Chapter 9: Ellie's Trip

Ellie was less than enthusiastic when Clegg broached the idea with her. She adopted the pensive, quiet look that Clegg always found worrying.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Freddie?" she said. "Why not just let Anatoly clean things up from his side."

"Because it's our customers that are involved and a confrontation with Anatoly could seriously affect their ability to business with us in the future. That and the fact that I don't trust Henry not to get caught up in it."

"But, Freddie, you know what the Kuhtian's think of women. If it's Council Members or the like that are involved, I won't have a chance to get close to anything that's going on." Ellie folded her arms, convinced that she'd produced a winning point.

"True," said Clegg. "But, from what Henry said, I don't think that's what is happening. This sounds like a little private enterprise from Lauren and sweet little Victoria. If it is, you'll be ideally placed to sort it out. As a woman. Besides if Henry has got his sticky paws on this then I want it to be kept in the family. You're the only real answer, Ellie."

Ellie shook her head. "I don't think I am but I can't think of a better one right now," she said.

Clegg sat back looking pleased. Ellie looked at him in exasperation. He was impossible when he was right, she thought.

While Ellie was getting ready for her departure, Lauren was helping Natalya become acclimatised to her new home. When the case she had been strapped into was opened, Natalya was astonished by the sight of Lauren and Victoria confronting her.

Lauren and Victoria had evidently determined that the best way to start the induction of their captives was with process of intimidation and that the most intimidating thing for the girls would be to be greeted by a site as bizarre as anything that they would ever have seen.

The two girls had taken full advantage of the extensive fetish wardrobe that Victoria had acquired as a result of the indulgences of her husband and the various men that had placed themselves in her thrall in the hope of gaining influence with the Kalinin's son or the Kalinin himself.

The four girls had been forced to their knees. Lauren and Victoria stood before them; Victoria in a black rubber cat suit that she had topped off with a sinister gas mask, and Lauren in leather trousers and jacket. Both were wielding vicious looking whips.

"Welcome, ladies," Victoria began before she went on to explain how they were now to be trained as concubines for Kushtian men that would pay well to have reluctant Russian girls in their beds.

It was only after Lauren and Victoria had left that Husna Hannish, the Overseer, felt able to express his distaste. As the door to the room shut behind Lauren he spat a plug of chewing tobacco in its direction.

"Hunes," he muttered under his breath. "Bitches." His colleague nodded in agreement. It was all very well for the two of them to flounce in here, parading up and down in their high heels and acting like they owned the place but now something needed to be done with the women they had brought back. Husna had thought he had an opportunity to better himself with Koresh's wife, but then she had seemed only interested in sex. Now there was this other game.