"Ah, yes, that is true."The Slaver was pleased but still probing for profit. "Suppose we give them a small entertainment?" He glinted sardonically. "The pure white maiden shrinking from defilement by the wog, cringing from the exposure of her cunt…?"
"Yes, Master. It would excite them profitably."
"You could the be whipped into a sweet and willing submission on the block…?"
"You are clever, Master. Is such an honour indeed mine?"
Musafa eyed her suspiciously. "You seem overly willing, girl?"
"I have been much fucked and much punished, Master. It has made me a sensible girl. Why should I not aid you in profit?"
He smiled grimly. "You hope I will not whip you now?"
Corey was thinking hard with desperate precision. She felt she was doing well, she was pleasing a hard Master. These verbal abnegations did not really matter. If she could survive a hundred impalements what were a few demeaning words! "No girl wants the whip, Master. But if it pleases you to whip me I will not complain. I am a slave."
"You are a craftly slave."
"Yes, Master. You know from whence I came. i never knew the whip or nakedness until short weeks ago. I had been fucked only by chosen men I had desired." Corey twisted to flutter her bound hands. "But I am now a slave. I know I can never escape your chain. I have learned many lessons. I will do what i must to earn myself few stripes. If you stoop to fuck me I will be honoured."
She had done it well. Mustafa was impressed. "A girl such as you can be made into merchandise beyond the price of gold." He spoke slowly, seeking her eyes. "If it be told you are most highly skilled in the arts of the Hetaera you might entice Solomon himself. Are you thus skilled?"
"I do not think so, Master."
"Perhaps a touch of the whip?"
"It would teach me only obedience, Master. It cannot grant me the skills of an ancient craft."
"Did Abdul Nour demand so little of his whores?"
"He never used me. I cannot tell you why. He preferred to give me to his jailor or his soldiers. They were my tutors."
"Well, surely they must have…?"
"No, Master. To them I was a cunt, two lips and a tongue."
"Humph… you are more than that." Mustafa pondered his way into decision. "We will give you a drill."
"A test, Master?"
"Suck Selim's cock."
Corey knew it for more than a brutal and demeaning command. This trader in the flesh of girls had an idea which, if she could promote it, might take her into liberty from the coffle, perhaps to liberty itself. A bidder at the auction who perceived her as a Houri and would pay for her a Houri's price would be a man of immense wealth. He would have sensibilities above the animal lust for which most slavegirls were bought and sold. She shuffled on her knees to rest between Selim's spread legs. Her bound hands could help her not at all. Instead, she rubbed her cheek against the hard erection within the slaver's pants and murmured sweetly every endearment she could remember or device. Then, searching with her teeth, she found the zipper, bit it and tugged it down. The male organ that leaped out against her face was no more horrific than any other. Wryly, she conceded thanks to Abdul Nour's bordello, and absorbed Selim's offering between her lips.
After she had reduced her subject to gasps and moans, Mustafa paid her the greatest tribute possible. He untied her hands. Gratefully, she used them to promote her cause. Chained back on the coffle in the dark, Corey Gibson went to sleep with a glimmer of hope for company. She refused to think disgustedly of what she had done. She refused to think of it at all. She had become a warrior and had fought her first fight. Somehow the chain irked less.
Marching in the sunlight, her right arm swinging with the chain to which her wrist was shackled, Corey Gibson sensed the cadence of unison and the rhythm of a mood. The neck chain rarely jerked her collar. They were going to be sold, and for the majority this was a destiny much to be desired. She felt no strangeness in being the only white girl in the coffle. All the youthful breasts and triangles were simply female, chained together they mattered little. Abdul Nour had thrust them into the sisterhood of whores, and whoredom is a tight Guild in which skin colour was a matter of chance. Corey stepped blithely with the rest but her mind was busy with a surmise. That evening Mustafa alone took her into the trees. He was a man disinclined to share good fortune.
"The whip is a part of man's desire, Corey Gibson. Plead with me to whip you."
The naked American slavegirl no longer deluded herself that it was better to be whipped than to have a man's phallus thrust within the recesses of her sheath. She would have preferred the latter. Unless it was wielded by a man you loved the whip just plain hurt. Whips hurt a nude girl abominably. She sighed and entered the fray.
"Beloved Master, your slavegirl is possessed by pride. I beg you to whip it from me." She looked up at the stern Arab features in girlish adoration. "I beg the boon of being hung by my wrists in nakedness to receive your stripes."
Mustafa was pleased. "You wish a gag, girl?"
"Only if you wish me mute, Master. Otherwise I will scream so you may know my gratitude."
There was no gag. Mustaf tied her hands and raised them to a bough. Miss Corey Gibson stood naked and alone in an African wasteland and waited to be whipped, a whipping she had requested with all the sincerity she could muster. The Master who owned her body whipped it with keen appreciation but an eye to preserving its saleability. Half way through to emunciate clearly: "Thank you, Master, you whip me beautifully." Mustafa climaxed into his dirty robe, but after the briefest pause continued to stripe the taut white skin.
Corey's weals were not severe but laying on the ground there was a tenderness. She bore it with a quiet smile as she arranged herself within her chains to sleep. Winning was painful but she scented victory. It was the following day it happened.
It was midday. The girls were marching in the swinging cadence which they themselves had envolved. Each girl's thoughts were busy far away. None but Corey beheld the shadow. She looked apprehensively at her Master, but Mustafa on his donkey was as lost in reverie as were his slaves. A quick glance to the rear showed Selim equally somnolent. By the time she had turned back to confirm her suspicion Mustafa had seen the shadow too. Seth Burdett stood motionless and menacing on the low eminence of a rock. He had allowed the coffle and its owners to approach to a confrontation he himself had staged. The Arab slave trader's motions were instinctive and swift. But the sighting of his rifle was too late. Burdett's bullet plucked him from the donkey's back and slid him neatly to the ground. The coffle halted in dismay, its cadence lost. At the rear Selim sat on his diminutive steed in an open mouthed astonishment that rapidly changed to a broad grin.
The girls were frightened, all except Corey. Her spririts soared, her heart beat high. Joyfully, she heard her own voice in urgent command: "It's all right. He's a friend. You won't be hurt." Seeing their wide eyed apprehension, she added: "He'll be kind to us, he'll be kind…!"
"You be good girls or I whip." Selim admonished cheerfully. "We now are meeting nice gentleman. You most lucky."
The shadow advanced into the sunlight.
It was the smae Australian saunter, lithe power in every step. It was the same sardonic Australian grin. Seth Burdett took his time. A quick glance at the dead man, a leisured survey of twenty naked girls, a cheerful recognition of the man on the donkey.
"Greetings, Selim."
"Greetings effendi. That good quick shot."
They were evidently old friends. Corey Gibson was piqued that the masculine scan of its new possessions had failed to focus on her white skin, but she watched breathlessly as the two males talked earnestly in Selim's own tongue. She sensed instand rapport, the orderly progression of a plan. The coffle was told to sit and rest while Mustafa was stripped and buried. When the march resumed it was with Burdett riding ahead as Mustafa had done. The girls had become pleasantly excited, their cadence returned full swing. Still chained in the coffle, Corey Gibson had constantly before her vision the broad shouldered maleness of her Australian Master. But Seth Burdett had said no word, the white slavegirl was ignored. Irritably she kept pace with her giggling companions.