The slave girl

by Hans Meijer

  Corey's weals were not severe but laying on the ground there was a tenderness. She bore it with a quiet smile as she arranged herself within her chains to sleep. Winning was painful but she scented victory. It was the following day it happened.

  It was midday. The girls were marching in the swinging cadence which they themselves had envolved. Each girl's thoughts were busy far away. None but Corey beheld the shadow. She looked apprehensively at her Master, but Mustafa on his donkey was as lost in reverie as were his slaves. A quick glance to the rear showed Selim equally somnolent. By the time she had turned back to confirm her suspicion Mustafa had seen the shadow too. Seth Burdett stood motionless and menacing on the low eminence of a rock. He had allowed the coffle and its owners to approach to a confrontation he himself had staged. The Arab slave trader's motions were instinctive and swift. But the sighting of his rifle was too late. Burdett's bullet plucked him from the donkey's back and slid him neatly to the ground. The coffle halted in dismay, its cadence lost. At the rear Selim sat on his diminutive steed in an open mouthed astonishment that rapidly changed to a broad grin.

  The girls were frightened, all except Corey. Her spririts soared, her heart beat high. Joyfully, she heard her own voice in urgent command: "It's all right. He's a friend. You won't be hurt." Seeing their wide eyed apprehension, she added: "He'll be kind to us, he'll be kind…!"

  "You be good girls or I whip." Selim admonished cheerfully. "We now are meeting nice gentleman. You most lucky."

  The shadow advanced into the sunlight.

  It was the smae Australian saunter, lithe power in every step. It was the same sardonic Australian grin. Seth Burdett took his time. A quick glance at the dead man, a leisured survey of twenty naked girls, a cheerful recognition of the man on the donkey.

  "Greetings, Selim."

  "Greetings effendi. That good quick shot."

  They were evidently old friends. Corey Gibson was piqued that the masculine scan of its new possessions had failed to focus on her white skin, but she watched breathlessly as the two males talked earnestly in Selim's own tongue. She sensed instand rapport, the orderly progression of a plan. The coffle was told to sit and rest while Mustafa was stripped and buried. When the march resumed it was with Burdett riding ahead as Mustafa had done. The girls had become pleasantly excited, their cadence returned full swing. Still chained in the coffle, Corey Gibson had constantly before her vision the broad shouldered maleness of her Australian Master. But Seth Burdett had said no word, the white slavegirl was ignored. Irritably she kept pace with her giggling companions.

  It was Selim who freed Talifa and herself for the evening chores. Corey observed her Master cock a surprised eye, but he said no word. She was hurt by his seeming obliviousness to her existence. He had filled her thoughts since Ben Sirah, quite evidently she had not filled his. Yet she was only a slave on a coffle of girls, and there might be forces and undercurrents of which she was unaware. In their previous times together he had pledged her nothing, all the avowals had been her own. Chagrined, she threw a load of wood beside the fire and demanded: "What's the matter, Seth? Why don't you speak to me?"

  He spared her his usual lazy amusement. "You sure you got the right address, love?"

  Corey stamped an expressive foot. "Alright then! Please, Master, what's the matter?"

  "Nothing. Couldn't be better."

  "But you keep me chained! You don't speak!"

  "You ain't chained now. Did you expect me to go down the coffle shaking hands?"

  "You're being deliberately unkind."

  "You're being deliberately foolish. Get me a cup of water."

  Seth Burdett's grin was infuriating. Corey, the slave, threw the water in his face. naked and enraged, she hurled the cup at his feet. "And you know what you can do with that!" Breasts heaving, she faced him defiantly.

  Carelessly, he beckoned an entranced but horrified Talifa. "Take this silly bitch over there on the grass and tie her while we eat. Selim can free you another girl to help."

  Shame ans humiliation mantled Corey's cheeks scarlet as she walked the few paces to the spot indicated. Evidently she was beneath the attention of men. Even her punishment was delegated to a girl.

  "You foolish slave! Why you be so silly?" Talifa was intrigued. "You got hot cunt for big man. Talifa easy tell."

  Corey sniffed. She had nothing to say. Pouting petulantly, she crossed her wrists behind her back. It was a familiar gesture almost automatic. She winced but did not complain as Talifa tie them tight.

  "Talifa not tie pretty elbows unless she told. But now you lay down."

  Miserably the delinquent slave obeyed. It looked like being a sad suppertime. She winced again as her ankles were deftly roped. When the rope was taken on up to join her wrists she tensed and objected: "Oh, Talifa, you don't have to hog-tie me. Please don't tie me like that."

  "Why not? It keep you nice and quiet."

  "Because it hurst, that's why. He just said tie me up. He didn't tell you to hurt me."

  "You don't struggle it don't hurt. Keep still."

  Corey sniffed again. She was far more angry with herself than with the girl who was binding her, or with the man who had given the order. She had asked for this. It served her right. She gasped as the tensioning rope drew her feet and hands together to bow her back. It was a beastly way for a girl to be tied. She hated it.

  With Talifa gone, Corey tried to relax. She could not get loose, and she was too close to observant eyes to struggle. She wanted to cry, but the eyes would see that too. Angrily she blinked back her tears and settled herself down to endure her punishment. The less she moved the less she hurt. She watched the mealtime preparation, feeling abandoned, lonely and misused. She made a bitter resolution that if she ever got back on the coffle she would stay there and keep her mouth shut. Sulkily, she ate the few scraps Talifa's fingers poked into her mouth when the meal was done. The evening was well advanced, and Corey was stiff and cramped and sore when Seth Burdett picked her up and carried her into the trees.

  "Damned impatient, weren't you, love?"

  "It wouldn't have hurt you to look at me."

  He dumped her on the ground. "Look, girl, if you want to pout and be sulky you can stey here like that for the night. I'll go back to camp."

  "Noooooooooo!" Corey struggled wildly against Talifa's knots. "Please, Master… P-L-E-A-S-E!!!"

  "Try an apology."

  Careless of wether she was right or wrong, Corey Gibson embraced humility with abandon. "I'm sorry, Master. I really am sorry. I do apologise for not knowing my place. I forgot I was a slave."

  "Hmmmmmm, a bit stilted."

  "I'm in love with you, you big oaf. Don't you know that?" The declaration sprung out of her, uncontrolled.

  "You'll be whipped for the big oaf bit." Seth said dispassionately. "And if a slave loves her Master it doesn't mean she's privileged. You're one girl on a coffle. I can't single you out for extra rations."

  "You don't have to keep me on that damn chain."

  "Why?"

  "Beause…" She sniffed unhappily. "Oh, never mind!"

  Slowly he untied Talifa's knots. "I warned you before." He said broodingly. "I'm a slave trader. In a way, you've a better chance of freedom than I have. We don't mix."

  "We could if you'd try."

  He turned her about as though she was a kitten and bound her hands again in front.

  "You're going to whip me?"

  "Yes."

  It was a matter of fact statement, leaving her nothing to say. She had no wish to plead. She was not even sure about the whipping. Perhaps she needed it. In sulky silence she allowed herself to be suspended to stand on her toes. Undoubtedly, from a man's standpoint, it was the most practical posture for his purpose. To begin with, it scared the girl half to death by its blatant exposure of her body.

  "Mustafa had a go at you already, I see."

  "Yes." She could be as monosyllabic as he.

  Seth Burdett chuckled. "But not half hard enough
. You're uppity as hell. You need a lesson."

  "I'm sure you'll give me one. Please watch out for my breasts."

  This time he laughed delightedly and patted her bottom.

  "That sounded just like M'lady giving the butler his instructions for dinner."

  "I don't feel like M'lady. I feel like a frightened little girl. For goodness sake whip me and be done with it before I pee my pants."

  "You haven't got any pants."

  "That makes it worse."

  He reached down and cupped his hand between her thighs, kneading her soft moist mound. Corey held still on her tether, refusing to be coy. Her Master clutched a full hand of her a couple of times and examined the result.

  "Hmmmmmm, you sure aren't in the mood."

  "Would you be, tied hogtie for a couple of hours?"

  "Lady Vere-de-Vere again! You damn girls…!" Pensively, he frictioned her nipples betwen fingers and thumbs until she yelped.

  "You're under no obligation to arouse me sexually before you whip me." She said tartly. "I expect to scream either way."

  "More humane if you're horny, love."

  Stretched from her raised and tethered arms, Corey Gibson stood in petulant silence under the ministrations of the man she must call Master. She tried to hate him and could not. She tried to suppress her responses to the play of his hands and fingers but she could not do that either. She closed her eyes and surrendered to defeat. Being feminine, she strove for the last word: "I hope you're proud of what you're doing to me."

  It was a strange whipping, a contest of the minds rather thn te flesh. Corey refused to scream. She did not understand her ability to keep silent but it was there, springing from some deep emotional need within her psyche to touch this man when she possessed no other weapons. She jerked and writhed and kicked under the lashes by which he cut at her defenceless nudity, but she made no sound beyond the involuntary gasps of shock as each blow impacted to sear her skin.

  Seth Burdett was an artist with captive girls. He had whipped many. No coffle was without its recalcitrant maidens who, as far as he had been able to determine, could respond to no other guidance than a thrashing. Their ability to relate to any other form of persuasion was just not there. Often they fetched the highest price when stripped upon the block. Probably it was because of their whipmarks which, in the end, they became inordinately proud to bear. He did not rank Corey Gibson as belonging to this group. In his own sardonic way, he saw her as something of an experiment. She responded to cruelty and kindness most entertainingly. She had a piquancy…!

  When the blows stopped and the knowing hands and fingers resumed their delicious tactile torment, Corey knew herself once more delivered to a welter of sensations she could not control. She now had no wish to control them. She was too utterly defenseless to render any kind of resistance valid. She tried hard to stand still, to keep her eyes disdainfully closed, to keep silent. But only her eyes obeyed. Within their make-believe oblivion she continued on with much the same sounds and motions as when the whip was striping her flesh. She assured herself that if she could have controlled them she would have done so, but she could not. She sensed his pleasure in all she did, but her furious retorts were washed away in a flood of surging sexuality. When he resumed her whipping the strokes had become an acute quintessence of glory.

  "Feel better now, love?"

  Seth Burdett did not sound too concerned. It was a minute or two since he had ceased whipping the naked girl who adored him. He had not released her, she still stood stretched and vulnerable and with closed eyes. She had no real wish to open them, and from their darkness heard her own voice saying something she did not wish to say.

  "Yes, Master. Thank you."

  "Acts as a tonic for a girl, wouldn't you say? Sets her straight."

  "Yes, Master."

  "We've got a little talking to do, and you'll stand there like that while we do it. Any complaints?"

  "No, Master."

  "But first you deserve a damn good fuck. Remember last time?"

  She had never forgotten the most unorthodox coupling she had ever imagined. She was suddenly aflame with desire. But, instead, said miserably: "You mustn't. You know about me… don't you?"

  "What's there to know, love?"

  "About Amphala… when Abdul Nour took me bck there…? He's got a brothel for his men. He chained me in it with the other girls, the ones you've captured on the coffle with me." Corey opened her eyes and gave her latest owner her frankest star. "He made me a whore. Unpaid, but still a whore. Since you made love to me I've been raped a hundred times."

  "Oh that!" He laughed at her seriousness. "You're just a silly kid in lots of ways. I think a coffle's the proper place for you. Come here."

  She could not come here or do anything else except the one thing he desired. When Seth's strength enveloped her she proceeded to do it with every outrageous sound and motion she possessed or her tether would allow.

  "Well, that's two things looked after." Burdett seated himself comfortably and regarded his panting slave's sweat bedewed nudity with affection. "I suppose you're curious, eh?"

  "Yes, Master."

  "That's better. Proper respect, no demands, no questions, I've got you back to about where we were when we left off last time. I'm still going to sell you, y'know."

  In simple sincerity, Corey said: "I wish you wouldn't. I wish you'd keep me. I'm not talking about marrying me or anything like that. Keep me as a slave. I'd be good for you."

  Seth Burdett sighed. "You're a treasure. But where would I keep you? I don't have a home."

  "Keep me on the coffle. I wouldn't mind. It's a healthy life." Amusedly she plucked at a term she had once employed elsewhere. "I could be your Judas Goat… show the others how to behave?"

  "Alright." Seth waved a tolerant hand. "But here's the way it is. I've got no money. That bastard Abdul cleaned out Ben Sirah to the last penny, including our take from the auction. I just managed to get out of the damn place with my life. Mustafa had made a deal with the son-of-a-bitch. A fine old double-cros on me. Made me feel like a bloody innocent. Abdul knew the time and the place and the take. Wouldn't be surprised he screwed Mustafa out of his cut, they're a pair of twisters. Could be the reason for Mustafa snaffling Abdul's whorehouse."

  Corey pondered. Nothing was ever the way you thought it was. She wished she had the courage to ask him to let her arms down a few inches. Instead, she enquired hopefully: "What happened to Audrey Cotswold?"

  "Your side-kick on the coffle?" He shrugged disgustedly. "What the hell happened to anyone that night? The place was a shambles."

  "Might she have escaped to… civilization?"

  "Damn unlikely, love. Probably got herself picked up." He chuckled. "Be a joke if we found her in one of the slave cages when we get there."

  "You're going to sell me in the same place?"

  "Yes."

  They surveyed each other in the gloom. One of the world's richest girls, naked, trussed up to the bough of a tree, her beauty livid with whip marks. And a man…! The strongest man she had ever known. Seth Burdett the Slave trader. Corey remembered another term. "An odd couple." "You still won't allow me to be ransomed?"

  "Hell, girl, I can't! By African standards you're still the property, the slave, of Assef Aslam. By U.S. standards you belong to your father. There's two accumulations of wealth that could make mincemeat of me. I'm a known Trader in girls. There's a price on my head. But I'll add to my promise: Once you're sold and I've got the cash I'll tell 'em where you are." He grinned apologetically. "By that time your purchaser will have screwed you enough he'll be open to an offer."

  "That's beastly."

  "It's practical."

  "My father won't hurt you if I don't want him to."

  "But you can't make that promise about Aslam."

  He was right. A throbbing heat in her loins drove Corey on: "I don't want to be sold. I want to stay with you."

  "Stretch your legs open, love. You can raise one foot if yo
u like."

  "Did I sound that sulky I have to be punished?"

  "You know damn well you did."

  Corey Gibson lifted one leg out to the side to expose her crotch. She managed to take two whistling cuts between her thighs before lapsing into a contortion of agony. When she was again standing straight and stretched and trembling she paid her dues.