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“I feel a bit of a fraud,” I said looking
out at the crowd of people that had turned up. “After all I’m not really
leaving. Well not to go far.”
“No, I know,” said Freddie, “but it’s good
to have an excuse to get everyone together and let them have some fun. Look,
it’s your leaving party, enjoy it.”
We’d borrowed Brad’s castle for the event.
Brad was back in Kushtia full time now and Freddie had arranged to look after
the property for him in his absence. We’d brought stock down from the Prep
Centre to help out and most of the team were there. Even Elly
turned up, which I took as a great compliment. She just never came to events
like this.
Brian’s family and some of the other stock
had been put down into the cells for the amusement of any that wanted to take
advantage of the opportunity. As usual it seemed like it was the accountants
and the HR people that were queuing up for a turn. Fair enough, I guess, they
don’t get many perks on their side of the business. Rick had put a few of the
guards down there to keep an eye on things but that was more about protecting
the girls than preventing any trouble..
I saw two faces that I recognised - Rebecca & Amanda had been acquired from Constanza (I suspected mainly with the aim of giving Freddie some insights in Constanza’s operations and possibly getting some intelligence about the business with Tricia) and had been pressed into waitressing duties. At least some of their flight attendant skills were still being put to use. Close up I wasn’t too impressed with the surgery that Constanza had put them through. Sure the surgeon had got the slanted eyes all right and the breast reduction had meant they could wear the cheong sam with a measure of authenticity but the overall effect was a bit weird. They just looked like an uncomfortable mixture of Asiatic and western features to me. I wasn’t sure how Constanza could complain about the barbarity of some owners and then do something like that. Still, they’d been her property then, I suppose and they seemed happy enough as they wound their way through the crowd carrying trays of drinks and snacks. Tricia could have helped out too if she’d still been there, I guess.
I caught myself thinking about the Rebecca,
Amanda and Tricia. They were all women that I’d shared a bed with at some time,
now hopelessly enslaved, physically abused, or mentally scarred. I supposed
that I ought to have felt some guilt about their situation, although Amanda was
the only one that I had been actually involved in kidnapping. Somehow it just
seemed part of the day to day job now. I counted up the number of women I’d
been involved in abducting. I made it
47. It sounded like a lot but then I thought it had been almost a year. I stopped
again. It was a lot. However long it had been, it was a lot.
Sarah, on the other hand, was there. Harry
brought her into the room, leading her on a leash that linked to her collar.
She was smiling cheerfully as she stepped along behind him in impossibly high
heels and a skirt so tight that she seemed only to be able to move her legs
below the knees. Harry turned to talk to her. As he did so, I realised that
there must have been some reconciliation between the two of them that I had
missed out on while I was away in
Rachel and Sukie
were standing together at the side of the room. It looked to me as though they
were having fun too. I went across to talk to them. I’d told them that things
would be OK; that I’d carry on looking out for them in the new job. Rachel was
looking forward to helping. Sukie had just seemed
grateful she wasn’t going to be turned away or sold again. Now the two of them
looked happy. Sukie was sitting holding Rachel’s
hand. “It’s been a strange year,” I said.
Rachel turned to me, “It’s not a bad story.
Maybe you should write it down. I could help you.”
I thought she was probably right.
The only one that wasn’t there was Tricia.
At least, she wasn’t there in person. Laying on a
chair at the side of the room was a copy of the Daily Mirror. Its front page
was filled with a grainy photograph taken with a telephoto lens. A solitary
figure could be made out against a background of trees in some sort of garden
or park. In spite of the way that her head was hunched down, it looked like
Tricia to me. The caption said “Container Girl : No
Hope Of Identification Says Hospital”. I read the story below the photograph.
The paper’s reporters had tracked down the mental hospital where the girl found
in the Russian aircraft was being cared for. Sources on the medical team said
that there had been no progress in either getting the girl to identify herself
or discovering anything about her. Security services were still allegedly
interested in talking to members of the Russian foreign intelligence service. A
police source felt the girl was probably Russian,
their favoured explanation was that she was a dissident, asylum seeker that had
slipped into the
I dropped the paper back on to the chair. Freddie
called everyone to order and was kind enough to say a few words. I ended up
feeling a bit embarrassed, I felt he made too much of the difference I’d made
but there was a warm round of applause at the end so I guess that the rest of
the team didn’t feel he had over egged it.
Harry stood up to add his contribution.
That was even more embarrassing as he chose to recall some of the more amusing
episodes of my life with Clegg Enterprises. I’d have been happier if he hadn’t
bothered to remember Rachel and the keyboard, but she was good enough to smile
about it too.
I got to thank everyone. I didn’t say much
more than that. I always reckon these things go on too long.
Finally Freddie got up and said, “As a last
word before you all go off and get stuck into the drink and the food, I’ve got one
more announcement to make. Larry’s moving on to pastures new, fortunately
within Clegg Enterprises but we want to carry on with his ideas and approach.
Larry’s been a great help in helping us to identity a suitable successor and
I’d like to introduce you to her now….”
On cue, two of Rick’s guards wrestled a
girl through the door into the middle of the room. She had a sack over her head
but from the familiar sound of grunting and mummphing
it was pretty obvious she was gagged. Beneath the sack, the captive woman was
obviously attractively built. Her blouse was torn a bit and so was her straight
skirt but she hadn’t been subdued by her experience, she was till trying to
kick out at the guards as they pulled the bag from her head. As the bag came free it revealed
a mass of long ash blonde hair and a pair of grey eyes looking out furiously
from above the strips of grey tape that plastered the lower half of her face.
She shook her head and looked around in disbelief at the assembled crowd and
the round of applause that she received.
As soon as she saw me she started struggling even more. I hadn’t seen
her for quite a while. We’d worked together about five years ago when I’d just
been starting out in marketing management and she was a trainee marketing exec.
We’d gone on to work for competitors. Some of the stuff she’d done had given us
a bit of trouble. She was good at what she did. It would be interesting to see
how she adapted to some new markets and new products.
The way that they’d taped her arms with the
strips around her elbows and around her body under her tits emphasised her well
configured chest. The way she was struggling did nothing to prevent everyone
appreciating it.
Harry said to me, “Hey, she’s got a nice
body. Certainly a better shape than her predecessor.
She’s going to fit in well around here.” Sarah smiled at Harry’s enthusiasm. He
went on, “Only thing is Freddie didn’t give us a name. Who is our new
colleague?”
“Oh, I said, that’s the best part of it.”
He looked blank.
“Well, it couldn’t be anything else,
really. Harry, meet, Sally.”
Even Rick gave me a pained look as the guards hustled the confused and squealing girl away. Harry grunted and led Sarah off in search of a drink. Sukie, Rachel and I did the same thing. There would be plenty of work soon enough but for the evening at least we thought we’d enjoy ourselves. And then there’d always be some market research to do with Kelly.
It hadn’t been a bad year. For me at any rate.
<<<<< THE END
>>>>>>>
© 2006 Freddie
Clegg
Download
PDF copies of my other stories at my Yahoo Group :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
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