by Syra Bond
'This is a fine prize you have found yourself, Achilles. Perhaps you would be interested in trading her?' said Menelaus, using his other hand to restrain Sappho.
'Menelaus, you are the brother of my king and very wealthy, and very powerful. But even though this prize of mine does not please me at the moment, I will not let her go. You have nothing to trade that would be compensation for her loss.'
'Why does she not please you, lord Achilles?' asked Menelaus.
'She is wilful, Menelaus. But I will tame her eventually, in the end, and I am sure she will provide all the pleasure I would wish.'
Menelaus laughed and pushed his fingers even deeper into Sappho. She gasped as they stretched her and looked around frantically, hoping someone would help her. She caught sight of Chryseis standing behind Agamemnon. They stared at each other. Chryseis, pitiful as she was, naked and chained by the heavy iron collar at her neck, smiled uncomfortably. Sappho opened her mouth, as if she wanted to speak, but she was snatched away from Chryseis' gaze as Menelaus flung her down across his knees.
'Perhaps you have not taken a strong enough hand in her punishment, Achilles,' he mused. 'Perhaps the hand of a king's brother will make her obedient.'
Sappho draped Menelaus' knees. Her head hung almost to the ground, her toes clawed vainly to get a grip in the sand. He pressed his strong left hand in the small of her back and held her down. She felt captive to his power. His huge hand controlled her easily and when she tried to rise against its pressure it did not move at all.
'Yes, show us the skill of Menelaus. Show us how he brings slave girls under his control,' said Achilles, leaning forward, propping his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees.
Sappho wriggled beneath the weight of Menelaus' hand but her pathetic efforts only made him laugh. The back of her smock had fallen to one side and one hip and leg were completely exposed. Menelaus reached down and took hold of the hem. He lifted it slowly, peeling it up so that Sappho's buttocks were fully bared. He dropped the light material so that it fell over her head.
Sappho tried to pull it away. It trailed around her neck and got tangled so she could not free herself from it. Menelaus lifted his knees, forcing her buttocks higher, exposing the perfect shape of her sex, its soft swollen lips, the nub of her clitoris. He smoothed his right hand across the graceful curve, stroking her satiny skin, taut and welcoming, cool and enticing, perfect and unblemished. He rubbed her buttocks again, firmly, feeling their flexibility, their tension. The muscles of her buttocks responded, tightening, fixing their sumptuous curve, inviting more attention. Starting below the small of her back he trailed his finger between them, letting it slip into the delightful crack, onto her moist lips.
She closed her eyes as he touched her. The heat from his fingers caught her unawares, unprepared. Suddenly she realised her exposure, lying across his lap, her buttocks bare, everyone looking at her, everyone expecting something from her shame. He stroked her again, and again she closed her eyes. This time fully realising her situation, fully knowing her position. This time fully aware of the delight it promised. Again he stroked between her upturned buttocks. This time he pressed deeper. He found her anus and touched it with his fingertip, pressing it only lightly, letting her know he knew of its existence, its potential. She tightened as he touched it, she felt it closing against the tip of his finger, reacting to the contact, welcoming it, expecting more from it, hoping for something deeper, something more penetrating. Menelaus stopped with his right hand on her buttocks. He pressed them slightly, feeling their responsive tension. Sappho felt the strain of his holding back, the anxiety of not knowing what was about to happen. She was suffocating in the potential of the moment. She looked sideways, as though she was going to see something which gave her a clue to her future. But there was no answer. All she could see was the mighty Greek chieftains lying back on the heavy chairs and sofas, pointing, leering, waiting.
Menelaus lifted his hand away. Her buttocks were cooled by its absence; exposed, naked, bare. She squirmed against his other restraining hand and breathed in deeply. Her throat throbbed with the pulsating beats of her heart. He held his hand high above her, looking at it to ensure its correct position before swinging it down suddenly, with dramatic force, onto her beautiful buttocks.
Sappho gulped as, with a loud smack, his open hand struck her squarely. The noise filled her ears. The sharpness of the contact spread into her body. The sting did not come straight away; it was not until he lifted his hand away that it arrived. When she felt it she shrieked and tried to pull away, but it was hopeless, he had her fast. His hand came down again, a forceful smack, perfectly aimed, perfectly positioned. She was no more prepared than the first time. The sharp noise of the contact shocked her before she felt the biting sting that followed quickly in its wake. It stung her like a fiery brand, and the burning ignited on her buttocks spread in a wave throughout her body.
Sappho struggled with the robe again, trying to untangle it from her neck. But her hands and arms seemed out of her control; she could not find which way to grab it nor hold onto anything even when she touched it. Another smack came down, this time louder, more fierce. Sappho exhaled forcibly as the breath was knocked from her. The pain filled her completely, she could not think straight. She knew her buttocks were reddened, she knew the shape of his hand was inscribed on her skin, but she could do nothing to stop it, nothing to help herself withstand it. Her mind reeled in confusion.
The smacks rained down one after another. There was hardly a pause between them. She tensed her buttocks and tightened her thighs until she felt the muscles cramped. She started yelping, weakly, in time with the smacks as they landed. Each yelp took her breath, and she struggled to inhale again ready for the next. But she could not stop. It was her only expression of the agony she felt. She could hear nothing but the sounds of the incessant smacks. They filled her head and blended into the next.
She was overtaken by it, and with the heat, the pain, and the continuous sound of his punishing hand, she felt a warm blurring sensation overcoming her. It started between her buttocks, where the redness from his hand had not spread. It flowed around her anus, prickling with its heat, before entering and heating her rectum. It travelled around her cunt, warming the delicate flesh, causing it to swell and throb and moisten. It seeped inside, between the wet lips, filling her, overpowering her. She felt it in her nipples, and she felt it in her breasts. It filled her stomach and her head, and finally it overcame her and she felt herself jerking in time with the continuous spanking.
With each strike she jerked, filled with pleasure, filled with pain, unable to control herself. She could not see; her eyes were overflowing with tears. She opened her legs wider, hoping his hand would find the soft flesh there. She needed the extra pain, the extra humiliation. She felt her passion, her joy, her pain, her suffering, all mingling with the agony and the degradation of her exposure. She reared back, hoping to capture it in a screeching moment of complete ecstasy. She tensed and opened her mouth wide.
'That is enough!' shouted Achilles. 'Look, she enjoys it too much. Menelaus, you have not disciplined her. You have brought her nothing but pleasure! Here,' he jumped to his feet, 'I will cool her down. Perhaps that will reduce the ease with which she finds joy in everything which is done to her.'
Menelaus released her and pulled her to her feet. Sappho did not know which way to look, what to do. She stood gasping, panting, confused. Her robe was still tangled around her neck. She made no effort to remove it. Her naked body glistened with sweat. Her buttocks were reddened by the punishing spanking she had received. She licked her lips and felt herself still shuddering with the unreleased tension of frustrated passion. She had been stopped just as she was prepared for joyous release. She was caught on the edge of potential ecstasy, and her head spun giddily as she tried to absorb it.
Agamemnon grabbed a jug of wine and threw it over her face. She shrank back but did not dare move from where she was. It splashed into her eyes and
filled her mouth. Menelaus did the same, and Ajax and others joined in, each emptying a jug of wine over her. It ran through her hair and down her nose and cheeks and dripped from her chin. It flowed between her breasts and fell in drops from her nipples. It ran down her smooth stomach and between her thighs. It streamed down over her knees, her calves and to her feet. The robe tied around her neck was soaked and dripping and hung limply from her shoulders.
'Now push her and all the others aside,' said Achilles. 'We have important matters to discuss. Agamemnon, my king, we have a war to plan.'
Soldiers pulled the girls away and pushed them together into the back of the tent where Chryseis stood, chained by the neck. Sappho, drenched and pitiful, stood beside her.
'Chryseis,' she said, panting and exhausted and still filled with an unliberated excitement. 'I thought I would never see you again. But to see you like this; collared and captive on a chain. I cannot stand it.'
'Sappho,' said Chryseis, knowing each moment together was valuable, 'we must escape. We must get back to Troy, to my father, to the temple. We must escape from these cruel Greeks.'
Sappho took her hand, and feeling its warmth her suppressed excitement bubbled again to the surface. She felt the warmth of her sex wetted by the moisture of anticipation. She squeezed Chryseis' hand tight.
Eva heard what they said and pushed her way to them both.
'I know a way of escaping,' she said. 'If you take me with you. If you provide safety for me in Troy, I will show you.'
'Of course,' said Chryseis eagerly. 'Of course. I am the daughter of Pelador, the high priest of Apollo. We will welcome you to our temple in Troy. If you help us you will never have to fear again.'
'Could you help me find my way home to my own country?'
'Yes, we have traders who will transport you. Now tell us how we can escape.'
'I have been mistreated since I was brought here,' she started. 'I have suffered every indignity. I could never have imagined the things which have been done to me. I have been bound and chained, whipped and thrashed with straps and canes. Men have taken me in every way, in every part of me. And I have taken their semen everywhere. They have covered me in it, and made me drink it. I have been tied to the sides of ships and bound on stakes in the water. I have been suspended on ropes and thongs of leather. I have been bent over and beaten until I have been sent unconscious. Each night I am taken by a group of soldiers to a place on the edge of the encampment. No matter what suffering I have been put to during the day they still take me, still use me, still defile me further.'
Sappho crouched down and started to untangle her robe. Its wetness made it difficult but she managed to free it. She stayed where she was looking up at Eva and Chryseis, listening to Eva's story. Her hand drifted between her legs. She felt her sex and inserted two fingers. The ecstasy which had evaded her was still there, still waiting, still needing to erupt.
'They make a crucifix from spears,' Eva continued as Sappho looked up and began moving her fingers in and out of her dewy slit, 'and hang me on it. Bound by the wrists to the crosspiece. Pinioned by the ankles to the upright. All the soldiers visit and look at me, limp and hopeless, victim for anything they care to do. Most of them urinate over me. Some spit at me. Most use their cocks on me, releasing the flow of their semen over me, or into me, or into something I have to drink from. They eject their semen into bowls, and as I hang on the crucifix I have to drink it all. They never let me stop until it's all gone.'
Sappho increased the rhythm of her movements and opened her legs wider so that her hand was free to delve deeply.
'When they have finished with me they go off drinking,' continued Eva. 'They cut me off the crucifix. Several of them drag me off and throw me down by the deserted outer picket of the camp. Some stay and make me suck their cocks or perhaps they thrash me. But in the end they always go and join the others. They just leave me on the ground and do not bind me or secure me. I can walk free from there if I want. I know I can. I have seen soldiers crossing out of the camp to meet prostitutes. I have seen the route they take to avoid being seen by their commanders. I have been afraid of approaching the great city for fear of what would happen to me. But I know together we could escape. I can lead us out of here. And you can take me into your wonderful city. There I will be safe.'
Sappho, the image of Eva on the crucifix of spears fixed in her mind, unable and unwilling to check herself, squealed as her pleasure claimed its freedom. She knew she was being too loud, she knew she would be heard, but she was not prepared to suppress it. She cried out again, as with a final thrust of her fingers her joyful ecstasy was, at last, liberated.
Achilles, annoyed by the intrusion of Sappho's sobs, had her dragged back into the centre of the tent. She stood, depleted and ashamed. Male slaves were ordered to wash her down with basins of water. She stood there until they had completely soaked her. But Achilles would not let her go. He ordered his men to remain on guard all night while she was forced to stand in the pool of water and wine at her feet.
In Troy the temple of Apollo glowed with the eerie yellow light of a thousand candles. The naked girls of the temple moved slowly in a circle, hand in hand, around the huge marble altar. Pelador stood before it, the heavy ram's fleece on his back, the ram's mask covering his face, his arms held high. He called to Apollo, invoking a plague upon the Greeks. A plague, he hoped, which would only end when his beautiful daughter, Chryseis, was returned to her rightful place beside him. A flash of lightning heralded a mighty boom of thunder and a gust of wind through the temple, setting the candles flickering, giving notice that Apollo had responded to the appeal.
Chapter 13
The plague continues
There was no standing against the terrible plague Apollo sent. In the Greek encampment the food turned rancid and the water sour. The soldiers were afraid and wanted to return home. Their spirit for fighting disappeared. The chieftains did not know where to look for a resolution. Achilles said the plague had been sent by a Trojan ritual to the gods. It would, he said, only be dispelled by a more powerful Greek sacrament. Calchas, the Greeks' chief prophet, was summoned and ordered to drive the plague from the beach and save the army of Agamemnon.
Four huge boats were hauled up the beach and levered into a massive square. A great rounded boulder was dragged into its centre as an altar. Lanterns and burning torches were erected on pikes all around the area. By the evening thousands of soldiers packed into the arena, scrambled onto the boats or gathered beyond them in the rising dunes above the beach. They beat shields with swords and screamed war cries as if going into battle. The whole beach was a turmoil of clamour, colour, noise and flickering light.
Calchas appeared between the ships. Just like Pelador, he wore a heavy ram's fleece on his back and his face was covered with a horned ram's mask. He held his arms high and walked slowly towards the massive boulder. A procession followed him. At its head six naked girls, their hair shaved and in its place a crown of yellow flowers. They sprinkled water from small jars as they danced behind Calchas with light, sweeping steps. The nearest soldiers threw coins down to them and when they bent to pick them up their youthful buttocks exposed the shape of their naked sex lips. Behind them came four men dressed only in loose robes. One carried a leather flogger, its many strands about the length of a man's arm, attached by intricate plaiting to the rigid handle. Another wielded a single-tailed whip, woven from fine strands of leather. Its length was the height of a man and it tapered to a split end burned by the heat of its cracking snap. Its handle was weighted and bulged out into a heavy ball at its end. The next held a double- tailed quirt that he flexed between his hands to show its unforgiving harshness. The last man carried a bamboo cane from Egypt. Knotted with joints along its length it extended to half the height of a man. Every few paces the man swished it downwards, cutting it through the air in a frightening, hissing sweep. Behind them came a collection of enslaved women surrounded by guards. Some were manacled at the wrists with heavy iron
cuffs. Some walked anxiously in a train held by a chain attached to iron collars at their necks. Some were gagged with leather balls secured behind their heads with tight thongs. Some were blindfolded with leather straps. One was dragged in by a rope wrapped tightly at her ankles. Her short dark hair was coated with wet sand and her face was dirty with smears of mud. Her arms were tied folded across her breasts. A leather strap was pulled tightly across her mouth. It was Sappho.
Last in the procession was the blind Praxis and his assistant, Master Wang. The Chinaman held onto Praxis' arm as he helped him into the arena. Praxis stared around unseeing, cocking his head from side to side, listening, raising his chin and smelling the air.
Calchas stood at the altar still with his hands high. The naked girls gathered around him, kneeling first, then bowing slowly one by one. The four men stood around them in a square.
Everything went quiet as Calchas started chanting. He turned and pointed to one of the captives - Calliope. The chain was unclipped from her collar and she was led forward to the altar. She looked around anxiously, pulling against her captors.
They pulled the strap from Sappho's mouth and freed her ankles. Her arms were left bound across her breasts. She struggled up onto her knees. She could not move her arms at all, so tightly bound to her chest that she found it hard to breathe. She watched Calliope held before the altar. She could hear her own heart beating in the eerie quietness.
The men pushed Calliope forward against the boulder, draping her over it, bending her body to its curved shape. Master Wang ran forward with two soldiers. He instructed them to drive long iron stakes, with rings at the top, into the sand around the boulder. He tied Calliope's ankles with ropes to two of the ringed stakes and her wrists to two more. He pulled them tight, leaning back and pulling with all his weight until he was satisfied. He led Praxis forward to check his work. Praxis pulled on the bonds and smoothed his hands across Calliope's buttocks. He nodded his approval. Calchas ordered one of the girls forward. She brought a jug of oil. He commanded her to pour it over Calliope's upturned bottom. The girl did as she was told, lifting the jug high and tipping its contents slowly. It ran in a glistening, golden stream across Calliope's taut skin. It ran between the valley of her buttocks, around her anus and across the shapely flesh of her labia. It dribbled down her thighs to her knees and onto her calves. Finally it ran onto her feet and soaked into the sand around them.