Chapter 21: Spoils of War

Jalile Shalabi, the slave dealer, had set up a special reception session in the town square for the members of the victorious Kobekistani army to offer their captives for sale. There were quite a number of women on offer but, to his disappointment, not many of them were either young or beautiful, and none were both. There would be a glut of second rate slaves, he judged, so the prices he offered would have to be very low.

Among the less interesting offerings was Nahla, who was being sold by Abdur, and the slave dealer gave a little moue of distaste as her abaya was removed to reveal a middle aged woman with sagging breasts and imperfectly shaven cunt. Her buttocks were similarly slack and she had clearly been well used recently. Jalile thought she had probably been pretty well used before the war, and the stretch marks low on her belly indicated that she had borne children. Her face was far from pretty and she was too thin for modern Kobekistani tastes.

"How old are you?" he demanded.

"Thirty years old, Master," she mumbled.

Then she decided that she had better accept her fate and make the best of it. Her face improved considerably when she smiled, and Jalile responded to her change of heart enough to offer a little more than his first thought.

"Well, Sergeant," he said, "I might be persuaded to offer thirty for her."

"I couldn't take less than a hundred," replied the Sergeant and Jalile decided to save a lot of time.

"Fifty, or take her away," he offered.

"But..." Abdur was interrupted by Jalile beckoning the next in line and throwing the abaya to Nahla.

"Oh, well, fifty then," Abdur said, unhappy at getting so little, but he didn't want her and so would settle for what he could get.

The money changed hands and Nahla was led away to Jalile's van by one of his assistants. Nahla realised that the Sergeant was a little lucky to get so much when the man, a real man and not a eunuch she was sure, did not even bother to grope her once.

Jalile's interest increased a little when Ebrahim took the abaya off Raghda. Young white women were always in demand, and this one could be taken for white with a little attention to the cosmetic details. Only the dark brown hair betrayed her part-Arab origins, and that could easily be changed. Even her pale blue eyes were very like those of the Europeans; her mother must have been a captured white woman, he surmised.

A price was quickly agreed and Ebrahim left with his two hundred Kobesti, counting himself lucky. Meanwhile, Jalile was on the telephone to Colonel Abubakar Ibn Abbas and had sold her for three hundred, sight unseen, for the Other Ranks' brothel at the military headquarters in the city.

When Nagib presented Cala to Jalile to be sold the slave trader had to control his face very carefully. This was a prize slave indeed. The shiny, almost blue black skin and the plump young figure meant that she would fetch a good price, even more because she was obviously accustomed to slavery. She did her best to show off her good points to the dealer in an effort to get as high a price for her master as possible.

"So," asked the auctioneer when he had inspected her thoroughly, "How much are you asking for her?"

"I want to sell her on commission," replied Nagib, as he had been advised, "I'll give you five percent of what she fetches."

Jalile sighed; his normal percentage was ten and this man obviously knew that.

"I have many slaves to sell and I shall have to feed this one until I get the chance to put her in an auction. I couldn't do that for less than twenty-five percent."

Cala swore at him in some African language. Jalile did not understand the words, but there was no mistaking the tone of voice.

Whish ... THWACK!

The dog whip curled lovingly round her ample arse and the tip curled on to her lower belly. The stroke must have been painful, for he had much experience of whipping slaves, but she made neither sound nor movement. The slave dealer stared long and hard at her, and then decided that this was the best he had seen all day and would fetch a good price no matter how many slaves were for sale at the moment.

Turning to Nagib he came to a swift decision, and said, "I'll give you a thousand now, cash, or ten percent commission on selling her later."

Naturally he wanted to pay cash, because he thought he would probably get close to fifteen hundred Kobesti for her.

"Ten percent it is," said Nagib, "And she must be in a public auction. I'll be there to see how it goes."

"Agreed," said Jalile, as another opportunity for a fiddle was closed off by the young soldier.

Cala was taken and put with the other slaves in the auctioneer's van.

Later in the morning, Jalal arrived at the head of the queue with two women under abayas.

"These are a pair of sisters and I want to sell them as a pair, not separately," he informed Jalile.

"I don't care what you want. If I buy them I do as I please with them," replied the slave dealer, "Let's have a look at the first one."

Fayruz's abaya was swiftly removed to reveal a dark haired olive skinned young woman in her late teens. The Western fashion industry would have thought her far too fat for the catwalk, but to Arab eyes she was positively emaciated. The pert little upturned breasts were not what Jalile's customers wanted, nor were the boyish hips. They wanted plenty of curves and pendulous breasts, so this one would not sell for much. As he handled her with a professional indifference, Jalile noted in her favour that she still had a very tight cunt and arse, presumably little used except by the soldiers on the return journey from Tirfil.

"A pair of sisters, you say?" asked the dealer.

"Yes, and they look it," said Jalal.

"You mean the other one is as thin and ugly as this one?"

"They would fatten up quickly enough," countered the young soldier, "They have just been through a war, and their previous master didn't feed them properly."

"Let's have a look at her then."

Hala was stripped in her turn and prodded and poked. Jalile thought they could both be trained to behave as virgins and a little surgery could soon produce a convincing hymen in each cunt; at any rate convincing enough for the elderly and half blind customer he was thinking of.

"Two hundred Kobesti each, together or separately," said the dealer.

Jalal was not used to haggling in sums as large as that, so he tentatively said, "Six hundred the pair?"

"Done," said the dealer who would have gone to a thousand, and the girls were sold.

Charlotte stood naked before the civilian and was inspected briefly. She did not understand any of the conversation, as she spoke no Arabic.

~Tirfil scum slaves are not fetching much these days, said Jalile who, in truth, had all the slaves he could handle, and more.

~But this one is white, and was the wife of a foreigner in Tirfil, protested the soldier.

~Untrained slaves are fetching even less, replied the auctioneer, automatically denigrating the goods he was being offered, but now slightly more interested, ~And she doesn't look white to me.~

~Look under her arms where the sun did not brown her skin. There you will see that she is white, and he lifted one of Charlotte's arms to demonstrate.

~I don't care if you tell me she is white where the sun never shines, the prices are so low that it isn't much use trying to sell a fifty-year old woman to me.~