“She be all mine, sir?”
“For now, yes. Take her and go!”
George picked Nikola up as though she was a doll. The girls exchanged one despairing glance before she was whisked away to loving ravishment. Trudy wondered, bitterly, if he would bother to untie her first. She looked up at one of the finest male physiques she had ever seen and asked despondently: “What do you want of me?”
“You occupied a cage, Miss Ramsay.”
“Not by choice,” she said warily.
“In a distant part of this land, an area we still control, there is a town, in it a market place, there too a cage!” His eyes glowed. “I want you in that cage. I want you to speak to all who pass of your admiration for our cause. You are educated, you are white. I want you to tell of the decadence and decay of your race and the resurgence of the African. Will you do this?”
“You have no problem, Mr. Nykobe. If you whip me enough I’ll do anything. Surely you understand I’ve already found that out.”
He smiled charmingly. “Ah yes, but you do hold cards, Miss Ramsay. In the cage you will be naked. It would be inconsistent with your affirmations that your loveliness bear the weals of whips . . .
“You could beat the soles of my feet.”
“Please don’t jest.”
“Isn’t the cage itself a denial?”
“Not if you explain you are in it by choice, that it is symbolic of what you preach.”
“But I wouldn’t be in it by choice!”
“A woman can dissemble, Miss Ramsay?”
“You want me to look cheerful and happy in a cage!” Trudy was frightened but she was also angry. “What will you do to me if I refuse?”
“You will be fastened by a chain to something solid in a public place. There you will be available to any of my men who wish to honour you with their sperm.”
“I’ll take the job,” Trudy said without humour. “I told you you’d have no trouble compelling me. Do I have to wear my country’s flag around my hips?”
“Thank you, we prefer to see your cunt.”
“I’m a lucky girl,” Trudy said bitterly. “I’ve got a cause.”
Surprisingly, they shared a laugh.
“Sir!” A male voice interpolated urgently. “The uniforms?”
“Didn’t that rutting dolt bring them?”
“No, sir, he forget. He thinking o’ something else.”
“Get him. Bring the girl too.”
Nykobe looked down at his still bound recruit. “I want a pair of those uniforms Khalief Abhad flaunts his whores in. Where are they?”
“On a hook by our cots. We sleep naked.”
“He could have got them?”
“He was busy dragging me, and he had the bolt cutters.”
“Hmmmm . . . and if I send him back?”
“Let me go. I’ll get them.”
“Oh come, Miss Ramsay, I was not born yesterday! What are George’s chances?”
“Possible. If a girl wakes she’ll scream.”
A sweating George and a flustered Nikola were ushered in. The leader gestured. “Fasten the girl, you know how.” And to George: “The uniforms, idiot! You forgot them. Go back and get them. If you fail, the girl is no longer yours.”
Trudy cringed at Nikola’s fate. Without preamble, two men took her, tied her hands, wrists crossed, behind her back, and hoisted her arms by a rope thrown over a rafter and tugged. Her fingers splayed wide as she bent forward against the wracking of her shoulders. When her heels left the floor the rope was snubbed and she was left to teeter helplessly. As an afterthought they spread her feet apart and tied them down to the floor. Her plight was grievous.
“Think you can hurry, boy?”
The boy took a frightened look at his tractioned lady-love then sped to the door. His car roared into the distance.
“Please, sir, don’t let nobody do nothin’ to me.”
the female hostage to George’s fidelity quavered. “What could they do, my dear?”
“They could fuck me, sir—the way I is.”
“Would you not enjoy that?”
“No, sir, I belong to George.”
“And George carries a vision of you just as you are.” Nykobe gestured. “Relieve her of the hoist. Leave her hands tied.”
Trudy sighed thankfully. No doubt George was sufficiently inspired. She looked up at her captor, seeing him in a different light. “Thank you. That was decent of you. The poor kid’s innocent of anything.”
“And so are you, Miss Ramsay.” Personally, he untied her ankles. “You won’t mind if the hands stay where they are?”
“No, I suppose not. And thanks again. Why do you want our uniforms?”
“Ridicule. Rub them in the dust as symbols of decadence, a rot within our own land.”
“And when I have served your purpose, what will you do with me?”
“Marry you.”
She stood erect. It felt good to have her feet. She thoughtfully flexed her arms against her corded wrists, looking at Nykobe in disbelief. “But that’s—that’s—!”
“Entirely practical, my dear, I am a Mohammedan. I do not have four wives.”
“But what good would I be to you! I’m just a girl—and white—and I haven’t any money—and, and—”
Nykobe laughed delightedly. “You underestimate yourself completely, Miss Ramsay. You have two of the loveliest breasts I have ever seen on any woman, a flat belly and a lush and shining bush. From what I can see of your cunt it is exceptionally neat and tidy.”
Trudy blushed and was suddenly naked. She had become so accustomed to nudity that, most of the time, she was unaware of it. But this man’s words and piercing regard made her flaringly alive to all her femaleness. Instinctively she tugged at her bound hand, a reflex Nykobe did not fail to note.
“Surely you would not cheat me with your hands?”
“I’m glad they’re tied,” she admitted wryly. “They’d have been tempted, and I hate doing it: a girl looks silly. Look at me all you want.” Mischievously, she stuck out her chest. “Look, I’ll even take a deep breath.”
“You are superlative, a treasure.”
“Not really. I’m just a pretty girl who’s had her inhibitions taken away. Mr. Nykobe: this marriage thing? You’re not serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“As a Mohammedan’s wife? What would be expected?”
“You would serve me, and be subservient to my first wife, Ayesha.”
“She would beat me, wouldn’t she.”
“You have been reading fiction.”
“Supposing I failed to please you sometimes? Would you beat me?”
“Yes.”
His single word sent her pulse to racing. She laughed diffidently and explained. “I’ve already come to recognise how good that can be for a girl. We’re silly creatures.”
“I do not find you silly.”
“Yet you keep my hands tied as a precaution!”
She gazed at him wistfully. “Thank you for the offer. But—it’s not possible . . .”
Nykobe stroked her hair. “It is very possible.” He paused for effect. “Consider the alternative. You would return to your people and find them no longer yours. You would be discredited, ostracised, something of a pariah. Unjustly considered a traitoress.”
“Damned unfair.”
“The fortunes of war.”
“There hasn’t been any war. I was kidnapped, and since it happened almost everything’s been done to me.” She sparkled at his amusement. “I’ll admit you’re one of my nicer experiences.”
Nicholas Nykobe was pleased with her. Trudy picked up his emanations and was pleased herself. When he clapped his hands and ordered: “Bring refreshments,” she asked, demurely. “Are you going to hold a glass to my lips?”
He chuckled at her persistence. “You want your hands, don’t you! Very well, but you lose your feet.”
She sat and watched her ankles tied again, tied tight to forbid mischief. Then twisted to offer her hands. When he had freed them and she was rubbing chafed wrists she asked, innocently: “Why don’t you trust me?”
“I only met you an hour ago.”
“Yet you’ve already proposed marriage?”