The Indian Prince Ch. 07

The fleeing General Sungar and his niece, the increasingly rotund Rawalina, Aruna, didn't need a pilot for very long, and Sungar almost made a nasty point of this after I no longer was needed in that role. If I hadn't been in such a precarious predicament, though, I might have been amused by this musical chairs version of revolving and fleeing Rawalinas.

The general's nondescript car drove us to a military base the size of a postage stamp with an air strip not much bigger. He commandeered an old Cessna 172, which might have been the mainstay of the Balrampur Air Force for all I knew. I flew him and his niece to New Delhi, where it seems the Balrampur royal family had a much nicer Boeing 707 stashed away. They also had a brace of pilots and a couple of air stewards who looked more like heavyweight fighters on retainer there.

When we climbed out of the Cessna and I saw that the Boeing, distinguished by the Balrampur flag on its tail, was revving up its engines nearby without any help from me, I let Sungar and his niece start off without me and when they turned, I waved, told them to have a nice trip, and let them know they need not worry about me. I could find my own way back, I said.

The general and a nasty-looking pistol disagreed with me, and I quickly learned that I'd be taking the next flight with them, wherever that was.

It turned out that what was intended was that I would only be half right.

When I was herded aboard the 707 and through a seating compartment back to one with four single beds jammed against the fuselage, two to each side. I was pushed down on one of these on my back and, at Sungar's instructions, the two stewards forced my hands above my head and handcuffed me to the headboard railing. He and his henchmen left me there and went forward until we'd taken off.

I had no idea where we were flying, and I equally didn't know why I was being treated like this. I'd even tried to tell General Sungar as we were flying into New Delhi that I thought my boss at the U.S. consulate, Roger Allard, might have had an incorrect impression of him—especially in relationship to the Kshatriyas, Mir Yusaf Adil, and if only he'd let me contact Allard . . .

But Sungar was having nothing of that, and he was nothing but gruff and rough with me right up to and including trussing me up in the bedroom compartment of the 707.

I thought for a while that they had forgotten me, and then for a while that I was getting more than enough attention—and then, briefly, that I was getting entirely too much attention.

After we'd been in the air for an hour or more, the door from the seating compartment slid open and someone entered the sleeping section. The lights weren't turned on so I didn't know who it was until she got close enough for me to figure it must be Aruna from the strong whiff of perfume I got. I didn't tag the general as the perfume kind, so mine wasn't particularly a brilliant deduction.

Aruna used me as her toy gear shift, and I would have complained if I wasn't enjoying it. She unzipped me and played with my cock until it was standing at rigid attention, and then she hoisted up her sari around her waist and straddled my pelvis and rode me until I gave her an internal bathing. That seemed to satisfy her, and she simply climbed off me and left me in the dark.

The attention I got not long after that was a bit much, though, and it really choked me up. General Sungar flipped on the light when he came in. And he didn't just unzip me and slip what he wanted to play with out of my trousers. He stripped me of my trousers and unbuttoned my shirt and pushed that up over my head and up my arms. He'd had a multitailed black leather short whip with him ever since he'd accosted me in the palace Sports House laundry room, and he brought that into the sleeping compartment with him.

Whereas Aruna had wanted my cock, the general wanted my ass channel. He rolled me over on the bed so that I was on my belly, and then he mounted me from behind, hard and deep. While he rode my ass, he switched my bare back and thighs with ever-sharper flicks of the whip.

I gave him the noises I knew he wanted to hear—and I would have given them to him anyway. I didn't mind the fucking one bit, but the lashing was making me worried and was beginning to hurt, as it became more frenzied. I thought this was the worst of it, but I wouldn't have complained so much if he hadn't moved into another gear. He no longer was lashing me with the whip, but he had wrapped it around my throat and arched my head up toward him as he pumped my channel with his cock.

I gagged and fought for breath, feeling that he was timing his ejaculation for my own demise. And we were quite close to that point, when I heard the door to the seating compartment whoosh open and Aruna's voice barely cutting through the fog I was sinking into from the choking.

"Uncle. I think you need to come forward immediately—and not continue that. The pilot has received an important communication. It's about the American. You really must stop that. We're undone if you—"

"In . . . a . . . minute. I understand. I haven't finish him—yet. Go. Close the door." The general's voice was hoarse and full of arousal. He released the whip around my throat, and I took air in in great gasps and coughs. He rode me for less than a minute longer before he came. Then, with a mutter of "I'll be back," he was gone.

He didn't come back, however. In about a half hour, the two stewards came in. One held a gun on me while the other one released me and let me go into the head and clean myself up, do what I needed to do in relief of my systems, and even take a shower in the miniscule cubicle devoted to that. My briefs, trousers, and shirt were returned to me, somehow miraculously straightened of wrinkles, and I was led into the seating compartment, where I was seated on the back row, a considerable distance from where the general and the Rawalina of the moment were sitting. I was handcuffed by one of my wrists again to a handle on the fuselage, but I otherwise was fed and pampered by the stewards as well as any passenger in a private Boeing 707 could wish to be.

I was told to let the stewards know if I needed to visit the facilities again, and when I did so, I once more was marched back by the two stewards, with one holding a gun and exhibiting as someone who knew how to use it.

I slept for I don't know how long and when I woke, it was early morning outside the plane window and we were flying over snow-capped mountains that looked quite familiar to me. We also were descending. I gauged we were going to land in either Switzerland or Germany's Bavaria.

* * * *

"I trust you have been treated well."

"Most of the time, Roger," I answered, "although at one point I was getting such close attention that I got all choked up about it."

"Yes, I gather. But the communications I initiated came in time, I understand."

"Close enough."

It had been a long ride in the limousine from the airport. I hadn't gotten close enough to a terminal to have a precise idea where we were. The jet was parked on an apron far away from the terminal area, and the car was waiting for us on the tarmac nearby when the flight stairs had been hooked up to the Boeing's door. The limousine ride had been almost entirely uphill. The buildings sliding by could have equally been quaint Swiss chalets or quaint Bavarian chalets. The expression on the general's face signaled that I wasn't to ask him any "where" or "why" questions, and the bored expression on Aruna's face, now covered by her trademark big-lens sunglasses told me that she neither cared nor knew anything about "where" or "why" either.

When the limousine pulled up in a precariously small motor court beside a massive chalet barely hanging on the side of an alp overlooking a lake—and maybe Zurich?—I was escorted in one direction, around the down slope side of the house, and the general and Aruna went directly into the building.

When I saw the two men, bundled in fur coats, sitting at a patio table on a deck overlooking a gorgeous view down into the valley, I probably shouldn't have been surprised—I probably should have figured out how and why General Sungar's little snuff scene had been interrupted, but I still was surprised enough to have to lift my jaw off the floor.

Sitting with a rotund old Indian-looking man was Roger Allard. As I walked toward the table, keeping an eye on Roger's benign smile, a servant came up behind me and wrapped me in a fur coat of my own.

When I reached the table, the old man said, "You may sit." And he said it in such a way that it dawned on me exactly who he was.

"Craig, may I introduce you to the Badshah of Shwetambar, Balrampur's ruler," Roger said, as he pulled out a chair for me to sit.

"So I gather," I murmured.

"We were just reviewing the state of play in Balrampur, and the Badshah wanted to convey his appreciation to you for the help you've been."

"The help I've been," I repeated dumbly.

"Yes. Devasree got your message to me and, the Badshah having extended his agreement, the friends we brought in temporarily—all gone from Balrampur now, of course—managed to clean up that little infestation in the palace garden."

"I need to tell you. Mir Yusaf Adil . . ."

"Ah, yes. We found him with his friends. We've taken care of that. Rather an embarrassment for me. One we needn't dwell on, though."

"Of course not," I agreed.

"We have other contingencies."

"Apparently so," I agreed. "Devasree?"

"Yes, for one. I believe she's already installed as the new Rawalina."

"More permanently that the last few, I hope," I said.

"She's a resourceful woman. And she will have help."

"Oh?"

"Yes. One of the Blackshield men. He seemed just perfect to step into both your and General Sungar's shoes as a special friend to Prince Bhadur Khan. I'm sure we can keep the Rawal quite happy from here on out."

"I hope he comes with a whip and a bark."

"He does, yes. We thank you for helping us to tune up what was needed in that department."

"We?"

"Oh, the Badshah and the U.S. government, of course." I looked over to the Badshah and he beamed at me as he bit into a peach. I could have sworn he winked. I certainly hoped I wasn't his type.

"No other loose ends?" I asked. "Other parties? The Badshahrina and her niece, for instance."

"Alas, the Badshahrina was an old and infirm woman. We all have to pass on sometime."

At forty-five? "Yes, she was almost as old as you are, I think. Was she—?"

"Pregnant? No, you'll be relieved to know."

I was. But he must have seen something else in my expression, because he continued.

"Neither of them was pregnant. But you mustn't have concern for your virility. We couldn't very well have princes floating around from mothers we couldn't control. They both had servants they thought were helping them with potions. They were receiving potions, but the help they were getting was not exactly what they thought they were getting."

"Besides," he continued, "The new Rawalina reports that she is pregnant and that it's yours. So, you will sire a crown prince after all."

"Mine? How . . .? Is this the asset you say you have in the palace, the former lady-in-waiting, Devasree?"

"Yes, the same. She says that thus far the prince has only taken her in the ass, although she's working on moving him to the other entrance and now has a reason to do that soon. As she's pregnant, it is yours."

"I don't understand. I've never—"

"She says that you made love on the floor of an office in the consulate. More than once."

"On the floor in the . . . oh."

"She said that if you had trouble remembering that I should mention that she told you you had something she needed. We really preferred that the next crown prince be one of the family. That's the need she said she had of you. I know I thought Adil's idea of your impregnating every royal woman in sight was a bizarre one, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made."

"And you knew nothing of her assault on me in the consulate?"

"We try to plan ahead and cover all contingencies," he answered, his face showing an expression perhaps a bit too smug for me.

Again, all I was able to say initially was, "Oh." But then I recovered enough to add, "Naturally. More U.S. friends at the palace, of course."

Roger gave me a piercing little look and then continued, "And I'm not sure that this niece people speak of ever even existed. You didn't fall for that supposition, did you?"

"Not for a moment," I said. I looked over at the Badshah again, and if he regretted having become a widower, it certainly didn't show on his face.

"And General Sungar and his niece, Aruna?"

"Who?" Roger's face was one of such innocence that I didn't have the heart to ask further. I rather guessed I wouldn't be embarrassed at meeting either of them in a chalet hallway during the remainder of the visit.

"What is important, of course, is that the prince is happy and pleased with the ties his country has with the United States."

"But of course," I said, working hard to keep a straight face. "It's all about keeping our good friend, the Indian prince, happy."

Somewhat resigned, and not nearly as disinterested as I wanted to seem, I then asked the inevitable question.

"And me?"

"Oh, I guess I didn't mention it the last time we talked. Sam Winterberry called from Washington a few days ago. He wishes for you to fly down to Borneo. It seems we have a little situation with the Sultan of Saratan. Later this afternoon, we'll send you down into Zurich on a clothes shopping spree and then get you on an airplane for Southeast Asia."

"Ah, so we're in Switzerland," was all I could muster up to say. I suddenly felt the release of that leather whip from around my throat. But I didn't necessarily feel free.

"Today we are, yes. Who knows where any of us will be tomorrow?"

END