F Campbell: Chain of Jedrah

It had been fifteen minutes since the last stroke. Stacie had regained a weak control. She smiled in new wisdom. “Fuck me, Yousef.”

“I could refuse.”

“Yousef . . . please!”

It was nearly an hour before he struck her foot again. During the times when she fainted Yousef went away and let her hang. Coming back to awareness by herself her first thought was always of the strokes yet to be borne. When her mind was not in a turmoil of agony she thought of Mohammad Yasin and of her love and of why Rannah had given her to the torturer. But she concerned herself little with reasons. It was all a part of the flowing stream of sensation and sentience that began on the day of her seizure from the plane. There was a pattern. If it pleased her Lady to order her feet beaten so that she would not walk it was no more than a part of the mosaic. She looked from side to side at the foot beyond the tight anklet. She could not see the sole, but the rest seemed little changed. It was impossible . . . !

“It grieves me that there remain but four strokes,” Yousef mourned. “In agony you are more beautiful than a man’s dreams.”

“Give them to me quickly and have done, Yousef. I wish it.”

“Alas, lady, you will faint. I can only strike when you are conscious.”

“I will not faint, Yousef. I promise.”

He struck the four swift blows as hard as all the rest.

Stacie stayed in the world, but saw it only through a mist of throbbing agony. After a long time and many screams she asked: “Is it done?”

“It is done, lady.”

“Yousef . . . please . . . please . . . please!”

He coupled her fiercely. She screamed again. It was a cry of victory. They were both of Jedrah.

The afternoon had fled when he loosed the cords and the bands. Stacie allowed her nakedness to curl limply on the rug Yousef had thoughtfully provided. Apart from her beaten feet it would take her system minutes to revive her shoulders and her legs. She grinned up at her torturer. “Nothing works, Yousef. Give me a minute like this.”

Stacie did not examine her feet. She was afraid to look.

When the time came she tried to rise, but fell back panting, her eyes wide in realization that her feet were lost to her.

A stone chamber without light save for a candle flickering on the floor. On her limbs were chains. “I am more chains than girl,” she protested as Yousef locked the collar on her neck.

“You are a woman!” It was an accolade.

“I am a captive chained in a dungeon, Yousef.”

“You will stay here while your feet heal.”

“For days and days . . . ! And chained . . . !”

“You are exquisite, lady. Wear them always.” He locked her in . . . alone!

Stacie examined herself in the dim light as she rested on one hip on the stone. She was fettered at wrist and ankle, neck and waist. All the chains led to rings bedded in the stone. They could not be to keep her captive: one would have sufficed. They were to punish. Or because she looked erotically lovely in them. She grinned ruefully. It did really matter. She was a naked girl chained in a dungeon and that was that! Hesitantly she grasped a foot, pulled it toward her and looked. What she beheld once more unleashed her tears.

She never knew the days, he would not tell her. But he came again and again through each one of them to allow his manhood to pay homage to her flesh. His visits held away the ghosts and kept her sane. She moved only to the rattle of chains. Even in their lovemaking the links sang their laughter on her limbs. They knew this dungeon time ephemeral, and so made terror delicious and fear a fantasy.

Thus is the nature of man. Sometimes in the night she wept.

When Rannah released her, Stacie’s joy was such that she spoke not of her feet, but bore their pain as she was led to the room in which they shared their flesh and their love. Hours later across a dinner table the slave girl forgot the crusts and the apple of her dungeon fare. Her eyes were alight with splendour.

“It is in the past,” Rannah said sombrely. “Let us not dwell on it.” She looked with amusement at her slave girl’s eagerness. “We will speak only of you and me.”

“What becomes of us, my Lady?”

The Lady Rannah made a little moue of sadness and shrugged her shoulders at Fate. “I will carry on where my father stopped. His death has made me one of the richest women in the world. I must keep the jackals at bay. You, beloved child, will go back to your parent.”

The silence was tangible, it seethed with ghosts. “You know I will not go.”

“I will deliver you to him neatly trussed in a crate.”

“I’ll come right back.”

“Then you will be chained in the dungeon as I found you today.”

“You’re teasing me, Rannah.”

“Not entirely. You were bastinadoed and chained by my orders. In rejecting liberty you must contemplate these things. They could happen again. They will! Firstly you will earn punishments, and secondly you are so damnably erotic you invite them . . . I am only human.”

“I don’t care! I’m your slave girl. Don’t let’s talk of anything else.”

“You see! You are incurably impudent. You will be forever striped.”

“By you, my Lady . . . please! Yousef . . . he’s a man . . .”

“I love you beyond bearing. You know it, child.”

“I adore you, my Lady. Beat me and keep me chained.” Rannah sighed. She fumbled in her bag and produced a small square box. “This is yours, slave girl.”

Stacie moaned in ecstasy as she held the silver handcuffs up to view. “Oh, darling! They’re gorgeous . . . and different.”

“They are made for you alone, of silver. Put them on.”

“I can’t. You must.”

The bands were wide, they encircled the chafed wrists snugly and made but a single locking snap on the captive flesh. They were joined by only two silver links.

The chained slave girl knelt before her mistress and wept in gratitude.