Dunes of Gor Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen: White Silk

Serafina Shahzad cried out in alarm as the centre curtain of her kurdah was suddenly parted by a scimitar tip. The bells jingled sharply on her ankle as she drew back to the extent permitted within the small dome tent built on the raised platform of the pack kaiila. 

Javad Mohsen laughed as he saw the look of alarm on the face of his girl. He rode beside the pack kaiila, mounted on his own beast.

“What?” asked Serafina as she regarded him.

“My eyes have grown tired of staring out at flat stony hamada,” said the Sardaukar Captain. “I thought I might feast them for a while on the loveliness of your body.”

“Oh!” There was a jingle of bells again as those words stirred some emotions in the girl. “Where are we?”

“I really have no idea,” said Javad as she gazed at the horizon. “Hopefully my scouts do, though. We are en-route to Al-Quada-a-Dhum, and should arrive in five days or so. Extend your left ankle. The one that is so delightfully belled.”

Serafina did so, cautiously, and cried out as Javad leaned forward on his kaiila and touched her there. He stroked first her ankle, then her calf and then moved his hand further up her thigh. “I imagine you are bored, and so I have something for you.” He moved his hand back and produced a casket of polished tem wood. “Take it. Open it.”

Serafina took the casket and set it down on the cushions of the kurdah base. She gazed at him as he nodded, and then she lifted the lid. Inside were bangles and bracelets; some folded wisps of silk that could be knotted to a belly chain that would wind around a girl’s hips; some kohl sticks and eye powder, lip stick, and henna and brushes for painting designs around the nipples and areolae of a girl’s breasts in the desert fashion, and a small vial of slave perfume. Finally there was a small hand held mirror.

“You may use them, Tupa. I want you to use them. Make yourself beautiful for when we camp tonight.” He watched through the parted curtain as Serafina picked up first an arm clasp and placed it on her upper left arm. She then chose a number of bangles and slipped them over her wrists, looking up to see if he liked how they appeared on her limbs. “Good. Continue, girl.” He picked up one of the pieces of folded silk, white in colour, and shook it loose. As Serafina watched, he slid the length of diaphanous silk under her collar and knotted it tight at its side. The short length of white silk now hung from the collar as a decorative ornament.

“My men tonight will know you are white silk,” said Javad. “I would not want them to make a mistake in that regard.”

Serafina held the mirror with one hand and then picked up a kohl stick. Drawing lines around her eyes, smudging dark kohl around her lash lines with her finger tips. It was something to do during the long journey, and she knew that if she didn’t she would be whipped. 

“Why am I doing this? What is going to happen tonight?” asked Serafina as she smudged kohl away from the corner of her eyes.

“You are going to serve me during the evening,” said Javad.

“Serve you?!” She drew back a little, fearing the worst.

“During the evening meal. I will show off the lovely girl that I bought, to my men. They will congratulate me, but I think they will be jealous too.”

“Oh. I thought you meant…”

Javad laughed. “What did you think I meant, lovely Tupa?”

“Nothing.” Serafina replaced the kohl stick and hovered her fingers over a selection of coloured powders. All free women were taught by their mothers to apply eye makeup. “Nothing at all.” 

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To her surprise, and relief, Javad had not defiled her body that first night in Tor after she had been branded. Nor the night after, when he had been called away from his cramped rooms on the third storey of a mud brick flat roofed house, to attend to important matters concerning his men. He had left his girl, Tupa, still white silk, chained by the ankle in his living space, and he did not return until early in the morning. When he did, Serafina was alarmed to see him in something of a dishevelled state, smelling of paga, and tired out.

“Where have you been?” she asked as she moved with a slither of ankle chain. “I have been alone all night in this back street hovel! Anything might have happened to me!”

Javad chuckled. “Are you my free companion? No. I didn’t think so. I spent several pleasurable hours at a café. I made use of a girl in the alcoves.” He sighed and fell onto his couch as Serafina watched from the floor. “A desert girl, I think. She had beautiful smouldering eyes, long thick lashes and breasts that…”

“I do not want to know!” snapped Serafina from where she lay in bondage on the floor. “You used her?”

“Oh yes. Several times.” Javad sighed again as he made to undo his sandals and then seemed to remember he had a girl to do that for him. He clicked his fingers and pointed to his feet.

“What?!” Serafina knelt on the floor, the weight of her body resting on her right thigh and hip, supported by that outstretched hand. 

“Sandals,” said Javad. “Now.”

Serafina crawled forward and set about undoing her master’s sandals as she knelt before him. 

“Does your brand still hurt?” asked Javad.

“Yes! Of course it does! I have been in terrible pain all night!”

Javad nodded. “I will apply fresh lotion to it. I bought some at the late night market. It is expensive but will heal the burn quickly.”

“I’m surprised you care,” snapped Serafina as she pulled the first sandal away in anger. “You branded me! You pierced my ears and nose! You did all this to me.” She touched her earlobes, where simple hoop earrings were now fixed in place.

“Yes. You’re my slave. Those things were necessary. But I don’t enjoy seeing you suffer needlessly.” As Serafina unlaced and removed the other sandal, Javad clicked his fingers and told her to lie on her side and expose her brand to him. She did so and felt his fingers begin to gently apply lotion to the burn site. 

“This lotion is a marvel of medicine. It cost me ten copper tarsks. You will sleep easier tomorrow night and in a few days’ time the pain will be completely gone, Tupa.” He gazed down at his property and revelled in how incredibly beautiful she was to his eyes. The metal worker had mocked him for spending fifty-five copper tarsks on the girl, but Javad considered it money well spent. The girl would, in time, become a treasure. He had not put her to use that first night only because she was in great pain from the branding, and he did not want her first experience with a man to be overshadowed by that pain. He wanted the girl to experience a slave orgasm in the furs and associate that with her bondage, rather than the burning agony of being branded. And so on the second night, when the girl was still hurting, he had paid to use another girl in the Narenj café. 

Serafina felt the pain lessen as the lotion anaesthetised her skin. There was still a burning sensation that she couldn’t ignore, but now she might at least finally drift off to sleep instead of lying awake, crying in the dark from the ceaseless pain. 

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That first night in the hamada desert, Javad ordered his men make camp beside a well. Serafina remained inside her kurdah as a number of kettle slaves were taken down from various pack kaiilas to the rear of her kaiila and set to work preparing food and drink for the evening meal. Serafina peered out from her kurdah and watched through the rep cloth curtain as the warriors set about building their own camp fires, for the desert nights could be cold. Other men set about checking the well was intact and when it was they began drawing up water. By now Serafina had made her face up beautifully, had even applied slave rouge to her lips and cheeks and had perfumed herself on her throat and wrists, even going so far as to rub a little of the scent in her long glossy hair. He wanted her to be beautiful, did he? Well then, she would show him just how beautiful a woman of House Shahzad could be. Serafina had a slave’s vanity when it came to her appearance and if she was to be paraded naked before these warriors, like some high born trophy, she was going to stun them into silence with her beauty. Let them contrast her with the plain, simple, kettle girls who toiled away, chopping vegetables and stirring the pots as they simmered over the fires. Let the men gaze in awe at her and understand that she was not for them, no matter how much they might want her. Let them see her unparalleled beauty before they would then have to make do with the simple kettle sluts for the night. 

Serafina clipped the belly chain around her hips and knotted a strip of silk to hang from each hip. She had applied henna to her breasts, creating swirling patterns around each of her areolae. 

“I hate him,” she said as she gazed at herself in the hand mirror. “He makes me do this. But I do not wish to feel his whip. I have no choice. I do not want to look like this.” Serafina touched some more slave rouge to her lips in fury, but fascinated by the transformation she was seeing in the mirror. She felt a strange sense of unease as she regarded her image. “Slave!” she hissed. “You look like a slave! Soft, perfumed, desirable. I despise you!” A further sweep of eyeshadow with a brush added to the slut like look. “I cannot look like this…” 

And yet… she felt a little excited too. Men would see her like this. Men would stop talking as she passed by, and she knew what they would be thinking.

She held her breath and touched the gossamer silk veil, so small, so thin, so ridiculously transparent, and then the ornamental chain that hung from her pierced nose. She hated both these things, but she was mesmerised by how beautiful they made her look.

If she was being honest with herself, she was surprised that Javad Mohsen had not put her to use in the last three days since she had been sold at auction. She understood from other women who spoke scandalously about slaves, that it was the sort of thing a woman of good breeding might expect if kidnapped and whisked away to a desert harem. There would be a certain amount of helpless ravishment, or so she believed. But Javad had not used her, not once. Oh, he had done unspeakable things of course – touching her body without permission, and keeping her mostly naked (save for when he marched her through the streets of dusty Tor, and then she was naked underneath a black slave haik, so as not to offend free women passing by) and of course he made her wear nose and ear rings like a pleasure slave, but he had not parted her thighs and did that thing men do when they use a woman…

Serafina wasn’t stupid. She knew more or less what ravishment entailed. Well, roughly speaking, anyway. Girls talked about that sort of thing after they reached puberty. When the man looks at a woman, his thing between his legs gets bigger, much bigger, which is why women have to be veiled all the time so that does not happen, but if it did, then the man tries to insert his thing between the legs of a woman and push it inside her. Then there would be some animal like thrusting and he would apparently squirt a sticky fluid which makes babies. All this she knew. Serafina also knew from past experience that she could fit her own fingers inside her, and she knew that in doing so, in secret, late at night, she would feel lovely warm trembling sensations that grew and grew, which she understood was what a woman felt during sex with a man. But she wasn’t sure anything more than a couple of girl fingers could possibly squeeze inside her. She wasn’t that big, and from what other girls had whispered, the appendages of men were truly monstrous to behold when they got excited. Sometimes all it took was a glimpse of a free woman’s lips, which is why women had to always wear veils. The wearing of veils was so very important. Hair too had to be covered by the hijab for men grew excited by the sight of that too.  

The things men had between their legs throbbed and pulsated when they were excited. Serafina wasn’t sure she ever wanted one anywhere near her.

Or did she?

As she felt the nose chain slide across her breasts, as she saw herself again in the hand mirror – a soft, perfumed, cosmetically perfect slave girl – branded and collared - she felt a thrill of excitement, of the kind she only usually felt when she knew that soon she would be able to retire to bed and, yes, in the darkness of the night, doing what was forbidden and taboo, touch herself intimately. Yes, that kind of excitement. It was strange that she felt that now when she considered Javad touching her. 

Even, the thought of… Javad using her for his pleasure.

She breathed sharply and touched her breasts with her left hand. Why was she feeling like this? It was silly. She swallowed and tried to control herself. 

Again, she had a brief mental image of Javad pushing her thighs apart and bearing down on her and… the image didn’t go any further because she couldn’t really imagine what it might look like after that. She had no experience of the act. But again she felt a flush of excitement. Her cheeks reddened at the thought, and her nipples swelled in an unfortunate tell-tale manner.  

Perhaps Javad wished to keep her as a trophy slave, though, to display her before other men and let them marvel at her unsullied virtue? That seemed a reasonable explanation, for Serafina was white silk, unlike the common kettle girls who might be used and discarded at a man’s whim. Serafina was better than that, and she saw now that Javad would not want her sullied. She touched the light wisp of white silk tucked and knotted to her collar. Yes, she was a trophy slave – that was it. She would be kept on a gilded perch to look radiant and to smile at men as they were welcomed to Javad’s house. They would remark on her beauty and congratulate Javad on purchasing such an exquisite unsullied girl for his home. 

The sun had set and the camp fires lit by the time a Sardaukar lancer had come for Serafina. He brushed open the curtains of the kurdah, now that the kaiila was kneeling and resting on the ground. With one hand he carried a lantern and with the other he reached out for Serafina’s wrist, but paused in surprise as he saw her kneeling on the cushioned floor of the kurdah.

“Gods of the desert sands,” swore the man as he gazed at the beauty with the kohl rimmed eyes, slave rouged lips, silken belly chain and erotic perfume who was revealed in the soft glow of the lamp.

Serafina said nothing as she watched the man stare and stare and stare again. Yes, this is what an unsullied Trophy slave looks like, warrior, thought Serafina to herself. Look at the poor man, he can barely think straight when he sees me. No doubt he is speechless and unprepared for my beauty. 

“Your master awaits,” said the warrior as he took hold of Serafina’s hand and then lifted her bodily out of the kurdah. Serafina felt startled but also not entirely unpleased as those rough heavy hands lifted her in a smooth motion down onto the ground. She consciously smoothed the two strips of translucent silk down about her thighs, where they hung from the gilded belly chain about her waist and hips. 

“Of course,” she said. She frowned as the warrior clipped a leash to her slave collar and then led her that way through the various camp fires dotted around the well. As Serafina walked, she held her head high and, with a jingling of slave bells with each step, looked straight ahead, ignoring the looks she was getting from the plain looking kettle girls with their lack of adornments or cosmetics. Those girls knelt together in small groups, whispering to one another as Serafina passed by – the wisps of silk fluttering in her wake. She was a high trophy slave. She wore white silk at her collar. She was special. 

Around the well, brownish patches of verr grass grew, as well as flat topped umbrella like trees called flahdah that offered much needed shade during the day. These trees grew on crooked trunks, no more than twenty feet high. Small clumps of veminiums grew also with sky blue petals. 

Serafina could tell that the warriors around the camp fire were watching her silently. Many conversations had stalled prematurely as Serafina walked by. Despite the indignity of her situation, Serafina felt pleased. This whole camp was in awe of her: men and women together. It was troubling that she wore a steel collar and was naked, and that slave bells adorned her ankle, and that she had been branded, and her ears and nose pierced, but she was at least a high Trophy slave and one who might soon find both men and women competing for her subtle favours. The kettle slaves would be scared of her, for with but a few words to her master she might have them beaten, and the men would soon be trying to find excuses to converse with her. 

It could be worse, she thought, as she was led to the camp fire around which Javad Mohsen sat with his two subordinate officers. 

“This is Tupa,” said Javad as Serafina was led by the leash and made to kneel beside the camp fire. “I bought her in Tor.”

The two subordinate officers leaned back, where they sat cross-legged, to admire the beauty. In the firelight, Serafina looked exotic and deeply desirable. 

“She is still white silk,” added Javad, before his subordinates could request her use. He swept his gaze over Serafina’s body and seemed pleased with what he saw. “You perfumed yourself, girl?”

“I did,  Master,” said Serafina. 

“Nadu.” His voice grew suddenly sharp and commanding. 

Serafina parted her thighs angrily. She felt open and exposed like this. This was hardly the way to show off an unsullied Trophy slave. 

“Serve us,” said Javad as he indicated the food and the jugs of ka-la-na. “Begin with my guests.”

Serafina knelt beside each man in turn, offering him food on a plate that had been cooked and prepared by the lowly kettle girls. To her fury, Javad mostly ignored her as she served. She offered the men heavy goblets of wine and refreshed both the plates and cups as was required, but Javad paid little attention to her. She knelt dutifully as the men talked of politics, of desert tribes and borders and incursions and raids on provinces claimed by Tor. Much of it meant little to Serafina, but then, twenty ehn into the conversation a man mentioned the House of Shahzad.

“When is Daan Shahzad arriving at Al-Quada-a-Dhum?” asked an officer.

Serafina almost dropped her goblet as she heard the question. They were talking about her father! 

“A few days after we have replaced the current garrison there. We will welcome Shahzad to the fortified holding. We will help the Khuda settle his family in within its walls, and provide much needed security while he consolidates his grip on the land.”

“And then?” Asked the other officer.

“Well, and then we have our other, more secret, orders from the Emir,” said Javad with a smile that sent a shiver of fear down Serafina’s spine. “Then, when the moment is right, reinforced by the legion of Sardaukar in the desert, we strike, and strike hard. Glory to Tor.”

“Glory to Tor,” said the men.