Author's Note: Pearl Dean, daughter of the British ambassador to Germany, dreams of experiencing the adventures enjoyed by the heroines she sees on the silver screen. (At this point, the knowing and compassionate reader might caution a well brought up young lady to beware what she wishes for incase, one day, her dreams might come true)

This is romantic adventure in the old-fashioned sense, set mostly in 'the dark continent' of Africa in the 1930s. I'd like to compare it to H Rider Haggard but it's probably more Indiana Jones only with more bondage. In comparison to many of my stories, it gets off to a slow start (a 'slow burn' is the expression used by another author) but I hope it subsequently delivers. If you want hot bondage and kink in almost every scene then you're probably better reading 'Kawaii' or 'The Circus', however, I hope you'll find this one worth engaging with.

I should warn at the outset that the story begins in Berlin under the Nazi regime a couple of months before Kristallnacht; a time of paranoia and prejudice. In line with this, some of the characters' viewpoints and some of the things they say would be considered overtly racist today. This is not intended to offend or even to shock but simply my attempt to enrich the story by presenting it through the viewpoint of the protagonists as the adventure unfolds rather than a knowing retrospective from our current view of the world.

If this story does offend, then I apologise. It is not a social comment but the story of a young woman's sexual awakening.


PROLOGUE: BERLIN, SEPTEMBER 1938

Olivia de Havilland seemed to have got herself tied up again.

Pearl wasn't quite sure how she or any of the other silver screen heroines managed it with quite such regularity; hardly an adventure film passed without them finding themselves tied to a railway track, kidnapped by pirates or chained to the wall of some villainous count's dungeon.

Pearl wished she could have an adventure like these.

Not that she wanted to be tied up, of course, though she wouldn't mind if she could be rescued afterwards, especially if her rescuer was handsome...and rich, that would be nice too. Anything really as long as he would whisk her off on an a life of adventure.

She lay back in her seat as Olivia struggled determinedly but rather ineffectually in her bondage, and glanced around at the almost empty cinema; it was a fleapit off HobenStrasse and not the sort of place the English ambassador would expect his daughter to visit. At this mid-afternoon showing, there were only half a dozen souls watching Olivia squirm and pout as she waited to be rescued by Errol Flynn, her bodice heaving as she struggled in her bonds. Two children who probably should have been at school sat across the aisle, both typical blonde Germans, the older one, a boy, in the uniform of the Hitler Youth; the usherette was sitting at the front and a black man had seated himself a few rows behind Pearl; there weren't many Africans in Berlin in 1938, least of all, well dressed ones; this one wore a flying jacket and a scarf and Pearl found herself surprisingly curious about him.

It appeared that none of her fellow cinema-goers was paying her any attention and, as she looked back at the screen, Pearl couldn't resist sliding her hands behind her back and pressing her legs together, imagining herself tied there, smiling to herself at the thought of being on an adventure.

Perhaps now, with her new job something exciting would happen to her.


CHAPTER 1: ALGIERS

Although it was early, Pearl could already feel herself starting to sweat as she stood on the gantry waiting for the passengers to board the Brandenberg. Out here on the airfield there was no relief from the heat even if the canvas roof and walls sheltered her from the direct force of the north African sun.

Below her, the passengers were disembarking from the bus and she smoothed the front of her silk blouse, ensuring she was standing straight. The airship had been docked in Algiers since the evening before last and Pearl had spent most of the previous day and evening exploring the city, initially seeking out the exotic architecture, the palaces and mosques and their hidden gardens and fountains, however, she had rapidly been diverted by her observations of the people in their colourful robes, almost overwhelmed by their multicoloured faces or the hidden faces of veiled women, dark eyes peering out into the world. Her father would probably have been horrified to know how she had pushed her way though the teeming markets, experiencing the press of bodies. He would have been outraged to know that she had felt more than just accidental physical contact several times though, like her, he would not have been able to take any action for each time she had looked around she had not been able to discover who's hand had squeezed her bottom or brushed a hand across her breasts. However, Pearl had only smiled to herself and turned her attention back to the garden of activity which seemed to be opening around her filling her senses; stalls displaying covered silks, perfume vendors, animals in cages, snakes, fruits that she could not identify, odours of exotic food, clouds of spices, the sound of unknown languages... For a whole day she had barely seen another European although a pair of French legionnaires had at one stage 'rescued' her from an overly enthusiastic market trader who had been trying to draw her into his shop. They had smiled at her and offered to buy her cassis; she had declined and they had reluctantly let her go amid warnings of white slavery and 'nice English girls' becoming the prisoners of local harems.

Images of the day still played out in her mind and the experience had thoroughly whet her appetite to explore further on the return trip. Already, she felt her life might be turning into the adventure for which she had hoped and she was reassured by the thought that, even if she was taken as a white slave, a dashing French legionnaire would, no doubt turn up to rescue her.

She looked at her reflection in the window of the gondola aware that, in her new uniform, she looked good standing as she had been told with her shoulders back and her breasts thrust out; prettily made up, her blonde hair permed and arranged neatly under the blue cap with its airship logo; she wore more make-up than usual, more powder, her brows darkened, lashes blackened and curled giving her, she thought, a slightly surprised look; her cheeks dusted with blusher over her foundation, emphasising her rounded cheekbones; her lips, shining a deep red just like Olivia he Havilland's, curled into a smile.

The flight from Berlin to Algiers had gone smoothly for Euro-African Airships newest stewardess. She had performed well; hadn't been airsick, hadn't spilt anyone's drink and had enjoyed a little flirtation with a number of male passengers. She attributed this to the way the uniform flattered her slim form, especially the way it stretched gently over the cone bra that emphasised her firm little breasts and the way the skirt hugged her slim waist and the flare of her hips, currently even more pronounced than usual because of the broad suspender belt or 'merry widow' as the fashion magazines called it, that was rather tighter than she was used to; she'd thought the skirt a little tight too and, from the way if tapered to her knees, somewhat impractical unless it was designed for the sole purpose of showing off her bottom. Stewardesses did seem to do a lot of bending to pick things up and with limited opportunity to move her knees, she was more or less forced to bend at the waist with her legs almost straight; she almost believed that, sometimes, male passengers dropped things purely to create a need for her to bend and pick them up. The silk stockings added to the glamourous image, doing wonders for her legs; she loved the seams and these had little bows on the top of her heel. She wasn't quite so sure about the shoes, she had never worn four inch heels before but she had endured deportment classes as a child and could carry a book on her head in three inch court shoes; so far she hadn't turned an ankle despite the gentle sway of the gondola as they had tracked the coast of Italy.

She had made new friends too, the other hostesses had been welcoming, giving her advice and taking her to the bar on the evening of the airship's arrival in Algiers though they had declined to accompany her out of the hotel into the city. They had warned her about the risks to a lone woman, including white slavery, but Pearl thought this was probably an excuse to lounge around the pool in their bathing suits flirting with the pilots and engineer. The pilots too had shown Pearl a good deal of attention and one, Helmut, had been surprisingly, almost scandalously, flirtatious.

She had been forced to brush his hand off her knee more than once during the evening the crew had spent in the bar.

In truth, his attentions excited her; he was handsome; she knew she would have to be on her guard for the rest of the trip; she and Helmut were the only ones of the original crew going on to Cape Town, the airship's final destination. She suspected she might have to resist his advances in the Timbuktu stop-over as well.

This really was an adventure and, though she still wished it was her flying the airship, being part of the crew was a start.

If Amelia Earhart had learned to fly then so could she, though her fantasies had taken a bit of a knock when the aviatrix had disappeared the year before.

Then, the lift of the gantry engaged and Pearl was called away from her musings back to the present and, a few moments later, the doors were opened.

'Bonjour.' Pearl greeted the passengers with a smile as they emerged from the lift; almost a dozen, mostly men in pinstriped business suits carrying Homburgs but one or two in traditional Arabic dress.

There was a woman too, a tall blonde, at least six feet tall in her leather boots; she wore a white blouse and leather trousers in a fashion that Pearl knew would scandalise her father and walked with her shoulders drawn back, striding with the gait of a soldier or more accurately, a women endowed with what could only be described as a formidable pair of breasts and one who knew how to advance herself by the use of them. The woman gave the impression of a perfect Teuton, statuesque with grey-blue eyes though Pearl thought her hair was probably dyed blonde. She was accompanied by a man in uniform; Pearl wrinkled her nose, Gestapo, Herr Hitler's secret police and, though his rank insignia were unfamiliar, he was, she thought a very senior officer. She knew what the Gestapo were doing to the Jews, knew that sometime soon their increasingly less covert actions would become frank hostility. Oddly, she thought, his face did not match the rest of his demeanor in that, like the blonde woman, he was not unattractive; in fact, the black uniforms and the totenkopf aside, they looked a rather dashing couple.

In the films she watched the villains always seemed to have a scar or an eyepatch.

'Guten morgen.' She smiled though the words tasted sour in her mouth.

The second group consisted of two more German officers, walking with the swagger she was used to seeing; an utter confidence in the justice of their chosen cause. One was a captain, the other a major, typical Aryans like the woman portrayed herself, arrogant too; as they passed one looked her over with his watery blue eyes and Pearl shivered despite the heat.

It was, she thought, a little surprising to see German soldiers flying directly south from Algiers, though many came as far as the north African coast from Berlin, she'd read that most headed for Marrakech rather than proceding into the interior. The German colonies she knew, had all been lost in the war to end all wars although she, like many in the ambassadorial world in which her father moved, wondered if that sobriquet was as final as it appeared to be.

At the rear of the group was a black man in a flying jacket and, she realised after a moment, he was the same man she'd seen at the cinema in Berlin a week earlier. Her smile broadened and became more genuine at the familiar face and he smiled back warmly giving her the impression of white teeth and warmth.

She noted the way he walked, confident and with a slight swagger, like a pilot; and that he really was very handsome.

Joseph Diabate looked up at the blonde stewardess. He was disappointed it wasn't the pretty girl that had welcomed him onto the airship, the one he'd seen at the cinema in Berlin. This one was taller, broader shouldered, more Teutonic, her features more defined, her breasts certainly larger and rather obviously straining against the confines of her blouse; she had blue eyes too whereas he thought the other girl's had been hazel; the original girl had been a natural blonde too.

He was surprised she was also called Pearl and, even more so when she spoke, curtly and with the accent of a southern German.

Pearl was hardly a German name.

'Pearl's' disdain for him was evident as she served him, although after his stay in Germany, he was not unused to such treatment. Nineteen-thirty-eight Berlin was not the place for an African and he was glad to have left it behind.

Herr Hitler seemed to delight in turning the population against others; he appeared to dislike Jews too; stoking emotions until discontent had the people simmering, straining as if about to burst forth from the fragile bounds of civilisation.

It was odd, Joseph thought, that, in the first class compartment of the gondola, the flight attendant would be wearing such an ill-fitting uniform, the buttons of her blouse stretched almost to breaking point across her large breasts, he fancied that if she sighed too deeply, they would pop.

Joseph shrugged and took a sip from his drink; at least the whisky wasn't German. Sitting back, he opened the newspaper he'd been offered as he entered the cabin and frowned as he realised it was in German. He read German well enough, it was just that the 'news' was not much to his taste, glorifying the Fatherland and denigrating the 'inferior' races, his own included. The rest of Europe had been watching the rise of fascism with varying degrees of enthusuasm since nineteen thirty three and, as he'd travelled back and forth delivering aircraft across Europe he'd watched the rise of different factions, the growing drive for nationalism, the growth of migrations from trickle to tide; the posturing of governments.

He was glad to be out of Europe; a man knew where he was with the physical heat of Africa, especially if he was an African.

Soon dissatisfied by what he read he put the newspaper down and took another sip of Scotch; this was the real stuff, dark, warming, earthy as it rolled over his tongue and down to his stomach, the mere thought of it relaxing him. He idly watched the blonde stewardess bend over, her skirt really was way too tight, stretched over her bottom; he conjectured the seam down the back had already begun to split.

As the warmth of the Scotch faded from his belly and entered his head he thought he might stretch his legs; perhaps he might bump into the other Pearl. It was a long way to Timbuktu and his family home. He didn't mind his own company but sharing it with the girl from the cinema would be a pleasant diversion.

Strolling past the bar he didn't see her and she wasn't in the galley.

She wasn't in the standard class cabin either.

Curious. Perhaps, he reasoned, she was ground crew.

He shrugged and returned to his seat, settling back and trying to sleep. It had been a long flight from Berlin to Barcelona and then across the Med to Algiers where he had dropped off the new Messerschmitt trainer and, after a night enjoying the souks in the company of Enas, a dark eyed Arab girl, he had met in the bar near his hotel; had finally succumbed to the need to return home.

It really was odd he thought as sleep eluded him; Pearl, the original Pearl, had spoken with an English accent and had looked ready to fly. The presence of the 'other' Pearl nagged at his mind too.

With sleep eluding him, Joseph stood up and went to look for her again.


CHAPTER 2: EAA FLIGHT 103 'BRANDENBERG'

Joseph had flown airships as well as planes and was familiar with the layout of the 'one hundred' class. There was nobody at the top of the stairs to the crew quarters that sat just beneath the cockpit so it wasn't difficult to slip quietly through the hatch. If he was challenged, he could always say he was lost.

She wasn't there.

Suddenly, the airship lurched, the gondola swaying violently.

Joseph fell against the door to the baggage hold, realising as he held out his hand to brace himself that it had not been properly secured.

He tumbled though, rolling as best he could before landing in an undignified heap among the luggage.

And there she was.

Pearl.

She had been stripped of her uniform but, he thought, looked rather pretty in the white silk bra that turned her breasts into little pointed cones and matching knickers in the French style; she also wore a broad suspender belt with six suspenders and he recalled an English pilot telling him that, in this fashion the rule was 'the more the merrier'; it was he thought an English joke on the 'merry widow' and rather typical of the smutty English sense of humour; she wore some lovely seamed stockings too and, he noticed, had lovely dainty feet.

As he stood, the girl turned her head towards him; her eyes wide over the gag that covered her mouth; they were definitely hazel. Her arms were tied behind her back and there were ropes around her chest and belly, ropes that framed her neat conical breasts and one that disappeared between her legs; her ankles were crossed and tied together and her thighs also bound.

Whoever had tied her up had done a very thorough, meticulous job.

Joseph couldn't help but smiling at her despite the obvious peril of her situation; it was not often he encountered such a lovely girl, at least not one for who's virtue wasn't for sale; and not often one was to be found her in such a state of undress; unless, of course he paid for it...or helplessness unless...

His eyes lingered in her lovely captive body.

'Mmmmmphh !' The helpless girl struggled and shouted through her gag and Joseph realised his mind had lingered overly long on such thoughts.

He stepped forward meaning to untie her.

There was a muted whistle and then a thud above them; the sound was repeated.

The report of a silenced pistol and the thud of a body falling.

Two bodies.

In the cockpit above his head.

Joseph turned and ran for the door, stopping only when Pearl's gagged cries reached his ears.

He turned. 'I'll be back.'

Pearl glared at him over her gag and shouted something that was incomprehensible but might have been a string of English expletives.

By the time he reached the door of the first class cabin, Joseph knew that any action was pointless. There were three men toting rifles watching the frightened passengers and then he heard shouting from second class and the report of gunshots.

Even if he'd been armed with more than a postol, he'd have been outnumbered and outgunned.

He ran back down the stairs and into the baggage compartment to find Pearl sitting up, struggling in her bonds with a vigour that did her credit. There were more gunshots and then the unmistakable rush of air as an external hatch was opened. The airship swung again and slowed then something tumbled past the window.

A body.

'There.' A voice called out in German. 'Down the stairs.'

Joseph flung himself across the netted cargo and grabbed the loading door, tearing at the handle and shoving it open with his shoulder, hanging for a moment as the cold air rushed around him.

Then, he grabbed Pearl, still bound and helpless and threw her out.

Pearl had only screamed as he threw her through the door. Then she had stopped and now she fell spinning and turning, the air rushing past her body and roaring in her ears.

It might have been exhilarating if she hadn't been bound and gagged and wearing just some silk lingerie.

She thought it might have been better with a parachute too.

She should have been frightened but she was way too angry; angry with herself for being overcome some easily by that...that blonde German bitch...angry at the black man for throwing her out of the window...angry with herself for having found him attractive and, when he had discovered her bound and gagged, furious that she had thought he might be there to rescue her.

Then he had thrown her out of the airship.

He was obviously a Nazi agent too.

Judas !

For some reason, she continued to struggle with her bonds even when she knew it was pointless; if she did get her hands free what would she do...flap her arms like wings ?

She felt herself shiver, angry that she should show such weakness, that someone might think she was frightened...

How could it be so cold up here when the sun was so bright and the sky so blue.

Far below she could see the continent of Africa, desert and scrub running into forest, mountains...

A shadow passed across her and she looked up.

Oh God, she was hallucinating.

Now she was frightened.

He was there, the black man, falling beside her.

Was he wearing a parachute ?

Was he here to gloat ?

Surely...

He reached out and grabbed hold of her, wrapping a rope around her body and tying it off on one of the ropes that were already tied around her waist, tying them together.

What sort of sick...?

She looked down and saw the ground rushing up.

Then the rope tore at her body and she screamed.

After the initial jerk that she had feared might tear her apart when the parachute canopy opened their headlong plummet had slowed to a more graceful drift and she'd hung in the makeshift harness that the ropes binding her had become every muscle aching and wishing the rope tied between her legs had not been knotted. Despite this, the canopy had removed the chilling roar of this wind and, falling had become a little more comfortable physically, at least.

Then he'd began to lift her, pulling on the rope from which she hung, reeling her in as if she was a fish on a line, a fish hooked in a rather intimate place. She could tell he was strong from the way his muscles bunched as he lifted her and then from the way he held her, almost as a lover might, tight to his body. What he planned to do to her, she had no idea; however, she began to get an inkling when he let her slide up his body and seemed to almost bury his face in her breasts.

If she hadn't been gagged she would certainly have said something about such intimate contact; she might also have told him she was only shivering with cold.

Then she looked down and realised how fast the ground was approaching.

They landed heavily and she was left winded; lying gasping on her side wondering how soon he might ravage her.

When nothing happened, she rolled over and groaned.

Perhaps he had been injured.

He was standing above her, a naked blade in his hand and, from where she lay bound and helpless, he suddenly seemed very frightening.

Pearl feared the worst.

'I'm sorry.' It was only the second time she had heard him speak, at least in a way that he could be heard though he had shouted at her above the rush of the wind some few thousand feet further up. His voice was lilting and, if she were asked to give it a quality, she might have thought it softly mocking.

She was aware of his eyes roaming over her helpless body; her lingerie clad body.

'Mmmffhh.' She rolled onto her side and drew up her knees in an attempt to hide her nakedness.

This really wasn't the adventure she had planned.

'Perhaps I should untie you.' He knelt and began to cut at the ropes.

'My name is Joseph.' The man told her as he removed the silk scarf from around Pearl's mouth and pulled out the handkerchief that had been stuffed into it.

She was shivering uncontrollably despite the heat and, as the gag was removed, she retched, nearly vomiting.

'Here.' He draped his flying jacket around her shoulders and knelt beside her massaging her arm back to life.

'What are you going to do to me ?' She finally found her voice but was embarrassed by her words. He had, she realised, just rescued her.

'Do to you ?' He sounded surprised then, perhaps realising the meaning of her question added. 'I hope to help you.'

She didn't speak and he began to massage her left arm.

'Can you stand ?'

She looked up and nodded dumbly then allowed him to help her to her feet, swaying slightly and aware of the hot earth beneath her stockinged soles.

'Thank you.' She tried to smile.

'I think your name is Pearl ?' He said, still speaking in English.

'Yes.' She nodded, feeling warmth return to her body. 'Pearl Dean.'

'I am Joseph Diabate.' He give a slight bow. 'At your service.'

Pearl felt the heat rise around her and slid off his jacket to return to him.

'You are sure you wish to return it ?' He gave a broad, rather knowing smile and Pearl remembered her state of undress.

He was clearly looking at her breasts.

She slapped him as hard as she could.

They walked for several hours, stopping to shelter from the heat of the day under the largest tree they could find. It gave little shade and, in the stifling heat was barely a relief from the sun that burned down upon them. He had cut the sleeves from his jacket to create makeshift shoes to protect her feet and wrapped the scarf that had been used to gag her around her head; he'd given her his shirt too, telling her of the need to protect herself from the sun.

He had shrugged on the remains of his jacket and told her 'I will burn too' when she had questioned it.

They had no water.

She learned in the course of the day that he was from Timbuktu and was a pilot and was soon satisfied that he did indeed mean to help her, understanding his explanation as to why he had thrown her out of the airship; she had heard the gunshots too. That there were enemy agents aboard was hard to dispute, she had encountered one already, the not-so-blonde Claudia who had tied her up and taken her uniform.

After a while though, they did not speak much; silenced by the physical exertion of walking and the dry oppressive heat. Other than the enforced stop in the heat of the day, he had been resolute about keeping on the move, the need to find shelter and water.

It had been barely twenty minutes before her body had been running with sweat and her clothing, what there was of it had began to stick to her skin. When they stopped near midday she'd realised how the shirt was clinging to her body outlining every detail including her nipples; her French knickers had become completely see through; she had blushed when she realised but it was hot and she was flushed, and she didn't think her had noticed.

By evening, Pearl was more exhausted than she would have thought possible and was grateful that the land was sloping down, thereby making it easier to walk. Her feet were sore and she dreaded to think what they might look like. She wondered too, fleetingly, about the rest of her appearance, she was resigned to being half naked but feared to see the effects of the sun and heat of her face.

She knew Africa was hot and dry, she just hadn't realised just how desiccated it was.

Then they had crossed a ridge and the land fell away in a wide valley, the blue water of a river running across the landscape, its surface shimmering in the late afternoon sun. She could see cattle and other beasts along the river's bank; and columns of them winding their way down to the water's edge. Beyond the river, the ground rose steeply, the vegetation thickening to form a green canopy that looked like the edges of a jungle; and beyond that, to the west, she could see the peaks of mountains.

Spurred on by the thought of water, they walked faster and were soon nearing the river.



CHAPTER 3: FRENCH WEST AFRICA

They reached the river just as darkness fell. The bank was shallow and, at the edges, the water flowed slowly. She sat for a moment, brushing away the flies as she removed her temporary footwear; then with a rush of exhilaration she tore off Joseph's sweat-stained plunged in, enjoying the squelch of soft mud between her aching toes and exhilarated by cool water on her hot, scorched skin. Behind her he shouted and she turned to encourage him in but saw him point.

When she looked, saw that there was a crocodile sliding from the bank down stream. Gripped by a sudden fear, she floundered for a moment and then began to force her way through the water towards the bank. She wasn't nearly quick enough, the beast slid into the water with alarming speed; it's rugged gnarled body coming between her and the river's edge.

Pearl froze.

She had survived an attack by enemy agents, been thrown out of an airship without a parachute and walked a day in the blistering African sun without water. This was too much adventure for one day. Tears flooded her eyes as she looked imploringly towards Joseph.

The crocodile slipped beneath the water's surface.

Through her tears she saw the man draw his knife and plunge into the water. A moment later, he was grappling with with the beast catching hold of it around it's belly and driving his knife in to its breast. Blood clouded the water and the creature thrashed, the bloodied water churning as the pair rolled.

Pearl stood for a moment unsure what to do then, resolutely, took a step forward, lost her footing in the muddy riverbed and fell into the current. She could swim, of course, but by the time she regained the surface she was over a hundred yards downstream.

He pulled her, coughing and spluttering onto the bank at the side of the river. She was, for the second time in the day shivering despite the heat that still hung in the air and she realised, for the second time that day or probably the third, she was being rescued. For some reason that made her angry, angry at the need to be rescued and angry with herself for shivering and not being able to play the resolute heroine she had imagined herself.

He started to help her up.

'I can manage !' She growled at him even as she slipped and he reached to catch her, his arms going round her body. It was only by accident that one of his hand closed over her breast, almost as soon as he realised he removed it; his hand just lingered for a moment too long.

She turned and slapped him.

He stood there staring at her, his hand on his cheek.

It was nearly dark, the tropical sunset rapid but even against his dark skin she could see where the crocodile's claws had raked his arm and his chest where he had fought it; fought it to save her...with his bare hands just like Jonny Weissmuller had done for Maureen O'Sullivan.

She felt wretched, her anger overwhelmed by guilt, by fear; tears pushed their way into her eyes again and she turned away to hide her face. She was alone here in the vastness of Africa. This wasn't the adventure she wanted; stuck in the dark continent with nothing but one of it's savage occupants for company.

Even as the thought entered her mind she reproached herself for it, soothing herself with the explanation she had been in Germany too long, subject to the venomous speeches of Herr Hitler.

Resolute she turned to face him, drawing herself up; she had to be mature to trust him if she was to have any hope of finding her way back to civilisation. The words 'I'm sorry' were framed in her mind, she would offer to tend his wounds.

Joseph was gone.

She stood for a moment staring at the spot where he had stood only moments before.

She had been right, he was a savage, abandoning her as soon as...

Fear overwhelmed her and she looked round frantically.

There he was, right beside her...

'You...I'm...!'

It wasn't Joseph.

It wasn't a man at all; it was a demon who stood beside her, black in the darkness with luminous white eyes and livid red weals on his face; the creature grinned at her evilly, exposing sharp fangs in a fiery red mouth.

'No...!' Her lips moved but no sound came out, she tried to run but her legs seemed to have become heavy and wouldn't obey her, trapping her with an inability to move as if in a nightmare.

Fire flickered to one side and when she looked again, she saw that it was just a man in front of her.

The tribesman had the same tightly wound black hair as Joseph and his skin had made him almost invisible in the darkness; the flame coloured his eyes a yellowy orange and she saw the marks on his face were livid keloid scars, tattoos that spread across his body; he was small and wiry, little bigger than her; he was naked too, save for a loincloth; he carried a spear.

Frantically, she looked around seeing more like him, crouching in the darkness.

How could Joseph have abandoned her ?

Strong hands grasped her, wiry strength and numbers overwhelming her; her hands were pulled together, her wrists bound, then her ankles and in moments she was bound hand and foot and slung under a pole which two of the little tribesmen hoisted up onto their shoulders with apparent ease.

They'd carried her under the pole for about two hours, pausing only to swap their burden and Pearl wondered why she had ever thought it might be in any way enjoyable or exciting to be tied up. Her arms and legs were soon aching and, after about half an hour, she'd lost all feeling in her hands and feet; her hair caught in branches and twigs and thorns tore at the flesh of her body and her thighs; but worse than the physical pain were thoughts of white slavery or worse that ran unfettered through her mind as she hung helpless and undignified still clad in just her underwear.

She'd tried to talk to them, working her way from French to German to English and even the little Spanish and Italian she knew. She tried Russian too though without any real expectation of success.

They didn't seem to understand or, if they did, they ignored her.

Finally, they reached a collection of mud huts with straw rooves around a central fire and she heard shouts, clearly greetings; she could tell the men were proud of what they had done in capturing her and soon a crowd gathered round her; at first they looked but then one of the crowd, a young man reached out and touched the side of her body then pushed her gently with his hand so she swung on the pole. A hand brushed against her legs, fingers running up her thigh over the remains of her stockings; one of them grasped one of her suspenders, pulling at it.

Someone grabbed her knickers.

Pearl screamed and struggled violently.

'Ejanta'nk !' The word carried command and all the hands touching her fell away, the tribesmen surrounding her stepping back from her.

The woman who had spoken was, as far as Pearl could tell, a little older than her. In the light of the fire, Pearl could see that she was of the same small, wiry build as the others of her tribe, her face and body decorated with the same keloid tattoos; her breasts were bare and her nipples pierced with metal bars; like the men who had captured her, the girl's teeth were filed to points. She wore a bead necklace and her hair was wound above her head, also decorated with beads; she carried a staff hung with feathers and, when she shook it, it rattled.

Pearl thought she might be some sort of shamaness or witch doctor; she had read about such things.

The shamaness spoke rapidly to those around her and Pearl was lowered the ground. The woman bent over her and shook the stick she was carrying, chanting in her language. Perhaps, Pearl thought, this woman might have encountered foreigners before and again tried to communicate but when she started the speak, the woman jumped back shouting in alarm, suddenly wary. Pearl persevered and heard a murmur run through the surrounding crowd.

'Please.' She called out. 'Please untie me. My name is Pearl. I'm not going to hurt you.'

It was, perhaps, an idle boast. The shamaness suddenly shouted and leapt forward shaking her stick over Pearl in a threatening way.

'Alright, I'm sorry.' Pearl wished she wasn't tied up, perhaps if she was free she could use gestures.

The woman crouched, leaning over her, screaming in her own language. Pearl could feel the woman's breath on her face, noticing even as she closed her eyes in fear the scent of herbs, not unpleasant.

'Mk'takta n'soki.' The woman addressed to the crowd.

Pearl felt her bonds being cut then strong hands lifted her to her feet.

'Thank you.' She tried French but still nobody understood her.

After several hours under the pole her feet were numb but she was held upright; her hands felt the same, useless; not that there was anything she could do. The tribesmen lifted her and carried her towards the fire.

'No !' Pearl screamed struggling for all she was worth as the heat reached her bare skin but she was held firmly.

She had nearly died twice today: air, earth and water had failed, perhaps fire... Her mouth was suddenly dry. However, they carried her around the fire to two heavy poles set upright in the ground. She was placed on her feet, balanced an a log between the uprights, still supported, and her wrists tied apart just above her head.

'Look, you don't have to do this.' Pearl pulled uselessly at the thongs binding her wrists. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

Pearl's legs were pulled apart too and her ankles tied to the poles.

'No !' Her voice was edged with fear.

The shamaness stood in front of her with a wide smile of pointed teeth.

'Please.' Pearl was trembling.

The woman reached out and touched her on the chest with her finger then ran it down between Pearl's breasts to the top of the suspender belt. She paused for a moment then her finger moved lower crossing Pearl's belly, pausing again at the top of her knickers. The woman's smile broadened and she slipped her finger into the top of Pearl's knickers.

'I'd prefer it if you didn't do that.' Pearl fixed her with a firm stare.

'Mak'tk haka u !' The shamaness spoke in an angry tone and produced a crude bone-handled knife from behind her back.

'No...' Pearl cringed back as far as her bonds would allow.

The shamaness smiled and hooked her finger in the top of Pearl's suspender belt, pulling her forward and raising the knife. Pearl closed her eyes and began to pray.

Pearl stood naked, the remains of her clothes on the ground, cut away from her body. Curiously, the fear she had felt was now almost rivaled by embarrassment at being displayed naked before the assembled tribesmen. Perhaps the exhilaration of relief that the knife wasn't sticking in her chest had allowed her mind to worry about less significant problems.

The shamaness studied her, a smile playing on her face, then tucked the knife away before reaching out to touch her again. This time, her finger took a different route, down across Pearl's chest and on to her left breast, pressing the soft fullness of the flesh before stroking the pink swelling of her nipple.

'Do you mind ?!' Pearl as horrified at such a liberty.

The woman looked at her and smiled her predatory, saw-toothed smile. Her finger circled Pearl's left nipple again then she leant forward and licked the right one.

Pearl leaned back in her bonds gaping in horror. She looked around at the tribesmen who were watching her intently. Beside the fire, one of them began to chant and another struck up a beat on hide-skinned drum, others joined in.

Pearl had read a good deal about Africa, some of it presumably true; she had also read a number of adventure stories and seen King Solomon's Mines the year before; caught somewhere between these unreliable sources, she began to wonder of this was some sort of tribal initiation ritual.

Perhaps if she was lucky Allan Quatermain would emerge from the jungle to rescue her.

Another woman came forward carrying a wooden bowl and poured the contents into the shamaness' hands. The woman lifted the dark liquid to her mouth and drank some. Then she lifted the liquid to Pearl's lips.

Pearl looked at it for a moment, she could smell oil and herbs and the stinging scent of raw alcohol. She was reluctant to take it; she saw the woman's expression change and looked at her bound wrists. Perhaps, she thought, she should take some. It might be seen as a friendly gesture. She smiled and bent her head down to drink the liquid; it was bitter and burned like whisky as she swallowed it.

The shamaness smiled and her hands slid to Pearl's hips as she rubbed her body against the captive woman's.

'Stop that...' Pearl heard herself giggle even as she said it.

''Ejanta'nk !' The word obviously meant 'stop' or even 'no'. Pearl tried to say it but either she was not understood or she was ignored.

Another woman came forward with a second wooden bowl pouring an oil-like substance over the shamaness' hands. The woman rubbed her hands together and then began to spread the oil over Pearl's skin. She began with Pearl's shoulders, stiff from where she had hung under the pole and now from being held out by the leather ropes. The shamaness' hands were strong and kneaded the muscles of her shoulders. It actually felt quite...pleasant.

The hands moved down to her breasts and while part of Pearl's mind told her this wasn't appropriate, another part of her, the more adventurous part Pearl decided, actually found it...nice. Strange sensations began to overtake her, assaulting her senses, the insistence of the woman's hands on her skin and the chanting and the drums forcing their way into her consciousness.

She began to understand the stories she'd read, the thought of Africa getting under one's skin of, having once experienced it, being unable to leave it behind.

The dark, mysterious continent.

The hands moved lower onto her belly and then her thighs.

'Please...' Pearl whispered the word but the shamaness ignored her, apparently intent on spreading the oil over every inch of her captive's body her oiled hands sliding between Pearl's legs. With the chanting ringing in her ears and the beat of the drums Pearl closed her eyes losing herself to the unfamiliar and overwhelming sensations.

Abruptly the hands left her body and Pearl opened her eyes to see the shamaness drop to her knees. She began rubbing oil into Pearl's calfs and then smearing it over the top of her feet; then the woman bent her head and licked the top Pearl's left foot; then she smeared oil over Pearl's toes and, bending low began to suck the toes of her right foot.

Pearl squirmed unable to suppress a giggle.

'Stop that...'

The shamaness smiled up at her, her bizarrely scarred face with it's white eyes strangely appealing.

'I really must insist...' It felt...'naughty' to be enjoying this. It had been some time since Pearl had done anything she might consider naughty; except perhaps visiting the little cinema on HobenStrasse.

The shamaness knelt up.

'Look, I realise I must appear very strange to you...' Pearl really wished the woman could understand her. She said the same thing in French and then German though, for some reason had difficulty putting the sentence together in German.

She realised she was quite glad to be tied up or she would have had some difficulty standing.

The woman's face was right in front of her crotch.

'No, it's really not very polite...'

The woman grasped Pearl's thighs and pressed her tongue between her captive's spread legs.

'Ohhhh !' Pearl squirmed but the woman held firmly onto her thighs, her tongue raking her Pearl's sex.

'No, you really mustn't.' Pearl felt her cheeks burning even as heat began to radiate into her belly.

Pearl closed her eyes.


CHAPTER 4: THE RITUAL

There was a flash in the trees and a gunshot rang out.

Pearl's eyes snapped open, the reality of the situation returning as the camp was plunged into a chaos of scattering figures disappearing into the darkness though a few raised spears crouching warily as a figure came striding into the clearing. In the firelight, Pearl could see it was a man, she watched as he fired another shot into the air. The light of the muzzle flash showed he was bare chested, his skin daubed with patterns, face disfigured, a grinning skull, eyes wild, luminous points in the darkness. More tribesmen fled though three clung resolutely to their spears.

It took Pearl a moment to realise the man was Joseph.

Here to rescue her; that was so...romantic...

The shamaness crouched by the fire waving her staff and shouting and Joseph lowered his gun.

'No...' Pearl remembered the feeling of the woman's tongue.

A third shot rang out and the shamaness' staff shattered, exploding as it was torn from her grasp. The woman fled from the camp and the three remaining men followed.

Pearl almost called for her to come back.

Joseph stood before her, his eyes working their way over her body.

For a moment she pushed her body forward almost as if she was offering herself to him. If she was a screen heroine he would take her in his arms and kiss her and then...

Reality returned as if he had reconnected her to civilisation.

He was still staring.

'Do you mind !'

Joseph smiled with an expression that reminded her of the shamaness...if only he hadn't frightened her away just as, just as...

He was still staring at her.

'It's rude to stare.'

She was sure he took slightly longer than was necessary to reach for his knife and cut her free.

He was still staring at her as she stood rubbing her chaffed wrists.

She slapped him hard in the face.

'Come on !' Joseph took her hand.

'I'm naked !'

'Oh, really ?' He turned back, rubbing his cheek. 'I hadn't noticed.'

She let him lead her into the darkness.

Joseph dragged her from the clearing hoping he could find the river again in the darkness. His cheek was still stinging and he wondered why he had come back for this girl who he'd risked his life to rescue twice in twenty four hours and who had slapped him for his pains on both occasions.

He had been under the impression that white women were supposed to be less volatile.

The drug they had given her made her unsteady and she stumbled frequently until, at the edge of the clearing, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, pushing his way into the undergrowth. Holding one arm around her thighs, he used his free hand to push branches away from his face.

'Ow !' He heard her cry out as a branch whipped sharply across her bottom.

There were shouts around him in the tribal language, some of which he understood though he was over two hundred miles from home. The tribesmen were clearly regrouping and would soon be giving chase.

'Put me down you...you ruffian !' She beat her small fists against his back.

'Will you keep the noise down !' He hissed back. 'I'm trying to rescue you.'

'I don't need rescuing.' Her voice sounded distant. 'Those people were worshipping me...'

Joseph grinned despite the peril of the situation.

'And, that lady...she...she...I rather liked what she did to me.' Her words were slurred.

He found the path and started to run down it, slipping in the mud as it descended towards the river.

'They think I'm a goddess...' Pearl sighed. 'That's me, Pearl Dean...Aphrodite...'

He reached the riverbank, looking for the dark shape of the canoe he'd dragged down to the water's edge to facilitate their escape but it was gone.

'Shit !' He put Pearl down onto her feet and turned to retrieve one of the other canoes.

'You are a very rude man !' Pearl staggered as she wagged a finger at him.

Joseph ignored her and pulled the nearest canoe down to the water's edge then he took out his knife and drove it through the bottom of the remaining three.

When he turned back, Pearl was gone.

He looked round frantically and, in a moment spotted her pale body scrambling back up the path they had just descended. He ran after her, catching her easily and grabbing her hand.

'Come on.'

'I want to go back.' Pearl tried ineffectually to escape his grip.

Joseph prepared for another slap.

'I like being worshiped.' She twisted in his grip.

'They weren't worshipping you Pearl !' He began to drag her towards the canoe. 'They were preparing to eat you !.'

'No...' She giggled at the thought. 'Oh...?!'

Her resistance lessened and he tried to push her into the canoe.

'Then you really are rescuing me.' She stood in front of him.

'Yes.'

'My hero.' She looked up at him.

In the starlight reflecting off the river he could see her face, and realised again how pretty she was. Her pupils were huge from the drug.

Then she kissed him.

An arrow buried itself in the tree beside them and he pushed her away, but she whirled and took hold of him. 'My hero.'

'Pearl...'

'Dance with me.' Pearl started to move her body while holding onto him. It was far from the sort of dance he might have expected a well bred English girl to perform and was not too dissimilar to the erotic cavorting he'd seen the shaman carry out.

He grabbed her fists and shoved her into the canoe and pushing it into the water. Another arrow flew past his head, disappearing into the water with a faint splash.

'Hey !' Pearl started to sit up.

'Stay down.' He crouched as low as he could, sliding the paddle into the water to propel them out into the current and the craft gathered momentum.

'You are very bossy.' Pearl was kneeling before him, wagging a finger in his face, even if you are rescuing me.

Joseph paddled hard, looking back as arrows splashed in the water behind them.

Suddenly the boat wobbled and he looked ahead again.

Pearl was standing up.

'Will you sit down !' Joseph hissed at her. They were out in the stream, the canoe probably almost invisible other than as a dark shape against the slight shimmer of the water. Pearl, on the other hand with her pale skin was easily visible.

'You can't tell me what to do !'

Joseph lunged forward forcing her flat in the boat, pinning her with his weight as more arrows flew through the air above them.

'You are very forwards, Sir !' Pearl smiled up at him. 'I quite like that.' She giggled and put her arms round his neck. 'You can kiss me back if you like.'

Joseph sighed inwardly. 'Perhaps later.' He pushed himself up and felt a sting as she slapped him again.

'Will you stop doing that !' He reached for the paddle but she tried to sit up and canoe rocked again.

Not for the first time, Joseph thought her should have left her behind. He briefly thought of tossing her into the water but they had come this far together and, besides, the feeling of her naked body against his was suddenly proving a very persuasive force.

He pushed her back down and crouched over her.

'You, Sir, are no gentleman.' She reached her arms up and tried to kiss him again.

Joseph grabbed her arms and, pulling them over her head, used a short thong to tie her wrists to one of the benches in the canoe.

'Hey.' She twisted looking up at her bound wrists.

Joseph grabbed her ankles and tied them to the bench in front of him.

'I wish people would stop tying me up.' She didn't struggle.

Joseph looked down at her as he grabbed the paddle and propelled them further from the bank. He couldn't hear any sounds of pursuit now and, scanning the bank, he couldn't see any movements.

He turned back to the helpless girl in front of him, naked and bound and completely at his mercy. She was already asleep, from the effects of the drug. He grinned.

He'd have to cover her up when the sun came up, but the night was warm and she would give him something to look at.

Pearl woke again in darkness but felt warmth and then realised she was also surrounded by light; there was something covering her and she realised it was an animal hide. She shook her head to move it off her face and screwed up her eyes as the sunlight seemed to pound against them. There was blue sky above her, the African sky; it was somehow a different colour from the sky above Europe and it seemed to stretch across all her vision, vast, endless like the continent itself.

It also seemed to be forcing its way into her skull.

She lifted her head and felt a wave of nausea.

Joseph was kneeling in the stern of the canoe guiding the craft with a wooden paddle. They were running a wide river, the canoe, a light craft made of hides tightened over a wooden frame, speeding past scattered trees that lined the banks.

Pearl tried to sit up, feeling a rush of dizziness and nausea; the hide fell away from her body.

She tried to recover it but her hands were still bound, her feet too.

The memories of the previous night flashed into her consciousness.

'How are you feeling ?' Joseph looked down at her.

Realising she was naked, she struggled but the hide just slipped further exposing the rest of her body.

'Would you mind untying me ?' She tried to keep her voice calm, to sound reasonable, a request from one adult to another as thoughts of white slavery flooded her mind.

'So you can slap me again ?'

'No !' Pearl felt another wave of nausea.

Joseph seemed to realise her need and leant over, pulling the knots free with irritating ease.

Pearl sat up and vomited over the side with an urgency that made her forget that she was naked.

'Better ?' Joseph asked when Pearl had recovered, at least sufficiently to wrap the hide around her naked body.

'I think so.' Pearl was far from sure.

'They gave you a drug.' He told her. 'This is the after effect; a little like a hangover. It will pass.'

'I really don't think they planned to hurt me.'

'No.' He grinned at her flashing his teeth that seemed so white. 'They planned to eat you.'

'But...' She recalled the woman kneeling at her feet, licking them, sucking her toes, then her tongue...

Pearl shuddered. Africa was turning out to be a much more dangerous place than she had expected. It was, she thought, time to try to re-exert some order over this chaos into which her life had suddenly been plunged.

'Thank you for rescuing me.' She pulled the hide more tightly around her body looked up at him glad that he was there, had been there.

'So, is this the adventurous life you were dreaming of ?'

She blushed again, thinking of the little cinema off HobenStrasse and wondering for a moment if he had seen her slide her hands behind her back.

'It's not quite what I expected.' She smiled at him. 'For a start, I didn't expect to be tied up quite so much.'

'I'm sure you'll get used to it.'

She looked at him sharply, wide eyed.

Joseph laughed.

'That's not funny.' She tried to sound severe, she was naked, lost in the middle of the dark continent with man she barely knew but, but...he had risked his life to save her at least twice and, while he had thrown her out of an airship in her underwear and tied her up in the bottom of a canoe, she somehow felt she trusted him.

'Your English is very good.' She said to change the subject.

He looked at her and she found herself blushing, realising the implications of the remark.

If he saw the undercurrent of the remark he didn't show it.

'I was educated in Oxford.' He smiled, steering canoe easily with the paddle through another set of rapids.

Pearl grasped the sides to steady herself.

'I can tie you up again if you like.' Joseph laughed. 'It will stop you falling out.'

'I can manage.' Pearl deliberately relaxed her grip on the side of the boat, remembering what had happened the previous night just before he had tied her down.

She blushed again.

'Tell me what you saw on the airship.' He said.

Joseph tried not to focus on his companion as she sat in the bow of the canoe watching the landscape slide past; jungle progressing to scrub and scrub to desert. She sat with her back straight and her shoulders pulled back. She had, with his help cut sections from the hide to cover her modesty though the garments were scandalously brief: a strip of hide covering her small breasts, tied between them and supported by a leather thong that ran behind her neck and a tiny skirt that extended little further than the tops of her thighs. It was distracting; she had wanted to cover more of herself but he had needed the rest of the hide to rig as a shelter from the sun.

They had travelled with the current for three days, pausing in the heat of the day and at night when it became too dark to risk navigating the occasional rapids. Joseph had done most of the paddling but, on the second day, she had asked to take a turn and he had shown her how to hold the paddle, steering them gently through the calm sections at least. He thought, as he knelt behind her to start her off, steadying her hand on the paddle, she had leaned back against him rather more than was necessary.

She had also insisted on helping him to porter the canoe when the rapids became too rough or too shallow to navigate and he had rather enjoyed watching her slim, firm, scantily clad body, particularly the sway of her hips as she had carried the canoe on her shoulder.

'If I can stop myself burning, I might go home with a nice tan.' She had joked.

'Where I come from, pale skin is a thing of beauty.' He had replied.

He noticed she had remained under the shelter as far as possible since that remark.

Suddenly, she pointed to a pall of smoke that hung dark against the vast blueness of the bright sky.

'Yes.' Joseph answered. 'I think it is probably a fortuitous meeting.'

'A village ?' She sounded surprised.

'A caravan.'

He smiled as he thought of her imagining camels and robed men, silks tents, an oasis with palm trees.

'Friendly, I hope ?' She sounded tense and he saw her shoulders stiffen.

'For the most part.' Joseph responded somewhat tensely but made himself smile as she turned to look at him, anxiety obvious on her face.

He knew what sort of goods the caravan would be moving and his smile broadened.

She was a white girl, and pretty one at that.

He could sell her for good deal of money.


CHAPTER 5: WHITE SLAVERY

'No !' Pearl stamped her foot as they'd stood on the sandy river bank.

'Trust me !' He said as gravely as he could. 'This is my country. I know what I'm doing.'

'Why does it have to be me ?'

He looked back at her, taking in her blonde hair and pretty face, hair hazel eyes and the little pout she gave when she was displeased or concentrating; he took in her slim body and small breasts supported by the hide bandeau top and the little skirt that barely covered her sex, her slim legs and her small dainty feet.

Pearl saw him looking too.

'Awww !' She pouted and turned round crossing her wrists behind her back.

He tied them with a thong then sat her down and crossed her legs, tying her ankles too.

Then he lifted her up and placed her gently in the bottom of the canoe.

Pushing them out into the current again he looked down at her. 'Sorry.' He tried to sound concerned but actually, seeing her lying helpless in the bottom of the boat was quite pleasant.

She glared up at him but then smiled.

'Oh, I'm getting rather used to it.'

He paddled on trying not to make it too obvious he was looking at her bare sex and wondering why English girls did not shave them.

Pearl trudged on trying to plant her feet in the imprints left in the sand by the girl in front of her in the coffle, she had quickly discovered it made walking in the fine, hot sand a little easier. The lead girl was slim with dark hair that hung to her waist, clearly Arabian; Pearl thought her name was Shazia or something similar but she spoke little French and it was difficult to understand her accent. She was exceedingly pretty, lovely dark eyes with an exotic shape, thick dark lashes and full lips although, like the rest of them now, she was grubby and tired and, at the moment, all Pearl could see was her back, her bound hands and her dark hair, matted and sandy.

The girl behind Shazia was called Inga; Swedish, blonde like Pearl but with blue eyes, tall and athletic, a woman Herr Hitler would have been proud to accept as a member of his master race. Like Shazia and Pearl, Inga was naked and coffled, a long rope looped and knotted around her neck linking her to the girl in front and the one behind; wrists bound like the others behind her back.

There were ten of them in all, a mix of Europeans and Africans, all naked, all women.

They had been walking for days; well, the girls had been walking, the men, four of them, including Joseph rode camels. Despite her situation, Pearl smiled each time as she watched Joseph mount the beast then sway alarmingly as it rose to its feet. The first time he had done it she had felt anxious that he would fall.

The men, of course, were dressed, protected from the sand by multilayer desert robes.

The routine was the same each day; they were roused in the chill darkness where they lay, bound hand and foot and pressed together for warmth and forced to kneel so they could be given water from a skin. Though warm and unpleasant in the daytime this was, after the desert night sometimes cool enough to make Pearl shiver violently. They were also given a mouthful of maize porridge which the men forced into the girl's mouths with their fingers; it was a bland, gritty, grey looking putty that could only be swallowed with a further mouthful of water. Their ankles were then untied and their wrist bonds checked before they were then hauled to their feet, standing coffled and bound as the canvas shelter the men erected for them each night was taken down.

They were then lead on into the waiting desert.

They walked from before dawn to mid morning and then, as seemed to be normal in this country, they rested for several hours in the heat of the day, the girls collapsing to their knees under the canvas canopy strung between wooden poles to endure the baking heat of the desert noon if not the direct force of the burning sun. They were given another drink of water which despite it's unpleasant warmth they gulped at thirstily before their ankles were bound again although, as Pearl looked round at the endless golden white dunes shimmering in the desert heat she couldn't see any way one of them could escape especially naked and with her wrists tied.

Their ankles were freed again as the sun descended and they trudged on through the dusk, south west or south Pearl realised as she watched the African sun bloat and turn a deep purple before dropping dramatically below the horizon to reveal the first of the bright stars in the desert night. The jeweled stars winking into life across the blackening sky a few drops at first and then a steady rain that became the stream of the milky way splashed across the night made her look up and even smile at its beauty. The sky in the cities of Europe was never this dark.

The coolness of the darkness was welcome but it heralded the chill of the night.

The evening ritual was a reversal of the mornings; another mouthful of maize porridge and another all too brief drink of precious water before they were laid on their sides and their ankles rebound. It wasn't comfortable but Pearl found exhaustion claimed her most nights and, at least the cold air and the cool fine sand on which she lay, soothed her burning skin which despite the midday shelter, turned a fiery red each day darkening, she suspected, as the days past.

While the girls lay awkwardly in their bonds, the men enjoyed the relative comfort of a silken tent and small wooden box seats where they sat to talk and drink. However, these were not the only pleasures they enjoyed; each night, one or more of the girls would be taken into the tent.

Pearl had not understood at first when the men had come to the canopy under which the girls lay but her companions clearly did, curling tightly in their bonds and hiding their faces. The men had chosen Inga on that first night, separating her from the coffle though leaving her bound and dragging her to the tent. Pearl had heard her whimpers, and had lain with her eyes squeezed shut with fear that she might be next to experience this casual act of defilement her fellow captive was enduring. The men had returned an hour later for the little French girl, Valerie who was usually the last in the coffle line. One of the men had scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder as if she weighed almost nothing then he'd slapped her bottom and carried her towards the silken tent.

On the second night, the men took Valerie and two of the black tribeswomen and on the third, Inge and Valerie again. After a few nights of this, Pearl began to wonder why she had not been singled out; she reasoned that, perhaps she was being protected by Joseph but, somehow that seemed unlikely to her. It was not that she wanted to be taken, the thought terrified her but she couldn't help thinking that, perhaps, it was because she was somehow not as desirable. She was, she reasoned, almost as pretty as Valerie though Shazia was clearly a beauty; Pearl was certainly better looking than Inga though it was clear with her long, toned body and honey-tanned skin, the Swedish girl had other attributes that a man might find attractive; as for the six native girls, she had no idea how to compare herself using European standards.

To her, the black-skinned girls seemed strange, exotic even, with their large breasts and rather wide hips; like Joseph, their eyes and teeth seemed to her startlingly white and their hair was tightly curled on their heads; the way they walked appeared unusual too in her European eyes but she soon realised their smooth springless gait conserved energy and made walking on the shifting sand of the dunes easier . She'd tried to communicate with them, even tried to ask their names but she'd not been able to understand them or to make herself understood and with her hands bound it was impossible to even gesture to them. Even so, she felt a kindred to them; a comradeship though she saw no evidence that they felt the same.

She had quickly decided that the men who had taken them were brutes, all men who treated girls like this must be; no more than savages; savages like the tribesmen who had captured her by the river; from whom Joseph had rescued her. He wasn't a savage though, at least she hoped he wasn't and then, none of them had abused her; she felt guilty for harbouring such a prejudice and then wondered again why she was not being chosen.

Then, on the fifth night, one of the men, the younger of the three, had pointed to Pearl and the brief triumph she felt at being included turned to terror as she had stared up wide eyed, too frightened to move until Joseph had intervened to save her once again. He'd said something in a language she didn't understand and the men had looked surprised and then laughed.

They had taken Shazia and offered Inge to Joseph. He had smiled his handsome white smile and accepted graciously; rather too graciously, she thought. She had laid in her bonds listening to Shazia scream until, it sounded like she had been gagged. Inge's cries on the other hand though fearful at first seemed to change through the night to something quite different.

And, lying there in the darkness she had begun to wonder what it might be like to be taken like that, thrown down roughly, still bound, to feel hands on her body, touching her intimately, to feel lips pressed against hers. The thoughts, fantasies...no, the told herself, fears not fantasies, created strange sensations in her body and she rolled over, pressing her legs together and trying to suppress them.

When Joseph took Inge again the next night Pearl had decided he was not the hero she thought him to be and just like the other three men. When he took the blonde again the next day, she resolved never to speak to him again, or to Inga !

The coffle reached Gao in a little over three weeks, though she had heard it called a city, it was a rough habitation on the river Niger, far smaller than Algiers, the only other city she had visited in Africa, and far more rural. They entered the city gates at sunset, the men dismounting and leaving their camels at some sort of stable by the wooden palisades that were the city's walls. The girls were lead by the men on foot.

Judging by the reaction of those around her, Pearl thought the arrival of a coffle of slaves, even one containing European women might be a rather common event in this city. She vaguely recalled reading about the gold and slave routes across the Sahara though she had never expected to be part of that trade. A few stared at them, mostly at her and Inga, both blonde and fair skinned, standing out among the other girls.

Her thoughts were proved right when they reached the slave market. There must have been a hundred of them for sale, mostly women though there were a few men. The women were mostly black skinned Africans but there were a few white women, Arabs too; all of the men were black skinned. Pearl found herself shocked by the brazen display of human goods, caged or chained in the stockade. She caught sight of at least twenty 'white' slaves, all women and all naked, shackled and kept in cages; saw the fear in their eyes.

They were separated, the European women including Pearl, shackled and caged, the Africans simply collared and chained.

'You are valuable.' Joseph smiled his white smile at her as he secured the door of the small cage in which she had been stowed, her hands chained behind her back and her ankles shackled. The cage was about four feet to a side, room to sit up but not to stretch out.

She watched him turn away and converse with one of the other slavers. He seemed to have such an easy way with others, at home it seemed here as much as in the world of European civilisation. He was still dressed in desert robes, borrowed from his companions which transformed him from the civilised to the exotic.

Not for the first time, Pearl wondered if he was about to leave her. He could do it easily. She was alone in a strange and exotic land and he could simply walk off and leave her here where she would vanish from her previous life without a trace, swallowed up in the vastness of the African continent to spend the rest of her life as a slave.

She had little doubt as to the sort of slave she would become and without his protection would have no recourse but to accept her fate.

She sat in the cage, watching as he pulled off the robes and washed himself in the trough, the muscles of his back rippling beneath his dark skin as he splashed water across it, making it shine in the evening light; the marks of his encounter with the crocodile were healing, red livid scars fading to blend with the darkness of his skin. She like the way his body moved and suddenly found herself disappointed when he dressed again.

He could have taken her any time he chose, used her and she still wondered why he had not. She remembered kissing him when he had rescued her from the tribesmen, a blush of colour coming to her cheeks as she recalled it. Though relieved he had not taken advantage of her situation, there was part of her that felt rejected. He had, after all, presumably enjoyed the charms of Inga, Shazia and Valerie among others.

Then she watched him walk to the gate of the stockade, turning to the right as he entered the street, towards the river or perhaps any one of a number of destinations and she suddenly felt very frightened and alone.


CHAPTER 6: GAO, A CITY ON THE RIVER NIGER

A hand on her shoulder made Pearl jump. It was one of the slavers, the older of the three with grey in his dark curly hair. She tried to scrabble away across the cage but she was chained and he held on to her, sliding his arm around her shoulders and pulling her back against the bars. Almost instinctively, she opened her mouth the scream even though logic told her it would do no good but a strong hand clamped across her mouth silencing her.

His other hand moved down her body, brushing her nipple and then cupping her breast.

He whispered something in her ear while he played with her nipple.

'Te tais !' His French was heavily accented but she understood the command to be quiet and nodded as best she could.

His hand left her mouth and slipped lower, both of them now cupping her breasts and playing with the nipples.

Pearl recalled the native camp, the shamaness' hands on her body, the woman's lips on her skin, the tongue pushing its way between her legs...

'Non !' She struggled weakly but more with her conscience than any desperation to be free. It wasn't that she wanted to be raped but since the night in the encampment she had felt a yearning, a need she had not known before and, listening to the cries of the other girl's in the slaver's tent had somehow strengthened this need.

She heard another voice behind her and twisted in the man's arms to see one of his companions, the one who had lifted Valerie over his shoulder with ease and slapped the little French girl's bottom; young and strong, his build rather liked Joseph's. She fought hard not to think of her thrown over his should naked and carried to his tent... He pushed his hands through the bars and his fingers caressed her thighs. She tried to struggle again but with her hands chained behind her back and strong arms holding her against the side of the cage she could do nothing but submit to the men's touch as their fingers played with her breasts and stroked her thighs. Then a finger brushed her sex and one of the men laughed.

'Elle a plaisir.' One of the men said and they both laughed.

The finger touched her again, deliberately this time, running up the lips of her sex. It reminded her of the shamaness and called to mind the feelings that encounter had engendered in her body, of the...disappointment she'd felt at being rescued at the very point when...

Her body was responding again, the feeling in her loins that she had experienced in the desert.

She had felt it before too, in the little cinema off HobenStrasse when she'd imagined herself as Olivia de Havilland bound and helpless and...

She'd also felt it when the blonde Nazi agent had stripped her and bound her hand and foot. She'd noticed too, something in the way the woman handled her and her own response to such treatment but then that was probably a natural reaction to the knotted rope the woman had tightened between her legs.

Again she was chained and caged and naked waiting for Joseph to rescue her again.

For a moment, she wondered what might happen if he didn't come, if he'd simply used her to buy himself passage across the desert, paid for it with her body, left her to be enslaved, to live chained up in some African harem, the slave...the sex slave of...

She struggled again but the arms held her firmly as the fingers continued to enjoy her body just as she...

'Non !' It came out as a whisper and she shook her head weakly as the fingers began to spread her sex.

One of the men pinched her right nipple.

She remembered Joseph binding her after he had rescued her from the tribesmen, how, in her drug induced state, she had hoped he might take advantage of her, ravish her; how he had bound her again on the river bank before encountering the slavers, recalling that she had, for a moment, thought the same thing and found herself barely able to speak lying in the bottom of the canoe; she had still been clothed then. She had felt the same sensation as he had cut the crudely fashioned hide garments from her helpless body.

Now she helpless again, helpless and naked, chained, defenseless, strong arms enfolding her, strong fingers caressing her; she closed her eyes...

'Stop !' Joseph spoke in Bambara, the language understood throughout this part of what was officially 'French West Africa', the language of commerce.

He had returned from the docks where he had booked himself and Pearl passage to Timbuktu.

He had clearly returned just in time. Toumani and Bassekou had Pearl pulled up against the bars of the cage, their arms around her body, their hands caressing her intimately. He had managed to keep them off her in the desert but the moment his back was turned they had taken advantage of her helpless state. These nomads were all the same.

Pearl's eyes flew open.

He could see her face was flushed; the poor woman must be crushed with embarrassment. Perhaps it would have been kinder to have taken her in the desert than let them do it.

He produced a purse from beneath his robes.

'Leave her.'

They were reluctant but gold soon changed their minds and a few minutes later he lead her from the compound, still naked, her wrists tied behind her back with a piece of rough rope.

'I'm sorry.' He said turning to her.

She looked at him with a cold expression and by way of reply turned so he could free her wrists.

He wasn't surprised when she slapped him, a stinging blow which he felt he really didn't deserve but then she probably didn't understand the lengths her had gone to protect her. European women were notoriously naive of the way things were done in Africa. Presumably that was why so many of them ended up victims of the white slave trade, sex slaves in the harems of rich merchants or pleasure slaves in caravanning inns, to be hired for a handful of coins.

'I assume you've brought me anything to wear ?' She was looking at him expectantly.

Naive and very demanding !

He reached into his bag and pulled out a blue silk dress, deciding it was best not to tell her it had, until recently, belonged to Valerie. He turned his back as she slipped it over her head and, when he turned back saw that it fitted her tolerably well; very well in fact though she might not think it. He couldn't help smiling at the way it clung to her body. It was a little tighter than it would have been on Valerie and a little shorter and it made her breasts bulge over the neckline while outlining her nipples and her belly, he could even see the hair above her sex through the thin material.

He briefly wondered how Valerie had come to be dressed in something so flimsy.

'Well ?' Pearl was looking at him expectantly.

'You look good.' He tried not to make it sound too licentious.

She slapped him again. He probably deserved that one.

'I've booked us passage to Timbuktu...my home.'

'Does this involve me being stripped naked and tied up ?'

'Only if...' He'd been about to say only if she'd wanted it but she looked as if she might slap him again and he decided to discretion was the better part of valour.

'This is your home ?' Pearl put her hand up to shade her eyes as the chaise passed through the gates of a huge whitewashed house with a green manicured lawn and flowerbeds tended by half a dozen gardeners. The carriage, pulled by two black semi-Arabs that looked as if they would be better suited to the race course than in harness and driven by a servant in an impeccable frock coat, had been there to meet them when the ketch had docked in Timbuktu.

Smiling at her surprise, Joseph had exchanged a brief joke with the driver in a native tongue, helped her up in the carriage and then sat back regaling her with a running commentary of the city through which they drove. They had then driven out of the city following the Niger and into the surprisingly verdant countryside dotted with mansions and farmsteads.

'My family's country home.' He corrected her and she noticed a change in his manner.

He'd told her a little about it in the three days it had taken the ketch to sail from Gao to Timbuktu. Much to her surprise and increasing annoyance, he'd behaved like the perfect gentleman for the whole trip.

He hadn't even tried to tie her up once. He'd offered to sleep on the floor of the cabin and give her the bed but she had come in on the first evening to find him asleep and, rather than disturb him had laid down on the wooden deck beside him. As she did so, she'd indulged in the thought that it might have been different, that she might be traveling with him, not as his companion, but as his slave;she wondered what might have happened if he'd simply taken her to the boat still collared and in chains. Somehow, the thought had not seemed as terrible as it would have less than a month before.

Now, with their arrival in Timbuktu probably spelling the end of their adventure together she couldn't help regretting that she'd slapped him quite so often.

As the driver took them up the sandy drive a shout went up from the house and a large woman in a voluminous white kaftan traced with gold swept down the steps from the front door trailed by a small group of anxious servants. She looked to be of north African origin, paler than Joseph and freckled.

'Joseph.' The woman added more in a native language but then, on coming closer looked at Pearl and switched to French. Then she hugged him as he climbed down from the chaise.

'What are these ?' His mother released him and pulled at the shabby dust covered robes he still wore.

'I got into a spot of difficulty in Gao.'

'What on earth were you doing in Gao ?' She tutted and hugged him again, even harder.

'Maman. Je vous present Mademoiselle Dean.' Joseph extracted himself from the formidable embrace.

There was a brief exchange that, again, Pearl could not follow and then the conversation slipped back into French.

'I am very pleased to meet you, my dear.' Joseph's mother embraced Pearl forcefully if somewhat warily as she looked at the tight, revealing dress but then, taking one of their hands in each of hers, lead them both up to the house.

In stark contrast to the previous few days Pearl had spent the afternoon enjoying a degree of indulgence she had on occasions glimpsed and even briefly enjoyed. The daughter of the British Ambassador to Berlin (that had, at least been his latest posting; though she had been born during his posting in Cape Town) she had enjoyed her fair share of comforts, even though they were never what one would truly call those of home; she had attended balls and soirees, had pretty dresses for them and been cared for by servants. However, the luxury of the Diabate mansion exceeded anything she had hitherto experienced and, as a consequence of her status as guest of the young Prince (for such had she found Joseph to be) Pearl had been pampered beyond anything she could have imagined.

Thus, bathed, massaged, coiffed, oiled, manicured, scented and dressed in the most exquisite pink silk dress she had ever worn (and that had been adjusted that afternoon to fit her perfectly) she was presented for cocktails on the terrace at six where (much to her relief) she was reunited with Joseph and (somewhat less comfortingly) was introduced to his father, Boubacar Nebuchadnezzar Diabate III. Boubacar was almost as large as his wife and a little older, grey frosting his tightly curled black hair; he wore a danshiki suit; and squeezed her hand with a force that threatened to crush her knuckles as he greeted her in English which he spoke with just a hint of French accent.

A servant presented Pearl with a stiffening vodka martini and she was invited to sit on the terrace that overlooked the fields reaching off towards distant mountains.

She was reacquainted with Khaira, Joseph's mother, who embraced her with far more enthusiasm on this occasion leading Pearl to expect that the matriarch's earlier reticence may have indeed been due to the rather grubby dress and evidence of the adventures she had endured in the state of her hair and she was fairly sure, the smell of her body.

Through the evening they had dined well, Pearl realising just how hungry she was after almost a week of starvation followed by the meagre rations she had been given in the slave coffle and a few morsel's of capitaine caught by the ketch's crew as they'd sailed upriver from Gao. Joseph's father had asked many questions about their adventures which Jospeh had answered as honestly as possible leaving out many of the intimate details which would have made Pearl blush while his mother had asked about their relationship, a subject which Joseph had deftly evaded.

Now, at the end of the evening, she suddenly found herself back on the terrace and again, alone with Joseph. The night was warm, the breeze gone; there was a moon, huge and bright over the Niger that was reflected in the black waters of the river; cicadas chirped and in the distance she could hear voices chanting. Joseph looked so handsome in his purple silk shirt and black trousers, his skin shining darkly in the glow of the moon; every inch the African prince she now knew him to be; perhaps as a result of this return to civilisation, she suddenly felt awkward standing beside him.

'I will have arrangements made for your return to Berlin in the morning.' He seemed uncomfortable too.

'Yes, thank you.' She looked away from him to hide her expression and the tears that threatened to come at the realisation that her African adventure was over.

A silence fell which extended until it became almost unbearable.

'Perhaps I'd better go to bed.' She said it suddenly, the words rushing out.

'Yes, you must be tired.' He sounded so formal.

Pearl almost fled from the terrace and down the hallway to her room, pushing the door shut behind her and leaning against it as she blinked back tears and beat at the wood panelling with her fists in frustration.


CHAPTER 7: THE DIABATE MANSION

Joseph stood on the terrace for at least ten minutes wondering what he should do. Coming home was a joy but being at home always made him feel trapped. He'd somehow entertained the romantic notion that bringing Pearl with him would be like bringing a part of the world outside to Timbuktu, a link that would make him less resentful of what he regarded as the confinement of being here.

He'd been in her company almost every moment for four weeks and suddenly he felt very alone. He remembered the pretty servant girl that had served them at dinner; he could alway seek her out but somehow it wouldn't be the same.

When he knocked on Pearl's door, there was no reply and Joseph assumed she must have gone to bed. He turned away and then heard the bolt slide.

'Joseph !' She opened the door a fraction. Had she been crying ?

He heard music; some soft jazz that he didn't recognise. She must have found the old gramophone.

'I thought...' His voice trailed off.

'Yes ?' She'd changed out of the dress and was wearing a silk robe.

'I thought you might like to know a little about your room.'

She looked almost as surprised to hear it as he was to have said it.

'Oh ?' She stepped back. 'You'd better come in.'

'I thought you might be interested to know this was once the...er, harem, I suppose you'd call it.' Actually, he thought, perhaps that hadn't been the most appropriate choice of topics. He gestured somewhat awkwardly around noticing as he did so the open bottle of Scotch and the half empty glass. 'The slave quarters.' He added rather quietly.

'Yes, your mother told me over dinner.' She said almost accusingly. 'Do you...have...any slaves here now ?'

He thought her words were a little slurred. If she'd drunk half the tumbler in the last ten minutes that wasn't too surprising and he smiled at the memory of her after the drug given to her by the tribal shaman, of the way she'd tried to kiss him and how he'd tied her in the bottom of the boat to keep her under control.

'There are no slaves here any more.'

'Really ?' She looked at him with challenge in her eyes. 'Because I recall there are still slavers here in Africa.'

'There are no slaves in this house.' He said firmly. Slavery had been part of African culture long before Europeans had ravaged the land and taken its occupants to the four corners of the world where they were still, in many places treated as an underclass, their status little better than that of the freed slaves their forefathers had been. For some reason that seemed to be acceptable in so many cultures; the blacks, the Jews, the Romanis...

'There is one.' She looked up at him, that challenge still there, that determination he had seen; the sense of adventure.

'No.' He shook his head emphatically. Africa was becoming civilised...mostly. 'We no longer have slaves in this house.'

'You paid for me in Gao.' She looked at him critically. 'I think that means you still own me.'

'No !' He was angry at the thought. He hadn't meant it that way. Surely she didn't think he'd come to her room to claim...

He'd protected her from the caravaners, could have taken her any time he chose, abandoned her to a life of slavery at the hands of some upstart merchant.

He really didn't understand European women.

He was still deciding how to respond when she kissed him full in the lips, running her hand through his hair and pressing her body against his with an urgency he hadn't felt for some time. His cock stiffened instantly at the firmness of her body and the feel of her breasts.

His demeanor softened immediately and he felt himself smile; if she was playing a game then so would he.

'You are a little forward for a slave.' He held her in his arms.

'And what happens to forward...unruly slaves ?' She looked up at him, eyes shining.

He guessed she may have drunk more than half a tumbler of Scotch.

'I suppose they have to be punished.'

'Oh !' She lowered her head biting her lower lip. 'That would by why my bed is fitted with shackles then.' There was no accusation in her voice now, only excitement.

The bed was an old slavers' bed, probably over a hundred years old made of mahogany. She took his hand and lead him towards it.

'Pearl, you really don't...'

She turned to look at him, her lovely hazel eyes clouded slightly in a silent entreaty not to break the moment, to play along with her.

'Look.' She climbed onto the bed and lifted one of the pillow to show the steel cuff hanging from a chain bolted to the headboard. 'Shackles...'

He watched her fingers on the steel; she had long slim fingers and the nails shone a soft pink that had matched her dress.

'A girl could get into a lot of trouble in a place like this.' She looked up at his face. 'Though recently, I've been in quite a lot of trouble already.'

'You do seem to find yourself in peril on quite a regular basis.' He grinned.

'And you seem to come along and rescue me just when I need it.' She beamed at him, pupils slightly dilated. She was at least a little drunk. 'My hero.' He recognised a touch of irony in her voice smelt the alcohol on her breath. He briefly wondered if all English women needed some way to release the emotions over which they seemed otherwise to exercise such tight control. 'Do you know, I've not been tied up for at least three days...or is it four ?' She slid her right hand into the cuff of the shackle, looked at him. She clicked the cuff shut. 'Ooops ! There I go getting myself into trouble again.'

He smiled her took hold of her head, kissing her. 'I'm sure we have the key somewhere.'

He felt her stiffen. 'You mean I'm stuck ?'

The adventure seemed to have, again, got out of control.

'I thought that was what you wanted.'

She recovered, smiling. 'To be chained to a bed and taken by a brute like you ?' She pouted theatrically.

'You think me a brute ?' He stopped and looked at her, aware of the slight tension in his body carried in his voice. 'Why, because of my colour ?'

'No...!' She seemed confused upset, angry that he should think that.

'I...' Her voice trembled. 'I know you're...a gentleman...other than when you're throwing me out of aeroplanes in my underwear or tying me up and taking all kinds of liberties with my body'

'Not the adventure you were hoping for ?' He cupped her jaw in his hand squeezing harder than was necessary.

'Who said I was looking for adventure ?' She pouted at him.

'Aren't you ?' He pushed her back onto the bed and saw her tremble; a moment of anxiety, indecision.

Then she arched her back, pushing her breasts towards him, the robe sliding enticingly open displaying the cleft between her breasts.

'There's a shackle on the other side too.' She told him.

'Is there now ?' He took her wrist and pushed her back onto the bed, his body over hers as he kissed her again.

'I think you'll find me quite an unruly and forward slave.' She looked up at where he held her left wrist. 'You'd do well to secure me properly.'

'Yes, I can see that's good advice.' He reached up and locked the second shackle in place .

She now lay on her back with her arms spread wide, so small in the centre of the huge bed.

'You seem to be completely helpless.' He knelt astride her body.

She turned her head looking at her cuffed wrists and then up at him.

'Not completely.' She kicked her legs.

There were chains on the foot of the bed too and he turned, kneeling on the bed, locking them round her ankles, holding her feet about three feet apart.

'Do I need to gag you too ?'

Her eyes widened and then she realised he was teasing her.

'Your slave promises to behave now.'

He lay beside her, stroked her cheek then kissed her gently.

'You know, it is customary for a slave to call a man 'Master'.' His hand slid down to the top of her chest, fingers sliding inside the robe. He could see her stiff nipples peaking under the thin material.

She turned to look at him.

'Is it ?' There was a note of challenge in her voice.

'Slaves who do not obey their masters are punished.' He slid his hand onto her breast and played with the nipple feeling it respond to his touch.

'It doesn't feel very much like I'm being punished.'

He pinched her nipple and she let out a gasp of surprise and pleasure.

'I hope my Master will take pains to keep his slave in line.'

'He might.' Joseph slid his hand lower exploring the firmness of her belly.

She tensed slightly.

'Tell me, Slave.' He spoke softly. 'Am I your first master ?'

She hesitated for a moment. 'Yes, Master.' She didn't look at him and he saw her cheeks colour more.

He parted the robe exposing her body, her small breasts, the nipples stiff, a blush across her skin, the tight smoothness of her belly, the pale curls of her pubic hair. He felt her stiffen.

'Master ?' She still didn't look at him.

'Yes ?'

'What if I scream ?'

'Then I'll use the gag.'

She looked at him anxiously, swallowed.

Then he caught her meaning. 'The walls are three feet thick, noone will hear you.'

Pearl cried out as Joseph pushed himself inside her. It wasn't the first time she'd done so and it wasn't the loudest. For an hour, it felt like longer, though it felt like too short a time he had teased her body with his hands and his lips and his tongue...and his teeth.

She'd cried the loudest when he'd bitten her nipple and then she'd begged him to do it again.

She hadn't imagined sex would be so...so pleasurable...so intense...satisfying and so maddening.

Chained to the bed, she could do nothing to resist and nothing to encourage save to cry out in response to his touch and at least twice to plead (she was a slave after all), pulling sometimes at the chains and hearing them click in response as he played her body like a musical virtuoso might play an instrument.

Almost as soon as he had begun to touch her, almost from the point he'd first kissed her (she barely remembered that she'd first kissed him), the sensations she'd felt over the previous month had rekindled in her body from that first flush of pleasure at seeing him on the gantry as he boarded the airship and the triggered memory of slipping her hands behind her back in the cinema; the embarrassment of him finding her stripped and bound in the hold of the airship; only now she thought of this as the moment when he'd rescued her like Errol Flynn rescuing Olivia de Havilland, just like he'd rescued her from the shamaness...the shamaness, she remembered the woman's touch, the sensations of another woman's lips on her helpless body and then her tongue between her legs. Pearl blushed as she recalled the sensations in her belly, the ones she had felt again in the cage when the men had held her down and touched her body, of the longing she felt as she lay beside Joseph onboard the ketch.

She'd understood sex could be pleasurable but hadn't even thought that it might involve such...such teasing, that the caresses of a lover could make a woman feel so...passionate. Every part of her body felt alive, every square inch of skin tingling and then there was the throb in her belly, in her loins, a pulse like a caged beast prowling seeking escape, ready to burst forth and devour her until nothing of the civilised woman she had thought of herself remained and she became a base animal, slave to carnal lust.

The loss of her virginity was a brief moment of pain and the trigger that released the beast, opened the door to its cage and let it spring forth.

If she had felt pleasure before, this was on a different level entirely, a new place, a garden, a paradise of dark and light. She thought she might die, perhaps had done so, her soul floating, detached from her body, flying free, soaring.

Not free; chained, captive, shackled to the bed and pinned by Joseph's weight, impaled by him, in thrall to him. She jerked against the chains as pleasure overwhelmed her, aware that she was screaming but not because of pain; momentarily, time stood still, then the sensation passed and she fell back heavily into her body even as she felt his body tense, felt a heat inside her, another beast; then pleasure overwhelmed her again.


CHAPTER 8: ASHRA

Pearl opened her eyes and closed them again tightly. Her head hurt and the light in the room seemed so very bright. She was dimly aware that Joseph was no longer with her; when she had last woken, he had been lying beside her. She'd thought to ask him to release her so she could relieve herself but he had been sleeping so soundly and she hadn't wanted to disturb him.

She heard footsteps...but not Joseph's, the tap of heels...almost but not quite.

She felt herself beginning to blush. Perhaps this was how it was, Master left his slave to be released by the maid in the morning.

She was English, she could cope with this.

Pearl opened her eyelids just as the woman pulled back the curtains and was forced to shut them again.

The footsteps came towards her.

'You must be Pearl.' The woman spoke Oxford English without a hint of accent.

Pearl opened her eyes cautiously taking in large dark eyes and a striking face, Arabic, high cheekbones and a thin, slightly hooked nose and long dark hair drawn back into a pony tail. The woman was slim, clad in a sleeveless silk blouse that, in the light from the window appeared almost translucent (she wore no bra) and tight jodhpurs tucked into knee high boots.

The woman smiled.

Pearl looked from her up to the cuff around her right wrist, then the one on her left.

'You have me at a disadvantage.'

'I certainly do.' The Arabian girl said conversationally, a smile playing on her lips. 'I'm Ashra, Joseph's sister.'

'Pleased to meet you.' Pearl would have liked to hold out her hand; she liked the idea of women shaking hands just like men when they met. She forced herself to sound calm glad that she at least had the dignity of having her body covered by a sheet even if her nakedness below it was clearly visible.

Then, Ashra stepped forward and lifted the cover.

'Heh !' Pearl struggled in her bonds.

'Oh.' Ashra sounded amused.

'What do you mean, 'oh' ?' Pearl shot back indignantly.

Then she realised and felt her body burn, her skin turning so red she thought she might burst into flame if only she wasn't perspiring so intensely.

'I need to get you cleaned up.'

'If you were to unchain me, I could do it myself.' Pearl pulled ineffectively at her bonds.

'Where would the fun be in that ?' Ashra ran a long red fingernail down Pearl's chest between her breasts.

'Do you mind ?'

'Not at all.' Ashra grinned then tipped her head slightly to the side. 'Do you speak French ?' She did not remove her hand.

'Si !' Pearl switched easily using the emphatic idiom. 'I studied at the Sorbonne.'

Ashra changed to French too. 'Excellent !' She was kneeling on the bed quite close to where Pearl was lying, still naked and chained with her legs spread and her virgin blood smeared across her thighs.

Pearl looked up at her, examining her face, her body so blatantly displayed by the semi-translucent blouse and the extremely tight jodhpurs (did this woman not wear underwear at all ?); the boots were fine leather and curved around her shapely calf; the clicking Pearl had heard was the spurs. Even as she met Ashra's gaze, Pearl felt something stir inside her and she squashed it almost immediately but not before her mind had made the connection to the shamaness.

'You know, I think you and I are going to be great friends.' Ashra was studying her too with her beautiful dark eyes, a smile playing on her soft pink lips.

'You could start our friendship by untying me.'

'I could.' Ashra grinned. 'All in good time.'

There was a knock at the door and Pearl tensed.

'Enter !' Ashra called out.

'I'm naked and chained to the bed.' Pearl hissed urgently craning her neck as she looked to see who was coming in.

'From what Joseph tells me, it's not the first time you've been naked in front of a man.' She winked. 'And I don't just mean my brother.'

Pearl squirmed frantically and Ashra laughed.

A female servant in traditional dress came towards them carrying a tray.

'Thank you, Oumou.' Ashra smiled at the girl. 'Put the tray down on the bed.'

The servant did so and left. If she was in any way surprised to see a white girl chained to the guest bed, she did not show it.

'My brother's clearly very fond of you.' Ashra unrolled a white towel that lay beside a steaming bowl of water in the tray.

'He has a funny way of showing it.' Pearl pulled at her chains.

I'm guessing he didn't have to force you to lie on the bed for him.'

Pearl blushed furiously.

'If he didn't like you he'd have sent one of the servants to release you.' Ashra smiled as she lifted a sponge out of the bowl, squeezed it and then began to wash down Pearl's belly and thighs.

'This is very kind of you.' Pearl tried to exert control of the situation. 'But It would be easier if you let me go and take a shower.'

'But not nearly so much fun.' Ashra dropped the sponge into the bowl and picked up what looked like a mortar and pestle. Pearl watched as the brunette stirred the little wooden stick then lifted it from the bowl to reveal it was a brush; just like father's shaving brush thought Pearl; the brush was coated in a white foam.

Just like...

Ashra worked the brush over Pearl's pubic bush.

'What are you doing ?' Pearl squirmed, partly at the embarrassment of being treated like this by a strange woman and partly at the way the brush tickled her.

Ashra did not reply as she soaped the whole of Pearl's little blonde triangle.

'Stop it !' Pearl pulled at the chains, struggling frantically.

Ashra put the shaving brush back in the pot and lifted a pearl handled razor, opening it to show Pearl the long, sharp blade.

'What...?' Pearl's eyes were wide. 'No...you mustn't, you can't...'

'Keep very still.' Ashra warned as she put the blade onto the helpless woman's skin and began to shave her.

'You can ride, I take it.' Ashra lead Pearl out to the stables.

'Of course.' Pearl followed her still slightly uncomfortable in the woman's presence.

They were dressed almost identically, tight white blouse, jodhpurs that Pearl felt were at least a size too small, riding boots.

Pearl was very aware that, like Ashra she wore not bra. She wasn't wearing anything under the jodhpurs either. (Didn't anybody were underwear in this country ?)

The feeling of her newly shaved sex was still rather unusual though, she thought, not unpleasant. She was aware that the girls in the clubs in Paris did this, she'd been taken to the Moulin Rouge on the Boulevard de Clichy while living there (something else her father didn't know about); thinking of the sort of girls who danced there and, particularly what they wore (or didn't) made her feel rather naughty. It also reminded her that something else had changed 'down below' recently too.

She thought of Joseph and of being chained to the bed and of him entering her...

She suddenly found Ashra a few paces ahead, catching sight of the woman's toned bottom and thighs in the skintight jodhpurs, the silhouette of her torso and shoulders in the scandalously thin sleeveless blouse and found herself wondering if she looked that good. Passing a window she glanced sideways as casually as she could and realised she did look that good...well, almost.

She looked at Ashra again, noting the way the woman walked, hips swaying, deliberately accentuating her movements and, smiling to herself, Pearl began to emulate them. Pearl wondered what her deportment teacher would have said. It certainly wasn't the way an English lady was supposed to walk.

In the stables, Ashra found them horses and had them saddled, choosing a sleek and very lively part Arab for herself and a slightly quieter chestnut gelding for her guest. Then they rode out across the fields, heading towards the mountains she had seen in the distance from the terrace. Pearl considered herself a good rider but Ashra was a far more accomplished horsewoman, beautifully balanced in the saddle, riding high with her shoulders back at the trot and crouched low, her lustrous dark hair flying at the canter and gallop.

Even on a horse she was, Pearl thought, sexy.

They arrived breathless at a ridge overlooking an ancient dry river valley and Ashra dismounted, sliding from the saddle with practiced ease. Pearl could see the woman was flushed excited with the thrill of the ride, her lovely dark eyes flashing; the blouse clung to her toned body and her brown nipples jutted out, sharply defined beneath the thin material.

Pearl looked down and realised her own pink buds were prominently on display too; she turned away to cover her embarrassment as she dismounted, looking out at the land beyond. The mountains were no closer despite an hour's ride and she was reminded again how vast Africa was.

'Turn around very slowly.' Ashra's voiced was a low warning and Pearl wondered at the need for it, looking down again at her stiffly erect and unbelievably prominent nipples but the woman spoke commandingly enough to make her obey. She began to turn.

Ashra was holding a pistol.

Pearl's mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

This place seemed full of people who were trying to kill or enslave her or, at the very least tie her up.

There did seem to be a lot of tying up in Africa.

Suddenly Ashra's horse whinnied and reared.

Ashra turned the gun slightly and fired.

Now Pearl's horse reared too, pulling at its reins and Pearl held as tightly as she could.

Pearl looked down to see a headless snake writhing on the ground beside her then the black body fell over the edge of the rocks and tumbled into the valley below.

Pearl stood shaking for a moment, watching Ashra put the pistol back into its holster on the saddle.

'Are you alright, Pearl ?'

'Yes, I'm fine.' Her voice was shaking. 'Should we go ?'

'Not giving up on your adventure already ?' Ashra smiled.

'Already ?'

'Joseph told me you were looking for adventure in Africa.' Her smile broadened as her eyes drifted down Pearl's body. 'You do seem to have found it.'

'Yes...' Pearl found her eyes surveying Ashra's body. 'I certainly have.'

'Do you want to go home ?'

'No.' Pearl lifted her head. 'There's a lot more of Africa to see.'

'Good.' She took Pearl's hand and lead her along the ridge. 'There is usually a lot of game to be seen up here but that shot will have frightened everything for miles.'

'Did Joseph say anything else about me ?' Pearl was very conscious she was still walking hand in hand with Ashra.

'Only that you were rather reserved.' Ashra squeezed her hand.

'Oh ?!'

'My brother likes Arabic women.' Ashra confided. 'Arabic women cry out during sex.'

Pearl thought about the gag. Joseph hadn't used it on her.

'Men find it exciting.' Ashra continued.

'Oh !' Pearl looked at Ashra, noting the way she walked with her chin up, her profile was as appealing as the full view of her face, the curl of her lashes, the shape of her nose and the fullness of her lips. She was so strong and confident and Pearl wondered how this woman would have coped with being tied up by a Nazi agent or captured by tribesmen...or slavers.

(Did Ashra allow men to tie her to their beds ? Did she cry out to please them ?)

Pearl felt envious of this woman, her beauty and her knowledge of life...of Africa...of men.

'Can you shoot ?' Ashra asked suddenly.

'No.' Pearl had never even touched a gun.

'Then I should teach you.' Ashra smiled, reaching out and brushing a lock of Pearl's hair away from her face. 'You are so lucky.' She said suddenly. 'Your hair is so beautiful...'

Pearl stared at her.

'Come on.'


CHAPTER 9: TRIAL BY SHERRY

The sun was a red disc, huge, poised to drop from the sky behind them when Pearl and Ashra reached the house again. They had now been together for much of the day and, despite the rather unusual circumstances of their meeting, Pearl had quickly found herself liking Ashra as much as she admired her. She had also found herself sharing secrets she had not told another living soul and gaping open mouthed as Ashra confided details of liaisons, sometimes in horrifyingly graphic detail, often adding a smile or a wink to descriptions of sexual encounters about which Pearl had never even dreamed.

Then there had been the 'shooting lesson' where Ashra had stood behind her; that lithe, firm body pressed against Pearl's as she guided Pearl to aim, her right hand supporting Pearl's and her left pressed gently against Pearl's belly; no, lower, against the smooth sex she had touched so intimately and wantonly (there was no other word for it). With her lips close to Pearl's ear she had instructed her to close one eye, to aim and squeeze the trigger. Pearl had obeyed though the intimate contact with the other woman's body, the pressure of Ashra's breasts, the touch her proud nipples, the brush of her sex against Pearl's bottom had proved quite a distraction. The jolt of the gun in its first explosion had nearly knocked it from Pearl's hand and she had stumbled back to find herself steadied, in an embrace that was as firm as it was gentle and, for a moment she experienced a strange desire to remain there, supported and comforted, wrapped in the power of this beautiful and exotic woman.

For some reason, Ashra insisted they rode back towards the stables via the garden, taking them past the terrace on which they had dined the previous evening. Pearl spotted Joseph and his father and a white man, sitting a drinking cocktails and was about to wave when, beside her, Ashra suddenly dug in her heels, moving to a rising trot. She caught a brief view of her companion's back and was reminded of the way the beautiful brunette rode, shoulders back, chest thrust out a posture which displayed her small breasts and made her nipples stand out like bullets.

Pearl followed her, kicking her own mount and rising from the saddle, drawing back her shoulders and forcing herself not to look down.

She matched Ashra's pace and the two trotted past rather like soldiers on parade though as they were almost past the three men on the terrace, Pearl glanced sideways noticing that while the white man looked somewhat startled and was trying to avert his gaze, Joseph's eyes seemed to be fixed on her.

Beside her, Ashra spurred her mount to the canter, leaning forward and Pearl followed hoping that the impossibly tight jodhpurs didn't split.

They dressed for dinner together, Pearl noting that her new friend shared the same shaving regimen as she had enforced on her guest.

'It is not just because men like it.' Ashra laughed when she saw Pearl staring her. 'A girl can hardly wear a decent silk gown without making herself presentable.

Pearl might once have thought that a girl could perhaps just wear underwear but the sheer white silk gown laid out for her this evening was so gossamer thin and slid so smooth;y across her skin that Pearl could see why a woman couldn't possibly wear underwear beneath it and why shaving her body was so necessary.

The dress also had a slit that came scandalously high and Pearl once again thought of the Moulin Rouge though this time it was the cocktail waitresses who came to mind; she recalled how it wasn't just cocktails that could be ordered from this sort of women. At that time, she would have been horrified to be considered one of them but, somehow, here, a dress with a slit to the top of her thigh seemed perfectly acceptable.

Ashra was dressed in a similar manner though her dress was decorated with a printed floral pattern.

'You might get away with going unshaved.' Ashra raised an eyebrow as she smoothed the dress down Pearl's body, making the fabric stretch revealingly over her slim form. 'But my hair is so dark.'

Pearl studied her reflection in the mirror, enjoying the way the dress clung so sensuously to her body, she was sure that a trace of moisture would make it utterly transparent. Standing with her back to the light might do a similar thing.

Ashra offered her a pair of ear-rings; huge gold hoops and, as Pearl slipped them into her ears, the luscious brunette came to stand close behind her.

'You'll need this too.' Ashra slipped a gold torque around Pearl's neck, a single band of gold that reminded her suddenly of the steel collar that had been locked around her neck when they'd arrive in Gao; when she had been shackled and caged.

She reached up and touched it remembering the feel of the steel on her neck, cold and hard; then she thought of the slave cage and the men reaching through the bars to touch her and of her desires on the ketch as Joseph lay beside her, the barely perceptable longing that she was traveling as his slave. An increasingly familiar tingle of pleasure ran through her body as Ashra clicked the gold collar shut on her neck.

'You may like some of this too.' Ashra stood very close behind her and Pearl could feel her breath on her neck, smell her make-up and perfume. 'Though I'm not sure you need it.'

Ashra's wrist brushed Pearl's right nipple as she lifted it to allow her guest to catch the scent of her perfume; like it's pink sister the nipple was standing out prominently and the gentle brush brought it to full attention. Pearl looked down to see that the liquid had made silk over her nipple completely transparent.

'Oops.' Ashra's finger played over the wet mark on the dress as if trying to dab the liquid away but the attempt served to spread the moisture further making her areole visible too and to make Pearl's little pink bud throb urgently.

'Ashra !' Pearl was scandalised even as she felt her pulse racing in response to the tingling in her breasts. She was suddenly aware of Ashra's breasts pressing against her back and the other woman's nipples as stiff as her own against her skin.

It reminded her of the shooting lesson Ashra had given her, of their bodies touching as Ashra had guided her hand; she remembered too the night in the jungle, the devotions of the shamaness...the caress of her tongue.

'Shame to waste it.' Ashra dabbed a little perfume onto Pearl's left nipple, even as she...was she deliberately rubbing her breasts against Pearl's back ?

'Yes...' Pearl let out a slightly breathy sigh and then jumped as there was a knock on the door.

'Entre.' Ashra moved away and Pearl reaslised she was blushing.

A servant entered bearing a tray containing two cocktail glasses.

'Vodka martini, Mesdames.' The servant curtseyed speaking in accented French.

Ashra strode towards her and took up the glasses, returning to pass one to Pearl.

'Sante.' They clinked glasses.

The drink was strong and Pearl almost coughed as it burned the back of her throat.

Ashra seemed less affected, grinning at her as she took a second large gulp of the drink. Then she bent and blew gently on the front of Pearl's dress. The wet spots were rapidly evaporating but Ashra's breath dried the material completely.

Pearl swallowed the rest of her drink in one; flushing as it burned it's way down to her stomach.

'Shoes.' Ashra became suddenly pragmatic and turned away as Pearl tried to control the rush of feelings that threatened to engulf her.

Joseph stood along with his father and the consul as the ladies appeared in the terrace. The gentlemen were drinking a fine malt whisky the consul had brought as a gift and Joseph had already enjoyed two generous glasses on the rocks.

His father and the consul were discussing some business matter that didn't interest him and his mind had wandered to Pearl, of their night together and the manner in which she had ridden past an hour earlier.

When he saw Pearl walking beside his sister, Joseph's mouth opened in a manner that would have seen his governess correct him when he had been younger and still, despite his age, might have seen him earn clip to the ear from his mother. He'd seen Ashra wear the white dress once before and still recalled the rebuke their father had given her. Their guest was wearing Ashra's necklace too, the one he teased her for wearing saying that it made her look like a slave in a Hollywood movie, the hooped earrings too and a pair of Ashra's shoes, the gold strappy sandals with heels that made her walk almost on her toes.

He was surprised she could walk in them and even more surprised at the way she was walking.

His sister was, he had frequently been told, a beauty as his mother had once been to tempt Boubacar but Pearl... He had liked the look of the little blonde when he'd seen her in the cinema and especially in EAA 'hostess' uniform; he had, of course, since seen the blonde naked on more than one occasion but in the white silk dress...had she shaved ?...and her face; a soft layer of powder accentuating the kiss of the sun blending into blusher and scarlet lips.

He had met Marlene Dietrich but her memory was not match for this beautiful blonde who stood before him now.

Almost in a dream, he took her hand and introduced her to the consul.

'Peepy ?' The linen suited Englishman looked shocked.

'Uncle Roger.' Pearl blushed, he was sure of it.

'You two are acquainted ?' Joseph's father asked.

'Knew her father at Eton.' Roger Delaney, head of the British consulate in Timbuktu informed him then, turning to Pearl he asked. 'How is old Rev ?'

'Father...'Rev' is fine.' Pearl told him with a smile. 'At least he was last time I saw him.'

Joseph and his father looked at each other. Another English joke they had no hope of understanding.

'Sort of play in words.' Delaney chuckled to himself. 'Dean' like a sort of Reverend and then, of course, he went on to become a racing driver...'

Joseph felt the explanation didn't help.

They were joined by Joseph's mother and dined well. Pearl updated Uncle Roger (not her real uncle) about her father's doings as ambassador to Berlin and Roger expressed some envy at the posting.

'I mean no offence, your Excellency.' Roger added nodding towards Joseph's father.

'None is taken.' Boubacar nodded and smiled politely. 'Though, I might suggest in the current situation, the posting is rather a poisoned chalice.'

There was some polite laughter though Joseph's mother did not laugh, simply leaning forward and taking his hand in a very protective gesture. 'Did those foul Nazi's give you any trouble, my boy ?'

Pearl laughed at the demonstrative term and thought Joseph might be blushing.

'Nothing I could not deal with, Maman.' He looked at Pearl and grinned.

'But your journey home...' The matriarch persisted.

'Was an adventure.' Joseph smiled. 'Don't you think, Pearl.'

Pearl blushed. 'Yes, quite...'

Boubacar tactfully changed the subject

When the remains of the meal were cleared and the port arrived, Ashra rose and the gentlemen stood hastily.

'I know you'll be up half the night talking business.' She said more in politeness than meaning and Pearl was again stunned by her grace and beauty as she held out her hand and Roger pressed it to her lips.

Pearl hoped...expected that Ashra would invite her to retire with her. (Not 'with' her, obviously...not...like that...no, she couldn't...but, if she was asked...what might she say ?)

'Maman.' Ashra looked at her mother who climbed slightly awkwardly to her feet. She had not been drinking, Pearl noticed remembering suddenly that it was part of the north African religion.

'Father...brother...' After kissing her father, Ashra hugged Joseph playfully.

'Pearl.' Ashra suddenly embraced her. 'It has been such a pleasure. I do hope we meet again soon but I imagine you'll be leaving early in the morning.'

Pearl was taken by surprise. (Had Uncle Roger come to collect her ? She yearned to stay here for a while longer with Joseph and Ashra...). Her surprise and confusion deepened even more so when Ashra's lips brushed her own in a kiss that, though fleeting, wrapped her in a cloud of exotic scent and perfume; and stirred her thoughts into a whirl; by the time she realised how much she was enjoying it, the kiss was over leaving only the memory and taste of lip gloss. She watched breathless as Ashra slinked away with her arm hooked through her mother's, hips swaying and the bare flesh of her right leg flashing into view as it emerged with every step from the long slit in her dress.

'Look after her, brother.' Ashra glanced back at Pearl as she spoke. 'This one's special.'


CHAPTER 10: DOWN TO BUSINESS

When Ashra and her mother had left them, the consul produced a manila envelope and pulled out a sheaf of photographs.

'Miss Dean.' Uncle Roger suddenly became Consul Delaney and Pearl thought for a moment that he was probably rather shocked by the nature of Ashra's departure. She was still feeling a little unsteady from the kiss (and what did Ashra mean about leaving early in the morning ?). However, showing true British reserve they both outwardly ignored it and returned to business.

'His Highness...' Consul Delaney nodded towards Joseph. '...has indicated that you might be able to identify your assailant on the airship.' He placed the black and white images on the table in front of Pearl. They clearly showed the tall blonde that had tied her up and the man who had worn the Gestapo uniform.

'Yes.' Pearl pointed to the couple. 'They were on the airship. I think it was the man who hit me and then that woman tied me up.'

Uncle Roger raised an eyebrow. 'You were rather lucky, my dear. The pilots were both shot and a number of the passengers thrown overboard.'

Pearl looked at Joseph, thinking it might not be the moment to say that she too had been thrown overboard, albeit in a well intentioned way. She remembered Joseph lifting her and then 'catching' her if that was the correct term as she fell; recalled her fear of what he might do to her as she lay helpless and bound on the ground and then what he did to her the previous night.

'The man is Herr Oberst Eichmann, one of Herr Himmler's right hand men and the woman is Frau Fickhase one of his...associates.' Roger Delaney showed her a second photograph. 'These two men are captains in the Gestapo, I believe they were also on board.'

Pearl nodded. 'Yes, they were.'

'Do you recognise this woman ?' Consul Delaney showed a picture of a dark haired woman wearing glasses and a white coat with pencils poking out of the breast pocket.

Pearl looked carefully. 'Yes. She was on the flight. Er...Miss M Phillips...the name sort of rang a bell when I saw it on the passenger list...'

Roger smiled tersely. 'Melba Phillips.' He paused and gave her firm look over his horn-rimmed glasses. 'Miss Dean, what I am about to tell you is highly classified information and I must swear you to secrecy.'

Pearl's eyes widened. 'Of course.'

'Miss Phillips, that is Dr Phillips is a highly respected American physicist. We think the Nazi's have kidnapped her in the expectation she will be able to build them a thermonuclear weapon.'

'An atomic bomb ?' Pearl felt suddenly frightened but managed to restrain herself from saying something like 'Oh, my goodness.'

Roger looked at Joseph. 'The airship was spotted drifting somewhere south of Marrakech. The surviving passengers reported a woman answering Dr Phillip's description being taken to a small aircraft which took off to the North and we know that the Nazi's have a base in Marrakech.'

'The Aryan Club would be as good a place as any to start.' Joseph smiled somewhat ruefully. 'Though, I don't expect they'd let me in.'

'Indeed not.' Roger smiled back, understanding the joke even though he clearly found it distasteful.

'The Aryan Club ?' Pearl looked from on to the other. 'Somewhere to start ? What are you two talking about ?'

Roger Delaney looked at Joseph who nodded.

'His Highness kindly undertakes work of a clandestine nature for Her Majesty's government on occasions.'

'You're a spy ?' Pearl looked at him.

Joseph laughed. 'I prefer the term 'Agent'.'

'A rather good one too.' Roger Delaney looked at Pearl.

'And the Aryan club...?

'Is exactly what it sounds like. A haven for the 'Master Race' in the souks of north Africa.'

'And you think they might have taken Dr Phillips there...' Pearl was still struggling with the enormity of what she was hearing: Nazi kidnap plots, Joseph a spy...

'Probably not directly to the club but it would be somewhere to obtain information.' Roger explained.

'Unfortunately, it's not the sort of place a man of my colour can enter.' Joseph added, rather tersely.

'I'll need to send to London for another agent.' Roger said decisively.

'The trail will be cold by then.' Boubacar had been following the discourse silently until this point.

'I could get in.' Pearl had said it even before she had thought it through. 'I'm Aryan...well, sort of...'

'Good Lord !' Roger Delaney almost lost the stiffness of his upper lip. 'Unthinkable.'

'She's tougher than she looks, Roger.' Joseph added. 'She speaks fluent German too.'

Pearl wondered how he knew this.

'It's far too dangerous.' Delaney was still wearing a shocked expression. 'Besides, it's a 'gentleman's club', the only women who go in there are...' He looked as if he would rather explode than say the word.

'I have lived in Paris, Roger.' Pearl dropped the 'uncle'. 'And Berlin...'

'She can dance too.' Joseph added and Pearl shot him a look that might have turned him to fire.

'I couldn't possibly allow it...'

'Would you care to dance, Sir ?' Pearl dropped the needle of the wind-up gramophone onto the vinyl disc; Cab Calloway's 'Minnie the Moocher' crackled out.

'A pleasure, Madam.' Joseph, took her in hold and guided her across the floor of the guest-room.

'I don't think you should call me 'Madam'.'

She was barefoot and had changed into the silk robe she'd worn the previous evening. He noticed she still wore the gold necklace.

'What would you prefer ?'

She lifted her mouth to his ear, whispering. 'I thought I was your little slave-girl.'

She really was quite a remarkable woman and he recalled his sister's parting comment; rather different to her usual opinions on the women he associated with; but then he had never brought one home before...at least, not one who had stayed beyond dawn.

Pearl had lit candles, or perhaps the servants had, and the room glowed with a warm, romantic light, that shone off her blonde hair and caught her hazel eyes. He could feel the firmness of her body, pressed far more closely to him than her uncle Roger would have thought appropriate and, he suspected, she could feel his body's response to such intimate contact.

He thought of their night together and wondered briefly if all European women might harbour a secret fantasy to be sold into white slavery.

'Your uncle Roger will never look at you in quite the same way again.'

Pearl pressed herself even more closely against him. 'It's probably time I stopped calling him 'Uncle'.'

'I'm sorry he won't allow you to come with me. You're suggestion of infiltrating the club was a good one.'

'Could you see me as a seductress ?' She smiled drawing slightly away from him and slid the silk robe apart showing him her body, her breasts and her belly and he wondered again what had made her shave her sex for him. It could only be at Ashra's behest; the things women talked about !

She stepped back and slipped the robe from her shoulders, unabashed now as she exposed her body to him, letting the silk slide down her back and her legs.

Then she smiled and he thought she could not appear more beautiful.

He was wrong.

Before him, Pearl dropped to her knees, spreading them gently and sliding her hands behind her back and pushing out her breasts.

He stared at her openly for a moment. It wasn't the first time a woman had done this for him but she'd usually been paid or, on one or two occasions, a slave.

Pearl knelt, looking up at Joseph, watching the emotions on his face; surprise, pleasure, lust; she could tell he wanted her, hoped he would throw her onto the bed and shackle her then tease her as he had teased her the previous night. However, he bent and picked up her robe. Surely he wasn't going to reject her !

He didn't. He pulled the belt of the robe free and knelt behind her, binding her wrists tightly.

The sensation was delicious, the silk on her skin, his touch making her helpless. When he'd secured the knot, he stood then bent and kissed her on the top of the head.

'You will have to tie me a bit more securely if you really plan to leave me behind in the morning.' She couldn't believe this would be their last night together. She had enough sense to know that he would be gone for some time and, by the time he returned there would, she knew, be another woman.

'Would you like to be tied more securely ?' His hands slid down onto her breasts.

'What makes you think I like being tied up at all ?' She said it a little more harshly than she meant to.

'You do seem to have developed quite an affinity for it.' He teased.

'I'm sure it's important to keep all slaves in their place.' She tried to maintain an air of aloofness but squirmed as his hands cupped her breasts.

'When I came back to find you in that cage...' He rolled her nipples between his thumb and finger, squeezing gently. '...there was a moment wasn't entirely sure you wanted to be rescued.'

Pearl gasped.

'That's ridiculous.' She knew that, despite her best efforts, her voice conveyed it was a lie or, at the very least, a half truth.

'You know that slaves who lie to their masters must be punished ?'

'Like you punished me last night, Master ?' She chided.

'As my property, I could have you whipped for insolence.' He kissed her ear.

'You'd better tie me up properly first.'

He stood and swept her up in his arms, bearing her weight easily, then threw her onto the bed, pinning her as he pulled off his belt then crossing her legs as she squirmed so he could bind her ankles; then he rolled her over and pulled the tip of the belt up through the sash binding her wrists knotting it. Finally, he flipped her onto her back so she lay arched over her bound hands and feet, her knees forced apart.

'That should keep you under control.' He grinned down at her and pulled off his shirt.

'It's a start.' She squirmed on the bed rolling over and pulling at her bonds gripped by a sudden rush of joy at feeling so deliciously helpless.

'You know...' He continued to undress. '...there were...are still slaves who enjoy being kept in bondage, some women actually seem to be excited by being tied up.'

She rolled onto her side to look at him as he sat naked on the bed beside her.

God, he was handsome...and toned...she could see has muscles rippling under the shining ebony of his skin. Her heart seemed to be doing somersaults in her chest. She wondered how many other women he'd bound and then let go; wished he might choose to keep her and collar her for her understanding was that slaves wore collars.

Then he grasped her shoulders and forced he over onto her back, sliding on top of her, pinning her, rendering her utterly helpless in his power. She tried to squirm beneath him, fighting her bonds but, though simple, they were totally effective.

He held her hair and kissed her.

'I could still scream.'

'I told you, noone would come.'

'I might do it anyway.'

'Then perhaps I had better gag you !'

He reached into a compartment in the head of the bed and pulled out a ball of red leather sewn into a thick black leather strap. For a moment she looked at it in fear then, at his command she opened her mouth and took it between her teeth, turning her head as he buckled it tightly in place.

Her mouth was full of saliva by the time he had finished tightening the gag and her eyes widened as he kissed her gently around it.

'Ohhhh !' Saliva ran from the corner of her mouth onto the pillow but she barely noticed as the brush of his cock against her spread sex left her overwhelmed by the sudden rush of sensations.

Then she began to squirm in delight as he began to play with her nipples again, biting and teasing until she was struggling in a frenzy of lust, waves of pleasure assaulting her body. She thought she might explode with pleasure, whimpering into the gag until he moved away from her breasts, starting to kiss and lick her belly, his tongue playing in her navel causing her squeal with delight. When his mouth moved away she tried to tell him how much she wanted him but the words came out as a stream of nonsense, adding to her frustration and her pleasure.

Then his tongue touched her between the legs and she cried out with shock, saliva spraying out around the gag, falling back to wet her face. He touched her again, his tongue caressing her nether lips as it had caressed the skin of her belly, running across the tingling flesh, tracing up one side and then the other stoking the fire that burned inside her, raising it to a roaring inferno from which bursts of flame flared, detonating explosions through her body until she was crying out around the gag repeatedly.

Then, when she thought she could take no more, he pushed his tongue inside her and the fire erupted with a violence that forced her to scream, thrashing in her bonds, her head back, body arched as she thrust her sex against him, wanting this to go on forever.


CHAPTER 11: YES, YES, YES...

When the pleasure finally subsided she felt utterly spent, every part of her body drained, raw, sensitive beyond measure as if every movement or touch might be an exquisite torture and she was overwhelmed by a desire to be held gently, comforted.

He seemed to know this and lay beside her, holding her in his arms and she pressed herself into the warmth of his body, eyes closed, secure in the safety of his embrace and the bonds that held her.

Some time later, he removed her gag and held a drink to her lips; he also released the belt which held her in the hogtie though did not untie her wrists or her ankles and she did not ask to be released. Then he kissed her gently, pulling her against him and she felt the embers from their earlier coupling rekindle until she was kissing him back forcefully, yearning again for his touch, feeling his sex hard against her body. In response she thrust herself against him aware of her nipples against the hair of his chest and her thighs still slick with her juices rub against the tip of his shaft.

'You are quite the seductress.' He smiled as he kissed her.

'I want you inside me.' She'd said it before she could stop herself.

'What would uncle Roger say ?' He teased.

'Fuck uncle Roger.' She felt a hunger she could not explain or, perhaps, she could.

'You are a bad slave.' She chided.

'Then punish me !' It came out quickly, sharply; she wasn't entirely sure what she expected him to do; he had threatened to punish her before.

He rolled her over and lifted her hips so she knelt with her bottom in the air, her wrists still tied behind her and her ankles still cross and bound.

When his hand struck her bottom she jumped, yelping, her pulse racing suddenly with excitement. She was more prepared for the second blow and then the third.

'Is this how slaves are punished ?' Her bottom was smarting but the pain was somehow stimulating. She had never been spanked before, not even as a child and she wondered if it was always like this.

He struck her again but, though she tried she couldn't distinguish the heat in her bottom from that between her legs.

'Have you had enough yet ?' He laughed. 'Would you like me to stop.'

'Don't you dare !' She said it with a fierceness that surprised her.

He struck again...and again...

Then, at some point, just when her brain started to register the pain he knelt up behind her, his cock pushing against her sex then entering her. There was no pain this time, only a pleasure she would have thought unbelievable a little over twenty four hours previously, a pleasure that increased as he pushed his way deep inside her, his arms enfolding her. He shoved her bound arms aside and forced his body against hers, leaning down to kiss her neck and back even as his hands found her breasts again.

In response, she pushed back against him as pleasure flowed through her, not tongues of flame this time but ripples of heat lapping at her, waves flowing and ebbing, each stronger than the next. She knew she was going to climax again, knew that when it happened she would squirm and squeal and cry out as the heat of sex ripped through her like a flame, igniting every nerve in her body and that, once it was gone, she would be left again bereft and yearning for the next time.

She fought hard to hold it off, biting her lips and panting to release the tense heat in her body, even as her instinct drove her back onto his shaft, impaling herself on him with a hunger that was insatiable. If it was a contest, a battle of her will over her base, primal instincts, it was a one-sided one so that, soon, all that mattered was to feel that fire inside herself again.

And it came, hot and fierce like before, Joseph's thrusts driving up the heat to an intensity that she could no longer contain; until she screamed, bucking and arching, muscles spasming, climaxing intensely.

'Yes...yes...yes...yes...!'

'Yes, it is...' It was the end of the night and she lay in his arms, wrists still and bound behind her back though he had freed her ankles.

'What ?' Joseph pulled her back against him enjoying the warmth of her body against his.

'It is every bit the adventure I wanted.'

He kissed her gently.

'Take me with you.' She said it suddenly and, for a moment, he thought he might be tempted to do just that but he knew he could not, should not endanger her.

'What would 'uncle Roger' say ?'

'Fuck uncle Roger.' She rolled over to face him and even in the dim light he could see tears glistening in her eyes even as he enjoyed the full pleasure of her proximity, her breasts and her loins pressed against him.

'Pearl...'

'Please...' She spoke with urgency. 'You said yourself that my plan to get into the Aryan Club was a good one. It could take you weeks to find out information from other sources.'

'Pearl, even if you got in, you might not find anything out.' He held her face gently between his hands. 'And besides...you're...'

'I'm what ? An ambassador's daughter...? A woman ? A wallflower ?'

'You're definitely no wallflower.' He grinned at her trying to lighten her mood but realised too late that this was a mistake.

She turned away, struggling to roll, made awkward by her bound wrists.

He saw the glint of the necklace, the collar still around her slender neck.

'Pearl...' He touched her shoulder but she shoved him off.

'Untie me !'

'Pearl...'

'Untie me !'

He reached for the silk that bound her wrists.

'Pearl, if I could take you with me I would.'

'No you wouldn't.' She rolled back frustrating his attempts to free her. 'All my life people...mostly men...have been telling me what I can and cannot do...'you mustn't do that, Pearl, it's so unladylike'...'go to Cheltenham, Pearl, it's where proper young ladies go'...'you must learn to dance, Pearl, it will help you find a husband'...'the Sorbonne will teach you how to be a good wife to someone'...'

He might have thought any other woman was becoming hysterical but in the short time he'd known her he had come to realise that she was not 'any other woman'.

'It really is very dangerous.'

'I've been attacked by Nazi spies...thrown out of an airship...I've been garnished by cannibals who wanted to eat me...trafficked by white slavers...' She looked at him fervently. 'I think I can handle danger.'

'But...' He looked into her hazel eyes; saw then blazing with passion.

'I just don't think I can go back to...to being the ambassador's daughter again.' Her look became imploring.

He recalled Ashra's comments. 'Hang onto this one, she's special.'

If he left her behind, it was likely he'd never see her again.

If he took her with him, it was entirely possible she'd be killed...or worse.

But her plan was sound...

'Please, Joseph...' It was, he thought, the first time she'd used his name to address him and he wondered suddenly how many other women he'd been with would still remember his name, how many remembered it in the morning.

He smiled.

'You, Miss Dean, are going to get me into a lot of trouble.'

She looked at him uncomprehending for a moment, then the realisation dawned that he was granting her wish. He saw he mouth open and her eyes widen.

'It's only because I need an excuse to fly to Marrakech.' He grinned. 'I'm borrowing a plane from a friend who...handles certain...cargo. If I turn up at the airfield with...that sort of cargo, it will prevent any awkward questions.'

'You want me to pose as a slave ?'

'I seem to recall I do technically own you so there would be no acting involved.'

She slapped him. He had no idea how she'd managed to get her hands free.

Then she kissed him.

Two hours later the chauffeur dropped them at a dirt track off the main highway that followed the river to the coast. The sun was low in the sky, huge and red, a typical African sunrise, the first hint of the heat to come.

'I hope it's not far.' Pearl looked around her clearly wondering where the airfield lay.

'I thought you said you were ready for this.' Joseph could feel the tension in his voice. He knew the risk he was taking.

'I didn't expect to be walking across country in a pair of Ashra's shoes.' She was tense too.

She'd borrowed one of his sister's cheesecloth suits, combining it with a white linen blouse; she wore stocking too, and a pair of Ashra's shoes with heels that were at least five inches.

'It's not far.' He shouldered the flight bag and then the rifle and then he took her hand, leading her up the track.

After a few steps she stopped and, for a moment he wondered if he'd made the right decision. They would have to be gone soon; when someone at the house discovered she was no longer in her room they would know exactly where to find her.

He watched her bend and take off her shoes, enjoying the sight of her, the curve of her bottom, the elegant tapering of her calves.

They walked on for a quarter of a mile, entering some scrubby trees and he could see the hanger and the planes.

'There...' He pointed through the trees. 'Come on.'

She stopped him and he waited for her put on her shoes again. Then he stepped forward.

'Aren't you going to bind my hands again ?' She called after him.

He looked back at her seeing she hadn't moved. 'It would aid the deception' He admitted.

She turned immediately, presenting her slim wrists and he pulled out a piece of cord.

'I suppose you'll have to gag me too.'

'I don't think that will be necessary'

'Oh.' She sounded disappointed.

She turned looking small and helpless, eyes wide, lower lip curled in. She was nibbling it nervously with her white teeth. He'd seen her do it before when she was thinking about something.

'It would aid the deception if my blouse was torn and I looked...' She bit her lip again. '...dirtier.'

She stepped forward, thrusting her breasts out. He realised he actually wanted to do it, to enjoy the sight of her breasts, to display his mastery. He wondered briefly what his sister would say if he did.

'I'm sure a slaver who'd kidnapped a white woman would have...' She looked at him intently. '...abused her...'

He reached forward and took hold of her blouse, pulling it apart and ruffling it.

'...roughly !' She added.

He smiled and buttons popped leaving her cleavage and her bra exposed

'Better, but you should tear my skirt too.' She smiled coyly. 'I'm quite sure any self respecting scoundrel would tear it right off...'

'I'm not sure that's necessary.'

'Joseph...' She said primly. 'Master, we are heading into deadly peril, it would be wrong of me to think of my honour before the safety of both of us...the skirt must...' She made her lip quiver. '...go.'.

He tore it away revealing her silk knickers and stockings. With her blouse gaping and breasts on display he wanted to ravish her.

'I'm glad your hands are tied.' He said with a smile.

'Quite right.' She grinned. 'Any man who treats a lady like this deserves a slap at the very least.'

'I could get used to being a scoundrel.' He appraised her openly, enjoying the sight of her like this.

'Are you planning to ravage me ?' Pearl took a step towards him.

'No.'

'Shame.' She walked past him brazenly knocking her shoulder against his.

'On the other hand...' He grabbed her shoulder and spun her round. 'It would important to show that I had checked the soundness of my cargo.'

He kissed her fiercely.

'You will get a slap for that !' She kissed him back just as forcefully as he ran his fingers through her hair tousling it. 'And I still think I should be gagged.'


CHAPTER 12: MARRAKECH

They were holed up in a little hotel in the centre of Marrakech two streets away from the Aryan club. The room was small and the air hot. The establishment did not have electricity and there was no fan. Through the open window, Pearl could hear the sounds of the market, stallholders calling out in a language she could not decipher, trucks rumbling, the gears of cars grinding, the occasional whinny of a horse and something she now knew to be the bray of a camel.

They had come into the city by donkey cart, Pearl transforming form captured white slave to down at heel gentlewoman in the remains of Ashra's suit.

The flight had taken several hours and, to pass the time, Joseph had allowed her to take the controls, showing her how to use the stick and pedals, explaining about ailerons and rudders, the use of flaps. She had only lost control once, pulling them up almost to a stall when she had seen mountains in the distance. He had knocked her hands away from the stick laughing at her expression of horror as the little plane's nose dropped again and they gathered speed before guiding them back to level flight.

She could have dressed once they'd taken off but she liked the way he looked at her as she sat beside him in her torn blouse and Ashra's silken underwear and stockings. She still wore them as she lay on the bed eying the heavy metal frame and hoping he might tie her to it later.

Pearl adjusted one of her suspenders and then twisted to look behind her, ensuring the seams of her fishnet stockings were straight. The 'costume' was more revealing than she'd imagined, the lacy black bullet bra was rather more transparent than she would have liked and she was sure her nipples were visible at the tips of its tightly stitched cones, the blue satin corset was a little more solid and, she thought, gave her a nice tight waist, but then came the knickers which were cut shamefully high on her thighs and, as her friends would have said, 'showed a lot of cheek'; she was, truth be told, rather glad that Ashra had shaved her. She did rather liked the stockings; they definitely made her legs looked very shapely and the heels rivaled Ashra's, the sort of thing she'd always wanted to wear in public but never dared.

If only Joseph was here to see.

'Deux minutes, Madmoiselle.'

Pearl smiled and wrapped the black feather boa around her neck before tottering as steadily as she could behind the stage hand. She wasn't quite sure she was going to be able to dance in the heels, but then she suspected the men watching wouldn't be as critical of her technique as her childhood dance teacher; it was probably fortunate she reflected, given what was about to happen that the dance teacher had been an American and somewhat progressive; she doubted her prowess in the waltz would prove very useful. It wasn't really that sort of establishment.

The cabarets she'd seen at the Moulin Rouge and on the Champs Elysees would be far more useful as a basis for her 'act'.

A moment later she was standing at the side of the little wooden stage watching the final gyrations of Glamouros Greta now wearing little more than nipple tassels and a pair of knickers that were half the size of Pearls. Given that Glamourous Greta was a rather voluptuous lady (who was probably approaching twice Pearl's age) this meant she was clad in little more than her heavily roughed smile.

After an enthusiastic round of applause and some appreciative whistles, Greta gathered the bra and short skirt in which she had started her act and tottered down the stairs into the crowd, taking a seat at a table to one side of a stage beside an older man in a black uniform that Pearl knew marked him as a member of the SS.

Then, suddenly, Pearl found herself stepping onto the stage to a fanfare from the house band and the sobriquet 'Die Schoen Arielle'. Her reception was polite and reserved compared to that accorded to Greta but her presence clearly drew the attention of her audience and she forced herself to smile, pleased that the lights meant she could not clearly see the critical anticipation she imagined to be in their gazes.

The evening was warm and humid, close, the air of the club filled with tobacco smoke and the stage lights were suddenly bright and very hot; for a moment she faltered, but then the band progressed to the sleazy jazz number she'd rehearsed that afternoon and Pearl began to sway her hips.

Getting herself hired had been easy; aside from Greta, there were no other European women working at the club and, she had been offered a job almost as soon as she had appeared on stage in the costume she had been given to audition in; she had barely danced more than a few steps or sung more than a bar. She'd spent the afternoon rehearsing with band and being taught some appropriate dance moves by the club's 'resident choreographer' Abdul.

She knew the first song well and that gave her confidence as she swayed and strutted across the stage doing all the sorts of things a well brought up young lady should never do and displaying parts of her body in ways she'd never had the opportunity to display before (and had never expected to). By the second number, she felt more comfortable and began to peer across the footlights at the men beyond sitting at tables drinking wine and schnapps. They were, as far as she could see, mostly German officers and 'girls', though the details were difficult to make out in the dark, smoky atmosphere of the club, beyond the harsh glare of the stage lights. However, she could tell mostly the girls were nearly all dressed in little more than Pearl herself and some in considerably less.

The men sat at small tables in groups of two or three, though some were alone, glasses set before them and bottles of schnapps or wine. Whether they were watching her dance or listening to her sing was difficult to tell, but she did seem to have their rapt attention and felt a little thrill run through her body at the looks she was receiving, reveling in the wickedness of her situation and recalling for a moment her nights with Joseph where she had played slave girl and wondering now if this was any different, being forced to display herself for the pleasure of men.

She stumbled only once, descending the stairs at the start of her final number in which she had been instructed to 'work the audience'. She had seen Greta do this, giving particular attention to a man sitting alone to the right of the stage. The dancer now sat on the man's lap with her arms draped around his neck.

There were at least a dozen other girls in the club, clearly there for the sole pleasure of the men. One knelt on a table with her legs apart facing away from the stage, her hands behind her back and, Pearl noticed, that her wrists were tied; another knelt beside a table at which three officers were drinking, her hands were behind her back and, Pearl suddenly realised, she had a collar around her neck with a lead attached that was looped around the wrist of a black uniformed Gestapo officer; she seemed to be holding something in her mouth.

Pearl almost missed her step when she saw that one of the men at the table was Oberst Eichmann.

Pearl strutted around the room bending and twisting and shaking parts of her body that an ambassador's daughter wasn't supposed to shake and, by now, thoroughly enjoying the attention she was receiving. A few of the men, generally those with empty wine bottles on their tables reached for her and she carefully avoided their advances although she caught a number of slaps on the bottom. The first horrified her but she had seen girls in clubs in Paris treated this way and, after she had endured two or three found she didn't actually mind, wondering why so many men had the impression that girls were always naughty and needed to be spanked. (However, in her case, she realised they were probably right).

She didn't need to wonder what her father would make of all this, or her friends from the Sorbonne. The thought of their response made her smile.

She looked up to see Eichmann watching her and despite her reservations, began to move towards him dancing for him as the saxophone whispered to the swirl of steel brushes on the drums.

Greta Garbo as Mata Hari came to mind and with it the thrill of adventure. Pearl tried not to think what had become of the beautiful spy.

As she approached Eichmann's table she passed the woman kneeling with her back to the stage; her wrists were indeed bound behind her and Pearl could clearly see dark lines across her back. She knelt with her head down, naked aside from a tiny wisp of silk wrapped around her waist; as she passed the girl, Pearl could see she was gagged with a leather strap that held a ring between her teeth forcing her mouth open; more shockingly than that, she had what appeared to be metal pegs on her breasts, clipped to her nipples; between the pegs was a chain and from the chain hang a weight. Two officers sat at the table and, as Pearl passes one of them set the weight swinging causing the girl to give a little cry and saliva to run from her open mouth, dripping down her body.

Pearl looked away, the realisation of the risk she was taking suddenly more clearly manifest. However, there was no turning back now.

The woman kneeling, collared, beside Eichmann's table fared little better, like the unfortunate girl in the table, she was clearly of Arabic origin with large dark eyes and lustrous black hair that cascaded about her shoulders and most of the way down her back. Aside from the collar, she wore silk stockings and a suspender belt, nothing else; the object in her mouth was a riding whip and Pearl could see it had been used on her. She now knew what the marks on the other girl's back were.

Pearl's mouth went suddenly dry and she found herself battling with fear and revulsion, forcing herself to drape the boa around Eichmann's neck, watching as his eyes roved up and down, studying her body. She saw him smile, a cruel smile and turned away swaying before him, shaking her bottom in his face and then bending forward as she had seen Greta do during her act.

The slap when it came was harder than she'd expected but she turned making herself frown playfully and lifting her toe of her stiletto onto his chair, the toes between his spread legs as the music finished.

For a moment, he continued to regard her then lifted his hand and gently ran his fingers along the inside of her thigh, tracing the line of her suspender. She tried not to flinch.

Still caressing her thigh, he turned to one of his colleagues and said something that Pearl was too distracted catch.

'Ja, Herr Oberst.' The man stood quickly and Eichmann turned back to her and began to clap his hands together.

There was a polite round of applause around her. In this room, Obersturmbannfuhrer Eichmann may not be the senior ranking officer but he was the senior ranking SS officer.

Then the German turned away, his hand falling back to the table.

Pearl felt a wave of relief and then bitter disappointment. She sighed and lifted her foot off the chair, turning back towards the stage.

'Fraulein.' He caught her wrist and she turned back to see the Eichmann's fellow officer setting a chair down for her. The colonel gestured politely and Pearl sat.

'Wie heissen Sie ?'

Pearl regarded him as blankly as she could though she understood what he said perfectly.

'Comment vous appellez-vous ?' He spoke French with a German accent.

'Airelle.' She smiled, using her stage name and pseudonym, infiltrating the word with as much flirtatiousness as possible, something that was infinitely easier in French.

'Ah, French ?'

'Belgian, Colonel.'

'Charming.' His French was idiomatic and fluent despite the slight accent. She would need to be on her guard lest he see through her deception. 'Please, join me as my guest.'

Pearl leaned forward and affected a smile. 'Thank, you Colonel.'

He signaled to the waiter who set an extra glass down on the table beside the bottle that the officers were sharing. Pearl looked up to thank him but the waiter avoided her gaze, stepping away from the table with an almost undue haste. Beside the glasses and the officers hats sitting on the table bearing the eagle and the sinister totenkopf lay, ominously, a pair of handcuffs.

'Schnapps ?' Eichmann looked at her expectantly.

'Oh, Colonel !' Pearl tried to refuse politely but he poured her a shot then, raising his own glass downed it one.

Pearl took a deep breath and followed his lead tensing herself for the inevitable fire that burned in her throat and roiled down to her belly.

Eichmann smiled, his cheeks reflecting the warmth forming in her own.

Herr Obersturmmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann was, terrifyingly charming and, had it not been for the black SS dress uniform and the circumstance, Pearl would have shown no reluctance to pass an evening at dinner with him if they'd met at one of the parties she'd attended occasionally with her father in Berlin. He was, it seemed, widely read, and clearly an intelligent man.

As she downed a third shot of schnapps, Pearl forced herself to keep remembering the kneeling Arab girl, collared and chained at the men's feet and the other, kneeling on the table with those terrible clamps on her nipples. She feared what this man might do to her if he had the opportunity and here, in the Bar Aryan he had every opportunity.

He tried to push her to take fourth glass of schnapps but she told him she had to sing again and this seemed to placate him.


CHAPTER 13: THE SPIDER'S LAIR

With the three shots inside her, Pearl was sure she performed rather better in her second set though she stayed up on the stage, not trusting herself to move among the tables below where the men were becoming increasingly rowdy. A number of girls were being pulled onto laps and Pearl saw one lead away by one of the officers, crawling leashed on her hands and knees beside the man's boots. The officer carried a whip in one hand.

As she sang, Pearl tried to keep as much eye contact with Eichmann. Aside from running his fingers so intimately along her thigh when she had first stood before him, he had made no attempt to touch her or to use the handcuffs that lay on the table. Might talking be enough to entrap him, might he give some clue to the location of the missing scientist ? Pearl wished she wasn't trying to think with three shots of schnapps inside her or while trying to sing.

How far would she go ? She had already found Eichmann charming, a gentleman. She couldn't believe he would make crawl her out of the room on all fours. Would she just be able to talk to him ? Surely he would expect more from...a showgirl. And if he took her somewhere - there had to be rooms in the club - what fate might await her. Might he tie or chain her...?

When she left the stage, he was waiting for her.

'Mademoiselle ?' He took her hand. 'I thought, perhaps, you would like to play.' He held up the handcuffs.

Pearl swallowed and remembered Mata Hari.

'Oui, Monsiuer.' She put on her prettiest French accent. 'I can be such a bad girl. I am hoping you will be very firm with me...n'est ce pas ?'

Eichmann snapped the cuffs on her wrists and lead her from the bar.

Pearl was surprised by the rush of feelings that surged through her. She'd expected fear, felt it, almost run, but she'd also felt something else, a surge of excitement, a step up in the adventure, a new level of thrill.

There was something else too, something dark and secret, a thrill of a completely different kind, a kind with which she was rapidly becoming more familiar.

As she tripped along beside Eichmann, his hand on her arm, leading her, once again in bondage, half naked, a captive...a slave.

He navigated a passageway where they encountered another officer leading a different girl, a brunette who was strapped into some sort of leather harness, she had a harness around her head too holding a steel bar between her teeth and the officer lead her by leather straps clipped to rings at each end of this bar. There were feathers fastened to the top of the head harness...bridle, Pearl realised; the girl was a human pony ! She even wore boots that made her feet look like hooves. The officer saluted Eichmann as they passed, touching the whip he carried to the peak of his cap and the brunette looked at Pearl with fear in her dark eyes.

At the end of the corridor they went down some stairs to the basement of the club where the air was cooler and the floor stone, stopping before a steel door that looked like it might lead to a cell. Pearl shivered even while a part of her yearned to know what was beyond. Eichmann opened the door and pushed her inside.

The room had a stone floor and walls which magnified the click of her heels; it smelt of disinfectant, impersonal, intimidating. A single lightbulb illuminated the room, adding to its bleakness. Pearl swallowed feeling her flesh rise into goosebumps. It was a cell, and a torture chamber. The ceiling was supported by two iron pillars both hung with manacles and in the centre of the room was a heavy wooden chair fitted with broad leather straps and bolted to the floor The only degree of comfort was provided by was a metal framed bed against the far wall on which rested a thin mattress however, this too was fitted with restraints, thick leather straps like those on the chair; another leather strap was curled in the centre of the bed and was linked by a chain to a bolt in the wall and beside it a second strap that was padded in the centre.

Eichmann guided Pearl to the bed, making her stand beside it. Then he stepped behind her and she thought he might be picking something up from the bed but she resolved not to turn and look recalling the marks on the bodies of the girls in the club upstairs. She jumped as he parted her hair and suppressed a tremor as he slid the cool leather strap around her neck and buckled it firmly in place. Then she felt his hands slide over her shoulders and down her body onto her breasts; he seemed to recognise immediately the stiffness of her nipples and gently teased them.

Pearl shuddered again, violently, horrified at her body's response to such treatment.

'I can see you are an aficionado, mademoiselle.' He teased her stiff nipples.

Perhaps, Pearl told herself, it was fear that made them so erect but she knew it wasn't.

Eichmann's hands slid lower pulling her gently but firmly back against him, the bulge of his stiff cock firm against her buttocks and, to her shame, Pearl knew his excitement mirrored her own.

She jumped, pressing herself inadvertently against him when the door suddenly opened.

Pearl recongnised the woman who entered immediately; Frau Fickhase; the woman who had overpowered her and tied her up on the airship. A flood of fear engulfed her and she looked down quickly fearful that the woman might recognise her.

'Ah, Leutnant.' Eichmann spoke German. 'You are just in time. Mademoiselle Arielle and I were just getting acquainted. I must confess she seems to share our own pleasures.'

Klara Fickhase wore a uniform of sorts, a grey blouse with a black tie and a military jacket showing her rank stretched over her large breasts; her skirt was black leather and impossibly tight, tapering to the knee so that she walked with tiny, mincing steps in a pair of shiny black boots that forced her up onto her tiptoes.

In her leather gloved hands she carried a whip similar to the one the kneeling girl in the bar had held in her teeth.

She glared at Pearl and then turned her attention for Eichmann whose hands still cupped Pearl's breasts

'I apologise for my lateness, mein Oberst.' She spoke in a southern German accent, clicking her heels and bowing formally. 'I had reached a rather critical point with our...subject.'

Eichmann looked up sharply. 'She is willing to cooperate ?'

Fickhase looked at Pearl.

'She does not speak German.' Eichmann told her.

Fickhase gave a slightly skeptical look but then continued. 'I feel it will not be long before that is the case.' She smiled cruelly. 'There is only so much a woman can take.'

Eichmann nodded, suppressing a smile, kneading Pearl's breasts as Fickhase began to undress. Beneath the blouse she wore a leather bra that made her large breasts jut out like cones and she removed the skirt to reveal a pair of leather knickers. Pearl watched as she picked up the whip, tapping it against the top of her boot before striding towards Eichmann, confident despite the incredible heels.

Pearl thought that bondage must be, to some degree, part of the female psyche, the way all women's garments seemed to confine the female form, forcing it into unnatural positions. It was little wonder women seemed to enjoy bondage when they were brought up with it.

The blonde reached out and took hold of Eichmann's hand, pulling it away from Pearl's breasts before drawing him into an embrace. Then, she kissed him passionately on the lips, pressing her body against his as Pearl stood with her head bowed waiting.

Eventually, Frau Fickhase pulled away and turned her attention to Pearl.

'I'd have thought she was a little skinny for your tastes...and these are rather small.' She reached out and squeezed Pearl's left breast.

Pearl shot her a glance before she realised she was not supposed to understand German and suppressed a retort that at least she was a real blonde. She bowed her head again.

'But I think you'll find her quite responsive.' Eichmann held Fickhase in his arms.

'Really.' The blonde pushed the tip of the riding crop up under Pearl's chin forcing her head up.

Pearl met her gaze briefly, fearing that she was about to be recognised but the moment passed.

'Why don't you two play together ?' Eichmann suggested.

Fickhase looked at him then back at Pearl.

'Knie !'

Pearl had to force herself not to respond but she couldn't help flinching when the other woman lifted the whip, cowering further as the woman shouted loudly at her to obey. She was suddenly aware of how vulnerable she was, alone in this underground dungeon, chained to the wall by her neck.

Eichmann raised his hand to stop Fickhase from striking her. 'I told you ! She doesn't speak German.'

'How disappointing.' Frau Fickhase took hold of the chain attached to Pearl's collar. 'Francias ?' Her French was thickly accented.

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl nodded.

Still holding the chain like a lead, Frau Fickhase used her other hand to slide Pearl's brastraps off her shoulder.

'They really are rather pathetic.' Fickhase appraised Pearl's breasts again, pinching them with her fingers and then pulling on the nipples. 'Where are the clamps ?'

'Marin and currently wearing them.'

'Such a shame.' Frau Fickhase pinched Pearl's right nipple. 'I suppose that means I'll have to spank you instead.'

She looked Pearl in the eye.

'Have you ever been spanked, little French bitch ?'

Pearl shook her head a fraction.

'Do not lie to me.'

'Just once, Maitress.'

'And did you enjoy it ?'

Pearl hesitated feeling herself colour despite her fear. 'A little, Maitress.

'You see ?' Eichmann told her. 'She likes to be treated this way.'

'We'll see.' Fickhase pulled Pearl closer to her and slid her hand into the front of Pearl's knickers, pushing her fingers between the girl's legs, probing.

Pearl looked at her with an expression of shock and fear knowing what the woman had found, knowing what it said about her.

'She's wet.'

Eichmann clapped his hands as Fickhase pulled her hand away and lifted it to show her fingers to Pearl.

'On your knees you little French bitch.' Frau Fickhase pulled down on the collar forcing Pearl down onto her knees then she sat on the bed and used the collar to pull Pearl across her lap.

The spanking was more intense than the one she'd enjoyed at the hands of Joseph and the silk knickers offered no protection at all. She lay still across the other woman's lap for the first half a dozen sharp blows feeling her bottom heating until the skin burned, by a dozen she was crying out and by two dozen squirming and sobbing.

'Keep still you little French bitch.' Fickhaus delivered an even more vicious blow and Pearl yelped loudly.

'I think you'd better gag her.' Eichmann sat in the heavy chair, the one with the straps, watching.

'Yes, Mein Herr.' Frau Fickhase's voice contained a tremor of excitement and Pearl felt her lean to pick up the padded strap that lay on the bed beside her. 'Open your mouth, whore.'

Pearl had no choice but to comply and Fickhase pushed the sour-tasting leather between her teeth before drawing the strap tight behind her head. Another seven blows followed, sharp stinging slaps that made Pearl bite down on the leather gag.

'Enough.' Eichmann raised his hand and, mercifully, the beating stopped.

Through her tears, Pearl could see how much he was enjoying the show Fickhase was putting on for him.

'Why don't you show Arielle how a real woman takes her spanking ?'

Pearl twisted on Fickhase's lap and saw the blonde smile.

'Ja, Mein Herr.' She stood, tipping Pearl onto the stone floor then reached behind her back and undid the leather bra, sliding her heavy breasts out of it and dropping the garment beside Pearl; the she slid out of the leather knickers before dropping to her knees and crawling towards Eichmann.

Pearl lay on her side, watching; the sensuous way the woman moved and the slick wetness of her labia showed the pleasure she'd gained from delivering the beating and the reward she was about to earn from her master. For all her military training, this was a sensual woman and, for a moment Pearl was jealous as she watched Fickhase climb onto Eichmann's lap, her hands and booted feet resting on the floor.

Eichmann spanked her fiercely but she barely flinched, turning after a dozen to look at Pearl with an expression of triumph on her face.

'Fetch the whip.'

'Ja.' It was the first time Frau Fickhase had shown any loss of control but the tremour in her voice was evident as she slipped from Eichmann's lap and crawled to the bed to retrieve the discarded whip, picking it up in her teeth before crawling back to present it to her master.

She took a dozen blows to the bottom, her taut sculpted body holding its position, stoically and, though she flinched occasionally she did not cry out despite the obvious pain of the beating.

She then knelt up and took six more to the breasts.

There were tears in her eyes when she turned to look at Pearl but at that moment, Eichmann stood and unbuttoned his trousers and she turned back to him letting slip a little smile of triumph and Pearl watched as the blonde guided her lover's stiffly erect cock into her mouth.

Pearl knew this was something that some women did for men, mostly women who were paid to do it and she knew that many men enjoyed it. She'd heard the term 'French polishing' used to describe it. Eichmann was clearly a man who enjoyed such things and the sidelong glances from Fickhase told her she was a women who, for some reason enjoyed delivering it, down on her knees, submissive...


CHAPTER 14: SECRETS LEARNED

Most of the thick white fluid went into Fickhase's open mouth and she swallowed greedily as Eichmann ejaculated. The rest spattered across her face but she made no effort to wipe it away though she did smile and lick her red lips.

Eichmann smiled too, a malevolent grin of sadistic pleasure. He'd been watching Pearl even as the kneeling blonde had been sucking his cock and he continued to regard her as he absently stroked the kneeling woman's hair.

'You know, I think our guest rather enjoyed that. Why don't you go and give her some pleasure too.'

'Ja, Mein Herr.' Fickhase turned to look at Pearl and then began to crawl towards her. The semen across her face clung to her eyelashes a ran from the corner of her mouth, a drop clung to her chin. Her immaculate make-up was now smudged, much of the lipstick smeared on Eichman's cock.

Pearl lay on her side, still cuffed and chained to the wall by the leather collar, helpless before the predatory blonde, a lamb to the slaughter.

Fickhase pinned Pearl down, crouching over her then used her teeth to pull off her knickers. Pearl watched her nervously. Fickhase was a natural athlete, bigger and more powerful; even if she had not be chained, Pearl would not have been able to fight her off.

'Don't be frightened, little French bitch.' Fickhase's breath smelt of the semen she had just swallowed. 'Maman will look after you.'

She took Pearl's hair in her fist and pulled her head back, pressing her lips to Pearl's neck, licking at her jaw and then nipping at her neck with her teeth.

Pearl tried to pull back but Fickhase had her pinned down and held her firmly. She looked up at Eichmann and saw him playing with his cock which was beginning to swell again. Fickhase's lips moved down to her chest and onto her breasts, licking and biting them and, suddenly, she felt a hand between her legs.

'Still wet, the little whore.' Fickhase spoke in her accented French.

'Nong !' Pearl knew her protest sounded weak, not just because of the gag.

'Do you want to be spanked again, little French whore ?'

Pearl shook her head; her bottom was still burning.

'Then cum for me like the little slut you are. Entendez ?'

Pearl nodded.

The fingers between her legs were insistent, stroking, teasing; the sensation was not unpleasant but was so wrong. She wasn't naive enough not to realise that some women did this; there had been moments at school when she had felt an unnatural attraction to one of the girls in the year above her, dreaming once that the girl was chasing her and then, for the next few weeks fantaising that she had actually been caught, pinned down...

The thought reminded her of Ashra, of their all too brief kiss. Fickhase's tongue raked over her sex and she gasped with surprise...shock...pleasure.

It was just like the night when Joseph had done this to her.

She tried very hard not to enjoy it and almost succeeded but the woman's tongue was very persuasive, teasing, touching, stimulating and that body, so strong and fit, not unlike Inge, the girl at school with her large breasts and athletic build.

And Pearl's body simply yearned to experience again the utter joy of sexual satisfaction.

She gasped, climaxing almost unexpectedly; she had known she was near, just not realised how close; it wasn't as intense as the pleasure Joseph had given her but it was enough to make her wish for more.

'Good girl.' Eichmann stood over them, his cock in his hand, pumping it. The flesh at the head was red and hot and there was a white fluid running from the tip; a moment later it twitched and another cascade of ejaculate spurted out across Pearl's belly.

Pearl's look of horror only faded when Fickhase began to lick it off.

'Why don't you show Arielle your skills, my dear ?' Eichmann and Fickhase had enjoyed a drink while Pearl had been left cuffed and collared and gagged, lying on the floor by the bed, the German's semen, mixed with the woman's saliva drying on her body and her lingerie.

'Ja, Mein Herr.' Fickhase stood from where she knelt by the colonel, utterly confident in her nakedness, perfectly balanced on the punishing heels.

Despite what she stood for, Pearl couldn't help admiring the German woman, the strength with which she carried herself, confident in a world ruled by men yet willing, desirous even to be dominated.

She seemed to enjoy being ordered around and abused by Eichmann.

Pearl watched as the blonde took a coil of rope from the wall and turned, walking back towards her, then standing over her. Fickhase was shaved like Pearl and as she stood with her legs apart the pink folds of her labia were clearly visible. To Pearl, she seemed suddenly tall and powerfully dominant though there was clearly a tension in her body, a need like the one she had just satisfied in Pearl who suddenly felt a desire to repay the blonde.

Fickhase smiled as if reading her thoughts.

'If you're a good little bitch, I'll let you lick me later.'

Pearl felt her face flush even as she rolled onto her belly and, pushing her tongue past the leather gag, ran it over the shiny leather of the woman's boots.

'Tie her properly and hood her.' Eichmann still sat in the bondage chair watching them.

'Ja, Mein Herr.' Fickhase squatted and began to remove the remains of Pearl's underwear and stockings.

Once she had stripped her, Fickhase began to bind Pearl. She did not remove the cuffs, but did cinch ropes around Pearl's wrists pinning them together. She then moved up her arms, tightening the ropes until Pearl's elbows were touching.

Pearl lay on her belly offering no resistance.

It was the second time the blonde had tied her and somehow this made it feel familiar. Her increased understanding of what it felt like to be bound and the pleasure it brought her actually seemed to make the process enjoyable and she recalled the way she'd sat in the cinema in Berlin; that was not the first time she'd imagined she was tied up but now she understood what had driven her to think about it.

With Pearl's arms securely bound, Fickhase sat her up and began to loop coils of rope around her chest and shoulders, pulling them tight so that her shoulders were drawn back, breasts thrust out, framed by coils of rope. The process was an intimate exchange, rope and hands on bare flesh, fingers caressing skin, brushing nipples. The Frau Fickhase pushed Pearl down onto her belly and began to bind her legs, ankle to thigh, her calves pressed against the back of her thighs, cinched tight. When Pearl struggled slightly she earned a sharp blow to her already sore bottom that brought with it a heat that made her forget the cold stone of the floor on which she lay.

When Frau Fickhase stood, leaving her bound and more helpless than she might ever have thought possible, Pearl felt bereft, abandoned by this woman who had lavished so much attention on her body, lying on her side looking at the shiny leather of her mistress' boots.

Mistress. The thought shocked her. It was the natural conclusion of slaves being owned by masters, it was just the female equivalent.

Pearl wondered if Ashra had ever owned slaves and if they were male or female.

However, Frau Fickhase was not quite finished. Pearl had thought her simply playing with the rope, twisting and knotting it. She lifted Pearl to her knees and tied a rope around those which were knotted between her breasts, then the ran this down between Pearl's legs and up between her buttocks; the rope she had braided now sat firmly against Pearl's sex, a sex that was wet and now hot again and every time she moved it rubbed.

She hadn't understood the knotted crotch rope when she'd been bound before.

Frau Fickhase tied off the crotch-rope and reached down to tease Pearl's nipples.

'It is the shame we don't have the clamps.' She pinched them hard.

'I'm sure you can make do, my dear.' Eichmann still watched intently.

Pearl knelt, helpless, gagged and bound, feeling like their captive, their plaything...the thought made her shudder.

More ropes were added, crossing and around her nipples and these added to Pearl's arousal, rubbing gently as she breathed or moved.

'You were right, Herr Oberst.' Fickhase squatted in front of Pearl admiring her ropework. 'This bitch does enjoy our games. Perhaps we could take her back to Berlin as a pet.'

'A companion for the current object of your affection in Kultak.' Eichmann added.

Fickhase looked at him sharply and then back at Pearl. Then, abruptly she leaned forward and licked Pearl's nipples, the right first and then the left.

'You would enjoy the clamps.' Frau Fickhase was panting and her cheeks flushed.

'Hood her.' Eichmann smiled. 'Then we should go to bed.'

'Ja, Mein Herr.' Fickhase rose elegantly, standing for a moment in front of the kneeling woman, her sex mere inches from Pearl's face before leaning down and opening the drawer of the little cabinet beside the bed. She pulled out something made of black leather shaking it out to reveal its true purpose. It would cover the wearer's eyes but there was an opening for the mouth and two smaller holes that clearly went below the nose.

Pearl looked at it in horror, shaking her head and starting to struggle.

'Do not resist.' Fickhase's voice was firm but not harsh, calming, though she held Pearl firmly by the hair. 'The hood heightens the senses.'

The last was whispered into Pearl's ear before the hood was pulled over her head engulfing her in darkness and the scent of leather. Panic rose for a moment but she managed to suppress it, by concentrating on her breathing as she knelt in her bonds while Fickhase tightened the straps at the back of the hood.

Then she was alone, isolated; when she strained to listen, she could hear Fickhaus and Eichmann moving around. When they spoke their words were muffled but discernible. She could visualise them together, touching, kissing; Eichmann undressing, Frau Fickhase removing her boots. The bedsprings creaked and she hear a soft giggle. A hand sought her breast and fingers pinched her nipple.

'Good night my little pet.' The voice was Fickhase's.

The Eichmann said 'I am expecting your full attention, my dear or do I have to restrain you ?'

'I was hoping you might do that anyway.' Fickhase's voice was sensual, aroused.

Pearl knelt, helpless, squirming in frustration as Fickhase's cries rose to climax.

The club concierge removed Pearl's hood the next morning, promising her coffee. Apparently the staff at the club were used to finding their showgirls in this sort of state. He even had a key to the handcuffs. She realised as he began to untie her that she did not feel the least concerned about him handling her like this.

In the corridor beyond she suddenly heard voices raised then recognised Joseph's.

'Yes...' he said. 'The cabaret artist, the blonde with the small breasts.'

She looked up to see him enter, enjoying the look on his face as he saw her like this and took in her surroundings. She smiled around the gag finding herself pleased that he had found her naked and in bondage then realised how awful she must appear after a night in the hood, her face flushed and her hair limp and damp.

It took some time to untie her and Joseph did not interfere with the work of the concierge who clearly knew his business. She wondered briefly how Joseph had got access to the club but then, the staff were Arabic or from one of the local tribes; it was the Berbers she recalled. Surely he could have gleaned information from the staff here and, for a moment, she wondered how necessary it had been for her to be here at all. Then she grinned; if she was not needed, he had brought her because he wanted to; besides, she had some very important information to give him.

When she was finally free she stood before him and slapped his face.

'What did I do to deserve that ?' He protested. 'I could not have come any sooner.'

'You said I had small breasts !' She pouted and stomped from the underground room so angry she was almost oblivious of the fact she was completely naked. It was, she knew, partly this and partly the intense sexual frustration she felt as a result of lying beside the bed, chained at the neck like the 'bitch' Fickhase had said she was; lying in helpless bondage while the two German's made love; hearing the blonde's cries of pleasure as she was finally given sexual release. The ropes across her nipples and crotch didn't help, stimulating her every time she moved or stretched to ease the cramps in her muscles.

She could only hope Jospeh would fuck her hard later.


CHAPTER 15: SECRETS REVEALED

She forgave him later as she had always done, sliding her hands around his neck and kissing him with an urgency that surprised him.

'Take me to bed.'

It was the middle of the day and they had breakfasted at a small cafe round the corner from the room they were renting.

'You are full of surprises.' Joseph held her and kissed her back, enjoying the press of her body against his, the urgency of her desires kindling his own.

Joseph pulled off his shirt and when he looked again, the torn remains of her blouse were gone too. She was naked beneath. They had gathered up her lingerie but she had not put it back on.

'And how did you get that ?' He pointed to a bruise on her right breast that would only be a bite mark. There were two others on her left breast and, now that he looked several on her neck too.

'In the line of duty, Master.' She smiled at him with a confidence, an archness he would not have believed but a few days ago.

'You are very dedicated to your work.' He bent and kissed her breast. 'But I don't recall you telling me about this earlier.'

'I wasn't sure it was relevant.' She had told him about Kultak and, after some enquiries, Joseph had discovered it was an old French airbase few miles outside the city that had recently been bought up by an overseas investor. A few Moroccan franc's had gained him the knowledge that the new owner was a German businessman.

'And is there anything else you learnt last night that I might be interested in ?'

She shrugged. 'There might be.' She bent and unbuttoned her skirt, sliding it down her legs in a way that could only be described as 'knowing.'

He watched her kick off her heels then she reached out and took his hand drawing him towards the bed. He noticed again the rope marks on her wrists.

There were bruises on her buttocks too and the back of her thighs.

'You really did have a busy night.' He tried to keep his voice light but the marks concerned him. 'I hope from what you learnt, that you will not need to do it again.'

She turned and looked at him for a moment, a slight frown crossing her face before she smiled again. Then she released his hand and turned away standing with her knees against the frame of the little metal bed.

She crossed her wrists behind her back.

'Tie me up.'

'Pearl.'

She turned with he half smile on her face. 'Please.' There was an urgency in her voice. 'I like it.'

He used his belt to bind her wrists then she turned and kissed him again.

'Perhaps I will show you something I learnt last night.'

She dropped to her knees and tugged at the button his trousers blushing when it did not easily yield. He reached down and undid it with his fingers.

'I think I need to practice.' She tugged at his fly and the smaller buttons parted easily. Then she pulled down his trousers with her teeth.

His cock swung out, stiff, the tip already starting to drool and he saw her frown.

She looked up at him. 'Are most men as big as you ?'

Joseph was rather taken aback. 'Er...I don't...well, I think I'm...quite a good size.'

'You're much bigger than Eichmann.' She had an amused look as she said it then she ran her tongue along the side of his cock.

'I'm wondering if this is a service that slaves are often asked to perform.' As she spoke she ducked beneath his cock and licked the other side.

'They are certainly required to be silent when they perform it.'

'Yes, Master.' She smirked and took the tip of his cock in her mouth, holding it gently between her lips and then licking it with her tongue.

Joseph gave a low gasp, amazed once more at this woman kneeling before him.

His cock twitched and a little thrill of pleasure ran through him. He pushed forward slightly but she leant back, grinning slightly then flicked his tip with her tongue.

'Ow !' It was not painful but it did jar him slightly.

'Doo har.. ?' She kept her mouth around his cock as she spoke.

'Just be careful.' He felt another rush of pleasure. 'I'd hate anything to be damaged.'

She released him. 'I'll remember to be careful.'

Then she took him onto her mouth again, sliding her lips up his shaft, until the tip touched the back of her mouth. He felt her pause for a moment, pull back and then push her lips forward, felt the back of her mouth against the tip of his cock, felt her push a little harder, taking him deeper.

His hands went to her head, stroking her hair even as he had to control himself, resisting the desire to grab hold of her, to force himself down into her throat.

She moved back and forth again, slowly, her lips sliding along his cock in a motion that brought him to increasing bliss. Each time she managed to take him a little deeper, to increase his pleasure a little more.

He could feel his orgasm approaching and, this time, steadied her. She seemed to understand and slowed the pace at which she worked, letting him step back from the edge and build again.

He saw he glance up at him, a flash of those lovely hazel eyes and his cock twtiched in her mouth. She seemed to smile and then she looked down at the task in hand.

Working diligently she brought him near to climax and then backed off, quickly understanding the required level of stimulation, taking him repeatedly into her throat until he could barely control himself. Then, suddenly he could hold back no more, and his cock twitched violently, his balls jumping, shooting his load into her mouth with a cry of ecstasy that could not have been muffled by the thin walls of the room.

He realised afterwards that he should probably have warned her that, unlike the street whores and other women he was used to, this was almost certainly the first time she had ever done this for a man; but when she looked up, it was with a gleam of triumph and, as she slid her mouth away from his cock she looked up at him and licked her lips.

The he saw her swallow.

He really hadn't expected that and he was in such a blissful state that couldn't help laughing at the sour expression that crossed her face.

Pearl knocked on the door in the back room of the Aryan club. She felt more nervous here at this moment than she had before going on stage the previous night. She had just performed her set for the second night achieving a warmer reception, though whether this was due to familiarity or her association with Eichmann she was not sure. Joseph was off investigating Kultak. She had offered to accompany him but he had refused and when she told him he should not be going alone he had laughed saying he was a black man in Africa and it would be dark ! She hadn't specifically said she was going back to the club, but then again, she hadn't specifically said she wasn't. She'd reasoned she might learn more but she had found Eichmann absent and, according to the luftwaffe navigator with who'm she had spent the last hour sharing a bottle of wine he had gone back to Berlin; the airman hadn't stated his feelings on the matter but he had seemed relieved and they had gone on to discuss French literature, fashion and Busby Berkley musicals.

She hadn't been surprised when the man had left without her and she could easily have gone back to the room to wait for Joseph. She'd just chosen not to.

The door to the room opened a crack and a pale blue eye appeared.

'Oh ?' Frau Fickhase looked out at her then pulled to door open. She was wearing the leather bra and knickers and the boots and, as always, she was impeccably made up, lip gloss and blusher, heavy eyeliner and mascara. 'If you are looking for Herr Oberst Eichmann...' she said coldly in her accented French, '...then he is not here.'

Pearl noticed she refrained from adding 'little French bitch.'

'It is not Herr Eichmann I am looking for !'

'Then why are you here ?' Frau Fickhase stepped forward, her large athletic frame filling the small doorway. In the boots she was a head taller than Pearl.

Pearl took a deep breath then reached out, her arm sliding around Frau Fickhase's neck and pulling her head down. At the same time, she leant forward and pressed her mouth against the blonde's.

Her action appeared to take Frau Fickhase by surprise then the woman kissed her back, her arms sliding round Pearl's waist and pulling her against her body; Pearl felt the pressure of the woman's breasts against her and the strangeness of her sex, so...flat. Their tongues engaged, pressing into each other's mouths, and when Pearl pulled her mouth away both were breathing rapidly.

'Spank me again.' Pearl gasped, having to force herself not to lapse into German.

There was only a moments pause before Frau Fickhase dragged her inside and pushed the door shut; then she grabbed the front of Pearl's blouse and ripped it open; it was wearing the one she had borrowed from Ashra; she had bought some buttons in the market and repaired it. Once again, buttons popped'

Pearl realised she would never be able to return it to Ashra now.

In a second the carefully ripped skirt was torn away revealing Pearl's stage costume, the black silk knickers, stockings and suspenders.

'Kneel !' Fickhase spoke her order in French this time and Pearl obeyed.

On the bed was a studded collar and leash. Fickhase snatched it up and buckled the collar around Pearl's neck then she took up the leash, striding towards the door and Pearl followed, crawling on all fours to heel.

A few minutes later, they were in the underground room again, Pearl naked now and stretched between the two pillars, her arms spread, ropes tied around her wrists. Fickhase stood behind her still in the leather bra and knickers. The woman was so close that Pearl could feel the warmth of her body.

'I heard you sing this evening.' Fickhase ran a fingernail gently down Pearl's back and she fought to suppress the tremble of excitement. 'You are very talented.'

'Thank you, Maitress.'

'You sound a little too refined to be a chorus girl.' Fickhase took hold of Pearl's hair and drew her head back firmly. 'Too...educated.'

Pearl stiffened, a cold knot of fear beginning to grow in her belly, realising suddenly that she had been utterly reckless in coming here, in surrendering herself to this Nazi agent.

'I...' Pearl's mind raced as she struggled to find an answer. 'I was born into an aristocratic family but...' She turned her head to look up into Fickhase's eyes. '...I'm just a very naughty girl, Maitress.' She let every syllable drip with innuendo.

Fickhase's red lips curled into a smile.

'Just as well I am here to punish you then.' She released Pear's hair and slid her arms around her waist, pressing her body against Pearl's back then her hands moved up to Pearl's breasts. 'The clamps are not in use elsewhere tonight.'

Pearl turned her head, Fickhase's cheek was inches from her own and she lent to kiss it.

'Oui, Maitress.' She began to pant as Fickhase's hands made her breasts tingle and her nipples begin to throb gently.

Fickhase kissed her back and then released her.

'Do not go away.'

There was nothing knowing or coy in the way Pearl bit her lip, her eyes fixed on the blonde's back, taking in the broad shoulders and the defined muscles, the sharp contrast of the leather bra straps against her pale skin; the leather knickers tight over her bottom and the long, toned legs tapering to points in the massive heels.

Fickhase retrieved the clamps from the little cabinet beside the bed, holding them up teasingly and Pearl felt a strange mix of anticipation and fear.

The blonde's lips and tongue on her nipples turned fear to expectation.

'You want them, n'est ce pas ?' Fickhase straightened and used the tip of the clamp to tease Pearl's right nipple which throbbed exquisitely in response.

'J...Oui, Maitress.'

The blonde teased Pearl's other nipple then opened the jaws of the clamps and closed them gently pinching the throbbing nub of flesh. There was a flash if pleasure and then pain as the teeth bit, an urgent desire to take the infernal thing off and then pleasure again, a deep insistent pulse. Helpless in bondage, Pearl's could only look at what had been done to her, a spectator in the treatment of her own body; then her gaze followed Fickhase's hand as she reached for the other nipple, watching as the blonde repeated the performance. Then, as the teeth bit, she closed her eyes focussing on the pain and the pleasure of experiencing these...unnatural devices squeezing such intimate flesh.

Without warning, Fickhase kissed her full on the lips and her eyes flickered open briefly before she shut them tightly, tasting cigarette smoke again and lip gloss and catching the essence of the other woman, perfume, sweat, leather; senses overwhelmed so that she was barely aware of the pressure of the blonde's breasts against her own.

'Schoen !' Fickhase whispered, her lips leaving Pearl's and her hands running down the helpless girl's back to light on the firm buttocks which she squeezed gently.

Pearl gasped, the sensations intense, the pressure of the other woman's body, the exquisite way it brought more pain to her clamped nipples. She opened her eyes and looked up into Fickhase's grey blue eyes framed in dark lashes noting the way they shone.

Despite her command of language, she struggled for the words; 'please' she wanted to say but what she might ask for eluded her; she just felt the desire raging in her body and craved fulfillment.

'Mechante !' Fickhase smiled and Pearl's eyes widened as the woman's hands smacked her bottom.

'Oui, Maitress.' She reached up and kissed the red lips that parted just in front of her own. 'I'm a very naughty girl.'


CHAPTER 16: PLEASURE AND PAIN

The whip fell again, hard across the top of Pearl's buttocks and she screamed into her gag, her body shaking in pain and the clamps on her nipples dancing. Her vision was blurred with tears and they streamed down her cheeks smearing her make-up. Her bottom was a hot mass of pain, a cauldron of agony that boiled over with every stroke.

'Nnngggg.' She shook her head, her hair now damp with sweat and tears, swinging wildly and sticking to her cheeks and neck.

And then Frau Fickhase, Claudia touched her again; her long strong fingers running over Pearl's breasts, the nails teasing the helpless girl's clamped, throbbing nipples, her breath hot on her tear-streaked cheek, lips caressing the side of her neck above the leather collar and running along the line of her jaw while the teasing hand slid lower across Pearl's sweat-slick belly, caressing the girl's shaved sex, slipping between her legs.

'Mmmmmnnngg !' Pearl shook her head again, an entirely different heat, that fire she had discovered so recently flaring within her, spreading out from her loins and up her belly and forcing it's way into her breasts, kindling in her nipples and making them pulse in the steel that gripped them.

'Perhaps I should stop, Mechante.'

Pearl turned her head, looking at the blonde through her lens of tears, those blue eyes so intense.

Claudia's fingers were inside Pearl's sex and as the blonde spoke her finger's stilled. How, Pearl wondered had she ended up like this; like all young ladies she had been warned against the dangers of sex but that concerned the risk of pregnancy, of being despoiled; nobody had ever warned her that sex was like...like opium, that the more you had of it the more you wanted it; or that she would so quickly fall into...deviancy.

Even as she thought the word she knew it was wrong, carried prejudice, the devaluing of one human being over another; a form of fascism and yet... Pearl looked at Claudia.

'You wish me to stop ?' Frau Fickhase's index finger teased the tip of Pearl's right nipple.

Pearl shook her head and Claudia's fingers again sprang to life within her.

'Six more, then we will stop.'

Pearl sobbed even as she nodded her understanding.

The fingers slipped out and she felt suddenly bereft of the contact.

'I think it's time we used the whip your breasts.'

'Nnnnggggg !'

The whip came down hard and Pearl's breasts filled with a scalding heat, dancing under the impact of the whip; she barely noticed the twin tugs on her nipples as the clamps and the chain linking them jumped wildly. She looked down, to see a thick red line across her breasts joining the marks of Frau Fickhase's teeth and the ropes that had bound them so cruelly the night before.

'Are you feeling contrite, my naughty little French bitch ?'

Pearl nodded even as more tears sprang to her eyes in response to the burning agony in her breasts.

A second blow fell and a third and Pearl thought she might faint.

'Blsh.' She sobbed around her gag. Please, no more.

She was forced to endure another three blows.

And then it was over. Frau Fickhase...Claudia, holding her in her arms as she sobbed, pulling her face into the big, warm, leather covered breasts, consoling her, stroking her back, her burning buttocks.

'Good girl.' Fickhase held her close and, as her sobs subsided, began to nuzzle Pearl's neck, lips caressing her jaw, her hands beginning to roam over Pearl's body.

Slowly the blonde released her from the embrace though her fingers lingered on her body touching her breasts tracing over the lines left by the whip. Then she bent and kissed them even as her hands slipped lower, finding again the wetness between Pearl's legs, fingers probing, teasing, caressing.

'Shall I take the gag out ?'

'Mmmmm.' Pearl nodded and Fickhase removed it.

'Merci, Maitress.'

They kissed again, Fickhase's fingers sliding back inside Pearl.

'Ma Petite Mechante is such a submissive little sexpot.' Fickhase stroked her between the legs and Pearl couldn't stop herself thrusting her hips forward. 'So obedient, so...responsive.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl was panting, the teasing finger brushing away the pain of the whipping and leaving behind a completely different sensation, a burning desire.

Fickhase stepped behind her and began to release her wrists.

'Keep me bound, Maitress.'

Fickhase slid her arms around Pearl's body, her hands going to her breasts. 'Of course, my Petite Mechante.'

She toyed with Pearl's breasts, teasing the clamped nipples as her lips caressed Pearl's jaw and neck over the leather collar, her teeth nipping at the other woman's flesh.

Then she guided Pearls hands behind her back and began to bind them.

In the bed, Pearl's lips were guided to the blonde's breasts and she took the swollen pink nipple eagerly between her teeth, biting down gently and flicking it with her tongue. Her own nipples were still clamped though she had almost forgotten; it was only when she moved that a sharp jolt of pain reminded her.

The bed was, strangely, warm and inviting, Fickhase's body delicious in the heat it brought to her in the cool of the cellar. It was, Pearl thought, an unusual sensation in the heat of Africa where cool things brought relief and pleasure. When Fickhase had laid her on the cold sheets, she had shuddered briefly but then watched as the blonde had removed the leather bra and knickers before slipping into the bed with her bound and willing lover.

They had kissed for a long time, Pearl eager in her new lover's arms, any thought of the strangeness of this liaison banished from her mind in the hot flush of arousal that bathed her body.

And now, lying with her wrists still bound, her mouth guided to the blonde's neck and then her breasts and nipples she felt an intense desire to again feel the satisfaction of sexual congress, to feel the other woman's tongue between her legs. How she could want this from a woman who had just tortured her was an enigma to her and yet there was something about the way this woman handled her, bound her, hurt her that filled her mind and body with a hitherto unimagined pleasure.

That she should enjoy taking another woman's nipples into her mouth, take pleasure in playfully nipping her soft breasts, pressing her tongue into the blonde's navel and then find herself willing to use her tongue...

Claudia's sex tasted salty and of sweat. In her aroused state, Pearl did not find it unpleasant; it was certainly no worse than Joseph's cock and the taste was probably more pleasant than swallowing his cum. She knelt between the other woman's legs her tongue tracing along the sides of the sex spread before her as Claudia lay back with her legs open and her knees drawn up.

'You'd better do a good job, Petite Machante !' Claudia's arms were above her head and she still held the whip in her hands.

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl smiled. 'I will do my best.'

'If you do a good job, I will take the clamps off.'

Pearl laughed. 'I like them, Maitress.' She looked up, smiling at the blonde gazing into the grey-blue eyes alight with arousal and then running down the body laid out before her taking in the large firm breasts bearing teeth marks and bruising from the whip like her own. She could see that Claudia's breasts had also been bound, there were rope burns on the undersides.

She lowered her eyes to the pink folds opened before her, she had heard them called 'petals' before, soft and delicate, she imagined a rose opening, beaded with morning dew. Claudia moved as she lapped and then moaned as her tongue touched the swelling where the two folds met. She circled it with her tongue, teasing it and feeling it swell under her touch.

'Put your tongue inside me.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl pushed her tongue into the depths of the blonde's sex, her lips touching the spread labia, new tastes and stronger scents filling her mouth and nose.

'Good girl.' Claudia arched her hips up moaning with arousal and Pearl continued tease her.

'Come here.'

Pearl looked up to see Claudia curling her finger and so she knelt up and then crawled forward on her knees before leaning down to rest on top the other woman. Claudia held her gently, Pearl's head against her breasts. With her wrists still bound there was no way she could support her weight to relieve the pain this caused her clamped nipples. With one hand stroking Pearl's hair, Claudia reached for the little cabinet and opened the drawer, groping around for something and Pearl hoped it was not another whip.

A moment later, Claudia lifted something long and black and attached to a collection on straps. Pearl thought she might recognise it, recalling the girl in the pony harness and bridle and the thought of being treated like that induced a shudder of excitement.

'Lift your head.' Claudia slid a finger under her chin and Pearl raised her head glad to relieve the pressure on her clamped nipples.

Claudia held the device up, teasing out the black leather straps. They did indeed look like they would go around and over Pearl's head but it wasn't a pony bridle; the straps were fastened to a thick black vulcanised rod which, Pearl thought, looked remarkably like Joseph's penis.

'Open your mouth.'

Pearl did as she was told and Claudia pushed the back end of the rubber phallus between her teeth, it was large and round and plugged her mouth and, when she closed her jaw, there was a notch for her teeth.

Claudia reached round to the back of Pearl's head to buckle the first of the straps which held it in place; this was like the one on the gag that had been used on her, but this had other straps too including one that went over the top of her head running up from the sides of the phallus to stabilise it, and meeting at the top of her nose; this strap buckled under her chin; another strap ran around her forehead to keep the vertical one steady.

When Claudia had finished fastening the device into place, she lay back with a look of satisafaction. 'I'm sure you know what to do now.'

Pearl nodded aware suddenly that her mouth was flooding with saliva and that, if she wasn't careful, she would drool all over Claudia's breasts and belly. Hastily she crawled backwards stopping abruptly when felt a sharp, painful tug in her nipples. Looking down she saw that Claudia had caught the chain between her clamped nipples.

'Nnngggg.' Pearl gave a sudden cry watching helplessly as she drooled all over Claudia's hand and belly.

'Petite mechante !' Claudia's tone was playful. 'I will have to punish you again.'

'Nnngggg.' Pearl shook her head, causing even more saliva to run from her mouth, trailing in strands from her lips.

'I thought you liked being tied up.' Claudia pulled on the chain connecting Pearl's nipples, pulling her forwards. The helpless girl was drooling uncontrollably and could only watch as her saliva ran over the other woman's breasts nipples.

Then Claudia released her and she wriggled away, kneeling up, aware that now it was her own breasts that began to collect the saliva.

'You do know what to do ?'

Pearl nodded, very aware of the large phallus in her mouth adding a strange weight to her head. Claudia arched up and Pearl bent forwards causing the clamps to swing; her nipples were throbbing now and she rather hoped Claudia might take them off soon.

Even with her limited experience, Pearl could think how she might want the phallus/gag to be used on her and leant forward pressing the tip against Claudia's sex, running it up but not into the folds of the blonde's sex.

Claudia moaned moving her hips and Pearl teased her again.

'I will punish you if you tease me too much.'

Pearl couldn't help giggling around the gag. Less than a week ago, she'd been a virgin now she was playing bizarre sex games in a dungeon with another woman.

She pushed the tip of the phallus inside Claudia's sex but stopped before it went too deep.

'Petite Mechante !' Claudia squirmed under Pearl's touch clearly enjoying the treatment despite her protestations.

Pearl pushed her head forward, driving the phallus a little deeper.

'You are a very bad girl !'

Pearl rocked back and then forward again before Claudia could comment, driving the phallus a little deeper in the process.

Claudia's head rocked from side to side.

'I really am going to punish you !' Even as she said it, she bit her rouged lip, trapping it in her teeth in an unmistakeable gesture lust.

Pearl smiled and continued to tease her, rocking back and forth despite the buidling agony in her nipples or perhaps because of it; finally thrusting the phallus deep inside the other woman's sex as firmly as she could and then using it to fuck the writhing blonde until she suddenly screamed out in a way that Pearl had heard before while lying hooded, bound and intensely frustrated beside the little metal-framed bed on which the two girls now fucked.

The orgasm lasted some time, several minutes, Pearl thought as Claudia rolled around and cried out with ecstasy, clamping Pearl's head between her powerful thighs apparently oblivious of the other woman's presence except as something, some toy that she might use to pleasure herself. The sight of Claudia writhing and climaxing and the sound of the other woman's cries brought a warmth to Pearl's body that added to the pleasure of their bizarre and exotic lovemaking making her realise her own needs.

Eventually, Claudai released her and Pearl pulled the phallus out of the other woman's sex, kneeling up with a smug smile around the strange gag.

'Come here, Petite Mechante !' Claudia beckoned to her and Pearl crawled forward, lying on the other woman's body and snuggling into her arms despite the sudden pressure on her nipples.

Claudia reached round and undid the gag, easing the huge plug from Pearls' mouth.

'You are a good girl.' Claudia wiped Pearl's mouth with her hand and then kissed her gently.

Pearl snuggled closer enjoying the intimacy and, in the process pushing her own hot, wet sex against the blonde's thigh causing is flush of pleasure to run through her. However, Claudia did not respond, simply holding her and stroking her hair.


CHAPTER 17: A FAVOUR RETURNED

'Maitress ?' Pearl had laid beside Claudia for what she thought must have been an hour, perhaps more.

The blonde had drifted off to sleep, clearly fully satisfied with the fucking she had received and Pearl had laid partly beside her and partly on her, very aware of the other woman's thigh trapped between her own and the pressure it exerted on her sex.

The pain of the whipping was gone, forgotten or, at least, hidden behind the pleasure of their intimacies since. Lying beside, Claudia with her wrists still bound and the clamps still on her nipples, Pearl had lain wondering why she had submitted to this...mistreatment...some might even call it torture, but no matter how she approached it, the obvious answer kept emerging; she had enjoyed the spanking Claudia had given her the night before just like she had enjoyed the one Joseph had given her, despite the tears; she had enjoyed what had followed it even more.

The thought of it, of the close physical contact as she'd laid across Claudia's knee, their naked flesh pressed together and then the improper but utterly enrapturing intimacy they had subsequently enjoyed rekindled the simmering lust inside her. She had always possessed a yearning to explore and now, with the discovery of sex she wanted to experience it all, to travel to every corner of this newly discovered continent, to explore every country within it, every canton. She wondered that society maintained the notion that sex was sinful, that it was a tiny island where a man and a woman mechanically produced a child and not a vast land to be explored.

The whipping had been more intense than she'd wanted and her pleading, her desire for it to stop, had been genuine but the intimacy between each bout of what had been intense physical pain had been...beautiful, there was no other word for it. Claudia's touch had made her body respond even more intensely than Joseph's if that were possible. Could it be that she had sapphic tendencies ?

And what about the desire to be tied up ? She really couldn't explain that at all.

She looked at the sleeping blonde, taking the profile of her brow and the dark painted eyebrows, the blackened lashes pressed together in sleep; this close she could see the little clumps of mascara that every woman tried to prevent; the woman's cheeks were soft, relaxed in sleep, her red lips slightly parted, her lipstick smudged by their kissing.

If she was not bound, Pearl might have stroked the woman's cheek with her fingers or brushed her hair or, if she was honest, touched the large breasts that rose and fell in the calmness of sleep. She wondered what it might feel like to hold them, to toy with the large pink nipples. And this was, she thought, what made being bound to pleasurable, the yearning and the frustrated wants and the need to rely on the beneficence of another.

Pearl pressed herself closer and gently kissed the cheek that had lain barely an inch from her own lips.

Claudia's eyes fluttered open, blue and clear and she turned slightly towards Pearl.

'Ja...' Her voice was soft, her mind still clouded with sleep.

'Maitress, I'm sorry, but my nipples are throbbing. Could you take the clamps off.'

Claudia rolled onto her side and Pearl thought she saw a flash of anger but then the woman smiled.

'Petite Mechante ! You woke me for your own needs !'

'Je suis desole, Maitress.' Pearl fluttered her eyelids trying to show contrition. 'But they really do hurt.'

Claudia's smile broadened. 'I'd better take those nasty clamps off then.'

The relief was intense for a fraction of a second as Claudia remove the clamp from Pearl's right nipple but then a rush of pain surged through her with such force she cried out.

Claudia smiled wickedly.

'Shall I kiss it better ?'

'Oui, Maitress, please...' Pearl realised she was panting.

Claudia took Pearl's nipple in her mouth and suckled it gently; for a moment there was more pain as the nipple swelled in response to the other woman's touch but then the pain was replaced by an overwhelming feeling of pleasure and, in a few moments, Pearl was squirming with delight, all her desires rekindled.

She almost enjoyed the second clamp being removed, the surge of pain and the expectation of pleasure; perhaps, she hoped, Claudia would use her lips and tongue on other parts of her body.

However, Pearl's orgasm did not come from Claudia's tongue. After soothing Pearl's throbbing nipples, she held Pearl, still bound, in her arms, fingers teasing and playing with the bound girl until Pearl was pulsating with pleasure, her heart racing, that heat that was becoming so familiar roaring in her loins. While Pearl moaned her need, Claudia took the phallus in her hands and gently teased Pearl's sex in much the same manner as Pearl had done to her while she wore the strange gag.

'It is frustrating, is it not, Petite Mechante ?' Claudia kissed Pearl gently on her neck. She held Pearl's leash with her other hand. 'Are you ready to beg for your mistress to allow you what you want.'

Pearl smiled to herself squirming, enjoying the challenge being laid down to her.

'You'll have to do better than that, Maitress.'

Claudia pushed the tip of the phallus into Pearl's sex and then, unexpectedly, slid her hand down to press against Pearl's bottom.

Pearl jumped.

'Lie still or I will whip you again.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl was breathing faster partly due to surprise and partly because of how good to felt to have the blonde's fingers pressing against her bottom.

'It's a shame I don't have a second one.' Claudia teased. 'I could put one in side each hole.'

Pearl gasped with horror; horror of what was being suggested but, far more, horror that she actually thought she would enjoy it. She mentally added sodomy to her list of sexual crimes.

'I know you want it, Petite Mechante.' Claudia whispered in her ear. I can feel your heat.

'Oui, Maitress.'

Claudia pushed the phallus a little deeper into Pearl's sex and, once again, began to play with her nipples.

'You are a very naughty girl. I can see that you enjoy all kinds of wickedness.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl was coming to realise it was true and there was something about being told it that excited her. 'I hope you will punish me.' She didn't know what made her say it but she meant it. She wanted to be punished again, to be spanked and tied and whipped and teased and...could a girl really be made to beg ?

Claudia pushed the phallus all the way inside her (it was smaller than Joseph's erect cock but created the same pleasure within her) and then withdrew again, then repeated the motion, fucking her gently as her lips and tongue played with Pearl's nipples and her other hand teased her bottom.

'Mmmmmmmm !' Pearl moaned with pleasure; her body was suffused with it, the pain of the whipping completely forgotten; only the intimacy and teasing remained and she wondered what it might be like to be in love. Could she be in love ? If so, with whom ?

Joseph ? Probably. He was handsome and caring and...the sex !

Claudia ? Perhaps. Could she really love a woman ? She had read, rather discretely, of sapphic love in the classics. (If you are going to teach a girl ancient Greek she had reasoned then you must expect her to use it).

'Tell me what a bad girl I am, Maitress.' Pearl was close to her climax and she wanted it but not urgently enough to beg.

'You are a wicked slut, disporting yourself for men and engaging in lewd sex acts.' Claudia bit her nipple but that only excited her more. 'You are nothing more than a little French whore !'

The words excited her but also reminded her abruptly why she was there, of what Claudia stood for and for a moment she regarded with horror the depraved acts she had engaged in. Then Claudia pushed a finger into her bottom and she climaxed so forcefully that all thoughts left her and she jerked and bucked and shouted that she was a whore.

'You did what ?' Joseph could barely control his anger. When he'd returned to the room a little before dawn she hadn't been there and he'd immediately realised she gone back to the club. He'd nearly gone after her but he was dirty and tired and realsied the folly of such an act at that time. He'd decided to rest and wash and go in the morning but he'd fallen asleep and was as much angry with himself as with her.

There had been a moment, when she'd come in and woken him, holding the remains of her blouse and skirt in place in a way that barely covered her modesty he feared something dreadful had happened. The leather collar still buckled around her neck had alarmed him further. Now, relieved by her assurances that she was fine he gave vent to his anger.

'It would have looked strange if I hadn't gone back.' Pearl pressed herself back against the wall of their tiny room apparently afraid of him and he wondered if it was the first time in all their adventures he'd been the focus of her fear.

'I'm worried you think this is a game, Pearl, one of your romantic adventures.' He tried to soften his voice, provide a reasoned arguement. 'You could...find yourself dead...or worse.'

'Joseph, I'm a grown woman, I can take care of myself.'

'I should not have let you come. These are Nazi's we're dealing with, racists, thugs, killers cloaked in a veneer of respectability. They would beat and kill me because of my colour.'

'And that is the reason you allowed me to come along !' She glared back at him, her eyes flashing with anger. 'And I think I've already proved myself useful.'

He held her by the arms. 'I was worried about you, Pearl. You shouldn't be here anyway and if...if something happened, I'd never forgive myself.'

'I'm a grown woman, Joseph. I can make my own decisions.' The anger was fading from her eyes; perhaps realising why he was acting this way.

'I know.' He looked at her with tenderness then looked away. 'I've found out where they are holding Dr Phillips.'

She was excited immediately and made him tell her everything, of the layout of the airbase, the hangers and the old huts and the guardhouse.

'And you think we can rescue her ?' Pearl asked excitedly.

'Getting into the base might be tricky.' He had thought of a number of options but most of them revolved around sneaking in at night and trying to steal her away. He didn't think that would work.

'Let's have breakfast and see if we can work out how we are going to do it.'

He thought she might have emphasised the word 'we' more than was necessary.

'Yes.' He said. 'But please take that collar off before we go.'

'I don't like it, Pearl.'

They were back in the room and, fortified with coffee and croissants and, in Pearl's case a boiled egg; she had suggested a plan.

'It's better than yours.' She said, archly.

'Pearl, you're a civilian. I can't let you...' His voice trailed off.

'Like you can't let me walk on stage in my underwear and sing to a bunch of leering men or play kinky sex games with German officers ?'

He frowned. 'What exactly were you doing last night ?'

She slapped him.

'You have got to stop doing that if...' He stopped himself this time.

'If ?' She looked at him enquiringly. 'If...' She prompted.

He couldn't tell her.

'Tell me.'

Her assault was full frontal, allowing her tattered blouse to part revealing her breasts, her hands touching the side of his face, giving him just long enough to see what she was offering before planting her lips on his and then pressing her body against him.

His cock stiffened immediately. It wasn't just her presence, it was the way it manifested, so different from the shy smiles he had seen outside the cinema and on the airship gantry. Yet, she was still the same woman, the woman who had trekked beside him across the plains of north Africa, ridden the river with him and played the role of white slave.

He kissed her back.

'Tell me.' She began to kiss his jaw even as she struggled out if her torn blouse.

'You are a very naughty girl.' He held her arms, pinning them behind her trapped in the sleeves of the blouse aware of how she accepted this and even thrust her breasts forward, another weapon in her armoury.

'I know.' She smiled. 'And I'm hoping you know what to do with a naughty girl.'

Joseph smiled and spun her round, pulling off his belt and tying her hands.

'How's that ?'

'It's a good start.' She pulled at the bonds. 'But I have been a really naughty girl.'

The tone of her voice left no hint of doubt about what she wanted and he felt his own desire rise, his cock twitching, starting to drool. He could scarcely recall a woman who excited him so intensely.

She wasn't just playing the role.

He tore away the remains of her tattered skirt and pulled down her knickers, noticing the new bruises, lines of dark purple over then handprints that had marked her the previous day. He wanted to ask how she'd got them but perhaps it was better not to ask. He simply pulled her across his lap and stroked her bottom enjoying it's firmness.

'I'm expecting you be rough with me !' The anger of a few moments before was still there in her voice.

He slapped her hard and she yelped with pleasure.

'Good boy !'

Where had that come from ?

He continued to spank her noticing how she squirmed on his lap, squealing loudly with some blows, her bottom clearly tender. Her animation excited him.

'Harder !'

He smiled. Perhaps it was all an adventure to her.

He spanked her harder, so hard, his palm hurt. She stilled then, gritting her teeth.

'I can stop if you want me to.'

'Don't you dare.'

Soon her bottom was glowing red and she lay still earnestly enduring every blow until finally he stopped and stroked the red, hot skin.

'Thank you, Master.' She turned her face towards him, blinking back tears. 'I hope your slave had pleased you.'

'My slave is very pleasing.' He wanted to grin but forced himself not to smile; to take her game seriously.

She slid to the floor, kneeling up, thrusting her breasts forwards. He looked at them, at the whip marks on her fair skin and the bruises on her nipples which stood stiffly erect.

'Collar me !' Her eyes went to the collar where she had left it on the bed before they went out to breakfast.

As he strapped the leather around her neck he saw her little smile of triumph then she turned away from him, bending down presenting her bottom and her sex just has she had previously thrust out her breasts for attention.

'Take me, Master. Take your slave like the animal she is.'

Her sex was wet and glistening and he could see the brown puckered ring of her anus too. He dropped to his knees behind her wondering if she had any concept anal sex and recalling that it was illegal in England. Entering her was easy, her sex was slippery and receptive and he buried himself deep inside her as he reached round to toy with her breasts.

'You slave desires to please you, Master.'

'Slave is pleasing.'

'No...' She hesitated. 'Use me...use...my...other hole.'

He wasn't sure he'd heard.

'Use this slave like the whore she is.'

For a moment he hesitated. Pearl was not the first woman to offer this, many whores he had been with regarded this as part of the service they provided, he recalled a slave too, a half cast girl who he had...'taken' would be the way to describe it. However, he had not expected this; many men went their whole lives without sodomising their wives and, while she seemed to surprise him constantly, he had certainly not expected this.

'You want to be taken anally ?'

'Yes, Master, fuck me like the little cunt I am.'

She hadn't learnt that at the Sorbonne. At least he hoped not.

His cock was stiff and wet with her juices and, while her hole was tight, he was able to push himself inside her enjoying the tight embrace that enveloped him.

She gasped but did not complain.

'Use me.' Her voice was taut, strained.

He pushed deeper inside her, luxuriating in the firm grip that held him.

She gasped again and he reached round, playing with her breasts and then sliding one hand down to tease her sex..

'Yes, Master.' Her voice carried the unmistakeable tone of arousal. 'Make your slut beg to cum.'

He teased her sex and drove into her, pumping gently back and forth. The tightness of her ring held him back even as his use of her seemed to excite her towards climax.

A week ago she had been a virgin !

He hooked a finger in the ring at the back of her collar, the one that a leash could be clipped to and imagined for a moment using it to lead her, his slave. He used it to hold her, pulling her back against him even as he toyed with her clit.

'May slave cum, Master ?' Her voice was strained as a result of the tightness of the collar where he pulled it.

How had she learnt all this ? Surely not just from the slavers in the desert.

'No !' He thrust hard, pulling on the collar and heard her groan.

She panted hard and he continued to tease her pushing himself gently towards climax. He had heard whores beg before but he had never thought it genuine.

'Please, Master.' Her voice was strained distorted partly by the tightness of the collar but also by something else.

'Very well.' His own climax was near and he liked the idea of them reaching sexual bliss together.

As it was she climaxed just a little before him and her howling drove him over the edge so that his own orgasm was almost lost in the violent convulsions of her body.


CHAPTER 18: BETRAYAL

'You are still wearing my collar.'

'Oui, Maitress.'

It was an hour before the club opened and Pearl stood at Frau Fickhase's door in her cabaret costume of black silken lingerie complete with stockings and heels she had also donned the collar again. In her hands, she clasped a bottle of red wine that she had bought from the cafe where she and Joseph had eaten breakfast.

'I thought we could have a drink before the show and then you could think of something to do with me afterwards.'

'That's very presumptive of you Petite Mechante !' Fickhase arched an immaculately pencilled eyebrow. 'Perhaps I could think of something to do with you now.'

She reached out and hooked a finger into the ring on Pearl's collar and drew her into the room, pushing the door shut behind.

As before, Pearl stood trembling before her, this statuesque blonde with her immaculate make up; she couldn't help thinking of Marlene Dietrich. Pearl's heels would almost have brought her to the height of Fickhase but the German woman was, once again, wearing the massive heeled boots making her tower over Pearl.

Frau Fickhase accepted the wine, placing on a little table before turning and landing a blow across Pearl's face which sent her stumbling.

'We need to establish some rules.'

Pearl crouched looking up in fear.

'You will kneel before you mistress.' Fickhase snapped at her.

Pearl obeyed dropping to her knees; she could taste blood in her mouth.

'I have a new costume for you.' Fickhase's smile was ferrel, bordering on cruel.

'Oui, Maitress.'

'Well, what are you waiting for.' The blonde tapped the whip against the top of her incredibly high boots. 'Strip !'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl reached behind her back and undid her bra then began to stand to remove her knickers.

'Stay on you knees, French bitch.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl knelt up slightly and slid out of her knickers. She had shaved again while Joseph had slept.

Then she removed her shoes.

The stockings came next. Carefully she unclipped the suspenders and then, straightening her legs one at a time she slid them off before discarding her suspender belt.

Pearl knelt back naked.

'Hands behind you.'

Pearl obeyed and Fickhase picked up the cuffs that Eichmann had used on her first visit to the club but the excitement of being cuffed again was overwhelmed by the fear that she would not have an opportunity to carry out her plan.

Could Fickhase know what Pearl and Joseph planned?

'My boots need cleaning.' Fickhase towered above her.

Pearl looked up in confusion.

Fickhase slapped her again and she sprawled to the side.

'But...but my hands are cuffed, Maitress.' Pearl lay on her side

'Then you'll have to use your tongue like you did the first night.'

Pearl looked down at the shiny boots, glistening and polished, recalling how she had felt a desire to lick them or, at the very least, kiss them when she had first laid at Claudia's feet. Dr Freud would, no doubt, have given it the legitimacy of a rational explanation.

Pearl rolled up onto her knees, naked and cuffed. Her mouth was bleeding again and she hoped she would still be able to sing. Leaning forward she pressed her lips to the toe of the woman's incredible boots then, feigning a confidence or, perhaps, a willingness to submit that she did not entirely feel, she cautiously ran her tongue up the instep.

'Good girl.' Claudia's usual voice had returned, her mistress, dominant but intimate. 'On your belly now.'

Pearl stretched her legs out, dropping to lie face down and Claudia turned her foot slightly.

'Run your tongue up the heel.'

'Oui, Maitress.' Pearl obeyed, odd sensations striving inside her as the pleasure of submitting like this, on her belly, naked and chained, collared, began to kindle inside her.

The movement of her tongue on the huge heel was strikingly erotic and she wondered what Joseph might think if he were to see her like this, prone and naked, a submissive sapphic slave. Perhaps he might enjoy it if he watched her with another woman.

She thought of Ashra, imagining what it might be like to worship her in this way.

'Petite Mechante !' Claudia's rebuke brought her back to the present.

The blonde pushed forward her other foot and Pearl ran her tongue over it.

Perhaps Joseph had a pair of riding boots...

Pearl waited in the wings again watching Glamorous Greta finish her act. She had earned a frosty stare from the blonde on her arrival, particularly when she had observed Pearl's costume and Pearl had blushed furiously at the other woman's scornful look. This evening, when she'd emerged from Claudia's room, the proprietor had ushered Pearl into a small cubicle which passed for a dressing room rather than changing into her costume in the wings. There had been a vase on the table containing a half dozen roses from an admirer. She suspected they were not from the luftwaffe navigator.

It was, Pearl felt, a shame that she could not make use of the intimate space; she had already been helped into costume by Claudia.

The 'costume' that Claudia had given her to wear consisted of nipple tassels that clipped onto her breasts in much the same way as the clamps that had been used on her the night before. Their bite was not as intense but, still bruised from the previous night, they made her nipples throb dully. The only mitigation had been that Claudia had sucked them to erection before applying the clips. The tassels went with a leather thong that was little more than two braided loops and a tiny black triangle. This was worn with her stilettos and Claudia's leather collar.

If she had been told to wear this on her first night, Pearl thought she would not have had the courage to take to the stage. As it was, she was trembling with anticipation.

Pearl left the stage to rapturous applause and a good deal of whistling, descending into the audience as she had done on previous evenings. Her act had held the crowd's rapt attention though not all, she guessed, because of her singing. Strutting through the crowd with as much feigned indifference as she could muster, she endured or, if she was honest, enjoyed at least half a dozen slaps to the bottom and rued somewhat that this was likely to be her final performance.

If her father disowned her, there might be a career for her at the Moulin Rouge.

At least a dozen officers offered her an invitation to the table and she haughtily ignored them all keeping her eyes fixed on Claudia who sat at the back of the room, dressed in her uniform tonight, on her own at a small table. She knew the blonde was watching her even though she appeared not to be; she felt the woman's eyes on her body more intensely than every other pair of eyes on the room that regarded her openly and, inside, she knew she enjoyed the way they looked at her, the way Claudia looked at her.

There was no other chair at the table and, at the moment she reached it, Claudia reached down and picked up her wine glass as if deliberately ignoring Pearl's arrival.

Pearl stood for a moment then dropped to her knees, sliding her hands behind her back.

The room fell abruptly silent.

Claudia took another swallow of wine and made an almost flamboyant gesture to the waiter for another glass ostentatiously holding up a single finger to show that only one glass was required. Then, almost casually, she picked up the leash that lay coiled on her table and leaned over to clip it to Pearl's collar.

Then she turned back to her glass.

There were a few gasps and then the band struck up and the room once again filled with noise.

Pearl knelt obediently, head bowed and hands behind her back, awaiting the pleasure of her mistress.

An hour later they were back in the dungeon, Claudia sitting in the chair with the straps, her legs spread while Pearl performed the devoted ministrations of a slave girl, applying her tongue to Claudia's dripping pussy as she knelt between the blondes legs with her hands cuffed behind her back.

As Pearl worked, the blonde sipped wine from a glass, the bottle Pearl had brought with her resting beside her.

The sleeping draft took at least an hour to work and Pearl was glad Claudia had not restrained her more strictly. As the blonde's head lolled forwards, Pearl stood and tiptoed to the bed to retrieve the keys from the pocket of Claudia's discarded uniform.

She knew she should go, it was likely the woman would be asleep for several hours but she had a sudden urge to embellish her plan a little.

It didn't take a moment to fasten the straps over the sleeping blonde's wrists, fixing them to the arms of the chair, there were straps to hold her elbows too and more over her biceps; two broad straps went around her chest, above and below her breasts and more over the thighs, knees and ankles; the ones around her knees were attached to the arms of the chair and pinning her legs apart. She should probably have stopped there but then decided a gag would be sensible and crossed to the little cabinet beside the bed. Pulling the drawer open she found the gag noticing the hood lay underneath it; she lifted that out to reveal the nipples clamps.

Lifting Claudia's head she noticed the woman was already dribbling slightly and smiled as she pushed the gag between the red lips before pulling the web of straps over her head and buckling them snugly into place. Seeing the blonde like this created an unexpected rush of pleasure, a heat in her loins that made her wish she did not have to leave, that she could make use of the black rubber phallus protruding from the blonde's mouth, a sensation that was only exacerbated when the helpless woman began to drool around the gag.

No doubt Dr Freud would have found an explanation.

Holding Claudia's head up by the ring at the top of the gag, she opened her mouth and planted a kiss on the blonde's cheek recalling with pleasure the moment when their roles had been reversed.

'Oh, Maitress.' Pearl sighed. 'We could have had such fun together.'

She let the woman's head loll and stepped behind her, pulling on the hood and bucking it tightly in place ensuring that the blonde could still breathe then she buckled the last two straps of the chair in place, one across the woman's forehead and the other around her throat.

The effect was striking, the statuesque beauty reduced to helpless bondage, the black phallus protruding from the mouth hole of the hood, and Pearl really wished she could be present when Claudia woke up.

Smiling sadly, she stroked one of the helpless woman's large breasts, enjoying the firmness of the flesh. The blonde stirred slightly, moaning gently into her gag and then lapsed back into sleep.

'A parting gift for you, my love.'

Claudia's nipples were large and Pearl could easily have applied the clamps without difficulty but she bent and took one in her mouth suckling on it for a moment before closing the clamp's jaws around it, enjoying the way the puckered flesh deformed under the pressure of the clamp's spring.

Claudia stirred again.

'Good girl.' Pearl soothed before repeating the process with the other nipple.

Then she stood, and walked to the bed where she gathered up Claudia's discarded uniform and slipped on her own clothes, the remains of Ashra's blouse and skirt; these were so shredded as to be almost indecent despite her attempts to repair them. She wondered about taking the whip too. Frau Fickhase seemed to habitually carry it and, if she was to impersonate her, then she should do the same. She took it in her hand and turned to leave, taking one last longing look at the naked blonde strapped tightly to the chair.

'Auf wiedersian.' She planted her kiss on her fingers and gently touched the top of the woman's head.

She was about to leave but then a thought struck her and, without a second thought she brought the whip down with as much force as she was able on the top of Claudia's breasts.


CHAPTER 19: RESCUE

'What are you wearing ?' Joseph looked with considerable surprise as Pearl peeled off the much abused blouse that now provided little more than a shred of modesty. He was going to have to buy his sister a new outfit.

There was little doubt she would have attracted unwelcome glances from those she passed as she'd walked back to the room in the torn blouse which seemed to reveal more than it covered and skirt that was now split up both sides. She looked like a cheap whore. He hoped the darkness had protected her to some degree.

She might once have blushed at his comment but she simply smiled apparently enjoying his attention.

'New costume.' She answered turning to give him a clear view of the little sparkling discs covering her nipples and the tassels that hung from them.

'You wore...those...on stage ?'

Pearl looked down at them.

'Yes.' She smiled, clearly amused at his reaction. 'Do you like them ?'

Joseph grinned at her and shook his head. 'I may ask you to wear them for me later.'

She laughed and straightened up, unfastening the remains of her skirt and dropping it to reveal the thong beneath.

'How about this.' She slid her hands behind her back and pushed her body towards him.

Joseph gawped.

'I trust they meet with Master's approval.'

'I shall expect you to wear it for me every day.'

She hesitated for a moment looking at him strangely for a second.

'Master speaks and slave obeys.' She bowed to him and giggled. 'But I recall we have a job to do.'

She bent giving him an uninterrupted view of her tight bottom, the thong disappearing between the smooth skin of her cheeks. For a moment he wondered what had happened to the bruises but then he saw the powder and paint she had used to cover them.

She pulled Fickhase's uniform blouse out of the bag and straightened. 'Do you like a girl in uniform ?'

'Not that one.' He could hear the tension in his voice.

She clearly sensed it, her toned becoming less frivolous. 'It's a little large.' She held up the blouse.

'We can pad you out.' He realised as he said it that he should probably have kept quiet.

She fixed her hazel eyes on him signaling her indignation. 'Are saying what I think you are saying ?'

He flinched. 'I wouldn't dream of it.'

'Good !' She smirked and bent again.

He was sure she was doing it deliberately, bending and showing him her bare, shapely bottom with the tiny thong doing nothing to hide her modesty.

She pulled out a bra, clearly too large for her and slid the straps over her shoulders, pulling the cups over her breasts then, rather coyly, he thought she removed the nipple tassels, wincing. 'You wouldn't believe how sore my nipples are.'

'I'm sure I wouldn't.' He felt rather embarrassed and tried not to watch as she fastened the bra and then stuffed it with what looked rather like pieces of a feather boa.

Joseph stopped the car at the gate to the old airfield and the sentry asked for their papers.

It was still dark and he hoped that Pearl would pass for Frau Fickhase.

'Don't you recognise me, Herr Korporal ?' Pearl's accent was a good imitation of the woman's southern drawl.

The man studied the papers Pearl presented. It probably helped that he wore a little set of pince-nez clipped to his nose.

'I am here on the Obersturmannsfuhrer's instructions.' Pearl continued. 'He wishes me to collect the prisoner and take her to the club where he can have some fun with her.'

The corporal looked up. He was a small man and Joseph could easily overcome him if he proved trouble but that might raise the alarm.

'I am sorry, Frauline Leutnant.' The man said seriously, keeping hold of her papers and looking at Joseph with a frown.

'What is it, Korporal !' Pearl admonished. 'Have you never seen a monkey driving a car before ?'

Joseph felt himself tense and he clutched the steering wheel with fury.

The corporal laughed. 'Give them a banana and they'll do anything.' He handed back the papers.

Joseph drove on.

Pearl unlocked the door and carefully pushed it open.

The first thing that struck Pearl was the smell; a female body, unwashed for days, perhaps weeks, the smell of sweat and confinement that conjoured up the fear and pain of imprisonment and torture that the hint of cigarette smoke in the air did little to disguise. There was more; a scent Pearl knew the well, had noticed it a lot in the past days; the scent of female arousal, almost cloying.

She stepped inside, Joseph behind her.

Dr Phillips was there as she had thought; it had to be her, a small dark haired woman, although she was not easily recognised. The scientist stood in the centre of the room or, perhaps, more accurately was held upright, helplessly restrained in some fiendish device that held her up on tiptoe and forced her to arch her back, thrusting her breasts and hips forward. She was naked aside from a corset laced extremely tightly around her waist pulling it in to what might be thought of as impossibly tiny size. That she had been abused, tortured during her imprisonment was evident from the marks that covered her body, bruises and abrasions from the whip, and other marks that suggested the use of a cane, pinch marks too and burns most likely made by cigarette tips; her skin was grimy and streaked with dried blood and sweat.

As they entered she turned her head towards them as if to look at them, though did not open her eyes. She was gagged, her lips and jaw stretched around a ring some two and a half or three inches across that was wedged between her teeth and held in place by an elaborate harness like the bridle Pearl had seen on the human pony at the Aryan club, like the phallic gag she had worn to pleasure the real Frau Fickhase. Strands of saliva hung from the scientist's lips and chin where it had run freely from her mouth and over the heavy leather collar locked around her neck to smear across breasts. The bridle was fastened to a ring at the top of the device to which she was restrained and pulled her head back slightly, she was fastened in place by the collar too and straps around the waist, thighs and ankles.

Pearl might have thought the woman was wearing heels but it was the device that forced her onto her toes and her legs were trembling with the effort, calf muscles obviously straining to keep her heels off the blocks beneath them. It was not clear exactly why she did this although, wires ran from the blocks to a battery on the floor and Pearl guessed that perhaps putting pressure on the blocks caused her to receive and electric shock. Following the wires up brought Pearl's gaze to the woman's nipples which were pinched in vicious looking metal clamps. However, this was not the only abuse they suffered, both nipples had been pierce by steel rings that were fastened by wires to a post about two feet in front of the helpless woman stretching her little breasts and forcing her to arch even further forward than the restraints which held her in place.

It was clear that, aside from the piercings and clamps, the woman's breasts had been the subject of heavy abuse, the way she was bound seemed to invite it, offering them up to attention and the way her wrists were cuffed to the side of her tiny, corsetted, waist, elbows pulled back, perhaps, Pearl thought, touching behind her back forcing her shoulders back thrust her breasts out more and simply emphasised her helplessness.

As Pearl watched the woman's straining calves lost their battle with gravity and her heels sank to touch the blocks beneath them; there was a crackle of electricity and a flash as a spark jumped across the brunette's tortured nipples. Her eyes flashed open and her fingers strained to reach her breasts but the restraints kept them cruelly away. For a moment, the woman's blue eyes flicked in Pearl's direction as if recognising her presence for the first time; her pupils were hugely dilated and she seemed unable to focus properly.

'..lllthh...' A small sound escaped the woman's mouth, a fresh rush of saliva running out over her lips as her tongue emerged briefly through the gag.

Then a motor started, perhaps triggered by the electrical contacts and Pearl saw something begin to move between the helpless woman's legs. Her legs were spread slightly, held by straps around her thighs and ankles; there was pole between them running up from the floor and, Pearls realised with shock, disappearing into her sex. Even as she watched the pole slid down, its tip emerging from the helpless woman's sex then plunging back in again.

'Nnggg...' Dr Phillips shook her head a fraction.

The tip of the pole emerged again. It was shaped like a man's penis, some sort of device to humiliate and...the base of the phallus was attached to chain that tightened as it reached its lowest point, a chain that was fastened to a ring...a ring that, like those in the woman's nipples pierced flesh...pierced the flesh of her sex...her clitoris...

Pearl suddenly understood the smell of arousal. The connection forming in her brain; appalling that a woman could do this to another of her sex and yet, she thought of the sexual games she had played with Frau Fickhase, surely this...fucking device was simply an extension of them. The thought of finding herself strapped in Dr Phillip's place was suddenly not as unwelcome as she thought it should be and she wondered that such a device could be used to stimulate an unwilling victim.

Dr Phillips moaned again, her hips moving slightly and the metal rings that fastened her to the device clicking.

Then, without warning the door opened and Frau Fickhase entered holding a pistol.

Fickhase was dressed in the outfit she had worn on the airship, the white blouse and tight leather trousers. Pearl noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples strained against the sheer material of the blouse; the top of her breasts were visible between the neckline and the mark of the whip where Pearls had struck her was clearly visible.

Her time in bondage had clearly taken its toll; her usual immaculate make up was smeared; mascara outlined dry tracks across her face and the sharp edges of her lips were smudged; her hair was flattened against her scalp.

'Raise your hands.' She spoke German. 'I know you can understand me.' She kept the gun pointed at them as she stepped away from the door to a point where she could watch them and see Dr Phillips too.

'They tried the usual methods.' She said, conversationally, gesturing towards the moaning scientist. 'The usual brutality, then she was given to me.'

She smiled with a sadistic pleasure. 'I have more...creative approach.'

'Open your eyes doctor.' She touched the muzzzle of the gun to the helpess woman's temple and Dr Phillip's eyes flew open once again to reveal the huge, dilated pupils. 'Belladonna.' Fickhase informed them. 'A blindfold is fine but this is just as disorientating and what you can partially see is far more terrifying. Besides, I quite like my pets to be able to see me, a little like a newly hatched bird imprinting on it's parent. Two drops a day is all it takes.'

'We've had some wonderful times, haven't we, Melba ?' She stroked the muzzle of the gun against the woman's cheek and the tortured eyes flicked towards her then the machine seemed to increase speed and the scientist closed her eyes again arching slightly and emitting a low moan of tormented pleasure.

'Melba's tongue is very talented.' Fickhase continued unperturbed. 'A bit like your own, my little French bitch.'

She smiled cruelly and Pearl wondered how someone so evil could still look so beautiful. 'And it times she's surprisingly willing.' Fickhase continued.

Keeping her eyes on Pearl and Joseph, Fickhase leaned in and licked Dr Phillips' nipple making the weight clipped to it swing.

The helpless woman moaned again, a strange sound of anguish.

'And when she's not, I punish her.' She reached her free hand towards Pearl. 'My whip if you please.'

With a sinking feeling, Pearl handed it over, watching as Fickhase brought it down of the helpless woman's belly just below the corset.

'She's remarkably competent now.' Fickhase smiled. 'A mix of carrot and stick. Though, if I'm honest, it's mostly stick for that part but I'm persevering.'

She pushed the whip into Dr Phillip's mouth and the woman's tongue came up almost reflexively to lick it.

'That gag is one of my favourites and it ensures I keep her tongue ready for use and for one purpose only; keep my taste on at at all times.'

Fickhase withdrew the whip.

'I'm sure your wondering how I keep her hydrated.' She smiled somewhat coyly and gestured with the whip. 'Regular enemas. Simple and effective and, if I choose, they are a wonderful form of punishment.'

She stood behind the helpless woman gently stroking her buttocks withe the whip. 'There's nothing more intense that visceral pain, eh doctor ?'

Fickhase licked her lips, her sexual excitement at the torments she was inflicting on the captured scientist obvious.

'And then, of course, there the sexual torment.' Fickhase stroked the barrel of the gun down one of the scientist's bound arms. 'Imagine being forced to sexual arousal day and night, forced to orgasm over and over again with no relief.'

She looked at Pearl. 'Something you might enjoy, my little French whore. For the first week or two.'

Melba Phillips let out a gagged gurgle and Fickhase turned her attention back to the helpless woman who was suddenly animated in her bondage, and panting hard, her tortured muscles spasming, head straining forward, spittle flying from her gag.

Fickhase's expression softened, displaying almost tenderness.

'Good girl.' She turned towards Dr Phillips, stroking her hand over the woman's drooling sex as the helpless woman climaxed violently.

Pearl looked on with shock and, she was horrified to discover, a little envy.

However, the distraction was all Joseph needed...


CHAPTER 20: ESCAPE

Joseph clearly knew how to handle himself and Fickhase was clearly still unsteady from the drugs. If she had not been she might not have been so easily distracted and might have brought the guards with her. Pearl was rather shocked by the way he hit her; punching her hard in the belly and doubling her over then bringing his knee up into her face. It certainly wasn't the act of gentleman but, then again Pearl realised, they were somewhat outside the norms of polite society.

She checked the corridor beyond but there was no sign of anyone and when she returned to the room, Joseph was cuffing Fickhase's hands. Not unexpectedly, the room was rather well equipped when it came to restraints and implements of torture, most of them apparently kept in a chest in one corner which now stood open displaying its treasure of whips, chains and shackles, thick belts and other intimidating leather items.

Taking in the scene, Pearl moved to release Dr Phillips who slumped limp in her bonds, apparently exhausted after yet another forced orgasm. Pearl barely knew where to start her but, whispering an apology, began by removing the electrical clamps from the poor woman's nipples before they began to spark again and then using a set of wire cutters from the desk to free the nipple rings from the wires stretching them. The brunette gave a gurgled cry as her cruelly tortured breasts were released and then again then Pearl freed her pierced and stretched clitoris. The other restraints were mostly heavy leather straps though it took some effort to extract the gag from between the poor woman's teeth; the corset, however, was locked on and the padlock too thick to cut. When she pulled the butt plug it wouldn't move and Melba Phillips let out another cry of pain.

'There is a balloon...' She gasped weakly.

Pearl found a small tube and turned a knob before pulling again. This time the tube came out relatively easily accompanied by sounds she chose to ignore.

'Thank you.' The scientist was speaking in English.

Freed from the support of the frame, Dr Phillips crumpled to the floor despite Pearl's efforts to support her, collapsing naked save for the strict corset.

Pearl heard a cry of rage and turned to look see that Claudia was once again very much conscious and also very much back in helpless bondage; thought Pearl wondered who had released the blonde from the chair.

The statuesque blonde was in what Pearl later learned was called a hogtie, a tight one; her hands cuffed behind her back and her ankles tied to them; her thighs were bound together too and her elbows; she wore a bridle like the one Melba Phillips had been gagged and restrained with and the top of this was pulled back sharply with a thin cord that was tied around her toes. Now awake again, the blonde thrashed wildly if rather ineffectively; as she rolled on her side her blouse burst open and her large breasts spilled out revealing the whip-mark Pearl had inflicted earlier.

'Fucking bitch !' Melba Phillips said hoarsely and, with considerable effort hauled herself up onto all fours, dragging herself towards the struggling blonde.

Fickhase must have seen the wrath in the scientist's expression and her anger suddenly turned to fear, her blue eyes widening as the tried to wriggle away. However, Dr Phillips was determined and, pinning the larger woman down, picked up the electric clamps and proceded to place them on Fickhase's large nipples.

'Nnnngggg...' Fickhase shook her head as the scientist turned towards the battery.

Pearl barred her way. 'We should go.'

'Not yet...' Dr Phillips tried to push past Pearl but Joseph grabbed her from behind, his arm easily encircling the scientist's tiny constricted waist.

Dr Phillips struggled weakly but she was no match for Joseph's strength.

'We should tie her up.' Pearl looked at the struggling woman who's eyes widened.

'No, please, not again...' Dr Phillips begged.

'We need to get you off the base.' Pearl informed her. 'It will be easier as our prisoner.'

'If you must...' Melba Phillips sighed. 'But no nipple clamps, please...'

Pearl picked up a leather strap and pulled the woman's hands behind her back then Joseph threw the woman over his shoulder and carried her from the room. Behind them Fickhase screamed angrily into her gag and tried to wriggle after them until the wires to the clamps on her nipples stopped her.

For a moment, Pearl actually thought they had made their escape.

They almost made it and, in the end it was the shortsighted corporal on the gate who raised the alarm.

The windscreen shattered with a rifle bullet and Joseph was aware of Pearl laying down over their naked helpless passenger as the staff car crashed through the barrier. The airfield where he had left their little plane was four miles distant and, as sirens sounded behind them, turned sped along the graveled road hoping that, if he could access the highway he might reduce the willingness of the soldiers to pursue him. They were, after all in a French territory .

He was forced to slow for a herd of cows crossing the track and took the opportunity to turn back to Pearl.

'Do you know how to fire a gun ?'

'Yes, but...'

'You don't have to hit anyone.' He passed her his pistol. 'Just frighten them a bit.'

They had almost reached the highway when he saw the first of the pursuers in the mirror, a motorcycle roaring up the track behind them and a second later her heard the shriek of it's engine above the throaty purr of the staff car.

Slowing, he turned left onto the highway, hearing a shot ring out, surprised to realise that Pearl had fired it. The motorcyclist peel away and droped back as he waited for more support.

The engine of the staff car was German and powerful and they made it to the plane with a two minute gap between them and their pursuers. Pearl fired again as Joseph started the engine and he thought he saw a man fall away clutching his shoulder. Several bullets pierced the side of the little plane as he taxied down the dirt runway and turned to take off over the heads of their pursuers.

As they climbed, Pearl held onto Dr Phillips, steading the scientist who hands were still bound; the woman was wrapped in the blanket, still naked beneath. They leveled out and Pearl took up a bottle of water and poured a glass for her charge. At least, she reasoned, her time as an employee of Euro-African Airships had not been entirely wasted.

'Thank you.' The scientist shakily as Pearl held the cup to her dry cracked lips and cautiously offered her a sip; she coughed slightly as she tried to swallow. 'That is a lot more pleasant than an enema.'

Though Dr Phillips was partially wrapped in a blanket Pearl could see the bruising and dirt on her face and the skin of her shoulder and bruised chest. She could also smell the woman's body, a mix of dried sweat, urine and sexual arousal.

The ring the piercing the woman's right nipple poked out through a hole in the blanket and found her eyes drawn to it.

Dr Phillips saw her looking. 'They are going to take some getting used to.'

'I'm sure I could find something to cut them off.' Pearl looked around the cabin.

Dr Phillips winced. 'I don't think I could face that at the moment. Besides, I'm quite attached to them.' She laughed briefly and yawned. 'I really need to go to sleep.'

Pearl helped her to lie down across the back seat of the plane.

'I wonder if you'd mind untying me ?' The woman asked.

'Oh !' Pearl felt herself blush. Perhaps, she thought, she wasn't quite ready to be an air hostess but then, most commercial passengers were unlikely to come aboard tied up.

The freed the woman's hands and covered her with another blanket. Dr Phillips was asleep almost immediately.

Pearl picked up the leather strap that had bound the prisoner's wrists and stood then went forward to see Joseph.

'Are we safe ?' She asked sliding into the copilot's seat.

He looked across at her grinning. 'That depends on whether you want to fly the plane.'

She narrowed her eyes but could not be angry with him.

'How is Dr Phillips ?'

'Asleep.'

'I'm not surprised.' Joseph glanced across at her. 'She has been through quite an ordeal.'

'Yes.' Pearl smiled, thinking of Claudia Fickhase.

'I don't want to be difficult.' Joseph said, glancing across at her but could you take that uniform off.

Pearl looked at him in surprise, feeling slightly flattered that, after all they had just been through, his first thought was to see her naked but then she looked down at the grey blouse stretched across her massively padded cleavage which was now looking decidedly uneven. She realised she was keen to be rid of it too.

'If it won't distract you from flying the plane.'

'I promise to behave.' Joseph said.

'Oh !' Pearl said. 'That's a little disappointing.'

She undid the buttons of the blouse and straightened the padding of her oversized bra.

'Would you like me to keep this on ?' She asked innocently. 'You do prefer women with bigger breasts don't you ?'

'I'd prefer it if you threw the whole lot out of the window.' He said testily.

'If you insist.' Pearl undid the bra and slid out of the skirt. She was still wearing the leather thong that had been part of her stage costume.

'But I'm going to keep the shoes.' She'd worn them because she thought they would make her look taller.

'Good.' He glanced across at her. 'I like them. Do you still have the nipple tassels ?'

They were in the pocket of her blouse.

Pearl lay enveloped in the warmth of the huge bathtub.

'Your uncle Roger is furious.' Ashra sat on the side of the bath, her feet and calves dangling in the water. The beautiful brunette was wearing a white silk robe but the steam and splashes of water had made it damp and almost transparent and Pearl couldn't prevent her eyes wandering up to the slim athletic body with its small, pert breasts and brown nipples outlined beneath the thin material.

'Perhaps he'll spank me.' Pearl said coyly.

Ashra lifted a painted eyebrow in amusement. 'I suspect he'll do a lot more than that.'

Pearl grinned. 'I suppose I have been rather naughty.' She was having a lot of difficulty taking her eyes off the beautiful woman beside her.

'A little more than naughty, I'd say !' Ashra stared at her unblinking, her lovely dark eyes shining.

'You mean I'm likely to get more than a spanking ?' Pearl forced herself to look away, her voice knowing.

'Considerably more.' Ashra kicked her legs making the water splash.

'Is there anything I can do in mitigation ?'

'I'd say you were out of options.'

'So, whatever I do now, I'm in serious trouble.' Pearl glanced up at Ashra, her gaze returning to the woman's pert breasts and large dark nipples.

'Very serious.' Ashra followed her gaze down.

'Have you been sent to punish me ?' Pearl did her best to sound calm but her heart was suddenly racing. She hoped the blush in her cheeks might be put down to heat of the water.

Ashra frowned. 'It's not me you've upset.'

'Oh.' Pearl struggled to hide her disappointment. Then, reaching a decision, she stood up. 'So if I was to do this...' She pulled open Ashra's robe exposing the lovely toned body beneath. 'I couldn't get into any more trouble.'

Ashra looked at her with an amused expression.

'Or this... ?' Pearl pulled her into the water.

Ashra made no resistance and surfaced, her thick dark hair wet and plastered to her head, her robe now totally see-through. 'Now you are in trouble.'

'Oh dear !' Pearl took hold of the robe and, pulling Ashra in, kissed her firmly on the lips. 'I suppose that means you'll have to spank me too.'

'I'll have to do a lot more than that' Ashra laughed. 'Have you any idea how long it takes me to do my hair ?'

Pearl bit her lip. 'I'm just so naughty.' She reached out and stroked her one of Ashra's nipples.

'Just you wait...' Ashra appeared suddenly rather flushed.

'Why wait.' Pearl dropped to her knees and pressed her lips to Ashra's tight belly.


EPILOGUE

The rooftop afforded an even better view of the countryside than the terrace. It was sunset and Pearl lay on a steamer sipping a cocktail and luxuriating in the memory her afternoon with Ashra.

Her skin still tingled and she had a few more bites and bruises to add to her collection.

'Good evening.' Joseph appeared before her. He had shaved and dressed in a traditional robe. 'Ashra said I might find you up here.'

Pearl's body trembled at the implication she detected in his voice, the little smile, and was again struck by how handsome he looked.

She stood up letting the silk print robe she had borrowed from Ashra slip fall open revealing the black bullet bra, merry widow, knickers and stockings beneath. She had borrowed the lingerie from Ashra too; it was, she'd told Pearl, a style Joseph favoured.

Joseph smiled as his eyes roved down her body. 'What's in the bag ?' There was a sudden edge to his voice.

'Oh, that.' She glanced down at the carpet bag beside the steamer. 'Just a few things I packed.

'You are planning to leave ?' He sounded surprised, looked disappointed then his face became impassive. 'Will to go back to being a flight attendant ?' His voice sounded mundane.

She stared at him, her pleasure falling away like a dropped catch but she wasn't going to give up that easily. She'd always had a thirst for adventure and now her appetite was well and truly wetted. 'I packed ready incase you had another adventure planned.'

'Adventure ?' He raised his eyebrow. 'I'm just a pilot.'

'If you don't plan to take me on an adventure...' She took a step towards him letting the robe fall from her shoulders. '...I'll find someone who will.'

'Do all English girls have such a thirst for...adventure ?'

'I suppose this one might settle for being a harem slave.' She pressed herself against him, looking up at his face, her lips, parted seductively, barely inches from his.

'As it happens, I've just been given a new mission.'

'You have ?'

His words made her almost as excited as if he'd kissed her. 'Take me with you.'

'Don't you want to know where we're going ?'

She noticed he'd said 'we'.

'Where ?' Her heart started fluttering again and she felt him slide his arms around her body, pulling her even closer.

'A city called Mirkada. There are rumours of a fascist base being set up in the nearby mountains.'

'Sounds interesting.' She wanted to kiss him but, even more, she wanted to hear more about his new mission.

'It could be dangerous. We would need to fly regular sorties...I wouldn't be able to do them all so you'd need to be my copilot...of course I'd have to train you to fly first...'

'I'd be willing to learn...' She pressed herself against him, lifting her thigh to rub it against his leg. 'If I had the right teacher.'

'Ashra is a pilot too.' He was trying to be coy but she could feel his manhood hardening against her body.

'I'm not sure Ashra has quite the same thirst for adventure.' She countered.

'I was thinking she might come with us.' He said with a smile. 'At least until you were confident to fly solo.'

Pearl tried to conceal her smile by running her lips along his chin, her fingers sliding into his tightly curled hair.

'Is there a downside to this mission ?' She asked when she had mastered herself.

'We might come under enemy fire...we might be shot down,captured...interrogated. We could be executed as spies...' She could tell he was struggling to maintain his concentration

'Oh. Anything else.' She ground her pelvis against his.

'Apparently the city of Mirkada does have a number of unusual ancient traditions.'

'I think I've read about them.'

'Really ?' He sounded genuinely surprised.

'Yes.' She smiled. 'It appears I'm already packed.'

He looked puzzled and she laughed, extracting herself from his arms and bending to open the bag.

Inside were a collection of leather straps, a pair of cuffs and something that looked remarkable like one of the pony girl bridles she'd seen in the Aryan club. There was one of Ashra's riding whips too.

Joseph looked at her, a familiar wolfish smile plastered across his face.

'Perhaps we should practice some of the city's unusual customs before dinner.' Pearl said with a grin as she turned away from him and presented her wrists for binding.