Chapter 28: Room 6

When the Emir decided to try out a part of the sixth torture room, he selected Ramzy El-Najjar's grand-daughter, Zeinab, for the privilege of being his experimental assistant. She was prepared as though for his bed, and in that she felt very honoured. An abaya was put on her over her ceremonial harem dressing gown and she was led through a series of passages into the Ruby Palace. She had, by this time, decided that unfortunately it was not the Emir who would use her, but that she was being offered to some guest of his. Finally she was led down some stairs and into a large room with no furniture but equipped with a bewildering array of ropes, slings, nooses and pulleys.

Zeinab was led over to an area in the room where two large rings were suspended from the ceiling, rather like those used by gymnasts to perform on. Her abaya was removed, as was her harem dressing gown. She was cuffed to them by her wrists so that she was held clear of the ground. Then she was stretched into an X with her legs tethered to the floor wide apart and her weight taken entirely on her arms in a fashion which was not painful ... at first

Sississis ... CRACKACKACK!

There was no warning and she saw no movement before there was a short hissing sound beside her and all at once there seemed to be innumerable lines of burning agony on her skin all at once and she could not even draw breath to scream. As she hung there choking and heaving for breath she thought she would die of the pain and shock. Naturally the blow had caused her to squirm, which added to the strain on her shoulders. As her thoughts cleared and the acute pain of the blow was supplanted by the longer term aching of her shoulders and elbows, she surmised that she had been hit with the multi-tailed whip which had curled itself round her arse and lower back, with the weighted tips of the lashes curling round and hitting her belly and the lower curve of one tit.