EXTRACT FOR
The Prophet`s Necklace
(Don Blane)
It was, as ever, a swelteringly hot and sultry morning. Yasmina, the stunning Sultana marched reluctantly behind the two soldiers who strode resolutely through the labyrinthine corridors of her palace.
The Sultana was ruler of the town in this province of the peninsula. Upon the death of her father, the Sultan, the Talasian overlords had not opposed her taking over her father's reign. Many of the town dignitaries were outraged at the appointment, humiliated by being subservient to a woman who, as princess, had been a profligate and an almost undisguised man-hunter too. Nevertheless, the Talasian Emperor, who ruled the whole of the peninsula by conquest, did not object to her ruling and so it was all but impossible for anyone to mount a challenge as a result. Consequently, the Sultana was not popular with such notables as the mullah, the cadi, or the head judge.
Yasmina followed the soldiers to meet her accusers. Her status as town dignitary would not give her immunity to physical punishment if sufficient numbers of male, influential members of society, demanded it. Yasmina looked at the long, four-foot rattans that the soldiers carried and the sight of those canes made her heart quiver. She knew well, from her days as a princess, what a stern whipping across her buttocks with such instruments was like and she was not chasing a repeat demonstration.
Eventually they reached the reception hall of the palace, where her revered guests had assembled to await her. There was principally the cadi and the head judge, accompanied by the procurator and the mullah. They all stood stony faced, awaiting her attendance.
"Greetings noble sirs," Yasmina bowed in respect. The warm introduction did nothing to melt the stern, hard features of the austere, grim faced, bearded men that awaited her.
"We have not come here Sultana, to exchange greetings as equals," began the cadi. "I have received unequivocally, news that again you have been slandering me and talking unjustly about myself and the work I do in this town," he continued. Yasmina did not give him any sign of emotion, but returned his hard stare with a calm, almost serene gaze. "I said before, that were the offence repeated, I would demand justice. It appears my leniency towards your slandering of me last time Yasmina, was taken by you as a sign of weakness. It is a mistake and one that I now intend to remedy!" Said the cadi sternly.
Any hopes that Yasmina may have harboured regarding an opportunity to talk to the cadi, evaporated there and then. He had obviously made his decision and only her pain and suffering would placate the furious judge now. He looked at the stunningly beautiful Sultana with hatred burning in his eyes. Her beauty was undeniable; long tresses of brown hair fell to her shoulders. Hazel eyes shone brightly and her perfectly round face shone with health and a honey hue. She carried a well-weighted body easily with her height and full erect breasts displayed large, pert nipples, visible through the thinness of her skimpy bra, beneath her light jacket. Perhaps the beautiful Sultana became aroused surrounded by so much malevolent anger, even though, or perhaps because, it had been aroused by her. Just twenty-two years old, her full voluptuous figure was outlined superbly by the thinness of her blue, baggy harem suit. The jacket of which came to her waist and the cropped legged loose pants, ended fully six inches above her ankle.
The cadi eyed her malevolently and understood why the mullah disapproved so strongly of her. Her love of men and willingness to indulge that emotion had made her unpopular in the past, though she had, more by her status than careful dealings, managed to avoid a religiously ordained scourging at his firm hand. The cadi however, had beaten her in the past, when she was a princess. He had been instrumental in her suffering the bastinado upon the pretty, upturned soles of her soft feet, for improper behaviour at one of her father's functions. He had voiced his outrage at her father and the Sultan agreed to her beating thereafter. A punishment the cadi insisted on witnessing, if only to ensure that her status did not stay the whipper's hand, or she slyly omitted to remove her slippers to spare herself the rod. A trick the cadi was sure she was not above.
Nevertheless, on this occasion, nothing was going to spare her the full fury of a proper, judicial thrashing and the cadi couldn't wait to put her to it. His anticipation was almost tangible. His mouth fair watered at the thought of seeing the beauteous Yasmina stripped and bound to the flogging bench.
"As you will see Sultana, I have taken the liberty of appointing two of my own soldiers, for I intend to beat you for your temerity and obstinate disregard for propriety!" announced the cadi. Yasmina returned his gaze, for the first time, he had the satisfaction of seeing lines of concern on her beautiful face.
"Am I to be whipped like a common cur, without an opportunity to reply to my accusers?" asked the Sultana.
"You attempt to deny then the slanderous comments you have made of me and my favoured wives, you foul mouthed bitch?" spat the cadi. "Were you not the Sultana, I would slap you to the floor, you venomous snake! Do not think now though that I am to be denied my revenge," he fumed. Yasmina was unable to deny any of the cadi's accusations, though the prospect of a beating at the hands of his men seemed as unpalatable as it had minutes earlier, following them down the corridors, with the hateful wands waving malevolently in the air. Yasmina had to accept that she had no option but to offer herself up to what fate had in store. There was very little else she could do. Despite her fear, having four powerful men watching her and her alone, strip for a beating ordered on her by them, made her feel strangely aroused. Fear was the principle emotion, but underlying it was an odd feeling of something the Sultana could only recognise as sexual stimulation. As she moved, she was aware of a distinct moistening between her legs. It was an emotion she was at a loss to imagine why she was experiencing.
"Very well cadi. I cannot deny that I said unpleasant things about you. I did!" the Sultana commented in a matter of fact way. "Nevertheless, I am still your Sultana and as such, I would have thought above a thrashing!"
"Oh did you Sultana?" beamed the cadi victoriously. "Well, in that case Yasmina, you were mistaken. I, as a dignitary of this town can take any wrongdoer, whoever she may be, regardless of rank or favour and impose whatever punishment I and the law see fit, to correct any wrong thereby done and to you Sultana, I feel the only way to silence your obdurate slander is to take it out of that pretty, though I am sure, tender hide of yours," the cadi looked resigned and ready to impose his sentence on the lovely Sultana and she was quite unable to stop him from doing so.
"I can understand master, that you feel slighted by my comments and I can also see that I have lent my private thoughts to a loose tongued fool who has seen fit to repeat them to all in sundry. No matter, I shall deal with that, but you must see sire, that my comments are nothing and matter to no-one," insisted Yasmina.
"I see Yasmina, that those thoughts you have seen fit to announce, are the comments of a Sultana and are seen by those about you as just that and therefore, should not be uttered lightly or without due care and thought. I am to administer a flogging onto you Sultana, that in future, you are mindful of that," announced the cadi.
"I will make whatever reparations you feel fit, pay any fine, open the Royal harem to you, for the master to take his pick, anything, if you will desist from this course cadi," pleaded Yasmina.
"The only reparation I will accept Sultana, is the sound of those rattans kissing your sweet, round backside and your screams of pain that will surely follow. You will accept Sultana, or I will have no choice but to have you taken and dragged to the whipping block. The choice fair Yasmina, is yours," the cadi was enjoying his victory over the delicious Sultana. He painted a most unpleasant picture for her, but, it seemed, he would have his way.
"I trust that in deference to my status cadi, you will allow me to be whipped in private?" Asked Yasmina. The cadi smiled.
"I am a man of repute and respectability Yasmina: something I fear you are about to learn a little of. I would not dream of letting common palace slaves witness their mistress' beating. I have ordered for the whipping block to be placed in your court and all girls, excepting your fan slaves, ushered from the room. We will be undisturbed and the only witnesses will be the floggers and the learned men I have requested attend as official witnesses here" and the men, as yet unannounced, bowed in respect as the cadi waved his hand towards them, "and myself," he concluded. Yasmina nodded in respect and led the way herself, back to her quarters. The unaccountable arousal Yasmina was experiencing, had not abated. In fact it had increased to a level Yasmina could only have described as sheer lust.
As she drifted gracefully along the corridor, her loose silks flapping noiselessly about her legs, Yasmina could feel the wetness of her undeniable desire between her legs. The thought of the four authoritative men staring at her back as she walked, almost made her feel naked and incredibly desirable. As she went, her curvaceous bottom swaying seductively, her light, golden coloured mules tapped gently on the stone floor. As Yasmina imagined, the cadi eyed her broad, well-padded bottom. The floggers, their canes in hand, eyed her round, voluptuous curves, that would soon be bound, stripped and open for their gaze and the brutal slap of their wands'.
They entered her Royal Court and as the cadi had promised, the usual attendant girls and Royal guard had left. All that remained were her two, familiar, buxom black slave-girls. They stood, impassively, their brooding, extravagantly pretty faces, full with the familiar pout of girls whose tongues had been wrenched, a very common prerequisite for fan-girls of the Royal Court. Stripped to the waist, they both wore matching, powder blue, voluminous harem pants, their generous flesh, rounded at their stomachs, both girls were blessed with large, well weighted breasts that accentuated their every move with a sway and bounce of their very own. Barefoot they stood, large fans in hand, awaiting their mistress' return, their black corkscrew hair falling in a cascade of curls and tails, down to their honey brown, broad shoulders, that would have graced any galley slave-girl. They did not seem to even notice that anyone had entered the hall, much less the venerated personages of their mistress, the Sultana and the cadi. However, Yasmina's attention was not on her black fan slaves, but on the heavy wooden block that stood, positioned pride of place, in the very centre of her court. It was the familiar block, made solely for fixing errant girls to, in order to hold them firm and still for a flogging.
"The Sultana will remove her top!" ordered the cadi and, since she could not resist, she meekly opened her jacket and let it slip silently to the floor. She stood mute before the gazes of the cruel men, wearing just her dark blue skimpy bra that scarcely contained her large round breasts, heavy with their size, but still full and firm with her youth. They stood looking at each other and Yasmina, uncomfortable with her impending fate, was also desperate for her attackers not to detect her obvious arousal. Her bra would be the next garment the cadi would be sure to demand she remove. Surely none of the staring men would fail to see her large nipples, fiercely erect with the burning desire that unaccountably raged hot in her belly. The cadi ordered as expected, "continue Sultana, your bra too," and Yasmina reluctantly slipped her hands to the thin straps of her bra and released it, letting her great orbs go free. They swung and waved deliciously upon release. The men feasted their eyes on her superb, newly stripped curves, the large nipples standing proud and darkly contrasted against her honey-hued skin. Little wonder that so many men had dreamt of lying with the lusting, curvaceous beauty. She was all the cadi had heard of and more. The last time he had seen her stripped thus, he had ordered her down for the bastinado, but the young beauty had grown considerably since then. Lovely before, she was stunning now and though the assembled group were not unused to seeing pretty girls stripped for a flogging, none of them could help but feast his eyes on the superb buxom beauty. Her brown, tanned skin shone with health and her every move was duplicated doubly by her ripe bouncing breasts. Thus prepared, the cadi ordered her to the block. "Take your position Sultana, I'm sure you know what to do," said the cadi and indeed Yasmina was aware.
The block was really a low, heavy wooden bench, made of thick wooden planks, such that when a girl was laid upon it, she was suitably raised to somewhat waist height, or just below and hence conveniently poised for another to thrash her. Yasmina was at least glad to be spared the hideous A-frame and went to the bench and meekly knelt over it, pressing her fabulous chest and rounded stomach to its unyielding surface, glad at least to be able to hide her arousal from the eagerly watching group. Once in position, the two floggers who had put down their canes, proceeded to pull Yasmina's arms fully in front of her and bound them tightly to a thick block at the head of the bench, positioned there for that purpose, so that Yasmina was kneeling on the floor, but lying prone upon the bench. There was a pause, as the one soldier looked at the cadi for his cue. The cadi nodded his assent, "proceed!" he said and with that, Yasmina was aware of the man fingering around the waistband of her trousers and proceeded to lower them. Yasmina had not expected to be whipped upon her clothed backside, but it was still singularly unpleasant for the superior, haughty woman to be stripped before such notable men like an ill behaved harem slave. Yasmina closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip with the mortifying thought that the assembled might see further evidence of her arousal amidst the wetness of her pubic hair. As the soldier lowered her trousers, he detected the unmistakable aroma of Yasmina's desire, faint but distinct and musky.
Her trousers were lowered to her knees and then a leather strap was brought over her waist and cinched down firmly, to keep her in place throughout her beating. Yasmina, prone and stripped no longer looked the haughty Sultana. Humbled by her superiors, they were about to display graphically to her, what it felt like when she forgot her position and stepped over the line.
"Yasmina, I am going to ensure you do not again forget your position and the constraints that imposes on you by way of the things you say and to whom you utter them. A sound thrashing now, may well save you from a more severe lashing in the future, when some other delegate may take exception to something you may foolishly say," started the cadi.
Yasmina looked both sick and afraid. She had been beaten countless times in the past. Her upbringing had been a stereotypical one for well bred girls such as she and her father, the Sultan, had insisted his chosen daughters, of which there were four, should have the highest regard for their pampered lifestyle, by serving two years in one of the hundreds of severe and austere religious schools, followed by two years serving in the women's desert army. It was a common enough fate for wealthy men's daughters and for Yasmina, as for many of her contemporaries, it had been four years of hell. Her wealth and status outside the institutions, stood for nothing inside and life within those austere and harsh environs paid no regard for the individual's pampered life beyond. Floggings and beatings abounded and the privileged life of a sultan's daughter, if anything, worsened her predicament. For every and any opportunity to show Yasmina just how privileged she was would be displayed most readily. Nevertheless, this did not lessen Yasmina's dread of her present position, nor did she approach it in anything like a blasé attitude, if only because she knew what to expect.
Fixed and fastened, the guards quickly removed their long coats, stripping themselves to the waist. Placing their coats on the floor in front of Yasmina, she glanced up at them, to see that they had readied themselves and she could not fail to notice the broad strong brawny arms of the guards, covered with long, dark hair. How soon all that latent strength would be put to such good service upon her bare and proffered backside. They then took up again their formidable four foot rattans and stationed themselves behind the offered backside of the delicious Yasmina. Both men gently laid their cane tips against her sweet, deliciously offered nates, in order to gauge their position and stance when delivering their blows. The gentle touch of the rods against delicate, soft skin made Yasmina shudder within; it was a dreadful prelude to the impending ordeal.
"In view of my pronouncement Sultana, I have elected to spare you somewhat from what I would properly consider the beating you should have expected for your shameful behaviour," began the cadi. Yasmina was ready for any dispensation the cadi was prepared to offer, it was to be scant mercy. "Therefore gentlemen," he addressed his guards, "two dozen strokes and as always, do not consider the wretched girl's discomfort when applying them. I expect you both to lean into your work!" easy for him to announce, but so hideously unpleasant for Yasmina to receive.
Unseen by Yasmina, but nevertheless sensed, the guards took their station and the first, to Yasmina's left, taking swift strides towards his naked target, rattan raised menacingly, he timed his movements to perfection with well practised skill and at the correctly allotted moment, lashed his cane furiously down. It howled in the air and then impacted upon Yasmina's naked backside, with an incredibly sharp crack. The cane landed fully across both cheeks of her sweet, well developed bottom, just below centre. Her nates shuddered and quaked, underlining their pampered weight. Yasmina's head flew back and her body jerked violently against the bench top, but the waist strap restrained her movements perfectly. Her arms, in reflex, also pulled against their fastening, as if she attempted to throw her hands to the afflicted area. That first crack, leaving a crimson witness line fully the width of Yasmina's ample buttocks, had not elicited any verbal complaints from its recipient, but there were twenty three more like it yet to come.
The second guard repeated the firsts actions, lashing her wide bottom with a fearsome whack. Again Yasmina's head was thrown back and this time, with her eyes closed tight with the grinding pain, she shouted in response.
"Ouch, yeow!" She uttered, all the time fighting to subdue the volume.
The ejecting of the usual court members was little more than a cosmetic effect, intended to offset somewhat a little of Yasmina's shame, for clearly the sounds of her thrashing would be audible to most women who wanted to witness Yasmina's punishment and there were many palace inhabitants who did. The cadi flashed a nervous glance towards the mullah who remained as impassive as ever, but amidst the pained yells of the suffering beauty, the procurator hid a smirk of satisfaction, as he glanced towards the cadi, trying to gauge his reaction. The procurator was a keen observer of such events, to watch a beauty like Yasmina suffer a firm, stiff beating was more than a day's good entertainment for him.
Hiss, whack. "Yaagh!" hiss, crack. "Aaar!" hiss, whop. "Gaar!" the beating continued unabated and as early as the fifth stroke, Yasmina was weeping openly and howling to each new stroke with abandon. Well used to their victims yelling and even openly cursing them, the floggers continued their task with undiminished savagery. Hurling their vicious rattans across the broad expanse that was Yasmina's sweet, bare bottom. For the most part, both men lashed across both of Yasmina's buttock cheeks, but occasionally, one or other of the soldiers would elect to slice just one side of her backside, concentrating all the force of that stroke in a very small portion of her wickedly pained buttocks. Predictably, it was those strokes that bruised and discoloured more deeply and quickly.
The oppressive heat of late morning penetrated the sun drenched court of the Sultana and the mullah curtly motioned for the fabulous, statuesque fan slave-girls to be about their duties. Not to attempt to cool their suffering, sweating mistress, but to move some air about himself and the other dignitaries that watched the proceedings.
Thwack, smack, crack. The rattans beat an unholy litany on her bare, broad backside. Again and again, Yasmina's naked, curvaceous and sweating body, bucked and jumped, twisted and writhed, before finally, she managed to control her writhing and knelt still again, to take the next stroke of maddening, grinding, infernal torment. Swinging from the hip as they rained their canes upon the trussed Sultana, the guards thrashed the naked, sweating beauty with gusto, ending each smack with a well practised, expert flick of the wrist that set Yasmina's buttock cheeks jumping and shuddering. The hall rang with the slap of the rods and with Yasmina's cries of pain that followed.
The cadi maintained the count, as, parchment in hand, he drew a line, to match the one the guard had just scribed onto the gorgeous Sultana's backside, ensuring in doing so that he did not allow the flogging to endure further than he had prescribed. Yasmina jerked and bucked under each heavy stroke and as the flogging progressed and discomfort increased, she resorted to twisting and squirming her ample and by then, sorely discoloured bottom, crossed and recrossed with heavy, livid welts. She was frantically working against her bindings, trying to twist her desperately sore bottom away from the furious cane strokes, turning her desperate writhing into wild contortions, until the maddened and frantic beauty remembered herself and gaining some composure, straightened herself again, to await the next inevitable and most unwelcome stroke. Yasmina, throwing her head off the bench each time she was thrashed, displayed a face that was at once lined with pain and despair and very soon, dripping that with sweat, so that strands of her brown hair stuck to her cheeks and sweaty neck. All along the length of her broad, honey-brown back, beads of sweat glistened slickly. Her shoulders, similarly studded with sweat, also trickled as she suffered and struggled to meet the increasing demands of her punishment. Her arms stretched before her, glistened as did her legs, as she continued to twist and writhe in a most incongruous fashion.
The count increased, as did Yasmina's pain and with that increase, so her composure diminished, so that by the fifteenth stroke, she was a bawling, writhing, sweating heap. By the twentieth stroke Yasmina was all but broken as each furious stroke was accompanied by the cadi's chant of the count. The guards whipped Yasmina with great deliberation and effort, consequently the count rose very slowly, so that as the guard to Yasmina's right delivered the twenty fourth and mercifully final stripe, it was imprinted on her sore, bruised and frightfully discoloured backside, fully eight minutes after the first.
Hiss, crack. "Yaaagh!" yelled the stricken Sultana, as again she bucked and twisted as much as her restraints would allow.
"Twenty four!" announced the cadi. "Enough gentlemen" and both the floggers lowered their fearsome canes and took a few paces back from the awesome scene, mopping their own, sweating brows and staring openly at their expert scribing written so clearly on the beauties bottom and thighs. The cadi eyed the gasping, sweating Yasmina coldly. Court slave-girls were quickly ushered in to attend. Girls, after a cadi's caning, were not expected to be capable of standing or walking unaided! The cadi addressed the girls. "You may release your mistress!" and they scurried to obey, but he next spoke to the stricken Sultana. "I hope this has been a lesson to you Yasmina and you would be wise to remember, that this has been no more than a warning. Further ill advised ramblings by you, will leave me with no alternative but to have you stood before the lash and I will add insults I have borne, to any others, considering that this beating was not due penalty for the dishonour already served me. I should be compelled to serve you with sixty stripes of the cat at least. I assure you Sultana, you do not wish to experience that sort of punishment. Alongside that, this will be a loving mothers tap, I promise you." Yasmina knew from bitter experience in her army days, what the cat felt like. Already the panting Yasmina had been untied, the waist strap loosened and the girls were helping her up from the bench, so that her trousers could be raised, preserving what modesty may be left for their mistress. The procurator stared brazenly at the lovely Yasmina's hairy bush, as she was helped erect. Her pants were quickly raised and Yasmina, stooped and sweating, accepted the cadi's leave.
"I should thank you cadi, for this lesson in correct behaviour," Yasmina croaked in a broken, tearful and strained voice. "If I've learnt anything today Master, it is that even a Sultana is not above civil or religious law," she noted, as her slave-girls began towelling sweat from her heavy breasts, stomach, face and arms.
"You are so correct Sultana. I also hope this beating will serve to help you remember that," he said and they watched silently, as the sweating, grimacing cripple was helped from the courtroom to her own private chambers, where her slave-girls could attend carefully to her brutally bruised and welted buttocks.
Lying shattered and sweating profusely on her divan, her slave-girls tended to her woefully bruised and broken backside, Yasmina berating and cursing her tormentors, as they carefully lay cool, damp towels to her wounded nether regions. Both her buttock cheeks and her upper thighs had taken a tremendous beating and Yasmina winced at the lightest touch.
"A pox on that accursed cadi and those degenerates watching!" She spat contemptuously. "I could see those perverts getting stiff, seeing me naked and watching me suffer" and she winced widely, raising herself up a little on her bent arms, causing the girl attending to pause momentarily, before resuming.
"They have given you a most merciless beating Royal mistress!" observed one of the girls.
"It's just what they like," growled the Sultana, continuing as if she hadn't heard the girl. Another peach suited beauty, meanwhile towelled Yasmina's sweating back and legs, whilst a third placed damp, cool and aromatically oiled cloths to her forehead.
It would be a long time before the Sultana walked without a limp and even longer before she sat normally again, but the Sultana would never forget the woeful and humiliating thrashing those men had administered to her and the presence of the judge, mullah and procurator, merely underlined the fact that those men, as well as the cadi, were her enemies and she could expect no mercy or support from them. That was also something she must remember for the future.