Dunes of Gor Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Two: La Kajira

Reyhan stared, but said nothing. Her face was unveiled in her own rooms, but her expression registered shock and remained indecipherable.

“Mother…” Tupa held out the palms of her hands before realising that was what slaves did. She pulled her wrists back, but it felt strange to do so. She was a slave. It was natural for her to hold out the palms of her hands. She swallowed a lump in her throat and moved forward a step, the bells fastened to her body jingling as she did so. She felt the soft touch of the gossamer slave silks against her skin. Her body seemed to scream at her that she was a slave. 

And still Reyhan said and did nothing. She stared at Tupa, giving nothing away.

I have offended her, thought Tupa, in rising horror. I am a slave! Of course I am a slave! What did I hope for? She can see I am now a slave. I dared to call her mother! I will be whipped! Tupa fell to her knees and cried out, “forgive me, Mistress, for daring to call you anything but ‘mistress’. I beg your mercy. I am new to my collar, but that is no excuse. Tupa begs mercy.” 

Tupa pressed her forehead to the mosaic tiles and cursed herself. How dare she call a free woman, ‘mother’? How dare she imply any form of relationship other than slave to free? No free woman would want to hear such a thing from a slave! She would be whipped now, she knew. And she had only herself to blame. Did she think her mother would accept her back like this? Perfumed, collared, branded with the kef, dressed in pleasure silks, with slave curves? No, of course not. How could she? Tupa would be a shame on their family. She could never be acknowledged as anything but a kettle slave. She would be whipped twice – once by the free Lady and then, after being returned to her master, whipped again, by him. Her punishments would be severe. She might be sold in anger, for the free Lady would not wish to see her again in the Keep; a constant reminder of the family shame. She would be taken in chains and sold somewhere in one of the many slave markets in the desert oases. 

“I am just a slave, Mistress. Forgive my impudence. La kajira, Mistress. La kajira.”

“My baby…” sobbed Reyhan as she then rose from her desk. “My poor baby…” She hurried across the floor and, taking hold of Tupa’s shoulder, raised her from the ground. “My precious baby!” She hugged Tupa to her body and stroked her hair, ignoring the sensual jingling of slave bells on her daughter. “I am your mother,” sobbed Reyhan. “Never, ever think I could not be. My baby! My precious baby!”

It was more than Tupa could possibly hope for and she too began to cry, hugging her mother with a passion and need she had not felt in years. 

“What has been done to you,” sobbed Reyhan as she held her daughter at arm’s length and touched the steel ring set into her nose and then the hoop earrings set into her earlobes. Tears were running down the faces of both women as Reyhan parted the pleasure silk to touch the kef brand on Tupa’s left thigh. “You are kajira," she cried. “You are kajira!”

“I am kajira, mistress,” cried Tupa too. She couldn’t look directly at her mother because of the shame she felt now. “My name is Tupa. I am a kettle slave. That is what I am.” The words came quickly from her mouth before she even realised she had spoken them.

“My heart is breaking,” said Reyhan as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “I have never felt such pain before.”

“I am sorry, Mistress. I have shamed you. I feel wretched, knowing that.”

“My poor baby. Who owns you?” Reyhan placed her fingers on Tupa’s collar and turned the steel so that she might read the cursive script engraved upon it, but the light was too dim near the doorway, to make out the letters.

“My master is known as Javad Mohsen, Mistress.” Tupa was not even consciously aware that she was calling her mother, ‘mistress’.

Reyhan felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. Javad owned her baby? Javad? She understood well, his lusts, when it came to women of the Shahzad household. How had this happened? Reyhan felt dizzy, as if the walls of her rooms were closing in on her. She stumbled back, pressing her hands to her mouth as she considered the horror she now faced. This was the ultimate nightmare for any mother; to see her precious child enslaved and broken by the whip and the conditioning of slavers. “Take it back, please take it back,” she whispered to no one in particular. “Do not do this to my child.” But there was no turning the clock back. Tupa stood before her mother looking every inch the pleasure slave in her soft silks and slave cosmetics. 

One last hope lingered. Reyhan moved back to the girl again and motioned for her to part her thighs. Reyhan reached down under the wisp of silk and felt for what she desperately hoped she might find. When she did, she cried tears of relief. “You have not been degraded that far, then,” she said, feeling the girl’s white silk state, still. “Priest Kings be praised. You have not been used by your master.”

“Not yet, Mistress. But he wants me tonight,” said Tupa. She didn’t know how she could possibly hurt her mother more, but those words had done so.

“Tonight?” said Reyhan. “You go to him tonight?”

“I have been prepared, Mistress. But I had to see you first.”

“Why didn’t you come to me before? How long have you been here? Have you been in this keep all these weeks?”

“Longer, Mistress. I was here as part of a work chain before you arrived. I am a kettle slave. I am worked hard. I have had no way of reaching you until now. I work in a Harl ring chain. I am never allowed out of my pen unless I am chained with the other girls. I have seen you a couple of times, but you didn’t know who I was…”

“Oh, Gods…” Reyhan turned away again, pressing her hands to her face once more. “Do not do this to me!” She was calling out to spirits or desert Gods, her pain etching her voice with the abject horror she now felt.

“Mistress, there is something I have to…”

“Don’t call me that,” cried Reyhan. “I am your mother!” But she couldn’t face her child as she said that.

“I…” Tupa realised she had been calling Reyhan ‘mistress’ without meaning to. “My training, mis… mother…” Tupa felt a twinge of panic when she called Reyhan ‘mother’. She could imagine what Ella would say to her now if she had heard that. 

“Stop! Don’t talk!” Reyhan paced the room, wiping tears from her cheeks. Why was it so hard to think now? Why couldn’t she think clearly? The shock was unmanageable! “What happened to you? Did Javad enslave you?”

“No, Mistress, he didn’t. I was sold to him at auction.”

Each time Tupa called her mother ‘mistress’ without thinking, it was like another cut to her mother’s body. Her baby would say that automatically now. She didn’t even know she was saying it. She was a slave. Mentally, as well as physically.

“Does he know who you are?”

“I don’t think so, mis… mother.” Why was it so difficult for Tupa to speak the word, ‘mother’? Every time she did, a sense of fear churned her stomach. She should not call a free woman that! Her training and conditioning was tightening its grip on her again. And she was standing in front of a free woman! Tupa felt nauseous standing there, and so she dropped to her knees in tower, lowering her head.

“You don’t have to kneel,” said Reyhan.

“Please, mistress…” she had said it again! She clenched her fists in frustration, but at least she felt safer, less anxious, when she knelt before a free woman. Standing just felt wrong. It felt to her inappropriate. The woman was free, but she was just a kettle slave. “There is something I have to tell you about my master. It is important, Mistress.”

“What? What is more important than what has happened to you, Serafina?”

Tupa looked alarmed when she heard that other name. She knew she would be beaten if she responded to it, for she was Tupa now. Her master had decided that she would be Tupa. She was frightened when she heard the name, ‘Serafina.’ She wanted to be called Tupa! It was safer to be called Tupa. 

“I overheard my master talking to some of his men, early on in my slavery. He has secret orders from the Emir. Orders he is to carry out when you are settled into the Keep. Orders to strike without warning.”

“You are sure of this?” Reyhan crossed over the tiles again to gaze down at her daughter. “Listen to me, Serafina…” Reyhan saw the way her daughter flinched when she called her by that name. The girl seemed frightened to respond to it. “Tupa, then,” said Reyhan, reaching out to her child. “I will call you Tupa, if it makes you relax.”

“Thank you, Mistress. I must not respond to my old name! I would be beaten for it”

What have they done to my poor child, thought Reyhan as grief overwhelmed her. They have made her a slave. My beautiful baby. 

“Tupa, are you sure you heard this? Are you absolutely sure? Think very carefully for there can be no room for error now. Your master definitely has secret orders from the Emir? You heard him say so?”

“I did, Mistress.” Tupa remained on her knees, placing her hands on her thighs. She did not dare look directly at her mother’s eyes. Her heart was beating fiercely now. This felt wrong on so many levels. She was betraying her master. She would be whipped and sold if he found out.

“Tupa. You are safe now. Do you hear me? He can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, but he can, Mistress! He can whip me! Sell me! Place me in the Box! I am so afraid. I am just a kettle slave, just a kettle slave. I am stupid and white silk, and…”

Reyhan cried again at what had become of her daughter. In time she might heal these wounds, but time was perhaps something they did not have. “He won’t know. Has he whipped you?”

“He… he has not been… brutal with me. He is not cruel, Mistress.”

If he had been cruel, Reyhan thought to herself, I would scream in pain. 

“When is he planning to attack us?”

“I do not know, Mistress. I did not hear any more. It was the end of a conversation, I think, when I entered his room. I was not meant to hear, but men often do not concern themselves with a slave girl. I do not think he knows I heard. But it will be very soon, I think I had to tell you.”

She remains loyal to her family, thought Reyhan. I can hardly imagine what she has been through, how slavers and the kennels have broken her spirit, but my brave daughter has held on to herself enough to bring me this warning. 

“I am so sorry for what has become of me, Mistress. I have shamed you. I have shamed myself.”

“Child, do not ever say that. I am your mother.”

“No, no, no,” she wailed, “if you only knew, mother, the shame goes further… it is not just the collar I wear, or the brand, but inside, I feel…”

“No! Silence. No more.” Reyhan didn’t want to hear what Tupa was about to confess. “No. I will not hear it. You will not speak it.”

Reyhan left Tupa where she knelt, and passing into the outer room which connected to the guarded corridor outside, she picked up an opaque veil, fastened it in place behind her ears and then opened the door to speak to her guards.

“Lady,” said one of them. It was unusual for Reyhan to emerge at this time in the evening. “Is there something wrong?”

“I am fine,” said Reyhan. “I want you to send for a locksmith. Have him attend me with his tools.”

“Of course, lady. I will do so now.” The man left his station, leaving behind the other two warriors to maintain security. Reyhan closed the door softly and returned to her daughter. To her dismay she smelt it before she saw it. The kneeling Tupa had released a stream of urine between her thighs. It pooled on the mosaic tiles around her.

“I am sorry, Mistress,” cried Tupa in terror. “Please do not whip me. I will clean it, I promise!”

She is so terrified now that she has wet herself, thought Reyhan. “Why did you do this, child?” she asked as she gathered strips of rep cloth and wadded them together to soak up the urine.

“Because I am not with my master and he will be angry. I should be there now. He has commanded me. I have disobeyed him, Mistress!” her merest thought of deliberately disobeying her master, and the consequences that involved, made her release a further trickle. It dripped between her thighs. She looked like she was in slave torment. “I must go to him! He will be furious! I am a slave girl!”

“You are going nowhere,” said Reyhan as she led Tupa to the bathing room where she poured water on some more rep cloth and began to clean her daughter between her legs. “You are staying here.”

“Please, Mistress, please…” Tupa looked terrified again, torn between the orders of her Master and an order from a free woman.

“Quiet, slave!” barked Reyhan. Immediately Tupa slipped into a passive submissive state. Reyhan nodded. “I am a free woman! You will obey me, understand?”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Tupa. Her body relaxed. She was obeying a command now. This was natural to her. It was only the semblance of free will and indecision that was a conflict. The transformation before Reyhan’s eyes was remarkable. Slaves, conditioned slaves, wanted to obey, they wanted to be pleasing. Tupa it seemed was getting to that state quicker than most girls. It was as if she felt safe in her slavery, safe with her chain sisters, safe when she earned the compliments of her master. She felt uneasy, nervous and afraid if left with the responsibility to make decisions for herself – decisions that might anger a free man or woman. It was a wonder she had managed to pluck up the courage to deviate from her path to Javad’s rooms in order to deliver her warning to Reyhan. She must have struggled hard to do so, for the easier option would have been to hurry to her master and kneel before him. That was safety. That was familiarity. That was security. 

“Disobey me again and I will use the switch on you, girl,” said Reyhan as she cleaned the last of Tupa’s skin. Again, Tupa reacted well to that tone of voice. She nodded and her shoulders relaxed. She was obeying a free woman. She was no longer responsible for anything she was doing. 

You poor child, thought Reyhan. Reyhan wanted to hug her daughter, but she knew that if she broke the spell now, her daughter would rise to even higher levels of anxiety. She needed to know she was following commands, otherwise she would fear the consequences of not being with her master.

There was a knock on the door and the voice of a guard telling Reyhan that the locksmith had arrived.

“You will go into my reception room, girl, and you will kneel in tower. Remain still.” Reyhan left Tupa to open the door and allow the locksmith inside. The metalworker entered, bowing to the Lady of the Keep as he did so. In his left hand he carried a leather bag containing his tools. Reyhan led him through the private outer room and then through the other door to her more private suite of rooms. Her hands shook with nerves and so she clasped them behind her back when she turned with her back to the row of small barred windows that overlooked the grounds of the Keep, far below.

“I want you to remove a slave collar,” said Reyhan. She indicated the kneeling figure of Tupa in her pleasure silks.

“You have lost the key, Lady?” said Malik. He placed the heavy bag onto a low table and opened it.

“Yes. I wish to change the collar to a new one.”

“It will take me maybe ten ehn,” said Malik as he searched for and found a set of lock tools. “Collars are always tricky at the best of times.”

“I shall wait and watch,” said Reyhan. So that she had something to do, to keep herself occupied, she moved to a nearby shelf and poured herself a drink from the bottle that Tupa had brought with her.

“It’s a good collar,” said Malik as he examined it, turning the steel to inspect the lock. “Very secure, this one. Good quality steel too.” He paused for a moment. “Lady…”

“Yes?” said Reyhan.

“This collar… the inscription states that this kajira belongs to Javad Mohsen.”

“She did. She belongs to me now.”

“Is this why you do not have the key to the collar? Because she belonged to Javad Mohsen?”

“You ask a lot of questions. Yes, but the slave is mine now. I just do not have the key.”

“Then why not ask Javad for it, Lady?” The metal worker seemed suspicious.

“What are you suggesting?” said Reyhan as he took a step towards Malik.

“Nothing, Lady, it is just that he will be able to unlock this collar without me damaging the mechanism.”

“I don’t care about the mechanism. Remove the collar.”

“But, Lady…”

“I did not bring you here for a conversation!” snapped Reyhan, her nerves fraying. “Do as I say!”

“Of course.” There was a look of concern again on the man’s face as he turned his attention back to Tupa and her collar. He felt the eyes of the Lady of the Keep watching his every move as he began to pick and drill the lock. Tupa knelt there, squirming a little as the man worked on the intricate mechanism. All the while Reyhan paced up and down the room, trying not to appear too nervous. She was after all, stealing the slave of a Sardaukar officer. She drank two goblets of ka-la-na while Malik worked. Her eyes met Tupa’s eyes, but as soon as that connection was made, Tupa averted her gaze to the floor. She did not want to be caught gazing directly at a free woman.

It seemed an eternity to Reyhan, but eventually there was a tell-tale clicking sound and the tumblers of the collar lock disengaged and released. Malik removed the steel and placed it on the floor. “You have a replacement collar, Lady?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps we should put it on this girl sooner rather than later?”

When he didn’t hear a reply, Malik raise himself from the tiled floor and regarded Reyhan. He held the damaged collar in his left hand. “I shall return this to master Javad then. It is his after all.”

Reyhan’s right hand flashed out from behind her back. The steel knife in her hand slashed Malik’s throat in a fluid motion before the man was even able to comprehend what had just happened. The knife was razor sharp Taharian steel, and a thick red line of blood appeared on the man’s throat from ear to ear. Gurgling in shock, his hands went to his torn throat as he fell backwards, striking first the far wall and then the floor. He uttered a series of inarticulate cries as he bled swiftly to death where he lay, legs shaking and kicking for perhaps forty ihn.

Reyhan saw the look of shock in Tupa’s face. “This is what mothers do,” said Reyhan as she picked up an embroidered rug and threw it over the bleeding corpse.