Dunes of Gor Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Work Chain

“Tupa!” Javad’s voice sounded surprised, almost as if he had forgotten about his slave. “It is you, isn’t it, girl? I almost didn’t recognise you.” He gazed down at the naked girl on the work chain. She was working in the courtyard with her coffle sisters, straining under the weight of verr skin sacks of water that they were being forced to carry over their shoulders from the well and into the ornamental gardens on the other side of the keep, where the water bags would be emptied into a central cistern to irrigate the plants. Each twin bag of water, stitched together like a set of saddle bags, contained twenty gallons of the slightly salted and unclear water that could be drawn up from underground wells. 

Since arriving at Al-Quada-a-Dhum as a kettle slave, Tupa had little to no opportunity to find and speak to her sister in private. Kettle slaves were only permitted out of the pens in their Harl ring chain coffles, meaning she was secured to the other girls at all times. And even if she wasn’t chained to them, the inner bedrooms of the keep were a secure area that kettle girls weren’t permitted to enter. Guards permanently secured the entrances to the inner keep, and other guards were in position outside Jaleesa’s suite of rooms, or so Tupa had been told. As the weeks stretched on to infinity, Tupa was beginning to despair of finding any opportunity to reach her sister.

Tupa was sweating under the strain of the intense labour. Her hair was matted and tangled and her feet and lower calves were caked with dust and dirt. Her knees almost buckled under her as she heard the familiar voice that hadn’t spoken to her now for over three weeks.

“Master!” she gasped as she staggered, feeling nauseous.

“Put your load down for a moment, Tupa,” said Javad kindly. He seemed pleased but surprised to see her. “You can give these girls a break for a few ehn,” he said to Ella, the first girl. She nodded and motioned for the other girls to sit themselves down in the shade of some small date palms.

“Master…” cried Tupa again, her voice hoarse and desperate. It was him! It was really him! She wore his collar! Where had he been all this time? How could he have simply abandoned her to the tender mercies of Ella and the other kettle girls? Without thinking, she crawled to his feet and kissed them.

“Oh, now that’s good, Tupa, very good. You have obviously learnt something these last few weeks.” Javad touched her hair fondly and lifted her chin with his hand. “So you’re a kettle slave now?”

“Please, Master, where have you been? You left me here when we arrived and I’ve been working here ever since.” There were tears in Tupa’s eyes. 

“Kettle slaves have to be useful. Have you been working hard?”

Tupa nodded frantically. “They work me from morning to dusk, Master. At night I can barely stand. It’s too much.” Tupa dragged the coffle chain along the floor as she pressed her head to Javad’s lower leg.

“I doubt they have been working you any harder than the other kettle slaves, Tupa. But at least you retain your dignity and virtue.”

“Master?” Tupa gazed up at him with tear streaks down her cheeks where the salt water had washed lines through the dust caking her skin.

“You’re still white silk, yes? No man has touched you?”

“I’m still white silk, Master.”

“How happy you must be then. You must feel like the most precious of trophy slaves, kept safe from ravishment.”

“Please, Master, don’t leave me here, I beg you!” Nearby, Ella frowned as she saw the way Tupa was taking advantage of this moment to speak to her master. The girl had not been given permission to plead with him. Ella would have to whip her tonight and make it clear that a girl should only answer questions from a master, and that she is not permitted to plead unless she is first given permission. Tupa still had a lot to learn it seemed.

“I don’t understand. What are you saying, Tupa?”

“I’m your slave, Master. I don’t want to be a kettle slave, worked hard from dawn to dusk.”

“You have no other skills, girl,” said Javad. “This is all you can do.”

“I have been thinking, Master,” cried Tupa, wrestling with her fear and her doubts, but knowing she might not get a chance to speak like this again for many weeks. “Let me please you! I know I am beautiful! Let me please you as a slave should. Take me with you and I will…”

“You will what?” asked Javad.

“You may make use of me, Master. I want that now, if it means an end to this.”

“How very generous of you,” said Javad with a laugh. “But you can’t even put into words what you might perhaps do for me. Will you kiss me?”

“Yes! I will! I will kiss you, Master!”

Javad laughed again. “Anything else?”

“You may use me, Master! Please use me!”

“Do you even understand how I might use you? Do you understand any of the things we would do together?”

Tupa sobbed. She had only the vaguest idea of what sex entailed. She knew he would be aroused when he looked at her and then he would part her thighs and enter her. But she didn’t understand much else. “I will learn, Master! I… I don’t know what to do, but I know you want me, and…”

“Oh, you know what I want? Yet seem incapable of even putting that into words, much less proving even remotely satisfactory at doing so? Why should I waste my evenings teaching you to be even halfway competent at pleasing a man? There are slaves in this keep with many years of experience.”

“Please, Master, please, I beg your touch! Take me with you! Please! Let me kiss you, touch you…” her voice trailed away as Tupa didn’t know what else to offer. What was she supposed to do? She had always thought a woman need only lie on the couch, close her eyes and the man would do everything. The man would know what to do. 

“How many sacks of water have you carried to the cisterns so far today?”

“Seven, Master. We walk a third of a pasang with each sack to reach the cisterns.”

“And how many are you to carry today?”

“Forty,” said Ella with no trace of emotion in her voice. “The little slut is to carry forty bags before sun down. The water must be carried.”

“I should perhaps leave you to it then, Tupa? I am delaying your important work, it seems.”

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That evening, after the girls had washed the dirt from their bodies and had eaten their allocated pans of gruel, Ella found Tupa curled up on her blanket, exhausted, numb with fatigue, chewing at her finger nails in despair.

“Stop that!” She slapped the girl hard until Tupa rose to her knees and faced the first girl in nadu. “Your nails are already worn down. Don’t make them any worse. Tch. Look at you.” She lifted Tupa’s tangled tresses and let them fall around the girl’s shoulders. “No wonder your master couldn’t be bothered to send you to his couch tonight.”

“Why doesn’t he want me, Mistress! I wear his collar! Why won’t he send for me!”

“Because you are stupid and you know nothing. You cannot even describe to him what he can expect from you. White silks are so stupid.”

“Please, Mistress, I just want him to want me! What can I do?”

“Well you can comb your hair for a start. Turn around.” Ella sat next to the girl and picked up a comb made from some sort of turtle shell. She began to slowly unravel the mass of tangles in Tupa's once beautiful mane of dark hair. She worked slowly, often hurting Tupa as the knots and tangles had to be pulled or snipped away in places, but gradually the hair became soft and straight again. Then, taking up a brush she began to brush first one side and then the other of the hair. “You were so beautiful that first night in the desert,” said Ella as she continued to brush. “Honestly, we were all bitter with jealousy when we saw you wearing the cosmetics and dancing silks. We didn’t tell you then, but we were afraid of how the men might desire you. But these three weeks as a kettle girl has changed all of that, hasn’t it?”

“I’m ugly. No man wants me. I will be white silk all my life…” cried the girl.

“Like I said, so stupid. Did you think your master perhaps stumbled upon you by accident today? Hmm?”

“Well, yes, I suppose…” said Tupa.

“Nonsense. Men are so transparent. He asked about you two days ago. He asked where you are currently put to work. He made a show of happening to pass this way, but he was looking for you. He wanted to see you, Tupa.”

“But… why did he stay for only a few ehn? Why did he not take me with him?”

“Your stupidity has no limits, it seems. He is in no hurry to pluck you as he might pluck a flower. You are not ready for him yet. Have you noticed your hips, your ass, your breasts recently?” Ella tapped them with her switch.

“I’ve… I’ve put on some weight there,” moaned Tupa. “I don’t know how! I’m not eating soft pastries or rich food!” Tupa had noticed her rump and hips were more fleshy, more curvaceous than ever before when she had been free. And her breasts had filled out too. 

“The food you are given and the series of exercises I have you do in the mornings and afternoons, is carefully measured to plump up your curves for your master.”

“What? No! He can’t do that to me! This is my body!”

“And he will shape your body as he sees fit. You are getting softer to the touch here,” Ella touched Tupa’s hips, “and here,” she touched the girl’s rounded ass, and here,” she touched each of the two breasts that now hung heavier than ever before. “Soon you will be unrecognisable as the woman you once were. Soon you will have the sensuous curves of a low born desert girl. You will wiggle as you walk, and your master will love you for it.”

“Please, no…”

“But yes, Tupa. It’s a sign that your master is thinking of you, that he is planning your future. He hasn’t forgotten you at all. Do you want me to show you something? Something that you can do when you see your master next?”

“Please, Mistress. Please. I want to be his pleasure slave! But I don’t know how.”

“I doubt you will ever be his pleasure slave. A Sardaukar captain can have many women. But I think we can give you a chance to at least share his couch occasionally. Would you like that?”

Tupa blushed bright red, but then nodded, her eyes downcast towards the floor.

“What a change a few weeks makes. Little Tupa wants to be red silk.”

“Please..” Tupa could feel her cheeks burning like fire. “I don’t know what to do.”

“All right then. Do you know what this is?” She held up a piece of fruit, much like an Earth banana. 

“It is a mauz, Mistress. You can peel it and eat it.”

“Yes you can. And do you know what it reminds you of?”

“Oh!” Tupa put her hand to her mouth. “You mean…?”

“Yes, a man’s penis. See, up it goes.” She lifted the banana shaped fruit in the way a penis might grow erect, about halfway. “See how excited the mauz is now that it sees your pretty brushed hair?”

Tupa laughed softly, the first time in many weeks. “Is that what a man’s thing looks like?”

“It’s close enough. Now, look at it. What do you think you can do with it? Imagine your master is here and you have a few minutes to interest him and to show him that you’re not quite so stupid after all. You brush your lips against his inner thighs as you find the opportunity, when he permits you to touch your face to his legs. Kiss him there softly, and look, the mauz gets excited. See it move. You can see that easily under his tunic. What do you think you can do with it then?”

“May I… . touch it?”

“That would be a start, yes. Why don’t you try?” Ella let the mauz fruit hover there in front of Tupa. Then, as Tupa reached out to touch it, Ella made the fruit move and tremble, rising up further at an angle. “See. And that’s just from touching it. Now imagine what might happen if you were to kiss it…”

A quarter of an ahn later, Tupa was kissing and sucking at the piece of fruit, being encouraged gently by Ella who corrected some of her obvious mistakes. 

“Will he like this, Mistress?” Tupa asked as she momentarily slid her lips from around the wet fruit skin.

“Trust me, he will definitely like that. BUT and here is the but, when the fruit begins to quiver quickly, then you pause. You don’t go any further, understand? You slide your lips slowly from his penis, but you hold it lightly with the curled fingers of your left hand, And then you gaze up at him with those beautiful eyelashes you have and you just say to him, ‘Tupa begs slave rape, Master’. Just that. And you keep looking at him while you gently hold his quivering manhood. Do not look away unless he tells you to. Everything will be in the eyes.”

“Oh. What will he do then?”

Ella laughed. “Such a stupid girl. I forgot what white silks are like. Well, I think by the next day you will no longer be white silk. I think you will know then what it is, to be taken by a man.”