enter
Ursk?
We walk down past the lines of soldiers. A
thunderous roar swells from the crowd, followed by chanting in a
language I am not familiar with. I don’t think they are cheering
for us.
Potchenko walks ahead, surrounded by his
entourage. He gets into a waiting open top Mercedes with several of
his guards. The crowd breaks into raucous applause.
An open cart – pretty much like the ones used
in quaint picture postcards of European peasant life – awaits us
several cars behind. It is attached to two patiently waiting
donkeys. My stomach clenches. So we are to be exhibited before the
citizens of Ursk like animals.
Still, what am I expecting? The red carpet
tour?
Mansk and his guards help us climb onto the
cart. We are still chained to each other, and I stumble behind Max
as I ascend the rickety steps. The floor boards on the cart are
mere wooden planks, rotting with age. Crisscrossing rough-hewn
wooden bars surround us. I feel like an eighteenth century prisoner
being taken to the gallows.
Max, Greg and I are made to kneel upon the
floor of the cart – one after the other, triplets in humiliation
and servitude. Mansk and another guard climb in with us.
“Keep your thighs apart,” Mansk orders us.
“Show genitals . . . always.”
Figures.
A guard outside beats one of the donkeys with
a stick, and we are off. The wheels of the cart trundle and roll
painfully down the asphalt – a medieval contrivance traversing a
modern road.
There must have been ten cars in the
motorcade, with our cart sticking out in the middle like an
extremely out-of-place thumb. All around us are people – cheering,
waving, shouting, chanting. My knees scrape against the floor
boards. The uneven wood fibers grate upon my skin. Thank goodness
the cart is rolling slowly, or I’d lose my balance and fall against
Max’s smooth back.
It soon becomes apparent that the people are
chanting but two words in Urskan: “Velka Vudca.” They repeat this
in a sing-song chorus: Velka Vudca, Velka Vudca, Velka
Vudca .
Mansk eyes me. He has been looking at me now
and then – sometimes openly, sometimes surreptitiously when we are
in Potchenko’s presence. He rakes his eyes down my breasts and open
pussy. I lick my lips. I know he wants me. Only thing is . . . will
he ever act upon it and risk castration, dismemberment or even
execution?
File this knowledge away, my inner
voice tells me. It might come in useful later.
I clear my throat. Am I allowed to speak to
Mansk without being spoken to? Well, I don’t care. I’m going to do
it anyway.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mansk, sir . . . what are the
people chanting?”
“Velka Vudca?” The words trip from his tongue
easily. “It means ‘Great Leader’.”
Great Leader. I savor the appellation.
So this is what it means to be a dictator here in this hidden
nation, ostracized by the world. But what do you need the world for
if you are God in your own considerably huge microcosm?
As the parade weaves down the streets, I
study the buildings behind the people. They are extremely Gothic
and colorful – with golden spires pointing to the sky. Gables and
gargoyles festoon the walls, as do carved angels and cherubs.
Tricolored flags flutter in the breeze. I take it that those are
the Urskan national colors.
I could have been in Prague or Budapest and I
wouldn’t have known the difference. Only, of course, I haven’t been
to either Prague or Budapest.
But unlike those cities, an unsettling miasma
permeates the crowd. There is a restless feeling of coercion here.
The people’s cries seem forced – but it’s a strange kind of forced,
as though you are made to recite the alphabet before a particularly
strict headmaster whom you completely fear and respect and even
love . . . while you retain just that hidden streak of
rebellion.
I have experienced those very feelings
against Dean Whitehouse. Russell Devlin. Even Max Devlin. They were
all my doms at one point or another.
And this dictator is the
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