Chapter 54 : The Kushtians of Suburbia

 

There were three clear bangs on the door of the wardrobe. That meant that Kelly had had enough. I put down the mug of tea that I’d made for myself and walked back across the room. I pulled open the wardrobe. Even with the blindfold on she knew I was there. She gave a whimpering moan and shrugged her body against the ropes that pinned her arms to her sides.

 

I lifted her out of the wardrobe, carried her across my shoulder to the far side of the room and dumped her down on the bed.

 

Her blouse was soaked in sweat from the effort she had put into trying to free herself. That was all she had to show for her trouble. I’d learned a bit about the erotic uses of bondage from her magazines. I don’t think anyone in Harry’s team ever bothered with a crotch rope for example and the ‘lift and separate’ effect of ropes across the chest and between the tits seemed to have a purely aesthetic purpose that they hadn’t latched on to either. I won’t complain you understand. I’ve always enjoyed the visual arts. I eased away the scarf that gagged her. She coughed and spluttered, using her tongue to work out the pair of sports socks that I’d wadded into her mouth. Still blindfolded she fell back on the bed, breathing deeply.

 

“You are a bastard, you know,” she said, working her sore and aching mouth and still trying to wriggle free of the ropes that held her body, wrists and ankles. 

 

“I thought that was the attraction,” I said, reaching out to run a finger across where her belly had been exposed as her blouse had pulled loose from the waistband of her skirt by her struggles.

 

It had been quite a while since we had seen each other. I’d been busy with Rachel and there had been problems with Tricia too. I hadn’t really intended to see Kelly but she’d left me a text on my mobile and then we’d chatted and suddenly it had seemed like a good idea.

 

“If you’re nice to me I might fix you some dinner,” she said.

 

“How about if I’m nasty to you?”

 

“Then I could do something even nicer,” she giggled. I reached across and pulled away the scarf that was blindfolding her. Her long, dark hair fell loosely across the pillow. She smiled up at me.  “That was fun,” she said, moving herself slowly into a sitting position, still stiff from the hour or so she’d spent in the wardrobe. She looked at my mug of tea. “Where’s mine?” she asked. “And look at this place; you could have cleared up while I was in there.”

 

She was right I supposed, but I wasn’t going to admit it. She put quite a struggle when I told her what I was going to do with her. One of the armchairs had been upended and the coffee table had got kicked over too. The remains of the Chinese take away meal she’d had last night were spread across the floor, a broken plate lay where it had fallen.  Luckily the carpet was patterned, the added stains wouldn’t show. “Slaves make their own tea,” I said starting to untie the ropes that were knotted about her, “and if they don’t want a mess they shouldn’t resist their captors. Beside, I wanted to watch the news.” I nodded to the television.

 

She made a noise that suggested to me she wasn’t entirely convinced by my arguments. I got the last of the ropes off. She flexed her arms and rubbed at her wrists. “Did you want some more tea?” she said.

 

“Sure,” I replied. I passed her my mug. She picked her way across the room towards the kitchen, avoiding treading in the debris in her stockinged feet.

 

“Oh, there’s a magazine there I thought you’d find interesting,” she called from the kitchen. “On the table. Or at least it was before you turned up.”

 

I pulled a magazine out from under the coffee table. “National Geographic?” I called back to her. “Not usually my sort of reading. Not yours either if my memory serves me right.” I thought back to the fetish magazines I’d discovered in her bedroom.

 

“No, look at the cover story,” she called. “Right up your street if the way you play is anything to go by. I’ll be there in a moment. The kettle is just boiling.” 

 

I looked at the yellow cover, two almond eyes set in light brown skin stared out at me from above an elaborately embroidered yashmak. “Veiled & In Chains,” the headline read. “The Women Of The Kushtian Uplands.”

 

“See what I mean?” Kelly emerged form the kitchen clutching two mugs of tea.

 

“Extraordinary,” I said, taking a mug from her and thumbing through the article. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” That at least was true enough; I wouldn’t have believed it before I’d met the Kalinin. I think she thought I meant before reading the article.

 

Kelly plonked down on the couch beside me. “Look at that poor girl,” she said pointing to a photograph of a veiled women carrying a water pitcher on her head, ornamental chains running from her wrists to an elaborate collar.

 

“Poor girl?” I said. “It looks like just the sort of thing you’d like; slave of a rugged tribesman kept in chains and subject to his every whim if I believe this article.”

 

“It would depend on the rugged tribesman,” she said, placing her hand on the top of my thigh in a way that indicated that I would probably qualify. She pulled a corner of the bed sheet up over her mouth and nose. “How do you think I’d look in a veil,” she said flirtatiously.

 

“Just fine,” I said.

 

“Pig!” she exclaimed, throwing down the sheet. “That’s one of those questions you’re not supposed to answer honestly.”

 

I laughed and took a swig of my tea.

 

She was as good as her promise and cooked some food. While she was busy I read the article. It had been written by Dr Karen Armstrong, an American anthropologist, who had smuggled herself disguised as a boy across the border from the north with a trading caravan. She had taken some extraordinary photographs of the women of the northern tribesmen and some of the tribesmen themselves. From the article it sounded like the tribesmen had a very similar society to that in Kolin but without the sophistication of city life. The author seemed to think that the growth of urban culture in Kolin would eventually dilute the primitive traditional ways of the tribes. She also thought the change from the soviet command economy to a western market economy and the introduction of democracy would also lead to emancipation for the hill tribeswomen. From what I’d seen of life in Kolin I wasn’t so sure.

 

We didn’t have any shackles so I had Kelly serve dinner in handcuffs and with the sheet draped across her in a Kushtian fashion. She wasn’t too pleased when I made her kneel beside me holding the tray while I ate from it, and it didn’t get any better when I pushed her ball gag in behind her veil to silence her protests.

 

She came around in the end and was showing every sign of becoming a suitably compliant Kushtian wife by the end of the evening. She certainly picked up the idea that Kushtian women were expected to serve their men as sexual playthings, happily accommodating me in a range of entertaining positions before allowing me to remove her gag so that she could use her mouth as well. She wasn’t as accomplished a veil wearer as the girls I met in Kolin but in every other respect I thought she did quite a good job.

 

Just as I was about to leave I picked up Kelly’s copy on National Geographic. I turned the pages, leafing through the pictures of the veiled, chained women. Kelly came over beside me. “The funny thing is,” she said, “they all look really content. Look at their eyes, bright and smiling even if their mouths are hidden. Perhaps it’s not such a bad life for real.”

 

“Is that what your friends at the munch would think?” I asked.

 

“Gosh, no,” she said. “They’d think I was mad. Well, most of them, would. Probably.”

 

I wondered. It might be interesting to find out. I wondered what the Kushtians thought about it too.