'I can't shoot the bastards except as a last resort, but they can shoot us to their heart's content,' he complained morosely. 'Anyway, they're gone. They'll be trying to guess where we'll head for.'
'All we need is a telephone,' I contributed brightly. 'Right, sweetheart. Point one out please.' Having James beside me was keeping my fire nicely smoldering and making my spirits more ebullient than any girls would normally be in the circumstances. 'I can't,' I said with pixie humor. 'I'm handcuffed.' James ignored the hint. 'I can't point one out either. We have a long walk ahead. Damn!'
'Where is Roland Bolling's place from here?'
'Too far, damn it. Besides, that's where they'll be watching for us. A phone's the thing.'
'I don't mind walking.'
'You're a remarkable girl, Phemie.'
'Slave girls have to be, y'know. What are my master's wishes?'
'To get you somewhere safe.' He dropped his preoccupation with our plight, and gave me his full attention. A moment later I was enfolded in his arms. Striving to embrace him my chained hands loosened their hold on the rug. Straining futilely against my handcuffs I kissed him as hard and as long as he kissed me. I forgot all about whatever injury he had done Yolanda and me, and remembered only that he had saved my life. When I've stood apart, breathless, the rug slithered to the ground leaving me as bare as I usually am.
'Don't bother,' I told him when he stooped to pick it up. 'Gosh, you're lovely!' It was as though he saw my nakedness for the first time. The heat between my legs scorched me with a fierce new intensity. 'That coppice on the slope over there isn't far. Among the trees no one could see us,' I suggested demurely. James took me by the arm. Neither of us said a word. The cluster of stunted trees was a sweet little sanctuary. He laid the rug on the fir cones for me to lie on. I had to position myself with one arm beneath my back on account of my hands being joined, but I scarcely noticed the discomfort. James did not notice it either. He was enraptured with my breasts and my puss… and the rest of me. I didn't tell him it was the first time with a man. I was in too much of a dither of golden emotion to either think or speak. But, wickedly, I spread my legs as far as they would go while he undressed. Naked he was impressive. I glowed. It was a lovely honeymoon. We stayed in the shelter of the trees for hours and hours, endlessly making love. I was beautifully mauled and bitten and kissed as well as being royally — I won't use that four letter word, it's not good enough! Not having any arms didn't matter. In a way it made the whole thing more real for me: a slave girl being ravished by her lord. I adored every moment and was shamelessly unfaithful to darling Yolanda. It was not until late afternoon that we woke up to the demands of hunger. Our council of war was short and decisive.
'I'm not going to take you back to Bolling,' James said flatly, biting my left nipple. I didn't care where he took me as long as he did not leave me alone again. 'Where are you taking me then?' I asked absently, not wanting to lose his lips and teeth.
'Castle Glynt.' I sat up and took notice.
'It's not that far from here, and those gun happy bastards won't be expecting us there.'
'But Bolling?' I looked at James in wonder, 'Your job. Don't you have to take me back to him if you can?' His boy's grin was a trifle wry. 'O.K. Phemie, as of now I'm unemployed.'
'Because of what… we've done today?' He shrugged. 'Male and female always end up doing what we've done.' His smile to me was half apology. 'But I've felt a bastard about you right along. At the start I hadn't realized what you are.'
'What am I?'
'I've been telling you what you are all day. Do I have to say it again in poetry?'
'That would be nice. Please start.'
'You are outrageous, you are sweet, you are a slave girl beyond any man's wildest dreams. That hundred thousand pounds confirms what I say now: You're real. That's the miracle of you, you actually exist.'
'You mean because I have a wicked enjoyment in getting my bottom whipped or having my hands tied?'
'O.K. But show me another girl…' I did not want to show him another girl, the heat between my legs warned me not to. He was mine! Or I was his! To a slave girl the distinction does not matter. If I hadn't been so hungry I'd have wanted to stay in that coppice with James forever. 'Would you like me to lie down and open my legs again?' I asked pertly. It seemed, right then, the most sensible question to ask.
'A remark like that deserves about six on your bottom just on general principles.' He made a grimace at me, then turned sober. 'Look, darling Phemie, we're still in trouble. Castle Glynt is a fairish hike. We'd best get going now it's twilight. If a telephone shows up between here and there we'll use it.' I was troubled. You can imagine my roseate emotional dither. But I had seen enough of the forces and the power determined to possess me. What was going to happen to James if he betrayed what, to a man like Bolling, would be a sacred trust. I suddenly seemed absurdly unimportant measured against the rest of James Pollard's life.
'Darling, I think you should deliver me back to Bolling.' I looked at him levelly and with love. 'Don't invite… well… whatever he'll do.'
'No more torture for you, sweetheart.'
'But that was those… those… bandits. What they did to me is not what Bolling would do, is it?'
'No-' He was terribly troubled. 'But it would be no picnic.'
'I handled Royden. He and I were getting along famously when it… it happened.'
'I can see you were, from the whipmarks'' I knew I was being foolishly female with that brand of feminine nobility that, I am told, afflicts girls my age. But I was getting visions of James Pollard dead in a ditch.
'I sort of collect whipmarks, darling.' I giggled, 'It's the way I get a living. If you take me back to Yolanda the first thing she'll do is thrash me for being so stupid in the first place… luring you into that bedroom.'
'It was me who lured you. Bolling had picked up hints about you. No, Phemie, there's only one place for you right now, that's Castle Glynt.' He smiled in genuine amusement. 'If your beloved Yolanda whips your bottom for you, it's your hard luck. Incidentally, don't worry about me, there's a lot of Roland Bolling's in the world.' It was all so lovely. I mean the falling into place. A sort of out of the fire back into the frying pan. I know I'm shameless and erotic and raging with lust at all times, but even with my darling naked James watching my nipples and puss and me with an amused and proprietary smile, the thought of Yolanda and Glynt and an end to fear sent my pulse racing. How good it would be! Me and James and Yolanda! The absurdity of such a triangle never entered my girlish head. 'You mean it, darling'? You really truly want to take me back to Glynt?'
'I'd take you back even if you didn't want to go.'
'Oh, darling!' I was breathless. 'Then I'm no longer a prisoner'?'
'I've just rung up a 'No Sale'.' Delightedly I turned my back to him and wiggled my handcuffs. 'Then we don't need these, do we!' There was a silence. Waiting expectantly I became aware of it only after a good many moments had passed. I looked back coyly over one shoulder. James still knelt. He eyed me ruefully. I knew instantly what was coming. 'I don't have a key, Phemie. Both of them were in the car.' It was a funny feeling — not all bad! I mean, it's one thing for a girl to be handcuffed when she knows there's someone knocking about somewhere with the key, but it's quite something else again to suddenly discover there is no key. A silly vision of having my hands locked behind my back for life crossed my mind. I tittered.
'It's not funny,' said James. I could see he was right. It wasn't funny! Looking over that deserted moor in the dusk told me no girl in her right mind would want to be wandering around across it, naked and with her wrists handcuffed behind her back. But I wasn't in my right mind. Maybe I never am! My predicament struck me as hilarious. I produced a fit of the giggles.
'Well, if you don't mind.' There was faint reproof in James's voice.
'I am your slave girl, darling, it's quite appropriate. I'm sort of glad we don't have the key. It's you, of course. Without you I'd be scared to death and horrified, and probably very indignant. You will look after me extra special, won't you?'
'Extra special, Phemie girl. I love you.' It was positively pussy puckering. I lay down instantly. No wandering shepherd's eye beheld the strangeness of our passing. One normally attired male and a naked girl in a blanket. James had torn a hole in the center of the rug so that I now wore it as a poncho. I did not miss the use of my hands at all. We were indeed an odd pair. But neither of us minded. Love is beautiful. James had to be severe with me from time to time when I got the giggles and wanted to lay down and spread my legs. He finally had to tell me, gorgeously embarrassed, that men can't do it every fifteen minutes the way I wanted. I promised I'd wait. It was hours before we walked over the gentle rise and saw the farm. The sight was not reassuring. It was as grim as the
