Chapter 23: An Uncertain Future

Jo and I are writing this because of our continuing concerns over the recent incident with Jenny McEwan. While you may have received reassurances from the US authorities or whoever it is that this is all being done legally, we are both concerned that this organisation owes a duty of care to McEwan. We should be actively trying to either gain her release or be confident that these people have acted completely within the law.

It seems to us that we should take some legal advice on this matter because of our own involvement in McEwan's presence here. Have you had any contact with the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice or whoever this might come under that can give us any comfort on this? Should we as an organisation be trying to contact someone else that could help such as Liberty or Amnesty International or one of those other human rights organisations? Maybe even the media?

Corinne, we both think that we ought to be doing something about this and other members of staff are pretty worried, too, about one of the guests going missing on their watch.

Memo - Confidential

From: Corinne

To: Jo & Charlotte

You are right, of course. I'm concerned about Jenny too and worried about our exposure. There's no need to involve any other agencies. Larry tells me that his contacts say that there should be a rapid resolution. Give it a couple of days and I should get some more details. We can discuss it then.

Memo

From: Corinne

To: Larry

Larry, the whole business with Jenny McEwan is really upsetting things here. People are worried both about McEwan and their own position. I really need to be able to say something reassuring about what's going on and I can't go on saying "Larry's contacts say it's going to be all right". Even if people believe it then there aren't many that would be easy with the Americans being able to carry on like this inside our country.

I really need to be able to give them some practical comfort, or you need to get McEwan back here within the next day or two, at most.

Memo

From: Larry

To: Freddie & Elly

By way of an update, see the copy of the attached from Corinne at Inward Bound. As you can see she's pretty concerned about her ability to keep the lid on things there. I'll talk to Connie and make sure she pushes on as quickly as she can. If we can make up our minds about McEwan quickly, then I think we can contain things. I really don't want a situation in which the Inward Bound folk suddenly discover a desire to chat to the media. The alternative is that we have to come up with some sort of alternative cover story for what we're up to and I don't want to start improvising at short notice. I'll go see Corinne and the team and reassure them.

Jenny's Recollections (Day 40):

They take me from the gymnasium and put me back in my cage. I sleep fitfully. Sometimes I'd wake and I'd be aware of someone in the room watching me.

Daylight comes. They feed me. A dish of cereal and fruit pushed into my cage and then I'm left alone.

Someone comes to check my water bottle and refills it. I'm left alone again. I'm still the only one here; still in my orange robe with the badge, "Detainee".

They let me out of my cage to use the toilet but they put me back in straight away. No one wants to talk to me. No one will tell me how long they intend to keep me here. Then there's more food.

It's later. Connie's secretary appears, looking slightly flustered.

"Oh, good you are here. I was sure you would be." I'm thinking, where else would I be? "Anyhow, Connie wants to see you again." She sees the look of fear in my eyes as I back away in my cage as far from her as I can get. "No, it's all right. She doesn't want to question you. I think they've done what they need to there. Why don't you come with me?"

Done what they want? But do they believe me? Are they just going to send me away somewhere? I am relieved that there may be no more questions and sick at what might happen now and the anxiety of just not knowing. Gingerly, warily, I climb out of the cage. Connie's secretary fastens my wrists behind me, clips a leash to my collar and leads me out of the room.

She chatters away as we walk down the corridor. I'm wanting to ask her what this is all about but I don't get the chance to break in to her constant stream of talk. "You'll find Connie very helpful. She's ever so good with all the detainees ... She works too hard really but she doesn't listen to me ... I suppose she really likes what she's doing. Well, you'd have to wouldn't you? Otherwise you wouldn't put up with it. And she's on call 24x7. I mean take you, turning up here at two in the morning. Of course she knew you were coming but you can't ever be sure what time Harry's people are going to arrive. Anyway, here we are, this is Connie's play room..."

Play room??? Now I am worried.

The room she shows me into has echoes of the one in which I first encountered Ylena. There's the same rather plush, comfortable feeling although this one has more of a Middle Eastern or Moorish feel to it. There's also the same disturbing array of paddles, floggers and whips in racks on the wall plus a lot of other stuff that makes one wall look like a display cabinet in the store that supplied the members of the Spanish Inquisition.

My escort sees the look of shock on my face at the array of 'toys'. "Now, don't you worry," she says, "I'm sure that Connie will go easy on you, at first. She's not had such a bad day, today and you're new, of course. Well as long as you didn't upset her when she was questioning you. You didn't, did you? Sometimes, though, I wouldn't want to be in here for anything! Goodness you'd be surprised how irritable she can get. Takes it out on anyone that gets in her way. Now, I wonder how she'd like you?"

In my mind, I'm begging this woman to chain me up and go away; anything to escape from the constant chatter. Eventually she comes to a conclusion. "This will do it," she says guiding me towards a wooden pillory at one end of the room. She unfastens my wrists from behind me and strips off my robe. She positions me at the pillory and slides the wooden bar down fixing my neck and wrists in place. I'm standing, bent slightly forward, with my hands at shoulder level. The woman takes two lengths of chain and fastens them around my ankles. She pulls the chains through rings on either side of the base of the pillory until my legs are spread widely apart as far as they will go.

The woman says, "That should do." The chain is taut and I'm standing almost immobile. "I'll let Connie know you're here. I'm sure you won't have to wait long."

There's no rush, I think, but before I can say she's gone, leaving me alone in Connie's play room.

I don't know what I'm expecting next. Right now I'm feeling strange. It's almost unreal; as if I've been dropped into some bizarre fetish novel. I'd pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming if I could only get my hands out of the pillory.

Given my state of confusion I'm not sure how I expect Connie to look when she comes in to the playroom. As it is she turns up dressed just as she was in the office. I'm almost disappointed but she still exudes a sexual power. In spite of my being drawn to her erotic charge. I try to protest. "What is all this? I answered your questions. I've nothing more to say."

"Don't be silly," she replies, softly reassuring, as if sensing my true feelings. "That was work, this is play." She looks across at me. "Oh, good," she's says. "I can always rely on Sarah. That's just right. Mmm, we're going to have such fun." Somehow, I think that the fun might be a bit one sided. Connie stands quite close to me. "I get so tense after a long day," she says. "It's a real treat to be able to unwind in here." She unfastens the waist band of her trousers and steps out of them, unfastens her waistcoat and slips that off. She unbuttons her blouse. I'm drawn to her every move, each action is performed with the deliberate, sensuousness of a wild animal. Some sort of cat, I decide. A panther, I suppose.

"They did a lot of work on you, didn't they?" she asks, reaching out and tugging gently on one of my nipple rings. "You didn't have these before you went to Inward Bound did you? Or," she grips my nose ring, "this."

"No, Mistress," I say, almost surprising myself by calling her that. I don't know why I fall so easily under her spell. This must be outside any standing orders that she, or her agency had. They can't treat detainees like this. It must be covered by the Geneva Convention or something. It's barbaric, but I don't object.

"Very good," smiles Connie, "at least you've learned some basic manners." She's looking straight into my eyes - I can't look away from her hypnotic stare. She moves behind me and runs her hand, slowly down from my neck, and the other down between my breasts, across my belly and down to my sex. By the time it reaches between my thighs to part my cunt, I'm lost. I don't try to fight her as she strokes the soft flesh. To my shame I find myself pushing forward as she moves her hand away. "And not just manners, I see," Connie grins.

"Look at this, here!" she says. I feel her touching my buttocks. I know I still carry the marks of Ylena's last beating. "This was done by someone that knows what they were doing," she says. "And you took it too, didn't you? Evenly spaced strokes, absolutely parallel. You weren't struggling, were you?"

It never occurred to me that I'd be betrayed by the marks of Ylena's cane, but it was true. "No, Mistress," I say remembering how I'd lain so still, desperate for each successive blow.

"This is very good work." I feel a single finger tracing the line of one of my wheals. "In fact I think... " She breaks off as if she's decided on something. She goes across to one of the racks on the wall, I'm worried that what she's decided is what she's going to do with me. "I shan't beat you," she says over her shoulder. "It would be a shame to add to that pattern. Like painting on another artist's canvas." It's only as she turns back towards me that I realise what she is going to do. She's smiling, licking her lips in anticipation. Her white blouse is hanging open, her white bra draws my eyes to the dark chasm of her cleavage. But then my glance travels down to the great white phallus she has strapped on with a harness about her hips. "But that doesn't mean there aren't other things we can do with that pretty little bottom."

"Nnooo!" I say, recalling the confused mix of discomfort and pleasure when Ylena had penetrated me there, "no, please don't..."

"Ah, don't be reticent, little one" exclaims Connie, "it's so good to feel filled. But, just in case you feel a little distress, we'll use one of these. She picks up something from the rack and advances towards me. It's a ring gag. I've seen them before but the Inward Bound people haven't used one on me. I'm shaking my head as Connie reaches me, but she's is not to be denied. She pushes the ring into my mouth and twists it somehow, so that my mouth is stretched wide open. I give a strangled "Gnnng" noise. She fastens the strap at the back of my head and from behind me I feel her stroking my back and buttocks.

"There," she says. You can cry out all you like. I so like the sound you'll make with this. Lose yourself, little one, lose yourself." She slowly wipes some tingly lubricant across my anal bud and, as she begins to press the dildo against the cheeks of my arse, I can make only a whimper but I know I'm already losing myself to this woman. I feel the dildo press inside me, filling me more than the probe that Ylena used on me. Connie's belly is warm against my back, the cool silk of her unbuttoned blouse, brushing against me as she leans forward. "Cry for me, little one. Learn to do your best for Connie," she whispers as she presses herself close, pushing the dildo home. She reaches around to my tits, pinching and pulling at them. I'm dribbling around the ring gag. She pulls and then presses forward again, sliding the dildo inside me. I gasp at each thrust.

...

It's much later, I've been taken back to my cage, but now they wake me up.

Connie wants to talk to me again. I'm taken to her office. This time, it's all much more relaxed. She's sitting behind her desk. I'm even allowed to sit, my naked backside cold against the stiff leather of the seat that faces her.

She doesn't mention our earlier encounter. I'm staring at her as she sits, composed and relaxed.

"Now, let's have a conversation about you and the Russians." Connie has evidently decided that continuing down the track of pressing me about Angela isn't going anywhere.

"I don't now any Russians." I can't imagine that I'm going to be any more help to her than I have been so far.

"Curious, given that Professor Dawney is so cosy with them."

That's true, at least. She's always off to conferences in St Petersburg, or Moscow. "She never involved me with any of her meetings."

"Not even in the UK. She didn't get you to 'entertain' any of her Russian contacts when they were over here?"

"No!" I exclaim indignantly, although it's quite the sort of thing she might have done if she'd thought of it. "I've told you I don't know any Russians."

"How about this man?" She pushes a photograph towards me. It's the same photograph she showed me before.

I look at it closely. He looks familiar but I don't remember meeting him. I shake my head. "I already told you, no. I might have seen him around the university but I don't recall meeting him. Ever. Who is he?"

"But, this is someone you see often!"

"Where?"

He stands next to your Prof in the photograph on her desk. The photograph that's been there for months. You are supposed be observant. You see, that sort of mistake makes me think you know exactly who Anatoly Kustensky is."

It means nothing to me. I remember the photograph on Angela's desk but I don't remember seeing this man in it. He could have been there but I really don't remember. I shake my head.

Connie takes back the photograph and puts it on the desk. "Do you know, I would like to believe you but it just does not wash. At some stage you are going to have to come clean about what you have been doing for him. Either now or after we ship you to our secure facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. You must have heard of it. It's that little tropical paradise that the press and those lefty liberals reckon is some kind of hell on earth. And by the way, it can take quite a while for your case to come to trial while you rot away there. And that's before you start your sentence" she says. Not surprisingly I'm sick with worry as I am taken back to my cage.

Another night passes. I sleep fitfully on the floor of the cage. All at once, the lights come on. Connie marches into the room, followed by a small posse of her secretary and two heavies. Whenever she appears, there is no doubt just who is in charge. It's as if she distorts the fabric of space-time by the sheer gravitational energy of her personality.