Peter was still horny from the fantastic sex he had enjoyed with Isabel and had thought of nothing but to get her back into bed with her legs chained about his back as usual. At 7 p.m., they were back in the master bedroom, Isabel having doffed her blouse, stepping out of her skirt en route, leaving just the ankle chains and loincloth on while Peter literally hopped out of his work clothes. Isabel did not bother with her favourite nightgown -- this night was to be just pure lust, nothing else -- a good, firm fuck is what they both wanted and needed.
‘Goddamn these chains,’ Isabel thought to herself as she felt Peter lock the slim chain around her neck again. ‘Goddamn, they’re good; it’s almost as though they are magic somehow.’
Peter was in no mood to question her stranger-than-fiction shackles; tonight was going to be a "hard night" -- all night long. He gently pulled the loincloth to one side and slipped easily underneath her ankle chains as Isabel spread her legs in their usual diamond for him.
Their lovemaking was no less amorous and intense as the night before and at 11 p.m. both collapsed into each other’s arms, exhausted beyond words. Sleep came quickly to both as did the 7 a.m. alarm, which Isabel slept through.
Peter got up, dressed and quickly kissed his woman as he planned the big trip to the jewellery store for the diamond ring he would surprise her with that night in his easy chair. He hoped.
Isabel was still sleeping when he dashed out the door and drove down the road to the construction site where he had just landed work the day before. He scarcely noticed the little black Renault driving past him as he planned his lunch break to get from the construction site to the jewellery, pick out the ring, get to the bank, back to the store, back to work, and back to the store after work to get the ring, then home and then . . .
The man in the Renault was the same drunk that Peter had verbally dismissed at the Locksmith’s Arms two days ago but he did not know. Or care.
The grey-haired, stocky man, unshaven and in his 50s, was a white slaver and British expatriate from Marseilles, France, whose target this ordinary day in June 1975 was Isabel Metcalfe, sound asleep in chains in her bed at home, in rural western Scotland. This mission would make him impossibly rich, beyond his wildest dreams, he thought. It would also, instantly, change Isabel, a, attractive mill worker, into a chained thrall, an indentured woman. Isabel Metcalfe, 35, mother of two boys, was about to become the chattel of a bizarre genetic-engineering project in the remote reaches of Ushwant, a rugged, desolate country with mountains to the west and deserts sloping to the Indian Ocean to the east.
The country had a thriving slave trade and Bruce, the slaver, knew a white woman, especially a Scot, would "gather quid" -- probably in the hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling.
He had it all plotted out since the chance meeting with his target at the pub a couple of days ago. He had seen Isabel’s chains when she sat down two tables away from him and he knew she would make a good target -- a good acquisition. If she and that bozo-husband of hers were into chains, so what? So much the easier for him to make sure she would be immobilized for the big trip.
He had the private jet from the Centre of Excellence for Genetic Engineering, and its crew, sworn to secrecy on pain of death, waiting for him at Prestwick Airport’s general aviation area but the hardest part was about to begin: how to get her out of the house without alerting anyone.
He was tipped by a construction contractor friend that Peter had just started work at a site across town and that Isabel would be alone at home alone, probably in chains, he hoped. Bruce, an ex-British army commando, found the house easily and radioed his position back to the private jet on the GA runway at Prestwick.
The rest was easier than he thought. He jimmied the front lock with his tools, put on the black ski mask inside the house and found Isabel sound asleep in the master bedroom. With a commando’s trained sense for acquiring details at first glance, Bruce saw the slender chain padlocked around Isabel’s neck and the little brass key on the nightstand farthest away from her.
She was still sleeping when he picked the key up and it was only when he was leaning over her that she awoke with a scream.
"A--a-agh! Who’re you?" Isabel cried, as she scrambled with her hands to tug the neck chain over her head. Those were her last words. He plunged the disposable hypodermic into her shoulder and injected a large dose of a powerful sedative as he held her down onto the bed with a deathgrip on the chain that secured her head and neck to the bed. Isabel had five seconds only to thrash her chained ankles feebly underneath the sheets before she faded into oblivion. Bruce unlocked her neck chain, pulled down the quilt and sheets, quickly appraised her near-nakedness and the sturdy, 18-in. chain between her ankles he had glimpsed in the pub. "Ar-r-r, that’s the ticket; those chains are sure to get a few more quid" -- and set to work binding and gagging the 35-year-old woman.
So what if the rough, 1/8th-in. hemp cord he knew and trusted made red indentations and welts if tied on feminine flesh for more than five minutes? She was going to be bound a lot longer than that so she may as well get used to it, he thought.
Isabel, clad only in her yellow-chiffon loincloth, ankle chains, nipple rings and earrings, was rolled hard over onto her belly and her arms were drawn into the middle of her back. Bruce quickly and easily looped three bights of cord around her elbows, drawing them tight together so her forearms ran down the middle of her back, then lashed her wrists together in eight overlapping figures-of-eight, tying elbows and wrists together at mid-forearm with doubled lengths of cord and a series of square knots which he doubly secured with fine stainless steel wire.
"Even Mrs. Houdini would have a helluva time getting out of that one," he laughed heartlessly, as he bent to lash her knees and ankles together in similar, methodical fashion. He then drew her chained ankles up to her wrists, noting the woman’s gymnastic degree of flexibility as well as the fine craftsmanship of the shackles, and tied Isabel into her first-ever hogtie. He was familiar with that particularly brutal bondage after having practised on several prostitutes in Piccadilly Circus. After his dishonourable discharge from the army in 1973 he prowled the streets of central London looking to fulfill his bondage fantasies.
He remembered Eliza, a slender blonde from Essex, commenting afterward it took him all of one minute to hogtie her into complete immobilization. Bruce told her the slightest movement would cause any of the eight key knots in his expertly--tied bondage to tighten down inexorably.
Isabel’s bondage was total and complete -- in just over one minute -- and she couldn’t move. And, soon, she wouldn’t be able to speak. The ex-commando withdrew a 10-in.-diameter spherical sponge from his army fatigues pocket, pried Isabel’s jaws open and stuffed her mouth with the sponge so fully that her cheeks bulged. He then applied a 25-ft. elastic bandage which he wound round and round her lips, chin and cheeks, followed by six layers of sticky medical adhesive bandage and, finally, a locking head harness to ensure everything stayed in firm place. The harness, which he acquired from a bondage equipment house in California, was made of half-in. chrome flexible steel straps that tightly circled her mouth and passed under her chin. Two attaching straps that joined in a V between her eyes were riveted to another band that passed over her head and the whole ensemble locked with two hasps in back. She could never reach that when she comes to, Bruce said to himself, as he snapped the last lock closed. Isabel laid silent, still and unconscious, breathing shallowly through her nose only with the effects of the sedative injection.
Taking off his ski mask Bruce lit a cigarette as he walked back out to his car and got his oversize -- "woman’s size" he called it -- kitbag from the backseat, walked nonchalantly back into the house into the bedroom and slid the bag over Isabel’s doubled-up body. He zipped up the bag, fastened the sturdy buttons and Bruce and his female baggage were ready for a trip Isabel would never forget.
He hoisted the 115-lb. woman, bound, chained, gagged and immobile inside the kitbag, easily on his shoulder and walked out onto the front porch. He flicked the cigarette butt into the flower bed then put the kitbag in the waiting open trunk, slammed the lid and went back and closed and locked the front door.
Two crows flew overhead soundlessly and there was no one to be seen for miles. Smiling at the ease and success of his gambit, Bruce then got into the stolen Renault and drove off to Prestwick, about two hours away, humming the First World War soldiers’ tune Pack Up Your Troubles (in your old kitbag).
Arriving at Prestwick after an uneventful 1 ½-hour drive, he parked the little sedan in the long-term lot, got out and shouldered the kitbag, with Isabel still unconscious inside, and strode inconspicuously inside the air terminal building’s GA area. He passed through customs easily, saw that the kitbag was gently loaded onto the small African-registered twin-engine jet and walked onto the apron, up the few steps into the little plane. Grounds crew closed the hatch quietly, pulled away the mobile staircase and the twin engines of the little jet purred and whined into life.
The little jet turned and taxied onto the GA runway, the pilots received clearance from the tower and, moments later, the plane was climbing high into the grey skies of southern Scotland with the first leg of the flight under way over England and across the English Channel into continental airspace.
At cruising altitude, Bruce got up from his seat and walked back into the jet’s triangular-shaped rear compartment to check on his baggage: he unbuttoned and unzipped the duffel bag and pulled it off Isabel’s silent, immobile, nearly-naked body.
For her "personal safety," he locked a six-foot length of sturdy chain around her waist, using another padlock to secure it to a nearby eyebolt on the fuselage. Isabel Metcalfe lay bound and still as the jet continued its flight south. Her waist chain swayed to and fro slightly as the little aircraft passed through some light turbulence over the grey skies of Northern France but she was aware of nothing as the little jet continued its southerly course at 25,000-feet.
As the sedative’s effects wore off, she became groggily aware of a jaw-breaking feeling that nearly triggered her gag reflex. She panicked seconds later when she realized her mouth was filled with some object and it was firmly secured in place with material she could not identify. As well, her eyes could barely focus on the two thin metal bands of her head harness that passed up either side of her nose to join on top of her head.
A small "mmmmmpppphhhh" was all that she could manage over the quiet whine of the twin-engine jet, cruising now southeast over central France, heading into the airspace of the Federal Republic of Germany. She had never before been so securely, or viciously, bound. Hogtied since before 8 a.m., her arms and legs were now completely numb. Her eyes snapped open wide and all she could see were her head harness’ two shiny, thin bands of metal on either side of her nose.
Unable to move a muscle in her arms or legs, she felt the addition of the heavy chain around her waist and, looking down her bound body, followed its length to where it was locked to an eyebolt.
Gathering her thoughts and getting her panic under control, the brave woman wriggled a little and found she could barely move -- maybe a couple of inches -- and quickly realized the numbness in her limbs would ensure she could not be able to walk unassisted even if she were freed of her bondage.
Her kidnapper came back to gloat and she recognized him right away.
"Mmmmfffoou!" she shouted, glaring at him past her harness as she recognized him from the pub in Edinburgh.
"Yes, it’s me," he replied.
"Wfffrrroogmmmfff? (What are you going to do with me?)
"You’re going to be sold."
"Hmmmffftt?" (What?)
"Sold. As a slave."
"Mrfffnshtngzz. Mmffnrd." (There’s no such thing as a slave! Bastard.)
"Oh, yes, there is where we are going. By the way, would you like some water?
Isabel nodded.
Bruce began to remove her harness, the sticky adhesive, elastic bandage and pulled the sponge out of her mouth. He then put the canteen of ice-cold water to her lips. Isabel drank deeply thinking she might not have another drink for a long while.
"I’ll have to put all this kit back on you now, Isabel."
"How do you know my name? Who are you and where’s Pewaaooo. . . " Her question about Peter was choked off as he expertly prised her jaws open with his powerful, gloved hand to accept the saliva-damp sponge.
"Close your lips; it’ll be easier for you that way."
Isabel complied, closing her jaw and lips around the bulky sponge, making her cheeks bulge even further. Bruce dexterously reapplied the elastic bandage, another half-roll of sticky tape and the complex metal harness that kept everything locked in place.
"Mmmmfffff," Isabel said, as she shifted away from him to ease her cramped hogtie on the cool steel deck. Escape was impossible, bound as she was, and she ceased struggling. She had been starved for oxygen for a couple of hours in the kitbag but the oxygen-rich interior of the aircraft was having its desired effect.
She knew she would have to slow her breathing or risk becoming light-headed and panicky again but it was a struggle to breathe through her nose only.
She was thinking of the calming effect her pre-natal breathing exercises had on her before her sons were born when, suddenly, Bruce returned with an object in his right hand and a small tube in his left.
"I’ve brought you a friend to keep you company for the rest of the trip," he gloated, as he bent down to show Isabel the foot-long, three-inch-diameter silicone dildo with attached electronic hardware.
"This little tube of Super Lube will help ease your introduction to your new lover," he added, as he swung Isabel’s tightly bound and chained legs toward him. She attempted to wriggle away but he stepped on her ankle chain and she was going nowhere. As well, the chain holding her to the fuselage was pulled taut and she was immobile. Bruce knelt in front of her cramped legs, doubled up in twine, and inserted the tube’s long probe into her vagina, emptying the entire contents into her.
He then slid the foot-long dong into her easily and used another long length of hemp cord to lash it in place using the waist chain as an anchor. He passed a bit of the cord through an eye at the base of the dildo, around between her ass cheeks and secured it at the waist chain in the small of her back, the knots facing away from her fingers.
"This little black box will rev that dildo-vibrator inside you at 2500 r.p.m., which is considerably faster than the fucking you got last night from Peter," Bruce said mockingly as he straightened out the box’s eight-foot electrical leads.
He lodged the box securely into a small compartment well out of the reach of Isabel’s securely-bound knees, smiled at her and pressed the red buttons.
Instantly the high-pitched, gyrating dildo made her spasm in fear and pain.
"Mmmmpphhhhrrrrr," she said softly through her thick gags.
"Night, night," Bruce said as he pulled the compartment curtain closed, leaving Isabel bound, chained, gagged and helpless with an enormous dildo vibrating intensely deep inside her slick pussy.
She had been hogtied now for nearly six hours in chains, cords and extremely effective gags. She now would have to endure pussy torture for the rest of the four-hour trip across the southern continent, across the Adriatic and Mediterranean into North African airspace.
Their destination, a dusty gravel airstrip in East Africa with a line of tin-and-wood shacks scorched dry by countless days of heat, sun and sand, was in the desolate desert of Ushwant -- a land known for centuries to the slave trade.
The dildo was an immediate frustration to Isabel. Its high-frequency vibrations stimulated her clit, her vagina and the deep recesses of her cervix -- all at the same time -- and she cursed her body for the rising sexual sensations as she twitched and shrugged in little increments to ease the cramping pain of her bonds.
She lay there, quietly mmmppphing through her nose, as the dildo continued its stimulations deep inside her. After 15 minutes, she felt the first small wave of sexual pleasure ease the pain of her pinioned arms and legs and the ache in her jaws. The quarter-hours became half-hours, then hours, and still the dildo continued, running steadily at 2,500 r.p.m. on the aircraft’s DC power supply.
Two hours later, she couldn’t stand it anymore and heaved herself onto her back with a cha-clunk from her heavy waist chain. She vainly tried to spread her legs as far as they would go -- about one inch -- and gave herself over to her first electrically-induced orgasm. The humming dildo made her legs and groin spasm intensely and she tossed her head around trying to free herself from the gags and harness.
"I don’t want these bastards to hear me come," she said to herself. "I’ll be damned if I’ll give them that satisfaction." She bit down hard on the sponge gag, forcing it deeper into her mouth, as the first orgasmic wave lifted her hips off the steel deck.
"Mmmffffnnngggghhh," she said quietly. "Mm-ggg-enntt-wzgd." (Migod, even that was good).
When she popped during sex with Peter she could move about relatively freely, whether he was on top, or she atop him, but her hogtied orgasm reduced her to a twitching bundle of arms, legs and nerve endings.
And the dildo continued its devilish delights.
An interminable time later, just as she was starting her second orgasm, she heard the engines’ pitch change.
‘We’re going to land,’ she thought. ‘Ohmigod, what’s going to happen to me now?’
The wet spot on the front of her loincloth suddenly disappeared into insignificance as Bruce emerged through the heavy black curtain to remove the power dildo.
"Mmmfff," she said, as he untied the cords holding the vibrator in place, sliding it out for the first time in three hours. He noted how slick it was with lube and pussy juice as he put it on the floor beside her head. Isabel looked with bemusement at the foot-long, three-in. toy that had helped ease her pain in the last hours of the flight.
Bruce then untied the cords on her knees and ankles, freeing her from the hogtie but he left her elbows and wrists bound tightly behind her back, the chain around her waist and her gags in place.
"In preparation for landing, please fasten your seatbelts and put your chair backs and tables in the upright position," he laughed, as he tugged on her waist chain that secured her to the plane.
"Mmmmffff-ggooo!" (Fuck you) Isabel wheezed, glaring at him while trying to swallow around the gag as the cabin pressure started to change during descent. She shook her head feebly, trying to clear her ears -- opening her mouth wider was impossible -- and she noticed the deck at her feet was declining sharply. She slid slightly forward on the now-warm deck but was halted by her waist chain which turned her sideways in the small compartment.
The engines’ pitch continued to lower as the plane reduced speed and Isabel was suddenly thrust into the rear of the compartment, to the full length of her waist chain, as the small jet’s main landing gear hit the coarse gravel with a shocking crunch.
The deck finally straightened up when the nose gear touched down, the flaps deployed and the plane slowed dramatically as the brakes were applied and the spoilers deployed. Isabel rolled forward slightly and her waist chain again brought her up short.
Soon, she felt the plane lurch and bump its away off the runway and onto a rocky apron; the interior grew suddenly hot as the air conditioning was temporarily shut off then the cool air started up again as ground crew hooked power from a small generator to the jet’s body.
Thumps and bumps followed and suddenly a hatch several feet in front of her snapped open from the outside, bathing the cool, grey interior of the aircraft in brilliant, hot sunlight.
"End of the road, Isabel," Bruce announced as he came back for her, still in the same smelly clothes as he wore earlier that day. "Welcome to Slavery, East Africa."
A tear trickled down Isabel’s gagged cheek when the impact of those statements -- anathema to her Scottish sensibilities -- sunk in.
‘I’m not a slave,’ she said to herself. ‘Never have been, never will be and by Christ I’ll do anything I have to to kill this man.’
"Upsy," Bruce said, as he unlocked her waist chain from the fuselage, pulling her to her feet by its four-ft. length. Isabel could barely stand on legs which had been cramped for hours in a tight hogtie but she managed to wobble out of the tiny triangular compartment near the tail of the plane with Bruce holding onto her waist chain.
Isabel took five steps to reach the jet’s hatch, her chains rattling on the metal deck. Her leg muscles screamed at her as circulation was restored to her chained legs that had been lashed double for so many hours. She groaned into the gag as she saw the steps and the rough ground beyond.
Looking down past her head harness and gag, she saw 18 steep aluminium steps that would take her to a new destiny in hot, dusty Africa. Her chains clinked and rattled loudly as she took each metal step, one at a time, in the hot, bright mid-afternoon desert sun.
The heat she felt was hotter than any she had ever experienced. ‘It’s a hundred times hotter, and dryer, than the mill’s boiler room when they’re trying to get steam built up on a January Monday morning,’ she thought sadly.
"Mmmmffffooooohhh," (oh, no) she wailed, thinking she would never see Scotland; her house; Harry and Charlie, her boys; Peter, her lover, or Moira, her best friend, ever again. Her gags, the cords on wrists and elbows, the waist chain, the ever-present ankle chains and her nipple rings all weighed heavily on her conscience now and she cursed every bond that had been placed on her.
"This way, Isabel," Bruce said as he guided her towards a tin shack with a chimney about 100-feet away. Her chained feet created little clouds of dust in the ground as she shuffled along toward the decrepit, single-storey shack.
Inside the dimly-lit structure it took a minute for Isabel to focus her eyes. Her nostrils flared as her breathing began to quicken as she looked at a long table, a pile of chain, a black valise, two men in white suits and three African soldiers in scruffy combats, complete with rifles, pistols, bandoliers, and the requisite mirror-finish sunglasses.
"Well, here we are, safe and sound," Bruce said. "Gentlemen, this is Isabel. Isabel, meet your new owners, Sheikh Musafdi and Omar al-Muesli."
"Mmmff," Isabel said.
"Unbind her at once; those cords may cause circulation and neurological problems, you fool," the younger African said. "And take that gag off but leave those ankle chains on her; they look very well made."
"Very well made, indeed," Bruce said. Isabel agreed, too, to herself.
"Yyuuttrnnggtmmoff," (you just try and get ’em off) Isabel tried to yell through her gags. "Pleef." Her jaws -- aching from the hours of being stuffed and pried apart --were making life more miserable for the captive woman and mother of two.
Bruce stood behind the captive and the two Africans and three soldiers watched him untie Isabel carefully. She winced as he cut and peeled the thin cords away from her elbows, leaving deep, red furrows in her arms. Next to be untied were her wrists, equally well-marked by the vicious, thin cord. Her arms, now freed, flopped helplessly by her sides and Isabel tried to flex her fingers one by one.
She panicked when she was unsuccessful and breathed in sharply through her nose when she realized she might have acquired nerve damage from the long bondage. Bruce unlocked her heavy waist chain and left her gag on until last. The soldiers were motioned silently outside.
"Sit down, Isabel," the older white-suited African said, motioning her to a chair at the long table.
"Bruce, thanks for the job," he said. "You’re dismissed with our thanks. Here’s your money -- 200,000 pounds sterling -- for professional services rendered. Well done," he said with a sudden dark glare at the expatriate Brit. "Now, go. Begone."
"Thanks," Bruce said, picking up the black case, turning to leave into the brilliant African sunlight. The door closed with a soft thud.
Seconds later, "Crack, crack."
Bruce, ex-British army commando, fell in a lifeless heap just outside the tin shack in the east African desert, blood oozing out of two 7.62 mm bullet wounds that left two tidy, half-in. holes in the back of his skull.
"Mmpphhh!" Isabel nearly peed herself when she heard the rifle shots and quietly cried into her gag when she realized her last, tenuous connection to the UK had just been cut forever. She was now in the hands of these Africans and she feared the worst.
Omar spoke first. "Let me introduce ourselves. First, we are not savages, Ms. Metcalfe. Far from it. I was educated at the London School of Economics." Isabel hmphed in disbelief. "And graduated cum laude in 1972 with an MBA in economics. My uncle, Sheikh, was trained at the University of Edinburgh’s school of medicine." Isabel’s eyes widened in hope -- and was fully-certified in 1970 as an MD specializing in obstetrics and gynaecology with tenure at an Edinburgh hospital. He is being assisted by Amina, who you will meet later today, and who has combined master’s degrees in genetic engineering and biochemistry from the University of Southern California." Isabel’s eyes widened incredulously.
"You are probably wondering what we -- and you -- are doing here in the middle of the Ushwanti desert on a weekday in mid-June," Omar, the economist, continued. "I believe it is ‘cricket’, shall we say, for me to tell you that we have developed a plan to create a genetically-engineered breed of women that incorporates certain character traits, such as the devotion, hard work, love and sexuality of the East African male, with the robustness, industry, thrift and dedication of the Gaelic woman, such as yourself. I am looking after the business side of this venture and Dr. Musafdi is looking after the genetic and gynecological sides."
Isabel could scarcely believe her ears. She had read Frankenstein as a child but this was too horrible to be true. Or was it?
"Eeeooonnndblllfftt!" Isabel shouted. (I don’t believe it).
"Take off her gag," the doctor said. "I need to examine her arms and legs for signs of infection and circulatory or nerve damage." Isabel tried to flex her fingers again and was able to move only the small fingers of both hands. She slowly lifted her arms and was able to rub lightly the welts on her wrists and elbows but they were still too painful.
Omar went outside and rifled through Bruce’s pockets and produced two small keys for Isabel’s shiny steel head harness. Returning inside, he fiddled clumsily with the locks at the back of Isabel’s head and pried the device off her head and face.
The harness, which left red marks across her cheeks, nose and chin, fell with a metallic clunk on the dirt floor and, moments later, the doctor had expertly snipped away the tape and bandage from her face. Isabel spat out the sponge and worked her jawbones and facial muscles with her stiff hands and fingers for the first time in six hours.
Her heart was pounding as she looked at the two African professionals and the three soldiers who had wandered back into the shack, one carrying the valise of British 10- and 20-pound notes now splattered with Bruce’s cranial fluid, blood and small skull fragments.
"So, Isabel," Omar began again, you are going to become a slave for us -- a guinea pig, so to speak -- in that you will have sexual intercourse with selected African male specimens in the hope, in the expectation, of producing genetically-modified offspring that will market well as future slaves."
Sheikh, the doctor, spoke up: "Many, but not all, African males fantasize about having sexual relations with Caucasian women who are bound in chains. Something of a historical role reversal when you think about it; after all, thousands of African men, and women, were taken off the continent in chains to be sold as slaves centuries ago. Well here we are, re-living that experience, in a sense, although you are now to be the slave about to be bred with a selected group of African males who have volunteered for the experience."
"You’re mad," Isabel cried. "This will never work, I’ll never cooperate. I am talking about kidnapping, torture, rape and now, murder, and by God when I get the chance -- and I will -- I’ll make sure you are charged, tried and convicted and that the full weight of the criminal laws of my country will be brought to bear on you." She stamped her left foot for emphasis but the chink of chain deflated her.
The two African gentlemen looked at each other and Omar clapped in mock applause for Isabel’s little speech.
"Thank you for your edifying remarks, Ms. Metcalfe," Omar said, "but I scarcely think you will have the opportunity to report us to Scotland Yard, Interpol or your local constabulary while you are in chains here in the desert. Look at this table. This pile of chain will soon adorn your body. You will be weighted down somewhat but you will still be able to move about, even have sexual intercourse in your chains.
"We are informed you already have some experience in this latter area. Our late courier, who has left to join his ancestors, advised us you apparently enjoy going about publicly -- even to pubs -- in ankle chains and that you have been in bondage for quite some time now, for recreational purposes."
"For two days," Isabel replied semi-truthfully. "And you’ll be glad to know you can’t get these off," she said, nodding at her feet. "In fact my husband (she lied) and I were at the University of Edinburgh the other day to see if they could be removed and they can’t. So there."
"Well, that’s just fine, Ms. Metcalfe. We’ll just work around them," Omar said. "I’ve always wanted to put chains on a white woman who’s already in chains; now, here’s my chance.
"Now, please stand up and accept your shackles. It’s pointless for you to attempt to fight or flee. You have nowhere to run; in fact, you would probably find running exceedingly difficult, bound as you are; as well, you’re hundreds of miles from anywhere and you don’t speak the language. In this context, then, please look at the chains about to be applied to you as symbols of your new station in life. The chains, of course, will slow you down somewhat, as I said, but they will not harm you physically -- we will ensure that -- and my medical colleague will monitor you for any detrimental psychological symptoms. The latter effects will remain to be seen; however, the fact you already have bondage experience suggests to us you should tolerate these shackles well."
Isabel looked at the heap of chains and sighed.
"Very well, put them on," she said finally, as she heard the familiar pop sound of an oxyacetylene torch being lit behind her.
One of the soldiers knelt at her feet and attached a heavy, three-inch-diameter steel ring to the centre link of her ankle as a second man hunched down in goggles with the lit torch to weld it closed. Smells of burning welding rods and steel rose from her ankle chains and soon the ring was attached securely.
"This way, please," Omar said, leading Isabel to an anvil and forge at one end of the shack. Please kneel beside the anvil for your wrist shackles."
Two semi-circular bands, two-inches wide and 1/8th-inch thick , with a 12-inch silver chain, were closed around her wrists and another man, in blacksmith’s apron, reached with tongs into a small hearth and withdrew a red-hot rivet which he placed into two perfectly-aligned holes in the flanges of her right cuff. Two careful blows with a small, heavy hammer flattened the hot rivet which was cooled quickly when he applied a soaking heavy rag. He repeated the process on her left cuff and she lifted her arms to test the weight of her new shackles. She saw that another, longer chain was attached to the centre link of her wrist chain and this was passed down to her ankle chain, through the centre-link ring and back up to her waist where it was locked with a small sturdy padlock just above her hips.
"You can take that loincloth off and pass it through your waist chain if you like," Omar said. "It will help keep the chain off your skin at your belly and in your back."
"Like hell I will," Isabel called back.
Omar whipped it off her unceremoniously and cut off her little gold cord with a sharp knife he produced out of nowhere.
"Do it!" he ordered, handing Isabel her little garment. Isabel complied.
"Now your collar," Omar said. "Please kneel down again and put you head across the anvil. Smith, do your duty."
Again, two semi-circular pieces of grey steel were placed around her neck and riveted closed with next to Isabel’s left ear three solid bangs of the hammer against red-hot rivet, steel and anvil.
It was all over in less than a minute and when Isabel rose the second time, with ringing ears, she knew herself to be solidly and inescapably chained. The only way these were coming off would be through a return visit to the blacksmith -- or with a cutting torch.
She tried to lift her hands to feel the collar round her neck but could only lift them to the level of her breasts when the chain connecting her wrist chains to her waist through her ankles snubbed her arms short.
She took a couple of steps away from the hearth and the clatter of chains from her wrists and ankles was heard by all.
"Now," Omar said, "let’s get out of the desert to somewhere more comfortable. This way, please." The doctor and the economist walked outside, the soldiers threw Bruce’s body into the rear of their jeep and climbed in the little army vehicle. Isabel, still inside and alone, walked out in a rattle of chains into the dry African heat.
A shiny-new, black limousine pulled up from behind the tin shack and Omar motioned Isabel to get into the back seat. She clambered in with difficulty, her chains catching a wrist or ankle at virtually every turn; Omar went around to the left side and the doctor got in the right and Isabel made herself reasonably comfortable for the first time that day on the cool leather upholstery of the air-conditioned, black limo.
Her trip into slavery was to begin in style.
As the sleek, expensive Cadillac moved away in a cloud of dust and the doctor reached into a black medical bag to look for antiseptic and antibiotics to tend the welts on her elbows, wrists, knees and ankles. "These should be better in 3 - 4 days," he said. "I’ll look after them for you; in the meantime, try to relax and get over the shock and trauma that you have just gone through. Nothing will harm you just now; just the realisation you have a new life ahead of you. This small pill will help you relax."
Isabel nodded, opened her hand for the little white pill and swallowed it dry as she tried to find comfortable places for the little pile of chain that had collected in her lap.
Warm, pink clouds of sedation soon overcame her. She felt her head nodding -- then blackness enveloped her and she saw and heard nothing except a muffle clink of chain as she passed out for the second time that day.
(continued)