Silvana's Quest

by Caroline Swift

  "This is to welcome you to your new home," Thanon said, drawing an object out of his saddlebag. The thing flashed in the sunlight like the eyes of a hawk. "You will wear this, my dear whenever you come to my villa. It is your insignia as the slave mistress of Zahra but never must you wear it in the brothel." He smiled, for once, above the pointed beard. "It will be a change from Damiana's sweaty neck strap with four rings she used to tighten every morning. I hope the sapphires don't remind you too much of her needles."

  Mounted with stones of the purest blue water, the necklace bore a diamond broach at its centre in the form of a hyacinth. As she put it on round her neck that was still chafed and bruised, Thanon gave her a phial. "With this scent you will perfume your shaved armpits, the crease under your breasts and your labia. And this, you will attach to your belt at all times when on duty."

  "And if I'm not using it," she added with an exultant smile at the third gift.

  The magnificently crafted whip of six strands of camel hide, each knotted from haft to tip, was instantly clipped to the cincture at her waist. Never had she seen, not to say used, such an exquisite weapon of flagellation. She realized she was being given the token and instrument of her newfound authority. Jubilant and proud, she fondled the phallus-shaped grip. As she did so, a thin, saturnine female, stark-naked, emerged from the house, her sunken eyes framed by locks of dishevelled hair.

  "Ah, yes," the Master of Zahra - his new title - said, "this waif is Ilka, a slut dedicated to both ends of the whip. You will take over from her. Show your mistress the chaos you've been subjected to, Ilka."

  Silvana realized abruptly that the building with the veranda was the brothel. She followed the girl in, her heart pounding. The spectacle that met the newcomer's eyes dismayed her beyond expression and left her speechless. Behind the two women, Thanon groaned at the disorder and the condition of the sprawling bodies chained to the wall.

  As the naked inmates scrambled to their feet, Thanon gave his orders.

  "Now to work, Silvana. You, Haroun and the guard will renovate this place. I want it immaculate and these destitute bodies scoured free of filth. They must be spruce, as you were at the palace." Silvana thought that a real challenge, if ever there was one. "See to it they are shaved of any stray body hair, oiled and perfumed - and fed well. The guard will bring down all that's needed by way of provisions - whatever you order." He took the slut Ilka by the wrist. "This is no way for a sex slave to look. She's starved. Feed them and make them grease their leathers and burnish the rings in their bondage straps. Later we'll replace these whores."

  He looked at Silvana and then at Haroun and the guard. "I give you two days to make this brothel worthy of the Bithynian nobility and of my reputation. Whatever new fixtures or implements are needed, they will be ordered from the palace." After a short pause and to Silvana's surprise, he added: "Perhaps additional flesh is needed to offer more choice."

  Then, disgusted, he glanced in at the ramshackle room where Rasetha had reigned in squalor. "This is what that gross pig of a harlot let this place become. She lived, fucked and flogged here in filth! Clear out her refuse, so it's fit for you and Haroun to inhabit. I shall expropriate a suitable residence and beach house for myself."

  "The finest, master," the eunuch put in, "is that one over there under the palms."

  Thanon nodded. He already had his eye on the place.

  "So, to work," he ordered again. "Get this pigsty cleaned up and put those damn scarecrows to work. If they slack, both of you will use the whip."

  As he left, Silvana raised an eyebrow to Haroun, wondering how they were going to manage, and recalled the well-versed Odile once mentioning the labours of some foreigner in a land beyond the seas called Hercules she had read about, Silvana wishing she could learn to read. Suddenly, again with the thought of the divine Odile, she recalled Thanon's remark concerning the need of 'additional flesh'. She wondered if she could not coax him to have her, if not completely drained, brought down to Zahra. And Carmela, too. And perhaps Pervez? For that matter but for quite other reasons, why not the vixen, Mila? Ah, that would be a prize of a different nature, and she, Silvana, would ensure, as long as she was in charge, that the loathsome swine regretted she'd ever been born. To offer Mila to Odile, too, would be a sisterly gesture...

  But such matters could be broached later, after consulting with the sagacious Haroun. All in good time, Silvana dear, she said to herself. With that, she unhooked her whip and put the inmates to work. At the same moment, she wondered whether her master would summon her that night. She felt she merited it - as long as he didn't beat the scar healing on that pubis...

  The brothel's renovation advanced apace. Once the rubbish had been cleared out, a further shack of wattles and daub, covered with palm fronds, was constructed by Haroun and the guard, Fahdel. A sturdy youth in his twenties, Fahdel worked hard, in addition to his surveillance duties, and Silvana rewarded him by letting him fuck the two servants - the cook, a fat, middle-aged slab of a whore, and her scullion, a meagre, squint-eyed Mestrian slut who had worked in the town brothels of Upper Saronis prior to being sent down to Zahra. Both wore simple sarongs to distinguish them from the naked inmates. Silvana saw to it that they washed in the sea and served meals on time. They and Fahdel were given a lean-to at the side of the main building where their orgasms were less audible. Haroun, if he was not on duty in his master's lodging, had a bunk in Rasetha's former room, separated from Silvana's part by a curtain. He was only too accustomed to her groans and shrieks and the creaking of her bed.

  Fresh palliasses were laid out in the main room, Silvana giving the slaves longer neck chains in place of the hooks that previously had secured them to the wall.

  Seated comfortably on the stoop of his requisitioned residence overlooking the golden beach, and smoking his hookah, Thanon gave his concubine a free hand in organizing matters, merely endorsing orders of supplies needed from the palace. Silvana noticed that he seemed to have aged a little, his carefully barbered beard and temples peppered with grey, which she found suited him well. Meanwhile she took over control of matters.

  "I insist, Haroun, on regular provisions being sent down from the Saronis market every few days and the staff will gather fruit from around here. Fahdel will wade out and net fish. These famished bodies, as they are, wouldn't attract a sex-starved Bithynian prisoner! They have to be nourished if Zahra is to content our nobles." Haroun could only agree.

  Then there was the problem of fresh drinking water and, indeed, water for ablutions. She knew what thirst was like after a whipping, or when one wanted to wash off the residues of sex. The matter was intelligently solved by Haroun and Fahdel. Using split bamboo, they constructed a derivation from the stream running down to the main Zahra well reserved for the guests, so that it fed also the second well alongside the brothel. The project delighted the slaves and the domestics, not longer obliged to lug heavy water skins across the beach.

  Less appreciated by the prisoners, however, although accepted with resignation, was the delivery by mule of new whips, chains and other accessories from the palace cellars - items Silvana had selected and ordered with Thanon's approval. The implements, she knew, were among those preferred by most of the nobles. Further, she had the heavy table in the main room of the brothel scraped clean of sweat and other liquids, firmly braced with additional struts and equipped with iron manacles. Finally, the uprights supporting the veranda's overhang were whitewashed and stronger bondage rings bolted into place, for little pleased courtiers more than to be able to make their choice from a row of distended nudes. And Silvana was determined to display fully what she had inherited.

  One final feature was added at the new overseer's entreaty, one that Thanon readily approved. On arrival, she had noticed a pair of palm trees standing several paces apart, to the right of the brothel. She had the undergrowth hacked away and chains nailed high and low on the trunks. To con
vince Haroun, she stretched her gorgeous body between the trees. "A naked slave," she smiled, "will look irresistible, dear Haroun, strung up like this." Again he agreed.

  "Indeed, mistress. The dowager Euphemia will certainly prefer to use the palms instead of the veranda. As your own beautiful body will recall, if you permit the reminiscence, Her Grace enjoys flogging an outstretched woman - and also," he paused a second, "an... upstanding male. I'm sure you will be complimented for having thought of this."

  Leaving her pose, Silvana said: "Speaking of males, what are our two youths worth in your opinion, Haroun? They seem to be already improving, with food instead of swill."

  "Average bodies, mistress, but with strong cocks. They should do well, given time."

  "I shall try them out properly later. But you're right. I masturbated both last night and they seem to come with force."

  The man nodded. Who wouldn't climax with that beauty massaging one's cock?

  "Our master, by the way, mistress," Haroun knew she liked her new title of rank, "believes that a morning run along the beach, prior to their routine daily whipping, would help to strengthen the inmates and..."

  "Daily?" The girl looked surprised.

  "Yes, daily, Didn't your master mention it? He meant to. The custom, so beneficial for slaves living in this soporific atmosphere, fell into neglect under Rasetha."

  "Soporific?" She guessed what the word meant. "I find it bracing. But if that is what the master wants, a morning run they shall have, and under the whip. Fahdel will take them."

  "But the master wants you to go along too. He likes to see you run naked."

  Silvana understood, knowing how her breasts bounced, even if it tended to lower her to the status of a slave. "But," she warned, "there's no question of Fahdel whipping me along! I'm in perfect shape." When Thanon lashed her, it was for quite a different reason and it didn't take place before a gaggle of slaves. His beatings were erotic not calisthenic.

  The task of renovation completed, she decided to broach the question of her former colleagues. Haroun had advised her, counselling her to raise the matter at sundown when their master became wistful, enjoying the sea air and the fruit-flavoured tobacco filtering up through the bubbling water of his narghile. And Haroun told her not to ask for Pervez.

  After a bathe and a wash at the well, she had the man powder her body, place Thanon's necklace around her neck, clothe her with a short cloak of silk and fix the chains to one ankle and a wrist. Then, grasping the ends of the links, she strolled across the warm sand to the residence, bathed in the light of the sinking sun, to kneel before her owner, her thighs parted, the rouged nipples begging notice.

  "Your slave is ready, master," she murmured, "to be whipped and fucked." And, as if it went with it, she made her request. She said she wanted Odile, Carmela and Mila.

  Continuing to gaze out over the water rippling up the beach, Thanon considered the second part of the petition. The first went without question, but would come later.

  "I'll consider the matter, Silvana. I have no doubt that I can free Odile from the prisons, particularly as she has been branded. And possibly the other, Cramella..."

  "Carmela, gracious master, Carmela."

  "Well, whatever she's called. But she'll have to be branded too, you realize".

  "She'll take that and more, master, knowing her, and better than I did." Thanon watched the exquisite hand stray fleetingly over the purple mark on the pubis. "She's tough."

  "Very well, but they'll have to serve as sex slaves here - that you also realize. I shall use my influence with the Elders to release them. Now, you mentioned a third name."

  "Mila, master. Mila, that vicious fiend... that termagent."

  "By Phranis, your vocabulary increases! Yes, Mila... who once was so promising. To be honest, I would not welcome her here, for she tends to create problems, but I understand your wish. However, if you insist, I shall ask the saintly Vasca himself to intervene and legalize her transfer also. But you are aware of the risk you are taking. She is your sworn enemy and moreover she is from Mestria, over there," the hand waved towards the east. "There is always a temptation to escape."

  "Escape! From me? Never! I'll be responsible for her captivity. But I want that speckled adder now I am what I am. Please, master."

  No living being, not even a priest of Locrana, leave alone Thanon, could have resisted that smile, the dimples reminding him of those at the base of her spine. The plea made him feel he was being accused of shielding Mila's virtues from Silvana's vices, while the contrary would be truer. Often Thanon was puzzled by his mistress's character.

  "It shall be done," he finally agreed. Setting the pipe stem on the hookah, the great man summoned Haroun who naturally had followed the exchange from within, impressed by the girl's pluck. Stylus and parchment to hand, Thanon dictated the missive addressed to the High Priest, Silvana amazed to see the eunuch's writing, his hand moving from right to left until the screed was presented to its author for the signet ring. Thanon verified his words had been correctly inscribed and the names of the three females clear. Then Fahdel was despatched to the palace, peeved to be even momentarily separated from what had become a sanctuary of comfort and endless sex. Although surprised the resort now remained without a guard, Silvana smiled as her owner told her to rise and enter the residence; she knew she was about to repay the favour by having her buttocks lambasted and probably almost skinned.

  The luxury of the residence again dazzled her. In the last light filtering through the curtained slats, the room appeared not very different from that she knew so well up at the palace; even the kilims and bed seemed familiar, as did the hook and chain running over the central beam, except that the links reached down to a sprocket wheel bolted to the far wall.

  "Prepare her for me, Haroun, as I prescribed," the Master of Zahra said quietly, removing his cloak to reveal the genitals, the root and sack, as well as the groove below the helm, already encircled with the stimulant-thongs. The body's third eye, even if blind, stared at the girl longingly. "Leave the necklace on her," her master added, "but nothing else. I require her, as usual, nipple-naked for this flagellation - by way of a house-warming party."

  The eunuch helped to strip her bare as a blade and shifted her until she stood, arms bound, elbow to elbow, legs astride, under the chain. Loath to wrest her eyes from her owner's pulsing cock, she saw him take up her own six-stranded whip, the gift presented to her on that balmy day of her arrival at Zahra. Thanon's second command made her blench.

  "Thread the rod through the nipple piercings, Haroun. Then haul her up by it. I want her taut." Then he turned to his slave. "I intend to flog those superb buttocks of yours in a new posture, to usher you in as Mistress of Zahra rather than as my sex slave. I want you to remember this as marking your investiture."

  Ignorant as to what he meant by 'investiture', she saw soon enough what it implied.

  The turbaned servant advanced with a short rod of silver metal. Squelching the left breast, he drilled it into the disused hole that Silvana had almost forgotten traversed the teat. Easing the slender wand through the tit, he bored into the other nub and equalized the ends. The honoured one gaped at the skewer transfixing the nipples that had swollen to the size of rosehips, as when Mila hauled her around by what the bitch referred to as the 'dug bangles'.

  Despite the wave of terror invading her, the girl felt a weird thrill spreading through her entire being as her nipples responded. Then she saw the hook and chain descend before her face and guessed the rest. Though Damiana had suspended her by throttled breasts, never had she been hung by the teats alone. Silently she prayed the Bithynian deities would at least grant her a foothold. Even the whore-bitch Mila had not dared denying her that...

  It was so. For when Haroun cranked her aloft, her toes were left with purchase. She sighed with relief, watching Thanon gazing at the
tensioned breasts straining upwards into slim cones. Then he hefted her buttocks - the finest, she knew, he had ever whipped.

  The six-fold leathers sank into the flesh across the crest of the slack meat just above the anal cleft and then sliced down into the main masses of flesh. The initial yelps were soon filling the room, Silvana desperately trying the keep her stance as each lash drove her forwards, the nipples at their extreme stretch. The stress reminded her of that murderous session when Mila had furtively hooked her by the teats to a wall bracket, and flayed her raw.

  But she seemed insensible to the pain since it was her owner beating her and she knew he would fuck her when both reached the summit of lust. And that was never far away.

  Thanon seemed oblivious of her yelping, knowing she could take the maximum before being ready for penetration and orgasm. Haroun silently counted the lashes - a habit he had adopted when his master used to flog the divine, willowy Greta - and merely hoped the blonde would not wilt. But Silvana weathered the storm admirably, bridling the threatening climax until her owner was himself ready to send her over the precipice. And that came far sooner than either the eunuch or even the staggering victim expected.

  Driving Silvana's own sweating whip haft into her rectum, as was palace practice, Thanon came round to peruse her tear-stained face. Without a word, he raised her thighs, the ankle chain rasping his knees, clasped the slashed buttocks and plunged into her.

  Haroun watched the two bodies slam together in slushing thuds until his master's loins tensed and he filled his slave, the girl screaming herself hoarse as she orgasmed. Even Greta in her time and despite her fanaticism when whipped, rarely came with such lust.

  "Take her down and lay her on the bed," the eunuch was told, as his master withdrew, retrieved his cloak and returned to the terrace that he had left an hour before.

  Brimming over with regard for the beautiful, flagellated body, Haroun extracted the leather haft from the anus and the rod from the swollen, vermilion teats and carried her gently to the great bed. Placing her face down, he smeared balsam over the benumbed, swollen bulges of rump flesh and swabbed off the spunk and liquids oozing down the overlong labia he admired so much. Then he left the requited girl, judging she deserved a moment of repose.