“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.