Everything ends. After hours of jolting the truck stopped and ejected its tired, naked, and helpless cargo. The first face Corey beheld was that of Mustafa. He was counting out money to the driver of the truck. There was a cordial shaking of hands in farewell, the truck grunted away in an empty return. The second man remained with Mustafa, no other males were visible. The considerable force who had carried out the successful coupe in Abdul Nour?s bagnio had remained at Amphala. The naked American girl dismally surveyed the scene. It was all too familiar, even the same four donkeys. She was back at square one.
Once more, Miss Corey Gibson suffered the bitter frustration of being female in a land of slavery. There were twenty girls, strong and young and vigorous. But they were controlled with ease by two men. They would never be given a chance of escape, they would be used, they would be punished. Inexorably, they would be taken to where a single man wanted them to go. And there was nothing any of them could do about it… nothing! She tugged at her tied wrists in feminine vexation. If Mustafa knew she was there he gave no sign. But he did indulge in a brief communique.
"You all be slaves." His fierce eye swept them like a lash. "Abdul Nour is big fool, he soon be killed. You not his. You mine." He looked from one to the other of them, contriving somehow to Miss Corey Gibson. "Is no escape. You try escape you be whipped… punished. Best you be good girls. We walk by day, sleep at night. No one chase us, no one care."
Ruefully, Corey Gibson reflected on Mustafa?s unconscious truth. No one cared. To those who might care about her she must have vanished utterly without hint or clue. Reid Hunter?s death would have put a seal on her disappearance. Her father would be baffled. Assef Aslam had probably written her off as an expensive jinx. Audrey was gone, Seth Burdett was no more. She was alone, a white slave girl on her way to be sold a second time. It was hard no to wince at sight of the two chains. They stretched their considerable length out on the sand in a parallel promise of prisoned wrists and necks. With economy and convenience they would render captive and helpless twenty lithe strong females who would accept their padlocks because they had no choice.
In a continuation of a planned project, the roped girls were marshalled into line by the brandishing of an unnecessary whip so that number one now stood between the far end of the span of links, the rest were prodded into place with a chain on each side. With prudent caution they were coffled one at a time, hands untied, the right wrist shackled, a link padlocked to a collar. Even after the removal of her gag the girl remained obediently mute. She knew her place. Mustafa and his helper moved on down the line. Reaching Corey, the slaver met her eyes for the first time. As he clicked the padlock shut on her collar his words were terse: "Forget him, he is gone. You will not be rescued." Sneering at her evident dismay, he promised: "I will make sure you are well fucked and well whipped."
To Miss Corey Gibson there seemed nothing more to say.
The American girl felt an American irritation with her fellow captives. Most of them felt they had taken a step up in the world. A whore was few prospects, but a girl naked on an auction block is fecaed with infinite promise. If she was lucky enough to be purchased by a wealthy man who was not a sadist…! They beamed happily at a mental vista of good food, beautiful clothes, and a man who might not beat them too often. Talifa and Raynee were as optimistic as the rest. But it was Talifa who first felt Mustafa?s whip.
Camping at the end of the first day it was Talifa and Corey who were freed to do the chores. Corey braced herself for a bad time, but Talifa was indignant on the score of protocol.
"Talifa top girl, she not do such work. You choose another."
Mustafa viewed this insubordination with the same surprise he would have accorded a conversational camel. But his reprimand was gentle. "You be good girl. You go now help white girl work. She know how. She been on coffle before." In the false security of a lost authority, Talifa stood her ground. "Me number one girl, same Raynee. Others for fuck and work. Me only for sell." Corey watched the inevitable. She no longer found horror in these incidents. Talifa should have had more sense. She herself would not now dare quibble in such independence. But she shivered in sympathy as the rebel was suspended upside down by her ankles from a tree, her hair falling to the sand, her arms reaching ineffectually at nothing. Talifa?s fine black bush proclaimed her widely sundered loins. Even before the first blow fell she voiced a change of heart: "I sorry, I sorry…! Please not to whip. I be very good girl…! I be very…"
It was the end of verbal negations. The whip sliced between stretched thighs in a manner to make Corey Gibson shrink. The upended girl uttered the first of many shrieks, her free arms flailing uselessly against an enemy she could not touch. She was perfectly postured for the lash. It worked up and down her thighs and across the separated cheeks of her bottom and the satin loveliness of her unmarked back. Half way through, Mustafa capitalized on the occasion. With one pensive hand gently massaging Talifa?s scarlet and swollen cunt, he suavely admonished. "You disobey, you argue with Mustafa, then you hang like this." Paternally, he patted the well lubricated vulva beneath his hand and resumed his task. The former number one girl screamed steadily until released. She then sped, with a new and ardent conviction, to help Corey with the fire. The coffle sighed in sympathy. The coffle carried its chains well. After the scented sloth of the bordello they found a zest in motion and the fresh air.
Chapter 5
Corey found it pleasanter to march in daylight instead of stumble in the dark. She looked often at her shackled wrist, or fingered the metal on her throat in incredulity that, by them, her whole existence was dictated and changed. Against the iron links education and intelligence served naught. The padlock mocked them all. When, twice a day, it was unlocked at chore time she dared not disobey but returned to it as to a stern and waiting authority. Each night two girls were chosen to service The Male. They were taken from the coffle and returned to it in much the same manner as a book from a public library. When it came Corey's turn she was taken into the trees by Selim, Mustafa's new man. Before she could ask why she found no favour with his Master, the Master himself arrived to ensure her proper subjection to the male. They tied her hands behind her back and made her kneel. She writhed inwardly in the prospect of beastliness. But Abdul Nour's brothel had taught her lessons in survival. Miss Corey Gibson was prepared to be as humble as they wished. It began verbally.
"What are you?"
"I am a whore, Master."
"What kind?"
"I am a white whore, Master. I am also your slave."
"Do you expect to be punished?"
"Yes, Master. All whores should be punished."
"What service have you given the men of Abdul Nour?"
"I have spread my legs for them to fuck me. I have sucked their cocks. I was kept chained by my neck for their pleasure. I was an obedient girl and did what I was told."
"That excuses you?"
"No, Master. I know I will be punished. Thank you for enslaving me. I did not wish to be a whore."
"There is the matter of your price at the auction." The slaver's voice had become thoughtful. "I wish it to be high."
"Of course, Master. I will make myself beautiful and display my nakedness seductively. Did I not behave well for your profit before?"
"Hmmmmmm, yes you did well." Mustafa was still savouring an intent. "But whores are soiled. They do not fetch top price."
"I will tell no one, Master. Need the buyers know that all of us have been well fucked, Master? We are all young. It does not show."