A Cruel Passing of Innocence (7 page)

‘Who are you? Where is this place?' Nassara was at the edge of tearfulness, yet she obeyed him at once, turning slowly onto her back, wondering whether she might have come upon some small sanctuary of humanity.

He did not look at her in the same lecherous way that others did. Instead, he looked upon her nakedness with concern and sympathy. Strangely, she no longer felt humbled or uneasy under his searching gaze, despite such intimate touches by him. At first his attentions filled her with degradation, but now they seemed to be almost kindly in their purpose, the cleansing warmth still radiating through her body, dispersing the aches and pains.

‘Ask few questions of me. Keep silent. Listen and learn from me, then your life will be comfortable. I will help you when I can. I will try to keep you from cruelty. But you must be quick to learn and quick to please your masters, or your life will be one of pain and misery like the lowest of slaves. Be thankful you are chosen for our masters' pleasure.' His voice was almost a whisper, stern but reassuring.

He began to massage around her neck and shoulders, and then her slender arms until the stiffness was almost gone.

The girl attendant's earnest face bobbed in front of Nassara's vision as she poured oil into the valley between Nassara's breasts. Where the vivid welt marked them Babbushan gently applied a thick balm, tenderly rubbing the healing mixture into it. Nassara gasped at first, until the sting slowly evaporated.

His huge form looming over her, Babbushan silently continued his work. His fingers skilfully kneaded and circled around the peaks of her breasts, before descending to the plain below, there to manipulate the toned muscles.

‘Our master will find pleasure with you, Nassara. You will be favoured in this place and find comfort and reward for devotion.' His hands massaged her flesh in firm flourishes, and after a while he moved down to her legs, using both hands in a vicelike grip around first one and then the other, sliding his excruciating embrace slowly upwards into the softness of her inner thighs.

‘You will please the master, Nassara, if I know him well, which is my duty here.' His tone conveyed casual satisfaction, as if telling her of matters that would also please her. Yet, as if knowing she would be unprepared for what was to come after his reassuring words, he moved his hands to rest on her crotch, both thumbs seeking the lips of rippled flesh that rimmed her entrance and gently peeling them apart. She gasped with shock, her thighs clamping together at such a crude intrusion, but he was undeterred.

For a moment he held the folds slightly apart, before spreading them more fully, exposing the gossamer pinkness of her inner flesh. ‘Oh please, I beg you,' she began to protest, raising herself up on her elbows, tensing with shock and revulsion, but the man held her easily and pushed her back down.

‘Be still, girl. I have told you, learn and obey. Do not resist the will of the masters, or me as their servant. Be stilled for my work. I shall not harm you.' He spoke firmly, warning her.

Nassara trembled with indignation. Her eyes blazed with a mixture of anger and sad expectancy, knowing instinctively the futility of dissent. Satisfied that she was composed and compliant again, Babbushan returned to the object of his interest. Once more holding the delicate lips open, he placed two plump fingers between the twin portals and gently but firmly thrust into the narrow passage, exploring, moving from side to side against the tight constriction of the delicately ribbed walls. ‘Be calm,' he said. ‘I shall be quick with you. The master desires to know of you beforehand. Fear not, my task will soon be over.'

Babbushan worked deftly and with intent upon his purpose, but there were no stirrings of desire within his loins, so long ago made sterile by the masters' bidding. From time to time his actions made her gasp, her body occasionally squirming involuntarily as he furrowed deeper, her muscles instinctively resisting his shocking penetration. Then, as if satisfied with his findings, he withdrew from her.

‘Who has entered you before?' he asked.

Confused and embarrassed she averted her eyes from his; not replying at once, fearing what reaction might come. He waited patiently as the servant girl began to sponge Nassara's feet with hot lotion from a bowl held by the boy attendant.

‘What is your answer, girl?' Babbushan pressed.

She swallowed nervously, knowing how she must hasten to reply even though more shame would be heaped upon her. ‘It was the custom in my village,' she whispered, feeling the first tears of shame trickle down her cheeks. ‘It was my stepfather. It was he who broke me to show me how to be with men.'

‘Only he?' Babbushan persisted, staring intently into her eyes. ‘No other man?'

She shook her head, and Babbushan nodded.

‘Go now to the pool, Nassara. The heat and vapour will sooth your body. Rest after your long journey. It is over now. This is your home. You have done well. The master will be pleased.' With that he slowly turned and lumbered away.

The other slave girls were already in the pool. Belithza looked distinctly better from her massage and oiling. She preened herself, stretching in the warm, bubbling water. She whispered to Nassara that her wounded buttocks felt better, treated by potions massaged in by one of the fat men. The welt on her belly had also been tended to.

‘He was gentle,' she said, ‘rubbing me soothingly with oils and lotions… but…' Belithza paused, looking shy, before continuing in a lowered whisper, ‘he entered me, down here, with his fingers. Did they do this to you?'

‘Yes,' was all Nassara said.

On the other side of the pool she saw Zheeno getting into the water, his lean body glistening with oil. She caught his eye and they exchanged fond smiles. But they dared not wave, conscious of the guards and whip-boys hovering nearby.

She watched as Zheeno sank gratefully into the water, the weary look on his face momentarily lifted. As he looked back at her she felt again a surge of love for the young man she scarcely knew. But when bonded by the shackles of adversity, seeds of love fall early on the fertile soil of shared misery, nurtured swiftly by cruel fraternity.

The slaves were allowed to stay luxuriating in the hot water, feeling it healing their aching bodies. When eventually they were ushered out of the pool they were draped in thick towels by the attendants, and rubbed dry by them.

They were then led up the stairs and out, once more, into the courtyard above. Nassara and her female companions were led across to the other side of the lush gardens, and then up a flight of steep steps. Meanwhile Zheeno and the male slaves were herded away to the opposite end of the building from where the slave girls were.

Watching him go she was apprehensive, seeing his quick backward glance at her and his fleeting reassuring smile that plucked at her heart. Somehow she sensed they would meet again soon.

At the top of the steps were two heavy doors, with bolts on the outside. Beyond was a high-ceilinged chamber that was large and airy, with several arched, latticed windows set into the far wall, looking out over the courtyard. Nassara realised this was the girls' quarters, and her spirits were momentarily uplifted at the sight of such comfort and richness.

Heaped on the stone floors was a profusion of cushions and rugs. Placed on a few low tables along the walls were several silver platters of fruit and some kind of seed cake, with pitchers of water. It was a mouth-watering display, alone enough to bring smiles of surprise and delight to some of the girls. Subdued chattering broke out amongst them as their eyes feasted on the offerings. This, Nassara thought, was an alien but deceptive place, so full of wickedness but with some traces of humanity, albeit traces that served no other purpose than to deceive and delude the innocence of the unsuspecting. Despite the light atmosphere of the chamber she shivered; what spirits of past slave girls, she wondered, danced in the shadows when night fell?

Looking around she spied, at the other end of the chamber, set high in the wall near the ceiling, was a closely latticed grille that concealed a dark, mysterious space, and knew it was a place from where the guards or masters could observe the chamber's occupants below.

Ahmood was the name of the leader of the whip-boys, the girls quickly learned. He stood before them with an arrogant sneer, his head held high as if he was a master. His charges stood meek and naked in the courtyard, heads bowed appropriately, the group of male slaves at the front of the assembly and the girls, as before, behind.

After rising from their sleep, gently woken by the girl attendants, the female slaves ate well, marvelling at the succulent fruits and sweet cakes most of them had never seen before. Afterwards Ahmood and some of the other whip-boys rudely entered the chamber, ushering the girls impatiently out into the courtyard, where the sun had not yet risen above the high roof of the building.

‘Abbaijsh!' he commanded sharply, his eyes daring any of his charges to be slow in their obedience. Instantly the slaves dropped to the flagstones and knelt subserviently low as before. Once again the whip-boys slowly walked around, and whenever one was dissatisfied with the posture of a slave he would approach the culprit from behind. Then crouching, he would slide the black switch between the slave's legs and flick it up, instantly making her position herself correctly.

Whenever a male slave's posture needed correction, the whip-boy, crouching silently behind, would slide his whip in the slave's anal crease, then by jiggling it from side to side its tip would tease the hanging genital sack, causing an instant upward thrust of buttocks.

Nassara's stressed muscles ached with tension, and she wondered if this ritual of humility would be a daily exercise in the process of adapting to the masters' domination. And what of these masters? Where were they?

But her thoughts wandered back to her village, feeling always the stab of pain that came to her heart. Above all her mind was drawn to that day, which now seemed so long ago yet which was so easily recalled. Her stepfather had come to her, saying quietly and without emotion that the time had come for her to learn the ways of men's needs, and how a woman must provide willingly and with eager heart and skill. She would be better to learn sooner rather than later of these things, he assured her.

With a little inward shudder she recalled the searing pain and shock of his gnarled flesh stabbing into her as he grunted like a boar in the field. That face she once so loved and respected twisted into lustful, grimacing expressions of uncaring selfishness, until she no longer recognised them as belonging to him.

Not wanting to feel revulsion festering within she had accepted his words, observing the silent acquiescence of her mother, whose face of stone turned away from her, denying her all maternal succour and protection. It was as if a daughter were nothing more than a young calf of the stables, ready for its purpose.

Afterwards she sat hunched in one corner of the bed against the wall, tightly clasping the blanket around her trembling, shocked body. She listened in a haze of confusion and shame, her complexion drained, while he explained in a strange voice how this symbolic act had been but a paternal duty. Burning with disgust and pity she listened to a voice that before she would have trusted unto death itself. It was a gift to her, he said; a gift of knowledge by which she would avoid a loss of her innocence to some unworthy stranger.

The same tears of confusion that stung her eyes that day stung her eyes now. Despite the contempt that had brewed within her with every passing second, she remembered her own contemptible utterance, when she dutifully whispered her thanks to him, muttering her unquestioning obedience and loyalty.

Later, when she sat at the table, the numbness and shock still freshly upon her, her desperate eyes turned towards her mother to seek maternal wisdom and reassurance. But she was sullen and unspeaking, only pulling her shawl tighter as if to signify the end of her maternal role, unable to look at her daughter.

Although her mind resisted the images, Nassara could remember the start of it all as clearly as if it had been but a few sunsets ago. She was sitting by the window humming contentedly to herself, weaving fresh flowers into her hat of straw, breathing in the fragrant freshness of the fields outside, when a shadow crept into the room.

‘Remove your clothes,' he ordered, his words gruff. ‘Make yourself naked.'

It had taken several moments for his words to sink in, such that he had to repeat his command, his voice rising with impatience. Then when she'd slowly complied, blushing and standing before him, tear-dewed eyes downcast and filled with shame at her state of nakedness, he pointed for her to lie down.

She obeyed, her frightened eyes averted, not daring to look at what he was about. Wincing as his hands roughly grasped her upper legs, forcing them apart, she felt the approach of his hardness buffeting between her thighs, in the moment before the shocking reality of its actual thrusting violation of her. Then he grunted and pushed mercilessly against the gossamer barrier of her innocent portals, not heeding her cry of pain and shock.

‘No, please, I am hurting,' she pleaded timidly in her desolation. ‘Please… please stop your duty.'

Much later bitterness grew in poisonous waves, and she felt the soreness of the aftermath in her loins. Her silent tears meandered, and she could recall, even now, that lonely feeling of despair at the knowledge of such a cruel passing of her sweet innocence.