A Cruel Passing of Innocence (9 page)

Swallowing hard and clenching her fists she began to squirm in the brace, as the man positioned himself between her parted legs. She could feel the heat from the urn near the soles of her feet, and she heard Belithza cry out in fear.

‘Are they going to burn the flesh from our bones? Oh, help me…'

Babbushan moved to Nassara's side, his great belly nudging her as he moved his hands towards her crotch. At the same time Achoochi brushed against her leg once more, standing close, an arm resting on the smoothness of her thigh. She felt his busy fingers move between her thighs, pinching one freshly shaved lip, and panic gripped her again, her buttocks squirming in protest on the trestle, her pelvis jerking away from Achoochi's touch, her tethered ankles struggled furiously against the straps and metal brace, the tendons in her legs flexed.

‘I beg you,' she cried out, pleading with Babbushan, ‘do not burn me… have mercy!'

‘Hush, Nassara,' he responded calmly. ‘Be still, girl. Do not fight the masters' will. The pain will be brief. Soon it will be over. Take hold of yourself or it will be worse for you.'

The black man held up the hot urn and Babbushan withdrew a long needle that glowed red at its sharp point, and deftly he pierced the delicate membrane Achoochi was holding, pushing the needle through with ease then quickly withdrawing it.

Nassara gasped, but the pain was tolerable. Then she felt the attendant pinching her other lip, Babbushan bent quickly over her, and once more she felt the hot needle piercing her, making her gasp and squirm again.

‘Keep still, you foolish girl.' Babbushan's voice was raised in irritation, and then the searing needle was removed, its task done.

A sheen of cold sweat covered her body. Her breathing came in shallow pants of distress as she waited, fearing what horrors might yet come, and then cold metal was inserted through each puncture.

But the ordeal was not yet over. She felt heat again near her flesh and instinctively strained once more at her straps.

‘Do not move, Nassara,' Babbushan coaxed. ‘Rings of gold have been placed in you, and the heated tongs are only to seal them. If you are still there will be no more pain for you. But if you struggle I may burn you.'

Eventually it was done, and Achoochi busied himself with a sponge that dripped with icy water. He pressed the welcome softness against her, soothing her, and she shuddered with relief.

After a while the throbbing discomfort began to subside, and the moans from her companions had quietened too. She dared a glance at Belithza, but the girl's eyes were shut against her misery, her body trembling, seemingly in a perpetual trauma of despair.

‘Soon now it is finished,' Babbushan said. ‘Do not struggle or I shall be angered by you.'

Achoochi placed a finger and thumb on the nipple of her left breast, and pinching firmly he lifted, stretching the hard nub, then in a deft movement Babbushan moved the red-hot tip of the needle to the elongated bud and pierced it cleanly through. Nassara screamed, but Achoochi merely held her other nipple and Babbushan made a clean incision through that one too.

Nassara closed her eyes, moaning softly as her nipples were pulled again, first one then the other, and there was the sensation of metal being inserted through the sore piercings and soldered shut with the tongs. Achoochi immediately applied the cool sponge to each breast in turn, letting the wetness run down onto her belly as he held the soothing pad to her.

‘There, slave girl, you are ringed now for your masters,' Babbushan announced. ‘Feel happy that they have chosen you, and wear your rings and chains without shame, but with joy and pride. Your masters have seen your beauty, and they have rewarded it by this rich adornment.'

But what chains were Babbushan talking of? She felt only rings. Straining against the neck strap she peered over her breasts, seeing the gold rings inserted in her tender nipples… but no chains.

The black man had withdrawn, taking his devilish urn and implements with him. Yet he remained outside, as if his purpose was not yet fully done. Moreover, there was no sign of the slaves being released from their trestles, and the fat men and the attendants were still hovering at the entrance of the cell.

A hushed stillness descended. Further along the passageway the male slaves were silent too.

Nassara heard footsteps again… unhurried footsteps… as if made by important people strolling leisurely, unconcerned at the sufferings of those around them. The approaching men spoke amongst themselves in low, casual tones, their robes rustling as they walked. From the corner of her eye Nassara saw the fat men bow, and the attendants were instantly upon their knees, genuflecting to the floor.

So these were the masters, Nassara knew. Her heartbeat quickened, her curiosity aroused even in her distress.

A face loomed into her vision; the face of the man she knew as the leader on the white horse; a proud man whose presence others feared. He stood looking down at her nakedness and for an instant – a dangerous instant perhaps – her eyes caught his. She saw the dark glint in them, but if she expected to see evil lurking there she saw none, only a strangely dispassionate calm, as if what he surveyed was as commonplace to him as any other passing moment of his life. Despite the aquiline structure of his chiselled features she could see no actual cruelty in his demeanour, only that aloofness that comes naturally to powerful people who command the right of life or death for lesser mortals.

More accustomed now to her humbled status and to her nakedness, her shame gave way to resignation. Strangely she felt embarrassed, and somehow more acutely humbled under the master's casual examination. His dark eyes travelled intently over her ringed nipples, and then down across her flat tummy to the exposure of her sex. There he lingered awhile on the shaven pureness of its beauty, before he bent slightly forward, curiously, to peer between the peeping folds of flesh. Immediately she felt Babbushan's hands on her thighs, prising them apart still further.

‘Open yourself, slave girl,' Babbushan ordered, his tone anxious.

Another figure she recognised as the old man from the tent, where she was paraded and stripped at the start of her terrible ordeal, appeared and also stared down at her. His eyes seemed to bore into her crotch, and after a second or so he said something to the younger master in a tongue she did not understand, his voice laced with mockery and lust.

There was a brief exchange of idle words between the two, then the old man reached out casually with a straightened finger then swiftly plunging it down between her thighs, entering between the twinned portals of her passage, pushing in, parting her as he thrust deeper.

Her thighs jerked but she did not struggle, knowing it would be in vain. The old man felt inside her in a vile circling motion that caused her flesh to crawl, a surge of bitter hatred simmering within her. Finally he withdrew his wicked intrusion and wiped his digit with deliberate fastidiousness upon her leg, as if wiping sticky nectar from his bony flesh after dipping it into a succulent honeycomb.

He made some mocking remark, and there was a subdued chuckle of laughter. Nassara groaned inwardly at her own lonely wretchedness. Her cheeks burned with angry shame and indignation but she said nothing, keeping her body proudly rigid, her eyes as tightly shut as if death itself had made them so.

Then the men passed on, as if she were no longer of consequence to them. But the activities upon her body were not quite done.

There was a scarcely audible chinking of metal and Babbushan came into her view again, as did two of the attendants, as if ready to busy themselves once more between her legs. Unable to see, her throat restrained by the strap, she felt the rings in her labia being tugged and worried, as if something heavy was being attached.

‘What do you do to me now?' she whispered up at Babbushan, her eyes pleading, but he only grunted.

‘Soon you will be prettily adorned with the master's gold, and you will feel good with such richness upon you.'

She gritted her teeth, feeling what she sensed was thin chain being fixed to the rings. Then once more she felt the heat from the urn, and the black man was again between her feet, holding it out for Babbushan. Reaching for the clamping tool that sizzled in the glowing embers he worked skilfully and swiftly, sealing the chain links to her rings, and then she heard the soft tinkling as the black man chuckled to himself.

‘Babbushan,' she whispered earnestly, ‘why do you fix bells to me?'

‘So they will sing for you, and for the masters, with each movement you make,' he told her. ‘So they will remind the masters always of how precious are their possessions, and to remind you, my fortunate slave girl, that you are the masters' own.'

So this was to be the final symbol of enslavement, Nassara thought. Not quite like the crude clanking cattle bells, more dainty and fitting for human slaves, but bells of captivity no less, the wearer nothing of greater significance than the lowliest chattel.

Achoochi unfastened the restraining straps, working quickly to free her, and then helped lower her feet from the stirrups.

Nassara and her two companions stood up shakily. Confused, and still dazed from pain and shock, they stood not knowing what was now expected of them, or what fresh ordeal might come next. They stared down, mystified by the gold lengths of chain that now hung from their sex lips to the floor. Although light in weight, they nonetheless dragged down from Nassara's flesh. She waited, feeling a sense of further humbling by the perverse, trailing lengths of glittering metal that seemed to flow from her insides like a pair of dangling reins, waiting to be gathered up by a master. She was aware too, of the twin miniature bells that dangled between her thighs, tinkling shamefully every time she moved.

‘Stand very straight, slave girl,' Babbushan said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Hear me, Nassara. What I say is for your good.'

Although not understanding, but instinctively feeling that Babbushan's words were not insincere, Nassara obeyed, pulling her shoulders proudly back. Then two attendants moved just behind her, crouching between her legs, each taking a gold chain and drawing it up between her thighs to run beneath the crease of her buttocks, before being tugged taut to hug her cheeks, the tiny bells trilling petulantly at every fumbled movement.

‘Keep your self straight, girl,' Babbushan repeated irritably.

The attendants took the ends of the chains and drew them around her sides, winding them first round to her front, then up to her breasts. Babbushan took the nearest of the chains and pulled it to the small ring in her left nipple, where the black man used the hot tongs to seal it. The surplus links were then cut away with heated clippers and the winding chain was neatly set, entwined around her, one end tethered to her ringed nipple, the other to her ringed labia. This adjustment procedure was then repeated and both trains of intricately woven links of gold hung evenly, coupled from nipple ring to labia ring.

Once more tears of anger and shame threatened to well up in her eyes, but she bit her lip, raising her chin in proud defiance of such perversity. Each length of chain had been expertly gauged so there was scarcely any slack in either, but not so taut that she did not have sufficient freedom of movement. Whilst alien and demeaning to her, there was no actual discomfort, apart from where she'd been pierced. But if they were purposefully tugged, or if they snagged accidentally on something, then they would snatch painfully against her vulnerable flesh.

It would take time for her to get accustomed to the foreign presence. She could see no purpose for them, except as some perverse symbol of her slavery, unless perhaps her masters derived satisfaction from observing such humbling adornment. The twin bells hanging beneath her brushed lightly against her inner thighs, announcing her movement, a sweetly singing bird. At any time of day or night the masters would know the whereabouts of their slaves, who no more possessed privacy of their own. Her person had become the sole property of the masters, subject to their every whim and fancy. Only her troubled thoughts were still her own, she reflected ruefully. She must live each day as best she could, wretched though it would be, until the time came – if ever it did – for freedom.

The slave girls were led along the gloomy underground passageways back to the water pool, the combined tinkling of their new adornments of chains and bells heralding their progress. Each girl walked awkwardly, trying to adapt to her strange new shackles of gold.

Lowering themselves gratefully into the pool, the slaves gently bathed in the warm, perfumed water, examining their adornments with sad curiosity. Looking from one to the other, their eyes not understanding, they stayed silent, the shock still fresh upon them.

Nassara was beginning to worry at the fate of the male slaves, when she heard the familiar sound of chains approaching from the direction of the passageway from which she'd just emerged, yet the chains sounded heavier, not made of delicate strands of gold. Two of the young men appeared, almost stumbling, their faces etched in pain and bewilderment. Then she caught sight of Zheeno, and she saw that he, too, seemed more cowed and diminished than his usual posture, as if his strength had been sapped.

To the shouts and gesticulations of the whip-boys, the male slaves were directed into the opposite end of the pool, and she saw that they no longer wore collars, but now two lengths of iron chains were suspended from their genitals and fastened to each ankle. One of them stooped to get into the water, and she saw that a single band of iron circled the base of his cock, digging into it tightly, and the ends of the chains were looped into it. But that was not all.