“My father is not cruel. It is I who was cruel by my disobedience.”
Stacie tossed her head angrily. “It is neither of you. It is Jedrah. A girl is nothing here except a body to be used or to be whipped.”
“Come, slave girl, is that truly all I am!”
“I wish I could get free. I want to kiss you . . . No! That is not all you are. I don’t know what any of us are, I’m lost and I don’t care. Now that I’m going to stay forever I suppose I’ll sort myself into the scheme of things somehow.”
The dark eyes became intent. “Stay! Forever!” Rannah smiled, “You do not appear to be going anywhere.”
Stacie told her.
The Arab girl listened quietly, her features softening as though the stumbling words washed away her pain. She nodded understandingly feeling a great surge of love and something akin to awe. “Slave girl!” she laughed delightedly. “I told you, did I not! You seek slavery as a river seeks the sea.”
“Only to you . . . and to Yasin.”
“So you include my father! He has fallen prey to your seduction as have I. You are beyond the dreams of fantasy, I shall whip you daily.”
“Thank you, my Lady. But, please, not the kurbash.” Eyes sparkled.
“That is what I mean! You are a bundle of eroticism so potent you ignite us all, a walking explosive . . . And you don’t even know it.”
Stacie Blair examined the premise and was intrigued. She shook her head positively. “No, my Lady, I don’t know. I think you tease. But if it is so then I think it must be of Jedrah. I was not . . . what you have said, before you brought me here.”
“At least then, you owe this poor desert of ours some small gratitude.”
“l owe it everything,” the tied slave considered. “Oh Rannah, are you sure it is not just you . . . just us!”
“Can you explain away the adoration of Mohammad Yasin. He has just offered you more than any other man in this land would yield.”
It was true! Stacie knew it so. She absorbed the riches of adoration with gratitude, they would sustain her should she be ever tempted to look back. But she suddenly remembered another offering of which she was doubtful.
“Rannah . . . Those rings . . . ! I can’t believe it. But he said today?”
“Well? Are you not proud?”
“But it won’t happen . . . not really . . . will it?”
“Most certainly it will happen. I have just been whipped because I failed to have it done. I was expressly ordered. My father wished it.”
“Why aren’t you ringed?” Stacie asked triumphantly.
“Silly girl! I am not a slave. You are.”
“You have just been whipped as a slave is whipped.”
“I was punished. A girl being whipped has nothing to do with a girl being ringed.”
“If only slave girls are ringed it means some sort of degradation.”
“Don’t be argumentative. I am helpless now, but tomorrow I will not be tied. I can whip you then: if you insist on being difficult. For a slave girl to be ringed is the highest honour her Master can bestow. She wears them with pride. They are of love. Yours will be large and costly. You will adore them.”
“No anaesthetic . . . ?” The question was a vivid fear in Stacie’s mind.
The whipped mistress laughed at her slave girl’s dismay.
“Again you must forgive Jedrah. It is considered that a girl so honoured will bear her pain with the same pride she would bear a son.”
Stacie squirmed. Jedrah had all the answers. She was ashamed of her own feelings: thrill matched fear, excitement countered pain. If told now that it would not happen she would know disappointment. She confessed her mixed emotions.
“You see!” Rannah smiled amusedly, “You are a slave. You think like a slave. Why feel shame, your feelings are those of a bride on her wedding day. See the rings as wedding bands binding you to all you love.”
Stacie gave her companion in distress a look of mischief. “You should write poetry, Rannah. Those rings will hurt terribly. I’ll scream. I’m not like you.”
“Scream then, beloved. No one will think less of you.”
“I suppose I’ll be . . . fastened?”
“You’ll be tied so tight it will hurt. The artist’s work must not be spoiled by struggles. I may tie you myself . . . if anybody ever thinks to let me loose!” It was Rannah’s first evidence of irritation with her predicament.
“I’m tied tight now. Is Yousef a sadist?”
The punished Arab girl chuckled at the question. “No, I wouldn’t call him that. He gets terribly sexually aroused when he whips us or tortures a girl. But all men would. It is one of the mysteries. I think Yousef would give his life for my father or myself.”
Stacie giggled. “His arousal . . . if we must be polite. Is it because we’re naked or because we’re whipped?”
“The two go together, silly. Either one does it. Sometime, when you’ve been a particularly good slave, I’ll give you a special treat: I’ll let you whip a naked girl and find out for yourself. I’m sure that for men or for women it is the most potent aphrodisiac in the world. When I whip you I’m on fire. Poor Yousef! Right now he’ll have some poor serving wench on her back receiving the lust generated by my whipping. Usually the girl he whips has to endure his penetration as something extra at the finish. But I am forbidden as are you.”
Stacie grimaced. “I have much to learn.”
“As a slave girl, yes. When you made this incredible choice of yours I’m sure my father made it plain that slave girls are whipped constantly, mostly to satisfy their owner’s lubricity?”
Stacie giggled again. “You really flower up good old sex, Rannah. You should take lessons from Salim.”
“I dislike four-letter words. If you use them I shall whip you.”
“Very well, my lady, I’ll be frightfully proper and watch my foul tongue. But, yes, your father did warn me. Maybe I’ll get used to the idea. I don’t know about getting used to the whipping . . .” She paused to view a sudden thought. “I say, Rannah, was today your first . . . time?”
The Arab girl laughed in retrospect. “I’m afraid not,” she admitted cheerfully. “It is only my second whipping with the kurbash, but the number of times I have been whipped . . . ? I’ve lost count.”
The slave girl was curious. “But, Rannah, you are the daughter of a rich and powerful and educated man. Were all your whippings because you’d been a bad girl, or were some of them for that . . . that . . . other reason?”
The wealed mistress sparkled at her slave. “You want to know so much, don’t you! I’m not sure what I should tell. But yes, I’m quite sure I have been whipped to give someone joy. Never by my father, but he may have sanctioned it believing it would do me no harm. He is, after all, of this land where women and the whip are one.”
She chuckled at a memory. “When I was sent to school in England we all forgot . . . The head mistress wanted to call the police when she was informed by the matron of the whipmarks on my skin. I have never forgotten her face when I explained, or tried to explain, the truth.”
They talked of many things and of their love. The kurbash was forgotten, the blood had dried on Rannah’s skin before she was released. Yousef was deferential and solicitous. Stacie was left tied to her pillar. She could almost believe she had been overlooked.
The feeling intensified as the hours passed. But the sun was still high when Rannah returned: a quite different Rannah, clothed, groomed and svelte. Only a bare midriff bore evidence of the hide whip. She wore the wounds without concern, they had their own stark beauty on her skin. With her was a man. A man with two expensive leather bags.
Stacie knew! There was no pretense. The eyes of the two girls locked constantly as she was made ready. It was good to be loosed from the pillar and good to have the chains unlocked from her feet. The male was middle aged, small, obsequious and faintly clinical. Stripping before his curiosity evoked no blush. She guessed he had seen much of female flesh. His name was Mr. Mussa, his profession was to perform the service he had come to do to her. Stacie could believe him skilled.