Author: Aurelius
An American Girl in Aden


(The story takes place in Aden, a small British trading port in South Yemen, Arabia. The year is 1880.)

“As-salaam 'aleikum.”

“wa 'aleiku-salaam.” The visitors responded.

“Welcome, welcome. Please seat yourselves. Be at ease. You are honoured guests in my humble home.”

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Carrstairs sat down nervously on a plush upholstered chaise, anxious not to cause offence to their host. This rich Yemeni’s home was the largest and most lavish they had visited on their travels, and humble was not the first word that sprung to mind.

A slim dark-skinned servant girl entered the room carrying a small silver tray. She placed it lightly on a small table, gestured submissively to the Vizier, and left closing the door silently behind her. If your eyes were closed you would not have been aware of her presence, only the fragrance of what she brought into the room.

“Mint tea?” The Vizier offered.

“Shoo kran.” Mrs. Carrstairs politely replied. Such an offer was never to be declined. In any case, Mrs. Carrstairs had acquired a taste for it during her family’s two-month cultural tour of Arabia. They sipped, and exchanged small talk about the historical sites in Aden and the surrounding villages. She was quite taken with the swarthy but cultured Arab.

Walt Carrstairs, a Chicagoan industrialist who made his fortune building the transcontinental railway, could barely contain his irritation as his wife diligently made small-talk with their host. Why the hell couldn’t these Arabs get to the point? There was a serious matter to be resolved. At the next pause he interjected.

“My daughter... Catherine.” Mr. Carrstairs fought to restrain the desperation in his voice. “Can you help us or not?”

The Arab smiled the kind of condescending smile that Walt Carrstairs was unused to. He was, after all, a very rich and powerful man back in Chicago.

“Of course we must discuss Catherine. It was... a most regrettable incident. I am sure she meant no harm. However, you must accept that her actions at the Abaan Mosque caused grave offence. Were it not for that French trader, Monsieur Rimbaud, intervening on her behalf they say there might have been a riot.”

“Yes, that is what we heard. We hope to thank Monsieur Rimbaud personally, but right now I want to see Catherine. Where is my daughter?”

“She is... safe. Negotiations are proceeding between the mullah and the British port authorities. Naturally I have exerted every possible influence to appeal for leniency. I think that with a statement of contrition she will be spared prison, Inshaallah.

Mrs. Carrstairs allowed herself a fleeting smile. It was the best news she had heard for two days. “What about lashes? Somebody said she might receive twenty lashes?”

The Vizier sighed sympathetically. “I fear that will be the case, but for a healthy young woman it will cause no permanent damage. More tea?”

After agreeing that they would return in the late afternoon, the Carrstairs departed. It was hard to accept that for the first time in her life, they would not be responsible for Catherine’s fate.

***
The sixteen-year-old Catherine Carrstairs sat serenely on the stone floor of the prison cell. Her ankles were folded in front of her, her knees spread wide. Heavy iron manacles had been locked on her wrists, connected by eleven equally heavy links. It was funny, she thought, because eleven was supposed to be her lucky number. She idly pondered the significance of it, constantly fingering the jumble of chain on her lap like a crude rosary. Every bump, indent and rust spot on each of the eleven links, she had memorized. Catherine had been in the same cell and wearing these same chains, and the same itchy garments for the best part of two days.

She had a cell-mate, her only companion in this nightmare, named Shazira. That was all she knew about her. Catherine’s inability to speak Arabic had limited their communications to friendly gestures. Holding up the fingers of their shackled hands, they ascertained the other’s ages. Shazira, was twenty-two, although Catherine thought she looked older.

From the small vent at the top of their cell, came the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to midday prayers. Shazira had taught Catherine at least one Arabic word. ‘Salaat!’ she would say, unrolling her prayer mat, and insisting that Catherine do likewise and pray.

Catherine leant forward and rolled out her small woven prayer mat. She crouched on it to pray, following Shazira’s example. There was much to pray about.

“Dear Allah, please forgive me for running around your mosque with my shoes on. As I said to you before, I became confused when some men shouted at me. I ran away in the wrong direction, straight into the mosque, and saw that the men were still chasing me. That’s why I kept running and ended up in the hall where lots of men were praying to you. I was wearing a headscarf but it snagged on a floral display and came off me. That’s when I broke the big vase too, but it wasn’t done on purpose...

“...I know it was very wrong of me to kick the man, particularly in that place... I mean that place on him, as well as in the mosque. I hope he feels better soon... and bless Mr. Rimbaud for protecting me outside the mosque... and please look after Mom and Dad and tell them not to worry about me and that I love them very much... Amen.”

Her voice choked as it always did at those final words. She quickly wiped away a tear with a clumsy hand. Despite the emotion Catherine felt better for having prayed. She was impressed that Allah understood English every bit as well as Arabic. At least that was what one of their tour guides said. How her father laughed when she mentioned that to him! But at a time like this it was very helpful to speak with Allah.

Yesterday in the cell, she and Shazira were given lunch after the midday prayers but today, disappointingly, nothing arrived. Shazira seemed agitated after the prayers, her eye darting nervously at the slightest sound, as if she were expecting something bad to happen. She was right. The sound of heavy footfalls was moving their way, becoming louder with every step.

Four men stood outside the cell door - prison guards and army militia. Catherine and Shazira stood against the far wall, huddled tightly together, but Shazira’s trembling body gave Catherine no comfort.

A man, holding the largest bunch of keys Catherine had ever seen, unlocked the door. She wondered why a man carried more shackles, as both of them were already in chains. He bent down and attached shackles to her ankles. They weren’t tight but rested heavily on her anklebones. The chain between them was ready to trip her the moment she started walking. A man gripped the chain between her hands and led her from the cell. Not one word had been uttered. That was what Catherine found most scary.

The ankle chains were much worse than those on her wrists; grazing her skin as she walked. Stumbling, she adjusted her stride, keeping her feet apart as she made ungainly shuffling steps whilst being led along narrow echoing corridors.

They entered a large, high ceiling room. Perhaps it was more like small hall. Chairs lined the otherwise unfurnished room on all sides, but as Catherine gazed around it was scene in the middle that most concerned her.

Two women were kneeling on the floor about twenty-feet apart. Looking closer, Catherine could see they were each hunched over and attached with chains to a small wooden frame designed to keep them in their prayerful position. She was taken to the unoccupied frame between the two. They made her kneel down and lean over it. The frame was equipped with its own manacles for wrists and ankles but her captors did not remove her existing shackles, they simply locked the frame’s shackles alongside her own ones.

Doubly bound by chains, Catherine rested her belly on the wooden surface, obliging her to lean forward, while men meddled with the garment she wore. Something suddenly came free with a ripping sound and Catherine felt a gentle breeze flow across her spine. Her back was completely bare.

Several feet in front of her, Shazira was kneeling and being fixed to a slightly different kind of frame. Her left hand was held across a heavy block. Then somebody spread her fingers flat and wide, while U-shaped iron nails were hammered into the wooden surface, pinning down each finger without regard for the woman’s pain. The manacle was unlocked and removed from that wrist. With Shazira’s fingers nailed down to the wooden block it was surplus to requirements.

All the men left the room. The door slammed, then there was silence; a terrible, fearful silence as the four restrained women contemplated their fate.

On either side of Catherine the women both had their eyes closed. They were whispering to themselves - or uttering a prayer for strength or perhaps forgiveness. Shazira smiled as if to comfort Catherine but it was the saddest, most awful smile the American teenager had ever witnessed.

Catherine examined the pair of heavy manacles adorning each wrist. How fragile and weak her pale arms seemed in contrast to the thick irons, strong enough to restrain a wild animal. The irons clanged together as she moved her arms a little; not in an attempt to struggle or escape but simply to confirm this was really happening. She was left in no doubt. Sometimes dreams can seem so real, but sometimes reality feels like a dream. On this occasion it was the latter.

Time passed, with the silence interrupted by hopeless sighs and tearful sniffing. The woman to Catherine’s left had a few mad moments, pulling with all her strength to extricate herself from the praying frame. She failed, as she knew she would, and descended into mournful weeping as blood dripped from her grazed wrists.

It was the fear of those around her, rather than her own, which prompted a few silent tears to trickle down Catherine’s cheeks. The endless waiting was a terrible torment in itself, designed to allow the punishees time to repent, to contemplate their sins and the soon-to-be-delivered beating that those sins had bought them.

***
There was a sound of conversation outside the door, just two people at first, but over the next few minutes the chatter became louder and louder until it became impossible for Catherine to guess how many people there were. The heavy door creaked open and men, all in Arabic robes and headgear walked solemnly into the room, seating themselves on the chairs that lined the walls.

Suddenly the men, thirty or more of them, fell silent.

An imam said prayers, while a man carrying a large and heavy sword stood nearby, his head bowed. Catherine noticed that Shazira was the focus of everyone’s attention. Facing her from four yards away, she noticed the panic in her cell mate's eyes. A man held Shazira’s head and stuffed some wadding in her mouth. She screamed into the gag as one man used a knife to slice crudely into her flesh, to prepare the wound for sealing. Then the swordsman brought his fearsome weapon down on Shazira’s wrist.

Catherine closed her eyes, but the sudden collective sigh of the audience prompted her to open them. The stump of Shazira’s left arm was already covered, bleeding profusely through a gauze cloth. She and her severed hand were immediately taken from the hall in opposite directions. The swordsman solemnly departed behind them.

***
No sooner had Shazira been whisked from the room than the next woman’s punishment commenced; the one to Catherine’s left.

A bearded and heavily built man came forward holding a long rattan cane, and swishing it lightly through the air. The imam commenced reciting a prayer over the petrified woman, soon accompanied by the sound of water gently splashing on the stone floor as she whimpered in terror. The trickle of urine seeped out from under her cloak and crept ominously across the marble floor in Catherine’s direction, as if searching for her.

In accordance with tradition, the man with the cane tucked an old copy of the Koran in the armpit of the cane-wielding arm. It would limit the extent to which he could swing. When the prayer finished, the imam held out a clean wadded cloth for the woman to take between her teeth. She took it gingerly from his hand, looking upwards at him with a pitiful show of gratitude.

The sharp smack of a rattan cane echoed around the hall. The woman shrieked and struggled in her iron restraints. The next blow landed as she panted to get her breath. The pause between each lash ensured that each one was fully suffered - the fearful anticipation, then the shock of the blow, and finally its stinging afterglow.

Catherine counted not only the number of strikes her fellow prisoner suffered, but also the interval between each of them. Usually they fell every nine or ten seconds but is seemed longer. The woman received twenty strikes in total, and Catherine feared she would receive the same.

When the woman’s punishment was complete, the imam moved to Catherine and began to recite the same prayer. When he finished the sombre incantation, she too was offered a wadded cloth. (Besides stifling her cries it was used to lessen the risk of hyperventilation.) Catherine stretched her neck forward to reach for it and grasped it between her teeth with a large bite. It was, in effect, a self-administered gag.

The first blow landed moments later. Catherine instinctively tried to evade the painful strikes, tugging violently against her iron shackles. She lost count of her own punishment as early as the fourth blow, and cried pitifully for her mother.

The remaining sixteen strokes followed in a cycle of pain, breathless recovery, and more pain. It seemed to last forever. So long that Catherine truly believed she’d gone to Hell.

Sobbing gently, and waiting for the next blow, Catherine heard the familiar recitation of the prayer. It was for the next woman. Her own ordeal over. She spat out the wadding and slumped exhausted and broken as a stinging solution was rubbed on her back. She passed out. After the next woman’s punishment had been completed, they revived her with smelling salts.

***
Instead of being taken back to the cell as she expected, Catherine was taken from the building and escorted on foot through the quiet residential streets of Aden. With her head and face covered by the hijab, the mildly curious stares of passers-by did not concern her as much as the pain in her back. Her escort, one of the prison guards, tugged on the chain between her wrists but, still wearing her leg-irons, Catherine couldn’t walk any faster without stumbling.

She was exhausted, her ankles badly chafed and bleeding due to the shackles, when they arrived at a grand old house. To reach the front door, she had to make a small jump to mount each step. The hobble chain between her ankles was not long enough for her walk up. The escort laughed at her, although at least he supported her as she jumped each step.

The big carved door opened and a young very dark skinned maid led Catherine and the guard into a simple reception room. An older man entered and said something to guard. Judging by the brevity of the remark, it was a simple instruction. The guard bent down to Catherine’s feet and produced a key from his pocket. He opened the shackles’ primitive locks.

Catherine was elated when he also removed the shackles from her wrists. Her hands suddenly felt so light, that they seemed to float upwards of their own accord. It was strange to be free of the shackles’ heaviness, and those eleven links that she knew intimately.

“Miss Carrstairs,” the man addressed her sternly. “In addition to your sixty lashes you have been sentenced to one month in prison for your crime. The religious court has granted that you may serve your sentence within my household. For the next month you will be educated in the ways of our culture.”

Catherine kept her head down, nodding to show she understood. Did he say sixty lashes? She reckoned there had been twenty; thirty at most. Perhaps they had miscalculated. It didn’t occur to her that she was due to receive the balance in the near future.

The door creaked open slowly. It was more that Catherine had hoped for when her parents suddenly entered into the room. They joined in a tearful three-way hug. Mrs. Carrstairs was crying so much her tears splashed onto the carpet. Catherine grimaced through the pain as her parents’ hugs aggravated her severely caned back.

“I saw a woman’s hand cut off.” Catherine informed her parents in such a matter-of-fact way they didn’t know whether to congratulate or comfort her. “They kept me in chains for two days, and then they whipped me.” Their daughter smiled, surprisingly happy. She was too happy, obviously delirious, the Carrstairs concluded.

It didn’t matter. Their daughter was back with them. They would immediately make plans to return to America with her. Mr. Carrstairs asked the Vizier if he knew when the next steamer to Alexandria departed, but he sensed just from their eye contact that it would not be so simple.

Catherine was not free, the Vizier informed them. Her sentence was thirty days and sixty lashes. She had completed neither of them. As a young lady from a good family, the Vizier explained, the judges decreed that her time be spent in an educational, cultured and corrective environment.

The Carrstairs fell silent, trying to understand exactly what he was saying.

“Your daughter will spend her sentence within my humble home,” the Vizier restated. “I urge you to continue with your wonderful travel plans while we look after your daughter. She will enjoy it here, and I am most certain we will enjoy having your charming daughter. She will learn all about our language, our religion, our traditions. Your daughter will become a woman!”

Unnoticed, Catherine had moved to the Vizier’s side and away from her parents during the conversation, as if she had already embarked on that transition.

“Catherine? How do you feel about it?” Her mother asked.

“Mrs. Carrstairs,” the Vizier interrupted impatiently, his hand now resting lightly on the girl’s shoulder, “neither you nor Catherine has any choice.”

Her parents were stunned. Their daughter was to be a prisoner here; albeit a privileged one. It was a beautiful home; the Vizier had already proved to be a man of his word, highly respected in his society. Catherine would be safe here, they agreed. It might even be the making of her. What was it the Vizier said? To make her a woman! Yes, they would continue their grand tour of Arabia whilst their daughter enjoyed the run of this magnificent home. Didn’t Catherine say only a few days earlier how weary she had grown of the traveling? The Carrstairs had talked themselves into accepting what they could not change.

The sun had set. The whole family was invited to stay for supper, but before then it was time for Maghrib prayers. “Where do I pray?” Catherine enquired of the Vizier, much to the surprise of her parents. The Vizier called for a servant girl to take Catherine with her.

After supper and tearful embarrassing goodbyes, her parents departed to continue their grand tour of the Arabia. Catherine was taken to the servants’ quarters.

No one in the house spoke English except the Vizier himself, but there was no mistaking the friendliness of her three female companions. What were they, she wondered. Guards? Teachers? Fellow prisoners? Servants? Slaves? It didn’t seem to matter.

They helped her to undress, pulling off the coarse and unflattering robes, with no consideration for her modesty. She stepped into the warm bath they had prepared.

Three women cleaned her with soap and sponges, their enjoyment all too evident as they soaped her light Caucasian skin. They poured a jug of warm water over her head, applied a fragrant shampoo and massaged her scalp. For a few moments Catherine felt like a queen. She exchanged laughs and smiles with her new friends.

Catherine stood up in the bath and was being toweled dry by the dark-skinned girl, when the Vizier suddenly entered the room. The girl bowed and knelt before him, taking the towel with her. Catherine stood facing him, naked and dripping wet. She smiled awkwardly at him but the smile wasn’t returned. He wasn’t looking that far up. Her shapely, youthful breasts, delightfully slim waist and exquisiteness of her sex were occupying his thoughts.

She bowed to him like the dark-skinned girl did, but by then he was already talking to the elder woman, who was showing him some jewelry, inviting him to select something. He examined many items, discussing each piece with her, as if a decision of some importance needed to be made.

Meanwhile Catherine stepped out of the bath and was vigorously towelled dry by the dark-skinned girl.

“Catherine, come!” The Vizier commanded softly to her, like one about to give a dog a treat. He held out the half-inch wide necklace as if to tempt her. The two semicircular sections were already opened on its single hinge. The outer side of it was gold, speckled with jewels, while the inner was a pale kid goatskin. Standing behind her, the Vizier saw the lash welts on her back, each so well defined that he could have counted them, had he desired. He knew it would have been painful for the young girl, but wasn’t troubled by it. He’d seen much worse.

Catherine held her long and still damp hair out of the way while the Vizier placed the gold band around her neck. It fit perfectly. Snug, but not the slightest bit tight. The clasp snicked closed with a precision found only in jewelry of the highest quality.

“Beautiful!” He pronounced when young Catherine turned around to face him. His compliment directed at her hazel eyes and coy smile as much as it was the sparkling collar.

***
When the Vizier left them, the dark-skinned girl took Catherine to her bed in the corner of the room. After two nights sleeping on the stone floor of a prison cell, her bed, covered with colourful silks looked like paradise. The older woman sat on the bed, bent down and retrieved the end of a long chain bolted to the wall by the bed. That was when Catherine realized that her gold collar was more than just decorative. With a concentrated expression on her face, and a small opened padlock grasped lightly between her teeth, the woman lined up the loop at the back of Catherine’s collar to the final chain link. Catherine heard and felt the firm click of the padlock behind her, a nice kind of sound, she thought; not at all like the discordant clang of the locks on the chains she had worn. With a six-foot length of chain connecting her to the wall, Catherine felt not the least restricted by it. Nevertheless, it saddened her that they thought she might try to escape.

The woman bade Catherine to crawl under her bedsheets, stroking her like a daughter until she settled down within her bed. But it wasn’t yet late, and there was still activity in the quarters and in the house above. She sat up in bed, too nervous to sleep and quietly observed her the comings and goings of her companions until the evening had become night.

There were three women, and from their conversations Catherine had figured out their names, even if everything else they said was meaningless. The dark-skinned girl with very long straight jet-black hair was Nissa. She was Indian and around her own age, Catherine guessed.

The ‘middle’ woman, more typical of the local complexion, was called Samira, fun-loving and mischievous and very pretty. She was a few years older than Nissa and Catherine.

The older woman was Maya and despite her friendliness, there was no doubt that she ruled the roost, downstairs at least.

When the last oil lamp was extinguished, plunging the room into darkness, Catherine had nothing else to distract her from recollections of the day; of her beating and of the barbaric amputation of Shazira’s left hand. She hadn’t seen the actual fall of the sword, but the hammering of the U shape nails across each of Shazira’s fingers, with no regard for whether they broke her bones, was repeating in her mind. It was a terrible image to sleep with. Catherine curled up into a foetal position with her hands safely tucked between her belly and thighs. The fine gold collar around her neck was comforting and almost felt like a protection.

***
Catherine woke into a different world; a world of domestic service in the wealthy Arab’s home. Some tasks were hard work, though not in the slightest bit difficult. The atmosphere was one of continual cheerfulness with the sound of laughter often breaking the peace. Catherine had only to perform whatever task Nissa was doing. If Nissa was scrubbing the floor she would do the same.

At midday, Maya sat Catherine down at a table and commenced her Arabic tuition. Whether Maya was a good teacher or Catherine was a good student was hard to say, but Catherine picked up many useful words in the first day - enough for her to obey instructions yet not enough to allow her to question them.

After a leisurely lunch in the kitchen, the house became quiet, and slightly boring for Catherine. Everyone fell asleep except her.

Late in the afternoon, when the highest temperatures of the day had passed, they took her out for a walk. Dressed in delightful coloured silk robes, her head and face almost completely hidden by a hijab, they headed into the poorer quarter of town. They handed out food to the needy. Catherine was touched by the scene, and tearful, as she realized how lucky she was.

Later, in the evening of her first full day Maya came to Catherine’s bedside holding the small padlock for her chain. Catherine understood its meaning, and welcomed it; exhausted by a day of activity and new experiences.

While Maya sat on the bed, Catherine stripped naked before her, unabashed as Maya gazed upon her youthful nakedness. The girl's shapely breasts, high up her chest, had yet to find their mature fullness, whilst her slim, lithe belly and modest bush of hair upon her sex, had an allure that banished Maya’s previous maternal attitude.

Catherine held her hair away from her neck so that Maya could attach the securing chain to her collar; the click of the padlock signaling that her first day was at an end... or so she thought.

No long afterwards Nissa was undressing to go to bed just a few feet away from her. Unlike the previous night, the Indian girl was no longer embarrassed to show her body in front of Catherine. As she turned to prepare her bedding, Catherine stared at Nissa’s skinny body, admiring the way her long single plait of black hair swung and brushed provocatively against her neat little buttocks.

While Nissa undressed and Catherine watched, they hadn’t seen their companions’ stealthy approach. Nissa squealed with laughter as Samira and Maya suddenly rushed at her, tickling her into submission and causing her to fall back on the bed. Maya was ready with her ropes as Samira held Nissa down.

The speed with which they bound the girl, indicated their expertise as well as Nissa’s complete submission. She lay back with her knees fully bent and feet splayed to the sides of her buttocks. Each wrist was tied securely to its respective ankle.

Catherine sat up in bed, hugging her knees, and watched the playful scene unfold, as the two older women set about Nissa naked and helpless body.

Insistent tickling brought involuntary chuckles from Nissa. Maya was ruthless, her fingernails clawing at Nissa’s small breasts and tender belly, tickling her ribs, and sometimes lower down too. Nissa’s hardest task was to stay quiet. Whenever she made a loud noise, Maya slapped her hard about the face, then immediately returned to tickling the poor girl.

After several minutes of teasing they left Nissa panting with exhaustion. Her two tormentors had walked away leaving her wrists still bound to their respective ankles. Nissa hoisted herself into a sitting position. She briefly studied the knots that bound her but didn’t attempt to wriggle free; preferring instead to share a coy smile with the curious new girl sitting up in her bed.

Maya soon returned to the captive Nissa, but contrary to Catherine’s expectation she did not untie her. Instead, she dragged the Indian girl along the bed by the armpits. Catherine was wide-eyed at what she saw next: Maya had pulled up her dress and positioned her naked crotch over Nissa’s mouth. Nissa seemed unfazed, as if it had happened before, and immediately set to licking it; all within Catherine’s full view. Nissa laid on her back, tugging absently at her bonds whilst her tongue worked at Maya’s crotch.

Catherine’s mom had warned her many times about touching herself in that place but as Nissa continued to lick Maya, the palm of Catherine’s hand moved between her own legs. It felt good to touch herself while watching the women but she sensed that Nissa’s tongue would feel even better.

***
Maya tired of Nissa’s tonguing and untied the girl’s wrists and ankles so she could go to bed. A lamp was extinguished on their side of the room, and Catherine snuggled down to what she knew would be pleasant dreams. It brought back memories of her childhood years when she used to play cowboys and Indians with her two brothers and their friends...

She had a vivid imagination and directed the boys in complex plots and scenarios. Somehow the words ‘and then I get captured’ always featured prominently in her plot summary. The boys treated it as a kind of joke, but as it removed their eleven-year-old sister from rough and tumble of their games they happily obliged her.

Whether Catherine was a cowgirl or an Indian squaw, the result was always the same: She’d be tied up, to a tree, a fence, a wooden bench, or just to herself, she really didn’t mind. But it always annoyed her how useless the boys were at tying the knots. Surely it wasn’t difficult, she would say. Sometimes it was harder to keep the ropes from falling off than it was to escape from them.

One particular day remained vivid in her memory. The boys had tired of her complaining and decided to ‘fix her good’. After tying her hands together behind her - much more thoroughly than normal - they wrapped and knotted ropes tightly around her chest and belly. Her arms were so well pinned that she couldn’t move them at all.

After tying her ankles together, they made her kneel on the ground and tied off the ankle rope to her wrists.

Checking that the ropes weren’t hurting their younger sister (as they would always did), her brothers disappeared out of her sight. For the first time ever Catherine was satisfied with how the boys tied her. ‘Good’n’tight’, she thought to herself as she wriggled her skinny dungaree-clad body. It was just how Red Indians would really tie a white woman.

That day, her carefully plotted story of how one brother would carry out a daring rescue wasn’t unfolding as quickly as Catherine expected. The boys were nowhere to be seen. But she heard them, and was furious to discover they were playing baseball in the adjacent field.

Catherine’s fixation with capture fantasies then took on an unexpected twist. She couldn’t free herself no matter how hard she tried. Rather than call out for help she decided to continue her struggle.

The harder she pulled her arms the more the ropes dug into her body. This must be how it feels when you really can’t escape, she thought. It was very satisfying to fully experience how it must have felt to be captured.

Eventually as she twisted and struggled to escape the tight bands of rope that had wrapped her like a parcel, she toppled from her kneeling position and fell onto her side Her left cheek landed with a thud into the dust. Lying on her side, after regaining her composure, the position felt very different from kneeling, as if someone was forcing and holding her legs back behind her.

The feeling of that maddening, antagonistic tug on the rope between her tied wrists and ankles as she lay beneath that old oak tree never left her.

The games of Cowboy and Indians became infrequent after that incident. Those games are for children, her brothers said, as they threw a baseball to each other in the back yard. She felt sad - an eleven-year-old girl’s kind of sadness. No other activity in her subsequent juvenile years replaced the intense pleasure of those games. Not even the innocent, and not-so-innocent, kisses of boys - pleasurable though they were.

Now, five years later, her brothers were studying at Princeton, unaware that their sister was chained up in a grand and exotic house on the other side of the world. Unaware too, that she was having pleasant dreams recalling the days when they played cowboys and Indians. That night, chained to the wall by a golden collar, Catherine had discovered that there still were cowboys and Indians, and it existed in a new and surprising form. With such pleasant thoughts, she slept contentedly.

***
The following morning the routine of cooking and cleaning continued. It hadn’t been such a shock to Catherine. Being the only daughter of wealthy parents hadn’t made her exempt from household chores. It was for the good of her soul, her father preached if she ever complained. She never understood what he meant, but now as she scrubbed diligently at the stone floors, her father’s belief in a Protestant work ethic was serving her well.

As Catherine’s Arabic vocabulary was limited to words like clean, scrub, wipe, hang, eat, sit, pull, here, there, down and up, she had neither the occasion nor the capability to broach the subject playing on her mind: That of Nissa’s being tied up the previous evening. That lack of discussion only served to increase Catherine’s tension as the day’s chores proceeded. Anything could happen tonight, she thought with a shiver of fear and anticipation, whilst hanging damp sheets on the clothesline.

The night-time ritual repeated itself, as rituals must, with Catherine resuming her role as the quiet observer sitting curled up in her bed. As on the previous two nights Maya had locked the chain between her collar and the wall.

Once Catherine was secured and settled, Nissa was again the object of her elders’ attention. She stripped naked in a slow ritual, like a dance. She was unashamed, but certainly not unaware of Catherine sitting a few feet away.

Maya signaled Nissa to kneel down on the floor. The girl smiled warily up at her, but the smile dropped instantly into a frown when she spied the clothes pegs in Maya’s hands. Pulling, squeezing and rolling Nissa’s left nipple between her fingers, then pulling again Maya placed the peg on the nipple, with the same carefree technique she used when pegging out the wet clothes. To counteract the sudden pain Nissa blew out her cheeks as the second peg was attached. Maya defied her to make a noise, her open palm ready to strike, but Nissa was adept at suffering in near silence.

Very peculiar, thought Catherine, observing that Maya held a green olive in her hand. Nissa saw it too and knew what she had to do. She leant forward so her nose was almost on the floor, separated from it only by the upright olive.

Nissa knew what was coming next too. She placed her wrists behind her, crossing delicately over her bony vertebrae and her rope-like plait of hair. Maya took hold of Nissa’s hair and wrapped it several times around the Indian girl’s wrists. Working it, tugging on it until she was satisfied with the result. Catherine was fascinated. Was it really possible to be securely tied with one’s own hair? Nissa didn’t fight against her self-sufficient binding, so Catherine’s question remained unanswered.

Samira, meanwhile was ready with yet another treat for poor Nissa. She held a feather, long and curved like those used for quill pens. She jabbed its sharp end into Nissa’s neat little buttocks. “Oh, oh, oh, oh,” Nissa mouthed gently in response to each stab; somehow managing to keep her head perfectly still, her nose continued to hold the olive in the upright position. Samira chuckled wickedly as little dots of blood popped up on Nissa buttocks.

Maya interceded; suggesting the other end of the feather might also have an interesting effect on their hapless, though not unhappy, victim. Samira took up the suggestion, and trailed the soft feathered edge lightly over Nissa’s labia, teasing her with cooing childlike sounds. Nissa squeaked like a mouse, and fought her own battle to remain still, her hands and fingers now stretching and straining into the air within her hair binding.

Catherine had moved to the foot of her bed for a better vantage point. Her securing chain was pulling taut and horizontal. Any pretence of disinterest or disapproval that she might have previously shown had evaporated. She couldn’t resist the urge to rub her own sex in sympathy with Nissa. Her fingers of one hand moved over her sex with a feather-light touch, while the other hand held the bedsheet around her like camouflage.

She felt guilty for playing with herself. The best way to fight her wanton urge, she decided, was to hold her hands together behind her back. Then she realised she was imitating Nissa in another way! The prospect of having her wrists bound together with her own hair (though it was not possible with her shorter locks) made Catherine shiver with a guilty pleasure.

With a knowing smile Maya and Samira left the two younger girls to attend to the night’s final chores. It was as if they had left Catherine to keep watch over Nissa’s immobile kneeling body. Or was it to entertain her? Should the olive fall from its grip by Nissa’s nose, the girl would find it impossible to restore it. But Nissa kept her form; the olive was still held upright by her nose. It was an impressive feat of endurance and composure; one that had Catherine wondering whether she could do the same.

Maya returned and sat on the edge of Nissa’s bed. She gave a command. Nissa ate the olive and, on Maya’s command, swallowed the stone too.

But her task was not yet over. Nissa gave Maya’s foot a tongue bath, vigourous in her application of her surprisingly long tongue between the woman’s toes. Then Nissa raised herself a little and buried her face in Maya’s naked crotch while Maya stroked her hair.

When Maya sent Nissa over to Catherine to have her hands untied, Catherine knew for sure that the hair bonding was real.

***
There was something about the way the threatening-yet-playful glances from Maya and Samira during the day that convinced Catherine something was afoot. If indeed it was her turn that night, she was mentally prepared and eager to endure what Nissa had.

They sent her to bed early that night, straight after her bath, so there was no need to dress again. Catherine sat on her bed waiting for Maya to lock her collar to the chain.

Maya appeared with a coiled rope in her left hand, and a smile on her face. The sight of the finely woven rope made her pulse quicken. Catherine swallowed, surprising herself with her sudden nerves at the thought of what might follow.

There was never a doubt that she would cooperate as Maya tied rope tightly around her left wrist then lifted her left ankle on the bed to tie it hard against the wrist. Neither uttered a word Catherine’s right wrist and ankle were fastened likewise. It had been five long years since she had felt tight loops of rope around her limbs.

She gave a nervous smile as Maya stroked her hair with a sympathetic hand before leaving the bedroom.

It was useless to struggle against her bonds, though Catherine didn’t want to. She sat calmly, marvelling at why having her wrists and ankles tied together should feel so nice. She watched her chest, and more particularly her breasts, rise and fall. The thought that soon someone’s hands would be exploring her helpless body was making her heart beat faster. It was an exquisite sensation, her hands tied and unable to touch her breasts or sex in the way she yearned to.

Maya, Samira and Nissa returned. Nissa seemed jealous when she saw that Catherine was already tied up. She liked her new friend, but also liked being the sole recipient of Maya’s and Samira’s cruel intentions.

The older women soon had her sorted out, but not as she hoped. After binding her hands behind her, they tied her ankles together, pulled them fully back to her bound wrists and tied them off. Nissa lay belly down, hogtied, and squirming frustratedly on her bed.

Samira yanked on Nissa’s plaited hair until the girl reluctantly opened her mouth to accept the balled-up rag held in front of her nose. Nissa smelt the foul-tasting fish oil that Samira had sprinkled on it. It wasn’t enough to merely gag her, they had to make it as unpleasant as possible.

Finally, Samira wrapped a silk scarf tightly around the whole of Nissa’s face, and pushed her face down into the pillow. Tonight was Catherine’s night and Nissa should have known better than interfere!

It made Catherine nervous. She hadn’t seen such tempers displayed in the household before. While the tightly hog-tied Nissa bucked angrily, retching at the foul taste in her mouth, Maya was quick to reassure their new girl.

Catherine’s teasing and tickling commenced. It was all she feared and hoped it would be. She screamed when Samira pinched her nipples, and received a painful slap across the face in response. Samira pinched again, this to Catherine let out a gentle ‘ooh’.

Maya concentrated on her sex, and Catherine wondered how the woman knew more about her body than she did! Maya’s fingers probed as well as caressed, discovering exactly what she expected. Catherine was intact - a virgin, just like Nissa.

At times the two women pulled her up and down the bed like a rag-doll, leaving her dizzy and intoxicated, overheating with the sheer physicality of their delicious assault.

They let her rest, and Catherine watched the two women partially undress. On the two previous nights she had watched Nissa in action, so she knew what she must do. The women laughed as they saw Catherine licking her lips in anticipation.

Grabbing an arm each, they lifted Catherine’s bound body onto the floor. Her head was forced and held in Maya’s crotch. She licked Maya’s flesh as the woman’s fingers directed. She sensed Maya tensing, and suddenly felt a strange power. It was her tongue affecting the woman merely by probing into her moist slit. As Maya gripped the hair at the back of her head, Catherine could have sworn that the woman was praying, going by her persistent references to Allah.

***
Nissa and Catherine enjoyed wandering through the lemon and olive grove at the back of the house. It was peaceful and secluded, just the right place for Nissa’s encounters with a local boy. Catherine hid behind a tree few yards away and watched.

When the boy arrived, he took both of Nissa’s hands in his. They were smiling. Nissa pointed to where Catherine was hiding and both laughed.

Nissa untied the cord around the boy’s waist and let his loose pants fall to his ankles. Catherine saw what Nissa was doing, but couldn’t believe it. She moved forward for a closer look. His rigid penis was in the girl’s mouth as if she were eating it. The only erect penis Catherine had seen before was a 'stiffy' in her brother’s pants. it was confusing. Why would a woman put one in her mouth? She didn’t know much about sex but was sure that the man’s penis was supposed to go between her legs! Then Catherine realised it was a game, just like when she licked between Maya’s legs. Judging by Nissa’s and the boy’s expressions it was just as much fun. Nissa’s fingers gripped the teenager’s slim thighs while he wrapped her long plaited hair around one hand.

The boy cried out softly. His face contorted as if in pain, but Nissa paid no heed, her attention to his penis was absolute, until he removed it when it was no longer hard.

- I eat his juice, Nissa explained in Arabic to Catherine as they walked back to the house, it is good. Tomorrow you can.

The next day Catherine did. The boy brought a friend. Catherine had only to follow Nissa’s example as they knelt on small rattan mats borrowed from the gardeners. The boy’s penis was already stiff and vertical when he dropped his pants. Catherine’s eyes were like saucers at the engorged young flesh in front of her. He pushed his rigid member down into the horizontal, Catherine’s eyes following the tip as if hypnotised as it descended towards her open mouth. Catherine placed her lips around it and felt the boy’s hand pull on the back of her head. Its warm throbbing bulk filled her mouth. She moved her lips up and down the swollen flesh as if born to it, thinking how nicely its girth fit her mouth. When his juice came, she ate, as Nissa had told her to.

It became a regular routine, not every day, but seldom skipping more than one. Catherine enjoyed the feel of a boy’s penis in her mouth, tolerating the bitter fruit taste. But it wasn’t the same quivering feeling she felt when Maya and Samira set about her tied up body.

As she lay in bed in the darkness with only the reassuring breathing of Nissa for company, she visualised being tied up while she sucked the boys’ cocks. It would feel better that way, she thought. She opened her mouth fully and held her hands behind her back, creating the feeling. Yes, it would be much better like that!

***
By her second week in the Vizier’s grand home, Catherine had lost all track of the days. One morning she received a sombre reminder. It was the day of her interim punishment, and her next twenty lashes. She was dressed in the same itchy black robes she wore on her arrival to the house.

Maya wiped a tear from her eye as Catherine was chained hand and foot by the solitary prison guard. The wrist chains were linked at the centre by another, attached to the central link of the leg-irons. The guard pushed the chain into the palm of her hand to explain its purpose. She gripped the chain, lifting her ankle chain so it didn’t drag as she walked.

Garbed in black from head to toe, Catherine shuffled anonymously along the streets alongside her guard. Only by the gentle clinking of the chain, and her awkward gait would anyone suspect that she was different to many other darkly-veiled women in the street.

She found herself in the same punishment hall, kneeling and crouching over the wooden frame. The caning was the same too. Her prior knowledge of how it felt somehow made it worse. She cried out for Maya as the strokes landed.

That day, time stood still in the Vizier’s household, normal life was suspended until their Katarin was back in their arms.

***
The day after her interim punishment, Catherine was in the olive grove with Nissa when she heard voices from outside the wall. People were walking along the lane. People with American accents! She sneaked out of a gardener’s gate to take a look. Perhaps they had seen her parents!

They were from a ship in the port. From Boston, the two men said, after Catherine had introduced herself. The sailors were amazed to discover that beneath the veil was sixteen-year-old from Chicago. She walked along the lane with them, delighted to be talking in her native tongue. And talk she did, telling them of her mishap in the mosque, her recent twenty lashes (which she conveyed with disturbing matter-of-factness), the amputation of a woman’s hand (she’d forgotten Shazira’s name), and her month of imprisonment in the Vizier’s home.

The sailors were appalled, and offered to smuggle her out to freedom. Catherine dismissed the suggestion out of hand. She was fine, she reassured them, and would wait for her parents’ return in a couple of weeks. There was not a shred of doubt in her mind that it would happen.

Catherine and the sailors parted as they reached a busy road. She headed back to the garden with a spring in her step as pleasant memories of America resurfaced and filled her with a yearning for home.

***
“You have caused embarrassment to my household!” The Vizier shouted.

“I was only...”

“In leaving this property you violated the rules of your sentence. You were seen in the company of foreign sailors!”

“But I...”

- Maya, prepare the girl for her punishment, the Vizier growled, before storming out of the room. Maya and Catherine were alone, in a room richly hung with coloured fabrics and rugs, but bare except a single rustic wooden chair.

At Maya’s command, Catherine stripped naked, carefully folding and laying each article of clothing over the back of the chair, trembling a little more as each layer was removed. She wanted to explain to Maya that nothing had happened with the sailors, but even had she known the words, Maya was not inclined to listen.

Maya, strangely distant and cold, positioned the girl’s hands together behind her back. Catherine obediently held her wrists together while Maya disappeared behind a curtain into an adjacent room. A minute later Maya returned. Catherine’s wrists were still where she had left them, touching behind her back. She was such a good girl, Maya thought, as she wrapped Catherine’s wrists in coarse, brown rope, not at all like the silky coloured ropes they used in their own amusements.

Catherine exhaled a fearful whimper as Maya tugged the knots tight; the itching twine digging her crossed wrists with no regard to her comfort.

A light kick on the back of her calf from Maya indicated that she should get down on the threadbare rug. There, Maya tied Catherine's ankles, which were crossed and knotted with the same severity as her wrists.

A third rope was employed. Maya tied an end to Catherine’s arm, above the elbow, then looped it around the other and back again, tugging repeatedly until the girl’s elbows moved towards each other and obscured the view of her welted back. Catherine grimaced at the unnatural strain being imposed on her arms.

- No, Maya, I don’t like, Catherine pleaded in Arabic, but Maya pulled the cords tighter until satisfied with both the security and discomfort of the girl. Despite Catherine’s protestations, Maya was impressed by how easily she’d been able to bring the elbows together, and with how fine it looked. The Vizier will be pleased!

One final and inevitable tie remained. Maya placed a large cushion under Catherine’s knees, then bent her ankles behind her tying them to her wrists. Maya knew that in lifting the girl’s knees it was easier to bring the ankles and wrists together. When she pulled away the cushion, the tightness of Catherine’s hog-tied position was apparent.

A heavy iron securing-ring was set into the floor. Maya locked a chain between it and Catherine, stroking the girl’s chin with pity as she attached the chain to her collar.

Maya disappeared behind the curtain again, returning with an object she placed a few feet in front of Catherine’s nose. It was not unlike a wrought iron stand for fireplace tools; but these tools were not for tending fires, they were for creating a fire on a girl’s delicate skin.

The preparation was complete. Maya departed, not by the door, but through the same heavy curtain. Catherine was alone, with only the instruments of her impending punishment for company. The assortment of canes, crops and paddles, dangling by their handles from the frame, sent a chill though her. She squirmed and bumped her hog-tied and naked body away from them - an instinctive flight reaction - making towards the small part-opened window, in spite of her collar being chained to the floor.

She had traveled two feet before the Vizier entered. The door clicked shut behind him and a heavy key turned in the lock.

Catherine mustered up all her limited Arabic vocabulary as she attempted another tearful apology at the Vizier's sandalled feet.

“Stay silent, Catherine! You must take your punishment with dignity and contrition,” he responded sharply in English, as if she was no longer worthy to speak in his native tongue.

The Vizier studied the tools that Maya had set out, each dangling invitingly from their respective hooks. The two-foot long rattan cane would be first. It was the ideal implement for the upturned soles of Catherine's feet.

He looked down at the pale-skinned body bundled neatly at his feet; admiring the American’s unruly reddish-brown hair that required to be tied up to keep it in order. Just like the girl herself, he thought, enjoying the simile.

Catherine kept tugging on the rope between her wrists and ankles, even though there was not the slightest chance of freeing herself from Maya’s formidable ropework. He liked that. She had much more spirit than the timid Asian girls in his employ. How strong and healthy Americans seemed, despite the apparent pallor of their skin!

The cane came down hard on both feet, catching Catherine by surprise. She never expected he would strike her like that. She stifled a cry as an awful pain shot through her; wriggling and screwing up her toes as if to shield her soles from further strikes.

“You must remain still, Catherine!” The Vizier sharply admonished her. Not only was she to be punished, but she was also expected to present herself correctly to receive the punishment. Catherine braced herself as the whoosh of the cane preceded each blow to the tender flesh of her feet. The pain was so intense it felt like every bone had been broken.

The cane was back on its hook, and the Vizier had chosen his next implement: A wooden paddle, two inches wide and slightly flexible.

Rapid, repeated stinging blows came down on her upper arms stinging and reddening the flesh above and below the tight ropes on her elbows. He didn’t let her catch her breath. Whatever the pants, cries and groans she made were quiet like a muttered conversation. It seemed that Maya had trained her well during their nightly tickling games.

The Vizier was leisurely in his task, applying the paddle evenly along the girl’s arms until her flesh had achieved a uniform redness. “On your side now,” he instructed.

Catherine tried to obey, straining and tugging, but such was the strictness of Maya’s rope-work, she couldn’t generate the leverage in her limbs. The Vizier assisted, placing a foot under her belly rolling her slightly more than a quarter turn. For a moment he was stunned as her innocent young face totally submitting to him, those soft mounds upon her chest, rising and falling with her rapid breath, and her neat virgin sex, which for one blessed man would be a gift from God.

With the wooden paddle he set to work on Catherine’s thighs, gradually turning the pale skin into a mass of blotchy red.

Finally, he hung up the paddle. If Catherine had been inclined and able to count its blows, she would have reached three hundred. Her mind was elsewhere - a place she’d never been before.

The Vizier took hold of the riding crop, admiring its workmanship and its comfortable grip. He’d used this one many times when horse-riding. Too light for most horses he discovered, but simply perfect for a house-servant needing correction. He held the small flap of leather at crop’s end close to Catherine's face.

“Lick it!”

She did. Her moist tongue provided good coverage with a single lick.
The crop struck several times on her right nipple, with unerring accuracy. Catherine could feel the cool of her saliva mixed with the painful sting.

“And again.”

She licked again, knowing that a moment later her left nipple would feel the same pain as her right one.

The punishment continued. Sharp accurate strikes of the riding crop made a collection of red marks on each breast. Her eyes were closed by then, grimacing at a pain that was like no other; a pain that caused her body to surrender to the Vizier. The sharp taps of the crop continued in a distinct line down to her belly, giving Catherine’s swollen nipples some respite.

When the crop struck for the first time below her navel, Catherine sensed this man wasn’t going to stop until he reached her thighs. She began to struggle, instinctively trying to move out of the path of the crop. No amount of pulling on her thighs could yank her ankles out of her hands’ comforting nest. She was able to bend her thighs forward; enough to obscure the Vizier’s objective.

She felt the Vizier’s foot digging under her ribs. He rolled her onto her back so she was resting uncomfortably on her bound elbows and wrists. More importantly, the pull of gravity made her knees spread wide open. His path was now clear and Catherine’s hairless crotch seemed to tremble with fear as the crop approached it.

She begged meekly. “La, la, la, no, no, no,” hoping for a last minute reprieve, but the crop landed on the area she most dreaded. The light rapid slaps caused a different pain. Not the awful shooting pains of the cane on her soles, nor the sting of the paddle, which left her limbs hot and tingling. No, this torment was subtler, as the repeating taps on her labia continued Catherine felt a strange pulse coursing through her body. Even her face was flushed as her temperature soared. It was as if the Vizier wanted to make her body explode.

Her scream as she experienced her first orgasm brought Maya running into the room, but even then the Vizier continued his relentless torment. Maya comforted the sobbing, panting girl who was trying to understand what had happened to her.

- It is enough, Maya told the Vizier as she wiped Catherine’s perspiring face with a handkerchief.

They rolled Catherine back onto her belly. No release for her yet, only the temporary respite that came from being placed in a different position. Catherine knew what was next. The smell of putrefying fish was unmistakable! Maya dribbled a few drops of the dark liquid onto a small rag, then she pushed it a little at a time into Catherine’s mouth. It tasted every bit as awful is it smelt. Another rag, between her teeth and tied around her head held the disgusting rag in place.

The foul taste and odour was like a stimulant, helping Catherine come to her senses. She saw Maya take the Vizier by his hand and led him into the room that lay behind the curtain.

While Catherine contended with her ever-tightening bonds and the disgusting rag in her mouth, she heard Maya and the Vizier laughing. They made all kinds of noises as if they were playing a game, getting louder and louder, though no less playful. It ended with a huge coarse grunt from the Vizier and a shrieking exclamation from Maya, which was not unlike the sound Catherine made at the moment of her own climax.

It set Catherine to thinking. What had happened to her? The moment of orgasm that she first thought as terrifying was, in retrospect, strangely pleasurable, though she didn’t understand how or why.

Still tightly packaged in Maya’s biting ropes, Catherine rocked herself on the old rug, trying to generate some kind of friction in a bid to recapture that intense feeling.

***
To satisfy the court of his ability to keep the American girl in line the Vizier had Catherine fitted with leg-irons; two close-fitting ankle bracelets with around a foot of chain between them. They were the colour of gold and matched her collar, Maya explained, hoping that might cheer Catherine.

The indignity of shuffling around the house in chains, combined with the agony of walking on the soles of her feet, meant Catherine was not inclined to walk any further than she had to. Just enough to complete her chores. Even the trips to the olive grove with Nissa ceased, though Catherine missed the interactions with the local boys.

Several days later Maya insisted that Nissa and Catherine resumed their walks in the olive grove. To get her out of the house, Catherine supposed. She wondered if Maya suspected what the two girls did out of everybody’s sight. It was never talked about in the house, yet Catherine didn’t think any secret was entirely safe with Nissa. Maya was surely capable of extracting a confession from her.

With Maya’s tacit approval, the assignations with two local boys resumed, though Catherine had difficulty walking in the olive grove with her leg chains snagging of every protrusion. The boys laughed, though not unkindly, when they saw Catherine's predicament.

Nissa was adept at pleasuring Samira and Maya with her hands bound, and suggested to Catherine they try the same with the boys. Just as something new, she said by way of explanation.

The boys took a little persuading. (Some things never change, thought Catherine). They said they were perfectly happy with the present hands-on arrangement. Nissa’s threat to withdraw from their regular meetings worked. The boys relented, and tied each of the girls’ hands with the two short cords Nissa supplied.

It had been more fun like that, Nissa and Catherine agreed later, being bound and under the control of a boy and forced to do things for him!

***
The last week of Catherine’s sentence dragged like her leg-irons. She was yearning to be back in the arms of her parents. She couldn’t say that her custodians were unkind; quite the opposite in fact. Sometimes, and particularly after the Vizier’s punishment, they almost smothered her with kindness. And as the marks of the Vizier’s beating faded, Catherine forgave him. He was right to punish her, she admitted.

- Today we will make a gift to our Master, Maya said to Catherine on her last full day in the Vizier’s home. Catherine thought it a good idea, expecting that her newly acquired cooking or embroidery talents might be employed. Instead, Maya told Catherine to take a bath; something she seldom did in the morning.

Samira took great delight in fixing up Catherine’s hair, though its curls and kinks were much harder to fashion than straight and dark Asian hair. Her body was perfumed with the blossom of lemon trees, and dark mascara carefully applied around her eyes. It wasn’t what Catherine had been expecting. Nor was having her wrists neatly tied behind her. Samira attached a bracelet to Catherine’s upper arm. It was a match for her gold collar. She could see and appreciate the rich lustre of the metal against her light skin.

Any idea that Catherine would be making a gift for the Vizier was disappearing fast. She was the gift.

Maya had also been preening herself and smelled sweet like jasmine honey. She took hold of the chain dangling from Catherine’s arm bracelet as if taking custody of a harem slave.

They went into their day room, a pleasant area where they would take tea and relax; somewhere to entertain their occasional visitors. Catherine sat on the floor alongside the long ornate wooden bench, while Maya and Samira fussed over some last-minute details, preparing a hookah pipe and a tray of tea. Catherine sat helpless with her hands tied wishing she could assist, having become proficient at both tasks.

The clomp of the Vizier’s sandals descending the narrow stairs presaged their Master’s arrival. The women bowed and humbly greeted their master, inviting him to sit. He seldom ventured into the maid-servants’ area. Catherine thought he seemed nervous about stepping into the women’s quarters, then realized he was merely humouring them.

Catherine sat demurely on the floor, keeping quiet as the Vizier and Maya talked. They occasionally looked affectionately in her direction. She was the topic of their of conversion.

They laughed as the Vizier reached down to squeeze one of Catherine’s nipples between his fingers, recalling how he beat her breasts with the riding crop a week ago. Maya response made him laugh. She pulled her own breasts from her dress to allow the Vizier to compare hers to those of an immature girl’s.

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