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We were in Freddie’s club, expecting a dozen or so clients to turn up. I wanted to give them a briefing on the new web services to get some feed-back.
I had a good session with Clegg before the clients turned up. We’d run through the arrangements for the day and he seemed very happy with the plans. “I like this idea of getting feed-back from the clients,” he said. “We could spend a lot of money without having a solid foundation, otherwise.”
I thought I’d take the opportunity to raise one of my concerns. “You’re right,” I said. “I really want to find a way of getting better insights into the client’s minds to help strengthen the account management approach alongside this. It’s a big problem – I just suspect that it’s one of those areas where they won’t realise if you’re doing a good job but they’ll soon complain if you’re doing a bad one.”
“Hmm, maybe,” said Clegg. “Of course some of the merchandise must get a pretty good insight into their owners over time. Only problem is we don’t see many of them back through our hands. And I draw the line at kidnapping our client’s property! Still if you have another idea, let me know. Things seem to be going the right way and we need to make sure that we keep this on track.” We broke off our conversation as the first of the clients started to appear. Clegg was at his best greeting them, sliding from one to another, making all feel equally valued. Eventually all twelve had arrived and we got them sat down in the presentation area. Some of our clients were travelling with slaves and had brought them along. I wasn’t keen that the slaves heard what we had to say so we’d come up with the idea of allowing them to remain but having them ear-plugged and hooded, We’d provided the hoods as the clients arrived; soft black leather to cover the eyes, the ears and the back of the head, back laced to allow for long hair. The hoods left the mouth free – we knew that many of the clients would have their slaves gagged anyway. Each hood carried a Clegg Enterprises logo worked into the buckle of the strap that ran around the slave’s neck to keep the hood in place. A nice memento, I thought.
“Good morning, ladies & gentlemen, welcome to the club here and thank you for coming along today,” Freddie said, greeting the clients we had invited to preview the efforts of Sebastian’s team. I was pleased that he felt ready to front it; it was all a bit of an innovation after all. He’d been happy to invite folk too, putting a squeeze on them to free up some time in their busy lives. “I know you have all been interested to learn what we have been doing to improve our sales approach, so I am very happy to introduce our Marketing Director, Larry Ross. Some of you I know have met Larry all ready and I hope you’ll agree with me that he’s bringing a whole lot of valuable new ideas to Clegg Enterprises, ideas that I think you’ll find interesting. We’ve asked you here today to preview a new service that we are about to launch. We’ve spoken to people about different parts of it but this is the first time any of our clients have had the chance to see the whole thing in action. We are really anxious to get your feed-back on this. I can’t stress enough how much we want to fit this service to what our clients want, so please be as open as you like on what we have done. Still, enough from me. Here’s Larry.”
Clegg sat down to polite applause and I took the stage. We’d agreed to make the whole presentation very factual, very professional. Brian had wanted us to field some of his latest acquisitions as evidence of what we could do but I didn’t want anything that would detract from the systems. Fortunately Freddie had agreed with me. I looked out at the audience. They looked as though they were ready to give us a hearing at least. At the back of the room four hooded women stood, shackled and silent.
I started off with a short presentation
summarising some of the things that I felt we’d not been good at previously,
particularly the whole thing around not responding to customer needs. I gave
them a short case study on the way we were becoming more interactive; using the
project that we’d done for the
I could see that the audience was still interested but I felt that if I didn’t get down to the nitty-gritty pretty quickly they would start to get restless. I’d arranged for a PC to be hooked up to a projector. One of Sebastian’s team of young ladies was back stage pressing the buttons. I talked them through the features of the system. The News and Catalogue areas were greeted with luke-warm enthusiasm, although there was some interest at some of the items of stock on display. Attention picked up though when I started to explain the “My Projects” area and interest turned to enthusiasm as I began to run through the “Search & Snatch” service. By the time I asked for questions at the end most of the audience were looking keen.
Inevitably at such an event there were few questions in the open forum, most people wanted to talk one-to-one. Clegg, Sebastian, Harry and Brian were all on hand to chat people through what we were aiming to do. Clegg had got the club to lay on some drinks and snacks. It was a novelty to be served by women that weren’t chained and gagged. We’d got an information pack together for each of the attendees with a security fob that gave access to the service and a set of simple instructions. We’d also included a discount offer for the first live auction that we had planned for later that month. I’d figured that anything we offered off the top would be offset by higher prices resulting from more bidders, so the whole thing should be self funding. Clegg had agreed – he liked the idea of giveaways that didn’t cost anything. Brian had just seemed disagreeable about the whole thing. Just to make the most of it I’d arranged with Rick to have five of the auction lots shipped down and put on display in cages in the room where we were serving the drinks. They weren’t very far on in Orientation yet so we’d had to make sure they were well shackled. Even so some of them were trying to rattle the bars in protest at being put on show. I was pleased by how quiet Rick had managed to keep them. He’d shown me a new gag that some of the guys in technical had been working on; a heavy leather, padded face piece coupled with a mouth filling plug stuffed with a gel that expanded slightly as it warmed. That way the plug swelled up once it was pushed into the slaves mouth. Small tubes allowed cold water to be run through the gel to shrink it when the gag needed to be removed. It wasn’t pretty but at least it let us talk to our guests without too much disturbance from the exhibits and some of them were expressing interest in the gags as much as in the women that were wearing them. I made a mental note to think about whether Clegg Enterprises should consider going into the business of branded restraints.
I spent some time talking with Steve Glennis. He confirmed that what we were doing was well ahead of anything he’d seen from the American agencies and he thought he’d be able to use it for future acquisitions for his stables. I asked him about Sukie; if she’d been sold yet.
“No,” said Steve, “she’s with me now – at the back there.” He nodded his head to the back of the room where the four hooded slaves stood patiently. I hadn’t recognised her at first but I could see that the girl second from the left, in black polo jumper and slacks, could well be Sukie. “She still doesn’t know that I intend to sell her on. I’d hoped I might find some interest on this trip from some of my contacts but no luck.”
I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Clegg. “Suppose we took her off your hands as a sort of down payment against a future project?” I said. “It’s not what we’d normally do but you obviously won’t be wanting to cart her back to the island. We’d be happy to take her on account, so to speak and credit you with her resale value when we deliver the next piece of merchandise you take from us.” I was on fairly safe grounds, I thought. Sukie was eminently resaleable, and Glennis hadn’t bought anything from us for ages, so if this got him started spending with us again it would be a double bonus. Besides, Sukie was a bright girl. She’d give me plenty of useful insights into slave owners – from our conversations on the island there had been at least four or five others that she had been leant out to during her time with Glennis.
Steve looked a bit sceptical at first but then warmed to the idea. “All right,” he said. “Have one of your legal team run up an agreement. You might as well take her now though,” he said, leading the way across to the hooded, gagged and deafened form of Sukie. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small fob on a ring. I recognised it as a USB pen drive. “All her documentation is on here,” he said, clipping the fob to a ring on the girl’s hood. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” He ran his hand down her back and patted her backside. She gave a puzzled grunt through her gag, unaware of anything that had been said. Steve smiled and shook my hand before apologising that he had to leave. Sukie never saw him again.
Brian had been cornered by Daphne Challis, the dumpy woman I had last seen on the flight back from Steve’s island. She was standing closer to him than he felt comfortable with. I had some sympathy with him, I could tell from where I was standing, twenty feet away, that her personal hygiene hadn’t improved any since the flight. Clegg was doing the rounds of his old pals, beaming effusively and enthusing about the work that Sebastian had done. Seb himself was being engaged by several of the audience who were keen to see how things worked close up. We were all being fairly tight-lipped about how we did the Search & Snatch thing. No point in making things easier for the competition than we needed to.
Freddie came up to me afterwards in as cheery a mood as ever, evidently well pleased with the day’s proceedings. Brian was being unenthusiastic. “Why on earth did you get me stuck with that Challis woman?” he complained. “And I don’t see how this can substitute for proper selling,” he said. “No real contact with people. I think you’re on the wrong track Ross.”
I started to defend my approach. “We’ll see,” I said, “people seemed interested today at least.”
“Interest is one thing, sales is another,” said Brian.
“Yes,” said Clegg, “quite right. I want to talk to you about that Brian. Can you run me through the numbers from the last auction? I don’t think we’re seeing the improvements you hoped for yet are we?”
Brian looked even more uncomfortable than he had when Daphne had sidled up alongside him. Clegg steered him away as Brian glowered over his shoulder at me.
“Had a good day?”
I jerked around, startled by the sudden words. Elly, elegant as ever, had slid silently up behind me. “I think so. The feed-back has been good.”
“Freddie was looking forward to this. I think he’s pleased. He’s been quite the happy bunny lately, first the Dennison woman and now this.”
“Brian wasn’t too impressed.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that, if I were you,” Elly encouraged, “I think he’s feeling a bit insecure at the moment. Not quite on top of his game as Freddie might say.”
Something told me that was exactly what Freddie would say and presumably had been saying. “I needed to talk to you,” I said and explained about Sukie and the scheme with Steve Glennis.
Elly looked sanguine about it. “I’d rather you’d consulted me first,” she said, in a carefully measured tone that left no doubt about what I should do next time, “but it sounds all right. I can get an agreement drafted for Glennis, best keep it all above board, less danger of confusion and fallings out down stream that way. A Clegg Enterprises hire and agency agreement should cover it. We can add your credit arrangement as an annex to the main contract.”
With the web site launch done, I had some time to devote to the Questor’s project. I know I shouldn’t really go on operations but it’s hard to resist the adrenalin rush and besides, Freddie and Harry both seemed happy that I was getting involved. “Just as long as there are no vodka bottles around,” said Harry with a smirk. Plus, of course, Hannani had been keen for me to handle things personally and the customer is always right.
I’ve always liked the
I was sitting in the Morse Bar of the
Randolph Hotel opposite the museum, looking out across
I found them as I expected in the Egyptian Gallery. The women had all taken off their coats and were standing, drinks in hand, admiring the exhibits. They were being served by two waitresses, both dressed in the usual black dresses with white aprons and caps. One held a tray of drinks, the other, Tricia, a tray of canapés. I was beginning to enjoy it when Tricia turned up on a job. She certainly looked good in the uniform.
Helen scowled as I entered first of all, but then managed an insincere smile. “Well, hello,” she said, sourly. “We were beginning to wonder if you were going to come.”
I gave Helen an equally insincere embrace of greeting. “Goodness, I wouldn’t have missed this Helen,” I said. “It’s so good of you to arrange it. And these are the Questors. Wonderful. Ladies, it’s a great pleasure to meet you and in such appropriate surroundings too.”
That bit at least was honest. The extent to which the computer game characters resembled their originals (or vice versa) was remarkable. I’d spent some time playing the game – purely as part of the project, you understand – and the four Questors in the game were only slightly exaggerated versions of the real things. There was Anya Tanith, archaeologist and fortune hunter, bush shirt tied off under her tits and khaki shorts that looked like they had been spray painted on; beside her was Dr. Elspeth Train, the linguist and scholar in her trademark dark tweed jacket, tight black skirt and half-moon, gold rimmed spectacles. Between these two and Helen were the black jump-suit clad Aniko Tomaka – the all-action heroine - and Caressa Santango, the fiery, Latin, intuitive one of the four, in a scarlet dress that was cut every bit as low as those she wore in the game. For what it was worth, I reckoned that all four of these ladies had been surgically enhanced so that their attributes provided the desired look when animated. They didn’t say anything, they just smiled. I wondered what Helen had told them about our meeting.
Helen wheeled out a suitcase. “I brought the clothes you asked for,” she said with an air of distaste. “One costume for each of the characters.”
“Thank you,” I said, “a wonderful souvenir.”
“A gift for a pervert, if you ask me,” she
hissed under her breath. I smiled. Still Helen had certainly delivered her side
of the bargain. It was just a shame that I wasn’t really going to be able to do
the same or at least, not in the way that Helen imagined.
“Would you like some wine, Sir,” the waitress with the drinks tray said to me.
“I’d rather have a scotch if you can manage it,” I answered giving the girl the signal to start. I looked up at the CCTV camera that covered the gallery. The techies would have it on divert by now.
“Of course, Sir,” she said putting down her tray of drinks. Tricia did the same with her canapés. The first waitress reached behind a statue of Ahkenaten and pulled out a pistol, a second later she had her arm around Helen’s throat and the gun pointing at her temple. As she did so, Tricia grabbed an Ouzi from inside a canopic chest and was pointing it at the other four. “Nice and calm, ladies, please,” she said politely. “Just remember there aren’t any cheats for extra lives in this game.”
Helen was looking furious and was about to speak when her captor jerked her arm more tightly about her throat and jammed the barrel of the gun harder against her head. “Not interested, sister,” she said. “Lots of quiet is what is needed. You others,” she barked at the four Questors staring on in disbelief. “Grab a napkin each, from the table there and push it into your mouth as far as it will go. Then put your hands up way over your heads and get over facing that wall. Get on with it! Are you waiting for me to press CTRL-SHIFT-Get The Fuck Over By The Wall or something?”
I watched as the four girls did as they were told. Tricia and her Ouzi went over, She made sure each got a good prod in the ribs from the gun just to reinforce the situation and then frisked each of them in turn, removing Anya’s bowie knife, and Aniko’s throwing knives - one of the benefits of the games was that we knew what to look for.
“OK, ladies, turn around but keep your hands up please.” The four of them turned around each with a wad of white napkin spilling from their well stuffed mouths. I walked along the line strapping the napkins in place with a couple of strips of tape for each. I took a napkin for Helen and gave her the same treatment. “Very good,” Helen’s waitress said. “Now round again and hands behind your back, please.” The waitresses had brought plenty of rope with them so it was easy for me to get their wrists tied and then to put a turn or two between their elbows and around their chest. Helen was dealt with in the same way as the others.
“Thanks a lot girls,” I said to the waitresses. “You can clear away now and make sure they’re all bagged up. We haven’t got time to strip them now and I don’t want those costumes messed up on the journey. Here, take this case too.” I pushed across the suitcase that Helen had brought. The four Questors and Helen were hustled away at gunpoint, out through the kitchens and into the catering van that the waitresses had come in. Helen’s waitress came back to pick up the glasses, the plates and the remains of the food and drink. I knew they’d be out and on their way to the Prep Centre in minutes.
I went to find the museum’s curator to let him know that my hospitality event was over. He seemed happy. “Just as long as you didn’t break anything,” he said with a grin.
“No, no,” I replied, “though of course we did steal a few priceless items.”
He laughed in response. “I’ll enjoy watching that on the replays,” he said nodding to the security monitors. “Well,” he said, “I hope your clients enjoyed themselves.”
“Oh, yes,” I answered, “they were quite taken with the place.”
I passed the catering van as they reached
I was waiting for them when the catering van backed up to the loading dock. When we opened the doors at the back of the van I was pleased to see that Tricia and her pal had done just as I asked.
The four Questors had been bagged in zip-up nylon bags that closed up to their necks. It was just as well for their outfits, a couple of trays of food from the buffet had tipped over during the trip and spread themselves around the back of the van.
Like I say, the Questors were fine but Tricia hadn’t bothered to bag Helen. She had evidently been trying to free herself in the back of the van, I reckoned that was what had dislodged the food trays. The combination of her struggles and the spilled food meant she was in quite a mess. I untied her ankles and pulled her from the van.
Her tights were laddered from struggling on the floor of the van and her black jacket and skirt were streaked with mayonnaise and prawn sauce. She’d got something in her hair; it took me a while to work out what it was, you don’t normally expect to see asparagus up there. Her blouse was soaked from something; spilled wine I guessed – there was an open bottle lying on the floor of the van where she had been.
As I stood her up, I brushed off the worst of it. She’d even sat on some sandwiches; the back of her skirt was covered in crushed food. “You’re a messy eater, Ms Stanhope,” I joked. She didn’t see the funny side and growled back through her gag. From the way her mouth was working underneath the tape, I could see that she felt she had plenty to say about her current circumstances.
I pushed her on to the loading dock and passed her over to one of Rick’s team. They took her away, still struggling. Tricia and her colleague had got the Questors off the van and out of their bags. Two more of the Prep Centre guards made to take them away as well. “Have them stripped,” I called out, “But carefully, the client wants the outfits as well.”
I smiled at Tricia and her pal as the Questors were led away. “Thanks, ladies,” I said, “that was great.”
Tricia’s colleague said, “Thanks, no problem. I’ll check them in.” She gave Tricia a wave and followed the captives into the building.
Tricia watched her go. “She’s been a real help. She’s been doing this for a couple of years now, I’m learning a lot.”
“Great,” I said. “Well, today was certainly professional. Harry would have been impressed.”
Tricia smiled, “Yeah, maybe. I hope so. It seems to take a lot to impress him.” She seemed a bit subdued; she should have been really up after a good snatch like that. She looked as though she needed cheering up. I felt I could use an evening of female company that wasn’t under duress.
“Well,” I said. “Anyway,” I pointed at her uniform, “I wouldn’t want you to think I made a habit of making passes at waitresses but I thought we might go for a drink when you get off.”
Tricia hesitated for a moment but then grinned, “Yeah, why not. I’d like that. I need to do the paperwork for this snatch and book the outfit and the Ouzi back into stores but I’ll be done in about an hour. How’s that for you?”
“Fine,” I said. “It’s a date.” And it was –
the nearest thing to a normal date that I’d had since, well, since Rebecca had
gone off on her last trip for
They’d put Helen in with her sister. That was considerate, I thought. Andromeda had been giving the guards some trouble, I imagined, and they’d strung her up naked, with her wrists high over her head, balanced on tip toe in the middle of the cell. For consistency they’d put Helen in the same position, though she was still wearing her food stained suit and wine soaked blouse. They’d swapped her napkin gag for one of the Centre standard ball gags but that didn’t seemed to have improved her humour any. They both scowled at me as I came in. Andromeda gave me a rather more animated grunt through the ring gag she’d been given.
“Good evening,” I said. “Here you are Helen, I promised I’d reunite you with your sister and you see I am a man of my word.” Helen was having trouble standing upright, swaying on the chain that held her wrists high above her head. “Those clothes are in a real mess,” I said. “Here, let me help. If we undo this blouse it will get a chance to dry off.” She squealed and twisted as I unfastened the buttons and pulled her blouse form the waist band of her skirt. “There,” I said, “isn’t that better.” She seemed to indicate that it wasn’t but as far as I was concerned the unobstructed view that I now had of her tits was a distinct improvement. I unzipped her skirt too and let that fall around her ankles. Her legs weren’t bad either. I suppose I hadn’t really worked out what we were going to do with her and little sis – the client hadn’t specified them at all. They were just collateral in the collection of the Questors.
Tricia put her head around the door to the cell. “I thought I’d find you here,” she said. She’d changed out of her waitress uniform and was now wearing a summery dress. It didn’t quite square with my image of a gun toting abductor but she looked agreeably normal. Suddenly I just wanted an evening off from all this. “Your client wants to see you. He’s in with the Questors.”
“OK, I suppose I ought to see him. You won’t mind waiting a while will you? I’ll make it quick.”
Don’t worry,” she said. “I can hang on. I’ll see you in the office.”
I gave her a smile and left her. I heard the groans of Andromeda and Helen as Tricia followed me out and locked the door to their cell. The Questors were two doors further on. Mr Hananni and the girls were already there together with one of the Centre guards. He was wasting no time in taking advantage of his new purchase. Anya Tanith was bent forward, face down across a desk, her hands still tied behind her. Hannani was in the process of buckling his trouser belt, having evidently taken his pleasure with Anya from behind. The other Questors were looking on in horror.
“Mr Ross, you have excelled yourself!” Hananni exclaimed. “Everything that my friend the Kallinin said of you was true.”
“Well, Mr Hananni, thank you but it’s not all down to me.”
“Well, it is your team and that is the main thing. You have done just as you said.” He gestured to the four girls as the guards herded them across the room until they were standing chained by their neck collars to the wall of the cell, Looking at them naked I could now see just how much modification they had had done to them; natural breasts just aren’t that spherical for a start nor do they have nipples that you could use to hang things from. The Prep Centre team had done a good job of getting them displayed for Hananni, Rick was certainly getting in touch with the idea of fitting in with the customer. I particularly liked the fact that he’d arranged for some dress makers dummies to be positioned beside each of them, half of them dressed in the costumes that the Questors had been captured in, half in the costumes that Helen had brought. A nice touch.
“I’m glad you are pleased, Mr Hananni,” I said. “In fact, I wondered if you’d like to consider another couple of properties that we have available to us that could add significantly to your business venture.” I took him to one side and explained the availability of Helen and her sister. I was pleased with his response; it looked like we wouldn’t need to put them to auction after all.
Hananni wanted some time to think about the possibilities for Helen and Andromeda, which was fine by me as they weren’t taking up too much space in the cells and in any case I had other plans for the evening than chatting to clients. I agreed to get one of the sales team to talk to him in a couple of weeks and left him in search of Tricia.
We had a great evening. It was good to spend some time with a woman that didn’t involve chains, ropes and gags. Tricia seemed happy too – at least that’s how I interpreted the enthusiastic sex we both fell into at the end of the evening and the way in which we both went on repeating it for the next two weeks.
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