While she wept she forced her mind to dwell on things she had read of horrors beyond her present affliction. There had been a tale of a girl taken by an Indian tribe, stripped and tied by her wrists to two trees so that she stood between them with arms stretched taut. Her torture had been a gala event. Men and women had been given the privilege of doing their own single evil with her flesh. Stacie remembered the pine splinters thrust into the soft skin and set afire, the stab of slender skewers into the naked breasts, the heated tomahawk pressed home upon the tenderness beneath the pinioned arm . . . And the screams, always the screams.
Did it lessen her own pain? She had no proof of it, so thrust the morbid pictures from her mind. Perhaps she had gained a small thankfulness that her own flesh was kept intact. But she was a treasure that must be slowly spent. Yasin wanted her alive and in good health. She wondered cynically if indeed his motives were twofold. Certainly Rannah would deal her no greater injury than pain. But there were so many ways . . .
Was this worse than hanging by the rod beneath her armpits? She could not judge. Her present plight was intensified by her need to stay erect, to make the small motions she desired was to punish her scalp or her wrists. But it was so cruel! To kneel as though in prayer, to keep still when every nerve fought for motion, to sanction the ceaseless attrition of the narrow strip of wood against her knees, to know it would continue on and on.
The punished girl longed for the option of surrender. How fortunate those other tortured girls who need say only a few words or affirm an act to gain release. Stacie made no pretense of heroics, she would yield her body willingly to anyone who would end her misery. She thought bitterly of Salim and wondered if he would succumb to such bribe.
After a long, long time and when the tortured girl had immured herself deeply into the awful half world that only the tortured know, Rannah slipped quietly back into the stone place of suffering. She sat and stared pensively at the loveliness of her slave, waiting in curiosity for whatever pleading the sad soft lips might make.
“I will do anything, my lady, anything . . .”
“What can you do, slave girl?”
“If you were a man I would offer you my body.”
“I am not a man, but you can still make the offer.”
“It would mean nothing, my lady. You have me now, all of me.”
“I think it would be the same with me,” Rannah mused. “I would not endure torture I would end by laying on my back.”
“Please free me, my lady. Surely by now there are enough pictures?”
“I am cruel, slave girl. You delight me as you are. In this suffering you are quite exquisite.”
“Why cannot I hate you?”
“I have asked that too, slave girl. I think it is that we are female. In us is something wanton, a need to hurt or to be hurt. I think we seek an endless orgasm. Would you like me to give you one now? I could.”
How great the longing! But Stacie moaned. “Oh please! Not now, it would be all wrong. I am tied so strangely.”
“I have come by a quite wicked thought, slave girl. If you would earn release by bartering yourself, would it not be kind if I gave you the possibility?”
“Please, my lady, I hurt too much to tease.”
“Yes, I tease. But it is for real,” the Arab girl laughed. “My thought is quite delicious. I will send Salim. He will know he will be punished if he consummates his greatest wish. It will be a punishment he can bear: I must not deter him totally. But it will give him pause. To end your suffering see if you can tempt him.”
Did hope kindle? Stacie knew it did. But it was a strangely mixed emotion. “Please, my lady, free me yourself. You can. Free me and love me.” Her heart was in the words.
“But my plan, slave girl! Is it not delightfully droll?”
“I cannot tell how I will behave when the moment comes.”
“That is its piquancy. Salim’s grin and his fine erection may make your torture preferable. Then you must persuade him not to do the thing you most want. There are yet many hours for you to kneel, so I will hasten that you may make your choice. Are you not grateful?”
“Yes, my lady. Thank you.”
But Stacie was not certain of her gratitude.
“Nice girl is most pretty like that,” Salim opened affably.
“Thank you, Salim.”
Stacie was annoyed with herself. Here was deliverance and all she had the wit to do with it was be little girl polite.
“Would you like me to fuck you?” Salim was not bothered by inhibitions.
“I’m tied up so much it’s not possible.”
“Salim set pretty girl free if promise to show how best to fuck.”
So it was the boy’s first time. Stacie felt a guilty annoyance as eroticism flared. There were those who would be amusedly envious of her privilege. Despite her longing for release, she found herself temporizing. “Would you trust me? If I was free I might not keep my word.”
It stayed him for but a moment. “You nice girl, you keep promise. Besides, you are very much hurting.”
“Won’t you be terribly punished?”
“Salim is not much caring. You are too nice.”
“It’s the thing between my legs you like, Salim, not me.” The boy gave this much thought. “Have nice mouth too,” he pointed out brightly. Stacie had the feeling he was hopeful of other discoveries as well.
“Wouldn’t you prefer me to use my mouth? I told you it was best.” She felt it worth a try.
“Then no need to untie.”
Stacie moaned. She was in agony and they were nattering like two housewives. “Untie me, Salim, I’ll do what you want.”
“Much promise?”
“Much promise.”
The untying was more agonizing than being tied, even her neck hurt when the cord in her braid was loosed. When the cord fell away from her wrists her hands flew to the punishing wood on which she knelt. It was both excruciating and gorgeous to raise her tortured knees from the brutal edge on which they had been sacrificed. When Salim contrived to loose her ankles the sudden complete freedom seemed as unreal as the strained posture of punishment had been.
“Is still much hurting?” Salim commiserated.
“It’s awful.” Stacie was massaging her wounds. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”
The youth was solicitous. “But has not hurt cunt?” he inquired anxiously.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll let you have a look at it in a minute.”
With a peacock gesture of triumph the boy divested himself of his only garment, the loin cloth. Stacie took note of the implement of her impalement. It evidenced intense excitation. Her mind worked busily with a faint hope.
Ruefully, the slave girl reflected that a month ago her course of action would have been clear. Having wheedled freedom out of this comic creature she should fight and run, surely in such self-preservation there could be no dishonour! But now she would not renege. Having set her free, Salim would get whatever penalty Rannah had planned for him. Why should a slave girl deny him his bargain. He had freed her, was that not enough? He had ended her torture, why question his motives? Without further ado Stacie removed her two scanty scraps of covering, perhaps what he now saw would excite him further . . . !
“So many nice parts!” Salim obviously wished he had three hands.
Stacie was half hysterical with the joy of release. She was in a mood where Salim’s ambitions seemed trivial. She also pursued a possibility . . ."I expect you’d like to play with them all,” she said demurely. Standing with feel well apart she clasped her hands behind her neck. It was a provocative pose.
It is doubtful that the shrine at Mecca would have held the beaming boy in greater awe. Faced with such a plentitude of riches he was, for a moment, at a loss. Stacie, craftily, helped out.
“You can suck one and hold one and then use your other hand between my legs,” she suggested helpfully, uncertain whether she was being clinical or carnal.