Two girls. Houris of The East. The youngest leaning her lissome slenderness backward that she might better examine the two crimson slashes the whip had placed across her hips. The other watching with a quiet amused smile.
"You're going to have to watch your P's and Q's, darling. Ayesha was right. That whip of hers is cruel. I haven't seen one quite like it."
"I wasn't all that vulgar!" Lynn protested. "But Alison dear, aren't they simply gorgeous!"
"They show up beautifully through these bits of nothing we've got on." The older girl traced the weals with an exploring fingertip so that the bearer of the livid lines winced and giggled.
"Make a rude noise at her, Alison, and get a pair of these too. Whoever it is that's bought us may want a matching effect." Lynn turned wide eyes. "I'm scared. Honest! Aren't you?"
Alison kissed the impudent lips. "Don't be frightened, Kitten. Someone paid a lot of money. They're not going to lead us to the chopping block."
"Oh, I expect it will be good old bed first!" The bright-eyed youngster conceded. "Think darling Eve's getting it now? Fancy whisking her off from under our nose like that! I thought these old bearded buffers in a blanket went for the young stuff. He should have picked me."
"Eve's not exactly ancient, y'know."
"Maybe I'll be next. I 'spose he'll knock us off one at a time. Must be a horny character."
"Darling! You are shockingly vulgar." Alison laughed. "Keep that up and you'll look like a zebra. Chances are he's reading Eve the Koran. Or it may not be a he at all. Could be a she."
"Eve's still got the hots for that suave super sheik Rasuli." Lynn glowed romantically. "I could do with a bit of that myself... " In a sudden access of dolor she turned imploringly to the other near-naked girl. "We're never going to get free, are we! We'll never see the U.S.A. again. All it's going to be is chains and whips and prisons or some old bastard pawing us... " She shook herself angrily. Her eyes sought Alison's. Rhetorically she asked the question that filled both their minds: "I wonder what's happening to Eve...!"
To Eve it was as though time had stopped when she had last beheld him. Transfixed by wonder and the turbulence of her emotions she was oblivious of Ayesha's quiet withdrawal and the closing of the door. Had there been a thousand present she would have been utterly alone with this man. What she did was without volition, utterly natural. She could have done naught else. Sinking to her knees before him she clasped his hand and kissed it, again and again.
"Master." In the single word she had given herself completely.
They held the tableau as the seconds went by. For each the moment was too beautiful to surrender. When he raised her to her feet her eyes were shining, her lips crimson and ready for his.
It was not until the dinner was well underway that Rasuli mentioned Ismaul. "I did not know you were there. Can you believe that?"
"Yes, Master."
"Years ago I gave control of the place to Rahbinda. It pleased her to wield such power. I have known what goes on there... " He shrugged. "But one cannot be forever apologizing for customs that were ancient before one was born."
"Mrs. Cohen is powerful, Master?"
"Yes. She and I work in different spheres. Jedrah is sadly torn... "
He sighed. "I will not bore you. There are factions and the fomenting of discontent. She and I do what we can in our different ways. There are the Guerrillas. Sometimes we have mutual interests. They told me of the auction. Knowing you to be of Ismaul they wondered... I am glad they did. And then there is the government. Forever on the verge. Forever pulling back from the abyss. Dominating everything is the oil. The oil makes puppets of us all."
"Master, forgive me. What was my price?"
Rasuli laughed in such a way that Eve laughed too.
"You are female. Even though nations fall you are curious of the value someone placed upon you."
She looked at him roguishly. "Yes, Master. I am curious. If I have transgressed you will whip me. I know."
"Oh, I will whip you! Often! But not tonight." His eyes, too, were glowing. "You cost me two hundred and twenty-six thousand of your American dollars."
"Oh no!" Her exclamation was consternation, awe and worship.
"For the child one hundred and ninety. For the other girl one hundred and ten."
"Over half a million...?" She saw him as a god.
He made an expressive, gesture of half-humorous deprecation. "The oil: it pays for everything." He grinned happily. "Even you. If the auction had been less hasty and better organized you might have gone above a million."
"Do... do men value us that much?" It was frightening.
"You are the most costly merchandise in the world. You always have been." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "You of the West refuse to recognize that women are always bought and sold. You do it your way. We are more honest. Females are designed by nature to be slaves. It is their happiest condition."
Eve could not disagree.
He laughed at her blush. "I tease you," he acknowledged. "But you are a slave. Truly! You understand that, don't you?"
"My feet to be cut off if I run away, Master?"
"Far worse. You would be encouraged to run!"
They savored their empathy.
"And Lynn, Master. What will you do with her?"
"She is yours. I give her to you. I cannot afford her. She would cost me a fortune in whips."
She looked at him in wonder. "You mean it, don't you? Lynn is mine?"
"The perfect plaything. I will even give you a silver cage to keep her in."
"Can a slave girl own a slave girl, Master?"
"You shall have a parchment, and a silver-handled whip which shall have engraved upon it the words: 'For Lynn with love'."
"Within your house."
"You can give her all the love she needs. She can sharpen her wits on me when I am here. She will be happy."
"Beyond her dreams... "
"Come. Let us be happy too."
She followed him into the other room. Three paces behind, as is meet for a slave girl to follow her Master.
The explosion blasted Eve from sleep into a world gone mad. It shook the house, the cries and gunshots made a fitting accompaniment. Rasuli leaped from the bed, thrust himself into a single garment, clutched a revolver from a drawer, shouted at her the brief command: "Stay here." Then was gone.
How could she obey! The sounds of battle told her that this room was un-likely to remain inviolate. The House was attacked. Miserably and furiously she looked down at her chained feet. The rivet heads were as implacable as ever. The metal bands were a part of her, or she a part of them. She longed to follow her Master. She belonged with him. She knew with certainty that wherever Rasuli went she would wish to go. She damned her fetters. But they had become a fact of life. She would walk into the fray instead of run. Hastily she slipped into the fragile garments of which she had been so proud...
On the landing the smell of powder was strong. There was smoke. The noise was chaotic. Halfway down the huge staircase she came within view of the Great Hall. It was full of men. Almost all of them in uniform... soldiers! Here and there bodies lay, some in uniform, some nondescript, servants, guerrillas! Her eyes searched wildly and found what they sought. The body of Rasuli Khan lay sprawled on the heavy carpet. Beneath his head was blood... Frantically Eve navigated the remaining stairs. Before she had reached the last one she had been seen. Men stared at her, mouths agape. There were cries and orders barked crisply. Striding to the limit of her shackles Eve dived for the lifeless body of the man who, an hour before, had held her in his arms. Suddenly vision was gone. A curtain enveloped her from head to waist. It was knotted and tied. Hands grasped and lifted her. The shouted commands bit into the turmoil. She was carried from Rasuli's house.
* * *
Variations on an Arabian theme! Eve wryly coined the sentence. It fitted. A sizable tent instead of a small office. A folding table instead of a desk. No handcuffs, instead her hands were tied together behind the tent pole against which she stood. Her feet still bore their chains. She was once more naked. The lovely flimsy things of Rasuli's House had not withstood the rough ungentle hands that had placed her as she was. The one constant was the man.
There had been so many of them that the bronze faces and the nondescript garb merged. Eve's first impression was of Semitic features, eyes in which there was a glint of humour, a not unattractive face. He was not old. His words shattered her.
"You're the prize in the Cracker-Jack, Honey. It's been a damn good day." The voice was pure U.S.A.
He enjoyed her astonishment. "Got an uncle runs a dry cleaning business in New Jersey. Spent half my life over there. The lingo's worth a fortune in business."
"But aren't you in the army?" Eve searched for her bearings.
"Damn good!" He approved. "None of this 'save me' and 'wait till I call the cops' nonsense." He laughed outright. "Bet you've been kidnapped and traded around more than once, eh?"
"Yes," Eve admitted carefully. She pulled at her bound hands. "Am I some sort of prisoner now?"
"Might as well call it that," he nodded. "Yes. I'm in the army. I'm a captain. Name's Jethro. Leastways that's the one I use." He winked as though they shared a secret. "I'm betting, honey, that you're on a little vacation from one of Jedrah's fun spots, place called Ismaul?"
Eve's heart sank. She was indeed a prisoner. She would be locked back in her cell wearing the same chains as when she left it. "Must you take me back there?" she asked without hysteria.
"Where else, honey!" His eyes twinkled. "But not right now."
She was almost indifferent to the implication. She was a spoil of war. He would use her before he sent her back to prison. What did it matter! If it was not him it would be some other.
He read her thought. Shaking an admonitory finger he chuckled. "Won't promise I won't, honey. Nice idea. I'd rate you as special. But business before pleasure... and don't ask questions!"
"There were two other girls...?" She had to know.
"Actually three." His eyes glinted at her. "You forgot the one with the whip. Picked her up too. Grade 'A'. Don't worry. We've got 'em safe." He raised a quizzical eyebrow. "All lesbians, I suppose?"
"Does it matter? We have all the equipment you need," Eve said dispassionately.
"That tongue of yours ever get you whipped? We do use 'em, y'know."
"Surely my clothes don't cover the marks." Her voice was acid. "The answer is yes. Now I suppose you'll do it too. I'm surprised a whip is not Jedrah's national emblem."
"You're not frightened. Why?"
She shrugged her bound shoulders. "I suppose fear is like anything else, you can wear it out."
Jethro saw the tears in her eyes. "Ismaul that bad?"
Eve flicked the salty drops from her lashes. "It's a cruel place. I have to stay there five years." She gave him a direct look. "Must I be tied like this? I can't run away. I won't try."
They were interrupted. Eve placed him as a non-com. His face was similar to Jethro's, but somewhat less trustworthy. There was a rapid fire of speech. Eve's hands were untied from behind the pole and retied behind her back. Her question had been answered.
Captain Jethro patted her shoulder. "Sorry to lose you, honey, and I mean it! But Sergeant Franji's got a mission for you." Again the wink of complicity. "I'll get to fuck you yet."
"Do you have to use that word?"
"Wasn't me, honey. Picked it up from that little girl of yours. Real cute kid."
"We go," said Sergeant Franji.
Eve went. At the tent flap she turned. The Captain raised his hand in salute and gave his broadest wink. "Be seeing ya, honey." She could almost believe he meant it.
"Come quick," said Sergeant Franji.
The captive girl's chains proclaimed her speed. She blinked in the sudden sunlight. Then gasped at what she saw.
Lynn, Alison and Ayesha stood in a row. The hands of each were bound behind her back as were her own. Each wore a metal collar, from it they were linked together by a chain. In moments an iron circlet was snug around Eve's neck. The long chain joined her to the coffle. As usual, escape would be no more than a pleasant dream. The four naked girls grinned at each other in commiseration. "We ride," said Sergeant Franji.
It was a Land Rover with a tarp to keep the sun at bay. The girls were lifted into it with due regard to the limitations of their tether. Often a girl must lean herself this way or that to provide slack for the movement of her neighbor. They shrugged apologetically when they jerked.
"Socially we're on the skids," Lynn mourned.
"Ismaul, here we come!" Eve declared bitterly.
"I wouldn't bet on it," Ayesha warned soberly. "I speak Jedrah. There's dirty work afoot."
They looked at her askance.
The truck jerked into motion in a shower of sand.
The unnamed town was the usual gash of tired green in the desert sun surrounded by baked square and oblong boxes spilled indiscriminately by their builder's hands. The Land Rover reversed up to the back entrance of one of the larger ones and the chained girls were encouraged to alight. "We here," said Sergeant Franji affably.
Like many, the house of Madam Mushad belied its plain exterior. Inside was luxury and comfort, and the evidence of wealth. The slave coffle was led to the patio in which their hostess sat. They were placed in line to the full extent of their tether. They faced a throne. "Tits out," Sergeant Franji ordered without humour.
It truly appeared to be a throne. In it sat what can best be described as a fat lady of uncertain age. She was simply fat. It was her only attribute. Words passed. Ayesha tensed. "The bastard's selling us," she breathed in a bitter whisper.
Madam Mushad heaved herself out of her throne. She seemed to resent the necessity. But she had no intention of being bilked. Her digital examination of the merchandise was shamingly complete. "I spik Eengleesh," she warned. "No jokes on cunts and arseholes."
"Polite lady," explained Sergeant Franji.
"You good with licking cunts?" their prospective owner inquired.
Ayesha disposed of the question for them in a blast of Jedrah. Madam Mushad appeared gratified. She returned to her chair. The bargaining began. "We're not even fetching much money," Ayesha whispered disgustedly.
Banknotes changed hands. Sergeant Franji, no doubt feeling conscious of being a part of an occasion, came smartly to attention and saluted the line of four. The girls stuck out their tits as though in commendation. With military precision he turned and did the same for the fat woman in the chair. She inclined her head as though still thinking of the money. A moment later he was gone. "Sold!" Lynn tittered.
Madam Mushad fixed the teenager with a baleful eye. "You smartass!" Her English appeared to be liberally endowed with colloquialisms. "Get whip." Her sharp eye flickered over her new property and came to rest on Ayesha. "You got whip. I know why." She slipped into a stream of Jedrah.
Ayesha's translation was diplomatic. "Madam Mushad knows something of my past," she explained. "She has appointed me Whip Mistress over the rest of you."
There was an awkward silence.
"Whip her." Madam Mushad pointed a fat finger at Lynn."
An obviously distressed Ayesha tried some more Jedrah. At the end of it Madam Mushad impatiently clapped her hands.
The black man was immense. Clad only in loincloth and sandals his body shone. He beamed and bowed. More Jedrah flowed. His muscles rippled.
Ayesha translated what all had divined. "I can either take the job and do it right or Bonzo here takes over and beats hell out of all four of us."
"Name not Bonzo," said the colored gentleman proudly. "Name Mustapha."
"Mustapha effendi is very competent with a whip," Ayesha explained without enthusiasm.
"Cut little arses. Make jump," Mustapha agreed.
"I'll bend over for you, darling," Lynn said unhappily, but with decision.
"We all will," Eve sought to ease Ayesha's dilemma.
Madam Mushad nodded imperiously. Mustapha bowed and withdrew, obviously dejected.
"Whip small bitch now," Madam commanded comfortably.
Throughout the turmoil of the day and night Ayesha's badge of office in Rasuli's house had remained fastened to her belt. The cruel wicked whip feared by all. Its owner looked down at it without affection and motioned with her bound hands.
Madam Mushad sighed. Slave ownership imposed cruel burdens of effort. She heaved herself to her feet and untied two pairs of hands. "You hold hands behind neck," she told the quaking Lynn curtly.
The four naked maidens looked at each other in dismay. One of them was to be whipped. Ayesha was at the end of the tether, but Lynn was not. They did the best they could within their close captivity. The chain that linked them was stretched taut. The girl to be punished stood bravely erect, hands clasped behind her neck. She was obviously very frightened. Ayesha's whip drew blood.
In a flood of dialect the Whip Mistress explained their fear.
"No cut skin," Madam Mushad conceded. "Just hurt."
To Eve and Alison, Lynn's whipping was almost as agonizing as to the victim herself. The tether held them close so that they shared every gasp and impact, every moan and cry. Ayesha applied the thong with as little force as she dared, but the weals it left were vivid. Madam Mushad was pleased. She stopped the penalty at the sixth stroke. "Plenty more another time," she promised generously.
The four girls fell back into line. They knew not what else to do. The collars and chain imposed a mute compulsion. They looked at their proprietress expectantly. Madam Mushad surveyed her purchase with satisfaction. She clapped her hands.
The room to which Mustapha escorted them was large and cheerful enough. It had the anomaly of a modern bathroom and a quite handsome dresser with a fine array of cosmetics which Lynn eyed with suspicion. "Bet you we're in the local cat house," she said dubiously.
"No cats," Mustapha proclaimed proudly. "Girls!"
He took the cords from the wrists of Alison and Eve and waved in lordly fashion at the dresser and the bathroom. "Make beautiful. Madam want pretty."
"Do we rent by the hour?" Lynn asked, rubbing her striped bottom.
"No rent. Sell! Big price or whip hard."
Ayesha tried some Jedrah. "The Madam's a genuine slave trader," she told her companions. "We are merchandise, and we have to look as though we are just off the shelf at all times in case a prospective purchaser drops in."
Eve fingered her collar. "Could we get this off, please?" she appealed.
Mustapha grinned hugely. "No come off. Stay on."
"But if we're chained together how can we-"
"You manage." He laughed out a flood of Jedrah.
"He says if we have any doubts about how easy it is to manage things chained together like this we can all lay down on our backs and he'll provide stud services for the lot of us just as we are."
"He's boasting," Lynn said, her voice uncertain.
"I wouldn't bet on it," Ayesha warned. She broke once more into his speech. "He says we have to be chained. If it's not our necks it would have to be hands and feet. So, except for sitting on the John, this is best." She reverted to a lengthy exchange in Mustapha's tongue, after which he gave them all his whitest smile. His slamming of the door and shooting of the bolts combined with the heavy bars across the windows told them very clearly that, for the time being, they were going nowhere.
Mustapha's prediction proved surprisingly correct: they managed. They managed quite well, even to the point of squeezing all together into the sizable bath so that for a little while they forgot their plight in an orgy of splashes and giggles. They soon fell into a graceful adaptation to their chain and the motions each imposed on it. "We'll come to like the damn thing," Alison prophesied. "You watch. When they take it off we'll miss it."
They used the mirror and the dresser two at a time. The non-users kneeling submissively beside the girl to whom they were chained. Sleeping would present no problem. It would be on the floor amongst the many rugs provided.
"You're probably curious about me?" Ayesha lifted an amused eyebrow at her chainmates. Their tasks of beautification completed they lounged in their own most comforting postures on the rugs, the shining links connecting their necks no more than an erotic enhancement of their loveliness.
"You answered an ad in the Times?" Lynn prompted.
Ayesha laughed ruefully. "Almost as naive," she admitted. "I'm English. My real name's Jane, good old plain Jane. I was a schoolteacher in Lincoln. You know the drill, lovely bright ideas about the wonderful new world of Africa. So I saved up my money and bought a Cook's Tour of North Africa. All alone... " She laughed in retrospect. "It's bloody wonderful how easy it is for them. I was having a marvelous exploration of the shops and stalls in the market when a chap offered a rug for just a few pennies. I followed him inside to see the rest. They bunged a sack over my head and tied my hands and that was that. It's damn surprising there isn't more of it. We are immensely valuable and all they have to do is pluck us like apples from a tree."
"Was it Rasuli?" Eve was concerned.
The storyteller chuckled. "Heavens no! I ended up in his House as you found me. But there were stops along the way. All painful for me and expensive for the chaps whose hospitality I was forced to enjoy... if that's the word!" She mused for a moment. "I suppose it's much the same story with all us girls. We get whipped and whipped. I was whipped for almost everything I did." She shrugged deprecatingly. "Oh sure, most of all I did was forbidden. But it takes so damn long to get used to the idea that you're not you anymore. You hold onto the silly idea that your breasts and your vagina are your own property, but they're not! They belong to the chap who bought you, along with all your other assorted bits and pieces. I was forever getting whipped because I slapped his hands away or used my own to cover my pubic hair."
Ayesha grinned wryly. "But finally, of course, the whip beats you. There comes the day when all you are concerned with is avoiding it. All you want to do is what you're told, to be a good little girl and frightfully grateful for male favours. You don't realize it at the time, but that's when your real slavery begins. When all you want to do is be obedient you're a slave. Took me about two masters to reach that point. There were so many whip marks on me I was scared they'd never go away. I didn't want anymore. I got 'em, but not from want of trying not to." She surveyed her fellow captives sadly. "The whip's awful, isn't it? It curls you up, makes you sick inside, you can't believe it's true. It makes you feel a hundred times a girl. Half the time you know you're only being whipped because you're female and they love to watch you squirm and hear you howl."
"Rasuli wasn't like that," Eve affirmed.
"He really owned you!" Ayesha laughed. "No, Rasuli wasn't like that. He never fell in love with me the way he did you. But he treated me like a princess-at least he made me feel like one! Oh, he whipped me too. But I never minded much with him... The afterwards made it seem worthwhile. And he gave me a real position in his House. I was lucky... "
Ayesha picked up the chain that ran from her collar to the girl beside her. She clinked it dejectedly. "Now look at me! Back to square one. There won't be any Rasuli's coming to this hole in the desert looking for bargains in slave girls... " She pondered. "Y'know, there was one other chap that bought me who I sort of regretted. He wasn't what you'd call kind. But he had a sense of humour. A big, boisterous, laughing man, a bit on the fat side but not too much. I never did know what he was. They are such a mixed-up lot racially here that I don't think they know themselves. Quite a lot of white blood has got filtered into the stream. This chap's name was Mullah.
"We never do have a chance to escape, do we! We kid ourselves, and in the first year or two it's in our mind all the time. We watch every chance. That's another facet of being a slave: it's when we stop looking and know we never will be free of a chain or a lock or a bit of cord. But when Mullah owned me I actually escaped." She laughed derisively. "It was the biggest swindle ever. I had a little room where I slept on the floor on a rug. I was chained there every night with a great big chain bolted to the floor and a shackle round my ankle that weighed about five pounds. With that on I was so safe they never bothered with the door. One night when I gave my chain one last disgusted kick that damn shackle opened and fell to the floor. I was a free girl!"
Ayesha grinned at their eager faces. "I expect you're a jump ahead of me. But anyway, I was so damn happy I didn't stop to think. It was a wonderful feeling. I knew the house well enough that creeping out of it unseen shouldn't be difficult. It was in a fair-sized community, and because Mullah had a lot of visitors who often got a look at me I'd been allowed to wear a bit of something round my hips. So I supplemented that with a towel and set off on The Great Escape. I don't think there's been a feeling before or since as fearful and exquisite as when I slipped out the front door and into the street.
"It was late. There weren't many people around. What I needed was a white man or a policeman. Imagine my joy when a uniform came striding round the corner almost into my arms. I had a good look at him first. But he was the real thing. I practically jumped on the poor fellow, babbling out my troubles sixteen to the dozen." Ayesha laughed bitterly. "He didn't have a word of English. Just stood and grinned and shook his head. When I was about frantic he took me by the arm in a grip I couldn't break and led me down the street. We were practically on the doorstep before I realized where he was taking me. I fought, I kicked, I screamed. Mullah must have been watching. He opened the door wide and came to help. Not me, but the cop. They were both roaring with laughter as they dragged me inside and dumped me on the living-room floor. That damn policeman took his handcuffs and cuffed my right wrist to my left ankle so all I could do was sit on the rug and howl.
"I've never seen two happier men. They sat down with a drink apiece and simply admired me and the tantrum I was throwing. Not that I could do much, but I did what I could. Mostly tears. They really enjoyed the tears. They kept catching each other's eye and going off into great guffaws that made me long to kill them. But handcuffed the way I was any move I made turned out ridiculous. The whole thing had been staged, of course. It must have been one of Mullah's most successful practical jokes. They made an evening of it and got quite drunk, with me sprawled on the rug glowering." Ayesha grinned at the memory. "I had to be punished: that went without saying. When they took me to my room and locked the shackle on my foot, this time to stay, Mullah solemnly sentenced me to a hundred lashes for the next day. To be administered before the assembled household. I cried myself to sleep. But the whipping I actually got was no worse than I'd had often before. In his own way, I suppose Mullah wasn't a bad chap."
"Why did he sell you?" Eve asked curiously.
"Actually he didn't. He lost me in a card game. But before that happened he got one more grand and glorious bit of fun out of me. I could kick myself... but I suppose there is a bit of humour in it somewhere. This time I was helping in the kitchen. They had leg irons on me, so I was shuffling back and forth with a good deal of noise, and when I tripped and fell with a bowl of salad the woman in charge-she never had liked me or wanted my help-unlocked the shackles, threw them aside and irritably gave me twice as much work to do. There were enough women around that escape never entered my mind even though I was both free and clothed.
"When the commotion came out in the street they all went to look. Suddenly I had my chance. I slipped out the back door, up an alley and the crowds on a busy street. This time I'd do it right. Nothing but a well-dressed white man or the American Consul. No seedy-looking cops! There was such a crush of people nobody noticed anybody. I was doing fine when the fingers tapped my shoulder. The butterflies in my tummy did a somersault. Sure enough it was a policeman. But this time a smart bit of work. I was about to make a run for it when he spoke in English: 'You have a purse?' " Ayesha giggled. "I thought he was asking for a donation. You know, the Camel Corps yearly binge. I was groping for words when he put his hand in the pocket of the thing I was wearing, and came out with a purse. When he opened it I saw a lot of money. Someone had planted it. He had my wrist before I could run. First thing I knew I was handcuffed. I could just hear Mullah roaring with laughter. But it didn't turn out just that way.
"The policeman was frightfully polite. He arranged my garment so that the shame of the handcuffs weren't noticeable, then guided me off through the crowd. But not back to Mullah's. We ended up in a police barracks, a sizable place with a court and a judge so that inside half an hour I'd been convicted of theft and sentenced to two years in prison. Whenever I mentioned the American or British Consul no one seemed to hear.
"Everything happened so quickly that never managed to keep up. But suddenly the atmosphere changed. The upstairs of the barracks was reasonably modern and quite tidy. But downstairs where the cells were was something different. We went back a century with the first flight, and about five hundred years with the second where they took me. In no time at all I was kneeling on a bit of mat on a stone floor in a tiny little box of a cell that had only a glimmer of daylight from a tiny barred window up by the ceiling, the rest of the place must have been underground. I was chained by my neck to a ring in the wall. Both the collar and the chain were heavy enough to make wearing them pure misery. There was enough chain that I could lay down or walk a step or so either way. They took my clothes and tossed me a bit of sacking. The Chief of Police then read me a bit of paper and told me how lucky I was to get off with only two years and no hard labour. I'd have a wonderful time sitting there at the end of my chain without a care in the world. What a lucky girl I was! He bowed and left.
"I wept and wept! I longed with all my heart to be back in Mullah's house. Why, oh why, oh why... ! You know what it's like at such times. That awful little cell and the beastly heavy collar and chain absolutely demoralized me.
"Good old Mullah played this one for all it was worth. He wrung every ounce of drama out of it there was to wring. It was hours before he showed. By that time I'd given up all hope and was willing to die. He came in and pretended not to know me. He'd just chanced by and stopped for a chat... the carney old bastard!
"He lamented a lost slave girl. An ungrateful female who had spurned the love and affection of his house. An abandoned creature of deplorable judgment. Could I imagine where such a one might be found!
"I was in no mood to quibble or worry about pride. I'd have done anything to get out of that hole. I abased myself utterly. I'd discovered one thing men love. That's to kneel before them and offer yourself in total submission. So that's what I did. The chain would not quite let me reach his feet, so I couldn't kiss them. 'I'm sorry, Master.' I put my heart and soul into it.
"Ah! he said, if only his slave had shown such appreciation, such willingness to accept her just desserts! That gave me the clue to my next humiliation. 'I have been bad, Master. Please whip me."
"He affected great surprise. What a jewel I was! If only his slave girl had possessed such wisdom! I want to go home, Master and be punished. I pleaded. The hell of it was I meant every word. That chain and that cell had broken me.
"It went on and on until he tired of that sequence and moved on to the next. It appeared I had caused much trouble to several quite noble souls. The policeman, the chief and the judge. The least I could do was make amends...
"I suppose, once, I'd have raved and fought and been quite genuinely appalled. But that was past. I'd have accepted every rampant cock in the place if it would have got me out of there. I expressed my gratitude for the honour about to be done me. I even lay on my back and opened my legs. A bit prematurely as it turned out. My first visitor, the judge, preferred a blow job. Well, I got him looked after and showered him with thanks for the privilege he had bestowed on a quite unworthy wench. Then got ready for the next. I arranged myself so the first and only thing he'd see when he came in was my anxious little cunt pleading for his beneficence. But, once again, my good intentions were a bit astray. This chap, the chief, wanted his reward up my behind. So I obediently bent over. I could almost hear Mullah hasping with laughter somewhere outside the door.
"I suppose you've all had it up there too. I wasn't all that experienced. Fortunately a girl doesn't have to do much except keep still and make appropriate sounds. I managed the first and had no trouble with the second. Then I thanked the chief for a truly memorable experience and waited for the cop standing up. He promptly made me lay down and did the job normally three quite separate times. He even made me climax twice. It was about the only bright spot in the day. My thanks, on bended knees, was almost sincere.
"It was a gorgeous feeling when the key turned and that bloody awful collar fell away from my neck. I actually did bend and grasp Mullah's legs and kiss his feet. That's how far gone I was. Then I had to watch while he bargained for a pair of handcuffs. I never did know if he got a bargain or not. But anyway my wrists were locked tight behind my back and I was respectably draped in my discarded clothes. My Master, the man who owned me totally, led me back to his house and to my punishment.
"That walk was bad. I couldn't fight, not handcuffed. But it was a fair distance. Surely, surely! some friendly face would show. Someone to whom I could appeal. But none did. At the last moment I considered flight. If I could break away I could outrun my weighty owner. But I rejected the idea. That little cell was still potent in my mind. I was in enough trouble already. I just didn't have the courage to face anymore... Remember what I told you about slavery! Right then I was a naughty slave girl being led back to her just desserts. I was actually thankful... "
Ayesha shook her head sadly. "This time Mullah was not forgiving. I'd tried to escape twice. True, he had engineered the whole charade, but still I had actually tried. I had shown intent. So I had to be taught a lesson. I had to be made an example. I was not his only slave girl...
"The rotten bastard hung me up by my thumbs. Don't know if you've had that one or not. You read about it in books. But it's not something you believe. It's too... what! Too bloody exotic! Too damn awful. But it's real. They do it to a girl. Mullah did it to me. What's more he hung me in the kitchen. That's where I escaped from. So that was where I should suffer. Of course, too, I'd be in plain and intimate view of all the female dependents: a lesson to all...
"The hooks were put into the corner of the ceiling where I'd be out of the way but still in plain view. Then there was the trapeze effect and a noose of soft leather round each of my thumbs. I watched my hands going up and up. I didn't really believe what was happening until my toes left the floor. Even then it just didn't seem possible that this was happening to me. The agony and the strain on every inch of me was just not true.
"They pulled me up until my fingers were close to the ceiling. Then snubbed me there. The wives and the staff and the slaves would have a lovely view of naked me hanging there by my thumbs because I'd been a bad girl. It was a wonderful object lesson. I had become a subject of much interest to all.
"I hung. That was all I did. It hurt too much to struggle or move. I drooped. But after the lordly males had departed I made all sorts of shameful noises and shed floods of tears. I did not exhibit a particle of Nordic superiority. Hitler would have been disgusted with my lack of stoicism. I just didn't have any. I pleaded. I begged. The females busy in the kitchen all laughed and enjoyed my misery to the fullest. I'm sure they thought I deserved every minute of it. I suppose, by their way of thinking, I did. The trouble was that it wasn't minutes. It was hours. For all I knew it might be days.
"I never did know how long I hung there. Sometime in the night I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was chained by my ankle in my room. That was that. But it was months before my thumbs felt right again. Escape was something I didn't dare think about after that."
Ayesha looked from one to the other of her chainmates. She shrugged. "Nothing out of the way, I suppose. Just a slave girl. You could tell the same. Our bodies used. Our skins marked by whips. That's about it. All very simple really. Sort of basic." She laughed bitterly. "I often think of that courting business when we were in our teens. Remember those nights in the car and in the movies and all those hot hands. All that absurd curiosity about our breasts and our slits! Those poor immature male creatures with their leaking cocks wanted to whip us. But they didn't even know it. If they got their poor silly penis into our vagina they spilled their beans about the second stroke, and then couldn't get us home fast enough. Just imagine the glory they would have known if they could have hung us up naked and whipped us so we made all the sounds their poor overtaxed cocks couldn't invoke."
She mused thoughtfully. "Since I've been a slave, and that's a few years now, I've had to recognize that these chaps over here have the right idea. They master us. If they can do it then it makes it real. They don't paw us in the back of a car and take us home with their pants wet and ours sopping. They fuck us honestly. If we demur they whip us. When they whip us we know what we must do and we do it. Often we find glory in it. More glory than the suburbanites ever find." She looked at her companions of the coffle appealingly. "Am I just a whipped bitch, or is there a truth in there somewhere?"
The chained girls cast their minds back into that other world of pretence and prurience. How sad it had been! They felt no wish to return to the fruitless gropings for something that was not there. Eve laughed in unaffected amusement at a mental picture. "What a thing for the real estate boys." She chuckled. "A whipping room in every home. The rings, the pulleys, the stocks and the post! Sales would double. I wonder how many girls would be willing to admit...!"
"That's the trouble," Alison said quietly. "We won't admit. Right now if some halfway decent accountant offered me marriage and the whip I'd fall into his arms. But only because I'm a slave. Once I'd have scorned his proposal. I'd have been wholly concerned about an Aubusson rug for the living room so as to make the folks next door jealous. When he fucked me on the delivery night I'd have moaned a couple of times to show how pleased I was with something he'd be paying on for the next thirty-six months. I hate to admit it, but these chaps here have the right idea. A girl shouldn't be forever making decisions. The male should make the ones that matter."
"Which reminds me," Ayesha interjected. "I'm supposed to tell you that when any of us get called out for a possible sale we are supposed to do our best to sell ourselves. Put on a good act, I suppose. If we foul the thing up we get whipped. In other words, sell yourself or suffer. Thought I'd better pass it on... "
Eve was the first. Escorted to the place of audience by Mustapha she wondered if it was an honour. She had been unlocked from the coffle and had her wrists handcuffed behind her back and now was being taken to be viewed. How could a girl tell! Perhaps the chap had asked for an economy model!
Mustapha stood to one side. Eve was the centre of interest. Madam Mushad sat regally, secure in title. The buyer, ill at ease and at a disadvantage, gaped at beauty. Jedrah flowed.
"He wants free fuck," Mustapha informed Eve with contempt.
Somewhat later the bulletin was conveyed: "He wants free to whip your arse." Evidently the North African buyer of slave girls was a demanding type that would have utterly dismayed Sears Roebuck. Eve felt lost in this welter of interest. The flow of Jedrah intensified. "Now he want you suck his cock," Mustapha interpreted. "He very much tightwad."
Eve was taken back and chained to the coffle. She gathered she had failed. She wondered when she would be whipped. Alison was led forth, but soon returned. Each of the four was rejected. Mustapha reassured them. "No whip. No your fault. All cock, no cash. Madam tell where to go."
It took a couple of days to make The Great Sale. They were happy days. The slave girls gloried in each other and fed upon ambrosia. Their necks remained linked by the chain. But they had ceased to notice it. The four were as one in all ways. They were happy.
This time the purchaser was a man of substance. All four were led forth for his approval. Either he possessed exceptional vigour or he simply enjoyed feminine company. Either way Madam Mushad stood to profit.
"Stretch feet. Show cunts," the Madam ordered.
They obeyed. Their pubic hair was no longer shy.
"Stick out tits!"
They thrust their breasts into prominence. Lynn tickled her nipples to gain maximum effect. "Turn arseholes." This one was more difficult. It required an almost military maneuver to bring the four rumps in line. But they managed it. Obediently they bent over.
Each was soundly goosed. An exploring finger found its way between their legs and entered their frontal orifice. They made suitable sounds...
"Turn and face."
They managed it with a tugging at their necks.
They stood, attentive but ignored. Much Jedrah flowed. In five minutes of intensive haggling they were sold.
"Pretty fair price," Ayesha whispered. "He's taking the lot."
Madam Mushad beamed. Her faith in the Tightness of things was restored.
"Big feast," Mustapha proclaimed portentously.
"She's giving him dinner," Ayesha translated. "We're sort of a backdrop. He can eye us as he chews. Maybe we get the bones."
Mustapha returned them to their room. "Get cunts ready for big fuck," he exulted. "Much fine price. Must have fine stiff cock."
"At least we are all being sold together," Eve said thankfully.
"Think he'll fuck us all the first night?" asked Lynn. "Quiet, child," Ayesha reproved. "You need the whip hourly."
They were very lovely as they stood before the banquet table. They had worked before the big mirror. Worked because they had no wish to be whipped and because they had pride. They knew they were beautiful. Let he who had bought them know it too. A girl's beauty should not increase her stripes. Their concern was not with their new owner, but with his whip. All four of them passionately wanted no cut of the thing.
"Tits well out," Madam Mushad ordered complacently.
They stuck our their breasts.
"Spread feet. Show cunts." The Madam must indeed be well satisfied with their price.
They spread their legs and thrust their pubic hair into prominence. They were sex, tumescent and triumphant.
Their new owner was a scrawny little man who eyed his purchase as though doubting his own temerity. His name was Aboud. He had little to say, and allowed his hostess to overwhelm him with assurances of his good fortune.
"Bet he's got a wife and six kids," Lynn whispered.
"Young one smartass," the Madam advised Mr. Aboud. "Needs much whip."
Mr. Aboud nodded absently. Eve suspected he was on the verge of asking for his money back. The sight of so much young and eager female flesh might well have daunted more robust men. Mustapha supplied the answer. "Fuck one a day. On fifth day sell quick. Much profit."
The chained slave girls stood, submissive and erotic. Mr. Aboud eyed them from time to time and masticated thoughtfully. Madam Mushad kept up a bright flow of chatter designed to divert her guest's mind from thoughts of a refund. Mustapha beamed on all.
The slamming open of a door. The clatter and thud of heavy boots. A woman's cry of alarm, stilled by harsh male voices. All present froze.
Captain Jethro stalked grandly into the room.
He was accompanied by four armed soldiers who eyed the slave girls with more appreciation than their owner had evinced.
"You are all under arrest," the Captain proclaimed. He made the announcement in both Jedrah and English. Then saluted smartly and winked at Eve. He frowned sternly on Madam Mushad and a cowering Mr. Aboud. "You are harbouring escaped convicts from the prison of Ismaul. You are also trafficking in female flesh," he added piously whilst giving the female flesh in question his close attention.
Jedrah erupted in violent explosions from Madam Mushad. Even Mr. Aboud contrived some lesser detonations. Mustapha lost his smile. Captain Jethro produced fine official documents and plunked them on the table. Two of the soldiers handcuffed the naked girl's hands behind their backs and flanked them as an escort.
The military precision was invincible.
Little by little indignation died. It was replaced by glowering eyes, heaving breasts and perspiration.
Captain Jethro's voice took on a softer tone. It became gently persuasive. The Madam and her erstwhile customer listened with emotions undoubtedly violent but mixed. They looked at each other in resignation as they reached into their clothing and produced paper currency in sizable wads. The captain accepted it with the air of a man bestowing a considerable favour. Once more he winked at Eve. It was as though he saw her as a kindred rogue. He saluted the deflated slave traders smartly. The soldiers marched their coffle of captives to the truck. They were lifted aboard. The soldiers joined them. The truck roared away across the sand.
* * *
"Don't suppose you're in any great rush to get back to Ismaul?" Captain Jethro grinned companionably at Eve over his glass. "You'll like this: Southern Comfort and ginger ale. Down it and have another." His wink was lecherous.
It was nice to be just handcuffed and off the coffle. Eve held her cool glass in her linked hands and smiled back. The Captain had a way with him. "Do we have to go back there at all?" she asked hopefully.
"'Fraid so. I've got a pretty good thing going here. Can't risk losing it. Besides, there's a reward."
The victim of avarice sighed. She supposed she should be thankful for this absurd interlude. There was always a chance...
"But if you held us and sold and repossessed us once a week that would be better than any reward," she wheedled.
"Not all that many Madam Mushads," he pointed out reasonably. "And anyway, I do have other irons in the fire here and there." He waved his hand airily. "Damn comfortable one way and another."
Eve let her eye wander round the luxurious apartment that was the upper floor of the small military unit. "It's a lot nicer than that cell you have the four of us chained in," she conceded.
"Not too crowded, eh?" He sounded anxious. "You'll spend the night with me in turns. Thought you'd sooner be all together. That's our biggest cell. If you'd sooner have cells to yourselves I can manage it."
"A small extra charge?" she twinkled at him.
"Never sneer at profit," Captain Jethro proclaimed. "Matter of fact, there's a small enterprise brewing I'd like your help on."
"You'd whip me if I refused?" She was enjoying his ingenuousness.
"Of course, honey. And I mean it! So behave."
He did mean it. Beneath his insouciance was steel. But in the meantime, by Jedrah standards, he was being kind to her.
"Why did you pick me for this delightful talk?" Her curiosity was genuine.
"Two reasons," he admitted slowly. "Hey, drink up! You may need it. First of all is you're a damn beautiful girl. You're the kind that gets under a man's skin. You're special! Second is those chains on your ankles. They're Ismaul chains. I know. If they put those chains on a girl in Ismaul it's because she isn't one of the herd. She is something or she's done something that sets her apart. Don't suppose you see 'em that way, but they're really a tribute. As I said before, you're special. And I'm not going to take those chains off you either."
"I don't mind. They're a part of me now. Mostly I forget I have them on." There was understanding in the glance they exchanged as she accepted her refill. Her handcuffs tinkled against the glass. "What is it you want me to do?"
"Dull place this." His eyes sparkled at her. "Needs a bit of entertainment. Ever do theatricals?"
"Real ones? Or do we put on an act with donkeys or dogs?"
"Oh come now! You underrate us all. But with four girls... Couldn't you hash something up?"
"Porno?"
"Not really. There's quite a lot of that around this part of the world. There's a quality about you... Don't laugh, but I'd hoped for something a bit artistic."
"You'll sell tickets, of course?"
"And at a damn stiff price," he affirmed. "You'd better be good."
"Or we get whipped!" she grimaced at him.
"You're wasted in Ismaul." He examined her admiringly. "Damn pity... " He shook his head sadly. "You're worth a fortune. The way you talk about the whip and your chains... You're so marvelously adjusted."
Eve sipped and grinned at him. "Simple really. I've been broken. I have, y'know. I'm not acting like a slave this minute, but I am one."
"Ismaul that bad?"
She nodded somberly, her eyes suddenly piteous. "Don't send me back. Take me to an American Consul. I'll get you money, a lot of money. If you take me back to Ismaul I'll be punished terribly and I expect my sentence will be lengthened, that's what they do to escaped convicts, isn't it!"
"I won't promise anything, honey. But leave it with me. If it's that bad I don't want you back there either."
"I'll do anything you want... anything! Honest, I will!"
Captain Jethro smiled thankfully and began to talk.
It was a sort of assembly hall within the barracks. It was lined with rows of chairs. The chairs were filled with men. Men intent and hushed. Men who had a stake in something they had paid for. Men who watched a curtained stage.
Captain Jethro was a resourceful man. Whatever had been asked for was provided. He himself had done the lights. They were almost professional. The black velvet was the girl's idea. Where he had acquired such quantities no one knew.
There was the sibilance of tension, of breathing changed as the curtain dropped away.
Four naked girls against velvet black! White girls shimmering in contrast. The legs of one are chained. She holds a whip.
One is younger than her fellows. She sinks upon her knees, pleading. She has transgressed and seeks forgiveness. She kisses unyielding feet and looks up piteously to unrelenting eyes. One by one they spurn her. She sags, without hope. Humbly she kisses the whip and offers her hands that they be bound.
They circle her wrists with cord. Unseen pulleys lift her outstretched arms. Soon her questing toes search vainly for the floor. She hangs suspended. A naked white girl, sacrifice of the whip. She moans and tosses her lovely head in desolation.
Two of the nude maidens become acolytes. Each grasp an ankle, step back and gently pull. The victim moans in protest as her legs are drawn apart. More and more and more! Her pubic hair and that which it conceals is lifted and stretched. It becomes a beckoning eye to the roomful of avid men.
She tries to struggle, but is held. The acolytes split her loins. Satisfied they stand, feet braced, a slender ankle held fast against their bellies. They know their task. They stand. Each is beautiful.
She who holds the whip walks, her chains clinking, until she stands to see that which the audience has seen. She looks long and deep. Then steps aside so that no nuance of agony be lost to the watching eyes and strikes. The lash curls across the cunt. There is an undulating cry of anguish. The line of scarlet bisects the sex.
The whip is cast upon the floor. She who held it sinks in worship of her work. Then fiercely buries her mouth upon the sweetness within the center of the weal and feasts.
The eyes watch. The deep intent hungry eyes confronted with a beauty they had not expected. Participants in a female rite as ancient as woman. Enacted in a land where female joy is sin. Their breathing quickens. They behold the forbidden.
There is music. She who is tied and spread plays it with her lips. Who can tell whether she moans and cries in pleasure or in pain.
Who cares!
She of the hungry mouth performs her task. She has eaten of the forbidden fruit and found joy. She has given ecstasy to female flesh stained with guilt. Once more she grasps the lovely whip.
How beautifully they etch upon the whiteness of the skin, those weals of scarlet! How punished is the sex that holds its stolen happiness. It pays with pain. But is the price too high!
The young girl's voice keens out her agony. Out in the darkness the men lust. Theirs is the greatest agony of all.
They take their turn. What is done to the first is done to each. Only she of the shackles is inviolate. She is a goddess. It is proper.
But the whip is hungry. The youngest takes it from the loving fingers. The acolytes tie the loving hands. They suspend her so that only her chains touch the floor. The whip feeds upon her hungrily. The taste of her is gorgeous to the thong.
Her screams are melody.
* * *
"Damn near fooled me." Captain Jethro looked at the four slave girls with immense approval. Brimming glasses celebrated a smash hit. His apartment had never known greater felicity.
"That red stuff on the whip... " Eve giggled. "We had to scrub each other."
"Hurt some, I suppose?" It was almost as though he cared.
"If we never get worse, I'd be happy," Lynn vowed with sincerity.
"Tickets all sold?" Eve was arch.
Her answer was a wink. "Pity you girls don't need money," the Captain mused thoughtfully. "You damn well earned it."
"Set us free, please."
He sighed. "From now on there's a penalty of five strokes for any girl who comes up with that bright idea. It embarrasses me. Sit on it, or I'll make sure you can't sit at all."
"Which of us gets to sleep with you tonight?" Lynn's voice was expectant.
Eve saw it as a time of tantalizingly pleasant frustration. This happy, cynical man who held them could so easily set them free. But he would never do so. He had no faith in promises of money. Matched against what was within his grasp they were too nebulous. Now the plea was forbidden.
Lynn had already collected five ringing cuts across her bottom. That was enough. Captain Jethro meant what he said. They would do his bidding until it pleased him to return them to Ismaul.
But they cherished a ray of hope. It was Ayesha. If she was delivered to Ismaul along with them, surely she would be free! The Commandant would have no need of her. He could give her aid. She could be with an American Consul the following day. If she was free perhaps they could be free too. She was a link with a lost world. Just so long as Captain Jethro did not know... ! It was easy to guess what would happen to her should he discover her status. Ayesha would fetch a very high price...
"It shouldn't be too difficult a job," Captain Jethro explained blandly. "I'll have Franji dress in rags and tatters. He'll make the deal for you with Rabbah: sell you for whatever he can get. In a few days we make the raid and pick you up." He smiled deprecatingly. "I don't suppose you'll be any worse treated with Rabbah than anyone else."
"If I say no, I'll be whipped?" Eve was weary of antics.
"Yes, you will. But don't harp on it!" he pleaded testily. "I'll let you in on a secret. Nothing I enjoy more than caning a girl's arse. But with you I don't want to. Damned odd! I suppose it's because you are such a good... "
"Slave!" Eve supplied the word bitterly.
"Well... sport's probably better."
"A nice obedient girl who does not want to be whipped."
"Have it your own way." He waved a tolerant hand. "But this time you have an assignment. I want you to count and try and memorize the men who visit Rabbah. Shouldn't be hard. He'll want to show you off. May even let the important ones-"
"Fuck me? That's what you were going to say."
"Oh alright!" He actually showed embarrassment. "But try and take the job seriously. It's army business. You'll be performing a service."
It was in her mind to ask if the service to the State did not warrant commutation of her sentence. But why start this new adventure with a sore bottom! She did not want to start it at all.
She was given a cloak. Franji and his helper were comic in rags. Her hands were tied behind her back with sleazy cord. Handcuffs would be suspect. Coarse rope circled her throat and provided a leash. "Pretend you no want," Sergeant Franji suggested playfully when they reached their destination and he was leading her by the rope.
Obediently she dug in her heels and protested. She struggled against the cords. They held. She shook her head in fury. Franji blandly jerked it so that she followed. An authentic picture of a slave girl un-subdued.
Rabbah was surprised, but gratified. The bargaining was brisk. The usual currency changed hands. Her rope changed hands. Once more Eve was sold.
It was disconcertingly silent. She was led into the large pleasant room with the divans and the rugs. She was placed against a wall, her tether tied to a ring above her head. Like a puppy dog, she thought angrily. Then flinched as her cloak was torn from her. She stood tied and naked before her new owner.
The new owner found himself a seat, lounging in it negligently and devouring her nudity. Eve stood for his inspection. What else could she do! Rabbah was obviously enjoying his power over the white naked girl. He was in no hurry. When he spoke his words were one more bombshell.
"I'd like to see Jethro's face when he discovers that cash is counterfeit."
For moments the everyday English words failed to register. When they did Eve's heart almost stopped. Her wide-eyed tension told her consternation.
Rabbah was a man approaching middle age. He had a humourous twist to his mouth and a hard eye. He was amused.
"Are you from New Jersey too?" It was all she could think to say.
"Got mine in London," Rabbah said. "I speak several. It's useful in my business." He did not state his business.
"Please help me escape. I've been kidnapped."
He laughed. "I didn't think this was a feature of a Horizon Tour. All you girls are kidnapped. So far as getting free goes, forget it. You're worth a fortune. No man's going to let you go free. Why should he?" His eyes focused on her pubic hair. "I suppose you've been well fucked and well whipped?"
"Yes, both!" she agreed bitterly.
"Jethro's a lucky devil. You're worth big money."
"Sell me then."
"Every fresh owner a fresh hope, eh?" he said. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Torture you, of course." His eyes were level and grey. Her nostrils flared. "Why?"
"I have to know what the good Captain has in mind."
"You don't have to torture me for that. You don't suppose he tells me his secrets, do you?"
"Barbed wire thrust in and out of a girl's cunt is most disagreeable."
"I can't stop you doing it. But I can't tell you what I don't know."
"Ever been in a cage with a cobra? It loosens most female tongues."
Eve looked at him heartbroken. She had no defense.
"Or matches, sharpened at one end and thrust into your breasts, then lit."
She moaned. Already she could feel the burn.
"A candle shoved up your arse, then lit."
Eve wept. Her courage was gone. He would do these things to her and she could answer nothing.
"In the morning you will tell me what you know," Rabbah said casually. He rose and left the room.
She stood there against the wall. It took her a little time to guess her plight. A naked girl. Her ankles chained. Her hands tightly tied behind her back. Tethered by her neck to a ring set in the masonry above her head. She must perforce stand. All rest was denied. She could not sleep. She could not walk away. This was the first of her tortures. She wept in bitter realization. But could not dry her tears. If she had known anything she would have screamed it aloud. She leaned back against the stone and faced the night.
The night was very long and very bitter.
"So our little slave girl knows nothing at all!" Rabbah laughed at her.
It was morning. Eve was distraught with weariness and fear. All she could do was weep.
Rabbah untied the rope. He untied her hands. "There is a bathroom in the hall. Come back here. No nonsense."
She returned to her master. Nonsense was the furthest thing from her mind. She was abject.
"You know nothing. I am not concerned with you. I am leaving. You will count no heads and memorize no faces." He laughed at the admission on her face. "Your noble Captain can stage his spurious raid whenever he pleases. I will not be here. But you will be. He can take you and send you back to Ismaul... You see! I even know that! Or what is more probable, he will rent your body out at so much an hour. Men would pay a lot for you."
"Don't you want me?" Her voice was pitiful. Already she could feel the Captain's cane.
"I desire you. But I have not the time. Nor did I pay for you." He chuckled. "We Arabs are noted for our honour." He clapped his hands.
The girl reminded her somewhat of Lynn. But she was younger. She was Jedrah. She was pert and alive. She carried a whip.
"My daughter, Ann. Yes. A Western name, why not! Next year she goes to the London School of Economics. For the next few days she will possess you utterly and will whip you to her heart's content. My family should get some dividend from the trouble Captain Jethro is causing us."
"Make her understand I will be cruel, Father." The voice was soft.
"You see! Ann understands your state of mind."
"But... but, why...?"
"To own you and to hurt you will give Ann happiness. That is enough. Ann is my daughter."
He turned to the bright-eyed girl. "You will allow her to sleep now. It is urgent that she does. Keep her healthy. She will scream louder."
He swiveled to his captive. "Put your hands behind your back."
Eve unthinkingly obeyed. Her wrists were corded tight together.
"There you are, cherie." Rabbah kissed his daughter and was gone.
Half dazed, Eve followed the tug of her leash to the dismal little cell and the cot. The door clanged. The lock snapped. She flung herself on the blanket and slept.
"I'm not really a sadist." Ann's eyes were soulful. "I just like to hurt girls. Not males, they don't interest me. But girls!" She looked ecstatically at Eve, who was still on her cot. "Girls have such nice things. Their breasts and nipples and their cunts! Men are either flat or silly. But girls are gorgeous!"
Eve felt better for her sleep. It would help her deal with a kinky broad. "You're a lesbian, darling?" she asked helpfully as she tugged at the cord on her wrists.
"You'd like to be untied, wouldn't you." The soft voice was almost maternal. Deft fingers went to work. "There! Is that better?"
Eve sat up. She massaged her wrists. She was bewildered.
"I'll whip you if you don't obey me." Ann held the whip. Her eyes glowed.
"I asked if you were a lesbian." Eve struggled toward some semblance of the rational. "If you are I'll give you pleasure. Wouldn't you like that?"
Ann clapped her hands. "Mary will look after you. I want you antiseptic, fed, and helpless."
The huge negress was maternal, ruthless and kind. Whilst she was dealt with Eve had no thought of resistance. When she was once more delivered to the capricious Ann she knew herself clean, well fed and helpless. Her hands were bound behind her back.
"Do men prefer fucking you or whipping you?" the youngster asked interestedly.
Eve felt better. But not better enough for a teenage inquisition. "They usually whip me. That gets 'em an erection. Then they use it on me." She looked her inquisitor in the eye. "Simple, isn't it." She was sure she would be whipped. It was the last thing she wanted.
"I've never been fucked."
"You're lucky." Eve's voice was bitter.
"Don't you ever enjoy it?"
"Sometimes. Afterwards you wish you hadn't."
"You know I'm going to whip you, don't you?"
"Everybody whips me," Eve said dejectedly. "You might as well. What does it do for you? Give you hot pants?"
"It's a gorgeous feeling."
"Spread your legs. I'll give you a gorgeous feeling without the trouble of whipping me."
"You're being clever." Ann was youthfully suspicious.
"No, I'm not. I'm tied helpless. You can whip me afterwards if you're not pleased."
"You're trying to bribe me. Trying to make me do things your way." The young eyes were accusing, uncertain. "Right at the start now you have to understand that you belong to me. You do what I say. Will you obey me? Tell me. If you don't I'll whip you till you do."
"I'll obey you." Eve wanted only the easiest way out.
"Call me Mistress."
"I will call you Mistress. I will be obedient."
Ann surveyed her slave girl with approval. "You must have been whipped an awful lot to be the way you are. Someone would have to whip me terribly to make me as humble as you."
"I have been whipped terribly, Mistress."
Ann became judicial. "My problem is that I don't want your hands tied like that all the time. For one thing, it stops me whipping your back properly. But if I untie you, will you let me tie you again another way?"
"I'll let you tie me, Mistress. I won't fight. I promise. My feet are chained together. I may not seem helpless, but I am."
Ann looked at the naked girl admiringly. "You're so sensible. I'm glad. It's going to be so much fun hurting you. You will scream, won't you. I don't want you to be heroic."
"I'm not the least bit heroic. I'll scream." Eve had never felt lower in the human scale.
"I've never whipped the nice parts. Have you been whipped on them?"
"What are the nice parts, Mistress?" As though she did not know!
"All your front. I've just whipped a girl's back up to now. But her front's much better, mine and yours." The child wriggled in the throes of lust. "I can just almost feel it. Your breasts and your cunt. That's what I want to whip. All the bits of us that men love. I hate men." . "There's no use hating men, Mistress. Women aren't any kinder to women. Look at us two now! You are going to whip me for your pleasure. It will hurt me just as much as if a man did it."
"But you have pleaded to love me. You want to suck my cunt, don't you. Would you do that for a man?"
Eve grinned at her youthful owner companionably. If only she could touch the child, find a chink in the armour of insouciant cruelty. "Yes, Mistress. I would do it to avoid being whipped." She made a gesture of frustration. "You see, Mistress, it is not until a girl becomes a slave that these things fall into place for her. When we are free and can exercise choice there are all sorts of inhibitions that make our behavior and attitudes utterly different to mine now. All the inhibitions have been whipped out of me. Each moment now I do what I must. I push all the other things out of my mind. If I left them there cluttering me up I'd be whipped to death."
"What about the love business?"
The slave girl shrugged sadly. "Yes, there's a tragedy there. A girl like me who's been trained and punished as much as I have comes to physically treat all she must serve as though she felt love... " She sought the intent young eyes in a need to impart a truth. "You see, that is the quintessence of the arts we learn, the ultimate achievement. To create in our Lord or Mistress the certainty that they possess our spirit as well as our flesh. I suppose to be good at it we have to actually make the thought transference within ourselves for the duration of the act. Perhaps, too, it's some sort of psychic armour we protect ourselves with. Certainly we who achieve it are truly slaves."
"You're not doing a Scheherazade on me, are you?"
"It is you who ask the questions, Mistress. I will answer or keep silent, as you wish." Eve managed her best smile. "I will admit I find pleasure in speaking of these things to you."
Ann nodded, satisfied. "Good! But I don't want you to think it will make any difference. I'll still whip you."
"Of course, Mistress."
Impetuously the girl knelt beside her prisoner and untied the cord from the crossed wrists. "There! That's a reward for being nice."
"Thank you, Mistress." Eve was genuinely grateful. Rabbah had tied the cords too tight. She massaged the weals.
"There are menservants, you know. And women. I have only to call." The younger girl warned, "I know, Mistress. But please trust me. I won't fight. I'll let you tie me when the time comes." In a spontaneous need to create trust, Eve offered her wounded wrists. "Tie me now, Mistress, if it pleases you."
Ann gurgled with delight. "There! That's what I mean about you. You're so... so absolutely... oh never mind! You've made me all wet. That's what I mean. Do you affect men like this?"
"I'm afraid so, Mistress. I am told that lam very female."
"You are very gorgeous. Don't you think it time I whipped you?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"There you go again, you pant wetter. What part of you shall I start on? You can choose. See! I'm being kind."
The kneeling Eve tried to hide her inward qualms. She terribly feared the whip upon her breasts and within her loins. She wanted neither. How hard it would be to plead for one and not weep.
"You're scared, aren't you! Poor darling. You don't want your breasts whipped... I can tell."
"No, Mistress. You are right. I am afraid."
"Not even that lovely cunt?"
"Forgive me, Mistress, I am afraid there too." She looked up seeking pity in the bright and eager eyes. "A girl... a girl, has no courage in those places. They are too much... too much, us."
"But I will whip you on those places."
"Of course, Mistress. It is wrong of me to spoil your pleasure. Please punish me."
Ann cooed her delight. "I'm so glad Daddy gave you to me. It's going to be wonderful. We must both love every minute. You will, y'know. I'll make you. You're so sweet I'm going to start easy. We'll keep your nice girly things till later. First I'll cane your bottom. Would you like that?"
"Oh, thank you, Mistress!" Eve sensed absurdity, but heartfelt gratitude was in her voice. She was a slave girl thankful that only her bottom was to be hurt.
"Now, how shall I tie you?" Ann wrinkled her brow in thought.
Eve looked around the pleasant room. "There is that wooden bench, and there's rings up in the wall... " She offered helpfully. Then asked the obvious: "Don't you have a room...?"
"Yes, we've got a room alright," the teenager admitted. She tittered. "I suppose I'm not very fond of it because Daddy takes me in there to be whipped when he thinks I've been bad." She eyed Eve archly. "Bet you never thought I get whipped too?"
Eve smiled in feminine comradeship. "I think all us girls get whipped in this part of the world." She shot a keen glance. "Do you really hate it?"
"You know! I can tell." Ann twinkled. "When I know it's going to happen I get all wet. While it happens I hate it and scream and scream. Afterwards I'm glad and happy." She giggled. "And I'm a very, very well-behaved girl for a little while."
"I expect I'm going to be very well behaved too," Eve said demurely.
The teenager knelt, her small hand inserted itself and cupped the slave girl's sex. "Ohhhh! It's the same with you! You're wet just because you know I'm going to whip you. Isn't it lovely!"
Eve was both angry and amused. She was wet. She knew she was. The prolonged discussion on the excoriation of her flesh had unleashed her sensuality. The younger girl who she must obey was vividly erotic. Ann exuded sex, a pungent femaleness that reached out and inflamed the senses. The naked girl knew herself captive of more than the chain that linked her feet. She thought momentarily of Lynn.
"Suppose we could use the bench," Ann mused. "But I'll want you in more ways than that. The rings are nice just to hang you up or tether you, but they aren't good for whipping. If you push yourself against the wall half of the whip hits the stone instead of wrapping round you. Come on. We'll use the room. With you, I'll enjoy it."
They walked hand in hand. Two girls in search of joy.
"The best position to tie me in is up on tip-toe with my hands in the air." Eve explained. She felt ridiculous and guilty over this self-immolation. But there was something about the child... "That way every little bit of me is open and available for anything you want to do to me. Those 'nice bits' you are curious about are in full view-you can even stretch my legs apart so I'm even more exposed... " She smiled helpfully. "But I suppose it's not the best way to cane my bottom. I expect you'd like it to be bent with the skin stretched so that it will hurt more?"
Ann clapped her hands. Her eyes glowed. "You're a perfect dream. Yes. I want you bent. It does hurt more. I know! It hurts about twice as much."
There was a padded trestle. Bent over it, her sex upon the pad, Eve's toes were off the floor, nor could her questing fingers touch it. She was draped from her hips. They giggled together as the straps were drawn tight to hold her thus. The last one to be positioned and cinched was the one across the small of her back, drawing it in and down. When it was buckled, the girl to be caned knew she had never been more cruelly packaged for the cane to hurt. The skin of her bottom was so tight that it imparted its own sensation to her consciousness. Yet so great had been their sharing of her binding that they laughed together at her plight. Eve ruefully. Ann in admiration and delight.
The victim was shown the cane that would cut her. She quivered inwardly at the sight. But bravely kissed it when it was thrust against her lips.
"I think the starting off bit is one of the best. Don't you, darling? Like this... see."
Eve endured the pattings, the rappings, the measuring, with the smile of a happy participant. She had been thankful that it was her bottom that was to entertain Ann. But the purposeful competence of her preparation told her clearly that the cane would be as merciless as the straps. "I'm not going to tell you when I start," Ann said divertingly. Then struck.
Eve was certain she must be cut. That there would be a gaping wound. She left Jedrah and went into the private world of those who are tortured. A world of writhings and screams, tugging and moans. She stayed there a long time.
Suddenly she was free. The straps fell away. Soft hands guided her to the rug. They made love with frantic passion, a wild demanding intensity of need which they served with the same motions and the same moans with which they paid homage to the whip.
"I couldn't wait... I couldn't wait...!" Ann sobbed in joy.
It was a long time before either of them thought about the cane.
It was still there. A lovely wicked cruelty on the floor where Ann had dropped it. Their eyes fell upon it at the same moment, then turned to each other in communion. Eve stretched her arms in the glorious luxury of freedom. "I'll let you tie me, darling," she breathed huskily.
"You don't mind? Oh darling!" Ann was enraptured.
"I don't mind." Eve was anesthetized by the magic of the radiant child. Her fingers explored her wound. There was no blood from the ridge of hurt. What a charlatan is pain! Yet it was a wound. It hurt. Even now it hurt. "Would you like me back up on the trestle?" she asked brightly.
Again they shared their laughter and their giggles over the quaintness and aptness of the posture that the straps imposed. One by one, Eve felt the leather bands circle her flesh to make her potent for the pain. Once, in total empathy, she asked for the tensioning of one more hole by which the buckle would subdue her. She could look to each side, and up at her Mistress's absorbed and eager face. She was watching when Ann picked up the cane...
She closed her eyes for the explosion. Then made her lonely journey into pain.
"I could feed upon you forever," Ann breathed sighingly.
"Feed on me, darling." Eve wantonly stretched her legs to the limit of her chain. "I'm utterly gorged with you."
"I'm too tired," Ann sighed happily. "Darling... I didn't know it could be like this. You're... you're so, so delicious." She cocked a confiding eyebrow. "Daddy has let me whip a lot of girls. When a kitchen girl has to be punished he lets me do it. But it's not like it's been with us... They aren't a bit like you. They babble and cry and get all messy... sort of wet in the wrong places. Underneath all their assurances of devotion they hate me. I can feel it. Why don't you hate me?"
"I don't know," Eve laughingly admitted. "It's me, I guess. I've stopped worrying about it. I told you that when I loved you it would be real. It was. It still is."
"Even though you know I'm going to whip you more? Oh, lots and lots more? I'm sorry, darling. I feel a beast. But I have to. I just have to. I love you so much! Is that crazy?"
"It's not crazy," Eve chuckled without thought of the pain. "I wish I could tell you why it's not crazy, but I don't know that myself."
"You screamed and cried. But when you did it you were beautiful. Not like those others... And the way you struggle! I thought those straps would break."
"I'm a slave." To Eve it seemed the best explanation of what she was.
They went back to the nicer room. They ate, they loved, they laughed. The whip was in the consciousness of each. But it was not a cloud. "There is something I should tell you," Ann said soberly. "Daddy said that you would try to persuade me to let you escape. That you'd make promises and want to talk about it. He said when you did I was to have you beaten by one of the men." She paused hesitantly. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Eve shrugged in resignation. "I suppose that girls who have been kidnapped and whipped into slavery always remember when they were free. I was owned once by a man I would not have left for freedom. But he was killed. Except for that one time I always want to escape. I try not to think about it too much." She grinned. "Thanks for the warning. I don't want one of your men to beat me. I won't even ask you to let me walk in the courtyard... "
In a sudden welling of affection for this clear-eyed child, Eve told her story of Ismaul.
Ann listened, wide-eyed and enthralled. Hungrily she demanded detail and incident. In the end she was in a daze of desire. "I wish I could go there," she said simply.
Eve laughed at the childish fancy. "See yourself as a wardress with a whip, darling. There'd be lots of bottoms. All female."
Ann was serious. "It's funny," she said slowly, "but I'm seeing myself as a prisoner. Like you." In a burst of candor she exclaimed, "I wish I could be chained in a cell with you. Just the two of us... counting each other's whipmarks. Wouldn't it be gorgeous!"
Eve had a blinding and nostalgic memory of Lynn.
"I'd sooner be chained here with you," she told Ann forthrightly.
The child exploded into joy. "I'll ask Daddy. Daddy can do anything. He'll buy you and give you to me. I know he will." Her eyes sparkled gleefully. "Oh darling, then I'll even let you chain me sometimes so I'll know what Ismaul is like. You will, won't you?"
Eve said she would. She wished passionately it could be so.
The two of them vibrated together like tuned harp strings.
"There's a special whip for it." Ann's voice was hesitant with guilt. "They are silken cords. They won't cut. Or not much... "
Eve had known the time must come. She no longer cared that the loving child would whip her breasts. She was happy about the whip...
"How are you going to tie me, darling?"
"You aren't going to fight or complain? Even though you hate it?"
"I'm a slave girl." Eve proffered her wrists. "Tie me."
"I'm going to whip your breasts!"
"Of course, darling. You are going to whip my breasts. Please don't feel guilty." Eve laughed mischievously. "I'm the guilty one: for having such nice breasts to whip. Everyone always whips them sooner or later."
Ann tied Eve to a bench so that her head fell back over the edge. It was narrow. The captive arms were pulled down and tied on each side. Ankles and waist were fastened. She could not move. The breasts to be punished were beautifully isolated in immobility. Eve could raise her head to watch her punishment or let it fall back naturally. In latter case she could close her eyes and avoid the agony of seeing the sweep and fall of the biting thongs.
It was truly a most remarkable whip. A thing of beauty. "It's really good for three places, darling." Ann dangled it before the captive eyes. "You can guess the third... Maybe when I've done your breasts I'll open up your legs."
"One at a time?" the victim asked passively.
"Oh yes! That's much the best. I'll do one breast really well, then move round to the other." She caressed the rigid nipples with the tips of the lashes. "Ready?"
"I'll never be ready-" The silken strands wrapped round her breast before she could complete the sentence. They splatted home on the tender sphere with a bitter accuracy. But it was not until the seventh stroke that Eve started to scream.
They were happy days and nights. Eve would always remember them. In the days they shared laughter and the whip. At night they shared a bed. A long chain from a ring in the floor was locked on Eve's wrist. One wrist only. "Because Daddy would want it," Ann excused. They fed upon each other with a loving hunger never quite appeased.
The raid was a bitter moment. Eve's hands were immediately cuffed behind her back. She shared piteous and impotent glances with her love as a bewildered Ann was uselessly questioned. The child's cries of desolation followed her to the waiting truck. She never saw her again.
* * *
"You must have done something wrong, something to warn him." Captain Jethro was irritated.
"I didn't. Honestly, I didn't!" Eve protested. "The sergeant and I put on a good show. I get the impression Rabbah is a knowledgeable man. He must have been suspicious. I mean, waiting for you to make a move like that. Why else the spurious money...?"
"Bend over." He selected a cane from the rack.
"But I haven't done anything. Please!"
"Bend over anyway." He was angry. Guilt did not matter.
Flushed and humiliated, Eve obeyed. She was not sure she could touch her toes without moving for the minimum six.
"Who in Jedrah did that to you!"
Eve explained her wealed rump and scarlet breasts. Captain Jethro laughed with some return of good humour. "Luck of the draw, honey."
"But I've been caned terribly. Must I have more?"
"You're a big girl."
"I'm not sure I can stay still. It will hurt more than I can manage. I mean, on top of what I've already had."
"Touch your toes."
"Please tie me. I'm afraid I'll... I'll not be able to behave."
"I don't mind, honey. Do what you like, just so long as you bend over nicely for the next. Now bend! Unless you want twelve instead of six."
Eve bent.
She did not behave well.
"Think you can handle this one without horsing it up? Just a repeat of the Madam Mushad theme. Franji's got the drill and the old clothes. There will be a couple of chaps with him." Captain Jethro's good humour had returned. Once more he entertained four naked girls. Each sipped daintily from glasses held in handcuffed hands. They gave him their full attention. Eve's bottom had impressed them all. They assured him of devotion to his cause.
"I'll really lace into you if there's trouble," he warned. "Now drink hearty, my honeys, and have another."
Obediently they drank.
Even the coffle was familiar. The metal was soon warm about their necks. Nondescript bits of cloth adorned their nakedness. This time they climbed into the truck unaided. But now there was a change. Their hands were tied behind their backs with cord, palm to palm. Then cord circled their elbows. Several bands drawn tight, and tighter until flesh crushed against flesh. It was brutal.
"Please! Not our elbows," Eve wailed. "It's torture."
"Keep safe." Franji approved as though giving warmth on a cold day.
The ride was a misery. Each jolt made the cord bite deeper. They grimaced at each other. "Just to make that bastard a profit," Lynn declaimed angrily.
But there was another change. The truck stopped. Ayesha was unlocked from the coffle. A rope put on her neck. She was led away. She looked back at them with longing.
"Good price," said Franji when he returned.
The rest of the ride was pure misery. They sat and endured the punishment of the cord.
The truck stopped in the shelter of a sand dune. They left it there. Franji used Ayesha's chain as a leash, tugging his coffle of three across the sand. His helpers prodded them with sticks in enjoyment of some private joke. The girls walked in pain, wanting only to reach their destination. Crossing a rise they beheld their destiny.
"Much big reward," said Franji.
Less than a mile distant lay Ismaul.
* * *
The court was as busy as ever, the judges as grave, the clerk as active. Dialect and papers flew back and forth. Alison stood in the box and faced the bench, serene as always. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, as were Eve's. Sentence was about to be pronounced.
Caleb stood beside Eve. He was clothed in the immense importance of being what he called "most good interpreter." It appeared that Eve was not only in court to be tried herself, but was also a witness for the prosecution. She gathered that, so far as sentencing was concerned, the judges saw no need of communion. But, as a witness, speech would be required of her: hence Caleb. He glowed. She was surprised he had not brought his drum.
The sonorous words had been delivered. Alison was led away. As she passed they signaled with their eyes. They could do no more.
"Is now for five years," Caleb explained with pride.
Eve quailed. Their sentences were being extended for escape. For this, it seemed, Ismaul had no mercy.
For once Lynn looked frightened. The solemnity of the court was daunting to a teenager far from home. No doubt it had occurred to the child that she had committed a bonafide crime. To engineer escapes from a State prison would earn retribution anywhere. Jedrah would be no exception. The full weight of the law would fall upon her. Calvin's malign influence need not exist in her case. She had doomed herself. Eve wondered if Rahbinda Cohen had exerted pressure...
"Is for conspiracy, for bribing prison officer and for aid and abet," Caleb informed.
It was frightening. It was true. They were face to face with the inexorable.
In the witness box Caleb reached a pinnacle when the judge directed the fatal question at Eve.
"He ask if girl make your escape. Best you tell truth. Truth already known, so make no difference," he urged ingenuously.
Eve told the truth. She cringed at the single damning word. Caleb contrived, by some magic of his own, to flourish her small affirmative into three sentences of rhetoric.
Others testified. Dialogue flew hither and yon. It was soon over. Lynn was led from the dock, stricken. Her face, as she passed, an agonized question mark.
"Is three years," said Caleb cheerfully. "With full punishments. Little girl will have most sore ass."
It was Eve's turn now. Manfully Caleb marched her to her doom. It must have been very cut and dried, it took so little time and so few words.
"Is sentence doubled for escape." Even Caleb sounded shocked. "Ten years is most long time. Caleb is sad... " He looked at her with pity.
"Ten years!" Eve looked up at him beseechingly. "Oh, Caleb...!"
"I comfort you with fucks," he said.
Commandant Perkins was alone in his office. His sad dog expression befitted the occasion. "None of this is by my wish," he assured Eve dolorously. Then added, petulantly: "If we could have been left alone... the woman and that willful child!"
To stand before his desk, naked, hands chained behind her back. It was familiar enough to seem commonplace. How far had she traveled to end up here again! She blurted out the question dearest to her heart: "Rasuii... can you tell me anything?"
"To me he is but a name," the Commandant said wearily. "One of many names that tear our country apart. I know that you and the other two were found in his house by government troops. That is all. I am not told much. Ismaul is not political."
"Must I truly stay here ten years, sir?"
"Yes. The papers are now in your file." He sighed. "It is cruel for one so young." He brightened. "There is also a directive from Mrs. Cohen that you share a cell with the troublesome child you adore. It is a rare privilege. It will make your first three years easier."
"Sir, she is so young. Must she bear all the punishments?"
His thin smile made its appearance. "No doubt you would heroically bear them for her," he suggested sardonically. "Yes, she will suffer the full list. There may even be additions. I have never known Mrs. Cohen more angry with an inmate." He paused and considered. "I, too, am displeased. She did us great harm."
"Please, sir! Not the bastinado?"
The Commandant smiled at her kindly. "That was, for you, the unbearable, the last straw. It is for most of our girls. Yes, she will feel the cane upon her little feet. Natcha will not lighten her hand."
"Sir, I would do anything... "
He waved the inference away. "Do not weep yet for your little dove. I think she is a very durable little dove and will bear what she must: perhaps better than you can." He gave Eve a shrewd glance. "She is a type. I have known them here often enough. They are irrepressible. You whip them one day and they are full of impudence the next. It is impossible not to feel affection for them. They are like small, lovable animals: the kitten that purrs and the puppy that gambols. They are deeply sensual." He laughed in memory. "I have known it where such a girl was not whipped for several days so asked her wardress to whip her for the pleasurable sensations it engendered in her loins. There are punishments under which she will break. But the effect is fleeting... You will see."
Eve recognized truth in what he said. Lynn was a lovable bundle of contradictions, amazingly resilient. Yet the child's wan and fearful face as she had been led from the court was still vivid in her mind.
"Will Mrs. Cohen be vindictive with her, sir?"
He shrugged and chuckled. "Mrs. Cohen is a very busy woman. She has more than this disobedient child to think about. But I am very certain she will set aside affairs of State long enough to personally cane the young bottom you are so concerned over. I don't know when she will do it. But she will do it!"
"Must my ankles really be chained for ten years, sir?"
"Yes, they must! It is the law. It is a sensible precaution." He grinned at her confidingly. "In fact, I do not mind telling you that your little darling is down in the smithy now being ironed as you are ironed."
Commandant Perkins laughed enjoyably at Eve's evident consternation. "Come, come! Consider for a moment. You girls who have come to us from... far away, are an unusual hazard. You are subject to exterior influences. Look at what has just taken place. All of it due to factors and interests beyond my control. I do not like it. This is fanciful, I know, but liken it to a foreign hand reaching across the ocean and the desert to reach into the heart of Ismaul for motives not of Jedrah at all. Do you see my point?"
Eve saw his point, all too well.
"I will tell you frankly, too," he continued, looking awkward, "that a most simple thing, which I am sure would seem to you primitive and cruel, could have saved the heartbreaks that fell upon you in court today. Had you and the other girl been chained to the wall by a long chain to which only I had the key, much misery would have been avoided. You say to yourself, 'This is of the Dark Ages.' But not all from the past is foolish or without value. When I was first appointed here I made this recommendation. It was rejected on the grounds of fire hazard. That the inmates could not be released quickly enough in an emergency. I did not argue." He smiled sourly. "It is wise not to oppose what is called progress."
Eve saw the Commandant's point in this also. How basic was the precept for a prisoner, implicit to her condition: "Thou shalt not escape!" The metal upon her ankles felt doubly heavy.
"There is something I am much tempted to impose upon both of you," Perkins continued gravely. "That is to chain your hands. It is a desirable precaution and would not be as cruel as it sounds or restrict you from doing whatever you need do. It would simply further inhibit escape. But it is impractical. The Full Punishment List demands the availability of your wrists. We cannot be running you both back and forth to the smithy every day or so." He sighed regretfully. "We must fall back on the handcuffs whenever it seems desirable."
Eve could not hate him. Almost she could sympathize. He was a tired and disillusioned man doing his job. Impulsively she found herself making a suggestion that once would have seemed irrational: "Sir, instead of keeping us handcuffed I think we would both prefer to be chained to the wall as you have explained." She flushed in embarrassment. "I feel silly asking... But we might be more comfortable."
He looked up at her in surprise. His voice told her she had touched him. "You are a remarkable young woman," he said slowly. "I find something in you that is rare, very rare." He shook his head sadly. "I will tell you that if I could I would set you free." He .shrugged helplessly. "Instead of that I place more chains upon you... "
Eve wished that she could comfort him.
Eve looked up at the twin columns of her naked arms and their spread fingers. What had the proverb said? "Beware of that on which you set your heart... " How true it was! Not that she had truly set her heart on hanging from her thumbs. But she and the Commandant had joked about the eroticism that had touched her lightly in the threat. What infinite capacity women had to invite pain!
Natcha had dealt with her most competently. First to strip her of the sackcloth. Then to bind her thumbs with the bands that would not cut, looping each to the end of the bar from which she was now suspended. A bar that separated her hands by no more than the width of her shoulders so that she hung in a naturally vertical symmetry. She was raised only enough that her toes were well clear of the floor. She could never touch it. But the center links of her ankle chain rested on the stone. It was deliberately tantalizing. It was also excruciatingly awful. Full punishments! The sentence was never far from her mind. This was but one of them. It would go on and on... She would just hang.
She kept looking up at her thumbs in disbelief that the small digits could possess-such capacity for pain and such strength to sustain the weight of her naked body and the metal that had become a part of it. The strain set the thumbs apart, stretched, immovable, agonizing in their bonds. Her fingers were limp, without will to move or seek either release or relief. Neither was possible. She was neatly suspended from her thumbs so that she should suffer pain and serve, thus, one more day of her ten years. She had been told to scream or make such other sounds as she might wish. No one would care.
She was not alone.
Eve wondered if she looked half as lovely as her companion. How feminine the wish! Yet how frivolous when both of them were being tortured. The planned methodical torture of Ismaul. Presumably someone, probably the Commandant, ticked each one off on a list as it was inflicted, then gave instructions for their next installment. That never-ending roster that went on and on. Could any such list be ten years long! Or even three... !
"It's worse than I thought it could be, darling," said Lynn in a small, choked voice.
She was so beautiful! Why did so many tortures enhance a girl's femininity, make her more desirable! They did! How erotic torture was. Even when you were its victim you knew that those who saw you stretched and taut would feel the demanding stirring in their loins. The knowledge made you feel it too. Briefly perhaps, because of the pain. But it had the power to touch you.
Eve saw a mirror of herself. Lynn hung limp without fighting, without motion, her slim loveliness captured motionless by pain. To move hurt. To blink an eyelid must be done with caution. One knew with certainty that the small thumbs could bear no more. To move the head was an exploration into agony. The chains added their own grip on small ankles that feared to move. What had someone said: "You wear them well." On the tormented child they were as jewels. The heavy polished metal and the brutal rivets had absorbed from her youthfulness a quality that made them a part of her. They belonged. They should never be taken from her. Never, never, never! Her youth would cope with them as it surmounted all else. For three years she would wear them. Perhaps already she had lost consciousness of their snug grip. Except in those brief crises in which their intended function had defeated her Eve herself wore her irons casually without thought.
The whip marks were pure artistry. Natcha had given of her best. The Ceremonial had been hushed as the lash had licked and cut. There had been no heroics. Lynn had been her natural self, curious, interested, pert. Her eyes roving here and there until they met Eve's agony. Eve who had tried to shut her eyes but could not. Because she loved the child she must watch her whipped. Vicariously she must gather the blows unto herself. Standing stiffly in the ranks it was her only sharing. How almost happily the slender body had received those first kisses of the thong. Hope for her erotic fantasy sustained her. But as Natcha wrapped the lash snappingly upon skin never before so stung, her gasps and finally-her cries had mounted to acknowledge her acceptance of defeat. Her youthfulness had bent and twisted against the cords she could not break. She was, after all, a girl, a young girl whose nudity was being whipped.
How breathtaking was the whip! Through her maze of pain Eve worshipped the striations upon the body she adored. Her own was well marked. But her fellow captive's Ceremonial had been but the previous day. Each stripe still stood clearly etched upon the white canvas on which it had been painted. From knee to neck. Only the breasts inviolate, the young breasts now pulled almost flat with strain. The lovely breasts that a Ceremonial mercilessly left harmless so that, at some later punishment, they should bear the full attention of a day of pain especially designed for them, with a special lash to caress their curves with its cruelty.
The pixie features that had been flung back in distress to gaze in wonder at the captive thumbs cautiously raised. The wide eyes pleaded. "Darling... how long-how long will they leave us like this?"
How to tell that a girl never knew. That not knowing was a part of it all. That they would most probably hang from their thumbs all day! Yet false hope destroyed you, made you doubly vulnerable. There was no kindness in it.
"It's usually all day," Eve vouchsafed, striving to make her voice casual. "Don't think about it. Never expect release. Hoping is an agony. We just hang. There's nothing we can do. Nothing! Except scream. It helps... "
Lynn's eyes glinted. She screamed.
The door opened. Commandant Perkins had come to join his guests.
There are those who feel themselves absolved of blame when they make a frank ingenuous admission of their fault, or even of their sin! They do it artlessly as though, by so doing, they achieve virtue. Commandant Perkins was not of these. His open enjoyment of their torture was marked by no hypocrisy. Eve exonerated him in her mind by believing, probably with much truth, that he found the sight of two beautiful, naked girls suspended in a most unorthodox situation entrancing. Their pain was incidental. Certainly no man would pass them by without a glance.
"And so you have your wish, Miss Trevor!" His eyes traveled up and down her loveliness.
Had it been a wish! Eve was not sure. It had been a small pleasantry between them. She would not mar it now. She was sure this lonely man had not come to be burdened by tears or pleas. She managed a small animation in her eyes and said demurely, "Thank you, sir."
"And you are finding some small magic here?"
"No, sir, none!"
He nodded. "It is the way with life. It dangles its carrots that we never grasp." He produced his thin smile. "You wish to ask me now to allow our young lady to place her feet upon the floor?"
"No, sir."
"How sensible! What understanding! You are a jewel of a prisoner."
He turned to Lynn. "And you, my child. What have you to say?"
"Please let us both down, sir. I'll do anything you want."
"Ah, dear, dear! You are young enough to believe the open thighs will buy anything. How very charming."
"Oh please, please!" Lynn forgot the servile sir in her extremity. "Let us down. We haven't done anything to deserve this. It's too awful."
"Pain is comparative, child. You will learn this at Ismaul. Sometimes when a girl is, er, enjoying your present infliction she is also whipped. Girls who have been whipped in this way have told me of how very terrible it can be." He paused and looked at the tortured teenager somberly. "It is also considered routine to place additional weights upon the feet. I have seen it done. The girl attended her exercises as usual the following day. I am sure you would possess an equal resilience."
There was a break in Lynn's voice. "It's cruel. You enjoy seeing us like this... " She let her head fall back, without hope.
He returned his regard to Eve. His tone became conversational as though they were seated comfortably at ease. "I find myself a curious spectator in the present circumstances of Miss Myers: I believe her name is Alison. One of the judges who officiated at her trial and sentencing has been availing himself of a prerequisite of office by visiting her frequently in her cell, and also having her escorted to his quarters for social evenings. I have had a word with him. But he is much enamored. I have not wished to deprive either of them of what is, after all, a most ancient privilege... " The Commandant sighed and shrugged. "In such situations there is always the seed of trouble. But if he has the wish to aid her by some legal process of which I may be unaware I can only wish them well. I have taken the precaution of having her ankles heavily ironed. At least she will not run away... "
Through a haze of pain Eve realized the Commandant was trying to say something which he found awkward. She wished he would go away and leave them to suffer alone. Even though her body might be lovely in his eyes she knew her face must be lined and drawn. A girl undergoing torture is not at her conversational best. Yet his mention of Alison captured her attention.
"I was wondering," said the Commandant diffidently, "if you might welcome some similar interest from the other two judges, his colleagues. I could perhaps put in a word or two. They are influential men... "
"No thank you, sir," Eve said firmly.
"I'd let a donkey screw me if it would get me out of here," Lynn told him with conviction.
The Commandant eyed her with a sardonic amusement. "I recall a time, young lady, when Miss Trevor expressed a curiosity about being hung by her thumbs... In many things Ismaul is quite versatile... Consider it."
He stood and watched them quietly for a long while. Both girls were hurting too badly to care. Each was breathing heavily in distress. Neither wanted to speak. What was the use... Sadly he left.
Behind him two naked girls hung by their thumbs. Their hours would pass very, very slowly.
Lynn hated the sacking she was forced to wear more than she hated the chains upon her ankles. In the cell she lovingly shared with Eve she would cast the wretched garment aside and be naked. In the end Eve joined her in this small freedom. But they wore the dismal uniform when taken from their cell. The joy they found in being together tempered the agony of spirit imposed by their sentences. The younger girl made light of her three years. "Something would happen." But the ten years in which Eve must wear her chains desolated them both. When it was mentioned they clung together as though by the vehemence of their longing they could keep the years at bay.
It was typical of Lynn that she found a feminine pleasure in her fetters. She never tired of playing with them. She would lift and stretch one foot to admire the band around her ankle. She practiced walking, pointing out reasonably that at Ismaul she would never be allowed to run anyway, so she had lost little by being chained. She found distinction in the fact that most of the girls were not so confined: thus not so honoured.
They never forgot gratitude to Rahbinda Cohen for ensuring that they share a cell. They were the only girls so privileged. They made love shamelessly, not caring that the metal lattice of the cell rendered all they did clearly visible to anyone who passed. Ismaul robbed them of inhibitions with the same certainty that it robbed them of freedom. Caleb viewed their antics with an indulgent eye. Their passionate absorption in each other touched him. He no longer offered them his sexual prowess as a consolation for their imprisonment. He ceased to speak of it at all. Perhaps he envied them.
"Who the hell wants men!" Lynn declared vehemently one evening when, replete and happy in each other's existence, they lounged upon their bench. "I'm almost glad of being here. I am glad to be here with you. If I was back at The Estate I'd be making calf s eyes at Calvin or twinkling my little twat at some old bastard who might sell a million shares of something cheap. If those hawk-faced old judges had used a bit of moderation on both of us... six months, say, I think I'd have got a kick out of it all." She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. "I'm wondering about Marge: what she knows, and how Calvin feels about losing his last free little trick. I suppose the Cohen woman would tell 'em about us."
"She's sure to. There has to be hope there somewhere. Calvin will want our bodies back. Even me! I won't be much good to him after ten years. He certainly never meant you to officially get imprisoned in Ismaul."
Lynn grinned. "The Commandant-he's a dear in his way. Are you sure we shouldn't have taken him up on that notion about being nice to the judges?"
"You know what being nice means."
"Sure, we'd get screwed plenty. But s'pose it got us out?"
"I'm scared of escapes," Eve admitted. "Look at last time!"
"Poor Alison. We never get to talk to her." Lynn giggled. "I think Caleb feels us two is bad enough. He doesn't want a threesome. If I was a man and she did all her tricks for me I'd get her out."
She played idly with Eve's shackles. "Darling, aren't they gorgeous!"
Lynn was still a child.
They shared their nights. But not always their days. Eve was often glad. To have a loved one witness your punishment, or to yourself witness hers, is not always easy to take. Perhaps someone was being kind to them. There came one particular day that Eve was glad to suffer alone. It was such a miserable, demeaning thing she was made to endure.
The usual uncommunicative wardress escorted her to an area she had not previously explored. Their walk ended beneath a tree in what looked like a schoolyard. A chain was locked round the tree trunk. Its other end terminated in a metal cuff that was now locked round Eve's right wrist and made secure by a padlock. She was left alone.
Taking stock of her situation it looked like being an easy day. She was tethered by about five feet of metal links. She could step a pace or two, stand, sit or even lie down. A brief scrutiny of the band round her wrist and the padlock that secured it negated notions of freeing her hand. She was firmly held. She and the tree would stay together until someone with the key chose to separate them. She sat in the shade wondering.
The explosion took an hour. It was sudden. The doors of the building to which the yard belonged swung open with a slam. Children erupted. It was indeed a school. This was recess. The first of the children to notice the chained girl sent up cries of delight. Within moments the entire assemblage swarmed towards the tree.
Eve stared back at the half circle of bright-eyed, dusky faces. She was puzzled. The children had the air of knowing something she did not. The vibrations of excited expectation could be felt. They were a mixed lot, boys and girls, ten to twelve years old. The biggest of them all, a girl, stepped forward and demanded: "Off." She pointed at Eve's single garment.
An inkling of her fate told Eve it might not be an easy day after all. Stripped before these little hoodlums! Not a master or mistress in sight. Probably watching out of the windows, she reflected bitterly. This would be a punishment reserved for the white girls. They would not do this to their own. Without hope she pointed to her chained wrist, intimating that it prevented removal of her dress.
Three of the largest children stepped toward her, their intent evident. In panic she stayed them with raised hand. Hastily she tugged at the sackcloth. She had never expected to be loath to part with it. She was now! She tore the minimum she must to get it over the chain. Better to keep what she could of it intact in case of later need. If they stripped her they would tear it to shreds.
The white girl, chained, naked, inspired waves of exclamations in the Jedrah dialect. Even the youngest showed a keen interest in Eve's anatomy. The ranks closed in. She tugged at her chain. She would have to stand there. She could retreat perhaps a few feet until at last she would face them with arm outstretched to the limit of its tether. She disdained this pathetic maneuver. She would suffer what she must while there was still slack in her chain. It was a matter of pride.
The biggest boy pointed to her pubic hair. "Fuck," he said forcibly. It was probably the only word he knew.
Eve made a flash decision. She could not win this battle. But perhaps she could minimize her wounds. She smiled at him sweetly and said: "Yes, please," in her most winning manner.
He stepped back, uncertain. There was another babble of comment. One of the smaller ones picked up a stone and threw it. She warded it off with her hand. It was followed by a veritable shower of missiles so that her only defense was to turn her back and hug the tree. The stones and twigs stung and bruised. In panic she remembered the biblical stories of offenders who were 'stoned'. Usually they died. Would these little horrors be allowed to go that far! But she was not struck by anything heavy. Perhaps there were no large rocks handy, or perhaps it was by intent. The barrage ceased as quickly as it had started. Fearfully she looked back over her shoulder. What she saw was not reassuring.
One of the smaller boys had just dropped on the ground a selection of withes he had just cut and trimmed. A number of the older boys and girls each took one. The girl who had some English tried again: "Bend." To make the order explicit she herself touched her toes.
Here was humiliation indeed! Alternatives flashed through the chained girl's mind, none of them practical. Miserably she leant forward into the age-old posture.
They must have done it before. They formed a line. As each walked behind her they paused long enough to stripe her bottom. The withes were not peeled. There were rough protrusions that cut and drew their drop of blood. Had she not been inured to pain she could not have borne it.
Even the smallest were given their turn. Some evoking laughter by incompetence for which Eve was grateful. The end of it was timely. Eve knew that a few more heavy strokes would find her instinctively trying to fight them off with her one free hand. She had suffered all she could take in the voluntary "bend over."
But her final degradation had never been in doubt. The boy used the hated word again and made explicit gestures. His female companion pointed to the ground. Lacking words she demonstrated for their victim's total comprehension. Amidst gales of laughter she lay upon her back stretching her legs up and out on either side in a wide 'V that made words superfluous. Half a dozen withes were held at the ready awaiting Eve's compliance.
She could not weep. She could not plead. She could not escape. She obeyed.
He did not leap upon her. At this school they did it differently. The smallest girls had first go. Three at a time. With much verbal encouragement they attacked her. One sucking each nipple, the third busy in the hair between her thighs. The older ones superintended, ensuring a proper rotation and 'fair shares for all'.
The result was inevitable. Their victim was a very female female. Her nipples and her clitoris responded to the manifold tongues. Something approximating a cheer went up every time she was driven to orgasm. By the time the girls had their share of her Eve was bathed in sweat and longing only for rest. She was spread lewdly. But did not care. Her hope now was to last them out until some teacher somewhere rang a bell...
They elected the smallest boy. He failed. No time was wasted. Another replaced him, and another. The failures stopped. Erections penetrated and thrust. Each ejaculation was cheered according to its merits. Performances varied. Exhausted as she was it took three or four of their swift attacks to bring her to orgasm. But her gasps and writhings were watched for avidly and applauded gleefully. When the bell did finally ring they left her there upon the ground, arms out-flung in utter weariness. She let her legs fall and crossed one under the other. How good that felt! Knowing she could not escape, she slept.
When she awoke the Commandant was sitting propped against the tree. He had thoughtfully covered her with the sacking. She was grateful for the small attention and said a sincere "Thank you, sir," as she struggled into whatever cover the damaged dress offered. The activity made her blush less obvious.
"The small ones are as bad as the big ones, eh!" he commented cynically.
"Is this a true punishment, sir? Or have I been abused."
"It is both," he told her dryly. "It is listed for white girls only. It assuages our racial pride."
He was honest. He always was.
She must voice her instant concern: "Sir, what happens to me now?" She held up her chained wrist.
"In an hour or two there will be a repeat performance when they are released to go home. A teacher will watch to ensure there is no... excess. You will not see him. But he will be there. When he rings a bell they will disperse. The wardress has instructions to bathe and cleanse you before returning you to your cell."
"It is ugly." She deliberately omitted the sir.
"It is ugly," he agreed somberly. "You do not deserve it. But it will not leave its mark on you as it would on others. There is something immaculate about you."
"Sir! Lynn... must she have this?"
He looked at her with an infinite pity. "Because you have asked it... no, she will not endure it."
Eve wept in gratitude and love.
The Commandant sat quietly while the tears worked their magic. At the end he handed her a white square of cambric. Eve used it gratefully. She had never felt more soiled.
"I ask myself why I come like this," he said meditatively. "I expect you ask it too. Is it because the punishments of a naked girl excite me? Is it that you are someone I can talk to? Is it because you are unfailingly beautiful? You are! I am sure you think yourself grubby and disheveled now, sitting on the ground, that ugly sack about you, the chain on your wrist that holds you to this tree... I am sure you wish I did not see you like this. But, to me, you are beautiful. You wear punishment as you wear your chain... some natural grace of your own."
He stopped and thought a while. "If I was younger I would say that I was in love with you. I suppose that is in there too, mixed up with all the rest. We men are absurd. In the end it is we who are the prisoners." He paused and considered her gravely. "I am glad that you and that impertinent child can be together. She is good for you. I think the time after that... that, absurd escape would have been hard for you to bear alone. The ten years! It is altogether too much."
He smiled apologetically. "I expect you think I should feel the same sympathy for the child. But this is not easy for me. She has broken our laws and caused much distress. There have been moments when I have shared Mrs. Cohen's wish to cane her bottom. Not that it would have much lasting effect on the child, but it would relieve my irritation. I fear Mrs. Cohen has stored up a great pressure of actual anger that the small bottom will have to absorb. I think it will give me pleasure to watch."
He stood and looked down at her. "I leave you. I do not want to witness whatever it is they do." He moved a few paces, then paused and looked back. "From now on, whenever we are alone, you need not call me sir."
He walked briskly away.
A strange man!
How good it felt to be clean again. She thrust the pictures of juvenile lust from her mind as a beastliness that did not matter. She was almost happy as she was led back to her cell. But that which greeted her brought a choked sob of distress to her lips. Lynn had been bastinadoed.
The child lay stretched upon the bench, face buried in her hands, her chained feet stretched down so that the soles were exposed. They were cruelly cut and bruised, swollen from their beating. Natcha had surpassed herself. Eve wondered if her own feet had looked so awful. At the clang of the door the prostrate teenager raised herself on one arm. Her face was red and swollen from crying. Eve took her in her arms. Neither spoke. There was no need.
That night before they slept Lynn made a bitter admission. "Darling, I can't stand pain like that. I don't think anyone can. It's silly to try and be heroic. I'm... I'm sort of, broken. S'pose that's the word. They could do anything they wanted with me and I wouldn't say boo. I'm scared at myself I'm so humble. From now on all they have to do is speak of whipping my feet and I'd lay down and spread my legs or act like a well-trained puppy dog. S'pose I might even be a good little girl." Her voice trailed away. She snuggled closer. "Darling, how was it with you?"
"I haven't said boo, either," Eve admitted.
During the time it took the small feet to heal Lynn was absolved from further punishment. Eve saw the Commandant's hand in this clemency. But she herself was delivered daily to Natcha to be whipped. After the exercise period she was always taken to the room where Natcha would be waiting. Waiting within an array of canes and whips that the chained girl could scarce bear to look at. She was required to strip instantly: an easy task that no longer shamed. She looked then to her whip-mistress to know what she must do.
Eve came to suspect that her ordeal provided Natcha with a pleasant diversion. The punishment was in no sense a ceremonial affair. It was much like schooldays of the past when you were sent to the principal's office. Natcha whipped her with tremendous zest and in a great variety of positions and, at one time or another, with each of her daunting collection of instruments. Since, for a period, this whipping was to be a daily infliction she used all her skill to bestow the greatest pain with the least injury. Again, Eve sensed the Commandant's influence. Left to her own devices Natcha would have cut her to pieces in a week.
It pleased Natcha often to leave her victim free of bonds and compel her to offer her body, or specific parts of it, so that the whip or the cane could bite to the greatest advantage. At such times it taxed the naked girl's will to its limits to remain submissive, or to hold an especially awful pose beyond the first stroke.
The two girls were quite alone with their whips. They were never disturbed. The Commandant stayed away. It was to be expected that Natcha would exact the pleasure of the flesh from her slave. She did so capriciously, rewarding or punishing according to the degree of ecstasy Eve's tongue and fingers could invoke. The girl in chains cast aside inhibitions and strove sensuously to earn remission of her strokes.
It is impractical to whip a girl all day and every day. Whilst Eve remained a prisoner in the whipping room all day long, bound or chained as Natcha's whim dictated, the Mistress herself came and went about her affairs. The victim might be whipped once or at ten different times: the number of strokes remaining about the same either way. She who wielded the whip obviously enjoyed the situation immensely. A strange communion wove itself between the two. Eve came to realize wonderingly that she preferred Natcha and the whips to most of the other punishments the "List" employed. At night an ecstatic Lynn caressed her love's scarlet weals with adoring lips.
There was one bondage that pleased Natcha above all others. She employed it often. When she did it was always for the day. It was the raised 'X'. Because it could be a torture in itself she did not stretch Eve's legs too wide, nor did she raise the toes from the floor. As with her whipping, she contrived the maximum discomfort without harm. Eve hated it. She was so stretched! She could move so little. She got so tired. But the whips and the cane could bite at every crevice of her nakedness. For Natcha's purposes it was the perfect pose, not only for the whip, but so that she might kneel and with her tongue impose orgasm upon the taut-stretched 'X' that was a girl. A girl who would cry out in agony and could not move as ecstasy blossomed within her loins.
Whilst Eve was collecting Natcha's stripes, the whip marks faded and disappeared from Lynn's body and her punished feet healed. At the end of two weeks the teenager was walking and had regained much of her normal effervescence. It was then that Eve was confronted with an awful decision.
The piece of paper was thrust into her hand during exercise. She was never sure by whom. It read simply: "You will be unlocked at night within a week. Two men will carry you and Lynn so that your chains will make no noise. Obey them in everything." It was not signed. She could guess who had sent it. She tore it into minute pieces and ground them into the dirt. She did not tell Lynn, but sought counsel within herself. At the end of it she asked Caleb to take her to the Commandant.
How absurd this all was, she reflected as she stood in the familiar position before the enigmatic man on whose mercy she must now rely. Pure pulp fiction! She felt foolish and inadequate. What she sought might tax his forbearance.
"My dear," Commandant Perkins greeted her cheerfully. "I thought you were getting whipped."
After all, this was Jedrah, for a girl to be whipped was no big thing.
"Would you like to see the marks?" she asked lightly. If she could avoid the portentous she might be able to pull this interview off without harm to anyone.
He surprised her. "Yes. Show me."
Did she feel guilt that she was pleased. She was pleased, immoderately so. She felt so much a female as she discarded the sack. She felt a thrill of power as she saw him tense, his eyes become alive. She posed for him shamelessly. Hands clasped behind her neck she stood on her toes and turned slowly so that every inch of her and every stroke of Natcha's whip was nakedly revealed. Coming to rest she faced him, still posed, still arrogantly lovely.
"If it is possible to enhance your beauty, I would say Natcha has achieved that miracle," he conceded. He looked at her shrewdly and laughed. "You well know the effect the sight of you like that has upon a man... upon me. If you were free the male world would beat a path to your door for such a glimpse of paradise. I am a lucky man." He paused, savoring a thought, then asked musingly: "Is there some significance that this very quintessence of woman finds its flowering only in places like Ismaul?" He smiled gently. "What can I do for you, Miss Trevor?"
The moment had come. Eve prayed. She must not muff this. She fought for casualness, and deliberately refrained from replacing her sack.
"Do you remember your belief in the wisdom of chaining each girl... each prisoner to the wall of her cell every night?"
"Yes." It was very noncommittal.
Eve visibly squirmed as she came out with what Lynn would have called the real 'dilly'.
"Please chain Lynn and I in that way from now on."
It was out! The most preposterous request any girl had ever made.
He had to ask. Of course he had to!
"I wish it. Lynn does not know. But I wish it for both of us... very much."
"You still have not told me why."
The strain was worse than she had reckoned on. Whichever way she went she would betray someone. She burst into tears.
As usual he was patient. He had an endless supply of handkerchiefs. She blinked at him with a wet and pleading eye.
"I can probably make an accurate guess," he said pleasantly.
Hope dried a few tears.
"Surely you realize I have a duty to have you bastinadoed until you tell me the truth?"
Eve nodded dolefully. "Yes, I know. I expect I deserve it. If you did I'm sure I wouldn't be a bit heroic. But I sort of hoped you'd just guess and leave it at that. I don't actually know anything for sure, I mean names and things... "
"Miss Myers?"
"Honestly, I don't know. It might not be her at all. We never get to talk to each other."
"Do you want me to load her with chains too?" His raised eyebrow was sardonic.
Eve shook her head in frustration. "I'm being a nuisance. I know I am. I probably should not have put my problem in your lap. But it's Lynn I'm thinking of more than me."
"Very well. Let us just chain our impertinent young wench to the wall."
He was joking. It was a good sign. Feminine wisdom kept her silent.
Rising, he circled the desk and took her hand. "You know, don't you, no other girl in Ismaul could come to me as you have done and leave for any other destination than the bastinado?"
Almost with worship she raised her free hand and touched his cheek. "You are very sweet. Thank you." Her voice trembled. "I wish life was other than it is for us... this place... "
"I do not wish that at all," said Commandant Perkins.
Eve left him for her daily appointment with the whip.
When at the end of her afternoon, smarting and sore, she was escorted to the cell, she found it hard to hide her amusement. An indignant Lynn was obviously awaiting the arrival of someone on whom to vent outrage. The furious teenager pointed dramatically.
"Look! Look what they've done to us!"
The Commandant had been better than his word. The chains were magnificent. The smithy had, once again, demonstrated their artistic skill. On each side of the cell a massive ring-bolt had been bedded deep in the stone. From it ran a long length of shining chain at the end of which was a heavy hinged metal band. One lay, open on the floor, awaiting its captive. The other terminated on Lynn. It was snug and tight around her right wrist. She shook it furiously.
"Look at this damn thing I've got on!"
Eve could not restrain laughter. "You mean they locked you in it right off?"
"What's so damn funny!" Lynn demanded. Then blushed. "Well, not really like that. When they bunged me back in here a little while ago here were these bloody things staring me in the face. I just had to try one on. I must have pushed too hard or something. It went and locked shut. Now I can't get it off. I'm chained to that blasted wall."
The child was a delight. Eve rolled upon the bench enjoying honest merriment. The teenager stood examining her shackled wrist with hostility. An anger that quickly melted under Eve's sparkling eyes so that, in no time, she was laughing too. Eve had an inspiration. Picking up the open wristlet she fitted it upon her own right wrist and clamped it shut. It clicked shut with a smooth finality. She raised her hand, scrutinizing her new fetter and the links that fell away from it.
"It's beautiful!"
The youngster took another look at her own. "I suppose it is," she conceded. "But why do we have to be chained to the wall?"
Eve shrugged offhandedly and told of the Commandant's opinion that every girl should be thus restrained every night. She made light of the imposition.
"What does it matter!" She rose and walked back and forth. "See, we can still do everything we ever did. The chain's long enough. But it's not long enough to let us out of the door. If he wants to chain us like this I'm not going to complain... not after that escape disaster."
"I think you're sweet on him," said Lynn, mollified. While her companion tested her new toy, Eve examined the metal band about her wrist. It was easy to see now why it was so heavy. No padlock was used. Padlocks can be fiddled with. Here the lock mechanism was welded deep within the thickness of the band. Its keyhole deeply recessed within the under edge. It would take much skill and much time and many tools to tamper with such intricacy. The girl who wore it would never, never make a hasty escape. Whoever owned the key owned her. Secretly Eve felt safe.
Caleb was intrigued. He knew there must be reasons. But he did not probe. He was a cautious man. He enjoyed his bit of humor. "Should make chain most short," he affirmed. "So could not lick cunts." He departed happily laughing at his own joke.
Lynn did not laugh. "Oh darling! Do you think they might?"
"No. They won't."
Lynn still looked doubtful. "Even if I pull a boner?"
Eve laughed. "Well, don't let's mention it. The idea might take hold."
It came on the fourth night. Eve had begun to hope that it would not come at all. But when a male hand covered her lips and roused her from sleep she knew that for better or worse the escape was underway. The cell door was wide. Another dark figure was shaking Lynn.
She had but one wish: to have them gone. That she and her darling should be left alone. No accusing fingers. No bullets flying. No bastinado. She held up her chained hand.
The men froze. For a moment shock and consternation held them. Then, feverishly, they explored the girl's tethers, scrutinized the wristlets. There was a rapid exchange of whispers, a shaking of heads. Each man turned to a girl, pointed to the shackle making a negative head motion, shrugged regretfully and made a quick exit, locking the cell door behind them. A moment later they were gone. It was as though they had never been. Eve gave a great sigh of relief.
The visitation had been so transient that Lynn was only now comprehending its full import. She looked at Eve in wide-eyed dismay. "They were going to rescue us...!"
Eve hated the deception. It would be too cruel to tell the child the truth. She would never understand. She must dissemble. Thank goodness, and the Commandant, for the chains. The chains could be blamed for everything. She took the teenager into her arms.
But Lynn was angry. She sat up and voiced her disquiet. "We've been gypped! I bet they came from Alison and her judge." She shook her shackled hand angrily so that the links rattled. "This blasted thing beat us! Somebody must have known something to chain us like this! To think we could have been out in the desert right now if it hadn't been for this lousy little bit of chain! Oh darling, it's too much... It's too damn much! It's cruel!" She threw herself into Eve's waiting arms.
They wept together. It was easy for Eve to weep. She knew not the wisdom or cowardice of what she had done. It was a guilty thing she would have to carry always. They hugged each other. Each of them aware of the metal on her wrist as though it was a band of fire. Suddenly there came the sound of shots. It reached their cell faintly. But was certainly within the environs of Ismaul. There came a sizable volley, then desultory firing for a little while. The silence that followed was pregnant with dread. Lynn clutched and trembled. Eve comforted her as best she could. But how could two girls chained in prison know what had taken place out there in the desert night! All they could do was pray for Alison and fear for her.
There was no exercise the next day. All prisoners remained locked in their cells. Caleb passed briefly, but refused to answer questions. He said dejectedly' "Is bad... is most bad," and went his way. In the afternoon a military type in uniform, an officer of some sort, scrutinized them through the metal lattice. He held a clipboard with papers and a pencil.
They answered passively. Name, age, offense, sentence. He ticked them all off on his list. Then asked: "Why are your wrists chained?"
"We tried to escape once." Eve smiled at him. "I suppose we are considered dangerous."
He made an appropriate tick mark. "You wish to complain about the chain?"
"It does not matter. Our ankles are chained anyway. We cannot escape."
He said thank you in a civilized voice and went on to the next cell.
For four days the prison routine was halted. There was a stir and atmosphere of tension, of things pending. Soldiers passed by, looking important. No prisoner left her cell. Lynn and Eve were not freed of their wrist fetters. They did not care. Their minds were full of other things. The fifth day brought change.
At exercise time the cell doors opened. But there was no exercise. There was an innovation. The wardress carried cord. Eve stood passive and wondering as her hands were placed palm to palm and tightly tied. Then cords circled her elbows and were tugged and pulled until she gasped with pain. The same was done to Lynn. Why not the handcuffs! .But they were more helpless like this and there was much pain. Perhaps that was reason enough. They were not stripped. Their sack hid their breasts out-thrust by elbows pinioned behind the back.
The two girls were separated in the marshaling of the ranks. There were as many soldiers as there were staff. A worried Caleb, hurrying by, muttered the one word, "Ceremonial."
So it was a Ceremonial! A girl would be whipped. They would all watch. They would all remember when they had stood upon the platform. They would all know how easy it would be to stand there again. But why was she and Lynn bound like this! Eve could not see another girl similarly confined. A few were handcuffed; that was all. She knew a momentary fear that the cords might mean it was them who would mount the platform. But that was un-likely since they were ordered in line with the rest. The assembly was kept standing. Orders were barked. A more than usual military precision was contrived by a reshuffling of the prisoners. Then the final command. The lines of girls began their march to the sun-drenched courtyard. Eve's elbows hurt bitterly.
Like so much of Jedrah it could not be true. It just couldn't be! It was a charade. It was a play enacted to impress. It was a grim warning. Cliches slipped through the mind. It was pure Hollywood. Soon they would march back to their cells and Ismaul would return to normal. Eve forgot the fiery pain of her elbows.
The executioner wore black tights and a mask. How theatrical could these people be without evoking laughter! No one laughed. The huge axe on which he leaned gleamed and shone. The block which was now the centerpiece on the stage was black. It was not new. Age had marked it. Across the square a smart line of soldiers, all armed, stood at ease. The row of dignitaries below the platform were mostly military. The Commandant merged himself unobtrusively among them. Caleb stood disconsolately without his drum. His function had been usurped by a group of three provided by the army.
Alison stood upon the platform facing the block on which she was to die. She had been stripped, but a fold of black cloth had been wound around her hips to provide a flimsy skirt. Her wrists and elbows were bound in the same way that Eve's were bound. Her serene face was lifted to some vision of her own far away. She was breathtakingly lovely.
It was happening to Eve as a nightmare happens. She witnessed. She could not touch the players. She could not turn and flee. She would endure the nightmare's progressive horror until she awoke screaming.
Now she understood why she and Lynn were tied. They were as committed to the nightmare as was the lonely girl upon the platform. They could make no gesture. Would Lynn suppose that because they were similarly bound they, too, would mount the scaffold! The child might be in torment. Eve thrust the thought away. There was nothing she could do in that either. She and the girl she loved had been reduced to nonentities.
An officer took the stage. He read in a loud, clear voice from an official document. There was quite a lot of it. Eve could feel the shock and tension run like a current through the lines of girls among whom she stood. Surprisingly, when he was done, he spoke in English. The lesson must be learned by the white girls too! It was brief. Alison and her lover had murdered two guards in an attempted escape. Death was mandatory.
How magnificent the drums! How they reach out and clutch the gut. How the hair will stiffen to their call. The breath will quicken in glory or despair. Exquisite. Ethereal! Alison was not of Ismaul, nor of Earth itself. She had always belonged in some Parnassian world of pure beauty. Now she would return. How gracefully she kneels and bows in submission to whatever gods whose music she could hear. How carefully and tenderly she places her head and rests the fragile neck within its groove. The lovely hands that gather up her hair and bring it forward so that she is naked to the blade. The arms fall. For a moment she is at rest. The axe rises, then falls flashing in the sun. The drums, in a paean of farewell, rise to a crescendo...
When the second task was done sixty frightened, tearful girls were marched back to their cells.
They sat silent, the two of them. There was nothing to say. The wardress had removed the cords. They rubbed the scarlet grooves left in their flesh. Jedrah had shown itself to them nakedly. Ismaul held them. Ahead lay the years...
In the end a single thought! Mutely Lynn voiced it without words. She took Eve's hand, clasped the shackle round the slender wrist and snapped it shut. Then did the same with her own. After a very long time she caught her companion's eye. With a studied solemnity the teenager raised her tether and kissed the metal band upon her wrist. Once more they held each other tight and wept in thankfulness.
* * *
If, in places such as Ismaul, there is a norm they returned to it in the days that followed. The military vanished. Caleb returned to cheerfulness, and beat his drum to his heart's content at Ceremonials where a girl was whipped. For the time being Eve's days with Natcha were suspended in order that her striped epidermis might renew itself in readiness for future sessions with the whip. The two girls worked their way down the list of their 'Full Punishment' by enduring distresses which ranged from the trivial to the bizarre. Each night in their cell they exchanged experiences and shared comfort or laughter as their day may have brought. But one small facet of their imprisonment that did not revert was the chains. Each night their wrist was locked in the now familiar metal band. Even when she had the chance Eve refrained from speaking of this to the Commandant. It was an awkward subject. She never knew whether it was an oversight or simply a wise precaution. Neither girl ever mentioned the word escape.
Eve had always supposed that when she reached it on 'The List', it would be indoors. Her approach to the punishment was unconventional and, like so much at Ismaul, had about it-a touch of farce. The Wardress propelled her up into the back of the ancient truck, which then wheezed its way to the big banyan tree with its post against which she had spent a painful day. But they did not stop. Their destination stood on the opposite side of the huge trunk. Still in the vital shade, but placed so that she had not seen it previously. When the truck began to back toward it she knew how she would spend her day. In spite of what she had been told it was still frightening.
It was a quite substantial cross. She would be crucified at a considerable elevation. Those who passed would have to gaze up at her. Hence the truck with its raised box and two ladders. Hence the two male jailers who laughed at her consternation.
A small platform was clamped to the upright. Eve was stripped and made to climb up on it. This made it easy for her to extend her arms so that her wrists could be tightly strapped to the cross at the very limits to which they could be stretched. Then the clamps were loosed and the platform jerked from beneath her feet.
Eve cried out in shock and pain as her body fell, all its weight hanging from her spread wrists. Fruitlessly her legs sought any kind of support to lessen the strain. For a moment she had a faint hope that she could use her ankle chain if somehow she could get it thrust against the rough wood. But it was impossible. She hung limp. Her jailers had enjoyed her struggles. Now they finished their task. Cords were passed around and over her ankles above and below the metal shackles, pulled tight and knotted around the post. Still laughing, they drove away and left her.
Determinedly the naked girl told herself not to panic. Much of the awfulness would be in the mind from historical and biblical associations. She was not nailed. The straps round her wrists would not impede the flow of blood as cords would have done. It was going to be a bad day, but they evidently did not expect her to die. She instantly recognized their cunning in allowing all her weight to hang from her wrists before they bound her feet. By so doing they foiled her natural instinct to thrust some of her weight upon the strictures that held her ankles to the wood. Mirthlessly she considered that if the strain stretched her she might then find some relief from that source. No doubt the absence of bonds upon any other part of her was thoughtfully designed to place all strain upon her extremities. She actually longed for a rope around her waist. The strain on her stretched arms frightened her.
Had she desired it, Eve might have been gratified by the attention she now received. Tied to the post, most had passed her by with only a glance. Few did that now. They would stop and gaze at her suspended charms with enjoyment and interest. Whenever there were two or more the comments would fly back and forth with knowing smiles and nodding heads. She supposed, wryly, that female pubic hair provided an intensified eroticism if the male had to look up at it. She was no more lewdly exposed now than when she had stood at the post. But she was a greater attraction. What did it matter! Let them look.
It was hard not to plead with them. They were free. She was tortured by a few straps and some cord. It seemed inconceivable that one of them would not cut her down. She knew they would not. But it was almost a torture in itself not to ask. To ease frustration she looked down now at the three peering males below. "Please set me free," she enunciated clearly.
She never knew if they had understood her words. They could not fail to know, or guess, what she had pleaded for. It sparked some ribald interchange and much slapping of legs and fingers poked in ribs. She did not try again.
Eve had been suspended many times. But never quite like this. The cross imposed a compliance of its own. Had she been willing to accept the extra pain she could wriggle or ineffectually struggle. Her body was completely free of strictures. She guessed her audience would greet such an effort with joy. But to all intents and purposes she could not; or would not, move. Just her head. But, even in this small freedom, the cross defeated her. She could not toss her head or throw it back. The only way in which she could hold it without stress was to let it drop forward as though she was unconscious, her hair falling beside her face. It was not a pose she wanted. But she fell into it.
What does a crucified girl think about? She wondered if, technically, she was crucified. Were the spikes implicit in the word? Or did simply hanging on a cross entitle her to boast, in time to come, that she had been crucified! Why had she chosen the word, boast? Because she remembered the Commandant's story of the girl who experienced a carnal thrill when hung upon a cross. It had seemed improbable, but the naked Eve glimpsed how plausible it could be for the seething male concupiscence below to reach up and infect the naked female stretched for torture. Already she could palpably sense their urgent need to use her body, even when she closed her eyes she knew, they mentally ravished her.
Was it that she was high upon a cross beyond the reach of their hands! Did this make her more desirable, or more interesting. Such speculations were idle she knew. But they helped counter pain. Would they do this to Lynn? Would her slight youthfulness hang like this one day soon? Poor child. She was imprisoned here because of their love. Because of the abortive escape. Without that love she would be back in America a free girl. Now they were both doomed. Ismaul held them with a stronger grip each day. Chained as completely as they always were they could never, never escape of their own efforts. Their only hope was Calvin. But Calvin had not saved Alison. Calvin had begun to recede into a distant past that could not be resurrected. Their chains would hold them always...
"You are not asleep, are you?" a quiet voice asked.
It was the Commandant.
"I have elucidated the mystery," he said in a pleased conversational voice. "It is purely that, fastened as you are, you are probably the most beautiful creature in the world."
She managed a wan smile. She wished they could talk more at times when she was not being tortured.
"I suppose it's one of those strange facts of life that the naked female positioned or subjected in certain ways projects an elemental and universal appeal." He continued in his favorite meditative strain. "You, being of the quality you are, enhance this appeal. I am almost ashamed to confess the potently erotic influence you impose upon me now."
She managed a real smile this time. Damn the pain! She liked him. She had long since given up resentment that he should be free and she bound. It was natural. It was their lot in life. She toyed with a deliciously naughty wish to embarrass him by asking if she would gain freedom from Ismaul if he married her.
So, seeing her like this gave him an erection! She was grateful he had told her.
He laughed cheerfully. In these meetings he was no longer shamed by her pain. Even when she was in agony they were at ease with each other. It was an anomaly of life at Ismaul.
"If you were my personal property I would place you on a cross for an hour every day." He looked up at her quizzically. "Would you bear it gracefully in the cause of esthetic appreciation?"
"Yes." She smiled down at him. "I mean it. Yes, I would."
He sighed. Their discussions were always punctuated by sighs. "I am much tempted," he admitted. "I could easily order it done. But it would rouse comment." He grinned. "But I can assure you that this is not your last time upon a cross."
He said suddenly: "This man in America who sent you here. He is perturbed about the execution of Miss Myers. He is frantically seeking the release of our insolent moppet. But he is defeated there by her authentic involvement with Jedrah's criminal laws. Our little damsel has become far more the property of Jedrah than even you."
He made a gesture of weariness and doubt. "I have concerned myself little, for the less I am involved the better. The uses to which Ismaul is put by... interested parties, is something I am supposed to close my mind to. But here and there information filters through. I should not tell you perhaps, but your Mr. Calvin turned to you as a second possibility. It seems he wants a female back... any female. But there is an influence that denies him you. I get the impression that it is a case of both of you or neither. I find myself becoming intrigued... "
Eve was intrigued too. Would the influence be Marge? Marge would not want her kid sister left alone in Ismaul. Marge must be frantic with worry about the child.
"But it's Mrs. Cohen who has the real influence here, isn't it?" Eve asked. "Isn't it through her he got us imprisoned in Ismaul?"
"Yes. But Mrs. Cohen is much involved in Jedrah. I do not think she wants embarrassments at this time. Jedrah at this moment is a troubled state." He chuckled. "I suppose I do not have to tell you that, whilst Mrs. Cohen bears you personally no ill will, the same cannot be said of her sentiments towards the maiden who shares your cell. I fear that, as far as Mrs. Cohen is concerned, the little lady can stay with us the full term of her sentence. Nor has she forgotten her intention to stripe the youngster's skin. It is a prerogative she has and will use."
"But to feel so strongly about a child...!"
He shrugged. "A child... well, in some ways. But in others very much a woman. Mrs. Cohen was angry enough with her to once consider legally invoking the Jedrah punishment for lesbianism. Had it not been you who was the equally guilty partner I think she would have done so. I could not have stopped her."
Eve's heart thudded. She remembered. The girl's clitoris was removed. It did not bear thinking about. How closely the unthinkable hovered above a girl in Ismaul! She broached a subject never far from her mind.
"How long do these 'Full Punishments' continue?"
"You are in great pain, my dear. Should we talk of such things?"
"Please."
He nodded understandingly. "You fear the unknown. A swimmer has hope when he can see the distant shore." He became silent, thinking. "I should not speak of this. There is nothing good to tell. The approved list is very long. When a girl surmounts it she starts again."
It was no surprise. Eve had guessed. "But the whole ten years!" she protested. "Might it not stop when I have served my original sentence?"
"If I am still Commandant here I will strive to make it stop." Seeing the gratitude in her eyes he added hastily, "Don't think that far. Think no more than the five years. In that time you must suffer these... things. You may think this quaint, but there is a check, an audit system designed to foil lenience to any girl for whom someone in authority may feel...!" He sought for the right word. "... Pity."
"In the second round... is a girl bastinadoed again?"
"I am afraid so."
"Within Lynn's three years: will her feet be whipped again?"
"Yes."
Eve was close to tears. It was not a happy vista of the years for either of them. Yet they had each other, and there was an illogical comfort in this strange man who came and talked so rationally to a tortured girl. It wasn't really punishment... its proper name was torture. But between the two of them it had taken on a guise peculiarly its own.
"There is a knowledge that has come to me in this work," the Commandant continued slowly, "that could offer you some philosophical consolation if you could bring yourself to believe it. At this moment, hanging there upon the cross, you may not believe it, but the fact is that most girls prefer 'The List' to being locked alone in their cell all day."
"How can you tell?"
"Observation, discussion, actual requests."
"You mean...?"
"Yes. Girls who had been sentenced to a specific period of the punishments, but whose imprisonment continued on, have often asked to be put back in rotation. It may take them a week, a month, a year to reach the desire. But in the end boredom prompts them back to the drama and eroticism of pain."
Could it be so! Was solitary confinement so devastating! To a girl... young!
"You think that I...?"
"Most especially you. You are vividly alive and possess a sensuality you have tried to hide from yourself."
The naked Eve squirmed inwardly. How much of her did he understand! More than she herself...
"Are you sure this... eroticism, is in the girl? Isn't it rather in those who watch?"
He laughed chidingly. "You know better than that. You have felt the stirring in the loins. Your passionate Lynn would adore a daily whipping if it was not too severe."
She could not deny. She hung there helplessly and considered the world of Commandant Perkins. How strange a world it was. But it was the world of Ismaul. Filled with women, Ismaul belonged to man. Jedrah was male. Yet in these walls a girl came I face to face with her femaleness more vividly than she would ever do at Colby & Associates.
"I have given you something to think about," he said kindly as he turned away.
Her next visitor was Caleb.
He gazed up at her with a vast and intrigued grin.
"Hello, Caleb. Yes, it hurts like hell, and I wish you'd let me down." She got her piece in ahead of him. He was delighted. "You make most big joke. Your cunt is showing well."
"Anything else?" To hell with the pain... !
"And tits. Is most fine position for girl."
"I'll trade you."
He motioned in mock horror. "Oh no! Caleb look most foolish."
"Well, how d'you think I feel?"
"Most good. All men stop and admire cunt."
In his way Caleb was a vulgar and abbreviated Perkins. "Did you just come to look at the thing I use to pee?" She was taking a perverse delight in matching his earthiness.
"No. Caleb see many cunts," he affirmed with dignity. Then added hastily, "But none so fine. Is most neat slit and good thick bush. Long tongue of little girl make hair grow... " He roared with laughter.
"Do you enjoy seeing me tortured, Caleb?"
"Of course. Make fine cock most hard."
"Isn't that uncomfortable?"
He shrugged unconcernedly. "Is good. I go back and fuck any girl I like." His eyes glinted. "Maybe I fuck Lynn...!"
Eve was unconcerned. He wouldn't. She knew him. Yet what power this nondescript man possessed. Sixty vaginas into which he could empty his seed at will. Calvin did not know what power was.
"Caleb think most nice to fuck girl while she being punished," he confided. "But book say not to do." He considered the injustice. "I am thinking is because girl not to have pleasure at such time."
His male conceit was infuriating. "Fuck me now," she invited innocently. "No one is looking."
"You make sport." He sounded injured. Then tittered at some picture in his mind. "Caleb would have to get ladder." He was obviously intrigued. "Caleb thinks first time pretty girl gets fucked by man standing on ladder."
This time they shared laughter. Eve wondered at herself. She was undergoing torture and she was laughing. Was there something perverse in her? Or did a girl simply get used to suffering.
"Go and get a ladder, Caleb."
"You are having small joke. Caleb not mind... much." He looked around as though for eavesdroppers, then lowered his voice. "I fuck you good when you being punished some other time. Get in fine position to fuck most hard... "
"But what about the book of rules?" Eve was deliberately arch.
"Fuck the book of rules," said Caleb. Even Ismaul had compensations!
"I am bringing most bad news," Caleb now informed her importantly. He had obviously been treasuring some tidbit she would not like.
"Alright, Caleb. Let's have it." Eve wished she could move.
"Your darling girl is to be fucked."
Eve showed her puzzlement. Both of them had been violated often enough by jailers and guards. They refused to allow it to touch them emotionally. They kept it mechanical, referring to it laughingly as 'The Availability Clause'.
Caleb smiled commiseratingly. Then delivered his bombshell with vast panache. "Is to be fucked by most big dog."
It hit her like a blow. Lynn! The immaculate child. She let the ugly picture seep into her mind. How would the girl react! The performance would hold no more significance than the use of their bodies by the staff. But it could be traumatic if you let it. She remembered the girl's heated avowal that she would let herself be screwed by a donkey if it would get her out of Ismaul. Was this the Commandant's sardonic response? Or was it only one more item on The List.
"How will it be done?" she asked miserably.
"Is much fun," he assured her as though with comfort. "Is most big cage. She is locked in with most big dog and with bench. Whenever she wish she can lay on bench and help dog stick most big prick into her cunt. After that dog is knowing what to do."
There was a finesse to it. It would bother and hurt a girl more: having to inaugurate the act herself. They could tie her to the bench and it would soon be over. But not this way.
"Is she alone? Are there watchers...?"
"Small boy watch. When she decides to let dog fuck she sends him to fetch whoever wants to see. If she do without people seeing, then she have to wait for dog to get hard-on again and try once more. Is most best to do as told."
Yes, it would be best. But would Lynn do it?
"Is she in the cage now?"
"Oh yes. Has been since exercise. She say no play." He giggled. "Dog show much interest." He looked up at the suspended girl helpfully. "You hang for long time yet. But it is me who loose you tonight when punishment over. Then, if she not let dog fuck, I take you to see. She look most pretty in cage... "
Caleb was a most kindly man.
It was a big cage. But not big enough for a girl to stand upright. She would kneel, or move on hands and knees. Thus she was reduced to the level of the animal she must couple with. The naked girl in it was grubby, her cheeks tear-stained. The cage also contained a wooden bench and quite the largest dog Eve had ever seen. It sat placidly waiting for something to happen. Lynn hurled herself at the bars and thrust her arms through them. "Oh darling... I was afraid they wouldn't let you... "
"I'm here." Eve took the supplicating small hands and kissed the reaching mouth avidly. It was a kiss that went on and on.
Caleb watched in tactful silence.
"It's beastly!" The declaration surged out of the caged girl in an explosion of indignation. She was not so much scared as mad. "That damn dog. He's been sniffing at me as though I was a garbage barrel."
"Knows bitch in heat." Caleb scored a bull's-eye.
"You drop dead!" The naked teenager spat at their benefactor. "Where in hell did they find a dog this big?"
"Is special breed for fuck," Caleb informed. "Is true."
"He hasn't hurt you, darling?"
Lynn sniffed. "Oh no, he'd be rather a dear if I was out of this damn cage and had some clothes on. I bet he's done this before. All morning he climbed all over me and licked everything he could get his tongue on. I was scared to hit him in case he bit. Now he just sits like that and watches. It makes me so mad! He's quite positive in that blasted male mind of his that if he waits long enough I'll lay on the bench and invite him over."
"All girls do," Caleb explained. "He know."
"Well, I'm not going to!"
"Oh yes! No food until you do. You get most hungry. No sleep. When try and sleep dog lick cunt and wake up."
"He would too," admitted Lynn vehemently.
"Are most foolish girl not to let him lick cunt," Caleb pointed out reasonably. "Is most pleasant and pass much time."
"Pleasant for who, you idiot?" Lynn asked sulkily.
"For both. Is it not taught we be most kind to animals?" Caleb declaimed sententiously.
There were moments when Eve was not quite sure of Caleb.
"Well, stick your prick through the bars and let him lick that," Lynn suggested.
Eve was relieved by the vulgarity. She knew Caleb's feelings would not be hurt. Lynn had not, as yet, suffered trauma.
The younger girl in the cage sat back on her haunches and looked at her loved one as though expecting Eve to produce a miracle. "Darling, what am I going to do?"
It was not. a rhetorical question. Eve knew the answer, but had no wish to put it into words. Caleb did it for her.
"Lay on bench and spread legs."
The silence that fell upon the three of them and the watching child who was the prisoner's custodian was far more eloquent than words. Far more final than a judgment. Lynn's hurt eyes sought Eve.
"I'm going to have to do it, darling, aren't I? S'pose I've known it all along."
"You much enjoy. He give most long fuck," Caleb approved.
Eve looked up at him, worried. She remembered jokes. "Is it... is it alright? I mean, dogs aren't like us, are they?"
"Is O.K.," he assured. "Just take much time." He chortled. "Little girl can go to sleep once prick in cunt."
Eve thought this improbable. But she was grateful for Caleb's presence and his reassurance. She turned to the caged girl and resignedly said the words that have been considered good advice since man first learned speech.
"Best to get it over with."
Lynn nodded. She had evidently made her own decision. "O.K. Send Hawk-eye there for the audience. They're going to be the worst part of the whole deal. Hey, Caleb! You going to sell tickets?" Lynn was herself again. She would defeat this punishment as she had all the others save for the bastinado...
The audience was a motley group. Lesser members of the staff, slightly bored. They had seen it all before. Perhaps they had been coerced into coming. They did not know they were getting a hundred-dollar show for free. They viewed the proceedings with humor rather than lust. Eve was thankful that the Commandant had not responded. Caleb took charge.
"Is ready now for fuck," he announced grandly.
The naked victim looked up at him through the bars. "O.K., wise guy. I'm going to go through with it. I'll even try and give you your money's worth. But I've never done this before. If I do something wrong you'd better tell me."
Caleb was pleased. "Is most good girl. Push bench to center. Lay on it so cunt stick out over end. Stretch legs wide, bend knees and pull back. Gives him nice view."
"And everyone else too," Lynn agreed bitterly.
The huge dog watched Lynn's progress with an interested eye as she achieved the demeaning exposure required. Blushing furiously the teenager turned to Caleb and demanded: "Well, here I am. Why doesn't he jump on me?"
"You have been unkind to him. He thinks you do not love. I think you have to go and play with prick."
"You mean get him an erection?" Lynn was outraged.
"And let him smell your cunt." Caleb knew all the tricks.
For a moment Eve had to suppress laughter. Once again Ismaul had unintentionally provided farce. She watched with a repugnant fascination as the girl in the cage did what was required of her. The crowd applauded. Lynn grimaced and stuck her tongue out at them. She was committed now. She would be neither shy, nor humble, nor show a fear by which they might despise her. If she had a flag handy she would have waved it. The power of the presence of the girl she loved sustained her. Eve prayed that this would always be so.
Suddenly the dog lost its lethargy. Avidly it followed the sacrificial girl back to her bench. Lynn arranged herself as before. This time she did not have to wait.
It was quite obscene. The great tongue lapped at the parted lips within their wiry bush. There was much sniffing. The wet nozzle thrust itself within the moist cavern. Lynn clutched rigidly at the bench, tense, her eyes staring.
"Stretch knees very far apart. That way chain on ankles not hinder," Caleb directed from his eminence of consultant.
Eve wryly had to admit to herself that the dog possessed a technique of love play superior to most men. It would be hard for any woman to fail to respond to so much warm moist friction so intimately applied to her most sensitive possession. She could feel a tingling within herself. The naked girl upon the bench had surrendered utterly to a new dimension of sensation.
Satiated yet excited by his preliminary exploration of the girl's body, the huge animal suddenly mounted her. Eve saw the immense red glistening weapon seek its prey and slide within the female sheath that her own lips and tongue had so often sought and entered. Lynn was impaled.
It was as though the rutting creature played to its audience. Perhaps it did. It varied its assault upon the naked Lynn so that periods of hunching thrusts which shook her open body and the bench on which it lay were interspersed by quiet immobility in which the dog seemed to await the generation of fresh forces by which to continues its attack upon the supine female flesh delivered for its pleasure.
It was in one of these pauses, longer than the others, that Lynn turned a shocked eye to Caleb. "For Pete's sake! How long can this damn dog keep pounding at me? I've gone off four times already."
"He is most fine dog," said Caleb proudly. "He make you gasp and squirm for long time yet. You most lucky girl. You do much enjoy...?" He inquired solicitously.
The captive girl raised a sweat-dewed face to look at him, and at the panting dog, and at the avid crowd. "Alright you bastards!" she exclaimed to no one in particular. "Sure I'm enjoying it. It's a better fuck than any of you could give... " A giant thrust from the organ within her loins sent her head back to rest and set her hips to weave and raise to meet her canine master. The fur-clad haunches leaped into a frenzy of motion. Thrust after thrust impaled the slight nakedness. Lynn emitted cry after cry, the age-old cry of the female mastered by the male... The dog beat at her savagely until the end.
* * *
Eve lay on her back and admired the shackle on her wrist. "Y'know, darling," she said lazily, "Caleb's sweet. Absurd, but sweet. We owe him a lot. He had that woman take you and give you a bath and a douche. Most men wouldn't have thought of it. I was worried... "
"You and me both," Lynn said ardently. "We don't need the pitter-patter of puppy feet in this cell." She raised up and gazed down at her love. "Darling, is it possible? I mean, can a girl have puppies... or something...?"
"I don't know," Eve frankly admitted. "There's all sorts of tales. I've never really believed them."
"Darling, am I awful? Before you showed up with Caleb I was quite sure I never, never would do it-even if they left me in that cage forever. Then all of a sudden I'm having a ball."
Eve had felt guilt for both of them. "It's just no use us feeling guilty," she affirmed vehemently. "We will always have to do what we are told in Ismaul." She rattled her chain as evidence. "We can't ever be heroic anymore than we can ever escape. What's bothering us is that you enjoyed it." She laughed. "Darling, I almost envied you. That's an awful admission to make too. But there's nothing remarkable about it. If any girl was laid out on a bench and someone stuck something inside her slit and wiggled it up and down long enough she might have a dozen orgasms. But it wouldn't mean anything. Forget it. It's been ticked off your list-" She started upright herself: "Good gosh, I suppose if it's on the list it's going to happen to me too... " They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
They forgot it very easily.
* * *
Rahbinda Cohen had the air of a preoccupied businesswoman faced with a long overdue task. She and the Commandant turned from the papers on his desk as Eve and Lynn were thrust into his office.
"Remember me?"
The older woman smiled fleetingly at Eve and turned her full attention grimly upon Lynn. "You know why I'm here?"
"Yes, Madam." Eve had never seen the girl so meek. "Well, why am I here?" Rahbinda was going to have her pound of flesh.
"To whip me, Madam."
Lynn did the unexpected. In a burst of honesty she blurted out: "I'm sorry... really I am. You trusted me, bringing me over here and all that. I let you down. I deserve to be whipped. I won't complain."
Mrs. Cohen scrutinized the teenager critically. Even Eve cast a quick glance for signs of dissembling.
"You may mean that," Mrs. Cohen conceded. "It won't help your backside today. But I'll remember."
Rahbinda turned to Eve and held up a warning hand against the questions she could see trembling on the captive's lips. "Not now, my dear. All I can tell you is that change is at work everywhere. Jedrah is torn with it. Ismaul may not be exempt. It is possible that even I do not know the answers to what you ask. For now, hold your tongue and take this tiresome child to Natcha's room and strap her as tightly as your arm can manage to that small pedestal affair that sticks her bottom well out. I want you both naked. When I join you I shall test your work. If our little vixen can even twitch I'll whip you too. Now, away with you."
Change was indeed at work. This was Eve's first errand in Ismaul. She and her charge had a small freedom without supervision. Their chains held them. But still... it was an odd feeling. She glanced at her subdued companion. "Why so humble, darling?"
Lynn found explanation difficult. She was not sure herself. "Well, I did treat the old girl sort of bad," she apologized. "I mean, she did bring me over to see you. When I was working on The Great Escape I never even thought about her. I can see that from her point of view I'm a little bitch... I say, Eve darling, she's really going to lace into me... I can tell. If being humble will save a few cuts on my bum I'll be humble."
The pedestal was like the one back at the Estate. The girls looked at it unhappily. There seemed a lot of straps and buckles.
"I suppose we'd better get set," Lynn said without enthusiasm. "If she comes in and finds me walking around you'll get a skinned bottom too." She grinned ruefully. "I think the old girl's got a 'thing' about bottoms. I'm scared for mine. I almost wish she'd string me up some other way and spread the damage around a bit. I haven't got a mark on me now, have I. I got a feeling I've been saved up for this."
Eve watched the resigned teenager drape her slenderness over the round T bar and reach to the floor. Her bottom reared. The pedestal was designed for just one thing: to protrude a girl's bottom defenselessly. The straps were wicked. They, too, had a single purpose: immobility. Eve tugged at them angrily. It was a task she did not want. But Mrs. Cohen's injunction was vivid in her mind. There was another pedestal in the room...
The leather bands bit into the child's ankles, knees, thighs and waist. Wristlets cinched the hands to the base. She was bent like a hinge. The final and worst infliction was a long strap that circled the whole ensemble, passing over her shoulders, round the pedestal and over her thighs. A small muffled voice informed: "Darling, the way they do that is to shove your foot into my back and tug the buckle like hell. Go on. Do it."
Eve was shocked by her handiwork. Both girls had been bound for punishment in many ways. But there was something specifically malignant about this simple device, a hostile intent against a single portion of a girl's anatomy. Whoever had designed it must have cherished a bitter animosity for the feminine posterior. Or a cruel love!
The older girl tugged and pulled. There was no slack at all. Surely Rahbinda would be satisfied with this! Tenderly, but with a shamed awareness of a blossoming eroticism, she stroked and caressed the round curves that would soon be bitten by the cane. They were exquisite. She longed to fondle them endlessly. She bent and kissed them, letting her lips make a tracery of love. But she was fearful. The chubbies were bent and stretched so wickedly tight that whatever instrument was used on them must surely cut cruelly into the proffered flesh.
Eve voiced her concern when Mrs. Cohen joined them.
"Madam, I fear the skin is stretched so tight the cane will do it real injury."
"Good!"
Rahbinda tested the straps as she had promised, and nodded approvingly.
"But Madam, forgive me... I've never seen a bottom so terribly exposed... "
"Neither have I," said Rahbinda cheerfully.
"I think it will cut her skin."
"Excellent!" Mrs. Cohen grimly enthused.
There didn't seem anything more to say.
Rahbinda made her choice with care. "Well, if the little vixen's rump is as tight as you say we'd better not use anything too stiff. A nice whippy cane, eh." She made her choice and tested it.
It was indeed a nice whippy cane! Eve flinched. The helpless victim contrived a shocked glance from one apprehensive eye.
"I will not be hypocritical about this," said Mrs. Cohen. "I'm reading no lecture, I'm making no justifications. I shall enjoy caning your bottom immensely. I have wanted to do it for a long time. You know the reason. Make as much noise as you wish. I shall enjoy that too."
Eve longed to close her eyes. But could not. We are under strange compulsions at such times. She grimaced in horror at the scarlet line that followed the cane across her darling's cheeks. She stood transfixed as it was followed by another, and another. How did Lynn keep silent! A determination to be unpredictable. Strangled sounds did emerge, but the bound child did not scream. Eve was certain that she herself would have screamed from the first blow. The scene had an unreality. The white bottom with its wounds was inconsistent with the utter and total stillness of the punished girl. So complete was her confinement that she could not twitch, could not quiver. Within she must be an agonized turmoil. But her youthful bottom reared itself jauntily as though the searing whip was a loved one's kiss.
Mrs. Cohen smiled happily and flashed her arm back and forth with intent purpose. Soon the screams came. Beginning with pleas and protests whose very futility dried them on the tongue they won their victory over the tight lips that sought to contain them and pealed forth as a fearful accompaniment to the ringing splat of cane on female flesh.
It did not stop. The watching Eve was in an agony all her own. Blood was on the tight skin now. The weals were merging so that soon the defenseless cheeks would be one wound. The screams tore at her very core. She could not endure them. She pleaded in panic.
"Please stop... oh please! It's too much. She's only a kid!"
Mrs. Cohen did stop. One got the impression she was glad of a breather. She turned her amused attention on the frantic supplicant.
"The little mother, eh!" She eyed Eve shrewdly. "Go ahead. Say it. You'll take her place. Don't beat her anymore. Beat me instead! That's it, isn't it?"
Eve nodded. Her eyes were filling with tears. The whipped girl managed a muffled "No... No!" and resumed her choking sobs.
"You have enough whip marks on you now, girl. But I'll cater to that Protestant puritan conscience of yours if it means that much. But remember, no matter how hard I whip you it will not absolve your little darling from a single stroke."
Eve was distraught. She could not bear that Lynn should suffer alone. Yet to bear such agony without aiding her love... ! She suspected Rahbinda was laughing at her. Or setting some trap.
Rahbinda herself watched with real interest the play of emotions across Eve's anguished face. "You of the West," she mocked. "So full of guilt. You feel immoral without suffering. Or is it that you feel lust in pain?"
Eve had no answer. She only knew that she longed for the whip to cease cutting at her love. "I don't know," she admitted helplessly making a woebegone gesture of bafflement. "But I'll do anything if you'll stop whipping her. Please don't whip her anymore."
"Are you trying to bargain, girl?"
"I'm making a mess of it," Eve wailed. "I'm sorry. I really am sorry, but I can't help it."
Rahbinda was enjoying herself. "Well then, I'll offer you a bargain. Get over that pedestal and I'll whip you as you've never been whipped before. I'll make you both howl at the top of your voices. Perhaps, if you don't deafen me too much, I may relent a little and let you share a portion of what she really deserves."
"Don't do it!" Lynn's voice was urgent.
Without pause Eve sped to the pedestal and bent over. Without further comment the older woman strapped her to it as brutally as the moaning teenager was fastened. Eve was glad of the leather bands. She knew she could not endure the pain to come without them. But her tummy churned in fear. She had seen Lynn's bottom. Soon hers would be the same! The fear came close to panic when she discovered she could not move in even the slightest degree. Her naked bottom felt as though the eyes of the world were upon it.
Mrs. Cohen was a methodical woman. She would finish what she had started. She returned to her 'nice whippy cane' and Lynn's bloodstained buttocks. The frightful whir and splat once more sent Eve's compassion writhing in torment. The caning went steadily on and on. By now the poor child's bottom would be a terrible thing to see. Why, oh why, didn't the woman desist and divert her savagery to the new bottom pointed into the air in voluntary sacrifice? No girl could long continue to bear what Lynn was bearing. It was too much! Eve began to wonder if she had been duped: if what she must soon suffer would serve any purpose...
The steady beat of the cane on female flesh stopped suddenly. Mrs. Cohen was breathing heavily. The whipped girl's screams lapsed into choking sobs and small inarticulate sounds that tore at Eve's heart. Eve herself knew a great thankfulness. The cane had stopped before her beloved had slipped into unconsciousness. Now it was her turn. Mentally she braced her whole being...
"Nobility can be tiresome," Mrs. Cohen chided good-humoredly as she unbuckled the straps that had clamped Eve to the pedestal. "Let it be a lesson."
Eve stood up, dazed, her bottom unmarked. The cane had not touched her. "You mean...?" She looked at Mrs. Cohen in wonder.
"That's right," Rahbinda assented. "I set out to cane the little vixen's bottom, and that's what I've done. No good reason for me to cane yours, so I didn't." She smiled confidingly. "I don't mind telling you I feel better. I needed that. So did she!"
Using the cane had made Rahbinda Cohen surprisingly human. How strange women were! Eve felt foolish.
"Take your little darling back to the cell. I'm through with her. You can lock yourselves up. Good-bye, my dear."
Purposefully, Mrs. Rahbinda Cohen strode from the room.
Tenderly, Eve led the gasping child back to their own small prison. Smiling wanly in thankfulness Lynn slithered onto her stomach on the bench. Eve could not lock the door, but played it safe by clasping home the shackles for their wrists. As she poured water in a bowl she speculated that Mrs. Cohen's visit had been a resounding success...
Eve never knew. That was the potency of 'The List'. A girl never knew! When the banyan tree came into view she wondered: It had been some time since her day on the cross, some time since Lynn's bottom had been caned. Was this a repeat... !
She had underestimated Ismaul's repertoire. The dour wardress and Caleb brought her to a standstill beside a grave dug deep beneath the shade of the vast tree. A funny sort of grave, deep but small. Maybe they buried their corpses standing up in Kedrah. Then she guessed.
They stripped her. How simple the task was! Caleb used his precious handcuffs to lock her wrists behind her back. They lowered her into the hole.
"Please to stand quite still," Caleb requested as he went to work with the shovel.
They must have measured. Her chin just surmounted the rim. She was afraid. What they were doing to her held so many grisly associations. But she could only distress Caleb by pleading or protesting. She trusted him and kept silent as the warm earth rose foot by foot to hold her as securely as bonds might have done. Conscientiously he laid down the shovel from time to time in order to tamp the soil firmly around her person so that a uniform pressure was upon her everywhere. When it reached her neck, the wardress gathered and lifted the prisoner's hair and held it high while Caleb carefully fitted round the captive neck two boards with half circles cut into them so that when they were locked together Eve's neck was snugly held as in a pair of stocks that were no more than two feet square. Dirt was packed beneath the wood to ensure a correct level. Then the square was staked into place at ground level so that it could not be moved. The wardress allowed the lovely hair to fall in a cascade upon the plank. Eve stood, tightly buried to her neck: around which the wooden yoke ensured she would not struggle. Her chained hands were thrust hard against her back. She believed that if she could struggle she might move them. But to what end. They might then be less comfortable than now. She could not escape.
"Is most nice change," said Caleb cheerfully.
Eve looked up at him. From where she was he seemed absurdly elongated. "Oh Caleb, is this it. Or is there something else?"
"You are wanting something else?" He was immediately solicitous.
"Don't be silly, Caleb. I don't even want this."
"This is all. Is quite nice. Maybe you sleep."
"How can I sleep with everyone coming to look at me?"
"They just look. They no do bad things."
"Bad things!" She knew how vulnerable she was.
Caleb laughed airily. "Is nothing. Sometimes they pee on you. Or sit down and make suck cock. But the Commandant has told they must not do such things. So you have most pleasant day."
"I don't think it's pleasant at all."
"Some dirt has got inside your cunt?" he inquired.
Actually some had. But she was not going to tell him so.
She watched them walk away. It was going to be very lonely this far down in the world.
There were the dogs. They sniffed and probably had other intentions. But she managed to shout soon enough and they went away. The dogs were the thing she had feared most.
The staff was less interested than previously. She assumed there was nothing about a head sticking out of the sand that they deemed worthy of attention. Her erotic attractions were well buried. It was one small dividend in a dismal plight.
It was not often in her punishments that she could move. But this was the first time everything below her neck had been taken from her. That was the idea: to diminish a girl, to cut her down to know her place. The girls of Ismaul had once not known their place. They had thought they were people. So now they were buried in the sand or hung by their thumbs to inculcate a proper female humility. How nice to be a man!
She was in this bitter frame of mind when the Commandant placed a newspaper on the ground and sat facing her. "I can try and reach your level," he apologized.
"This is a rotten thing to do to a girl."
He produced his thin smile and noncommittal shrug. "It is better than many things. It would be most excellent for a woman's liberationist."
"You mean it reduces a woman to nothing!"
"Well? You are perhaps a foot high."
"What perverted joker thought up that damn list?" She knew she sounded like Lynn. She should go easy on him. He was a friend.
"Some predecessor of mine who discovered that a girl has but so much skin for the whip. One can imagine him searching for fresh places and drawing up the list in frustration."
"We always speak of whips," Eve said wearily. "Tell me of other things."
"Mrs. Cohen will soon leave us. She brought no good news."
"Is she sadistic? Why did she cut Lynn's bottom to shreds?"
"No. She is not that. But the child's behavior is unacceptable to one of Jedrah."
"Should women... girls, be humble and doe-eyed? Would you like me like that?"
"No. I have become addicted to you as you are." He repeated his smile. "But, perhaps without knowing it, you have become humble. You do not argue. You chain yourself in your cell-" He laughed. "You see, I know. If you knew you could escape the bastinado you would crawl."
"So would any girl."
"You know that is not so. When a girl arrives here she is filled with pride."
"So you beat it out of her."
"We do what others should have done long since."
"I'm in a bitchy mood," she admitted. "You should beat me. Then I'd feel better."
They shared laughter.
"You see," he said amiably, "Ismaul has taught you much."
"Why are we fencing like this?" she demanded. He looked down at her somberly. "You are bitchy. I am troubled. That is all."
"This trouble is Jedrah. Could it set me free?"
He shrugged unhappily. "If the government was lost I suppose it might. There are those who believe all change is good. They are wrong."
"You don't want to let me go. Do you?"
"No. I tell you frankly that if I could buy you as a slave I would."
"Only as a slave?"
"Would you wish to share me with other wives? They might beat you."
"You would beat me."
"Yes," he agreed. "I would beat you. With a fine thin whip. It would give me much happiness."
"Why don't you whip me here? You could."
"I have asked myself that question," he said. "I do not know the answer."
She watched him go. A deeply troubled man.
Eve was suddenly very lonely.
When the Commandant was lost to sight she suddenly knew a great surge of resentment and frustration. Why, why, why! With furious energy she struggled. She did not move her body. The wood collar chafed her neck. For a little while she wept. Then, unexpectedly, went to sleep.
She awoke to the sight of a pair of shoes. Sleek, expensive, feminine shoes. Shoes that were not of Ismaul. The ankles in them were nylon-sheathed, svelte and dainty. To a mind still blurred by slumber they stood out as an anomalous incongruity. Wonderingly, Eve's eyes traveled upward scanning this product of Paris and Park Avenue. Surmounting the clothes was a pleasant feminine face that peered down at her in horror and incredulity.
It was Lynn's sister, Marge Atkins.
* * *
It was an important day for Caleb. But he found the visitor an embarrassment beyond anything covered by his terms of reference. Living as he did in a world of females who were either mother naked or draped in a scrap of sacking, he viewed her costly and becoming ensemble as an affront to the traditions of Ismaul. At least two of the three pairs of feminine eyes anxiously upon him understood his dilemma. He made his own definite summation. "Is not in book of rules."
"Blast your bloody rules!" Marge was perturbed. "If Mrs. Cohen and your Commandant are away for the night, then let me see whoever is in charge."
"Is me," said Caleb with immense satisfaction.
"Caleb is our friend. He is very competent," Eve interposed tactfully.
"He'll screw you anytime for free, Sis. Real obliging," Lynn got her ten cents worth in. "Won't you, Caleb?"
"Have most fine cock," Caleb acknowledged modestly.
Marge Atkins looked at the cell. She looked at the perspiring Caleb who had put on a clean uniform for the occasion: an honor of which she was oblivious. To her he looked like a refugee from the sanitation department. Lastly she surveyed her naked sister and the equally naked Eve.
"This has to be nuts!" she said hotly. "Don't tell me it's for real!"
"All he wants to do, darling, is strip you and chain you in here with us so we can have a nice visit." Lynn held up her shackled wrist and rattled the chain mischievously.
"But I'm a visitor!"
"In Ismaul is no visitors." Caleb had found firm ground. "He's right, Marge. This place is grim. Calvin fixed us, but good."
Eve was anxiously aware of a need to bridge the vast gap between the facts of Ismaul and their visitor's comprehension.
Gazing around with an infinite distaste for all she saw, Marge burst out angrily: "I could kill that bastard! Putting you in a place like this! I knew it was bad. But not out of the Dark Ages... "
"Is most fine prison for girls," Caleb affirmed with hauteur.
"See, Sis, I told you. They do everything for us girls here. Caleb's offering you full privileges."
"Don't be bratty," Marge retorted irritably. "I'd have thought from the state of your bottom they'd have whipped that out of you by now."
"She is most happy here," Caleb reproved. "They bite each other's cunts with much-" He sought for the right word and tacked it on with evident pride, "-gusto."
"Can't you find another word for that thing?" Lynn inquired.
Caleb examined the thought. His expression conveyed that he was asked to alter a natural law.
"Is no other word," he affirmed solidly. "Cunt is cunt."
Lynn explored her stock of vulgar synonyms. "How about slit?" she asked slyly.
Caleb considered. His face brightened. "Ah! Slit! Yes, of course. Girl has slit. Is very good." He mulled his new vulgarity in his mind and came up with a beaming smile. "Now when must insult fellow I call him big slit!"
"Is there any possibility of returning to normal?" Marge asked wearily.
"I've been thinking about this." Eve frowned earnestly at their angry visitor. "Look at it this way, Marge, they just are not about to move two prisoners, and that's what Lynn and I are, into Mrs. Cohen's suite. So if you want to be with us it has to be in this cell. Actually that's a privilege none of the other girls have."
"Of course I want to be with you. That's why I came. But naked...!"
"Is fine dress." Helpfully he handed Marge Eve's discarded sack.
Marge visibly recoiled.
"Well, that's all we get to wear," Lynn proclaimed. Eve explained: "We don't wear them. We'd sooner be naked. But it is a covering of sorts."
"Caleb does not mind naked. Most like to see... slit!"
He was like a child with a new toy.
Eve continued. "We are naked most days for punishment. We just got used to it." She grinned amusedly. "A girl has to make up her mind before she gets chained. Once you are chained it won't come on or off."
Marge shook her head in bafflement. "If it was anywhere but this place I'd think you two were having me on." She turned irritably to Caleb. "Dammit, man, must I do this nonsense?"
"Is not nonsense. Is book of rules."
Marge sighed and reached in her purse. "Will fifty cover it?"
Caleb's eyes bulged. But not with avarice. "Is fifty strokes with whip for bribe officer." In the role of outraged virtue he pronounced sentence.
Marge's shoulders slumped. She looked at Eve resignedly. "What the hell am I fighting for! I've had worse from Calvin; and I do want to be with you kids. So O.K., I strip. But this chain thing. Must I...?"
"Is book-"
"O.K... O.K." She waved him to silence. "The bloody rules. I'd tell you what to do with them if it was for more than one night."
Angrily she stripped, handed him the small bundle of costly garments, then arrogantly thrust her nakedness upon his attention. "Well, do I stack up?"
"Caleb sees many slits and tits," he said stiffly with unintentional alliteration.
"A girl ain't going to win in this place," Marge acknowledged ruefully. "He figures."
Caleb placed his small bundle outside the door and turned purposefully. "Am most sorry is no third chain to wall." It was as though he was apologizing for the absence of a bathroom.
"Don't let it bother you." Marge's satisfaction was obvious. "Those things look to me like they'd be easier to get into than out of."
Her irony missed him. He beamed reassuringly and produced his faithful handcuffs. "Is better behind back." He assured her as though with comfort.
Marge looked at him almost with despair. She looked at Eve. She looked at her younger sister.
"Put your hands behind your back, Sis. Join the club. We'll do everything for you." Lynn impudently enjoyed her sister's chagrin.
Shaking her head in mock despair, Marge turned round and placing her arms behind her offered Caleb her wrists.
The new captive palpably winced as the door clanged shut after the departure of a beaming and triumphant Caleb. Fluttering her strained shoulders and tugging at her handcuffed wrists, she grinned wryly at the two girls who surveyed her with such infinite understanding of her emotions.
"Hell of a fix for a girl... " She looked at her kid sister speculatively. "You come here on a visit. Now look at you. Your ankles chained forever and your wrist shackled to the wall. Now I come on a visit, and look at me. That grinning jackass has got me more helpless than either of you."
She saw their concern and was contrite. "O.K. I'll cool it. After all I'm no virgin martyr. You must be busting to know why I'm here."
She grinned at their eager affirmative. "It's no long story. I simply gave Calvin such a bad time that he bought me a ticket. I've been frantic about you ever since Mrs. C came back with the story. She wasn't too happy about it herself." She looked directly at Lynn. "Calvin blew his top when he heard about you. He never wanted you in a dungeon. In some ways he's an absolute bastard. But I have never seen a man more broken up than he was when he got the word on Alison... He'd sent her here for maybe a thirty-day course on how it's best for a girl to behave." She turned to Eve. "I think he had about six months in mind for you-that vase must of hurt-his dignity anyway. Now the whole deal's screwed up somehow. Mrs. C says its because the military got involved. Seems like there's enough official documents on you all over Jedrah by now that it's going to take TNT to get you out of this bloody fortress."
"You came alone?"
"Calvin figured it would be O.K. with Mrs. C in residence. They still scratch each other's backs." She laughed bitterly. "And look at me now... "
"What's going on outside... in Jedrah?"
Marge shrugged. "I don't really know. Some sort of a revolution. Mrs. C and her brother are in there somewhere. Probably playing both sides against the middle. But word came through that he was killed. So it's Mrs. C and the government and the guerrillas now."
Marge shook her head disgustedly. "They don't tell me much, but I get an impression there's something odd going on about this prison, about Ismaul. It can't be bad or drastic or Calvin wouldn't have let me come. But it's some sort of change. I just sort of picked up hints from Cal and Mrs. C and Lil."
"What's Lil got to do with it?"
"Nothing. But she and Cal amuse each other. He tells her things. There's a good deal of back scratching goes on there too. Lil's got dough."...
Morning brought another contretemps to Caleb. He rose to its challenge in a way that, for the moment, relieved Eve of a nagging worry. His first announcement had sent her pulse throbbing in concern for Marge.
"Is punishments as usual."
"Oh Caleb, can't you leave us chained in the cell today? Give us double tomorrow if you have to catch up," Lynn wailed.
"Is not permitted." He pointedly viewed Marge with a cold, possessive eye. Eve suspected he had taken a dislike to their visitor.
"Surely you won't leave Miss Atkins alone all day?"
"Miss Atkins spend day with you."
He enjoyed the dawning comprehension on the faces of the three girls.
"You can't punish a visitor!" Eve was aghast.
"Is nothing else to do with her." His logic was Ismaul's. It was irrefutable.
"What's on the bill of fare?" Marge demanded suspiciously.
Caleb enjoyed his power. "A day with Natcha and her whips?" he suggested casually.
Marge had spent the night handcuffed. She was still handcuffed. She was angry.
"You have to be kidding! You wouldn't have the nerve to send me back Stateside covered in whip marks."
Caleb shrugged. "Not send. Not invite. You come. If not want marks to show, can whip soles of feet," he offered magnanimously.
"Oh grow up!" Marge turned her back to him and extended her hands. "Take these damn things off my wrists."
Caleb stepped around the supplicant leaving her flushed and helpless. He turned to the two girls as though seeking their support, his features bright with inspiration. "We leave as is: raise hands with rope most high behind back so she bend over. No marks. Much time for think."
Lynn clapped her hands delightedly. "She'll love it! Won't you, Marge?"
"If I ever get you alone with a whip...!" Marge hissed at her shining-eyed sister.
"Is most fine," Caleb enthused. "We go."
The fortress of Ismaul nurtured around its flanks a motley straggle of dwellings that centered in a village square. Eve had not been taken there before. She saw now that the influence of the prison had spilled over into the community. Or, more probably, that the community had encroached upon Ismaul's forensic facilities. Prominently and permanently established in the public place were several sets of stocks, whipping posts, even a gallows. Time had mellowed the blending of these grim instruments with the market place so that the plight of any victim on whom they were employed would be doubly shaming. But it was to none of these that their steps were directed.
Since they were to leave the fortress proper, Caleb had enlisted a couple of guards as escort. He had removed Marge's handcuffs and thrust a sack covering on each girl. Marge had donned hers as though it had been removed from a leper's corpse. Now their fate stood ahead of them in plain view.
It was a cage. Woven of iron bars it stood dead center in the Square, ancient but solid. Perhaps ten feet square. Eve prayed. If only it could be something like this! Something that would not injure the older girl who had come to help them. Just for today...
And thus it was! But not quite as their visitor would wish.
The cage door was secured by no less than three huge and forbidding padlocks. One of them gleamingly modern. Caleb unlocked them with a flourish, opened the heavy narrow door as wide as it would go, then motioned pridefully to his prisoners. As each passed the beaming Acting Commandant he relieved them of their sack and handcuffed their wrists behind their back. Eve and the younger girl accepted Ismaul's commonplace indignity passively and without comment. They would have been surprised had it been otherwise. But Marge was genuinely stricken. She balked, and inconsistently clutched her bit of sacking as though it had become ermine.
"Right in the middle of town!" she protested, unintentionally paying the village an undeserved compliment.
"Is for people to see," Caleb explained the obvious to a stupid woman.
"But not with my hands behind my back," his unwilling guest wailed. "I won't be able to cover a thing!"
"You begrudge them to see your slit?" Marge was falling steadily in his esteem.
"I'm not going in there without this sack and I'm not going in there with my hands chained." Marge's stand had much in common with General Custer's.
Caleb motioned with his head. A few moments later Marge was thrust into the cage. She was blushing angrily, panting from the struggle, and quite naked. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her back, each metal band tighter than it need have been. She stood in helpless fury watching the slamming of the door and the locking of the padlocks. Caleb and his escort marched smartly back to Ismaul.
"A girl can't cover everything anyway, Marge," Eve pointed out with the voice of experience. "So when they cuff your hands behind your back it's a bit of a relief: you don't have to try anymore. Let 'em have a damn good look. If you act coy they get an extra kick."
"Slits!" Lynn giggled. "Show 'em yours, Sis. It's a biggie."
Marge stamped her foot in exasperation and said, "Ouch! To think I'm in this jackpot because I was worried stiff about you!" She turned to Eve in genuine curiosity: "I think the little baggage is actually enjoying herself!"
Eve knew the surmise to be partly true. Even now the youngster was making grimaces and cocking her leg suggestively at any of the villagers who paused to view what was, for them, an almost daily exhibition. But then she remembered the teenager's sobbing slenderness upon the bench and her cut and swollen feet. She remembered the tearful avowal never to say boo again: a vow that had been largely kept. The child used judgment in her displays of humor. Eve tried to rationalize.
"You see, Marge, Ismaul's a cruel, terrible place. But here and there-mostly with Caleb and the Commandant there are chances to laugh. We grab at them. Even if they come while we are being tortured we try not to let them slip. They are precious. They keep us alive. I honestly don't know how I'd have made out if it hadn't been for the kid and her impudence."
"She likes to be whipped, doesn't she? I've guessed."
Eve fluttered her strained shoulders. "Yes, she does, up to a point. There is something erotic about being whipped. I'm not sure I can explain it."
"You mean, you've become an addict too?"
"Well, not really. But I have to admit it's got to me at times. Poor Alison went into some world of ecstasy when she was whipped. I envied her. I know it sounds profound and sort of clinical... but there is a bond that grows between the whipper and the whipped. Chained here in Ismaul I've had to wonder about the old theory, or maybe it was just a joke, that a woman was better for a good whipping. If the chips were really down I'd have to say, yes, it's true."
"Then what the hell are we all fighting Cal for?"
"Oh, I've thought of that too. I was sent here to think about it. You are right. Us girls must seem crazy. The only answer I have is that when he savaged me at The Estate I was still Miss Eve Trevor. In Ismaul I'm less than nothing. Ismaul reduces a girl to total nonentity. Look at the spot you found me. in yesterday. Believe it or not I never said boo when they chained me and put me in that lousy hole in the ground and locked that wooden collar round my neck. I even helped them. I'm a slave. So is Lynn. She may not always act like it. But she is!"
Marge surveyed their cage disdainfully. "It would take more than this to make a slave of me."
"Try and remember you are an honored guest," Eve suggested tartly. "This cage is Ismaul's way of giving the three of us a lovely holiday."
"Holy cow!" Marge's voice was almost reverent. "Wait till I tell Cal."
Eve's intuition bothered her. Something was not quite right. She sensed it. Confirmation came with evening and Caleb.
"Is nice cage. You not want to leave." Three pairs of female eyes glared in dismay through the bars.
"Just for few days." He was a man cherishing some secret joke.
"A few days!" Marge was indignant. "You're going to leave these kids in this bloody cage for a few days...!"
"You stay too." Caleb's voice oozed generosity. Or was it sarcasm!
"Let me out of here. Take these damn handcuffs off."
Caleb produced a key. "You back up please."
It was unexpected. The younger girls watched intently. A flustered Marge thrust her chained hands against the bars. A moment later she was massaging her chafed wrists.
"Please now to hold them out in front."
It was a measure of Ismaul's potency that Marge obeyed without protest. Once more the metal found the same grooves in her flesh. But now her hands were locked before her giving a modicum of freedom. At a gesture from their jailer the younger girls were served in the same way. Eve shrewdly guessed it boded them no good.
"Take me to Mrs. Cohen or the Commandant." Marge sounded panicky. Intuition must have been taking its toll of her too.
It was at this point Eve began to suspect Caleb of being tipsy. Caleb giggled. It was an effervescence of something too funny to contain. When one is drunk it is possible to laugh at very little.
"Mrs. Cohen and Commandant not return." He effervesced once more, his eyes dancing.
The thought was ludicrous. Eve gasped. Surely not! Marge put it into words.
"You mean they've eloped?"
Caleb could contain his laughter no longer. He rolled and roared with it. Finally when he managed some control he shook his head and made some indeterminate gesture that could have meant anything. "Is not elope... " He fought for breath. "Is worse, much worse." Once more he was delivered to hilarity.
"What the hell's so damn funny?" Marge demanded.
He wiped his eyes. Several times he fought for utterance but met defeat in laughter. In the end he staggered away, still bubbling over with his secret.
"He must be drunk," Eve offered. Yet it was not like Caleb...
"Drunk or sober, we're locked in this damn cage." Marge was becoming scared. "What do we do at night? Sleep in a pile?"
"At least we have our hands back." Lynn held hers up and admired the link that joined them. "You don't know when you are lucky, Sis. I think this is the first time we have ever been handcuffed where we could see 'em."
But Eve knew the use of their hands meant they were to be caged for a long time.
Three nights and four days. Eve knew there were worse places in which to be imprisoned and worse ways in which to be chained. Lynn frankly enjoyed herself, reveling in all that took place around them, even the peering faces and lewd gestures. The time passed better than it would have done in the cell. Perhaps someone was being kind... There was a single incident.
The faces were mostly anonymous. One did not meet their eyes. The naked girls were the exhibit, not them. It was hard not to act the part of being caged: to sit or walk back and forth instead of holding on to the bars and peering out. To talk with each other naturally without concern for who might hear. To stay away from the door and not forever explore its locks.
The quiet voice scarcely registered.
"You are more beautiful than on the day I sold you."
Startled, Eve found herself being examined by the sardonic eyes of the guerrilla Fashad.
Her reaction was instinctive, involuntary.
"Get me out of here. Please."
He laughed, frankly enjoying the caged girl.
"Why should I?"
She had nothing to lose. He was a relief from boredom. He was handsome. There was a lambency in his eyes that told her she was female. "You could sell me again."
He nodded, giving the cage and its naked contents careful scrutiny. "The three of you might top a million."
"The Commandant here would buy me."
"Ah, the good Perkins. He does not possess your price."
"You know him?"
"I know most in Jedrah. He is worthy, but of the past." His eyes twinkled. "He is absent now: the old Tom, so the mice can play."
"Isn't it dangerous for you? Why are you here?"
He shrugged. "Danger is my trade. I visit here as I visit all places in the land. I had not expected so naked a welcome."
She blushed. She knew he would have the power always to make her blush. She liked him. He scrutinized her 'slit' without seeming offensive. Their eyes met. Her scarlet deepened.
"You have become used to nakedness. You wear it well. Our women do not. I would find it hard to sell you again. I would wish to keep you."
She was ashamed of her joy. "Would you whip me, Master?" she asked archly.
"Why would I?"
Her question had been instinctive. She had not framed the words. But he caught their inference.
"Jedrah has entered your blood. Yes, I would whip you. You would despise me if I did not. You would also weep if I failed to beat you. It is in your eyes." He laughed at her good-naturedly as at a child. "You would like me to whip you now."
A rush of passion struck Eve. Unexpected, violent. A consuming hunger for his manhood within her and his lash upon her loins. She should have been shamed, but was not. She clutched the bars between them in an intensity of longing. "Get me out. Free me...!"
"Then sing you the 'Desert Song'?" He was still laughing at her.
She thrust her libido into the background. It was not easy. She told herself she was simply man starved and had better behave. "But seriously," she pleaded, "you have power. Use it to get us out of Ismaul." She shook her head angrily. "I am trying to think of something that is not a cliche and absurd. I almost said to you: Free us and I am yours."
They shared their laughter. "You really have no bargaining power at all. If I freed you, you would automatically become my slave."
"Free me." Her voice and her eyes were intent.
Fashad laughed and blew her a kiss and walked away.
"That guy could get into my pants anytime," Lynn breathed. Her voice was reverent.
"You don't have any pants," Marge pointed out bitterly.
* * *
They saw no more of Caleb during their stay in the cage. Their needs were dealt with by a wardress or a jailer. Caleb did not even accompany the uniformed escort and the wardress who came to release them in the early afternoon of their fourth day. A nagging suspicion tormented Eve about him. Could it be... ? But, no... it was not possible,! Yet his overflowing exuberance on that first day carried a message.
Their sacks were thrust at them and their wrists cuffed again behind their backs. Marge contained herself and said nothing. To Eve it was routine. Her thoughts were upon the three men of Jedrah who had so poignantly touched her life. After Fashad had left her in the cage a great loneliness had descended. Beyond the bars was life. But she remained chained, a prisoner of Ismaul. It would always be so. The ten years of her sentence would rob her of youth. Marge would soon be gone. Eventually Lynn would be released, that would be the hardest thing of all to bear. Perhaps even the Commandant would be promoted or retired. But she would remain. The prisoner of Ismaul! It was like the title to a book.
Rasuli! She could not bear to think of his lifeless body that terrible day in his house. Yet it was a picture constantly in her mind. She knew that she had wanted to be Rasuli's slave more than she had wanted any other thing in her life. With him all else had vanished. She longed to wear his chains, to feel his whip, to pay him homage with her lips and her loveliness. Eve knew she was lovely. For him she could have been doubly so.
And Fashad! Eve wryly reflected that her passion was simply the reaching out of youth to youth. They were both young. Momentarily they had found in each other that assuagement of the eternal loneliness that waits in the wings of mankind's stage. Fashad was vivid and strong. She found herself possessed of an intense desire to give herself: her lips, her body and her love. She would provoke him to the whip, then be his slave girl for a little while before the bullets found him. Why must men be forever dying for causes that, to a woman, did not matter!
What was it she felt for Commandant Perkins! It was loneliness there, too, for both of them. They had reached out and touched. Gratitude, yes. But for what! He had neither remitted nor modified a single one of her punishments. He had stood gravely talking to her as she bore her torture. She owed him the female's eternal debt for being desired. A woman would always be grateful for being loved. Here again she knew eroticism in his frank avowal of his desire to buy her as his slave. Why could he not use his 'long thin whip' upon her nakedness! She wanted it. With him the infliction would be an exquisite artistry. He would savor each scarlet stripe he placed upon her flesh. He would cherish her.
The sand was gone from beneath her chained feet. They had entered Ismaul. They were not taken to their cell, but to the office of the Commandant. At last Marge could reenter the world of the free. Poor Caleb would be released from his dilemma with her.
The wardress threw open the door. Their escort gently propelled the three handcuffed girls into the office. Eve was disappointed. The Commandant was not there. Rahbinda Cohen sat at his desk. She was reading a newspaper. At their entry she lowered it. She was not Mrs. Cohen at all...
She was Lillian Galbraith.
* * *
Her smile was warm. Her greeting was simple. "Stand in line, girls. Sharp to attention. I'm the new Commandant."
The exclamations, the questions seemed too obvious. Eve stood silent, as a spectator, waiting.
"Get these blasted handcuffs off me!" Marge ran true to form.
Lil airily waved a hand. Obviously she was enjoying herself. "Jedrah has been getting a draft from the 'winds of change'. They wanted a woman with modern ideas of penology. Calvin fixed it. Meet today's Elisabeth Fry."
"You don't know anything about prisons," Lynn giggled.
"For Pete's sake unlock these handcuffs," Marge demanded.
Mrs. Galbraith had the stage. She kept it. "By the time they find out I don't know anything about prisons I'll have come to know quite a lot. Besides... I've got ideas."
Eve made a shrewd guess at the ideas.
"It's wonderful! Now you can set us all free." The happiness in the child's voice tore at Eve's heart.
"How many times do I have to ask?" Marge was becoming indignant.
A silence lengthened. Eve sensed its message. Soon the handcuffed sisters felt it too.
"It's not quite that easy," said Mrs. Galbraith cheerfully.
"What do you mean, it's not that easy?" Marge demanded. "Get these things off our wrists."
The new Commandant's raised hand compelled silence.
"I'm enjoying this," she admitted honestly. "I'd sort of like to prolong it. Slip you the mickey a sip at a time. But what the hell... ! I'll be a good sport and let you have a broadside: Here's the deal. First, I've been here a couple of days. Sure, sure, I could have got you out of that cage. But I wanted to get my feet wet. Caleb's my boy, and I've been looking and learning. He's a panic. The poor old Commandant has got promoted. Actually he always was military. With the troubles, the authorities decided they needed him more somewhere else than here. That opened the way for me.
"Second, Calvin's worried. He wants me here." Lil frowned. "He needs to be worried. I've read the files on you two and I made some inquiries and I talked to Perkins. You're not about to get out of Ismaul. Jedrah's making an issue out of it. You stay-"
"O.K., Lil, O.K.," Marge interposed. "We are all damn glad to see you. But get me out of these things."
The new Commandant gave her erstwhile friend and colleague a pensive smile. Then chuckled openly as at a joke too good to keep. "Calvin sends his love, honey, and says you stay here for two weeks' intensive training before I send you home. Seems like you've been getting uppity lately."
The silence and the shock could be felt. Ismaul's visitor stood stricken.
"You're not going to do it? Dammit, Lil, we're friends."
"Of course we are, darling." Mrs. Galbraith was at her sweetest. "The hell of it is Cal and I are friends too. In return for him getting me into a spot I know I'm going to enjoy I had to make him a couple of promises... "
"The lousy bastard!" Marge tugged at her chained hands. "What's this intensive training bit... ? As if I didn't know."
Lillian Galbraith smiled comfortingly. "Let's put an end to the suspense for you, darling." She pressed a button. "I'm sure you'll adjust. After a couple of weeks you'll be so glad to be back at the Estate. This training thing seems a bit imaginative... "
"Don't you start being a bitch." Tears of frustration were in Marge's voice.
Whatever else she might have said was terminated by the arrival of a spruce and dapper Caleb who gave his new Commandant a far smarter salute than he had ever given the old. Eve was certain his lips were quivering and that he was suppressing hilarity with difficulty. Obviously his new situation intrigued him.
Lil gave him a comradely smile. "Please take Miss Atkins. Provide her with a cell and keep her well chained. For two weeks she is to receive each day one of the punishments listed in the 'Full Punishment List'. I will leave the choice of them to you, as per our recent discussion." She turned to the fuming Marge. "Good-bye for now, darling. I'll drop in on you from time to time." She contrived a most affectionate smile. "Don't worry. With Caleb you are in the best of hands."
With glowing panache Caleb grasped the visitor's arm. Marge was too dazed to utter a word as he led her from the room. The watching Eve could almost hear the roll of drums...
"What about our handcuffs?" Lynn asked doubtfully.
"Commandants don't have keys." Lil chuckled amusedly. "You must be used to wearing 'em by now anyway, honey." Suddenly she became serious. "Look, kids. We all know I'm a bit of a bitch. I think I've struck pay dirt in this nuthouse. I'm going to have a ball. You're part of it." She gave full attention to Lynn. "Calvin says to get you out anytime I can. I've told you it looks impossible. But I'll keep plugging. He says lay off the real rough stuff with you. You get the whip from now on: for you the fancy stuff is out."
Lillian Galbraith looked at her two prisoners and became very human. "I just have to be a disappointment to you, I know. When you saw me sitting here I bet you both thought: 'The nightmare's over.' It isn't over. As of right now it looks like you'll serve your full time. But I can make a few things better." She grinned. "Mostly in the sanitation line, and food, and things like that. I want you well and in good shape because I'll be whipping you regularly... I suppose you guessed that, didn't you. I didn't come here so much for the job as for the prerequisites of office... the good old fringe benefits."
"A prison full of girls to whip?" Eve was bitter.
"Right, darling. And now for you! Same deal as the kid except Cal says you can go on getting this 'Full Punishment' bit for as long as you're in here."
"I want it then, too," Lynn asserted vehemently. "Why does Cal have to be so damn mean to her!"
"She hit him on the head with a vase, honey. For Cal that's enough."
"What about these chains on our ankles?" Lynn kicked hers to make the links rattle.
"You'll have to wear 'em, sweetheart," Lil sighed. "I must be an awful disappointment, I know. But figure it this way: the staff will be watching me. The other prisoners will be watching you. Racial discrimination and all that. I may be the boss lady, but I can't ease things for you beyond a certain point. Do the damn things hurt? I mean, wearing them all the time the way you've had to."
"It doesn't matter," Eve admitted wearily. "I guess we'd feel funny without 'em. These have been on my ankles for months." She felt weighed down by a bitter, bitter disappointment.
The door opened to admit two young and pretty Jedrah girls, shy and scared.
"Ah yes!" Lil enthused. "Had Caleb send me these up special. You may as well get in on the show. Aren't they delightful!" She leaned sideways and produced a long sliver of a cane. "Brought a few of these with me-just in case. Didn't need to though."
The girls must have been briefed. They looked shyly at each other as though seeking moral support. Then, simultaneously, cast aside their sacks, stood erect and naked for a moment to show their loveliness of youth. Then demurely took positions and gracefully bent over and touched their toes, knees firm, bottoms canted well up.
Lillian Galbraith took a deep breath, such as one does after being deprived of air too long. She flexed her cane and smiled with a great happiness. "Exquisite, aren't they?" she breathed, then struck. The blow was like the breath, a rediscovery of life, a sampling of the elements. It lapped cruelly across and round the coffee-colored curves.
The child was magnificent. She gasped, her head raised. But she held position. It was on Lillian Galbraith that all eyes centered. She held her cane high as if in offering to some unseen image. She stretched to her full height, arching the back of her supple figure, reaching up upon her toes in a feline sensuality of passion appeased.
"I sure did need that," she said with unmistakable sincerity. "I haven't cut into good female flesh since that idiot Cal got his idea about reforming wayward girls. Gosh, I never realized how much I was missing. These girls are treasures."
The second girl was of weaker fiber. The slashing impact sent her to her knees with a cry. But instantly she thrust herself back into the shameful pose, eyes apprehensive. The cane whirred again.
"No hypocrisy about this," Lil said gleefully. "I've been wanting to do this so bad it hurts. I'm starving! Gosh, what lovely bottoms."
She lashed at the maiden skin until each bore five perfect ridged weals. The first girl still stoically bore her pain. But the second broke with each stroke. Amazingly though she managed to once more offer her bottom for its unearned punishment.
"I just have to do this," Lil said, almost as apology. She inserted her cane between the first girl's legs and rapped. Her message was instantly understood. The slender rounded legs parted, the feet spread wide apart, lil kept tapping until the girl was stretched wide opening up a whole new vista of delights. Her eyes were fearful with pre-knowledge.
It was expert. The cane flew low, rising to seek its prey beneath the juncture of the thighs.
Eve watched in wonder. She would remember it always. She would remember it because of her inward shame at the heat within her sex. For a moment she herself was the whipped girl, fired with an agony of desire. The child broke pose, her face drawn with suffering. For a moment she fell to one knee. Then, with an incredible fluidity, rose, hands fluttering toward her wounds, head thrown back in anguish. For moments she writhed in breathtaking slow motion until, inch by inch, she again bent to offer her most intimate treasures to the cane.
"That's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," Mrs. Galbraith said reverently, and struck again.
This time the girl fell forward, knees buckling. She lay sobbing, broken at last, uncaring. Fear overwhelmed by pain. Lil let her rest. Then bent and raised the slight hurt figure of the naked girl and kissed her gently on the lips. The weeping child backed against a wall, extended palms spread upon her stripes, and viewed the woman who had punished her with undisguised awe.
The second girl had seen it all. But had fearfully prepared herself and took her two unheroically. Lil then gently guided the tearful pair through the door and closed it after them.
"I expect someone will look after them," she said cheerfully. She smiled ecstatically at Eve and Lynn. "Wasn't that absolutely gorgeous!"
Eve was flushed, still shamed by the increasing carnality of her reaction to what she had seen. Lynn, too, had glowing eyes. But partly from indignation.
"Don't you enjoy anything except whipping girls?" Her voice was caustic.
Lil was in her first flush of fulfillment. "No, darling. Bend over."
"You aren't going to cane me like that!" The teenager was outraged.
"Not like that, darling. Just two lovely, well-placed strokes as a sort of reintroduction. A new beginning. Eve gets 'em too. Over you go."
Lynn was flushed, mutinous. She tugged futilely at her handcuffs, her shoulders fluttering. "I can't get the sack off."
"You can't, darling. But I'll help. Bend over and I'll fold it up where it won't be in the way."
Slowly, rebellion and resentment in every motion, the younger girl obeyed. Her absurd and scanty dress was lifted high and tucked well under her chained arms at her back. Her already marked bottom was laid bare for the cane. She took her two wicked lashes without a word, waited for permission, then stood and shook the sack back down. There were tears of mortification in her eyes. But she managed not to shed them.
Eve knew her role. Why make a fuss. Lillian was riding high. Why cross her. A new era was beginning at Ismaul. Best wait and see if it held aught for her save pain. Fastidiously she walked to center floor and bent well down, her chained hands rising at her back. She received two of the most painful cuts she had ever known. When she had permission to rise, her eyes sought those of the woman who had caned her. She made her glance level but without challenge. In a soft, gentle voice she said, "Thank you, Lil." She, too, was kissed. She wondered if she had won a victory.
* * *
The beneficiaries of the new era at Ismaul were Lillian Galbraith and Caleb. Strange that in a male-oriented society Caleb should find happiness in subordination to a woman. But he did. The small smile bordering on laughter clung to him as an aura. Eve, watching amused, supposed his adoration a mixture of novelty and pure lust for the lovely creature who ruled them.
Lillian herself was in a seventh heaven. She whipped every girl in the prison with a pure selfish joy. She took particular pleasure in whipping Eve. Eve wondered why, with all the female flesh available, her own bottom should seem the most delectable of all. Probably she represented to their new Commandant the only vestige of puritan conscience in Ismaul. Thus she must be exorcised. The whipped girl reflected wryly that a better word might be excoriated.
Lil had a way with her. She sincerely whipped with love. With seeming inconsistence she wanted the girl under her lash to view her with adoring and grateful eyes and to speak her pleasure in the soft, husky vibrations of desire. To a quite incredible degree she was successful. The girls adored her as something magic from a fairyland beyond their ken. Even Eve bowed to her whip and her cane without rancor.
Eve thought often of Commandant Perkins and mourned his passing. In the lonely pain-wracked vigils of her punishments she missed his diffident, shy explorations of the mind. They had shared a loneliness. Now she bore it all. Lil brought many changes, some of them good. But she was too much the extrovert to satisfy as a Confessor. Eve was constantly thrown off balance by her compatriot's exuberance. She was constantly saying to herself: Oh no! She can't! But Lil could and did: leaving Eve in a constant dither of incredulity or resentment.
The captive of Ismaul scarcely believed what she saw now. It was at the older woman's laughing invitation that she stood beside her in the courtyard.
"This cost me... " Lil admitted. "The Jedrah boys are not too keen on expenses, so I paid for it myself. But what the hell! Where else would I get the raw material... "
Eve longed to laugh. To clap her hands at the utter absurdity. To share with someone her sense of the ridiculous. But her exuberant companion was viewing the scene with such obvious pride and satisfaction that hilarity seemed tactless. Lillian Galbraith always carried a cane and often dealt with disrespect instantly and painfully.
The twenty pedestals had been set in the ground in two neat, straight rows of ten. One row had already received its complement of tenants. Ten youthful round feminine bottoms tilted in the air invitingly. The second row was filling rapidly as new incumbents were escorted from their cells. Straps and buckles were cinched with a vigorous enthusiasm by muscular wardresses whose lips and eyes, like Caleb's, barely controlled their explosions of delight. Apprehensive glances were cast sideways from the bent-over faces.
"Up one side and down the other. It's a dream come true," Lil explained.
"You mean, you alone... all of them?"
"Of course, darling." Lil gave her intrigued companion a chuckle of complicity. "Can't you see, honey, it's the only way... to get enough, I mean. With just one bottom, yours for instance, there comes a time to stop. What's yours good for... ? Twenty strokes, say. Maybe thirty. But then I have to stop if I don't want to ruin the merchandise. About the time I'm really getting a good feeling out of it I have to lay off." She took a deep, ecstatic sigh. "But not anymore, sweetheart. Look at the little dears. All waiting patiently. Go on. You may as well get in on it too... Bend over the one at the end."
Eve had become used to these sudden demands upon her flesh. She suspected Lil of a perverse delight in provoking her to remonstrance or pleas which, up to now, she had not deigned to make. But now, faced with the humiliation of adding her own bottom to the rows of pertly expectant rumps, some flicker of her distaste must have reached the watching eyes.
"Remember, darling, no racial discrimination. I've got to have one white bottom in there. Yours is the best of the lot."
"It gets enough experience," its owner said bitterly. Their eyes met. Confrontation was always latent. Eve lowered hers and said meekly: "Thanks, Lil, you're really sweet to me." She shed her sack, walked to the small rigid structure that would hold and expose her helpless, gave the watching Lil her very best smile and bent over the bar.
Strapped so that she could not even twitch, Eve sincerely mourned her loss of view. She could see a little about her, but not much. In spite of her predicament and the pain to follow she longed with an honest amusement to watch the posterior parade Lillian Galbraith had created. If, in years to come, she had a chance to tell of it she would meet disbelief. But she wished to cherish the memory herself as something unique. How nice if she had not become a part of it.
The sounds were graphic. The whirrr... The thunk or splat. The gasp or cry or the tongue bitten silence. Eve knew them all. Lil made a leisurely progress of pain down the line, the sounds fading as she went, save for the occasional uncontrollable cry of agony.
Then the return down the line of which Eve was the last. First the sounds, closer and closer. Then Eve's sudden realization that she had never been caned in this cruelly stretched posture. She remembered Mrs. Cohen's vengeance on Lynn and its resultant wounds. Miserably she refused noble resolutions. She'd howl if she felt like howling. Why did Lil have to be so damn mean... !
Lil's quaint concept carried with it an unintentional bonus of punishment. You had to wait your turn! Eve was soon aware that the wait was made doubly agonizing by the accompanying sounds that receded up one line and inexorably approached down the other. That your pain would also be suffered by companions in distress made it no less devastating.
It was typical of Lillian Galbraith that she made it uninhibitedly conversational. "Darling, it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" she breathed fervently. "I'm developing the most gorgeous swing. Doesn't this grab you?"
Eve's cry should have been answer enough for a slash that she genuinely believed must have cut deep into her.
But she bit short her gasping dismay and pleaded tremulously: "Oh Lil, it's awful! Please not so hard. Please... "
"You have the most exquisite bottom. It is so very, very whippable," Lil extolled happily. "I wish you could see the cane thunk across your cheeks and bounce right back. It leaves a sort of calling card... A lovely scarlet wound. If there weren't so many eyes on me now I'd bend over and kiss the one you just got."
The bent-over captive wondered at herself. She could not hate Lil, nor even feel any deep resentment for the pain she inflicted. It had been the same with the Commandant. Surely he might have eased some of her inflictions. But he had not done so. Yet she had come to feel an affection... Was she a masochist! Surely not! A masochist would not hurt, or fear the hurt as she did. A familiar voice returned her to farce.
"Are most fine assholes," observed Caleb.
Pathetically she welcomed the familiar voice as the splat, splat of Mrs. Galbraith's cane faded down the line. Ismaul had so denuded her of inhibition that if Caleb wished to show an interest in her rectum he was quite welcome.
"Oh Caleb, this is awful. Can you loose me a bit?"
"Is most tight fix," he agreed. "Caleb does not like. Cannot see cunt. Just small bit of hair poking through." Whilst she sought an answer, he continued interestedly: "Is true that in country where you come girls shave off cunt hairs?"
"Have you heard from Commandant Perkins?" she parried.
"Is in much war," he answered without enthusiasm. "Bang, bang. Is very bad." Then added with animation, "Now I watch you get cane."
Eve wished he was not watching. Under his intent scrutiny and in the interest of nondiscrimination Lil would have to give of her best. She did! The result was stomach-turning, quivering agony against which she fought passionately so that Caleb should not hear her cry. When her gasps subsided and the sounds of the whip passed down the line, he said with undisguised reverence: "Commandant Galbraith is most grand woman. Whip better than Natcha."
"Do you really like working under her?" Eve was curious.
"I fuck her most willingly," he affirmed with deep emotion.
What greater homage can a man give.
"I sure wish Calvin could see this!" Lil breathed ecstatically. She was panting slightly. "It's worth every penny. I'm trying to ease up a bit but I just can't! The beautiful swing and the thunk... It's heady stuff. I give 'em all I've got. You have three beauts! Say, darling, am I a bitch?"
"No."
Why had she uttered the negative! Eve pondered. Cries along the line were more frequent now. She knew she herself could not remain silent. A beautiful woman was whipping twenty girls with the utmost cruelty. Yet Eve suspected that most of them would, quite sincerely, have made the same response. No, Lil was not a bitch. It was as though the exquisite joy this lovely creature derived from the impact of the cane upon her charge's flesh and the reactions it impelled were justification enough for the pain. Who of them would deny their Mistress her sublimated ecstasy for the sake of their whipped bottom! What nonsense! She chided herself. And yet...
The next stroke was almost bearable. "Not that I'm tired, darling," Lil warned. "I'm still going all out: you know, grab it while I can. But I have something else in mind for you. A real fun thing for us girls. I don't want to exhaust your bottom's capacity, so the next lot will be just tokens. Be a sweet and let out a howl or two, just for the sake of public relations. After ten rounds you and I are going for a stroll to let me and the girls catch our breath and show you a cute little notion I've figured out."
The cute little notion was puzzling. It came so close to being nothing at all. True, it had led to Natcha's room with its whips and canes and other things. But it had also placed her in the center of the floor with her right wrist chained to a ringbolt at her feet. She could raise her shackled hand belly high. Thus she could take one step in any direction from the ring. That was all. She could reach nothing. She could stand, or sit upon the floor. The door had been left open. Lil had left her with a cheerful "Think of something nice, darling, while I'm gone."
Eve did not want to stand. But she did not want to sit her wounded bottom on so hard a floor. She compromised by reclining on one hip. It was not comfortable. But a chained and naked girl cannot expect comfort. She pondered.
How long could Lillian Galbraith get away with the preposterous sham! In a preoccupied and disturbed Jedrah her tenure could be indefinite. A few judicious bribes. The adoration of Caleb. Keep the expenses down. It could be enough. It could profit Eve nothing to see her replaced. Yet, somehow, the stripes she received from Lil hurt worse than those delivered by Natcha. It was mental. She was hurt that the American woman had not favored her, had not lessened her pain and her punishments. She was chagrined and humiliated. Of all the girls in Ismaul it was her flesh that Lil's whip found most desirable of all.
Eve no longer thought of her ankle chains as shackles. They had become a part of her. But the metal band now upon her wrist carried a very personal message. Lil had locked it there. It was very much a shackle holding her to that one small space in the big room. Without it she could walk through the open door. Left open, no doubt, to tantalize and frustrate a girl alone with her thoughts.
What was Lil going to do with her. She shrugged. It did not matter much. It would probably hurt. But she was in Ismaul to be hurt. If it was not one punishment it would be another. She had never lost her original amazement at the resiliency of a girl's body, its capacity to absorb pain. She went to her intermittent punishments much as a child goes to school. They were routine. They were ordained by the power of the law. She suffered them in varying agonies that never dulled or to which her flesh became inured. Each cruel indignity hurt as much as the first had long ago. But they had lost their power to shock or throw her into panic. She endured. All things end. She went back to her cell each night: again the same simile, as a child returns from school. The day past and forgotten.
She constantly knew both joy and desolation in her awareness of the scented flesh of Lynn. Each night they buried their sorrows of the day in a perpetual discovery of each other, an endless exploration of lips and tongue and fingers and of their minds. A linking, a coupling that banished Ismaul and carried them to some enchanted Island of their own. But supposing she lost the child! Supposing her darling was driven from her! How tenuous their union in prison! Could she live on without the girl she loved.
Sometimes she thought of escape. Idly, without conviction, but as a pleasant dream. A whimsical, will-o-the-wisp fancy. A naked girl who is chained can never escape. A girl watched. Locked behind bars and metal grilles. Escorted by jailers. Punished for disobedience. The chains riveted on her ankles would always hold her. They had defeated her once: cruelly and tragically. They would hold her always. They were a symbol of Ismaul, implacable, enduring. Her daily unawareness of being fastened in them was the most graphic proof her immolation to the fortress in which she must spend her days.
"Am I really a sadist, darling?"
A warm and panting Lil carried a stool so that she could sit close to the chained girl. She had the air of a woman behind whom lay a satisfying task well done.
Eve supposed the question rhetorical. But tried to answer it. "Literally, yes. Spiritually, no."
"Got to admit it bothers me sometimes," the older woman admitted. "But then I get to thinking what marvelous fun it all is, and there doesn't seem much harm in it."
"The end justifies the means?" Eve punned.
"I suppose so, darling. But I'm so damned mean to you. I feel guilty."
"You could try being nice to me."
"I know I could. That's the hell of it. I don't want to."
"There's sixty other girls, y'know, besides me."
"I keep telling myself that. You have to admit today I gave some of 'em a bit of attention. But just the same it hasn't taken my mind off you. Darling... anyone tell you about your breasts? They're gorgeous!"
Eve tensed. She and Lynn had learned to fear references to their breasts. Lil chuckled.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not going to cut them off or nail your nips to the wall so you have to stand on tiptoe. It's just that they are so damn perfect I want to eat them." She grinned apologetically. "Fact is, honey, I'm horny. Who wouldn't be after what I've just done!"
"Want me to help?" Eve offered demurely. Better to seek merit in the act than be whipped into it. The signs were clear.
"You really are something!" Lillian Galbraith viewed her captive with affection. "Sure you can help, darling. But not right now." She made a disclaiming motion with her hands. "Here I go again. I just can't help it. I want to have a nice cozy time whipping you all afternoon."
It was no worse than the chained girl had expected. If she could use skill it might be made bearable. "Let me help first," she pleaded. "You are all tensed and ready to burst. I know what it's like. I can make it beautiful for you."
Lillian laughed. "Crafty wench! If you rob me of my sublimations the whip may fall more tenderly. I'm sort of cherishing this lovely fire that's burning up my furry spot. I want you to get the full benefit of it." She paused and eyed the naked girl hungrily. "You are just too bloody gorgeous, love. I could eat the whole dish."
Eve stood upright and extended her hands in invitation. "Eat me. Please. Don't whip me. Love me... "
Lillian Galbraith stripped. She did it with a jerking, thrusting urgency. Her nakedness was breathtaking. It still held the color and suppleness of youth. Age had not touched its symmetry. Used to feminine nudity as she was, even Eve felt desire.
She slaked it avidly.
For a long time both forgot Ismaul.
"Darling, I've often wondered... " Lillian Galbraith eyed her new possession tenderly. "This ten-year bit: does it get to you?"
"If I let it. Lynn counters it. I daren't think beyond her."
"I find it erotic. I fantasize about it. A lovely naked girl in a fortress. Chains welded on her that will never come off. A thousand men would give a fortune for her. But none may have her. She's about as safely tucked away as the gold in Fort Knox. Can't you feel it? Doesn't it eat at you?"
Eve gestured with her chained hand. "Of course it does. But it's so total, so utter, that the world disappears. For me there is only Ismaul." She flushed. "I think I know what you're probing at. I couldn't have talked about it a year ago. I wouldn't have understood it. But I can now. You're right. This place provides more eroticism than a Vegas floor show."
"Such as?" Lil's eyes were glowing.
"Well, it starts out as shame and humiliation. You are naked before men. They use your body at will. In the Ceremonials they make a big deal-you're the star turn. Try standing up on that platform stark-naked and all alone knowing you are going to be whipped and that all the men will get a great big erection out of it. Sure it gets to you. You end up reaching out to it as a sort of a lifeline. It's your drama. It's your human contact. Pitiful, I suppose, that a girl must look to being hung up by her thumbs or buried to her chin in the sand for kicks-and we never see it that way at the time. But we don't want to be left alone in our cell all day."
"What gives you the hots, sweetheart?"
Eve grinned and shrugged resignedly. "You want it all, don't you. Well, I'm not sure I know it all myself. It sort of sneaks up on you. Some of the Punishments call for me to be taken to some public place and tied in some way so I can't move. Mostly they manage to get my breasts and what Caleb calls my cunt well stuck out so that you're shamingly conscious of what you have. Men and women stop and look. The men adore pubic hair and get into all sorts of vulgar exchanges about yours which they are looking at all the time. You don't understand a word. You don't have to. But first thing you know you get the feeling. It gets worse and worse as you stand there all day. In the end you frankly wish they'd do something, anything, to put an end to your hunger. If your hands weren't tied you'd do it yourself."
Lil laughed delightedly. "You're a treasure, honey. I love you. I'm more ashamed than ever 'bout what I'm going to do. But please continue. I'm getting randy again."
"Am I doing a Scheherazade act?" Eve asked winsomely.
"I won't kid you, love. Sooner or later some bit of you will look too damn delectable and I'll just have to whip it. But carry on. Right now you're winning."
Eve considered. Then continued musingly. "Here and there I'll find myself fastened in some way that really does something for a girl. You know you are beautiful. The way they look at you then: that does it too. In fact, even without them looking, I've felt it: a sort of narcissism... " She paused and looked pleadingly at her companion. "Please, Lil, don't leap at this too joyfully... But we both know... Yes, the whip will do it... " Eve deliberately squirmed and rattled her chain mischievously. "But please don't whip me thinking I'm loving it. I'm not. I hate it. It scares me. I scream when it's more than I can bear. I scream a lot." She looked at the older girl hopefully. "If it hasn't happened to you I don't see how you can really understand... But there's a time before and a time after, mostly after, when the thought of it curls you up inside with longing or with love."
"What about you right now?"
"Yes. It's there. A quiver of fear and something else, something delicious. The knowledge that I belong to you. Actually I do: you can do anything you like with me. That's owning, isn't it?"
The chained girl rose to her knees and allowed her fingers to search and follow the ridges Lil's cane had left across her bottom cheeks. Her eyes intent upon she who held the cane. "You put these on me. Nothing I can do can get them off. They're a brand. Yours! They will be tender for a long time always reminding me of you. Telling me you can mark me again whenever you like. There's something intimately personal about being whipped... Is all this silly?"
"No."
"If it was a man, or someone ugly and cruel, maybe it wouldn't be like that at all. But to be whipped by a woman, especially if she's about your own age, or by a man you are in love with... It's a sublimation of making love. A girl cries out in agony under the whip, or in ecstasy in the throes of orgasm... They sound the same."
The naked kneeling girl searched her memory for the right words. "I'm covered with whip marks. Some of them may never go away, ever. I often wonder if I'd miss the whip if I was set free and did not get it anymore. It's absurd. But I might. Yet in Ismaul I'll do anything to avoid being whipped. You've seen yourself how obedient I've become. I didn't used to be like that. The whip did it. Maybe the bastinado. But that's a whip too. A little while ago we made love. If I had not wanted to you would have whipped me until I obeyed. I never even thought of... not wanting. That's how far I've come. A year ago you would have had to whip me half to death to force me...!"
"But you wanted to. I know."
"Yes. I did. Ismaul makes a girl honest with herself."
Lil stretched her nudity with sinuous joy. "Oh honey, I'm so damn happy it hurts. I expect, really, it's the happiest day of my life. All those girls with their little bums stuck out... And now you! Darling, I'll say it again: you're a treasure. Something special. If I had to make a choice between Ismaul and you I'd take you." Her lips pouted voluptuously, her eyes sparkled. "I want to whip you now."
"Of course." Eve rose to her feet willingly and said with complete sincerity: "I'll try and put on a good performance, Lil. That includes screaming and rolling around on the floor. Now, how do you want me?"
"Sweetheart, we've got such a nice rapport. I'll let you pick the first."
Eve leant down and gripped her knees. A girl could hope.
Nothing happened. The silence almost hurt. She cast an apprehensive and inquiring eye to the rear and beheld Lil frowning and thoughtful. "Bit unoriginal, isn't it, darling."
The victim gave a woeful sigh. With lil you didn't play games. She straightened up. "Sorry, Mistress. I think I know what you'd like."
There was no support. Eve took a single pace so that her tether sprang taut. Leaning against it as though striving to tear it from the floor she used it as support enabling her to stand on one foot and raise her other leg high at a right angle. "How's that?" she asked brightly. "Everything in full view and accessible."
Lil sighed in pure admiration. Ecstasy was there. "Honey, you are a natural! I should use a whip, shouldn't I? I mean, not the cane under those places?"
"Yes please," Eve responded demurely, as though the offer had been of a piece of cake.
When the lash burned and curled its path into those post private recesses with which it had been enticed, the owner of them uttered a wail, almost of unbelief, and fell to the floor writhing. Her unchained hand seeking her wound, the other tugging at a tether already at its limit. Lillian Galbraith watched avidly as the injured slenderness worked itself through the waves of pain into a panting quiescence. Striving not to impose on her Mistress's tolerance, the whipped girl struggled to her feet and managed a wan and apologetic smile.
"Now's the moment," Lil declaimed. "Tell me. Are you randy?"
Lil was unbelievable! Eve shook her head sadly. "No. If it was over now, I might be. But fear of the next one erases it." She looked appealingly at her tormentor. "Please, Lil, I hurt. Please don't whip me anymore."
The older girl holding her whip drank in the pathetic loveliness of the girl who must do her bidding. "Honey," she admitted with a wry twist of her lips. "What you've just said and the way you said it is about the most aphrodisiac thing that ever happened. It makes me want to whip and whip and whip... Understand?"
Eve nodded. "Yes, I do understand. I think we have one of those instances or situations in which anything I say or do will affect you like that. In a way it affects me too. I'll just have to scream and scream and scream. Neither of us can help it."
"Darling... "
Eve's nostrils flared. "Yes?"
"Just one more in that special place."
The chained girl nodded. She showed neither disappointment nor joy. After a try or two she contrived the same posture but with her other leg held high. Her head reared for the agony to come. It came with precision and sought her with a terrible bitterness of scald. She screamed, almost with joy, again and again. In the screams there was a girl's hand reaching out to touch another...
When, at last, she stood she contrived her shackle so that she could use both hands to caress her stripes. They were exquisitely crossed where no lash should ever go. For long she examined them intently, her finger following their ridges, making her wince. When her sobs had died and she had wiped her tears away with her free hand she turned submissively to her companion who had watched silently with hushed breath.
"Feeling horny, darling?"
Eve was ashamed of her errant loins. With the agony of the two awful wounds they should not be rampant. But they were.
"Yes," she said with quiet assurance. "I'm horny, Lil."
"I'm horny too, love."
The afternoon belonged to Scheherazade.
* * *
It was Lynn who broached the thought that bothered Eve with twinges of conscience.
"Darling," she rattled the shackle that attached her wrist to the wall. Eve raised an attentive eyebrow.
"I've got a sort of a confession," the youngster said seriously. "Lil made me make love."
"Made you?"
"Yes. Honest! I held out until she started to whip me really hard. Then I thought you'd understand. Do you...?"
Eve took the lovely child in her arms and made her own confession. They ended in laughter. "Did she whip you into it?"
"She never stops whipping me," Eve said almost with pride. "Look at the marks. We are a couple of zebras."
"Lil's in love with you," Lynn said wisely. "I can tell. That's why she whips you so hard and in such cute ways. She just whips me for fun, unless I get bratty. Then she lays it on. But mostly since she came I'm having a ball. I think we are both better off. She must have cut you off that damn Punishment List. You haven't had anything awful for a week, have you?"
"Only her whip," Eve admitted. "I don't think any girl could take that and the List too. So I expect that's why. She's saving me for herself."
"Well, aren't you pleased?"
"I would be if I thought my skin would hold out. But I'm running out of fresh places. If she'd whip me the way she does you I'd be up and cheering."
"Darling, you know why, don't you? She wants you to love her too. To really give yourself. You are holding back because of me. So she will whip you cruelly until you give in. Don't hold yourself in because of me. I'll love you anyway."
What infinite wisdom the child had! Eve held her darling close. The next day her stripes were easier to bear.
It was soon thereafter that the two of them awoke in the morning, dulled with sleep and with a sense of something wrong. Something had happened!
The younger girl had wakened first and made the discovery. She sat on the bench, looking down at her cellmate with eager anticipation. Thus it was that Eve saw her before she saw herself.
The new rings were a perfect circle of chrome. They had been fitted into their noses with the same magic skill as had been used previously. But these were twice as large. At first awareness they seemed huge coming down over the lip. They cried aloud their presence both by sight and their grip within the pierced nostril. Instinctively Eve's eyes flashed down.
"It's just our noses," Lynn said cheerfully. "Lil's being mean. I'm not sure they are ornaments at all. She probably means to lead us around by them." She giggled. "Sort of cute though."
Eve was not so sure. Rings of such a size set them definitely apart. They were marked. They would always attract a second glance. She saw, in her mind's eye, all the double takes. There was a hint of punishment...
"Sure, I'm being mean," Lil admitted. "It just tickles my fancy to have you both ringed like that. You can't get 'em off, and there'll be times when you want to because you think they are too big to have an esthetic appeal. But you're wrong. You both look scrumptious. I'll eat you both. I want to see if they really make you more docile the way those others did. I'd have installed the whole set, and made 'em pretty too. But I got to thinking there's others besides me who handle you: you'd be too vulnerable. Happy?"
They were happy.
Ismaul admired her ring. Caleb produced effusive compliments without reference to four-letter words. It drew envious glances from the Jedrah girls so that Eve became glad it had been fastened upon her. Lil got endless amusement from it and did at times lead her around by it or tether her in some way so that she was as helpless as though ironed.
She was doing it now. The lead a slender lace of leather fastened by a snap. Eve accepted the humiliation submissively and not without some of the older girl's exuberant amusement. It was a game between them. But a game in which Lil held all the cards. Even with her hands unbound Eve dared make no gesture towards freedom. The ring was potent. Whoever held its leash held her. Their walk took them to the banyan tree.
Lynn hung from the cross. Her slender girlishness creating a picture at once beautiful and poignant. Eve caught her breath at the child's loveliness. Had she looked half as appealing hanging there! Lynn had not heard their approach. Or perhaps she had ceased to care who came to examine her nakedness. She hung by her wracked arms with an exquisite grace, hands limp above the tight bands that secured her to the beam. Her weight finding no support from the cords tightly circling her ankles. How cruel they were to make you hang limp before they bound your feet! Eve remembered it all so vividly. The slack links of the captive's ankle chains drooped in a slack loop beneath her toes. The youthful head slumped forward as Eve's had done, seeking in its dejection no wider view than the sand below.
Eve turned angrily upon her companion. "She was not to be given these punishments," she accused hotly.
"Nothing, honey, nothing! Don't get all worked up. I just wanted to know what little Miss Smartass looked like up there."
"You mean she's been bratty?"
"Sort of. Is she ever anything else?"
"Oh, don't argue." A woebegone voice requested from above.
"I thought you'd fainted. Oh, darling, is it very bad?"
"Well, you should know," Lynn pointed out. "It's your fault I'm here."
"Mine!" Eve was outraged.
"Hold it, sweetheart." Lil laughed. "You told me about this one. Have you forgotten? You told me about that other girl and you and how sexy you felt and how everyone admired your girlish quims."
"I don't feel sexy," Lynn interposed. "What do I have to promise to get let down?"
"She looks adorable, doesn't she?" Lil enthused. "I'm glad I had her put there. If I hadn't I'd have had to have them tie me there instead. Just to satisfy my curiosity."
"Stick me there then," Eve demanded. "Why the poor kid?"
"It will do her good. You can go up afterwards if you are all that keen on it. See. I've made an improvement."
Eve was well aware of the improvement. Lynn's legs had been bound one on each side of the upright, thus giving maximum exposure. Passersby could not fail to observe the offering.
"Am I open?" the sufferer inquired. "Almost feels as though a bird could nest in there. But I can't see."
"Honey, you don't have to see. We can see. You are about the most beautiful thing there is. I think you should be like this daily. Just for esthetics."
"If I asked to be whipped, would you let me down?"
"I can whip you anytime, darling."
"Whip me in front then. I'll stand still for it. You've always dared me to."
"You really must want to get down," Lil sounded surprised. "To offer to let me whip your quim. You hate it... "
"You two and Caleb!" Eve exclaimed. "You must have hangups about girls' slits and pubic hair. You ought to grow up, Lil!"
Eve stiffened. Her nose ring felt the pressure. Fearfully she yielded to it and faced a stern Mrs. Galbraith. Who unexpectedly smiled. "See, honey. Don't ever get uppity wearing a nose ring."
Eve sagged. It was one of those sudden moments of weariness when she felt the weight and hopelessness of Ismaul. What was the use. She was a nothing...
The older girl caught the look and said brightly: "Talking of your girls' dear little quims reminds me of something I want to try. Caleb showed me. Nothing frightfully original. But I've always been curious. Want to try?"
"Oh please! Right quick," Lynn pleaded instantly.
"I suppose it hurts?" Eve inquired without enthusiasm.
"I suppose it does," Lil conceded. "I mean, everything here does. But I don't know how much. I've just read about it in books."
"Will you take Lynn down?"
"Sure. But she's in on the other deal, y'know. You both are. I don't know why I'm bargaining like this. I don't have to. I really think it's time you both had a lesson. Fancy a girl with a ring in her nose talking back to the Commandant." She paused and tittered. "I've just had the most gorgeous notion... "
She chuckled all the way back to the Fort.
Eve recognized it. She had seen it often to and from her punishments. It was in one of the rooms: the rooms where a girl was taken for pain. She had always known she would sit on it one day. She had been told how it worked. It was just a case of reaching it on The List. Now it confronted her in all its basic simplicity.
A pole on two trestles. So simple!
In her dark mood she stood uncaring while her wrists were tied behind her back. Because of her chained feet Lil had to get help. The taciturn wardress swiftly and competently dealt with the matter. The pole and trestles were set aside. The captive was made to stand where they had been. Her feet were spread as far apart as their chain would allow, then bound to rings in the floor. A trestle was placed behind her. The pole was inserted between her legs, its end anchored on the trestle. It was then lifted and the second trestle placed beneath it at the opposite extremity. Eve found herself astride, her feet painfully pulled down and separated on either side. All her weight rested on her narrow perch. The pole bit intimately into the very core of her being. She knew instantly. This one would be bad!
The process was repeated when Lynn arrived. The younger girl was placed so that they faced each other a few feet apart. When they were firmly perched, their tractioned legs holding them firmly in place, their bound hands incapable of easement, their eyes met in an awful moment of prescience.
"I think we made a bad deal," Lynn summed up woefully.
There was more! Pulleys were above. From them cords descended to be joined to their bound wrists. A steady pull lifted and raised their hands behind their backs. Each girl leaned forward to ease the strain on her shoulders. The Commandant signaled. The wardress left the three of them alone.
"Why are you so damn mean to us today?" Lynn complained, gasping.
"I think the original purpose of this exercise was simply to have a girl sit and sit and sit without being able to ease herself. The longer she sits the worse it gets," Lil explained in a cheerful conversational tone. "But all this talk about quims and slits gave me an idea. Ordinarily the pole sits between her two little thingummys. But if I make you lean forward far enough by raising your ropes at the back you'll . be sitting closer and closer to your little furry spots. I can't get you right on them, I'm afraid. But close enough. No use being too rough on the little dears. I'm sort of fond of them."
"You can't be very fond of us," Eve commented lugubriously.
"See what I mean," Lil retorted happily. "You are both forgetting your status. This will help you back to normal."
Eve wondered. They slipped back and forth from gaiety to torture. Lil was unpredictable. Was she irresponsible? She had introduced them to this misery in about the same manner she would have taken them on a picnic. Pain sickened the helpless girl as she realized how bad their plight might be. She could not move. The pole bit at her steadily.
"Sometimes they have a plank on edge," Lil continued. "That's much worse. You can figure it. I think this pole is almost humane. I really don't think you'll be damaged. It's a pity about your chained feet. Usually they stretch 'em out wider. It makes it worse."
She carefully examined the placement of their loins upon the narrow surface. "Just getting on to the hair nicely," she reported. "I'll just raise you a bit more to bring you further forward."
"No, don't!" Eve's cry was a mixture of plea and command. It stopped Lil in her tracks.
"What did you say?" The tone was ominous.
"I know, I know," Eve wailed. "You'll punish me. I spoke out of turn. But please, oh please don't raise our hands any higher. This is pure torture. Do it to me. Not to Lynn. She's done nothing to deserve it."
"Have you?" Lil sounded sincerely curious.
"I suppose not. But I'm older and I'm supposed to be punished. And you like hurting me... " Eve burst into tears. There was nothing sensible to say anymore than there was anything she could do.
"How long are you going to keep us on this thing, Lil?" Lynn asked. The younger girl was gasping. But trying to stay polite. She was scared.
Lillian Galbraith relented. "I suppose I am a bitch," she acknowledged. "I can see this thing is no fun. But you are not getting off it yet. I want to try my notion."
Quickly she snapped the leash back upon Eve's nose ring, threaded it through Lynn's circlet and gently drew the two lovely heads closer together. Both girls gasped in protest but instantly leaned closer in deadly fear of their rings. Their position on the pole worsened. Lil made a neat bow in the lace and stepped back to survey her masterpiece. By straining every nerve and sinew the sufferers could keep the tether between them slack. They exchanged agonized glances. Then bent all their concentration on maintaining the status quo. If either relaxed the nose rings would exact a cruel vengeance.
"I'm going to have to let up on you two," Lil said blandly. "I find you irresistible. But I'd be crazy to wear you out. Besides, I'm sort of fond of you. How would you like a nice peaceful week in a dungeon? They have 'em here. Caleb showed me. All stone. Black as pitch. The most awful looking chains. It would be a real rest. Let some of the whip marks fade."
She settled herself upon a stool and viewed her work with satisfaction. The naked slenderness of her captives was stretched and taut. Neither moved. But sweat ran down their flanks.
"There's another thing that sort of takes my fancy. Painless, but I sure wouldn't want it. Those stocks in the village square. You know: you sit on a bench and put your little tootsies in the slots and they lower the boom. Then you just sit. Lots of company. The locals would all come to look. You'd never get bored from having nothing to do. You'd have two hands to cover two tits and a twat with. It would be like those sums where you always have something left over... Darlings, you don't give a damn about being naked anymore, do you?"
There were two faint negatives.
"This place gets you. Grim as granite. But filled with boobs and bums and pubes. It's the most femininely erotic atmosphere ever imagined. I whip the poor girls to a fareye-well. But there's just so many... Makes me even more of a bitch the way I go after you... Goodness knows I'm not short on ripe little bums."
"Please let us loose, darling," Lynn pleaded humbly.
"I think I'll concentrate a bit on those other girls from the U.S. They aren't in your class. But their bums take a nice stripe and they sure do howl. While I'm catching up on them how would you two like a spell in the oubliette. They have one. It's really something. You know... open at the top because you haven't a hope of climbing out. You sit down there and look up at the little circle of light that spells a freedom you can't reach."
Lil ruminated further. She was enjoying herself.
"Caleb showed me another cute idea that would be a rest for you. In its way, that is. It's a cell where you lay the poor girl on her back on the floor with her little chubbies up against the stone and her feet straight up. There's clamps for her ankles. So there she lays. She's quite free except she can't get her feet down. So she just lays there and admires them. They are about all the view she has. Gosh, kids, I'm really thinking up some honeys for you. Don't suppose you're a bit grateful. I sure do wish Cal was here. He'd love to see you now."
Lillian Galbraith's voice suddenly lost its banter. Heartbreak had entered it. She was an incredible woman. She said simply: "I don't suppose you realize, but if I could smuggle you out of Jedrah to freedom tomorrow, I'd do it."
The thudding crack of the explosion and the stutter of rifle fire that followed came from another world. They emphasized the silence that normally covered Ismaul like a blanket. The two girls upon the pole stopped their labored breathing, their eyes leaping to meet in wild speculation, the tether between their rings becoming taut. Lillian Galbraith stood, her mood destroyed. Another clattering dissonance spurred her to action. Deftly she unfastened the leash between her captive's rings and cast it aside. She was reaching for the cords from the pulleys when a cacophony of sound billowed from within the prison itself. Distractedly she gave her victims a reassuring smile and sped from the room.
"A bloody war, and us in the middle of it like this," Lynn gasped.
Eve fought frenziedly against her bonds. She could not move. The pain was a live thing tearing her apart.
* * *
The taking of the fortress of Ismaul can hardly rate as one of history's major battles. It achieved no headlines and was unnoticed by the foreign press. One charge of dynamite and a great deal of rifle ammunition was expended, largely for effect. It had been thoughtfully provided free of charge by a foreign government and thus made possible an inexpensive expression of exuberance by a gaggle of guerrillas who were but one degree removed from common bandits. The action produced bruises and abrasions aplenty. But only one fatality.
The casualty was Caleb.
To Eve, the time that followed was a succession of horrors, heartbreak, or tragic comedies that followed without sequence, as flashes on a screen, instantaneous or prolonged. Each struck her with its own impact. The sum total of all was nightmare.
When left alone upon the pole the two girls were forced to recognize that their condition had become normal for girls assigned to that punishment for the day. The door would be closed upon them so that they could accept their agony without extraneous influence. They could suffer in silence. They could gasp and moan. They could scream. They could even faint. It would not matter. The cords that held them would not let them fall. Even unconscious the pole would exact its toll of their flesh. Conscious, they could not move. They sat with the pain sundering their loins and enveloping their whole being. Lynn wept in desolation.
To Eve, the sounds beyond revived vivid memories of the night in the house of Rasuli Khan. Again she saw his inert body and its blood. She cherished no hope that what was taking place could spell freedom. What faction was there in Jedrah that would treat her other than as prisoner or slave. Even Fashad had sold her on the auction block. A bandit could rape a hundred girls. But cash was cash! Briefly her mind settled upon his laughing eyes and nimble tongue. If only... if only... !
She sobbed miserably in the despair of her bondage.
It was not Fashad who freed them. It was a pair of the same nondescript creatures she had seen before. One in rags, the other in an ill-fitting uniform probably filched from the dead body of a soldier. They found only hilarity in the girl's torture. Eve realized they would have found quite a number of girls around the premises undergoing some similar discomfort. They chattered at each other excitedly and took their time scrutinizing the finer facets of the girl's pain. Their breasts were fondled and their sex invaded. Eve felt certain that had it not been for the commotion of events underway the two intruders would have left them fastened and enjoyed their misery.
It seemed probable they were part of some organized takeover of Ismaul and under at least a vague compulsion.
Reluctantly they, at last, freed the two sufferers, withdrew the hated pole from between the shackled feet, then laughed with huge enjoyment at the pain-wracked postures of their captives. The nose rings intrigued them. They were attentively and interestedly examined. They were also tentatively tugged. The tuggers being instantly rewarded by the agonized apprehension in their victim's eyes, her gasp of pure fear. Eve realized miserably what an effective impotence the rings imposed on their will to resist. A ringed girl would always obey.
Armed men were everywhere. The diversity of their attire defied identification. Presumably they recognized each other by the common denominator of the gun. The female inmates of Ismaul were driven before them into the larger courtyard. Among them Eve discerned the wardresses, a few of the more domestic staff and, quite incredibly, Lillian Galbraith.
It was almost like a Ceremonial. The girls were marshaled into two widely spaced lines. An inspection began: curt, efficient and to the point. The man with the clipboard accompanied by two of his men. There was only one incident...
Reaching the flushed and furious female Commandant, the vociferous Lil was dragged from the line and made to stand apart. The distance was too great to hear all that was said, but some English words reached Eve's ears. Then, at a sign from their officer, the two soldiers began to strip the clothes from their protesting prisoner.
Two things happened. Lillian fought. A small door in the courtyard wall opened and Caleb charged across the sand. He reached his superior officer by virtue of the fracas by which Lil diverted all attention to herself and perhaps because his own quaint uniform made him one with the invaders. With a cry of outrage and loud Jedrah protest he kicked aside one of those who sought to violate the person of his Divinity and, seizing the rifle of the other, proceeded to beat him with the butt. It was then the officer casually produced an automatic and shot the Knight of Ismaul three times in the back. His body was dragged away across the sand. The inspection continued.
Shock canceled shock so that Eve became a spectator numb with the bitterness of all she saw. Poor, faithful Caleb! She knew for the dead man the same sort of affection she had felt for Commandant Perkins. She watched a half-naked Lil marched away between an escort. The Commandant of Ismaul was still protesting in colorful condemnation. No one paid heed. Strangely, it was not until that moment Eve realized that her hands were still crossed and bound behind her back. Those who had taken her from the pole had not bothered. Here and there other girls were similarly confined. Perhaps they had fought... At a time like this she wished it otherwise. Her ring and her chained feet were bad enough. But to have her hands taken from her too...
The clipboard had reached her now. The few questions: the raised eyebrow; the scrutiny and the smile. A few moments later she was marched away under escort. One last agonized look towards her love. They could not wave. The final vision of Caleb's dead body stretched out upon the sand...
It seemed appropriate that she stand before the desk in the Commandant's office, naked, hands behind her back. It always ended or began thus. But no Commandant viewed her from the chair. This man in Jedrah garb, stocky and solid, sharp-eyed, middle-aged, was something new. There was a power in him, an assurance projecting itself across the desk. There was purpose...
The questions. The extraction of her file satisfied him. Eve knew, therefore, that her identity was meaningful. She was not yet to learn why. He sat back comfortably enjoying the situation, frankly looking at her femaleness, then satisfied raising his eyes to hers. Like so many of them his English was good. A legacy the British had left behind... He had the same thin smile she had seen before behind that desk. Perhaps it was a Jedrah trait.
"I shall use you personally," he said.
There was too much to say. So she said nothing.
"I think perhaps your detestation of what I do to you, and of myself, will be enhanced by a few scraps of understanding."
"Thank you," Eve said it meekly. She could think of nothing else.
"My name is Cephas." He waved his hand airily. "There is no reason why you should know it. My followers and I are ridding Jedrah of its offal. We are what you call guerrillas." He saw the hope in her eyes and killed it. "No. Fashad is not of mine. He is an impetuous youth following false gods. He does not like me. He shall be told I possess you. It will give him one more thing to be angry about. He is forever angry. It will destroy him. But I owe him gratitude for an idea." He nodded complacently. "Very soon the wealthy from many lands will gather here to buy by auction the treasure our futile government has allowed to accumulate within this prison." He laughed outright. "They have their oil. But I now hold a priceless value in female flesh. It will buy me Jedrah."
He was enjoying his boast. But he spoke truth. How beautifully simple!
Eve saw a ray of hope and clutched at it. "Three of us could be ransomed?"
Cephas smiled sardonically. "Do you know the price you brought before?"
She nodded.
"I will get twice that now. Would anyone pay so much for you?"
She kept silent. No American would buy her.
"In any case ransom is impractical. We have no time. There would be risk. Therefore I will enjoy you, and my followers will enjoy the rest until they are sold. I am not sure that I will sell you. The decision can wait." He pressed a button on the desk. A soldier came and took her away.
Eve did not speak. A girl in her position had nothing to say.
* * *
The images came, etched themselves upon her mind and sped away. The interminable wait alone in a cell. The girl who freed her hands, fed her, bathed and prepared her, and led her to Cephas.
He had prepared a stage. Luxury and horror. He had made himself a throne. He sat, intent. His hands idly toyed with a whip. In the waiting time Eve had schooled herself for what she must do. Her feet that must be forever chained led her to where she could kneel. She bowed and offered her crossed wrists in submission.
"I am your slave, Master. I will please you."
Eve was sincere. Passionately she loathed the whip in his hands. She had been trained for just this moment. Let her training be her weapon... or her shield.
Cephas sat and gazed his fill. In the act of offering herself the girl was exquisite. "You act the part well," he acknowledged.
"I do not act, Master. I am a slave. I wear the chains of a slave. I will obey you."
Sardonically he placed his heel against her shoulder and thrust. She fell sideways and back, sprawling, shocked. The appeal in the face she turned to him was a question, mute but urgent.
He was on his feet, looking down enigmatically at the chained and naked girl upon the floor. "You have learned the words," he said. "Let us now hear the music." He brought the lash down full across her nudity. It seemed to touch every part of her. She uttered no sound.
A gambler will often risk his all in one last desperate joust with Fate. Eve did it now. With half-closed eyes she rose to her feet with the pure fluid motion of the dance. Standing on tiptoe she stretched sensuously to her full height. Clasping her hands behind her neck she thrust her breasts forward. Lifting her face she stared serenely into a distance that was not there. "I am yours, Master."
Cephas curled the whip around her slenderness with a resounding snap. Its weal was livid. She did not move. She did not turn her eyes. Surely she could touch him...
"Thank, you, Master."
He sighed heavily. With what emotion she did not know. He struck again.
The punished girl was weary. It had been a brutal day. A frightening day. All of it loss or pain. Now this... ! She held her pose in splendor and made her responses in a soft, warm voice. But at the fifth stroke she broke and fell sobbing to the floor. She lay upon her stomach uncaring while he flogged her. The gambler had lost her last resource.
No one counted the strokes, least of all Eve. She heard her voice pleading, her gasps and moans, her rasping breaths that went on after the whip had stopped. Most vital of all, coming to her through a haze of half-consciousness, she heard her Master's voice: "Crawl!"
She knew now. It must be his way. Debased in revenge for all the real or fancied indignities of his race. A Wog! The British had called him that. So now she must crawl upon her belly. Her white flesh must bear the marks of his dishonor. He could vent upon her, too, his bitterness with Jedrah.
Eve crawled. She had not been taught to crawl. Was it an art! Could it be made anything more than a degradation of dusty skin and grazed knees. Of dirt in her navel and hair moist and awry. She stopped only when she reached his boots.
"You may kiss my feet." Eve kissed his feet. Ardently, again and again. "You may service me with your lips." Eve serviced him with her lips and with her tongue. She threw into the act all the skill and artistry she could devise.
When her task was done and he was at peace, he asked: "What am I?"
"My Master, Lord."
"And you?"
"I am your slave. You own me." Head bent, eyes downcast, she waited. "You may rise."
Eve stood and faced her Master. Their eyes met. "You understand now?"
"I understand, Master."
"What do you understand?"
"That I had pride. A slave does not have pride. That I tried to lead. Slaves do not lead, they follow, That I used my body against you. A slave does not use her body. Only her Master uses her body. Lord, I am grateful."
"Grateful for what?"
"The lesson you have taught me, Master. I thought I knew it. I did not know it. I know it now."
Cephas studied her thoughtfully. The frenzy of the whip and its aftermath had sobered them both. For the first time Eve saw him as a person. He was cruel. But he would not kill her. She sensed his intent to use her for some wider purpose of his own. The excoriations of his whip burned and scalded. She would obey. She had no will but his.
"You have a quality," he told her grudgingly. "If I had time for you I would not sell you. I can understand those others. You would destroy Fashad: he would become your slave. You are too close in age. Rasuli's judgments never failed him. Always for him it was the best... " He sighed again. "In six months I will have Jedrah. I will find you and take you back." He laughed. "Your feet will still be chained."
He fell silent, visualizing something in his mind. Then instructed his slave girl: "At any time now a woman will enter this room. You will recognize her. But you will speak no word. You will not seek her eyes. Now you will stand to the left of this chair. While she is held by those who bring her you will kneel and bow before me in total obeisance. You will speak your fealty and vow me Lord. You will do it well. When I nod permission you will stand again at my side, submissive."
"Yes, Master, I obey." Eve stood beside his chair. Eyes downcast...
Lillian Galbraith was still fighting. She was strong. The two men held her. But not with ease. She was naked. She was handcuffed. She was gagged with a rag and a strip of cloth. The play began.
Eve realized ruefully that what she was about to do was now her easiest task of the day. She was letter perfect. Her wish to please the man who had mastered her would sound in every word. She knelt and abased herself with consummate perfection. Cephas's eyes glowed fiercely. She knew he lusted for her. That she had acquitted herself with honor. She stood once more beside him. Her pulse as fast as his. The soldiers left and closed the door.
Lil tore the band from her mouth and pulled out the gag. She spat angrily and declared: "If you think I'm going to kiss your ass like that you have to be nuts."
Eve sensed him stiffen. But his voice was suave: "You can suggest alternatives?"
Lillian Galbraith answered absent-mindedly. She was tugging and twisting at her handcuffs. Eve's heart went out to her. It took a girl a long time to accept the fact that she could not get them off.
"You're damn right I can, Buster. You let me and the two kids go and you can write your own cheque."
"What did you call me?" His voice was icy.
"Look now," Lil spoke much as she would to a fractious child. "Forget the Valentino bit, you don't have the figure. Smarten up and get us out of here. Don't think I can't make it rough for you. I can." She returned her interest to the metal on her wrists. "Take these blasted things off, will you?"
Cephas watched her with amusement. His voice was still gentle. "You are a quite remarkable woman, Mrs. Galbraith."
"Sure, sure. I know," Lil conceded, still occupied. "And another thing: if you think I give a damn about being naked, forget it."
The slave girl beside his chair could almost feel his control as he kept his voice even and inquired, "Mrs. Galbraith, have you ever been whipped?"
It took a moment to register. But register it did. Lil forgot her handcuffs and dropped her chained hands. "No, I have not," she stated candidly. Then took the matter a step further. "Were you thinking of whipping me for fun, or did you have some profit in mind? I'm a businesswoman. You don't have to whip me to make a point."
Cephas sighed. Eve suspected it was with pleasure at what lay ahead. "I intend to sell you," he said gently. "I want you to fetch a price upon the block." He laughed. "Can you imagine yourself on the block yapping as you do now like a mongrel dog?"
"Sell me!" He had caught her full attention.
"Ransom is impractical. You have a splendid body. Decorated with a few whip marks you will fetch enough money to buy me some good used tanks."
Lillian Galbraith assessed him, her mind active.
"O.K. Maybe you make sense. Sounds crazy to me. But suppose some idiot pays you money: do you really think I'm going to walk off beside him like a kitten?"
"That is why I am about to whip you." He chuckled. "Kitten! I like that! Yes. I will transform the spitting cat into a kitten. Are you ready, Mrs. Galbraith?"
It was hard for the watching Eve not to see some measure of retribution: Lil had wielded the whip often enough, yet her own lovely skin had remained untouched. Now... ! But the slave girl could not fail to see herself as Lil now was. She knew every nuance of emotion that went with the predicament. She felt the handcuffs. Even fastened in front they placed a surprising inhibition on defense. A naked girl faced with the whip has crossed a line of no return.
Lillian Galbraith watched, wide-eyed, as Cephas slowly rose and stepped toward her, his heavy hands caressing the whip lovingly.
"Alright! A million dollars," she said, striving to stare him down.
Cephas said nothing, nor did he pause.
Lil took a step back. But there was nowhere for her to go. It was obvious she scorned to cringe against a wall. She stood and faced him. Slowly her linked hands rose. Crossing them within the tether of the cuffs she spread her fingers across her breasts. It was instinctive.
The lash snapped and curled around the white thighs. Eve knew why he had chosen that spot. A girl's hands would fly to it. She would bend. She would raise one leg. She would be robbed of poise.
Lillian Galbraith ran true to form. She did all those things. But within moments she stood erect seeking to reclaim a dignity that was gone. "You bastard!" she exclaimed vehemently.
The human reaction to pain is anger. Adrenalin retaliates. But a naked girl cannot afford anger. Nor will her adrenalin sustain it long. Lillian Galbraith stood for two more kisses of the thong, then buried her face in her hands and sank to the floor. "Stop it! Oh, stop it!" Her voice was shocked as though she had not known such pain was there.
Cephas smiled with pleasure and brought his lash down in full strokes down the exposed back. The handcuffed girl curled her nudity into its smallest possible compass. But she could not deny the whip. It found her shoulders and her hips and her back with cruel delight. Unable to endure, she leaped to her feet and fled around the room. "Stop it! Stop it. Stop it... " Her mind could not seek beyond surcease.
"You look ridiculous," Cephas commented, amused. He clapped his hands.
The two men suspended the incredulous woman so that she hung from her wrists, standing on her toes. Eve knew the posture well. The girl could kick and writhe. She was totally delivered to the whip. Her own motions would enhance her enemies' enjoyment, yet offer her only humiliation.
Lillian gasped. "What the hell do you want me to do? Plead? I'll plead. I'll do anything. But stop!!!"
Cephas motioned to his men. They retreated to opposite walls. "You are bargaining, Mrs. Galbraith," he chided softly.
The whip sang its song. Lil battled bravely against the dance that would match its tune. But, little by little, the gasping jerks by which she accepted the lash merged into the contortions of utter abandonment. She writhed. She kicked. So great was her agony and shock that she even lifted herself by the biting clasp of the metal upon her bleeding wrists, as though by so doing she might escape the thong.
When her loveliness was wet with her sweat and her cheeks lined and streaked by tears, Cephas paused. The lash from his hand curling upon the floor. Lil tried to toss her damp hair from her face. She did not raise her eyes. She hung, breathing heavily, seeking the right word she had failed to find.
"I don't know... I'm lost. What is it you want...?"
"I want a slave girl," said Cephas.
The whipped woman stole a glance at the man who possessed her. She shook her head as though at the impossible. What she said then was, for her, an apology for all her race: "I was not born a slave... "
Her whipping continued.
It did not cease until she hung unconscious. The stripes upon her nakedness bore testimony to the time taken to bring Lillian Galbraith to that state. One of the watching men forced brandy between her lips. She coughed and returned to her world of pain. But she made no move. A small trickle of blood made its way down her forearm from one cut wrist. She was given more brandy until she managed to again place her weight upon her toes. Cephas asked caustically: "Well?"
"Yes... anything."
She was lowered to the floor.
"You know what to do." Cephas was impatient.
Lil did her best. It lacked the polished artistry of Eve's long experience. But was unmistakably sincere.
"Kiss my feet."
She obeyed.
"Service me with your lips."
The command hit Lillian Galbraith like a blow. The agonized face she raised to her master held appeal, but no protest. It was as though she faced a task beyond her ken. She was bewildered by shock. Confronted by implacability she slumped sprawling to the floor sobbing into the dark refuge of her hands.
They suspended her again. She screamed as the handcuffs bit. "I'm sorry," she said humbly. "Let me down. I will do it. I will do it well. I can. I will do anything... "
"I shall whip you now, not to make you do something. But to punish you for something you did not do. It is a difference a slave girl must understand," Cephas explained.
He whipped her. It was bad. But he confined the infliction within the limits the lovely body could endure. When she was again lowered and the tether removed so that her only bond was her handcuffs, she crawled to the big chair and performed her service to her master with skill and finesse.
When it was over Cephas sat silent for a long time gazing down at the striped back and bent head of the woman crouched at his feet. Slowly Lil returned to the world of awareness. Cautiously she raised herself so that she sat back upon her heels, her chained hands resting limply upon her lap, her head bowed in humility. Eve wondered if the whipped girl had taken the pose in the knowledge of how beautiful it was.
Softly Cephas began his catechism, the responses to which would diminish the beauty submissive before him to her new condition. Lil knew the words. She spoke them with a terrible sincerity. In return for the cessation of the whip she sold her body and her mind into slavery.
The slave girl who stood at the left of the Master's chair had a sudden vision of another world. Why did men bother with women in the way they did! Why pay them homage and shower them with gifts and attention. Why even marry them. A man with a whip could make a woman do or be anything he wished. It was so simple. In the end the female was more a woman than she could be in any other way. As though reading her thoughts Cephas asked the kneeling girl: "What have you learned?"
"That I am a woman. That you own me utterly."
He asked sardonically: "Are you happier than you were two hours ago?"
It was a cruel question. Could any girl give the right answer! The small silence was pregnant with the kneeling girl's decision.
"Yes, Master."
Cephas laughed. "I believe you are." He became serious. "Tell me: would not all the women of your tired old race that has run its course be happier within the security of the lash and the chain?"
A small silence grew. He said quietly: "You may look at me." She raised her eyes. They locked with his and held. Slowly a radiance came upon her. Under his intensity she began to blush. Her lips trembled and became red and full. Her voice, when it came, was firm with a new emotion.
"Yes, Lord. They would be happier: as I am happy."
Lil, too, had made her strange discovery!
* * *
Whatever the quality of his followers might be, Cephas himself was an organizer. Ismaul was in chaos. But a chaos under his control. Early in the morning cars and jeeps and trucks crowded the courtyards with men eager to purchase female flesh. The largest court of all contained the auction. Guerrillas have little time. Cephas must have planned his gathering of the clans with foreknowledge. To bid on eighty girls would take time. Thus he had created a number of small stages and enlisted the efforts of equally many auctioneers. The girls to be sold had been screened: the former wardresses and staff. The least attractive of the feminine merchandise. Then those more richly endowed... A man wishing to buy gravitated to the block for which he had the cash, or moved from group to group to fill his needs.
For Eve the day was a kaleidoscope of color and motion. It began with a fear quickly dispelled. She was tied firmly to a post. An obsequious little man appeared with a small trolley containing tools, instruments and some finely glittering objects that set the captive's heart pounding with excitement.
At other times she had been put to sleep. Now she watched the placement of the rings in her flesh with bated breath. Flame was used. But ingenious shields saved her harmless. The heavy iron ring was cut and taken from her nose. All that was placed within her now was of the most exquisite craftsmanship. There were jewels within the metal. Jewels that would sparkle with brilliance at her every motion. Why had Cephas spent this fortune upon her! Perhaps he would get it back tenfold.
Being feminine, Eve wished there was more time to preen. She adored her rings and wished to worship them in private. But even the girl who attended her with baths, perfumes and cosmetics had been warned to waste no time. The torpid government of Jedrah might be alerted to events at Ismaul and act. Thus no girl had ever been more quickly ringed and made beautiful for her Master.
She was to attend Cephas as slave. Standing one pace behind him always. Refreshments would be brought by others but she would serve them. She was to be seen and admired. Cephas himself was a busy man. His customers were legion. All sought him. They were a thirsty lot so that Eve became as busy as her Master. She loved it. For a little while again she was a woman. They spoke to Cephas. But they looked at her. She glowed under the homage of their eyes. She knew her value rose by the minute. She had never felt more clothed in loveliness... or more naked. Cephas was also a salesman!
The sale itself was well advanced by the time they reached the court. Here, too, urgency prevailed. As a girl was sold, her hands were tied behind her back, often roughly and without concern for her comfort, she was hustled into a vehicle which sped away into the desert on one of the myriad tracks almost indistinguishable from the desert itself. The ranks thinned rapidly.
Eve sought anxiously for Lynn. She had risked terrible things by pleading with Cephas that she be allowed to see the child. He had rejected her angrily. They would be sold and go their ways: that was an end. He wished to hear nothing of their love. He hinted of the penalty Jedrah exacted for such a union.
It was not until her darling was led to a platform and exposed to the bidders that Eve found her. Even then it was at a distance. Cephas was involved in another area. She must not leave. Even at a distance she could sense that the teenager had sparked interest. There was a considerable commotion in that particular ring. The younger girl must have proved difficult. Her hands were tied behind her back. She faced the crowd defiantly. But stood there without being held, scorning the indignity of a scuffle. Soon the hammer fell. Minutes later one more expensive car left Ismaul. In it was the child Eva loved more than her own life. The slave of Cephas had never felt more alone.
The stock of slave girls dwindled. But as they were whisked away other cars arrived. The ranks of the bidders actually increased. The eyes of Cephas gleamed. Unhappily Eve guessed the Grand Finale. There would be herself and one other... the new slave girl Lillian. The turmoil of the morning was but a prelude to the main event. She was filled with dread of the block and where it might lead her. This time there would be no knight errant to bid for her. But mixed in with apprehension was a female joy in what she was. These desert men coveted her. She had been ringed and displayed as had no others. She was beautiful. For girls of other days this would be her moment of triumph. Even for her there flickered dimly a small flame of hope: her ankles were still chained, but she would be taken from the prison of Ismaul...
In waiting upon her Master, Cephas, Eve could not be unaware of the potency of what he had done to her. She knew she was a slave: That was the point! She knew! It showed. The hard desert eyes gazing upon her knew and approved. She sensed, also, with a terrible certainty that those same eyes that glittered at her rings and at her breasts and thighs found their greatest delight in the whip marks that striped her everywhere. Those that Cephas had placed upon her yesterday still stood upon her flesh with a cruel loveliness all their own. They were many. Absurdly she found herself wearing them with the same pride with which she wore her rings.
The moment was now. The electric vibration touched all present. Suddenly there was no sound. Lillian Galbraith stepped up on to the block. Her feet were free. But her wrists and elbows were bound tightly behind her back. Perhaps it was for effect, she was totally submissive. But the strictures thrust her breasts forward so that her superb body was rendered trebly enticing. She faced the multitude without arrogance, head bent, eyes downcast as becomes a slave.
All else was forgotten. Cephas made his way to stand close to where the bidding would enrich his cause. His slave girl followed, docile and obedient. It is doubtful that the naked slave upon the block saw them. When the auctioneer ordered her to raise her head she did so with eyes veiled, focused far away. She stood meekly when pawed or when fingers traced the whip marks on her skin. Mrs. Galbraith had died under the whip. Her body and her limbs bequeathed to Lillian the slave girl. She was sold. She was taken away. One more car left Ismaul...
It had the quality of an oft repeated dream. She had stood naked upon the platform above the staring faces at her Ceremonial punishments. She had stood thus when she had previously been sold by auction from the block. Now, again, her value would be gauged. At this final moment she had lost her fear. Too much had happened too quickly. She reached out and tried to recapture her erotic pride in this exposure of her ringed loveliness. But even that was gone. She was numb.
She had not been bound. There was no need. She would obey. Her loveliness needed no stricture at wrist or elbow to enhance. She was led to where she must stand by none other than Cephas himself. His hand upon her arm was the caress of a farewell. "I wish it was otherwise," he told her softly as they mounted the steps. "I part with you in sorrow... "
She stood passive. Cephas left her side but remained upon the platform. This was his moment too.
An auction is like a dance. Often there is a reluctance to be the first upon the floor. Undoubtedly at this moment which Cephas had so carefully planned and so craftily contrived many held mute their most generous bids for fear of being laughed into derision. Here was a slave girl for princes and for kings.
Eve watched unbelieving. He stepped from the ranks, a desert man lithe and vital. Throwing aside the scarf that veiled his face, Fashad smiled up at her. He raised his arm and made his bid. He spoke in English so that she knew it was for her alone.
"One million dollars!" His voice carried to the farthest corners of the crowd.
There was a stunned silence. The barking crack of the rifle shattered it like glass. Eve almost felt the impact of the bullet that struck Cephas in the chest and laid him dead at her feet.
Men with guns were everywhere: Fashad's men! Upon the walls and the terraces and within the crowd itself. Most of the latecomers were his. His victory was neat and total. No other shot was fired. Without Cephas his men were sheep. They were herded into the cells that for so long had imprisoned only girls. For a brief hour Fashad owned Ismaul.
He had offered his arms. Eve had stepped from the platform into them. Their eyes were bright, remembering... "I have set you free," he said.
"And I am yours!" They both laughed at her promise in the cage.
"You are more beautiful than ever." His voice was reverent.
"Even with the whip marks?" They were children. Playing---- "I will give you others. Remember... you asked?"
He took her hand and led her away. "Come, there is much to do and little time."
He kept her with him even though her chained steps slowed his pace. He gave crisp orders and supervised the looting and the gathering of arms. At the end he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the smithy.
"It is fitting that you lose your irons where you found them," he said. "I do not want my woman chained. You will fight beside me, and run beside me, and rule beside me. The whip and I will keep you bound enough."
But the smith was gone, his tools scattered. Men were sent to search. The two of them stood beside the anvil, waiting. Eve thought of Gretna Green. This was as close to marriage as she would ever come. She did not care. She was almost sorry when the smith came hurrying to set her ankles free. But his arrival coincided with the entry of another.
The man was sweat-stained and panting. He spoke six words that sent all present into action. Fashad picked her up again and ran. A minute later they were in a jeep and heading into the distance, a small army of vehicles filled with armed and desperate fighting men. Fashad was grim. "The Jedrah dogs," he said, "have smelled a rat."
Eve remembered some reference: "The thin red line... " It was not like that. They were small dust clouds with patches of khaki and grey. But it was still a line. A line that gradually filled their horizon. A line that spelled an army and the tools of war.
Their cavalcade swerved, and swerved again. But always the line came closer. Each gap perceived would fill, each break would mend. Even behind them, now, beyond Ismaul the dust clouds gathered. Ismaul was surrounded.
It was as heroic as Fashad himself. A bare slim chance that they must take. Their force sped toward the chain of their encirclement. If they could break one weak link they could escape.
It was a very small engagement. The tanks moved in from behind the dunes. For a couple of minutes there were ear-splitting detonations followed by the bark and clatter of small arms, then comparative silence. The jeep had been tossed on its side like a child's toy. Eve found herself sprawled upon the sand, her head ringing from the explosion. Beside her there lay a body. Even before she turned him over to see his face she knew Fashad was dead. For the second time that day death had stood at her side.
They found her kneeling there looking down at the quiet face that smiled even now that life had been stolen from it. She was dazed and made no protest as they bound her arms and put her in a jeep. As its motor sprang to life she took one last agonized look at the bundle of clothing that had been a man. A staff car drove importantly up to the guerrilla leader's corpse and those who guarded it. An immaculately uniformed officer stepped out upon the sand. As the jeep in which she lay hastened her back to Ismaul Eve saw that it was Commandant Perkins.
* * *
It was a dungeon. Eve never knew why she had been placed in it or why her arms had been untied and her wrists handcuffed. She had been told nothing. Pushed this way and that and deposited here in a dismal stone vault lit by one small barred slit high in the wall beyond her reach. She guessed the cells were probably packed with the survivors of the two guerrilla armies that the government forces of Jedrah had so neatly destroyed. Caleb had told her that Ismaul had dungeons. Now she was in one of them. She sat upon the stone floor and wept.
She had lost everything. Everyone she loved. Everyone who had been kind to her. All were gone! There was none to help her now. Perhaps this dungeon was to be her prison for the next nine years-she did not know the number of the odd months. Idly she played with the chain that joined her ankles: the iron that had so nearly been struck from her that day but which now would hold her feet in thrall for a decade. She remembered how Lynn had loved to play with the implacable links. She desisted, there were reminders enough! She was thankful that her hands were not behind her back. At least she was not reduced to utter helplessness. Yet it likely meant only that her jailers wanted her to tend her own needs without help. She might still be wearing the same metal on her wrists years from now.
Commandant Perkins had not seen her. It seemed improbable that an officer of his new enhanced importance would be told of the single prisoner of Ismaul who had not escaped. She would be dealt with by lesser men. How ironic that she remained a convicted prisoner because she had not been auctioned into slavery. Ismaul held her with a chain that no circumstance ever managed to sever.
She stood before the familiar desk. How many had stared at her across its surface! She had lost count. The morning had brought food, a wash, release from the dungeon, and now this. She must stand and wait. Someone would come through the door. At least her hands were still linked in front. She could cover her pubic hair if his eyes were too hungry.
"My dear, I did not know of you until this morning."
Eve's whole being flooded with relief. Her own Commandant! It was like finding a whole family all at once. Her face lit with joy. Instinctively she sank to her knees before him and clasped the razor-like crease of his trousers. A slave girl does not quickly forget her place.
Gently he raised her to her feet. In spite of his uniform and its insignias he was still the same rather sad, faintly dejected man she had always known. He fingered her handcuffs apologetically. "As usual I do not have a key. One moment, I will ring."
"Don't." Her fingers stayed him. "Let me wear them. It is fitting... "
He looked at her sharply. "You have been through much, haven't you?"
She was weeping on his beautiful jacket. He held her close and let her cry. When her tensed emotions released her he parted with one more of his handkerchiefs, provided her with a chair and found his own. Then sat quietly gazing at a woman he desired.
"What will become of me?" she finally asked.
His mirth was genuine. "Do you realize," he asked, chuckling, "that you are now the only properly accredited prisoner in Ismaul? The guerrillas will be gone today. You will then have a choice of one hundred empty cells."
She shared his amusement. But her voice was still tearful. "Others go. But I always remain, don't I?"
He became more serious, though his voice remained tinged with humor. "This whole Ismaul story is too absurd," he confided. "True it has proved the bait by which Jedrah is now rid of a lethal menace. That foolish boy and the strutting Cephas! But our little birds who were caged here... they have flown away. None knows where." He could not contain his laughter. "I doubt that we see a single one of them again and I strongly suspect our new government will be most happy that this is so."
"But Lynn... and Mrs. Galbraith?"
"On those I must reserve an opinion. But for the rest... " He shrugged. "You know the motives that placed them here. They were not good. Our authorities may be happy to forget the prisoners of Ismaul as though they never existed. It may be the only service Cephas ever rendered his country."
"Do I stay chained in one of the cells?" Eve asked plaintively.
"Cheer up, my dear. It's un-likely that Jedrah will maintain Ismaul for your sole benefit. I think that, in the light of what has happened, I should be able to persuade someone to do something about you. You should be freed. But at the worst surely they will take you to a modern prison where you will be better cared for."
She stared at him bleakly. "Prison, prison, prison! Chains and punishments and dungeons! Oh, I'm so tired of it all... I'm so damn tired... " Eve buried her face in her hands.
He came and stood beside his captive. His fingers gently played with the hair of her bent head and across the nape of her neck.
"Once you said you wanted to buy me as a slave," she sniffed. "Yes."
"Why don't you then?" she demanded fiercely. "I want it!"
"How can a soldier buy one of his government's prisoners? Not even in Jedrah."
"Put on the record that I was sold with the rest. Then take me." She was greatly daring.
"You know I cannot. Too many have seen you."
"I'd be free of charge."
"Don't you think I'd do it if I could!" His voice was as fierce as hers had been. "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen or ever known." His tone softened. "I am a soldier. A soldier fights the battles. The victories belong to others."
"You are trying to tell me that I can belong only to a prison or a prince?"
He could not answer. But his fingers took on a new tenderness. Passionately her chained hands rose to his. He lifted them and covered them with kisses. She asked softly: "Do you remember the two things you wished to do to me every day?"
He sighed. "I remember. But tell me."
"Each day you would hang me on the cross for one hour, and each day you would whip me with a long thin whip-" There was a hammering at the door. An anxious face appeared on the Commandant's summons. Uttered its rapid Jedrah message and was gone. The Commandant bit out some Jedrah imprecation of his own. "My dear, I have but an hour left to stay with you. What delightful fancy was it you were telling?"
"The cross I do not think we can manage. But we both know a room where there is a long thin whip." She felt him tense. Rising she gently touched his cheek. "The whip marks I now have do not matter. No one will know the new ones will be yours." She put her heart into her eyes. "I have so many whip marks. Yours will be the only ones given me with love. Give them to me to cherish. Please... "
He could not speak. Again he raised her fingers to his lips. His eyes spoke adoration... almost worship. For a few moments she was the strongest of the two. "Come," she said. "I know the way to our room and to the long thin whip. Love me for an hour."
She took him by the hand and led him to their strange farewell.
* * *
Ismaul was being cleansed. It was a military project done with military precision. The guerrillas were gone. Soldiers in fatigues swabbed and mopped, plastered and nailed. Looking through the bars of her cell door Eve felt unreality. All the other doors were open, their small prisons empty. The place echoed and clanged with emptiness. When she had been one of sixty no one had paid heed. Now that she was the solitary prisoner in the huge fortress few passed who did not glance or pause and frankly look.
She supposed she owed it to Commandant Perkins that she had been returned to her old cell. A place heartbreakingly full of memories of Lynn, yet pathetically more like home than elsewhere. The wardress, an army girl drafted into an unfamiliar duty, had even shackled her wrist to make her condition totally familiar. The other shackle with its chain lay empty across the floor, a mute reminder of the bright-eyed girl it had once held.
The novice wardress was immensely intrigued by her prisoner. She possessed a few words of English and was anxious to use them. The anomaly of the whip marks and the chains in conjunction with the beauty of the rings obviously perplexed. Fingering the ridged flesh and the confining chain, she enquired with raised eyebrow: "Much bad girl?"
She accepted Eve's laughing denial dubiously. Then turned her attention to the rings: "Someone love very much?"
The prisoner amusedly countered with her urgent need to know her fate and the fate of Ismaul. But the girl knew little.
"Is much great change here. In Jedrah is new government. Is now strong. No more guerrillas. Ismaul I do not know... " She laughed at a pleasant thought. "I stay here and keep you prisoner. Much chain. No whip." She was still laughing when she left. She was a definite improvement over the old.
Eve sat for a few hours with her chain, remembering. Often she would peer through the bars at the empty cells across the way and at the bustle of staff to and fro. But mostly it was the workers who looked through the bars at her. It was much like the cage in the market place. She intrigued them vastly. Then it all happened very quickly.
"Is now for wash and hair." The wardress announced crisply as she unlocked the wrist shackle. "You mind if you wear these?" Tentatively she held a pair of handcuffs as though expecting resistance. The poor girl was further baffled by Eve's smiling acceptance and the passive offering of her hands to receive their familiar link. She locked the metal circlets tight with evident relief. Being a wardress was not her trade. Her voice became tinged with awe. "Is big new officer arrived. Is for you to see."
Eve's heart quickened. A wash and a comb implied the normal. Absence of other embellishments precluded the erotic. An officer from the capital might have authority, be less insular, open to reason. Her condition for the next ten years might hinge on such an interview. She followed gladly where the wardress led. Finally, clean and neat, she found herself more amused than fearful when she was, once again, thrust through the door of the familiar office with its many memories. The officer was more resplendent with decorations than even Commandant Perkins had been. He faced her, smiling.
"It has been too long, my love," said Rasuli Khan...
There are the cliches, the tired old words that blossom anew with each fresh use. The dream come true! Happiness beyond words! Ecstasy! Heart's ease. Eve knew them all, and invented others of her own. Her days and nights were filled with them. She lived in joy.
For Rasuli himself his slave girl was pure delight. They made endless discoveries of each other. Never for a moment did Eve think of herself as other than slave. Nor did her Master. He declared a two-week moratorium on the whip that the stigmas placed by others should be erased and her flesh virgin for him alone. Each understood with certainty that when the time was past he would scribe his own strokes upon her white skin. They laughed about that time, teasingly.
They talked about her chains. A quite serious discussion. Since she now walked unconscious of them, she herself would not have thought to broach the subject. It was through her Master's concern over her linked ankles that she became aware that Rasuli was now Jedrah's Head of State. The government was his. The victory over the guerrillas had been his. He was his nation's strong man. Jedrah was in his hands. Thus, since he would not keep her in total seclusion, his slave girl would often be in evidence within his social world. Perhaps her feet should be free. For instance, she might be called upon to dance... Yet neither of them wanted to strike off the irons she had worn so long. Eve least of all. They had become a sentimental symbol of those who had been kind to her and of her slavery which she no more wished to relinquish than life itself. He shrugged: in Jedrah her chains would rouse no more comment than her rings. She wore them happily.
Her Master was a fairy prince. He owned Ismaul. He changed it from a prison to a palace. Courtyards became gardens, terraces blossomed, fountains tossed their spray into the air. The old grim fortress became a place of beauty in which to house their love. Because there was an abundance of space the concourse with its cells on either side was left untouched save for cleaning and renovation. Only one alteration in the way of modernizing was made. It was to the cell in which Eve and Lynn had spent so much time together. By demolishing the adjoining cell a modem bathroom was made possible. Nothing was visible through the bars. But the captive within would have free access. Eve was chagrined by her blush when they viewed it for the first time. Her suspicion was confirmed. The next time her Master spent the night in the capital she was locked and chained behind the familiar metal grille. She did not mind. It became a pleasantry between them that the cell awaited her first demonstration of disrespect or disobedience.
It reminded her of Lynn. She never ceased to plague her Master that he must somehow find the girl she loved. It would not be easy. The deserts of several lands had swallowed up the captives of Ismaul. But she was certain that if Lynn could be found Rasuli would find her. He laughingly threatened her with the cell and its chains if she did not modify her importunities. But he promised.
As they became accustomed to each other Eve took a childish delight in perversely provoking her Lord to discover the limits of his tolerance for the slave he adored. Often she would cross a line and find herself hung by her wrists. She bore his whip marks with a rueful joy. She had made her discovery. Now she must pay for it. Since he was often absent she constantly made a reacquaintance with her cell. Often she deliberately invited these punishments. Both of them understood it as her way, perhaps her actual need, to reaffirm her joyous thralldom.
They shared so much laughter. It was in this spirit that Rasuli told her that a slave might herself have a slave.
"What would I want with a slave girl, Master?"
He laughed at her innocence. "She would attend you. You could whip her when in an ill mood. She would give you authority."
She played her favorite trick of sinking to her knees before him. "I do not want authority, Lord. I am a slave."
"Would it not be pleasant to whip her when you are vexed?"
Eve considered. It was a new thought. "I have been whipped too much, Master, to wish to stripe a girl's skin."
"Well, then, chain and lock her in your cell and tease her through the bars. It is a pleasant diversion. I have done it to you."
"But we love each other, Master."
Rasuli laughed indulgently. "My poor darling! You have a problem. I have already purchased her." He raised her to her feet and kissed her willing lips. "She is in your room awaiting your pleasure. She is shy and very much afraid.
But you will train her. Go and see for yourself."
Wonderingly, Eve did his bidding. It was almost with trepidation that she opened her own door.
The girl was not Lynn. She admitted to herself that a wild hope had been born, that this might be his teasing way of reuniting them. Her heart sank, but rose again with curiosity.
The slight figure crouched humbly upon the carpet was white. The face was buried in its hands as though in fear. She had bowed herself into a small bundle of femininity in the center of the big room. Her back was her most prominent feature. It shone palely save where it was criss-crossed by whip marks, most of them fresh. Even with the sound of her Mistress's entrance the child did not move. Eve was perplexed. This gift was intended to please. But she had small hope of finding joy in it.
"Please stand up, dear," she said as gently as she could.
Mutely and with bowed head so that their eyes should not find each other the girl obeyed. Her motions were graceful and fluid. She was very beautiful. She was not a child at all.
She was Lillian Galbraith.
All Eve's natural instincts to greet and to embrace were sent awry by the subdued monotone: "I am your slave, Mistress. I will obey." It was as though they were complete strangers.
"Lillian!" Eve was shocked. "What are you talking like that for? This is Eve. You know me, don't you?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Well then?"
"I am a slave girl, Mistress. Our Master has bought me for your pleasure. I will be obedient." It was as though she was drugged.
Eve was angry. She seized the erstwhile Mrs. Galbraith by the shoulders and shook her. "Look at me! Stop this nonsense!"
Hesitantly the bowed head lifted. When their eyes met and held there was a moment's pause. Then Eve's new possession threw her arms about her neck and burst into a flood of anguish. They stood as they were until the storm abated. Then Eve eased the sobbing girl into a chair and brought out brandy and glasses. At the second drink she looked doubtfully at her new Mistress. "Is this safe, darling?"
"Of course! Why wouldn't it be?"
Lil shook her head in bewilderment. "I get whipped for everything. Anything I do or say seems wrong, then they whip me."
"Who?"
"That bastard who bought me!" Animation returned. "Has Rasuli really made a deal on me? Am I going to stay with you?"
"Of course he did. Now you belong to me. He gave you to me." How strange the words sounded between them! Mrs. Galbraith had died just as Miss Trevor had died long ago.
It was as though the world lifted from Lil's shoulders. Eve watched the lovely creature return to life. She poured more brandy. "Look," she said comfortingly, "you're a millionairess. There just has to be some way to get you back to the U.S. I'll talk to Rasuli. He can do anything in Jedrah."
Lil tensed and grasped Eve's hand. "No! Oh, honey, please... Don't do that." Fear had returned. "When he brought me here he tied me up and whipped me. He had his servants do it. He explained that it was so I'd know my place and what I was." She laughed bitterly. "Everybody who'd come near me since that swine Cephas... they all did it. Look at me. You've never been whipped more than I have... "
Eve looked. It was true. Lil's body would have matched her own that last day when she had said farewell to the Commandant.
"They all did it for the same reason," Lil continued fiercely. "So I'd behave. So I'd be a good little girl. So I wouldn't run away. So I'd be obedient. They made something real noble out of it-for them! Honest. I haven't said boo to anyone since that day with Cephas. I obey anybody or anything." She grinned ruefully. "Anyway, darling, when his servants had half cut me in two Rasuli told me you'd do just what you have done, and that I must give you a message. Every time you get after him to send me back to the U.S.A., I'll get whipped. Hard! He'll do it too. He may love you. But underneath he's pure Jedrah."
They considered in silence. Rasuli would do this. Eve knew. He was their Master. She could wheedle him up to a point, but not beyond. Yet it seemed unthinkable that this lovely woman with all she owned could be brought to this... !
"Darling," Lil whispered ashamed. "The things I did to you. I was a bitch!" She shook her head dazedly. "I never knew. Honest! I never knew a whip hurt the way it does. I was having fun... "
Eve bent and kissed her. "I believe. Crazy, I know. But I believe you. Thing to have done was let one of us give you a couple of good ones sometime so you'd get both sides. Never mind. We have both been whipped a lot worse than you ever whipped me."
"Darling... " Lil was still grappling with too many emotions at once. "Please, darling, try and understand me. I'm not Mrs. Lillian Galbraith anymore. It's been beaten out of me. I'm a slave girl and I know it. I'm scared to death of the whip. There's been so damn much of it. They have sort of broken me, I guess." She looked up piteously. "The U.S. and the money and everything... it's gone. I scarcely think of it anymore. I know what I am. Please, honey, keep me with you. If I act up whip me or have me whipped-I know you won't be mean or ugly about that part of it, and maybe sometimes I'll need it." She grinned with returning confidence. "Young Lynn loved it, up to a point. I think you do. Maybe you can teach me."
Eve said nothing. Just held the other's hand.
"It's damn funny," Lil continued, as though talking to herself. "But I have to be honest about this. If you'll keep me your slave and don't be too mean I can be happier with you like this than I ever was back home... "
Eve laughed. "Sweetheart, you forget something. I don't want to go back either."
They saw the truth in each other's eyes. Eagerly Lil slid to her knees and bent her head in submission. "Mistress, no more of the past. I am your slave now and I will address you as nothing but Mistress. It is best." She looked up happily. "Thank you, thank you, Mistress."
Eve laughed happily too. She searched her mind for some task to keep her slave girl busy. She would not whip her for at least two weeks.
But the following day she ordered Lil's ankles chained. The links to count one less than those that joined her own.
Time passed. Much time. Because it was a happy time it sped quickly.
Rasuli used Lil to provoke Eve. It was a teasing he never ceased to enjoy. On those nights when Eve was chained in her cell, and with his increasing involvements these nights were many, he made quite sure that it was the slave girl, Lil, who would escort her Mistress to her small prison. It was Lil who would chain her and it was Lil who would lock the door with its huge key. It was Lil who would bring her Mistress food or answer a summons. It was a delicious situation that he enjoyed creating. Quaintly enough both girls enjoyed it too. But, no matter how low her Mistress might be brought down by her Master's whims, Lil unwaveringly tendered total obedience and humility. The slave girl never forgot her station even when she chained her Mistress to the wall or gazed at her through the bars of her cell. Lil was the perfect slave girl and intended to remain so.
Eve often considered the anomaly of it all. Hers were not the introspections of a prisoner immured in loneliness, but rather the wonderment of a child in all she saw and in all that took place. She knew that if, a couple of years ago, someone had told her of this time and this place she would have laughed them to scorn. She would have loved to share her wonder with Lil in endless discussions and exclamations. But she was forced to respect her slave's determination to maintain her status at all times. Lil had acquired no fondness for the whip. Fear of it governed her every action. Its threat would bring her to her knees instantly. Eve whipped her often enough. More in curiosity at the strange sensation than in anger. But never with cruelty. Lil respected but did not fear her. It was the shadow of Rasuli and those others from whom he had purchased her that limited her horizon to her duties and her small joys within Ismaul.
The Master seldom returned from the capital without a gift. Sometimes there might be one also for Lil. He had watched her adjustment with a professional interest. His gift to his beloved was often passed to her through the bars of her cell before she was released. They played their games in which she would be forced to beg...
On one such return he professed weariness and handed her a key. He said it was to Pandora's box and that what she found therein was for her alone. He told her where to look.
She loved his surprises. Half the time now she was clothed, for he bought her gorgeous scanty things to wear. They were too lovely not to use. There was a promise that she would be newly ringed with jewels more costly than those she now bore with such pride. Her cup was very full.
It stood in one of the larger rooms that she seldom entered. It was a huge silver cage. Inside it, clutching the bars and grinning her gamin grin, was a naked girl. It was Lynn.
Eve remembered then. Rasuli had made a promise just before he had been felled in the raid upon his house. A silver cage and a silver whip! It was there. It gleamed upon the wall. A thing of beauty as was the cage itself. Eve took it down in wonder and turned to her captive love...
"Took you long enough to get here," Lynn complained impishly.
They loved each other through the bars.
"How long have you been here?" Eve asked, breathless.
"About an hour. I say, darling, is it true I'm going to be kept in here always?" It sounded more like a hope than a fear.
"Always and always."
"But I mean... won't... won't Rasuli or one of his boys want to have a go at me sometimes?" She giggled. "Or do they have to get in the cage too?"
"No one 'has a go at you' except me," Eve assured her darling vehemently. "You have just been presented to me as a gift."
The elfin face lit up. "Darling... is that a key I see?"
"Yes. It's mine. You are mine."
"Oh goody! Let me out, darling." The child jumped up and down with excitement, her eyes shining.
"Why on earth would I let you out? A cage is the proper thing for you. The only time I will unlock your door is when I use this." Eve dangled the exquisite silver handle whip teasingly.
The ecstatic child cooed with delight. "Oh, now please. I can't wait. My very own whip. That's what it says, isn't it: 'To Lynn with love'. Don't tell me you're not aching to use it."
"You really want me to, don't you! You incredible kitten!"
They faced each other through the silver bars, eyes shining, their breath faster than normal.
"There isn't room to whip you inside the cage. I'd have to let you out."
"I'll get right back in when you tell me to. Honest, darling. You know I will. It's too gorgeous for words."
"You'll get awfully tired of being in a cage all alone."
Lynn made a happy grimace. "Don't spoil it for me. You can always come and whip me or something. You can feed me through the bars. You can put someone else in here with me. Oh, there's loads and loads of possibilities. I feel as though I'm something tremendously precious."
"You are precious. Beautifully, wonderfully precious."
"Then whip me."
"You haven't done anything."
"I'm sure you can think of something I've done or said. Don't tease."
"You're getting a nice little erotic thrill out of all this," Eve admonished. "You think I'll just warm up your pretty skin with a pale shade of pink."
"Won't you?"
"You're not supposed to ask for punishment. Just say thank you after you get it."
The moppet in the cage stuck out her tongue as far as it would go and made a rude noise at her loving owner. "There! I've been bad." Eve sighed. "The best punishment for that would be for me to turn round and walk out of here, leaving my pretty little bird in her cage. I think that's what I'll do. 'Bye, kitten." Eve sauntered casually from the room and closed the door. An anguished wail followed. She waited two minutes, then went back in.
The caged captive was in tears. She sat on the floor of her cage and wept. She looked delectable. Eve knew guilt.
"I knew you were going to do that," the prisoner sobbed.
"Then why are you crying?"
"It was awful! When you went and shut the door. I was all alone! Suddenly I couldn't get out. It was terrible. You try it sometime."
Eve was contrite. Her love for this weeping child was a part of her whole existence. "Alright," she agreed cheerfully. "Sometime in the next few days I'll let you lock me in there. You'll tease me and probably scare me half to death. But I'll do it. I promise. Feel better?"
A bright eye peered above fingers busy with tears. "All day?" Already the captive was excited.
"All day. You'll have me in tears the first hour."
They adored each other through the bars.
With mischievous perversity Eve hung the silver whip back on its hook. The nymphet pouted but dare not question more. The same Puckish mood stopped Eve from entering the cage. Instead, she pressed herself against the bars. Lips and hands sped to their appointed joys. Once more sated, the Mistress made a hurried errand.
When she returned she was accompanied by a slave girl who once, long ago in another life, had whipped them both.
For the first time, now, she used the silver key.
The naked Lil stepped nimbly and ecstatically into the silver cage.
