Dunes of Gor Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen: Kettle Girls

Tupa, the girl once known as Serafina, lay on the side of her body in great discomfort under the clear starlit desert sky. Cramp was setting in to her legs and arms and she moaned softly in pain, afraid to make her cries too loud for fear of what might happen. She rolled on to her belly and felt a little of the pain subside, but knew in just an ehn or so it would be back. She was hogtied now in a slave bow, her ankles crossed and tied and her wrists crossed and tied and then both sets of bindings brought together and tied. She wore, like all the slaves did at night time for warmth, a simple hooded djellaba, cut high upon her thighs. It was a loose cotton shirtdress, but in her case the hood was down and the hem had ridden up her thighs as she had struggled in her tight bondage.

She had been tied like this now for almost an ahn and the cramps and resulting pain were becoming unbearable. Try as she might, her wriggling to relieve the pressure of her limbs being contorted like this only succeeded in jingling the slave bells on her left ankle. And when the bells jingled once too often, a girl’s voice would hiss in the darkness close by, “be still, Tupa. You disturb us.”

Earlier that night she had served at a camp fire, until Javad Mohsen and his men had finished their ka-la-na and retired for the night. She knelt there, naked but for her silk veil and body jewellery, holding a goblet for wine for any man who might wish one. Although she had served each man equally, her eyes had been constantly drawn to her master, Javad Mohsen, and she watched him as he spoke and gestured in his conversation. This man owned her now. Tupa had never considered the possibility before that a man might one day own her, not in the abstract free companionship manner, where she would be expected to defer to a man in all things, but as a collared slave, legally his property in every respect. But now she did wear a collar and her thigh had been marked with a kef brand. What had begun a few days ago as a girlish lark to steal a bottle of ka-la-na had ultimately changed her life forever. 

“I think I will have a woman,” said Javad with a yawn as he rose, stretching his arms. Tupa was still on her knees in nadu as he said that, and she gasped, leaning back on her calves. “A woman would be a good way to greet the dawn.”

He wanted a woman! She knew what that meant. 

“Rise, Tupa,” said Javad. Tupa rose with a jingle of bells and trembled before the Sardaukar captain as his subordinate officers strolled away. 

“I’m white silk…” she cried. “I don’t know what to do…”

“What to do?” Javad looked at her with a smile. “What to do where?”

“What to do… when, when… you… with me… take me… I mean…” The words came out as throaty gasps.

He was going to use her! Here, out on the desert sands! Tupa felt weak at the knees at just the thought of it. Her eyelashes fluttered, her lips trembled under the veil, and she placed her left hand to touch a naked, hennaed breast. She would not resist, of course, for resistance was futile now that she was his property. Probably best not to resist. Just let the beast touch her breasts and between her legs, if he must… 

She swallowed, imagining how he might touch her between her legs. Such a beast! She hated him, of course! 

Javad laughed and took hold of Tupa’s collar ring. With a casual twist of his hand he brought Tupa’s lips up close to his own, with only the thin gossamer silk of the ludicrous veil between them. “You want to share my bedding tonight, girl? Is that it? You have been oiling yourself all night with the thought of pleasing me?”

“No! No! I haven’t! I don’t think such things!” How could he possibly think such a thing! Oh, how she hated him, and the way he held her so close. “It never occurred to me!”

In truth, the thought had crossed Tupa’s mind throughout the evening as she had been made to kneel and serve the men. Kneeling before men and obeying their every order had made her feel… well, submissive. There, she had said it, she admitted it to herself. It had come as a terrible surprise to the girl. She had felt submissive! Shameful! Terrible possibilities had crossed her mind, involving Javad and her own body. She tried not to think of them, of course.

“Good. Just as well then, for I will be sending Talitha to my bed tonight.”

“Talitha?!” Tupa’s lips were so close to Javad’s own lips. Her soft breath made the tiny triangle of silk flutter slightly between them. He could kiss her if he just leaned forward another few inches! “Who… who is Talitha?”

“One of the kettle girls.”

“Oh!” Tupa licked her lips behind the thin wisp of silk. “You… you want a kettle girl?” 

He wanted a kettle girl, instead of her?!

She felt angry now. A kettle girl?!

Instead of her?!

Of course, she didn’t actually want him to send her scurrying to his bed, bells jingling, but it was a grave insult that the thought hadn’t occurred to him anyway. 

Something about the way she was being held firmly by her collar ring made Tupa excited and frustrated in equal measure. She pressed her thighs together where she stood, mere inches from his mouth. What would she do if he parted her veil and dared to kiss her? The thought was, well, unthinkable. 

It must not happen!

“Talitha is very experienced with the hot passion of an experienced tribal women. She’s not some tight little girl from Tor who doesn’t want to admit she’s oiled and ready for use now,” said Javad.

“I am not oiled and ready for… oh!” She gasped suddenly as Javad’s hand reached between her legs, “Oh!” she gasped again, and then she wriggled in the grip of the collar ring as Javad discovered just how oiled and ready for use she actually was.

“My, you have been simmering nicely while you served, haven’t you, Tupa?” Javad traced the sign of the kef across Tupa’s left breast with the wetness of his fingers. Tupa’s breasts rose and fell with arousal as he touched her like that. “Time to put you to bed, I think. We secure all our girls during the night.”

“You’re returning me to my kurdah now?!” said Tupa with what was perhaps a trace of disappointment in her voice.

“Of course not,” said Javad with a laugh. “Slaves sleep out under the stars like the rest of us. And then he led Tupa by her collar ring to where a small group of kettle slaves lay. Each girl wore a hooded djellaba as sleep wear, each djellaba cut high on the thigh, denoting the wearer was a slave. Each girl also had her ankles crossed and tightly bound to prevent rising to her feet. They could of course gnaw at each other’s leather bindings with their teeth during the night, but, doing so would be foolish however, for in the middle of the desert where could a slave girl in a short djellaba, without water, possibly run to? The desert itself formed the walls of their cell. 

“Why am I here?” asked Tupa as Javad picked up a brief djellaba and thrust it over her head and shoulders, pulling the shirtdress down about her upper thighs. 

“Why shouldn’t you be here?” He picked up some binding fibre from a small pile of it and motioned to her to lie down. “Cross your ankles and extend them towards me.”

Tupa did as he said, but gazed anxiously at the three kettle girls who were looking at her with less than friendly expressions. They had seen her airs and graces as she had been led on a leash to the campfire of Javad Mohsen. “Well, these girls are clearly kettle slaves.”

“Indeed they are,” said Javad. He began to tie Tupa’s crossed ankles together.

“So it is not appropriate that I should be tethered with kettle girls,” said Tupa, her anxiety levels rising again. 

“Oh?’ Javad rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Have I perhaps misunderstood something? Are you perhaps a trained pleasure slave, well versed in the sensual arts of pleasing a man?”

“Of course not!” said Tupa as she felt the binding fibre tighten around her ankles. “Ow!”

“Did you then perhaps neglect to disclose your accredited training as a superb dancer?”

“I do not know how to dance,” said Tupa proudly. “Such things are clearly beneath me.”

“I see.” Javad nodded his understanding. “Are you then perhaps an artisan of some valuable craft or trade, bringing with you a value over and above your physical beauty?”

“I know something of the latest fashions in Tor,” said Tupa dismissively. “Ow! That is too tight! You don’t need so many knots!”

“Then what exactly is it that makes you so valuable, so special?” asked Javad as he finished securing his slave for the night. He lifted the hood of the djellaba over Tupa’s hair and smoothed the short hemline in place over her thighs to keep her warm as the temperature in the desert dropped.

“I am obviously a woman of privileged status. And if I must say it out loud, of considerable beauty. Some of these girls are really quite ordinary.”

The kettle girls close by began to bristle and snarl as they heard this from Tupa. 

“You haven’t seen them at their best,” said Javad. “They are tired, unwashed, and have been working hard all night. When bathed and combed, some of them are easily your equal.”

“A ridiculous thing to suggest,” snapped Tupa. “They’re kettle girls.”

“As are you,” said Javad. His eyes grew stern. “What do you think a kettle girl is?”

Tupa stared at him in disbelief. “What?”

“You are a kettle girl, Tupa. You have no skills, no training. You can just about scrub pots and pans, I assume?”

“But…”

“So yes, you are a kettle girl, and you will be camped with the other kettle girls.”

The other kettle girls were smiling like predatory larls now, and, with their own ankles bound, crawling a little closer to Tupa as their master spoke. 

“No! You can’t leave me here with them! Let me sleep in my kurdah! I want to sleep in my kurdah!”

“I think it will do you good and be instructive for you to sleep tied with the other kettle girls. Perhaps you will make some new friends. Good night, Tupa. I go now to find the lovely, long legged kettle girl, called Talitha, to warm me tonight.”

“Wait! Come back!” Tupa tried to rise but couldn’t, with her ankles crossed and bound. Within moments the other three girls had surrounded her in the darkness.

“Greetings, slave,” said one of them. She snarled and showed her teeth, making Tupa shrink back in alarm. “We heard everything.”

“Leave me alone!” shrieked Tupa as she felt hands grasp hold of her and thrust her onto her belly. She began to scream for help, and as she did so, the camp suddenly sprang into action. Warriors who had already retired for the night and were half asleep, now jumped to their feet and drew weapons in a flash. Torches were thrust into smouldering campfires to produce light as the fifty or so Sardaukar instinctively did what warriors do when an alarm is raised – they made ready to receive an attack.

“What is going on!” snarled Javad as he ran over to where Tupa was screaming for help. “Are we under attack?”

“These girls took hold of me!” cried Tupa. “They abused me!”

“What?! You raised the camp alarm for THAT?!” In the campfire light that remained, Tupa could see a look of fury cross the man’s face. “Stupid girl! You have roused all my men from their sleep!” He uncoiled a whip from his belt. “You do NOT call out an alarm unless you see we are about to be attacked! I do NOT care what goes on between slaves. I leave kajirae to manage themselves. If you EVER sound the alarm again for no reason at all, I will tie you by your wrists and ankles and leave you here in the desert to die slowly of exposure and thirst! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!’

“Please, Master, la kajira,” wept Tupa as he saw him uncoil his whip fully. “Mercy! La kajira!”

But there was no mercy. Javad whipped Tupa as she lay on the sand and by the time he was finished she was promising she would never cry out for help ever again.

“I do not want to hear from you again, tonight! Perhaps I wasted my money on you! Perhaps the metal worker was right.” And then Javad Mohsen strode away, back to the arms and kisses of his kettle girl for the night.

“Stupid slave,” hissed one of the other kettle girls. Tupa felt their hands return and she felt them tie her wrists behind her back and then bring her wrists and ankles together behind her back in a slave bow. She then lay there on the sand, the hood of her djellaba thrown back in the scuffle, and the hem rucked up about her hips. “You can lie there like that until you are ready to tell us you are a kettle girl, and the lowest of the kettle girls in this coffle,” snarled the desert girl as she bared her teeth inches from Tupa’s face. “Say anything other than that, and we will torment you all night with sharp sticks!”

And so Tupa lay there in mounting discomfort that soon turned to burning agony. She was the daughter of a warrior and so hated the thought of submitting to these kettle slaves, but as the cramps set in and the pain began, Tupa found it unbearable. Sometime after the first ahn of being tied in a slave bow she spoke softly, but urgently to the kettle girls who lay close by.

“I’m a kettle girl, Mistress!” she sobbed.

“Who is a kettle girl?” came the reply.

“Tupa. I am Tupa! Tupa is a kettle girl! The lowest of kettle girls! Please untie me, Mistress! Please!” 

She heard the sound of three girls laughing between themselves. “Should we untie her, Ella?” asked one.

“I suppose. She will need to work in the morning. Her lessons will begin then. Do you beg to work hard in the morning, Tupa? Do you beg the duties of a kettle girl?”

“Yes, Mistress, yes! Please put me to work!”

The girls laughed again, but then Tupa felt them untie the binding fibre that pulled her wrists and ankles together, and then her wrists too were freed. 

“In the morning you shall milk the verr. It will be the first kettle girl skill you learn, Tupa. Out here in the desert the verr need to be milked. You will be careful not to waste any of the precious milk, or you will be beaten. My name is Ella. The other two girls are Kala and Vika. We are your chain sisters. We are a coffle together. Girls in a coffle look after one another, even stupid, clumsy, arrogant kettle slaves such as you.”

“Ow!” Tupa yelped as Ella pinched the flesh of her thigh between two strong fingers, leaving a rapidly swelling bruise. 

“You are a stupid girl, Tupa, who knows nothing. We will even have to teach you to milk a verr.” The other girls laughed at that, for milking a verr was a simple thing that all tribal girls were taught at the age of five. “You will be taught to churn butter. You will be taught to make and serve tea for the men. You will be taught to stitch and mend garments. You have much to learn. We will teach you. And you will call each of us ‘mistress’ until we say otherwise. Until the morning, then, pretty little kettle slave.”