The Chains of Jedrah

By

F.E. Campbell

They were being sorted. Dark eyes gleamed contemptuously as the rifle barrels pointed their directives with a calm and certain precision. The DC-9 sat sadly in the sand like an abandoned house, robbed of the passengers and crew from which it had drawn life, its gun-compelled landing a thing of horror to remember. Even the desert was sad, without majesty or menace it was simply dreary. The welcoming committee was numerous and nondescript and like the land itself. They had come from nowhere to this place in jeeps and trucks and a Volkswagen. There was even a camel. There was not a building in sight.

There were a few guttural words behind the guns. But it was the man in the Saville Row clothes and the kaffiyeh whose English was lucid, direct and frightening.

“You will obey or be shot. Resistance means instant death. We have no time for heroes.”

His eyes roved up and down the ranks. In them, too, was the faint contempt for a race whose day was past. “Cooperation can save your lives and earn you comfort. We do not wish to kill. We are about to dispose of you as suits our convenience. Please obey. Please ask no questions. The men have orders to be brutal.” He turned impatiently away to confer with an aide.

Standing alone where the automatic rifle had shepherded her, Stacie cherished no illusions of heroics. Her fear was but slightly modified when she was joined by a girl from the passengers and a stewardess. The three exchanged bewildered glances and watched.

The elderly and infirm were now being prodded back into the plane, they accounted for half the total. One more young woman was extracted from the ranks and sent to join the trio. Her eyes asked a question they could not answer. The balance of the passengers were marshalled in a line. Among them a woman raised her voice.

“What are you going to do with those four girls?”

The impeccably attired director of activities was curt and brief. “You were told: no questions.” He irritably surveyed the feminine quartet and conferred with a cohort. “We have no interest in them,” he announced brusquely. “They are free to go. There is a village beyond the farthest hill, a couple of miles. It will provide their needs.” He turned and glared at the four young and frightened faces. “Go!” He waved an impatient arm. “Begone, you are lucky.”

Feminine bewilderment deepened. “Walk out in the desert, alone . . . like this!” the stewardess protested.

“Would you prefer to join the hostages?”

The word itself was chilling. The eyes of the four girls roved from one horror to another in a dilemma they were ill equipped to deal with. The leader observed their hesitations with what may have been sympathy, but sounded more like impatience. He turned and shouted: “Salim!”

Stacie judged the gangling youth to be no more than thirteen. He was attired in tattered remnants and seemed composed entirely of large liquid eyes and a wide ingratiating smile. Words flew back and forth.

“The boy will guide you.” The brief words dismissed them.

The august personage returned his attention to more pressing affairs.

“Am fine young man, a most good guide.” Salim beamed at his four responsibilities with immense panache. “Am talking such fine American.”

Stacie looked at her companions. They were as baffled as herself. Shrugs were exchanged. With a final longing glance at the hi-jacked plane they turned to follow the Arab boy across the sand. When the staccato commands and clash of equipment fell well behind them, the stewardess summed up their sentiment. “I don’t like it! Makes no sense . . .”

“Where are we?”

“This has to be Jedrah, not that that’s any help.”

“Is Jedrah,” Salim confirmed with pride. “Much fine place.”

Traversing the first undulation to rob them of backward glances at the plane, Stacie knew unreality. Four white girls and an Arab boy walking in the desert on a track that was no more than a few weaving tire impressions, destination unknown. It was hard to feel relief at what might or might not be a reprieve.

One of the passengers gave her companions a half-hearted grin. “Has it occurred to you girls: we’re not a bad looking collection. In fact we’re four damn good looking females. Add that to the place we’re in and this fool walk, and I get an answer I don’t like.”

“Harems?”

“That or worse. I know it sounds silly, but is it!”

Sensing the dolor of his charges, Salim made a cheerful suggestion. “You fine ladies please to show me your tits.”

It was like being asked to produce your passport. Stacie repressed a giggle.

“Drop dead, kid,” the stewardess was emphatic.

Salim was unabashed. “Arab girls wear much clothes,” he explained equably. “American girls have little cover up. Lovely tits stick out front. Salim much like to see real thing.”

Stacie once more wanted to giggle. The mammary equipment of herself and her companions was admittedly well in evidence. Perhaps, by his own codes, Salim’s request was reasonable. “We don’t show them either,” she told him, not unkindly.

“Well then, just one girl take off all clothes so Salim see.”

“Hey, kid, where d’you get the idea?”

Salim looked surprised. “On fine movies. All American girls undress. Much naked.”

A couple of actual giggles acknowledged his point. But retorts were halted by a fresh vista, they had topped a rise. “Where’s this lousy village?” a passenger asked fretfully.

“Is much close,” Salim reassured. “Ah see! Soon we beg ride.”

Half a mile distant a small van stood lonely in the vast landscape. Its hood was up, two or three figures seemed busily engaged. Little as it might be, it conveyed an encouraging impression of life. “Will give us nice ride.” Salim pride-fully took credit for the apparition.

A dusty trudge disclosed two men and a girl, all Arab. The men were as faceless as their land, but the girl in jeans and T-shirt might have stepped off an American sidewalk. All wore guns. Salim engaged them in a chatter of Jedrah. “We have fine ride,” he announced jubilantly.

The four girls were examined by eyes in which there was none of Salim’s effervescence. “My name is Rannah,” the girl announced without cordiality. “I do not like you, but you will ride.” She opened the back of the vehicle and climbed within.

What happened then was pure nightmare. Stacie would always look back at it as the beginning. She followed the first girl to where Rannah offered an inviting hand. As her companion climbed aboard she beheld a thing that held her rooted and, for a moment, speechless. Running the length of the van were bench seats, fixtures, hard and uninviting, one on each side. Above them, fastened firmly to the sidewalls were the open jaws of handcuffs.

The girl about to take her seat saw them too. She also saw the look in Rannah’s eyes. Without preamble she leaped from the open door and screamed: “Run!”

One of the men tripped the fleeing girl and struck her a brutal blow on the side of the head. She lay sprawled upon the sand, dazed. Two guns menaced the remainder of the quartet. “Stand still!” There was no mistaking the intent behind Rannah’s command.

“You don’t mean to use those things on us?” Stacie asked incredulously.

“Of course we do.”

“But it’s . . . it’s . . . silly. All we want is a ride. We’ll pay. Why do you want to . . . to fasten us?” She could not bring herself to use a less pleasant word for what she had seen.

The half-stunned girl was slowly getting to her feet, her fear-filled eyes seeing only the muzzles of the guns. She was prodded apart to stand alone.

“You do as we tell you or we shoot her,” Rannah stated calmly. She gave her attention to the trembling hurt girl. “Understand? When the others are in the van you’ll get in too.” Her gaze scanned the four of them. “We are prepared to kill one of you to make the surviving three accept what you must.”

It was spine chilling. But Stacie tried: “But what must we accept! What do you want? We don’t know.”

Only Rannah’s out-thrust arm stopped the swinging rifle barrel aimed at the girl who had the temerity to question.

“You need to know nothing. Do as you’re told. Get in here.” Seething in frustration and fear Stacie obeyed. Seated on the wooden seat she heeded the injunction of the hostile eyes and placed her left wrist gingerly within the open metal cuff. Rannah snapped the bands tight upon her. “Now the other!”

Stacie throttled her protest. Surely one prisoned wrist made her impotent enough for their need! But she was scared. Resignedly she delivered her right hand into a similar bondage. The clicking of the ratchets as they locked her wrist sounded a death knell to hope. This was neither aid nor deliverance. Miserably she watched her fellow captives similarly rendered helpless. She and the stewardess were locked by both wrists, the other two girls by one wrist only. It sufficed. Salim climbed in with them. Rannah left, the van door closed. “Now for nice ride,” said Salim cheerfully.

The ride was far from nice. It was rough and without concern for the passengers, their prisoned wrists took the brunt of it, chafing against the unyielding metal as they braced themselves against the motion. Salim surveyed their distress benignly like a proud parent.

“Why do I have to have my wrists fastened?” the stewardess demanded of him irritably. “Can’t you unlock one?”

Salim was shocked. “Oh, most bad to unlock. Salim not have key.” He surveyed the situation pensively and came up with a shattering conclusion. “Is now most good, both your hands are fix. Salim can have fine look at tits.”

As nearly as was possible within the van there fell a shocked silence before Stacie broke it angrily. “Leave her alone. You touch us and I’ll report you.”

“This report?” Salim examined the word. “You mean you tell what I do.” He guffawed heartily. “Everybody much laugh, they not care.”

“Come near me and I’ll kick you where it hurts,” his victim threatened.

“Salim could tie nice feet.” He pointed to a coil of thin rope looped in the framework.

Stacie knew the chill of something more than fear. The boy’s very innocence told how far they were from their own world. Naiveté and brutality side by side were to be feared, reason would not touch them. Salim was lifting down the rope.

“No! Don’t tie my feet.” The stewardess sought frantically for inspiration and, finding none, capitulated. “Oh, go ahead!” she said disgustedly. “I don’t suppose it will kill me.” Nodding toward her neighbor she sought to cut her loss. “Let her do it, she’s got a free hand?”

“Very hot dog!” Salim was intrigued. “Right now, quick.” She, on whom had fallen the task of baring a girl’s breasts, found it more difficult than supposed. Her single wrist was rigidly held, and the uncertain motion of the vehicle added its own hazard, but she competently used the one hand vouchsafed her. “Dammit, with both your wrists fastened I’d have to tear too much,” she said regretfully. “We may need these clothes, they’re all we’ve got.” She bestowed a look of infinite distaste on their guide: “Look, kid, with one hand I can uncover one of mine without tearing anything. Will that do?”

The beaming youth was enjoying his power. He scrutinized the swelling bulge being offered for his delectation. “Much O.K. Please to show now.”

Stacie watched, sharing the shame, noting the tumescence of the Arab boy in his conquest. Even with a free hand the donor of a girl’s flesh found her task difficult. She twisted and squirmed, tugging constantly at her locked wrist in an instinctive need. She grinned sheepishly at her tense companions. “This is a helluva note,” she said bitterly. “I’ve never been helpless like this before. It’s twice as difficult as you’d think.”

But she achieved her purpose. Scarlet and awkward, she brought into view the curved loveliness Salim desired. The boy’s eyes glowed.

“Is not big tit,” he complained.

Circumstance had denied erotic stimulation, the nipple was half inverted. Its owner gave her companions a despairing and disgusted shrug and proceeded to apply friction. The pink bud of flesh responded handsomely. Salim’s eyes bulged at the phenomenon.

Having fulfilled her contract, the girl arranged her breast to give it full exposure, took away her hand and sat with flaming cheeks so that the concupiscent child of the desert might feast on his desire. The glances she exchanged with the other girls held a faint amusement: there was something pathetically absurd in her predicament.

But, of course, it did not end there. Salim sat next to the angry girl and used his hands in increasingly bold explorations that were obviously genuine in their curiosity as to the texture and nature of the firm flesh. Assiduously he plied his fingertip on the sacrificial nipple, but was unsuccessful in fostering further growth, it was already hard and sensitive. He was enraptured as with a glamorous toy. The girl sat staring fixedly at nothing.

From the female flesh, Salim graduated to the intricacies of the female garb, but found his desire for additional nudity frustrated by the captive hand. It was evident that had he possessed the key to the handcuff he would have used it, obviously he was hesitant to rip and tear.

Stacie could almost watch the inevitability of his thought.

She cringed as his eager gaze sought her own garments and those of the girl at her side. If one breast was vulnerable, surely there must be others! She fought down the impulse to kick at him as he approached. She did not want her feet tied, she was vulnerable enough. She knew the nature of what she wore could enable cunning fingers to untidily expose the twin cones by which the Arab youth was obsessed. Angrily she felt her nipples respond to the eroticism of the occasion. She averted her face from the wide brown eyes and the full sensuous lips so close to hers as the increasingly knowledgeable fingers tugged and pulled and found the tiny fastenings that had been the frail armour of her nakedness. Even her bra was gently unclipped, so that she soon found herself with the flimsy materials tucked back over her prisoned arms and behind her neck. The sanctity of her breasts was lost to her, they stood out fully naked, her nipples pert and impudent. She was furiously conscious that, with her wrists fastened as they were, her chest thrust out its double glories as though in pride. She sat, flushed and fuming, as the boy’s insatiable curiosity transferred itself to the girl who shared her bench.

It was absurd, ludicrous, shaming. Stacie knew she could laugh or weep, but beneath the surface there was fear. If a gawky boy could treat them thus, what might they expect from adults! Salim sat now like a pasha in his harem admiring the intimate attributes of his women. He had fondled and prodded to his heart’s content at the total of five female breasts that were the harvest of his lechery.

“Are not all alike?” he questioned.

“Think you’ve been short changed?” the stewardess asked bitterly.

“Ah, but tits grow if tickle! Is not so with breast?”

“If it was, you’d have mine as big as a melon the way you’ve been at it,” the last girl told him drily.

“Now that you’ve had a good look, can we get dressed again?” the first girl asked hopefully.

Their youthful guide waved away the request as palpably silly. “You not hurting,” he proclaimed. “Salim like to see such good tits. You stay quiet or I tie.” He motioned to the waiting rope.

Stacie loathed her dishabille. It seemed furtive and untidy, faintly obscene, yet she was helpless to correct it. She tried to adjust to the incredible: A few hours ago in the Hilton Hotel, now this! She wondered what her father would do if he could see her now. Certainly he would set forces in motion, but they would not be swift enough to cover his daughter’s breasts within this speeding van. Her impotence was infuriating, she could touch no part of herself. Her clothes were every which way, her naked breasts proclaimed themselves. All she could do was sit and bear the lively scrutiny of a pubescent urchin. Every instinct forbade her passivity, her arms constantly asserted themselves and were foiled. Never in her life had she known bonds or restraints. The plight of her hands now held unreality, looking along the length of her arms she beheld her metal encircled wrists as belonging to someone else, that she be handcuffed like a criminal in transit was incomprehensible. The shining steel tight-clasping her flesh was, in its modernity, as incongruous here in the desert as the automatic rifles and the jeeps.

“You have nicest tits of all,” Salim assured her grandly. Stacie was annoyed with herself for feeling proud.

It was a bitter moment when the van stopped. Now they would really be ogled! Sheepishly Salim tried to mend his fences, but the doors were opened while he was still fumbling with the first girl. Rannah laughed caustically, her companion with the inevitable rifle leered appreciatively. “Those things will look better with a few whipmarks,” she observed casually as she produced her key.

Whipmarks! On their breasts! Four pairs of female eyes focused on her sardonic regard. She chuckled at their dismay as she unlocked Stacie’s hands. “Just you. Out!” she ordered briefly.

Solid ground felt good to Stacie’s feet. Without asking or waiting to be told her hands flew to their task of repairing Salim’s predation. She had no sooner achieved this much desired end than Rannah accepted a cord from her henchman and ordered. “I’m going to tie your hands. If you want to fight or run Fazzim will hit you with his gun.”

It was part of the jig-saw taking shape. They were captive.

They would be given no freedom. Looking about her, Stacie saw they had entered a high walled Courtyard. She could run for the gate, but it would be futile. Hopelessly, and feeling foolish, she held out her hands.

“Behind your back!”

Only her total helplessness would appease! Fearfully Stacie turned her back and crossed her wrists, wryly remembering a hundred movies in which she had seen a heroine similarly bound. The cord bit and twisted savagely, its final knot was like the clanging of a prison door. It hurt and told her she was captive, a couple of testing tugs emphasised that she could never free herself. Once more it was a new and incredible sensation.

The next shock was the slamming of the doors of the van and the return of the man and his gun to the cab. The vehicle roared out of the Courtyard and disappeared. Rannah twisted a hand in the hair of the bound girl and tugged. “Make no trouble,”

she advised. “I can handle you like a kitten.”

Stacie knew desolation. She had not even known the names of the other girls, but there had been comfort in their presence. Now she was alone, the fact was sinister. She took as quick a survey as Rannah would allow. What she saw spelt wealth and consequence, a private Oasis walled and tended, the building huge yet graceful, definitely Moorish. She had no way of knowing if it was an isolated palace or part of a community. Rannah gave an admonitory tug. “Come.”

He sat in an open mezzanine, a shaded balcony above his patios and gardens, a pleasant place. He was sipping coffee. His robe was of Jedrah but his face was of the West, vaguely familiar, handsome and suave. He did not rise, but waved her to a chair across from him at the small table. “Please sit down, Miss Blair.”

So he knew her! Silent and cautious the captive approached. Rannah had disappeared. Tentatively Stacie sat, her bound hands precluded grace. She would let him talk, she could protest later.

“Coffee?”

“Thanks, I’d like some. But my hands are tied behind my back.”

He nodded appreciatively. “I will lift the cup to your lips. It will be a pleasure.”

She would play it cool. Deliberately her voice was casual.