Kate and Julia: Slave Girls of the Raj (4 page)

“What the…?”

She heard the exclamation amid the dying echo of her last scream.

Another blow landed, a glancing one it felt like, though it still blazed like fire.

“No, Captain, that’s enough,” Kate heard Ross say from behind her. “Have you forgotten there are only a few days before she’s sold?

We’ll never get the full price if she’s covered in welts and bruises.”

“What did she do?” Jefferson rasped.

“Nothing much. She doesn’t like swallowing. I put her in there just to show her what to expect if she doesn’t get a taste for it soon. I only meant to switch her.”

“She’s insolent, and she’s resisting too much,” Jefferson said.

“She needed a thorough lesson.”

“Maybe so, but you put her training in my hands, Captain, and I’d be obliged if you’d leave it there unless you’re not satisfied with the way I’m doing it.”

“What? No, of course I’m satisfied. I’ve every confidence in you, Sergeant.”

“Well then, I’d like to get on with it, if you’re finished, Sir. I’d better do something about her backside or she’ll still be marked on the day of the sale, and we don’t want that.”

“Yes, quite. Excuse me for interfering,” Jefferson said. “I should have known you had everything under control. It’s just that I have a…

particular interest in this one, and the girl I let Jahngir Khan take. I hope he’s making a proper job of things.”

“Aye, I’ve noticed, Captain. And I’m sure Jahngir Khan knows what he’s doing, him having a particular interest too, as you might say.”

If Kate had not been so distressed and hurting, she would have wondered what the ‘particular interest’ was, but with her mind swamped by pain the men’s words were forgotten the moment she heard them. The man Ross called Captain left without even a glance in her direction. The old soldier dropped the whip he had taken from Jefferson’s hand and unfastened her as quickly as he could. She slumped against him the instant she was free, struggling to stay on her feet.

Carefully avoiding contact with her flaming rear, he scooped her up, carried her to his bedroom and laid her gently face down on the bed.

Kate whimpered at the pressure on her hurting breasts but it was the blazing agony in her buttocks that kept her weeping and sobbing as Ross hurried from the room. He was back in minutes, only a blur through her tears as he knelt at the bedside. She heard water sloshing and something blessedly cool touched her tormented backside.

“The ice-water will help keep down the bruising,” he said, “and I managed to stop him before he split your skin.”

Kate gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. Her buttocks felt raw and she had been sure they were torn and bleeding. She felt Ross’s hand lift a corner of the cloth covering them.

“But only just, by the look of things. I’m afraid your bum’s going to hurt for a while, little miss. You have a sleepless night ahead of you, I’m thinking. Now, let’s cool your tits off.” He lifted her enough to slip a cool, damp cloth under her. She shivered, suddenly hot and cold, as she lowered herself onto it.

“If I’d known Jefferson was back I’d never have put you in that damned thing,” the ex-soldier said. “I didn’t expect him until tonight.

He’s been down in Peshawar picking up another girl. I’d have thought he had enough to do dealing with her without interfering elsewhere. He’s never in a very good mood but for some reason it’s been worse since a message came from Peshawar about you and your friend. You’d think he’d be pleased at the prospect of selling a couple of beauties like you and her, wouldn’t you?”

Ross kept talking even after Kate’s tears dried up and her sobs subsided. For a long time she was sunk too deep in the fiery throbbing of her bottom to pay much attention, but eventually his constant soaking of the cloth with ice water seemed to have a lasting effect. The pain still pulsed through her buttocks but the shock had worn off sufficiently for Kate to listen to what he was saying.

He talked of his army days and the places in India he had seen and the things he had done on and off the battlefield. It was all new to Kate, a glimpse of the underbelly of the British Raj that she had never even known existed while she had lived within the protected cocoon of upper-class colonial society. Much to her surprise, she found it interesting.

There had certainly been no lack of adventure in the old soldier’s life so far, and he had already made it clear that he was not done with it yet.

The sun set and the room grew gradually darker. Ross switched on the bedside lamp and fetched more ice, soothing her hurts while he told her about himself and the people he had known, some friends, some enemies. He had lived life to the full, she thought, and felt a twinge of envy that he had done so much and she so little. As the knife-edge of her pain dulled slightly she listened with increasing fascination, forgetting everything that lay beyond the dim pool of lamplight that encompassed only her and the softly speaking man beside her.

Ross paused to light a cigarette, the match flame illuminating the planes and angles of his face, emphasizing light and shadow. Once more Kate was struck by its familiarity. It was as if she had known the man for years, not days. The memory of her moment of recognition as he had plucked the gun from her hands returned. Her belly flipped. It was her father – that was who she saw when she looked at Ross; her father before he had put on weight and settled down behind a desk. It was he who had told her her first tales of adventure when she was a girl; of expeditions to Burma and Nepal, and the time he had spent in China and the South Seas before he had married. Ross would never marry, Kate thought, nor settle behind a desk. His lust for adventure would never wane with the years.

They did not really look anything alike, she decided, surreptitiously studying the ex-soldier’s face. It was only the stern frown, the determined lines of their mouths and firm set of their jaws where their similarity lay. From his photographs, Kate had always thought her father had looked dashing and rather raffish when he was young. Ross looked very dashing too.

He blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke and looked at her. “How is it? I know it hurts. I wouldn’t have flogged you half as hard with the switch and I wouldn’t have used that whip at all.”

“I know,” Kate said huskily.

He smiled and kindled a glow of warmth inside her that had nothing to do with the fire in her bottom.

“Shall I take the bum-stretcher out? It’ll likely hurt a bit if I do.”

Her muscle contracted around the ivory the instant he mentioned it.

She had been aware of its presence the whole time but her focus had been on her pain. “No. I’d like to hear about the lost city you’re going to search for.”

“There’s not much I know. It is lost, after all. They say it’s full of grand buildings, temples and the like, and there must be some trace of the people who lived there. Maybe their descendants live there still.” He grinned. “Or maybe it’s full of lost treasure, eh? There’s only one way to find out.”

“But it’s not the finding that’s important. It’s the looking.”

“Aye, you’re right there. I always did want to go to the next hill to see what was on the other side. It got me into trouble a few times when I was soldiering.”

“I wish I could go with you,” Kate said wistfully. “It sounds really exciting.”

He laughed. “There’s a different kind of excitement in store for you, little miss. Mind, you’d warm up those cold nights in the mountains and no mistake.”

“Then let me come too,” Kate said impulsively. “I’m sure you could get me out of here without Jefferson finding out until it was too late.”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“Then… then couldn’t you b… buy me?” Her stomach fluttered as she spoke of herself as a chattel.

“I wouldn’t need to buy you. When I joined Jefferson he said I could choose a slave girl of my own whenever I made up my mind I wanted one.”

“Then you could choose me,” Kate said excitedly.

He shook his head. “Nah. Just look at you – a proper posh, cultured little miss.” His thumb tapped his chest. “And look at me – a hard-bitten old wreck who’s seen better days. A youngster like you doesn’t want to be hooked up with the likes of me.”

Better than some horrid, barbarian native, Kate thought. “I’m not posh,” she said, “or cultured. My mother says I’m far too rough and ready and… and my father says I need taking in hand.”

Ross laughed. “Aye, well you’re a neat little package to be doing that to. But how long do you think you’d last in the mountains? You’d be begging to go home by the end of the first day.”

“No I wouldn’t. I don’t want to go home and be tied down by some boring old husband.”

He laughed again. “I suppose you’d rather be tied down by me?”

“Yes,” Kate said and was astonished that she meant it. Heat rushed to her cheeks but she persisted. In his arguments he had not once mentioned that she was intended to be someone else’s slave. “I don’t think you’re nearly so old as you pretend. I’ll bet you’re not even forty and….” The warmth in her cheeks increased. “And you don’t look like a wreck to me.”

“Well, thank you, but I’m old enough to be the daddy of a soft young thing like you.”

“I’ll be twenty-four soon,” she told him, “not so young, and I’ve got myself out of a few tight spots of my own on my travels.” It was a lie. The only tight spots she had ever been in were facing Roger’s marriage proposals, which had been coming far too frequently and persistently before she had left for Europe.

“Is that the truth?” Ross asked, and the stern look he gave her sent a wriggle through her belly.

“No,” she confessed, “but I’m tougher than you think. Watch.”

He would have stopped her as she levered herself off the bed, but she slid under his outstretched hand, gritted her teeth as she rose to her feet and hobbled a few steps across the room. Her buttocks flamed and throbbed. Ross steered her back to the bed with an arm at her waist, wet the cloth that had slipped off when she stood up and laid it over her bottom.

“That was brave, but foolish. You’ve only hurt yourself. You won’t be capable of much tomorrow and that only leaves seven days before you’re sold.”

Kate’s heart shrank and her hopes with it. She felt him pat her shoulder.

“But maybe you are tougher than I thought.”

For a while she drifted on the verge of consciousness, feeling the regular, constant pulses of pain in her backside battle with the exhaustion that was overtaking her. Kate felt the warm hand resting on her shoulder-blade too. Despite her knowledge of what its owner was and what he planned for her, its gentle pressure was comforting until her mind surrendered to its fatigue and she sank into a fitful sleep.

She woke to full daylight, and from the angle of the shafts of sunlight streaming through the window Kate guessed the day was well advanced. After her night of torment Ross had let her sleep late. She still lay belly-down on the bed. She was sore and stiff and her breasts buzzed uncomfortably, but the cold cloths the old soldier had spent most of the night applying to her bottom seemed to have worked. The awful flaring throb that had filled it the day before was no longer present.

What had remained was the odd feeling of fullness in Kate’s behind caused by what Ross had called her ‘bum-stretcher’. Recalling the name was enough to make her sphincter contract involuntarily around the hard ivory still firmly held in place by the cords and the belt at her waist. She felt a twinge of discomfort as her buttocks tightened, but at the same time there was nothing at all unpleasant about the sensation that ran through her inner tissues. In fact, it felt very nice. Shocking herself, for it was only the previous day that Kate had discovered men could take pleasure from a woman there, she deliberately squeezed her muscles onto the broad base of the ivory cone filling her. The quivering thrill it gave her was not confined to her rear entrance but was transmitted to the front, which gave a tremor of its own.

Suddenly mischievous and feeling daringly naughty, Kate tightened herself again and then several times more, regardless of the ache it awakened in her bottom. The effect was almost like masturbating without having to use her fingers. Captivated by its novelty she gave a series of short, quick contractions that sent tickles of pleasure through her at both front and rear, and prompted a growing warmth within her. The buzzing of her whipped breasts increased as her nipples stiffened but the temptation to keep gripping the ‘bum-stretcher’ was irresistible.

As Kate’s breathing became more rapid she rubbed her cheek on the pillow, sighed and turned her head. Ross lay on the bed next to her, naked, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling regularly as he slept. He had been awake for most of the night, probably even longer than she had.

Kate felt a warm-hearted gratitude. He could have just shut her in the low cage on the other side of the room and left her to her suffering. She looked from his muscular arms to the greying hairs covering his broad chest, and then with increasing fascination at his upward-rearing baton.

She was startled to discover it could be like that even while he slept.

Intensely curious, she raised herself on her elbows and took the opportunity to study it closely for the first time. Thick, bluish veins stood out on it randomly. The skin was stretched back so tightly from the bulbous tip that Kate could scarcely believe it was not painful. Yet Ross slept peacefully on, obviously untroubled. Even when she reached out a fingertip and touched him there he did not stir. The long cock rose up a little from where it rested on his belly and then subsided again. Kate had to suppress an urge to giggle, though why she should see humour in anything when her situation was so desperate she could not imagine.

Nor did she expect to feel the sudden, impish desire to trail her fingers slowly down the underside of Ross’s shaft all the way to its base.

Did they all grow so big, Kate wondered, or was this one out of the ordinary? She closed her hand on the warm, rigid flesh and found her fingers only went a little more than half way around. The tingling sensation she could feel increased and she clenched on the ivory again with a delicious bubble of excitement swelling inside her.