Aslin nee 8ball
Governor
Yesterday at 9:02 AM
Hidden Talisman of the Abbad. Part 4
Six hours later, time creeping by at an agonizingly slow pace, Amina would have once again acknowledged Ahmed was not one to make idle threats. If she had still been capable of rational thought, that is.
“I thought your beating would have made you realize you are nothing but a slave…. your sole purpose to serve your master. Instead you injure one of my men, choosing to use your mouth not to pleasure him but to maim him! I should cut out your tongue and feed it to the birds, but what I could not teach you with the cane, little troublemaker, the desert will teach you. The eye in the sky is rising, and it gives lessons not easily forgotten” the slave leader had said.
While the sun was peeking over the horizon they had taken Amina, still shivering from the cold night, to a spot a little further into the desert. A small mound, where the ground was firm, and four sturdy spikes had been driven into it, about 3 or 4 paces apart, forming a rough, almost square rectangle.
They had then made her lie down between those stakes and tied her tightly, wrists and ankles, to long strips of leather in turn tied to the stakes, leaving about a foot of length, so that the stakes were just out of her reach. Before binding her, they had, to her amazement, soaked the leather in water. She wondered why.
Soon after she knew. In less than twenty minutes, temperature went from chilly to scorching hot, the sun having just cleared the horizon. The leather strips dried, and while she had not been tied too tightly at first, now she felt positively stretched, spread-eagled between the stakes. She had heard, years before, of some horrifying torture apparatus on which a body could be stretched to the point of its joints dislocating. She had sometimes wondered, with a sense of dread that was also strangely exciting, how it would feel to be stretched in such a way. While not even close to dislocating, the tension in her muscles and joints, due to the shrinkage of the leather straps, was beginning to cause her extreme pain. The straps had shrunk so much, her body was pulled so taught, that only her torso was still lying on the ground. Her tied wrists and ankles burned as the rough leather abraded her tender skin, and any sense of vague excitement she had associated with the predicament years before was evaporated.
But being stretched out was not her only discomfort. The heat soon became unbearable. Her brown skin offered no real protection, but even Duwana…. she thought back for a moment to the proud Nubian, carried back to the camp, unable to stand after her night on the Devil’s Perch. Even she, with her dark skin, would have blistered under the desert sun. And the thirst! Walking behind that horse, three days earlier, she had thought it impossible to get any thirstier. Now she knew better.
With the sun slowly approaching its zenith, the heat and exhaustion should have rendered her unconscious. But Ahmed had made sure she would be kept awake, at the same time increasing her suffering tenfold. His men had smeared honey on all the most sensitive spots of Amina’s exposed body. Her breasts. Her nose and cheeks. Her flanks and belly. Her ears, neck, armpits and thighs. Even her soles and toes, the palms of her hands and tips of her fingers. And of course, most of the sticky substance had gone on her nipples, her labia, her clit.
There were no anthills close by, they had told her. It would be a waste of good money, to let a virgin be eaten alive by those insects. But horse flies, well… That was another story entirely. Scores of them buzzed constantly around Amina, driving her mad with their buzzing, their tickling feet. She shook her head violently, trying to stop the flies from crawling into her nostrils. Little could she do to prevent them crawling in other orifices. And worst of all, their bites, painful as the sting of a wasp, keeping her awake when the only thing she hoped for was to sink into the blackness of merciful oblivion.
The one mercy the slavers had granted her was a thick, black cloth tied around her head, acting as a blindfold. Even keeping her eyes shut, they had told her, the desert sun would otherwise make her totally or at best partially blind. And in no way did they want to diminish her sale value.
Her skin was beginning to burn under the harsh desert sun, her mouth parched, lips beginning to dry and crack. Her nipples and breasts, her groin and labia, burned and peppered with bites. Eventually even the hoard of flies that buzzed around and attacking her most sensitive areas could not keep her from slipping in and out of consciousness. Amina started to hallucinate. She saw herself, a small child in her bed, her mother sitting beside her, telling a story about a handsome prince who had rescued a princess in peril. She always had wanted to be that princess. She sensed movement around her, she heard sounds. Were they real? She heard a voice. Was it real? A hand placed under her head, lifting it. Something touching her lips, something wet trickling over her lips. A man’s voice saying “Not too fast, drink slowly girl. Drink slowly.” She wasn’t hallucinating.
The man’s hands slowly removed her blindfold. The brightness of the desert hurt her eyes but she eventually was able to focus on her rescuer. He cut her bonds, covered her in a blanket to shield her from the blazing sun and then offered her more water. Malik, second in command of the slavers and just returned from a mission, was not sure who this young woman was. No doubt, however, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Even the damage of the sun and the flies could not hide her beauty from his eyes: long slender legs, perfect breasts, face and eyes that somehow managed to be angelic and mischievous at the same time, with thick, long black hair. The girl was in a state of shock. He had seen it many times before. He asked her who had done this to her although he already knew. He knew who was responsible… his half-brother Ahmed.
Malik had been just a boy when his father had died. Ahmed had already left to be on his own by that time. Malik and his mother managed to survive but when Malik was in his mid-teens his mother became suddenly ill and he found himself an orphan. He used his wits to become a streetwise survivor. Eventually his older half-brother came for him, teaching him the ways of a slaver. Malik did not argue with his elder brother. Life on the streets had thought him that survival comes first, caring for others much later. He had, however, sometimes objected to the harshness of the punishments his brother used to dish out. While in the end he always ended deferring to him, seeing this beautiful, vulnerable woman so horribly tortured pushed him over his limit. Ahmed considered Malik to be weak. Well he wasn’t weak enough to let this happen to this poor young girl.
Malik carefully lifted her up, still wrapped in his blanket. She had fainted, and was clearly to weak to sit on his horse. He took her in his arms, and carried her for the brief distance to the compound. In his strong arms she weighed almost nothing, and he couldn’t keep himself from peeking at her face every few steps. At the gates of the compound the guards followed Malik’s orders to take Amina to the other slaves and have them care for her.
Before he could reach Ahmed’s tent, his older half-brother stormed out towards him. “What in the name of Allah do you think you’re doing?”
“What did you do, brother? What could such a creature, as beautiful as any houri, have done to deserve such cruel treatment?” asked Malik.
“A houri? I see, you’ve fallen for her pretty tits, have you? Well, your houri decided her mouth was not for giving pleasure, and chomped off the cock of Abdul, who was testing her skills. You know we can ill afford to sell an untamed slave”.
“Abdul was ever an idiot. What would you have done, had he decided to sample your skills?”
“Careful, little brother… even with you my patience runs only so far” said Ahmed. Then, turning to his men: “Carry the bitch back and stake her out again. It’s just past midday, she still has several hours to learn her place”.
Four slavers immediately turned towards the compound, but Malik, with an imperious gesture, stopped them.
“NO! Enough! If you cannot see you are going beyond any limits, Ahmed, then I’ll have to show you”.
Ahmed gave his younger sibling a long, silent stare. Then he said: “Do you presume you can give me orders, Malik? You know there’s only one way in our tradition to make it so…”
“I know” said Malik. “Allah knows what I owe you, but you leave me no choice. Tomorrow at dawn I’ll fight you in the traditional way over the leadership of our group”.
“You made your choice then” said Ahmed. “You saved your houri, for today at least. But who will save you tomorrow?”.
(to be continued)
Hidden Talisman of the Abbad. Part 4
Six hours later, time creeping by at an agonizingly slow pace, Amina would have once again acknowledged Ahmed was not one to make idle threats. If she had still been capable of rational thought, that is.
“I thought your beating would have made you realize you are nothing but a slave…. your sole purpose to serve your master. Instead you injure one of my men, choosing to use your mouth not to pleasure him but to maim him! I should cut out your tongue and feed it to the birds, but what I could not teach you with the cane, little troublemaker, the desert will teach you. The eye in the sky is rising, and it gives lessons not easily forgotten” the slave leader had said.
While the sun was peeking over the horizon they had taken Amina, still shivering from the cold night, to a spot a little further into the desert. A small mound, where the ground was firm, and four sturdy spikes had been driven into it, about 3 or 4 paces apart, forming a rough, almost square rectangle.
They had then made her lie down between those stakes and tied her tightly, wrists and ankles, to long strips of leather in turn tied to the stakes, leaving about a foot of length, so that the stakes were just out of her reach. Before binding her, they had, to her amazement, soaked the leather in water. She wondered why.
Soon after she knew. In less than twenty minutes, temperature went from chilly to scorching hot, the sun having just cleared the horizon. The leather strips dried, and while she had not been tied too tightly at first, now she felt positively stretched, spread-eagled between the stakes. She had heard, years before, of some horrifying torture apparatus on which a body could be stretched to the point of its joints dislocating. She had sometimes wondered, with a sense of dread that was also strangely exciting, how it would feel to be stretched in such a way. While not even close to dislocating, the tension in her muscles and joints, due to the shrinkage of the leather straps, was beginning to cause her extreme pain. The straps had shrunk so much, her body was pulled so taught, that only her torso was still lying on the ground. Her tied wrists and ankles burned as the rough leather abraded her tender skin, and any sense of vague excitement she had associated with the predicament years before was evaporated.
But being stretched out was not her only discomfort. The heat soon became unbearable. Her brown skin offered no real protection, but even Duwana…. she thought back for a moment to the proud Nubian, carried back to the camp, unable to stand after her night on the Devil’s Perch. Even she, with her dark skin, would have blistered under the desert sun. And the thirst! Walking behind that horse, three days earlier, she had thought it impossible to get any thirstier. Now she knew better.
With the sun slowly approaching its zenith, the heat and exhaustion should have rendered her unconscious. But Ahmed had made sure she would be kept awake, at the same time increasing her suffering tenfold. His men had smeared honey on all the most sensitive spots of Amina’s exposed body. Her breasts. Her nose and cheeks. Her flanks and belly. Her ears, neck, armpits and thighs. Even her soles and toes, the palms of her hands and tips of her fingers. And of course, most of the sticky substance had gone on her nipples, her labia, her clit.
There were no anthills close by, they had told her. It would be a waste of good money, to let a virgin be eaten alive by those insects. But horse flies, well… That was another story entirely. Scores of them buzzed constantly around Amina, driving her mad with their buzzing, their tickling feet. She shook her head violently, trying to stop the flies from crawling into her nostrils. Little could she do to prevent them crawling in other orifices. And worst of all, their bites, painful as the sting of a wasp, keeping her awake when the only thing she hoped for was to sink into the blackness of merciful oblivion.
The one mercy the slavers had granted her was a thick, black cloth tied around her head, acting as a blindfold. Even keeping her eyes shut, they had told her, the desert sun would otherwise make her totally or at best partially blind. And in no way did they want to diminish her sale value.
Her skin was beginning to burn under the harsh desert sun, her mouth parched, lips beginning to dry and crack. Her nipples and breasts, her groin and labia, burned and peppered with bites. Eventually even the hoard of flies that buzzed around and attacking her most sensitive areas could not keep her from slipping in and out of consciousness. Amina started to hallucinate. She saw herself, a small child in her bed, her mother sitting beside her, telling a story about a handsome prince who had rescued a princess in peril. She always had wanted to be that princess. She sensed movement around her, she heard sounds. Were they real? She heard a voice. Was it real? A hand placed under her head, lifting it. Something touching her lips, something wet trickling over her lips. A man’s voice saying “Not too fast, drink slowly girl. Drink slowly.” She wasn’t hallucinating.
The man’s hands slowly removed her blindfold. The brightness of the desert hurt her eyes but she eventually was able to focus on her rescuer. He cut her bonds, covered her in a blanket to shield her from the blazing sun and then offered her more water. Malik, second in command of the slavers and just returned from a mission, was not sure who this young woman was. No doubt, however, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Even the damage of the sun and the flies could not hide her beauty from his eyes: long slender legs, perfect breasts, face and eyes that somehow managed to be angelic and mischievous at the same time, with thick, long black hair. The girl was in a state of shock. He had seen it many times before. He asked her who had done this to her although he already knew. He knew who was responsible… his half-brother Ahmed.
Malik had been just a boy when his father had died. Ahmed had already left to be on his own by that time. Malik and his mother managed to survive but when Malik was in his mid-teens his mother became suddenly ill and he found himself an orphan. He used his wits to become a streetwise survivor. Eventually his older half-brother came for him, teaching him the ways of a slaver. Malik did not argue with his elder brother. Life on the streets had thought him that survival comes first, caring for others much later. He had, however, sometimes objected to the harshness of the punishments his brother used to dish out. While in the end he always ended deferring to him, seeing this beautiful, vulnerable woman so horribly tortured pushed him over his limit. Ahmed considered Malik to be weak. Well he wasn’t weak enough to let this happen to this poor young girl.
Malik carefully lifted her up, still wrapped in his blanket. She had fainted, and was clearly to weak to sit on his horse. He took her in his arms, and carried her for the brief distance to the compound. In his strong arms she weighed almost nothing, and he couldn’t keep himself from peeking at her face every few steps. At the gates of the compound the guards followed Malik’s orders to take Amina to the other slaves and have them care for her.
Before he could reach Ahmed’s tent, his older half-brother stormed out towards him. “What in the name of Allah do you think you’re doing?”
“What did you do, brother? What could such a creature, as beautiful as any houri, have done to deserve such cruel treatment?” asked Malik.
“A houri? I see, you’ve fallen for her pretty tits, have you? Well, your houri decided her mouth was not for giving pleasure, and chomped off the cock of Abdul, who was testing her skills. You know we can ill afford to sell an untamed slave”.
“Abdul was ever an idiot. What would you have done, had he decided to sample your skills?”
“Careful, little brother… even with you my patience runs only so far” said Ahmed. Then, turning to his men: “Carry the bitch back and stake her out again. It’s just past midday, she still has several hours to learn her place”.
Four slavers immediately turned towards the compound, but Malik, with an imperious gesture, stopped them.
“NO! Enough! If you cannot see you are going beyond any limits, Ahmed, then I’ll have to show you”.
Ahmed gave his younger sibling a long, silent stare. Then he said: “Do you presume you can give me orders, Malik? You know there’s only one way in our tradition to make it so…”
“I know” said Malik. “Allah knows what I owe you, but you leave me no choice. Tomorrow at dawn I’ll fight you in the traditional way over the leadership of our group”.
“You made your choice then” said Ahmed. “You saved your houri, for today at least. But who will save you tomorrow?”.
(to be continued)
