Chapter 34: Family Trouble

The feud between Princess Elaheh and her half-brother, Crown Prince Mustapha, had been simmering for years, but there had been no overt hostilities. They merely took good care never to be at the same functions unless the Emir, their father, commanded it. So Elaheh did not worry when she heard that the Crown Prince was again to be made Regent while his father was on a three week holiday in England. She vaguely thought of accompanying her father, but he had said nothing to indicated that he wanted her to do so, so she did not suggest it herself. She imagined that life would go on in Kobekistan much as before and that she would have no dealings with her brother.

One of her women had annoyed her and was being beaten for it when the Crown Prince strode into her harem a week after the Emir left.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I am Regent, woman," he said arrogantly, "I have ALL the powers of the Emir."

The emphasis on the word 'all' was not lost on Princess Elaheh.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Obeisance from a woman would be the least I could expect," said the Prince, but with a shrug of the shoulders he continued, "but from you, with your famous male status, I imagine that such politeness will not exist. Who ordered this slave to be beaten?"

"I did," said the Princess, "She belongs to me."

Turning to his guards, the Prince said, "Escort the Princess Elaheh to the Throne Room now, in an abaya."

As she walked to the Throne Room, Elaheh wondered who had tipped the Crown Prince off that a whipping was taking place in the harem of the Emerald Palace. His arrival could not have been a pure coincidence. She did not have long to wait to find out; the Crown Prince Mustapha was sitting on the throne on the Emir's dais and standing behind him was Hameez. Elaheh remembered the times she had enjoyed being impaled on the huge negro's phallus, and thought she had treated him fairly. Why had he betrayed her?

"Princess Elaheh, you stand charged with ordering the whipping of a female slave in a harem, being yourself a woman," intoned the Major Domo, "Who speaks as owner for this woman?"

Before Elaheh could protest that she was owned by nobody the Crown Prince said, "I stand as Regent for the Emir who owns her."

"Is she guilty or not guilty?" asked the Major Domo.

"Guilty, by my own eyes and her own admission," said Crown Prince Mustapha.

"Master," the Major Domo addressed the Crown Prince, "The woman is guilty by her owner's admission."

"All that remains is to sentence you," said the Crown Prince, "Of course you know that the traditional sentence is public whipping to death at one lash an hour, with the condemned woman available to any who wish to use her between lashes."

The audience chamber was silent as the grave, although there were over a hundred people present. Was there to be a public execution? This was surely the highest level of palace politics, and equally surely the Emir would be furious when he returned.

"In view of your official status as a man, that penalty will not be exacted, but unless you can prove yourself a male here before us now, you are a female," said the Prince, "Do you claim to be a male? If so you must show us physical evidence of the fact."

"Of course I don't," snapped Elaheh, now very worried that Mustapha's jealousy of her father's feelings towards her might just lead him to have her executed.

"Then I sentence you to the minimum which I consider consistent with the Emir's proclamation. You will be taken to the main square and there held naked for all to see while ten lashes are applied. I have spoken."

Two hours later, the Princess was led in an abaya, but otherwise naked and barefoot, through the crown of men who had gathered at the news that there was to be a public whipping, into the main square where a square stage had been hastily erected, On it was a vertical frame reminiscent of a door frame, but wider. Shackles had been attached at the top and bottom of each upright. Her abaya was removed and those in the crowd who had not heard the news, gasped to see that it was a young, comely white woman who was to be punished. Her wrists were secured to the two cuffs at the top and her ankles to the two at the bottom, so that Elaheh was held firmly with her legs and arms wide open in an X.

A long speech was made by the Chief Eunuch of the Golden Palace in Arabic and Elaheh was too frightened to understand a word of it. Then he stepped to one side and Hameez stepped forward. Standing close to her, he showed her the whip to be used. It was larger than the usual eunuch's dog whip and looked enormous and vicious to her eyes.

"I shall enjoy this, Mistress," Hameez spat out, "I have been humiliated and used by you for long enough. Ten strokes the Master said, but I may lose count."

"I will get you for this, you and my dog of a half-brother, if it is the last thing I do."

"Bold words, especially from a disgraced woman, but will you be alive in an hour's time?" replied Hameez.

Hissss ... CRAACKK!

The first stroke was across her shoulders and the pain was beyond anything Elaheh had ever imagined in her worst nightmares. She lost control of her body and urine ran down her legs unnoticed in her agony. She could not breathe for some seconds and then she let out a long wail of despair, much to the delight of the spectators.

Hameez walked up and down behind her bowing to the crowd and flexing his muscles. He ran a hand down from her shoulder across the bloody mark where the skin had broken and remembered the ways she had humiliated him. Life was indeed good. He decided that the next stroke would be low on her arse, just above the thighs between which he had served so often. Not immediately, though; there was no hurry, he would let her recover a little before the next blow.

Elaheh was recovering quite quickly, considering that she had never before been whipped seriously. She was well into that state of mind which fears the next blow and yet wants it to happen as soon as possible when Hameez took up his stance.

Hissss ... CRAACKK!

Again she screamed as the well-aimed blow caught the undercurve of her arse cheeks and slid off to sting her upper thighs. The rapid and involuntary clenching and unclenching of the muscles in her buttocks meant she lost control of her anal sphincter and shit splattered from her writhing body.

Hameez strolled round in front of her and said, "Was that exciting, Mistress? I know you find a little discipline very arousing; I suppose a greater amount of discipline is even more arousing?"

With that he thrust the handle of the whip deep into her cunt. She yelped a little at the pain that caused, for she was as dry as a bone there.

"Not sufficiently excited yet," commented her tormentor as he examined the whip handle, "Well we can soon fix that," and he stood off to one side.

Seeing where he stood, Elaheh thought, a little incoherently, 'Either he's going to lash me back-handed or he's going to change hands.'

Hissss ... CRAACKK!

The next blow came straight and true, with the same hand, and not back-handed, but forwards across her breasts, catching and splitting one nipple, and marking both white breasts with a wide black bruise half hidden by the blood carried there from her ruptured skin by the whip.

Hameez remembered the times he had been ordered to suckle on those hated white breasts for hours on end while the high and mighty Princess was licked by one of her concubines and simultaneously amused herself by playing with his penis. Revenge was, indeed sweet, and he did not care what the Emir did to him later. He had seven more strokes to use and he wondered where, exactly, he should put them.

'At least one across the front of her thighs, and another two across her belly, ' he thought, 'There is room for several more between the shoulders and the arse. Say two, that makes eight in all. What about the other two? The back of the thighs? Yes. The face? No, too dangerous, it might kill her and the Prince would be angry. Well, the last one can go where I want it to when we get there."