by Felix Baron
Eleven
IT WAS DARK except for a low glimmer some twenty feet from where I lay on a pile of rugs. There were dusty rafters no more than a yard above me. Somewhere close, pigeons cooed. I tried to move. My wrists and neck were bound with leather thongs to a sturdy pole I wore like a yoke. My ankles were similarly confined, apart but immobile. I was naked. There was pain in my head that I suppressed with a Sufi technique I’d mastered a decade before.
The air reeked of sex. A girlish voice demanded, ‘Again, Bora!’
Bora groaned. As my eyes adjusted I was just able to make out Honey’s slender form, its hips moving urgently, astride her supine lover.
‘Leave me rest, Honey,’ the lad moaned.
‘When I am sated.’
‘Your yoni is a Manticore, Honey; a magical beast with an insatiable appetite for the flesh of men.’
The girl lifted up and turned round, presenting her sex to her lover’s face, and his to hers. I was put in mind of some Venetian paper silhouettes I’d seen in the collection of a noble gentleman I won’t name. There is something very erotic about only being able to see outlines. It leaves it to the viewer’s fancy to provide the details. My imagination had no hesitation in conjuring up images of things the lack of light concealed, not that my creativity was put to much of a test. A hand-held shaft and a bobbing head, even if rendered in black and grey, paint a vivid enough picture. Add lascivious wet noises and the portrait of lust is painted.
Honey lifted her head and complained, ‘You called my yoni “sweet” and “precious flower” but three nights ago, Bora. Remember the tale of how Princess Golpar and the hummingbird fell in love? Let your tongue be the hummingbird and my yoni the Princess. Kiss and trill and suck until my nectar flows.’
‘My tongue is weary. Three days and nights spent in your service have left it stiff and dry as an old bone.’
‘Which is more than I can say for this!’ Honey snapped, waving his floppy member in her fist. ‘If you cannot play the man’s part, I will try the farangi’s mettle!’
‘No, Honey,’ he protested, but she ignored him, as a girl is wont to do when a lad fails her. He continued, ‘The man is still unconscious.’
‘If he doesn’t waken, I’ll take the farangi as he sleeps.’
I was the only ‘farangi’ in that place, wherever it was, so I had no doubt who she planned to turn to for her satisfaction. Under any other circumstances I’d have been glad to demonstrate my erotic prowess but this was a girl I was sworn to protect from both harm and sin. That she was a fiery little bitch whose every orifice had been plumbed hard and often, I had no doubt. Nevertheless, they hadn’t been plumbed by me and I was determined that they wouldn’t be. Honour can be a burden but if it were an easy load, it’d have no value.
Her rump swaying from side-to-side, her delicate young breasts outlined by the candlelight, the lustful little harlot crawled towards me like a feline predator. I closed my eyes, feigning sleep, and concentrated on softening the stiff column of my cock. It is a tribute to my self-control that by the time Honey reached me, my flesh lay limp upon my thigh.
She lifted it on her palm and let it flop back down. ‘He’s as long as a rope’s end, and as limp, Bora. Come see what magic I can work, transforming soft hemp into hard oak.’ Her flattened hand flipped my shaft from side to side.
Through slitted eyes, I inspected her face. It was oval, with almond eyes that were hooded by creamy lids. Her nose was a small, nondescript button. Her mouth, though full-lipped, was quite tiny, in fact, no wider from corner-to-corner than from the top of her swollen upper lip to the bottom of her pouting lower one. A scribbler of penny verses might have termed it ‘a cupid’s bow’ or a ‘rosebud’.
My conscience struggled. I was bound and helpless. If she decided to, there was nothing I could do to prevent the girl from fellating me. Would I then, if she did, be violating my oath to her father? And, at what point would it become fellatio? At first contact or did her lips have to close behind my cock’s head for it to count? It was a nice philosophical point, suitable for a Hellfire Club debate.
My conjecture was premature. Her flipping became ‘batting’. When that failed to stiffen me she took my shaft in both hands and pumped at it, roughly and crudely. There was no doubt she was a wanton but she certainly lacked the skills of an accomplished harlot. I felt a twinge of sympathy for the lad who’d spent so many hours enduring her clumsy embraces. She began to curse me incoherently, though I caught the words ‘mardekeh’, ‘kir’ and ‘hashiri’, so presumed she was complaining that both I and my cock were worthless and she was horny.
Her fury didn’t worry me until she held my shaft to my belly with one hand, made a hard little fist with the other and took deliberate aim at my testes.
I blurted a protest. ‘Honey!’
She grinned and pulled her fist further back. I braced myself.
The floor opened up, flooding the attic with light. A great trapdoor crashed. A handsome black head, then a pair of broad but shapely shoulders, followed by two magnificent ebony breasts, emerged. Speaking Persian but with an Ethiopian accent, the sable Amazon announced, ‘It’s time to go!’
Honey dropped her fist with a snort of disgust.
Three of the most attractive women I’ve ever met were Ethiopian. This one lacked the delicate beauty of the girl I’d romped with in the clear waters of Lake Tana. She was more handsome than beautiful but she exuded animal sensuality. Her features were Caucasian, with a finely chiselled nose and lips that were full but not everted, as many African women’s are. When she climbed up, out of the trapdoor, I judged her to match me in height and perhaps in weight also. Her breasts were massive and tipped by nipples that were as long and thick as the first joints of my thumbs. The indentation of her navel could have held a goose egg. Below that, she was swathed in a white sarong, similar to those worn by the natives of Fiji.
She’d be a formidable bed-partner. Ethiopians count men and women as equals. There are those who’d rather face their men than their women in combat, for the women are the crueller in victory. In matters of lust, I’d found the Ethiopian women I’d known to be both promiscuous and aggressive. But then, it has long been my practice to assume all women are trollops, at heart. I’ve rarely been proven wrong.
Zema, as I later learned her name to be, stood with her arms akimbo and glared at Honey. Looking like a child beside the giantess, the girl scuttled to the trapdoor and down the steep steps, closely followed by Bora.
Zema turned to me. To my chagrin, she heaved me up and over her shoulder with no more than a grunt. My face dangled close to the cleft of her formidable buttocks. She smelled like fresh-turned earth after a summer rain. My cock lolled against her right breast and there was nothing I could do about it, if she found the contact offensive. Zema bore me down into what appeared to be a warehouse for rugs and hence out into blinding morning sunlight. I was stood on my spread feet, swaying and blinking. A bucket of water took me in the face. Three more followed, sluicing me from head to foot. Being rocked by the water’s impact reminded me that my hands and arms were completely numb, though my shoulders ached abominably.
So I wasn’t to be murdered, at least, not yet. If they wanted me to be clean it suggested they’d keep me around for a while. My relief was coloured by the thought that the manner of my bondage suited itself very well to torture. Should I be put to the question, I decided, I’d tell all I knew, which was little enough. That both I and Benim suspected the cult to be part of a Russian plot was obvious. I surmised that the coven would act as a fifth-column in the event of a Russian invasion, but that was mere speculation.
Someone put a ladle of fresh water to my lips. I drank and gave thanks, in both Turkish and Persian. When my eyes cleared I saw that we were in an extensive high-walled courtyard. A strange caravan was being loaded by a pack of surly rogues that I took to be Tatars by their scowls, stature, complexions and bow legs. Each was armed with an Enfield rifle, a twenty-foot lance and an assort
ment of daggers.
The lead vehicle was an oxcart laden with supplies. Behind that were two outlandish carriages, to which teams of eight oxen were being hitched. Each conveyance was shaped much like a railway compartment, but longer and higher and with six wide iron-rimmed wheels that’d have come up to my chin.
There were about a dozen camels and half that number of fine Arabian horses. The former were weighed down with bundles and boxes. The latter were being harnessed.
Zema hoisted me on one broad hip, carried me to the second carriage and tossed me inside. It was immediately obvious that it had been built for transporting slaves but had been modified to provide some degree of comfort. The walls were solid cedar to about five feet, where iron rings were set into them. Above that, there was a carapace of coarse sacking, stretched over a tall wooden frame. It’d admit air and light but prevent those outside from seeing in.
Each wall was lined with a deep wooden bench that was strewn with pillows, animal hides and various cloths, with baggage stowed beneath. I judged the aisle between to be about four and a half feet wide. More iron rings were set into a plank floor that was stained, likely by bodily fluids, but that was now scrubbed as clean as it would come. No doubt this strange vehicle had seen some terrible sights in its time.
Zema followed me into the dim interior. She was joined by a wiry Ethiopian man with a pock-marked face, whom she dwarfed. He held a serpentine dagger to my throat while she cut the thongs that held my left ankle and tied it with cord to an iron ring. My other ankle and my wrists were similarly served, one limb at a time, so that I lay with my arms slightly spread beside me. The change in position was welcome but deucedly unpleasant to achieve. The return of circulation felt as if my arms had been plunged into a furnace. I admit that I writhed a little.
I was left there to contemplate my fate for what I judged to be a little over an hour. I made no attempt to get loose. It had become obvious that the conspiracy wasn’t confined to Turkey and Persia. I owed it to my country to uncover its full extent. I owed it to Honey’s father and my own honour to follow her until some means of effecting a rescue presented itself.
When there is nothing to be done, a soldier sleeps.
I was awakened by the arrival of two young girls. The first was Spanish, judging by her ivory skin and raven’s-wing hair. She had high cheekbones, a Roman nose and a wide, generous mouth. Her black dress covered her from the frothy white lace at her throat to her wrists and to her ankles. It fitted close enough to reveal her lithe, high-breasted figure. There were onyx combs in her hair and a silver cross that had to be a foot and a half long, hanging from a string of what I took to be oversized rosary beads at her willowy waist. She stood, looking down on me with no sign of surprise at the presence of a naked man bound to the floor at her booted feet. After a moment she smiled, stepped over me, and took a seat beside me to my left.
The next girl was a total contrast, dressed as a belly dancer, laden with jewels and tiny silver bells. Her diaphanous emerald skirt was slit to her fleshy hip and rose no higher than six inches below the bejewelled navel of her plump belly. Her abbreviated bolero jacket was unfastened and gaped wide to display the lush inner curves of her sumptuous breasts. She was veiled, but only by a wisp of gauze that accentuated her heavily kohled, slightly slanting eyes.
I greeted both girls in what I presumed were their native tongues – Spanish and Egyptian Arabic – and apologised for my failure to stand. They smiled but said nothing. Zema heaved two trunks, a wicker hamper and a hatbox in after my lovely new companions. The door to our vehicle swung closed. After a few moments, whips cracked and the caravan lurched into ponderous motion.
As if it were a signal, the girls introduced themselves to each other, pointing and saying their names. The fleshy and exotic dancer was Fatima. The patrician Spanish beauty was Maria Theresa followed by a dozen other names that I now forget. Fatima tried Arabic on Maria. Maria tried schoolgirl Latin on Fatima. After a giggling exchange, they discovered French to be a common language. They were soon chatting away like bosom friends – and ignoring the rather large and very naked man who was tethered on the floor between them. Both seemed as refined and educated as girls of their cultures were likely to be. These were no common whores. Whores, perhaps, but of a decidedly uncommon sort.
I had a thousand questions but little information so I turned my mind to how I could make allies of the two young women. A captive can’t have too many friends among his captors.
I listened but gave no sign that I understood. Their talk was of girlish things at first: Parisian styles, the latest advances in corsetry and the like. Whalebone was compared to steel in the manufacture of stays. Some time passed before the conversation drifted to the men they were intended for. At first I thought they were comparing the men they were betrothed to but I learned that the girls had never met the men they were talking about – and they weren’t cases of arranged marriage. They discussed how to get men to notice them and of how best to effect seductions. That topic led to a chat about erotic techniques that might have surprised the madam of a Bombay brothel.
Maria swore by parsley, as a breath-freshener. Fatima championed the efficacy of vanilla beans. There was nothing for it but for Fatima to step over me to Maria’s bench so that they might sniff each other’s breath. Inevitably, this led to tentative kisses that gradually became less and less inhibited – until tongues were being noisily sucked.
My cock reacted, much to the amusement of my pretty companions, who pointed at it and made some quite flattering comments.
Fatima kicked off one curly-toed slipper and stretched a shapely leg out to give my burgeoning erection a gentle nudge with her great toe. Maria giggled and bent to unbutton one of her dainty boots.
I opened my mouth to remind them that I was not an inanimate object. Our strange conveyance creaked to a swaying halt before I could speak.
Twelve
ZEMA VAULTED INTO our compartment, followed by her countryman. The ebony giantess had covered herself with a voluminous and gaudy ankle-length poncho. Riding bare-breasted through the Persian countryside would, no doubt, have drawn attention. When she saw my priapic state she laughed aloud, stooped and gave my shaft a quick tug, which did nothing to soften it. I was released from my bonds and led down with a noose around my throat and the point of a sword pressed to the back of my neck. The girls stayed behind.
We were stopped on a rutted track that passed between fields of wheat lined with date palms and locust. We’d come to a trilling stream. The oxen were being fed and watered. Tatars gathered round charcoal braziers, brewing tea, just like English working men. I caught a glimpse of Honey and her inadequate beau, Bora, seated on the tailgate of the carriage ahead of us. The bulk of that vehicle looked to be stuffed with baggage.
I was given water and fed boiled mutton with coarse black bread. After, I was allowed to wash and relieve myself, but not in privacy. By the time I was returned to supine bondage in our carriage the ferocious sun was just past high. Sensibly, the oxen and mounts had been left in the shade of a grove of trees. The entire party, I presumed, took a siesta.
Fatima let down a sacking curtain to cover the space above the door at the rear. Our odd compartment was rendered curiously intimate. Maria, giving me speculative looks, unhooked the frogs that secured her dress and pulled it up over her head. All she wore beneath it was a ribbon-tied short chemise in embroidered cotton and her silk hose. She produced a hanger for her dress and suspended it from one of the iron rings.
My eager cock rose in anticipation. Maria pulled the combs from her hair. It cascaded like liquid midnight to well below her waist. My cock twitched. Fatima’s toes brushed along my inner thigh. My shaft became fully erect. It’d felt deprived ever since I’d been woken by the sound of Honey berating Bora for his lack of stamina. I assured it that I had no reason to reject either of my new companion’s advances, should they choose to make any.
Fatima spread cloths and pillows on her bench and stretched
out on them. Maria did the same on her side. Both girls closed their eyes. I cursed to myself and did likewise. As I have said, when there is nothing to be done, a soldier sleeps.
When I woke, a satin pillow had been tucked beneath my head. Maria began soaping my privates with a sea sponge. As she bent over me, tantalising tendrils of her long black hair dragged across my thighs and belly. She still wore her scanty chemise but now it was unlaced and gaping open to her waist. Through the veil of her tresses I was able to catch teasing glimpses of a small but shapely swaying breast.
Fatima had shed her jacket and skirt and was left in nothing but rings and bangles. Although she was kneeling – astride my tethered right arm – the delightful rondeur of her body quivered. The muscles beneath her softness were in constant motion, flexing and relaxing in some sort of static raks sharki, or ‘belly dance’. She was peeling an orange. That simple act sent ripples through her torso. Her shapely hips swayed left, then right, keeping time to silent music. Fatima’s head fell back. She lowered a succulent section of her fruit partway into her mouth. Holding it between her lips, she arched over me, lowering her face towards mine. It was a game I’d played before. I jerked up to snap at the orange. She snatched it back. She lowered again. I lunged once more. When I missed, I made an imploring face. Fatima relented. The orange had just touched my lips when she sucked it back into her mouth but her lips parted and continued to descend. If I wanted the orange, I’d have to follow it. I almost laughed aloud. The first time I’d played that little game had been when I was but fifteen, with a distant cousin who had been a couple of years my senior.
My tongue found the crushed segment of fruit and nudged it aside. I was more interested in Fatima’s tongue and the wine of her mouth than in a soggy piece of orange.
I was allowed only the juice of the second segment. Fatima squeezed the slice over her breasts and ‘forced’ me to suck the juice from her nipples. As my mouth worked, my hand felt heat from the core of her body. She had lowered herself until my up-stretched fingertips could brush across the lips of her sex.