Dunes of Gor Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Whip

“Slave! Come here, Slave! Now!” 

Ghadir frowned as he heard the young woman’s voice. It would be that child from the Sasani House, of course. The one who had been flouncing around the Keep, pretending to be Serafina Shahzad. That had been her Aunt’s idea of course. Reyhan Shahzad. Ghadir frowned but cleared the expression from his face before he turned around. He wasn’t used to being addressed like that. He was Daan Shahzad’s high slave – an essential part of the administration of the Keep in Al-Quada-a-Dhum; cherished and respected, even though he wore a steel collar. Reyhan treated him with reserved cordiality. The daughters had always left him to his work. But this Sasani girl was insufferable.

“Kind and gentle, Mistress,” said Ghadir as he walked towards the young girl who stood by a vine covered balcony, dressed in Serafina’s fine clothes. Nearby, a small work chain of kettle slaves scrubbed the tiled floor. In the courtyard below, other kettle slaves were carrying heavy bags of water from the central well to the cistern that fed the irrigation canals of the shaded gardens. “How may a mere slave be of service today?”

“Strip, kneel to the slave ring at the side wall, and prepare to be whipped,” said Aleah with a savage tone of voice for one so young. At first Ghadir could hardly believe anyone had said that to him. He had not been whipped for five years, let alone ordered to strip in public. A sharp intake of angry breath escaped his lips, but he controlled himself. “May an unworthy slave ask how he has offended you, Mistress?”

“I don’t need an excuse,” she said with a crinkling of her eyes that suggested a smile beneath her veils. “Do as I say, or I will send a man to whip you with the snake!”

She was serious. Ghadir felt a surge of anger, and a desire to throw this impudent girl to the tiles, strip her himself, and lay her own lash about her own body. But he couldn’t. She was a free woman and he was a slave. All of this was being seen by some of the kettle slaves in the area. They gasped, stunned by the fact that Ghadir was being talked to like this. They had never seen anything like it before.

“Very well,” said Aleah as Ghadir continued to hesitate. “I will send a guard to whip you. And then you will be placed in the box for twenty four hours for having disobeyed a command.”

Through gritted teeth, in full view of some of his subordinate slave girls, Ghadir began to strip himself. He stood there, naked, before this un-companioned girl who was little more than a child in his eyes, barely four or five years or so past her first robing.

“Now kneel and grasp the slave ring, slave!” she hissed as she advanced with a whip in her hands. 

Ghadir sank to his knees and gripped the slave ring to which kajirae might normally be secured for punishment. “Does my Master know you are…” before he could say another word, Aleah’s whip lashed his back. He cried out, in surprise, having forgotten what a Gorean whip felt like. This was not a simple switch, of the kind carried by free women on their belts; this was a heavy slave whip. The girl’s strength was slight, but even so, the whip hurt.

“Be quiet, slave!” She began to lash him, back and forth, from the right and the left, until sixteen broad strokes covered his back, and Ghadir felt like collapsing. Then he felt the girl standing behind him, just to his right. He could smell her perfume, and feel the soft hem of her skirts brush his thigh. He felt her hand seize his hair and pull his head back. He didn’t dare to release the slave ring with his hands.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you, slave? You thought perhaps women were victims? That you could mould my cousin into some secret slave, because she would be afraid to disobey you? Well, I am going to make your life hell for that. Where is the key to her collar? Where are her slave papers?” she whispered into his ear.

“If anything happens to me,” groaned Ghadir, “the papers will be made public…”

“Which is why I’m clever enough to make your life miserable from now on, but not to the point where you can use those papers without condemning yourself to a slow tortuous death when my Uncle finds out what you have done. You and I both know you can only use those papers as a very last resort. I may be young, but I’m not naive, slave.”

The young girl straightened up and frowned when she saw that a couple of drops of blood from Ghadir’s back had soiled the lower part of her gown. Still, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few vulo eggs, she thought to herself.

“Did you enjoy your whipping, slave?” asked Aleah.

“Mistress…” Ghadir was finding it difficult to speak beyond a croak. “Mistress is kind and gentle to have done no more to me than…”

“Yes, kind and gentle.” She kicked him in the ribs with her slippered foot. “Where are the papers?” she whispered again, knowing the kettle slaves nearby were pretending not to listen, but almost certainly were listening.

“We seem to be at… an impasse, kind Mistress…” gasped Ghadir. “Because if I give you those papers there is nothing any more to prevent you killing me.”

“You could try throwing yourself on my kind and tender mercy, I suppose,” said Aleah. “I might let you live. If you begged me well.”

“I will consider this, Mistress…”

“Another whipping tomorrow then, because I will feel you have looked at me in an unbecoming manner? And another one the day after?”

Ghadir gripped the ring tightly, draining the blood from his knuckles. He thought of all manner of unpleasant things he might do to this brat of a Sasani child. But none of them were in his power. 

“You stay well away from my cousin. You and that slave you sent to train her,” whispered Aleah. “I paced her in the Box today. She’s been in there for three ahn now. I imagine she’s regretting helping you. You wear a collar. You have no power, Ghadir. A young girl can and will master you. Now kiss the whip.” She placed the bloodied whip beside his head. With his eyes closed, Ghadir kissed the leather, tasting the iron taint of his own blood.

“Now say, I have licked and kissed the whip of my Mistress.”

“I have licked and kissed the whip of my Mistress,” said Ghadir.

“I will see you tomorrow then, slave. Unless you have something for me.” Aleah strode past the small coffle chains of kettle slaves who scrubbed and polished the floor tiles of the shaded balcony that overlooked the courtyard. Being free, she didn’t deign to look at any of them.

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“You whipped him!” exclaimed Jaleesa. “Oh, I would have loved to have seen that!” She lay on her side on her couch in her suite of rooms. She was naked, except for the slave collar locked around her throat. She hadn’t felt like getting up and dressing that day, now that she no longer had kajirae to help her.

“Sixteen times,” said Aleah as she unpinned her veils. “Oh, it was such fun, cousin! You forget he is only a slave. We are free. We can treat him as we wish.”

“But no one whips Ghadir. I don’t recall him ever being whipped…”

“He had better get used to it. I suspect I will take a dislike to something he does or doesn’t do, tomorrow morning.” Aleah laughed as she turned round to present the complex fastenings of her gowns to Jaleesa to unpick. The girl herself couldn’t reach them easily on her own. She sighed as she felt Jaleesa’s nimble fingers pulling the little knots undone. Jaleesa had such wonderful fingers. Within a few ehn, Aleah was naked too and she jumped onto the soft couch with her cousin, hugging her and kissing her on the cheek. It was very hot in Al-Quada-a-Dhum, and the girls routinely stripped naked as soon as they were in their private rooms together. “Oh, beloved cousin, I will make that slave regret he ever treated you that way.” Aleah squirmed until her body was pressed close to Jaleesa’s. They loved holding one another while they talked and Aleah sighed as she felt Jaleesa pick up a comb and start to groom her cousin’s long hair. They groomed each other much like slaves did to one another.

“Darling, sweetest cousin,” said Jaleesa, “I am so grateful to you. But did Ghadir say where the key to my collar is?”

“No. Not yet,” Aleah rubbed Jaleesa’s nose with her own and kissed her on the forehead. “One whipping wasn’t sufficient it seems. But he will break. And do you know what? I learnt something today?”

“What? Oh, do tell, most precious of cousins?”

“Well,” Aleah sat up on her bottom, and rested her weight on the palm of her left hand, feeling very proud. “I discovered I enjoy whipping men!”

“No?!” Jaleesa covered her mouth with her left hand and giggled. “Really?”

“Yes, it is true! It pleased me greatly to whip him. I…” she blushed. “I actually felt that warmth between my legs as I whipped him that, well, that we feel when we…”

Jaleesa giggled too. “Really? You can feel that way from whipping a man - the same feeling as when you are in your bath and you touch yourself lightly?”

“It is true,” said Aleah with a quick nod. “Oh, it didn’t go any further. Not like with my hand. It was…” she paused for thought, “a bit like early on, you know, when we just stroke ourselves slightly. Before the feeling gets more intense and we feel the quivering butterflies.”

“Oh. The quivering butterflies!” Now Jaleesa sat up. “I love the quivering butterflies! Do you think I might feel that way too if I whipped a man?”

“Perhaps,” nodded Aleah. “You would have to try it to know.”

“The thought of it doesn’t really excite me,” said Jaleesa. She pouted. “Should it excite me just by thinking of it? Because, honestly, it doesn’t.”

“Not necessarily. I didn’t know until I had the whip in my hand. But now I have whipped a man for the first time, I want to whip one again!”

“Well, perhaps you should have Saijid’s job,” suggested Jaleesa with a soft laugh. 

“Hmm. Perhaps. Though I do not think my Uncle would give me that job. It is not really suitable for a young Lady of a House of the Landsraad.”

“True,” Said Jaleesa as she wriggled her body close to Aleah’s again. “Oh, hold me for a while, cousin. You feel so soft and comfortable. I always feel more at peace when I lie beside you, pressed to your bosom.”

“And I too, when I lie beside you, delicious cousin,” said Aleah, though her thoughts were now drifting away again, in the hot midday sun, to thoughts of whipping men. She imagined a long line of men, thickly muscled, kneeling, terrified, gripping slave rings in their powerful hands, and she, Aleah Sasani, striding along the line, picking out a man at random, signalling the others to move aside, and then laying her whip across his raised buttocks. She suddenly felt rather hot and aroused at the thought of it all. 

“What shall we do today, darling cousin?” asked Jaleesa as she half closed her eyes, snuggling so her face rested on Aleah’s small girlish breasts.

“We don’t have to do anything, if we don’t want to. Let’s just lie together and dream of things. You can whisper me secret fantasies and I will whisper you some of mine.”

“Your bosom is such a lovely pillow,” said a drowsy Jaleesa.

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Ghadir moved stiffly, in great pain, for the woman had used a heavy whip. But he was also smiling to himself now as he staggered back to his room. He had refused aid from a couple of the kettle slaves who had offered to support him. On the whole Ghadir had always been quite fair with the kajirae; protecting them in particular from the worst mood swings of free women. He knew some of them therefore felt loyalty towards him.

There were others of course who did not, and would no doubt be amused that this high slave in his off-white robes had been whipped like a slave labourer in the fields.

His back was bloodied, for a heavy whip had been used. It was a whip designed to be used on labouring male slaves, and Ghadir was thankful that the Sasani girl had been stupid enough to use such a thing. Too bad, little Sasani girl, because I know how to deal with you now. You should have used your switch. That woman’s whip that women carry at their belts. Because a heavy whip like that is pre-meditated. A woman has to ask for it and bring it with her. That means the whipping is not inflicted on the spur of the moment because of some perceived sleight. And his back was marked and bloody now. He could only stand with difficulty and discomfort. Had it been a man who had whipped Ghadir, he would now have to be carried away on a stretcher. But a whip wielded by a woman simply left him weak.

Ghadir found his room and paused by the door. He hadn’t bothered to dress again when Aleah had left him. No, he simply staggered naked and bloody past surprised looking guardsmen. He made no complaint, no remark, but he displayed his injuries in passing. Who had done that to him? A woman perhaps, for he could still stand. But the marks were not from a woman’s switch. A woman of House Shahzad was beyond reproach on such matters, but what if the whip mistress was not of House Shahzad? Ah, that was another matter entirely.

Ghadir paused by his door and regarded a shocked looking kettle slave who almost dropped a box that she was balancing on her head.

“Master…” she said, seeing Ghadir naked and marked.

“Panna, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes, Master, I am Panna.”

“Be so good girl, as to deliver a message to my Master. Explain to him that I cannot attend his urgent war council today for I have been beaten almost to death and can barely stand. Tell him I offer no excuses for being unable to serve him now, but I am close to passing out.”

An exaggeration of course. Ghadir was regaining his strength as he spoke, for he had only been whipped by a young girl. But the injuries on his back looked worse than they actually were. “Tell my Master I will of course submit to any punishment he wishes for failing him today.”

“If he asks what happened, Master?”

Ghadir smiled as he straightened up just a little. “Then tell him I cannot serve today in his urgent war council because I displeased the House of Sasani…”