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Cindy didn’t spend too long in prep. The Emir wanted his new acquisitions “fresh” as he called it. That was fine by us. I’d gone down to the customer lounge to join Rick for the handover of the remaining eight of the Emir’s household slaves, four house maids, three for ‘entertaining’ clients and his new PA. We’d got together pretty much everything he’d wanted and, of course Cindy as well. Tricia had suggested using Brian’s daughters, Beth and Ella, as two of the ‘entertainers’, I didn’t want to do that, I thought that output from the sexualisation programme should be more use than just general purpose bounce fodder but Tricia said we ought to be getting some benefit from the family. We’d had an argument about it. We were doing a lot of that lately. In the end my point of view was the one we went with. It wasn’t really a marketing decision but Freddie didn’t want to argue about it.
The Emir was due anytime so Rick had the guards bring the girls in and line them up. Brad had been clear that he’d want to check them out before he took delivery, so we’d had the girls stripped. All nine of them were standing in a line, wrists and ankles shackled, collared as always. They wore ball gags hanging loosely around their necks waiting to be put in place when needed. There was the usual mix of looks of sullen resentment, terrified acceptance and cowed compliance on the girl’s faces as Rick checked them off against the list he had on his clip board.
Sarah appeared, smiling and looking as efficient as ever, in a tight black skirt and an equally tight white blouse. She handed an envelope to Rick. “Harry asked me to give you this,” she said. She suddenly saw Cindy at the far end of the line. At least Sarah had the grace to look embarrassed, I thought. Cindy of course had had enough prep to know that she shouldn’t react. Even so, I could imagine that she was angered by the sight of Sarah.
Rick was puzzling over Harry’s letter. “Why does he leave these things to the last minute?” he was asking himself. “It always more difficult if you don’t have time to sort things out properly.”
“Can I help?” offered Sarah. Rick was scribbling something on his clipboard and fiddling with a pile of numbered tags in his hand.
“Err, oh, err, yes. Thank you Sarah,” he responded. “If you could just clip these asset transfer tags on each of the girls listed on the sheet and check them off. Just make sure the tags and the numbers on the sheet agree with the numbers on their collars, can you?”
“Of course,” said Sarah taking the board and tags from him.
Rick went back to reading Harry’s note. Sarah worked her way down the line checking each girl’s number in turn and fastening a tag to her collar. She got to the end and found herself facing Cindy. The two of them exchanged looks. Cindy’s failed to convey the contempt she felt for her former friend, Sarah’s couldn’t show her sorrow and regret. Sarah checked the collar and the tag. She came back over to Rick.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but the last one doesn’t tally. Its got all of Cindy’s details here but her number has been scribbled out and another written in. Should I just put the tag on her or should we find the girl with this number, #06.085?” Sarah’s look suddenly changed. Her hand flew up to her own collar. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “That’s my number! That can’t be right.”
“Ah!” said Rick. “Now I understand. Sorry, Silly of me. Yes. That’s right. If you could just step over there Sarah and clip that tag on. Oh, and just pop your clothes off if you could there’s a good girl.”
“No, wait,” said Sarah, “I’m sure this is wrong. I mean, the whole idea behind this was to … And then I helped, well, with, her,” She nodded towards Cindy, “ so that, and …..”
“Well, Sarah you may be right but I can’t do anything about it right now. We’ll have to swap you and Cindy over for the moment and we’ll sort it out later, I’m sure. I’ll see what I can do but I have to follow the procedure. You know what a stickler for this sort of thing Freddie is.”
Sarah looked uncomfortable but could see no choice but to comply.
Rick turned to one of the guards. “Can you take the one on the end back down to the cells for the time being,” he said pointing to Cindy. “Now, come on Sarah, do as I asked. Get your clothes off and get in line with the others and then we can get the shipment tallied and I can try to sort things out.” Sarah watched as a puzzled Cindy was hustled away. Rick turned to the rest of the girls. “Kneel down, please,” he said. “Ball gags in place now. Thank you.”
I watched as Sarah stripped off, taking off the high necked white blouse and the pencil slim black skirt that she so often wore around the office. She looked around for somewhere to put her clothes and draped her skirt carefully over the back of a chair, adding her blouse and then her bra, panties and stockings. She put her shoes neatly beside the chair and then stood, sheepishly waiting while Rick continued to check off details on his clip board.
Rick looked up and saw the now naked Sarah. “Ah, good,” he said, “that’s a help.” Sarah smiled. “If you could just go over there on the end. Oh, yes, sorry I hadn’t given you one of these.” He passed her a ball gag and turned to one of the guards. “Get some shackles on this one, could you. Thanks.” He pointed to an increasingly confused and concerned looking Sarah. The guard fastened shackles around her wrists and ankles and clipped the asset transfer tag to her collar. He led her over to the line and got her kneeling like the others. I heard voices in the corridor outside.
“Straighten up, ladies,” Rick called. “Hands on the back of your heads.” The girls responded, Sarah last of all. “Come on all of you, make the best of yourselves, your new owner is going to be here in a moment and you won’t want him to see you like this. That’ll be no way to start.” The girls visibly stiffened their posture, breasts were thrust forward and backs were arched. Even at this early stage they’d worked out that displaying themselves to their best advantage was likely to make their lives easier. Even Sarah responded.
The Emir came into the room with Harry. “Here we are,” said Harry to the Emir. “Just as we’ve promised. You know Larry, of course.” He gave me a wave of greeting. “Have you met Rick before? Runs the Preparation and Orientation activities here.”
“No,” said the Emir. “Good to meet you. Looks like you’ve done a good job at first sight. I’ll need to look them over, of course.”
“Naturally,” said Rick. “Take your time. They’re all yours.”
“That’s the idea,” said Brad, laughing. “Assuming the cheque clears.” The two of them went up to the first in line, Harry unbuckled the girl’s gag. Brad examined her carefully, checking her body and her mouth as you would a piece of livestock at a market. He worked his way along the line. A guard called Harry from the door. He went across and the two of them muttered an exchange of words. The guard went out and reappeared with Cindy. Clothed in a high necked white blouse and tight black skirt, the resemblance to the way that Sarah had looked was striking. Harry walked her across to Rick and the Emir who had just got to Sarah.
“Sorry to interrupt things,” said Harry. “I thought I ought to introduce my new PA, Cindy, here.” She gave Rick and Brad a smile, all the while ignoring, Sarah’s worried look. “I think she’ll prove a little more reliable than the last one. Do you know she had the nerve to try to deceive me? Girl like that has to be sold on, can’t keep her in an office like mine once she’s shown she’s not 100% reliable.” Sarah looked frightened as she realised the consequences of her deception. She tried to protest through her gag but her whimpered, muffled, remarks did nothing more than to attract a scowl from both Harry and the Emir
“Well, whatever. Glad you decided to let me have this one after all,” Brad said to Harry. “Now let’s just see that she’s OK.” He ran his hands across her buttocks, down the outside of her thighs and back up the inside. “She’s kept in trim, hasn’t she?” He asked rhetorically. He moved his hands to her breasts. “You know these are nice,” he said. “Liked them the first time I saw them in your office. Feel good too, all real. You can tell.” Sarah bit back a whimper. “Can I?” he gestured to Sarah’s mouth.
“Cindy, take this one’s gag off, will you. Beat her if she makes a sound.” Harry instructed his new PA.
“Of course, Sir,” Cindy said compliantly, unbuckling the gag and pulling the ball from Sarah’s mouth as the Emir prodded and probed at her body. Sarah wisely kept silent.
“Open your mouth, girl.” Brad pulled back her lips and peered inside. “Yeah that looks all right. I had a slave that cost me a fortune in dental bills once but she looks all right. Not too much metal work in there and the teeth look OK. Fine.” He pushed her mouth closed and then turned her head this way and that peering at her eyes, ears and skin. “OK, she’ll do. A few more piercings in her ears and maybe some other places but I can get that done all right.”
“Oh, please, wait,” Sarah blurted out. Cindy went to pick up a riding crop from the nearby chair.
“That’s all right, Cindy,” said Harry. “What is it, err” he reached out for her tag, “#06.085?”
“Oh, thank, you, I’m sure there’s some confusion Ha…, err, Sir. I’m sure you’ve misunderstood what I said about Cindy and … Well, it’s just that I’m not supposed to be part of this shipment, I only came down to help out with the tags and there was some mistake and now I’m…”
Harry cut her off. “Is this right Rick?” he said. “Not like you to make a mistake.” Rick shrugged. “I know how to sort this out,” Harry said. “Let’s make sure that Rick’s shipment list tallies with mine. If that’s the case then we’re all right.” He turned to Cindy. “Could you just check our list against Rick’s, Cindy? Just see if the two sets of item numbers are the same.”
Cindy sashayed across the room to the table where Rick’s clipboard lay on the desk. I watched her arse trying to fight against the skirt that covered it. It was an entertaining few moments. She spent a couple of minutes ticking off numbers on the two lists and turned back to the two groups. “The two lists tally, exactly, Sir,” she said, putting Rick’s clipboard down and returning to the group.
“I thought so,” said Harry. “We’ve heard enough from this one. See to it, will you Cindy.”
Sarah watched in numbed astonishment as Cindy took her ball gag and jammed it back into her mouth before she could utter another protest. For good measure Cindy clipped Sarah’s wrist cuffs to the back of her collar. I heard the click of the ratchet on her cuffs as Cindy pushed the cuffs closed more tightly. “I hope that’s not too tight for you,” she said with a voice devoid of concern.
“Excellent,” said Brad. “I’m glad that’s sorted out. All to the good. My daughter’s really looking forward to having this one around the house again,” Sarah looked more concerned than ever, “and Lauren’s going to need sweetening up a bit when she finds out she’s off to Kushtia in a month. I’ll sign off on these and you can ship them. OK?”
“Sure,” said Rick waving to a Guard. He picked up his clipboard. “Loading Bay 5,” he said. “They can go down now.”
The guard set to linking each girl’s wrist shackles to the collar of the next girl in line. Sarah was at the front. He clipped a leash to her collar and jerked her forward, “Right, keep up you lot. Let’s move!”
The line of slaves shuffled across the room
following the guard and Sarah. As she passed Cindy, Harry’s new PA hissed
quietly to her, “As if I’d be living in
Sarah whimpered, the leash tightened, and she was pulled towards the loading bay. As she left the room, her last sight was of Cindy picking up her discarded clothes from the chair and dumping them in a trash can.
Brad smiled and shook hands all round. “Good job,” he said, “good job. Nice to see you guys do what you say.” He took me to one side. “Did you see the piece in National Geographic?”
I nodded. “Yes, I guess it caused some excitement back home?”
“Well, yes and no,” he said surprisingly. “Come on, you’re a marketing man. I know they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity but what do you think we should be doing about it?”
I thought for a moment. “Look,” I said, “I’m no expert on international affairs but I’d have thought that the best course is to ignore it. You can’t pretend it’s not real. Maybe you could try to discredit the author but I don’t think that gets you anywhere. I’d suggest that you just brazen it out if there is any adverse comment. Sort of ‘it’s our way of life, has been for centuries, all part of the rich global variety of cultural heritage’ approach.”
Brad didn’t look convinced. “Maybe,” he said. “Still it’s not my call. I’m waiting to hear from the Foreign Ministry what the line is.”
“Oh, I’d have thought they should have got their act together a bit quicker. You people on the ground need to know how to play it.”
“Tell me about it,” said Brad. “Tell me about it. Still, there’s other stuff to worry about right now. Gotta get back to the Castle. See you. Thanks for your thought on that Nat Geog thing.”
He gave me a wave and left.
I bumped into Elly as I was leaving the room. To say she wasn’t happy would be putting things mildly. “Just help me get the facts right on this,” she said. “You’ve taken Harry’s PA, whose been working on Clegg Enterprises Business for the last three months. Who’s seen our entire operation inside and out. Who’s had probably one of the lowest levels of prep and orientation that any of the product has going through here. And you’ve sold her to that nutter with the country girl camp in Gloucestershire?”
I could sense this wasn’t a time for prevaricating. “It wasn’t my call,” I said, “but as facts go, if you mean, ‘are we shipping Sarah to the Emir?’ the answer is yes.”
“If it wasn’t your call, who’s was it?”
“Well, Head of Sales approves shipment lists. And that’s Freddie these days.”
“You know he hasn’t got time to read all that stuff,” Elly said.
“Not my fault. He could put a new Head of Sales in place. That whole piece of the organisation is broken, Elly. Brian may have been useless and a crook but at least he had time to read things before he signed them. Look, Harry was pretty hacked off with how Sarah held out on him, Cindy looks like a good alternative. Sarah was what the Emir wanted in the first place. It sounded like a good idea to me.”
“Yeah, and you know so much about this business.”
“No, I don’t and that’s why it wasn’t my call and why I haven’t wanted to take on that part of things. I can tell you what to sell and where to sell it and who to sell it to but I don’t have the background for decisions on individual cases. For what it’s worth I can see where you’re coming from. I’m not convinced that the Emir is the right solution but he thinks he’s bought her. If more experienced people than me are getting it wrong, I suggest you take it up with them.”
Elly seemed to calm down. “Sorry Larry,” she said. I made a mental note to remember that; apologies from Elly weren’t common. “I’ll get Rick to delay the shipment and I’ll talk to Freddie about it. You’re right, he needs to find someone he can delegate this stuff to.”
I heard her on the phone not long after. She was talking to the Emir in her most emollient tones. “Well, thank you Brad, it’s so good of you to be so understanding. There’s just a question of the title transfer on that one. …. Yes, I know we said we’d substitute originally …. Yes, well I guess it will be best if we sort things out from our side first. .. You’re happy if we ship the others? Fine. We’ll do that then. I’ll get back to you.” She put down the phone with a look of relief. She turned towards me. “Right we’ve got a bit of time to sort this out. We’re going to need some ideas and you’re supposed to be good at that. Better start thinking.”
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