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CHAPTER ONE

Jeb stared intently into the black waters of Hymelion Bay as the launch made its way
toward the yacht. It lay at anchor a mile and a half offshore. It would take the launch
twenty or thirty minutes to cover the distance. Jeb was glad for the time to think and
brood. Tonight he was to take the first real step in finding and saving Carmella.

He had little information about what had happened after he and Carmella had separated
following the fiasco at the casino. What information he did have came from the American
Consular Official who had been permitted to speak to Carmella briefly, and one short
letter from Carmella that had come out of Calipha addressed to her parents. They, of
course, would not share the letter with Jeb since they felt, and rightly so, he was
responsible for the terrible predicament their daughter was in.

The information he had been able to pry out of the Consulate and piece together from his
short conversation with Carmella`s parents was that she had been arrested at their hotel,
three days after she was supposed to have left. She had been charged with prostitution,
bribery of the police, fraud, tampering with evidence and a host of lesser crimes. But why
had she still been at the hotel three days after she was supposed to leave? Where did all
these phony charges come from? They were all, to say the least, out of character for
Carmella. Something had happened and Jeb couldn`t figure out what. He was stunned when he
learned she had given a `confession` and she had had a trumped up trial after which she
was sentenced to seventeen years of servitude to the State. In Calipha, he had learned,
penal servitude for women meant principally sexual exploitation of the worst kind. In
effect, slavery.

When Jeb learned Carmella had been arrested, he stayed drunk for two weeks, berating
himself, wallowing in self-pity. But then he snapped out of it, dried out, and went to
work trying to set his wrong right.

A call on the Calipha embassy in Athens got him nowhere. There were no charges against
him pending in Calipha and they wouldn`t corroborate that Carmella was a prisoner there,
or the status of her case. "Confidential State Information," they told him. As
to the money he owed, if given the opportunity, Jeb would have paid double or triple the
amount--but it couldn`t be done. No one would acknowledge the debt, so there was nobody to
pay.

Jeb considered the possibility of hiring mercenaries to get into Calipha, find Carmella,
and bring her home, but he didn`t have the money for that, or the contacts. What he did
have was his talent for making money. Unfortunately, he had blown most of what he had at
the gaming table the night Carmella had been lost. There had to be an angle. There had to
be some way of turning his expertise into a ticket into Calipha so he could search for
Carmella himself. Once he found where she was, maybe he could bust her out himself, or
make a deal for her.

As it was, the opportunity to surreptitiously enter Calipha literally came to him. He was
nosing around some financial contacts when he learned that a very high placed member of
the Royal Family was looking for a financial advisor to handle investments, cash flow and
revenue related issues. His one non-financial asset was a friend from back home who was
connected to the right people. Using this friend, he obtained false papers and a passport
in the name of Paul Turner. Paul Turner was a friend of his in the financial world who had
died in a car crash a couple of years before. Using his name provided the perfect resume
to apply for the financial advisor position.

Armed with this false identity and curriculum vitae, Jeb, now Paul, managed to get
himself an interview for the job. He sailed through the interview and before he knew it,
he was winging his way to Athens for a final meeting of approval with the Prince.

Now he found himself on this small boat, making his way to the only chance he knew of to
sneak into Calipha and begin his search. The bay was rough and the salty spray stung his
face as he peered over the bow. The running lights ahead, on the largest yacht he had ever
seen, were lights of hope, tinged with uncertainty. It had taken weeks, months, but
finally a plan was in motion. Could he find Carmella and save her? Where was she now?

* * * *

At the moment Jeb was being carried inexorably to his rendezvous, Carmella was undergoing
training in the underground belly of the Adeem pleasure palace. She woke to her first full
"day" in the training area, as she had gone to sleep, chained to the head of a
bed in the dormitory. She was naked, her hands locked to the corners of her bed. She had
no idea how long she had slept, but it could not have been long, for she awoke groggy and
confused. She was awakened by the dormitory matron, a heavy set, staid women,
dark-skinned, as the natives of this Middle Eastern emirate were dark, dressed in a dull,
dark brown, shirtwaist dress and black leather, low heeled shoes. Her face was broad and
flabby, her eyes almost black. She carried a slender but stiff, rattan cane, encased in
leather, about three feet in length.

"Up, up, up," she barked to Carmella as she poked her with the cane. "Get
up slave!"

Carmella felt the sharp bite of the cane as it was jammed into her ribs.

"Get up!" the matron hollered. "Get up, wake up!"

The cane dug more sharply into Carmella`s side.

Carmella`s eyes widened, as the memory of where she was rushed into her consciousness.
What had seemed momentarily dreamlike was actually real. She quickly recalled her painful
lesson from the day before. The matrons must be addressed properly. "Yes, madam. Yes,
I am awake. Please, I`m awake."

The matron eyed Carmella for a moment. Carmella, bound as she was, could only await the
matron`s pleasure. Suddenly, swiftly, with a practiced hand, the matron swung the cane
over her head and struck Carmella across her breasts. Then pain was exquisite. The narrow
cane carried a sting as it flexed over the matron`s head, but it was sturdy enough to
cause a deep thumping in Carmella`s chest.

Carmella cried out in pain, "Eeeeyoow!" Her arms tensed against her confinement
as she made a futile attempt to cover herself. Her legs, which were unconfined, doubled
up. She twisted her torso to the side to avoid another blow to her breasts.

"When I tell you to wake up, you will wake up! Do you understand?" the matron
bellowed.

"Y-yes, madam, yes!"

The matron leaned over to undo Carmella`s the bindings, then signaled Carmella to rise.
Carmella gingerly rose to her feet, steeling herself for another blow with the cane. But
the matron merely motioned with her head for Carmella to come with her.

Carmella followed the matron past the other beds in the dormitory and past the circular
stage that stood at its center. Not all the beds were occupied, but most contained
confined women, chained in place. None of them were sleeping, for when the matron had
bellowed at Carmella they had all automatically snapped awake and come to immediate
attention. Many of them had experienced the cane across the breasts for waking too slowly,
some more than once. It was not an experience they wished to repeat.

No daylight found its way to the training area located in the bowels of the mansion that
was the House of Adeem. It was, in a very real sense, a dungeon. In it, the training
routine was so varied the young women, all chosen for their beauty and potential as
compliant and dutiful sexual servants, had no basis for determining the passage of time.
The rest periods and meal times were of random lengths. The training sessions were not
conducted in any structured way. There was no routine for a slave to rely on to measure
the days and hours of her imprisonment. For all practical purposes, time stood still.

Physical abuse was both routine and arbitrary. It wasn`t only given out as punishment for
transgressions. Some beatings were administered for the pleasure of the masters, the
trainers. Some were given as exemplars for the benefit of the group. Some seemed to be
given just as a matter of routine, not for the pleasure it gave anyone, or any remedial
purpose, but just for the purpose of inflicting pain on the victim.

Carmella was to learn today that at the end of every rest period, one could hardly call
it morning, a ritual whipping was administered. It was not a purposeless beating as was
sometimes imposed. Each "morning" whipping brought home to the trainee that pain
awaited her. It tenderized her body, sensitized the new slave to the fact she was in
bondage, a chattel to be trained. It was a portent of the rest of the day. Moreover, it
prevented any slave from falling between the cracks. It wouldn`t do for any slave in
training to believe she had beat the system, so to speak, by failing to make a noticeable
error during that training period, or by managing to please all the trainers and matrons
who had charge of her throughout the day. No, every day must bring home to the slave that
she was living each moment of her existence under parole. Pain and suffering were to be
driven home as the norm. Freedom from pain was to be earned.