Galley Slaves

by Mark Andrews

  He didn’t wait. As soon as the needle was bright again, he did the same with the other side and I now had a pair of identically matched holes in the centre of my labia.

  Just as he had with Andy’s foreskin, he now took the vaginal ring, slipped it through the two gaping holes and then snapped it shut. I cried a little as I realised I could not now even excite myself but Zanda wasn’t having any of that.

  “Just think yourself lucky you aren’t having the opening closed permanently, or even stitched shut as some masters here do, slut,” he said ominously.

  I stopped crying instantly. He had already told us some women were sealed permanently, now he was suggesting something in between: sewing up a girl’s vagina. That would be much worse than a ring through the lips which, while preventing any unauthorised access, would not be permanent since these genital rings apparently had catches that could be opened - if you had the tiny key to open them.

  I felt a lot better. Distress is relative, obviously. The rings through Andy’s foreskin and my vagina were bad, but sewing up my nether lips would be worse and the permanent closure, preceded by a hysterectomy, would be utterly devastating, I thought.

  As I said, the nose rings were permanent but the lower ones were removed each morning prior to our first training sessions. They were to prevent us from relieving ourselves at night and so perhaps drain some of our energy, all of which was to be kept for our training and eventually our all-out efforts at the oars during the actual races once the season started again.

  Thus far, we hadn’t seen sight or sound of our master, nor of any others in the other estates in the village. Trainers and their assistants, yes, but no owners. It seemed they normally only came to the island during predetermined seasons when the races were to be run. At other times, we were in the delicate care of their trainers-in-chief and their many assistants.

  It also came to our knowledge that not all the owners were Arabs. Some of them were, but others included a German tycoon; one of the new Russian millionaires; a Chinese counterpart; a minor Malayan prince and even an American. They weren’t even all Muslims although they were just as horrible in their treatment of us women as those people were. But perhaps I am being overly judgemental here for they all treated the boys just as badly, really. I suppose infibulating a male is as bad as ringing the vaginas of us girls although no-one had yet said anything about castrating the males and they had certainly mentioned removing all of our reproductive organs and closing up the vaginal opening permanently so perhaps they did treat us worse than the men...

  We also now received our collars. These were worn by all galley slaves and had a purpose that I was to discover when we joined the other slaves in actual galley training. They were made of the same gleaming titanium steel as our rings and had small lugs at front and back as well as the sides. We didn’t wear them all the time; only when we were to actually train at or pull the oars in an actual race.

  Each was fitted to a particular slave and Zanda wanted to check ours had been crafted to our exact neck sizes. They were engraved with our slave number and name and were as beautifully crafted as the rings but to me they were just another nail in the coffin of my slavery - another piece in the jigsaw that went into converting me from a free Australian university student, model and IronMan competitor, into an abject craven slavegirl, being trained to pull the oars for the pleasure of a plutocratic madman who got his jollies from enslaving beautiful and handsome and athletic girls and young men and forcing them to compete for his glory as even galley slaves of old never were ...

  Chapter 3

  Andy and I wondered constantly when we were going to be branded. It became a sort of obsession with us. Not that we were looking forward to it, no matter how much we had come to admire the bright green marks on the other slaves’ bellies; more that we sort of wanted to get it over and done with. Endure the agony we imagined we would have to bear as the red-hot iron was pressed into our bellies and the enamel somehow added and then bear the pain of the slowly healing burn. But we were too proud to ask Zanda and of course we were not allowed to talk to the other slaves at all.

  We therefore had to either swallow our pride and ask or just wait. We did - just wait, that is. Besides, while we discussed it endlessly and on the one hand wanted to get it over with, the other part of us was quite happy to put it off as long as possible and so avoid that terrible coming pain.

  As a result, we didn’t find out for a long time that our master, Sheikh Ali bin Mustapha liked to watch as his new slaves were branded with his mark and so we would be held over until he arrived for the next season of galley racing and that was still quite a few weeks off.

  In the meantime, once our rings had settled down, we were introduced to the galley for the first time.

  Zanda didn’t bother telling us. As usual we went to the gym for our morning callisthenics followed by the more rigorous exercises, which, this day included a series of two handed followed by one-handed chin-ups. Ever tried them? Pulling the body up by the hands over and over again is hard enough but just try doing it with one hand! Of course, after all the daily grind of exercises followed by the field work on the track, we were incredibly strong already and our hearts and lungs were also far fitter than they had been when we had arrived all those weeks ago and I have to say I really enjoyed punishing my muscles with harder and harder effort. So did Andy. We were both fitness freaks anyway and even before our kidnapping, had gloried in working our bodies until we just about collapsed.

  It wasn’t quite the same when you were forced to do it under threat of the whip, the cane or one of those horrible shocks from the implants in our groins, but even that we came to accept as part of our exercise regime and so mentally adapt to our new lives on that Pacific island.

  In the afternoon however, instead of being left to rest and recuperate, we were included in the coffle of slaves that were trotted down to the wharf. Zanda liked to tether us by the rings at our genitals. Other overseers used the nose rings or placed the collars on the slaves before leaving the house and used them as the anchor for the massive chains we wore on the short journey to the wharf.

  There was little reason for it of course - other than to shame us and to underline to us that we were nothing more than naked galley slaves whose one purpose in life was to provide the energy to propel our master’s galley and thereby give him pleasure. Pleasure from a win but also sexual pleasure from the sight of our naked bodies toiling under the whip as he stood up on the poop deck surveying us as he guided his boat along the course.

  If we had run away, where could we go? The island wasn’t all that big and the guards would find us in no time and the punishment that would follow would be horrendous, we were sure.

  I say one purpose but there was another that I haven’t yet mentioned. I had noticed some of the girls were pregnant. Some only just showing the first signs; others very swollen indeed. But they were given no concessions when it came to exercises. They had to slog along with the rest of us and even right up until the moment of birth they were whipped into a full output.

  You don’t believe it? Neither did I until I saw it happening. In our Western society, a pregnant mother is coddled almost from the beginning of her time. The Arabs treat their women vastly differently and I have to say I think they are right. From what I have read since, other peoples in the world do the same. The Melanesian women of New Guinea work in the fields until the baby is due, stop work only to drop it and place it in a shawl they carry for the purpose, then go right back to their gardening! Anyway, the births I witnessed there were all perfectly natural, the mother popping out the new infant almost without pain and certainly without the fuss we carry on with.

  On that island they were given no concessions on the galleys, either. Indeed, it was a real thing if a mother dropped her ‘sucker’, as they called the new baby, during a race and if that happened, she wasn’t even allowed to rest during
the birth but had to continue on, pulling hard on the oar as the baby appeared and dropped into the straw in the basket that had been prepared below her and between her thighs, just in case ...

  I wondered what happened to the little ones but when I found out, I was appalled all over again for I discovered they were removed immediately after the birth and flown away to be raised in a slave nursery and eventually to serve their owner. That slavery still existed I had had no idea but that little children could be raised as such in this new century was even more horrifying.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. Most of the slave couples on the island were man and wife as Andy and I were; or were at least partners. I just assumed they were mated and the little baby was their offspring. Not a bit of it. Our owners, the European and Asian amongst them just as much as the Moslems, delighted in forcing us women to carry the children of males from other races than our own, partly to shame and humiliate us but also to create better bloodlines in their slave progeny. And to make it even worse, the husband or partner was forced to watch as the mating - a really ceremonial affair, was conducted in the presence of our owners and usually his invited guests - the rest of the slave owners present on the island.

  I was to find out when they arrived that they delighted in treating us like animals. Animals to be inspected and felt, much as you would a prize stud bull or mare and to be discussed openly in front of us as to our worth, our strength and endurance and finally, as brood stock. In the case of the males how well their seed might impregnate us girls and in our case what sort of suckers we might develop and drop...

  It was all utterly horrible - but of course that was in the future. At this time, when we were facing our first practice run as a galley slave, Andy and I knew nothing of all this.

  We were lined up and the heavy chains snapped on to our genitals rings. They opened each pair on us girls or the foreskin ring on the boys and fed them through a link in the chain and then snapped them shut again. We were now six feet apart with the heavy chain dangling between us. But we were not allowed to let it touch the ground. It was heavy, as I said, and dragged down heavily on the rings at our vaginas or the boys’ cocks but we had to keep it taut nevertheless and then trot, in perfect harmony, our hands clasped up behind our heads, out of the house, down the main street and onto the pier to the galley.

  It was important we were displayed in this so military and precise manner. Any slackness in our bearing or our bodily appearance reflected on Zanda and more importantly, on our owner and if, upon his arrival, he heard any whispers that we, his slaves, had not comported ourselves to his credit, even on a single occasion, Zanda would be in trouble and if he was in trouble then we were really for it.

  All this was impressed on us on a daily basis by the huge, handsome and so incredibly muscled black man. We gathered that if we pleased our master, he, Zanda, would be rewarded and if that happened he would be lenient with us. If he had cause to be displeased with us however, we would suffer the torments of hell itself. I believed him. By now I knew him to be utterly ruthless and if not wantonly cruel, at least quite dispassionate in administering the most severe punishments to us when he thought we deserved them.

  And so we trotted in the prance gait down to the wharf, each knee raised precisely so that our thighs were horizontal, our torsos swinging in time (since we had to use them to counter the motions of our legs as we had to keep our hands clasped up tightly behind our heads) and our bodies quite still and perfectly erect. No crack army unit was as perfect in its military precision as we galley slaves as we pranced down to the wharf, the chains between us taut, our muscles glinting in the sunlight - and of course all still stark naked, our genitals, male and female both, all on open display to anyone in the streets.

  Perhaps here I should say there was quite a little community that supported the few dozen great houses in which we galley slaves were kept and trained. The village also had a couple of little shops, a blacksmith’s forge, a tannery, vegetable and meat market that was open once a week and some other minor shops. The men and women who ran these were free of course and some even had a slave or two of their own. I wondered if they had come from our ranks once we were ‘retired’ as galley slaves.

  As a result, there were always some people around the village and as we were paraded from our master’s huge house down to the wharf, some came out of their houses or shops and gathered to watch us pass. It was horribly shaming but I also had a sort of pride as I pranced along, knowing that my body was as perfect as a human physique could be; that I was a member of a team of galley slaves who might just be the champions this season ...

  Weird? Of course it was but then we all know the human psyche plays some strange tricks on us from time to time and in any case, if I wasn’t to sink into the depths of despair at my future, I had to have something to hold on to; something of which I could be proud. Later Andy agreed with me and from that moment on we both strove to be the very best galley slaves on that island.

  We arrived on the pier beside our master’s galley and pulled up in a smart military halt. The chains were removed as were the rings at our genitals but instead the metal collars were fitted around our necks. Then we turned and boarded the vessel. Now I saw it in detail for the first time.

  It really was a beautiful craft. As I said earlier it, and all the others moored nearby, were modelled on the ancient Norse longboats but there was a raised poop and foredeck while we slaves sat on benches on either side of the main or rowing deck with a raised passageway that ran fore and aft between the poop and foredeck.

  There were six benches on either side and the oars were designed for two rowers for each - twenty-four slaves per boat. Sheikh Ali’s stable at that time had around thirty slaves so he had six spares.

  The vessel was wooden with smooth, beautifully lacquered sides and inside, the finish was also immaculate, all the paintwork clean and sparkling and the brass work gleaming as if just polished.

  The other slaves all went down to their allotted places and now I saw there was a male and female slave on each oar. I also noted that the benches sat on a frame that moved up and down on wheels. I guessed this would be to permit a further travel of the oar handles, called looms, and this proved correct.

  Andy and me were seated in one of the middle oars on the port side and when we were all sitting, Zanda’s men went up the two sides connecting each slave’s collar to that of his partner and to those on the slaves in front of and behind him or her. The connections were rods of gleaming stainless steel that would ensure each pair of slaves moved in perfect symmetry so that the oars did the same. These were only used at practice however. During a race, we were expected to have learned to keep in time by ourselves.

  First, we had to learn to give the royal salute to our master as he boarded his vessel. I’ll bet you can’t guess how this had to be done? Don’t try. No way could you possibly imagine the sheer indecency of the act that constituted a royal salute to a galley’s owner.

  I should say here that from the moment we were chained, the boys had to erect their cocks - and keep them that way for the whole period of the race - or now, for the practice session. This eventually became second nature to them but not to Andy. Now we discovered another reason for the excitement mode of the implants. As an electronic drum roll signalled the sheikh’s symbolic arrival, each of the boys sitting at an oar erected his cock. Andy wasn’t yet able to do this and so Zanda pointed his controller at him and activated the signal that brought on the involuntary erection and in a second or two, Andy’s beautiful cock was as rampant as all the other boys’.

  With us girls, it was a more delicate matter. We had to show our master how much we ‘loved’ him and how we hoped to serve him this day and so we had to create a warmth in our vaginal lips and at our breasts. I stared around me in amazement as I noticed the flush appear at loins and nipples, how the latter hardened and protruded more and the former s
eemed actually to pulse as if inviting their master inside ...

  And so, as I could not yet create this effect myself, I too received the signal that tickled my clit and tricked the areas mentioned into responding as they were on the other girls.

  But then, at a certain signal from the electronic drum (which apparently meant the master was now actually boarding the vessel) we had to thrust the middle of our bodies up, as one of course, and present our genitals to him in the royal salute!

  Unbelievable? I would agree with you if I hadn’t been there to see it for myself and to actually perform this so degrading and humiliating act of sexual obeisance to our absent master.

  The act itself was quite easy to perform. At the signal, we grasped the handle of the oar and, laying right back so our bodies were supine, applied power to our thighs, bellies, buttocks and arms and shoulder to raise our middles up as high as we could get them so that our bodies were slightly bowed upwards. Our feet were resting on the foot pads that were exactly eighteen inches apart so each pair of legs were well spread, thus exposing the male and female genitals to our master’s gaze as he came on board.

  We had to hold this difficult position for around two minutes but then, at the signal, we were able to lower our bodies, again as one, now resting our rear ends back on the bench and raise our torsos to the erect position again.

  You might be wondering how we could do this with the oars in place? The mechanism into which each oar was fitted was quite ingenious. It allowed the oar to travel only in certain paths at certain times and this mechanism (separate ones for the port and starboard oars) could be controlled by the captain at the steering position at the back of the boat. When we were to offer the royal salute to our master, the oar blades were locked rigidly and couldn’t move at all. We were thus quite able to keep our hands on the tops of the handles, lower our torsos back and then thrust our middles up high to perform this so degrading salute.