The Captive Flesh (27 page)

Marietta could distinguish the individual faces of the people pressing close to the platform. Their eyes were wide, their mouths slack, as they gazed on her charms. She squeezed her eyes shut, but felt her cheeks pinched hard.

‘Open your eyes. Surely you want to see your admirers!'

Marietta cringed inwardly as the man's meaty hand squeezed her thigh then moved inwards. He tweaked her pubic curls, threading them through his thick fingers. She tensed, ready for the intimate touch she knew
would follow. When it did, she gave a little moan of distress.

The thick fingers spread her flesh-lips, pinning them wide open. With the other hand he pinched at her bud, drawing it out and rubbing it between his fingers. His hands were dry but the residue of the grease made his touch bearable. The little bud began to swell as he tweaked and stroked it. Now he spanked it lightly with the tip of one finger. And she could not help her response. Her bud began to throb and grow warm, and, though she could hardly believe it was happening, she felt herself growing moist.

He pulled and probed at her, spreading her bottom-cheeks to display the tight orifice mouth that nestled there. He tickled the curls that encircled her anus, pulling at them cruelly so that the little mouth was forced to pout for the crowd.

Marietta blinked back her tears. Gabriel had suffered this and survived. But oh, it was hateful, hateful. Now the public punisher was pushing his fingers into her, working them in and out, and worse was the fact that her hips were beginning to move. He was gentle, deliberately so. This man was highly trained in drawing out his victims' pleasure – all the more to shame them.

The crowd loved it. In front of all the awful grinning faces, Marietta was becoming aroused – just as Gabriel had done. She could not bear it.

‘Stop. Oh, please. Stop,' she begged, her voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I'll do anything. I do not want this.'

‘Should have thought of that before.' The public punisher grinned, hooking two fingers inside her. He drew her up a little so that she was forced to clench around his knuckles to brace herself. The fingers were buried deeply inside her. She felt him moving them
slowly, circling her moistness, pressing against the soft inner walls.

‘What a pretty morsel we have here then, eh? One of the pampered playthings of the harem. All she has to do is enjoy a life of pleasure and please her master. How many of your daughters crave such a life? But this one's not satisfied with her lot. Oh, no. She wanted to escape!' His voice boomed out over the marketplace.

The crowd gurgled.

‘What shall I do with her?'

Someone shouted. ‘I'll have her!'

A great squawk of laughter greeted this comment. The public punisher grinned, removing his fingers. He carried his hand to his nose and sniffed deeply, rolling his eyes in appreciation, while those closest whistled and stamped.

‘Shame she's not for sale. And she's not to be harmed. But a tickle of the lash wouldn't go amiss. Have you had your fill of looking? Shall I make her dance for you?'

‘Yes! Yes!' The sound swelled to a roar. ‘Make her dance! Make her pale skin glow!'

Marietta was unfastened and allowed to stand upright. The wooden block was removed. Her wrist bonds were tightened until her arms were drawn out straight, then her legs were pulled apart and her feet fastened to the wooden posts. She stood spreadeagled between the wooden posts as Gabriel once had stood. The shame, the humiliation of it, seemed to crash down on to her. Her tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

How could Kasim do this to her? She had been right about him from the start. He was cruel and ruthless – and he cared nothing for her.

The first blow jerked her up straight. It had cracked
across both buttocks at once, bringing a rush of heat and pain. The blow felt more like a slap, not the expected stroke of a lash.

‘How'd you like that?' the public punisher crooned, waving an oblong-shaped paddle in the air so that she could see the instrument of her torment. ‘It gives a good sound wallop. And the leather makes a lovely noise as it connects. You'll soon be glowing like a cherry and dancing for the crowd.'

And Marietta did indeed begin to squirm. By the third stroke she was pulling against her bonds and twisting her hips in an effort to avoid the stinging slaps. The crowd cheered as each new blow swept across her buttocks. They clapped as she swung her hips, rotating them lewdly, thrusting forward as if to meet a lover's caress.

‘Feel her. Is she wet?' Someone in the crowd called out. Hoots of encouragement greeted his question.

The public punisher plunged his hand between Marietta's legs and cupped her sex. He pressed the palm of his hand close so that the flesh-lips pouted down on to it. The touch of the man's hand brought an immediate response. Her swollen bud ticked. She gasped and pulled back, jerking her legs, trying to dislodge the probing hand. It seemed incredible that his unwanted touch could be so arousing.

When he withdrew his hand he held it up to the crowd.

‘Aye. She's wet. Wet enough for pleasuring. Pity it's forbidden.' Groans of disappointment came from the crowd. They had obviously expected to see Marietta used in every way possible.

She could not hide her body's response to the punishment. Like Gabriel before her, she had been stripped naked in every sense of the word. Tears dripped from
her chin as she fought the outrush of humiliating pleasure, and failed. She could not help the fact that between her widely parted legs her sex was plump and moist. As her buttocks grew ever more heated, wetness began to trickle down her flesh-lips. Her swollen breasts felt heavy and her erect nipples tingled.

She clamped her lips together on her moans as her buttocks were paddled again and again. There was nothing but the warm pain, spiking through her trembling flesh, heating her, drawing pleasure-pain from the very depths of her soul. She tossed her head and began to sob, uncaring now of the crowd, uncaring of dignity. There was a tight knot of pressure in her belly. Soon, oh, soon, it would dissolve and she would melt in that moment of release that the crowd waited for. The wrist bonds cut into her as she sagged against them. Her parted thighs trembled. She thought she could stand it no longer.

It was some moments before she realised that the paddling had stopped. The crowd was hushed. Silence was thick all around. Gradually she became aware that something had changed. A new tension was evident.

Marietta lifted her head slowly.

Kasim watched Marietta from the shadows at the back of the platform. He was half concealed by the wall of the narrow alley that butted up close to the platform's steps.

He had arrived a short time ago, anticipating the pleasure of watching as Marietta was punished. But he was not enjoying himself as much as he had expected to.

Instead he felt an inexplicable anger as he watched the thickset man using the paddle on her. It was similar to the feeling that had coursed through him when he discovered Marietta and Gabriel together in his carriage.

He recalled the sight of her face, soft with the afterglow of passion. With her pale hair all tangled around her shoulders and spilling on to her bare breasts she had looked so desirable. That pale skin, gleaming softly in the shadowed interior, had a quality that was heart-breaking. On her neck there was a purple mark. It had been that which had gone to Kasim's brain like a dagger. Gabriel had put his mark on her. Gabriel. The thief. He who had stolen what Kasim had denied himself.

The prize should have been his. He was not so unsophisticated as to believe that it was important for him to be Marietta's first lover or indeed to be her only lover. But he had felt disappointed – no, it went deeper than that – wounded, flayed, that Marietta had allowed Gabriel the full intimacy of her body.

Kasim had waited so long because he knew that the moment when he finally took Marietta would be deeply significant. For him there was a kind of sacredness inherent in the particular act. He allowed only his favourites the full use of his body.

Perhaps the fault was his. He had misjudged the depth of her passions. Her sensuality ran deeper than even he had imagined. He had starved her for too long, given her too many morsels, but kept the main feast from her. How ironic, when it had been difficult beyond all measure to hold himself back. Many times he had hungered to possess her. How many nights had he lain in delightfully agonised contemplation of the delights he would discover in Marietta, when the time was right?

No wonder that his rage had blinded him for a moment. Yet, what were they after all but two disobedient slaves pleasuring each other? For his crime Gabriel was to learn discipline amongst the guards. That prospect gave Kasim no trouble. But the very second he uttered the words that secured Marietta's punishment, he wanted to retract them.

He could not, of course; that would have shown weakness.

In the alleyway he pulled the enveloping dark cloak more closely about him. His dark brooding eyes travelled restlessly over the faces in the crowd. His lip curled with contempt. None of them was worthy of watching Marietta, of seeing her spread naked and exposed for them. She was too fine for that – and he had not realised the fact until this very second.

He was deeply troubled by this enlightenment. Marietta had, from the first, prompted emotions in him that he would rather not admit. Yet perversely he was enthralled by the changes in himself. He found Marietta's
sensuality, her stubbornness, her refusal to accept her own nature, compelling beyond measure. And now there was anger … As he wrenched open that carriage door, it seemed that he had been torn apart by his blinding rage – so clean and pure it was, like ice crystals on snow.

He felt a paler shadow of that same emotion as he watched the public punisher going about his business. The crowd pressed close now, baying like hounds closing on their quarry. The man stopped paddling Marietta's buttocks. He reached his hand between her legs, once more pressing his cupped palm against her plump little sex.

Kasim felt a surge of outrage. How dare he! How dare that … creature touch the pink wounded heart of
his
Marietta! With difficulty Kasim checked his thoughts. His blood drummed in his ears; there was an unbearable pressure building inside his chest. He felt that if he did not act soon he would begin to shout, to scream, for Marietta to be released. The thought so frightened him that he took a moment to gather his thoughts, to put his emotions back where they belonged. He forced himself to view the proceedings coolly, from a distance that was mental as well as actual.

Ah, better. How stupid to have let himself be drawn so strongly into the spectacle. Disobedient slaves were a common sight on the punishment block. Yes, his inner voice said, but never such a slave. Marietta was so beguiling, so possessed of the ammunition to wound him fatally.

He'd had such hopes for her. But he had not reckoned on Gabriel. He desired Gabriel so strongly himself that he had been blind to the danger. Quite simply he had wanted everything, and now it seemed that Marietta had fallen in love with the big blond slave.

Had he lost her then? Kasim trembled. Marietta might come to despise him. Unbearable. He would be the master no longer. Kasim bowed his head. He was too proud to take someone else's leavings.

Then came a flash of insight. He knew what he must do. Of course, that would settle the matter for good or ill. But one thing at a time. The sound of the paddle hitting flesh broke into his thoughts. Kasim's head snapped up.

How crude the public punisher was. The man's big hands were pulling Marietta's buttocks apart now. Kasim's face twisted with emotion as Marietta writhed. The lovely scarlet globes of her buttocks trembled, her shaking thighs straining to close. The crowd was silent for an instant, and in the space of silence Marietta's moan was clearly audible. She turned her head, seeming to stare straight at Kasim.

Her face was prettily flushed and imprinted with anguish, the features partly obscured by the tangle of pale curls that had fallen forward over her forehead. Kasim knew she did not see him, but he lowered his eyes, his cheeks growing hot with a reflection of her shame. How beautiful she was. It was like looking into the sun. The tumescence at his groin was painful. Like every man in the crowd he ached to part her soft thighs, nudge apart her tender flesh-lips, and slide into her body.

The image moved him greatly. It was as if a white hot sword passed right through him. It was a moment before he realised that his desire was coloured by a new tenderness. He wanted to bend her to his will, to pleasure her until she cried out for mercy, to taste her smoky juices … and, amazingly, he also wanted to smooth her hair back from her forehead, to rub soothing
oil into her reddened flesh, kiss away the heat, cradle her in his arms.

Kasim clenched his hands into fists. Words rose into his throat. But his mouth felt dry. He doubted if he could utter more than a croak. Without stopping to consider his actions further, he took a step forward. His dark cloak billowed out around him, as his boots thudded on the wooden boards.

Marietta tossed back the tumble of curls from her forehead.

A tall cloaked figure was advancing on her. She knew him instantly. Her heart contracted. What new punishment was this?

No one spoke. The public punisher stood with paddle raised for another blow. Kasim wrenched it from his hand. He turned to Marietta. There was such a look of fury on his face that she shrank inwardly. He means to punish me himself, she thought, steeling herself for his blow. But he only looked at her. Two bright spots of colour burned on his cheekbones. His dark eyes glistened with emotion. And suddenly, incongruously, she thought: I have hurt him deeply.

For a moment longer Kasim held her gaze. He seemed to be coming out of a trance. Then he dropped the paddle, unfastened his cloak, and covered her with it. Turning on his heel, he rapped, ‘That's enough. Free her.'