Chapter 9: Trouble

For some weeks there had been an undercurrent of unease in the harem. Nothing David could actually put his finger on, but when he had a parade the women did not all seem quite so keen to draw attention to themselves in the hope of being picked for a night. Passing the door to the harem ante-room one morning, David thought he heard something.

When David entered the harem, the usual calm and tranquillity was broken by screams of female rage and pain from more than one woman, interspersed with the whistle of one of the short dog-whips slicing through the air. Walking into the main hall of the harem a scene of general disorder reigned. Women were fighting, both among themselves and with the eunuchs. As David had feared, the eunuchs were coming off worst.

"Stop!" David thundered and the sound of a genuine bass voice seemed to calm them; the sight of their Master glaring at them soon had all but a very few kneeling and pressing their heads into the floor as though their very lives depended on it.

'And well they may, ' he thought, 'a strangling or two might work wonders.'

The Chief Eunuch rushed up to David and became profuse in apologies in very fast Kobekistani dialect.

"Calm," said David in English, "What is going on here?"

"Djamilla refused to be bathed by the assigned eunuch, Master, and demanded that serving girls perform her ablutions."

"This led to a riot?" David raised his eyebrows.

"Others of the women joined in, Master. We had not enough whips for all."

"Bring Maryam, ... no. Bring Davina to the interview room," was the curt order, and David walked through and sat on the couch.

"Coffee!" he shouted and noted with some interest that it took several minutes to come.

Evidently the trouble was real, for nobody had thought to start his coffee the moment they realised he was in the harem. Davina, however, took only fifteen minutes to arrive. A fine balance between preparation for an encounter with her Master and speed of response to an order.

"Come and sit beside me," said David as she entered the room, "Forget the formalities for the moment."

Waving the Chief Eunuch and his assistant out of the room as she sat beside him, David turned towards Davina and said, "Can you tell me the truth?"

"Always, Master," she said.

"Liar," David replied, "Usually I don't care, but this time I want the real true facts, not just what you think I want to hear. Pretend we are in Kensington. Now, you don't like me, and I don't fancy you; true?"

Davina looked at him for a long time, trying to decide if this was a trick, or if he meant it. Finally she plumped for trusting him, but being careful about the protocol.

"True, Master."

"What happened? Not just today, but leading up to the trouble."

"Djamilla wants her old accommodation back, and she would prefer that to be before the Princess Zubeydeh returns to England," as she said it she fell silent and looked very wistful.

"And?" David prompted.

"And she started a riot by refusing the bath, and demanding the serving girls she used to have when the old Emir was alive. She had planned all this for a while and was going round the unhappier of the women, like me, like..."

She broke off.

"Like?" he prompted her again.

Eyes downcast, Davina whispered, "Like your mother, when she was here."

Since David did not explode, she continued, "And the women you have not chosen. Most of them think, as I do, that Maryam will be First Wife and anyone older than her doesn't stand a chance of more than once a year fucking."

"Thank you for being honest," said David, "If I give you a pension of, say £25,000 a year, would you like to leave Kobekistan and go back to England?"

"Not England, not back to people I knew before..." Davina said, sadly, "The States somewhere perhaps, or New Zealand ... but I know that none of that is possible."

"If you are prepared to be banished from ever coming to Kobekistan or communicating with anyone here, or telling your story to the media, then you can leave today on the late flight," said David briskly, "I don't need to threaten you with what might happen if you broke those promises."

"Really?" she asked, disbelief written large across her face.

Lifting the telephone, David gave the order to Kamal Qumsiyeh to make the necessary arrangements.

"You will fly in purdah to Abu Dhabi and from there still in purdah to New York. The Kobekistani Consul there will meet the plane and take you to the St. Pierre when clothes and so forth will be found for you. You may stay there until you find a suitable home, up to six months if you need. Simply tell the Consul what you want. If you decide to go to New Zealand instead you must make that move within the six months or pay your own fare."

"Oh, Master," gushed Davina.

"No!" snapped David, "Now I am not your master, I am David and I am just an absentee sugar daddy. I should have pensioned off all my grandfather's women when I first arrived. It will be done for many of them soon, but you must not tell them. Send in the Chief Eunuch as you go out."

When the Chief Eunuch entered, David explained that Davina was leaving for America and would not be back.

"Now bring in Djamilla, please. Immediately."

When she entered, she stood before him. The Chief Eunuch and an assistant forced her to kneel, and tried to make her bow her head to the floor.

"Why do you not train her properly, as you would the other concubines?" asked David in a quiet voice full of menace.

Both whips were out in a second and Djamilla's howl of anger could be heard all over the harem, soon followed by screams of pain, but her head was soon firmly pressed to the floor without anyone holding her.

When she was quiet again, David addressed her, "You have plotted against your Master."

Then he allowed a few moments for the awful import of that statement to sink in, accusing her of treason because her Master was also the Emir.

"For that I shall punish you," said David, "And it may discourage you from further trouble-making."

Turning to Djamilla's assistant eunuch David ordered, "Strip her, put her on the bench, and give me your whip."

The eunuch cowered in fear, trembling and not moving.

David assumed he had not understood and repeated the first part of the order slowly, "Strip her and put her on the bench."

The eunuch scrambled to obey and very soon Djamilla was face down, naked, strapped to the whipping bench, ready to be punished. David went up to the eunuch and held out his hand.

"Your whip, please," he demanded.

Again the eunuch cowered, but reluctantly handed over the whip; then he lay on top of Djamilla. David at once guessed that this was the way a symbolic whipping of the Head Wife had been done in the old Emir's time. Gently, he lifted the eunuch off the prostrate woman and put him to one side. Stepping back he swished the whip experimentally in the air and then brought it down on the bare buttocks in front of him.

Whish THWACK!

Djamilla made no sound as an angry red line sprang up across the two rounded cheeks, their olive colour making it darker than the ones David had inspected on Davina that second morning. Looking up at the eunuch David saw a face suffused with relief and gratitude. He turned back to his task.

Whish THWACK!

Again Djamilla made no noise as a second line joined the first, slightly lower but crossing the first line at one end.

'It must take practice to lay them all parallel, like Davina's, ' he thought.

Gesturing to the eunuch to take over he studied the creature's style of whipping carefully. After another half dozen strokes, David again took the whip himself.

Whish THWACK scream!

David suddenly realised that all the noise which had broken his concentration on learning the eunuch's technique was Djamilla's sobs and screams at the agony being visited on her arse.

'Serves her right, ' David thought, 'She shouldn't try to cause trouble for the Master to whom Allah has given her.'

Then he stopped dead and considered the thought he had just had. Was he going native and becoming a Muslim in spite of his atheism? And he was enjoying her squirming and her sobs; his prick was hard as a stick of seaside rock and her arse was tempting. He swung again.

Whish THWACK scream!

And again ... and again and...

Djamilla's backside became one mass of angry red skin interspersed with dripping cuts where the weals crossed. Her breathing was ragged and her screams had subsided to sobs, but she was definitely conscious and feeling the agonies heaped on her.

Dropping the whip, David quickly lifted his kameez front and thrust his manhood deep into her cunt with no preliminaries whatever. To his surprise it was sopping wet and his lubricated prick next slipped as easily into her arse. As his balls hit her cunt and his thighs ground on her abused arse cheeks in the repeated pumping of his lust, David felt her start to come as his orgasm flooded through him, filling her rectum with jets of semen that seemed to flow for a long time.

The woman's screams were now half pain and half pleasure as she did her best to grind her hips back on to his cock in spite of the agony it bought to her skin. Shrivelling slightly, he slipped out of her arse and stood upright. Motioning to the eunuch to untie her, David sat back on his throne. Djamilla was brought forward and knelt, her forehead on the floor before him, and there she remained as he surveyed her battered arse and naked sweating shoulders.

"Stand up," he commanded.

Uncertainly she rose to her feet.

"That was a taste of what you will get if you try to cause more trouble," he said sternly, "followed by a taste of what will be forbidden or even made impossible for you. If you rebel again I will have you thrashed to within an inch of your life, then cut and sewn up, and then sold as a field slave."

The woman fell to her knees and sobbed out, "Thank you Master for your kindness in showing me the mistake I made. Thank you for your mercy in taking my body in spite of my mistake. I will never displease you again."

"Take her out," he said to the Chief Eunuch.

Later in the day when he was talking to Kamal Qumsiyeh again, David asked, "What can I do with Djamilla? I don't want her and yet she can still cause trouble."

"The Emir can dispose of an unwanted woman in any way he sees fit," came the expected diplomatic answer.

"She has not done enough to be killed," said David, "at least not by my standards. I am loth to send her to the slave auctions because she is too old to work and no longer young enough to be bought as a concubine. I don't want her around causing trouble."