Chapter 53: The Price of Friendship

I gave Freddie an update on Rachel's progress. He seemed happy. I was wondering whether he was really worried about the outcome or whether he was just keen to see me getting fully involved. Whichever was the case, the threat of violent intervention appeared to have receded.

Rachel was still completing the programme. I'd called Sarah into my office. She appeared, smartly dressed as always her clearly visible collar the only real indication of her slave status, exactly on time. "Good morning, Mr Ross," she said brightly. "It's so nice to be back here. How can I help?"

I told her that I wanted to talk to her about her experiences with Brad and Lauren to help build up my picture of the ways that our customers used their purchases. I could see she was uncomfortable with the idea of re-visiting the past few weeks but I wasn't really interested in her concerns and I brushed them aside. "I'm sorry, Sarah, I'm sure you didn't enjoy it but that's hardly the point is it? I know you've enjoyed some privileged treatment around here but do I really need to remind you about your role?"

"But Larry," she began.

"I think we'll keep this on a formal basis, #06.085," I said using her slave number. You could see that she wasn't used to it. It brought her up short.

"I'm sorry, er, Sir," she said, recognising that she had stepped out of line. "Of course, I'll answer any questions that you have."

"Good, that's better, Sarah," I responded. She smiled. "Carry on in that way and we'll get along just fine."

"Of course, Sir," she said.

I picked up my note book. This would have been easier with Rachel to take notes and write things up but I could manage. She was well on in her programme but I wasn't going to use her for things like this just yet. "So," I said, "tell me about your duties at the Castle."

"Umm, well, I didn't really have anything much to do for the Emir, you know. He left on some business trip and I was supposed to be taking care of his daughter. Well, she took that to mean I was to be her personal slave. Most of the time I was running around for her finding meals or drinks or getting her things when she was down by the pool. Fetching and carrying really. I mean she shouted at me a lot and she locked me in the chastity belt when she found me with the guards by the pool but apart from that, she was alright I suppose."

"Beatings or other punishments?"

"Well no, not really. I mean I try to do a good job so perhaps she didn't have cause to. She did slap my face once when she thought I hadn't been quick enough to bring something but apart from that, until she locked me in the pillory, she hadn't beaten me at all. It was all a bit sudden. I didn't expect it; she just seemed to suddenly decide I'd crossed some invisible line. Thinking about it maybe she had her eyes on one of the guards for herself."

I thought about what Sarah was saying. Lauren was obviously inexperienced. Keeping slaves needed skills like any other form of management. I knew from my own background that if you wanted staff to change it was best to pick up undesirable behaviour early on. "But then who sends you to slave keeping school?" I thought. It was an interesting thought. I made a note of it. Maybe there was an opportunity related to the expansion in markets with new slave keepers emerging. How else would they learn about security, appropriate punishment, care and feeding? It wasn't intuitive, after all.

Sarah carried on talking about her experiences serving Lauren. It sounded pretty much as though Lauren had just wanted a housemaid, although amusingly Sarah was absolutely banned from cleaning up Lauren's room. Lauren had been very concerned that her father shouldn't get the wrong idea, she wanted it to look like a tip and so it was left.

I quizzed her some more. No, the guards hadn't raped her; Brad was very tight on discipline and wouldn't allow it, although a couple of the guards had asked him if they could. No, Lauren hadn't tried to use her sexually either, hadn't made any mention of it.

I asked her about her living arrangements. It had been fairly comfortable because there hadn't been any other slaves in the castle at the time, she'd had a room to herself, locked in at night, of course, and the way things were set up now there would have been three others in the room and they'd have been locked to their beds but they hadn't bothered with that because she was on her own. The daily routine started at 6 o'clock with cleaning and getting the house ready. Lauren usually called her at about 9 when she woke up and she'd have to serve breakfast in her room. After that, it was whatever Lauren wanted, blended in with a routine of house cleaning and odd bits of secretarial work whenever Brad phoned in. It wasn't arduous. The main problem was the boredom.

We spent an hour or so talking. I thought I'd got some useful ideas out of it. It was clear that new slave keepers and the expansion of the market into slaves for women was going to need different training arrangements. I sent Sarah back to Harry and set about drafting a note to Rick and Freddie on my thoughts. That took me up to lunch time.

Rick caught Harry, Tricia and myself in the canteen. We'd just finished lunch. He dropped his own tray alongside us. "Snatched any good women lately?" he asked.

Harry just looked up from his coffee.

"I've got an answer to that memo of yours — about the Cindy collection."

"Good," said Harry. "How does it look?"

"OK, I think. We found her all right, although your details were a bit misleading."

"How come," said Harry, warily.

"Well we've got a Cindy Bailey. Works for a motor dealer. Used to work in their Rugby branch."

"That sounds right," Harry said.

"We thought so. Only thing is your note said you thought she'd be in Coventry now. She's actually in Solihull."

"Fair enough, it's not that far away. She could have moved again."

Rick shook his head. "Nope. Been there all the time since they closed the Rugby branch. And its not a BMW dealer, either, it's Mercedes. Your note sent us on a bit of a wild goose chase."

Harry grunted.

"Anyway, do you want to run through the details?"

"Yeah sure," said Harry, "I'd finished lunch anyway."

"Fine," said Rick pulling a manila file out from under his tray. "I thought you would. He opened the file. "Let's see. Cindy Bailey, 25 years old, red head, neat body. Looks quite like your Sarah, thinking about it."

"Yeah," said Harry, "I know. In fact that's the idea."

Rick went on, reading from the file. "Lives on her own, small flat, edge of Solihull. Split up from a bloke about a month back. Sounds like it was a pretty bruising relationship. Works for Mercedes in Solihull as one of their 'sales negotiators'. Quite good at it by all reckoning."

"I thought Sarah said she had more of a PA / admin role," I said chipping in.

"That's right," said Rick. "She did. That's what she started as when she moved up from Rugby. Changed over to this about six months later. Three months after that she bought the flat. Makes her targets every month. One of their best performers if I believe my sources."