CHAPTER 1

 

Sally's week had begun well. Her husband had been appointed to head a committee in the House of Commons and she was being considered as a partner in the health service practice she had joined only a year or so before. After years of being only a mother, a housewife and socialite, and then several hard years studying in university, she at last had a promising career. As a doctor it gave her the place in society which she felt that she deserved - to complement her husband's. OK, so she was practising in the suburbs of London, which required over a half hour train and tube journey from her home in North Kent, but it was a much smaller commute than many of her friends. She was doing well and she hoped that her husband would do well in the newly elected Government, maybe even become a minister someday - with the additional status that would afford her. Also their daughter Lauren had just had her 18^th birthday and she was organising a small and secret family party in addition to the big one she had already enjoyed with friends. In short, Sally was a pretty, vibrant and intelligent woman enjoying a good lifestyle.

But then, suddenly, just yesterday, things got worse, terribly worse, her whole world had fallen apart and she had lost all control over it.

"Come here."

Feeling the now familiar crawling of her flesh, Sally ground her teeth but obeyed the low voiced hiss of the smiling young Negress standing indolently in her dining room. The abrupt command had interrupted her musings in which she had tried to take some solace.

"Hah, please," she breathed, tensing but not actually daring to slap away the girl's hand which so unnaturally and familiarly patted the curve of her bottom with a possession which shouldn't exist. Anxiously she looked behind her to ensure that her husband and daughter were still out of sight and unable to witness her shame as the dark hand cupped the curve of her jeans as if they were lovers or something. This loss of control over her life, this fear she had learnt since the girl entered her life just a day ago, was so ghastly. Now she knew just how awful it was to be at the beck and call of such a person and even more so in the supposed sanctuary of her own home.

Yes, she reminded herself again, yesterday she had been free, enjoying her satisfying job as a doctor, with the additional status of being the wife of a successful Member of Parliament. She desperately wished she could reverse the clock and go back to her carefree and promising yesterday and for this future not to happen. Then she only had the trivial concerns to worry about over the success of Lauren's forthcoming party.

The phone call from the girl, Naomi, yesterday and the hurriedly arranged face to face meeting in the London park at lunchtime for the girl to pass on urgent and supposedly confidential news about her parents changed all that. The Negress, probably barely in her twenties, Sally guessed, looked business-like in a smart suit and sunglasses. Her heart felt as if it had stopped and her stomach had knotted when the girl calmly and efficiently explained the news of her parents being detained by the small Arabic State of Satar, part of a larger North African country, where they were both aid workers.

The video plea from her parents on the girl's phone begging her to do everything the girl said if they were ever to leave the gloomy cell she could see in the backdrop to the film, on what she somehow knew were trumped up charges, made her feel sick.

"Who are you...? Why are my parents...?"

"Who I am doesn't matter, only that I am here to help them. It is important for the safety of your parents that for the moment you tell no one of this," the girl had insisted - at this stage without malice - as they sat on the park bench.

"But, but my husband's an MP, he can....."

"No," the girl's voice was sharp, insistent. "I work in that country and only I can help them at this stage. Things are delicate, as these things often are, if anyone besides us two finds out - I wouldn't like to bet on their future. They will be safe only if you do exactly as I say for the moment, trust me I can help them - then later you can involve others if you wish. Now..." the smartly dressed youngster had looked around the park, "we cannot talk properly here, one never knows who might be looking. Meet me at 3pm in my hotel room," she passed across a scribbled note, "and be sure to tell no-one, that is important."

"But I'm supposed to be sorting out a party with my daughter and..."

"No," the girl cut across her, "your husband will have to take over instead, it's important that we discuss this as soon as possible and remember if anyone else finds out - you will seal their fate."

Devastated, Sally had watched the girl quickly depart, her mouth too dry to protest anymore and equally numb, she had dutifully rearranged her schedules to be knocking at the room of the plush hotel two hours later. The girl opening the door in just a housecoat should have forewarned her but she could only think of her parents and how best to help them as she stepped into the room. On the girl's laptop was a similar film from her parents in their cell saying that the girl, Naomi would help them and for her to do as she said. The girl had insisted on her having a drink from the hotel fridge, a brandy, to steady her nerves whilst she watched the short clip several times over. Tears brimmed her eyes at the sight of her parents in such circumstances and, distracted, she hadn't said no to it; she had practically gulped the drink down without looking.

She didn't know what was in the glass clinking with ice which the girl had handed her but she soon felt too lightheaded to concentrate on what the girl was saying about her parents. It was something about her co-operation with the authorities and the charges would be dropped and her parents put on a flight home. But as she was talking the girl was helping her to lie on the bed and loosening her clothing, asking for her mobile phone and its password.

"What are you...?" Sally had said, trying without success to stop the girl and collect her wits as the dark hands tugged at her clothing. Then it all became too much, she had cooperated with the girl, it gradually didn't make any real sense not to.

"Shush, you've come over a bit woozy and I need to loosen your clothes."

The girl continued unzipping and unclipping all the while hushing her protests and assuring her that her parents would be fine if she co-operated. But her hands wouldn't obey her brain and soon, it scarcely seemed to matter that her clothes were gone and so was the girl's housecoat. Her arms were too heavy to resist as the girl pulled her on top of her but it felt so strange and unnatural to feel the girl's soft ebony curves again her own. She felt the girl wriggle as she kissed her, draping her arms around the slender body as if she were holding her. The hands were all over her, between her legs and although she didn't like it, that part of her brain which felt the disgust was overwhelmed by the lethargy of the rest of her mind. She felt her face settling and relaxing into a stupid grin despite that tiny and diminishing sane portion of her mind screaming out, trying to alert her to danger. But it was too easy to just let the hand furrow between her legs, the big lips suck her nipples just as her husband might do - and then she passed out.

When she came to, her head ached but at least it was no longer fuzzy. With a shock she saw it was now 6 pm and she'd been in the hotel room for three hours. Also she was stark naked; she felt soiled and dirty, instinctively clutching a sheet around her.

"Hi, what...?" She moaned tottering around the room before assuring herself that she was thankfully now alone apart from a few coloured photos, a DVD and a typewritten note. It read:

 

"For you to keep and of course I have my own copies. The pictures will give you an idea of how the DVD shows you being a really naughty girl. But you and I can still help your parents if you keep all of this a secret. Tell no one (and would you want to anyway?) I'll be in touch later.

N xxx"