King XVIII

Chapter XVIII: Valdignya

This novel contains graphic scenes of sex, some involving minors, rape and forced sex.  It is purely a fantasy, not a depiction of real people or events.  It is intended as a satire of politics and our modern culture,  both funny and stimulating. You will need to have a background in the previous 17 chapters to understand this chapter which closes Part I.  Part II begins soon and will be funnier, more exciting and stimulating than what has gone before. 

The conceit of this novel is that vile pornographers and dirty liberals have higher moral standards than any religious or right-wing nut who pretends to hold the moral high ground in today's world.  We've had our wide-stanced Craigs,  fun-loving payoff-paying Ensigns and our mountain-hiking Sanfords.  Don't bother me with complaints that what goes on in this novel is any less moral than what passes for morality in today's Republican Party.

By Hauteone

It is a place, maybe a person, but I think, not an object, certainly not one you can touch or hold in your hand like a prize.  More than anything, it is an embodiment, a feeling, out of the time stream and here and present at the moment when it is discernable, but again, always out of reach, never fully attainable.  An ideal, more likely. It flows through all living things and those that have lived, uniting them in time.   It flows from the time life began and the encompasses the joy and exuberance of that seminal moment, not a god, for sure, or a creator, but the explosive Joy present in the creation.  This is the Quin Shuan Shulat, which means all things and  no one thing in any language.

This is how Rashan answered  Vlostock when he insisted that he explain at last what the Quin Shuan Shalat was and yes, how again, he could grasp it, if even for a moment.  For Vlostock had felt its presence one night while in a passionate love making session with the woman who would become his life's love.  And so had I with the love of my life.

Deep in the African subcontinent, along the Niger, in a village known among locals as Valdignya, a great caravan from the west stopped on its wearying trek to Timbuktu.  Among the shackled slaves, dusty and throat-parched from the journey, was a tall, powerfully built young man, barely 16.  

He was among a very few males considered a worthy prize for a queen, perhaps to serve as a stud in her stable.  Most of the rest in the caravan were among the fairest women ever assembled from through Asian, Europe and Africa to serve in the harems of the kings and princes of the eastern and northern regions.  Dnan, as his slave masters labeled him, was even among the slave women whose desires had been suppressed and supposedly beaten from them, the object of desire and affection.

 They cared for him not like a mother for a child but the way lovers care for their prizes, a shared hope and reason for living that made their journey bearable.  If such a man could exist, they told themselves, then all things are possible, and they made sure his needs were met even above their own.  For he was, and carried himself, as a prince, but one so unself-aware of the effect he had on others that his humbleness only enhanced his charm.

His charms were not totally lost on his captors.  They knew that royal women would pay handsomely to have such a prize among their sexual toys.  Bladignwu, the organizer of the caravan, even gave his slavers orders to treat their prize male stud with extra care so that he would  not be damaged in transit. 

Scars and broken bones were a stimulant for some women who preferred to choose their sexual partners from among the battlers and warriors of the lower classes.  But Dnan was, to a higher class, born and bred and it would reduce his sale price to let his finely chiseled face and body be subjected to unplanned damage.

Still, there was a problem that Bladignwu knew he must confront before the caravan reached Timbuktu two weeks hence. For all his sexual potential, Dnan was as yet a boy and Bladignwu could not be sure, the boy possessed the prowess to satisfy a queen or princess.   For one night, his beauty alone might suffice, but eventually, more skill would be required  to hold her majesty's interests. 

Therefore, Bladignwu assembled in his quarters five of his most beautiful young females from among his harem of well-trained courtesans.  He gave them two commands: Teach the boy everything they knew about how to please a woman, i.e, make the boy a man.  And from each, return with a daughter or son from the couplings that surely would fetch huge bounties for their comeliness when old enough to be sold into slavery.

Among the women selected for the honor was, Valdista, an Indian girl, with deep, dark skin and wide-set eyes, gentle eyes that smoldered with an intensity that suggested the passions that burned within her.  Her lips concealed a brilliant smile that seemed to light the world when revealed.

Eva was a fragile Nordic blonde orphaned and captured as a baby by Arab marauders who brought her south to Africa and sold her as a teen to Bladignwu.  He saw the sweet soul that seemed to lift Eva above earthly cares and he added her as a member of his personal harem as a child-like presence that needed and wanted his protection.

Dnikta was a head strong African princess full of fire and fury who railed against her chains, but who Bladignwu found incredibly sexual in bed.  Every tryst with her was a battle, a rape, but when hostilities ceased, he was not sure who, in fact, had been the raper and who the rapee.

Dshon's people came from the Arab lands to the north where sexual behavior by women was frowned upon. Indeed, Arab women were not even supposed to have sexual desires of their own.  Allah had decreed that they existed to satisfy the needs of men.  Dshon wore her humiliation openly and that element and her self pride added to her desirability, in Bladignwu's mind.  He enjoyed the shame she felt at being subjected to many of the most vile and degrading forms of sex.

 Not so the last but not least among the chosen five.  Sarah was an auburn-haired Jewish temptress who carried herself in the most slatternly way imaginable.  She dressed provocatively at all times and was always the most eager and attentive bed mate. She obviously felt no shame in reveling in her sexual adventures and Bladignwu was certain she'd already seduce most of the women in his harem and perhaps some of his eunuchs as well.   Like Dnikta, Sarah was lightning in a bottle, but one who was an eager receptacle, not a resistor who fought his advances.

Bladignwu, sure that the five girls he'd chosen contained the right mixture of knowledge, attitude and prowess to shape Dnan into the rigid tool he must become to survive in the world he soon would enter, summoned Dnan led by four guards with spears and had him stripped naked in front of his would be instructors. 

"So girls, do you think you can mold this naked marble into a work of art," Bladignwu asked as the girls studied their assigned student.

Dnikta was at first ready to resist another of her master's indignities, but now, studying Dnan and his ebony skin, beyond handsome face and broad-shouldered muscularity, her eyes soften and she accepted her  burden eagerly.

"I only hope," she said, "that this raw material is worthy of the life we will breathe into it."

She had no doubt that she would enjoy trying to inflate the weapon swinging freely between Dnan's legs.  Eva, too, was intrigued by the length and breadth of Dnan's appendage but she swallowed nervously at the thought of trying to accommodate something so monstrous within her.

"He certainly is a creature forged in the garden's of heavenly delights," Valdista murmured almost beneath her breath.

Sarah left no doubt about her sentiments.

"Can we begin now?" she asked. "I mean at this very moment?"

Only Dshon focused not on Dnan but rather on the humiliation she felt at the lust he triggered inside her.   Only two nights earlier Bladignwu had forced her to suck piss from his garlic-smelling cock just to enjoy her embarrassment and indignation.

She knew she was one of Allah's lost creatures who would be stoned to death for what she had seen and done while a captive of Bladignwu, if ever she returned to her home village far in the northeast.  Here she was not allowed to wear a veil or anything to cover her body as Islamic law demanded. Her shame knew no bounds.

With Bladignwu, she could tell herself that she was  forced to accept her fate, but staring at Dnan, she became aware that she actually wanted him to do dirty, nasty and shameful things to her.  This was something she never had previously felt and she hated him for igniting such passions.

"I propose," said Sarah, as the girls prepared themselves for Dnan on the first night of instruction, "that we tutor him in pleasure collectively, that is to say, all of us together in the same room with him at the same time."

Eva was relieved to think she would have others to accept some of the pressure of the "monster" as she had come to think of it.  Dshon wanted no part of a six-person orgy that only would heighten her shame and Dnikta wondered how she could manipulate the proceedings to approximate a the scratching, biting and sweaty love-making she enjoyed with Bladignwu.  

It was Valdista who was the first to take the monster into her mouth and begin to orchestra it like a great symphony.  After a time of Valdista's oral manipulations, Dnan stopped her and pushed her gently backward into a supine position with her bare legs spread. So began the girls' education.

Unbeknownst to Bladignwu and the women he selected as Dnan's tutors, Dnan had been taught the skills of making women happy from a very early age.  He was born a prince in a family known for its skills in the sexual arts and even as a young boy of seven and eight, encouraged to explore the female body and its secret pleasure zones. Of course, since being captured and brought on this long journey across the African veldt, the slave women who accompanied him secretly made sure he had every opportunity to practice. 

So when he plunged deeply into Valdista and she screamed in unimaginable delight, it was like the start of a rapturous ceremony that seemed to harken back to the dawn of man and of life itself.  Ancient drums echoed in Valdista's mind and showers of sparks seemed to surround her and transport her to another realm. The girls watching this scene could hear those drums throbbing, too, in every pour of their bodies.  When it was their turn, they plugged into to the same cosmic forces Valdista felt. 

Dnikta slapped Dnan hard across his face and he slapped her back just as forcefully.  She clawed with sharp fingernails at his back and buttocks.  He gnawed painfully on her long, elegant neck and pounded her like the lowest, most sordid whore imaginable.  She loved every second.

Eva took the "monster" uncomfortably up her vagina at first. It seemed ready to burst out of her gullet, but gradually as she became more lubricated, she swayed to the rhythms of the drums and began to scream out in unintellible pleasure.  Bladignwu had to send guards into the love-making tent to assure no harm had come to his Nordic prize.

Sarah bucked like an unbroken horse when her turn came.  "Fuck me, fuck me harder you ebony bastard," she screamed.  And Dnan did, matching her upward hip thrusts with a powerful downward stroke that drove her back into the perfumed cushions.  Her long, curly auburn hair bounced crazily against the pillows beneath her head and a look of unadulterated pleasure spread across her luscious lips.  She'd heard other women speak of having their minds fucked from them during sex.  For the first time, she understood.

Only Dshon resisted strongly at first. She clutched a knife to her side ready to plunge it deeply into Dnan's back if he should suggested any of the vile activities Bladignwu practiced with her.  Surprizingly, Dnan was very gentle with her at first, sensing her apprehension.  Soon, she loosened her grip on the knife and Dnan lifted it lightly from her hand. 

Eventually, he flipped her over on to her stomach and plunged his flesh shaft deeply into her unlubricated anus. She called out in a mixture of unbelievable pleasure and pain.  Not even Bladignwu violated this sanctuary for he and his Tuareg tribe believed a woman's anus to be a foul and dirty place. 

Having a woman suck him clean after plunging his pecker into a man's ass, yes, this was permissible, but never directly into the dirtiest of a woman's holes.   Somehow, Dshon did not care about Dnan's humiliation of her.  All inhibitions fell from her like leaves from a tree in the autumn wind and suddenly she was rocking back against Dnan repeatedly calling his name.

The girls could not know it but the village Bladignwu had chosen in which to begin Dnan's education was the one their master had grown up in as a boy.  He had selected it as stopping off point because it was to him, familiar ground and because on the long desert journey, the water in the wells here were the sweetest he had ever tasted.  He had fond memories of his time here  in Valdignya as a boy and the village name was actually a variant of his family name.

Eventually, the journey east across the well-worn caravan routes must continue, however. For more than a week, the girls used every rest period on the journey as a chance to "tutor" Dnan.  The slave women on the trip were happy to see Dnan well cared for, but jealous that the five tutors were monopolizing "their" toy. 

 Bladignwu became more concerned with the passage of time, however.  The girls "fed" him false reports that Dnan still needed practice if ever he was to satisfy the royal females assembled in the slave auctions of Timbuktu.  Yet he missed his five "special" girls and was puzzled by their unwillingness to join him in bed.

"I am too worn out from tutoring this idiot teenager you've given us to teach," Sarah told him emphatically.  "He is unteachable, I tell you, and yet you expect us to fuck you after fucking him all night and at every watering hole.  Better you fuck your male eunuchs in the butt than bother us now with your insipid needs."

The other girls offered similar excuses.  "You'd think after fucking such an incompetent, you'd enjoy the company of a real man," he told them.

Still, Bladignwu was concerned.  With Timbuktu only two days distant, Bladignwu demanded evidence of Dnan's training.  He threatened to cut the tutors off from any further contact with Dnan.

Of course, that is when the girls killed him.  Dshon drew her knife across Bladignwu's throat herself, smiling at him as she did so.  The other tutors watched with appreciation of Dshon's handiwork.  Soon with the help of the nearly five hundred female slaves they freed, all other males, castrated and not, even the guards, camel herders and tent pole setters, were slain in their sleep.  The caravan that marched back to Vadignya was far different than the one that left days earlier. Dnan led the caravan into the village at the head of a procession of newly freed women on camels and in wagons. 

Though the village still had family and friends of Bladignwu who remembered him as a child, the villagers were surprisingly placid about his disappearance. 

"All of this was foretold in the legends," the chief witch of the village proclaimed, studying her animal entrails just to make sure.  "Besides, Bladignwu was an asshole.  No big loss, that one."

Dnan and his women settled into a long and peaceful life in the village.  Every attractive, young fruitful female was given her time with Dnan in private and many bore him children.  And all of them, drank from the nearby sweet ambrosia water wells and were re-charged with the life force that had accumulated there.  From that place and time, among those  people, began the legend of Quin Shuan Shalat.

"This place sure ain't what I heard it would be," Saana said, joining Candy, Rashan and Vlostok on a small rise overlooking a vast desert plain.  "Academic center with libraries, my ass?  A great population center?  Christ, this is just a bunch of dusty mud huts thrown together and nearly buried in sand."

"Once this was a great city, 600-700 years ago," Candy told her.  "I know it is difficult for you to believe that an African people could build and maintain such a place. But this collection of mud brick huts was once a vast city where art and commerce flourished."

"No honey, I believe you," Saana said.  "It's just that I thought that what we'd find here would be a flourishing civilization. That Leo Africanus guy kind of painted a mental picture that this scene just doesn't meet."

Vlostock's and Rashan's binoculars were focused on the distant horizon to the north and west, not the city of ruins behind them.

"How many days travel from here do you think?" Vlostock asked Rashan.

"Two weeks, I believe, if we go by camel, which is how Dnan and his people would have gone," Rashan responded.  "But of course, he did not have an army of subhumans chasing them.  So we must be a little sprightlier."

"Okay, I will get the supplies and we will start tomorrow," Vlostock said. "I'll do anything to get there before those Nazi bastards."

"The landscape once teamed with life in that area, a lush and fertile land, compared to now," Rashan said.  "A desert, yes, but with great many a great oasis where we could stop to replenish our resources. We cannot count on that now."

"Well, what's out there is sure better than what's behind us," Candy said, almost wistfully.

Literally, behind them was Timbuktu, the city Dnan never really saw in his time.  But Candy referred to the band of Italian and German soldiers, led by Salgalcano, who had been trailing them for weeks.  Vlostock also knew she referred to the troubles they'd left behind in the United States where dozens of Krilenko children--including my mother--were now in hiding from reprisals by the branch of the family Salgalcano so ruthlessly represented.  He was thinking of the help he might be able to provide to his diabled brother.

"That was a terrible time in Krilenko history," my mother told me many years afterward.  "We all feared for our lives.  I was sent north to stay with friends in Oregon and never saw my father, Vlostok, again.  Dad was sent to Africa to reach the Quin Shuan Shalat before our enemies did."

Europe was in turmoil and it appeared a great war soon would break out there.   Indeed, the whole world seemed at risk.

"And the Quin Shuan Shalat was there, in Africa, after all?" I asked her.

"No, how could we know then that we had it in our grasp and let it slip away," mother answered.  "How could we know what was at stake and the precious blood we'd have to sacrifice? The Quin is an embodiment, not a thing, not even a place."

"And what do you think is out there, my love?" Vlostock asked Candy as she gazed out across the African plain.

"Something that calls to us both," she said, smiling despite her somber mood.

"Yes, I feel it, too," Vlostock acknowledged.

The dust storm obscured their vision, but out there somewhere beyond the dry, dusty clouds was a wet, warm and wonderful gateway. 

"It is the Joy," Candy said.

"I can't think of any better way to describe it," Vlostock said, basking within its allure. But he knew that before the Joy, there must come the what Rashan called its "Opposite."

Approximately 50 miles to the east along a well-traveled tributary of the Niger in what is today Mali, Salgalcano was impatient for his Nazi Party benefactors to get their canoes back in the water so his quest could begin anew.  They'd been stuck in this African backwater village for three days awaiting the high waters to recede and make their journey through the rapids less likely to end in disaster.  His quarries had obviously outsmarted him by taking the over land route when the water route seemed faster.

Now with the river obviously down from the day before, Salgalcano was more impatient than ever.  The 15 Germans on the journey shared his punctuality and desire for speed, but the mostly Italian crew assigned by il Duce was incompetent and slow.  Daylight burned while they smoked their cigarettes and gossiped about the girls in the local brothels.  Among them, there was no sense of urgency. They could not possibly appreciate what was at stake.

"Giuseppe, I hate these Italians worse than the dumb fuck Germans," Salcalcano told his companion.

Giuseppe, like Salcalcano, was Sicilian.  He shrugged and tossed his cigarette in the roiling waters. He shared Salcalcano's impatience, but feared what awaited them in the vast forests and plains that lie ahead.  He was not so sure Salgalcano would like what he found at the end of their quest.

"Boss, you know that that Rashan bastard is out there somewhere and I ain't so anxious to meet him again," he told Salgalcano.  Guiseppe was among the organizers of the raid that Salgalcano had planned on the Sausage Factory back in Chicago.  It was his men who had been found dead in that apartment, victims of what Rashan called the Quin's Opposite. Did Rashan know they were on the trail of the Vlostok party?  What horrors had Rashan planned for them?

"Their twenty against our two hundred," Salgalcano said. "I like our odds."

The only thing odd, Giuseppe thought, were the circumstances that had propelled all of them on this desperate quest.  Back home, Hoover's G-men were winning in their war to drive the Mafia underground.  The machine-gun blasting,  free-wheeling days of Capone and Nitti were gone, soon to be replaced by organized killing on a much vaster scale.  Giuseppe might have been a low-level thug in a declining gang of hoodlums, but he knew when it was time to keep your head down and on your shoulders.  Salgalcano's recklessness scared him.

"I liked things back in the days when there was more booty to go around," Giuseppe told his boss.

Salgalcano recognized his underling was speaking on two levels.

"Yes, Giuseppe, those were the salad days, eh?," he said.  "Not so much booty today or money from it."

The proud Capone pimp turned his once-handsome face toward his companion to reveal the molten acid scars that obscured his features and made him look not even human.  It was always a shock when Giuseppe gazed upon that horrible visage.  It made him shudder and he could only imagine what it did to women who saw it.

"I'm always ready for booty duty," Patrice told me when I asked her why she so loved anal sex.  We'd just completed another vigorous round of anal-pounding in my hotel suite where she and her friend Carmel had discovered me in the spring of 2009.  I had retreated here after the violence in Mecca because I was frankly, tired and scared.  I needed to re-charge my batteries and get away from things for awhile. I'd called Creech and told her to clear my schedule and bother me for only the most important business.  She'd respected my wishes.  I hadn't heard from her in days.

"Momma told me that booty duty runs in our family," Patrice said. "We always accept it willingly when called.  Might as well enjoy it, because if you gotta do it, well, it's stupid not to feel the Joy."

"Sounds like you come from a pretty smart family and have a great mother," I told her, patting her delicate rump, "and you certainly inherited a nice booty to bring for the duty."

"Yes, the Valdignya family is known for its booties and how it handles its booty duties," Patrice laughed.

"What? Did you say Valdignya?" I said.  "I thought your last name was Thomas?"

"That was our slave name," Patrice said.  "According to Momma, my African name comes from the village near where my family farmed before we were slaves."

I knew then that I could no longer remain in hiding.  The next morning I called Creech and told her I was ready to report for my booty duties and Patrice and Carmel would accompany me back to Calfornia.