Steel World Inc. Chapter Six

 

I felt a stab of pain as I touched my nose, and my hand came away smeared in blood.

 

“Join us for a moment, Miss Whitlock,” said Karl Magnus as he leaned forward from where he sat. “I feel obliged to offer you some hospitality.” His accent was unusual – obviously foreign, but not a nationality I was familiar with. 

 

“I was just leaving,” she said as she felt the bouncer release her elbow and step back so as not to crowd her.

 

“You surely have time for a drink though?” Karl Magnus tried to smile, but it wasn’t really a smile, more like an absence of direct menace. 

 

“Well, I was…”

 

“I really must insist.” His eyes were steady and bore into her as she nodded. When she didn’t move, Magnus indicated a vacant space on the sofa where one of his two associates was sitting. As I picked myself up from the floor, Arabella smoothed down the back of her skirt and sat down, facing Magnus, keeping as much vacant space between herself and the man on the sofa as possible. As Magnus gazed at her, she made sure the fabric of her skirt covered her knees and that her knees were pressed tightly together.

 

“This is a Free Woman,” he remarked, for the benefit of his two associates. “You understand? A Free Woman?” They both nodded and regarded her.

 

It was a bizarre turn of phrase for anyone to use. A Free Woman? What was that supposed to mean exactly?

 

“And who is this?” Magnus turned his eyes to me.

 

“He’s with me,” said Arabella quickly. “Simon Rogers. We’re courting. I filled out the declaration, Sir, back at the office, a few weeks ago.”

 

“Hmm.” He regarded me still, and to my shame I couldn’t hold his gaze for long. 

 

“And he works for you,” Arabella added.

 

“Does he now?”

 

Karl Magnus flexed his hands and touched the low table as he continued to stare at me.

 

“I work in IT, Sir,” I said. I thought it was probably a good idea to call him ‘Sir’.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Um, data bases… computers…” How the hell did he not know what IT was?

 

“That I understand. The thinking machines.” He nodded.

 

I wiped my face again. There was more blood. My nose was bleeding. The two men seated with Magnus were laughing quietly at the sight of me. I must have looked wretched. I saw the bouncer lingered at the top of the steps, cutting off any easy exit.

 

“So you’re one of mine. Good.” He nodded and motioned for me to take a seat beside Arabella, which I quickly did.

 

“Are you all right?” she whispered with concern.

 

“I think so.”

 

“Oh God, you’re bleeding!” she looked despairingly at me and touched my face, before turning her gaze on Karl Magnus, offering him an angry frown that was really quite daring, considering the circumstances. “Look what you’ve done!” she said, in an outraged manner that made the two men nearby laugh again. Arabella looked cross. In fact she looked furious. 

 

“Be careful how you fucking speak to him, girl,” said the man who sat on her sofa. 

 

Bizarrely, Karl Magnus didn’t seem to appreciate that rebuke on his behalf, nor the swear word. “Miss Whitlock is a Free Woman, Anton. A Free Woman is entitled to speak her mind. She is delicate and sensitive to that kind of language”

 

The man, Anton, seemed surprised by this. He looked stunned, unsure whether this was a joke or not, but he quickly nodded as Magnus flexed his knuckles. “Of course, whatever you say, Ubar,” he added. He turned his gaze away from Arabella. But this didn’t seem to be enough.

 

“I said, she is a Free Woman,” Magnus growled.

 

“What?” Anton looked confused, and just a little bit scared. “I don’t…”

 

“Offer her an apology.” Karl’s eyes didn’t blink.

 

Anton nodded, cleared his throat and turned stiffly towards an astonished Arabella.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“NO!” Magnus rose from the sofa. “I said an apology! She is a Free Woman!” 

 

“I am very sorry, Miss, if I caused you any offence.” Anton seemed shaken. His eyes looked desperate. “Please accept my apology. Please.”

 

Arabella obviously didn’t know what to say. She stared at Anton, then at me, and then at Magnus.

 

“Are you offended, Miss Whitlock?” asked Magnus. “By him?”

 

“No… no…” she pressed her hands together to stop them from trembling.

 

“To be clear, you accept his apology without reservation?” 

 

“Yes. Yes I do.” Arabella cleared her throat and tried to seem brave.

 

“Very well.” Magnus stared at Anton again, and I couldn’t help but think the man had narrowly avoided something unfortunate happening to him. And then Magnus sat down again. 

 

“You’re bleeding,” he said to me. “Simon Rogers.”

 

“My nose.”

 

“You must have tripped on the stairs,” remarked Magnus. “That’s what happened, yes, Simon Rogers?”

 

I nodded. “I tripped on the stairs.” I didn’t want to argue with him. Something about his manner seemed very dangerous. 

 

“Easy to do in a night club. The lights can be disorientating.” He handed me a clean handkerchief that I could use to stanch the bleeding.

 

I felt Arabella take hold of my hand and squeeze it. She sat proudly beside me. “We’ve been courting for several weeks,” she explained.

 

Magnus nodded again. The tension seemed to abate just a little, as if this statement meant Karl Magnus was at least going to tolerate my presence here. And then the man’s mouth cracked into a crude semblance of a smile as he caught me taking a sideways look at one of the kneeling girls. She looked incredible! So very feminine and sensual. And I couldn’t believe what I could see as she knelt there, though I noticed that as soon as Arabella and I had appeared, both girls had closed their thighs together.

 

“That is Tessa,” remarked Magnus. “Greet Simon Rogers, Tessa.”

 

“Greetings, Master,” she said, not daring to look directly at me.

 

“Why… why did she call me Master?”

 

“Because she’s a slave.” Magnus leaned back on his sofa. “That is the expected form of address from a slave, don’t you think?”

 

I stared again at Tessa, and then at the other girl who knelt submissively on the other side of the low table. Tessa was blonde, European looking, while the other girl seemed possibly Middle Eastern in ethnicity. 

 

“She is Puta. She is also a slave.”

 

“Greetings, Master,” said Puta. She too didn’t look directly at my face.

 

“Would you like some champagne?” Magnus asked. “For yourself, and for your woman, if you allow her to drink?”

 

“Is this some… some BDSM thing?” I asked.

 

All three of the men laughed when they heard that question.

 

“BDSM.” From the mouth of Karl Magnus the phrase seemed derisory. “I know of your BDSM with its safe words and its consensual form of power exchange and its spanking benches. I find it childish. Pathetic. Not worthy of comment.”

 

“Puta, champagne,” he added. The girl, Puta, withdrew gracefully, and returned with a bottle from an ice bucket. It looked very expensive. As I sat there, she expertly removed the cork and filled two slim flutes, presenting one to me with her arms outstretched and her head down, and then the other to Arabella. The bubbles popped and fizzed in my glass. 

 

Both girls wore collars. Steel collars. The section of collar at the front included a steel ring fixed to the metal. The hinges had to be concealed by the girl’s hair. If I looked closely I could just about make out a small key hole. Did this mean the steel collar was locked about Puta’s neck? And if so, did she have the key? It seemed incredible to think that possibly she might not possess the key to her own collar. But if so, surely that meant she could not remove the collar?

 

I drank some of the champagne. Arabella did likewise. 

 

What was going on here? 

 

“I should introduce the men, Miss Whitlock,” said Magnus. “You have already heard from Anton Novikov. Unfortunately. The other man is Mikael Rostov. Both men seek enlightenment from the House of Three Moons, but both men continue to disappoint me. They do not grasp the concept of honour. They think honour is the least of the things my culture has to teach them, when truly it is the bedrock of all that follows.”

 

I had no idea what he was talking about.

 

“Observe Miss Whitlock,” Magnus said, motioning towards her. “Observe her dignity, her poise, her modesty, in contrast with the other women inside this place. She is a Free Woman. A barbarian, yes, but she can’t help that.”

 

I really had no idea what he was talking about.

 

“Are you all right?” I whispered to Arabella. I felt her squeeze my hand again.

 

“A Free Woman may speak her mind. Men permit such a thing.” His eyes narrowed as he regarded Anton and Mikael. “We give consideration to the thoughts and words of a Free Woman. We at least feign interest in what she has to say. She may speak boldly, and her words may rankle, but it is her right. She is not a slave.”

 

My pulse quickened at that reference. 

 

Not a slave.

 

My eyes darted back to Puta and Tessa. My God, how incredibly desirable they looked in their tight, short tunic dresses, kneeling like that, their hair worn loose, their faces beautifully painted with cosmetics, and the steel collars about their throats. The steel collars with locks clearly visible.

 

Were these girls even more beautiful because of their collars? It was possible. 

 

I felt aroused just being in their presence and I shifted the way I sat to make it less obvious. I didn’t want Arabella to know how aroused I was by these two girls. 

 

This was obviously some sort of bondage game that Karl Magnus liked to play. He was obviously rich. Perhaps the girls were high class escorts, and were being paid well to indulge this fantasy of his. Later tonight they would receive their money, and the keys would be provided to their collars. Obviously the girls themselves would insist on unlocking the collars personally. How wrong it would be if a man did it for them. That would imply that the collar might only be removed upon his pleasure. Obviously the girl herself would wield the key. 

 

They were perfect. Feminine perfection. 

 

I could feel Arabella’s eyes on me. Did she suspect? Could she sense the emotions that flooded through my body as I saw these two girls, through my peripheral vision alone. I didn’t dare look at them directly, not while Miss Arabella Whitlock was watching me. What would she think! How could I explain myself! 

 

But Arabella was not the only one at the table who sensed or suspected my interest in the two girls.

 

“Subjectively, Simon Rogers, which girl do you think would have the highest block price?”

 

“Block price?” I snapped out of my daydreaming. “I don’t…”

 

“Auction block. If Tessa and Puta were put up for sale, on the same day, exhibited by the same auctioneer, subject to the same whip?” He leaned back on the sofa. “And you were bidding on them – one man among many. Which would go for the higher price in your opinion?”

 

I must have looked flustered. “I don’t understand the question.”

 

“Which piece of property has the greater value? In your opinion, Simon Rogers? It is a simple question, requiring a simple answer.”

 

“You can’t buy women,” I declared “They aren’t for sale.”

 

There was mocking laughter around the table. Why were they laughing at that obvious statement?

 

“I assure you, Simon Rogers, you can. Women are routinely available for sale. You need only know where to look.”

 

This was some allegory? Some metaphorical remark? Some way of addressing the upkeep of women who were high maintenance? If so it was surely in poor taste. 

 

“I can’t answer that.”

 

Karl Magnus laughed. “Can’t, or won’t? But, ah, yes, your Free Woman is listening. She no doubt berates you with her sharp tongue should you so much as gaze at slave flesh. And you put up with it? How sensitive you are to her feelings.”

 

What the hell was he talking about? 

 

“You all heard me say that the opinions of a Free Woman should be listened to and given consideration.” His eyes swept Anton, Mikael and myself. “That is how it is, but I did not say we have to accommodate those opinions. And certainly not when it comes to the matter of slaves.”

 

I felt Arabella stiffen as she sat beside me. I felt her dig her nails into the soft palm of my hand that she held. 

 

“A Free Woman will of course begrudge her man making use of a slave. That is natural enough. She may complain. She may even prevaricate. She may express critical opinions of the slave in question. She may take her rage out on the girl in question. All this is quite understandable.”

 

I could sense a controlled anger growing in Arabella. 

 

“It is important that we must not embarrass a Free Woman, and certainly not in public. But she in turn cannot dictate the pleasure we take from kajirae.”

 

This was growing more surreal as the minutes ticked by. 

 

“I wish to leave,” said Arabella, suddenly. 

 

“Of course.” Karl Magnus inclined his head. “The conversation has drifted past the point where a Free Woman might feel comfortable.”

 

“I do not feel comfortable, either,” I said. I felt it important to back Arabella up. “I’m an open minded sort of man, but this has been in poor taste.” I glanced again at the two kneeling girls. They were so lovely! “It’s none of my business if you enjoy role-playing master and slave, but Arabella is distressed now, and I want to take her home.”

 

“Then let me arrange a taxi for Miss Whitlock.” Magnus signalled to the bouncer by the steps, who nodded and made a call on his radio mic. “And yourself, too.”

 

I led Arabella back down to the dance floor and, with neither of us speaking, on through to the cloak room where I handed in a ticket to retrieve her long overcoat. She was silent as I helped her dress herself. Outside, the evening was cold and dark, with a few faint drops of rain threatening to blossom into a full blown shower. 

 

“I am so sorry you had to endure that,” I said. “The man is a beast. Uncouth, savage.”

 

She shivered, perhaps from the cold. 

 

A taxi had been waiting on the street opposite the club and, seeing us emerge, it peeled away and drove up in front of where we stood.

 

“That must be our taxi,” I said. I approached it and opened the door. The driver watched us with sullen eyes through the rear view mirror as I helped Arabella slide into the back seat where I then joined her. I gave the man her address and sat back as the taxi rolled away. 

 

Arabella seemed stiff and distant as we drove through night time London. A soft rain began to fall against the side window as I gazed at her.

 

“We should make a complaint,” I suggested.

 

She said nothing. She simply gazed out through her own side window. 

 

I had the acute feeling that the taxi driver was watching us carefully in his mirror. 

 

“You were very brave,” I said.

 

“You wanted those girls,” Arabella finally said as we neared the embankment. She didn’t look at me as she spoke. 

 

“What? No! Of course not!” 

 

“Don’t lie to me.” I could sense tears welling in her eyes. “You lusted after them!”

 

“I didn’t! I am not that kind of man. Arabella, please.”

 

“Which one?” she said. 

 

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Which one would fetch the highest block price? Which one would you have bid for?”

 

“You’re being ridiculous now. Arabella, you’re upset. But you’re not making sense.”

 

“Just tell me! I want to know!” she sobbed, pulling away from me as I tried to put my arm about her shoulders. “At least tell me!”

 

“Puta.” I said it without thinking and felt her flinch and pull away completely.

 

“Oh God. You would have bought that slut, Puta.”

 

“No! Of course not. I mean…”

 

“Women do NOT belong in collars!” she said. “Why don’t you understand that?”

 

“I do! Of course that’s wrong! Arabella…”

 

“I feel sick.”

 

The conversation ended there as the taxi pulled in to the street where she lived. I could see the block of flats in which her small apartment was situated, though of course I had never been into it, myself.

 

“Let me walk you to the door of your flat,” I suggested.

 

“No.” Arabella resisted my entreaty and opened the side door before I could exit the taxi and open it for her, myself. “Leave me alone!”

 

I stared at her as she stood outside the taxi, getting wet, for she had no umbrella. There was a look of hatred directed at me. “Go home and dream of your lovely Puta!” She hissed the words at me in anger. 

 

“Arabella, please…” But she didn’t turn back as she hurried through the rain to the door of the building. Her hands fumbled with the keys from her purse and then she hurried through, closing the door behind her. I sighed and sat back in the taxi seat, not knowing what to do.

 

“Where to?” said the driver. His accent sounded strangely similar to that of Karl Magnus. Again, I failed to identify the nationality. I gave him my own address and sat in silence as he then drove me home through the rain shower.

 

When we arrived at my building, but before I might leave the car, the driver turned round and held a piece of card between his fingers.

 

“What’s that?” I asked.

 

“It’s a number. Call it if you wish to know.”

 

“Know? Know what?”

 

“The choice is yours.” He passed it through to me. I took the card and saw it had a mobile number, but nothing by the way of an explanation of what it might be. I frowned and put it in my pocket without thinking.

 

Inside my flat, I poured myself a whisky and switched the late night TV on. BBC4, of course. I settled down on the sofa and caught the end of a documentary on the Trojan war. 

 

I recognised the presenter – a pretty young woman called Erinn Swyfte. She had hosted and presented a number of programmes on ancient antiquity for the BBC, and, as I recalled, programmes involving the subject of human slave trafficking in the modern twenty first century.  

 

It was near the end of the program, and Erinn dealt with the aftermath of the fall of the great city, and the fate of the Trojan Women, a subject of interest in plays and sculpture since ancient times.

 

The Warbands of the Greek warlords and petty kings had swept into the city, killing all the population, exempting only the women and young children. These, along with the other loot of the city they carried off to their homes in rocky Greece. Erinn was interviewing a distinguished Professor on the subject, with the interview itself cut with scenes of bronze statues of questionable taste.

 

“Of course, these captive prize women were the basis of Greek wealth and of democracy itself.”

 

“How is that, professor?” asked Erinn.

 

“Although the 'Kings' took many of the women for themselves, each surviving warrior was allocated two or even three for himself. By putting them to work spinning and weaving the wool from his flocks by day, more cloth than his family needed was created, leaving a surplus to be sold to increase his wealth. He could expand his flocks and wealth. By night, the slave women would share his bed, breeding more slaves for his fields, and more women for his bed and clothmaking.”

 

“And how did this exploitation create civilization and democracy?” asked the young presenter.

 

“The wealth gave him the ability to buy better armour and weapons, making him the equal in battle of kings; the surplus wealth allowed the creation of cities and the time to contemplate ideas and the time to rule themselves. A man with a slave at his feet is a confident man; his triumph over the flesh of his slaves makes him believe he is master of his own fate.”

 

“Leading to the rise of the Citizen-Warrior?” suggested Erinn.

 

“Yes, democracy relied on slavery. The citizen phalanx, all well armoured, marching to acquire more land and slaves and to protect their own. Ruling themselves and the city as they ruled their slaves. Think of the confidence of a citizen-warrior with a naked slave chained at his feet! The Greeks knew this - look at their statuary, their sculptures, their poems and plays, the odes to the conqueror with slaves at his feet. In time it would allow them to defeat the Persian Invasion, and, under Alexander, conquer the known world as war as Egypt and India.”

 

The show ended with the studio camera panning out, leaving a few silent seconds of the Professor and Erinn contemplating the vision of a confident citizen-warrior with a naked slave woman in chains looking up adoringly at her master. It was a powerful image to end the programme on, and if many in the audience imagined Erinn as the naked chained woman, that was only natural. In that moment, both the professor and Erinn had possibly been imagining that scene as well.

 

I found myself strangely aroused by the thought of the presenter, Erinn, as a Trojan slave girl. And then to my shame, I imagined Miss Arabella kneeling on a mosaic floor, dressed in a tight, short tunic dress, with a steel collar locked about her throat, looking up at me, but not meeting my eyes. 

 

I reached in my pocket and felt the piece of card there. Curious, I drew it out and gazed at the number again in the cold light of my lounge. 

 

On a whim, I picked up my phone and dialled the number. I held my breath as I heard the ring tone connect.

 

“Um, look, I was given this number, but…”

 

A strangely accented voice spoke through the line. “Tomorrow night, eleven PM.” And then he gave an address of a house in Hampstead lane, London. “The password is ‘Fidelio’.” 

 

And then the line went dead.