F Campbell - Chain of Jedrah

How sad a visit! What exclamations of dismay each girl made within her mind. So much of which to speak, so great a need! Yet none would talk, their tongues as captive as their limbs. One of them already wept and none could dry her tears.

Stacie went from one to the other. Each tried to smile, but the gag defeated them, their eyes were their only communion, in them were only questions and despair. All three were in pain. How easy now for Stacie to know their anguish. They looked at her handcuffs with envy.

They had been whipped. Now as much as she herself, but perhaps a single severe beating, the marks were plain to see. Stacie remembered Rannah’s words: ‘Merchandise’: their skin was valuable. But a most curious thing had been done: high on the chest of each, well above the swell of their breasts, a name had been printed in some indelible ink. Convenience, humiliation, identification! Stacie could not know. The stewardess was Wendy, the others, Jane and Suzie. It was their only introduction. Her own absence of such an imprint set her apart. They must be as curious of her as she was of them. At least the weals upon her skin would tell them she was not unfairly favoured.

As a visit it was desolation. All it achieved was a knowledge of each other’s continued existence in captive pain. To stand before one of the tortured girls was to be tortured too, for it would not be long until their hurt eyes closed and they relapsed into their private misery. As she stood before each Stacie saw their eyes focus on her scanty slave girl garb. Compared to their own nudity she was well dressed. She longed to tell them that in her punishments she, too, was naked.

It was to painful. Stacie wished she had not come. Her eyes were brimming with tears by the time Rannah returned to take her away. She was glad to leave.

Rannah laughed at the woebegone faces. “You think me cruel. I know! So I tell two things. You are gagged because it is best you do not exchange such things as you may know. You three are punished by your own request as a price for this visit. Stacie is about to be punished as her own contribution. You three will now be released, she will not.”

Simple and direct. Rannah had the laugh on all of them. How helpless they were in their bondage! Robbed even of speech! Following her mistress, Stacie longed to speak but was still gagged. She ceased to care about the tears that trickled down her cheeks.

“You think I am terribly cruel, don’t you, slave girl. So now I keep the other half of my bargain. Those three very beautiful girls will be nurtured and trained to become houris for the delight of any man. When Mohammad Yasin desires a favour in high places, favours that money cannot buy, he will use them as a bribe. So cease to worry about them. They will receive pain only in such measure as is needful to make them amenable to their new status.”

Rannah looked back and laughed at what she saw.

“Allright, I take it off. I love your chatter and your screams. I do not want you silent.” Deftly, but with care she took the wet ball from her slave girl’s mouth. “There! You can talk. Is your bottom ready for its stripes?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“But you do not really relish them!”

“No, my lady.”

Rannah laughed gaily. “So woebegone, so sad! Perhaps I will forgive you the stripes and give you something worse. The day is still young, we have much time. Would you like that?”

“If it pleases you, my lady.”

“Poor child! So cautious! But I would be cautious too, were I in your shoes.”

The slave girl had a sad feeling it was not going to be a good day. She was glad to be forgiven the caning—if in truth she was! But Rannah was in a pixie mood. The ‘something worse’ might indeed be just that. She strained tentatively at her handcuffs as was her instinctive habit when in stress. She looked around the familiar room they had just entered and wondered which of its terrors she would meet.

“Lay face down, slave girl, so your ankles fit in these.” ‘These’ comprised an anchored metal clamp, the half circles of which were raised a few inches from the stone. Their intent was all too evident. Sighing, Stacie lowered herself to the floor, her locked hands helping her not at all. Looking over one shoulder she disposed her feet as ordered and watched Rannah flip over the top section and immovably prison her ankles. Her helplessness was now frightening. “I’m not naked,” she said irrelevantly as though hoping to start afresh.

“You’re not, are you! Never mind. What you’ve got on won’t matter for this one.”

When Rannah knelt beside her and began to plait her hair Stacie was both scared and intrigued. The plait was long, twined within it was solidly anchored a knotted cord.

“On your knees, slave girl, erect.”

It was not easy, Rannah had to help. Possibilities began to loom, to kneel on the stone all day would not be pleasant. But the preparations were not yet done. A couple of feet before her was a square hole in the stone, into it Rannah inserted and pushed home a solid four by four that had the appearance of much use. The handcuffs were unlocked and discarded.

“A hand on each side, Stacie.”

Her wrists were tied to the post with much care so that the slave knelt upright, her hands slightly raised above the level of her chin.

“Comfy?”

“No, my lady.”

Not the braid! Its cord was pulled back and tethered to a ring behind her feet. It was gently tested and gently pulled. When it was knotted Stacie could not bend or lean forward, she could not even look down. Her head was held very erect indeed. Her pinioned arms prevented her leaning back to ease the strain. She had perforce to kneel as she had been positioned, she had no other choice. She could move little and that without effect. She longed to slump back upon her heels, but her corded wrists denied her wish. It was not a routine day.

Rannah circled her appraisingly. “You look delicious, slave girl,” she approved. “I will leave you soon, but there is one more thing . . .”

Stacie saw her torture only as it approached. Once positioned, her taut braid would prohibit examination. She divined its purpose instantly, and looked up at the Arab girl in mute and agonized appeal.

It was very simple: a block of wood three feet long. Six inches at the base, tapering to a faintly curved smooth edge an inch wide. Straddling the helpless girl, Rannah managed to raise her from the floor long enough to slip the balk of timber into its appointed place beneath the victim’s knees. A kick here and there aligned it to her satisfaction before she went away and left the kneeling girl alone. Neither girl had spoken. Each had seen the condition as immutable.

Stacie knew it would get worse, probably much worse. But even at the beginning it was frightening enough to make her clench her teeth in silence while the door closed and Rannah went beyond the sound of a voice in agony. Throughout the preparations she had longed to plead. Now it was too late, there was none to hear. It was awful, it was frightening, but it was best. That was why the dark-eyed girl had sped away.

Coping with the waves of pain from her tortured knees, Stacie tried to assess the limits of her suffering. More urgently she sought easement. There was none. Her braided hair was wicked, without it she could have leant forward and perhaps taken some weight with her prisoned wrists, but erect as she was forced to stay, her arms were thrust straight forward and took none of her weight at all, her knees got it all. If she wanted to lean her weight on one she could ease the other. She tried it, but relapsed in gasping anguish. Stacie bitterly realized she would stay kneeling and upright as she was, her knees indented on their narrow ledge, until such time as her mistress decided to release her. Even if she fainted, her hands tied to the post would keep her from falling. Between her wrists and her braided hair she could do naught else but endure what she must.