F Campbell - Chain of Jedrah

He nodded briefly, irritated by the contretemps.

Stacie and her mistress led Suzie from the room. The distraught girl clutched at them as though for sanctuary. “I can’t stand it, I know I can’t. It will kill me.”

Rannah caught Stacie’s eye. “She’s never been whipped as you have been,” she explained. “Her skin was kept unmarked. It was a mistake.” She shook Suzie’s shoulders. “You will not die. Ask Stacie, she has been terribly whipped.”

“You will not die, Suzie,” Stacie felt it a small comfort to offer. She turned to their mistress. “But, Rannah, she must be tied. No girl could keep still for twenty. I couldn’t! I know I couldn’t!”

“That is what I fear ,” Rannah admitted. “But she must. So much depends on it. Suzie, do you understand! You will have to bend over to be caned. You’ll have to stay like that until it’s done. If you go rolling on the floor you will be punished much, much worse.”

Suzie looked at them wanly. “I don’t know about such things. I do try but I’m no good at it. To be hit twenty times on my bare skin with a cane or a whip or something . . . It’s not possible!”

“It is possible,” said Rannah with a firmness she did not feel. “And you are going to do it. Come.”

They led Suzie back into the lounge.

“It is you who will punish her,” Yasin said to his daughter.

“You may go for the cane.” He looked at the trembling culprit. “You, girl, stand in the middle of the room and wait.”

Stacie sped to her duties. For the first time that evening she wished her ankles were not chained. Only her hands could hurry. Her feet would move only as fast as her fetters. For a little while she was a busy girl, drawing almost as many appreciative glances as did the sad and lovely child awaiting her penalty.

It was by no means the most severe of the canes Rannah returned with. “Bend down and clutch your ankles, do not bend your knees,” she ordered.

Suzie obeyed, her face a mask of anguish.

The Lady Rannah caned the slave girl methodically, but without inspiration. She did what she must. The visitors from another land watched avidly, their eyes hungry. Mr. Moghere beamed as Stacie replenished his glass. Mohammad Yasin was bored.

It was strange to see the rings in the nipples and nose of the bending girl fall away and hang apart. They shivered and trembled as did the rest of her with each blow. The blows were light, and Stacie wondered if they might not earn the girl who delivered them a penalty herself. It was at the seventh stroke when Stacie was almost ready with her sigh of relief at Suzie’s fortitude, that doom was pronounced.

“When do we commence to whip this stupid girl?” inquired black Africa.

Rannah stopped in mid stroke, turning a perplexed gaze upon the honoured guest. Suzie turned a stricken face in the same direction but maintained her bend. Stacie got the impression that the rest of the company, with the exception of Yasin whose face remained cold, were on the verge of clapping in applause.

“She is but a child,” Mohammad Yasin said tersely. “The punishment suggested requires she be tied: we have a room . . .”

“I am most comfortable,” said Mr. Moghere accepting another drink.

“She is not accustomed to punishments of such severity.”

“I am not accustomed to being bathed in gin.”

Yasin sighed. His case was weak. Resignedly he nodded to his daughter. Rannah struck a blow worthy of Yousef. Suzie yowled and rolled writhing on the floor, hands clutching her striped behind.

“It is as I say,” Mr. Moghere beamed at this confirmation of his thesis. “The white race is decadent and ready for the knife.”

Rannah sank humbly to her knees. “I fear we must tie her, Lord.”

“And so we shall,” Mr. Moghere agreed munificently. “But perhaps you will allow us to deal with the ridiculous damsel?”

Yasin nodded at his guest and at his daughter. Rannah laid down the cane and retired to the sidelines. Stacie knew she was trembling. The Ruler of tomorrow’s world signalled to one of his aides.

The watching girls had to admit it was neat and efficient as of long practice. The Aide, obviously gratified by his promotion, produced from the side pocket of his jacket a folded length of brightly hued foulard tie. Prodding the still writhing Suzie with a highly polished toe he requested. “You will stand up please.”

Suzie tensed and looked up in surprise at the new voice, but beheld no source of hope in what she saw. Hastily she stood erect.

“Your hands please.”

Suzie looked stupidly at her small hands as though seeing them for the first and last time. Dubiously she offered them. Mr. Moghere’s assistant bound them together tightly with the colourful strip. He was deft and expert and cruel. Suzie watched the coupling of her wrists with fresh dismay. She was trembling.

A fresh face entered the picture. It grinned cheerfully and turned its back. Suzie was lifted by her hips and deposited on the Saville Row Dinner jacket like a sack of oats. Hands reached up and lifted the tied wrists over a bent head, then pulled them down and held them in a huge and powerful grasp. Suzie’s nudity flowed down from the immaculate shoulders in a cascade of ivory, her bottom flaring pink, her chained feet far above the floor. As the man who held her bent so did she. Her bottom was delivered to the cane. She was shamingly helpless as a child across its parent’s knees.

“She will learn not to waste good Gin,” said Mr. Moghere. Aide number one whipped the girlish bottom with cruel competence. It could not be said he indulged in wild gyrations of power behind each stroke, but each was more brutal than the single lash from Rannah that had precipitated the African takeover of an essential service. White teeth shone from smiling black faces around the room. Mr. Moghere’s was the whitest and largest of them all. Suzie screamed wildly from the first, her chains clashed as she kicked frantically in the only freedom she possessed.

At the eighth stroke the ebony V.I.P. held up his hand.

“This screeching pullet has no regard for the ears of my colleague,” he complained. “Has someone a small handkerchief?”

It was instantly forthcoming. Stacie felt sure that had he requested a small elephant it would have been produced from somewhere. Suzie was instructed to open wide: an injunction she obeyed with obvious loathing. The caning of the white flesh continued briskly.

When it was done the small round bottom was swollen and livid, there were specks of blood. The Aide retrieved his tie, folding it neatly for further use. The sobbing Suzie, in a daze of pain and fear, was given but a few moments in which to compose herself before being ordered back to duty.

“It is you who will serve me now,” said Mr. Moghere prudently pointing to Stacie. He guffawed coarsely. “Someone else may have the privilege of being bathed in gin.”

Mohammad Yasin was irritated, his evening was going badly. Initiatives were in the hands of Amatar Moghere instead of his own. It was a moot point as to whether Suzie’s fumbling had endeared or damned her in Mr. Moghere’s eyes. His guest’s next insinuation added fuel to the fire.

“The young lady so merciful with the cane should perhaps feel a few strokes herself to teach her not to waste the time of men.”

“The daughter of Mohammad Yasin is not to be whipped in public,” Yasin’s voice was a controlled fury.

“No daughter of mine would so insult her father’s guests,” said Mr. Moghere blandly.

Stacie was horrified. That her beloved mistress be so humiliated was unthinkable. She sensed that Yasin’s tolerance of the evening’s buffoonery had reached an end. If his carefully nurtured plan was aborted because of Suzie’s fumbling he might well exact a further penalty of pain from the frightened girl.