“There are many whips,” he said soberly. “The worst are still distant.”
“If someone has to whip me, I’m glad it’s you. Oh, Assad, will I be all right? Will I be able—?”
“Yes you will.”
His calm assurance held tenderness. She received the same conviction from her lord. She would become Mistress of the thongs that striped her skin.
The strap had paved the way. But when the sinuous snake snapped across her shoulders it was a new and different pain. Without affectation she screamed.
“My back! It’s another Me. Different . . . ! Oh, Assad, it’s a different kind of pain . . . There’s no heat . . . only agony.”
“The effect on the subject is admittedly less erotic—”
“Oh damn! It’s no love play. Assad, feel me, I’m dry!”
“No, madam, you are not.”
“Oh, damn!”
There had been a procession of whips. From each, the flogged girl learned agony but also control. With female strength she perfected the exotic motions of her nudity by which she acknowledged her punishment but was not defeated by it. By special dispensation, Assad was permitted to find within her sheath relief for his loins, inflamed beyond endurance by his subject’s sexuality. They moaned together before the lash resumed.
Then, at the end of it, the ten days. Ten dreamlike days within the comfort of Khalief’s arms. When they were past, Caroline’s flesh was virgin . . . ! No audience would see or suspect.
And then Tulabe.
Caroline could not hide from herself or her lover that she was glowingly excited. She was well rehearsed. She was also at peace with her conscience. She had been conquered by a man, and would render unto him whatever tribute he chose to exact. Her nature was such that mischief was never distant from her scene. Mostly she approached her ordeal with laughter. It was she who insisted on the brass band. She also demanded Assad as her executioner. While being gowned and groomed for her appearance on the platform of Tulabe’s Square she sipped a stiff drink. Before she mounted the fatal steps she downed another. It was not until the time came for her to proffer her hands to be bound that she sensed something wrong. Watching the gauntleted hands knot her wrists in bondage, she knew disquiet. Behind the hood the eyes glinting at her were strange . . .
Her executioner was NOT Assad!
Fearfully, she looked around. Yet all was normal. Her sacrificial ceremony was a howling success. She could scarcely engage her whipper in conversation under such exposure. In a whirl of puzzlement she allowed herself to be bound, hoisted, stripped. She would spoil nothing for Khalief by female fears. She braced herself for agony.
It did not come.
The whip curled and slashed upon her nudity but the pain was minimal. It was a clever simulation of the real thing, light, supple, without the power to cut her flesh. Looking down at where it had curled beneath her naked breasts she saw the scarlet lines . . . But they too were a clever fraud, some sort of dye . . . !
Her lord had run the risk of discovery because he loved her! Joy welled. Almost she felt cheated in her role as the donor of her greatest gift. But she must not betray—let none know the deception! She writhed sensuously and smiled serenely as she had schooled herself to do. Her bound wrists were her greatest pain, but she did not notice them. Then came the shots, the trucks, the howling pandemonium. A knife cut the rope by which she was suspended. The hooded man picked her up easily and fled. His words were terse and urgent.
“Keep still. Don’t fight. We’re doing fine.” It was the voice of James Dexter.
9
Slave Chain
The President’s Guard basked in glory. Each was personally thanked by the President, and three of them were, separately, summoned to his bed. One of these was Trudy. In post-coital conversation she was assured that Caroline’s disappearance was the work of Nicholas Nykobe or his minions. Retribution and repossession was to be swift and merciless, but in the meantime Caroline had vanished. Whilst subject to this Presidential favour Trudy the trooper came to understand the older girl’s infatuation with Khalief Abhad. Having once been impaled upon the purple Presidential phallus no girl could ever be quite the same. It was like being granted a preview of Nirvana. The younger girl was never certain where it all went within her, but she was grateful for both its advance and retreat. She had survived a major invasion.
But their glory was by no means in the past. Their deportment under fire and the accuracy of their rifles now earned them a stellar role in the invasion of such territory still held by Nykobe and his troops. It was a job too long delayed. The Zindawban Army was mobilised and on its way to a strategic meeting within enemy territory with the Guard who was being sent ahead to rout and destroy an isolated but fortified outpost which might prove an obstacle to the victorious invasion.
There was much drill and the shouting of commands. Each girl was jubilant. The W.O. had never been so happy. Morale was at its peak. In order that they arrive to do battle fresh and alert, marching was dispensed with. The twenty eager Guards piled into a brand new truck with boxes of ammunition and rifles polished to a deadly shine. W.O. Ringbolt and Captain Rulua were to catch up with them later in a Jeep. Several hours of jolting took them well within enemy country without providing a sign of the enemy itself. Inhabitants of the dusty land had prudently retreated from the vicinity of the rutted road. They had things very much to themselves until they were ambushed.
Their downfall was overconfidence and the absence of their W.O.
Not a shot was fired. The four trucks had been craftily screened from view in scrub brush. Within a minute they had taken position, one on each side, one front and rear, to surround the vehicle carrying the President’s Guard and render resistance futile. Large calibre arms pointed from all directions.
The troop dismounted. Chagrined, dismayed, frightened. They were relieved of their rifles, their truck was stripped. But the men of Nykobe were disciplined. They surveyed their catch with wide and lustful grins and some ribald chaff but there was no brutality. Trudy guessed she and her companions were not just prisoners of war. They were a valued prize.
They were counted, their names and numbers recorded, they were handcuffed, hands behind their backs. They were then lifted, bodily, back into the Zindawban transport by men who enjoyed their work. Two armed soldiers took up guard duty with the captive girls. The convoy rumbled on in the same direction.
“The driver got us lost, or else he’s one of them.” Sergeant Galla said bitterly to her apprehensive charges.
“What will they do with us, Galla?”
“How should I know!” Galla turned to their grinning guards. “Do you two know what will happen to us?”
Their only answer was hilarity and the chuckling assurance: “You not like it one little bit.”
“I’d be a guard in uniform and be handcuffed!”
Trudy hated it. The bite of the steel bands on her wrists was like a house of cards falling about her head. A lovely dream was dying. The truck jolted the girls back and forth against each other. With arms locked at their backs they could do nothing but exchange glances of commiseration.
It was early afternoon when the wheels stopped turning. This time the prisoners were handed down to stand on a well-used road on the outskirts of a town. They were marshalled together and there began the most shameful chapter of their short career as members of the military. Sergeant Galla, as was her right, was elected to lead the line . . .
It was a slave coffle! Two of the enemy dragged into view a burden of links and metal bands the troop eyed with a terrible prescience. When the first collar was fitted round Galla’s neck and locked with a resounding click they knew their fate. Four feet of chain led to the next, a captive girl was thrust forward and was similarly banded—and the next—and the next. The President’s Guard became a single file of smartly uniformed damsels joined to each other individually. The three white maidens brought up the rear. Perhaps this too was symbolic!