by Roger Quine
She heard the bolt slide home, and knew she was a prisoner.
It was a room of few windows and many mirrors, and Susie felt quite strongly that she was being watched. In all probability some or all of the mirrors were false.
So she just had to let her hidden camera go on filming the wall it was pointed at, knowing that opening the handbag to switch it off and save tape would only result in giving her away to whoever was watching, and she’d be found out as a spy. There would be no tape left in two hours, no evidence with which to incriminate Raoul, no story, no arrest and no freedom for Sophie.
Susie thought of all the permutations, and found no answers. She wrestled with her inclinations as the minutes slipped away, and decided there was only one path of action open to her now: she would have to join the New Believers. She would take Raoul’s stupid test, join his group of religious sheep and emotional cripples, find Sophie, escape with her, and take her home to safety.
Just as she pictured the pair of them arriving dishevelled but safe on their mother’s doorstep, the door opened and the little old man appeared.
‘Please to come with me,’ he said, and with a feeling of dread she returned to the main room. Raoul sat on his usual cushion in the corner, dressed in his baggy black suit, with half-a-dozen other men clustered behind him, all staring expectantly at Susie. None of them wore the baggy suit of New Believers, but a mixture of everyday clothes, mostly business suits. Most seemed to be foreign, and the look on their faces was nothing to do with religion; like a bunch of lions clustering around a tethered lamb, they knew what was in store for her. And quite obviously they were part of it.
‘It is time,’ said Raoul, with that same hypnotically level voice. ‘In your desire to become a New Believer and contribute to its cause, finding peace and giving comfort, you must be certain, you must be sincere and wholehearted. And you must prove this to yourself. If you can do this, you will also prove it to us, and then you will always be welcome here.’
He clapped his hands together once, and the men behind him started walking towards her. This was it, Susie thought. But they kept on going, walked straight past her and out of the door, and she almost fainted with relief. Perhaps she was supposed to. It was the kind of game she’d expect from Raoul if he was indeed the villain she suspected.
And he’d been watching her carefully, studying her reaction. He unfolded himself from the cushion. ‘Come,’ he said, and set off through the door, with the wizened man taking his place behind Susie. She followed as Raoul led the way along meandering passages and through a huge kitchen out to the back of the house. A narrow path wound through bushes equally as virulent as those at the front, and by the time they reached what looked like a stable block the main house was more or less hidden from view.
He stopped and opened a door... and there was the black Mercedes, waiting inside a garage with double doors wide open, leading to a short driveway and iron gates set in the brick wall that surrounded the house.
Susie felt her heart sink as the old man held open the back door of the car, realising the plan was going seriously wrong.
‘But, where...?’ She knew as she started speaking that she was wasting her breath. Knowing she was in trouble but helpless to influence events, she followed Raoul into the car, and as she sank back in the deep leather seat the car pulled smoothly away, gates opening and then closing automatically behind it as it drove down a narrow lane that emerged near the river, away from where the only people who could help her waited patiently, watching the front of a house she was rapidly leaving behind.
She tried quizzing Raoul about their destination, but he wouldn’t be drawn at all. In fact, he wouldn’t say anything except, ‘Be patient,’ his standard reply to all her questions. She gave up asking and tried to relax a little, feeling the cool leather beneath her thighs, watching the streets and houses slip silently past.
Less than an hour later the Mercedes smoothed to a halt at the back of a large building in London’s West End, where shapes on the pavement tried to keep warm by huddling close to gas vents. Susie knew what they were at once - a bunch of filthy winos sleeping off their most recent intake. One of them was sitting up, looking around in a fuddled daze, blinking his rheumy eyes against the streetlights’ glare. Unkempt, unshaven and unwashed, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, so dirty that Susie thought she could smell him from where she sat in the luxurious comfort of the car.
‘There is your test,’ said Raoul, looking out of the window.
‘Where?’ Susie was puzzled.
‘Him.’ Raoul nodded once in the direction of the tramp.
‘Him?’ A hand shot up to her mouth and she stared in bewilderment and distaste.
Raoul nodded confidently.
‘But - but he’s just a dirty old tramp,’ she protested, knowing it was in vain.
‘Exactly.’
‘But he’s filthy and smelly and dirty...’ Her voice tailed away as she realised what she was saying. Raoul regarded her impassively. ‘But that’s a disgusting idea,’ she finished weakly.
‘Precisely.’
‘Why? Why are you making me do this?’ She already knew the answer.
‘Because you must prove your sincerity by doing something you would only do for the most compelling of reasons. I suspect that, like your sister, you have the capacity to provoke arousal in all men, be they tramps or bishops. However, that is not the point.’
‘So what is the point then?’ She was stalling for time, desperately trying to think of a way out, even though she knew in her heart there was none. And she’d almost gone too far; even in the gloom of the car’s interior she saw his soft eyes glare as his patience grew thin.
‘The point is for you to do something you normally would not entertain. The point is to give yourself to him completely.’
‘But he might not want - ’
‘What he wants is of no consequence. All that matters is what you do.’
‘But - ’
Raoul interrupted her, dropping all pretence at religious betterment and spiritual comfort. In a monotone he said, ‘If you want to see your sister again, you will do as I say.’
Susie was fed up with being put in precarious predicaments by people she neither liked nor trusted, but it had been her idea to join the cult, her duty to rescue her sister. And that was where the arguments stopped.
She opened the door of the car and swung her legs out, surprised to find the pavement so high. If it had been a populated street in daytime, everybody passing by would have been able to look right up her skirt. But there was no one there except the old tramp, and letting him see her knickers was only the beginning. He peered in her direction, and she got the distinct impression that even though he was only two or three yards away, he either hadn’t been able to focus quickly enough, or he just didn’t believe his own eyes.
She straightened her skirt and, thinking of Sophie, stepped over to stand right in front of him. His awful smell was overpowering and Susie nearly gagged.
Now he could see her, that was for certain. Watching his face carefully, and despite her revulsion, Susie felt a traitorous knot of inexplicable excitement in her tummy as she pulled her skirt up over her thighs, exposing her tight knickers and the outline of the plump lips within.
Trying to recover from his befuddled shock, the bloodshot-eyed vagrant got another one almost at once. ‘Touch me,’ she offered huskily, and cursed herself as she felt her panties dampen.
The tramp simply stared, wet lips slack and drooling.
Feeling hopelessly vulnerable, standing in the littered street holding her skirt up around her waist, Susie could also feel an unwanted thrill of arousal at the very idea of what she was doing. Seized with a sudden rush of - of what? courage? adrenaline? lewd desire? she didn’t know - she reached down between her legs and caressed herself, the
light touch of her fingers sending tiny frizzles of pleasure through the soft lips as she stroked their moist, clingy covering, squeezing them gently between finger and thumb and then separating them with a probing fingertip. ‘Touch me,’ she urged again, and something in her voice, her body language, or maybe the way the thin cotton clung to her wet flesh communicated itself to the tramp, and he realised her offer was genuine.
Staring at her groin through screwed-up eyes, with a trail of saliva dangling from his gawping mouth, he reached out a trembling hand and grubby fingers brushed hesitantly across the front of her knickers, making her wince. The tramp flinched as well, quickly pulling his hand away and looking anxiously up at her face.
Susie swallowed her disgust and tried not to look at the yellow teeth or the countless stains on his ragged clothes. Steeling herself, and trying to think about Sophie, she did her best to smile encouragement. ‘It’s okay,’ she said in a voice made weak by the overpowering mixture of fear and arousal. ‘It’s all right. Don’t stop. Do what you want to me.’
Reacting to her tentative encouragement he reached out, slowly, watching her face all the while for any reaction, and touched her again. This time she kept perfectly still and, encouraged, he slid his hand lower, his rough fingers scratching over the neat white cotton and pressing against the smooth flesh inside, disbelieving when he felt the wetness of the material and the plump, inviting silhouette of her soft sex.
Susie felt her disloyal body unfolding at his touch. He was muttering with anxiety and his fingers began to scrabble around between her legs, searching for a way into her knickers, the sudden movements making her moan softly. This time the noise she made didn’t alarm the tramp; he clearly understood what she wanted and the little mewing sound only excited him further as he clawed at the tight-fitting garment, desperate to get at her.
The urgent fingers pushed a tantalising distance into her body and were halted by the taut material that couldn’t be stretched any further. Panting slightly, eyes half-shut, teeth nibbling her lower lip and hips rocking slightly back and forth, Susie realised that pushing herself against his fingers wasn’t having the effect she wanted, and she reached down to pull her knickers aside.
The tramp made an eager grunting noise, and Susie felt cold roughness scraping against the tender-sweet warmth of her insides as he pushed a grimy finger into her, making her gasp.
He grinned triumphantly and roughly shoved a second finger alongside the first, clearly no longer surprised by the ease of entry nor by how wet and ready she was.
And she was both of those, in the street with her dress held up around her waist, legs apart, hips rocking, moist lips slightly parted as she anxiously nibbled the lower one, panting faster and faster as her excitement grew, fired by the sheer shame of what she was doing. She knew she shouldn’t be doing it, but she was. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying it, but she was. Forbidden pleasures were always by far the best for her.
But the steady movement inside her lost its rhythm as the tramp started to scrabble at his waist, clumsy fingers undoing string and peeling back layers of dirty clothing to expose once-white underpants stained with unthinkable marks, and pulled out a fully erect prick with a shiny purple tip.
Holding it firmly he aimed it towards her parted thighs. Susie watched him with fearful eyes and held her breath, readying herself for the worst, but a look of anguish crossed his face as his cock spasmed in his fist and sprayed thick gobs of stickiness across her thighs and raised dress.
The dismay on his face was plain to see as he realised what he’d just missed out on, and his shoulders slumped as he stood forlornly, a pathetic figure.
A window of the luxury car a few yards away descended with a soft purr. ‘Get in,’ was all Raoul said, and a relieved Susie pulled the old man’s fingers away, tugged her skirt down and did as he said.
The Mercedes drew smartly away from the kerb, and if Susie hadn’t been so distracted by what had just taken place and had looked back she would have seen two others pull away behind it, making a short convoy of cars with blacked-out windows, as Raoul’s guests for the evening returned to Richmond after watching the evening’s sport.
Chapter Nine
The Mercedes swept through the quiet London streets, heading north.
Slumped against the cool leather, Susie felt her heart pounding in her chest as she dabbed her skirt clean of the sordid encounter with tissues passed to her by Raoul. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t speak, or even look at her.
As the car kept heading north, onto the motorway, she realised they weren’t going back to the house in Richmond.
‘Where are we going?’ she eventually asked.
‘To begin your acceptance,’ Raoul replied enigmatically.
‘My acceptance? But what about clothes? I need to go to my flat first. I need to tell my friends, my family, say that I’ll be away.’
‘You have no need of such things now,’ he said in an offhand manner. ‘They are of your old life. We are your new life. We will provide your clothes, your food, and your sanctuary. We are your friends and your family.’
‘No... I - ’
‘We are all you need. This is of your choosing. You wanted to join us. You have proved to us and to yourself just how much you wanted to be with us and now we accept you, gladly.’ He almost smiled in the darkness, a momentary glint of white teeth against his dark skin. ‘Now there is only acceptance, and initiation.’
‘Initiation?’ Susie didn’t like the sound of any of this. ‘What does that mean?’
‘You will see... soon.’
All the time they talked the car was speeding away from friends and family and, more importantly, away from the paper and the only people who knew of her situation and who might have been able to help her. Susie realised she was truly alone, and was more afraid than ever. She tried to sink back into the seat and make herself inconspicuous as the car smoothed into the darkness and the butterflies skittered in her tummy.
The journey lasted an hour, no longer. The first half had been motorway, the next ten minutes or so were main roads, and then the driver turned away from the streetlights and civilisation, heading up a series of increasingly narrow lanes, until at last he slowed and turned into a wide gateway. Immediately the countryside opened out, and Susie was looking uphill towards a huge mansion that sat on the crest of the rise, at the end of a very long gravel drive that glowed silver in the moonlight.
It was well after midnight as they entered the building, which was mostly in darkness, though dim lights showed her the scale of the imposing entrance hall and the massive sweep of the wooden staircase.
There were a few people about, young men in dark baggy suits and a few girls, all young, all pretty, all wearing identical plain white dresses. None of them was Sophie.
Susie turned swiftly to Raoul.
‘Your training starts now,’ he said levelly. ‘There will be time for other things later.’ He nodded curtly over her shoulder and she turned to find two smiling girls beckoning her. They were clearly younger than she was, but as they took her by the arms and led her away their confidence and self-possession gave them the air of being older, wiser and more experienced.
Susie walked between them up the wide stairs. Along a landing they went, and into a room lined with three beds on each side. Several more young women sat around. Her escorts led her to a bed in the middle of one row, made up and ready; on it was a neatly folded towel and a plain white cotton dress, just like those everyone else was wearing. On top of the dress was a tiny pair of white cotton panties.
She was just about to attempt befriending the girls who’d escorted her when a door at the far end of the bedroom pushed open and a short stocky figure in the regulation black suit stomped in. It moved like a shadow in the dim light cast by the bedside lights, and held a flat leather strip that whistled as it swung
through the air and cracked loudly when it landed - on bedclothes and bed-rails at first, and then on legs and bottoms.
‘Okay you lot, get into bed!’ the figure shouted gruffly. ‘Into bed now, the lot of you!’ The strap flicked spitefully across exposed thighs as the girls scurried to obey before they paid the full price.
‘So, you’re the new one,’ the aggressive newcomer said to Susie, and then with surprising speed strong fingers grasped her chin, holding her still for a moment, then moving her face from side to side for inspection. With the leather strap dangling from one wrist, the free hand reached up and roughly mauled Susie’s unprotected breasts, and as she tried unsuccessfully to cringe away, she realised the loathsome creature was in fact a woman!
The fingers and thumbs dug painfully into her cheeks and breast and pressed her inexorably back onto the one vacant bed, her dress riding up her thighs and exposing her panties.
‘No, no, no,’ chided the woman. ‘You do not turn away. You do as you’re told - all the time. You are always available, that’s why you don’t need any more clothes than this,’ and she disdainfully pulled Susie’s damp gusset aside and thrust one finger into her to demonstrate the point. She snorted with derision and licked her lips, leaning closer until her rugged face was almost touching Susie’s, and Susie could smell her bad breath. ‘I can see I’m going to have fun with you, little missy,’ the bully hissed under her breath so only she and Susie could hear. ‘My name is Savage - Ms Savage to you.’
With that she straightened abruptly and addressed the rest of the small dormitory.
‘Now remember,’ she barked, ‘it’s late and I don’t want to hear a peek out of you... any of you. Got it?’ There was a subdued murmuring of understanding from faces respectfully downcast. ‘Good!’ and with that the stocky woman stomped out and slammed the door shut.
Susie sat up on the bed not quite believing what had just occurred. ‘Don’t - don’t you mind any of that?’ she asked generally, meaning the brutish behaviour of the woman.