Chief’s quizzical glance. They had talked often but he had never revealed very much about his feelings, especially ones that were new and unfamiliar and disturbing. Nevertheless he continued. “I thought I had gained her confidence when we were at the hotel. I thought she was starting to trust me. Hell, I even thought she liked me. But everything changed when we were back on board. And then when she acted so horrified that I was going to buy her…. I guess I should have remembered she’s not used to that.” Rafael looked up but the Chief showed no curiosity at the comment. He gave a regretful smile. “I said some things I didn’t mean about that damned Austrian, and Persephone and her Sapphism. Then I caned her ass. I could still just go ahead and buy her but it wouldn’t be the same knowing it isn’t what she wants too.” He slapped a hand down onto his knee. “Damn it! I don’t understand what made me act like that. I’ve never given a girl an unjustified punishment before.”

  Riley leaned back in his chair, tapped the bowl of his pipe on his palm and smiled. “Maybe because you’ve never been jealous before.”

  “What?”

  “Are you saying you’ve never felt jealous over a girl?”

  “Sure I have. It’s just….” Rafael broke off. He was jealous. He wanted Ann – no, her name was Pam and he wanted her for himself, and all to himself. “I want to hurt her but I want to hold her too,” he said, continuing his thoughts aloud. “She’s beautiful and strong and proud, and she has a bold look in her eye when she thinks I’m not watching her.” He grinned at the memory. “But she’s submissive too and I’m sure she loves pain, and she fucks like…. Well, you should have seen her when we were in New York. You’d know what I mean.” He barked a laugh. “Hell, I’m not sure I know what I mean.”

  Riley grinned. “I think I do.”

  “Then I wish you would tell me.”

  The Chief shook his head. “You know it too. There’s only one reason you would care so much about your slave girl. Go figure it out. Go and see her, Rafael.”

  “I ought to get some sleep,” he replied, getting to his feet. “I’m on duty in four hours.”

  “No,” Riley persisted, “you ought to go and see her.”

  Rafael took the Chief’s advice. The jealousy he had failed to recognize for what it was rose up again when he discovered Eve had taken her. He hurried to Persephone’s stateroom. Only Milly and Tania were there, lying top to toe on the bed, the petite blonde with her face buried between Tania’s thighs while the brunette worked a big dildo back and forth in her rear entrance. Flushed and smelling strongly of sex they answered his questions breathlessly.

  “The bridge? What the hell is she doing on the bridg
e?” As Rafael spoke he looked through the window and saw the orange ball of the sun low on the horizon to starboard. That was wrong. At this time of day it should have been behind them. He looked at the few clouds in the sky, puffy, cotton wool cumulus drifting sedately at the same height as the airship. There were no crosswinds this time. If they were off course it was deliberate. He left the girls to their game and headed for the bridge. The knot in his gut tightened with every step as his mind raced feverishly and the suspicion that had formed there became a certainty.

  She was looking for the blackness. She was trying to get back, and Persephone was helping her. When he had seen ’Sephone and Traske together on the boarding ramp he might have guessed that they were plotting something together, if he had not been so wrapped up in thoughts of Pam. She had even made him forget his own obsession with seeking out the mysterious black phenomenon. Perhaps now that ambition was about to be fulfilled. In spite of all the years he had spent working towards exactly that, Rafael hoped desperately that it would not happen.

  He wanted Pam more than he had ever wanted anything before. He could not let her just vanish from his life and his world. But had he any right to keep her from her own life? She was not the willing slave he had taken her for in the beginning. She did not think of herself as a slave at all. Yet she had submitted to him, and not entirely unwillingly, he was sure. For a little while he would even have sworn he had sensed in her that emotion he had never expected to kindle in any woman, slave or free. As the thought came, so did the knowledge of what Alex Riley must already have known. The thing he had never sought from anyone, he now felt himself for Pam. It only made the decision he had to reach all the harder.

  *

  “You wouldn’t like to tell me what’s going on, lover?” Eve asked, carrying Pam down the stairs with as much ease as she would a child. “Persephone gave me an envelope but said not to open it until after you’re gone, whatever that’s supposed to mean.” Her look was concerned and frankly curious.

  “I’d better not,” Pam replied, “and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

  The girl looked at her thoughtfully. “I didn’t, but I might now.”

  Pam lowered her eyes and remained silent. Persephone was waiting on the deck below. She wore a conservative, grey business suit and black low-heeled shoes.

  “I’ve been keeping these since I arrived,” she said, in response to Pam’s glance. “I hoped I’d never need them again.” Her eyebrows arched as she stared at her ravaged bottom. “Oh, Lord! When I told you to keep Rafael distracted I didn’t mean like that.”

  “It was his choice, not mine.”

  “I believe he really does care,” Persephone said, and smiled thinly. “He’s going to be disappointed. I hope.”

  The tight feeling in Pam’s chest increased.

  “You can go, Eve. We’ll manage alone from here.”

  “With respect, Ma’am, you won’t,” the tall bodyguard replied. “Not unless you can carry Ann.”

  The blonde frowned at Pam’s purple buttocks. “All right, come on.”

  “Where are we going?” Pam asked.

  “The bridge. Traske sent a message. He’s waiting. We should have arrived by now. He’s going to circle for half an hour. That’s all the time we have. Oh, God, I hope it’s enough!” Persephone half-ran along the corridors and down flights of stairs with Eve striding easily in her wake.

  The bridge was on the lowest deck and furthest forward. As they entered, Traske glanced back from his position beside the big steel wheel that steered the airship.

  “Clear the bridge, Mister Talbot.” The Commodore closed a hand over the wheel. “I’ll take the con. You will remain outside the door. No one is to enter until I give permission.”

  “Sir?” The second officer stared in confusion.

  “Everyone out. That’s a direct order, Mister. Go on, it won’t be for long.”

  Talbot still hesitated. “Sir, I don’t….”

  “Clear the bridge, man,” Traske barked. “All of you out.”

  The eight crewmen left their stations, looking puzzled but not alarmed. Traske was their captain. Far more reluctant, Talbot turned as he reached the doorway.

  “No one enters,” the Commodore said as the lieutenant’s mouth opened.

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  As the door closed on Talbot, Traske produced a paper from his pocket. “Thirty-nine degrees north, twenty-five degrees west, as agreed. We’re ninety miles off course and about a hundred and twenty north-north-east of the Azores, though what’s so special about here is beyond me.” He grinned as Persephone unfolded the paper. “And none of my business.”

  He still did not know. Pam wondered how he would react when he found out. Persephone went to the forward window, only a few paces in front of the wheel, and searched the sky in every direction. Eve followed and set Pam back on her feet. It was almost twilight at the airship’s altitude but the sea below had already vanished in darkness.

  “How do I know we’re where you say we are?” Persephone asked.

  “You’ll have to trust me on that. But I have no reason to lie and fifteen million reasons not to the minute you sign that.”

  She took the pen he handed her and dashed her signature across the bottom of the sheet. Traske took it and turned the wheel. Steam hissed and gears clanked and the Empire’s Triumph began turning slowly starboard.

  “Thirty minutes,” Traske warned. “That’s all your money has bought you.”

  The blonde looked at the clock above the chart table and then at Pam beside her. To the American girl’s surprise Persephone took her hand.

  “It’s out there somewhere,” she said, staring intently into the gathering dusk. “It will come. I know it will.”

  “What are we looking for, Ma’am?” Eve asked.

  “You’ll know if you see it, believe me,” Pam said, her throat suddenly dry. She thrust away her lurid imaginings about everything that could go wrong and concentrated on searching the sky as the airship continued turning. She would never see him again. Pam forced that thought from her head too. The sky grew lighter as they circled away from the night to the east and back towards the setting sun. No one spoke. Pam could hear her heart thumping and feel Persephone trembling through the tight grip on her hand. Would it come? Would it take her back where she belonged, away from this warped parody of reality? Her chest tightened. And away from Rafael too.

  “What’s our height, Traske?” Persephone demanded.

  “Eight thousand feet.”

  “I was twenty thousand higher when I was taken,” Pam said.

  “Me too.” Still clutching Pam’s hand the blonde looked back at the Commodore. “We need to go higher.”

  “Forget it. I don’t mind indulging your whims if you’re crazy enough to pay me for doing it, but I won’t endanger the passengers or the ship for your sake, nor myself either. The air is too thin to breathe if we go any higher.”

  “I saw something,” Eve said.

  “Where? Where?” Persephone turned back to the window.

  “It was just for a second.” Eve pointed towards the pink undersides of the clouds that drifted where the sun had almost sunk below the horizon. “It… I don’t know what it was, just something… black.”

  “Stay on this course,” Persephone said, sucked in a deep breath and peered into the deepening blue.

  “Oh, I don’t believe it!” Traske said, and gave a harsh laugh. “You’re looking for the black thing, aren’t you? Don’t you know it’s a myth? The first airmen invented it a century ago to fool gullible passengers like you. Is that what you paid me a fortune for, Persephone? So you could hunt for something that doesn’t…. Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty!”

  Pam blinked. Her heart leapt. It was there! A split second ago there had been nothing. Now the clouds were boiling and seething around the formless, featureless blackness and her eyes were already hurting from staring into darkness deeper than any darkness had a right to be. Persephone’s grip wa
s close to breaking her fingers, yet she made no effort to pry them loose. The thing seemed to be moving to the left.

  Persephone jerked her head around. “No! No, you’ve got to head for it.”

  “Are you mad?” Traske continued turning the wheel as fast as he could, swinging the airship away. “I’m getting as far from that thing as I can. Bloody hell! I thought it was just a legend.”

  “Now you know different,” Drake said.

  With all her attention on the Commodore, Pam had not seen him enter. He strode to the steering position and took the wheel in both hands, halting Traske’s frantic efforts to turn it. Hurrying after him, the second officer stopped dead, and the anxious look on his face turned to open-mouthed amazement as he stared beyond the women gathered at the window. A board mounted on the wall began buzzing and became a mass of flashing red lights.

  “And most of the lookouts know it too,” Drake continued. “The rest of the crew and the passengers will see it soon. The Company won’t be able to cover this up so easily.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Traske strained against Drake’s superior strength, which was moving the wheel and the airship back towards the blackness. Rafael broke the man’s grip and pushed him away.

  “Eve, if the Commodore tries to interfere again shoot him in the leg,” he said. “Try to miss any arteries.” With a glance at Talbot he spun the wheel and steadied the airship’s nose on a course directly towards the blackness. The man stood immobile, still staring into its depths.

  “This is mutiny,” Traske accused.

  Rafael shrugged. “Call it what you like.”

  “But you can’t risk all our lives. That thing could tear us apart.”

  “Not if what I was told is true.” Rafael’s gaze met Pam’s and held it. “And I trust the one who told me.”