The Island (Chpt 4)

Chapter 4

"I knew what was to happen to me the next day. Had I not written it in the letter? I stood with my arms tied high and wide. They took great care that the bands of cord round my wrists were very tight. They even took close ups to show how securely my hands were held." Thalia chuckled. "I have learnt since that such pictures are sold at good prices all over the world. No doubt my k**nappers saw this as a small extra perquisite of their operation."
"They did not raise my feet from the floor. Just made me stand well stretched. Then they got down to business: on the second day I was to be whipped. It was the second day! My whipping called for much care with the camera and the lights. They desired a sequence. First my nice back and bottom. Click - click! Then I screamed and leaped into wild and foolish motion as my little round bottom received a truly awful cut with a cane given me with all the force of a man’s arm. Such pain could not be! I knew I would die. But a girl does not die. I stood and quivered while my tormentors watched and waited for the stripe across my bottom to ‘ripen’. They wanted the weal to stand up well and become as scarlet as my blood could make it. Then, once mere, click - click -click."
"Actually I was lucky that they were so concerned with excellence. It gave me time to gather up my courage and avoid hysteria. They wanted good close pictures in glorious technicolor of each wound they placed upon my skin. They contrived a cumulative series with little Thalia’s marked rear view showing her first one, then two, then three, and so on …. Lovely scarlet stripes on golden flesh. Some had started to go purple before they were finished with the last of them. The camera faithfully recorded my martyrdom. Those awful lights made me cringe. I felt five times naked they sought out every curve and crevice."
"By now, of course, I was very much one qui vive. Looking back over one shoulder I saw the whip. The cane for my bottom, a whip for the rest of me. They explained they could get better camera effects if I bore two kinds of wounds. I also saw that whip raised and swung in a truly terrible slashing swipe. I turned away at the very last moment and bit my lip and tensed against the blow. When I came back from the pain they were admiring my wound very technically, even tracing it with a rough finger so that I cried out again. Click - click."
"These men were former competitors who were jealous of my superior business acumen," Mr. Rabin explained helpfully.
"They click-clicked away until they had me beautifully latticed with a total of ten wounds. Had my flesh not been so young, I would have borne them for years, perhaps for life. They had spaced the bars across my skin with neat effect so that each stood out to be counted. The rest of my day was a repetition of the first:"
"The agenda for day number three had me set wondering. Whilst never having experienced one of the two, they were of a nature so frequently dealt with in fiction and history that I had an awareness of such things. Number three was different. First, my hands we tied behind my back: this way, by the way. I thought they never would get through with all the trails and errors and experiments. The click-clicking became frantic. The method they finally settled on was the worst of the lot. My hands palm to palm, wrists tightly corded together and a leather strip round my elbows drawing them together so they touched. It hurt horribly. It also stuck my chest out front. Next they made me spread my legs and tied my ankles down to rings in the floor. Tight, tight! Click, click … It was the most shaming posture yet. What they did then shamed me even more. Each man sucked at one of my nipples."
Thalia shrugged in recognition of something done that could not be undone. With a wry grin she continued her story. "I was at the age where a girl becomes very much aware of the assets, bestowed upon her by nature. Giggling explorations with the girls and with myself - ever since puberty - had indicated the quite remarkable possibilities of friction and suction on the female breast. We were intrigued to discover how hard and erect the little dears could pop up with a bit of help. Mine got that bit of help now. When the men were through with them they were larger and harder than I had ever known or believed possible. A moment later I screamed my head off with a metal clip firmly biting into each nipple. Rapidly my a*****ors got busy."
"The clips were the kind you use to hold wads of paper. You squeeze on one side and the jaws open on the other. The come in different sizes and tensions. Those attached to me were not the biggest. But they hurt so much and stood out so rigidly from my breasts that I was quite sure they were slowly cutting off the two things I had so recently learned to treasure. My, how I screamed and begged! It did not seem possible that anyone would want to hurt so intimate a part of me. I expect that, in its way, the wearing of those metal horrors on my nipples was one of my first realisations of what it is to become a woman."
"I realised afterwards that the ensuing speed with which my tortured breasts were clicked at from all the usual angles resulted from a shared anxiety that my nipples should not mortify or sustain damage. They got them off as quickly as they could. They even massaged the scalded spots. I’m still not sure of their motives, but it made me howl some more. I spent the rest of the day looking down at myself to verify that my little rosebuds were still there."
"The villains led me to believe my little girl was wearing those wicked things all through the day. I much longed to kill them," said Mr. Rabin.
"The fourth day was the most shameful I have ever known. Perhaps the worst I will ever know, or any girl can know. By that time we were all looking for the ransom. It was explained to me that my letter and the daily pictures were being delivered by an airline employee so that there was no great space of hours between taking them and my father receiving them. Twelve to fifteen hours if all went well. So I was always filled with hope." The teller of the story shook her head and grimaced. "It was my first knowledge that hope can be worse than no hope. Hope is very cruel. It will not let you rest."
"I was tied in exactly the same way as the day before. I wept - even when they were tugging at the cords and strap. I had discovered that to have the elbows held like that all day is a very terrible torture too, even though it seems so harmless. Besides, I was fearful of the clips again … my letter had not gone into detail beyond the third day …"
"The produced a leek. You know what a leek is. Like a very large spring union but with more stem and flat green leaves. Even when I saw it I did not guess it’s purpose. I was very inexperienced in such matters."
"I could see they were very amused. They took much care shaving off the root bits to make it smooth and round so that it cam to look much like the pestle used by apothecaries in pounding out their prescriptions. They then anointed it with Vaseline …. Well, you know what they did with it." Thalia made a gesture of infinite disgust. "I was deflowered by a leek. I lost my maidenhood to a vegetable! They were gentle enough with their merchandise. But it hurt me terribly and I was deathly afraid. I made a lot of noise and tried to struggle, but could hardly move. I was held beautifully for their purpose. They pushed it in as far as they dared. I was quite sure it had gone right into my tummy. So there I was. You can make your own mental picture of what I looked like with my feet spread wide and those green leaves sprouting out of my sex. I took one long fascinated look at myself and then refused to lower my eyes again. I turned my eyes this way and that while they clicked away with camera and lights. They were still busy when a very English voice said gruffly: "Yer can’t that there ‘ere, y’know."
"He was one of the largest policemen I have ever seen. Had I been able to, I would have flung myself into his ample arms."
"My k**nappers had other ideas. They dived at him and the doorway he barred. One of them drew a knife. I was shocked when the constable stepped to one side and let them through. There ensued a considerable commotion and shortly they were marched in again by two even bigger members of the law. They were now both handcuffed. I had never seen felons handcuffed before. They looked so absolutely right."
"The police were very kind. They removed the intrusion from within me and set me free. One of them found a rug in which I could d**** my charms. But I will always remember how I blushed when one of them was carrying out the offensive leek. I heard a fine British voice out in the hallway say: ‘Goes lovely in a stew, George. My missus does ‘em up a treat.’"
"I saved much money. The English police does not accept bribes or rewards," Mr. Rabin complacently supplied the happy ending.
Dorinda found herself looking at Thalia Rabin with fresh interest. She was a beautiful girl. She had tremendous poise. It seemed probable she possessed a sense of humour. Why had she related this shocking ordeal from her past?
Mr. Rabin bestowed upon each of the girls his very warmest smile. "You are quite free to make comment. I would like you to. There will be no punishment for imprudent words …" His tone was benign.
‘Comment’ Dorinda groped. They could freely express sympathy or shock. But she was sure that was not required. She looked up and found Thalia’s eyes watching her inward struggles with amusement. Quite suddenly a shocking parallel became obvious.
"You were k**napped. Now we are k**napped. Not much difference in principle, is there?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Rabin, his eyes alert, pleased.
"That’s right, darling. You put your finger neatly on the spot. The moral is that I have been where you are. I know your feelings and reactions. The marks on your bodies tell us that you have been hurt. Perhaps more than I ever was. So we are very much even."
"But where is the happy ending for us?" Dorinda’s voice held pathos.
"I don’t believe you should think in that view. Live each day only." Thalia sounded as though she could easily have evoked Allah.
Dorinda lifted her handcuffed wrists for all to see. "A slave has no tomorrows …." She let the words hang in the air.
Thalia looked at her parent qeuryingly. He smiled indulgently. "Yes, tell them of how you were once very bad." He turned to Dorinda and Terry. "It is good that you know."
"I have told you of pain. Now I tell you of punishment. They are the same and not the same. A matter of motive and acceptance." She looked at her alert audience and smiled reassuringly. "Would it surprise you to know that my father has had me whipped?"
Thalia laughed again at their startled attention. "I have told you I am a product of two worlds. There is much friction between those worlds. As I went back and forth between Girton and my father’s house I was constantly subject to pressures. The overshadowing one being filial piety. The English were as flip about parents as they are about most things. When I came home for my first holiday I called my father ‘Pater’. He promptly had me caned before both family and servants. I didn’t mention the incident when I got back in school."
"Then I got mixed up in ‘causes’. At sixteen a girl is fertile ground. With my background it’s understandable that ‘Women’s Rights’ should catch my imagination. When I came home and started missionary work on the locals and our staff I was promptly locked up in a nice little stone room we have here for a couple of days of bread and water. However, my zeal had ignited one of the younger female staff. She unlocked the door. I ran away. When I was brought back I was tied to a post in the courtyard and left there for all to see my shame. The next day I was tied there again and very soundly whipped. And the next day … and the next …. Each evening I was asked if I saw the error of my ways. You will understand the depth of my involvement when I tell you it took five days before I was able to say that yes, I did see …"
"It was the whip talking, wasn’t it?" Terry asked innocently.
"No!" Thalia’s negative was vehement. "It was not. The whip told me what I was and where I was. At the post each day I did much thinking. What girl wouldn’t? There is also something very potent about being tied. When a girl cannot move her body or her limbs it is her mind that becomes free. I suddenly saw women’s rights as a dream of spinsters. I shocked them back at school by telling them how lucky they were to be female." Thalia laughed roguishly. "A girl becomes very female when she’s whipped."
Dorinda wondered, with a clutching of the heart, in how many places and from how many people that lesson would be learned. Thalia’s eyes were almost maternal. "We tell you these things, darlings, so that you may learn with least pain. In England and in America, oh yes, I have been there, a girl and a whip are not related. In our land, here, they are never far apart."
That night Dorinda felt the chain upon her ankle and knew herself very far from home.
***
Dorinda would always think of it by the name Terry had coined. ‘Rabin’s Rentals’. She would speak it with caution. But its utter absurdity was all too apt. She watched, half ashamed, but with a mounting curiosity as papers were signed and money changed hands. The money paid for her. She was being ‘rented’. "Is a nice and easy job for first time." Mr. Rabin patted her back benevolently as he handed the key to her cuffs to a grinning man in uniform.
Corporal Kuhdin was a dedicated young man. Proud of his uniform and his stripe. Proud, also, of a motley brand of English picked up whilst working on sundry freighters with their motley crews. He accepted delivery of his naked charge with a flourish.
But not quite naked. Some unexplained motive of kindness of property had allowed her to wear Mike’s thoughtfully donated briefs. The same sentiment had probably cuffed her wrists at her front instead of at her back. She felt almost free and well dressed. In deference to her single garment which he fingered appreciatively whilst helping her into the truck the corporal vouschafed.
"The general’s a son of a bitch about cunts, miss."
The ambiguity defeated her. But of more immediate concern was the truck. It was not large, the ordinary open type on which hoops and a tarp made a conversion. It was covered now. But beneath the tarp was wire. The back, too, had been wired. The effect was as of a cage. Uncomfortable seated she made her usual ploy, more as an opening gambit to conversation than with hope of success.
"Could I have my handcuffs off, please?"
Corporal Kahdin established an all time first. He took them off and put them in his pocket. "We can have tail later," he approved.
Dorinda sighed. It was hard to do the best thing. Certainly the recreation he had suggested would be impractical in a truck on a road as rough as that hey now traversed. "Would you like to tell me what I have to do?" she asked politely.
He seemed surprised she did not know. "You are captured saboteur, miss. General Hakim is making fine example."
There were too many ambiguities. "Fine example of what?" Dorinda demanded.
"Of you miss. Captured enemy of the people miss. Very bad girl. Put on display. People spit."
The fine mesh wire began to make sense. Mr. Rabin’s ‘nice easy job’ seemed to depend on the angle from which it was viewed. "You mean your general wants a martyr on display?"
"Oh, already has a martyr, miss. Is nice Jewish girl. Very white like you. Could easily hang tomorrow. But the general is wishing to sleep with her. So she is nicely tucked away in little room he keep for very bad girls and tomorrow you hang instead. Everyone is happy."
Dorinda was aghast.
"Please do not fret," The corporal put his hand reassuringly on her arm. "You do not really hang. Just drop through the trap."
"What’s the difference?"
"The rope will break when you out of sight in hole. Most clever."
She looked at his smiling face in disbelief. This was Ian Fleming at his worst. With a service such as this, no wonder Rabin’s Rental prospered. "How do you know it will break?"
"I myself have cut it. Is now stuck with glue. Very poor quality." He eyed her anxiously. "You do not think we would harm you?"
"Wouldn’t you?"
"Oh no, miss. General Hakim is paying most large damage deposit."
Mr. Rabin thought of everything.
"What about this spitting business?" Dorinda asked doubtfully.
"It is very hard to spit straight through wire. Most miss."
"Won’t they throw things?"
"Yes, but wire protects," he glowed. "Also, we have military escort. I will be there." He sounded like general McArthur.
It was all too Arabian nights! With people like this no wonder Sheherazade could tell her thousand and one tales. "Did this poor girl actually toss a bomb?" she asked.
"Oh yes. At bridge. Much noise. She was caught on way to the border. Her jeep got a flat tire. Man with her shot. She very well known girl. Much bad. General Hakim most lucky to sleep with her."
"Why?"
"She fight and spit and bite. He must whip her every time they have tail. Is very good like that."
"And he’s going to keep her … keep her for that purpose?"
"For long time. When he tire of her, he’ll sell her to Rabin."
All was grist that came to Rabin’s mill. Dorinda felt like goods upon a shelf. This military truck bumped its way across an infinity of nothing. Corporal Kahdin exuded bonhomie, his gaze rarely leaving the curves and contours of the costly package to which he was escort.
"Have nice tits and belly," he informed their owner approvingly. "Face much nice too," he added as a chivalrous afterthought.
Surprisingly the corporal provided lunch from a package and a thermos produced from beneath the seat. The truck paused long enough for them to eat in comfort. For desert the corporal availed himself of the privilege of his office. Dorinda wished the floor of the truck had been softer.
When in mid afternoon they stopped again. Dorinda knew she had reached the scene of her ordeal. There were sounds. Corporal Kahdin became embarrassed. He produced the handcuffs awkwardly.
"Behind back, I’m fearing," he requested.
The hired girl turned and placed her wrists conveniently. How familiar the steel bands had become. He made them as tight upon her as he could without pain.
"Must be at back," he explained apologetically. "All peoples are wishing to see Jew girl’s breasts. Jew girls have fine breasts.
"But I am not a jewess."
"Ah true. But no one knowing. Your breasts are most fine. With little hands chain at back, cannot cover. Is not allowed for girl to cover in ceremony." Thoughtfully he inserted a finger beneath the briefs, pulled and let it snap back against her hip. "Most will think this should remove. But not now. General Hakim must believe in little something kept in reserve."
"If you’ll take off the handcuffs I’ll promise to show myself and cover nothing," the captive offered.
"This I would do. But people enjoy to see a girl in chains. Wicked Jew girl who tried to blow up bridge. She must be punished. But I put on handcuff. No more."
"Am I supposed to do anything?" the impending martyr asked bemusedly. "I mean, make faces, stick my tongue out? Do I sit down or stand up or lay on the floor? Should I look scared or brazen?"
"Not know brazen. Best look very haughty. Eyes flash fire and hate." The corporal did his best to demonstrate. "But I must ask you to stand up straight and turn about so everyone see. Is bad with truck in motion, but you manage." He looked at her with sudden compassion. "Must take tarp off now."
It was not a good moment for the nearly naked girl. The line that divided her from a girl sentenced to die on the morrow was to fine for comfort. Today there was no difference between them. She would receive the same insults and the same missiles and the same spittle as if she was the guilty one. She would be terribly alone. She wanted to cry, but would deny herself the comfort as long as she could.
The wire enclosed her, its gate locked importantly by a very official and distant corporal Kahdin. There was much tugging and small sounds of snaps and buckles. Without warning the tarp was swept away. She stood naked for the multitude.
There was the same surging cry that greets the players entering the field. Elation, awe, good spirits. Faces were everywhere. It was a roman holiday. General Hakim’s munidicence made it free for all. The first sticks and stones beat upon the wire with frightening volume.
The corporal seated himself with the driver. A small escort of uniformed troops, well armed, surrounded the vehicle and its unpopular cargo. The captured girl was thankful to see the general was protecting his investment. Such a crowd, left to its own devices, could easily kill her.
It was all frightening, b**stly, and quite difficult. In spite of being within the limits of a town the road was far from smooth. All Dorinda’s energies were devoted to keeping her feet. With hands linked at her back it was not easy. The jolting of the truck forced upon her a constant change of stance so that the citizenry did indeed have a constantly changing view of their enemy. She thought, fleetingly, of the real saboteur crouched somewhere in a cell awaiting her captor’s pleasure. Assuredly this was not a land in which to espouse the rights of women.
Nostalgically a vision of Kyrexos and of her home in the USA flitted across her mind. In desolation she realised that she would probably never see them again. From what was happening to her now, the life expectancy of one of Rabin’s Rentals could surely not be long. She wept. The crowd roared its approval of her tears.
It was not a big place. But the circle and the various side streets on which the prisoner was to be exhibited accounted for perhaps four miles of shameful stumbling and balancing for the female object of everyone’s vilification. Most of the crowd followed to enjoy her exposure to the full, but heads stuck out of windows and doors. It was a gala day. The litter on the floor became an additional hazard for the caged girl striving to stand. Very little of what was thrown reached her with any velocity. But there were a lot of broken pieces that fell within the wire. Dorinda hoped that tears and haughtiness together were appropriate to the occasion.
The grand tour concluded, the truck was positioned in the center of the main square and came to a standstill. Corporal Kahdin unlocked the door to her cage and joined her within. He was smiling cheerfully. Undoubtedly the general would be pleased with his conduct of the day’s affairs. He carried something that caused his captive to wince.
"Are now on long display," he announced. "Poor girl are not allowed sitting down. She must stand."
"I’ll stand," his prisoner promised miserably. "You don’t have to chain me."
"Not needful." The corporal agreed. "But giving much more pleasure for all to see. Could not do in motion for fear of maybe fall. But now quite safe."
Grinning widely, so that Dorinda guessed he, too, was enjoying what must be done, he buckled the dog collar around her neck and snapped the light chain tether above her head to one of the hoops and the wire. No locks were needed. Handcuffed she was powerless to touch the new infliction. It gave her about a foot of latitude in which to turn. That was all. "Soldiers stay on guard. No harm come," he assured her earnestly as he left and locked her cage again.
Had Rabin and his daughter realised what they had consigned her to do? Probably. She was a woman. It did not matter. That had been the theme of the dinner conversation. Shame and indignity would be her lot from this time forward.
She let her eyes rove. The seething crowd had become amorphous, without identity. She felt their hate and their lust as she had not felt their sticks and stones. Those who got closest to the cage were men who had the strength, they were the ones she knew would conceal the rigid sex beneath their haik, longing to spend it within her loins. They were the ones for whom she wore the chains. Each could see her as his own. Each would violate her in his mind. She supposed it was not really much different from the plight of a girl in the stocks at Tyburn Hill, or held in a pillory in the old Massachusetts colony. No different from all the girls everywhere who had been displayed for crimes, real or imagined. Always the crowd had roared its approval of her body and her shame. There would be but few who saw virtue triumphant. For most she would be a visual instrument of latent lust.
She suffered. The crowd shared that suffering with delight. As the dismal time slowly spent itself she discovered that, in a small measure, she could control them. Her tears were met with vociferous approval. To tug against the tether on her neck would send a wordless susurration of sound through the ranks. If she struggled against the handcuffs a low rumble of approval signalled her ignominy. She found that she could mute the vocal discords by standing very straight and thrusting out her breasts in arrogant disdain. For a few moments they would be content to look at what they seldom saw. There would be among them adolescent males who had never seen a woman’s breasts. The knowledge of their tumescence gave her a momentary glow of satisfaction. She was deeply thankful for the cage and for the guards.
The military concluded the exercise with aplomb and dispatch. The driver and the corporal resumed their seats as the afternoon waned. The soldiers took up their escort. The small cortege made its way to a barracks, though a huge door that closed behind them, and stopped beside a smaller, but still impressive door. To the chained girl it was peace after storms. Her enemies were behind a very high wall. "Welcome to Fort Rahbeal," the corporal glowed.
Dorinda gave him a wan smile. "What now, a cell?"
He seemed genuinely shocked. "Oh no. No cell ‘till much later in night. This evening you are guest of general Hakim. Much arrack and champagne." He viewed her with reverence. Such honour was not for all.
She strove to share his enthusiasm as he removed her shaming leash from her neck. At the moment the general was an enigma. She supposed, wearily, that the least she could expect of him was to be used. Her status would be about that of a dancing girl. But she took heart when he lifted her from the truck and handed her over to a girl who now stood waiting. A girl both respectful and awed. As his last gesture for the day, corporal Kahdin unlocked the handcuffs from her back and locked them again at her front. Ceremoniously he handed the key to the prisoner’s new escort who accepted it with glowing panache. For her this was an occasion. She looked at her prisoner and smiled shyly. The corporal saluted and was gone.
Nothing made sense. But why should it? Sheherazade had taken it for granted. So must she. Her feminine escort led her out of the centuries into the exquisitely modern. General Hakim evidently believed in comfort. When the moment came for the bath, the girl shyly touched the handcuffs and held up the key. "No fight?" she asked simply.
For the first time that afternoon Dorinda laughed. She shook her head, smiling into earnest eyes. "No fight." It was an easy promise to make.
The serving girl grappled with the key. It was plain to see she was intrigued by the handcuffs. When she had them off she fitted one upon her own wrist and forced it tight to test its feel. Giggling she held the dangling steel up for inspection as though it was a new idea in bracelets. Thoughtlessly she placed the fetter and its key upon the dresser seeming to find no inconsistency in its easy use or removal. No doubt she had her own knowledge of the impossibility of escape.
Dorinda had not hoped for such a boon as the huge tub. She sorely needed it after the dusty drive and the attentions the citizens had seen fit to bestow. Now she was bathed and attended as a princess. As the gentle hands lathed the soap they also traced the marks beneath it. "Much whip," she queried in wonder.
"Much whip," her charge agreed. The in mischief: "Much bad girl."
Her servant viewed her with a new respect.
"I knew what was to happen to me the next day. Had I not written it in the letter? I stood with my arms tied high and wide. They took great care that the bands of cord round my wrists were very tight. They even took close ups to show how securely my hands were held."
Thalia chuckled. "I have learnt since that such pictures are sold at good prices all over the world. No doubt my k**nappers saw this as a small extra perquisite of their operation."
"They did not raise my feet from the floor. Just made me stand well stretched. Then they got down to business: on the second day I was to be whipped. It was the second day! My whipping called for much care with the camera and the lights. They desired a sequence. First my nice back and bottom. Click - click! Then I screamed and leaped into wild and foolish motion as my little round bottom received a truly awful cut with a cane given me with all the force of a man’s arm. Such pain could not be! I knew I would die. But a girl does not die. I stood and quivered while my tormentors watched and waited for the stripe across my bottom to ‘ripen’. They wanted the weal to stand up well and become as scarlet as my blood could make it. Then, once mere, click - click -click."
"Actually I was lucky that they were so concerned with excellence. It gave me time to gather up my courage and avoid hysteria. They wanted good close pictures in glorious technicolor of each wound they placed upon my skin. They contrived a cumulative series with little Thalia’s marked rear view showing her first one, then two, then three, and so on .... Lovely scarlet stripes on golden flesh. Some had started to go purple before they were finished with the last of them. The camera faithfully recorded my martyrdom. Those awful lights made me cringe. I felt five times naked they sought out every curve and crevice."
"By now, of course, I was very much one qui vive. Looking back over one shoulder I saw the whip. The cane for my bottom, a whip for the rest of me. They explained they could get better camera effects if I bore two kinds of wounds. I also saw that whip raised and swung in a truly terrible slashing swipe. I turned away at the very last moment and bit my lip and tensed against the blow. When I came back from the pain they were admiring my wound very technically, even tracing it with a rough finger so that I cried out again. Click - click."
"These men were former competitors who were jealous of my superior business acumen," Mr. Rabin explained helpfully.
"They click-clicked away until they had me beautifully latticed with a total of ten wounds. Had my flesh not been so young, I would have borne them for years, perhaps for life. They had spaced the bars across my skin with neat effect so that each stood out to be counted. The rest of my day was a repetition of the first:"
"The agenda for day number three had me set wondering. Whilst never having experienced one of the two, they were of a nature so frequently dealt with in fiction and history that I had an awareness of such things. Number three was different. First, my hands we tied behind my back: this way, by the way. I thought they never would get through with all the trails and errors and experiments. The click-clicking became frantic. The method they finally settled on was the worst of the lot. My hands palm to palm, wrists tightly corded together and a leather strip round my elbows drawing them together so they touched. It hurt horribly. It also stuck my chest out front. Next they made me spread my legs and tied my ankles down to rings in the floor. Tight, tight! Click, click ... It was the most shaming posture yet. What they did then shamed me even more. Each man sucked at one of my nipples."
Thalia shrugged in recognition of something done that could not be undone. With a wry grin she continued her story. "I was at the age where a girl becomes very much aware of the assets, bestowed upon her by nature. Giggling explorations with the girls and with myself - ever since puberty - had indicated the quite remarkable possibilities of friction and suction on the female breast. We were intrigued to discover how hard and erect the little dears could pop up with a bit of help. Mine got that bit of help now. When the men were through with them they were larger and harder than I had ever known or believed possible. A moment later I screamed my head off with a metal clip firmly biting into each nipple. Rapidly my a*****ors got busy."
"The clips were the kind you use to hold wads of paper. You squeeze on one side and the jaws open on the other. The come in different sizes and tensions. Those attached to me were not the biggest. But they hurt so much and stood out so rigidly from my breasts that I was quite sure they were slowly cutting off the two things I had so recently learned to treasure. My, how I screamed and begged! It did not seem possible that anyone would want to hurt so intimate a part of me. I expect that, in its way, the wearing of those metal horrors on my nipples was one of my first realisations of what it is to become a woman."
"I realised afterwards that the ensuing speed with which my tortured breasts were clicked at from all the usual angles resulted from a shared anxiety that my nipples should not mortify or sustain damage. They got them off as quickly as they could. They even massaged the scalded spots. I’m still not sure of their motives, but it made me howl some more. I spent the rest of the day looking down at myself to verify that my little rosebuds were still there."
"The villains led me to believe my little girl was wearing those wicked things all through the day. I much longed to kill them," said Mr. Rabin.
"The fourth day was the most shameful I have ever known. Perhaps the worst I will ever know, or any girl can know. By that time we were all looking for the ransom. It was explained to me that my letter and the daily pictures were being delivered by an airline employee so that there was no great space of hours between taking them and my father receiving them. Twelve to fifteen hours if all went well. So I was always filled with hope." The teller of the story shook her head and grimaced. "It was my first knowledge that hope can be worse than no hope. Hope is very cruel. It will not let you rest."
"I was tied in exactly the same way as the day before. I wept - even when they were tugging at the cords and strap. I had discovered that to have the elbows held like that all day is a very terrible torture too, even though it seems so harmless. Besides, I was fearful of the clips again … my letter had not gone into detail beyond the third day ..."
"The produced a leek. You know what a leek is. Like a very large spring union but with more stem and flat green leaves. Even when I saw it I did not guess it’s purpose. I was very inexperienced in such matters."
"I could see they were very amused. They took much care shaving off the root bits to make it smooth and round so that it cam to look much like the pestle used by apothecaries in pounding out their prescriptions. They then anointed it with Vaseline …. Well, you know what they did with it." Thalia made a gesture of infinite disgust. "I was deflowered by a leek. I lost my maidenhood to a vegetable! They were gentle enough with their merchandise. But it hurt me terribly and I was deathly afraid. I made a lot of noise and tried to struggle, but could hardly move. I was held beautifully for their purpose. They pushed it in as far as they dared. I was quite sure it had gone right into my tummy. So there I was. You can make your own mental picture of what I looked like with my feet spread wide and those green leaves sprouting out of my sex. I took one long fascinated look at myself and then refused to lower my eyes again. I turned my eyes this way and that while they clicked away with camera and lights. They were still busy when a very English voice said gruffly: "Yer can’t that there ‘ere, y’know."
"He was one of the largest policemen I have ever seen. Had I been able to, I would have flung myself into his ample arms."
"My k**nappers had other ideas. They dived at him and the doorway he barred. One of them drew a knife. I was shocked when the constable stepped to one side and let them through. There ensued a considerable commotion and shortly they were marched in again by two even bigger members of the law. They were now both handcuffed. I had never seen felons handcuffed before. They looked so absolutely right."
"The police were very kind. They removed the intrusion from within me and set me free. One of them found a rug in which I could d**** my charms. But I will always remember how I blushed when one of them was carrying out the offensive leek. I heard a fine British voice out in the hallway say: ‘Goes lovely in a stew, George. My missus does ‘em up a treat.’"
"I saved much money. The English police does not accept bribes or rewards," Mr. Rabin complacently supplied the happy ending.
Dorinda found herself looking at Thalia Rabin with fresh interest. She was a beautiful girl. She had tremendous poise. It seemed probable she possessed a sense of humour. Why had she related this shocking ordeal from her past?
Mr. Rabin bestowed upon each of the girls his very warmest smile. "You are quite free to make comment. I would like you to. There will be no punishment for imprudent words ..." His tone was benign.
‘Comment’ Dorinda groped. They could freely express sympathy or shock. But she was sure that was not required. She looked up and found Thalia’s eyes watching her inward struggles with amusement. Quite suddenly a shocking parallel became obvious. "You were k**napped. Now we are k**napped. Not much difference in principle, is there?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Rabin, his eyes alert, pleased.
"That’s right, darling. You put your finger neatly on the spot. The moral is that I have been where you are. I know your feelings and reactions. The marks on your bodies tell us that you have been hurt. Perhaps more than I ever was. So we are very much even." "But where is the happy ending for us?" Dorinda’s voice held pathos.
"I don’t believe you should think in that view. Live each day only." Thalia sounded as though she could easily have evoked Allah.
Dorinda lifted her handcuffed wrists for all to see. "A slave has no tomorrows .." She let the words hang in the air.
Thalia looked at her parent qeuryingly. He smiled indulgently. "Yes, tell them of how you were once very bad." He turned to Dorinda and Terry. "It is good that you know."
"I have told you of pain. Now I tell you of punishment. They are the same and not the same. A matter of motive and acceptance." She looked at her alert audience and smiled reassuringly. "Would it surprise you to know that my father has had me whipped?"
Thalia laughed again at their startled attention. "I have told you I am a product of two worlds. There is much friction between those worlds. As I went back and forth between Girton and my father’s house I was constantly subject to pressures. The overshadowing one being filial piety. The English were as flip about parents as they are about most things. When I came home for my first holiday I called my father ‘Pater’. He promptly had me caned before both family and servants. I didn’t mention the incident when I got back in school."
"Then I got mixed up in ‘causes’. At sixteen a girl is fertile ground. With my background it’s understandable that ‘Women’s Rights’ should catch my imagination. When I came home and started missionary work on the locals and our staff I was promptly locked up in a nice little stone room we have here for a couple of days of bread and water. However, my zeal had ignited one of the younger female staff. She unlocked the door. I ran away. When I was brought back I was tied to a post in the courtyard and left there for all to see my shame. The next day I was tied there again and very soundly whipped. And the next day … and the next …. Each evening I was asked if I saw the error of my ways. You will understand the depth of my involvement when I tell you it took five days before I was able to say that yes, I did see ..."
"It was the whip talking, wasn’t it?" Terry asked innocently.
"No!" Thalia’s negative was vehement. "It was not. The whip told me what I was and where I was. At the post each day I did much thinking. What girl wouldn’t? There is also something very potent about being tied. When a girl cannot move her body or her limbs it is her mind that becomes free. I suddenly saw women’s rights as a dream of spinsters. I shocked them back at school by telling them how lucky they were to be female." Thalia laughed roguishly. "A girl becomes very female when she’s whipped."
Dorinda wondered, with a clutching of the heart, in how many places and from how many people that lesson would be learned. Thalia’s eyes were almost maternal. "We tell you these things, darlings, so that you may learn with least pain. In England and in America, oh yes, I have been there, a girl and a whip are not related. In our land, here, they are never far apart."
That night Dorinda felt the chain upon her ankle and knew herself very far from home.
***
Dorinda would always think of it by the name Terry had coined. ‘Rabin’s Rentals’. She would speak it with caution. But its utter absurdity was all too apt. She watched, half ashamed, but with a mounting curiosity as papers were signed and money changed hands. The money paid for her. She was being ‘rented’. "Is a nice and easy job for first time." Mr. Rabin patted her back benevolently as he handed the key to her cuffs to a grinning man in uniform.
Corporal Kuhdin was a dedicated young man. Proud of his uniform and his stripe. Proud, also, of a motley brand of English picked up whilst working on sundry freighters with their motley crews. He accepted delivery of his naked charge with a flourish.
But not quite naked. Some unexplained motive of kindness of property had allowed her to wear Mike’s thoughtfully donated briefs. The same sentiment had probably cuffed her wrists at her front instead of at her back. She felt almost free and well dressed. In deference to her single garment which he fingered appreciatively whilst helping her into the truck the corporal vouschafed.
"The general’s a son of a bitch about cunts, miss."
The ambiguity defeated her. But of more immediate concern was the truck. It was not large, the ordinary open type on which hoops and a tarp made a conversion. It was covered now. But beneath the tarp was wire. The back, too, had been wired. The effect was as of a cage. Uncomfortable seated she made her usual ploy, more as an opening gambit to conversation than with hope of success. "Could I have my handcuffs off, please?"
Corporal Kahdin established an all time first. He took them off and put them in his pocket. "We can have tail later," he approved. Dorinda sighed. It was hard to do the best thing. Certainly the recreation he had suggested would be impractical in a truck on a road as rough as that hey now traversed. "Would you like to tell me what I have to do?" she asked politely.
He seemed surprised she did not know. "You are captured saboteur, miss. General Hakim is making fine example."
There were too many ambiguities. "Fine example of what?" Dorinda demanded.
"Of you miss. Captured enemy of the people miss. Very bad girl. Put on display. People spit."
The fine mesh wire began to make sense. Mr. Rabin’s ‘nice easy job’ seemed to depend on the angle from which it was viewed. "You mean your general wants a martyr on display?"
"Oh, already has a martyr, miss. Is nice Jewish girl. Very white like you. Could easily hang tomorrow. But the general is wishing to sleep with her. So she is nicely tucked away in little room he keep for very bad girls and tomorrow you hang instead. Everyone is happy."
Dorinda was aghast. Had Rabin been that - - -
"Please do not fret," The corporal put his hand reassuringly on her arm. "You do not really hang. Just drop through the trap."
"What’s the difference?"
"The rope will break when you out of sight in hole. Most clever."
She looked at his smiling face in disbelief. This was Ian Fleming at his worst. With a service such as this, no wonder Rabin’s Rental prospered. "How do you know it will break?"
"I myself have cut it. Is now stuck with glue. Very poor quality." He eyed her anxiously. "You do not think we would harm you?"
"Wouldn’t you?"
"Oh no, miss. General Hakim is paying most large damage deposit."
Mr. Rabin thought of everything.
"What about this spitting business?" Dorinda asked doubtfully.
"It is very hard to spit straight through wire. Most miss."
"Won’t they throw things?"
"Yes, but wire protects," he glowed. "Also, we have military escort. I will be there." He sounded like general McArthur.
It was all too Arabian nights! With people like this no wonder Sheherazade could tell her thousand and one tales. "Did this poor girl actually toss a bomb?" she asked.
"Oh yes. At bridge. Much noise. She was caught on way to the border. Her jeep got a flat tire. Man with her shot. She very well known girl. Much bad. General Hakim most lucky to sleep with her."
"Why?"
"She fight and spit and bite. He must whip her every time they have tail. Is very good like that."
"And he’s going to keep her ... keep her for that purpose?"
"For long time. When he tire of her, he’ll sell her to Rabin."
All was grist that came to Rabin’s mill. Dorinda felt like goods upon a shelf. This military truck bumped its way across an infinity of nothing. Corporal Kahdin exuded bonhomie, his gaze rarely leaving the curves and contours of the costly package to which he was escort.
"Have nice tits and belly," he informed their owner approvingly. "Face much nice too," he added as a chivalrous afterthought.
Surprisingly the corporal provided lunch from a package and a thermos produced from beneath the seat. The truck paused long enough for them to eat in comfort. For desert the corporal availed himself of the privilege of his office. Dorinda wished the floor of the truck had been softer.
When in mid afternoon they stopped again. Dorinda knew she had reached the scene of her ordeal. There were sounds. Corporal Kahdin became embarrassed. He produced the handcuffs awkwardly.
"Behind back, I’m fearing," he requested.
The hired girl turned and placed her wrists conveniently. How familiar the steel bands had become. He made them as tight upon her as he could without pain.
"Must be at back," he explained apologetically. "All peoples are wishing to see Jew girl’s breasts. Jew girls have fine breasts.
"But I am not a jewess."
"Ah true. But no one knowing. Your breasts are most fine. With little hands chain at back, cannot cover. Is not allowed for girl to cover in ceremony." Thoughtfully he inserted a finger beneath the briefs, pulled and let it snap back against her hip. "Most will think this should remove. But not now. General Hakim must believe in little something kept in reserve."
"If you’ll take off the handcuffs I’ll promise to show myself and cover nothing," the captive offered.
"This I would do. But people enjoy to see a girl in chains. Wicked Jew girl who tried to blow up bridge. She must be punished. But I put on handcuff. No more."
"Am I supposed to do anything?" the impending martyr asked bemusedly. "I mean, make faces, stick my tongue out? Do I sit down or stand up or lay on the floor? Should I look scared or brazen?"
"Not know brazen. Best look very haughty. Eyes flash fire and hate." The corporal did his best to demonstrate. "But I must ask you to stand up straight and turn about so everyone see. Is bad with truck in motion, but you manage." He looked at her with sudden compassion. "Must take tarp off now."
It was not a good moment for the nearly naked girl. The line that divided her from a girl sentenced to die on the morrow was to fine for comfort. Today there was no difference between them. She would receive the same insults and the same missiles and the same spittle as if she was the guilty one. She would be terribly alone. She wanted to cry, but would deny herself the comfort as long as she could.
The wire enclosed her, its gate locked importantly by a very official and distant corporal Kahdin. There was much tugging and small sounds of snaps and buckles. Without warning the tarp was swept away. She stood naked for the multitude.
There was the same surging cry that greets the players entering the field. Elation, awe, good spirits. Faces were everywhere. It was a roman holiday. General Hakim’s munidicence made it free for all. The first sticks and stones beat upon the wire with frightening volume.
The corporal seated himself with the driver. A small escort of uniformed troops, well armed, surrounded the vehicle and its unpopular cargo. The captured girl was thankful to see the general was protecting his investment. Such a crowd, left to its own devices, could easily kill her.
It was all frightening, b**stly, and quite difficult. In spite of being within the limits of a town the road was far from smooth. All Dorinda’s energies were devoted to keeping her feet. With hands linked at her back it was not easy. The jolting of the truck forced upon her a constant change of stance so that the citizenry did indeed have a constantly changing view of their enemy. She thought, fleetingly, of the real saboteur crouched somewhere in a cell awaiting her captor’s pleasure. Assuredly this was not a land in which to espouse the rights of women.
Nostalgically a vision of Kyrexos and of her home in the USA flitted across her mind. In desolation she realised that she would probably never see them again. From what was happening to her now, the life expectancy of one of Rabin’s Rentals could surely not be long. She wept. The crowd roared its approval of her tears.
It was not a big place. But the circle and the various side streets on which the prisoner was to be exhibited accounted for perhaps four miles of shameful stumbling and balancing for the female object of everyone’s vilification. Most of the crowd followed to enjoy her exposure to the full, but heads stuck out of windows and doors. It was a gala day. The litter on the floor became an additional hazard for the caged girl striving to stand. Very little of what was thrown reached her with any velocity. But there were a lot of broken pieces that fell within the wire. Dorinda hoped that tears and haughtiness together were appropriate to the occasion.
The grand tour concluded, the truck was positioned in the center of the main square and came to a standstill. Corporal Kahdin unlocked the door to her cage and joined her within. He was smiling cheerfully. Undoubtedly the general would be pleased with his conduct of the day’s affairs. He carried something that caused his captive to wince.
"Are now on long display," he announced. "Poor girl are not allowed sitting down. She must stand."
"I’ll stand," his prisoner promised miserably. "You don’t have to chain me."
"Not needful." The corporal agreed. "But giving much more pleasure for all to see. Could not do in motion for fear of maybe fall. But now quite safe."
Grinning widely, so that Dorinda guessed he, too, was enjoying what must be done, he buckled the dog collar around her neck and snapped the light chain tether above her head to one of the hoops and the wire. No locks were needed. Handcuffed she was powerless to touch the new infliction. It gave her about a foot of latitude in which to turn. That was all. "Soldiers stay on guard. No harm come," he assured her earnestly as he left and locked her cage again.
Had Rabin and his daughter realised what they had consigned her to do? Probably. She was a woman. It did not matter. That had been the theme of the dinner conversation. Shame and indignity would be her lot from this time forward.
She let her eyes rove. The seething crowd had become amorphous, without identity. She felt their hate and their lust as she had not felt their sticks and stones. Those who got closest to the cage were men who had the strength, they were the ones she knew would conceal the rigid sex beneath their haik, longing to spend it within her loins. They were the ones for whom she wore the chains. Each could see her as his own. Each would violate her in his mind. She supposed it was not really much different from the plight of a girl in the stocks at Tyburn Hill, or held in a pillory in the old Massachusetts colony. No different from all the girls everywhere who had been displayed for crimes, real or imagined. Always the crowd had roared its approval of her body and her shame. There would be but few who saw virtue triumphant. For most she would be a visual instrument of latent lust.
She suffered. The crowd shared that suffering with delight. As the dismal time slowly spent itself she discovered that, in a small measure, she could control them. Her tears were met with vociferous approval. To tug against the tether on her neck would send a wordless susurration of sound through the ranks. If she struggled against the handcuffs a low rumble of approval signalled her ignominy. She found that she could mute the vocal discords by standing very straight and thrusting out her breasts in arrogant disdain. For a few moments they would be content to look at what they seldom saw. There would be among them adolescent males who had never seen a woman’s breasts. The knowledge of their tumescence gave her a momentary glow of satisfaction. She was deeply thankful for the cage and for the guards.
The military concluded the exercise with aplomb and dispatch. The driver and the corporal resumed their seats as the afternoon waned. The soldiers took up their escort. The small cortege made its way to a barracks, though a huge door that closed behind them, and stopped beside a smaller, but still impressive door. To the chained girl it was peace after storms. Her enemies were behind a very high wall. "Welcome to Fort Rahbeal," the corporal glowed.
Dorinda gave him a wan smile. "What now, a cell?"
He seemed genuinely shocked. "Oh no. No cell ‘till much later in night. This evening you are guest of general Hakim. Much arrack and champagne." He viewed her with reverence. Such honour was not for all.
She strove to share his enthusiasm as he removed her shaming leash from her neck. At the moment the general was an enigma. She supposed, wearily, that the least she could expect of him was to be used. Her status would be about that of a dancing girl. But she took heart when he lifted her from the truck and handed her over to a girl who now stood waiting. A girl both respectful and awed. As his last gesture for the day, corporal Kahdin unlocked the handcuffs from her back and locked them again at her front. Ceremoniously he handed the key to the prisoner’s new escort who accepted it with glowing panache. For her this was an occasion. She looked at her prisoner and smiled shyly. The corporal saluted and was gone.
Nothing made sense. But why should it? Sheherazade had taken it for granted. So must she. Her feminine escort led her out of the centuries into the exquisitely modern. General Hakim evidently believed in comfort. When the moment came for the bath, the girl shyly touched the handcuffs and held up the key. "No fight?" she asked simply.
For the first time that afternoon Dorinda laughed. She shook her head, smiling into earnest eyes. "No fight." It was an easy promise to make.
The serving girl grappled with the key. It was plain to see she was intrigued by the handcuffs. When she had them off she fitted one upon her own wrist and forced it tight to test its feel. Giggling she held the dangling steel up for inspection as though it was a new idea in bracelets. Thoughtlessly she placed the fetter and its key upon the dresser seeming to find no inconsistency in its easy use or removal. No doubt she had her own knowledge of the impossibility of escape.
Dorinda had not hoped for such a boon as the huge tub. She sorely needed it after the dusty drive and the attentions the citizens had seen fit to bestow. Now she was bathed and attended as a princess. As the gentle hands lathed the soap they also traced the marks beneath it.
"Much whip," she queried in wonder.
"Much whip," her charge agreed. The in mischief: "Much bad girl."
Her servant viewed her with a new respect.
The raiment provided for her festive evening made her blush. Dorinda had known clothes and she had known nudity. Latterly nakedness had been her constant lot. But this was neither. Admiring it in the mirror she knew she would prefer good honest bare skin. These gossamer wisps of transparencies made her many times naked, many times wanton. They hid nothing. She could see herself through them everywhere. But they enhanced, emphasised, revealed. They were clever, they were beautiful, they where lewd. They also made her very much a woman.
There was much working on her hair. There were perfumes and cosmetics. There were bangles galore. The final bangle was her old friend: the handcuffs.
The girl became shy again when she picked them up. She obviously saw them as a magic token from another world. She who must wear them was touched with that same magic in her eyes. She looked up hesitantly. "You wear, please."
A relaxed Dorinda would have worn three pairs quite cheerfully if required to do so. The girl and the place had restored her faith. Perhaps, after all, Mr. Rabin knew what he was doing. Nodding and smiling brightly she offered her wrists and watched, amused, as reverent fingers locked them together.
"You do us great humor, my dear."
General Hakim was of the East. His English perfect. But in all else he was a part of this land. Lean, good features, a keen eye. He surveyed his guest with evident approval.
She, in turn, found reassurance in him. Whatever else the general might be, he was evidently a man of manners and good taste. But it was not on him alone that her gaze settled in wonder.
The saboteur stood in an alcove. Behind her a window illuminating and silhouetting her nakedness. Her right arm was raised. It’s wrist chained to the wall at the level of her head so that she must stand, helpless. She was very lovely. She wore only the fresh scarlet stripes of a whip. Her eyes widened to match Dorinda’s own.
"Allow me. Miss Dorinda Matson ... Miss Hulda Cohen." He laughed at their astonishment in each other. "Both exiles from the great land across the Atlantic. Miss Cohen, as you may know, is a renegade from the Bronx." The general was suave and very pleased with himself.
"How’d he grab hold of you, honey?" Miss Cohen eyed the handcuffs as thought they told all.
"Quiet, bitch!" Hakim picked up a slender cane and negligently added one more stripe to miss Cohen’s extensive collection. "You speak when spoken to," he said without heat.
The girl from the Bronx rubbed the place that hurt. She had one free hand for such purpose. She made no pretence of indifference to pain. It was easy to see her anger and the bitter words trembling on her lips. But she kept a sulky silence. She might not be tamed. But she was subdued.
"Reba, dear, you can inform them that dinner may be served. You will attend us." Hakim swung his attention to his handcuffed guest. "It would me most pleasant if the three of us could eat a civilised meal together and enjoy rational conversation. But miss Cohen, when placed at the table, seems under some compulsion to fight. Last night is was the soup in my face." He sighed. "I find it disturbing in the digestion to be constantly whipping her throughout dinner. Please excuse her if she stays as she is."
"All right, I’ll behave," his captive announced petulantly.
Thoughtfully and without haste the general added one more stroke. Hulda subsided into contortions.
"I think she really means it, general," Dorinda ventured, greatly daring. She saw herself in the other girl’s position and understood. Hakim eyed her narrowly. She trembled. "You do, yourself, behave at meals?" he inquired sardonically.
"Yes general, I have been trained." Again the narrow look, this time with approval. "Ah. You interest me. Rabin excels himself. I will accept your judgement. Miss Cohen may have her chance to behave. But another incident and you, too, shall feel the whip."
"Tank you, general." She knelt before him, bowed in submission. She might as well give him his money’s worth.
Reverently, after several hushed moments, he raised her to her feet. His eyes were bright. Briskly he turned to the saboteur. "Look. Look well, girl. Here we have a woman." He bent and kissed the hands by which he had helped their owner to rise. He touched the handcuffs gently. "You wear these well, c***d. They become you."
General Hakim liked to talk. He held an attentive audience. Both conscious of a whip and much bare skin. "The tendency of today’s female to embrace nobility is the base of our age."
He allowed the statement to hover. Then turned gravity to the bitter, silent girl. "Don’t you agree, miss Cohen?"
"Yes, general." The flat monotone was a contradiction.
"I am surprised at your affirmative." His voice was chill.
"It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?"
He eyed her sombrely. "Your attitude rather than your words merit a stroke. It can wait ‘till after ..."
"Chain me back on the wall, please. I’ll only accumulate a flogging and spoil things for both of you." The guerrilla girl suddenly seemed very vulnerable and very young.
A disappointed silence feel upon the table. The general eyed Hulda’s soup anxiously. "Come, come. We do not enjoy ourselves. We call a truce. For the duration of our dinner, no penalties. We may now be honest. Come, my dear, tell me I’m a monster."
Dorinda watched with interest and with empathy. It was easy to place herself in Hulda’s shoes. A female thing sundered from al