It was a thought that had occurred to Stacie also. She was now frighteningly vulnerable to control. One finger could reduce her to passive submission. “A true slave girl is always obedient,” she said sententiously.
“Yet you are white, you are American . . .” He looked at her searchingly. “Is it a game you play, or has the whip taught you your place?”
Stacie was enjoying him; it was a game. “My place is where my master desires, the whip keeps me from forgetting.” She felt it worthy of the Koran.
“I think you are: what do you call it . . . putting me on,” said Mr. Boshan.
“But I am not!” Stacie sparkled her eyes at him and placed female fingers on his arm. “I would be punished. Besides, it’s kind of you to talk to me . . . a slave.”
He beamed and seemed to expand. “You would make a very fine fuck, I can tell,” he said with serious judgement. “Are you sure you . . . er, master will not permit?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m terribly sorry.”
Mr. Boshan’s sigh of disappointment fluttered his napkin.
“It is a great waste,” he said sadly. “But tell me, why are your feet chained, do you run away?”
“We wear chains to please our master, he finds them beautiful. For him it is the ankles, for my Lady Rannah it is my hands. I have become used to them, I do not mind.”
“Do you not mourn for America and hamburgers?”
“Why should I? There I could not be ringed or chained.”
“I do not understand you,” Hamid Boshan admitted. He dealt with the fish course in a few mouthfuls, eyeing her shrewdly. “I do not think the young woman beside my chief is as you are.”
“She may not have been trained as cleverly. I think that the only difference between us.”
“She does not bear whip marks as harsh as yours. Perhaps there lies the real difference?” he hinted slyly.
“You could be right, Mr. Boshan,” Stacie conceded without guile. She knew she herself would never underrate the potency of the whip on the female psyche. There was the evidence of the lash on the skin of the sweet and frightened girl striving to keep abreast of Mr. Moghere’s redundancies. The whip made a girl see things as they were. Perhaps Suzie had not been helped enough! She smiled demurely at her companion. “Being whipped has helped me to understand a lot of things.”
“About men . ? Or the world?”
“Are they not the same?” Her smile made Mr. Boshan certain a section of the planet was beneath his heel.
“If it was I who owned you . . .” he surveyed her gravely, “would you be as obedient as you are today?”
“Of course!”
“There is a thing that is not . . . It is not done in my country. Would you suck my cock?”
Stacie trod hard on an errant giggle. “What slave girl would not consider it a privilege, Mr. Boshan!” Her wide eyes held all the innocence of girlhood.
“Do you have a sister?” asked Mr. Boshan.
With the cigars, both slave girls came into their own, they began to earn their daily bread. Each had been briefed. Their ankle chains clinked constantly as they flitted back and forth with the brandy, the cigars and the ashtrays. It was a beautiful little cameo Rannah had coached. Their movements were studied and gracefully stylized. When not actively engaged, they stood erect and waiting at each end of the room, their hands behind their backs so that their breasts attained their full contour and the nipple rings hung free. There were penalties for failure. Even Stacie had been promised a whipping if she failed to please. The threat did not worry her; she felt secure in all that she was.
But it worried Suzie. “I’m scared to death,” she confided in a whisper when they were together at the serving table. “I’m not as good at this as you. Besides . . . he’s . . . he’s impossible.”
How to console! Stacie could think of nothing but lies, the truth might be more than Suzie could handle. She saw herself as gloriously fortunate by comparison. Her soul revolted at the thought of being taken to Mr. Boshan’s “My Country” as a plaything for one of these men. It would be best for Suzie to put on a poor performance and be rejected. Rannah’s whip might be preferable to what she now faced. She was almost glad their brief moments side by side forbade her telling all she knew. But she need not have worried: Fate is always there! A slave girl in serving her masters must kneel, she does not stand. To proffer a small tray and whatever was upon it is most elegantly done by falling to one knee before the lordly male, eyes discreetly veiled so they neither impart or receive a message. It is not normally a hard thing to do. But when the serving girl’s ankles are chained it is no longer easy, it becomes both difficult and hazardous. The number of links between the anklets of the two girls were barely sufficient to make it even possible.
Stacie had mastered the art. Rannah had compelled her.
In any case she was by nature graceful and had a will to excel. Suzie would have had small incentive. She was in trouble from the start. Moreover it was she who must serve the honoured guest. Her distaste and her fear of him helped her not at all.
Amatar Moghere loved to harangue any Assembly of the United Nations into which he could insert his bulk. He now used his host’s lounge as a sounding board. His staff listened with reverence, Yasin nodded gently, his thoughts elsewhere. Rannah’s attention was anxiously but unobtrusively upon the two slave girls, one of which was unwittingly the raison d’être for the gathering.
“We have reached that point in time . . .” Mr. Moghere declaimed sonorously. “When, with the armaments of our allies we may sweep clean this continent of its polluting white -”
It was at this precise point that Suzie dropped the glass on his trousers. The glass was full of gin!
It is quite possible that Mr. Moghere’s desolation may have been considerably modified by this fortuitous proof of Caucasian decadence. It put a neat period on his sentiment. Unfortunately it also put a large and spreading wetness on his trousers. Stacie longed to giggle. Suzie did! Pure nervous hysteria, but ill timed.
“Let us whip her here where we may all enjoy her punishment,” said Mr. Moghere magnanimously.
In the flurry of servants and the brandishing of towels and napkins Suzie managed to get both her knees on the carpet, she buried her face in her hands and wept. Stacie and the lady Rannah exchanged glances of despair. The scent of juniper hung menacingly.
“Stop your crying, girl. Make amends. Show our guest you are capable to serve him,” Yasin’s voice held cold authority. For him there was more at stake than a pair of trousers or a slave girl’s bottom.
Both Stacie and her mistress were horrified. But the Master had spoken, neither dared contest his order.
The unfortunate source of the disaster managed to dry her tears and look fearfully around. Taking heart from the absence of cane or whip she stumbled to her feet. Showing about the same enthusiasm as Ann Boleyn approaching the headsman’s block she went forward to retrieve her honour. Stacie poured the drink and placed it on the tray.
It says much for Amatar Moghere’s courage and sense of destiny that he did not head for the door to seek refuge in his own particular emergent nation. He sat expectant and beaming. After all, any witch doctor will tell you lightning does not strike twice in the same place . . .
But Suzie and lightning had little in common. This time the falling glass decanted just below the senior Statesman’s vest inundating that portion of his person sometimes referred to modestly as ‘private parts’.
It became immediately evident that this alcoholic invasion of Mr. Moghere’s most secret asset was exacting a toll. He sat erect, his mouth fell, his eyes bulged. He showed all the evidence of acute distress. This time Stacie’s giggle would not be denied. With great presence of mind she held her hands before her face and pretended to weep—no doubt in sympathy for the great man’s pain! Suzie was already shedding copious floods of salt. An anxious aide retrieved the fallen glass. With a horrified exclamation the visiting head of State headed for the door.