The Experiment part 2

The Experiment
by Harry

CHAPTER FIVE

Emma, shivering a little, took stock of her first three weeks. She had been back to the Punishment Room for her third visit yesterday and her bottom was still sore from her beating. The Professor had once told her of a machine that beat people and she had laughed at the notion, thinking it, as she had put it, “kinky”. After twelve applications of a leather tawse she had not laughed any more. The memory of that swishing sound, followed immediately by searing agony was still too recent to allow her mind to dwell upon it at any length.

Her second visit, following her disobedience in failing to stand still had been easier than either the first or the third. On that occasion she had been made to step into a small chamber that had then closed behind her, leaving her in a four-foot square enclosure. The confinement was bad enough but immediately on stepping in she noticed a chill in the air. By the time she was let out a half hour later, the place was below freezing.

She was not surprised that she had not caught a chill. Emma had never been ill in her life, despite many duckings and soakings as a somewhat wild tomboy. Viruses and bacteria seemed to be afraid of her! Either that or they didn’t like her! That was why she was here! She was a very strong girl - almost indestructible.

Another thing Emma had long known - ever since being severely caned for misconduct involving alcohol - was that she had a very low pain threshold. Part of being very clever, she had been told, was that one was ultra-sensitive to pain.

Although it was cooler today, Emma decided to leave off wearing her shorts and underwear. She felt too sore to wear anything. As she was about to step outside the address system sounded one of its diktats.

“Subject will be fully dressed.”

This meant just her bottom garments, of course. The ban on covering her trunk had been extended by a month and Emma calculated that if she were incredibly good she might get herself fully clothed in time to face the winter.

So she pulled on her clothes and winced as she did so. It was very sore down there. Then a few hours on the pedal machine. Then some reading. No television today, though. The last programme she had seen had been a quiz and some of the contestants had been so unutterably stupid that she had thought Bad Thoughts about them.

“What a load of dickheads! BZZZZ!!! BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!! OUCH!!”

She had also got a glimpse of the American President on her way out, before the set switched off, and had reacted in her instinctively hostile way. She wished she could grow to love him! She tried hard enough - really she did! Nice George Dubya! Good man! But the machine knew she was lying and gave her a nasty jolt anyway.

Now she was locked out of her sleeping and living quarters for six hours and forbidden to lie down. She had not been instructed to stand rigidly to attention this time but was not allowed to do more than flex her body from time to time. Those who have ever had the privilege of serving their country by being in the Armed Forces will recognize what the military call “standing easy“.

Then another of her notorious outbursts. She was so bored. So utterly BORED!! She was FUCKING WELL BORED OUT OF HER FUCKING SKULL!!!! She screamed more abuse at the ever present sensors and stamped her pretty foot in rage.

“Why do I get nothing to fucking do except watch crap on television and pedal that fucking machine all ...ing day. ... YOU PROF!! You scabby old arsehole. ARSEHOLE!!”

“I must try to be patient,” she said a few seconds later as she jumped up and down, her feet being blistered each time they touched the ground. This was her most sustained voltage yet. She must be full enough of current to serve as a lighthouse beacon by now! And still it continued and still she tried desperately to think Good Thoughts.

Finally the shocks ended as suddenly as they had begun. Emma resumed her standing posture and tried desperately to be Positive in her Thinking. And Good.

She knew she hadn’t heard the last of this, though.

But it was next day that the axe fell. She was due to do her laundry today. Great excitement! Just as she put her remaining garments in the machine and turned to get another pair of shorts and underwear from the store, the door to the store slid shut. So that was that! Total nudity, day and night and in all weathers. If only she could be told for how long, but all the PA system said was that it was until further notice.

But at least she would have no more laundry, except for bedclothes. She went to fetch them next day and was horrified to find that the bedding compartment was also shut. She pedalled furiously every day after that, not anxious to have the heating in her sleeping quarters less than adequate.

And her idea of having no more laundry was a mistake. She was told that she would still have to take all the clothes out of the store and iron them and wash them once a month. Never mind that she would never get to wear them and that they would be worn out by all this unnecessary cleaning! But she suppressed her anger as best she could. She just knew that she had yet to sample the worst that the Punishment Room had to offer! And she had a phenomenally low pain threshold to sample it with!

CHAPTER SIX

And then Emma’s luck took a turn for the better. The weather improved and there was a month of wall-to-wall sunshine.

The only drawback was that the supply of water for ablutions was being used up rather quickly and Emma was reduced to using only one quart daily for washing, but she found this was enough to clean herself. Then after six weeks there was a heavy storm that filled up the tank and she was back to her daily showers.

Her studies went well, except that the book of Greek poetry was forbidden her. The sensor picked up on its erotic content very quickly and Emma was told to leave it alone in the future. She got a bad shock for the obvious enjoyment the reading of it gave her.

After her stint on the dynamo machine she was able to sunbathe for the rest of the day until the sun finally went down and had developed a totally, but totally, fantastic suntan by the end of three months, but she knew that her mind was as depraved as ever.

Her periodic outbursts were getting worse and so were her punishments. The long warm spell that ended the summer put her into a good mood and she avoided punishments for much of that time, but at the back of her mind was an awareness that she resented this all-seeing machine and could see it for what it was, an evil intrusion into the human psyche, whose dangers to freedom of thought and speech were immense. She felt that the Count, if he knew of all this, would order the project to be scrapped.

And this brings us to the point at which we first met Emma, three months into her stay on the island, naked, tanned and totally unreformed.

Towards the end of the afternoon as the skies became dark and the hail started to sting her bare body, she had her worst outburst yet, storming and raging for thirty minutes, oblivious to the agony as the current surged and kept her jumping and twitching. Finally the system closed down and she raged and swore with impunity, gradually becoming calmer. Finally she stopped and the horror of what she had done gradually sank in.

Was she ever in for it now?

The Professor was watching on his monitor in the research station. He frowned. This was not going the way he had hoped. Emma could be kept in line with more and more painful punishments, but she kept bouncing back every time, seemingly no better than before. He picked up the microphone and read out a message to be relayed over the public address system.

“Subject to report to Punishment Room immediately.”

Emma heard the instruction and obeyed. Her recent defiance had drained her strength for now. But she knew this experiment had failed as far as she was concerned. They couldn’t reform her.

The Professor, though, had other ideas. He would never give up on Emma and he still had the better part of three years to break her!

As the sliding door closed on her, Emma felt strangely calm, considering that she was in for a very painful hour or two. There was no way that her recent defiance could go unpunished. Whatever the worst that this Room contained, she knew that she was about to experience it.

She was a little surprised, therefore, to be told to get onto the table again. She had lived through an hour on this before and survived, not that she was anxious for a repeat performance.

The current was stronger this time and instead of one hour, Emma was kept pinioned and tormented for four before the clips loosened and she could get down, trembling and sobbing with the continuing agony. Every ounce of defiance had left her now. All she wanted was to be a Good Girl.

But the professor was not finished with her yet!

She was told to stand in front of the Spanking Machine. Instead of twelve applications of the tawse, she endured forty-eight and soon she was screaming and sobbing, pleading vainly for mercy and promising to be a Good Girl from now onwards.

If the Professor had left things at that, it might have been that some permanent progress had been made in the reform of the obdurate Emma.

As the leather strap attacked her posterior, the memory of her abortion came back with a stabbing agony that was even harder to bear than the physical chastisement. Her screams died down as the pain of her past took precedence over her present physical agony and she almost welcomed the last dozen blows.

Released from the spanking machine, she felt totally penitent and anxious to please. She really would be a Good Thinking Girl from now on. She thanked the Professor for teaching her such a painful lesson and vowed never to be deserving of returning to this room.

“Do we let her go now, Professor,” asked his chief assistant as the spanking came to its painful end with a trembling and seemingly contrite Emma protesting her repentance and gingerly rubbing her tender behind.

“No. This time she gets the full works. Half measures are no use with her. She needs to be broken and broken completely. Prepare for the Ultimate Punishment!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Count Alexander was in his ancestral home in Russia as Emma went through her most ghastly punishment to date. He had received her letter from Sydney and was still trying to get over his loss. As soon as he had read the letter he had hired private enquiry agents (the best) to track her down and was ready at any time to fly out and plead with her personally to reconsider. But Emma had covered her tracks well, with the Professor’s help.

He could see how the poor young woman was eaten up with guilt, and he shared her horror at what she had done. But the Count was older and wiser than Emma. He knew that nobody was beyond redemption. If only he could make her see this! The pain of seeing such a lovely person being destroyed was far worse than that of losing her.

The icon that Emma had touched in the Blue Room was now in the rebuilt monastery on the family’s former estate. He had flown back to Russia especially to return the ancient and holy relic to the monastery personally. It had been the only one of his great grandfather’s treasures that the hard-headed and mercenary old rogue had not sold. Even that died in the wool entrepreneurial capitalist had possessed some sense of the holy.

The Abbot and the Count were walking in the grounds and talking. Alexander had decided to stay for a while - a long while, maybe forever. Although he had been born and educated in England and had always thought of himself as one hundred percent British, the pull of his ancestral country and in particular this part of it was far stronger than he could ever have anticipated.

“We would always welcome you as one of our brotherhood, Count Alexander. I see you are a troubled man and I would greatly like to help. If you can find peace within these walls you are always free to stay and become one of us. But I doubt that you are ready to turn your back on the world. I feel there is work for you out there, my good Count!”

“Work, perhaps. Pain, certainly. At an age when I should be contemplating a steady and pleasurable descent into irrevocable bachelorhood, I have fallen in love, Holy Father! And not with a very suitable girl at all. Apart from being less than half my age she has known more of the world’s wickedness and added more to it than I would have thought possible for one so young and beautiful. But I love her.”

“Think long and hard, Count, before you make up your mind. And I will pray for you and for the young lady. Shall we both go inside and kneel before the Holy Icon that now occupies its rightful place again, thanks to you?”

****************

Back on the island, Emma was being told to pull down a folding table that was flush with the furthest wall from the door. As she obeyed and lay obediently down, she saw that four wires were connected to it. At the end of each wire was a clip. Gulping, she realized what was in store. Without even needing to be told she attached a clip to each nipple and one to each of her vaginal lips. This last was not too easy, for Emma was a very hairy woman these days. She spread her legs apart and obediently put her arms beside her. Soon the clips snapped shut and she was secured.

She wondered how long this was to last and whether she could survive further and even more horrible pain. She hoped it would hurt even more than all the other torments combined, for she was more than usually full of self hatred at that moment.

“Go on, Prof! Give me the works! I deserve it and a lot more besides! Then just let me die, please! Tell the Count how much I love him and how sorry I am to have let him down!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Emma sat on the sandy beach and enjoyed what might well be the last reasonably warm and sunny day of the year. When they had brought her here a few months ago to begin her three years as a human guinea pig, she had looked rather longingly at this beach, regretting that she would never get to spend any time on it. And here she was!

It was just about warm enough for the still naked girl to lie in the rather anaemic sun, but Emma was far too nervous to relax for long. The helicopter, bearing an irate and frustrated Professor and his assistants (or goons as Emma preferred to think of them) might be zooming down on the island at any time. She was surprised it had taken so long as it was.

She had been out of that hellish open-air laboratory for three weeks now and was amazed that they had still not come searching for her.

Ever since that dreadful experience with electrodes clipped to her most sensitive parts and the three hours of continuous torment that the already contrite and repentant girl had suffered, she had been determined to escape - either that or die trying to.

After the Professor had judged her to have had enough for the time being, she had continued to lie on the table despite the clips having been released, too weak and too mentally shattered to move. Finally she got to her feet, replaced the folding table in its slot in the wall, tidied up the Punishment Room and left, walking slowly and unsteadily back to her sleeping quarters which, mercifully, were not locked for a change. But she could have slept anywhere in the terrible state she was in.

For three more days she had been ordered back to that awful room, crying and pleading for mercy, assuring them in a piteous voice that she would never be guilty of uncooperative behaviour again. Each time they had put her through the same three punishments always ending up with the metal clips and the current slicing into her womanhood.

As she lay on the beach and listened to the seagulls and the waves beating on the shore and against all the treacherous rocks that surrounded the island, she remembered again the horrible odour of singed pubic hair and retched for the thousandth time. She tenderly felt the affected parts and was relieved to see and feel that they were healing up nicely at last.

It was a thunderstorm that had saved her. One night, as she waited for the sleeping quarters to open for her, a bolt of lightning struck both the island’s transformer and standby generator and the camp was without current. Emma had scampered over the no longer electrified fence and fled. In the morning a maintenance crew had arrived and repaired the damage. But the idiots had not looked inside the compound and Emma’s absence had not been noticed at the time.

She had seen the helicopter leave and made a rude sign at the departing crew. For once no jolt of current punished her. It had felt wonderfully liberating! She spent the next hour rehearsing all the foul words she had ever learned and applying them all with a wealth of invention and originality to the Professor and his team of assistants.

Unfortunately she had not had time to steal more food than she could carry in one go. Because of a fear that the electricity might come on at any moment, she had been afraid to go back for more. In one of the huts used by the maintenance crews was enough in the way of food and bottled water to last her a month or two with care - great care.

She was always a clever girl and had lived in the country a lot as a child so she was not totally lost out here in the open. She knew what berries were safe to eat and what were not. She managed to catch a few fish after rigging up a makeshift line. She was quite a good survivor. The only real worry for her was her lack of clothing. In a few weeks this would be a fatal state to be in. Or, if not fatal, then certainly not too comfortable.

But it was still a lot more comfortable than walking on that wire covered ground being lit up like a traffic beacon every time she exercised her God given right to free expression and independent thought! She’d far sooner freeze to death out here, a free woman, than go back to have the Professor play a few more of his little tricks on her! But it puzzled her that he hadn’t come to look for her.

And then she made an intelligent deduction. The Professor was saving himself the trouble of a possibly bumpy helicopter ride in the worsening weather and waiting for her to give herself up and go back to the entrance and push open the one-way gate. Well, he’d have a very long wait!

Meantime, the sea looked VERY inviting! She stared longingly at the blue water and imagined how lovely it would be to swim in it. Of course, it would be pretty cold by this time, but this island was smack in the path of the Gulf Stream! The Gulf Stream carried warm waters all the way from the Caribbean to Northern Europe in general and the British Isles in particular - or so the teachers at her Very Good School had informed her and her Daddy had paid good money and plenty of it to send her there! She finally decided to try it. Tomorrow might be stormy again; this was most likely her last chance before winter set in and she spent months cowering away in some cave hoping to survive.

Gulf Stream or no Gulf Stream, the water was bloody cold. Emma, still unreformed and morally polluted, expressed herself more forcibly, taking the name of her Saviour in vain as she pronounced the sea to be FUCKING COLD!! But she persevered and soon became sufficiently adjusted to enjoy what had once been her favourite pastime.

It all reminded her of a holiday she had spent with her parents, the summer before she went up to Oxford and met that fatally attractive young man. She had spent pretty well all day in the waters of the Aegean for three long and delightful weeks while her parents lay and snoozed on the beach. Being here, despite the uncomfortably perceptible difference in water temperature, seemed to bring those days back. Days of comparative innocence - lost innocence!

She hated getting out of the water, but the cold finally made it imperative that she do so. When she did at last stagger, pleasurably exhausted, out of the sea, she was trembling all over and her teeth were, literally, chattering. Even so, she had not felt so happy in all the months since that dreadful day when she had consented to losing her baby, just to please her lover, who had then walked out on her anyway. But thinking again of that episode brought all her unhappiness back to her and she looked at the beach, so like the one she had swum from on that last holiday. She pictured her parents, dozing as she came of the sea. It was almost as if they were there.

“I wonder if Daddy will ever forgive me! Oh, I love you so much, darling Daddy!”

She knew her mother partly forgave her and the two still kept in touch, spasmodically. But she had always been particularly close to her father and his rejection of her was just about the worst thing that had ever happened to her - apart from the abortion, that is.

But more immediate matters needed her attention right now. Becoming dry and warm without the aid of a towel came first. Getting on with a bit of work seemed like a good idea and she went over to the huts.

These buildings were fairly lightly constructed and Emma had been trying with some success to take them apart. It would not be a good idea to make one of them her permanent home - far too easy for them to swoop in and recapture her. After an hour of frenziedly bashing way at them with a large rock she was quite warm again and had collected quite a few pieces of timber which she took around to the other side of her island home.

Some of the wood she intended to construct into a sort of shelter for the winter, if only she could find somewhere to build where it could not be seen from the air. The rest would do for burning, as long as she could find a means of lighting them.

As for finally getting back to civilization, she had little or no idea. This island couldn’t be that far from inhabited land. She knew there were no islands in this area more than a mile or two away from the main group, called the Scilly Islands. Some fisherman would be bound to come close enough for her to attract his attention. What a great day it would be for him, whoever he was - being hailed by a naked and lovely young thing like her! Unless he was queer, of course!

CHAPTER NINE

“Is that your daughter, Sir Alan?”

Count Alexander, having taken the Abbot’s advice and returned to his responsibilities in England, had been invited to a reception in connection with an Anglo-Russian friendship committee at the house of one of the MPs who belonged to the said committee. The MP in question was Sir Alan Henderson. As soon as he had heard the man’s name, Alexander had been reminded of his beloved and vanished Emma. And now that he was Sir Alan’s guest he saw her picture on a sideboard in one of the reception rooms.

It was a younger and happier Emma whose schoolgirl face smiled out at him. But it was certainly the same delightful if foul-mouthed and well-plastered woman he had rescued from a night in a police cell.

Sir Alan nodded and Lady Henderson looked sad, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“Yes. That’s our Emma. I threw her out a couple of years ago and have little idea what has happened to her. She disgraced us all and chucked away what could have been a brilliant career. The last I heard she was employed as a “model” And we all know what that means.”

“I have seen her recently. I know all about her rather lurid recent past and it makes no difference as far as my estimation of her is concerned. You see, I happen to love your daughter very much. She is a fine young woman under that hard exterior, but she made one terrible mistake and won’t forgive herself for it. I want to help her and I know I could, but she disappeared off the face of the earth a few months ago. I should have realized she was your daughter, I suppose, but she never said you were an MP - just referred to you as ‘Daddy’”.

Sir Alan looked uncomfortable at this. He still loved his only child as much as ever, but his upbringing had been strict and his sense of right and wrong had been beaten into him as a boy. It was hard to forgive in others what he would never forgive in himself. Like too many others, Sir Alan had yet to discover that it is only by forgiving oneself that true redemption is possible.

“You might try Ferguson if you want to find her. If anyone knows where she is, he will. He’s our family lawyer. If she needed any legal work done I dare say she’d go to him. He was always fond of her. If you hear anything, let me know.”

And Sir Alan dismissed all further unwelcome thoughts about Emma from his mind. But Lady Henderson accompanied the Count to the door at the end of the evening.

“Please keep me in touch with whatever you find out, Alexander! I haven’t heard from her for over four months and that really is unusual. I was on the point of going to Missing Persons about her. I’m sure she wouldn’t have remained in Australia for this long. I’m her mother and I know her too well - she wouldn’t stay away from England for more than a couple of months. Not her.”

But the Count did not get to see Mr. Ferguson for two months. Mr. Ferguson had been knocked down by an errant motorist and was in a coma for weeks. As soon as he was fit to receive visitors Alexander went to visit him.

*****************

“It’s holding up all our work, Professor. Your security at that outstation sucks. We want this invention on the production line on time. We may have to do without all your research. Maybe transfer the project to the States, where it should have been from the beginning anyway…”

One of the Professor’s transatlantic clients was remonstrating with the harassed scientist over lunch at the Professor’s club. He cursed Emma under his breath. If he ever got his hands on that foul-mouthed and insolent little bitch…! Maybe a trip to the island by helicopter, risking going to a horrible watery grave was going to be essential, after all.

“May I remind you that my chief has all the rights, even if I have done the work? And he would take a lot of persuading. “

“Maybe I’d better talk to this Count fellow, then.”

The Professor tried to hide his panic. Alexander must know nothing until he had completed the experiment, given Emma a lot more reasons to regret the trouble she had caused him, and removed all evidence from the island of what this latest project of his consisted of. And all this would have to wait until spring. He put on one of his most decisive expressions and tried to reassure the American official.

“Before the escape we were well ahead of schedule.”

(He sarcastically gave the word its American pronunciation and his visitor, for a wonder, was intelligent enough to notice this. He was clearly not amused!). The Professor continued.

“We have ironed out almost all the technical problems. It was merely the readjustment of the subject, Miss Henderson, that was giving us a little trouble. I’m sure your people can sort that out for themselves. It’s merely the correct balance of reward and punishment. You’ve seen how effective the apparatus is in detecting thought patterns. All we need now is to perfect the ability of the device to pick up thoughts from several people at once and discriminate between them all, and we are three quarters of the way there as far as that is concerned. We have another experiment going on in Scotland.”

“Hell, Professor! You don’t mean you’ve got a bunch of other young lovelies going through all this and possibly escaping, scampering bare ass naked over the heather!”

The Professor laughed mirthlessly.

“No, my dear fellow! No possibility of that! All the subjects are unaware of what is happening. We are monitoring a conference of municipal accountants in Aberdeen. And there’s no heather for miles around, except maybe sprigs of it being sold by so-called gypsies to gullible idiots! The meeting is into its third day now and the results are excellent. The things some of those chaps have been thinking about each other! Quite an opportunity for blackmail if I weren’t a man of principle.”

Some principles, thought the visitor. He had just been watching footage of poor Emma’s tribulations and it hadn’t been pretty. It amazed him that progress had been so abysmally slow. He’d have been a very reformed character indeed after a tenth of what Emma had suffered!

Whenever it looked as if the young woman was finally adjusting she would regress. The American decided, finally, that the regime was far too heavily weighted on the side of punishments. Emma had, far from being intimidated by them, reacted by becoming more defiant each time the pain was stepped up. Anger had fought against fear and won in her case and the Professor had sorely misjudged her. When his colleagues on the secret and unauthorized Homeland Security committee set up their own readjustment programme across the Pond, this would be attended to.

“OK Professor, we’ll play it your way until April next year. Then we ship the equipment to the States and you can be in charge over there. Just keep your precious Count in the dark until then. From what you say, that won’t be hard. He sounds like the ideal chief!”

“Yes! I couldn’t have asked for a better one. He leaves everything to me and gets more and more otherworldly by the day! What his great grandfather would think, I can’t even begin to imagine. The old boy must be rotating in his grave at a great rate!”

The two parted amicably enough for now. But the Professor was a worried man as he drove down to the West Country. Very worried. Curse that girl!

Just outside Exeter the skies started to become blacker. By the time he had reached the research station it was snowing heavily. He switched on the radio to get the latest forecast. It was grim. He heard that the Scillies had received their first heavy fall for several years. So Emma would be coming through the gate at any time. Her rebelliousness wouldn’t last long in three feet of snow!

CHAPTER TEN

Emma, now well adapted to her role as the Sexy Cave Woman, sat as close to the fire as she could. On the other side of the blaze was Emmelina together with her three kittens. The kittens loved to play with Emma and a wary Emmelina allowed them to. But she herself was still very nervous indeed of beautiful hairy Emma. She might be hairy for a human but was still much too smooth for a cat.

The naked escapee had first seen the wild-eyed cat a few weeks before the first frost. Emma had always loved cats and was delighted at first to see the black creature staring at her from a safe distance. But her efforts at making friends had got nowhere until she lit the first fire and went off to get food from the store and see what fish had been hooked overnight.

On returning she had seen the cat and her three surviving kittens in the cave and enjoying the heat. She had crept slowly around them so as not to scare them off. By this time, four weeks later, Emma was warily accepted by the mother and loved by her delightful brood.

Emma had been lucky enough to find quite a lot of very useful things in the remains of the huts that she had so painstakingly demolished. Among the treasure trove was a box of matches, a pistol and some ammunition – nothing that she could fashion into even the most basic garment, though.

The nervous girl had managed to load the gun, after a few hairy moments, during one of which the weapon had gone off. Luckily she had been pointing it away from her. She was not anxious to use it too often, although she had been very tempted by the sight of a rabbit and the poor beast had given her several tasty meals. She had tried to fashion the skin into some kind of clothing but given up in disgust. In any case, she quite relished being naked on her island by this time. It was a lot easier than she had thought it would be to start with, and as the Professor had said months ago, it was milder here than the rest of the country. Windy, maybe. But mild.

She still managed a few minutes in the water every morning, even though it was getting colder and colder every time she plunged in and in spite of the fact that it was wreaking havoc on her hair, which was down to her waist by now and as matted and unkempt as that of the most fearsome story book savage. If only Alex could see her now!

Pixie, Sammy and Bobby came away from Emmelina, who took advantage of the respite to fall asleep, and each in turn climbed on to Emma’s long and comfortable thighs. She squealed as Pixie stuck her tiny claws into her but made no effort to remove the sweetest of the three.

She picked up Bobby and kissed him. Then she fell asleep herself. It had been a busy day for her. The fire needed to be kept going all day and all night just at present. She would leave as soon as it was light and scout the island for wood. Fortunately there was plenty of it, although she had to go further afield each day to find the twigs and small branches that she preferred. It was distasteful to her, as well as hard, to uproot whole trees even small ones.

The supply of nuts and berries was also worrying her. Carbohydrates and Vitamin C were essential to life. She had learnt that much between daydreams in science classes. She could already sense that her skin was not what it should be and this was her main worry these days. The stores of food in the huts were getting low and she needed a miracle if she were to get through the next months.

The next day she found the crate. She scoured the beaches every day for driftwood and was always on the lookout for something more exciting. The crate was the most exciting find so far. It took her most of the day to open it, causing her to utter many imprecations as she cut her leg open when she manhandled it rather clumsily.

It occurred to her that these were the first foul words she had uttered or thought in weeks! She looked down and saw that she had caused no serious damage to her shapely, if dirty and incredibly hairy leg and continued getting the thing open. It was full of rations. Most likely an emergency supply for a lighthouse that had fallen overboard and been washed ashore, somehow not being smashed into fragments against the rocks. There were enough fruit juice and vitamin supplements to last her for a year, as well as many bars of chocolate. She gave a prayer of thanks and hauled her find back to the cave.

But this was very definitely not the way she wished to spend the rest of her life. And the New Year, a week or two later, was not the happiest of occasions for her. She earnestly hoped she would not be seeing in next year in this place. All she wanted was to have time to tame and make friends with Emmelina and leave with her four new companions for warmer and more civilized surroundings. And Emmelina was coming round by degrees. Emma was very occasionally allowed to touch her by this time, although it was still far from safe to do so, as several deep scratches testified.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I think you had better leave, Count Dobrynin. He’s still too weak to cope with questions. You’ve upset him for some reason.” said the Sister.

Alexander sighed. His search for Emma was getting nowhere and for some reason he was deeply worried. Instinct told him she was in danger. But as soon as he had mentioned her name to the recovering Ferguson, that gentleman had become agitated and the watchful Sister had immediately intervened.

Three weeks later he had a call from the hospital to say that Mr. Ferguson was much better and wanted to see him to talk about Emma.

“He is very sorry to have been so difficult the other time. He says he has something very important for you.”

But the Count was beginning to have troubles of his own by this time. He arranged to visit Ferguson next day, but this was not to happen.

Three days earlier he had been for a walk over the nearby Hampstead Heath, ending with a quick visit to the Iveagh Collection at Kenwood House. He was foolish enough not to wear his greatcoat and it was a raw and foggy day. And the Count had a history of chest ailments.

He spent a few minutes contemplating the Vermeer and went home. But he felt ill as soon as he got inside the house and next day he had a dreadful cough. By the time Ferguson’s message arrived, Alexander was getting worse and next morning when he should have been visiting the lawyer he was on his way to hospital, but not the one Ferguson was in.

Harrison had come to wake him and found the Count delirious. Pneumonia was diagnosed and the doctor insisted that he be sent to a hospital without delay. It was touch and go with the Count for two weeks and a further four before he was well enough to go home, and even then he was warned to take life very easily for a couple more months.

“You’ve had a rough time, Alex,” said the doctor. “No work for you just yet awhile. Never mind! The Professor and his colleagues will keep the show on the road!”

If Alexander had known just what kind of a show the Professor and his goons were running he would have immediately disobeyed his doctor’s orders, but he was unaware of what was going on and the dire conditions that poor Emma was living in.

Even so, three weeks after being discharged and still a little wheezy, he went to call on Mr. Ferguson, now back at work after his brush with death.

CHAPTER TWELVE

While the Professor was watching the monitor for signs of Emma’s obedient return to a life of readjustment and Mr. Ferguson and the Count were beginning to go through their respective misfortunes, Emma was curled up in front of her fire. She had kept the snow clear from the moth of the cave, using a rusty old shovel that had come from one of the, by this time, totally demolished huts. And now she was resting.

She had the three kittens clasped to her breasts and was thinking how sad it was that they didn’t realize how lucky they were. All three were fast asleep, as was Emmelina, who had reluctantly concluded that the young woman was harmless enough and very warm to be near. She was sleeping on Emma’s thigh, enfolded by her pretty if hairy legs.

Emma might think her legs utterly gross by this time, with their thick covering of fine golden down, but Emmelina thought differently.

“Call this fur,” she thought crossly, “how can a pathetic covering like that keep her warm?”

But it was nice and soft, was Emma’s thigh. Emmelina, despite her suspicious and deeply pessimistic nature, began to feel contentment steal over her. She purred, but Emma didn’t hear this. Emma was fast asleep.

It had been a busy day. Snow or no snow, wood had to be collected and the fire kept well lit at all times. And Emma wouldn’t keep fresh food in the cave. Those cats had a way of finding their way to it no matter where she put it. So she had found a place to put it under a rock where they couldn’t get at it.

All five had just feasted on a couple of mackerel that the industrious girl had caught the day before. She had an awful job keeping the greedy creatures away from it while it was being cooked. They might like raw fish but Emma knew it was bad for them, so they had to be patient. Her own family pet had been very ill from eating raw fish and the vet had been adamant that they must never feed it to her again.

She decided that until this snow was over, she would stay inside as much as possible and use the canned food from the crate and what was left of the store from the maintenance men’s hut. Emmelina hated this stuff, getting very cross when it was put before her, and Emma wasn’t too enthusiastic herself, but needs must and all that!

The snow lay on the ground for three long weeks, but there were no more falls after the third day, so Emma had no more clearance to do after that. She cleared a path to the beach where she kept her fishing line so that this daily trip was kinder on her feet, although they were pretty well used to the roughest of rough treatment. Not even the sharpest stone cut her now.

One morning Emma had time on her hands for a change and she studied her toes closely. She decided that the first item on the agenda if and when she got back to civilization, was a pedicure. Just as she was trying to decide on what colour nail varnish to ask for, Emmelina came up behind her and startled her. It was nice that they were such good friends at last, but she wished the creature would realize than human skin, especially that of a delicate and lovely nineteen year old female, is very sensitive to clawing!

She picked her up and went back to the cave, followed by the three kittens who were becoming very good hunters already. If Emma couldn’t get them all away fairly soon they’d go wild again and develop bad habits.

After the snow had all gone the weather gradually improved and soon it was spring. By mid-March the hardy Emma could sit on the beach for hours at a time and swim until she was too tired to swim any more.

Then what she had once dreaded and now longed for happened. A helicopter was on its way. But Emma wasn’t afraid. She had the pistol and was ready for the Professor and his goons this time!

She couldn’t believe it when the helicopter took off an hour later and flew back the way it had just come. What were they playing at? Obviously they had left some people behind and would be back in a couple of days in the hope that Emma would have been fooled into thinking she was alone again and captured.

She decided to anticipate them and set off for the horrible compound, which she had been nowhere near since her escape.

Emma found no signs of life in the compound when she first went to inspect it from the outside. But she felt sure someone was there, all the same.

Then two days after the mysterious appearance and disappearance of the helicopter she was returning from a successful fishing expedition when she heard someone coming. Hurrying back to the cave the picked up the gun and went to where the sounds had come from.

She was good at making little noise by this time and soon she had crept to within a few yards of whoever it was.

Apart from killing one poor little bunny rabbit she had never used the gun. With some nervousness she undid the safety catch. Casting about in her mind for something to say, she discarded “Go ahead, punk, make my day” and “Feeling lucky, punk?” in favour of. “Freeze! Put your hands up and turn around - and slowly!”

The intruder did as he was told. As he turned to face Emma, the naked girl dropped her arm. Then she threw the gun away and ran towards him.

CONCLUSION

“Oh, my darling! Thank Heaven you’ve come for me!” Emma was weeping as she ran to Alexander and threw her arms around him. The two embraced and remained in this happy position for some time. Then the Count stepped back and started to take off his coat, clearly meaning to give it to the naked girl so that she might cover herself for the first time in months.

He was startled at the sharp way his beloved snapped at him!

“Put that back on at once! NOW, Alex! You’ll catch a chill. Don’t worry about me! I was built to last! And if I got through the winter, I’ll certainly survive another hour or two! But you, you poor man. You look terrible. You must take care of yourself. Let’s get you somewhere nice and warm! I take it the Experiment is over and the current switched off?”

The Count coughed, showing that he was still far from recovered.

“Yes, my darling Emma. The Experiment is over and the Professor no longer works for me - not since your worried lawyer, Ferguson spilled the beans a day or two ago. He’ll be lucky to come out of this a free man, although I might well be in trouble, too. It was my company, after all, that put you through all that misery!”

“Well, I won’t give evidence against you or cooperate with any prosecution! After all is said and done, I did volunteer for this lunatic scheme!”

Emma accompanied him back to her former sleeping quarters, got bedding out of the store and made him comfortable. He did not complain. He really had overdone things, contrary to doctor’s orders. After she got something for him to eat, he fell asleep. It had been very unwise of him to fly over to the island and spend a night here in a far from cosy accommodation.

Emma went over to the dynamo and recharged the batteries for the heating unit. She sat by the bed watching him sleep for some hours until, finally, he woke up.

“When does the helicopter come back, sweetheart?”

“As soon as I ask them. Why are you still undressed, Emma? Don’t get me wrong - you look lovely! But it makes me shiver just to look at you. There’s plenty of clothing over in the store. Go and put something on.”

Emma shook her head.

“I’d like to stay like this a bit longer, if you don’t mind. Until we hear the ‘copter - then I promise to get myself looking decent, apart from the hair which is a disaster that will cost me a fortune to put right! Correction! Cost YOU a fortune! Could you tell them to bring a cat basket with them when they come back? I’ve made a few friends while I have been here and they either come back with me or I stay here with them! Now I’d better go and fetch my dear furry friends. You’ll love them. You’d better!”

An hour later, Alexander, a dressed though still barefoot Emma, three excited and delighted kittens and a furious spitting and hissing Emmelina were on their way back to civilization and a pedicure. Emmelina yowled, growled, hissed and spat all the way to Exeter airport. Emma had previously had no idea that cats could be so versatile when it came to expressing themselves. She was hugely impressed, but thought it a terrible example to be setting her three offspring!

She vowed there and then never to allow bad language to assail the ears and pollute the growing minds of any children she might have if she were to be blessed with any after destroying her first one. There again, her parents had never used bad words in front of her. She’d had to work it out for herself, and a very successful job she had made of it!

At Exeter they called out a vet, who sedated the furious animal, joking that he’d felt safer treating a sick alligator at London Zoo. The party had a quiet drive in the Count’s Rolls back to London.

Alexander went straight to bed as soon as they got him home and the doctor was called.

“You disobeyed me, Alex! Very foolish! Mind you, when I see who you brought back from that island, I can’t say I blame you. She’s such a darling. Just what this house needs.”

Thanks to Harrison and Emma who made sure he was looked after round the clock, he was able to get up after a week and improved steadily thereafter.

Before Emma Henderson became Emma Dobrynina there was a bit of unfinished business. She was determined that no one would give her away except her beloved father and it took the combined effort of her mother, the Count and a clearly transformed Emma to bring him round.

As soon as Alexander was better Emma made her long awaited visit to the beauty parlour, emerging with all traces of the naked savage of the past few months expunged forever. The Count regretted this in a way. He had been quite taken with that first sighting of his beloved after so many months, her long hair unkempt and tangled and her body bronzed and weathered by the long exposure. But it was time to move on.

Pixie, Bobby and Sammy were delighted with the large house and extensive gardens. Emmelina took longer to adjust but even she was finally to achieve a sort of wary contentment, although Emma was the only one who could get near her for months until she finally came to accept the rest of the household.

The Professor escaped without being prosecuted, as did his American counterpart. The whole project was scrapped and the authorities on both side of the Atlantic agreed that the less information about the mind reading invention that got into the public domain the better.

There was trouble over the Scottish accountants when they heard how their Conference had been used, but a handsome payment satisfied them. There are few Scotsmen who would have refused such a generous offer and positively no Scottish accountants could refuse.

As for the Professor he was never able to forgive Emma even though she very generously forgave him. Although he tried to avoid such publications as featured her activities, it was not possible to do so completely.

First it was the Wedding. Emma - the bride of the year. Then the honeymoon. Emma in a bikini, Emma at the ball, Emma topless and sporting a variety of daring thongs. There was even a photo of her nude, although it was so blurred that it could have been any fair-haired lady between eighteen and fifty!

Then the Professor was periodically affronted by accounts of Emma’s frequent pregnancies and the regular delivery of fine healthy children, five in number before the couple went to a lecture on the World Population Explosion and called a halt to their procreative activities.

The last straw came when he was at the dentist’s leafing through a copy of “Hello” magazine. There was that cursed woman again! This time, she was not only surrounded by her brood of disgustingly happy little brats with her arm on her husband’s shoulder and smiling. She was always smiling. Didn’t she ever lose that smile?

What finally pushed Professor Wedderburn over the edge was the inclusion in this particular photograph of the family’s collection of four cats. He recognized the oldest straight away. It was Gertrude! He had taken Gertrude as a kitten to the island three years before the Experiment when the place was still being used for above board and legitimate research. It had been her job to keep the mice down.

From the first, Gertrude had been an unpleasant, vicious creature, spiteful and with very sharp claws which she was never afraid to use on the Professor, who was greatly relieved when the animal he had come to regard as The Cat From Hell had taken herself off one fine day and never returned. And here the creature was, being stroked by Emma and looking adoringly up at her.

He read the caption carefully. Emmelina, Bobby, Pixie and Sammy. To think that a depraved slut who could dream up such idiotic names had been the cause of his ruin!

Next day the Professor applied to join an enclosed monastic order and was never heard of again. For the rest of his life he heard no more of Emma and was thus able to attain a certain peace of mind.

So, up to a point, we can say that all lived happily ever after.

THE END