A Desirable Property

by Nicole Dere

  The girl’s eyes stared coldly at me, and I lowered my gaze. ‘Jane Freeman?’ She was reading my details. ‘You are British?’ I nodded. She glanced across at Carl. ‘You are her husband?’ An incongruously innocent smile spread across her face. ‘Your wife is not very brave, I think, to piss herself, yes?’ Her foreign accent was slight but noticeable, and she was undeniably attractive. She hesitated, and then said, ‘Okay, come, but do not try to be brave.’ She laughed. ‘I think not, but if you try anything, I will shoot.’

  I moved, getting awkwardly to my feet, suddenly deeply embarrassed at the feel of my crumpled skirt, wondering if it was stained. There was a faint patch in the dip of the seat. ‘What are you doing?’ The sharpness of her words made me jump. I had been bending to pick up my small cabin bag, stuffed beneath my chair.

  ‘My… my toilet bag… my things,’ I stammered. ‘I have a change—’

  ‘No! Come!’ She cradled her gun in her right arm and the fingers of her left hand dug in hard on the softness of my upper arm as she pulled me out into the aisle. She turned to one of her companions. He had swarthy features, handsome in an aquiline way. A thick drooping black moustache, neatly trimmed, marked his lower face. ‘I take this one to the toilet,’ she said. ‘She has pissed herself with fear.’ He grinned and moved aside to let us pass. My breath rasped in a sob, and I kept my head down, feeling the need to cry welling up inside me.

  When she shut the door of the tiny compartment on us, there was scarcely room for us to stand without touching. She laid her weapon down on the shelf beside the small hand basin. The light seemed to bounce from the shiny walls all round me; its brilliance hurt my eyes. ‘Come!’ she snapped curtly. ‘Take off your panties. Clean yourself.’

  I had wanted my bag because, as well as my toilet things, it contained a spare pair of knickers. I paused helplessly for a second until, with a hiss of impatience, she plunged her hands under the thin material of my skirt. I felt her fingernails scratch my skin as she sought the elastic of my briefs, and then hauled them down my hips and thighs. With a whimper of fright I took over from her, bending awkwardly and shuffling them clear of my feet. I had to slip off my sandals in order to do so.

  She seized the back of my skirt and lifted it until my bottom was bared. ‘This will soon dry,’ she said. ‘Unless you want to remove it too.’

  ‘No,’ I gasped, horrified at the notion of being made to walk back through the plane naked from the waist down.

  ‘Here.’ Her tone was still one of irritation. She was thrusting a box of wet-wipes at me, from the shelf over the basin. I began to cry softly, I couldn’t help it, overcome with shame and terror while I hastily wiped between my legs, my pubis, and the cleft of my bottom. I was deeply aware of her steady gaze on me. She grabbed my light skirt again, holding it up above my belly. ‘What is this?’ she asked.

  The change of tone startled me. She was smiling again, nodding amusedly at the red smudge on the side of my right thigh, where Carl had slapped me the day before. ‘I… I must have knocked myself,’ I stammered unconvincingly.

  She chuckled, and I flinched as her cool fingers passed lightly across it. ‘It looks more like a handprint. A smack, you say. Your husband did this to you?’

  ‘No, no, I – oh!’ I tried to deny it, but she spun me round and aimed a swift swat at my bare bottom. I felt its sharp sting. Instinctively my hand flew down to touch, and touched her own before I jerked it away again.

  ‘You like – when you love?’ She nodded down at my bared flesh, and my face flushed again. Tears sprang up into my eyes. I shook my head and she laughed, a low, rippling kind of sound. ‘You have a very nice ass, yes? Made for spanking.’

  There was an excruciating pause while I stared down, my gaze misted with tears. My skirt was still caught up and I could see the dark bush of my pubes standing out against the pale of my belly and thighs. ‘Please,’ I whispered feebly, the tears starting to spill down my cheeks.

  Abruptly she pushed me, and I sat down on the low lavatory pedestal. I could feel the rub of her slacks on my knees as she stood over me. Her hands pressed firmly on my shoulders. ‘You’d better do another pee. I don’t want another accident.’

  I shook my head, and then yelped as she grabbed my hair with one hand and slapped me stingingly across the cheek with her other. ‘Do as you’re told, bitch,’ she hissed.

  I cried quietly, snuffling abjectly. I pushed out my belly, squeezing my bladder, and managed to produce a brief dribble of urine. ‘That’s better.’ She was smiling, her voice calm, almost pleasant again. ‘You just have to obey, that’s all. Then everything is okay.’ She was running her hand through my hair now, smoothing it. Her palm cupped round my neck, and then my still smarting jaw. ‘Get up.’

  There was hardly room for me to do so because she was standing so close. As I rose my skirt was still caught between us. Her body was touching mine now and I tensed, trembling with renewed fear. Her hand moved round the back of my neck, then slid down to my hollowed back, pulling me into her embrace. ‘I like good girls,’ she smiled, her eyes holding me with an intensely smouldering look. I gazed back like a paralysed rabbit, unable to look away. Her lips were within inches of mine; I could feel her sweet, warm breath.

  ‘Do you like girls?’ Her voice was thick, shocking in its intimacy. I saw her honey-coloured throat working, knew she was about to kiss me. I flinched and moved my mouth away from hers, then felt her hand dig cruelly into the back of my head, fingers talon-like in my hair, holding my face towards her. Her lips closed over mine in a raw kiss. I felt the hardness of her teeth, her probing tongue, and with a sob, I opened my mouth, yielding it to her. Her tongue plunged in, possessing, draining me of strength, and I sagged against her, felt her pliant body pressed hard against me, her arms holding my limp frame to her vibrant one. My head spun, I couldn’t breathe. I hung giddily, gulping for air when her lips finally released mine.

  Her hands moved under my skirt with firm tenderness, tracing my thighs, my hips, and then cradling the tautened rounds of my bottom, savouring their contours. The crisp roughness of her khaki clothing pressed against me. She kissed me again, gently, lingeringly, and I kept my mouth to hers submissively open. I shivered at the blatantly amorous strokes of her hands about my bare flanks. Her short fingernails scratched lightly as she traced the deep groove of my buttocks.

  Her small breasts lifted the material of her shirt, and she sounded breathless as she gave a little laugh and released me. ‘I think I could teach you to love girls,’ she teased. ‘But we’d better go, bitch, or they’ll think we’re having fun in here, yes?’

  I kept my eyes down, staring at my feet as we made our way back to my seat, imagining all the frightened stares on me. I was deeply conscious of my nudity under my thin skirt. ‘Don’t catch cold,’ my captor chuckled when at last I reached the empty chair beside Carl. I could still feel the faint dampness underneath me as I sat.

  ‘You all right?’ Carl asked. His voice sounded shocking, and I gasped with fright.

  ‘I said no talking,’ the blonde girl said, with quiet menace. My terrified eyes fixed pleadingly on Carl. Somehow I knew what his tortured thoughts were, knew how he still felt diminished in front of me, that the knowledge of his failure to fuck me still lay between us.

  ‘Look,’ he said tensely, ‘my wife’s very frightened. We all are. What are you going to do with us? Why aren’t we landing?’

  ‘Please,’ the girl said reasonably. She leaned forward, over me, motioned for Carl to come closer, and he too leaned forward until his head was close to hers. Her right hand moved with blurring speed, formed into a fist that smashed hard into Carl’s mouth. He shot back, his eyes wide with incredulous shock and pain. A thin line of blood trickled down from the split in his lower lip and his fingers went up to the wound, stanched the red drops, smearing them on his chin.

  ‘Your wife has more sense than you have,’ the girl said coolly. Her two associates had stepped forward, raising their guns. Now they r
elaxed, grinning broadly. Carl leaned back against the pillow, his face drained of colour, his dark eyes brooding. His hand was still up to his swollen lip.

  I gazed up at her pleadingly. ‘Don’t hurt us,’ I whispered. She hung over me, and again caressed the back of my neck briefly.

  ‘Just be good,’ she smiled. ‘And don’t get alarmed. Remember, you have no more knickers, yes?’

  It wasn’t until much later that we learnt the delay in giving us permission to land at Leontondo was all part of a subterfuge, to hide from the world the prearranged connivance between President Koloba and the hijackers. While we circled above the Great Lake, for what seemed endless hours, the girl, whom I accurately deduced was German, spoke over the tannoy to us, standing with the gun cradled loosely in her arm. ‘There are several bombs onboard.’ She lifted what looked like a remote control panel that was clipped onto the military belt at her waist. ‘My comrades and I each have one of these. A single push on the button and – pouf! Up we go, all of us together!’ Again that incongruous, wide smile, so beautifully clean cut. ‘So, even if you take one of us out, there are the other three. Any one of us can end it all instantly. But I know you won’t be foolish. You wish to live, yes?’ There were some low, heartfelt murmurs of assent.

  Although no one spoke, obeying the original orders for silence, there were sounds, each one of which terrified me anew. An elderly woman fainted, and her decrepit husband started sobbing, crying out for help. They moved her to the rear and let him and another woman, who claimed to be a nurse, tend to her. Then there were a number of families with infants and older children. Quickly seating was rearranged, these families being herded in the rearmost seats while I sat and trembled and prayed that no one would try anything foolish and start the bullets flying, or worse.

  ‘We are going to land at Leontondo,’ the German girl announced. ‘We are almost out of fuel. Fasten your belts. And move slowly.’ Her grey eyes caught my frightened stare among the rows of pale faces, and again I received that dazzling smile. ‘Do not be afraid, Jane. You are still dry, yes?’

  We came down with sickening speed through the thinning grey wisps of cloud, and then there were several shrieks and gasps as the great sheet of water appeared below us, so terrifyingly close. We skimmed along, seemingly only feet above its rippling surface, and then, with that characteristic muffled squeal and a discernible bump, the wheels touched onto the runway, the engines roared in reverse thrust, and soon we were slowing, turning, and taxiing to our appointed station far from any of the low terminal buildings or other planes.

  At last we were still, and I let out my breath in a wavering sigh of relief.

  With a sense of shock, I stared down at my hands clasped in Carl’s sweating grip, and wondered how long we had been holding on to each other. I looked at him, tried to smile, and knew how pathetic my effort must look. I could see the vivid ripe redness of his swollen lip, the tiny flakes of dried blood remnants on his chin. He smiled back tightly, but my stomach lurched as I recognised in his brown eyes the cold clutch of fear that mirrored my own.

  Chapter 3

  There was an eerie silence when the plane’s engines switched off, and then all the other machinery, including the air conditioning. Through the thick glass of the porthole next to Carl I could see only a few yards of cracked tarmac, and then long swathes of dead-looking yellow grass which merged with the tawny, indistinct shimmer of the distant bush, liberally dotted with dark clumps of thorn trees. Suddenly I felt even more tense now that we were safely down, back on earth, the relief at landing safely swiftly dribbling away.

  The girl took up her position by the door to the flight deck once more, and spoke into a hand mike. ‘Now we wait. For humanitarian reasons, President Koloba permitted us to land here. The Leontondese government is passing on our demands, but we have decided that at this moment you have no right to know what you might be called upon to die for. Perhaps you will in good time.’

  The wave of icy terror engulfed me. I stifled the scream that rose in my throat and my sweating hand clung to Carl’s. I could scarcely take in her words for the sickening fear that possessed me. What the hell has all this to do with us, my reeling brain screamed in protest, you blonde German bitch? But of course I uttered no sound, just sat there, sweating and trembling.

  She and one of her associates disappeared into the flight cabin, leaving only one terrorist on guard, the shortest of them, a thickset, almost plump individual with thick stubble covering his chin and a heavily drooping moustache. His dark eyes blazed out over the rows of frightened countenances. The fretful whimpers and the cries of the youngsters from the back seemed appallingly loud. For fuck’s sake, my mind protested frantically, why doesn’t somebody shut those kids up? This guy looks as though he’s just waiting for any excuse to open up with that gun of his.

  Within an hour the interior of the plane was like an oven. I could feel my light cotton top clinging wetly to me, and the backs of my thighs on the upholstery felt as though I’d wet myself all over again. Beads of perspiration ran down my neck and trickled between my breasts, collecting in the folds of my naked thighs and tummy. The German girl came back, her tanned complexion shining with the heat, her short blonde hair clinging limply to her brow like a cap.

  ‘We open the front door,’ she said, and the waft of air that came blowing in was like the draught from an oven, but it was welcome nevertheless.

  Then a tall, athletic-looking girl a few rows in front put her hand up like a child in school. Her hair was white-blonde and cut so short it was like spiky fuzz on top of her head. ‘I have to go to the washroom.’ The American drawl was very pronounced.

  When she stood I could appreciate even more the statuesque beauty of her frame. She must have been about five-ten, her shoulders square, the muscles defined on her deep golden arms. She was wearing a skimpy sleeveless tank-top of olive green, which gave her a military appearance. It left a lot of her shoulders and her neck bare, but where it clung between the shoulder blades, there was a wide dark patch of sweat. As she turned to ease herself out into the aisle, I saw the contours of one full breast, the pointed nipple and its surround showing plainly in darkened outline against the material. Her legs were long, and her bottom looked gorgeous in the jeans, faded almost to white, which hugged her form.

  The German gestured with her automatic. ‘Come slowly.’ She stepped warily in front of her. ‘You are American slut, yes?’

  ‘American yes – slut no,’ the girl answered defiantly. She edged past the slim hijacker. Even though she was wearing only a pair of rubber thong sandals, she was at least half a head taller than the German.

  ‘Your name, slut?’

  The pretty young face flushed under its coating of sweat. ‘Nicky Gimburg. And I told you – I’m no slut.’

  As the tall figure squeezed past her, the German lifted her booted foot and thrust it hard into the behind of the American, propelling her forward a yard or so, almost making her fall. The American swung round with an expression of outrage. ‘Hey! Cut that out!’

  The girl in the khaki uniform moved menacingly, raising the automatic, and suddenly one of the stewardesses, a coloured girl whose beauty reflected her mixed parentage, came forward and reached out to take hold of the American girl. ‘Take it easy, honey,’ she muttered softly while the American stood there, bristling. I held my breath, as did many others, I’m sure.

  ‘I think you’d better go and take your piss,’ the German said after a nightmare pause. Her voice was calm again, with mocking superiority. ‘Like all your countrymen, you seem to be full of it.’

  She stood in the doorway of the toilet, holding it open with one foot, while Nicky Gimburg relieved herself, then, when the glowering figure had regained her seat, the German stood over her and pointed the stubby barrel of the weapon at her. ‘Take off your top, slut!’ There was a gasp, and then a hoarse screech of denial. Suddenly, the muzzle of the gun was thrust viciously at the girl’s throat. She yelped in pain. ‘Do you w
ant me to blow your fucking head all over these nice people?’ the hijacker yelled, and there was an assortment of screams and pleas.

  ‘Do what she says!’ a hysterical voice shrieked.

  ‘Ahmed, if she moves, shoot her,’ the German said, smiling wickedly, and behind her the taller of the two male hijackers we had seen nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Of course, Krista.’ He grinned, eyes bulging in anticipation. Krista. Even in my terror my mind registered the name, glad to have something to call her at last.

  She removed her gun from Nicky’s throat. It left a vivid red mark on the golden skin. Deliberately, she laid it against the arm of the seat, reached down and very slowly pulled the top up, rolling it up her stomach, forcing it up until Nicky’s folded arms prevented her from baring her breasts. ‘You want to die, slut?’ Krista breathed, her lips close to Nicky’s ear.

  All at once the American gave a convulsive sob and let her arms unfold to fall limply by her sides. Krista tugged the garment up, rolled it over her splendid breasts, which, braless, fell magnificently into view. Their rounds were paler than the surrounding tan. The centres were crowned with generous areolae, and the nipples themselves were large, raised prominently from the curves they centred. Now the little garment slid easily up and over the sleek blonde head.

  ‘My, my,’ Krista chuckled. The American’s head was down, and those divine breasts were shaking with her desolate sobs. She kept her hands down at her sides, making no attempt to hide herself. ‘You have nothing to be shy about. You have tits that would feed an army. Eh, Ahmed?’