Silvana's Quest

by Caroline Swift

  "Ever seen such massive globes of flogging flesh as these, Bulto? Bet you wouldn't mind ramming your rod into that, instead of into that ebony kitchen-whore of yours. But this workshed alley cat's been stretched enough to take a stallion's dong, leave alone yours, Bulto," the swine called Simon declaimed. Silvana lurched, gritting her teeth as the man's fingers burrowed beyond the sphincter. Normally, she would have begged a male - or, for that matter, a dildoed female - to ram into her there, but her lust had ebbed beyond recall, her body laced with apprehension. She wished Odile were there beside her to help.

  Turning to the crotch, he probed the freed vulva, flicking the clit and grinning as the glove came away glittering with sex sludge. Then he slapped the ponderous mammaries, watching them swing. "And what about these bubs, eh, Bulto? Just think of them squeezing your prick and your spunk dousing her face! You know, when she sees the tits of this slave of hers throbbing with needles, Saletha’s going to be green with envy. By Bracon, doesn't she love piercing in deep! And she too liked the same in her own nipples in the past."

  The threat set Silvana's heart beating faster. The prospect of her mammaries being again tortured with the usual silver, jewelled bodkins excited her. She had had her breasts riddled on countless occasions and had thrived on it, even if the same through her labia and clitoris pleased her less. If both erotic zones were to be pierced, she would need all her perserverance. In any event, needling paled compared with branding.

  Glancing at the letching Bulto, she knew that a palace slave, such as she, lay far beyond his aspirations. She felt sorry for him and for herself, for he had a truly fine cock.

  It was Simon she had to contend with - for the moment.

  His references to her as a 'slave' gave her the audacity to speak. "I'm not a slave. I'm a palace mistress. I belong to..." A vicious slap across a breast silenced her. Had it been across the face, she might well have lost a tooth.

  "Keep that damn maw shut, bitch," she was told, "unless it's to suck or shriek. Out here on the terrace flesh is just flesh, as you'll see, you conceited strumpet. And stick those bubs further out. Where do you think you are? Sucking clit with Alicia in yon Turkish bath?"

  The girl regretted her recklessness and bit her lip. Yet, as the men moved away, she felt a strange feeling spreading through her entrails. Strumpet or not, the countless eyes staring at her across the terrace made her proud of herself. Looking down at her huge breasts, she found them beautiful beyond words - no wonder the palace relished torturing them. Then, although she could not see her outer labia, she pictured them, no longer ringed as were her nipples, and thought of her clit, now unbelievably freed. She remembered how Damiana one night in Precinct Three had hung chunks of iron on all five rings to content a couple of rabid courtiers, dripping hot candle grease into her groin to help her to orgasm - as if she needed help! Then again her eyes returned to her dugs and their exquisitely lissom, umber areoles and hefty teats, so responsive when sucked, bitten or, better still, drawn out and twisted with metal tongs. She wondered what was about to be done to them, prior to or following the horrendous branding. After the initial decline of erotic excitement, she sensed her lust building up again.

  But her desire froze when she saw the strangely attired female enter. The face was concealed behind a crimson mask, precluding recognition at first; yet, behind the visor, the eyes were sharp and hard as diamonds - and familiar, as was the raven-dark hair, drawn back into an indigo bow of silk. It was the fine breasts, cradled in skin-tight doe skin, and the pinnacles - with Silvana's bite marks still there - surging through the orifices, that confirmed it was Damiana. Evidently her recent promotion had brought with it fresh apparel. By Locrana, Bracon and all the gods and goddesses of Bithynia, the woman was more stunning than ever Silvana had seen her! But the array of minute spikes surrounding the nipples and the bared sex, with its neat tuft of hair, frightened her. It was just as well, she thought, the slave mistress had stripped naked the other night to make love; otherwise Silvana would now be in no state to face the coming ordeal. Whatever happened, she knew she adored the slender beauty - at least to the extent Thanon would tolerate.

  Then she saw what the woman held in her gloved hands. From the left trailed a short, stiff flogger that Silvana had never seen before; it was thick - a single stem. In the other, there glinted a couple of slender spikes. The sight of them made Silvana turn pale. She had endured similar things before, from both Damiana and the fiendish Mila, but never of such length.

  The woman came close to the chained victim and passed her scourge over the drooping labial fronds, the leather coming away glistening with curd. The blonde seemed ready enough, at least sexually, for the preparatory beating. As Damiana swabbed off the whip on her glove, a further silence fell over the terrace. And with reason.

  Sefket had appeared, limping awkwardly into the torchlit arena. From his hunched shoulders hung a long, sombre robe, covering his aged form, the head cowled, rendering him more threatening than usual, if such were possible. The only part visible was the wizened phallus, dangling listless between the folds of the garment.

  Greeting Damiana, he halted before the outstretched display of sweating flesh, as if to take stock of the oiled loins. He seemed pleased, for the body appeared relatively tranquil - at least outwardly - and was chained exactly as he had ordered; the youth Simon, despite his turbulence, could be relied upon to present a female correctly - in the total tension required. The lame torturer objected to obstreperous whores, who had to be hung by the legs and gagged, prior to the flagellation and searing. They tried his patience and wasted his time.

  "I think we may start, Damiana," the robed one announced. "Render her conscious of the distinction we are about to bestow on her. And I pray you, scourge her with force - for she seems to be a staunch piece, and bear in mind there is no question of her being allowed to spend. And you," he ordered the cocksure Simon who was frigging contentedly nearby, "keep that meat shaft in control for later. You've been told what the courtiers expect of you." The cowl turned to Damiana again. "You may proceed with the needles, woman. Then whip the caitiff until I tell you to desist. I require that sex pouch down there fully prepared. Scourge as you did at the Moon Festival recently on the city square. Remember you are under me now. "

  His masked assistant watched the nude brace her sinews, draw in the belly and clutch the upper chains, the knuckles whitening. Damiana closed in on the stark-naked body.

  "Let this be a reminder of the palace and of me," she told the quailing victim.

  With that, the gloved fingers gripped the left breast and, with a sharp thrust, pierced a long, slender needle into the nipple vent. Avoiding the metal ring embedded in the teat, she skewered the silver point deep into the tissue until only the needle's jewelled head protruded. Satisfied with the smooth entry, she did the same with the other nipple; there too, the slender bodkin penetrated the duct cleanly. Only a gasp came from the victim's gaping mouth.

  Both breasts stabbed to the root, Silvana stared down at the throbbing globes, recalling once again Odile's remark in bed, that such, aside from the labia and ear lobes, were the only parts of her body that had no muscle. Again she was amazed the nipples did not shed even a drop of blood. Well-disciplined, she induced her mammaries to hang becalmed and slack, remembering Damiana's training sessions and her warnings: if a slave pitched and writhed, the needles could play havoc with the lymph nodes within.

  Silvana peered down at her treasured breasts. The nipples seemed to have become double, the sepia knurls now topped by the beads of brilliant sapphire. In her time at the palace, she had had many bodkins jabbed into her breasts and genital flesh by courtiers, overseers and once, unhappily, by the slattern, Mila, when Damiana was absent. If those sessions of what constituted 'slave torture' had always excited her, the present ordeal had something cruel and heartless about it, and somehow the two lone insertions were different; they pierced her spir
it as well as her teats.

  Silvana watched the woman take a pace back and raise the whip. The moment of 'preparation' had come.

  The horsehide hissed and sliced into the loins but with a force so staggering that it cut the girl's breath. The blow made her recoil as far as the bondage allowed, a guttural groan greeting the stroke. Teetering on tiptoe, she waited for the next slash. Aghast at the power behind each attack, the blonde felt the welts swelling on her hips and lower belly; after a further dozen grouped lashes on the triangle where once the neat swathe of golden curls had flourished, it seemed as if what lay between her pelvis points was being slit open from side to side. One terrible stroke over the pubis brought her head forward, despite the grip of the neck strap. Between the jewel-punctured breasts, she glimpsed her lower belly - it seemed to be traversed by a crimson cummerbund. Never had she been pounded with such implacable force and precision. Yet, a vague surge of sexual pleasure began to spread in her innards.

  The masked one then concentrated on the centre of the mons itself, using the tip of the whip. Groaning hoarsely, her head tossing madly, Silvana became insensible to the clasp of the ghastly throat bond, her suffering seeming to raise strange cries from the onlookers. They were enjoying the spectacle as much as she was loathing it. Worse still, the nipple needles were beginning to jolt in the depths of what, again, sweet Odile used to call 'our milk churns'. Frantically, she felt she could not endure much more of Damiana's ferocity. The leather-swathed woman seemed to have taken leave of her senses. Yet, there was Sefket calmly admonishing her to 'put more muscle' into the lashes. "As my deputy, Damiana, you must flog harder. That bulge cries out for more. In the name of our sacred Locrana, woman, put some beef behind those strokes. I need the mount of Venus fully gorged for the iron."

  And beef she applied, until the flayed triangle was on fire. Silvana had long since given up any hope of sexual relief, the fierce orgasms that usually came under flagellation growing more remote. Sinking fast, she was surrendering what was left of her stamina. About to collapse, her flesh told her the whipping had ceased, only to hear the branding rod striking the brazier rim. The man was freeing it of cinder. The instant that followed Silvana knew she would recall as a nightmare of sheer horror for the rest of time. Incandescent, the brand in Sefket's grasp remained on the pubis for what seemed an eternity. The scorched flesh hissed, a plume of acrid smoke spiralling upwards. With a howl, Silvana passed out, hanging inert.

  Vaguely, she felt the thug Simon thrashing her rump and later, his thumbs splaying the buttocks apart. She hardly sensed the phallus spearing her sphincter nor the lunge into her. For once she could not respond, too far gone to clench the muscle or even react as the youth's hands encircled her thighs to wrench apart the labia under the burn; she merely rode the rear thrusts until the seething discharge filled her. Then she slid into that unfathomable pit where beaten, branded and sodomized girls go when marked with the Bithynian emblem of the fanged serpent. The odour of sacrifice wafted towards Zahra. Who knows if Thanon sensed it?

  Her chains released, she sank to the paving and entered history as the first slave to be qualified by the brand to run a brothel.

  Hours later, the sun high in the cloudless sky beyond the lancets of her master's chamber, she awoke on a bed of cool silken covers. To the side, Saletha sat, smiling.

  "So, you've finally come to, beautiful, and about time too. Your master will be back anon and there's much to be done before you leave." After smearing balm on the brand mark, the slave mistress soothed the nipples, Silvana noticing the sapphire-tipped spikes had disappeared, together with the neck throttler. "Now, up with you and down to the Preparation Cellar. Remember that? Just follow me - no need for a lead now."

  Despite that assurance, further fears seized the girl as she rose from the bed with difficulty to shuffle behind Saletha down to that familiar place. There Haroun, smiling, told her to stretch out over a slab that recalled other and less auspicious times. Making a virtue of necessity, she obeyed the orders without hesitation but still perturbed.

  "For once, we don't have to chain you for this," Saletha murmured. "Help me, Haroun. The shears are there on the table." The mention of shears sounded ominous but without delay, the eunuch severed the remaining flesh rings, bent the ends apart and gently eased them out of the nipples. The twisted objects that had almost become part of her lay in Haroun's palm and she was on the point of asking if she might keep them as mementos but thought better of it. In any event, where would she keep them?

  "Your proprietor will be home soon," Saletha repeated, "and then, once rested, you'll be off. Try to look your best, poppet, and don't worry about that black mark down there." The freed one nodded, wondering what Thanon, so meticulous as to how she looked, would think of that appalling burn on what had been a flawless mound of Venus. "Now," the slave mistress added, "into your high boots - I've had them glossed for you - and buckle that whip-belt round those erotic hips - but mind it doesn't scrape the burn."

  Astonished by the woman's attentions, Silvana found her strength reviving. A brief cloak of embroidered silk draped over her shoulders, she could hardly believe what was happening to her. A moment later, thrilled and delighted, she was back in the south tower, resting again and waiting for he who counted more to her than her own self.

  "Well, Silvana, recovering?" Dozing, she only slowly recognized the voice from the doorway. Thanon seemed to be floating among the billowing bed curtains. She held out her arms to welcome him, offering what was left of her. But the man preferred to recount his journey and discuss her future duties at Zahra. Dismissing her ordeal, he was almost lyrical.

  "Down there by the wine-dark sea, you will be content, I assure you. You will take over the amenities, in place of that incompetent slug, Rasetha" - she had never heard of her - "and take charge of the slaves there, replace those who no longer serve competently and we shall request additional bodies, as may be necessary. That place among the palms must become for the courtiers what we call a Happy Valley - and for you. Along with your duties, Silvana, you will continue to serve me. On duty, you will wear what you are wearing now - and I find it suits you well. When serving me, you will be, of course, naked and in chains."

  "Naturally, master. Despite my condition, do you wish to beat or use me now?"

  "No. You must recover. We leave two days from now, when the moon is full."

  The Outpost

  They set out at dawn. After a tearful leave-taking in the Slave Quarters and even an illicit visit to Odile, Britta and Kitana serving in the prisons, Silvana had followed her master and Haroun to the stables where the guard had the horses ready, one loaded with Thanon's riches, the dappled Arab pony saddled for her. The guard, young and well armed, and Haroun were given mares, Thanon's stallion reminding Silvana of a certain night so long ago. From the turrets, Vasca, the Chief Elder, watched the posse leave, silently regretting their departure, for Thanon had been outstanding - in more ways than one - and the golden-haired beauty a remarkable sample of spirited sex and had always taken the whip and much else with unquestionable devotion. Both deserved their recompense. But then, the girl's departure - not to speak of that scum, Mila, recently demoted, and three derelict females consigned to the prisons - had depleted the cohort of slaves available to the nobles. He forthwith decided to despatch Hephaistos and maybe the woman Damiana to the overpopulated hamlets beyond Lower Saronis - or even risk crossing into Mestria?- to round up a fresh batch of serviceable flesh, and the younger the better. The group that had included that wench Sivilla or Silvana, now setting out with Thanon, had all the same contained some duds. And that would not do.

  He waved a farewell to Thanon and went in to pray.

  As the furlongs were covered and the sun rose far away over Mestria and the borderlands, Silvana began to have trouble with the hard pommel of her saddle. Not only did it tend to vex her clitoris and vulva that had lain fallow for an inordina
te period of frustrating continence, but it started to fret the pubis, still raw from the whip lashings and the brand mark, only partially healed. But she persevered bravely until it was too much. Seeing her discomfort, Thanon ordered a halt in the lee of some rocks among the tamarind and camphor-trees. There he dismounted and helped her down from the mare.

  "Would you not prefer to ride side-saddle?" he asked charitably.

  "No, thank you, master. I've never ridden before, leave alone side-saddle. If only there was some grease or oil around to butter this damn boss, so it would let me slide a bit." Then she summoned up one of her more captivating smiles. . . "Maybe, if you fucked me, master... you know, the juices would help. That is, if you felt like it..."

  The plea startled all three of the men but her owner saw her point.

  "Very well. Against that palm tree, then." There the booted legs rose immediately to clasp his hips, Haroun and the guard watching nearby. Seeming heedless of the aching mons veneris in question, she rode the rod until she was glutted, the shrieks of pleasure scaring a pair of humming birds from the nearby rocks, and leaving the guard awestruck. Haroun merely smiled. He was used to such moments - whether the girl was fancy-free or chained...

  It was he who helped her back into the saddle and the ride continued, the combined outflows of sperm and her own discharge rendering the pommel - and life - easier to manage.

  Around noon, the seashore of Zahra came into view at last, the sands shimmering under a cloudless sky. Even the thatched buildings of the villeggiatura were visible in the far distance. Only a few more hours and the steep descent would begin.

  The banyan-roofed dwellings, sweltering under the palms, became gradually clearer, Silvana's heart beginning to quicken. By late afternoon, the horses were treading sand. The sweating group drew up in the shade before a large building of planks and wattles. There the two servants unloaded the baggage on the stoop and put out the mounts to graze beyond.