THE PRIZE Page 8

  Not so long before, Ayesha would have rounded on him with a torrent of verbal scorn, and possibly a raking kick with a high heel. But she had learned that here, in this forgotten part of the world, outrageous things happened every day. Ayesha shivered and the Englishman chuckled beside her.

  Chapter 10

  She spent the afternoon sitting to one side of the courtyard. Her wrist restraints were clipped together behind her back and a padlocked chain fastened her to an ancient iron ring in the stone of the walls. She was at least in the shade, under the walkway which ran along near the top of the wall and was able to watch what happened. Half an hour or so after she had been left there the Englishman had called a halt to the duels and water had been brought out from the main keep at the back of the yard. It was an extraordinary facade, carved straight out of the mountainside and its countless windows gaped darkly above the dusty and echoing yard where the gladiators now either knelt, lay or bent, arms braced on knees, breasts heaving as they regained their breaths and began to sip at cups of water, then they all sat and the Englishman addressed them. Ayesha watched the girls’ faces and was amazed at how avidly they followed his every word and responded exactly as he wanted them to. He walked amongst them while he talked, stroking a head here and bending to stroke a breast there.

  "All right then my troops!" he began and Ayesha plainly heard a slight ripple of amusement spread through the gladiators - as if a much-feared headmaster had made a small joke at the start of a speech to his pupils. "You did well enough at the last show and your owner is pleased!" Here there was a definite sigh of relief. "I know we lost but you went down fighting hard and the crowd was happy...........But am I happy?" Here there was a sudden tension in the air. The Englishman bent down and caught one luckless blonde girl's breast in his hand and squeezed until she cried out. "Am I happy? Am I?" He ground out the words between clenched teeth.

  "No, sir!" the girl managed to gasp. He nodded and let her go.

  "No! I am not! You would have won if you had fought at your absolute best, but you didn’t try hard enough! We have ten weeks until the next show and we're going to win that one! What are we going to do?" He was standing in the middle of the girls by then and whirled round quickly as he spoke the last words.

  "We're going to win!" The chorus came back like lightning.

  "Then get back on your feet you lazy bitches and I want to see you hardening each other up till you can walk through anything anyone can throw at you!"

  Ayesha watched in horrified fascination as the girls jumped to their feet with every sign of eagerness.

  "Platoon one, take on Platoon three with whips! Platoon four fight Platoon two, boxing. Platoon five, divide into two and I want you wrestling!" The orders were snapped out and with military precision the girls split up, some guards ran out of the main keep with more of the leather corsets and while some girls were helped out of them, others were buckled into them. She couldn't help noticing that the process seemed to involve a lot more wincing than she would have thought normal. But within seconds the yard again echoed to the sounds of gladiators practising their brutal crafts. The Englishman waited until he was certain that everything was as he wanted it and then he strolled over to where Ayesha sat. He held some of the accoutrements she had seen the other girls wearing and spread them out before her.

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  Ayesha stared at the corsets, thongs and knuckle straps. Seen close to and spread out, their true natures became clear. The corsets and thongs were studded on the insides, wickedly sharp little points lined the gussets of the thongs and the insides of the corsets, including, she noted with another shudder the half cups. She recalled the boxing bout she had witnessed when she had first arrived and suddenly she realised why the girls' reactions to the blows had been so dramatic. The Englishman tossed one of the straps to her and out of reflex she caught it. All at once she also understood why the contest had seemed almost as if it was taking place in slow motion. The strap was weighted and it was all she could do to hold onto it once she had grasped it.

  "You'll be using these in only a few weeks' time. Believe me," he told her.

  Ayesha's stomach flipped as she appreciated fully what those girls had been doing to each other, her throat dried and she found herself unable to speak. A fearful kind of hypnotism seemed to grip her as she stared at the implements of this barbaric trade laid out before her and she struggled with the idea that these lunatics seemed to fully expect that she would agree to take part in such things. But if her recent experiences had taught her anything they had taught her that these men could get females to do pretty well anything. Her nose caught a scent of mingled sweat and leather from the pile in front of her and just on the edge of it there was the musk of female arousal. Hesitantly she took hold of and raised the strip of leather towards her face and the scent became more pronounced. The girl who had been wearing this diabolical thong had been excited by it. Whilst wicked little tines had pressed against her labia her vagina had been seeping stickily onto them. The enormity of that thought made Ayesha look up at the trainer. He was smiling at her.

  “It takes a bit of training but if I opened the gates now and told the guards to go and have a siesta. Not one girl would even think of walking out of them. Mind you they’ve been on runs out in the desert so they know there’s nowhere to go.”

  “You mean they like this?” Ayesha gestured around the training ground, some of the girls were down by then and the contests were coming to their ends. Whips sang and snapped, girls cried out and lithe bodies writhed and twisted in the dust.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘liked’ exactly but whatever it is you’ll find out and you can tell me when you do. Come on!”

  The Prince’s trainer - as Ayesha now knew him to be - stood up and hauled her after him, then he reached behind her, unlocked her from the wall, freed her wrists and led her out into the melee. When the slaves saw him coming they stopped and watched him carefully. Downed girls scrambled up and a sort of avenue formed in front of them. Ayesha was aware of curious gazes turned on her, the looks were guarded and she couldn’t read any emotion into them at all. At last the trainer stopped and beckoned the girls into a circle, Ayesha found herself the focus of the attention of more naked humanity than she had ever seen in one place. Dusty, scratched and welted girls all stood quietly watching and waiting.

  The trainer left her for a moment and strolled around the circumference.

  “We’ve got a new girl! And I want a volunteer to show her the ropes.”

  Without any pause his arm shot out and grabbed a girl by the shoulder. She stumbled into the ring and Ayesha saw it was an Arabic looking girl, with smooth Semitic features, long black hair, like her own and a graceful figure, slenderer than hers but still with plenty of womanly curves about breast and hip. She was holding a whip and the instant she found herself in the ring she adopted a crouching stance, her weight on her toes, legs shamelessly open, arms apart. The trainer reached again and took a whip off another girl and he threw it to Ayesha. She caught it clumsily with both hands and examined it. It was a fairly standard flogger, not unlike the one she used on Karen but with heavier blades of harder leather.

  The trainer clapped his hands and stepped back into the crowd.

  Ayesha glanced across the ring and saw the other girl advancing. Her brain refused to admit what she was seeing, she wanted to scream at the girl that they were on the same side, why put on a show of whipping each other just for the men’s entertainment? They should be leaping on their guards, not fighting each other! Her thoughts were cruelly interrupted as the girl struck. Two lightning fast lashes caught her breasts as the girl worked the whip forehand and backhand. Ayesha actually felt their weight swing across her chest before the blast of pain caught her and she doubled over, crossing her arms protectively. Immediately she felt her back take the brunt of the onslaught and heard the jeers and laughter from the audience. Her bafflement as to why the girl would connive with her enslavers vanish
ed and was replaced with cold fury at being made to look a fool. Gritting her teeth she straightened up and swung her own lash in a clumsy backhand sweep. Her opponent stepped back easily and let the lashes whistle past her harmlessly. Then while Ayesha was off balance she sliced in another two to her breasts. Again there were hoots and cheers from the crowd but this time Ayesha fought down the pain and tried once again to swing her lash. The other girl merely swayed her torso back and again Ayesha’s lash hissed past her without making contact. Once more she struck while Ayesha was off balance, this time flicking the leathers across her left hip and round onto her buttocks, making Ayesha twist in shock as this new target was struck. Two hard lashes stung her back from the other side in such quick succession that they took her breath away and she staggered forwards. Suddenly the other girl was behind her and her whip swung heavily up between Ayesha’s legs, the heavy leathers smacking into her labia. She let out a guttural moan and folded with her hands between her legs. Dimly she heard more laughter and cheers from the crowd but then she felt the trainer’s hand take a fistful of her hair and drag her to her feet. Her hands had to leave her stinging sex and clutch at his, her whole body seemed ablaze with pain as she was dragged around humiliatingly.

  “Anyone spot any mistakes she didn’t make?”

  There was more laughter and then; “You! Out here and teach her some wrestling!”

  Suddenly the grip on her hair was gone and Ayesha staggered and blinked her tears away. She found herself facing the blonde whose breast had been so cruelly mauled by the trainer a little earlier. In a similar crouch to her previous opponent, this one sidled in. Ayesha realised that her own whip had gone and this one wasn’t carrying one. How was she supposed to wrestle? She had never even seen it done by men. But at least this time she didn’t waste a second wondering why any of this was happening. It just was. Somehow this man had got these girls to the point where they really would side with him against a member of their own sex.

  Grimly Ayesha tried to imitate the actions of the girl in front of her, adopting the spread-legged stance which seemed so alien to her. Even though she had used sex quite blatantly to get what she wanted she still found the idea of opening her legs nakedly in public deeply disturbing.

  Suddenly the girl darted in, gripped her behind her knees and pulled. It was so fast that Ayesha was helplessly toppled backwards and hit the ground squarely on her back. The air was knocked from her in an explosive gasp and as she lay wheezing, the girl stooped, moved her grip up Ayesha’s legs then lifted and simply let herself fall backwards. Ayesha was catapulted upwards and then forwards. She hit the ground on her face this time and before her head had cleared there was a pinning weight on her back and she felt her legs grabbed again. This time her calves were bent up and backwards, high over her back. They were lifted higher still. Pain lanced along her thighs as they were stretched, her back seemed as if it would crack under the weight of the girl sitting on it and the strain of having her legs bent so far back above her. Suddenly Ayesha panicked, she couldn’t move and this girl astride her was just going to keep on slowly stretching her until something broke. She screamed and beat her fists against the earth. The applause and cheers from the crowd grew louder and louder. Then everything stopped and the weight came off her. She lay face down, panting and hurting all over until a foot under her ribs turned her over and she saw the trainer standing over her.

  “You’d better take this. There’s a few more want to say hello.” He handed her another whip.

  “No....please!” she tried to protest but he had gone and desperately she struggled to her feet just in time to see another girl, a tall brunette step out from the crowd, grinning and swishing a whip. In despair Ayesha tried taking the initiative and rushing this one but she was far too wily. Ayesha’s back was clubbed mercilessly as the girl dodged easily and she stumbled past her. Three times she tried the tactic and three times was beaten to the ground but still she got up. The combination of the humiliation, the hot stinging of the whip, the pains all over her and the derisive laughter of these stupid bitches who couldn’t see what was being done to them, produced at last a kind of rage which propelled her to her feet.

  For a fourth time she staggered forward, half blinded by sweat and this time her opponent stood her ground, flicking her whip back and forth across the fronts of Ayesha’s thighs, making her flinch and try to dance away. Then her breasts were targeted again while she was distracted. Frantically Ayesha flailed in front of her with her own whip, but once again the girl was behind her and got in several more clubbing lashes before Ayesha went down again.

  But this time when she was rolled over, it wasn’t the trainer but the victorious girl who stood over her. Ayesha squinted up at the silhouette as she stood over her head, the long legs came together at a crotch which was directly above Ayesha’s face. Slowly the victor allowed herself to sink to her knees, then she shuffled them apart.

  Ayesha could have moved, there was nothing apart from her own exhaustion and the pain from the whip holding her down. But there was something horribly fascinating about watching the woman’s sex moving inexorably down towards her face. It was quite plain that victory had excited her as Ayesha could plainly see the way the outer lips had parted and the inner ones were engorged and erect around the vaginal hole.

  If it meant that for a moment she could get some relief from the relentless pounding she was taking, Ayesha reckoned that delivering the oral service the girl plainly wanted was a small price to pay. As her latest conqueror settled the last few inches, she closed her eyes and put out her tongue, rolling it into as hard a tube as she could make and pushing it up into the vagina. It tasted tangily and pungently of female excitement and immediately Ayesha slipped into her familiar routine of getting what she needed by giving good sex. She even reached up and stroked the girl’s thighs and lower stomach as she sucked and lapped skilfully. The taste was so pleasantly refreshing after the brutal male sex she had been on the receiving end of recently that she opened her eyes and found she was looking up through the girl’s buttock crease. The buttocks themselves were liberally scored with welts as was her back and Ayesha immediately thought of Karen. But her thoughts were wrenched back to the present by the girl squatting on her face tugging and twisting violently on her breasts while at the same time she began grinding her cunt hard down onto her mouth. Ayesha tried to scream up into the hot moistness above her.

  From above her came a low moan of pleasure.

  “Mmmmm! She may be a beginner at fighting but she’s done this before, Sir!” the girl said and increased her tormenting of Ayesha’s breasts. There was applause and clamour for a second before a whip hissed through the air and smacked meatily into flesh. Even Ayesha winced.

  “All right, you rabble!” The trainer’s voice filled the sudden silence. “Platoons one, two and three can welcome her today. Four and five can have her tomorrow!” There were mingled cheers and groans from the girls. Ayesha screamed again at the import of his words and pushed her conqueror to a climax which meant her breasts suffered an even more intense mauling. She had a few seconds to get her breath back after the girl climbed off her before she was hauled back to her feet. Some of the girls were being herded back towards the fort itself but others, a huge crowd it seemed to her, were still gathered and seemed very eager to take their turns with her. To her utter horror, several of the slaves were winding boxing straps around their knuckles and grinning maliciously.

  The trainer smacked her rump, handed her another whip and stood back as Ayesha’s next opponent stepped into the ring to continue her lessons.

  “You will learn that weakness in the arenas only encourages greater cruelty, because it provides the crowds with good entertainment. Those girls all know that. And they also know that what pleases the crowds pleases me. They want very much to please me.” The trainer’s voice came from above and behind Ayesha as she lay face down on a crude wooden table. Her breasts were squashed and hurting under her but they were just addin
g their small contribution to the symphony of pain that engulfed her whole body.

  She lay, still damp from the quick shower the guards had thrown her into after dragging her by her feet from the courtyard. Not that she had cared by then, she had vaguely been aware of watching the early evening sky jerk past above her as the dirt had rasped at her raw back, then the fort had lurched over her and cool stone was under her, the voices of the guards had echoed as they laughed and joked as they dragged her. Then suddenly there had been tiles and torrents of freezing cold water; shocking and reviving her in equal portions. Rough male hands had scrubbed at her, cleaning the sticky mass of female discharge from around her mouth, roaming over her back, her breasts her thighs and up inside both her passages while she squirmed and squealed with what little energy she had left. Then they had brought her to this room and pushed her face down across the table while the trainer stood behind her spread legs. She had not really been surprised when he had pushed his fingers into her vagina and begun stirring her up. However, she had been very surprised to find that she welcomed the intrusion and very soon he was able to slide his cock into her with no trouble. But once inside her he had stayed quite still and had instead concentrated on applying salve to her cuts and bruises. And he had talked to her.

  Ayesha didn’t know how to react and didn’t have any words for what she experienced as his hands worked on her and his cock stuffed her but stayed still. She was in considerable pain, she had been lashed, knocked and thrown to the ground so many times she had lost count. But every time she had been turned over and had to lick out her conqueror. Towards the end, the next girl was having to haul her to her feet before she could knock her off them. And finally, two of the others had held her up by her arms while some sort of token thrashing was laid on before she was allowed to fall again. There was something horribly arousing about the amount of female nakedness and the casual cruelty. The careless laughter of the guards, the rampant sexuality of the girls grinding themselves onto her face; the taste of their flooding quims, their hands wreaking havoc with her breasts. And now this.........