"A nice young man doing a difficult job." Assef Aslam commented affably. "May I offer you another drink?" From a welter of emotions Corey chose dignity. "Very well." She agreed without enthusiasm. "Probably by the time you?ve said your say I?ll need it."
The drink was strong. Sipping it, Corey Gibson assessed her host. Aslam had a quality, a presence. But what she was seeing was not the real man. She would have preferred him less polite. "Before I give you a refusal you?d best be more specific." She said bluntly.
He picked the handcuffs from the floor and dropped them in her lap. "It would please me very much if you would wear these." His voice held a note of yearning Corey could not place. "It would set a tone. While you have them on your wrists I will give you their key."
"Nonsense!" She tossed the shining things back at him. "Wear them yourself."
"You are dealing in yesterday." He said gently. "My problem is to make you aware of this moment. You have been kidnapped."
"Someone mentioned that." Corey said frostily. "When I?ve finished this drink you will unlock the door. If you refuse I?ll make a loud and unladylike fuss."
"No one will hear."
He was infuriatingly sure of himself. "You are contemplating violence?" She inquired icily.
"Two possibilities." Aslam said warmly. "You accept the handcuffs. You accompany me to my private plane – and I do assure you we will not been seen, and you go unquestioningly where I take you. The second is simple. I summon aid and we give you a hypodermic injection. When you wake it is al over."
"Hell, why the talking? Call your help and give me the needle."
"I prefer the other way. I want a whole girl who is totally aware."
"You?re dreaming. besides, you?re forgetting my father."
"Your father will be very easy to deal with while I hold you."
"What you?re looking for is an erotic kick out of having me abase myself, be a sacrificial virgin?"
"That?s your pathway to profit, Miss Gibson. With the needle you?re nothing more than a kidnapped hostage."
For the first time she felt the chill of fear. For the first time she gave Assef Aslam her full attention. "I can?t take this seriously." She pointed out reasonably. "Surely you understand…?"
There was a force in Aslam. The same extrusion of power she had sometimes noticed in her father. His features were good, his colour scarcely discernible. He might be forty-five. In previous meetings she had seen him through the eyes of the media. This was different. Assef Aslam was a handsome intelligent cosmopolitan. The voice he was using was not his own. He was leashing his tone in patience.
"Forgive me. I am enjoying you." His smile quenched her protest. "If I stood in your shoes I could not possibly believe in what is going to happen…" He waved a deprecating arm. "I want this done my way. To help you understand I am going to change places with one of my secretaries. Her name is Audrey Cotswold. She is English. She is educated. What she tells you is all true. Here – catch!"
The clutch was instinctive. Corey held the handcuffs with distaste. But this time curiosity won. She examined them. They featured in enough movies…! They seemed functional – and unfeminine! Indolently, she tossed them on a chair. Then looked up in shock.
Audrey Cotswold was naked.
There is a freemasonry in beauty. Beautiful women recognize it. They can assess. Corey Gibson conceded Miss Audrey Cotswold a high score. It was a relief that this poised and amused Britisher dropped no titch or broadened an?A?. Her?s was a voice which belonged.
"Those things bother you?" A bare arm indicated the shining metal, then swung to proffer a friendly hand. "My name?s Audrey. I?m a slave."
The grip of fingers and the smile were warm. They modified shock but did not erase it. Corey kept her voice even: "Handcuffs and a naked girl! Am I being conditioned?"
"Of course." The admission was engagingly frank. "I have only a little while to tell you a great deal."
"I don?t want to hear."
"Why should you! But I?ll read the lines anyway." The nude secretary retrieved the despised handcuffs, and with an insouciant grin fitted them on her own wrists with a fastidious concern for perfection. Having clicked them most definitely snug she held them up to examine the effect as though they were diamonds bracelets. "They look much better on than off." She observed carelessly. "Oh, by the way, you don?t mind me being naked, I hope? I?m nearly always naked. Slaves don?t wear many clothes."
"Couldn?t you at least be decent?"
"I am decent." The grin was confiding. "I?m decent by my owner?s standards, and that?s what counts."
"I?d take it as a tremendous favour if you?d open a door and allow me to go."
"That?s how I felt the first time." Again the comradely grin. "It?s so damn hard for a girl to adjust to in half an hour. I say, would you mind….? I mean, taking your clothes off?"
"I mind, and I won?t!"
"Yes… I know." The cheerful voice turned nostalgic. "I?ve played this scene myself. I just couldn?t believe any of it until the bruiser came in. By the time he?d bruised me here and there they certainly had my full attention."
"Call him in."
"Miss Gibson, you?re bluffing. Here, watch…"
The man who entered could have been a gym instructor. A pleasant athletic type who smiled winningly and picked up a heavy arm chair with one outstretched hand. His query was polite. "Is there something I can do for you, Miss Cotswold?"
"Thanks, Bill. Now run along. But not too far." Audrey nodded a friendly dismissal.
Corey could not slow her accelerated pulse. A picture was emerging. "That was cheaply obvious." She complained resentfully.
"It was also kind. You?re lucky, Miss Gibson, that Assef has a mental thing about you. He wants you humiliated from the word go. He will take you any way you compel him to. Force is so easy and so trite. He wants you to walk into slavery with your head in the air and without illusions. His concept of your kidnapping is uniquely civilized."
Corey began to glimpse the enmity of time. Yet she could comprehend the logic of Aslam sequestering her in a space of minutes. Her disappearance would be slick and unobtrusive. But to cope with her kidnapping she had first to believe in it. She was surprised to find herself weighing a preference and inclined towards being manhandled rather than accept the chagrin of handcuffs and following where she might be led. Audrey Cotswold was a smiling enigma. The girl wore both nakedness and handcuffs gracefully. Her linked hands contrived the same fluidity of motion as if free. Never once did they seek to cover breasts or pubic hair. Determined to end an impasse, she demanded coldly. "Help me a little. Tell me what you plan… for me?"
"You will become a slave, subject to both use and discipline."
"You don?t appear to have suffered either!"
Audrey twinkled mischievously. "To be immaculate is a state of mind. To service a man with your sex, or to have him whip your bare skin need change nothing unless the girl wills it so."
Corey Gibson sniffed. "Can I have another drink? And as for what you?ve just said, it?s a bit of specious nonsense."
"No, it?s not. The first couple of times I met a fate worse than death and got myself whipped because I made such a fuss about it I went all the way to the bottom of the pit. But then I had a chance to look in a full length mirror." The chained hands offered the filled glass, the lovely eyes smiled in an invitation to trust. "I was actually shocked to discover I looked the same as I always had. If I smiled I was right back at square one. Sure, I?d got whip marks, but they wouldn?t be permanent." Audrey giggled. "I remember doing a lot of pulling and twisting to get a good look at my vulva. The damn thing looked quite pleased with itself. I felt a fool."
"O.K. So I get raped and whipped! What else?"