Story: Window Shopping. Chapter 5.

by Jackie J

My only possession being the locket that my princess had thrust into my hand before we were separated and, tempted as I was to sell it, I couldn’t part with it. With the help of the girls who had sheltered me I managed to get a job in a clothing factory. Long hours, hard work and poor pay but it was better than being on the streets. After many months and pleading I managed to get to visit my princess. I cried when I saw her. Gone her beautiful clothes, her hair cut short she had lost a lot of weight and looked haggard in her prison fatigues. We held hands through the bars and both shed more tears.

I told her to be strong and that I would wait for her and I visited her every week on Fridays. I always brought gifts for the guards, cigarettes, chocolate whatever I could afford. Not everyone supported the coup, although they could not show it, and some of the guards were of this persuasion.  This gave me the opportunity to spend a little longer than permitted during my visits and smuggle in the odd luxury for my princess, such as soap and toiletries.

My work at the factory made me smile sewing in labels for major stores in the UK, Marks and Spencer, Gap Next along with less familiar names.  I was no expert, having never set foot in a factory before, but six months in and with the few obvious suggestions I made, it resulted in my promotion to supervisor of accessories and thread.  The additional money helped and I managed to get a room to myself at the hostel.

My regular visits to my princess kept up her spirits and I told her everything I was doing, the factory and everyday stuff. She shrugged her shoulders when I informed her that a top general was now resident at the palace and some of the girls had gone back to be maids under the new regime. My princess seemed resigned that there would be no going back to the life she enjoyed before.

Three years had passed and given my help with paper work, forced on the factory owners concerning corporate responsibility, by their major western customers, I was promoted again to the position of forewoman in the packing and dispatch section. I spent a lot of my spare time at the mosque but hadn’t converted to Islam although I was continually encouraged to do so. The Imam was a kindly gentleman and appreciated the work I did at the mosque with the orphans. I had my own place now, attached to the factory, basic but secure and clean, with its own water supply and toilet. Whenever a visit was made by western clients, I attended the meetings and organised what needed to be done. I even placated a group of well-meaning activists looking at the exploitation of child labour. 

There was no reduction in the princess’s sentence for good behavior, that was a given and she served her full term. Her mother, who had been held in a different prison, was not strong like my princess and had died before the end of her sentence.

The day of my princess’s release I was up early and the owners of the factory allowed me a day’s leave. I brought some clothes that I had made especially for her in the factory.  Although now working in packing and dispatch I had in my time at the factory become an accomplished seamstress. The prison however would not let my princess wear the clothes I had brought for her and she stepped out of the gates looking no different to the others due for release that same day wearing a drab dress and hijab.

The bond between us had grown during her incarceration and pouring ourselves into each other’s arms we wept together with joy at her release.

Back at my humble abode I prepared a bath with scented oils for my Princess and lovingly bathed her. Dressed now in the fine clothes I had made for her I couldn’t stop smiling and staring serving the special meal I had prepared. Now free to speak openly in the privacy that my home afforded she told me of the horrors she had endured during her time in prison. We hugged and I reassured her that she was safe now but she was not convinced the regime would leave her alone. That evening when I offered my bed to her for me to sleep on the sofa, she smiled telling me that she had waited for my touch for five years and that we would share the bed which we did, that night and every night.

The little influence I had at the factory was enough to get my princess a job in the packing department. It was a month later that a note was thrust into my hand whilst shopping at the market, it was for the princess. It was a warning that she was being watched by the military’s spies and to be careful.

The mosque proved to be safe ground and following a number of covert meetings between the princess and a shady character we waited for darkness. The risks were great but the princess had to get away the military were preparing to take her back into custody with new charges of conspiracy that carried the death penalty.

In the back of a truck we hid at the checkpoints under bags of rice and eventually arrived at the docks. A shrouded figure met us and took us to the pier.  Down a slippery ladder we boarded the small boat tied to the pier and taken below we joined a small group of maybe twenty others, their faces no less filled with fear than our own.  The hatch we had climbed through closed and the boat pulled away from the jetty and into the darkness of the open sea.

Some way out from land and under the cover of darkness the small craft pulled alongside a freighter and we were hurriedly transferred. The captain smiled seeing us board and separated us from the rest of the group. He was Dutch and took us both to a cabin explaining we should not leave the cabin and that we would be at sea for a number of days.

 We slept and caressed it felt so nice to have the princess’s body next to mine. I did not know where we were going and I didn’t really care I was with my princess and that’s all I cared about. When I did try and discuss the future my princess just smiled and said we will see.

Three days and nights passed and there was activity on the boat. Looking out through the porthole of our cabin I saw a large rubber dinghy filled with the others that were on the boat which we left the harbour in pulling away from the ship.

Late that afternoon we pulled into a dock and after a few hours or so it was dusk and the captain entered our cabin with a large smartly dressed gentleman.

“Welcome to Morocco, cover up, you are to come with me.”

Having left the ship and docks undocumented we were whisked away in the back of a vehicle. A long dusty and bumpy drive along unmade roads we eventually pulled into the darkness of a courtyard outside a large building.

Ushered from the jeep and into the building a big fat sweaty man inside the door laughed.

“Princess Makabuku and Aakifah her white maid, come they are waiting for you.”

Entering an opulent well-lit lounge an elegantly dressed couple sat on low sofa’s who both stood and smiled.

I instantly recognised the glamorous lady it was Abelle my princess’s housekeeper from Kingston Manor in England, but what was she doing here?

Abelle smiled more of a smirk and walked towards us.

 “Well my side of our bargain is complete you are free from the regime and you will be kept safe here, now princess you have something for me, the locket?”

The locket I had been given to look after which I had returned to my princess when she was freed from prison was slowly removed from around her neck and she handed it to Abelle. I looked quizzically at my Princess who looked to the floor.

Abelle laughed clutching the locket and handed it to the suave gent stood with her.

“Then our business is done take them away and prepare them Prakhar”

The big sweaty fat man grabbed hold of each of our arms and pulled us towards the door but my princess shook herself free and scowled at Abelle.

“Prepare them, what do you mean, what are you doing, this isn’t what we agreed you promised we would be kept safe after I gave you the locket?”

Abelle laughed.

“But you will be safe, no one knows you are here and they never will, yes you will be safe here at Crag Castle there is nothing but desert stretching a hundred miles in every direction and who would be looking for two maids how are here in the country illegally.

My Princess and I both shocked looked at Abelle and we spoke in unison.

“Maids?”

Abelle laughed again.

“Yes, that’s right, what better way to hide you away from the regime. You are both to be maid’s here at Crag Castle and you will be good maids or it will only take one phone call to let the generals know where you are or perhaps you can be sold on to the slavers for the brothels in Marrakesh or Tangier if you prefer?”

Abelle a stern expression on her face pointed to the doorway.

“Prakhar take them away shackle, belt and collar them, the special collars the ones I showed you, the one’s I brought from England, then give them to Samara she will show them the ways of maid’s here at Crag Castle.”

Dragged down a dark passageway my princess screamed back at Abelle.

“No, no, no you can’t do this to me you can’t Abelle please, please no!”

The locket contained the numbers and codes to bank accounts in Switzerland and with those, access to the fortune held there. Abelle who had married one of the princess’s cousins, a cousin who had been complicit in the fraud that had led to the coup, had tricked the Princess into trading the locket for free passage and sanctuary for a share of her wealth, but Abelle now intended to have it all. Not only was Abelle going take all the princess’s wealth she was also going to keep the princess hidden in the desert for her slave.

Resistance was futile against the strength of the slobbering giant of a man Prakhar and both stripped collared, our ankles shackled and insidious chastity belts locked about us we were dragged before the head of household Samara.

Our duties were clear, we would do what we were told when we were told and, over the coming months, within the seclusion of Crag Castle, we painfully learnt to comply too every whim of Miss Samara, our Mistress. Over time and accepting of the hopelessness of our situation, we willingly became Mistress Samara’s obedient housemaids, much to the amusement of Abelle.

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