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BOOK TWO

IN THE POWER OF THE CAID

PROLOGUE

The story so far

PART I

A CONCUBINE OF THE CAID

1

Prepared for Slavery

2

A terrible journey

3

The Kasbah of the Caid

4

A harem inspection parade

PART II

MORE HAREM HORRORS

5

Forced to please the Caid

6

A mere concubine

7

The Caid’s favourite young son

8

Caught red-handed

PART III

FORCED BREEDING

9

Sentenced – but to what?

10

Pygmies!

11

The breeding cage

PART IV

GALLEY SLAVE

12

Chained to an oar!

13

The Caid takes his galley out for a spin

14

The slave pens

15

Emma’s belly is showing nicely

16

The big race and - delivery!

Epilogue

17

Home!

PROLOGUE

THE STORY SO FAR

Emma has been tricked into accompanying Ursula to stay in her palace in North Africa. This contains a harem quarters and Emma finds herself shut up in it together with the other girls who form Ursula’s harem.

To Ursula’s dismay, an important Moorish Caid invites himself to an entertainment that Ursula has arranged for her like-minded friends. There he is much taken by Emma’s display of erotic dancing.

He tells her that as Lesbianism is against the tenets of the Moslem faith, the fundamentalist meet out severe punishments to any lesbians that they get to hear about. He threatens to denounce Ursula to the local Moslem fundamentalists as an active lesbian unless he lets him “borrow” Emma for his harem.

If however she agrees to let him have Emma, then she and her girls will be safe under his protection. When Ursula remonstrates that Emma is a married woman, he merely remarks that makes her all the more desirable to have in his harem.

Ursula is horrified, but as a foreigner living in North Africa, feels that she has no option but to let Emma go. Nonchalantly, the Caid says that his black eunuchs will collect her in the morning to take to his remote estate.

Now read on!

PART I

IN THE HANDS OF THE CAID

1 - PREPARED FOR SLAVERY

Miss Marbar handed Emma over to a burly, brutal-looking black eunuch, wearing an Arab style robe and a grey felt fez-like cap.

Emma was sobbing with despair. Under her all-enveloping black burkah, with just a little lace grille for her to see through, she was stark naked. For once even her chastity belt had been taken off.

She could not believe that she was really now actually being lent by Ursula to the cruel-looking Caid, for whom she had danced the previous night. She really was being handed over to him for his sexual use. It was all too awful.

She was even more shocked when she saw Miss Marbar also handing over to the black eunuch a little book which she recognised as the one started by Miss Perkins and subsequently kept up to date by Rafaela in London and by the Dragon here in North Africa. It recorded her monthly cycle, her natural functions, her weight and measurements and every occasion on which she had been allowed to reach a climax. She had even had to give Rafaela details of every time she had climaxed with Henry. Now this awful black eunuch was going to keep it up to date. It was really all too shame-making.

The eunuch pushed her roughly into a large car with tinted windows. She looked around to wave goodbye to Ursula, but Ursula had decided that it would be too painful to witness Emma's departure.

Emma was surprised to find another shrouded figure in the back of the car, also being held by a black eunuch. She wondered if this was another girl destined for the Caid's harem. She saw that the woman's hands, all that she could see of her, were black. Perhaps, she thought, the Caid liked women of all colours. She saw that the woman's shroud had been covered with a hood that even covered the lace grille in front of the woman's eyes.

The car drove off. The eunuchs exchanged comments in Arabic. Emma was sure that they were talking about her. She tried to say something but clearly neither spoke any English. She wondered if the Caid did either. He had been speaking to Ursula in French, a language of which she still had only a rudimentary knowledge. Perhaps, she thought, the Master of a harem did not bother to actually speak to his girls.

Emma remembered being told that traditionally Moorish girls, although often very pretty, were often also virtually uneducated and even illiterate - and deliberately kept like that lest, by having other interests in life, they might revolt against merely existing to please and obey their masters.

Women, Emma knew, were not companions to men in the Moslem world. They were there merely for a man's pleasure and to bear his children. Presumably a common language was not considered important.

Her thoughts were interrupted as they drove out through the gates of Ursula's villa by a hood being pulled down over her head. Now, like the black girl, she could see nothing. She tried to pull the hood off but her wrists were seized and handcuffed behind her back. She felt utterly helpless. It was very frightening.

Here she was, a respectable married English woman, being driven through the streets of a modern town to be put, against her will, into the harem of a terrifying looking Arab Caid whom she had only seen once and with whom she had no common language.

She wondered if the European tourists who saw the car passing would have the slightest inkling of the drama taking place under their very eyes. The veneer of Western civilisation was very thin in this still very traditional Moslem country.

At last, after what seemed to be a long journey, the car stopped. Still hooded and handcuffed, she was dragged out and pushed into some sort of building.

She heard a rustling sound. She guessed that the black girl's hood was being removed. A few minutes later she heard a grinding noise as if something was being engraved in metal. Then she heard a repeated hammering noise. She also heard the noise of a girl sobbing. What were they doing to the black girl, she wondered with a shiver? What were they going to do to her? Even in these modern days, she knew, a Caid had almost limitless powers to do what he liked to his women.

Emma heard the high pitched voices of the eunuchs and she could also hear a deeper pitched voice. She could not understand a word of what was being said. There was a sharp cry, apparently from the black girl, followed by more talk and laughter. The eunuchs sounded pleased with whatever had been done to the girl.

The distressed girl was led away and there was a distant clang as if a metal door had been closed. Emma could no longer hear the black girl's sobs and became quite terrified again.

She felt herself being led forward. The black shroud was slipped back over her head, under the hood and raised slightly to bare her neck. She could still see nothing.

There was an iron post by her side. Something cold and metallic was put round her neck and moved around as if to check that it fitted properly. She heard the same grinding noise as if metal was being carefully engraved. Then the collar, or whatever it was, was fastened round her neck again. A piece of metal plate was inserted between her skin and the metal collar round her neck. It held her tightly up against the post.

Then Emma felt a man's hands on the side of her neck. It was in fact a Negro blacksmith inserting a rivet into the matching holes at either ends of a hinged metal collar. She felt a series of hammer blows on the side as the rivet was hammered flat. The steel plate protected her from the full force of the hammering, of course, but even so it was a nerve-racking experience, especially as she could not see what was happening. It was repeated three times as three separate rivets were inserted into the matching ends of the collar and hammered flat.

The burly blacksmith stood back to admire his work. It would not be easy to remove the collar. He was used to wealthy Arabs still having their women permanently collared, even in this day and age - it had, after all, been customary for centuries. So he was not particularly surprised to be riveting a collar round a European woman's neck.

He had suggested a heavy brass collar, saying that its golden colour would match the girl's hair. However the eunuchs said that they had orders to make sure that she was fitted with a simple black iron collar, similar to those of his other concubines. He had made sure that it was sufficiently wide to make the girl keep her chin up well and that the rounded edges would prevent her from rubbing her skin on it.

He reached forward and moved it slowly round her neck. Normally she would wear it with the hinge and the riveted end on opposite sides, so that the two strong rings attached to it hung down the front and back. Alternatively, with the collar slightly turned, the rings could be on either side. This would enable girls to be chained side by side in the Caid's bed. The Caid, the blacksmith knew, was a demanding man when it came to his pleasure.

The blacksmith examined the Caid's crest engraved on one side of the front ring with the Caid's name in Arabic on the other side. These would not only ensure that the girl would be returned quickly to the Caid should she ever try to escape, but also played an important psychological role in making the girl feel that she was nothing but property. Satisfied with the engravings, he examined the rivets. Yes, it would take careful work with a special riming tool to remove them to enable the collar to be taken off.

It was time to fit the matching iron manacles to the girl's wrists. He measured her slender wrists and produced a pair of manacles joined by a two foot length of light steel chain. Each of the manacles was several inches wide and, like the collar, was hinged and would need three rivets to close them permanently.

The Caid insisted on his concubines being kept lightly chained and manacled. It was something that had been traditional in his family for generations and he saw no reason to change it now. The two foot length of chain allowed a girl to use her hands almost normally, but it also had a strong psychological effect on her, making her feel the Caid's helpless possession – and in making her realise the hopelessness of trying to escape. But, of course, the blacksmith laughed to himself, it was also simply for the Caid's own greater erotic excitement.

Emma felt the handcuffs being removed from her wrists. Then first one and then the other was held by the post, a metal strip inserted to prevent her bones from being broken by the hammer and then each manacle was closed tightly round each wrist by three rivets. She heard the clink of the chains as her second wrist was manacled. Horrified she realised that she was now permanently chained.

Again the blacksmith smiled as he checked his handiwork. Looking at the helpless creature, he could certainly understand why the Caid found the sight of a chained young woman so arousing. Doubtless, he thought, the Caid also found the rattle in his bed also highly stimulating.

The blacksmith also checked the enlarged 'purity' link in the middle of the chain. This was designed to allow the Caid's eunuchs to padlock the centre of the chain to the ring on the front of a girl's collar at night or during the harem afternoon siesta. The girl could then just about reach down to touch her nipples, it was true, but no lower. She was forced to keep herself pure for her Master and was prevented from secretly indulging in what the Caid and his black eunuchs would regard as wanton unfaithfulness.

It was also the normal harem way of ensuring that even the most reluctant girl was driven by frustration into becoming positively eager for the embrace of her, perhaps hated, Master. He wondered how long it would be before this proud European woman would be panting for the Caid's touch.

The ring at the back of the collar was often used for padlocking, in a similar way, a girl's wrist chain behind her neck. This was the usual procedure for the first few occasions when a girl was summoned to the Caid's bed, especially if she had not entered the harem voluntarily, if she had been kidnapped or was the wife of a man who had tried to rebel against the Caid. It made sure that the girl was completely helpless and unable to harm him. Doubtless, it would not be long before this white woman found herself with her wrists chained behind her neck as she lay in the Caid's bed, awaiting his arrival.

The blacksmith now turned his attention to fitting Emma with a large brass nose ring. These were fashionable amongst rich harem owners who found that, like manacles, they had a powerful psychological effect on their women, at a time when otherwise they might get carried away by the ideas of Women's Rights that were now being imported from the West.

He fastened little clips onto each of the girl's nostrils and asked the eunuchs to pull them up, whilst keeping the girl's hood down as far as possible so that she would not see what was being done. With one hand he removed a red hot needle from a little brazier and with the other he held her nostril steady.

There was a scream as he drove the needle through the septum of Emma's nose. The pain was over in a few seconds, but then she felt something being threaded through the skin. Whatever it was, it seemed to be supporting something large and quite heavy. She could feel it touching her face and chin. There was more heat near her face, spreading to the thing in her nose. Moments later, she heard the horrible Negroes laughing as they touched her nose.

The hood was removed from her head and the shroud pulled back. Her wrists were still locked by the chain to the ring at the back of her collar. The eunuchs laughingly pointed to a mirror.

Emma gave a gasp of horror. Hanging from her nose was a large brass ring that circled her mouth and came down to the point of her chin. It reminded her of the big rings she had seen in the noses of pigs and bulls. It made her look like an animal – and feel like one as well.

Then she saw the chain and wrist manacles and the wide iron collar riveted round her neck, the big ring on the front of the collar, the Caid's crest and Arabic writing. They made her feel even more like an animal. She thought of the unfortunate girls who had joined her under Ursula's lunch table and whose heads had been shaven on the orders of their cruel Mistresses. They had lost their human look. So too, she felt, with her collar, her chained manacles and above all her nose ring, she had almost lost hers.

The worst part about it, she saw, was that just as the collar and manacles had been permanently closed with rivets, so the ends of the nose ring had been permanently brazed together.

At least, she thought, as she gazed in horror into the mirror, the part of the ring that actually went through her nose was much smaller in diameter than the thick ring that hung down to her chin.

Once again the blacksmith stood back and looked at his handiwork. It was perfect. The Caid would be pleased and give him a large present. The Caid insisted on all his concubines being ringed in this way. It not only excited him, but also played a significant role in keeping his women docile and submissive. Even the mothers of the Caid's sons were made to wear the degrading nose rings. Only the Caid’s wives were excused this humiliation.

Indeed, the Caid particularly enjoyed having his black eunuchs show an aggrieved husband or father the sight of his precious wife or daughter, now wearing his nose ring, collar and manacles as a sign of her new status. He enjoyed it even more if the woman had been covered by one of his black guards, when his black eunuchs proudly drew aside her robe to disclose a well curved belly to the humiliated man.