Penelope stirred in her half drugged sleep and slowly began to wake up.
A faint light was coming in through a strangely barred window in what she presumed
must be the Prince's guesthouse. It must be dawn, she thought. Dawn? Then she must have
slept for over twelve hours. Goodness!
How odd it all seemed. She remembered the journey to the Palace and meeting the
very intimidating Prince. She remembered how Pierre had urged her sign her contract. She
remembered drinking a couple of gin and tonics and being offered some rather delicious
cakes - then nothing more.
My God, she must have passed out! How awful! What must the Prince have thought of
her!
Then, vaguely, she remembered being half woken up the previous evening by voices.
Male voices. She thought she recognised the deep voice of the Prince and the falsetto one
of the Negro who had so embarrassed her by the swimming pool. And, as if in a dream, she
had an equally vague impression of a man in a white coat like a doctor who raised her legs
and examined her - intimately, as if she was lying on a gynaecological couch.
She thought she heard him say: 'Yes I think they'll both be very suitable.'
Suitable for what, she had thought. Was the Prince having her medically examined
before countersigning her contract to make the tourist films?
Then, again as if in if in a dream, had come the Prince's slow deep voice, heavily
accentuated. 'Yes, they're a beautifully matched pair. Just what I wanted. Tell Nadu to
tattoo them. And, Burka! Make sure you start getting their monthly cycles properly
synchronised.'
'Yes Your Highness, of course,' had come the voice of the little black boy. What
did a little boy like him know about women's cycles, sleepily she remembered thinking.
Had it all been a dream? And what a strange expression - a Matched Pair. She
remembered it was one that the awful Negro had used to Pierre by the pool. And what was
all that about tattooing? No one was going to tattoo her!
Again she dozed off again and then finally awoke, feeling strangely refreshed.
The first thing she saw, hanging from the ceiling, were two pairs of stirrups,
like on gynaecological couch. With a start she remembered her dream of being intimately
examined - apparently in the presence of the Prince. Good God, she thought, had it been
more than a dream? She saw that she was indeed lying, covered by a sheet, on what seemed
to be a double size gynaecological couch.
She reached out and touched someone. Oh lovely! Here was Pierre - in her bed at
last, she laughed. But what was he doing on gynaecological couch?
But it was not Pierre that she touched, but the soft body of a woman!
Startled, she half sat up. There was a jingle of a chain from the back of her
neck. She put her hand up and felt a metal collar. Fastened to the back of it was a chain.
Good God!
She looked down. An attractive young woman was lying fast asleep on the couch
alongside her. There was a shiny metal collar round her neck, too. It was flexible, being
made of interlocking metal links like the strap of an expensive wristwatch.
She saw that a chain was also fastened to a ring at the back of the young woman's
collar. It was the same chain as her own. They were chained together! Moreover, as the
chain went through a ring at the head of the couch, they were both also chained to the
couch!
She saw that a blue ribbon was fastened to the side of the girl's collar. She put
her hand up to her own neck. She felt a similar ribbon fastened to her collar, too.
My God, thought Penelope. Who is this girl? Why are we chained together? And why
the collars? And why the blue ribbons? Oh, where was Pierre?
'Pierre! Pierre!' she cried out.
But there was no reply from the empty bare room.
She looked again at the sleeping woman to whom she was chained. She was a very
pretty blond girl. Goodness! It was the girl she had seen at the hotel in Tangier, going
off to the Pool changing rooms just as she had arrived. She was the girl whom, she had
thought, looked rather like herself. She remembered she had wondered whether she was also
being auditioned by the horrible Negro for the same tourist promotion project.
The girl was in a frilly nightdress with a crest of two green scimitars within a
black circle embroidered on the right breast. She remembered seeing the same crest painted
on the nose of the private jet in which she and Pierre had travelled here, an aircraft
that presumably had belonged to the mysterious Prince. She had also seen the same crest
emblazoned on the livery of the black servants.
Shocked, she saw that on a flat plate on the front of the girl's collar was
engraved the same crest and alongside it some Arabic numerals. Below the crest,
prominently engraved on the front of the collar, and equally prominently embroidered in
blue on her nightdress, was a larger Arabic numeral. She had learnt to recognise Arabic
numerals when in Tangier and she saw that the number was 7.
She looked down at herself. She was wearing an identical nightdress, also with the
same crest embroidered over her right breast. But below it, in her case, were the Arabic
numerals 14, also in blue. How all very odd.
Suddenly she also noticed a black ring tattooed on the back of the girl's left
hand. Inside the ring was tattooed a bright blue Arabic figure 7. There was also a line of
Arabic numerals tattooed prominently across the back of the girl's right hand.
She looked down at her own hands and gasped. On the back of her left hand a black
ring had been freshly tattooed and inside was a bright blue tattooed 14. She looked down
at her right hand. Sure enough a long line of Arabic numerals had also been tattooed on
the back of it.
She remembered hearing in her dream the Prince ordering something about tattooing.
My God, she thought, has young Miss Penelope Lyndsey-Baker disappeared? Was she now just
some Arabic number? But why? And why the longer line of numbers. What were they for?
With a start she realised that someone must have undressed her and put her into
this nightdress. Who? Surely not that awful little black boy? How embarrassing!
She looked around the barely furnished room. It reminded her of the sick bay in
her girls’ school with a medicine cupboard and a table with metal trays containing
surgical instruments. She recognised some of them as being ones used for examining women.
There was a window, arched in the Arab style. She saw there were curved wrought
iron bars beyond the windows - - but this bare room didn't measure up to the Pierre's talk
of a luxurious Guest House.
Was she still in the Prince's palace and not in the Guest House at all? And anyway
where was this palace? She realised she had no idea. Having been driven to it in the car
with those strange opaque windows, she did not even know whether it was in a town, or out
in the countryside.
Penelope looked around for her smart Gucci leather bag with her money, her
chequebook, her credit cards, her pen, her ... It also held a secret and very private
picture of a naked Charles. How embarrassing if that were to be seen by someone. And it
also held her all important contraception pills. Oh Lord! Pierre, she then remembered,
still had her passport. But where was he?
There was no sign of the clothes she had been wearing, nor of her jewellery or
luggage. But Charles engagement ring was still on her finger.
Again she wondered where she was.
She tried to get out of bed, but, of course, being chained to the other girl
stopped her.
The sheet, however, had now dropped down and she saw that the girl's nightdress
had slipped up her thighs. She was rather surprised to see that all the girl's body hair
had been removed - she had been completely depilated! It gave her a strange "little girl"
look. She had heard that Arab women did this, but this girl was European. Any way, at
least she didn't go in for such shocking ideas!
Then suddenly she felt a strange feeling between her legs. She reached down and
pulled up her nightdress. She gasped. She, too, had been depilated!
Wonderingly she ran her hand over her now smooth, hairless mound and beauty lips.
They, too, looked almost childlike - rather beautiful really. She was not quite sure
whether to be thrilled or ashamed.
Meanwhile, shaken by the jerks from the chain onto her collar, the other girl was
stirring. Suddenly she opened her eyes. She looked up at Penelope in alarm and said
something in French
'So you're French!' cried Penelope. 'Do you speak English?'
'Just a leetle, ' she replied in a delightful French accent. 'But who are you?'
'I'm Penelope. What's your name?'
'Chantalle.' She sat up in bed. There was rattle from the chain fastened to her
collar.
'Mon Dieu! I have been chained! So have you! We're chained together!'
'Yes I know,' replied Penelope. 'But I don't understand why. I've also just woken
up - to find myself here. How did you come to be here?'
'I come to Tangier secretly,' whispered Chantalle, 'to get away from my husband.
But no one knows! Then after a few days I begin to miss him! Maybe I love him after all!
But the hotel manager, he very nice and sympathique. He introduce me to nice young
Frenchman.'
Penelope's felt her blood go cold. 'Was his name ... Pierre?' she asked
nervously.
'Why yes! Pierre! So you meet him, too? Oh!'
'Yes, he got me a job as a the star in a big tourist project - a TV and magazine
advertising project.'
'But me too!' said the French girl. 'He said I was to be the star. He never
mention you.'
'Nor you to me,' cried Penelope angrily. 'The slimy toad!'
'Then he introduce me to a horrible black man.'
'And me! I saw you going off after your interview!'
'Oh!' gasped Chantalle. 'And then next day he take me in aircraft to sign
contract.'
Penelope remembered how Pierre had told her he was going to be busy the day after
the audition - or rather the day after that humiliating inspection. He must have brought
Chantalle to the Prince's palace the next day and then come back to bring her separately.
In that way they wouldn't see each other and smell a rat - until they woke up chained
together! But why?
'Then I meet horrible and terrifying Prince, who is financing tourist project,'
said Chantalle. 'I eat some little cakes and I wake up now, here!'
'Me too,' said Penelope.
'Oh!' cried Chantalle. 'But why, if we are to work together on the film and
advertisements are we chained together?'
'Perhaps,' said Penelope slowly, 'perhaps the story of the tourist project was
just ... all made up ... to trick us into coming here ... to get us into the power of the
Prince.'
'Oh, Mon Dieu!' cried Chantalle. 'But my husband ... he will get us out ... Oh,
but he doesn't know where I am! It was all such a secret!'
'Nor does my boyfriend know where I am,' added Penelope in a horrified voice. 'No
one knows where I am. Not even the hotel. Pierre made very sure of that.'
'And I thought that at last I was going to have a romantic ... how you say it? ...
naughty weekend with Pierre.'
'Me too,' murmured Penelope. 'He tricked us both into coming here.'
'Yes, into coming to the Prince's palace. But I did not like at all. He is
revolting - and looks so cruel.’
'Yes,' agreed Penelope. 'Frightening!'
'Look!' said Chantalle pointing to a portrait hanging on the wall facing them. It
was of a stern looking man in Arab dress. The Prince!
Penelope found she could hardly take her eyes off it. Did it mean that she was
still in his palace? As a prisoner? In his harem? Oh, no!
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