by Sarah Steel
Safira, her hands bound tightly out of temptation's way, eased her face down into her soft pillows. Nubia gazed up at the marble ceiling, studying the decoration of silver and gold stars. Their naked bodies touched as they nestled closely hip to hip, thigh pressing against soft thigh.
Nubia's velvety voice broke the silence:
'Before your father and the elders of the temple rescued me in my shame, I served wine to the visitors who came each night to the House of Pleasures. I came to know of their preferences, and how each man chose to indulge. Every month, on the night of the new moon, a Persian jade merchant would come to spill his fluid lust among the satin cushions. He cared not to mount and ride the girls as other men but would pay to watch two naked, perfumed girls punishing a third. The punished girl was drawn by a throw of the dice then forced to kneel, head bowed, and have her bottom caned. The nudes stood over her, one at either side, taking turns to stripe her slowly with golden rods of wood they call bamboo. It must surely be cut from an evil tree, so cruel is it upon a girl's bare flesh.
'The Persian would pull apart his robes and hold his manhood in his broad hand. It would grow and stand proud as he witnessed the canes lash the kneeling girl's buttocks. Then he would enclose his fist around his flesh-spear and urge the punishers to ply their whippy rods faster. Then his hand became busy at his lengthened manhood like the potter working at his column of wet clay. As the whipped girl began to squeal and whimper, he would fall down on his knees and brush the canes aside. Shuffling up to her punished buttocks, he would examine it closely, then bury his face in the striped cheeks - a choking cry in his own Persian tongue smothered by her punished flesh. Kissing and licking her bottom, he would lean back and empty his hot seed over her. It would run in a silver stream down her arched spine and disappear in between her reddened cheeks. Drawing his hands together, like a sorcerer in his lair at some alchemical flask, the Persian would cup and squeeze her bottom until his seed ran out of her cleft.'
Nubia paused, and swallowed silently in the darkness.
'What a strange tale,' Safira murmured, her voice thick with excitement.
'It is a curious pleasure for a man, is it not, mistress, to watch a girl being caned severely, then use her hot cheeks for his dark pleasures?'
Safira, her face buried in the pillow, moaned sweetly. Behind her back, the fingers of her bound hands splayed out in mute ecstasy. 'Another story,' she hissed. 'Tell me more of the House of Pleasures.'
Nubia was silent for a moment, then spoke:
'The Janissaries were the most vigorous at their sport, and in truth the most generous afterwards. Also the most feared. When they rode the girls, it was always as the dusty lion takes the lioness - and always with whip in hand. They would mount the kneeling girl from behind. So excited were they that sometimes they would spear her in that place not fashioned for their manhoods—'
'You mean—'
'Yes, mistress. So blind in lust had they become, they did not care where they entered the girl's soft body. And they would use the whip to lash her thighs - or, most cruelly, her belly and even her bosom—'
In the darkness, Safira shivered and gasped aloud.
'The girls would scream softly but, from their shining eyes and twisted smiles, I knew that they took the pleasure well, often reaching paradise before those who rode them.'
Safira ground her breasts into the silk beneath, and tongued her satin pillow in muted anguish.
'There was one particular Janissary, I well remember, a fighter who had lost both arms against the fierce Mogul hordes. Several of the girls assisted him in his pleasure, helping him to perform the act. They would gently take his flesh out with their fingers, but even as they did this kindness for him, he would shout out loud and splash their breasts, losing his seed before they could guide it into the waiting girl's open fig. At last, a solution to his torment was devised. It was decided that he should use the girl's mouth for his comfort. A girl with a wide smile was selected, and her lips were painted with deep red coral to entice him. Her hands were bound behind her back - just like yours mistress —'
Safira cursed softly into the satin pillow at her lips.
'—so they were well matched for each other. She would curl up on the satin cushions and take his spear in between her reddened lips, and he would suck at her breasts and lick her belly, then bury is mouth into her wet heat. Much satisfaction was derived from this arrangement, mistress, although it is a custom and usage strange to these parts.'
Safira twisted and shivered in silence as Nubia continued recounting her memories from the House of Pleasures.
'The most curious practice I witnessed there was when a young man, one much given to astrology and music and who had no sign of any facial hair—'
'I have heard of him. His voice is like a girl's, when he is in song. What of him?'
'He would come to the House of Pleasures only to take fruit.'
'Fruit?' Safira echoed, wonderingly.
'From the thighs of a dark-eyed woman who is the eldest there.'
'I do not understand what you mean, girl.'
'I mean, mistress, that he would kneel before her and she, naked, would place ripe figs at her place of Venus. Straining his neck up, he would plant his lips upon the fruit and eat greedily, taking in some of her juices with the sweet flesh of the palm.'
Safira cried out like an owl at midnight.
'First, it would be a fig. Then the luscious dates. He would lap and suck as the camel does when coming upon an oasis after weeks in the waterless desert. Then there would follow several of the luscious, purple-skinned fruits the Ottomans call the bullaca and fair-faced foreigners from afar call the plum. Last of all, the dark-eyed woman of many summers would bring the feast to a conclusion with a succulent slice of melon, placing it deep up inside her and forcing him to use his tongue to dislodge it and eat it.'
Nubia, excited by this flow of wicked memories, was now furtively playing with herself. Her strong perfume of arousal flooded the darkened bedchamber. That, and her panting, betrayed her to her angry mistress.
'Girl?' Safira demanded, twisting round to her slave-girl. 'What are you doing?'
'Nothing, mistress,' came the whispered reply. Nubia shrank away from her stern bedfellow.
'Light the taper.'
Wiping her fingers dry on the silk sheets, Nubia scraped a flint, and ignited the taper. Blowing gently on the red ember, she brought the flame to life.
'Untie me,' came the stern command from the bed of silk.
'But, mistress—'
'At once, wretch.'
Putting the taper's tiny flame to several oil-lamps, Nubia blew it out and then untied the silk binding the wrists of her mistress. Safira seized her slave girl and forced her face-down across the silken sheets.
'How dare you indulge in a pleasure you know is denied to me? And in my very own bed. How dare you?'
Nubia squealed as the rain of pain lashed down upon her upturned cheeks. Safira plied the fly-whisk expertly - an expertise gained through much usage - to sting and scald the slave girl's soft bottom. Fuelled by the venom of her frenzied frustration, the punishment was brief but blistering. Nubia cried out but her shrill squeals only increased the fervour of her punisher. The whipped girl wriggled and squirmed in her bid to escape the fifty short lengths of stinging cord. Again and again the fly-whisk lashed her bare buttocks, caressing their rounded curves with vicious tenderness. Nubia sobbed into the silk as her quivering buttocks blazed. The hand pinioning her neck relaxed its grip for an instant; Nubia broke free and, kneeling, raised her tear-stained face up to her stern mistress.
'Down across the bed,' Safira thundered. 'I have not finished with you, yet.' She lashed the silk sheet with the fly-whisk.
Nubia moaned. 'Please, mistress, don't—'
The fly-whisk punished the empty stretch of silk once more. Weeping gently, Nubia obeyed, submitting her whipped cheeks once more up to her angry mistress. She gasped aloud as Safira straddled her, tra
pping the slave girl's ravished cheeks between her golden thighs. Safira planted her wet sex down upon the crown, the curved cheeks beneath her, and began to ride them - raking them dominantly with her splayed labia.
'No, mistress, no,' Nubia gasped. 'Do not use me so. Not like that,' she warned - forgetting her own sorrow and protecting Safira's maidenhead. 'Remember the danger.'
'I remember,' the mistress snarled, easing herself up away from her slave girl's soft cheeks. Then a softer note stole into her stern voice. 'Sweet Nubia,' she whispered, fingering the girl's sticky cleft. 'Always so careful to protect me.' She bent down, crushing her swollen breasts into the slave-girl's bottom.
Nubia, alert to the thickened nipples at her hot flesh, murmured into the silk as the bunched breasts kissed her buttocks.
'Tomorrow, at dusk, I will leave my father's house—'
'Mistress,' Nubia squealed in alarm. 'What are you saying?'
'It must be so. I cannot bear this isolation any longer. Just for an hour or two. We—'
'We?' Nubia echoed, horrified - and mindful of Safira's angry father, whose prowess with the horse whip was legendary even beyond the Blue Mountains.
'We will go heavily veiled. You will be my guide. You will take me to some exciting place, some forbidden quarter of the city at nightfall—'
'The House of Pleasures?' Nubia gasped in horror.
'No. It must, of course, be a place where there are no men. I will wrap a band of silk around my thighs to protect me. I will return intact, of that you must have no fear. But I must go abroad to the city, at nightfall, to taste, to smell, to hear and see it all. No: be silent, girl. It is decided.'
Just before dusk, two sensually veiled figures threaded their way through the spice stalls, taking advantage of the lengthening shadows for protection against curious, prying eyes. The air pungent with cinnamon, dried ginger, garlic, cloves and marjoram. Beyond the spice stalls, the two disguised women encountered a throng of flower sellers - Iqqabbi women from the south, whose faces were decorated with silver and lapis lazuli. A heavy perfume hung in the air; Safira and Nubia identified jasmine, wild lilies and the elusive scent of the unnamed Blue Mountain blooms that flowered every decade. Nubia grew giddy; her heart hammered with fear. Safira kept halting suddenly to feast her deprived senses on the bustle and blaze of the city, increasing their chances of being discovered and punished.
'Come mistress,' she urged, as Safira stayed to watch a cock- fight. The black cockerels wore silver spurs. Droplets of crimson already speckled the sand beneath their dancing feet.
They were heading for the Pool of Desires, the sequestered bathing house reserved for the exclusive use of the city's maidens. Four eunuchs guarded the heavy wooden gate, their glinting spears crossed. Nubia whispered to them softly, slipping oblats into their soft, pale palms. The spears jerked apart. The heavy door yawned wide to admit them, creaking as it closed behind them.
'The Pool of Desires,' Nubia whispered. 'But we cannot stay long. Your father will be expecting you at the supper table, mistress.'
Safira nodded impatiently and swept Nubia aside. 'Come. Let us sit and watch the maidens.'
Nymphs, naked and utterly beautiful, their wet limbs shining, emerged from the heated waters of the pool. Others, who had bathed, stretched out on soft satin cushions, whispering and giggling as they traded secrets and revealed intimate desires.
A squabble erupted with shrill shrieks. Two delicious young women who had been grooming one another suddenly fell to blows. They rose, hissing and scratching. A chase ensued - a sudden dash to the safety of the pool. A splash as a naked girl tumbled into the water. She swam to the centre and trod water with her lithe, slender legs. The waters lapped at her swollen breasts, nuzzling the shadow at her deep cleavage. Another splash: her naked pursuer was swimming strongly through the water. They both made for the far side, touching the smooth marble edge of the pool together.
Nubia gazed across the pool at the two naked girls as they hauled themselves out of the pool. Her mistress followed her gaze, her green eyes narrowing into fierce slits as she perused the struggling girls' bare bottoms as they scrambled inelegantly up onto the marble. Breathless, they lay face-down upon the cool, polished tone, crushing their breasts into its hard surface. Silver water ridded from their dark clefts.
Nubia and her mistress watched, enthralled, as the dominant pursuer grappled her victim into submission, taloning the unhappy girl's hair as she marched her back to the satined cushions. There, taming and controlling her captive across her lap, she spanked the bare bottomed girl harshly, causing the creamy cheeks to crimson. Moments later, the two girls were wrestling playfully among the satin cushions, tumbling breast to breast, pubis to pubis, their shrieks of excitement splitting the air.
'Are you new?' a voice at Safira's side inquired.
Safira tightened her veil, her green eyes clouded with alarm.
'You are most welcome here,' the matron continued.
Nubia turned to see a proud face, a statuesque figure and a welcoming smile. The handsome matron was sheathed in pale purple. Her left breast, superbly ripe and heavy, was exposed. The nipple was pierced with a silver ring, denoting her noble lineage. The matron offered them refreshments.
'Please,' she encouraged, indicating an array of sweetmeats, sugared confections and delicious sherbets. 'Welcome to the Pool of Desires.'
Turning, the purple-robed matron clapped her hands twice. Her naked breast wobbled gently. Silence descended upon the naked nymphs gathered around the pool.
'Tonight is for pleasure but, first,' the Matron announced, 'we have a wrong to right.'
Nubia looked at her mistress. Safira gestured for silence. 'One of you has sinned and,' the matron continued, her voice a mere whisper, 'must be punished.'
The matron turned quickly and explained to the newcomers that any maiden with a complaint could have the matter dealt with here, in privacy, away from the lewd laughter and coarse curiosity of the vizier's Court of Settlements. 'Fitting for the loss of six goats.' She smiled, adding, 'but we settle things our own way here.'
The naked women had gathered in a circle at the feet of the matron. Speaking tersely, she ordered one of their number to kneel, head bowed, while the accusation was made against her.
A tall, slender girl rose up and spoke. Her tone was bitter. Tears threatened her large, brown eyes as she spoke of her man's infidelity. 'Is this accusation true? Did you pleasure her betrothed?'
The kneeling penitent tossed her head back proudly and defiantly acknowledged the sin. 'If the honey at my hive is sweeter than hers, the man will seek it out—'
'Silence,' the matron thundered. 'You have just admitted your guilt. You spoke of honey and its sweetness, girl. I will bear your words in mind when determining your punishment. Honey comes from bees. And bees sting. Painfully. So does the lash. Twenty strokes.'
'No—' the kneeling girl protested hotly.
'Silence. Prepare her for the whip,' the matron ordered, cupping her bare breasts and squeezing them fiercely.
Willing hands seized the squealing penitent and dragged her to a marble column. The matron opened a sandalwood box and extracted a darkly hued, oiled whip. The handle was encrusted with mother-of-pearl, the gleaming lash - unfurled - tapered to a knotted tip.
Handing the whip to the aggrieved accuser, she pointed to the bare-bottomed penitent at the pillar. 'Take this and seek the satisfaction of revenge - but, in future, girl, be sure to pleasure your man properly, or else you will lose him to another.'
Those detailed to guard the accused dragged her arms around the smooth marble column. Her breasts crushed into its smoothness as her wrists were tightly bound. The girl with the oiled whip approached her rival in love and extended the whip out to the bound girl's face.
'Look at the lash,' she hissed, 'and remember it before you take another's love.'
The accused whimpered her sorrow for her sin, but the girl with the whip merely pressed the lash to the penitent's li
ps. 'Silence, or I will call upon Aphrodite herself to give strength to my arm.'
Crushing her breasts and belly up into the cold marble she was bound to, the nude rose up on her toes and clenched her buttocks. Taking two steps back, the punisher snapped the whip twice, then quickly flicked it across the bare bottom before her. The knotted lash caressed the rounded cheeks, leaving them jerking in anguish as a thin pink line deepened into an angrier crimson. Snap, crack. Snap, crack. The punishment had begun.
'That is how I will punish you, girl, the next time you deserve the whip,' Safira whispered into Nubia's ear.
'No, mistress, please—'
The purple-robed matron turned, frowning, and gestured for absolute silence. Nubia slipped her hand into Safira's and squeezed gently. They nestled into each other, and, heads touching gently, gazed upon the whipped buttocks of the squealing nude.
Snap, crack. Snap, crack. The harsh strokes echoed across the Pool of Desires as the sounds of punishment and suffering filled the vaulted marble hall. Bound to her pillar of pain, the whipped nude writhed, grinding her hot sex into the cold stone. Her rounded buttocks were now criss-crossed with reddening weals of fire, her cleft a mere tightened flesh-crease as she squeezed her cheeks. Her low grunts became sorrow-sobs as her head lolled down in shame.
Snap, crack. Safira and Nubia watched enthralled as the whipper raised her arm up to administer the fourteenth stroke. Supple thighs astride, her heavy breasts rising up, she snarled softly as she brought the whip down yet again, searing the naked buttocks with another crimson weal. The punished nude cried out as she hammered her breasts into the marble and thrust her wet labia into its cold solidity.
'Enough,' the purple-robed matron announced, holding up her arm. 'She has suffered quite enough. Save the rest of the strokes for the man who betrayed you. The woman who did so has had sufficient pain.'
All assembled nodded at these words of wisdom, as if the vizier himself had delivered judgement.
