The President laughed. “That reminds me. I actually have things to do. Back to the cage with you.”
She pouted. “Why don’t you just give me the key instead of an escort? I could lock myself up.”
“And lose that magnificent ritual! Never! It’s as good as the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.”
“You telling me!” Caroline grinned wryly. “Your people love it. I get mentally raped and the flag torn from my puss and trampled in the dust. You’re a sly fox. Damn good thing they can’t see me now.”
They had fallen into an easy affection. A thing volcanic when they coupled. But apart from the flesh they were still testing each other’s tolerance for what they were and what they sought. Caroline had laughed with him at the life from which he had wrested her. “Damn good thing you did,” she admitted, chuckling. “No chains, no cage, no whip! Nothing to live for at all . . . ! Poor Robert! I’d like to see his face.”
In the first days she had burned with shame when she was taken to the cage by the two soldiers, given her flag, chained, and locked within the bars. She was the cynosure of every eye. Briefly, the market forgot trade and gathered to observe her breasts, the clamping of the metal on her wrists and ankles, and the brief vista of her pubic hair as she adjusted the stars and stripes upon her hips. But the leers and gloating no longer mattered. Purpose had replaced chagrin. Khalief had given her something of which she had never dreamed.
Musingly, she stood now while the handcuffs were unlocked and replaced with the heavy shackles, her feet similarly joined. Brightly she said. “Thank you very much” to the grinning soldiers as they snapped the lock and left her to the lechery of eyes.
“I don’t see what you have to be so happy about,” her new companion complained. She clinked her chains. “You act as though you love these beastly things.”
“I do, Betty—oh, never mind. You can’t understand. But please, pet, do try and cheer up. We’re really quite well off.”
“Well, I don’t think so, I can’t ever get used to my breasts being bare and all these men looking at them. I can’t hold them in my hands all the time.”
Betty provoked mischief. She was sweet and pretty but overly concerned with what was ‘nice,’ a term Caroline loathed. “Why not take your flag off so they can see your do-funny for a change? It’ll give your breasts a rest.”
“Caroline! That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Easy, darling, look!” The older girl whisked away her national emblem and stood, stark-naked for all to see.
“Caroline!” Betty was truly shocked.
There was ribald approval from beyond the bars. Unable to resist, Caroline did a slow turn, waving the flag from two fingers as a scarf.
Betty gasped. Her cry was of outraged discovery. “Caroline, your bottom! It—it’s—oh—!”
Caroline had forgotten. “What’s the matter with my bottom?” she demanded irritably.
“It’s been—something’s been done to it!”
The owner of the bottom twisted to look at what she could of it. “Oh that!” Casually, she reknotted the flag upon her hips. “I got myself two stripes with a strap for being naughty.”
“See, I told you! They’ll beat us and—and—”
“It’s lovely. It gets a girl hot between her legs. If you want to try, I can arrange it.”
“I don’t believe—oh, it’s too awful—!”
They were still exchanging tease and exclamation when a quiet American voice said. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Dowling.”
“Robert!”
Caroline gazed at her husband askance. She had to force her hands away from covering her breasts. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
“No!”
They stood awkwardly, staring. Enough of the local gentry dressed in pants, tie and jacket to render Robert Dowling inconspicuous, and anyone was free to accost the captives in the cage. “I suppose you know you’ve created a national scandal?”
“I thought that had died down. I’ve told the Consul not to bother.” She looked at him with pity. “I’m sorry, Robert, honest! I’d no idea it would turn out this way when I put myself up for auction.”
“I’m going to get you out of this.”
“Robert, no! Leave me alone. Divorce me, I’m happy here.”
“Don’t be absurd!” He waved the suggestion aside as irrelevant. “Chained like an animal, nearly naked, locked in a cage . . . !”
“They beat her bottom too!” Betty was animated with hope, and righteously informative. “She says she likes it!”
“Dammit, Caroline, can’t you be a bit considerate!”
His wife lifted chained hands. “What can a poor slave girl do?”
Dowling was exasperated. “I’ll put a stop to this nonsense, I’m getting you out, of here tonight after dark.”
“I won’t go.”
“I’ll go,” Betty offered hopefully. “Please take me?”
“Yes, of course!” Robert Dowling spared a brief smile for the importunate girl, then turned to his ungrateful wife. “Whatever it is you’re doing, it isn’t clever or funny or anything admirable.” he said crossly. “I won’t expect your cooperation, but I’ve made the arrangements for you to be taken away from here, and that’s what’s going to happen. Force will be justified if you insist on being contrary.” He nodded curtly and walked away.
“Isn’t he lovely!” breathed Betty.
“He’s a pain in the ass,” said Caroline bitterly. The mind of the truant wife was busy. Bars and chains! She could not go to Khalief. He would not come to her. They had been left the fruit for their evening meal. It was unlikely that anyone from the Residence would come near them until morning. It was useless to importune the passers-by. She had exhausted that long since. They scorned her pleas. She was white trash undeserving attention in anything but the purely carnal. They would ogle her nakedness and her chains but were deaf to her voice. She was impotent! Caged! Sighing in frustration, she reclined on the ground and selected a pomegranate. “We’re in trouble,” she declared morosely. “Oh, damn, damn, damn!”
“I think you’re an ungrateful girl,” said Betty with conviction.
The four shadows in the dark were swift and well equipped. Robert Dowling was not one of them. They cut the lock from the cage but did not touch the chains by which the girls were captive. They picked up their naked prizes and tossed them in the back of a truck, on the floor of which someone had thoughtfully spread a blanket. They had obviously been appraised of intransigence. Taking no chances they placed a volubly protesting Caroline face down, brought her chained hands back over her head and tied them down to her chained ankles. It was not exactly a hogtie, it was even worse. When she opened her mouth to express indignation they pushed a rag inside and tied it tight. They rendered Betty helpless in the same manner but did not gag her. The girls spent their bumpy ride in struggles to get loose. Both failed.
Their abductors were practical. Having reduced their prey to impotent packages incapable of dispute they treated them in that manner at journey’s end. Two men carried a frightened Betty in one direction, the others heaved an indignant Caroline through doors and passages to finally deposit her upon a rug in a comfortable room smelling of cigars. They left her as she was and went away. She looked up speechlessly into the full stare of her husband’s disapproval.
Dowling reached down and removed the gag, casting the crude thing aside in distaste. “At least we can talk here,” he said heavily.
“Did they have to be so damn rough!”
“Would you have come any other way?”
“I hope you realise I’m hurting.”
“I would suppose you are,” he said sarcastically. “Described as erotic love play, I believe?”
“All right, have your fun! But I’m still hurting bad!”