Breathing heavily herself now, Meylissah lifted shining lips from between her Mistress’s thighs. She smiled and squeezed a little more. “Harder, Mistress? Like this? ”
“Yes . . . yes! Harder! Do it harder! I love it . . . you know I love it! ”
Dutifully, the knowing fingers squeezed and tugged ever more forcefully at Charlotte’s nipple flesh while, at the same time, the lascivious tongue returned to its earlier work.
Charlotte’s hips were moving wildly now, thrusting her pelvis upwards so that the cunning lips and tongue might more easily invade her body, her breath coming in short gasps as she approached inexorable orgasm. Arms and legs spread wide as if in sacrifice, she abandoned herself to the sweet torture, moaning deep in the back of her throat as the fingers pinched and pulled at her swollen teats; while all the time Meylissah’s lapping tongue drove her on and upwards towards all-consuming ecstasy.
She gave a small groan of disappointment as the tweaking, pinching fingers left her breasts momentarily, then Meylissah had shifted around so that they were in the classic soixante-neuf position and both mouth and fingers resumed their tasks.
Charlotte lifted her mouth eagerly towards the smooth, hairless pudenda hovering just over her face; allowing her own tongue to slip inside the fleshy folds and imitate what the other was doing to her. Licking gently around Meylissah’s trembling clitoris, she knew with a sense of immense gratification that she was filling her partner with as much pleasure as she was experiencing herself.
To Charlotte, this was the best part of the simultaneous loving; each knowing exactly what sensations the other was feeling as each moved steadily towards climax. She reached up to the bobbing breasts above her and began caressing the erect nipples in turn. Of course it couldn’t last for long and within minutes they both came at the same time, the writhing Charlotte suddenly convulsing into a shattering series of multiple orgasms which, as Meylissah tried desperately to continue her oral ministrations between the thrashing legs, threatened either to suffocate her or at the very least throw them both from the couch.
Gradually the paroxysms lessened and Meylissah was at last able lift her head from between her Mistress’s thighs.
The exhausted Charlotte motioned weakly with one hand, the other patting the cushions at her side. “Here,” she gasped, “come lay with me for a while! ”
Compliantly, Meylissah did as she was bid, laying her own breathless, sweat-sheened nakedness alongside that of the other girl. “Mistress enjoy? ” she asked softly. “Relaxed now? ”
As if in answer, Charlotte bent her head to kiss her, long and hard. “Oh yes, you little minx,” she breathed. “You know exactly how to relax me.
For long minutes, while they regained their breath, the two girls remained still; Charlotte’s fingers toying gently with the other’s sweat-slick breasts and still-erect nipples while Meylissah slipped two fingers back into the other girl’s dripping sex. Charlotte felt warm and fulfilled, knowing that the other girl had experienced a climax equally as shattering as her own. She sighed with contentment, feeling the warmth of the slave girl’s body against her own and the fingers moving gently inside her. She thought back to her encounters with that succession of disappointing young men, mentally comparing their clumsy and inept fumblings with those she had just experienced and gave an inward snort of disgust. No wonder Meylissah preferred girl to girl sex.
Or did she? The sudden, startling thought slipped treacherously into her mind as she remembered the way Meylissah had flirted with one of the guards who had escorted them to the marketplace just the other day. This was a trained slave girl, disciplined to serve whoever owned her in any way, shape or form. Could it be a sham? Did the girl really enjoy making such sweet love to her? She shivered, suddenly cold. “Tell me, Meylissah,” she asked sharply, “do you have a lover here? A man, I mean. Perhaps one of Sheikh Omar’s guards? ”
Meylissah shifted uneasily and averted her gaze. “Oh no, Mistress,” she whispered.
Charlotte’s heart pounded. Quite obviously the girl was lying. Annoyed now, she decided to press the point. “Don’t lie to me, Meylissah! Who is it? That good-looking young fellow who escorted us to the Souk? I saw how he looked at you . . . and you at him. ”
“Oh no, Mistress. I not make love with guard. Is not permitted for me. ”Meylissah dropped her gaze as she fumbled for the right words. “I am . . . ‘gösde’, Mistress. ”
Charlotte did not know the term. “I’m sorry, Meylissah. I don’t understand. What is . . . gösde’?
Embarrassed, Meylissah sought to retreat, surrendering only when the other insisted. “Is . . . is . . . harem word, Mistress,” she whispered hesitantly. “Mean . . . ‘favoured one’. ”
Charlotte thought she understood. “Oh, I see. Who is it that favours you? Sheikh Omar? ”
Meylissah shifted uneasily, knowing that she must answer now that her Mistress had asked the direct question. “Lord James, Mistress! ” she whispered. “Much does he take his pleasure with me. ”
Charlotte suddenly felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. Visions of her uncle and the young slave-girl together began to whirl crazily in her mind and she thrust Meylissah unceremoniously from her side.
Meylissah fell to the floor, her wretchedness growing as she recognised the shock and distress on the older girl’s face, though she had little idea how she might have offended. She struggled back to her knees beside the couch and bowed her head respectfully. “A slave begs forgiveness, Mistress! ” she whispered, the ritual phrase sounding hollow to Charlotte’s horrified ears.
Charlotte forced herself to be calm, managing enough control to speak rationally as shocked understanding swept over her. “I see,” she said bitterly, pangs of anger and, strangely, something akin to jealousy sweeping into her mind. “So this is why you are sometimes so late coming to me in the mornings; because my uncle has not finished ‘taking pleasure’ with you? ”
Meylissah looked up nervously and nodded her head. What could she say but the truth? Surely the Mistress understood?
Charlotte was devastated. Inside her head, a voice was telling her to be calm and not to do or say anything she might later regret. One part of her wanted to scream and rage at the girl. Didn’t she realise how wrong it was? Her uncle was old enough to be the girl’s father. Yet, even as she asked herself the question, she recognised its hypocrisy. Wasn’t she herself equally guilty? How could she blame the slave girl? Meylissah obviously had no choice in the matter.
Almost as if reading her mind, Meylissah said softly. “I am but a slave, Mistress,” she whispered, “yet I am content. I find great honour in serving my Lord. ”
Charlotte turned on her stomach, trying desperately to calm herself down. It was not the girl’s fault, she thought. Poor, pliable, little Meylissah; born to serve men’s . . . or women’s . . . lusts. It was all perfectly natural to her.
She tried to picture her uncle and Meylissah together. Oh dear God, how could he, she thought; she’s younger even than I am. Indeed, until that moment, Charlotte had not thought overmuch about her uncle’s physical needs, cherishing the perhaps-girlish notion that the love he’d had for her dead aunt still sustained him. Now all her romantic illusions were shattered. And yet, could she really blame him? To Uncle James, now in his late fifties, Meylissah must have seemed the stuff of dreams; a beautiful, un-arguing, ever-welcoming sexual partner, trained to see the use of her body as the legitimate right of her owner. The very thought that, with the merest gesture, he could command the fullest and most intimate use of that lithe and beautiful body must have been a temptation almost impossible for the diplomat to resist.
Meylissah was working herself into a lather of panic about the whole business. Although she’d not really understood why, Sir James had been very clear when he’d instructed her not to talk to Charlotte about it.
“A slave begs
forgiveness, Mistress! ”Meylissah’s whispered ritual phrase once more broke the silence.
Charlotte at last managed to pull herself together enough to smile down at the anxious slave-girl, albeit a little tremulously, realising suddenly that for some reason her limbs were trembling. “It’s all right, Meylissah,” she answered huskily. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that . . . just that . . . where my uncle is so much older, I had not thought he would take a slave-girl to his bed . . . that’s all. ”
The worried Meylissah let out her breath in an explosive ‘whoosh’ as she silently gave thanks to a merciful Allah. So that was all it was. To her, the rights and wrongs of such things were unimportant. The age of whoever used her was of no consequence. The important thing was that her Mistress no longer seemed to be angry with her. An angry or jealous Mistress was a dangerous thing for a slave.
She was puzzled, however, at the Mistress’s belief that her uncle did not usually bed with girls. He did not prefer boys, as did some. This she knew with absolute certainty as only a female who knows a man intimately can know. Each time he’d taken her to his bed, he’d used her as a man should, making no secret of his appetite for her. She hadn’t minded. In fact, quite the contrary. Unlike the Turkish Aga and many of the men she’d served since then, Sir James had proved to be very considerate of her, even to the point of allowing her to take pleasure herself.
“Lord James not have slave-girls in England, Mistress? ” she asked softly, not wishing to arouse the Mistress’s anger again, yet curious to know more about the man who treated her so well.
Charlotte shivered again, coming to the inescapable conclusion that, in reality, she knew little or nothing about her uncle’s relationships with women. “Things are different in our country, Meylissah,” she sighed. In England a man has but one wife. There are no concubines or slave-girls or harems. My uncle’s wife . . . my aunt . . . died some years ago and I had not thought him to seek a woman’s company since then. ”
Meylissah shrugged her shoulders and managed a smile of her own. “Is not good for such a man to be so long without woman, Mistress. Lord James is great man. I am honoured to serve him. ”She blushed prettily. “He has great need of me, Mistress. ”
Charlotte shivered again, suddenly cold as she tried to adjust to the fact that the man she thought she knew so well was sleeping with a girl she had come to regard as her closest friend . . . and what was more, a girl younger even than herself. A thought struck like a hammer blow and she looked wide-eyed at Meylissah. “Does . . . does . . . my uncle know what we do together? ” she asked.
Meylissah had the grace to look away. “Yes, Mistress. ” she whispered. “It was he who instructed me to give Mistress pleasure. ”
Charlotte sat up, open-mouthed. Her uncle had actually ordered the girl to . . . to . . . ! “You mean . . . ? ”
Meylissah hung her head. “Mistress is angry? ” she asked in a small voice.
Charlotte breathed deeply, the shock still seeping into her mind. Yet in truth should she be so surprised? Her uncle had spent so much time here in the East, where such things would probably be considered quite normal. She looked with a little more compassion at the still-frightened, kneeling slave girl. “Tell me the truth! ” she asked gently. “Do you like making love with me . . . or is this, also, just a slave’s duty? ”
Meylissah, looked up with wide-open eyes as if to ask how could her Mistress even think such a thing. “Oh, Mistress,” she whispered, a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “Surely, Mistress knows. As my Lord has great need of me. . . so, too, have I great need of Mistress. ”
Charlotte took a deep breath. It was wanted she wanted to hear, of course. But what if the girl was lying? Then she thought back to the beautiful passion they had just experienced together and her doubts vanished.
Right at that moment, Charlotte realised she was shivering violently. She tried to shift her position on the cushions but her limbs, shaking and strangely leaden-like, refused to respond. Bile rose in her throat a second time and she felt as if she were about to be sick.
Meylissah was peering at her worriedly. “Mistress not well? ” she enquired.
“I . . . I . . . don’t know. I feel a little sick . . . and suddenly I am very cold. ”A bout of dizziness shook her and the room began to spin. “Something is wrong. Call my uncle . . . quickly! ” she managed to whisper before her senses finally left her. . . .
Chapter Three
‘A Passage is Arranged’
The day was warm and not a little breathless; the smells and vapours of Valletta’s maritime heritage hanging heavy on the early evening air. On the shaded after deck of the great oared ship moored alongside the dock, a perspiring Charlotte held a perfumed handkerchief to her nose in the lingering heat, watching with some curiosity as a gang of sweating sailors, guarded by a full troop of heavily armed soldiers, loaded seven large, heavily-sealed trunks aboard. Vaguely she wondered at the contents and why they demanded such a guard. The ship, of course, was not just any vessel. This was THE ship; the 60 oared, three-masted, 170 foot galleass ‘San Cristobal’; pride of King Philip of Spain’s Mediterranean fleet; so perhaps such precautions were normal.
The dockyard was busy and there was much to occupy the English girl’s attention as she stood on the gently swaying deck, only subconsciously aware of the timber complaining and groaning all around her. The bout of fever which had confined her to her bed for so many weeks no longer afflicted her and it was a pleasure to be up and about again. All along the wharf, moored close together, ships and boats were being loaded or unloaded. From a galley a few yards or so down the dock a line of female captives, no doubt taken in a raid on one of the Moslem convoys, were at that moment stumbling down the gangway. Strangely, as one might have expected, there were no screams, no wails from the stumbling, wretched girls chained neck to neck in what the slavers called ‘coffle’. Silently, one after the other, they followed their captors with heads bowed, numbed perhaps by the extent of the catastrophe which had happened to them.
Charlotte no longer questioned the morality of such things. She had been in this part of the world long enough to recognise that Christians preyed on Moslems; Moslems on Christians. That was how it was . . . perhaps the way it had always been.
There were sixty or so girls in this particular coffle, all young and comely; most clad in the vestiges of their original clothing; now just rags. Some, those perhaps who had borne the brunt of their captors’ attentions during the voyage, had no coverings at all! Charlotte knew what would happen to them. All slaves were taken first to the ‘bagnos’, the stinking human warehouses situated behind the walls of the grim fortress which overlooked the entrance to the harbour. This was where they would receive instruction in obedience and the duties of a slave before being sold in one or the other of the island’s slave markets. One or two might be lucky enough to attract a ransom, if their relatives were rich enough . . . or cared enough . . . to pay; but most would simply be sold to the highest bidder.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, the armed sailor on guard at the San Cristobal’s gangway was ignoring the line of naked and nearly naked young women, his wistful gaze plainly focussed on the richly-dressed girl on the ship; painfully aware, of course, that such a prize would never be within his reach. He sighed regretfully. Were it not so, the tall big-breasted Inglése would most certainly be his choice.
The smell from the slaving galley was sickening and Charlotte pressed the perfumed scrap of silk closer to her nose. Quite obviously there were little or no sanitary arrangements for prisoners on such a ship.
Dockyard workers and sailors crowded noisily around the chained girls as their feet touched dry land for the first time in weeks, rough hands tearing at the brief rags which were all that clothed most of them. The English girl breathed deeply at the sight, her attention caught by one particularly lovely girl who walked with her head up,
ignoring the jabbing fingers and hands reaching under her rags. She looked proud and unashamed, almost as if she were untouched by her humiliation, and Charlotte felt a sudden sympathy for her. How must it feel, she wondered, to be a slave; beautiful and desirable as was this girl; yet totally at the mercy of fierce, strong men and their basest instincts? The thought was strangely stirring.
Another commotion along the wharf drew the girl’s attention momentarily to where two approaching men were surrounded by a mob of ragged children, all clamouring noisily for alms; each trying to outdo the other in their quest for a copper coin or two. One of the men; a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered fellow in his late twenties; was richly dressed and hooded in the Moorish fashion. The other, obviously servant or guard to the first, was a hugely muscled, bare-chested black man dressed in spotlessly white eastern-style baggy pantaloons tucked into soft leather boots. Slung carelessly across the man’s naked shoulders, unscabbarded, hung a gleaming, curiously curved sword. Plainly, thought Charlotte, not men to be trifled with.
Today it seemed that the urchins were to be fortunate. The richly dressed young man laughed and threw them a handful of silver coins, then passed on his way as the ragged children scrambled and fought for their reward. Charlotte looked at him curiously as he drew near the gangway. Though not quite so tall as the big Negro, he was almost as broad across the shoulders. She studied his features covertly, pondering his ancestry. His dark face and clothing were certainly of the East, yet to her mind the handsome, strong-jawed features might well have had its origins in a legacy that was more Greek than Arab. She wondered a little also at his profession. Soldier of fortune? Merchant Prince? His rich robes seemed to deny the first, yet he had little of the look of a merchant about him. To begin with, he was definitely not fat and, in Charlotte’s experience, fatness was almost a condition of such employment.
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