Trojan Whores Page 18

  'And the gag, my lady Eva? Are you ready for the gag?' she asked.

  Ajax smiled. 'Yes, lady Eva. Your mistress asked you a question. Are you ready for the gag? Ah, you look surprised, lady. Has it been so long since you have felt the pain of torture? Had you forgotten that your pet was also your mistress? Did you truly believe I was your slave? Poor Eva. Deceived so easily. Gag her!'

  The guards pushed a leather ball gag into Eva's mouth. She could not struggle or fight against them. She could not appeal or cry out. Spit ran from her mouth as they stuffed it in. They lashed it tight and bound a leather strap around so it was held firmly inside and could not be seen. They tightened all the other straps and thongs, pulling them into clasps or buckles, locating them into the teethed jaws of their unforgiving clamps.

  Praxis sensed the threat of treachery. A wave of fear flooded over him. He jumped to his feet. He was quickly restrained. He held out his hands hopelessly as they chained his wrists and flung him to the ground.

  'I hope you have not lost your enthusiasm for the "shrinking man", lady,' mocked Calliope. 'You have only introduced it to us. We need to see what else it can do.'

  Eva's eyes flashed in confusion. She could not understand what was happening. She had felt so assured of her place with Praxis. She had been so certain of having overthrown Calliope. Now the one she had treated as a pet stood taunting her, and mocking her blind arrogance for entangling herself in her own apparatus of torture. She tried to bite onto the leather ball in her mouth. The straps across her face and the cage around her head made it impossible even to do that. She tried to move her arms, her fingers, her legs, her toes. It was impossible. She was completely caught in the clutches of the terrible contraption. She could not move at all. She felt the tightness of the strap in her sex. She felt the throbbing of her clitoris against its unrelenting pressure. She tried to relax her thighs, her buttocks, but she was now inseparable from the contraption which held her in its vicelike embrace.

  'Douse her!' shouted Calliope. 'Slacken the pressure on poor Eva. I cannot bear to see her suffering.'

  Eva's eyes flashed for side to side. She heard the buckets being lifted. She heard the sloshing of water. She saw the flicker of light reflected in rainbows around her as it was tossed. She felt the sudden shock as it was thrown all over the "shrinking man" - all over her. It ran down her face and streamed from her chin. She could not move as it flowed over her body. But the wetting brought a fresh pliability to the leather bindings. She felt them slipping against her skin. She managed to move a finger. A wave of relief rushed through her. She pulled against the constricting bonds. They gave under the pressure.

  'Now tighten the straps fully,' ordered Calliope.

  The straps were pulled again; levered into their clasps, tensioned into their buckles and clamps. Eva could no longer move her finger. The moment of freedom had passed. She knew there was no escape.

  Braziers were brought and set around the apparatus and its victim. Their heat soon began to dry and tighten the tangle of wet leather thongs. Eva felt its increasing compression. Her eyes filled with terror. They were the only part of her body she could command - and they were no longer in her control. Her mind was ablaze with fear. Her head was filled with the terror of it all. She could do nothing to change it. She could not even express it.

  The tightening increased. Her skin was pinched by its shrinking straps. Her limbs, already confined by its contracting framework, throbbed and pounded with the increased tension. Her jaws, held wide by the plugging gag, generated pains which ran down her throat and into her bowels. She could not swallow. Her cunt was wet, she could feel that, but its wetness was frustrated by the feeling of numbness across her whole body. She could only move her eyes. But they brought her no hope, no salvation. They flashed around in terror. She was panic-stricken by what was happening. She was overwhelmed by what she knew was in store, and yet she could not guess what that could be.

  Eva knelt, held inside the entwining arms of the device. The ever tightening bands of leather squeezed as they continued to shrink in the drying heat of the braziers. She wanted so much to cry out, to scream for release, to beg for freedom. She thought of how she would do anything to be set free. She would allow herself to be degraded in any way her torturers saw fit. She would serve them, be humiliated by them.

  But there was no way of passing her message to them, and she realised they would not care even if she could. They only wanted her suffering and she could do nothing to deny them. She wanted to shiver, to allow her body to express her fear, but she could not even do that. She wanted to lick her lips, to push out her tongue. Any movement would allow her to know that she had some control over her body. But she could do nothing. She had no control. It had been taken from her. The enfolding caress of the "shrinking man" was all enveloping. Its control over her was total. She was a victim of perfect stillness, a prisoner of absolute bondage.

  The bindings continued to shrink, to cut her skin. Her body was crisscrossed with the marks of its terrible grip. There was no release for her. She remained motionless. Her body trapped in arrant silence, a victim of the inescapable grip of the unforgiving contraption.

  Calliope knelt beside her. She ran her hands across the drying straps. She felt their tension. She sensed their contraction. She sensed the pain that was passing to its terrified victim. She traced her fingers against Eva's skin, taut between the strapping, frozen in its grasp. She rested them against the strap pulled up between Eva's thighs. She felt the swollen flesh on either side. She felt the pounding in Eva's veins. She felt the stillness of her body, taut and clasped in the relentless leather grip.

  'Yes, it is your little pet,' she whispered. 'Poor Eva, did you really believe in your silly arrangement with Praxis? Is that possible? Yes, I believe you did. Poor, innocent Eva. I can hardly believe you could be so foolish. Eva. Eva. It was a trick. Eva, it was a trick. I wanted to be your pet so I could show you I was truly your mistress. How would you ever know unless you experienced the downfall of your false hope? Oh, you were so proud. You were so arrogant. And I enjoyed it. All the time knowing that soon I would bring you back again to your rightful place. Poor Eva. Nothing to say? Do not worry. There will be time. Yes, you will be going back to Greece as a captive. Do not think you will ever be otherwise. You will carry the brand of Ajax and you will be my lowliest slave. Oh, Eva, I am sad that you will have to suffer so much.'

  A sparking branding iron was lifted from one of the braziers. Eva did not move in any way as it was placed first on one of her immobile buttocks, then on the other. Her eyes flashed from side to side; frantic expressions of her agony. She was bursting with pain. It ran through her in waves. No part of her body was immune to its progress or its ferocity. But she remained still, her flashing eyes the only signal of her agony. Motionless and in complete silence she was held in a state of perfect pain, in the unforgiving embraced.

  Praxis cried out for Master Wang, but he was not there. He reached out for a slave to help him, but they had all run away or been stolen by others. He called for Eva, and although she was close by she could not speak. She had lain all night, shivering and jerking with the shock of her incarceration. Her body was covered in the wheals of the embrace. She could not stand up, could not bend. She smelled of urine and had vomited.

  Soldiers emptied Praxis' tent then overturned a brazier and scattered its flaming coals around the ornate skirting. Praxis was bound by the wrists and, together with Eva, loaded onto a small cart. The tent burned behind them as the cart was drawn through the sand dunes and along the beach. Finally they were brought to Ajax's boat and thrown roughly down on the sand.

  Praxis was taunted by the soldiers. They prodded him with spears as he stumbled and fell. He struggled to his feet. He reached out to them, but they avoided him easily. When he dropped to the ground they taunted him and spat on him. In the end they chained him and yanked him up against the side of Ajax's beached ship. Praxis hung against it, his muscles straining to hold his w
eight, his blind eyes staring emptily out to sea.

  They strapped Eva to a shield and flayed her with whips. She twisted and writhed, sometimes screaming out, sometimes clenching her jaws in defiant silence. One of them beat her with his leather belt. It raised red wheals on her back. She was gagged and dragged along the beach by her ankles. They pulled her through the lapping waves and smeared her with gritty sand. In the end they chained her to Praxis' feet and staked her ankles wide so that anyone who wanted to enjoy her could. They hung a placard around her neck: Lady Eva, Mistress of Slaves.

  Chapter 19

  Sappho and Chryseis - priestesses of Apollo again

  Praxis and Eva laid chained together for three days. Water was sloshed over them each morning and they could lick it up to quench their thirst, but they were given no food.

  The Greek army was preparing to return home. The beach was filled with the clamour of armour and bounty being loaded into the ships. For all their suffering the Greeks had little to show for their sacrifice. Their greatest warrior, Achilles, was dead. The beautiful princess of Sparta, Helen, its most hoped for prize and reason for the war itself, remained unfound. The army of tribes had camped on the beach for eleven years. They had lost many of their comrades. They had missed their wives and their children growing up. When finally they ransacked the city they found it without the expected spoils. Paris had disappeared and so had all of Priam's treasure. During the long years of siege much of the city's wealth had been spirited away. The beach was filled with a yearning to return home. The lightly laden boats road high in the water.

  Praxis and Eva watched as the brazen bull was hauled up the side of Ajax's boat. Its huge carcass thudded against the black planking. It swayed precariously on its tangle of hurriedly knotted ropes. The warm onshore breeze whistled through its mouth and nostrils. It bellowed and moaned as it spun giddily in its bonds. Eva remembered her own suffering, hanging by her wrists from the oars of the same boat. She anticipated no salvation; all she could see before her was a life of suffering and pain.

  Weena was led up a long gangplank with others. Her petite body, her shaved head and naked labia, glowed silkily in the warm morning sunlight. She looked fresh and beautiful. She stared down at Eva and Praxis. Eva dropped her eyes. Weena took it as deference, smiled and went aboard. But it was not humility that stirred inside Eva, it was boiling anger fed by the need for revenge. The deception which she had been victim to filled her veins with an overwhelming and poisonous hatred.

  When his ship was ready for sea, Ajax was brought from his tent. Calliope hung on his arm and led him down the beach. 'Ah, my new playthings are waiting, lord,' she said gleefully.

  Eva stared into his unseeing eyes. Ajax smiled.

  'Have them loaded. We must leave this accursed beach. Chain them in the deepest part of the hold. And do not waste water on them. They can drink from the bilges until we reach the welcome shores of our homeland.'

  He spat at Praxis. The gluey froth landed in Praxis' blind eyes. It ran in streaks down his cheeks. Praxis licked and swallowed it thirstily.

  Calliope glanced back at Eva, but turned quickly. She threw her head back in disdain. She marched up into the black boat, her naked body covered only by her flowing purple robe. Her hands clung to the arm of her patron and master, lord Ajax. She stopped at the top and surveyed the clamorous beach.

  Eva looked up under lowered eyelids and saw the sparkling flash of light reflected from the faceted gold ring in Calliope's clitoris. A wave of resentment flooded over her. It mixed with a tide of vengeance she knew could only be assuaged by the most terrible retribution. She bit her lip and fed a finger into her sex, feeding the heat of her anger with the flames of her passion.

  Sappho and Chryseis, naked and covered in dirt, made their way unhindered over the sand dunes and across the great plain of Troy. Ajax had honoured their agreement - they were free. Sappho was overwhelmed by the feeling of liberation. Everything she saw excited her. She felt as though she was in heaven.

  They reached the walls of the city, now holed and ruined by the victorious Greeks. They stood hand in hand at the yawning entrance which had been the main gate.

  Three women hung helplessly on crucifixes. Their arms were stretched out onto the crossbeams and their wrists were secured by tight leather thongs. Their ankles were drawn together and tied against the upright. They had hung there for days and now, hungry and exhausted, slumped heavily on their bonds. Their naked bodies were laced with red lines; the result of beatings by the triumphant soldiers who had strung them up.

  Sappho stared up at them as she walked with Chryseis between them. One of the women lifted her face. Her head and pubic hair were shaved. She smiled helplessly. Sappho felt compassion of the suffering woman. Her eyes followed the strained curve of her slender waist and the delicate rise of her hips. Again she looked at the woman's helpless gaze. The site of her suffering let free a surge of excitement that ran through her in a sudden shiver. The more she stared the more she felt the heat of passion in her own sex. The more she looked the more it increased. The more it increased the more she wanted to satisfy herself.

  She held the woman's feet in her hands. The woman moved her toes. Sappho looked up again between her thighs, at the pink slit of her soft sex. It was a perfect line of pliable flesh. The lips - raised and swollen with their own softness - edged it beautifully. Sappho lifted one of the woman's feet to her mouth. She held her toes against her lips for a moment, savouring their proximity, their closeness. She felt their heat. It combined with her own. The woman's toenails glinted in the sunlight. Sappho licked. She took the largest toe between her lips. She closed them around it and slipped them to its base. She sucked. The woman tensed in her bonds. She sucked harder. The woman rose against the delightful contact. The movement aroused the stinging left by her beating. She tightened as the delectable blend of pain and delight raced through her. Sappho tasted the woman's skin. She tasted the mud and sweat that clung to it. She drew back and licked it. She took it into her mouth again and sucked. She washed it away with her probing tongue. She drank the liquor, stopping only for a moment to swallow greedily before quickly returning for more.

  Chryseis pushed against Sappho. She wrapped her arms around her waist and held her close. She draped her fingers down the front of Sappho's smooth stomach and rested them between Sappho's thighs. Sappho sucked harder. She felt the mounting tension in the woman's body. She sensed the pain she felt as it increased. It was transmitted through her toe. All her pleasure - her delight and her agony - was being distilled through that one place.

  Sappho allowed Chryseis' fingers to open her sex. She felt her wetness, silky and moist against Chryseis' hand. She felt the eager fingers grasp her clitoris. She forced herself down on them to increase the pressure. The woman tensed again; joy and pain combined. She gave a sudden gasp, an intake of breath. She held it, keeping the moment back, but only just. She could stand it no more. She breathed out with a shudder as her ecstasy was released. Sappho jerked with delight. It gripped her. It tightened her. She jolted with it. Again and again. She dropped heavily on Chryseis' fingers. She released the toe that plugged her mouth. She sobbed with joy.

  Sappho grabbed a goblet of wine. It had been set down beneath the cross as an offering. She shared it with Chryseis. They laughed, grabbed each other and moved on. They were both stimulated by their freedom, by the destruction they saw around them, by the suffering, by the filth, by the opportunities for excitement. Their passions were on fire. Everything they saw fanned the flames of their desires.

  They ran into the square where the mighty wooden horse still stood. Women had been tied upside down to its legs. They held out their hands and begged to be released as Sappho and Chryseis rushed by. Sappho felt her stomach fill with thrills of excitement at ignoring their pleas for help.

  They went down an alley. A line of women had been bent over a wall. Their hands and feet were chained to heavy blocks. They were gagged with a wooden stick pulled across
their mouths and secured behind their heads. Sappho and Chryseis stopped and watched as a group of defeated Trojan soldiers thrashed the women one by one. They removed the gag before beating them, and replaced it when they had finished.

  Sappho and Chryseis ran on. They came across a woman spread-eagled on the floor of a grain store. She was tied by the wrists and ankles to four large nails driven deep into the floor. She cried out as men took turns. Her face was covered in semen. Sappho could hardly bear to move on without licking it from the woman's face. She too wanted to be spread out on the dirty floor and violated by the insatiable men. She shouted out what she wanted, but then they both ran away before the startled men realised what was happening.

  They ran through a courtyard where women were hanging in cages. They saw women lined up on their knees waiting to be flogged. Nowhere was safe. The city was devastated.

  They kept running through the ruined streets. Buildings were on fire. Women sent mad by their loss searching hopelessly for their menfolk. A girl was being spanked by an older man. He held her over his bent knee and brought his hand down repeatedly on her taut buttocks.

  Sappho recognised the entrance to Polydorus' palace. The ornate iron gates hung askew, the white marble pillars on each side blackened by fire.

  They went inside. Filthy beggars drank from the fountains and pools that now flowed with dirty water and blood. Some women covered in lion skins emerged from behind the few still standing statues. They had taken cover like animals during the invasion and were only now finding the courage to show themselves. They stalked slowly on all fours. Their lion skins almost completely covered them, their tails hung loosely and trailed on the ground.

  Sappho and Chryseis sat on the edge of one of the pools. A discarded lion skin lay beside them. They cupped their hands and drank the dirty water thirstily.