The Slave World (29)

(29): 10K

“You’re looking very different today, Caitlin,” said the woman who was now passing herself off as Rebecca Miles. “Makeup, short summer dress, high heels, perfume, why I’d almost think that love must be in the air for you? A new boyfriend perhaps? A new boyfriend with exacting standards in women?” She smiled as she poured me a refill of coffee in her Docklands flat.

“I’m seeing someone,” I said as I handed her more dossier notes that I had put together on Adam’s computer now that my laptop was in the hands of Kassa. “He likes me to be pretty.”

“He likes you to be feminine,” said Rebecca as she perused the file I had given her. “I know that type of man every well indeed. I was a kept woman, remember? A trophy wife.”

The file contained a full accounting of my work to date including full details of the House of Three Moons. It’s what Rebecca had paid me for after all. I pocketed another thick wad of twenty pound notes that would never be declared for tax purposes.

“It’s my belief you’re going to be abducted in the next three days,” I said. “You may be kept for a short period of time in the basement of that house in Hampstead Lane where they have slave kennels. You will then be taken to a location in the New Forest, a couple of miles outside Burley. The site has been prepared already and it will be the designated landing zone for the silver ship. The location is changed for each pick up. This will be sometime after midnight in the early hours before anyone is awake. You and a number of other girls will be loaded aboard as cargo. I think you know the routine well enough. And then you’ll be shipped to Gor to start a new life as a slave girl.”

Rebecca looked understandably frightened as she read the notes. I had emphasised the power and ruthlessness of these men and the apparent resources and influence they commanded.

“Your options are very limited, but there are options, and I’m here to discuss them with you.” I moved my left leg slightly and noticed how Rebecca glanced at the steel ring about my left ankle. The high heeled pumps I wore made it impossible to disguise the fact that I had a metal ring locked upon me. I wondered whether Rebecca knew the significance of the ankle ring? I had no idea how much her former husband had told her of the operational procedures of the Kurii slavers. Hopefully not that much.

“Under normal circumstances I’d advise you to go to the police and make a full disclosure, but that would mean telling them who you really are and that in turn will flag your name in the system and by your own admission there’s a Kurii death squad that wants to clean up loose ends. The police who would speak to you initially would almost certainly not be part of this conspiracy, but I can’t guarantee that they wouldn’t quickly be replaced by policemen who were part of the conspiracy.”

“Going to the police is out of the question,” said Rebecca. She had lit another cigarette when I began to detail the main points from my dossier. “We can’t involve them.”

“Okay, then you can try to run and hide. Do you have resources you can fall back on other than this flat?”

“A few. There are places I could relocate to, but many are overseas and it’s impossible for me to leave the country as I don’t have a passport in the Rebecca Miles name. I have nothing to prove who I am so if I run I can’t even rent somewhere or take a job.”

“Your lack of papers is a real issue,” I agreed. In this day and age it was getting very hard to do anything without a paper trail identity. While she obviously had a suitcase of cash stashed away somewhere, not everything could be paid for in cash without raising suspicions.

“So I’m going to offer a possible solution. It’s going to cost you though.”

“What do you have in mind, Caitlin?”

“I happen to know men who can help you. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but they are agents of the Priest Kings so not only do they know your predators but they are opposed to them. Their network and resources isn’t what it once was, but I’m confident they could get you out of the country and set you up with a new paper trail identity somewhere safe. I could arrange all of this.” In actual fact I hadn’t mentioned any of this to Adam and Mark yet, but I was sure I could swing it for reasons that I was about to outline to Rebecca stroke Jennifer.

“They would help me?” Rebecca grasped at the suggestion like a drowning girl would grasp at a piece of drift wood.

“Well, they wouldn’t do it for free. Like I said, there would be a cost involved.”

“I have some money. How much?”

“Not money. Well, money for me. I’m going to charge you ten thousand pounds for arranging this. Consider it a bonus for the shit you put me through. But the men I know will be motivated by something else.”

“I don’t know what else I can offer if they don’t want money.”

“I think you do.” I smiled. “I’ve had this nagging thought at the back of my mind since our last conversation. You know how it is when you’re sure you missed something important, but you can't quite grasp what that something might be. I’ve got an analytical mind which works on problems in my sub conscious and then, pop, without any warning I suddenly think of a solution. It’s good for my job. There was something you said last time around that I didn't pick up on right away.”

“Oh?” Rebecca tapped some ash into the ashtray.

“You pleaded with your husband to share Carousel with you.”

“He refused,” said Rebecca.

“Yes, but that had to mean he had more than one dose of Carousel. That didn't click with me first time around. I had a lot on my mind. The Kurii had given him enough for two. Your husband didn’t choose to share, but he had to have had enough to share, otherwise why would you have pleaded your case?”

Rebecca said nothing as she sat there looking at me.

“You knew there were two doses, so you asked for one of them, and he refused you. So yes, after the death squad killed him you took a dose of Carousel from the hiding place in your mansion, but there were two doses, so one remains?”

Rebecca smiled.

“You have the second dose, don’t you? You’d hardly have left it behind. It’s worth a fortune to the highest bidder. Was that your plan, to replace the fortune you would have inherited with another fortune when you could sell the remaining dose of Carousel? I’m guessing you know many of the men who worked for the Kurii at the same time your husband did? You mentioned you were, how did you put it, complicit in much of his work? You would have known these men socially over the decades? All those decadent rich parties? For all I know you slept with some of those men to hedge your bets. Do you have some of them on speed dial?”

“I can see I chose well when I hired you, Caitlin. You’re very good.”

“Thank you. So that's your way out of this. The men I know, the Priest King agents, they will help you in return for the remaining dose of Carousel.”

Rebecca laughed. “You are asking an awful lot. This is the most valuable prize that exists on Earth. The richest most powerful men would pay any price to possess it. You’re asking too much, Caitlin.”

“What price do you put on your freedom? To not being a slave girl on Gor?”

“And if I agree to this? If I agree to your price?”

“I will put you in touch with the Priest King agents. They will make arrangements to get you safely away with a new identity that will hold up to any scrutiny. You will be free to enjoy your second chance at life. But you haven’t long to decide. The slave ship arrives and departs in three days. You are earmarked as part of its cargo.”

“Why do the Priest King agents want this serum? The Priest Kings must already have it.”

“They have their reasons.” I wasn’t going to tell Rebecca that Adam and Mark hadn’t heard from the Sardar in years and that they too wanted to profit from the riches that the serum could bring. For me this meant an end to the whole affair, because once Adam had his hands on the treasure he sought there would no longer be any need to pursue this reckless infiltration of the House of Three Moons. If I could give Adam what he wanted then this nightmare might be over at last. And then what? I would ask for a new identity too. Adam would possibly want me to go with him, but was that what I really wanted? Did I want to live in a slave relationship with him on some sun kissed private island? Everything was happening too quickly for me to come to terms with any of it. I didn’t know what I wanted. The sex was good, very good, but could I let him actually collar me?

I didn’t have these thoughts when I lay in bed with him. When he had me chained in his bed things were a lot simpler. But when I was away from Adam my independence reasserted itself. I would have to be his slave if I wanted to spend my life with him. In fact he already thought of me as his slave. But I felt sure that if I told him this couldn’t go on, he would accept that. After all, this was Earth, not Gor. He couldn't actually keep me as a slave if I refused such a thing, could he? He would have to respect my wishes, my independence, my say in the matter.

Or would he? Just how Gorean was his mindset now?

What if he decided that I didn’t have a say in the matter?

What if he kept me as his slave girl irrespective of what I wanted?

No, that was an insane concept. It could never happen. Adam would respect my ultimate decision on the matter. I wasn’t really his property.

Not really.

“I suppose I don’t really have any choice then. Tell these men they will have Carousel if they can guarantee my safety from the Kurii.”

“I’ll let them know and we’ll be back in touch very soon, probably in the next twelve hours. I expect you’ll have to be ready to move once we do. They have some safe houses in London, built underground, and we’ll probably move you there. It will be very quick when it happens so pack whatever things you need to take with you, but pack light.”

“All I need is my youth, and that travels with me,” said Rebecca with a smile. “Caitlin, towards the end of his life, before he received Carousel, Charles used to flaunt his women before me. I’d always suspected he had affairs of course, even before we were first married, but in the sixties and the seventies and even into the eighties he was at least discrete. Powerful men feel they have a right to be unfaithful and they probably think that the wife shouldn’t complain. After all she has her husband to thank for her rich lavish lifestyle. But in the last years of his life Charles made no attempt to hide his promiscuity from me. He needed Viagra by then of course. Age had withered that once impressive cock.” Rebecca spoke as an older woman might, reflecting back on her youth, which seemed incongruous with the way she looked now. “They were pretty young things and they would often be found in our house, lying by the pool side or draped over some sofa. I hated them of course, and they were intelligent enough to stay well away from me. My animosity towards these girls amused Charles. Two birthdays ago he gave me a long box, beautifully gift wrapped with a bow. Inside was a finely tooled riding whip. We had a stable of horses so I assumed it was to replace the one I used when I rode around our estate, but Charles smiled and said the whip was a special present for me, because that whip he said I could use on the flanks and buttocks of any of his girls that displeased me. He seemed excited by the idea of giving his wife the power to administer discipline to his harem of pretty girls. I think he wanted me to.”

“And did you?” I asked.

“No. I knew I would simply be playing Charles’s game and I didn’t want him to be more excited by those sluts than he already was. I could imagine how he’d probably be in a big leather armchair masturbating as I whipped one of the girls across her flanks. I wasn’t going to give him that.”

“Why tell me this?”

“Because the girls all had one thing in common. They all wore the same slave ankle ring as you do. So that means you’re a slave now doesn’t it? Were you going to tell me at all, Caitlin? Who do you belong to?”

“One of the Priest King men,” I said simply.

“I see. Is this because of your involvement with me?”

“In a way.”

“Are you a natural slave, Caitlin?”

“He tells me I am.”

“Oh, Caitlin... you've fallen down the rabbit hole.” Rebecca stubbed out her cigarette and reached for the coffee pot. “Have you been branded yet?”

“No. And I won't be branded. I'm not a slave.”

“Says the pretty girl with a slave anklet that she can't remove. Your naivety is charming.”

“Ten thousand pounds for me. Don't forget that part of the deal,” I said as I got up.

“Should I give the money to you or your master? I mean, are you even allowed to carry money any more?”

“I am my own woman,” I said sharply as I moved towards the door. “I'll phone you when we're ready to meet.”

“Until then, pretty kajira,” said Rebecca with a smile.