Chapter 1

 

"Emily, it really is too bad the way you treat Hazel. This is the Twenty-first century, not the Middle Ages. She is your maid, not your slave."

"Oh, Mother. Stop fussing. She's paid to be my maid and if she can't do her work better I'll have to look for another maid."

"Emily! The fault is yours, not hers. You are arrogant, snobbish and a disgrace to our family. Your father is even talking of changing his will to disinherit you if you cannot learn to behave properly and with more regard to others."

The twenty-two year old girl's face took on a stubborn look. "Well, perhaps it's a good thing I'm going away then, Mother. I will be out of your hair next week and won't be able to embarrass you ..."

The Countess of Rutledge sighed, as she had so many times after conversations like this. "It is not we don't love you, dear. Just that you are so ... so, well, impetuous in the things you do and contemptuous and mean-spirited in the way you treat our servants."

"I love you too, Mother. Anyway, this trip to the Greek islands will be wonderful and I'll try to treat Hazel better."

 

Poor Hazel. She was perfectly competent as a lady's maid. She had started as a housemaid eight years ago when she had been sixteen. Her family had always lived on the Rutledge estate and in generations past, many of her forebears had served the earls of yesteryear. She had been pleased to receive the promotion to lady's maid to Lady Emily - until she had realised that no-one could serve that young lady well enough. Now, she wished she hadn't taken the position but it was too late. She knew if she asked to go back to her former position, the countess would have no option but to dismiss her. She could hardly accept that her own daughter was a snob, an arrogant bitch and treated her servants as things.

Often, as she lay in her bed, she dreamt of the things she would like to do to Lady Emily. These included boiling in oil and stretching on the rack and sometimes she dreamed she was in some eastern harem where the positions were reversed and she was the lady and Emily the servant - or slave. Ooh, wouldn't it be fun to order her to take a thrashing ...

But now she had to prepare Emily's clothes for the trip. She was going to join a cruise on the motor yacht of a friend, Billy Hetherington, second son of the Marquess of Cull. Actually the yacht belonged to the Marquess but Billy had arranged this cruise through the Greek islands. It should be really wonderful.

Hazel wondered how wonderful it would be for her, constantly at the beck and call of the arrogant young aristocrat. Not too good, she imagined. Still, it was a cruise and perhaps she might get to see some of the islands. She had heard they were really beautiful. Anyway, she would see how things went on the cruise and if they didn't pick up, she would throw in the towel and go to London. With her experience, she would soon get a job with someone else. These days, competent maids were few and far between.

 

They boarded the yacht, Esmerelda, from Athens, or rather, its port, Piraeus and were soon headed off towards the Aegean Sea. It was a happy group, all friends that made up the passenger list of the large yacht. There was Billy, of course and his fiancee, Heather de Winter; James Curtis and his wife, Jill; Buffy and Liz Scott; Emily, and lastly, John, Viscount Dilford. They were all of an age, around mid twenties and all out for a good time, although Billy was level-headed enough not to let them get into trouble - at least trouble of their own making.

Emily continued to be bitchy towards her maid and Hazel finally made up her mind to give up her position as soon as they returned home to England. She would have jumped ship at their next destination but she didn't have the ready to buy her ticket home. And so, while Emily continued to carp and find fault with everything she did, Hazel just tried to ignore it. Emily's friends saw the way she treated her maid and they thought her quite over the limit but she was their friend ... the bubbly, vivacious life-of-the-party. One or two of them remonstrated with her but it like water off a duck's back. All that happened was that she attacked the poor girl only in the privacy of her cabin.

"Come on, Hazel. Buck up. You are really lazy! Rub my back. No, further up, stupid ... And why isn't my dress laid out?"

It was no good complaining that Emily had demanded that her back be massaged since calling for her maid. Or that she hadn't yet made up her mind which dress she was going to wear ... Hazel had long ago discovered that excuses, even legitimate ones were of no use when dealing with the flighty Lady Emily Harcourt.

She did get to see some of the islands, but only from a distance. "No," said Lady Emily, "you haven't earned it. Stay here and see to my clothes ..."

Her friends shook their heads and began to wonder when the explosion would come, for no one could put up with that sort of treatment for ever. Meanwhile, Hazel had struck up a friendship with one of the crew members, a personable young man named Gary Somers. He was a steward on the yacht, was really good-looking and, Hazel could see, even with his clothes on, had a really nice body. Not too many muscles but nicely athletic. It was he who persuaded her to stick it out. "No good jumping ship here, Hazel. Any time she makes life too bad, you just come to me and have a good cry, eh?"

She did, too. Not because she needed it. She was made of sterner stuff than that; but because crying on his shoulder let her get a good feel of his lovely body! She could explore and grip at the wonderful muscles in his arms and chest and his thighs. She just knew he would look fabulous stripped down. She spent as much time as she dared in his company. Their little flirtation developed into the beginnings of love and then Emily found out.

Her rage was unbounded. "How dare you!" she stormed. "Without my permission! You will remain in my cabin. You will not see him ..." It went on and on and nothing Hazel could say would calm milady's rage. It was so unreasonable. What harm was there? Of course when she emerged from her cabin and joined her friends in the saloon, she was all the lively young society lady. The story had already got around, though. The cabin doors weren't that thick and by the time she emerged, every one of her friends knew of it. Hazel pined in her cabin.

And so the cruise continued. On through the blue Aegean, calling at many of the islands dotted throughout its calm waters.

And then they struck. It seemed they knew exactly where the Esmerelda would be ... They boarded her at two in the morning, as she was moving. They were experts, these modern-day pirates. They came on her in silent speedsters from the stern and, while their mother ship moved up closer, they took over the bridge, shot the officer and crew on duty and stopped the yacht's engines. In minutes, their colleagues had joined them and a sleepy motley of passengers, servants and crew were lined up in the saloon, the guns of the pirates trained on them. Hazel was aghast to see her friend, Gary Somers, was among the pirates. He winked at her and smiled wickedly. She was still lined up with the others, though.

First, they demanded the passengers' jewels, money and other valuables. Viscount Dilford objected - and got a shot in his belly for his trouble. The others quickly acceded.

"And now," said the leader, a swarthy Turk, "you will all strip out of them clothes."

Eyeing John Dilford lying in a foetal position on the thick carpet of the saloon, they obeyed with alacrity, every one of the aristocratic passengers, their servants and the yacht's crew stripping off their night clothes as if their lives depended on it - which they did. Now naked, they stood up, very ashamed, trying to cover their privates from the stares of the pirates. Now naked, there was no difference between the aristocrats and the others. All were human beings - and no more.

The leader glanced at his men, silently warning them to be vigilant, then he strolled up the line, pushing one back, leaving others in place. Those who were pushed back were the fats, the skinnies and the uglies. Those that remained of the passengers were Billy and his fiancee, Heather; Buffy and Liz Scott; and Emily, three of the maids, including Hazel, and a number of the crew.

The others were taken out onto the deck, shot in the head and bundled over the side. So was Dilford. The rest were made to board the pirate ship which was now alongside the stationary Esmerelda. Then, as they watched, the lovely yacht began to settle. The horrible pirates had opened the sea-cocks. In only half an hour, she was gone. Down through the clear blue water to rest on the sand at the bottom of the Aegean. There had not been time to get out an alarm. There had been no warning at all. To all intents and purposes, she had simply disappeared.

Her former passengers were now herded below decks on the pirate ship. They were still naked and had to walk single file along the dirty, peeling passages and companionways of the ship, once a coastal tramp steamer of some eight hundred tons. They ended up in a large, bare cabin. There was no furniture ... nothing at all. The door banged closed and they all looked at one another in dismay. Then it started.

They all talked at once - and then there was silence as they stared at each other again. Eventually, they all sat down around the walls and spoke more rationally. "Well," said Billy Hetherington, "Here we are. Exactly what we are, I'm not sure but I have a very good idea ..."

"What?" came a chorus of voices.

"Well, if I'm not very much mistaken, we are now all slaves ..."

"Slaves!!!???"

"Yes, slaves. Why do you think they disposed of James and Jill? Bodies no good, d'you see?"

The others stared around at each other and slowly nodded. Yes, the rest of them were good-looking. Those who had been summarily taken out, shot and then tipped over the side had all been less than appealing in appearance. They were of course still self-conscious of their nakedness and were each hiding their sex from each other but that didn't conceal their athletic bodies (if they were male) or their lovely breasts, slender waists and firm muscles, if female.

"But slavery was abolished in the Nineteenth Century," protested Buffy Scott.

"No it wasn't," said Billy. "Oh yes, in the western world, perhaps. But not in the middle-east - and where d'you think we are now?"

"We're in Greece," said Heather.

"Not really, my darling," smiled Billy. "We are in the Aegean Sea and very soon we will be close to Turkey. Turkey officially does not permit slavery and neither do the Arabian countries ... I said officially. But it goes on. My father was at one time the under-secretary for the Foreign Office dealing with this part of the world. I know white slaves are still sold quite openly in certain out of the way places."

"Oh my God!" said Emily, hugging her knees close to her lovely breasts and trying to hide her vagina from the rest of them. "And we will be sold as slaves?"

"Yes, Emily."

"For what purpose? I mean what will they make us do ..."