"Mike?s got his own ways. He degrades a girl. And he?s got a crew…"
"I am to be the plaything of a pirate crew! Darlings, I know girls who would give much for such a fate."
"Dont?t joke about it," Terry wailed.
"But I?m not joking." Thalia looked at them earnestly.
"You see, a Moslim girl?s life is very narrow. She does not have much fun. Even I, whose father gave her so much liberty, even I was finding life very dull before you came," she added, wistfully. "I was so glad to see you. My father has had other girls, many of them. But none like you."
Dorinda saw the irony of it all. Everything was comparative. It depended on where you were born, or how highly sexed you were, where you went to school. Perhaps you became a lesbian because of the inadvertent touch of the fingers of a girl. Perhaps you loved the whip because of an infant spanking by someone your smaal eyes found colorful. She hated Mike because of his coarseness, his crass male insensitivity. Yet, she realized, this Arab girl might find a battle of wits and bodies with such a man stimulating. She felt better. Goodness knows, her plight was shocking by the standards of some. But Thalia?s vitality was infectious. The coming duel would be interesting to watch.
Terry brightened up too. She twinkled at their fellow captive. "Look darling," she said brazenly, "where we are going there?s a word we are up against all the time. It?s an ugly four letter word. It?s Mike?s favorite sport – after whipping our bottoms, of course. Do you want us to use it when we have to, and we?ll have to! Or do you know a nicer one?"
Thalia considered. Her eyes were dancing. "Was there not a most famous quotation from a Miss Gertrude Stein about a rose?" She laughed in joy at their discomforture: "A fuck is a fuck is a fuck!" She laughed delightedly. "There is no word like it. Not anywhere.
Dorinda felt a great gladness that this vital creature had become a part of their lives. Her ready acceptance of carnality had a reassuring earthiness about it. "Alright," she challenged, "the thing between our legs. How about that?"
"Darling," Thalia was laughing with pure enjoyment. "That is a cunt. Why must you seek synonyms? It is a delightful word. So beautifully explicit. You are so silly to be ashamed. The English tongue has such delightful words. Why must you seek to clothe them in corsets?" She looked roguishly at her fellow captives. "Come, I will help you. A simple Moslem girl will lead the sophisticates: I have a cunt. It is a beautiful cint. It will be fucked by a man named Mike." She laughed joyfully. "See how easy it becomes. Remember those first French lessons: My aunt has a green umbrella. This is the pen of my father. Just that simple. A kidnapped maiden must learn a new lenguage. If she does not she will be forever distressed. She will have no communion with the man who has taken her. So she must say, perhaps only to herself, but she must say it: I am a captive girl. I have a cunt. He who has taken me will fuck my cunt. I have tits. He will bite them. I have pubic hair which he will pluck." Thalia laughed at their dismay. "You see? A simple Moslem girl may teach you…"
"You didn?t learn that at Girton?" Terry challenged.
"Learn, learn. What does it matter where we learn? We are girls. We know these things. I have a cunt. With it I can change the map of the world." Dorinda was enthralled. Here was a woman! Here was the epitome of Women?s Lib. Yet how they would hate her! Few, if any, of them would admit to possessing a cunt. They would call it something else. But then only if they were forced to. They would like to see themselves as a statuesque feminine image without orifices. Sanitary and chaste.
"Don?t yoy hurt? We do." Terry probed.
"Of course I hurt, darling. I hurt beautifully and wonderfully. I hurt because a man had bound me. Bound me tight. And why has he bound me? Because I am his desire. He wants me enough to risk his life and his fortune to possess my body. Darlings, wake up. Here we are, tied tightly and in pain, the three most lucky girls in all the world."
Dorinda sought to clear her mind. She felt like a child in school whose bafflement with trigonometry had been solved by a lucid teacher. How absurd life was. She and Terry were being taken to a fate worse than death…. almost. Thalia greeted the same destination as an exciting experience. Was everything only a state of mind?
"You are going to hurt worse than you ever dreamed possible," she warned.
"What if I do? I will also live more than I have lived."
"You?ll hate him!"
"Why? He is male to my female. He will hurt me, yes. Tell me of any woman to whom a man did not bring pain. Tell me."
Dorinda had no answer. She wished she could share Thalia?s avid curiosity. It was like watching the first steps of a child who has not yet learned the pain of its first fall.
"When you are screaming in agony, what than?" She was ashamed of her cattishness.
"Well then, darling, I will scream." Thalia seemed enamoured of the prospect.
She was very beautiful and very much alive. Dorinda hated to think of her soiled. But that word, too, was comparative. She and Terry had been soiled. By the standards of a past day they would be beyond the pale. She did not feel soiled. Most certainly Terry did not. So that label, too, could be cast aside.
"You are not going to like being naked, are you?" she asked mischieviously.
"You are naked." The new captive judicially considered the question.
"Very well, I will not like it the first time. I can understand that whether they strip you, or whether you yourself shed your clothes the first time must indeed make a girl long for six hands. But I have a very nice body. I will be proud of that." She gave her companions a sly shrew glance.
"Is not a girl who is beautiful always a little proud…?"
They bumped along uncomfortably, busy with their thoughts. Dorinda wondered why they must be so tightly tied. There was no need for it now. The strap at their elbows was pure punishment. Mike had probably casually forgotten, or wanted them in a subdued frame of mind on arrival. Thalia, too, must have been irked by the discomfort. She surveyed her companions? total immobility and announced: "Darlings, I am going to untie you."
"How?" two voices demanded in unison.
Thalia grinned wryly. "I don?t know," she admitted. "But I shall try. It is something to do. I am tired of bouncing about like a ball. You two can do nothing because of the way your feet are tied. But I?m not fastened to anything."
"It will hurt," Terry warned.
"So it hurts. I will bear it."
"But we are all handcuffed," Dorinda protested. "Even if you got everything else off we can?t get free of them. We would still be helpless."
The Arab girl chuckled. "Darling, do not worry. I, too, have no hope of freedom. But I want to see the look on that big man?s face if he opens the door and finds three girls who are not in pain…"
Dorinda and Terry watched entanced. It was a diversion. None of them had anything to lose. The elbow straps bit brutally. It would be good to be free of them.
Thalia?s approach to those she would rescue was in reverse. Thrusting with her bound feet, she was able to get her fingers against the cords that joined their legs. She could not see what she must do. But they could. Her handcuffs clinked busily as she tugged and puhed under their direction. That first hurdle was easy. The cords fell away, leaving each girl seperate within her own bonds. Thalia was jubilant. Her face intent, eyes shining.
"Now, darling," she said to Terry. "You lay on your side so that my fingers can reach the strap that hurts."
Once more a painful panting contact was achieved. "You see," Thalia exulted, "we are going to win."
Dorinda, the only one who could see the pinioned arms and questing fingers, gave directions with bated breath. It was exciting. It was good even to be rid of the tie from which they were already free. The concerted effort once again brought results. The strap fell away. Terry whooped in glee and sat up. Her wrists and ankles were still in thrall. But she contrived to lean over and enthusiastically kiss the girl who had wrought the miracle. "Only my ankles! Here they are, darling."