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  Chryseis slowly turned. She looked at her friend, dirtied with mud, stained with semen, her ragged smock filthy and tattered.

  'How... how can this be so?'

  'Chryseis, I have been here for days. I heard the Greek army sacking the city. I have been too afraid to move. I have been hiding behind a wooden panel in the main temple. I've had nothing to eat and I was looking for food when I saw you here, clinging to the bars of the cage. I thought you were a ghost. I could not believe it.'

  'Sappho, my darling Sappho. This is like a dream. I never thought I would see you again. I even thought I heard your voice while I hung, hooded and bound in one of Polydorus' rooms. But I was mistaken. Come. It is safe in here. No one can find us. You must not leave.'

  'I will not.'

  Sappho dropped down beside the shivering Chryseis. They lay in each other's arms, feeling each other's warmth, luxuriating in the newfound safety of each other's company.

  Sappho felt the pressure of the iron bars against her back. She squeezed herself against them. They were cold against her skin. She delighted in the safety of the enclosing cage. She felt a captive of it, a prisoner within its unyielding bars. But it was a prison from which she did not want to escape. She felt a new and welcome sense of safety enclosed within its bars.

  Slowly her eyes became used to the darkness. She could see they were in a dungeon, a chamber of torture. Manacles hung from the low ceiling. Chains were slung from the walls. A wooden table with a cranking wheel at one end stood between the cage and the low doorway. A pile of leather straps was heaped by its side.

  She turned to Chryseis, who looked into her eyes.

  'Hold me,' she said. 'I need to feel you close.'

  It was so tight inside the bars of the cage that Sappho could hardly move, but she pressed her face between Chryseis' breasts. She felt the warmth of Chryseis' silky skin. She felt her shivering body.

  'You are cold.'

  Her mouth enclosed a stiffened nipple. She sucked it. It was delectable; sweet and fragrant, fleshy and firm. She felt Chryseis' chest rising. She nipped with her teeth. Chryseis gave a quick gasp, a moan of pain, a thrill of surrender.

  'Harder,' she said slowly. 'Bite harder.'

  Sappho did. She pressed her tongue against the throbbing nipple. Chryseis gasped again. She lifted herself against the bite. Sappho sensed the pleasure of her suffering. She enjoyed delivering the pain. She savoured having another surrendering to her will. She relished the tension in Chryseis' body as she braced herself against the penetrating pain.

  But quickly her bite eased. The bars of the cage seemed to tighten around her. It was as if they were squeezing her body in their shrinking grip, constricting her, wrapping her in their iron grasp. She did not know what was happening. She pulled back. Chryseis' nipple sprung from between her teeth. A wave of distress ran through her. She slid away from Chryseis. The sensation of pressure increased. A dark surge of guilt flowed over her. Tears welled up in her eyes. She could not hold it back.

  'Chryseis,' she said falteringly, 'I knew it was you. You were not mistaken. I was there. I recognised you. I was too afraid to help you. My dearest friend, Chryseis, I let you down so badly. It is you who must punish me. It is you who must inflict pain on me. Only when you have made me suffer will I know I have been forgiven. Chryseis, forgive me with pain. I have to feel the smack of your palm on my buttocks. Only when I wince will I feel exonerated. Only then will I be absolved of my terrible cowardice. Chryseis, grant me forgiveness with your anger.'

  Sappho pulled away from her. She crawled slowly out of the cage. She dropped low to the floor. She pressed her face into the dirt and dust.

  'See how I defile myself for you, my dearest. I am like the lowest animal grovelling in the filth of the world. I am worthless until you make me beg for your forgiveness.'

  She licked the filthy floor, then reached out and laid her hands on the edge of the timber rack. She ran her palm along its surface. It was smooth and depressed at the centre; worn by the many stretched and tormented bodies of its victims. She stretched further. Halfway along the bed of the rack was split. The other half joined it with only a narrow gap between. She pulled herself onto it. Her dirty body flattened against the smooth timber. A nail near the join caught her tattered smock. She pulled against it. The smock ripped down the front. It opened and she felt her breasts cooled by the smooth surface of the rack. She reached further and the tear rent the smock to the hem. Her nipples hardened as they scraped across the worn top. She stretched out and held the front edge. She pressed her wrists outwards against two iron clasps. They stood open, ready to be dropped and secured so that any victim could not get free.

  'Please, Chryseis, drop the clamps around my wrists. I want to be made ready for your punishment. Please, I need to feel the tension of captivity. I need to know I cannot escape.'

  Chryseis did not speak. She crawled alongside the rack and knelt by its side. She dropped the heavy clamps over Sappho's wrists. They were stiff and hard to move. They had two holes which fitted over two raised bolts. A pinion, secured to each side of the rack on a thin chain, passed through the bolts and held the clamps in place.

  Sappho pulled against the securing clamps. She needed to know how firmly she was held. They were unforgiving. They dug into her wrists. She clenched her fists. She was held securely. There was no escape.

  'And my ankles. I will only suffer if you secure them too.'

  Chryseis found some leather thongs. She wrapped them around Sappho's ankles. She passed them through holes in the surface of the rack, pulled them tight and secured them to rings hanging from bolts beneath the heavy platform.

  Sappho pulled against her bonds. She was rewarded by the discomfort inflicted by their security. The iron clamps at her wrists dug deeper with each movement. Her ankles were held fast. She could not move them at all. She squirmed with delight. It was exquisite captivity. She felt her sex moisten. She twisted with a surge of joy. Her buttocks lifted. Her hips moved from side to side. 'My waist. Please, secure my waist.'

  Chryseis found a leather belt on the floor. She had to reach beneath the rack to free it. She dropped it across Sappho's waist and pulled it through two holes in the timber frame. She stretched beneath the rack and secured the belt into two rings and pulled them together.

  Sappho gasped as the belt was pulled tight across her waist. Each tightening yank captured her more. Each pull on the strap brought her closer to the wonderful subjugating confinement she yearned for. She felt completely enslaved, pinned to the rack, restrained by unbreakable bonds, delectably under the control of another.

  'I am ready,' she said quietly. 'I am ready.'

  Chryseis knelt and smoothed her hand across Sappho's buttocks, who closed her eyes with delight. She shivered. The palm of Chryseis' hand felt like silk. It slipped across her skin. It felt cool. Sappho felt her buttocks tightening. She felt them rise with the tension, trying in vain to increase the pressure against Chryseis' hand. She relaxed and let them ease apart. Fingers slipped into the tight valley between them. Her head spun.

  Chryseis increased the pressure. Sappho wanted to lift her buttocks. She wanted to offer them for a spanking. She strained against the strap at her waist. The restriction of it, her inability to lift herself at all only increased her ardour. She strained again. It was a delectable frustration. She was caught in a spiral of wanting drawn from a desire for pleasure and her failure to attain it.

  Her need was boiling over. She wanted to cry out to Chryseis to start the punishment, but she knew it was too late for that. Chryseis would decide when it should begin. Chryseis would decide how long it would last, how severe it would be. Sappho waited.

  The hand lifted.

  Sappho tensed.

  The hand smacked.

  Breath burst from her. She wanted more. The hand struck again. She tightened her buttocks, wanting more - and more came.

  Her buttocks were set alight by the repeated smacks. It was a stinging pain; sharp, penet
rating, condensed. It was a pain that penetrated her whole body. It was a tide of delectable suffering. She felt the heat in her sex. She felt its wetness. She wanted more.

  A shadow appeared at the entrance to the dungeon. It was a man. He was covered in a heavy cloak.

  Sappho jerked with every smack. The man stared at her. She peered at him with glazed eyes. He reached and placed a hand on the wheel at the head of the rack.

  The spanks rained down again and again. The man smiled. His hand pulled against the wheel.

  Sappho heard an iron cog click. She felt a jerk beneath her as the two segments of the rack pulled apart. The clamps at her wrists dug into her skin. Her ankles pulled painfully against the straps that held them. Her chest tightened. Her waist strained. Her heart pounded. The spanking continued.

  Another smack. Again the flat of Chryseis' hand struck hard. Sappho tightened her buttocks. She tried to absorb the pain. She wanted to be filled by it. She looked at the man. He turned the wheel another click. She sobbed. Another smack. Another click. Sappho felt the unyielding strain on her body. She felt the stretching tension between her wrists and ankles. She squealed.

  Another smack. She tightened against it, her buttocks on fire. Another click. Another wrenching pain. She felt the gap in the rack's bed widening, opening. All she could hear was the click of the rack and the smack of the hand.

  Her mind filled with flitting images. It was like watching frantic birds in an aviary. She pictured Chryseis hanging from that ceiling. She saw the hood slipping from her face. She saw her appealing eyes asking for help. She saw tears in her eyes. She watched herself reach forward. She saw herself taking Chryseis' hand and lifting her down. But they could not escape. It was a futile gesture. Instead of escape to safety she felt the crack of the whip as it bit into her back. She felt the savagery of cruel punishment. It was her penalty for showing compassion to Chryseis. But she did not mind the pain of the whip. It was right that she should suffer. It was right that she should feel the pain and save her friend from any more. At last she felt vindicated. The spanking continued. It blended with the pictures in her mind. Deep within her body she felt the surging tide of her orgasm. Somewhere, deep inside, Chryseis' hand had absolved her cowardly betrayal.

  She and Chryseis woke to the sound of shouting. The Greeks were above them, in the temple.

  The two crept furtively from their cage, past the rack and out of the dungeon. They held each other as they made their way to the centre of the temple. They stared down into the atrium.

  They saw the marble statue surrounded by the bodies of vanquished Trojans. They saw a small party of Greeks led by Achilles hiding behind the statue of Apollo, pinned down by Paris and some of his faithful guard. Achilles had been surprised by their attack, but was not prepared to stay cowering at the mercy of the Trojans for long. Suddenly he ran forward brandishing his sword. His shield, fashioned by the god's own armourer Hephaestus, reflected the light of the world as he charged into the open. He stood above everything around him. His brightness was like that of a god. He penetrated everything he saw with his steely gaze. It was as though the universe itself must shield its eyes from his glorious glare.

  Sappho and Chryseis held onto each other, unable to take their eyes off the action, unable to resist his magnificence. Achilles ran into a shower of arrows. He easily parried them with his flashing shield. Sappho and Chryseis saw Paris load his bow with a poisoned arrow. They watched him take careful aim. They heard his cry of victory as it penetrated Achilles' heel, the only part of his body left vulnerable by his goddess mother. They watched Achilles fall heavily to the ground, his leg disabled, his body already filling with the poison from the cowardly Paris' arrow. They watched the craven Trojan prince run into the darkness, too afraid to stay and see his victim die.

  The Greeks gathered around their dead leader. They picked up his body and took it on their shoulders. Sappho clutched Chryseis in fear. She gave a barely stifled cry. One of the soldiers wheeled around at the sound. He lunged forward and saw them both, clinging to each other, shaking with fear.

  'Bring them! The lady Eva will reward us well for such booty!'

  Chapter 15

  Eva's revenge

  Eva had taken over magnificent rooms in Priam's palace. She wore only a long purple robe which hung from her shoulders and trailed to the floor. It opened at the front and exposed her nakedness as she strutted haughtily along the marble-lined corridors.

  She sat daily on a bejewelled throne, vetting the slave women paraded before her. She kept Calliope on the lead at all times, forcing her to crawl on all fours and drink from a bowl placed on the floor before her. When Eva tugged on the lead in different ways, Calliope knew to kneel, or purr or push against Eva's leg. She spent a short time each day training Calliope. She held a cane in her free hand and, if necessary, chided her with a sharp clip on her buttocks. In the evenings, when the great fires were lit in the palace halls, Calliope curled up at her mistress's feet. Sometimes she rolled on her back and opened her legs, craving attention, her moist sex glistening in the firelight. Sometimes Eva stroked her there and Calliope mewed until, filled with pleasure, she raised her hips in a convulsion of ecstasy.

  Eva meticulously inspected the women brought to her. She prised their mouths open and peered inside. She tapped their teeth with a small silver mallet a slave girl attending kept ready. She stroked their tongues and squeezed them to see how fleshy they were. She pulled them to see how far they extended. She pinched their nipples and watched carefully to see how they lengthened, how much they hardened. She always sucked them as well, tasting them, feeling their heat, testing their hardness and feeling their throbbing against her tongue. She ran her hands around their breasts. If they were large enough she cupped them and felt their weight. If they were small she pressed her palms against them and massaged in circles. She traced the curve of their hips and the roundness of their buttocks. She slipped her fingers between their legs and ran her fingertips against their labia. She noted how easily the lips of their flesh parted, how moist they were, how readily her fingers slipped inside. She bent and sniffed, sometimes licking them to release their aroma. Those she liked best she licked deeply. She teased their clitorises with her fingertips, to see how much they engorged, how much they hardened, how much they throbbed. She bent them over and felt the curve of their buttocks. She looked at the oval of their squeezed sex lips and ran her fingers around them, testing the softness of the flesh, the tightness of the opening. She licked between their buttocks. She tasted their anuses, probing her tongue inside, forcing the tip into the muscular ring.

  She had them all held and caned. She watched how quickly the red lines appeared on their skin. She sat on her ornate throne and looked into their fearful faces. She observed how they bit their lips, how they dealt with the pain, how they sobbed. And she looked down on them as they lay, panting and exhausted, as buckets of water were thrown over them. She watched them gulping and choking and laughed when they heaved or passed out.

  Those she accepted were chained and taken back to the beach. There, Praxis incarcerated them in cages stacked out in the burning sun. Those she rejected were thrown outside the walls of the city. There they were used as playthings by beggars and vagrants and others ejected because of disease or deformity.

  Eva sat forward as Sappho and Chryseis were pushed down onto their knees at her feet.

  'We found these two in the temple, lady. They say they had hidden inside a cage for days. When we checked where they had been we found a rack. It smelled of a woman's flesh.'

  Eva rose. Her purple cloak, pinned at her throat and opened wide, fell from her shoulders to the floor in heavy swirls. Her beautifully formed body was naked and oiled. The contours of her firm breasts complemented the inward curve of her slender waist. Her sex was tight. It glistened in the flickering light of the oil lamps ranged along the smooth marble walls. She tugged the lead and Calliope, already on all fours, moved forward with her.

  'This
is indeed a surprise. For you as well, perhaps? Our Trojan priestesses have returned. But this time it is you who are on your knees. It is I who am the lady. Perhaps you have forgotten me? Perhaps you do not remember our last meeting? No?'

  She stretched a hand down to Sappho.

  Sappho looked up at her defiantly. 'I remember you only as a slave of the Greeks. Fit for the company of beggars and vagabonds. The last I saw of you was in their company, crawling in the streets, dirty and despicable. Grovelling in the dirt. An appropriate home for a lady such as you.'

  Eva smiled. She took Sappho's chin in her hand. She squeezed.

  'What a lady you are. Still too proud for your own good, I think. And your friend as well. Chryseis, no less. Your little ally in treachery. The fine priestesses of Apollo. Where is your god now, priestesses of the god of prophecy?'

  Sappho spat onto Eva's hand. Two guards rushed forward and held their spears pointed at Sappho's head. She did not move. She spat again. The guards looked to Eva for an order. She smiled. They backed off. She released her grip on Sappho. She smeared the spit from her hand onto Sappho's short tawny hair.

  'You do not have to plead with me for punishment, my little priestess,' she mocked. 'I will punish you anyway. No, you do not have to beg me with your spitting and contempt. It will be my pleasure to humiliate and degrade you. It will be my gift to you. My gift of gratitude for your previous betrayal. Oh, how you will wish you had seen the last of me when you shut me outside the gates of Troy. Your mocking laughter will haunt you as you suffer at the hands of your lady.'

  She stood over Sappho. She opened her mouth and dribbled her own spit onto Sappho's forehead. It ran down into Sappho's eyes, and in a strand down to her lips. Sappho looked up, still disdainful and filled with contempt. She sucked Eva's spit into her mouth, swallowed and smiled.

  Eva dropped back in her throne and laughed.