Beloved Bonds

F.E. Campbell

Prologue

The rich sweep of Board Room mahogany. Seated at its end as Chairman, a girl. The corporate chairs, mostly empty. Five men. Four of them amused or embarrassed, one stony-faced with distaste. All eyes upon the only female present.

“The meeting is called to order,” announced Mrs. Caroline Dowling sweetly. “The Chair is open to offers.”

McIntyre, of the Devereaux Corporation, was decisive, faintly mocking. “I’ll assume the debentures in default and take four million in unissued stock,” he said crisply. “That should put Dowling Ltd. in pretty fair shape.”

Simard was more cautious. “My company will certainly go that far,” he agreed slowly. “But has this—this . . . whole incredible affair the blessing of . . . ?” He turned to the cold features of the man, aloof and alone, whose lips were a thin line of disapproval. “Mr. Dowling . . . ?”

“I’ll contest nothing.” Dowling’s statement was sardonic. “I’m here to watch and—you may have questions.”

“My husband and I understand each other.”

Caroline’s focus turned upon the youngest male present. “Mr. Dexter, you arrived late. You are bidding on Dowling Ltd. and me, my husband to remain as Chairman of the Board.” She made a pretty moue of disparagement. I go along with the deal as a sweetener. Whichever of you buys Dowling buys me.”

“Can’t possibly be legal.” Stafford of Altodox was prepared to be amused. “You mean to tell us—?”

“I do tell you!” The feminine reproof was incisive. “As an earnest of good faith I bought these.” Caroline Dowling held up for their inspection the shining chrome of a pair of handcuffs. The successful bidder can lock these on my wrists when he takes me with him at the conclusion of this meeting.” She exhibited a tiny key, and added demurely. “The man who sold them to me assured me they were of the finest quality.”

“I’ll be going to hell!” Lassiter Metals’ Ambrose thumped the solid table in extrovert enjoyment. “I’ll up the ante on the stock a couple of million and guarantee the debentures and those shaky first mortgage bonds.” He laughed jovially. “Dammit. Dowling, you’re the luckiest failure in the market.”

“Please resume the bidding,” said Caroline Dowling firmly.

It took exactly eight minutes to make Dowling Ltd. financially secure. The girl who had been Mrs. Robert Dowling watched amusedly as the handcuffs were locked upon her wrists. She had, thoughtfully, provided a cape to hide her enslavement from the world.

She left, without a backward glance, smiling.

1

Zindawba

Trudy Ramsay hated to be left alone in the cage.

When Caroline was a fellow prisoner the lewd and curious stares were mostly for her. When she was taken away Trudy got them all. There was nothing she could do about it. The cage was circular and stood exposed in the marketplace, its feminine content protected by a vast padlock on its door. Whichever way she turned her breasts could be viewed by someone. She had long ago ceased to cover them with her hands. Besides, the chains joining her wrists were heavy . . .

Trudy was constantly nagged by the belief she should discard the small Union Jack which was her only covering. It just snugly managed to shield her loins with the aid of one safety pin. She had an uneasy conviction that to use her national flag as a covering for her pubic hair must surely rank as lèse-majesté or some form of treason to earn her the disapproval of the reigning monarch and the House of Parliament. But to be totally starkers in a cage in an African republic she had never previously heard of . . . ! It was just too much! She diapered herself with the Union Jack in prideful defiance and a good deal of guilt.

The flags had been caustically provided and were a ‘must.’ Caroline wore her Old Glory with an amused wiggling of hips to cause the stars and stripes to undulate and evoke erotic comment and much laughter. If there was adverse significance in this sex-soiled symbolism, she did not appear to care. The republic of Zindawba seemed to have an adequate stock of the once-prideful rectangles, and provided a change of flags often enough to keep the derrieres of its two captives colourfully patriotic.

Zindawba! Trudy hated the name. It sounded contrived and far from home. But she accorded its ruler and first President, Khalief Abhad, a mixture of awe, erotic curiosity, and pure fear. There was also a touch of pique. Her duties, such as they were, constantly brought her before his attention but he had signally failed to ravish her with the immense codpiece which was now a legend in his land. Not that she wanted him to, of course! But still . . . ! Caroline had all the luck.

It was the same with the press and the guys with the cameras. Their attention was for the woman whose seeming self-immolation had whetted the curiosity of the world. Their questions were always tinged with erotic suggestion and innuendo. They did not exactly snicker in her presence, but Trudy felt certain their articles and film probably did, not that she ever got a chance to see them! Caroline Dowling was news, she was ‘hot.’ That very morning there had been a small group, peering beyond the bars of the cage. One of them, a most earnest journalist impeccably overdressed and perspiring in Zindawba’s heat, had seemed sincere.

“Mrs. Dowling, is it true you are in this cage by your own wish?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course not!”

Caroline was always so much in command. Trudy envied her. She contrived to infuse most of her rejoinders with laughter or sly jibes. She had viewed the sweating feature writer with sympathy, as though it was he who was behind the bars. Always she managed to convey the hint that the truth they sought was an elusive intangible, not to be politely mentioned.

“Mrs. Dowling, are those chains, those fetters, on your wrists and ankles, real?”

“Of course. D’you want to feel their weight, they’re quite heavy, you can reach through the bars?”

“But you have a key secreted? You could take them off?”

“No I can’t, nor could you.”

“Is it true that the President is the only person who holds the key?”

A trill of laughter. “That’s hardly likely, is it.”

“Surely the State Department has made representations on your behalf?”

A shrug and a clink of restless chain. “I’m afraid I’m just an embarrassment to them.”

“Would you describe yourself as an activist, Mrs. Dowling?”

Caroline had laughed and wryly held up her hands to display the heavy links joining the metal wristlets. “Does this look like activism?” She kicked with a shackled foot to send her ankle tethers swirling. “Or these . . . ?”

“Mrs. Dowling, your—your—semi-nudity . . . ? Is it . . . ?”

Caroline looked down at her peerless breasts as though noticing them for the first time. She stuck out her chest mischievously. “Oh, I think that’s just what the well-dressed captive wears in Zindawba these days. Don’t hesitate to look.” It had been too much for Trudy. To be ignored was bad enough, but such calm acceptance of enslavement was intolerable. “What are you men nattering about!” she demanded angrily. “Get us out of here. Get us out of this asinine little movie set. If you’d an ounce of chivalry—!”

“You do not share Mrs. Dowling’s whimsey, Miss Ramsay?”

“I’ve been kidnapped, you idiot! And stop ogling my breasts.”

“But ladies, Zindawba insists you have committed crimes against the new republic? Crimes you wish to expiate—?”

“Expiate my—my—my—oh damn!” Trudy was close to tears. “Just get me loose and send me home. Call the army . . . !”

The media stood abashed, sweating with more than Zindawba’s heat, exchanging impotence with two chained and nearly naked girls locked in a cage. Around them the marketplace slowly pulsated beneath the tropic sun. Oddly clad citizens paused in passing to behold the wages of sin in Khalief Abhad’s new republic. Their curiosity was less for white breasts and sun-drenched skin than for white reactions. Females who demanded of their lords, angry and argumentative, wearing the chains of Zindawba with disdain. Abhad was right, they merited penitence. Their day was done. Soon they would be sentenced. It was the promise of a president.

“Poor Trudy!” Caroline’s voice was soft, her gaze roved the inquiring group. “I wish you’d do something for her, try and secure her release. She doesn’t deserve to be held prisoner. I’ve tried, but I’m helpless.”

They sloughed the appeal, just as everybody sloughed everything in this hateful place. Trudy wiped away a tear, hating the clink of her chain, hating everything. Hating most of all the next query, it scared her half to death.

“Is it true, Mrs. Dowling, that some sort of dramatic punishment awaits you at the president’s whim?”

“Like what?”

They were uneasy, ashamed. They should have been angry but were not. They felt less than men. “Something barbarous, medieval . . . ! There’s a rumor you are to be publicly whipped?”

“Is that all!”

“There is also talk of branding—”

“My, I am a lucky girl! I thought at least the headsman’s axe.”

“Mrs. Dowling.” The remonstrance was patient.

“Your insistence on jesting robs you of a good deal of sympathy.”

“Sympathy!” Caroline’s exclamation was suddenly bitter. “I haven’t noticed any sympathy to be robbed of. Neither has Trudy. As far as the British Empire and the U.S. of A. are concerned we’re just a pair of call girls without a phone. That ridiculous Consul, I could have kicked his—!”

“Mrs. Dowling, what about, your husband . . . ?” Trudy sighed. It all added up to nothing. She and Caroline were two spicy tidbits for the delectation of the erotically inclined. Undoubtedly, with Caroline, there was something more, a purpose not divulged. It would affect her too. Surely it must! They were kept so close, a shared captivity in which each was thankful for the other. To be wholly and totally alone . . . ! The younger girl shuddered.

It was shortly after the retreat of their countrymen that the soldiers had come for Caroline. It was a frequent enough break in their captivity to be without significance. Caroline was escorted away, and in an hour or a day would be escorted back. The soldiers were more for her protection against the rabble than to inhibit her escape. Her hands were always left chained, but to enable her to walk properly the shackles were unlocked from her ankles. They lay now on the ground in the centre of the barred prison, a mute promise of their wearer’s return. When she came back, she would be wearing a clean fresh flag.

It was nearly seven weeks since her abduction, but the event was still vivid in her mind. She had been walking down Laburnum Lane, minding her own business, when the expensive car had stopped and the two men had neatly lifted her from the sidewalk and placed the potent wad over her mouth and nose. When she returned to consciousness she was face down on some sort of seat and someone was tying her hands behind her back. The cord was cruel, but when she protested a heavy hand thrust down upon her shoulders and a harsh foreign voice said: “Quiet! Keep still.” She had wakened to darkness, tightly blindfolded. She had never been so frightened in her life. It took her a minute to realise she was stark-naked.

Obediently, she kept quiet and kept still. In her blindness she envisioned knives and guns pointed at her defencelessness. When the firm deft fingers moved from her wrists to her elbows she whimpered as the soft rope cut and pinched her flesh as her forearms were forcibly joined and bound as one. It wracked her shoulders terribly and caused her naked breasts to tauten against the fabric on which she lay. The sudden roar of engines and the rumble of a jet aircraft seeking the sky told her all too clearly that she might never walk the flagstones of Laburnum Lane again. It was not until the jets had subsided to a silken purr that they gave her back her eyes.

Trudy Ramsay blinked at the interior of an aircraft, almost empty save for two men and a woman. They were not exactly black, but had she passed them on the street she would have thought of them as ‘niggers.’ She was sure it would not be politic to do so now. They were expensively dressed, their features intelligent. Each was assessing her, as at a package freshly unwrapped. The drone of the jets told her England was receding into limbo. Awkwardly, she sat erect and stared. The cords biting her flesh hurt atrociously.

“A good choice. She’ll serve the purpose excellently.”

The woman was in command. She exuded authority. Incongruously, her English was cultured. She laughed at her captive’s puzzlement. Her information faintly derisive: “Girton, my dear. Then Cambridge. Remarkable what they do with niggers these days.”

“I—I’m kidnapped?” It was the paramount thought in Trudy’s mind, all else was curious but irrelevant. “I—I—can’t move.”

“Yes you can, dear. But not enough to be a nuisance. If you kick we’ll tie your ankles.”

“But—but—!” Trudy was still bemusedly grappling with priorities. “My elbows hurt something awful!”

“That’s to keep you tractable, dear. My name is Rulua. If you prefer you may address me as Miss.” The dark eyes twinkled. “It establishes our social divergence.”

She was handsome. A lithe sensual creature in her thirties. She contrived to make Trudy’s twenty years feel like childhood. Full firm breasts thrust at nipple-indented silk. Dusky fingers felt testingly at Trudy’s own twin girlish cones. “Quite beautiful. Did you know you were beautiful, Miss Ramsay?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Trudy lied, then blushed. “I’m—I’m just a girl.”

“I suppose ‘just a girl’ is exactly what we want.”

“But look, I’m naked . . . ! And there’s men . . . ! Someone’s taken my clothes . . . and the way you’ve just tied me—!”

“You have no further need of clothes, dear. Besides, we cannot evaluate you with them on.” Again the flicker of humour. “If it will make you easier I will remove my own?”

“Oh no!” Trudy was shocked. Quickly she returned to her most pressing need. “Please untie me. I don’t understand why I’m tied up like this, it’s terribly painful.”

“I’ll get her a drink.” It was one of the men. Trudy swallowed the strange and potent brandy, coughing and feeling silly that the cup must be held to her lips. “I’d thought perhaps a cup of tea—?”

They laughed at her innocence. “Why not!”

Rulua agreed indulgently. “Let’s all have one.” She winked at a companion. “Assad, d’you mind?”

The captive watched the male depart on his prosaic errand. The brandy was a fire within her veins, it gave her courage. “I could cope a lot better and be less of a nuisance if you’d just untie me—”

It was as far as she got. Rulua rose languidly to her feet and reached up into a luggage compartment. The whip she produced had two leather thongs and was short enough to be used effectively in a restricted space. “If you mention being untied again I’ll use this on some of that pretty skin, dear. England’s gone. Forget it.” She flicked the lash at a taut breast.

Incongruous, incredible, frightening! Trudy Ramsay sipped the hot tea held to her captive lips by a coloured gentleman named Assad. Pain was constant. The woman had been right, hurting like this she could not conceive revolt or argument. She wanted to cry but the circumstances were not quite right for tears. The sting where the thong had pinked her breast was strangely erotic. “What’s going to happen to me?” she inquired politely. The girl, shackled in the cage, jerked herself away from her memories. They had not told her then, or since, what Zindawba held in store. She had come to suppose she had been provided as company for Caroline Dowling. It was Caroline who ‘mattered.’ Trudy Ramsay was part of the scenery, shackled and caged with perfunctory disinterest. Even her punishments were meted out in casual routine.

The punishments had been a shock. But Trudy Ramsay had come to understand them as implicit to her new condition. She earned them by impertinence and small verbal indignations against her captivity. Once sentenced she was appalled, but after the pain had faded they fell into a perspective no longer horrific.

“Tomorrow, dear. Three strokes on each hand.”

“But, Rulua, I only said—!”

“It was the way you said it, dear: and you have been warned.”

“But, Rulua . . . Miss—Ohh please! I haven’t had my hands caned since I was a child in school! And then, it was only one on each!”

“A nostalgic memory, dear. These will be somewhat more painful. You will receive them in the Market Square.”

“O-h-h . . . N-o-o-o! Oh Miss, not with all those people watching!”

“They’ve all seen you in the cage, Trudy. What’s the difference?”

“But I won’t be able to be heroic, I know I won’t! I’ll cry and make a fuss and you’ll be angry with me!”

“Silly girl! You’ll probably come through splendidly. Your hands will be free, of course, but we’ll keep your feet chained so you can’t be foolish and run.”

“O-h-h-h . . . Oh, Miss Rulua, punish me some other way? P-I-e-a-s-e ? There are other ways, aren’t there?”

“Indeed there are, dear. I am letting you off lightly this first time.”

“Lightly! You call that lightly: three on each hand!”

“It is now four, dear. For all this commotion.” Trudy bit her lip. Rulua was steel, and she knew her transgression. Back in the cage she wept, cradled in Caroline’s arms, knowing the suspenseful wait until the morrow a part of her punishment.

By Zindawba standards it was no big deal. Minor wrongdoing was commonly punished in public. The fact of it being a white girl to receive the strokes generated only a slightly larger circle of the curious than was customary. Trudy suspected that had it been Caroline Dowling to be caned the audience would have been larger.

It was the most demeaning moment of her life.

Four soldiers kept guard and controlled the spectators. A street vendor hawked sweetmeats for small sums. In the centre of the Square stood Rulua with the hateful cane, a limber length putting to shame Trudy’s memories of her schooldays. The palpitating delinquent clinked her shackled steps to where she must stand to receive her pain. Exchanging a glance of total understanding with her Mistress, Trudy Ramsay held out her hand.