The slave girl

by Hans Meijer

  None of the nine slaves was a virgin. Thus they could be used by their temporary owners without loss of marketability. Mustafa possessed one of the other of them daily, working his way through the coffle from back to front as though keeping the three white girls for dessert with an impatient Amrah as the liqueur. When he unlocked them, each girl reacted in her own way. They returned from their sojourn in the trees with skins variously marked. For Mustafa, the whip was an essential part of dalliance. When he came to Josie she yielded herself without complaint. After her enforced whoredom at Amphala he was just another wog.

  Audrey was different. She had been a slave long time, but never to such as this redolent bristly lecher of the trade. Mustafa had early detected her distaste and cherished it. For him, the English girl would have a flavour all her own, a spicy combination of the patina of wealth and power plus her membership in a race whose Empire had so recently crumbled before his eyes. To humble the pride of such a girl was obviously the duty of any burnoosed bandit. Surveying his naked prey he opened his conversational gambit.

  "You are white English sow."

  "Yes, Master."

  Audrey Cotswold had played the game before, and was determined to minimise her losses. But her previous conquerors had possessed finesse. She was quakingly unsure of her ability to cope with Mustafa. Hoping for the best, she embraced humility. "I am an obedient slave, Master."

  "Yet your eyes sneer at me?"

  "I will make them smile for you, Master."

  "You have the English cunning."

  "If I had it, Master, it would be powerless against your chain."

  "And when I unlock you?"

  "I will follow you into the trees and do your bidding."

  Mustafa was piqued. Compliance was insipid. He suspected guile. "Kneel!" He flung the order as a challenge.

  Audrey twisted in frustration. "I cannot, Master, I am chained."

  "On your knees!"

  Girls on either side moved close, donating slack chain. Without enthusiasm, Audrey sank to her knees, chains taut to her neck, her right arm awkwardly fettered. He avowal lacked warmth. "I kneel, Master. I am yours."

  "Take out my cock. Service it."

  The coffle was hushed. Corey's anxious scan for Seth found found him not. No doubt he was rendering unto Caesar….! He would not infringe on Mustafa's perquisite. She longed to protest, but had neither the conviction or the courage. She tugged at Amrah to yield all the slack chain possible for the kneeling girl.

  Audrey was stricken. This was it! If not one goad then another. Piteously, she quavered: "Please, Master, not in front of the girls… Not here."

  "You have a free hand. Use it."

  Slowly, in total abnegation, Audrey Cotswold's left hand fumbled. It was rewarded by the springing into being of a rampant and ugly penis, the odor of which caused her to gag, and was strong enough for Corey to inhale with disgust. The kneeling girl looked at the obscene object in loathing as she accepted defeat. "I can't…! I'm sorry, I just can't do it!"

  Mustafa was pleased. He had gauged the white girl's reaction to perfection. His next command gave no clue. "Replace it."

  It was difficult. Corey watched but dared not help. After thrustings and tugs the Arabian weapon was returned to its odorous home by the fingers of a bereft English maiden who was wondering how severe her flogging would now be.

  But Mustafa possessed an unsuspected subtlety. He had whipped many girls. Bruised flesh was commonplace. The English girl would be made to pay her penitence in different coin. Rummaging into his gear, he produced an object every girl recognized. It was a short stumpy dildo and a strap. Mustafa spit lavishly upon its chunky head and handed it to the first girl on the chain. None were naive. Receiving the increasingly lubricated phallus, each girl spread her loins and manipulated the massive horror within her sheath until she was totally impaled. Having donated her secretions to the rest, she passed it on. Even Josie complied. For a girl on the coffle there was no escape from anything. She handed it back to Mustafa who held it before the stricken eyes of the kneeling girl.

  "On your feet."

  Audrey obeyed. She saw nothing but the thing prepared for her shame. She looked at Mustafa in silent appeal but found no pity, only a command. Dejectedly, she opened her mouth.

  Corey shared it all. It was as though she was tasting the secretions of six girls, choking against the monster thing, not too long but cruelly wide within her mouth. She watched Mustafa finger Audrey's lips into place and adjust the straps across the full cheeks and over silken hair to buckle tighter, and more tight, at the nape of a bowed neck.

  The turning of a padlock key. The fall of a shackle from a female wrist. The brusque command: "Turn!" Audrey's hands placed palm to palm, their wrists bound tight with cord, and then the camelhide strips round soft elbows to draw them tight until flesh met flesh and was knotted there to stay. Corey cringed at sight of the indented skin, the wracked shoulders and the extended breasts. This was punishment!

  But Mustafa was not done!

  With intent purpose, the slave trader gathered the recent droppings of one of the donkeys. It was moist and still warm from its expulsion from the bowel. Carefully, he rubbed the ordure well into the bound nakedness from which he had found offense. Audrey braced herself for the anointing. She was helpless. She looked up and away as the wet and smelly waste was massaged into her breasts and within her thighs. From the excreta of an ass Mustafa achieved equality with a hated Race. Next time the girl would accept his cock with the hunger of wisdom.

  Audrey would have preferred the whip. She had braced and prepared herself for a flogging. But now this…! She conceded Mustafa's ingenuity. She was being most adequately and potently punished. An exquisite blend of pain and shame. Bitterly, she now wished she had taken Mustafa's stinking maleness within her lips. She could have been done with it in minutes. But now…! Her distended jaws, the taste of female sex, the bite of straps…! She had made a poor bargain. With the odor of manure heavy upon herself and her neighbors she tried to join them in sleep. But bound elbows are an unkind infliction on a girl. It was not easy.

  Dusk brought her no reprieve beyond water. When the phallus was taken from her mouth to enable her to drink she did so gratefully. But the humble pleadings ready on her tongue died unborn under the returning thrust of the hated symbol of the Male. Her heart sank as it was strapped tight. She was given no food. Her elbows were a torment but she could not complain. All night she walked her captive way between the female necks and wrists whose chain she shared upon her collar. When they camped in daylight she was faint from hunger and exhaustion, her arms afire, her open jaws an agony. Her only relief was from the stench of manure. It had fallen away from her skin and dissipated itself under the rigours of the march.

  It was Seth Burdett who brought her punishment to its end. He examined her condition with his usual sardonic amusement and passed an exchange of comments in Mustafa's own dialect. He must have said the right thing, the Arab partner nodded and laughed and surveyed his punished property with a forgiving eye.

  "How'd you like to get rid of that cock in your mouth, love?"

  The question was redundant. Audrey nodded joyously. When the strap was loosened the condition of her mouth made her fervid thanks hard to enunciate. Seth gave her water, watching with interest while she drank.

  "Don't need your arms untied, do you?"

  Her spirits sank. How utterly she was at the mercy of the Male! Her heart was in her fervent plea: "Oh, please, please, untie me!"

  He chuckled at her response to his tease. Then peeled away the cords and the strips of hide. She moaned and was shocked by the deep purple wounds within her skin. She massaged them gratefully while he stood by.

  "Would you obey my partner now, love?"

  "Yes, I will obey. Must I kneel now?"

  Both traders laughed delightedly at the ready words Audrey had known she must utter. They had made their point. The slave was humbled. The chained female admitted the super
iority of te Male. It was all they asked. In a great thankfulness the punished slave held out her right wrist for its shackle and padlock. With the snap of its prisoning she was back to normal, a slavegirl on her way to be auctioned. The loving touch of Corey's hand completed her felicity.

  The trek continued. They were not the only users of the path. But there was no help for the nine girls. The fellow travelers regarded them and their chain with an indulgent eye, passed a friendly word with Mustafa and went their way. Their lack of interest in breasts and pubes told all too plainly she was in a land where female nakedness was not remarkable. When a woman was among those who passed, Corey detected no sympathy in their knowing eyes. Clothed or naked, a girl was the property of The Male.

  There were incidents. The rear girl who shared the chores with Amrah saw herself as privileged with a status above the rest. With a naive confidence in her undoubted charms she offer her person to the partners in return for absolution from the chain and release on reaching their destination. When her offer met laughter and the explanation that what she sought to barter had not been her's for some considerable time, she wept and at the first opportunity ran fleetly into the trees. Dragged back by an amused Mustafa, she screamed, she fought, she bit. In the chagrin of wounded pride she abandoned all docility.

  Both men enjoyed the occasion and made the most of it. The delinquent maiden was made to stand facing her sisters in captivity. Her hands were tied behind her back. She was adjured not to move. By this time she was too frightened to do aught but obey. Using her as an example of a naughty girl, Mustafa delivered a lecture in voluble volleys of his native tongue illustrated by a pointing finger. When he was done, Seth Burdett carried on in English. He cocked a sardonic eye at his chained stock-in-trade, and pinpointed the obvious:

  "Fact is, girls, you ain't got nothing to sell. You just palin ain't got nothing at all. You don't belong to yourselves any more." He paused for effect. "What you got to understand'bout this running-away-business is that there's more to it than just taking a powder. What you're doing is stealing. You're stealing a perfectly good girl from her owner. It don't make no difference that the girl happens to be you." He guffawed cheerfully. "You ain't no different from any other slave. When you do a bunk you're guilty of theft. In these parts such a theft ain't a bit popular. It gets stepped on… hard!" He winked and let it go at that.

  Then the construction. A simple pedestal driven in the ground. A short crosspiece. Two stakes. Nine watching girls began to comprehend the fate of one. When a pair of phallus were strapped in place little doubt remained. Amrah was chosen to grease, to insert, and to guide. She accepted her responsibility with obvious delight.

  The slim loveliness kicked wildly as she was lifted and held above her impending impalement. The runaway's slender beauty was powerless in the hands of the male giants who held her bound arms. Amrah's head ducked back and forth while her fingers busily ensured the safety of costly merchandise. Her expert pronouncement throbbed with pride.

  "Is now in. Is much safe to lower."

  The failing legs became still. Instinctively, they opened wide. For the moment the unhappy delinquent was as anxious to avoid torn membranes as were her owners. All four participants shared concern for a successful adjustment. Seth and Mustafa lowered their petrified prize slowly and with infinite care upon her punishment. The girl herself was wide eyed and stiff with apprehension. Amrah was busy with rope on captive ankles. Obviously she had done this job before. When she and the men stepped away, a sad but shapely feminine figure sat astride the crossbar, impaled deeply within both orifices of her loins, her feet roped out to either side by taut tethers to the stakes. Her weight rested on her indented crotch. Hands bound behind her back left her helpless to sit and hurt, hurt, hurt. Any motion would increase her pain. She sat very still and quietly wept.

  Corey was given the honor of being the replacement to help Amrah with the chores. It was Seth Burdett who unlocked her chains. Reading his unspoken thought as he turned the key to her collar, she wrinkled her nose at him and said, flatly: "No. I refuse to run. I'm not going to sit on that damn thing to amuse Mustafa."

  "It hurts a bit too, love."

  "It's a rotten way to treat a girl. Why dont you whip her and be done with it?"

  "saving that for you, Corey."

  Seth had led her away from the coffle. Out of earshot, Corey asked: "Mustafa didn't take me after Audrey, he took Amrah?"

  "?sright, love. Gentleman's agreement."

  "That means I belong to you, Seth?" She could not keep the excitement from her voice.

  He twinkled down at her. "In a manner of speaking. And drop the Seth, I'm your Master."

  Corey twinkled back. "Why don't you take me every day, Master?"

  "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes, I would! More than anything."

  "And a whipping along with it?"

  "Yes, that too!"

  He smiled at her vehemence. Seth Burdett supposed himself half in love with Corey. But he was a Slaver, and it was all too easy to fall for some pitiful maiden on a coffle. They looked so damn sweet and helpless in their chains it was easy to become romantic. In a slvegirl's anxiety for freedom he was always a prime target for wide beseeching eyes. Laughing, he shook his head. "Protocol, Miss Gibson. Bad for morale."

  "Damn morale! I want you to want me. You do want me, I know you do."

  "Hell, yes! But you don't notice Mustafa taking one girl only. It's our code. It works."

  "If I do something unforgivable you'll have to whip me. You can take me out in the trees like last time…? Master, please…!"

  Seth placed an admonitory finger on pouting lips. "You're bored with the coffle, love."

  "Of course I'm tired of it. We must have walked over half Africa." Corey Gibson looked up at her Master defiantly. "I want to be your slavegirl. I'll pay whatever the price is."

  He could not forbear to tease. "How about sitting out there like that girl's doing?"

  Corey's pause was momentary. From it, her voice sprang eagerly: "Yes! Of course! Is that a deal?"

  Seth Burdett patted her bottom and pushed her toward the fire.

  "You come help gather wood…?bout time!" Amrah greeted indignantly.

  "See what I mean?" The slave trader laughed as he left them to their chores.

  "You two want to fuck so bad it hurts." Amrah complained wisely. "Wish it was me."

  It was good to bee free of restraints. Chores might demean, but Corey revelled in the unhindered movement of her limbs and neck. She was pleasantly excited about Seth Burdett. She knew herself wanton but refused to compare herself today to the girl she once had been. From time to time she spared a commiserating glance for the impaled runaway, asking herself if she would truly change places with the girl for a price! If Seth Burdett was the price she would do so gladly. Miss Corey Gibson was irritated by such self abnegation… But there it was!

  In the sleeptime of the following day Corey was awakened by a knowledge of something wrong. She lay tense, listening, but heard nothing. The girls had made their own code. None would start up or attempt to rise so that the chain attaching her to the others would spring taut. They needed their sleep, and could achieve it only by a constant consideration for those to whom they were linked. Corey twisted cautiously.

  She was free!

  It was not a dream. Her slight motion caused her collar to fall open, as did the shackle on her wrist. In shock she pushed herself up to rest on one hip and look down stupidly at the metal circlets that no longer held her captive. She surveyed the coffle. The girls were all asleep, their chain neat between collared necks, their shackled hands resting carelessly above their heads. They were perfectly adjusted to the coffle, and slept peacefully. Strangely, she felt no exhilaration. Instead, she was conscious of fear. Mustafa might be trying to trap her into delinquency justifying some hateful punishment. But he seemed deep in slumber, his back turned upon his female inventory. Of Seth she could not be sure. If he was watchi
ng her from one sardonic eye he gave no sign. Cautiously, she got to her feet. The eight shackled beauties looked pitiful in their nakedness. Without keys she could not aid them. Silently, she stepped away from where the soil was still warm from her flesh, and tip-toed to the centre of the camp.

  The free, but naked, Miss Corey Gibson had never felt at such a loss. In this eerie freedom she was a pale ghost without purpose. Whatever she did seemed likely to land her in some terrifying restriction. To steal a donkey seemed the most practical course. But she had never handled one, there would be noise. Besides, she knew not which direction she should take. She was restricted to the path. To leave it for the tangled wilderness would be folly. Naked! Unarmed! Unskilled! Corey Gibson had never been so lonely. She saw herself alone on a sterile planet for which there were no maps. Suddenly, the coffle beckoned enticingly. In its slavery lay the only comfort or safety of which she could be sure. Corey wished she had clasped the metal bands back upon herself and clicked their locks. Was it possible to do so now without discovery? Was it?