Chapter 7: The Harem Girl

As they were going along the corridor the slave said, "Mistress, may I speak?"

"Of course," Elinor shrugged, "Why not?"

"I hope I do not offend you when I say that you reminded me so much of the Countess, and yet so young."

"She is my grandmother, I believe," said Elinor.

"Princess, my most humble apologies. I did not realise..." Jaida's voice trailed off as she knelt again before the bewildered young woman.

"Oh, do stop all this silly kneeling down, and come along," ordered Elinor, more as an experiment to see if the woman would obey than really meaning it.

The woman immediately rose and led Elinor dutifully down the corridor past the staircase.

When Elinor started down the staircase, the woman protested, "Princess, it is forbidden."

"What is forbidden?"

"It is forbidden for me to descend the staircase," said Jaida.

Elinor shrugged her shoulders, "Well, which staircase are you allowed to descend?"

"If the Princess pleases, none of the staircases."

"Do you never go downstairs?" asked Elinor, mystified.

"No Princess. I must never go downstairs. It is forbidden."

"How long have you been here?"

"For ten years now, ever since the Countess brought me from Kobekistan," the servant said, backing away from Elinor, remembering the injury and pain she had suffered some ten years earlier.

"Are you allowed into my bedroom?" asked Elinor, anxious to know more of this virtual prisoner on the upper floors of Stapleford Grange.

"As the Princess pleases."

When they reached Elinor's bedroom she said, "Now sit there and tell me what happened and don't leave anything out."

Jaida sat down on the edge of the bed almost in tears and started to tell her story, "I was taken to the palace in my seventeenth year; I remember it so well. No one had told me of what horrors would befall me on those days, but as the competition unfolded I realised that all the girls that entered the Emir's palace that day would be changed for ever."

"What competition?" Elinor interrupted.

"If the Princess pleases, it was a competition to be the Special Concubine to the Emir. We all had to walk round a room full of men, naked, and do some exercises..."

Again Elinor interrupted Jaida, "Exercises?"

"Stand, then arms above the head, then bend down, then lie down, things like that. Then we were whipped. Then the next day we had to pleasure the Emir with our hands and mouths," Jaida broke off sobbing.

"Gently, gently. Nobody is going to hurt you," said Elinor, thinking that she could understand someone wanting to thrash this woman; somehow her frail-looking body seemed to invite violence.

Jaida caught her breath and continued, "I failed to go on past this stage of the competition, so I was to be deflowered in public for the amusement of the court. It fell to me to be deflowered by the Countess with a huge garrarkabir."

"A what?" asked Elinor, fascinated.

"I do not know the English word; I can fetch it for you, Princess, if you wish?"

"Please," asked Elinor avidly, and the woman left the bedroom for a few moments.

When she returned she was carrying a leather case some twenty inches long and six inches square.

Jaida handed the box to Elinor who was surprised to see it was a made from some sort of leather, but not like any she had seen before. Embossed into the top of the box was an inscription:

Presented By The Emir Of Kobekistan

To Dowager Princess Zubeydeh, Countess Of Bargoed

On The Occasion Of Her Entering Into The World Of The Masters.

"What is this?" Elinor asked.

"It is the garrarkabir, Princess," Jaida said, bowing her head and backing away from both Elinor and the box.

Opening the box, Elinor saw a huge double-ended dildo with a very realistic representation of a man's scrotum half way along it. Clearly it was intended to pleasure two women at once, but two women with larger than average orifices.

Closing the box, she turned to Jaida and asked, "Why can you not go downstairs?"

"Because my Mistress, the Princess Zubeydeh, Countess of Bargoed, may she live for ever, has ordered it so."

"And you have never been down? You can tell me; I won't blab," pleaded Elinor.

"What is 'blab'?" Jaida asked, puzzled by the word.

"I won't tell anyone what you say."

"Princess, I have never been downstairs since I arrived here from Kobekistan ten years ago," said Jaida and Elinor was surprised to hear pride in her voice.

"What do I have to do to gain respect in Kobekistan?" asked Elinor.

"You will have respect in the harem as a Princess and as the Emir's daughter."

"That will not be respect for me. That will be fear, the fear of my father who commands that I should have it. That is not what I want," raising her voice, she continued, "I want to be respected for myself."

"Only men are respected for themselves in that horrible place," Jaida said her voice unmistakably shaking.

"That's no good to me! I am not a man! What other way is there?"

Impatient to get the information she wanted, she was almost shouting now.

Jaida replied, "You have to be like a man, and do as your grandmother did, but how or why she was allowed to succeed, that I cannot tell."

Elinor realised what the servant was saying, she knew that if she was to gain respect in this new world she was to become a part of, she would have to take extreme measures, and these would include behaving exactly as her grandmother had done before her.

"Run a bath for me?" Elinor asked Jaida.

"As the Princess pleases," came the utterly subservient reply that shocked the young Elinor.

Her mind was confused by the thoughts of the slave's defloration that were flashing through her head, 'How could one woman do this to another?' However, the other thought that stuck in her mind was, 'How could I get to do this to another woman?'

A few moments later Jaida returned.

"Your bath is drawn, Mistress," she said, bowing her head ever so slightly.

"Thank you," Elinor said slipping her gown off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor, showing her young and slender body to the older woman.

She turned and walked over to the bath and stepped into the steaming water. As Elinor sank below the water she could hear the servant wandering around tidying the things that she had left scattered across the bed.

"Can I come in Mistress?" Jaida asked.

"Yes," Elinor said, lying back and showing off her body to the woman.

"Sorry Mistress I have to use the toilet. If it pleases the Mistress may I use this one?"

For a second Elinor wanted to say no, just to see what would happen, but this woman had given her a first hand account of what life was like in the place that was to become her home.

"Yes by all means," Elinor said with a hint of compassion echoing in her voice.

Jaida lifted the lid on the toilet and dropped her knickers. She smiled at Elinor, her eyes drifting to Elinor's crotch. Elinor was at the perfect angle to see her completely shaved pussy as the slave was relieving herself. Elinor felt a twinge deep inside her vagina, she moved her hand down to her own pussy and slipped a finger inside herself. The servant finished peeing and lifted her hips from the seat.