Pam-Ann (4 page)

“Please, where are you taking
me?” Pam asked. “Won’t you give me some clothes?”

“Shut up.” The woman gave the
same reply she had to all her other anxious questions.

“You can’t just ignore me,” Pam
complained. “I have a right to….”
The woman
slammed her against the wall and held her there while her free hand
clamped around Pam’s left breast. A thumb and forefinger pinched
its nipple until her eyes were watering.

“Listen, you cow, I’ve done
twenty years and I’ve got a perfect record.” The woman’s accent
revealed she was English. “Three more and I can apply to be free of
this lousy Company, and you’re not going to mess it up. All you
need to know is you do as you’re told. I have caning rights and if
you don’t start right now I’ll use them, you hear?”

The welts on Pam’s back and
buttocks were buzzing painfully from the pressure of the wall. The
woman had already added another one earlier and she did not want to
feel the sting of the little cane across her bottom again. Belly
fluttering, she nodded. Her tormentor let her go and pushed her
through the doorway.

The passage
beyond was wider, its walls painted, and the floor was cold under
Pam’s bare feet.
The others had been warm, probably from the
heat rising from the engine room below them. That had to be what
that infernal place was. Though she had had little time to think
since she had awoken, Pam was almost sure she was on a ship. How
she had got there remained a mystery, and how she could possibly
get back made her gut churn and heart race every time she tried to
think about it. Maybe she was really lying unconscious or comatose
on the plane.
Even that would be better than to be
really experiencing the beating and bullying she had
suffered.
In desperation Pam closed her eyes, fervently
hoping that when she opened them she would be looking into Todd’s
concerned face. He had been quite attractive really, and maybe not
as much of a sexist
pig
as she had been
ready to believe.

“Hurry.” The terse command and a
sharp tap of the stick on Pam’s rump made her open her eyes. Her
heart sank. She was still in the passage, as she had known she
would be. She could not escape the horrible feeling that she was
not dreaming and that this unsympathetic world of callous, casual
cruelty truly had become her reality.

“I don’t know what makes you mad
bitches do it,” the Englishwoman said. “You’ve got everything and
you throw it all away as if it’s nothing. I’ve struggled for years
and even now, only if – and it’s a big
if
– I’m lucky I
might get a taste of what you gave away without a thought. You’re
not just mad, you’re bloody stupid.”

Unnerved as well as puzzled, Pam
wanted to ask what she meant but her previous experiences told her
she would be better silent. They turned a corner, passed two doors
and a tap of the stick halted her at a third with the words
First Officer
stencilled on it. The Englishwoman knocked
gently.

“Come in.”

Drake, who looked in every way
identical to Todd, slipped the cap on his fountain pen
as they entered
, laid it on his desk and sat back in
his chair.

“Hello, Ann. I’ve got the
paperwork prepared.”

Pam stared. Directly before her
was a large, rectangular window but she could see nothing beyond
it. It was dark outside and all that was visible was her own
reflection in the glass, reminding her she was entirely naked
before a man who was a complete stranger. She put a hand over her
sex and crossed a forearm over her out-thrust breasts. Despite her
embarrassment the need to know where she was made her want to go to
the window and try to see out. The sudden smack of the cane on her
buttocks quashed the feeling with a fiery sting.

“Stand in front of the desk,”
the Englishwoman barked, “and get your hands at your sides.” Apart
from two brief pieces of material slung from a cord around her
hips, barely covering her before and behind, she was as naked as
Pam but clearly nowhere near as self-conscious about it.

The heat of Pam’s blush flamed
on her cheeks as she obeyed and looked at Drake with a mixture of
wariness and resentment.

“That’s all, Christine.” When
the Englishwoman had gone he looked Pam up and down. “You’ve
cleaned up well. You look very pretty.”

Pam had no
recollection of being bathed but it must have happened, for she had
been clean when she had been awoken. One bite from the
Englishwoman’s cane had been enough to make her submit to
having her face made-up and her hair brushed and
pinned, when all she had wanted were answers to the questions
crowding her mind.
Neither had the indignities ended
there.

Drake pushed the printed paper
he had been writing on across the desk and pointed to an inkpad
that lay beside it. “Right thumb print on the right bottom
corner.”

“W…what is it?” Pam dared to
ask.

“Your provisional acceptance
papers, of course.” His mouth tightened as he stood, picked up a
rod like the one he had used in the Chief’s office and moved around
the desk towards her. “I don’t know what this innocent act is all
about, or what you expect to gain from it, but it’s trying my
patience. And it’s going to stop now. You know it makes no
difference if you’ve changed your mind, so get your print on the
paper.” When she still hesitated he smacked the rod on the desktop.
“Now!”

Pam jumped at the crack. Awed by
his broad figure towering so close and terrified by the thought of
him carrying out his earlier threat to strap her down and beat her,
she jabbed her thumb onto the inkpad and pressed it to the printed
sheet.

“That’s better.” Drake let the
rod lie, took the paper and the passport he had found in what he
thought was her bag, paper-clipped them together and slipped them
into a brown folder on his desk. His hand seizing hers made Pam
catch her breath but he only wiped the ink from her thumb with a
damp cloth and released her. The skin of her wrist felt oddly warm
where he had gripped it. The same feeling tingled through Pam’s jaw
as his finger tilted her chin until she was looking into his eyes.
A shiver of gooseflesh ran over her skin, spread across her
shoulders and down to her breasts. To her alarm her nipples
stiffened.

“I expect you’re afraid,” he
said.

Dumbly, she nodded.

“Well, it’ll all be over soon
and then you can start to learn the routine and settle in. It might
seem strange at first but you’ll pick it up quickly enough.”

Even though she had no grasp of
their meaning, his words were the first that had held even a hint
of sympathy for her since she had been somehow plucked from the
airplane. Pam felt a stirring of gratitude. It vanished as soon as
he spoke again.

“They’ve done a good job on you.
I like to see a neat little pussy like yours without any hair
hiding it.”

An image of being held down by
three near-naked girls while the Englishwoman waxed her sex and
armpits filled Pam with instant indignation.

“Oh, do you?” she said hotly.
“They had no right to….” She did not expect him to slide his hand
between her thighs. Stunned, Pam stared open-mouthed into Drake’s
eyes as his fingertips smoothed over the bare, pouting lips of her
newly depilated sex. A second later she leapt away with heat
flaring in her sheath and a startling cascade of juices bathing its
quivering walls. Her head whirled. Only Rick’s touch had ever had
such an immediate and intense effect before. Remembering him
stabbed her heart as it always did, but Pam had no time to spare
for past hurts. She had enough in the here and now. She shuddered,
panting. “You m… mustn’t do that. It’s….”

“Not right,” Drake finished.
“Nothing is, according to you. Come back here.” When she hesitated
he curled his hand around the rod. To Pam’s relief he let go when
she obeyed. She squeaked in anger and outrage when he immediately
smoothed his fingers over her sex-lips again, and was thankful as
well as surprised when he did no more. As his hand withdrew it
brushed the apex of her sex. Pam looked down and gave a little mew
of astonishment. The tip of her clitoris was standing out amid the
flesh that should have concealed it. Her cheeks flamed, then flamed
again as she saw her deep-red and erect nipples.

Drake laughed. “Now that’s what
I expect from one of That Kind, not this coy, modest act you’ve
been putting on. No one’s going to buy it anyway. Not after you
stowed away.”

“But I keep telling you I didn’t
stow away.”

“Then I guess you just appeared
out of thin air?”

“Yes. No. Oh, hell! I was on a
plane….”

His upraised hand stopped her.
“There are no plains in the Atlantic Ocean, girl, as you know very
well.”

“The Atlantic? Then I’m where I
was, except… not where I was, or maybe when I was?” It was a
difficult idea to grasp, let alone put into words.

Drake was not listening. He took
out a large pocket watch. “Time we moved along. The passengers will
be gathering in the saloon before dinner.”

“Oh, why won’t anyone listen?
Doesn’t anyone have any respect for anyone else here?”

Drake’s glance
at her seemed surprised. “Sure, but not for you. That’s something
else you sacrificed the right to when
you gave up your
freedom.”

“Freedom?” Pam’s belly felt
instantly and horribly hollow. “Please, for one minute pretend I
have no idea what’s happening and tell me what it is I’ve done to
make everyone mad at me.”

“No one’s mad at you, but a lot
will despise you.” Drake sighed. “Okay, I’ll play along this once,
but only once. You stowed away. That’s an international offence
with a mandatory punishment. You automatically become the property
of the Company whose vessel you illegally boarded, in this case the
Empire Star Line
. That’s why I’ve signed you on as a
stewardess third class on the crew of the
Empire’s
Triumph
.”

“P... property?” The hollow
feeling intensified. “What the hell are you saying?”

“What I’m saying, as you already
know, is that you belong to the Company. You’re a bonded slave
girl.”

“Oh, my God!”

It took every
shred of control and willpower Pam could summon to stop her from
passing out. She
was still reeling when Drake took her
forward from his office to a part of the vessel where the corridors
were carpeted and their walls painted in tasteful pastel shades.
Questions crowded her mind but the lieutenant’s patience was
exhausted, and in her shock
and near-panic
Pam forgot them as quickly as they arose. A slave! The word ran
round and round in her head as Drake guided her along passageways
and through a double door. The room beyond was more brightly lit
than anywhere Pam had seen so far. And it was full of people!
Senses still swamped by what she had learned, she took in little of
her surroundings but could still cringe inwardly as heads began to
turn in her direction.

Big, rectangular windows at
either side of the room showed it extended the width of the vessel.
Between two of the windows on one side was a small stage with
tables arranged in semi-circles in front of it. On the stage was a
tall, chromed-metal post and beside it another shiny metal object
shaped like half a barrel and mounted on two pairs of legs of
different lengths and set at different angles. Drake made for the
stage but his glance at the bar that occupied most of the other
side of the saloon made him head in that direction instead.
Horribly conscious of her nudity and especially her newly depilated
sex, Pam felt her cheeks grow hot. There must be thirty men and
women in the room and they were all looking at her. The buzz of her
wealed back and buttocks reminded her that they too were clearly
visible and Pam cringed once more at the knowledge everyone could
see the evidence of her abuse and humiliation. She had an awful
certainty that none of them would care.

They approached a man in a
uniform similar to Drake’s but wearing gold-tasselled epaulettes on
his shoulders and three gold stars in his lapels. As they reached
him a slim, blonde-haired young woman glided along the bar and
slipped her arm through his.

“Oh, is this the stowaway? How
fascinating.”
She e
xtended the long, black
cigarette holder in her free hand and deliberately flicked hot ash
from her cigarette onto Pam’s left breast. The American girl hissed
and rubbed at the discomfort. The blonde pushed her hand away.
“Keep still, darling, while I look at you.”

Her gaze travelled slowly over
Pam’s nakedness. Uncomfortable under the blatant scrutiny, she
could still feel surprise at how the young woman was dressed. Her
long, ivory-coloured gown of knitted silk clung to her like a
second skin, revealing every curve and hollow of her slender
figure. What most astonished Pam, however, was that it only covered
the blonde’s left breast, leaving the right one completely bare
except for a jewelled, gold clip covering her nipple. Equally
astonishing was the fact that she was not the only female in the
room dressed that way, and that none of them seemed at all
self-conscious about it. Pam looked up from the small, firm swell
of the young woman’s breast and found herself staring into two
large, green eyes.

“My, she’s a beauty.” The pink
tip of the blonde’s tongue ran slowly over her glossy red lips and
her smile bared two
pointed eyeteeth. To Pam, they
looked sharper than usual, almost feline, like the smile itself.
Leaning closer, the young woman
took a long sniff. “I think
she’s excited too. Did it thrill you, darling, hiding from everyone
until you saw your chance to sneak on board? I’ll bet it was
exciting finding a little corner to cram yourself into and huddling
there all hot and shivery between the legs, knowing you were bound
to get caught.” She laughed and her eyes shone. “And all the time
thinking about what was going to happen when you were.”