Dazed with horror Dolores heard herself squeal in shock from the painful scrape of a nail as a long, fat finger was jammed into the tight opening of her female place, pulled back, and jammed farther in. For a moment the finger relentlessly forced forward against the resistance of the dry passage, stopped and then wiggled forward again slowly, cautiously probing. Gritting her teeth in hurt, Dolores squealed again as the ragged fingernail tore at her tender tissues.
"Hee, hee," the jailer giggled in the shadows, frantically pumping his hand up and down at his crotch. "Hee, hee..."
Dolores tried to move her buttocks. "Be still, wench, and you won't be damaged." The giantess holding her wheezed garlicky breath into her face. "We must see what price you'll bring. If you've got it you'll be worth more. Stupid Christian bitch," she cried, jerking away as Dolores tried to spit in her face, and in punishment she applied more of her considerable weight to the daintier ribs under hers.
Then the long finger suddenly rammed forward inside Dolores like a sword of fire, thrusting all the way into her as far up as it would go, and its tip touched for a second something so pristine and protected that a faintness passed over her and she thought she would vomit. The finger withdrew.
"Nah, she's broken. But she's very tight. She hasn't had very much," the examiner rasped, sitting back on her heels. She showed Dolores a gap-toothed grin that disappeared into hard cheeks. "Had a good time once or twice, did you, eh, Christian trull? It might cost you plenty. The best of them out there buy little virgins, twelve, thirteen years. You are old. You are a fornicator. You will go to a shopkeeper to be taken on the floor, or sent to the kitchen to scour pots."
The other sounded surprised. "But Gamala, the warder said—"
"Shut your mouth," Gamala ordered, harshly. "Can't you see this wench is cold." On hands and knees she stretched her bulk to reach Dolores's ruined wool cloak. She flung it over both her trembling prisoner and the arms of the matron pinning her down.
"You're worth nothing if you become sick," she explained to her victim. The dark, hawk-nosed face hovered again above Dolores's kneecaps and again her thighs were harshly shoved apart. With a laugh that was a low rumble in her chest Gamala asked, "Would you like some more fun, eh, little kitten?" The matron's voice had gone oily, but with an edge of excitement in it. "Like this? Like this, maybe?" Deliberately she held up the long third finger she had used to probe Dolores before, stuck it in her mouth to wet it and with an evil grin slowly reinserted the long, fat digit into Dolores's quivering body.
"Hee hee, hee hee..." The voice from the shadows shot up into an idiotic falsetto.
In spite of her eyes squeezed shut and shuddering knees Dolores could not keep from reacting and heard herself cry out in pain and mortification as the woman forced another finger inside as well. She heard the female holding her heave up to thrust a pudgy hand beneath her own voluminous tunic. Dolores cried out again and tried to writhe away from the rasping hurt.
She heard a great snort of laughter from the matron at her knees, and suddenly the fingers were pulled out. The woman who was sprawled on top of her gurgled wildly and then moaned.
Gamala sneered with wicked pleasure. "Ah, what's the matter? You don't enjoy it, Christian pig?" She got to her feet ponderously, wiping her fingers off on her stained tunic. "Too bad. For the joy of that you will have to beg your master's pleasure and kiss his feet. Christian whore! He will suck you up like marrow from a bone and then toss you forever away. The other doll-faced women in your harem will be your only relief—if you don't get caught making love to your own sex and your skin flayed away from your living body."
She kicked her lolling assistant in the shin and barked, "Well, let her up, Fatima, we're done with this rubbish." And she watched the heavy woman struggle to her feet. Then she picked up the lantern, turned, and pushed past the gaping jailer. "Gather up those keys, you pin-headed slobbermouth, and let us out. You've had your fun, worm." Although she glared as she ordered the concave, grinning jailer to move, he complied with little speed and with no concern about the wet stain on the lower part of his tunic. They all three trudged out silently in the bobbling lantern light, without a backward glance.
The dark that surrounded Dolores again was now blessed, for it hid her abasement. Slowly she sat up on the straw and huddled into her cloak, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth to dry, harsh sobs that rose from the bottom of her soul. The place between her thighs burned and pained like a raw cut. She felt hot, feverish, as she rocked herself back and forth devastated by shame. Violated by a woman! By fingers! Never had she heard of such a thing. It was vile, it was base. Back and forth Dolores rocked, back and forth, hating her body as dirty, defiled, sunk in humiliation.
At length her mind found the intelligence to whisper to her, "Of course. It is exactly the way that evil one wanted you to feel. She is no less a tormenter than any black-hooded wielder of burning iron, and just as experienced with cruelty. Will you hate your flesh for being flesh? Could you better withstand the boot or the strappado?" she implored herself. She stopped rocking and laid her aching head on her arms.
Finally, she calmed down, exhausted. The chill of the stone walls began to creep into her bones. She straightened her legs and crawled stiffly to where she remembered her clothes had been dropped. She felt around with a trembling hand, touched cloth, then sat up and slowly drew the garments on. Her sense of degradation began to ameliorate somewhat with the familiar feel and dignity of chemise, stockings, and gown to clothe her, torn as they were; her self-esteem as a worthy child of God trickled back. But the hateful memory of being restrained naked on the musty straw and of suffering the sexual insistence of the cunning, dirty fingers lurked. She could not forget the sight of the matron's hawk-nosed, thin-lipped face and glistening eyes, leering, urging her to respond....
Bruised and aching, she crawled back over the cold stone floor to the straw and lay down, bundling herself in her cloak. The silent blackness rang shrilly in her ears except for a muffled drip, drip of water coming from somewhere. She shivered in misery. What was going to happen to her? O Holy Mother, help me, she whimpered, I am repentant for all my sins. She sniffed and sighed and prayed, and at some point she fled into sleep.
She was torn away from the depth of her exhausted sleep by the clank and creak of the cell door opening and opened her eyes to see once again the lanky jailer appear in a pool of lantern light, but solemn this time and followed by four blank-faced, pantalooned African guards. Two of them strode forward, either to pull her up or help her up. In spite of her muzziness she scrambled to her feet first and stood stiff-backed in her cloak, warning them with her eyes not to touch her. Thus, with two guards leading and two following, she found herself exiting from the terrible cell, retracing the torch-lit way she had come before, and being marched into the prison courtyard, where a litter awaited. The guard held back the curtain for her to get in and watched her settle herself on the cushions. She felt the litter lifted on strong shoulders, and, swaying and bobbing, her conveyance was transported through the night-quiet city. To where she did not know, but to whom she was almost certain.
She believed she felt stronger; she must have slept for some hours in the cell, neutralizing some of the fatigue of a night without sleep and hours of tension and fright. Her mind was clearer. And firmly lodged in it was the determination to resist any further defilement of her soul, even if it meant death. She decided there was no use to try to jump from the litter as it passed through the city, for an alert, scimitar-armed guard marched on either side. But she was not going to help them, like a lamb going meekly to the slaughter. When the litter was finally set down with a small thump she sat rigid and still until one of the men thrust in his turbaned head and a strong black arm unemotionally pulled her out.
Now, as they herded her deeper into the Moor's residence, she threw off their prodding hands with an angry jerk of her shoulder. The halls and plazas they traversed, overseen by silent, stationary guards, represented with their
lavish, honeycombed traceries and Oriental arches an alien barrier between her and the world beyond Granada, and each confusing turn cut her off further from her past. A deepening sense of finality threatened to overturn her desperate bravado.
Her guards halted before a huge and ornately carved wooden gate, which looked to be blocking off an entire wing of her buyer's extravagant domicile. She did not understand the short exchange between her escort and the sentries guarding the portal, but her fear-sharpened hearing caught the word "harem," and a flare of panic made her whirl to escape, to run, to flee anywhere but forward, where a small door in the tall gates was at that moment flung open by a sentry. Two of her unblinking guards caught her by the arms, dragged her forward, and gave her a determined shove right through the shadowy square of the door so that she fell with a cry inside and landed on all fours. Before she could recover her breath and twist around the door had closed with a solid thunk and her fate was decided.
Getting to her feet she shrunk back against the heavy mahogany portals to see about her. She was in a roofed, fountained court festooned with many bronze hanging lamps, although only a few nightlamps by the gate were actually lit, casting a low pool of light at the entry. The mosaic floor under her feet was intricately patterned with vines that seemed in the gloom like writhing serpents. And from the shadows opposite someone was slip-slapping across the floor toward her. She put her hands behind her back to hide their shaking. If that cold-eyed Moor touched her she would scream loud enough to wake the dead.
But it was only a pantalooned woman, whey-faced and broad, who approached her in the dim circle of light from the hanging lamps. The woman halted and looked her over, arms akimbo, and then wordlessly moved to grasp her by the elbow. Twitching away Dolores growled, "If you so much as touch me, hag, I'll claw your eyes out!"
Thin eyebrows arched up in the fat face. "Foolish Christian goose! I'm not going to harm you," the woman wheezed in faulty Castilian. "I only want to show you where you can sleep." With her heavy arm she motioned toward a bead-curtained, horseshoe-arched doorway.
"I'm not going into that... that harem."
The woman snickered and crossed her arms again. "You are already in the harem, stupid, and the gates are barred, so make up your mind to that. These are the only locked portals in the wing; otherwise you can go where you wish and there is a comfortable couch awaiting you inside. But sleep on the cold floor here if you will, I don't care. It's your back, not mine."
"What... what are they doing in there?" Dolores could not keep the wary quaver from her voice.
"Are you crazy?" The woman's dark eyes squinted at her in disbelief. "Sleeping, of course. What do you think at this time of night? And so would I be, had I not been ordered to wait for you. Come along now and give me no more trouble." She turned and slip-slapped away, not looking back but muttering, "You Spanish females are all alike, fainting and fussing as if you were to be rent limb from limb. What fools!"
Dolores hesitated, but a despairing glance back at the closed and ponderous door in the gates convinced her she could not open them with only her bare fists. The woman thought she was a fool? Well, she would soon learn different. Meanwhile there was nothing to be gained by remaining in the entry plaza. So, with a leaden heart she followed after the stolid broad back wrapped in an embroidered shawl and passed through the clattering beads of a doorway. Then they went along an open gallery bordered by flowering shrubs and into a long, carpeted corridor lined with small, velvet-curtained chambers. The woman stopped before one of these and pulled aside the hanging, motioning Dolores in. The room was tiny, but it offered a low couch which was spread with a light woolen blanket and a round silk pillow. There was a small Persian carpet on the red-tiled floor and an inlaid tabouret, where a little oil lamp flickered.
The woman yawned hugely and with momentarily watering eyes announced, "I am the mistress of the harem. My name is Sayeda Fawzia and my word here is law. If you obey and are sweet and docile we shall have no problems. If you wish to present a prickly exterior you will find we have many pinchers with which to snip off your thorns." The dark eyes, stuck like raisins in the pudding face, regarded Dolores unwaveringly and with unmistakable authority. Yet Dolores did not feel either malice or menace in that stare.
Fawzia wrinkled up her brown, oily nose as Dolores's tired grip allowed her cloak to fall open. "Fagh! Do you Christians never wash? Well, it's too late for that now, we shall have to clean you up on the morrow." She bent at one wall to lift up a low, carved screen on hinges and showed Dolores the porcelain pot behind it. "Now go to bed," she ordered curtly, and turning her back on her new charge shuffled out, yawning.
Dolores's hands flew to her hips in a burst of high indignation. "How dare she!" she fumed to herself. "If she had slept in the mud for four nights with a bunch of flea-ridden peasants she would not smell like a violet either. The puta!"
Wearily she dropped her cloak and, removing the porcelain pot from its niche, took care of an urgent need. She realized her throat was uncomfortably dry, that she was suffering from thirst, and at the same time noticed a small brass ewer and cup behind the lamp on the tabouret. Relieving her thirst with cool water she eyed the soft couch with a confused mixture of longing and denial, unwilling to use anything belonging to her captor. If she were clever and resourceful, she would now steal from the chamber and find someplace to hide, someplace where the dreadful Moor of the flat face would never find her. But she was not clever tonight; she was tired and scared. She needed the strength a good sleep would give her.
She rolled down her stockings and struggled off the remnants of her stained gown, remembering with a sad sigh the solicitous ministering of poor Engracia. Sinking down on the couch, she sourly eyed the narrow opening to her cubicle, wishing there were a door with a stout bar instead of the velvet curtain. But reason told her that there was little chance she would be menaced at what was surely long past the midnight hour. Sinking down, she lay back on the feather-filled mattress and pulled up the blanket just for a moment before peeling off her wilted shift, but her muscles simply refused to move again. With a quivering sigh she closed her eyes to try to think, and in moments unconsciousness took her.
***
Sunlight streaming through a narrow, grilled window awakened her as a barefooted serving girl with a nervous smile entered her cubicle to deposit a lacquered tray holding a round of flat bread, an orange, and a pungent hot drink. Dolores gobbled the bread and fruit. The drink she tasted warily and found too bitter. But the sleep, the food, the cheerful sunlight, and the cool air coming into her little cubicle lifted her spirits, and she felt her natural optimism flowing back. Maybe she would not have to forfeit her life to honor, crept into her mind. Somehow, someway, might she find a way to cheat this fate?
She was just picking her dirty gown off the floor to don it when the curtain was pushed aside by a healthy shove from Sayeda Fawzia. Behind her stood two attendants, arms akimbo but peering at Dolores with curiosity rather than threat.
"Allah preserve us!" the harem mistress cried out as she saw Dolores bend. "Don't touch that filthy thing." And she kicked Dolores's pile of ruined clothes into a corner. But a more friendly smile appeared on her fat, brown face when she noticed Dolores's frightened expression. "You needn't be upset, girl, you'll soon have other raiments, much finer indeed. Now come along with us; we must bathe you and get you clean."
Seen in the light of day the harem mistress seemed shorter and less imposing than the night before, although she now wore a fine orange damask tunic over white silk pantaloons and painted shoes with upturned toes and her dark hair was hidden by a beaded chiffon veil pinned at the nape and hanging down her back. The small eyes peering from the suety brown face were wide awake now, and they were bright with intelligence and shrewdness, but although they measured Dolores steadily, there was a certain sympathy within them that evinced to a disposition inclined toward tolerance if the lady were not crossed.
A bath? How could that hurt? Welcoming
it, in fact, Dolores nodded in agreement, but did not smile back. She went with them without fuss into a nearby small and steamy bathchamber, which she later learned was one especially reserved for unwashed newcomers and women ending their week of bleeding. Her hope that she might be left alone to soak in a tub was immediately dashed, but she had not imagined such a scrubbing, rubbing, scraping, pummeling, and pounding as the two attendants gave her while Fawzia, seated on a stool, directed. She was made to step from marble tubs of hot water to ones filled with cold water, several times alternately boiling and freezing, and in between being soaped and rinsed and rubbed with cloths until her skin tingled. Then they wrapped her up in a type of fuzzy cotton cloth that swiftly soaked up the moisture clinging to her, and led her into another chamber, where she was made to lie on the pillows of an inclined wooden settle while her washed auburn locks were henna-tinted to a brighter red and combed out behind her to dry in the sunlight which poured through an arabesqued grill. The harem mistress, who had left after seeing her charge thoroughly parted from any vestige of dirt, now returned with several other attendants, these younger and chattering with each other. Smiling, they pattered in and busied themselves with beautifying the new arrival. They carefully slathered her with a slippery unguent and, wielding sharp razors which so intimidated her that she dared not move, scraped away every last hair on her body including that about her groin, which she was certain had to be a sin. The cuts and abrasions on her feet were treated with a stinging lotion, and with pumice stone they smoothed away callus from soles and ankles and roughness from her elbows. Her finger-and toenails were carefully trimmed and cleaned, and to her astonishment the palms of her hands and soles of her feet were stained red and painted with white pigment in intricate designs.
Hart, Mallory Dorn Page 54
