Trojan Slaves (15 page)

Menelaus
lifted his hand away. Her buttocks were cooled by its absence;
exposed, naked, bare. She squirmed against his other restraining
hand and breathed in deeply. Her throat throbbed with the pulsating
beats of her heart. He held his hand high above her, looking at it
to ensure its correct position before swinging it down suddenly,
with dramatic force, onto her beautiful buttocks.

Sappho gulped
as, with a loud smack, his open hand struck her squarely. The noise
filled her ears. The sharpness of the contact spread into her body.
The sting did not come straight away; it was not until he lifted
his hand away that it arrived. When she felt it she shrieked and
tried to pull away, but it was hopeless, he had her fast. His hand
came down again, a forceful smack, perfectly aimed, perfectly
positioned. She was no more prepared than the first time. The sharp
noise of the contact shocked her before she felt the biting sting
that followed quickly in its wake. It stung her like a fiery brand,
and the burning ignited on her buttocks spread in a wave throughout
her body.

Sappho
struggled with the robe again, trying to untangle it from her neck.
But her hands and arms seemed out of her control; she could not
find which way to grab it nor hold onto anything even when she
touched it. Another smack came down, this time louder, more fierce.
Sappho exhaled forcibly as the breath was knocked from her. The
pain filled her completely, she could not think straight. She knew
her buttocks were reddened, she knew the shape of his hand was
inscribed on her skin, but she could do nothing to stop it, nothing
to help herself withstand it. Her mind reeled in confusion.

The smacks
rained down one after another. There was hardly a pause between
them. She tensed her buttocks and tightened her thighs until she
felt the muscles cramped. She started yelping, weakly, in time with
the smacks as they landed. Each yelp took her breath, and she
struggled to inhale again ready for the next. But she could not
stop. It was her only expression of the agony she felt. She could
hear nothing but the sounds of the incessant smacks. They filled
her head and blended into the next.

She was
overtaken by it, and with the heat, the pain, and the continuous
sound of his punishing hand, she felt a warm blurring sensation
overcoming her. It started between her buttocks, where the redness
from his hand had not spread. It flowed around her anus, prickling
with its heat, before entering and heating her rectum. It travelled
around her cunt, warming the delicate flesh, causing it to swell
and throb and moisten. It seeped inside, between the wet lips,
filling her, overpowering her. She felt it in her nipples, and she
felt it in her breasts. It filled her stomach and her head, and
finally it overcame her and she felt herself jerking in time with
the continuous spanking.

With each
strike she jerked, filled with pleasure, filled with pain, unable
to control herself. She could not see; her eyes were overflowing
with tears. She opened her legs wider, hoping his hand would find
the soft flesh there. She needed the extra pain, the extra
humiliation. She felt her passion, her joy, her pain, her
suffering, all mingling with the agony and the degradation of her
exposure. She reared back, hoping to capture it in a screeching
moment of complete ecstasy. She tensed and opened her mouth
wide.

'That is
enough!' shouted Achilles. 'Look, she enjoys it too much. Menelaus,
you have not disciplined her. You have brought her nothing but
pleasure! Here,' he jumped to his feet, 'I will cool her down.
Perhaps that will reduce the ease with which she finds joy in
everything which is done to her.'

Menelaus
released her and pulled her to her feet. Sappho did not know which
way to look, what to do. She stood gasping, panting, confused. Her
robe was still tangled around her neck. She made no effort to
remove it. Her naked body glistened with sweat. Her buttocks were
reddened by the punishing spanking she had received. She licked her
lips and felt herself still shuddering with the unreleased tension
of frustrated passion. She had been stopped just as she was
prepared for joyous release. She was caught on the edge of
potential ecstasy, and her head spun giddily as she tried to absorb
it.

Agamemnon
grabbed a jug of wine and threw it over her face. She shrank back
but did not dare move from where she was. It splashed into her eyes
and filled her mouth. Menelaus did the same, and Ajax and others
joined in, each emptying a jug of wine over her. It ran through her
hair and down her nose and cheeks and dripped from her chin. It
flowed between her breasts and fell in drops from her nipples. It
ran down her smooth stomach and between her thighs. It streamed
down over her knees, her calves and to her feet. The robe tied
around her neck was soaked and dripping and hung limply from her
shoulders.

'Now push her
and all the others aside,' said Achilles. 'We have important
matters to discuss. Agamemnon, my king, we have a war to plan.'

Soldiers
pulled the girls away and pushed them together into the back of the
tent where Chryseis stood, chained by the neck. Sappho, drenched
and pitiful, stood beside her.

'Chryseis,'
she said, panting and exhausted and still filled with an
unliberated excitement. 'I thought I would never see you again. But
to see you like this; collared and captive on a chain. I cannot
stand it.'

'Sappho,' said
Chryseis, knowing each moment together was valuable, 'we must
escape. We must get back to Troy, to my father, to the temple. We
must escape from these cruel Greeks.'

Sappho took
her hand, and feeling its warmth her suppressed excitement bubbled
again to the surface. She felt the warmth of her sex wetted by the
moisture of anticipation. She squeezed Chryseis' hand tight.

Eva heard what
they said and pushed her way to them both.

'I know a way
of escaping,' she said. 'If you take me with you. If you provide
safety for me in Troy, I will show you.'

'Of course,'
said Chryseis eagerly. 'Of course. I am the daughter of Pelador,
the high priest of Apollo. We will welcome you to our temple in
Troy. If you help us you will never have to fear again.'

'Could you
help me find my way home to my own country?'

'Yes, we have
traders who will transport you. Now tell us how we can escape.'

'I have been
mistreated since I was brought here,' she started. 'I have suffered
every indignity. I could never have imagined the things which have
been done to me. I have been bound and chained, whipped and
thrashed with straps and canes. Men have taken me in every way, in
every part of me. And I have taken their semen everywhere. They
have covered me in it, and made me drink it. I have been tied to
the sides of ships and bound on stakes in the water. I have been
suspended on ropes and thongs of leather. I have been bent over and
beaten until I have been sent unconscious. Each night I am taken by
a group of soldiers to a place on the edge of the encampment. No
matter what suffering I have been put to during the day they still
take me, still use me, still defile me further.'

Sappho
crouched down and started to untangle her robe. Its wetness made it
difficult but she managed to free it. She stayed where she was
looking up at Eva and Chryseis, listening to Eva's story. Her hand
drifted between her legs. She felt her sex and inserted two
fingers. The ecstasy which had evaded her was still there, still
waiting, still needing to erupt.

'They make a
crucifix from spears,' Eva continued as Sappho looked up and began
moving her fingers in and out of her dewy slit, 'and hang me on it.
Bound by the wrists to the crosspiece. Pinioned by the ankles to
the upright. All the soldiers visit and look at me, limp and
hopeless, victim for anything they care to do. Most of them urinate
over me. Some spit at me. Most use their cocks on me, releasing the
flow of their semen over me, or into me, or into something I have
to drink from. They eject their semen into bowls, and as I hang on
the crucifix I have to drink it all. They never let me stop until
it's all gone.'

Sappho
increased the rhythm of her movements and opened her legs wider so
that her hand was free to delve deeply.

'When they
have finished with me they go off drinking,' continued Eva. 'They
cut me off the crucifix. Several of them drag me off and throw me
down by the deserted outer picket of the camp. Some stay and make
me suck their cocks or perhaps they thrash me. But in the end they
always go and join the others. They just leave me on the ground and
do not bind me or secure me. I can walk free from there if I want.
I know I can. I have seen soldiers crossing out of the camp to meet
prostitutes. I have seen the route they take to avoid being seen by
their commanders. I have been afraid of approaching the great city
for fear of what would happen to me. But I know together we could
escape. I can lead us out of here. And you can take me into your
wonderful city. There I will be safe.'

Sappho, the
image of Eva on the crucifix of spears fixed in her mind, unable
and unwilling to check herself, squealed as her pleasure claimed
its freedom. She knew she was being too loud, she knew she would be
heard, but she was not prepared to suppress it. She cried out
again, as with a final thrust of her fingers her joyful ecstasy
was, at last, liberated.

Achilles,
annoyed by the intrusion of Sappho's sobs, had her dragged back
into the centre of the tent. She stood, depleted and ashamed. Male
slaves were ordered to wash her down with basins of water. She
stood there until they had completely soaked her. But Achilles
would not let her go. He ordered his men to remain on guard all
night while she was forced to stand in the pool of water and wine
at her feet.

In Troy the
temple of Apollo glowed with the eerie yellow light of a thousand
candles. The naked girls of the temple moved slowly in a circle,
hand in hand, around the huge marble altar. Pelador stood before
it, the heavy ram's fleece on his back, the ram's mask covering his
face, his arms held high. He called to Apollo, invoking a plague
upon the Greeks. A plague, he hoped, which would only end when his
beautiful daughter, Chryseis, was returned to her rightful place
beside him. A flash of lightning heralded a mighty boom of thunder
and a gust of wind through the temple, setting the candles
flickering, giving notice that Apollo had responded to the
appeal.

There was no
standing against the terrible plague Apollo sent. In the Greek
encampment the food turned rancid and the water sour. The soldiers
were afraid and wanted to return home. Their spirit for fighting
disappeared. The chieftains did not know where to look for a
resolution. Achilles said the plague had been sent by a Trojan
ritual to the gods. It would, he said, only be dispelled by a more
powerful Greek sacrament. Calchas, the Greeks' chief prophet, was
summoned and ordered to drive the plague from the beach and save
the army of Agamemnon.

Four huge
boats were hauled up the beach and levered into a massive square. A
great rounded boulder was dragged into its centre as an altar.
Lanterns and burning torches were erected on pikes all around the
area. By the evening thousands of soldiers packed into the arena,
scrambled onto the boats or gathered beyond them in the rising
dunes above the beach. They beat shields with swords and screamed
war cries as if going into battle. The whole beach was a turmoil of
clamour, colour, noise and flickering light.

Calchas
appeared between the ships. Just like Pelador, he wore a heavy
ram's fleece on his back and his face was covered with a horned
ram's mask. He held his arms high and walked slowly towards the
massive boulder. A procession followed him. At its head six naked
girls, their hair shaved and in its place a crown of yellow
flowers. They sprinkled water from small jars as they danced behind
Calchas with light, sweeping steps. The nearest soldiers threw
coins down to them and when they bent to pick them up their
youthful buttocks exposed the shape of their naked sex lips. Behind
them came four men dressed only in loose robes. One carried a
leather flogger, its many strands about the length of a man's arm,
attached by intricate plaiting to the rigid handle. Another wielded
a single-tailed whip, woven from fine strands of leather. Its
length was the height of a man and it tapered to a split end burned
by the heat of its cracking snap. Its handle was weighted and
bulged out into a heavy ball at its end. The next held a double-
tailed quirt that he flexed between his hands to show its
unforgiving harshness. The last man carried a bamboo cane from
Egypt. Knotted with joints along its length it extended to half the
height of a man. Every few paces the man swished it downwards,
cutting it through the air in a frightening, hissing sweep. Behind
them came a collection of enslaved women surrounded by guards. Some
were manacled at the wrists with heavy iron cuffs. Some walked
anxiously in a train held by a chain attached to iron collars at
their necks. Some were gagged with leather balls secured behind
their heads with tight thongs. Some were blindfolded with leather
straps. One was dragged in by a rope wrapped tightly at her ankles.
Her short dark hair was coated with wet sand and her face was dirty
with smears of mud. Her arms were tied folded across her breasts. A
leather strap was pulled tightly across her mouth. It was
Sappho.

Last in the
procession was the blind Praxis and his assistant, Master Wang. The
Chinaman held onto Praxis' arm as he helped him into the arena.
Praxis stared around unseeing, cocking his head from side to side,
listening, raising his chin and smelling the air.