not interpret were tossed back and forth about her physical attributes. Fingers made understandable reference to sexual friction in their pantomime. She had only to flutter her wracked shoulders to evoke instant response. If she truly struggled against her pain the multitude went wild. General Hakim’s circus made a most popular despot. Of such things are empires built. A girl’s pain might found a dynasty.
Poor corporal Kahdin. He lusted for her. She smiled to soothe the agony in his eyes. He was a nice boy. But he was not immune. Her jutting breasts, the thin cords bedding themselves in her female flesh had worked their mystery upon them. Like the crowd he was in the grip of a primordial lust against which he had no defence. He could not take her now. Dorinda wondered if there would be an afterwards.
The time came when her life must end. When her neck must pay for the bomb. She left nothing but pride as she was propelled up the scaffold steps. The populace was hysterical. Had Marie Antoinette felt this same thrill of mingled desolation and majesty as she went to the guillotine?
Farcically she could think of nothing but westerns as the noose was fitted around her neck. How many times had she seen just this that was now being done to her. The massive roll of cord that was supposed to break her neck. The innocent noose of rope that would choke her until she died with staring eyes and gaping mouth. An unknown man fitted these things upon her. But it was the hand of corporal Kahdin that lifted the rope before her eyes so that she might take heart in the obviously severed strands held together by the frailest bond. Dorinda saw it with great thankfulness and smiled at him with a gratitude she sincerely wanted to make real.
She was about to die! The rope felt rough around her neck. The anonymous fingers had drawn it tight enough that she could not be unaware of the thing that would take her life. She was positioned on the trap. Her ankles were tightly tied. What matter the circulation now. In a few moments it would have ended forever. She tried to move her hands, to separate her elbows.
Someone was reading from a paper. A great silence had fallen. Men looked stonily ahead. Women looked avid or shamed. A brusque command was given. The naked girl dropped out of sight.
For Dorinda the fall was a moment of pure terror. She had been bound so tightly that she could not influence the thing being done to her at all. As she felt the surface vanish from beneath her feet every nerve and sinew surged against the cords so cruelly embedded in her limbs. Her mouth opened in an involuntary cry of desolation that was choked back as the noose tightened upon her neck. In that flashing fraction of a second she met death.
Within the pit below the scaffold there was quiet efficiency. While the crowd outside howled its jubilation at the unseemly demise of a naked girl, two men worked with feverish haste. Corporal Kahdin caught Dorinda as she fell. The jerk of the severed rope was but a momentary hesitation. Her full weight must be cushioned. That he contrived to catch and hold the helpless package is his arms was a tribute to his strength. The package herself was so well bound and so petrified with fear that she could not help. She was all his. He accepted the glorious manna from heaven with reverence.
The corporal’s assistant must have rehearsed his task. The moment the rope parted he seized the dangling end and hung thereon to simulate the tension of a body in the throes of death. By way of giving the audience a bit extra for their money he bounced and twisted so that the rope, visible to all, conveyed its message of a jerking corpse.
Having placed his burden gently on the ground, the corporal attached a bag of sand to the loose end, thus relieving his helper who immediately picked up one end of the trussed girl, the corporal taking the other they deposited her in a coffin-like box and carried her through a small door to the interior of the fort. The execution was done.
'Congratulations, my dear. You have come through your ordeal nobly.' General Hakim raised his glass. Reba held a similar potion to Dorinda’s lips. Both drank gratefully.
The cord had gone from her ankles but Dorinda’s shoulders were still painfully wracked by her joined elbows, the cords of which imposed a nagging agony.
'Could I please be untied, general?'
'Alas, non, my dear, you are too beautiful as you are,' the general said cordially. 'You must forgive a wretched man this last glimpse at paradise.'
'Couldn’t you tie up Miss Cohen instead?' Dorinda twinkled at him. She was riding high on a wave of elation of being alive.
Hakim shook his head sorrowfully. 'The poor girl does not possess the joi de vivre, your panache. I fear her only asset at the moment is a small death she dies every time I possess her.' He sighed gently. 'I fear her only love is a carton of dynamite.'
They drank again. Dorinda gave up caring about the pain of the cords. Whatever the general might be, he was a charming host.
'You return now to our excellent Rabin. I would send you back with gifts, but he would take them from you. You are a slave and may own nothing. A pity.'
Placing a hand on her shoulder he bent and kissed her forehead. 'I am sorry that we part,' he said sombrely. 'But you will now be in the hands of my loyal corporal. Kahdin is a good man. On your journey home, be kind to him.'
'A quick routine assignment,' said Mr. Rabin. I could have killed him. Nothing’s routine in this nut house.
'You will go to prison, have a nice trial, be sentenced to bad things and then we bring you home again.'
'You’ve gone around the bend,' I told him. Then bit my lip. It’s remarks like this that get me striped.
'It’s quite practical, darling,' Thalia broke in placantingly. Thalia’s really quite sweet and does not whip me anymore than she has to. I expect I looked as doubtful as I felt. With Dorinda gone I felt sort of extra vulnerable.
'See, darling. These people are rich. But daughter’s in a jam. A bad one. They are willing to pay a lot of money for you to go through all the ugly bits and then they pay a lot more to bribe whoever is going to let you escape afterwards. We will always have you in sight.'
'For about twenty years?' I asked dependently.
'The magistrate may not order you whipped,' Old Rabin came out with that real corker as though it was a birthday present.
'It will all be rushed through in a very short time.' Poor Thalia was trying hard to show me any bright spots there might be.
'Only the very senior officers of the prison will fuck you.' If the previous consolation had been for my birthday, this latest Rabin special was for Christmas.
'Do I have to thank them?' I asked. That one got me two strokes. I wish sometimes I could keep quiet.
They got me ready. That meant clothes. Old Rabin blandly explained that in his country girls were rarely arrested in the nude. But, he said they would be very cheap. They were. He said I wouldn’t have them for very long. I could believe that too.
He was quite a nice policeman. They gave him some money, so I realised he was in on the deal. 'Sergeant Fazhari: meet miss Terry Esmond.' It was too absurd. I had to try hard not to giggle while he was handcuffing me. I think he was surprised. He told me later that most girls cry a lot when he puts the handcuffs on. He was a bit premature actually: Mr. Rabin insisted on gravely shaking hands – probably to enjoy one last clutch at his investment. But Thalia threw her arms around my neck and kissed me warmly. I kissed her back and made believe she was Dorinda. Amazing. A few minutes before she’d been whipping. Us girls really are something
I got a nice look at the mouldy town while I sat in the back of the car with sergeant Fazahri. He said he would like to play with my three thingummyes while I took in the scenery. I put my handcuffed wrists behind my neck so as to give him plenty of scope and let him get himself all excited. I could tell he was a bit miffed when we drove into the police station or whatever they call it there. I suppose a sergeant has to show a bit of decorum with the female suspects even in this place.
I was booked. I didn’t understand a word. But I could have cared less. They searched me and stole my pants, then bunged me into a rotten little cell. I wasn’t sure whether they had left my handcuffs on because they’d forgotten or on purpose. I could have cared less about that too.
They actually sported a wardress. She showed up almost immediately with a couple of civilian friends. Know what she did? I couldn’t believe it myself at first. But when they began to undress me it was real enough. The old vultures held an auction. My clothes were bid on by the sister vultures she’d brought along. When I saw them looking at my teeth and my hair I got a really funny feeling. When the bidding was over I was tossed a bit of sacking
