Originally published in Bound To Please, Vol. 6, No. 2
Story Codes: M/f, BDSM, n/c, interrogation, bondage, torture, electricity, turnabout, XX
The battle is joined. Just as Victor suspected, Claudine's big party turned out to be a diversion, allowing the mutinous Foreign Legion commanders to put their mad coup attempt into play. All that would have remained would have been for Victor and Angelique to slip off to Angelique's secret radio transmitter and warn Maurice back at headquarters, had it not been for a few complications. First, there had been Angelique's sister Juliette's sudden attack on the general who had been amusing himself with her. During the commotion, Victor's personal concubine, Irina, had grabbed Randon's gun and abducted Victor with it. Now everybody's ended up in the hands of their worst enemies, just as zero-hour closes in. The fate of the empire hangs in the balance. To arms!
"My apologies, madam," Randon said suavely. "I know the accommodations are a bit crude compared to what you're used to, but I think you'll find our methods effective."Looking around the dilapidated concrete block house, Claudine could find no reason to argue with Randon's description. Thick walls roughly hewn from the local limestone by Legion pioneer units a century before, a bare, earthen floor, a roof of corrugated iron, added later and now rusting away so that the night sky shown through in places, it was a far cry from her cozy little chamber in the dungeons of the Black Palace. The only "modernization" of the old colonial outpost near Oran consisted of electric lights, powered by a gas generator that huffed and clattered somewhere out in the night. The furnishings were equally crude and simple, a wooden table, a couple of camp chairs and a pair of bare, narrow, iron bed frames.
Claudine looked down at the two naked feminine figures held rigidly down to the frames by sweat stiffened leather straps at the wrists and ankles. She'd always thought there was a bit of a resemblance between Angelique and Juliette. Seeing them fully exposed like this, side by side under merciless, high watt interrogation lamps, the similarities were all too obvious to such an experienced appraiser of woman flesh."Sisters," she said aloud, shaking her head. "I should have known it from the first.”
"Don't remind me," Angelique said bitterly, between clenched teeth. She was already a bit bruised up from Mannheim's rough shredding of her clothing after strapping her down. Juliette, who had been essentially nude when they threw them in the back of the truck, had avoided this Mannheim handling, only to be harshly slapped around by Claudine for having sunk her teeth into General Leclerc, ruining the party. Angelique turned her head, which was the only part of her she could move, to look over at her sister, who stared resolutely up at the ceiling. "Nice plan you and Irina worked out, Juliette. How did you figure on escaping?""I didn't," Juliette replied resolutely.
"That's what I like about idealists, always willing to sacrifice others for their beliefs."Over at the table, Mannheim fussed with a crank operated field telephone apparatus, hooking up long, trailing cables with copper clips at the ends, identified by polarity with red and black tape. He gave the crank a few quick turns, firing up the whiny little dynamo inside. Then he held the two clips a couple of inches apart. A nasty, red spark crackled between them, raising every hair on the already sweating bodies of both bound girls.
"In your expert opinion, which one should we start with," Colonel Randon asked.Claudine pondered, circling each of the bed frames, admiring the voluptuous Levantine curves of her captives. Such valuable merchandise. It would be a shame to waste it.
"It's a difficult choice," Claudine mused. "Juliette is a hardened revolutionary. I've questioned her many times without much to show for it. I think she enjoys suffering for the cause. And Angelique is a professional spy. For her, these things are an occupational hazard. She'll hold out as a matter of personal pride."Going to the table, Claudine slipped on the heavy, insulated rubber glove lying next to the telephone box and took the cables from Mannheim. Zoraya, Claudine's ever-present henchwoman, stood watchful by the heavy, iron door, silent as the surrounding desert.
"Still, I suspect Angelique of having a sentimental affection for her misguided little sister that may outweigh her professional considerations. We'll see how long she's prepared to watch Juliette suffer."Claudine dragged the cables over to the bed frame where Juliette was already beginning to thrash uselessly against the implacable straps, causing the rusty iron under the creak and groan.
"Let her alone, bitch!" Angelique shouted, "she's just a pawn. She doesn't know anything!"Setting the gleaming copper clips down in the middle of Juliette's belly, she knelt down next to her and stroked the girl's hair with her ungloved hand. Still perfumed and made up for the ball, Juliette seemed incongruously lovely in these grisly surroundings.
"It's so sad that you don't have anything useful to tell us," Claudine purred in Juliette's ear. "But your sister does. Perhaps you'd like to talk her into cooperating before we get started. You know, this isn't like back at the palace. We're not playing here. We'll really hurt you this time."For the first time, Juliette turned her head, looking directly into Claudine's eyes.
"Fuck you, bitch," she said succinctly, then went back to staring off into space. Claudine grinned evilly."I knew you wouldn't disappoint me."
Claudine stood up, took the cables and clips in hand and motioned to Zoraya, who brought over a bucket of brackish water and poured it, slowly and evenly, over Juliette's entire body, which stiffened at the sudden cold, nipples hardening involuntarily."The saltwater will ensure better contact," Claudine explained, settling herself in on the bed frame at Juliette's hip. "But then, your sister already knows that, expert that she is. Let's see now, where to put the clips. . . "
The decision was predictable. Taking Juliette's nicely fleshy lower lips, clean shaven according to local custom, between her gloved fingers, she rolled them back and forth until she felt the hard, little knot of Juliette's clit tighten in her subtle grip. With a swift, practiced movement, she applied the ground clip, setting its teeth so they would hold Juliette's most delicate part directly in the path of the current arc. Signaling Zoraya to turn the crank on the field telephone, Claudine worked the fingers of her gloved hand up inside Juliette, who gritted her teeth and moaned, while he brought the red taped clip ever closer to victim's right nipple. The spark flared when the copper was still half an inch from the quivering, pink tip. The scream torn from Juliette's lips echoed off the iron roof, just as the convulsive quivering of her body shook the bed frame."This seems effective. Let's try the other one," Claudine said in her most detached tone. This time, she actually clipped the connection on, taking a solid bite of Juliette's left nipple into the jaws of the clamp before nodding to Zoraya to turn the crank. The added pressure of Claudine's insulated touch on the lower electrode made for an even hotter circuit, the current blasting through Juliette's body like a lightning bolt. Zoraya varied the amperage slightly by the speed at which she turned the crank, eliciting an aria of howls and shrieks from Juliette, whose body rose into an aching arch, despite the ruthless restraints.
Angelique tried to close her ears to her sister's screams, but couldn't help exploding into an outburst of curses and threats against her captors, which only brought a nasty laugh from Mannheim, who came over to feel her up with his rough, beefy hands."It's a shame you're such a stupid, stubborn bitch. We could all be having fun now if you were a bit more cooperative."
It was difficult, with her mouth so dry, but Angelique managed a pretty good attempt at spitting in his eye, earning herself a vicious yank on her hair, followed by a salvo of stinging blows across her tits and thighs from the heavy garrison belt Mannheim had already begun to unsling from his middle. Even through the haze of her misery, Angelique could see the unmistakable bulge in the front of his trousers. Mannheim enjoyed this kind of work, and he was clearly going to make the most of it.Meanwhile, on the adjoining bed, Claudine had unclipped the positive contact from Juliette's right nipple and brought it down between her legs. Using the wetness from Juliette's own insides for lubrication, Claudine pried in between Juliette's ferociously clenched asscheeks with her rubber coated fingers, working the nose of the clip in past the clutching ring of muscle. Another nod to Zoraya and the crank turned again, wringing out shrieks at an even higher pitch, sounds more animal than human.
Tossing aside his belt and dropping his trousers, Mannheim threw himself down on top of the captive Angelique with a roar of sadistic delight. As he thrust himself into her, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head around, forcing her to watch her sister's desperate jerkings and twitchings."Enjoy the show," he said with an ugly laugh. "It's for your benefit.
Witnessing the whole brutal spectacle with a look of remote bemusement, Randon sat down on the end of the table and lit up a Gauloise. At this rate, it was going to be a long night. While these fools were enjoying themselves, he had bigger things on his mind. Where was Victor? What was he doing?Victor himself would have been hard put to answer either of these questions. After Irina had hustled him out of the ballroom at gun point, he had found himself in the back of a speeding D Special driven by none other than young Sergeant Pierre Beaulieu, the luckless, lovestruck legionnaire who was Irina' s lover.
"I should have had you shot when I had the chance," Victor had observed as they sped out onto the road to Algiers. Beaulieu had not disagreed, only asked that Victor give them both a chance to explain. Given the gun at his head, he really had no choice.A short time later, Victor, Irina and Pierre were gathered in the cellar of an old, burned out colonial mansion, a never rebuilt casualty of the '59 campaign, amid some derelict date groves just outside the city. Around them were assembled perhaps a dozen young people, boys and girls really, dressed in the characteristic fatigues and burnooses of the A.L.N. All carried stolen French weapons, including Irina, who was now dressed like the others.
"Now that you've got my attention," Victor said dryly, "what do you want from me?""A favor," Irina replied. Gone was all trace of the subservient harem girl, replaced by a steel eyed freedom fighter who, Victor could tell from one look, was fully capable of killing him, even as she wore his initials tattooed on her cute little rump. There was something eerily familiar about this situation. Someday he would have to figure out how to rid himself of his knack for getting women to point guns at him.
"We know you're the mole from the S.D.E.C.E.," she explained. "We need for you to send a message to your boss. If he puts down the military rebellion, we'll declare a ceasefire in the bombing campaign in Paris and open negotiations for a transitional government. But if the mutineers succeed and declare independence under military rule, there will be a general uprising, followed by civil war. Only a full deployment of Metropolitan ground troops will be able to suppress it.""I'm impressed by your grasp of international politics," Victor said, "and I'd truly love to be of assistance in your perfectly reasonable request, but I can't help you."
The motley band of young revolutionaries looked curiously at Irina, who seemed a bit taken aback."What do you mean?"
"Only Angelique knows the codes to operate the radio transmitter, and right now I imagine she's in the hands of the O.A.S. If we don't get her out soon, they'll find some way to twist the information out of her. The transmitter will be destroyed and I'll have no way of contacting headquarters."Irina thought about this a moment, then huddled with her youthful compatriots. Turning back to Victor, she made an announcement.
"We think we know where they would have taken her. We will help you get her back."Looking around the room at these armed children, Victor wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. He felt briefly overwhelmed by the utter senselessness of this kind of warfare. It just went on and on from one generation to the next. They learned how to hold a gun before they learned how to ride a bicycle.
"It's a generous offer," he conceded, "but I don't think we're quite up to taking on a detachment of legionnaires at our current strength. We'll need a little reinforcing. If we can just stop by my friend Mendoza's place on the way, I think I might be able to enlist some additional troops."They all looked perfectly baffled.
Things were no less mysterious at the grim blockhouse where, as Claudine had predicted, Angelique and Juliette were proving to be perfectly intractable. Having failed to extract any useful information out of Angelique by playing on her sympathies for her sister, Claudine now resorted to an appeal to more selfish motivations. At Randon's suggestion (he seemed to be quite the expert, for someone who claimed to detest such proceedings), a second set of cables had been rigged from the field telephone. As a result, one set of clips could be left attached to Angelique's tits while Claudine was free to explore regions further south with the other set.White-hot explosions of anguish throbbed outward through Angelique's entire being from the fierce burning at the points of contact. Her ears rang deafeningly. Her jaws ground together as the tears and sweat poured out. Angelique prayed for unconsciousness, but knew better than to expect it. Practicing medicine in a war zone had taught her more than she cared to know about the body's ability to withstand pain.
Able torturer that she was, Claudine knew to give Angelique occasional rest periods, to prevent the shocks from scrambling the very data Claudine needed for Angelique to remember. During one such interval between shouted questions, Angelique dared a glance over to the floor, where Mannheim now entertained himself with Juliette. Having bound her wrists to ankles in the crapaudine fashion with the leather straps from the bed frame, he had flipped her onto her face in the dirt, her behind conveniently up in the air. He then proceeded to sodomize her in a leisurely fashion, occasionally lifting her head by the hair to plunge it into the bucket of slimy water. The spasms occasioned by her retching and choking seemed to amuse him greatly. The one thing that still amazed Angelique about men was how truly swinish they were at heart.Not that women were all that much better, she noted fairly as Claudine rearranged the cables one more time, eyes burning with the pure lust to inflict suffering. Claudine had let the neckline of her evening dress fall open, revealing her full bosom, which heaved with the feverish arousal of cruelty. Claudine's delicate nostrils flared as she ran her sharp, red lacquered nails ever so lightly down the middle of Angelique's body between applications of the current. Befogged with agony as she was, Angelique found herself thinking with a certain sour irony that if she and Claudine had met under other circumstances, they might have found much in common to enjoy.
The atmosphere was getting just a little thick for Randon, who stepped out through the iron door for a breath of fresh air. Distracted by the sights he'd beheld inside; he didn't immediately notice the absence of the two sentries posted on either side of the door. By the time he did, it was too late. Before he could even unsnap his holster, he felt the muzzle of Victor's FAMA assault rifle in the back of his ribcage.Nobody even looked up from what they were doing when Randon came back in. They didn't notice his wide-eyed expression of terror, nor the silent entry of several large men in black robes right behind him. The attention of all was suddenly riveted, however, by the meaty thunk of Victor's rifle butt against the side of Mannheim's head, knocking him cold in mid-hump. He fell over in the dust, hardon vibrating in midair. Claudine quickly scrambled for Mannheim's pistol, clearly hoping for a repeat of her escape from Saigon.
This time, she didn't get very far. Irina shouldered through the assembled tribesman of the Ouled Sahnoun to kick Claudine's legs out from under her. Claudine landed on her face, hard, but she rolled over quick as a cat, ready to spring up and fight. She was not quite quick enough, however, for Irina was already over her, the bayonet of her Kalashnikov just touching Claudine's throat. Irina's voice was icy."You were an excellent teacher, Claudine. Those things you did to me. The things you made me do. You taught me how to act without mercy. Let me show you just how well."
"Too easy by half," Victor said scornfully. Irina paused in mid-plunge to look over at him quizzically."She made a slave of you. You could do the same for her."
"An excellent suggestion, my friend," said Abad el Kadar as he pushed his way into the room past his comrades. "A woman with her talents and experience ought to be of some value to us."A nasty grin spread slowly across Irina's face. It proved quite contagious, moving on to Victor, who was busy undoing the straps holding Angelique to the bed frame, and to Angelique, who quickly went to the aid of her sister.
Looking back and forth among them all, Claudine cried out desperately."Victor, you can't let them do this to me!"
"I'm so sorry, darling, but this is clearly a local affair."Claudine fought viciously, but she was no match for the half dozen huge slave traders, who quickly overpowered her, dragging her to her feet and binding her at the wrists and elbows with leather thongs. For a moment, Victor wondered what was going on when he saw Irina rooting through Claudine's handbag, which lay on one of the camp stools. Then he saw the ring of keys. Finding the right one, Irina unlocked the gold slave collar from around her own fair skinned neck, took it over to where the tribesman held Claudine in check, and clamped it around Claudine's throat.
"Consider it a going away present."The room was filled with laughter as Abad's men hauled the cursing Claudine out the door. Abad sighed, watching Victor gently place his coat around Angelique's bare shoulders.
"I suppose she's still your wife," he said sadly. Abad's face suddenly brightened. "But what of her sister? Perhaps. . . "Angelique cut him off.
"She's his wife too. He's married to both of us." Victor and Juliette looked at Angelique with equal amazement. She shrugged, whispered to them."I wouldn't object, if I were either of you."
"You can take the Bedouin girl, Zoraya," Victor suggested helpfully. "She was Claudine's assistant. I'm sure she would serve you with equal loyalty."Zoraya inclined her head in a graceful gesture of submission. She went to Abad's side and knelt, unbidden, to accept a steel collar and wrist shackles from his proud first son, who eyed her with an interest that wasn't entirely professional.
"So now what?" Colonel Randon finally summoned the nerve to ask. "Surely you don't intend to take on the entire regiment with a few nomads and would-be revolutionaries.""No, indeed," Victor replied.
On the way back to Angelique's clinic in a truck they commandeered from Randon's detail, all of whom were left trussed like so many turkeys at the blockhouse when Abad and his tribe faded into the night, Victor brought Angelique up to date. It had been quite a challenge, roaring out into the desert on his bike with nothing more than some vague directions from Mendoza to gather up Abad and his men, and an even bigger one to convince them that it was in their interest to help him. Then there was the matter of getting them to ride in the vehicles Irina's A.L.N. friends had provided. Now there was one more thing to do.While Angelique tended to her sister's injuries, which were rather minor, all things considered, Victor used Angelique's code book to tap out a message on the transmitter hidden behind the examining room wall. The rest, as they say, was history. Maurice, Victor's headquarters contact, had already put a few companies of gendarmes militaire on alert after Victor's previous dispatch, was standing by with them at a base in Rabat. The sound of Alouette helicopters was heard over the city practically before Victor had completed his transmission.
And as for the Commander In Chiefs surprise inspection, it turned out to be a quite different surprise, a broadcast over national radio and television back home, conceding the inevitability of Algerian liberation and urging all loyal troops to stand down immediately and await further orders. Most obeyed.In due course, Leclerc and a few other ranking officers were decorated and cashiered, the entire First Regiment was given a unit citation and disbanded and Randon, Mannheim and most of the other officers who had frequented Claudine's former establishment were brought back to Paris for trial. With the Legion's typically poetic sense of justice, Victor was given command of the firing squad that carried out the sentence of the court martial. And Sergeant Pierre Beaulieu, for services to The Republic including innumerable instances of illegal fraternization and the abduction of a superior, was given a field commission and awarded the Croix De Guerre, Second Class. Victor and Maurice shared a good laugh over what an excellent staff officer he would make.
As for Angelique, despite an offer from Maurice to remain in Paris after the trials with a permanent position in the Third Department, she insisted on going back to Algiers, to help her sister and friends try and build a new country."I always knew you were a secret idealist," Victor said, kissing her goodbye at the gate at Orly.
"And I always knew you weren't," she replied, kissing him back.And then she was gone and Victor was home, safe, one more time. Now then, there was this new club he'd heard about in Monmartre where they dressed the waitresses up in rubber costumes…