 |
|||
|
|
I couldn’t really justify the time to sit in on another collection. I had Rachel to worry about and I really needed to finish off the plans for putting in place a proper account management function now that Brian was no longer around. Tricia and Eva seemed quite able to get on with it, anyway. After all it was their job.
I did take some time out to see how things were progressing
with Brian’s family though. Rick took me into one wing of the Prep Centre where
from the viewing corridor we were looking into not harsh prison cells but a
comfortable living area that looked like a small apartment. There were bright
colours, comfortable furniture, books on the table, CD’s and a stereo. Ella,
her mother and her aunt were al lounging in chairs around the room. They all
wore similar smock like dresses that hung from their collars, flowing loosely
and stopping well above their knees. The dresses were in bright, pastel
colours, pink Ella, pale yellow for
A door opened on the far side and Beth appeared. She looked happy, tanned, and relaxed. She’d obviously just come from the shower. She had one towel wrapped tightly around her body and another around her head. She shook the second towel loose and sat on a chair, rubbing at her hair with the towel. I could see that she was still wearing her collar but apart from that there was no sign of any restraints.
She dropped the other towel, leaving her almost naked. All she wore was the briefest of thongs, simple, white, and barely covering her at all.
“This is all very pleasant, Rick,” I said, “but I’m not sure what’s going on.”
Rick, taking his usual irritating pleasure in holding out for the least bit of dramatic effect, pulled a small control box from his pocket with a flourish. “This,” he said, “provides a radio signal to a tiny receiver that is held in Rachel’s vulva by that thong. It can pulse on demand or deliver low frequency stimulation to the girl’s clitoris. It’s possible to induce and maintain high levels of sexual arousal. Watch.” He pressed a button.
At once, Beth stopped what she was doing turned towards the panel we were standing behind and said in a clear voice. “Oh, yes, please. I want you to.” Rick pressed another button and Beth soon appeared to be highly aroused, laying down on the couch, stroking her own body, clutching at her groin, panting and keening with desire. Rick let the effect continue for a while, until he pressed the button again and almost at once, Beth’s arousal could be seen to diminish. She sat up catching her breath, staring wistfully towards the screen. “Thank you,” she said. “More?” She looked at the panel for a few moments but could see that nothing further was coming. With a disappointed look she sank back down on the couch and picked up a magazine. As she was leafing through it I could see it was one set or pornographic pictures after another. She seemed to study some of the pictures intently. She had completely forgotten that, apart from the thong, she was naked.
“Well,” I said, “I think I understand what I saw but I’m not sure what it means. Why doesn’t she just take that thong off?”
“Why should she want to? Then she wouldn’t get what she wants most of all; sexual stimulation. It delivers frequent bouts of stimulation at irregular intervals, keeping her in a slightly aroused state. From that point any further stimulus creates a state of rapid arousal. If we brought one of the guards in for instance, she would be desperate for sexual activity to raise herself up from the background level of arousal delivered by the thong.”
“And how do you stop them all just going at each other? If they can get each others stimulation don’t they lose the need for the thong?”
“Unapproved sexual activity is non-conformant behaviour. We turn off their thong. The choice is between low level but regular, almost continuous arousal coupled with satisfaction when approved or occasional satisfaction but without the background of arousal. So far they’ve all chosen the former.”
I had to admit it looked promising but I still thought that carrying on with my current plans looked like the better start for Rachel. Rick’s methods could, however, have us offering a much better service to those who were looking to acquire slaves as sexual playthings. “How come you hadn’t developed this before?” I asked.
“We didn’t have the problem before, really. Don’t forget when we’ve been collecting for stock we haven’t had to worry about the results of training. As long as the girls were saleable for something then we weren’t too worried what the outcome of orientation was. If they were damaged by the process it just meant that they fetched a lower price. Actually, thinking about it that might have been some of Brian’s problem. There had been a few cases of ‘difficult’ girls over the last year.”
“Well it sounds like you needed to rethink the orientation approach anyway.”
Rick nodded, thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s pretty much what Freddie said. But not quite in those words.”
I was still working at the Prep Centre later when Eva and Tricia came in, pleased as anything and giggling like girls. “We’ve come up with a new Clegg Enterprises product,” Eva announced as she came into my office. “You’ll never guess what it is.”
“You’re right,” I said. I’ve never been much good at guessing games. “Does it involve your Dutch project?”
“Oh yes,” said Tricia. “Absolutely!”
“And this wonderful idea is?” I asked.
“Tinned slaves!” Tricia and Eva blurted out together, collapsing on the office couch with a peal of laughter.
Harry, disturbed by the noise, came to see what was going on.
“Come and see,” said Eva and led the way out to the delivery bay. There was one of the standard Clegg white vans. Behind, it was towing a caravan. “There” said Eva, pointing to the caravan, “two tinned slaves. Probably well stewed in their own juice by now.”
Harry and I walked across to the van and climbed inside. The muffled grunts of two gagged women told us that Eva and Tricia had been successful. Eva climbed in behind us and lifted up the cushions of the bench seat that ran across the caravan’s large front window. In the base of the seat, wedged in between piles of clothes and boxes was a bikini-clad, bound and gagged girl. She looked panic stricken, her eyes wide in terror, evidently attempting to scream behind her gag. “Greetje Van Bruijn,” Eva announced, “who was so friendly as to invite Tricia into her van for a cup of tea. Unfortunately Tricia popped a little something in her cup and she ended up in there. All we had to do then was to wait for Femke to get back from the hospital.”
“And she is where?” Harry asked.
Eva and Tricia were enjoying the theatrics. “Ta – da!” Tricia said as she pulled open the door of the caravan’s bath cabinet. Sat inside on the chemical closet was Femke Toos, the Dutch nurse. Still wearing her white uniform dress she’d been trussed up with strips of cloth, torn I guessed from clothes found in the caravan. Her mouth was well stuffed with a cloth gag. She’d lost her cap in her struggles and it lay on the floor near her feet, but that was all she had managed to dislodge. I reached forward and pulled off the identity badge that she wore pinned to her dress, “Ward Nurse : F Toos,” it said. Well, she was going to be working in some different wards from now on.
“It was soooo easy,” Tricia crowed. “Snatched her when she got back to the ‘van. Stuffed her in there. Eva hitched the caravan up to our truck and we were off the site and on our way in 15 minutes. How easy was that? Nobody was bothered, caravans come and go all the time.”
Tricia grabbed hold of Greetje and pulled her from beneath the couch. Eva untied the cloth strips from Femke’s ankles and got her to her feet. The two captives were led away to be introduced to Rick.s team and their new, albeit temporary, accommodation.
Freddie was up at the Prep Centre for one of his occasional visits. I guessed he’d been giving folk a little “encouragement” and getting his ear closer to the ground than had been the case for a while. He called me up to asked me for an update on the current projects. I assumed he’d want to hear about Rachel too.
I found him in one of the offices, evidently talking on the phone to Elly. “Yes, that should be fine,” he was saying. “You know I trust your call on the legal stuff. No, I’m not worried about any of the clauses they’ve added to the contract except for the suggested warranties. We can’t warrant the stock for anything more than its current status. I’m certainly not getting into ‘freedom from disease or any significant medical condition that might prevent the goods from providing the specified services or might reduce the value of the goods on re-sale’. That’s a mine-field. I’ll happily agree to confirming that no medical condition has arisen during the period of acquisition, preparation and orientation but we can’t be responsible for pre-existing medical conditions. Jeeze, they’ll be wanting me to send Harry out with an MRI scanner.” He waved me to a seat. “And I don’t want a buy back clause either or if we have one then it’s got to be ‘current market prices’ not ‘purchaser’s acquisition price’. I don’t care if they’re complaining that they don’t know what the market will do; neither do I. … That OK? …. Fine. …..You’re a star. …. Talk to you soon.” He put the phone down.
“Hi, Freddie,” I said. “Contract problems?”
“No, not really. Nothing out of the unusual. Some of the buyers are always trying it on. The bigger ones are starting to get purchasing managers in their organisation for crying out loud. They don’t think they’ve added any value if they haven’t changed at least one clause in the contract. Elly will sort it out. It’s just noise, really.”
“Maybe they don’t understand the process,” I said. Perhaps we should give them some hospitality to help them see what a great product we provide. We could do it somewhere nice and comfortable – use the Emir’s castle maybe – let them have the experience their companies are buying into. They probably don’t get much in the way of perks. We could do it as a training exercise for them – giving them insights into the problems of slave keeping so that they can negotiate better acquisition contracts.”
“Not a bad idea, Larry, old man, not a bad idea,” said Freddie. “It’d certainly help to get them on-side and it might make them a little more comfortable with dealing with us.”
“And, when we quibble over a clause, they’d know why we were doing it.”
“Yes, I see your point. Let’s think about it in a bit more detail. Anyway, that’s something new to worry about. I wanted to get an update on the current stuff.”
I gave Freddie an update on the current state of the Kushtian activities including the Emir’s purchases. I’d exchanged a number of documents with the Trade Minister and we now had a frame contract that everyone, even Elly, was happy with. The Trade Minister was working with the Council and other government departments to get together a consolidated list of likely requirements and we were due to discuss how we might help build the market for imported product outside the government as well. Freddie seemed pretty pleased.
He asked about the Steve Glennis project. I had to admit it was taking longer than I’d hoped. We’d identified the target – Lady Marchmont – and Steve was happy with that. Research had been working on a collection proposal but it was proving a challenge to put together something that looked as though it would work. Steve had been being quite patient, he felt it was better to take the time and get it right. The urgency had gone out of it from his side and he’d really been taken with the pictures we provided, especially some of the covert video footage. We’d managed to get that from one of the paparazzi that had been caught filming her with one of a string of boyfriends during a holiday in Mustique. He’d had seven kinds of shit kicked out of him which had left him in no doubt that he couldn’t publish it but he was happy to cut his losses and let us have it at a price.
We talked about the market research report. Freddie seemed happy for me to carry on exploring new market opportunities. He was still thinking what to do about the sales activities now that Brian wasn’t around. Luckily he wasn’t thinking about pointing them at me. I had enough to worry about.
I told him about Kelly. He had a good laugh at the bit about the gun’s safety catch. “I told Harry you weren’t safe to be allowed out,” he chuckled. I didn’t really try to get introduce the idea of trying to establish a “force-free” slave line based on recruiting willing slaves. I thought Freddie had enough on his plate at the moment without more good ideas for new things to do. And I knew that if I wanted to get very far with that argument I’d need a lot more solid evidence. Even then it might not be enough.
We finished up talking about Rachel. I said I had the first step set up for the following day. He said, “Good, let’s hope it works,” with one of his most worrying smiles. “Oh,” he said, “by the way I’ve drawn a line under the whole Brian business, I mean his family will still finish their programme – that all seems to be working well – but I’ve pulled him out of it. It just wasn’t fair on him. And it wasn’t doing me any good either.”
I didn’t really know what to say. “And next?” seemed about the only question to ask.
“I don’t know,” said Freddie with a sigh that indicated he really was letting go of the whole thing. “I just asked Elly to sort it out. She’s good at that sort of thing. No loose ends with any of his associates, no mess. It’ll be all right. I can rely on Elly.”
I suddenly realised that when Clegg said “sort it out” he wasn’t simply talking of Brian getting a new career direction, unless you include in that playing a major supporting role in some local construction project.
I wasn't sure which I found more disturbing; the obsessive vengefulness that he had shown before or the disinterest in what presumably would be Brian's violent demise that he was showing now. I just knew that I didn't want to be on the receiving end of either.
Anaphylactic shock is a terrifying condition. The symptoms are extreme. The onset is rapid. The outcome can be fatal.
The Doc and I had planned the scenario carefully. She dosed Rachel’s meal with the cocktail of drugs that she’d calculated would replicate the symptoms while I distracted the guard that was about to take it in to her. We wanted his response to be genuine.
The symptoms started to appear very shortly after she started eating. The guard hit the panic button when it became obvious that she was having a problem. I arrived with the Doc to find her clutching at her throat with one hand and her belly with the other. The Doc took her pulse. “It’s racing like anything,” she said. Rachel was coughing saying she couldn’t swallow, that she had cramping pains in her stomach, that she was finding it hard to breath. She lost control of her bowels. She was groaning in a mixture of pain and terror, staring wildly around her trying to understand what was happening to her.
“Help me, I’m dieing,” she gasped. “It’s all going – awwkkgh – so black. I can’t…..”
The Doc turned to the guard. “Get my bag,” she said, “Quickly! It’s in my office.”
“I’m not supposed to leave her,” he said.
“Do it, or you’ll have to explain to Clegg why we’ve lost her,” she barked. Sheepishly the guard padded off.
“What do you think’s happening?” I said.
“It looks like anaphylactic shock,” the Doc said. “I need to give her adrenalin.” Rachel was clutching at the Doctors arm, choking and looking wild eyed in terror.
Rachel passed out before the Guard got back. The Doc grabbed her bag and grabbed a hypodermic, using it to administer supposedly, adrenalin, actually a glucose solution that would do no further harm. But then neither the Guard nor Rachel knew that the effect of the drugs would wear off quite quickly anyway.
She recovered in the Prep Centre’s clinic, laying on a bed, a glucose drip in her arm, an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose and with me holding her hand.
She peered weakly at me. Muttering from behind the oxygen mask, “Whha… what happened? Where am I?”
“Shh,” I said, “don’t try to talk. You’ve had a bad attack. The Doctor will be here in a minute.”
She pulled her hand away from me. “Why are you here?” I didn’t try to take it back.
“I was worried about you, Rachel.” That at least was true. I’d really been concerned that she was going to die even though I’d known that it wasn’t likely. I guess I hadn’t wanted the horse to die so soon in the exercise. “But rest now. I’m sure you’ll be all right.”
The Doc appeared. “Ah, she’s recovered consciousness,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Weak,” said Rachel, quietly. “But the pains have gone, I can breath again.”
“The adrenalin worked.”
“Why? What was it? I thought I was going to die?”
“You might very well have done. I shan’t know for certain until I get the results of the blood tests but it looks like an anaphylactic episode. Are you allergic to anything? Nuts for example?”
“Nuh, no, I don’t think so.”
“It’s just that it’s a common cause of this sort of reaction. But yes, you could have died. Anaphylactic shock can kill. Extremely low blood pressure, breathing failure. They can be fatal.”
Rachel tried to lift herself up, but fell weakly back. “I’m not tied or chained,” she said.
“No,” said the Doctor. “But you’ll feel too weak to go anywhere. Just rest for now. Get your strength back.”
She still had her collar on, of course. She wouldn’t be going anywhere even if she did feel able to but it suited us for her to feel that she was being trusted. “I’ll let you rest Rachel,” I said. “Don’t worry about anything, I’ll see you later.”
I looked in on the medical centre later. She was asleep. The Doc had given her a mild sedative. She’d been happy to have it administered. It was the first time she hadn’t fought us about something.
The following morning she was sitting up in bed, wearing a white patient’s robe and looking a whole lot perkier. She still had a drip in her arm. She was hooked up to a blinking and beeping ECG machine. What she didn’t know was that the readings weren’t always real. It’s surprising how ill you can suddenly feel if a machine tells you your heart rate has risen and your blood pressure has dropped.
“How are you, Rachel?” I asked.
The Doc appeared. “She’s still weak,” she said. “Aren’t you dear?” Rachel nodded. “So don’t spend too long with her.”
“Thank you,” she said, quietly, dropping her eyes, “for saving me.”
“It was the Doc,” I said. “It was lucky she was there. I couldn’t have done anything.”
“I didn’t think anyone cared,” she went on. “I thought you all just wanted the meat, just whatever you could get, whenever you wanted it.”
“We just want you to get well, Rachel. That’s all.”
“What happens? When I’m well?”
“That just depends on you Rachel. You write the script for your life, even here. Wait till you’re a bit stronger. Until that,” I pointed to the now wildly fluctuating ECG scan. Rachel looked at it, frightened again, “until that gets a whole lot more regular. Then we’ll set things up so you can be more comfortable. Sukie can look after you.” I’d made a good call with that idea, Rachel gave a weak smile.
I left Rachel and spoke to the Doc. “How soon can she come out of here?”
“For real? Right now,” she replied. “For what you need? Leave it a couple of days.”
I did. The set up we’d organised was to convert one of the visitor suites into a flat for me. Sukie had been installed, happy to be out of the cells and pleased to be with me. I’d told her she’d be helping with Rachel’s recovery. She seemed happy. They’d got on well before when Rachel had been recording her experiences. The Doc brought Rachel down in a wheel chair – she was still weak but that was as much due to her own fear as to any drugs that had been used on her. She had her own bedroom in the suite. Sukie helped her into bed. She fell asleep almost at once.
I left Sukie and Rachel together. The suite had three bedrooms, a living area, bathroom and kitchen / dining area. It was ranged around a small grassed, garden area with a couple of trees. The two girls both had normal clothes to wear. They could pretty much do as they pleased in the suite, apart from the fact that they both still wore their collars.
I had plenty of work to do. It wasn’t until the evening that I got back to the suite. Rachel was sitting up in bed, Sukie was brushing her hair. Sukie smiled welcomingly as I appeared. Rachel managed a smile as well.
“Hello,” I said. “How are you Rachel?”
“Better,” she said. “Not well, but better.”
“She has had some tea, Sir,” said Sukie.
“Good,” I said. “But please don’t call me, Sir. Larry is fine, in here.” Sukie looked grateful.
Rachel looked up at me and suddenly burst into tears. She clutched at Sukie who held her closely. “I’m so scared. What if it happens again? The Doctor still doesn’t know what caused it I don’t want to die. Not like that. It won’t happen again. Will it?”
“Shh, shh,” said Sukie cradling Rachel against her.
“Who knows, Rachel,” I said, trying to be sympathetic but also honest. “We all have to die.”
“But like that? No, it’s too horrible.”
“Worse than living here?”
“Worse than living like this,” she said smiling at Sukie. She put her arms around her and hugged her back.
“I don’t know,” I said, “it could have been some effect of a combination of drugs, I suppose. It might not happen again if we can keep you off them.” At least in that I was being honest. “Don’t worry about it happening again, we’ll keep you well.” She looked up at me. I could tell she wanted to believe me.
“You’ve been working hard,” said Sukie to me. “Can I get you some food? Rachel will be all right for a while.” I looked across at Rachel. She nodded.
“Yes, Sukie,” I said. “I’d like that.”
“And perhaps later I should come to your room?” Sukie said. Rachel was clearly startled by her directness.
“That would be nice, Sukie,” I said, “but I want you to worry about Rachel at the moment. Fix me something to eat and then look after Rachel for the evening. I have some more work to do anyway.” I don’t normally turn down gift horses, I thought, but if I was going to get the other horse to talk, that was the right move. Rachel even looked a little impressed.
© Freddie Clegg
2006
Download PDF
copies of my other stories at my Yahoo Group :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales
|
|
|