by Ian Smith
He smiled gently. “Well, under local law I am now your owner, so perhaps it should just be ‘master’.”
“As you wish, master,” Sue went along with it. “Could I please have a brief chat with you?”
“Of course,” he said, a twinkle of amusement in his eye. He led her to a quiet spot away from the bustle of the market, which was now selling goods and foodstuffs. The bodyguards didn’t follow, but one kept a wary eye.
They settled down, Sue’s chains rattling as she sat. It made the conversation difficult for her, but she ploughed on. “I’d like to know what your intentions are towards my daughters,” she said. “I know what they offered you, but surely you’re not going to hold them to it?”
“Do they want to dishonour the deal they made with me?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Sue said defensively, “but surely ...”
“So if I do choose to hold them to it, will they comply?”
Sue hesitated. “I suppose so,” she said. Actually she knew Mandy would. Her sometimes headstrong older daughter would insist on keeping her end of the bargain, no matter what. It was the sort of stubbornness Mandy excelled in. Sue wasn’t quite so sure about Charleen, but she knew her younger daughter would not leave her older sister in the lurch.
“So,” he went on firmly, “let us consider my options. Option one: I can invite your girls to keep to their bargain. Option two: I could put the three of you back up for sale. There are still plenty of people here so a resale would get plenty of bids. I might lose a bit on the deal. Perhaps I might even make a little bit: after they missed out on the chance to buy your girls before, they might be a kit keener now.”
“You wouldn’t!” Sue gasped in horror.
“Why would I not?”
“The law - I mean British law ...”
“We are not in Britain. British law doesn’t apply here.”
“But surely morally ...”
“Morally? You talk freely of your daughters breaking their promise, but expect me to pay very substantial sums of money to rescue three strangers who were stupid enough to get into this mess?”
“I ...” Sue could not think of an argument.
“Let’s move on to option three, then, a slightly better one for you. I have rescued you from your captors. I could free you, let you go. How about that one?”
“But how would we get home?”
“Oh, am I morally obliged to provide a taxi service as well?”
“But we couldn’t get home without you!”
“Oh?”
“We lost our passports, we’ve got no money and those bandits would probably capture us again inside five minutes,” Sue admitted. “We don’t even have a clue where we are.”
“You don’t even know which country you’re in,” he added. “All right, let’s move on to option four. In case you’re wondering, I was back home in Scotland three days ago when I heard of your capture. An associate of mine out here heard that two pretty English sisters - I didn’t know there was you as well - were going to be sold today and passed the information on to me. Now, what should I do about that? I could of course inform the British authorities. Would that have done any good? None whatsoever. They have no power or influence here; any approach to the local authorities would have quickly got back to your captors through corrupt officials - all officials here are corrupt, as you can imagine - and they would have simply have disappeared and sold them elsewhere. So instead I borrowed a private plane from another associate, his pilot was good enough to fly me out here, along with my rather beefy employees to look after my safety. I bought the three of you and paid the money for you - and all three of you were quiet expensive, particularly your two girls as a set. I then take you home and set you free. A noble gesture. However, I am not a poor man, but I cannot afford all that expense, so you would of course have to refund all this expense. Total cost would be around sixty thousand pounds at least.”
Sue went white. “We couldn’t afford that,” she said quietly.
“Well, I’m not heartless. I’m sure I could donate a little of it myself. Shall we say that I pay ten thousand out of my own purse, and you pay back the rest?”
“We still couldn’t afford it,” Sue admitted. They didn’t even have a house to mortgage: home was a council flat.
“So, the final option, perhaps your preferred one: I take you home, set you free and lose the sixty thousand pounds entirely.”
Sue was silent. She didn’t know what to say. He let the silence hang for a long moment, then said: “well, we will dispense with options two and three. Naturally I will take you back home. We have two cars with two drivers. You and your daughters will travel in the front car back to the airfield. The driver speaks no English so you may discuss the situation freely. I and my two bodyguards will travel in the second car with my associate here. It is not a short journey, so by the time we get there you may be able to come up with a solution.”
The trip, as he said, was a long one, but the cars were air conditioned, their shackles were gone and there was food to eat and plenty to drink for the starving family. However, the oppression of their former captivity was replaced by a lengthy family row. Mandy, as Sue had expected, was adamant that she would keep her bargain and was furious with her mother for even trying to evade it. Charlie alternated between vacillation and panic but when confronted with stark choices she was equally adamant that she would not let her sister take the consequences alone. Sue fretted for them, but secretly was proud of their determination.
It was eventually decided that each of the three of them would speak to the penguin - Sue advised that as soon as they knew what to call him they should drop that name - individually and tell him what they as an individual had decided.
They then all lapsed into silence and endured the butterflies churning in their stomachs.
A small but serviceable aeroplane stood on the tarmac of the run-down little airfield. There was no passport check or anything like that. The two cars pulled up right outside the steps to the plane and the passengers alighted. Immediately, Mandy went up to the man and said in her most polite voice - and despite her forcefulness, she was a polite girl by nature - “excuse me, sir, could I have word with you in private?”
He smiled. “Of course.” They moved away from the others.
Mandy took a deep breath. “My mum was out of order saying there was any way we would go back on our promise. I made a deal with you and I’m keeping my end of it. From this moment on, I’m all yours. Whatever you want to do with me, I’ll accept it. No limits and no exceptions.”
He nodded. “Good. What is your name?”
“Mandy, sir.”
“From now on your name is Slave Mandy. You will address every other man you encounter as sir, except for myself who you will call master. Do you understand?”
Mandy took another breath. “Yes, master,” she said evenly. A year of this!
“Into the plane with you, then.”
As Mandy moved away, Charleen was obviously waiting to speak to the man next, her mother behind her. She approached the man as Mandy moved away.
“Sir? Can I speak to you please?” He gestured consent. Charleen bit her lip for a moment, clearly summoning courage, and then said, “I just want to say that the deal my sister made with you back at the auction includes me and I totally agree with that.”
“In other words?” he prompted.
Again she bit her lip, tried to steady her voice. “In other words, I’m completely yours for the next year.”
He eyed her. “I think your sister said you are a virgin. Is that correct?”
Charleen went bright red. “Yes, sir,” she managed and then steeled herself and said unsteadily, “obviously, that’s yours as well.” It was an awful thing to say, especially to such an old and unattractive man, but she had t
old herself she was not going to drag her feet over this.
“Obviously,” he said, cutting the ground from under her and waved her into the plane.
Sue waited for him to dismiss Charlie, then came over. “Could I have a brief chat with you, please?”
“Again?” he asked, reminding her of their previous conversation.
“A slightly different one this time,” she replied quietly.
“Very well,” he said.
“Between you and me, what can my girls expect during this year?”
He shrugged. “You presumably have some worldly experience. Your daughters have agreed to be my slaves, without limits, for the next twelve months. They are both very attractive girls and naturally their slavery will include sexual slavery. They can also expect frequent corporal punishment and there will be many things they will find very humiliating. I already have three other slave girls and they will join that team. Normally my girls are kept isolated from the normal world, apart from my visitors and guests who of course they will also serve. They will not be allowed to leave my estate during that year at all. However, in this exceptional circumstance we can perhaps allow you very limited occasional access to them during their period of service. At the end of their term they will be released unharmed and healthy. You have my word on that.”
“I see,” said Sue. She was surprised to hear that he had other ‘slaves’, but apart from that it was much as she had expected, or feared.
“They have of course agreed to this of their own free will. Please note that I had made it clear that I would get them, and you, back home whether they agreed or not.”
“I accept all that and by the way, thank you. The only thing is, I don’t want to be separated from them for a year and also I don’t want them to face all this without me to support them.”
“I understand that, but I regret there is no way to arrange that. What they have agreed to is not a day job, it is twenty-four-seven, to use the current phrase.”
“Well, you see I think there is a way. I could be a slave as well.”
His eyebrows rose. “You were not part of the deal.”
Sue shrugged, though her nonchalance was really an act. “Consider it a case of buy two, get one free.”
“The life you are proposing for yourself is not an easy one. It may be particularly difficult and humiliating for you to slave alongside your daughters.”
“It would be more difficult to be away from them, wondering what they are going through and not being able to help them.”
“You won’t be able to help them anyway. They will have to obey their orders and endure what comes. You will not be able to affect that in any way.”
“To comfort them, then. And I know I’m not a youngster, but I’m not too old.”
For the first time, he looked her up and down as a woman. Sue endured the look, hoping she was still as attractive as people told her. The sudden gleam in his eye told him she was.
“You are quite a remarkable woman,” he observed. “You will make a fine slave.”
Mandy and Charleen were waiting for their mother to join them at the top of the steps to the plane. Both had anxious looks on their faces when she came up the steps to them. They knew what she had asked him.
“Did he accept ...” Charleen began.
“Yes,” said her mum tersely. “Let’s go.”
They entered the plane. It was separated into several sections. The first was a plush, first class cabin, very well fitted out. A young woman was preparing it, straightening things up and generally tidying. She wasn’t very tall, perhaps five foot three or four, but she had a very well shaped body and a pretty face framed by long black hair. She looked around Mandy’s age, maybe a year or so older at most. She wore a maid’s outfit, black with white trim and apron, with an exceptionally short skirt which showed off her shapely bare legs and a low cut top which showed the cleavage of breasts which were not too large but nevertheless well formed. She looked up and favoured them with a genuine, friendly smile.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Slave Rosie. You must be the new slaves.”
All three found it very strange to be described that way. “I’m Sue, these are my daughters Mandy and Charleen,” Sue replied, somewhat defensively.
The eyebrows on Rosie’s pretty face raised slightly. “I was told there was only going to be two of you,” she observed.
“Change of plan,” said Sue shortly. “There’s three of us now.”
“No problem,” Rose said breezily. “This way, please.”
She led them through a door at the back of the cabin, through a second, less luxuriously fitted cabin and into a third and final cabin. This last section was unquestionably the third class section, with Spartan furnishings, just half a dozen airline style seats and a water dispenser. Rosie gestured them to the seats. “You’ll need to put the seat belts on for take off,” she said. “After we take off, I’ll probably be busy with the master and the other men for a while, but when I can I’ll come back here and we can have a chat.”
“What does ‘busy with the master’ mean exactly?” Charleen blurted out.
Rosie looked at her steadily, but the friendly smile was still there. “It means whatever he wants it to mean,” she said quietly. “Whatever he wants, he gets. And once he’s finished with me, Joe and Fred - that’s the two bodyguards - are allowed to have me as well. Do you want me to spell out what ‘have me’ means?”
Sue shook her head. Mandy asked directly and perhaps slightly archly, “do you enjoy it?”
For the first time, Rosie hesitated before replying. “I try and make the best I can of it,” she said vaguely and was gone.
They had taken off and from the windows they could see the panorama of Africa below them. All three were glad to be leaving after their nightmare stay there, though they knew that a new nightmare was engulfing them. They gazed out of the windows in silence, nobody wanting to say anything.
About half an hour after take-off, Rosie appeared with a sheet of paper on a clipboard and a pen. “Change of plan,” she explained. “This is the contract for you to sign. They never negotiate over terms, so don’t even try. Then the master wants to see you, Slave Sue.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” Sue said uncertainly, but even as she held her hand out for the contract Mandy got in first, snatched it and the pen off Rosie and signed her name, then handed it pointedly to Charleen.
“We should at least check the terms out first,” Sue protested.
“What’s the point?” Mandy snapped. “Whatever the terms are, it’s got to be better than where we were, or would you rather go back to that market?”
“No, but ...”
“Well, that’s settled then,” Mandy interrupted.
Charleen looked at her sister, then signed her own name in the space provided, also without reading the document. “Mandy’s committed, so I’m committed,” she explained to her mum defensively.
“Well, can we at least read it now you’ve signed it?” Sue asked. Mandy shrugged, Charleen nodded and somewhat apprehensively they read the terms. They were stark and clear. All three of them were under “full discipline” as of the moment they signed. This was defined as being required to obey all commands of Mr Proby (hereinafter referred to as their owner and whom they were required to address as ‘master’) or any male member of his staff or guest of his, all of whom were to be addressed as ‘sir’ and treated with the same total respect that Mr Proby himself was accorded. It was stated that they should understand that this could include all forms of sexual use or abuse and also corporal punishment, use of which was not restricted to correction of misdemeanours but which could be applied for any reason, including simply the entertainment of the men. No limits were put on the uses that could be made of them, except that their health would be safeguarded and there w
ould be no permanent marks. Should they refuse any order or use of their person at any time, the master, staff member or guest were fully permitted to use force to make them comply. Should that be required, they could expect severe and very unpleasant repercussions.
ull ‘slave use’ could be expected of each of them as soon as each had made the basic demonstrations of submission required to become what was referred to as a Level One slave. However, the year would not start until all three had reached Level One status. Similarly, they could expect the most Spartan of living conditions until all three had reached Level Two. Only then would they receive the minor privileges associated with that rank and the same for the more extensive privileges should they reach Level Three, which apparently was the highest level.
hey were expected to be available for duty at all times, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the year of slavery. They were not permitted to leave the estate without permission, which was unlikely to be given. They could be called upon at any time for service of any kind. They understood and accepted that all normal rights were suspended forthwith.
nd that was that. There followed the spaces for each to sign next to her printed name and for Rosie to sign as witness. Sue sighed, signed her name and handed the clipboard back to Rosie, who added her signature as the witness. Then Sue followed Rosie to the forward cabins, watched with thinly disguised anxiety by her daughters.
She was led past the now slumbering two bodyguards into the plush front cabin, where Mr Proby was studying a newspaper. He put it aside as Rosie handed him the contract with a curtsey. Proby checked the signatures, then put it in a briefcase. Sue stood waiting, not sure what to do, but after Proby had filed the contract away he beckoned her forwards. She stood in front of him, still not sure, but then Rosie, standing behind Proby and out of his line of sight, pointed to her own knees and made a gesture. Correctly interpreting this, Sue found herself sinking to her knees before the man.