Illegal Possession

Illegal Possession Author: Morlock Title: Illegal Possession Universe: The Hotel Summary: The Prequel to The Hotel Universe Keywords: MF+, FF+, bd, tort, slavery, real Edited 10/01/12 Book 1 --------------- This is a tale of how a dumb street kid became a major player in a... well, enterprise that would surprise many civilized folks in the world.  Bear in mind that this missive has been written years after most of it happened and by a man whom has become far more educated and continental than the ignorant boy that started it.   As such, is it far more lucid and coherent than it would have been had I written it in my early days.   Whether is it more believable, I will leave to the reader... Prolog --------------- Somewhere in Southwest Africa, 1947 The coffle moved at a slow walk.  I didn't blame the long line of unfortunates for their lack of enthusiasm in arriving in some unknown place, where I doubted their fortunes would improve.  There were about four dozen - about one third women - in the chain, all young or youngish.  And all buck naked.  I didn't know if their captors had stripped them, of if their normal lives were spent in the buff.  It could be so - the heat and humidity were ungodly in this land.  I was our sixth day out of town, and supposedly a week from our destination - the port town of Kismayu.  Somewhere on the coast of Italian Somaliland, I was told.  The name didn't help me any.  I was totally ignorant of the map of Africa.  In fact, I would have paid good money for one right then. At the end of the line, my three girls were trudging along, unmanacled and unrestrained in any fashion.  And unlike the totally naked women in the chain, they were wearing cheap cotton full length dresses.  The garments weren't given to them because I was worried about their modesty, but because of the overhead tropical sun.  It would turn them - two of them at least - into female french fries in short order.  The third girl was a negress, and I assumed that she was immune to sunburn, but gave her the dress anyway.  Mainly, because she was my favorite. As to their lack of bindings, I was totally unworried about three city girls trying to escape into the African wilderness.  Rather, they would shout in panic when their lack of endurance would cause them to fall back from the main group.  The first two days, they just collapsed into the dirt when we stopped for the night.  I suspected that on the first day alone, they had walked further than they would have traveled all summer in their previous lives.  But, now they were starting to get in shape.  At least, they weren't stumbling from step to step in blind exhaustion. I heard the pop of a whip, and a scream from one of the women.  A couple of the guards were total sadists.  That lash hadn't been for discipline, or instruction.  It was given totally out of a sense of pleasure to see a woman - or man - cry in pain.  Let me state that I was, indeed, one of the guards, but in my case, it wasn't because I wanted a job in a trade that I was having major trouble believing still existed in the twentieth century.  No, I was here because it was the only way to get myself and my companions out of the pickle that the fates - and the captain of a ghost ship, apparently - had gotten us into. =============== --------------- La Curiex, France. August, 1946. A year earlier. I felt of the .45 automatic under my field jacket, making sure it was loose in the holster and that the keeper was already unsnapped. My M1 was back at our quarters - it was supposedly intimidating according to the administration weenies. These missions were civilian, but just a few months after the end of the war in Europe, there were still lots and lots of guns around.  My Captain and his Colonel turned a blind eye to the possession of firepower of their teams in the field.  They both knew of the reality of their team's missions and that it couldn't even be started by following the rules of some pompous paper pusher giving orders in London or Paris.  I had used my heat more than once, even after the armistice was signed. David, my French cohort, was a walking armory.  He had survived several years as a partisan under the Nazi occupation - a career that killed about about three quarters of his comrades.   Our task - one of many small teams without an official mission - was to see to the replacement of collaborationist governments in the small towns and villages of Rural France.  At least that was the mission statement.  Mine was actually to make sure that David - pronounced Da-veed - didn't slit the throats of every official that had even been rumored to have consorted with the enemy.  The man in front of us was a worm.  He was assuring us that, as a loyal Frenchman, he had refused to work with the occupying enemy and had succored scores of peasants and Allied personal over the years.  Unfortunately, due to the extreme danger of those activities, he was unable to give us any names, since anonymity had been his watchword over the last several years.  Before the war, he had been a minor official - kind of a county recorder, just to give it a name closer to its American equivalent.  He had become mayor of his village just out of a sense of duty to the people. Unfortunately for him, we had many written affidavits that attested to his coziness with the Nazi occupiers.  David was just listening to our host and smiling as he injected a question on occasion, usually having to interrupt our host's nonstop recital of his good deeds.  "This manson was the domicile of the Pierre family, no?"  He had used the French word manson - house - but English readers would read it a mansion, which it was.  A massive Mansion with a capital M.  I was standing where I could see both men and the door we came in.  It wasn't unheard of for our interrogation session to be rudely interrupted by other guilty parties. "Oui, Monsieur.  Alas, they disappeared at the beginning of the war."   Since they were a Jewish family, I would have wagered that they had disappeared permanently.  "The Boche commandeered this estate for their center of operations for the area."  "And you found it convenient to move in and live here after they left?  Maybe your own house was too small?" I was hoping that David was going to wipe that sickening smile off the little worm's face with his hand, and not the butt of his pistol.  It made for much less paperwork.  "Oui, Monsieur.  All of the files are here, and the clerical staff.  And our Bureaux de la ville..." - town hall -  "...was destroyed when the Ami's came through."  He paused a moment, then, "It was a good thing, Monsieurs.  What is one building if the Boche are driven out?" David stood up. "We need to look around the bureaux - you never know where collaborators might be hiding."  He wasn't asking permission.  Just stating what we were going to do. "Ah, Monsieur."  The weasel had stood up also, and was starting to sweat. "There is nothing here but paper and records."  He spread his hands.  "I can have them boxed up and shipped to your headquarters if you desire." David made a deprecating gesture with a hand. "No need, Monsieur.  As you say, deeds and marriage papers have no need to be examined.  But, to satisfy my superiors, I need to say that I walked through the building." It was quite a place.  I was surprised that it was still standing, given the American soldier's tendency to level with artillery, any structure that might hide a sniper.  And that the place wasn't looted by both sides.  It wasn't in any shape that a Dame of the House would accept, but other than some worn rugs and dust, it was just about as the unfortunate owners had left it. The paintings were gone, of course.  That was the first thing that the Nazi leaders had looted way back in '40.  Blank spots on the wall easily indicate that dozens were missing. The upper floors were still just living area, but the back and basement were given over to chaotic records storage.  Some clerks were going to have a guaranteed job for years before this mess was refiled in a proper town hall.  The subbasement had a generator - now quiet, probably due to lack of gasoline.  In fact, we were using flashlights now that we were in the windowless underground. "Shit," I exclaimed.  "This goddamned basement is bigger than most businesses back in my town." He opened a squeaky door into a very large room lined with...  pigeon holes?   And barrels.  "Yes.  Most of our old noble homesteads have extensive undergrounds.  A wine cellar like this is obligatory."  Unfortunately, it was empty.  Probably drunk dry in the first year of the occupation.   He tapped several of the round containers.  The thumps came back as hollow sounds. There was nothing down here to suit our purposes.  Or rather David's purpose, which was to find something to hang the current mayor.  Then came a surprise as we climbed the stone steps to the first floor.   The massive door was closed.  We had definitely left it open when we descended the staircase.  Not only that, but it was locked, barred, or whatever.  And it appeared to be made from massive planks, so knocking it open with our shoulders was out of the question. "Fuck me with a hot dog.  Trapped like rats.  Really stupid rats." David didn't seem to be concerned.  "Well, that proves the fils de pute is guilty." "He may well be a son of a bitch, but I suspect that he'll also be back soon with his torpedoes." "Turn your torch off," David said.  "Save it.  We'll use mine to search." "Search for what?  I doubt we're going to find an elevator." Instead of answering, he walked over to a pile of scrap and picked up a metal bar.  Then, across the big room, he stopped at the stone wall, and hit it with the bar.  All it made was a dull clunk.  Following the wall, he hit it every few feet.  What the fuck?  Was he trying to find a weak spot? Before I could ask the obvious, he explained.  "All of these old mansions have had bolt holes since before the revolution.  For escape, smuggling, or to allow the master of the house to leave for a carnal meeting with some young peasant.  And it wasn't unheard of for the dame of the house to do the same thing."   He pointed over my shoulder with the light.  Watch the door.  If it opens, you'll be able to see them silhouetted in the doorway.  Feel free to express your displeasure." I found a place where I could blend into the background, but have a clear field of fire up the stairs.  But the expected firefight didn't come off.  I heard David calling to me.  He had obviously found the escape hole. Wrong.  In spades. I hurried down a stone hall to another room.  He was just standing there quietly.  As I came though the doorless doorway, he motioned for silence.  Quietly, he said, "listen." I heard nothing and I just shook my head.  Then suddenly, my hair stood on end. "Women!?"  I could hear high pitched voices, but couldn't understand what was being said - it was too muffled.  But it wasn't silly girlie talk, for sure.  He began to hit the wall with the bar again.  "Hold up," I whispered.  I don't know why I was keeping my voice down, but it was automatic.  I was remembering our games of hide and seek in the old abandoned buildings that spotted our city during the depression.  I moved back to the door, got down on my hands and knees and put an eye as close to the floor as possible.  Now by scanning the beam of my flashlight along the floor, I could clearly see a trail through the years old dust.  "Over there," I said, "It leads to that big cabinet." Instantly, David was pulling and tugging on the huge and roughly hewed storage box.  In a few seconds, I heard a clunk and it swung into the room like a door.   Which it was.  Now the female voices were more apparent.  Down a short hallway we came to another door and opened it.  By now we both were looking down the barrels of our pistols as we first peeked through the opening, then entered in semi-shock. --------------- The Devil's playroom After two years of a bloody war, and a tour of a couple of Nazi extermination camps, I was seldom shocked by any depravity I came across anymore.  But this was... was...  It was a large stone room, irregular but somewhat square.  There were electric lights on the overhead, but not on, obviously, given the lack of electricity in the village at the moment.  But the single oil lamp revealed all to our dark accustomed eyes.  What it revealed was platforms that were beds and covered with a blanket, it appeared.  No big deal there, but...  At eight - no nine of the platforms was a naked woman, chained in place with heavy iron manacles on each ankle and a short chain leading to an eyebolt in the floor.  They had about eight feet of travel, so none of them could touch another girl.   They were quiet - just backed up against their section of wall, looking at us.   I was too dark to really read expressions, but I doubt that their faces were showing ecstatic joy.  We were just a couple of Nazi soldiers to them - come to enjoy ourselves. The room was a torture chamber.  A real medieval torture chamber.  In the center and along the forth wall were... was... equipment for, well, torture.  All this was considerably outside of my education, but I could at least recognize a rack.  Especially since it had a woman stretched out on it.  Well, not painfully stretched, but she could do little but barely bend her arms and legs.  She had been there long enough to piss on herself - obvious from the puddle she was laying in.  Some of the women had their wrists manacled - one with them behind her.  Another was sitting up with her arms over her head in her wrists locked to a bolt in the wall. On the forth wall was a cage and in it was another woman.  Barely a human woman, since she was obviously almost crazy from pain.  "What in the fuck...?" I started when David interrupted me. "Look for the keys.  They are probably hanging somewhere out of their reach." Without speaking further, we both started looking.  On the walls, in the passageway, everywhere.  None.  As I looked around a set of shelves in one corner, the woman closest to it backed up to the wall, cringing, and doubled up with feet and arms in front of her body.  "Merci, Monsieur. S'il vous plaît ne me frappe pas." Jeezus!  In French, I replied, "I'm not going to hit you, Mademoiselle.  I'm an American soldier." The effect in the room was electric.  "Un soldat Américain!" she repeated.  Immediately several of the other women began to jabber to each other. "Louer Dieu!"  "Il est l'armée Américaine!"  What the hell?  Several were bawling openly.  Suddenly, I realized what had happened.  I actually straightened up with a burst of pride at the sudden assumption by these unfortunates that the mere appearance of an American soldier meant that they had been saved.   He was wrestling with the chain lock on the weird cage - bashing it with his bar to no avail.  He stepped back and pulled his automatic in preparation to shoot the lock off - a somewhat risky proposition in a stone room. "Wait," I said then ran out of the room.  Shortly I was back with a rusty axe that I had noticed.  In a pair of quick swings, reinforced by his boiling blood at the moment, and the chain was laying on the floor.  The front of the cage opened and the girl fell forward into his arms.  "What the hell is this thing, anyway?" I asked.  A strange cage to hold someone.  It was just wide, deep and tall enough for a person to stand at attention inside. "It's a Gestapo Stehen Käfig auf - a standup cage.  All the person can do is stand in it, sometimes for days.  The person can't move, bend or sit.  It only takes a couple of days for the pain to take away a person's mind."  His mood was grim.  "If they really want to pile on the torture, they just leave the unfortunate in it with no water."   We laid the woman on a mat, then looked for keys again.  Nothing.  "D'accord.  We can't help these filles until we get out of here ourselves." Finally, David said, "Go back and watch the basement door.  They'll make their move soon.  They have to dispose of us before our units send a squad to start looking for us." I nodded and hotfooted back to the foot of the staircase.  I could hear him begin to try to calm the girls down by telling them that we were going to get them loose. I knew that the first thing that his goons would do, assuming they had any knowledge of real fighting at all, was to quickly crack the door open and throw down a couple of grenades.  I waited on the steps for any noise or change in the light under the door, .45 drawn and safety off. This far away from the... dungeon, it was fairly quiet, even with all the doors open between here and there.  However, I assumed that David wasn't just dallying with the women.  That was correct.  In about five minutes he hurried up to me.  He handed me something heavy that I recognized the instant my hand took the weight.  "Son of a bitch!  Where did you find these?"  It was a Schmeisser - a German submachine gun.  Two of them and a canvas bag with magazines. "There's a couple of crates of stuff in one of the alcoves.  From the dust, it looks like they have been there for a year or more.  Leftover from the Boche guards, I guess." Now the worm had turned.  We were no longer just a couple of pistol armed guys trapped in a cellar.  I pulled the bolt and the trigger a couple of times to make sure it was a working piece, then stuffed in a magazine and pulled the bolt back one more time to chamber a round. We made our plans.  By standing on the stairs where our line of sight was level with the crack at the bottom of the door, we could easily see any changes in the light leaking under the door.  Changes that meant that we were seeing the feet of someone who was about to open it - probably to toss in some explosives, before throwing it open in a blast of gunfire. --------------- Paris, France. 1947 The bar dames had finally given up on me.   Apparently.  At least, they were trying their charms on the other patrons, hoping that the drinks and gonad pressures would override good sense.  I had no intention of wasting good combat pay on some broad rubbing her tits all over me while she was drinking colored water at my expense.  I had lots of combat pay coming to me, but right now I only had this month's basic allowance in my pocket.  Of course, converted to franks, that thirty skins made me sort of a semi millionaire in any of the wrecked cities of Europe.  Right now the U.S. Dollar was as good as gold anywhere in the world. Nursing the beer, I pondered what the future had for me.  All I knew was fighting and screwing - the first I learned at about the age of five and the second not long after.  The Army had been my career for the last three years, but that was now about finished.  Now that the war was over and won, they had few opportunities for a used sergeant with no effective education.  I HAD managed to get my high school diploma, but only because the school system was afraid to to flunk anybody even remotely connected to what would now be called a street gang. My stint in the loose group of punks known as the Angels had been cut short by a cop that had given me the choice between the Army and having my body pounded into jelly by himself and his partner.  Apparently, his superiors were being embarrassed by the rising crime rate during a war and a time when all younger cops were being yanked into the military.   At the time, I almost took the other choice, figuring that I could take both of the overaged and overweight officers with no trouble, but, by now, I had lost my resentment of the cops and had admitted to myself that the pair of blue blue uniforms had probably saved my life.  I was far more likely to live to my twenty first birthday on the beaches of France than on the streets of Brooklyn, shaking down old shop keepers for protection money and dodging shivs and bullets from our competitors.  I tilted the bottle and emptied the last swig.  I was here for an interview, supposedly, given the invitation by the French partisan that I had had assigned to me a few months before.  Or maybe I was assigned to him.   I was considered to be one of the unlucky soldiers who were selected to remain behind in the occupation forces, rather than getting to go home after the peace was signed in the Pacific.  I played along, accepting the commiserations of my buddies as they packed their duffle bags and headed for the seaports.  The truth be known, on my part the dismay was an act.   I had discovered in the last three years that I loved to travel and had no intention of going back to the humdrum existence of big city New York.  Hopefully... "Monsieur, Rawlings?"   I looked up at the young man, nattily dressed, especially for a country - or a continent - where people were trying to sew old tents and parachute material into something to wear.  "Yes...  Oui."  I pointed to the chair across the table.  He sat down.  We didn't shake hands - mostly an American custom when meeting strangers.  Over here, especially in France, the suspicions bred by war in an occupied country didn't make for quick and easy acceptance of new friends.       "My name is Richard."  He pronounced it Ree-shard, and I wondered if it was his first or last name.  His hand waved at a bar girl and she came over with the obligatory glass of wine - good stuff, supposedly, although I wasn't a connoisseur of the grape.  I wondered how the bottle had escaped the looting German - and Allied - troops over the last several years.   After a sip, he leaned forward and said, "David has spoken highly of you." I just nodded. He continued.  "In fact, he has told me that you saved his life on many occasions."  Hell, that went both ways.  I was here drinking beer rather than pushing up daisies, because of his actions more than once.  The Manor with the enslaved girls was our second to last operation together.  We managed to get out of that situation with a whole skin - mainly because the goons of the ex-Mayor were just that - punks with the idea that a big pistol made you invincible.  No different than gun wielding punks the world over. Knowing nothing about military tactics, they took too long to get ready to open the basement door, made too much noise and, in short, gave us ample time to receive them.  The instant the door was unbarred and began to open, we emptied two magazines of nine millimeter slugs through the door - back and forth, belly high - then slung it open ourselves and emptied two more mags into the five men on the other side - all of which were either already dead or going fast. The traitorous Mayor was frozen in shock as David walked up and stuck the Schmeisser in his belly.  I waited for his insides to suddenly appear on the far wall, but David had other ideas.  It only took a second for the location of the keys to be given, then the three of us descended back into the torture room - the Mayor trying his best to express his innocence.  Shortly the girls were freed and being escorted up the stairs by me, or carried up in the case of two of them.  Then there were just the three of us.  I wondered just when David was going to saw this worm in half with his gun, but was suddenly surprised when he shoved the guy into the stand up cage, then locked it with one of the now unused manacles.  With the guy shouting behind us, we left the room for the last time, closed the hidden panel and stacked as much junk against it as we could find. I guess he's still there. As it turned out, the torture chamber was genuine, and original - a hundred years old or more.  According to the girls, it was used for kicks by the commander of the garrison.  When they left, the Mayor took it over for his entertainment.  The difference was that, the Boche commander used it for fun - a source of pussy for his pleasure.  The girls were locked up, but not physically harmed - or only play tortured on occasion.  But the traitorous French official was a sadistic bastard.  After taking it over from the now-fled invaders, he used it for actual pain in the last several months.  That became evident once the freed girls were in the light.  All had bruises and whip scars.  A couple had dislocated bones.  One was branded. Not long after that, I was pulled off the mission and told to get ready to go home. "David has spoken to me of some of the conversations during your... duty here.  Be assured that he has not told me of any confidential tete-a-tete that might have been given between the both.  He has high regard for you and would never break confidence of a fellow-in-arms."  A sip, and a glance around.  "But he saw no error in telling me of your musings on the future.  You are restless... no?  That is, after several years of excitement, and travel, the last thing on your mind is to go back to the États-Unis and sit in an office and write on papers."  I just gave a noncommittal nod.  This guy was buying and I was selling, and the last thing the seller wants to do is show how much he wants to close the deal. A pause while a pair of Gendarmes walked past, then, "I supply a... service for various wealthy men around the world.  The service is not approved of by some governments and is ignored by many.  Nonetheless, it is very lucrative.  I have need for competent men to assist in my business." I finally spoke up.  "I assume you won't want to fill me in on the details of your business quite yet, but can you tell me what I would be doing?" He nodded, then replied, "En résumé, you would be escorting very valuable merchandise from country to country."  The prolog meant, roughly, 'In a nutshell...'   Interesting.  A courier.   I would be traveling.  That was good.  "Now that the world had regained some semblance of sanity, business will flourish.  And worldwide.  The last few years have demonstrated that we are living in one big neighborhood." "Do you have a passport?" he asked. "No."  Hell, I didn't even know where to get that document. "Anything you know that would keep you from getting one?" "No. Nothing that I can think of."  I had been close to getting busted several times, but fortunately I was never quite caught red handed with - well, whatever we were making money on at the time. "David said you were a member of a quasi legal group of young... toughs?  I assume that your life before the army wasn't exactly on the... how do you say it?  ...the up and up?" I had  been a member of the Angels, something that would now be known as a street gang - a loose grouping of young bucks without much prospect for a real livelihood.   And although we broke laws on a regular basis, we were not even close to the bloodthirsty punks of today.  On occasion one gang member or another would be pounded into bloody mush for offending a rival gang, but we were always careful not to involve innocent persons. I shook my head emphatically.  "That's over.  So are they, from what I hear, but anyway, I have no interest in trying to impress the cunts by shaking down old shopkeepers.  Besides, during the last three years I've discovered that there is a world out there.  I intend to see it.  Getting shot in the back by a punk kid in some back alley isn't my idea how how to do it." "So, you're strictly on the side of the law, now?" Another shake of my head.  "I have no problem with ignoring laws that get in the way, but I'm not going to be a hit man, if that's what you're asking." Some more back and forth went on as I was being sized up.  Finally, the offer came.  "I want a person to act as an escort for some high priced... people." "Bodyguard?" "No, not exactly.  You see, these people who are emigrating overseas, don't want to go.  You would make sure that they got to their destination without jumping ship, so to speak." What the fuck?  Was he talking about hauling illegal aliens out of the country?  That didn't make sense.  You didn't need an escort - just a lockable truck and a driver. Suddenly, he asked, "What do you think of women?" Surprised, I thought for a moment, not really knowing what he was asking.  "Well..." I started, "I like them.  Especially under me, if that's what you're asking." "My business is concerned with women.  Escorting women from place to place." He leaned over and said softly, "The remuneration will be generous.  It will include the use of lots of women.  And free of taxes if you wish." The back and forth went on as we sized each other up.  By the end of the evening, I had tentatively accepted the position, based on my knowledge of being a civilian in about a month.  We set a time and place for a meeting, stateside. ---------------    A port on the Gulf Coast, about five months later.  As jobs went, so far, it was pretty good.  I had nothing to do but explore the town, and the women, while waiting for...  whatever I was waiting for.  I had a brand new passport and was ready to use it.  I was young and free, had money in my pocket, and the world was waiting.  However, for now, all I knew so far was that I was going on a ocean voyage.  The ship, I had already been to and had checked in with the captain and was given a very small cabin.  Not much bigger than the bunk and locker that it contained.   However, compared to the sardine cans that my outfit had shipped out in on the way to Europe, it was an ocean liner. I was told to check in every morning and afternoon, but otherwise was free to do the town.  Something had to happen soon - the ship was scheduled to stand out within a couple of days.  Sure enough, in the evening I was relaxing on the foredeck, watching the activity of the port, when a cabin boy walked up and gave me a summons from the Captain.  On the bridge, the Captain nodded and said, "Your guests are waiting in your stateroom." I nodded and left. "Stateroom," I thought to himself with a laugh.  Calling my steel cubicle a stateroom was like one of those dames calling herself a movie star because she had bought a bus ticket to Hollywood. - my so called stateroom would have been rejected as a too-small storage closet by the average wife.  Not that I cared.  As long as it was private and big enough to stretch out on, it was a good as the royal cabin.  In the passageway, I passed a man returning topside.  Not a crew member - I had never seen the man before and besides, he was dressed for shoreside, not a ship.  We nodded at each other as they passed.   Turning the corner, I walked up to another man standing outside of my cabin.  It was Richard. "Bonjour, Monsieur," he greeted with a grin as I walked up to him.  This time we shook hands, then he waved me into my cabin.  Turning at the cabin door, I suddenly stopped in surprise.  What the fuck?  Where my locker used to be was a hole in the wall.  A few seconds later, I saw that the locker was still present, just sideways in the room.  It was attached as a disguise to the hidden entryway.  Then he closed the main cabin door behind us, and pointed toward the hidden room.  Inside, I was again surprised to see a woman laying, apparently unconscious, on a mat.  Nothing else was in the room but a bucket.  "Son of a Bitch!" I exclaimed.  "When you said they might be unwilling, you weren't kidding!" "Nobody on board knows about her, except the Captain, and you'll make sure it stays that way." "Yours is the only cabin on this deck, so coming and going with her food and shit..." he pointed to the bucket "...won't be noticed by the crew.  To them, you're just a dude booking passage." I was looking at the dame - actually, dame was a bad word.  She was only about eighteen and a long way from being a mature woman.  She was totally naked, but a pile of rumpled garments were in a pile on the floor.  It was then I noticed a manacle on one ankle connected to a chain fastened to the bulkhead.  Holy shit.  The actual reality of my new "job" suddenly came to me in a blinding flash.  The man was holding up a key.  In a partial daze, I took it from him. Richard reached down and picked up the pile of clothes, then tossed them through the door into my cabin.  "A woman without clothes feels helpless.  You can give them back at the end of the voyage." "She doesn't get loose from that chain until you deliver her.  Understand?"  Another nod.  "And, never open both doors at the same time.  The crew doesn't know about her, of course.  If the secret gets out, you'll have to sleep against the door with a gun."  Again, I nodded.  Wow, I was thinking.   This setup wasn't some fly-by-night operation.  It was vastly bigger and more involved than I had even remotely expected. "Got it," I finally replied.  "I deliver a girl.  Nobody knows about her during the trip."  I looked at the sleeping, or drugged, woman.  "I assume that she will probably have a... strong set of objections to the trip when she wakes?"  Richard smiled.  "I think you can safely assume that.  I can almost give you a program for it.  First will be threats, then pleadings, then she will offer you the stars and moon to help her escape.  Tell her anything you like.  If you want a piece, take it - that's part of the cerise sur le gâteau." Wow again.  A beautiful girl under my absolute power could be called the Icing on the Cake without too much exaggeration. "Just remember, no damage to her, period.  Questions?" Yep.  About a thousand, but I decided to go with what I had.  "Nope." "One last thing.  Some women will try to kill themselves in desperation or depression, especially at the start of the trip.  Make sure she doesn't try that herself.  There are some extra binders in that cabinet if you need them."  A pause.  "Oh, there's a large box of rubbers in the cabinet - make sure you use them." With that, the he motioned us out of the hidden room and pushed the locker/door closed.  Opening the locker, he pointed to a knob which he then unscrewed and gave to me.  It was obvious what it was for, so I just waved a hand at the disclosure.   With that, he nodded and left. --------------- Evening, on deck I was sitting on a box on the foredeck, my mind turning over and over.  One part of my mind was shocked at what I had become a member of, apparently, but the other was looking forward to an... adventure.  This sure as hell wasn't the "escort" service job that I had been expecting.  It occurred to me that I might be a disposable item in this enterprise.  Along the lines of dead men tell no tales.  Thinking along that line, I decided to pack both my M1 and .45 auto.  Both of them were legal - with Europe awash in guns of all kinds, brand new military hardware could be purchased for peanuts. One last trip into town for an evening to purchase supplies for the trip.  I knew by now that the voyage wasn't going to be like a honeymoon cruise on the Queen Mary.  If I wanted any luxuries, then I needed to bring them along.  I had already laid in some stores, but I went shopping again.  --------------- Morning I had gotten up early to watch the departure.  On my previous two voyages, about all I had seen was the bottom of the upper bunk.  Now I could wander the ship and watch what I wanted.  This was just a standard leftover Liberty ship, like any of the hundreds or thousands trying to pick up the pieces of the world after a good part of it was destroyed.   The Captain was European from his accent, although I wasn't continental enough to place the actual homeland.  The small crew was a polyglot assembly - apparently representing every region on earth. I stopped by the galley to pick up breakfast.  An extra large one.  Back at my cabin, there wasn't any noise coming from behind the locker.  I hoped that she was just resigned and not still unconscious.  I had no medical ability beyond patching up bullet holes until the medic could crawl over.  If she was dying from the injection - or mickey finn, or whatever knocked her out, things could go to hell in a hurry. I needn't have worried.  As soon as the hidden door opened, it was apparent that she wasn't dying of anything, except maybe apoplexy.  The instant I appeared in her vision, she exploded.  "Who the hell are you?!"  Apparently it was a euphemistic question.  She didn't wait for an answer.  "Where the fuck are my clothes?  Take this thing off my leg.  Right now!" I just stood there, in the doorway, with the tray of food, waiting for a chance to get a word in edgewise.  I opened my mouth, but the demands kept coming.  This time with a finger pointed at my face.  "You have exactly five seconds to get this off of me, or prison is going to be the best thing that happens to you."  Pause for breath.  "Goddammit.  My security people are going to carve you into little pieces..." On and on.  The man who had delivered her was right about the clothes.  Even this haughty woman was continually trying to hide behind her hands.  It didn't work very well - it would have taken two large hands just to hide her boobs, so, with the additional requirement of trying to hide her delicious and bare crack, she was one appendage short.   I stared for a few moments - this was the first fully shaved woman I had ever encountered. I turned around and set the tray down on my bunk, taking the opportunity to readjust the bulge that was suddenly appearing in my pants, then back around to face the now red-faced and gasping woman.  On and on it went, till suddenly she apparently realized that the threats from a chained and helpless prisoner are...  well, ridiculous.   Finally, as she stopped and switched gears.  "Please get me some clothes, Mister." I had been a sergeant of a squad - the leader of a group of men risking their lives on a daily basis and I didn't lead by suggestion.  I gave commands and expected them to be obeyed.  I knew that now I was in the same situation.  If I appeared weak or uncertain, I was going to be pissed on by this woman. I shook my head.  "It isn't allowed and I'm the only one who is going to see you.  And I already have."  A pause. "I have some breakfast for both of us.  Do you want any?"  She already had water - I had made sure that her water can was full of fresh liquid last night.  I pointed to her mat.  "Sit down." She just stood there for a minute, obviously weighing the choices between continuing her tirade, or relieving what had to be hunger pains in her stomach.  It had to be at least a day or so since she had last eaten.   I waited, then repeated in my Sergeant voice, "Sit the fuck down or I'll sit you down." Slowly, she stooped, then knelt, knees together, obviously trying to keep her privates as hidden as possible.  For now, I didn't tell her that it was too late.  I had made an extensive, but hands off, exploration of her last night. I had taken a plate full of food, but also an extra plate and a fork.  Walking back into my cabin, I retrieved the tray, set it on the floor several feet away from her, then sat down myself.  I began to halve the food between the two plates, then picked up one, along with the extra fork, and set it in front of her.  I began to eat - first a slice of bacon - all the while looking across at her.  With her kneeling on the mat, on arm over her jugs in an attempt to hide the fact that she had a very nice swinging pair, my rod was rock hard and almost throbbing, so I kept my plate in my lap to hide the fact.  She just glared for a few moments, then began to eat with one hand, trying not to look famished.  In a minute or so, I began to speak.  "First of all, I'm not the person or persons who brought you here.  I don't even know what you are doing here or where you - or we - are going." "Bullshit," she said, mouth full. "Sorry, but it's true.  I can tell you that you are on a ship going somewhere - I just don't know where."  I waited, but she didn't answer so I continued.  "A ship that is crewed by non-English speaking foreigners.  Understand?"  No answer.  "Foreigners from lands where female rights don't exist.  Guys that have the attitude that if a female has what they want, they just take it.  I'm here to protect you from them."   Not too bad for ad libbing.  And it was probably true.  I continued.  "They don't know you are here.  At least, I believe they don't.  So, it's in your interest not to advertise the fact, if you get my meaning."  Still no answer.   "Let me make it more plain.  You're a beautiful woman.  You won't look nearly so good if you are shagged by a shipload of tramp steamer crew members.  Now do you understand?" This time she nodded.  "So," I continued.  "It's in your interest to keep your voice down.  Especially when that door is open."  More food.  "Now, you can ask me what you want, but let me say, that in truth, I don't really know much about what is happening to you."  Or to me, for that matter, although I didn't bring that up. "Ill ooh it..." She swallowed and began again.  "Will you get me some clothes?" "Sorry," I answered with a shake of my head.  "I was told to keep you nake...  nude for the duration." That wasn't welcome news, but she dropped it.  She asked, "Whom do you work for?" "Just some guy.  Offered me money to see a girl safely to... to wherever this ship is going."  The truth, so far.  "I had no idea that the girl was going to be chained to the wall."  Still the truth. Wow!  Her use of an arm to cover up her boobs was less than totally effective.   Boobs that dangled and jiggled as she bent over to grab another bite .  Her large nipples also made for a hard-on stiffening sight.   "We're out of the country?"  This was on a rising note, so it had just occurred to her what being on a ship really meant. "Yes." She sat back to relieve the unnatural position, still keeping her knees together.  "Why didn't you go for help when I was brought down here?" Still munching, I replied, "Well, for one thing, I don't know when you were put in here, but I didn't come aboard until sailing time."  Careful with the stories, I told myself.  Complicated lies tend to trip the teller up.  "And with the goons standing watch, I would now be at the bottom of the harbor if I had objected."  I continued to eat. "The Captain could radio..."  She stopped as I shook my head. "He's in on it."  Silence fell on our meal for a while. Finally, she asked, "Where do you think they are taking me?" Truthfully, I answered, "I don't have the slightest idea." She stood up and shook her chained leg, now using both arms and hands to try to hide something that I well knew by now that she had.  "How do I get to the bathroom with this on?" I stood up then pointed to the five gallon plastic container in the corner of the little room.  She looked at it also, wondering why I was pointing to a bucket.  Then suddenly, she looked at me in panic.  "NO!  You can't expect me to... to... use that for..." Geesus H. Keerist!  A woman is kidnapped, stripped and chained in a cubbyhole in a ship, and told that she is being forcibly taken somewhere overseas, and she throws a fit about pissing into a bucket?  Women! "Since you're on the end of an eight foot chain, then you don't have much choice.  I'll leave you and give you some privacy for your...  anyway, I'll be back later." --------------- Time passes We were well out of the harbor, and on the way to... well, wherever.  I wandered around the ship, just looking with interest at my new environment.  I didn't see anyone else on deck, but knew that the ship wasn't over crewed.  And sometime in the past, I had heard the statement that seamen never look at the sea.  It could well be true, but I did.  It was new to me and I enjoyed sitting high on a metal box and just looking around.  One major thing that I noticed, was that the speed was far less than I expected it to be.   The passenger ships that I went to Europe and back on were much faster. As I sat and gazed over the water, watching the shores of America recede into the distance, I pondered over what had happened and what was was going to happen.  Actually, there wasn't much pondering over that last, since I had no clue about the future.  I wasn't sure about being part of a kidnapping.  Why was she here?  Ransom was the only thing I could think of - nothing else made any sense.  Was she rich?  Maybe her family was.  It wasn't a hit.  She would probably already have been dropped overboard, if that was the case.  She was too young to have any political power, or be the head of some major corporation.  What the heck.  Time would tell.  I just needed to be ready to jump, if...  well, if I knew why, then I would have already jumped. A thought suddenly occurred to me.  I hadn't even asked for her name.   --------------- Evening At least twice during that first day, with both the cabin and the hidden doors closed, I let my right hand entertain me.  The idea of a beautiful and naked woman no more than eight feet away, and in my power, was... well, overpowering.  The thought had hit me more than once - and not just during my periods of jacking off - that I could just walk in and take what I wanted.  I had had a few women in my life that weren't exactly enthusiastic about what I was wanting to give them, but I had never actually crossed the line into forcible rape.  The man who had turned her over to me was specific that she should be delivered in the same condition as she left in, but he seemed not to care if that applied to my enjoying her during the trip.  Nonetheless, the idea of forcible sex was, to me, not something to be engaged in lightly. By the time the door creaked open, she was already on her knees and in position with her crack closed up and her boobs hidden behind an arm - sort of.   "Dinner," I announced.  I set the tray on the floor - one serving this time - and waited. She looked at the meal, then at me and once again asked, "Could you please bring me some clothes?  Please.  Just a shirt and pants of your own if you don't have anything else." I shook my head.  "Sorry.  I have my orders.  Besides, I've already seen everything you have, and it isn't anything I haven't seen on other women.  So relax and stop worrying about it."  I switched gears on her.  "What's your name?" She just looked up at me for a second.  "You don't know who I am?"    "How the hell would I know?  I've been walking across Europe with a rifle for the last two years or so."  I guessed she thought she was famous, or something.  She looked at me for a minute in disbelief - whether at my tale of warfare, or at the idea that there was anyone who didn't know who she was, I didn't know.  "I'm Marylyn Winters."  Pause.  "The movie star."  Pause.  "The Bishop's Wife?"  The last was a question as she started questioning her self belief of universal popularity.   She couldn't have been a real star.  She was way too young.  At best, she was a starlet in some supporting role, somewhere. "Sorry," I replied.  "We didn't exactly get to attend a theater that often."  It was time for my questions.  "Why are you here?" "You don't know?" "If I did, I wouldn't be asking.  Did you..."  I held up my hand at the knock on the cabin door.  Putting my finger to my lips, I immediately turned and exited the little steel room, closing the locker/door behind me.  Then cracking the cabin door, I peered out, then opened it wide. "Good evening, Captain.  What's up." He stepped into the room and handed me a flimsy piece of yellow paper.  "You got a cable a few minutes ago.  Plain language." All it said was, 'Aden'.  "Looks like you're going with us the whole way."  Where the hell was Aden?   "We'll be stopping at La Rochelle and Capetown, at least," he added. He looked around me at the locker, now in its proper place, disguising the hidden door.  With a leer, he asked.  "Have you tapped her yet?" Surprised at the question, I shook my head.  He frowned.  "You aren't a homo, are you?  By now, the dude before you would have pumped himself dry."  Well, that answered one question - apparently "tapping" the cargo was expected. Being thought of as a queer would be deadly if the word got around on the ship, so I retorted with a semi-lie.  "Hell, I got all I could take with a pair of cunts before I got on the ship.  Damn near rubbed the skin off my johnson.  I'll get around to her soon." He clapped me on the shoulder and laughed.  "I'll help you along.  Pull the door open a little."  Puzzled, I pulled on the locker - I hadn't screwed on the knob that kept it closed.  It swung open a couple of feet.  Winking at me, he peeked around the hatch frame and continued, loudly, "So that's her, huh?"  He withdrew his head.   "Well, the crew knows she's here.  They'll pay you well for a piece of her ass.  They'll keep it civilized - say, just three or four of them each day?" Playing along with the sudden ruse, I replied, "I'll think about it.  If she gets worn out or damaged on the trip, it's my ass."  "You would watch them, of course, and make sure they didn't get rough.  Watch out for the big Sinhalese - he has a dong as big as your arm and loves to shove it up the girl's asshole."  He grinned.  "How about a drink?" I nodded, pushed the locker back into position, screwed the holder on, and we left.  "You're a conniving bastard, Captain," I said with a wry smile.  I could image the sudden terror of the girl at the conversation that she had just "overheard." He laughed and clapped me on the back. --------------- The next day Our little ploy had worked altogether too well.  She was laying on the mat, pale and not even trying to cover up as I entered.  And... there was a puddle of puke on the deck.  At first I thought she was sick, but realized that it was the fear of being the ship's whore to an entire crew.   Apparently mind numbing fear. She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position, then said in a trembling voice.  "You won't give me to them, will you?"  I just looked at her.   "Please, sir, please."  Now she had tears rolling down her face.  I assumed that they were real.  I shook my head.  "Look at it from my point of view.  The crew will pay me a fin each - that's a lot of skins to a man like me.  I've spent the last two years risking my life for twenty bucks a month."  Her eyes got wider as she tried to assimilate a conversation that focused on her getting fucked by multiple dudes - all colors of dudes.  "All you'll have to do is lay back and let a few guys have a piece in the evenings."  I tried to act casual - like we were discussing her loaning her car or something.  "It isn't like it will cost you anything, or take anything away from you."  Horrified at the casual way that I was treating something that she had always considered absolutely under her control, she was almost panicky.   "Please, sir.  I'll pay you myself.  Any amount you want."  That sounded like a good offer, but I doubted that her checks would be good where she was going.   I said as much. "Miss.  I doubt that your future will take you anywhere close to an American bank.  You don't have anything now to pay me, so I have to go with someone who does."  She just collapsed on her mat, sobbing and moaning.   It suddenly occurred to me that someone in her state of mind might decide to take a permanent way out, just like the boss man had mentioned at the beginning of the voyage.  I didn't see any way that she could.  The little cubicle was totally empty except for herself, a mat and bucket, and a chain.  She couldn't hang herself, or drown.  I guessed that she could possibly take a running start and bash her head into the metal wall.  I doubted that she would do that, but if she did, I would have a long swim home, so until her fit of depression lifted, I needed to make sure. From the wall locker in my cabin, I took two pairs of manacles.  Before she could react, I had rolled her over onto her stomach and pulled her arms behind her.  A couple of clicks later, her wrists were bound together.  Shortly thereafter, her ankles were also attached to each other.   She was still wailing, assuming - I guessed - that I was going to take her right then and there.  Of course, with her ankles in close attachment, it would be somewhat difficult, but not impossible.  However, that wasn't in the cards yet.  But... my plans weren't to spend the entire voyage as a cruise virgin. --------------- Later She was asleep, dead to the world from the reaction of the overnight change from being a "famous" movie star to a kidnapped female going somewhere that she didn't know.  I unmanacled her hands but left her feet hooked together.   At least now, she could managed to hop over to her honey bucket if necessary. The Captain and I had a drink together on what he called the flying bridge.  It was a projection off the enclosed pilot house and was very pleasant in the evenings, with a ten knot breeze usually blowing fore to aft, and, this time of year, at the perfect temperature.   His booze was first class, also, and definitely not the rum that I had always heard that sailors drank before all else.  I spent many evenings on this platform, at the Captain's invitation.  We were apparently the only two persons on board with even a semblance of education - excepting the engineering officers in the engine spaces, who never left their compartment, apparently.  Our conversations on anything and everything helped pass some of the long hours. I looked out over the calm sea to the horizon, just getting to be twilight.   Nothing was in sight but water and sky - and us.  "This is nice, Captain.   If I had known that I would be walking a thousand miles over Europe, I would have joined the Merchant Marine." He sipped his cognac and said, somewhat grimly,  "A couple of years ago, you wouldn't have thought so.  And the year before that, your asshole would have been worn out from puckering."  Another sip.  "This is my forth Liberty ship.  Two others are at the bottom of the ocean with most of their crews and the third is in a Portsmouth scrap yard, last I saw, with fifty feet of the bow blown off."  Sumbitch!  This was one of the men who steamed back and forth - slowly - between America and England through the snake pit of submarines, carrying supplies that we used to kick Hitler's ass.    Without which, I and all my buddies, would be still sitting on the coasts of France staring out over no-man's land at the Nazis, and probably for years.  Guys like him made good money during the war - far more than the twenty to thirty dollars a month that I was paid - but they earned it.  The minute they left port, they were in deadly danger.  No glory, no medals, no waving girls to greet them after a great battle.  Just the long slow voyage and all the time waiting for the explosion of a torpedo in the guts of the ship.  I lifted my glass to him. "How did you get into the... uh, female passenger transport business, if I am allowed to ask?" --------------- A day or so later By now the girl had calmed down.  Resigned, I guess.  I was also entering a fairly heavy rut as my nuts began to complain the length of time since they had been used for real.  After her dinner, I brought a large tub into the room, then left and returned with a large pannikin full of hot water that I poured into the primitive bathtub.  After another trip for water, I dropped a bar of Dr. Shumers Ship's Soap on the deck and said, "Take a bath."  I left, knowing that the sudden appearance of clean hot water would be like manna from heaven to a civilized female who hadn't had a chance to wash for a week or more. After my usual dinner - evening mess, as it was called - and sojourn with the Captain, I returned to find her sitting refreshed and clean on her mat.  I hauled the tub of water out to a passageway bilge skuttle, dumped it, and returned.  I stood, looking at her sitting there.  By now, she had given up at trying to hide her ample assets from me.  She still kept her knees together, but didn't bother trying to hide her large and swinging titties anymore.  I had rehearsed my speech several times, and had modified it back and forth just as much.  "You seem to be a nice girl.  At least you aren't giving me any trouble like some of the others."  Obviously a total lie from the standpoint of the 'others'.   "I'm going to give you a choice - it's something I seldom do."  The lies were coming thick and fast.  She just kneeled there, looking warily up at me.  "If you don't want to service the crew on this boat, you don't have to.  I'll punt the money that you would bring."  The relief on her face was immediate and intense.  As she opened her mouth to speak, I continued.  "But... You will have to service me during the trip.  I'm going to take my shower now.  When I come back you can give me your decision." Finally, a bit of truth.  I really was going to take a shower.  I knew that there was no chance of her selecting anything but the last option.  I was white, young, clean and by some opinions, not all that bad looking.  Given the Devil's choice between me and a couple of dozen or more third world illiterate crew members, there would be no choice at all.  I assumed that she would plead for the third alternative - no man at all.  But, that wasn't an option and the pressure in my nuts underlined that fact.  A few times in my past, I had stuck my dick in a girl who wasn't exactly willing.  There was the time that I caught Serkie - a towel girl at the Y - going through our lockers.  Put out or get told out to the guys was the choice.  She decided that sex with me was preferable to being beaten to a pulp by the gang. And there was the time that the newsstand girl - I forget her name - was caught with her hand in the till.  The buddy of mine, whose father owned the stand, and I, both gave her the choice of tail or jail.   She went home the next morning walking funny. Unwilling girls yes, but I had never yet just taken it by force. --------------- Later I lay in my bunk, totally satisfied.  As horny as I had been, even a warm knothole would have felt good, but the the girl was divine.   She obviously wasn't a virgin - a given for show business, I assumed - and knew what she was doing.  Not that she attempted to play the part of lover in any way, but she didn't hinder me as I knelt between her spread legs and slowly inserted my dong up her canal.   The first time didn't last - it had been too long since I had enjoyed pussy.  But the second, about an hour later was even better.  I started from the front, then flipped her over and entered from behind.  This way, her wonderful tits were available for both hands as I made a slow stroke in the spoon position.  By the end of that session, I was certified empty.  Dry.  Depleted.  Two full rubbers in the trash contained everything I had to give for the night. This tub only made about eleven knots and the distance to La Rochelle, France was about five thousand miles so it was going to take us about twenty days or so to cross.  Assuming that the weather didn't turn bad.  From there it was another twenty days to Cape Town and then just short of twenty to Aden.  I was going to have two months aboard this ship, plus port time.   Plenty of time to explore this dame. --------------- Time passes A couple of weeks into the voyage, I was standing on the flying bridge waiting for the Captain to host his nightly sunset party with me.  It was a beautiful evening, the water was a flat calm and the only breeze made by the motion of the ship. I was watching for the Green Flash that was the holy grail of sunset observers - so I was told.  I wasn't sure if my new friend was joshing a lubber, or if the phenomenon was real.  So far I had never seen the bright flash of green that rarely appeared just at the moment that the Sun disappeared below the horizon.   Suddenly, I heard the cabin door open behind me and a faint, high pitched voice laughing.   I didn't turn around, but suddenly I knew why the Captain had never requested access to the lovely cunt in my room.   He had his own on board.  Hmmmm.  I wondered if his was there of her own will or not.  I assumed that she was - that was a happy voice that I had barely heard.  An interesting change was coming over the woman in my cabin.  She was... well, warming up to me.  It was almost as if she were trying to be my girlfriend.  In the last few days, she had begun to act as if she were enjoying my routine of taking her every evening.  She would laugh and joke after the fact, even pecking me with light kisses and tracing her finger up and down my supine body.  I wondered if it was an act.  I mentioned the change to my friend. The Captain laughed.  "Of course.  It happens every time, almost."  To my puzzled look, he continued after a sip.  "I'm not one of those psycol...  psylocog...  those mind doctors, but it's well known that a captive will almost always begin to bond with her captor.  Hell, I've seen wives who were beaten to a pulp on a regular basis by the sailor, attack the shore patrol with claws extended when they tried to arrest him.   And, every time I've transported captive women, by the time we reached our destination, they would scream and fight when they were delivered and separated from their escort."  Another sip.  "She'll do the same thing when we get to Aden." I sat back, looking out over the now almost dark ocean, wondering at what was happening in my life.  By the time I had returned from Europe, I was beginning to consider myself as becoming a man of the world.  Unfortunately, every time I thought that, something came up that showed me just how little I knew about it. --------------- La Rochelle Richard came up the gangplank as soon as it landed.  Obviously he had taken a much faster boat than mine.  He might even have flown, although I wasn't sure that there were any airliners that could fly the width of the Atlantic.  I had finally figured out that 'Ree shard' was his first name. We shook hands and headed for my cabin.  Once there, he entered the hidden room for a quick check of his... merchandise.  All was ok, so we locked the room, and went back on deck. "Any problems?" he asked. "Only one," I replied.  He looked at me, waiting.  "Why would you pay me to have an ocean honeymoon with a gorgeous doll?" He laughed.  "Don't worry.  If you stay with the job, you'll earn your money.  This is just a... breaking in period for you as a new member of our crew.  There is far more to the position than laying between two legs for an extended period as you float across the ocean." He got serious.  "With the shipping bottlenecks from the war, I'm having to improvise.  We usually never send more than two girls at a time by any one conveyance.  More than that can get difficult to keep under strict control, but I'm asking.  Can you take two more for the trip around the Horn?" Jeez!  "Two?"  It was more of a question of why, rather than of quantity. He nodded.  "Je suis dans une liaison."  I translated that to be roughly, 'I'm in a bind.'  One of my patrons has had an operation exposed and the object has to be taken out of the country immediately.  The other was expected to travel on an airplane, but the Securite service has clamped down on air travel while trying to find ex-Nazi's." I spread my hands and nodded back. "Sure.  The cubicle is big enough, but it's going to be difficult to haul food for three to my room without everyone on the ship knowing it." "Hmmmm."  He mused for a minute.  "A good point.  We'll need to lay in some canned rations to fill out what you can bring from the galley." That was fine with me, but I had some questions I wanted answered before I went any farther.  I said as much.  "Richard.  Your business is your own, but I need to satisfy myself of what I'm doing."  He waited.  "Do you just take dames off the street?  Or have these women crossed someone, somewhere?  My reason of asking, is that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with just kidnapping someone and hauling them off to parts unknown." He waited until a pair of crew members walked past, even though the odds of them understanding French was almost nil.   "Monsieur, Tim," he started.  "You are operating under a misinformation.  My business does not capture, or take, or kidnap anyone.  I have no idea where or how most of my merchandise comes from." "But..." He held up his hand and continued.  "I only provide a service of transporting merchandise from point to point around the globe.  It is a business that my family has been in since the Revolution.   During the war, I moved many downed Allied pilots from the continent to England.  And sometimes, agents in the other direction."  He looked at the crane taking nets of bags of something from the hold, then depositing them on the dock for the waiting trucks.  "My Père made his fortune in moving wine and such across the ocean during your prohibition days.  Before that, my grandfather moved anything from one place to somewhere that duties were high."  He smiled.  "Yes, I come from a long line of honorable smugglers." "Honorable?" I asked, before I had the thought that the question might be taken wrongly.  "Oui.  My family has never participated in the greatest smuggling business of all times."  He watched my puzzled look as I tried to figure out what he meant.  "We never gave truck to the slave trade, even though it was by far the most lucrative enterprise during the time of my Arrière-grand-père." Interesting.  I had no idea even, of who my parents parents had been, and here was a man talking about great great grandfathers like he had known them. "However.  Time for relaxing.  Have you fed the female for the evening?"  I nodded.  "Est grand.  Come. We will sojourn to my palais." --------------- Somewhere in town (the good part) I had thought he was joking about the palace.  He wasn't.  Obviously, over the centuries his family had done really well in the smuggling business.  He informed me that the Wehrmacht staff had commandeered his home for a couple of years before we chased them out of the country, but that they hadn't done any major damage to the place.  He had moved anything valuable out to some hiding place months before the soldiers showed up.   It was beautiful - both the mansion and the extensive grounds surrounding it.  Richard wasn't married yet and shortly I knew why.  We were met at the door by a young thing wearing - well, not much.  Shortly, there were several like her running around following rapid fire orders from the master of the house.  There were all kinds - a blond from some Nordic country, a dusky ravenette from the Middle East, brunettes from everywhere.  White, black, brown, yellow.  I was bedazzled by the proceedings as we proceeded to his fabulous den on the top floor overlooking the town.  La Rochelle is on an absolutely flat plain, but his home was on a slight elevation - probably manmade.  As such, from our vantage point, we could see out over the town clear back to the seaport.  I thought I could recognize the ship, but wasn't sure.  Not that it mattered. We had no more than relaxed on soft loungers, than a girl entered with a tray with a bottle and two glasses.   Actually, she could have been carrying a football for all I noticed.  My eyes were only for the girl.  She was dressed in a diaphanous gown that hid nothing, and she had a lot to hide.  Was the whole household nothing but young women?  That would be hard to believe, but I had seen no others.   Let me say also, that I am using words that I could never have employed at the time.  I couldn't even have spelled diaphanous, let alone know what it meant, but that education came along as the years passed. She decorked the bottle, and offered the cork to her master.  Once again, I had no eyes for her hands or what they were doing.  I was strictly focused on her massive tits swaying back and forth as she bent over and did her stuff. He sniffed the cork, then nodded.  She poured two glasses, then swiftly padded out of the room. Richard reached for one, held it up and said, "A votre sante!" I did the same and replied in English, "Cheers."  I wasn't a wine connoisseur, but I could drink it. I assumed that we were drinking some expensive vintage, but there was no way that I had the continental knowledge to know.  It was good, but I would just as soon have had an ice cold beer. I looked back the way the girl had disappeared.  "Is she...  Are they... uh... merchandise that you have... smuggled?" He laughed.  "Non.  All of them are employees and any can leave whenever they wish."  I digested that for a moment and he continued.  "Europe has always been filled with unfortunates of the lower classes.  It has never been a problem to fill our needs with the number of servants that is needed.  I will say, however, that in my Father's time, there were far fewer young females in the house.  Several, to be sure, but they would come and go according to his desires.  Some of them introduced me to the love saddle when I was very young." A sip then, "Now, however, Europe is filled with starving and homeless people because of the war.  Even what you would consider the middle class are in desperate straits.  So, with the outside world desperately looking for food and work, any of these girls will consider herself in heaven to be my servant.  I have disposed of a few, but none have voluntary left my service, or my father's service since the start of the depression, seventeen years ago." "You've only seen the upper house staff.  I have grounds keepers, a chauffeur, a cook, housemaids, a matron to administer to the girls, and so forth."  Changing the subject, he handed me a piece of paper.  "When you get to Aden..." Our talk went on for most of and hour until a servant entered and spoke.  "Le dîner est servi."  Interesting.  This was a middle aged male. --------------- On the boat. Two days later, we stood out to sea, heading around the bulge of Spain and down the west coast of Africa.  The night before, two containers came aboard, led by Richard, and were placed in my cabin.  After the movers had left, we closed the door and unlocked the boxes.  Inside each was an unconscious girl who was soon lifted out and hauled into the hidden cubicle.  To the surprise of the current prisoner, each was laid on a mat and chained to the bulkhead just as she was.   I stood up and examined both, having been surprised to discover on opening the crate, that one was a colored girl. To younger readers wondering why I was bewildered about finding a black girl who was apparently considered valuable enough to transport thousands of miles, I would remind them that in the 1940's, the USA was still totally segregated and...  well, I had no particular beef with negroes, as they were called at the time, but the idea of the races mixing was fairly unheard of - and in certain societies could get you lynched for even proposing the idea.  Not so in Europe.  Physical race had little bearing on society.  But, it wasn't as if the region was the epitome of egalitarianism.  There, the ticket was ethnicity.  It is too simple a case to state that every ethnicity seemed to hate every other one, but it seemed that way to an American.  To me, a Frenchman looked exactly like any German, Pole, Serb or Italian that was standing next to him.  I couldn't tell the difference, but they sure could - for sure. At any rate, the girl was supposedly valuable and I treated her as such.  The problem was that, while the new white doll was clearly French, the black girl didn't speak any language that I could even begin to recognize.   One thing was immediately obvious, is that, unlike my first girl, the alleged movie star, this new pair had been in captivity for a while.  They didn't wake up shouting and screaming threats like Miss Winters.  Neither did they try to hide their bodies behind hands and arms. Against the wall of my cabin were several crates of canned food, and it looked like the girls' main courses for the next several weeks would be black market military rations.  Plus, whatever I could bring down from the galley in not too noticeable portions.  I noticed a small alcohol stove - again, a portable rig carried by soldiers.         As I closed the hidden door, I wondered about my sexual arrangements with the original girl.  Since I couldn't unchain her from the wall, I was either going to have to perform with an audience, or abstain until the trip was over.  That last option wasn't appealing. Right now it wasn't a problem.  I had spent the two nights that the ship had been in port at Richards.  And what nights.  I had my pick of the girls for a bedwarmer and on the second night I had two of them in bed with me.  Something that I had always dreamed about, but never had happen.   Both nights, after being so totally exhausted that I couldn't get to sleep, I would just lay there staring at the invisible ceiling and muse about what had happened to a dumb corporal from Brooklyn.  I wasn't sure where all this was taking me, but I was sure enjoying the trip at the moment. --------------- Somewhere off of Africa As it turned out, having an audience wasn't a problem.  In fact, it was kind of a turn on.  I could just point to a girl, she would lay back and spread her legs.  The others would just watch, but always in total silence.   I would still lay down on my bunk at night, wondering just what kind of heaven that I had been accepted into - and how much the entry fee was going to cost. Sometimes, I would leave the hidden door open a crack to listen to my captives.  They were usually quiet.  Not that there was much they could talk about.  The American spoke only English and the French girl didn't.  Neither did my black captive - in fact, I have no idea of just what she spoke, but it was obvious that she understood neither language.  Or German, which I also tried on her. Finally, one evening, I pointed to my little negress.  Like the others, she just lay back with no expression, obviously knowing what was going to happen.  No cringing, no violent shaking of her head, just an acceptance of the requirement to service me. For my part, I was conflicted even before I had pointed at her.  In my country, this was unheard of - at least with the crowd that I used to hang around with.  White dudes didn't associate with colored people unless he was giving orders for work.  They certainly didn't dip their wicks in a black cunt.  If this ever got out back on the streets, I would be shunned like a... About a half hour later, I had a major shift in my outlook on racial considerations.   Ever since I was old enough to know about holes and plugs, I had heard the joke about 'All women are alike in the dark."  It wasn't dark in the room, but once I was inserted and pumping, the fact that the girl below me was black totally receded into nothing.   Not only was she just as warm and wet as a white girl, this one was far more...  agreeable?   No.  Agreeing?  No, again.  The word would have to be enthusiastic.  Unlike the two other dolls in the room, who just lay back and were passive warm holes, this one actually took part in the act. She reached around with her hand and grabbed one of my buttocks and helped pump, while the other hand ran her fingernails up and down my spine.  Then she would swap hands. This was almost a new experience for me.  Even the willing girls of my neighborhood usually just spread and allowed the man to do the screwing.  This was a novel idea that two people could actively participate in making the beast with two backs. But the nut shrinker was yet to come, no joke intended.  As I began to rise to the top of the cliff, she took both of my butt cheeks in her hands, then began to rim my asshole with a finger, finally inserting it to finger fuck my rear.  The stimulation of that was so intense that my eyes probably rolled back in my head, followed by a climax that wouldn't stop.  I was almost surprised that she didn't shout in pain as my wad came out like a cannon shell. The one orgasm didn't free my gonads of all the pressure.  After rigidly holding my rod firmly against her twat for a few seconds, I immediately began to pump again, and she continued her rear end work with her finger.   In a few seconds, I blew out a second, but much fainter orgasm.   This wasn't unusual.  Many males can come twice, if they are particularly horny, but only when jacking off, when they have total control of the stimulation.  The second orgasm is always much less intense but is real, nonetheless.  But I certainly had never had it happen with a girl underneath.  And it probably wouldn't happen again.  Only the unique situation and surprising action of my partner triggered the reflex this time. As I rose to my knees, I just fell back on my butt.  A rising sense of aching was now coming from my balls.  That was the most intense orgasm that I had experienced to date in my young life, not excepting the first time with Amy, the stacked redhead that usually broke in most of the young men in the neighborhood. The black girl just lay back, looking at me.  I looked back, smiled and nodded.  Later, just before bed, she was surprised when I returned with a large slice of cake for her.  Obviously, sweets were something that she probably seldom ate before, and just as obviously craved.  She gobbled it down, finally licking every last bit of icing off of her fingers.  It was not only a reward for her 'work', but hopefully might encourage the other two girls to try to be a little more pleasing. --------------- Days later. I was relaxing on the flying bridge, in the evening as usual, listening to the tall and not so tall tales of a man who had been on the water since he shipped out as a ship's boy at the age of eleven.  They were entertaining at the least, and if even ten percent of them were true, the man had had a fascinating life on the ocean. We had just left Cape Town, Africa after a very short stopover.  Only a few high value items went ashore, and a few crates were brought on board.  I only had about six hours to explore, which was way too short to do anything but wander the waterfront vendors.    He pointed with his glass at the land, just at the horizon.  "Yonder lies the shore east of the Cape of Good Hope."  I already knew that we were coming around the horn of Africa - I sometimes stopped in the real bridge to look at our track, marked in red, on the big map laid out on the plotting table.  "From now till we get to the Red Sea, we keep a lookout for Vanderdecken and his crew." I set my glass down.  "Who?"  I had never heard of the gentleman - or ship, or whatever.  "Pirates?"  He shook his head, then quoted from something... "...The sailor's fear, 'ortaken here, is to glimpse the ghost of the misty cape. For he who sees, will upon the seas, be foredoomed to sail forever more..." "You can't be such a lubber that you never heard of the Flying Dutchman?" I shook my head.  "You don't get a lot of nautical training on the streets of Brooklyn." He smiled.  "It's a ghost ship of sea-legend.  Any man who glimpses the vessel, is doomed to sail the seas until Judgement Day.   Many sailors believe in it, and even those who don't, would be nervous if a spectral ship loomed out of the fog."  A sip and he continued.  "Utter bilge, of course, but many things happen at sea that don't have an explanation on land." I just smiled.  "Well, if you happen to see a spooky sailing ship on this trip, please call me on deck.  Otherwise, I'll put that worry somewhere close to the bottom of my list." --------------- Time passes I was infatuated with the black girl.  She was a sex bomb.  Every night when I went to her, she would try something else on me.  She could suck me off in a way that I had never imagined.  Somehow she was able to take my entire dick into her mouth - down her throat, obviously - without gagging.  Where the hell did a girl learn to to that?  One night, she guided my rod up her rear hole.  That was something that I had heard of, and had joked about, but I had never even considered trying.  For one thing, none of the girls of my old neighborhood would have even considered such a perversion.  For another, the act was illegal in the US. Laying on my back, she would wrap her large tits around my rod, and dry hump me with them.   But what really astounded me, was the night that she worked over my dick and balls with her mouth almost to the point of my shooting off, then moved down to my asshole and proceeded to fuck me with her tongue.  That was something that I had never even heard of.  By now, I was wondering if she was for sale and what she would cost.  I would take her as a consort in a heartbeat - quite a change for a young white male who had always assume the colored race to be inferior.  After Cape Town, I used her far more than the other two girls. --------------- Night I woke up wondering just what had woken me up.  Being a veteran of a series of foxholes from the coasts of Normandy to the Rhine river, I was a light sleeper.  Very light.  Heavy sleepers in combat sometimes didn't wake up at all. I could hear the ship groaning and ringing with clanks and bangs.  What the fuck?  I got up, quickly dressed, and immediately knew that we were in heavy seas.   The ship was heaving up and down, but there was something else.  My sense of balance was off.  I kept trying to stand vertical, but wound up leaning toward the bulkhead. The captain had talked about pirates in this part of the world.  Apparently they still existed.  Maybe we were under attack.  For that possibility, I stuffed my pistol in my belt and slung my M1 over my shoulder. Out the hatchway I went and up the three sets of ladders to the deck.  Sure enough, it was blowing a gale.  No rain, but lots of wind.  As I walked toward the bridge, I had the feeling that I was walking up hill.  Unfortunately, it was so dark that I could only see in the areas illuminated by the single bulb deck lamps, and not many of those. As I entered the bridge, I careened into the Captain.  He immediately shouted at me.  "Get in the starboard lifeboat!  Quickly!" Fuck me!  "We're sinking?  What happened?"  "An explosion on the port stern.  Like we were torpedoed.  Hurry.  This ship is going to founder." "I have to get the girls.  They're still chained to the wall." He grabbed me by the arm.  "No time for that.  Your cabin will be underwater by now.  Get in the boat."  With that he ran down the side passageway into the dark. I have to say that I am not exactly a moral person.  And selfish.  Kind of all for me and me for me.  But there was no way that I was going to let three women drown while chained to the wall with my key.  Not without trying, at least. Now I was on a dead run down hill to my area.  Fortunately, the water was absent despite his warning.  I burst into the room and shouted about the ship was sinking and get up now.  Of course, I completely forgot that only one person in the room would have understood me.  Nevertheless, I stooped down and quickly unlocked the manacles on their ankles.  The waved them to follow me.  So far, they were more surprised than frightened, having been woken up and groggy.  I stopped in my cabin, looking around - there was certainly no time to pack so I grabbed my money belt holding my cash and passport.   At that moment, I felt water at my feet, then noticed a rising flood coming in the door.  In the passageway, we went the only way we could - up hill to the ladder.  Two ladders later we were on deck and again moving up hill - again - toward the bow.  The boat was gone!  The cocksuckers didn't even wait.  It was obvious that shouting into the wind and darkness would be heard by nobody, and if it was, I doubted they would come back for four passengers. I shouted.  "Wait here!"   Somewhere up here I had noticed during the voyage, without bothering to register the location, a blowup raft.  No doubt left over from the time that the tub plowed through submarine infested waters.  I ran up the side, then down the other.  Nothing.  Fortunately, the lights were still on.  If water got to wherever the power was generated, I was well and truly fucked.   The night was black outside of the reach of the bulbs and I had no idea where a flashlight might be. I stopped and thought furiously.  Where did I see that damned thing!?  Think, you dumb son of a bitch!  You always walked forward to the forecastle to because it was usually free of crew members and was private.  That had to be where...  Suddenly, I turned and bounded up a ladder - stairs to a landsman - to the top of the chain hoist locker.  There it was.  Frantically hurrying before the lights went out, I read the instructions printed on the raft, cut the ropes holding it to the deck, then pitched it over onto the foredeck.  I didn't bother with the ladder - I just jumped down and ran back to the girls. Shortly, I had towed them to the raft.  Now what?  I had no idea if they could swim, and even if they could, it was unlikely that any of us were going to survive and swim to the raft if we just jumped overboard.  The waves were huge.  And it had started raining.  I came down to one plan.  It either worked or didn't. I yanked on the red lanyard. Instantly, the hiss of air could be heard over the gall and the raft unfolded like something alive.  In a surprisingly short time, a filled and open raft was laying on deck.  I stepped in, and waved the now terrified girls to follow.  Being a lubber, I had no idea if the movie tales of rafts being sucked under when the ship sank were true.  My biggest fear was that it would fall over sideways - capsize? - and just spill us into the sea.  So far the deck had a slight list but nothing like the slope from front to back.  Fore to aft, that is. The ship sank quickly.  Air was being forced out of the openings with such a force that we could hear the scream over that of the gale.  And the pouring rain that had just started.   Suddenly, like a switch had been opened, the lights blinked once and went out.  Unfortunately, I had been looking down the length of the ship at the lights and was now night blind.   All I could do now was listen.  Very shortly, I felt the raft heave and begin to bob up and down.  Out of the corner of my eye I could could barely make out the disappearing bow as it slipped under. --------------- Two days or so later I woke up feeling like I had just been dragged out of a major battle.  If there was a muscle that wasn't sore, I couldn't find it.  Stiff as a board, I sat up and looked around.  The girls were dead to the world, sleeping on their backs to keep their heads out of the foot of water filling the flexible boat.  They - and I - had spent the last two days and nights bailing the boat out with the little bailer bucket that had been tied to the raft.   I didn't think that a pneumatic boat could sink, but we could certainly float out of it if it was totally full.  I was getting thirsty, but that could wait until they woke up.  None of us had had any drink of water from the cans in the little storage locker.  However, during the heavy downpours we refreshed ourselves by catching the rain in a section of what appeared to be a square of canvas.  I made them - and myself - drink as much as they could hold. In the east the first rays of dawn were apparent.  The storm had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.  As it became lighter, I carefully stood up and took a 360 look around the horizon.  Nothing but water.   I knew that the ship hadn't been far off the African coast, but who knew how far and which way the storm had blown us?   This was a pickle.  A total landlubber in charge of a shipwrecked crew of three girls. Nude girls.  For the first time since we left the ship, I realized that all of them were as stark naked as a newborn baby.  Interesting how fighting for your life makes things that used to seem important, shrink to invisibility.  Fortunately, here in the tropics, being cold wasn't a concern.  What would be a problem, now that the sun was out, would be massive sunburn on naked skin.   They - at least the two white girls - would have to stay under the piece of canvas. As soon as the sun rose, I moved over and began to read the instructions imprinted on the yellow rubber.  Ah... Speak and ye shall receive.  The square of canvas was to be either a sail or a sun tent.  The tent sounded more practical.   As far as the sail went, I had never sailed a cake of soap in a bathtub.  The boat had a compass, but I had no idea how to make us move, except with the paddles, and they were being used for tent poles. My movements woke up the little starlet.  She sat up, groaned and stretched.  Shortly, all three were awake and flexing sore muscles.   I handed the bailer to one of them.  "Bail."   That was one word they all understood by now.  But, at least now there was no urgency, except for getting the inside of the boat dry so that we weren't continually sitting in salt water. Shortly, following the instructions, and using the two paddles, I had the canvas made into a tent.  By noon, the topical sun was Hot and I was glad we had the piece of material. Finally, the starlet asked, "Can I have some water?"  I thought about it for a minute or so.  I had no idea where we were and how long we were going to be floating around.  One thing I did know from my combat experience, is that extreme thirst is extreme torture.  If we ran out of water, we were fucked, big time. I shook my head.  "Not yet.  We'll all get a drink this afternoon." One thing for sure.  I would never again scoff at Vander Decker, or whatever the name was of the guy that captained that cursed Flying Dutchman. --------------- Evening In the tropics, the sun rises and sets very rapidly.  That isn't just an illusion - it actually does.  I just don't know why.  We had all had three swallows of water and were relaxing in the evening sun.  The tent had come down since the sun was too low for skin damage.  The black girl was leaning back with me and I was just idly playing with her tits.  More to pass the time than for any need for sex right now.  Suddenly, the French girl pointed and said, "Monsieur, Qu'est-ce que c'est?" I carefully stood up and looked at the bump on the horizon.  Now, everybody was pointing to the... Suddenly, my little bedmate began to babble in her language and gesturing toward the object.  At the same time, Marylyn said, "It's a man!  He's waving at us."  Shit, they were right! I handed a paddle to the French girl and pointed about midways back in the boat.  "Get on your knees and help me paddle."  I did the same thing on the other side.  She was clumsy at first but finally we got a mild stroke going that propelled us slowly toward the man.  Paddling wasn't something that girl muscles were used to, so I relieved her with the other white girl and kept going.  Finally, I pointed to the little negress and she willingly took the paddle from her mate and began the stroke.  By now I could see that the man was sort of laying on an overturned wooden lifeboat.  One man.  I wondered what happened to the others.  I recognized him as a crew member - dark, but not an African, probably from Malaysia or thereabouts.  I had no idea what his name was.  He was wearing pants and a shirt, both ripped.  No shoes. We pulled up to the derelict, and he carefully rolled into the raft - now fairly full.   Leaning back against the yellow side tube, he nodded at me and said, "Thankee, Bubba.  I had no more grip, me."   I was looking at his boat.  At first I had the idea of turning it over and bailing it out, but soon noticed why it was half submerged and upside down.  An entire rear quarter had been stove in - smashed to kindling. I carefully ladled out three swallows of water from one of the little cans and handed it to him in the bailer.  "What happened to the Captain and everyone?" He gulped it down and licked his lips.  "De Captane and de others dey sunk.  Right after we got to de water.  Da waves trew us up agin de hull and kersmash it went.  De Captane and tree or fo' others dey hung on fo de whil, but fell off one 'hind de oder.  Me's the onlyest one been left."   He looked around.  "Whyfo you not use de sail?" "Do you know how to sail a boat?"  Now this was a break. He grinned.  "Hell, Bubba.  Me was borned on a boat." --------------- Night We were actually moving north.  Not very fast.  A loaded pneumatic lifeboat has the nautical characteristics of a kid's two by four plank with a handkerchief for a sail.  From the little canvas locker, he had pulled a couple of things that I had seen, but had no idea of their use.  One was a telescoping pole that acted, with the help of one oar, both as a very short mast and a vertical holder for the keel board.  I had no idea what that last was, until he explained that it was just a fin that helped keep the boat from being blown sideways with the wind.  Whatever.  The important thing was that we were no longer just floating around at the mercy of the winds. I was holding the other oar, lashed to the rear as a rudder.  With everyone else asleep, I had the entire starry universe and half moon above me to myself.  I thought about the ship and what had happened.  The Captain had mentioned a torpedo, but that was ridiculous.  The war in Europe had been over for two years and more.  Any and all Nazi U-Boats were either rusted hulks or scrap by now.  And even if some renegade skipper had somehow found the fuel and food to drive around the ocean for those two years, what the hell would be the purpose of sinking a tramp steamer in the Indian ocean? A bomb on board?  Much more likely, but again, what the hell for?  Who would benefit?    A shell from a battleship?  A torpedo from a destroyer?  Now I was really grasping at straws.  It would either have to be from the American or British navies - very few others were still afloat. I doubted very much that they would just fire on an unarmed tub.  And just leave the scene without checking for survivors. All of those ideas were just plain dumb.  However, there was the fact that the ship was at the bottom of the ocean, and the only survivors were floating around, lost at sea.  SOMETHING caused it. I moved on.  I had plenty of time to try to figure out what the hell I was going to do.  If we were lucky, a boat would see us, or we would ground on the southern shore of Africa.  Either one was vastly preferable to dying of thirst in a lifeboat.  But, it was after we were safe that I worried about. I had three women, all without clothes, and all along with me against their will.  How was I going to explain that to the authorities? --------------- Next day We were becalmed, so the sail was removed to make a tent for the girls again.  By now, both of us were rested and quite capable of noticing three lovely and naked women with us.   Kermie - that was the closest I could pronounce his name - came back and grinned before asking, "Hey, Bubba.  How's 'bout I perf the afro cunt?" "What do you mean," I blurted out, surprised by he sudden request. "Sheet, Bubba.  I knows they are you slaves.  You been 'joying them since we lef 'Merica." I shook my head.  "You got it wrong.  I'm delivering them to someone in Aden.  Besides, we got no protection.  You might stick her with a bun."  He wasn't interested in being told no.  "Sheet.  Nobody will eva know.  She can hose it out wit de saltwater.  Ain't gonna get no chil from me." I shook my head again.  "No.  I can't risk it.  Besides, as soon as we get ashore, you can screw anybody on the coast.  I'll even give you the money for the girls." The rest of the day, I worried.  Like me, he was young and the close presence of three beautiful and desirable females was an irresistible draw.  By sundown, I could almost write out a script of what was going to happen.  The wind was back up somewhat and we were under sail again.  Like the night before, I would take the sundown to midnight watch, and he would relieve me until morning. --------------- Midnight Kermie relieved me and I crawled to the front of the boat and lay down between two girls, my head pillowed on the canvas locker.  It was going to be a long night - there was no way I was going to fall asleep and let my first mate cut my throat.  To help stay awake, I went over, once again, my plans for explaining just what the hell was going on with me and my troupe. The problem was, that, well, two of my problems were laying next to me and in the bright and setting moon, were deliciously... female.  Naked females.  Warm and soft...   Stop!  This wasn't helping.  And I couldn't just roll one over and shove it in.  Not after telling the big sailor that he couldn't. My problem was that I knew nothing about this part of the world.  If we came ashore on Coney Island, I knew what would happen.  Police, newspapermen and gawkers would fill the beach looking at us and I would soon be downtown being asked questions that I didn't have the answer to.   But here?  Would anyone care?  Were we going to be thrown in prison just for entering some country without permission?   Or killed by the natives?  Well, not by the first fifteen.  I still had my 45 and M1.  Seven rounds in the first and eight in the second..  But I couldn't shoot my way across Africa. As the hours went on, I came to the same conclusion over and over.  I had not even the minimum information about our plight to make plans.   This was going to be an on-the-fly operation - assuming that we didn't just rot at sea as seagull food.  Besides, if I wanted to... My thoughts froze instantly as I saw Kermie slowly began to crawl forward.  The moon had set and I only had starlight to see by.  I couldn't make out his face, but had no problem following his movements toward me.  There was only one thing he had to have in mind - there was no other reason to leave the rudder.  Well, maybe he wanted to steal more than his share of water, but he ignored the can.  The lifeboat was only about fifteen feet long and he shortly reached the middle, then began to rise to a crouching position on his feet.  His intentions were made plain when I saw the starlight glint off the twelve inch blade that all merchant sailors carried. At that moment I decided that a point had been reached.  There was no doubt that he was planning to kill me to get the use of the women.  But, this wasn't a western movie and I wasn't the white hat who had to let the bad guy draw first.  My hand had long been on the butt of my gun, stuck into my waistband - in fact, it hadn't left that position for more than a second at a time the whole night.   As I saw the knife hand lowered and the blade raised to the rib sticking position, I pulled the 45 out, aimed for the center of the shadow, and pulled the trigger. A US Army forty five calibre, model 1911A1 is loud under any circumstances, but when shot in a boat, in the middle of the ocean, on a quiet night far from any human or nature noises, it could almost be considered to be a howitzer.  I was deafened by the report, blinded by the flash and suddenly in the middle of three panicking women.  Sheer chaos reigned for several seconds until I got the girls under control.  I wasn't worried about them as much as keeping my line of sight clear in case I had to follow up with more action. It wasn't necessary.  I hadn't thought it would be.  The slug from that hand cannon would drop a mule.  As the girls calmed down, I explained to two of them what had happened.  There was no way to tell the black girl anything and I didn't try.  I was about to tip the body over the side, when an idea hit me.  I stripped him of his clothes - shirt and pants - and only then shoved him overboard. I splashed a considerable amount of water into the boat onto the black blotches I could see on the flexible bottom.   Then I ordered a girl to bail it out.  Now when the sun came up, we wouldn't be looking at blood everywhere. --------------- Morning I had the negress steering the boat.  It didn't take long for her to understand that she was to keep the needle of the compass on north.  The other two got orders to take our late companion's clothes and begin to fashion some kind of clothes for the three.  Since they had no needle and thread, and nothing else to work with but my knife - the sailor's long sticker apparently had gone overboard as a result of the shock of the bullet - about all they could do was rip the pants legs and the shirt into long strips that could be tied on.  Eventually, they came up with some pieces that could be tied around the upper body as a cover for their tits, and some wider pieces that would serve as really short dresses.   It was really erotic, actually, and I was carrying a massive hard. Putting the starlet onto the rudder, I laid my little black favorite on the soft boat bottom and rammed her good.  Of course, with my stash of rubbers in Davy Jone's Locker, I had to use the jerk it out and jerk it off method of birth control.  Unlike my late first mate, I had no confidence in seawater as a pregnancy preventive.   --------------- Afternoon I was beginning to get worried.  The water can was almost empty, all of us could feel the pangs of thirst increasing and we had had nothing to eat since the night our adventure had started.  Water is always the concern in a survival situation, but over that our stomachs were really starting to complain about their empty state. I had napped all afternoon so I could take the night watch all by myself.  An hour or so before sundown, I was woken by the girls.  For a minute it was just a blabber - three different languages being spoken and nobody being answered.  They were all three standing up by the rudder - no easy thing in a canvas bottom boat - and pointing out over the water.  Finally, the black girl saw that I was awake, jabbered something at me, and turned to point again. I got to my knees and looked.  Sumbitch!  A boat.  Way off, but it was a boat.  Since the French girl was conning our little ship, I said, "Steer towards it."  That took a little more doing than just turning the boat and shoving off.  I suddenly remembered that a sailboat doesn't just automatically move in the direction that you point it.  We had to move the sail to the other side of the boat, then tie it off before it began to push us toward what was hopefully our rescuers.  There are, no doubt, nautical terms for what we had to do, but I had no idea of the terminology.  I just said  "Tie this" and "Pull that" and "Turn the boat that way."  I told the starlet to stand in the front and wave the scraps of cloth left over from the clothes making.  Fortunately, the fishing boat - what else could it be? - was moving somewhat towards us, otherwise our clumsy little raft would have been left behind in nothing flat.   Not too long after, I saw a commotion on the front of the vessel, and then a couple of men pointing at us.  Then the boat - also a sailing craft - turned towards us and rapidly closed the gap. Now I was hoping we weren't about to be greeted by pirates.  The girls didn't have a worry - nobody was going to harm three gorgeous young broads wearing attire from a stag movie about castaways.  Myself on the other hand, was the possessor of the merchandise and might be seen as a convenient mark. Fortunately, my worries were totally groundless.  Or sealess - whatever.  They pulled up besides us, chattering in some unknown language, and I threw them the lanyard.  After tying it off, they enthusiastically helped us on board.  I hoisted each girl up as the two young men each pulled on an arm to make the girl literally fly into the boat.  The older man - it had to be a father and son's crew - guided each to a makeshift bench of crates. The boat wasn't large, probably thirty or so feet long, but after several days in a Navy raft, it seem to us like the Queen Mary.  The old man came up to me smiling and asked something.  It didn't have any resemblance to any language I had ever heard and in this part of the world, I had no idea what it might be.  I shook my head and replied, "Sorry, no understand.  Do you speak English?"   A shake of his head and some more of his language.  I had had no hope of his answer being yes. I tried again. "Parley vous Francais?"  Another shake.  Well, we were going to have to use sign language.  As I wondered just how to do that, wonders of wonders, he said, "Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch. Sie auch?"   His accent was horrible and even worse than mine, but it was understandable German.  I just stood there wondering for a moment just how a fisherman in the far ends of the world learned a European language.  And why? As it turned out, there was a very good reason, but I didn't find it for a while. "Ja. Ich kann es etwas zu sprechen," I replied.  "And I want to thank you and your crew for a most timely rescue."  I don't want to give the impression that the conversation went as smoothly as the English translation indicates.  I could speak the language, but was a long way from fluency.  Between my limitations and his overlaid accent, we struggled along, searching for words that the other could understand. He bowed.  "He of the Greatest Name requires his servants to assist those in peril.  You will consider my vessel as your home."  He looked over the side.  "Your little boat.  We can tow it behind us unless you can..."  He searched for the word, 'deflate'.  "...make it smaller." I shook my head.  "No.  It served its purpose.  You can cut it loose." His look of utter surprise caught ME by surprise.  In my relief of being saved from being seagull fodder, I didn't think about the fact that such an item might be very valuable in this impoverished section of the world.  Looking at the bright yellow raft, he said, "Then, Mein Herr, you would permit that I..." I bowed to him, made a sweeping gesture at the yellow raft, and said, "Please, Sir.  I present you with the boat as a very small token of my gratitude." His eyes lit up, bowed to me, and jabbered to his sons.  They immediately unroped the boat, walked it to the stern and tied it again.  Shortly, we were underway. --------------- Africa We were in some small coastal town called Malinda, or Malindi.  I had no idea where the hell it was on the long African coastline.  A fishing village, mostly, it was at the mouth of some river.  There were lots of boats just like the one belonging to our host, Abasi.  As we came ashore, I wondered just what the local currency was, or if there was one.  I was carrying a considerable stash of Greenbacks, but I sure didn't see any kind of building that might be a bank that my convert them to... whatever.  As it turned out, I was carrying gold. Abasi, leaving his sons to tend the boat, took us to his home.  A structure made of grass, reeds, mud bricks, everything.  It had a low fence, a small courtyard, a main house and a smaller one in the rear.  As we entered, he bowed and said, "Please consider this your home as long as you stay in Malindi."  Actually, as a structure, it didn't even come up to the level of the slums of Brooklyn, but I wasn't about to convey that impression to the man that I owed my ass to.  On the way, I had surreptitiously slipped a ten-spot out of my roll in preparation of this moment.  "Herr Abasi," I began formally.  "There is no payment that can be given for a man's life, but I want you to accept this as a very small payment of my debt for our rescue and for the interruption of your livelihood."  At that time, I had never heard of the term, Almighty Dollar, but I saw the effect.  His eyes almost bugged out at what was probably a years income for a family in his village.   I knew that the dollar ruled in ruined Europe, but had no idea that its effect reached even to this faraway place.  I would learn more as time went on.  He bowed and waved his hands to refuse, over and over, but he never took his eyes off of the bill.  Finally, protocol was satisfied and he accepted the reward. He thanked me over and over.  Finally, he said, "Please allow my woman to take your women to the slave quarters."   I wasn't sure I heard him right.  I played the sentence over and over, trying to determine if the unfamiliar language was being translated correctly.  As it turns out, it was.  Not only did he immediately peg the fact that the three girls with me were in actuality, slaves, but didn't seem to consider the fact anything but natural.  Kind of stunned, I just nodded. He clapped his hands, an elderly woman appeared, and spoke a sharp word to my girls.  They didn't understand the actual word, of course, but the meaning was clear.  They all disappeared out the back of the house. --------------- Evening We had just finished a delicious meal without me having a clue of what I was eating, except for the bread.  He broke out a pipe hooked to a bottle, and we relaxed, sitting cross-legged on his... well, patio is all I can call it.  It looked out over the harbor, still busy with boats coming in with the day's catch.  I had learned why he spoke a passable European language. "This entire section of the continent was once controlled by the Deutschen.  It was called Deutsch-Ostafrika and many of the people learned the language for the purpose of commerce.  After the Great War, the Deutschen officials disappeared, but the merchants didn't, even though the new rulers were the Belgiers.  Many elderly still command the language, even though it is fallen out of favor here.  My sons speak not a word of it." The history of German East African colonies and World War One and the takeover of them by the British and Belgians was a blank slate to me.  I registered the information and moved on to more pressing questions. He obliged.  "You will need to get to Kismayu.  From there you can engage a boat to Mombasa and that is a major port.  You will find many foreign vessels there for passage."  He puffed for a while.  "There is seldom a boat going to Kismayu but I will enquire on the morrow." When the sun set in this part of the world, the day was over.  I saw not a single electric light anywhere.  A few candles, and a lantern or two, but in the main, the sidewalks rolled up, so to speak.  My host, set his pipe aside and rose, as did I.  "Will you wish one or more of your slaves for a bed service tonight? " he asked. I thought, then answered, "Yes.  The little black girl, if you please." He shouted a command and led me to my bedroom.  A very small room with a very low bed in the corner.  He pulled an old blanket off a shelf and threw it on the floor.  "She can sleep there when you are through with her.  I wish you a good night." The opening in the wall had no window, but was covered with some kind of fine netting.  Obviously to let the sea breeze in without the bugs.  I undressed and lay down on the straw mattress, and waited for my 'slave' to appear.  Shortly, she did and I motioned her to lay down beside me.  The problem of having no rubbers was still at the fore, but with this girl I knew that there was another channel that I could use without worry.   My mind was racing, but so were my nuts.  I tweaked and nipped her lithe little body for a while, then let her work on my rod with her mouth.  Finally, I flipped her over on her stomach and pushed her legs apart.   She knew what I wanted.   In the light of the single candle, I saw her raise her ass off the mattress, then reach around with both hands and pull her cheeks apart, making the target hole as accessible as possible.   My rod had plenty of her own mouth lube, so I just set it against the entrance and slowly pushed it in.  With that, she settled back down and I began my long slow stroke. --------------- Night My little negress was asleep on her blanket.  For me, sleep was a long way off.  I lay back, feeling the cool breeze waft into the room and just thought about... well, everything.  I had suddenly realized that I now felt more alive than I ever had.  It was almost a euphoric feeling, just to use another word that I had never even heard of at the time.  My fellow soldiers and buddies were long since back in the states - each of them at his job, now, no doubt.  Driving a taxi, building something in a factory, filling out forms in an office.  Some had even planned to go to college.  But, each now confined to his own civilized rut. I had avoided that through sheer happenstance.  I was free as a bedouin.  I could stick my dong in girl flesh any time I wanted.  I was seeing places and things that my buddies not only had never seen, but also that they had never even heard of - or would even believe if I told them.  I was like a soldier of fortune - a mat of reeds for my bed, the sky for my roof, and tomorrow another adventur... Hang on, dumbshit!  The reality is that you are lost somewhere in the other side of the world, with three women who were kidnapped - at least two of which would immediately scream that fact to any authority they came in contact with - and no clue as to how to get out of this mess.    I made some calculations based on our time as sea.  Our schedule entry to Aden was in about ten days.  No.  That would have been ten days from the time we sunk. So, about six or seven days from now.   Not long thereafter, I assumed, someone was going to wonder just what happened to the old Liberty ship.  Since I was the only survivor that had a clue of what happened, the ship would have effectively disappeared to the outside world.  My boss, Richard, would certainly wonder what happened to the ship and his property.  As to this Abdul character I was supposed to contact, I assumed he would start wondering also.  I had no idea of the procedure in the case of a disappearance.  Would some naval vessel be sent out to try to find us?  I doubted it.  In fact, I doubted that the loss of the tub would get more than a notice in some shipping report, somewhere. Money wasn't a problem.  I had several hundred of my own money hidden in my belt, in coveted greenbacks, and I was discovering that the sum just about made me the equivalent of a millionaire in this part of the world.  Of course, I needed to keep that fact to myself, otherwise I would find myself having to eat through a slit in my throat.   The really startling discovery was the fact of real slavery still existing in the world. Today's world!  I discounted my three girls as fitting the description.  They were kidnapped boy-toys on their way to some playboy's mansion, was my guess.  They wouldn't be put under the whip and made to pick cotton somewhere.  But here, I saw several women - and men - in the streets wearing some kind of binder, usually a chain between their wrist manacles but long enough not to prohibit any actions by the wearer.   But...  I also saw three young men being dragged up the street by the heavy chains linked to equally heavy collars.  And the... overseer...  whatever, had a whip what wasn't like the toy I had on the ship.  This one was a real and lethal bullwhip.  And from the looks of the skin of the unfortunates, it was used quite often.  My host, Abasi, had used the german word sklave when pointing to the trio.  And that word needed little translation to be understood in English.  He had a pair that lived in the little hut that now hosted my slav...  girls. I didn't understand.  This was late 1947.  Exact dates are a little hazy.  Before I actually saw it, anybody telling me of actual raw slavery still existing in the world would have been laughed off as a blowhard.  And I expect that was true of most of the civilized world.  Slavery disappeared a century ago or so.  Hell, even with my hit and miss education, I had learned that in history class. My education was just starting. End of Book 1