Pam-Ann (30 page)

“I’m sorry, Mistress, she’s not
available. She’s excused duties.”

The girls looked towards the
doorway and the raised voice of Christine’s replacement as
overseer.

“Maybe you’d like to come and
explain that to Miss Peake yourself, lover.”

Pam’s stomach turned over. The
overseer took a step back and looked nervously in her direction.
Eve stepped into the room, clad in her usual leather and silk.

“Miss Peake sent me. She says
you know why.”

Heart racing, Pam struggled off
the bunk and Daisy helped her to her feet. She took a few tentative
steps.

“Ouch! That must hurt,” Eve
said, looking at her purple rear cheeks. “Don’t worry, I’ll see she
isn’t beaten any more,” she told the slave girls.

The salve had turned the
fire
in Pam’s buttocks to embers but their
deeper ache and stiffness slowed her pace to a crawl. The bodyguard
scooped her into her arms and made for the door. Pam looked back.
The slave girls disappeared as Eve stepped into the corridor. There
had been no time for farewells. Perhaps it was for the best.

* * * * *

“So maybe you’ve found your
perfect girl at last, Rafael,” Alex Riley said.

Drake sighed and ran a hand
through his hair. “Maybe not, but she does feel different to the
others somehow.” She was that all right, though if he told the
Chief how different the man would never believe him. But that
particular difference was not what troubled him. “I shouldn’t have
beaten her. Not when I was angry.” And hurt. It had felt like a
knife twisting in his chest when she had backed away with that look
on her face.

Riley shrugged. “She’s a slave
girl. They get beaten. She’ll get used to it. Buy her if you want
her, I say.”

Rafael sighed again and looked
out over the engine room through the office windows. The orange
glare of the furnace flared and he saw the lithe, gleaming bodies
of the girl stokers, all highlights and shadows as they toiled
in the heat
. “I do want her,” he said,
“but…. Ah hell, I’ve got this strange feeling, and this even
stranger idea in my head. I want her, but I want her to want me
too.” Suddenly self-conscious, he looked away from the Chief’s
quizzical glance. They had talked often but he had never revealed
very much about his feelings, especially ones that were new and
unfamiliar and disturbing. Nevertheless he continued. “I thought I
had gained her confidence when we were at the hotel. I thought she
was starting to trust me. Hell, I even thought she liked me. But
everything changed when we were back on board. And then when she
acted so horrified that I was going to buy her…. I guess I should
have remembered she’s not used to that.” Rafael looked up but the
Chief showed no curiosity at the comment. He gave a regretful
smile. “I said some things I didn’t mean about that damned
Austrian, and Persephone and her Sapphism. Then I caned her ass. I
could still just go ahead and buy her but it wouldn’t be the same
knowing it isn’t what she wants too.” He slapped a hand down onto
his knee. “Damn it! I don’t understand what made me act like that.
I’ve never given a girl an unjustified punishment before.”

Riley leaned back in his chair,
tapped the bowl of his pipe on his palm and smiled. “Maybe because
you’ve never been jealous before.”

“What?”

“Are you saying you’ve never
felt jealous over a girl?”

“Sure I have. It’s just….”
Rafael broke off. He
was
jealous. He wanted Ann – no, her
name was Pam and he wanted her for himself, and all to himself. “I
want to hurt her but I want to hold her too,” he said, continuing
his thoughts aloud. “She’s beautiful and strong and proud, and she
has a bold look in her eye when she thinks I’m not watching her.”
He grinned at the memory. “But she’s submissive too and I’m sure
she loves pain, and she fucks like…. Well, you should have seen her
when we were in New York. You’d know what I mean.” He barked a
laugh. “Hell,
I’m
not sure I know what I mean.”

Riley grinned. “I think I
do.”

“Then I wish you would tell
me.”

The Chief shook his head. “You
know it too. There’s only one reason you would care so much about
your slave girl. Go figure it out. Go and see her, Rafael.”

“I ought to get some sleep,” he
replied, getting to his feet. “I’m on duty in four hours.”

“No,” Riley persisted, “you
ought to go and see her.”

Rafael took the Chief’s advice.
The jealousy he had failed to recognize for what it was rose up
again when he discovered Eve had taken her. He hurried to
Persephone’s stateroom. Only Milly and Tania were there, lying top
to toe on the bed, the petite blonde with her face buried between
Tania’s thighs while the brunette worked a big dildo back and forth
in her rear entrance. Flushed and smelling strongly of sex they
answered his questions breathlessly.

“The bridge? What the hell is
she doing on the bridge?” As Rafael spoke he looked through the
window and saw the orange ball of the sun low on the horizon to
starboard. That was wrong. At this time of day it should have been
behind them. He looked at the few clouds in the sky, puffy, cotton
wool cumulus drifting sedately at the same height as the airship.
There were no crosswinds this time. If they were off course it was
deliberate. He left the girls to their game and headed for the
bridge. The knot in his gut tightened with every step as his mind
raced feverishly and the suspicion that had formed there became a
certainty.

She was looking for the
blackness. She was trying to get back, and Persephone was helping
her. When he had seen ’Sephone and Traske together on the boarding
ramp he might have guessed that they were plotting something
together, if he had not been so wrapped up in thoughts of Pam.
She
had even made him forget his own
obsession with seeking out the mysterious black phenomenon. Perhaps
now that ambition was about to be fulfilled. In spite of all the
years he had spent working towards exactly that, Rafael hoped
desperately that it would not happen.

He wanted Pam more than he had
ever wanted anything before. He could not let her just vanish from
his life and his world. But had he any right to keep her from her
own life? She was not the willing slave he had taken her for in the
beginning. She did not think of herself as a slave at all. Yet she
had submitted to
him, and not entirely
unwillingly, he was
sure
. For a
little while he would
even
have sworn he
had sensed in her that emotion he had never expected to
kindle in
any woman, slave or free. As the
thought came, so did the knowledge of what Alex Riley must already
have known. The thing he had never sought from anyone, he now felt
himself for Pam. It only made the decision he had to reach all the
harder.

* * * * *

“You wouldn’t like to tell me
what’s going on, lover?” Eve asked, carrying Pam down the stairs
with as much ease as she would a child. “Persephone gave me an
envelope but said not to open it until after you’re gone, whatever
that’s supposed to mean.” Her look was concerned and frankly
curious.

“I’d better not,” Pam replied,
“and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

The girl looked at her
thoughtfully. “I didn’t, but I might now.”

Pam lowered her eyes
and remained silent
. Persephone was waiting
on the deck below. She wore a conservative, grey business suit and
black low-heeled shoes.

“I’ve been keeping these since I
arrived,” she said, in response to Pam’s glance. “I hoped I’d never
need them again.” Her eyebrows arched as she stared at her ravaged
bottom. “Oh, Lord! When I told you to keep Rafael distracted I
didn’t mean like that.”

“It was his choice, not
mine.”

“I believe he really does care,”
Persephone said, and smiled thinly. “He’s going to be disappointed.
I hope.”

The tight feeling in Pam’s chest
increased.

“You can go, Eve. We’ll manage
alone from here.”

“With respect, Ma’am, you
won’t,” the tall bodyguard replied. “Not unless you can carry
Ann.”

The blonde frowned at Pam’s
purple buttocks. “All right, come on.”

“Where are we going?” Pam
asked.

“The bridge. Traske sent a
message. He’s waiting. We should have arrived by now. He’s going to
circle for half an hour. That’s all the time we have. Oh, God, I
hope it’s enough!” Persephone half-ran along the corridors and down
flights of stairs with Eve striding easily in her wake.

The bridge was on the lowest
deck and furthest forward. As they entered, Traske glanced back
from his position beside the big steel wheel that steered the
airship.

“Clear the bridge, Mister
Talbot.” The Commodore closed a hand over the wheel. “I’ll take the
con. You will remain outside the door. No one is to enter until I
give permission.”

“Sir?” The second officer stared
in confusion.

“Everyone out. That’s a direct
order, Mister. Go on, it won’t be for long.”

Talbot still hesitated. “Sir, I
don’t....”

“Clear the bridge, man,” Traske
barked. “All of you out.”

The eight crewmen left their
stations, looking puzzled but not alarmed. Traske was their
captain. Far more reluctant, Talbot turned as he reached the
doorway.

“No one enters,” the Commodore
said as the lieutenant’s mouth opened.

“Aye aye, Sir.”

As the door closed on Talbot,
Traske produced a paper from his pocket. “Thirty-nine degrees
north, twenty-five degrees west, as agreed. We’re ninety miles off
course and about a hundred and twenty north-north-east of the
Azores, though what’s so special about here is beyond me.” He
grinned as Persephone unfolded the paper. “And none of my
business.”

He still did not know. Pam
wondered how he would react when he found out. Persephone went to
the forward window, only a few paces in front of the wheel, and
searched the sky in every direction. Eve followed and set Pam back
on her feet. It was almost twilight at the airship’s altitude but
the sea below had already vanished in darkness.

“How do I know we’re where you
say we are?” Persephone asked.

“You’ll have to trust me on
that. But I have no reason to lie and fifteen million reasons not
to the minute you sign that.”

She took the pen he handed her
and dashed her signature across the bottom of the sheet. Traske
took it and turned the wheel. Steam hissed and gears clanked and
the
Empire’s Triumph
began turning slowly starboard.

“Thirty minutes,” Traske warned.
“That’s all your money has bought you.”

The blonde looked at the clock
above the chart table and then at Pam beside her. To the American
girl’s surprise Persephone took her hand.

“It’s out there somewhere,” she
said, staring intently into the gathering dusk. “It
will
come. I know it will.”

“What are we looking for,
Ma’am?” Eve asked.

“You’ll know if you see it,
believe me,” Pam said, her throat suddenly dry. She thrust away her
lurid imaginings about everything that could go wrong and
concentrated on searching the sky as the airship continued turning.
She would never see him again. Pam forced that thought from her
head too. The sky grew lighter as they circled away from the night
to the east and back towards the setting sun. No one spoke. Pam
could hear her heart thumping and feel Persephone trembling through
the tight grip on her hand. Would it come? Would it take her back
where she belonged, away from this warped parody of reality? Her
chest tightened. And away from Rafael too.

“What’s our height, Traske?”
Persephone demanded.

“Eight thousand feet.”

“I was twenty thousand higher
when I was taken,” Pam said.

“Me too.” Still clutching Pam’s
hand the blonde looked back at the Commodore. “We need to go
higher.”

“Forget it. I don’t mind
indulging your whims if you’re crazy enough to pay me for doing it,
but I won’t endanger the passengers or the ship for your sake, nor
myself either. The air is too thin to breathe if we go any
higher.”

“I saw something,” Eve said.

“Where? Where?” Persephone
turned back to the window.

“It was just for a second.” Eve
pointed towards the pink undersides of the clouds that drifted
where the sun had almost sunk below the horizon. “It… I don’t know
what it was, just something… black.”

“Stay on this course,”
Persephone said, sucked in a deep breath and peered into the
deepening blue.

“Oh, I don’t believe it!” Traske
said, and gave a harsh laugh. “You’re looking for the black thing,
aren’t you? Don’t you know it’s a myth? The first airmen invented
it a century ago to fool gullible passengers like you. Is that what
you paid me a fortune for, Persephone? So you could hunt for
something that doesn’t.... Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty!”

Pam blinked. Her heart leapt. It
was there! A split second ago there had been nothing. Now the
clouds were boiling and seething around the formless, featureless
blackness and her eyes were already hurting from staring into
darkness deeper than any darkness had a right to be. Persephone’s
grip was close to breaking her fingers, yet she made no effort to
pry them loose. The thing seemed to be moving to the left.

Persephone jerked her head
around. “No! No, you’ve got to head for it.”

“Are you mad?” Traske continued
turning the wheel as fast as he could, swinging the airship away.
“I’m getting as far from that thing as I can. Bloody hell! I
thought it was just a legend.”

“Now you know different,” Drake
said.

With all her attention on the
Commodore, Pam had not seen him enter. He strode to the steering
position and took the wheel in both hands, halting Traske’s frantic
efforts to turn it. Hurrying after him, the second officer stopped
dead, and the anxious look on his face turned to open-mouthed
amazement as he stared beyond the women gathered at the window. A
board mounted on the wall began buzzing and became a mass of
flashing red lights.