THE PRIZE Page 5

  Eventually there came a time when the demands began to slow, there were periods when she could cry out in response to another cock slipping up into her squelching tunnel because no one wanted her mouth for a moment. Her hands were not required and at last no one was mauling her breasts any more. Then there came a time when no one thrust themselves between her spread legs and she found herself lying, panting and filthy on the floor. The men had donned their robes again and were calmly watching the television, ignoring her completely. She felt something dig into her ribs and turned her head to see Mahmut standing over her.

  "Get up," he ordered simply.

  Groggily she clambered up and looked down at herself. She was simply caked in sperm and even her hair was matted with it.

  "I get you cleaned up now," Mahmut told her and absurdly held out her shoes for her, as though they would clothe her. Close to exhausted collapse, Ayesha reached out and took them without thinking, then slipped them on and followed him out of the room. Not one man watched her go.

  Chapter 6

  Again she found herself in an airy and marble-tiled corridor and tip-tapped after Mahmut wondering fearfully what further ordeals awaited her. She was therefore taken completely by surprise when she was ushered into a huge bathroom with the biggest bath she had ever seen sunk into the centre of the floor. Mahmut simply gestured at it and then stood with his back against the door they had just entered by. Ayesha gratefully stepped down into the warm water and then gently eased herself down until she was sitting with the water coming up to her shoulders. She leaned back and gazed up at the massive chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. It was all too much to take in, she thought. Kidnapping, gang bangs, what else did they have in store for her until Sir John got her out of this mess? She was quite sure he would, she was too valuable to him.

  "Hurry!" Mahmut barked, breaking in on her thoughts. "His Highness is waiting."

  "Oh we mustn't keep him waiting must we?" Ayesha pouted. "He'll stamp his little royal foot."

  Mahmut just smiled. "You are one very silly girl," he told her.

  Ayesha glared at him but his relaxed and confident smile set alarm bells jangling in her head. She was after all the prisoner of an absolute ruler who had just ordered his guards to screw her any way they pleased and she had no idea of what else he was capable. She reached out for the soap and set to work.

  Half an hour later, naked but scrubbed clean of sperm, her hair washed and blow dried she accompanied Mahmut on a further walk. This time she was taken upstairs and past several female servants who didn't seem to bat an eyelid at seeing a naked girl being led through the palace; Ayesha found that very worrying. But at last they came to a stop outside a large and impressive door.

  "The Music Room," Mahmut said with an unpleasant leer. Then he opened the door and ushered her in. Her first impression was of light. There were four floor to ceiling windows along the wall facing her, they had been thrown open onto a balcony that ran the length of the room and sunlight flooded in through them. After the dark but cool corridors Ayesha had to squint a little to make out the Prince seated at a large mahogany desk in front of them. He was working on some papers but looked up and smiled as she entered.

  "Ah! I trust my men made you welcome," he said.

  "You mean they fucked me into the middle of next week, you bastard," she retorted. The nudity was getting on her nerves and she was increasingly frightened. "Sir John will come for me, you do know that don't you?"

  "Unfortunately for you he won't," the Prince replied calmly. "Even if he did there would be nothing he could do but in any event he included possession of you as a goodwill gesture to conclude a deal we made."

  Ayesha gaped at him stupidly as his words sank in. And in the silence between them, she became aware that there was some sound coming from the far end of the room, a soft creaking of leather. Slowly, suddenly not at all sure she wanted to see, Asyesha turned her head and saw the hanging girl.

  "Oh my God!" she whispered.

  "No not even he can help you here," the Prince mocked. "You see my people actually believe I am a deity. So as far as you are concerned, I am quite literally your God. I have complete power over you. Oh, and that's.......tch, her name escapes me but she's easily identified don't you think? Go and have a closer look."

  Although the appalling news that Sir John had bartered her had left her speechless with fury and dismay, the sight before her was so extraordinary that she found herself walking slowly down the room to get a better view.

  The soft creaking noise was caused by a thickly padded leather ankle restraint buckled around a girl's left ankle. From it a chain ran up to a hook mounted in the ceiling. The girl's suspended body swung in gentle arcs, making the leather creak. Her arms hung down towards the floor and her long black hair brushed it. She hung with her back to the room and as her free leg hung awkwardly backwards and a little sideways, her pubic mound was unusually prominent. After the initial shock of seeing a girl in such a horrible position, the sight of whip weals streaking her buttocks and thighs hardly made any impression on Ayesha. And in any case they were overshadowed by the tattoo.

  The Prince went to stand by the swinging body and held it steady so that she could get a clear look at it. From the cleft of the buttocks and going diagonally across the back and over one hip was worked what looked like the tail end of a snake, the Prince watched Ayesha and then turned the girl slightly so that she could see how the snake's body got thicker as it wound around the left side of the waist and then crossed the stomach and chest until the head was depicted on the right breast. And there Ayesha found her gaze trapped in horrified fascination because the whole breast - nipple included - had been tattooed into the likeness of the snake's head with its mouth open and fangs showing. The whole tattoo was in sombre blue and red and it was the most horrific thing Ayesha had ever seen. Suddenly she trembled; she was utterly alone and at the mercy of this Prince whose people thought he was a god and who could do this to a girl.

  He seemed to read her thoughts.

  "I applied the whip marks of course but the tattoo is a speciality of a community of women high up in the mountains. They take it as a great compliment that I sometimes accept some of their daughters into my harem and they go to great lengths to make them attractive," he shrugged. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but you must admit they are striking. I understand that even after being trained to the whip, they have to be tied down tightly for some of the procedure."

  Ayesha watched as the Prince's hand caressed and squeezed the tattooed breast and for the first time she looked down at the girl's face. Her eyes closed in pleasure even as Ayesha watched and a soft moan escaped her lips.

  "Come closer," the Prince invited and moving like a sleepwalker, Ayesha did so. "Now look between her legs," he told her.

  Ayesha's hand flew to her mouth in shock. She had assumed that the snake began where it emerged from the girl’s buttock cleft. But it didn't. It ran down alongside the anus, along the perineum and along one labial lip until it dived in towards the vagina itself. The snake actually emerged directly from the girl's sex. Ayesha's imagination failed in the face of trying to conjure up the sort of pain the girl had endured as the tattoo had been painstakingly applied, the needles jabbing in, time and time and time again. The nipple and breast must have been pretty bad - but between the legs.........!

  Abruptly the Prince released the suspended girl and slapped her bottom hard, making her swing like a bizarre pendulum.

  "Mahmut, continue whipping this one until further notice. You," he told Ayesha, "come with me."

  Too terrified to even consider disobeying him she followed as he strode out onto the balcony, turning to lean against the railing of the balcony and facing her. "You are a slave of my household now. In my country this is considered a high calling for a woman so you will stop these ridiculous attempts to hide your nudity," he waved dismissively at Ayesha who was still trying to cross an arm over her chest and hide her pubes with her other
hand. "A slave has nothing but her body to offer her master, you have a good body so stand up straight and offer it properly."

  Ayesha shook her head.

  The Prince sighed and turned his head slightly. "Mohammed!" he called. "Bring another one over!"

  Ayesha's eyes followed the direction in which he had called. The balcony looked out over one of the atriums she had seen earlier and on the opposite side there was a large area of intricately carved stonework. Vague shadowy figures seemed to move behind it. The Prince watched her and smiled.

  "Yes, I really do have a harem. Currently there are about thirty-five women in it. None of them are wives of course, they are all slaves and I think it's time you learned why this is called the Music Room."

  For a second there was only the swish and smack of Mahmut's whip and the suspended girl's strained grunts in response but then Mohammed entered and ushered another girl out onto the balcony. Ayesha saw she was petite and beautiful, with large dark eyes, straight black hair and a surprisingly voluptuous figure for so slight a frame. Her dress consisted solely of two panels held together by clips at the shoulders and a belt at the waist. The material was translucent and only served to heighten the observer's awareness of the prominence and firmness of the breasts and the length and shapeliness of the thighs. There was an unmistakable flush of excitement on the girl's face as she approached the Prince with her eyes downcast and Ayesha remembered that he had told her he was regarded as a god here. Without having to be told, the girl untied the belt, lifted her hands and undid the clips at her shoulders. The gossamer gown hissed sensuously to her feet and once again Ayesha gasped. She bore another tattoo. This one emanated directly from the front of her crotch and stretched up one side of her stomach until it reached the breast. It was a plant with bamboo-like stalks which bore large red, rose-like flowers. Inevitably the largest bloom was depicted on the breast, the nipple itself cunningly forming the pistil.

  "Put her over my desk and cane her," the Prince told Mohammed; dispassionate in the face of such selfless devotion.

  The girl went immediately back inside and bent over while Mohammed took a cane from a rack on one wall. Ayesha couldn't help appreciating the beauty of the girl's bottom as Mohammed began to wield the cane and the whip went on smacking into the other helpless slave's body. The evening air in the atrium was filled with the Thwick! of the cane and the more measured Swish! Smack! of the whip punctuated by gasps and groans, from behind the screen on the other side, Ayesha thought she caught the sound of throaty, excited female giggles.

  "That is music," the Prince told her. "The sound of slaves being beaten just because their master wants them to be. Now, stand up straight and put your hands behind your back or I'll add the sound of a whip on your back to tonight's entertainment."

  Ayesha felt her stomach lurch as she took in the full extent of the man's cruelty. What the slave herself experienced was completely immaterial to him. She could scream in agony or ecstasy - or both - and it was just the scream that would be savoured, its cause irrelevant. The sounds of the various whips and canes as they landed on female hides was all that counted. Slowly she adopted the position he had ordered. He came close and began to run his hands over her body, squeezing her breasts roughly, forcing hisses of breath through her gritted teeth when he pushed his fingers into her sore vagina. But the continuing sounds of punishment kept her rigidly in position.

  "There is one more sound I want to hear tonight," he told her at last. "Bend over the railings."

  "Oh please! No!" Ayesha begged instantly. She didn't want to be beaten - she had never conceived that beatings could go on for as long as the ones she was witnessing had - but neither did she think that either of her passages could take any more penetrations. The Prince clicked his fingers and Mohammed appeared by his side. Instantly the big man's steel grip fastened on the back of her neck and she was thrust down onto the balcony railing, her legs were kicked apart and before she knew what was happening she got the hardest cut from a cane that she had ever experienced. There was no foreplay or teasing stinging in it. The thin shaft felt as though it had sliced her to the bone. Her eyes bulged in shock and she screamed while her hands tried to fly to the defence of her bottom but the Prince grabbed them and held them up behind her.

  "Another ten," she heard him command and was screaming even before the next stroke landed. She fought and wriggled desperately as the tally mounted, taking her well beyond what she would have believed she could have tolerated, the pain filling her mind in billowing scarlet clouds, her screams rasping at her throat. But at last it stopped and she was allowed to collapse to her knees, hands frantically rubbing at the hard ridges traced on her skin. One thought shone out crystal clear through the fog in her brain, she might have thought she had been beaten before this day and she might have thought she enjoyed it. But these men were something else. When they beat a girl, they meant it. It was up to her how she coped with it.

  Snivelling she staggered to her feet and bent over the railings as she had been ordered to originally.

  "Good. Next time you will obey instantly," the Prince said.

  "Yes, Your Highness." Ayesha sniffed back her tears.

  "Reach behind you and hold your arse open. I'm going to bugger you."

  She didn't hesitate for a second, holding her scalded buttocks as wide apart as she could and adding her groans to the evening's music while the Prince took his pleasure in his newest slave's sorely-tested rectum.

  Chapter 7

  Three days afterwards and in the cool of the late evening the Prince sat at the edge of the big pond in one of the many atriums contained within his palace's sprawling compass. The moon shone down and the incense-scented candles burning at each corner of the lawn perfumed the still-warm air. As was his custom in the privacy of this wing of the palace, he was naked.

  He was also feeding the mermaids.

  He held out their favourite treats, sticky sweets from one of the markets in the city, while they nibbled them from his hand, their clever tongues and soft lips tickling his palm and reminding him of what other services their mouths could offer him. He patted one on the head absent-mindedly as she swam away back to the rocks in the centre of the pool where she pulled herself out of the water and immediately began to intertwine her gleaming body with that of one of her sisters. The Prince reached out and took up a fairly heavy stock whip lying beside him. He wetted the lash and then stood, judging the distance carefully before flicking the lash across the water in a spray of moonlit drops. It impacted solidly on one slave's back and prompted a surprised yelp and a further spray but as soon as she had given vent to that her head dived back between the thighs of the slave she was making love to. The Prince nodded approvingly and moved around the pool a little way until he could get a shot between the widely-spread legs of another slave who was tonguing avidly at one who knelt astride her face. Again with pinpoint accuracy he sent the lash arcing over the water and the last couple of inches snapped excruciatingly along the puffy labia. This time the response was a guttural gasp of shocked agony from between the other slave's thighs. The whipped slave's head jerked up and sent the one kneeling over her pitching forwards helplessly. Squealing and giggling she slid into the water, managing to drag the other slave with her by grabbing her ankles.

  The Prince allowed himself an indulgent smile as the two immediately embraced in the water once they had surfaced. When he was in residence he always had five or six 'mermaids' in this pond. He and his guests enjoyed watching the shining bodies forming passionately writhing groups on the rocks and picking out choice targets for the whip.

  One side of the pool which was some ten feet deep was glass and via a short staircase, guests could descend and watch the girls in the water, selecting which one they wanted to serve them at dinner. Sometimes, if it was a special occasion, the guests could choose a girl to quite literally be served to them, the food being served from inside and from on top of her body as she lay trussed on the dining table. But on this
night there were other matters to attend to and the Prince reluctantly made his way back through the open doors and into the Evening Office, where Peter was waiting for him.

  The trainer, also naked, was sitting and consulting some printouts which had been mailed down from the fort and the arena where the fighting slaves were kept. The Prince watched his face as he scanned the information, tutting about something here, writing a comment there.

  "Everything all right, Peter?"

  "It'll be better when I'm back. But yes, on the whole the squad's recovered pretty well. Cuts all healing without significant scarring, no broken bones this time - unlike that show last September. That chariot and pony track was deadly!"

  "Oh come on Peter, it was great fun. Holding those events in an ice stadium was a stroke of genius, don't you remember how wonderful the pile-ups were, how the slaves squealed when they knew they were going to crash but couldn't stop? How much whip the drivers had to apply to get them up again? And it was a real test for them. The two of ours who made it through were rightly proud of themselves. I think I whipped them myself for a fortnight as a reward."

  "Yes, Your Highness, but we came back with fractures which took months to heal. You can't run ponies on ice without special footwear!"

  "Exactly. And that's what the sheik's working on. It'll be a terrific spectacle once he's got it perfected. We're all learning as we go along Peter and a few slaves here and there don't matter, we can always sell them."

  Peter sighed and let the subject drop. He was well aware that his boss was unlike most of the other arena owners in one crucial respect. The others were mainly self-made billionaires, shadowy manipulators of markets and whole governments in some cases - well able to afford to keep their identities secret. They approached the shows in their arenas in the spirit of competition; they wanted to win. But the Prince and one or two other small potentates had been born into situations where their subjects actually wanted them to have slaves - it was only right and proper in their eyes. So, to them, there was no need to hide their identities and traipse round tedious, clandestine slave markets, they had all they needed, it was just a case of training. And when it came to the shows, winning was secondary to them. What they wanted was entertainment. And as they hadn't had to buy their slaves and could replace worn out ones at the drop of a hat, they devised games of far greater cruelty than owners to whom the slaves represented a huge financial investment. Although, having said that, he had to admit that the sight of so many ponies and chariot teams screaming and struggling under the whips as they slid helplessly on the ice had been quite entertaining.