Read Online A Cruel Passing of Innocence by J.D. Jensen - Free Book Online Page B

would meet again soon.
    At the top of the steps were two heavy doors, with bolts on the outside. Beyond was a high-ceilinged chamber that was large and airy, with several arched, latticed windows set into the far wall, looking out over the courtyard. Nassara realised this was the girls’ quarters, and her spirits were momentarily uplifted at the sight of such comfort and richness.
    Heaped on the stone floors was a profusion of cushions and rugs. Placed on a few low tables along the walls were several silver platters of fruit and some kind of seed cake, with pitchers of water. It was a mouth-watering display, alone enough to bring smiles of surprise and delight to some of the girls. Subdued chattering broke out amongst them as their eyes feasted on the offerings. This, Nassara thought, was an alien but deceptive place, so full of wickedness but with some traces of humanity, albeit traces that served no other purpose than to deceive and delude the innocence of the unsuspecting. Despite the light atmosphere of the chamber she shivered; what spirits of past slave girls, she wondered, danced in the shadows when night fell?
    Looking around she spied, at the other end of the chamber, set high in the wall near the ceiling, was a closely latticed grille that concealed a dark, mysterious space, and knew it was a place from where the guards or masters could observe the chamber’s occupants below.
Chapter 4
    Ahmood was the name of the leader of the whip-boys, the girls quickly learned. He stood before them with an arrogant sneer, his head held high as if he was a master. His charges stood meek and naked in the courtyard, heads bowed appropriately, the group of male slaves at the front of the assembly and the girls, as before, behind.
    After rising from their sleep, gently woken by the girl attendants, the female slaves ate well, marvelling at the succulent fruits and sweet cakes most of them had never seen before. Afterwards Ahmood and some of the other whip-boys rudely entered the chamber, ushering the girls impatiently out into the courtyard, where the sun had not yet risen above the high roof of the building.
    â€˜Abbaijsh!’ he commanded sharply, his eyes daring any of his charges to be slow in their obedience. Instantly the slaves dropped to the flagstones and knelt subserviently low as before. Once again the whip-boys slowly walked around, and whenever one was dissatisfied with the posture of a slave he would approach the culprit from behind. Then crouching, he would slide the black switch between the slave’s legs and flick it up, instantly making her position herself correctly.
    Whenever a male slave’s posture needed correction, the whip-boy, crouching silently behind, would slide his whip in the slave’s anal crease, then by jiggling it from side to side its tip would tease the hanging genital sack, causing an instant upward thrust of buttocks.
    Nassara’s stressed muscles ached with tension, and she wondered if this ritual of humility would be a daily exercise in the process of adapting to the masters’ domination. And what of these masters? Where were they?
    But her thoughts wandered back to her village, feeling always the stab of pain that came to her heart. Above all her mind was drawn to that day, which now seemed so long ago yet which was so easily recalled. Her stepfather had come to her, saying quietly and without emotion that the time had come for her to learn the ways of men’s needs, and how a woman must provide willingly and with eager heart and skill. She would be better to learn sooner rather than later of these things, he assured her.
    With a little inward shudder she recalled the searing pain and shock of his gnarled flesh stabbing into her as he grunted like a boar in the field. That face she once so loved and respected twisted into lustful, grimacing expressions of uncaring selfishness, until she no longer recognised them as belonging to him.
    Not wanting to feel revulsion