Beware the Savage Jaw Chapter One

Chapter One: The Gathering

Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick?

No.

Reverend Green with the pistol in the lounge?

No.

Or my favourite, the only I always loved as a little girl: Miss Scarlet with the dagger in the ballroom? She was my femme fatale. I liked to think with Miss Scarlet it was always a crime of passion. Mr Black was going to leave her, or had been unfaithful, or perhaps had threatened to blackmail her good name for some past scandalous indiscretion. She did him in with a stiletto – always the weapon of choice for a woman, according to crime writers.

I loved the board game Cluedo when I was a young girl. I used to play it with my reluctant parents on Christmas Eve and whenever I could persuade my parents to spend time together as a family which wasn't very often as dad worked long hours and mum... well, mum worked long hours too and needed the comfort and solace of cheap supermarket brand gin in the evening. I later discovered boys and makeup and David Bowie, but when I was twelve I loved Cluedo. There was a brief time when I thought I might grow up to be a glamorous detective solving Agatha Christie murders in old stately homes full of respectable suspects.

My father would have preferred me to become a doctor. In the early 1970s it was something for a woman to aspire to I guess. An alternative to working as a secretary in some business firm full of lecherous middle managers.

And so, as the clock ticked ever closer to the New Year, 2025, we all stood in the wine cellar to view the body lying there with a stiletto knife embedded through its left ear. Jonathan Stane – a prominent Kur sympathiser and collaborator on the Eastern Seaboard of America - lay face down on the cement floor between racks of vintage wine bottles. Scrawled in blood beside the body were the words 'Ta-Sardar-Gor' ('to the Priest Kings of Gor'). The words were signed 'Azrael'. Somewhere to my left there was the incessant screaming from a white silk girl which was really getting on my nerves.

Let me be clear on something: I was a Kur agent on Gor for forty years.

I’ve seen some shit. Really, I have. 

Dead bodies in wine cellars don't really shock me.  

They really don't.

I'm Rachel Evans by the way. And this is nine fifteen PM on the 31^st December 2024 on the island of Bear Crag, off the coast of Maine. Terrible things are about to unfold, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Time to wind the clock back and make sense of it all.  

Are you ready to play detective with me?

Cool.

11.15 am on the 30^th December 2024:

The first of the house guests were arriving by motor launch from the mainland. I sat on the bay window seat on the landing and gazed through the decorative glass at the jetty in the far distance. Through the rain I could see the motor launch dock, and some men clamber onto the deck to secure it to the wooden moorings as the boat bobbed violently from side to side in the heavy swell. A number of men and women – presumably the first guests - peered anxiously through the open doorway of the launch. There were two men wearing suits – one old, one young and with them were two women conspicuously dressed in the formal attire of a white silk girl and a red silk girl. I watched as one of the men, the younger of the two, stepped out onto the rolling deck of the motor launch and tried to unfurl an umbrella which immediately turned inside out, and then swung his arm up in the air as it tried to fly away in the high wind. The man struggled with the umbrella for thirty seconds or so before giving up.

“I’ve never seen a white silk girl before,” said Louise as she knelt on the bay window seat beside me.

“They’re just women like us,” I said. “Nothing special, except they’re virgins and lifted for a better life.” That was a term now  - 'lifted' – it referred to the lucky few whose fortunes rose through the direct or indirect patronage of the Kurii.

“I wish I was a white silk girl,” said Louise with longing. “They live such privileged lives. They're so beautiful and dignified.”

“Are you a virgin?” I looked at her and realised we'd never discussed our sexual experiences before.

“No.” Louise blushed as she admitted that. “I ruined myself years ago. I wish I'd known then what I know now.” She looked ashamed as if I might condemn her for having slept with a man.

'Ruined' – that was another term that had cropped up in the last year or two. Women now referred to one another as 'ruined' if they offered themselves up for sex before wedlock. That was New Feminism, or just Feminism as it was now being referred to. A woman was supposed to prize her virtue and offer it up only to 'the One'.

I hated that phrase – 'the One'. As if we were all saving ourselves for the right man to come along and sweep us off our feet. New Feminism said we would know 'the One' when we saw him. Or rather when he found us. And woe betide if we were 'ruined' when that happened.         

We watched as the small group stepped out into the heavy rain and fast walked towards the waiting limousine car that had been provided to drive them the hundred and sixty yards uphill to the house. The white silk girl seemed distraught, waving her hands in the air as she fast walked as quickly as her shift dress and high heeled boots allowed. It was the traditional clothing she wore – a white shift dress that fell to mid-calf length, with three quarter length sleeves and a crescent shaped neckline. With it came a pair of long white gloves and white lace-up Victorian style boots with a two and a half inch heel that were just long enough to be covered by the hem of her dress. For outdoors wear she also had a long white woollen overcoat that could be belted. It was worn loose as she seemed to shriek and demand something of the older man. She was getting wet it seemed and the wind was blowing her long blonde hair about her face.

“There’s a red silk girl with her,” said Louise. “The white silk girl won’t be happy she’s staying here too.”

“No, I suppose she won’t.” There is no love lost between a white silk girl and her red silk inferior. You can judge the status of a Kurii sympathiser by the women he is awarded. To have both a red and white silk girl under contract is a sign of prestige within the Kur ranks on Earth. The red silk girl had dark hair and wore her own traditional attire – the sleeveless red sheath dress that fell to just below the knee – less modest than the white loosely cut shift dress of her superior as it revealed her lower legs. The neckline of the dress was crescent shaped too but with a small u-shaped cut out in the centre that showed a little bit of skin. A red tailored jacket with a nipped in waist or long cardigan would traditionally be worn over the dress to cover the arms and shoulders and unlike the Victorian boots of the white silk girl the red silk would wear three and a half inch court shoes. Outdoors she would wear a similar heavy woollen coat to the white silk girl, but hers was cut shorter to flare at the hips and was red in colour.

While the clothes made it quite clear what their special statuses might be, any doubt would easily be avoided by the fact that they both wore lockable collars around their necks – enamelled white and red respectively. These collars were microchipped with details of the girl’s silk contracts and who they might be contracted to. A typical contract lasted five years and could only be terminated by the man.

That was another thing from the last year or so – 'lifted' women allowed themselves to be collared, believing the collar was a symbol of social status, and in a sense it was, for the time being.  

Like her white silk superior, the red silk girl also tried to protect herself from the worst of the rain by holding her clutch purse above her head as she ran towards the waiting limousine. The cut of her dress, just below the knees, allowed her a faster degree of movement than the hobbled nature of the white silk girl. As she hurried past the white silk, I saw the white silk silently mouth the word ‘slut’. I could make this out because I was using a pair of opera glasses that were attached to a long chain secured to the bay window seat.

No, there would be no love lost between those two.

The men brought up the rear of the party – the older man oblivious to the wind and rain in a way that the younger man wasn’t. They were both getting drenched but only the younger man seemed to be suffering. Behind them a couple of boat crewmen began unloading the luggage onto the wharf and placed it under a wooden roofed frame to keep the bags reasonably dry. They would be collected later after the guests were dropped off at the house.

“We’ll be expected to greet them,” said Louise as she rose from the bay window seat and smoothed down her dress. Like me she wore a simple black shift dress of durable twill fabric that fell to just below her knees. The dress had white turn up facings at the cuffs and a similar white collar neck. With it we both wore our customary crisp, starched white aprons tied tightly about our waists and on our heads a little white crochet cap. We both had our hair gathered up and pinned in place under the cap. We wore simple black Mary Jane t-bar shoes with flat one inch heels and cheap black stockings under the dress. We were household maids in service to our master, Patrick Rowell, and we looked every inch the part. Beneath the obligatory uniform, I wore a tightly laced old fashioned corset with stiff boning, over which I wore a girdle with suspender clips to hold up the cheap stockings. My bra was of a fifties design as was the high waisted knickers that added to the constriction of my figure. The corset and girdle gave me an unrealistic hour glass shape that made my hips and bottom more prominent in contrast to the nipped in waist. I had to wear the corset from the moment I got dressed in the morning to the point where I was allowed to retire for the night to the attic bedroom I shared with Louise, and I hated every minute of it.

Patrick Rowell was already pacing the hallway anxiously as we hurried down the staircase.

“Louise! Rachel! Where the hell were you? We have guests!” He gesticulated towards the large double doors that led out to the driveway.

“I’m sorry, Sir, we were making the beds,” I explained as I reached the foot of the staircase and dropped into a demure curtsey as was required of the household staff. Beside me Louise followed suit.

“The beds should have been done by now! You lazy bitches.” He stepped towards us and jabbed a finger at Louise. “And straighten your apron. We have high ranking Kur guests arriving.” He glanced at me then, trying to find some imperfection in my uniform or mode of grooming that he could complain about. I wore the prescribed level of makeup – light natural foundation, soft eyeliner and a nude daytime lipstick. My hair was neatly pinned under my white cap, and I wore the expected plain earrings. Around my throat was the rounded metal collar that proclaimed me a maid servant of the household. Like the collars worn by the silk girls, mine contained a biometric chip with details of my five year employment contract. I was three months into the contract now, having entered into the household in late September after living rough for the best part of the year with no home to call my own. Being on the run from the Kurii is difficult now that they control so much of the infrastructure of North America, but hiding in plain sight right under their noses was surprisingly simple. The one place they didn’t look for a fugitive was in the household staff of one of their sympathisers.

“Stand to the side. Curtsey when the guests arrive and then see to their comfort,” snapped Rowell as he failed to find any fault with my appearance.

“Yes Sir,” I said, curtseying again. I hated doing this but it was expected of me now. Another sign of humility before my betters. “May I ask which guests have arrived?”

“Jackson Montague; his white silk, Samantha; his red silk, Marcia; and Lord Peter Moorcroft. Are their rooms ready?”

“Yes, Sir, they are.” Montague would be the older man if he was fortunate enough to have his own white and red silks in attendance.

I heard the limousine pull up outside with a crunch of loose gravel. Car doors slammed and the scurrying of feet was heard above the sound of rain striking the window panes of the building. The drenched white silk girl was the first through the doorway, quickly followed by a sopping wet red silk girl whose small red clutch bag had failed to protect her hair from being ruined. The girls stood there in the hallway dripping water from their heavy woollen coats, shivering and looking bedraggled as their men folk followed them in.

“Why have we come here, Jackson!” cried the white silk. She looked pissed off and ready for an argument if she hadn’t already started one in the limousine earlier. “The sea crossing was a nightmare. We could have spent New Year in Washington! The Gathercoles are holding a fabulous party this year!”

“Be quiet, Samantha,” said Jackson Montague as he swung the heavy doors closed. “This is a Kur gathering. Your frivolous parties take a back seat to Kur business.”

“Jackson, Peter, welcome to Bear Crag,” said Rowell as he stepped forward to shake each man’s hand with a good degree of warmth and possible humility. Obviously Montague and Moorcroft outranked him, or at the very least had powerful friends that Rowell wanted to ingratiate himself with.

“Hmpf,” Montague seemed unimpressed by the rather limp and unchallenging handshake from Rowell and after nearly crushing the man's hand in return turned to indicate the girls. “Let me introduce you, Patrick. This is Samantha, and this is Marcia.”

“Charmed and delighted,” said Rowell as he took the proffered hand of the white silk and kissed the wet kidskin leather of her gloved fingers with his lips. She looked extremely bored as he did so. The red silk he kissed on the side of her cheek. “My apologies for the difficult sea crossing. The weather forecast isn't good I'm afraid. But we shall endure the storm with the fortitude of really good Scotch and a roaring log fire!”

“The Scotch had better be fucking good,” said Lord Peter Moorcroft as he stamped his feet to lose some excess rainwater from his overcoat. “Those cunts in London had the fucking nerve to offer me Glenfiddich.”

“You put them in their place, I'm sure,” said Rowell with a nervous, placatory smile.

“Well I shot one of the fuckers,” said Moorcroft with no suggestion that he was joking. “Bang. Straight through the forehead. Blew his brains clean out the back of his head. All over the wall. Just like the films.”

There was silence in the hallway for a moment and then the older man, Montague, turned to Moorcroft and held out his hand.

“What?” said Moorcroft.

“If you're carrying a gun, you can give it to me right now.”

“I say, I have every right to...”

“NOW!”

With a subdued expression, Lord Peter Moorcroft drew a pistol from his coat pocket and handed it to Montague. Montague swiftly ejected the clip and chambered the loaded round from the weapon. I watched the stray bullet as it rolled along the floor and come to a rest by the leg of an antique occasional table. None of the men bothered to pick it up.      

“So, um, whisky?” Rowell coughed gently to break the tension in the hallway. “I'm sure I have a bottle of Glenmorangie Grand Vintage Malt 1991 that I can bring up from the cellar. I, um, I'm told it's quite a good one...”

We watched as Lord Peter Moorcroft muttered something under his breath and stormed into the living room without his Ruger SR9C 9mm Black Nitride Finish Pistol to hand.

“Hide this away somewhere safe,” said Montague as he handed the unloaded weapon to Rowell. “And keep it away from the fucking children.” he glanced at Moorcroft's distant back as he added those last few words.