Dahran

The Time Line by Gerry Taylor

This is the sixth chapter [ex twenty two] of a novel about gay sex and present-day slavery.

Keywords: authority, control, gay, loyalty, slavery, punishment, retraining, sex, submission

If you are underage to read this kind of material or if it is unlawful for you to read such material where you live, please leave this webpage now.

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The Prison Doctor and The Changed Life [the first novel of this series] are now available as full novels in Adobe Acrobat format on http://www.geocities.com/gerrytaylor_78/

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Chapter 6 -- Relativism

I had not intended to take up Ahmed al-Atti's Tuesday invitation to view his speciality slaves, but I found that an extension of the port of Dahra was going to be financed by Deckams and my junior Partners at the branch both insisted that I fly the flag and make a presence at the signing of the contracts. There is no such thing as bad publicity neither in the Middle East generally nor in the sweltering heat of midday under a marquee in the middle of land reclaimed out of the shallows to the south of the port in particular.

Luke-warm champagne and canapes, which were wilting in the April heat, made flying the flag something of a torture and I left as soon as it was decently and diplomatically possible.

As it was after midday, I told Faisal to head for al-Qatim and with the air-conditioning blasting out on `high', we got to al-Qatim just before one, slightly cooled down after the heat of the docklands.

Pulling in to the slave centre, I looked around. We were the only car there bar a Jeep that looked like a Mitsubishi Pajero.

`Faisal, today is Tuesday? Isn't it?' I said to my driver.

Yes, Sir Jonathan, all day,' Faisal said into the mirror looking back at me. Is there something wrong?'

`I don't know. I thought there was a special viewing today, but there are no cars here. I may have understood the wrong Tuesday. But I could have sworn that Ahmed al-Atti had said it was today. We'll soon find out,' I said as Faisal let me out of the car.

As I entered under the portico of the slave centre a Dahran lady came out with a female slave walking the correct number of paces behind her. I let her pass without looking directly at her and went in.

An assistant I had never seen before, spotting me coming in, came up to me and said, `Sir Jonathan, welcome. The owner, Ahmed al-Atti, is expecting you. Let me take you to him.'

`Sorry, but do I know you?'

`No, Sir Jonathan, I am new here. But I am trained to remember the faces of all our principal clients,' he said importantly.

The assistant did not offer his name, and I was too surprised to ask it.

As we approached one of the hospitality suites, Ahmed al-Atti came out, arms outstretched in welcome.

`I am delighted, Sir Jonathan, to see you. You are most welcome. Please come in and make yourself comfortable.'

I settled in a deep sofa with a hard back and I was barely seated when a slave was out with a silver tray on which there was a glass of champagne, fully and properly chilled by the look of the condensing moisture on the crystal, together with a glass of water and some fruit juices.

I took the champagne and it was perfectly a chilled Veuve Cliquot, and that in itself, revived me.

`Ahmed, I thought that you said you had a special viewing today of some speciality slaves. But there is no one outside.'

Ahmed smiled, `but you, Sir Jonathan, are here. The special viewing is for you.'

`But I did not confirm that I would come. I have had a very busy morning. It is just good fortune that I am here at all.'

Ahmed smiled and sipped his fruit juice and waved a slave over to me with a re-fill of the sparkling Widow which I accepted -- now a lot more relaxed and at my ease.

`Ahmed, I have no need for speciality slaves, I think I told you. I do not wish to offend you on that topic - but really I do not. As I said I am still embarrassed when I think of the Slovak purchases. They are the exception which proves the rule that I don't buy speciality items.'

`No, no, Sir Jonathan, I am not offended in the least and it is I who should be apologising to you. The slaves I am offering today are not speciality in the sense of being trade skilled in a particular way, though eight of them are. They are not sex slaves or mechanics or the like, but slaves which will please you, I hope. We still have to find a word for this selection programme.'

`Ahmed, now you do have me confused. What selection? What programme?'

`The assistant who brought you -- you saw him?'

`Yes, indeed. He surprised me by knowing my name. I never saw him before.'

`He is a computer graduate. Two degrees, in fact. He can make my computers do things I never thought they could do.'

`Yes, Ahmed, and I do not wish to be impolite, but where is this leading?'

`Sir Jonathan, you are this day the owner of one thousand, one hundred and fifty five slaves.'

I was going to say something, but limited myself to commenting, `If you say so.' Ahmed had obviously accessed the central Dahran slave register.

`Yes, Sir Jonathan, you are one of the top twenty slave owners in Dahra.'

I almost missed a sip of the champagne and the bubbles went the wrong way. As I coughed, I got back my composure. I did not like being in categories. No way!

Ahmed must have sensed my unease because he immediately continued, this is merely a matter of record at Dahra's Central Slave Registry' - confirming initial thought. The statistics are known to very few outside the immediate owners. But the number of slaves you own has provided the perfect base for testing our new programme and has made the little surprise I have for you rather simple.'

`Surprise?'

`It is my information that you do not visit the opal mine in the Seventh Desert too often. From that I have assumed, and I may be wrong, that you do not have a particular interest in the specific kind of slave you have there.'

I was trying to follow what Ahmed was laying out for me. How did he know that I did not visit the opal mine except once a month or so? Are there no safe business schedules or secrets in Dahra? How did he know my schedules?

Therefore,' he continued, we have omitted the opal mine slaves from our programme and used the remaining sample of slaves you have at your three Palaces.'

`Yes?' I ventured cautiously, as I did not know where this was leading.

`I ran an analysis programme to find you the slaves that you like most,' he said with a wave of his hands in that very Arab fashion.

I could not help but burst out laughing.

`Ahmed, no offence, but I have over eight hundred slaves at the Palaces and in my Stables and many of them are as different as chalk from cheese, or as you say in Dahra, as different as a date from a camel-turd.'

`Will you allow me to show you the results of the programme, Sir Jonathan, and then you can make your decision if we have got it right or not? In fact, there are two parts to the special viewing today.'

`Ahmed, now you have piqued my curiosity on a number of fronts. Even if you knew the slave or slaves I like most, I do hope you have not gone and had them lifted just on the off-chance that I might turn up today.'

`Not at all, Sir Jonathan. All the slaves you are about to see have been in Dahra for different lengths of time. None has been lifted for this exercise. Our new programme, which we have run on our own records on all currently living slaves who have been processed through al-Qatim or al-Mera, has told us you never have bought children or females That was the first thing. So those have been excluded. Secondly, you have never bought certain categories, so those too have been included.'

`That still must have left you with a long list of slaves.'

`More than you can imagine, Sir Jonathan.'

`So what then?'

`In less than ten minutes, the programme made a calculation of the average height and weight of your slaves, noting their nationalities, their various physical characteristics, and compared them to the male slave database of Dahra.'

`You are joking.'

`Not at all, Sir Jonathan. It was quite an interesting exercise and the first of its type we have done.'

`So what results did it produce for you.'

`Not for me ultimately, Sir Jonathan. For you!'

We also calculated the average price you have paid for your slaves, and we did exclude the two Slovaks,' he smiled as he said this. This produced a list of over a hundred slaves.'

My jaw must have been hanging open.

`Yes, Sir Jonathan. Over a hundred male slaves. The programme then eliminated those slaves whose few owners are known, like yourself, not to sell their slaves. Of these, there were only four in Dahra. We then eliminated those slaves who had been purchased by their owners at more than twenty percent over what you normally pay.'

`And?'

`And we ended up with a list of forty eight slaves. We invited the owners of these slaves to let us have them for two days here at al-Qatim for a private viewing. Thirty seven of the slaves were sent to us.'

`Ahmed, there is no way I am going to buy slaves because a computer programme thinks I might like them. No way!'

`Well, Sir Jonathan, that may be so. But I think I have your interest? Do I not? Would you like to see these slaves?'

Shaking my head, I said, `Ahmed, why go to all this trouble for nothing? I just bought sixteen slaves from you, what a month ago? And then another thirty three from you not ten days ago?'

`That you did, Sir Jonathan, and you were pleased with all of them.'

`How do you know that, Ahmed? Are you now a mind reader as well?'

`No, Sir Jonathan. Very simply, you have never ever returned a slave to us, nor to my colleague Mustafa ben-Mustafa in al-Mera, if what Mustafa also tells me is correct. There are few customers like you in Dahra. You may have seen a lady leaving with a slave as you came in. That was her third replacement. A week, two weeks and she is back with some complaint or other. You, never! And there is a second reason.'

At his first reason, I could only shrug. In the worst case scenario, I thought to myself, I do have an opal mine where I can send any slave I don't like. Maybe the lady in question didn't have anything similar.

`What is the second reason?'

That!' and he pointed to a bronze of a horse, illuminated with indirect lighting, in full gallop in a recess on a wall. You were kind enough to give it to me and I have never repaid the gift.'

`Ahmed, that was years ago. A nice bronze from Aspreys, yes, but at the end of the day, only a bronze.'

`Ah, but you will notice that there are no other bronzes or artefacts around apart from that vase over there and little of anything else,' and I looked across at a large Waterford creation in crystal, forlorn in its own recess.

`These things I remember,' he said.

For myself, I said nothing.

Well, Sir Jonathan, would you like to see the slaves of this private and special viewing' and with a smile he commented, oh, I forgot to say that in the selection of these slaves, there are no Swedish or Scottish slaves because you or your nephew and his wife have all of the slaves of those nationalities already in Dahra.'

We got up and went out and over into the viewing area.

There were two high-backed chairs facing the viewing area with a small table in between, and behind the chairs a further table with various piles of tan folders, which I took be the file of each of the respective slaves about to be viewed.

As we took our seats, the assistant who had met me at the entrance earlier on took his place behind us and opened the first file, nodding to a slave beside the double entrance and exit doors.

The slave opened both doors wide and the first of the slaves walked in. The assistant started to read in Arabic from the file the details of a German slave, whom I must admit walked in well and looked at ease with himself. He was entirely naked as befitted a slave being viewed, but clearly the lack of clothes did not bother him. He was not restrained in any way, which implied a well-trained slave.

He had been enslaved for the previous four years and there was a full ream of data on him. However, I was trying to look at the slave to find out what were his characteristics that I was supposed to like according to the computer programme.

Some small marzipan sweets and fresh dates had appeared as if my magic on the table between Ahmed and myself, together with two small jugs of iced fruit juices.

The slave was not doing an actual catwalk, but as near enough to it that it made no difference. He proceeded across the raised dais before us, turned flexed his biceps, turned again, - all the time the assistant reeling off facts and figures in a quiet and unobtrusive voice. There was no correlation that I could see between the walk of the slave and the patter of the assistant. The slave stepped down from the dais walked in front of me, his eyes somewhere in the mid-distance, turned, bent away from me, and with his hands separated the cheeks of a well-defined backside to reveal a moist dark pink anus. And then, he was away, stepping back up on the dais and taking a position `at rest' at the very back of the dais.

The slave had displayed himself in little over a minute. Clearly, he had been rehearsed and the rehearsal had worked. To my mind, he looked a fine slave. And that indeed he was!

Before I knew it, the next slave was up on the dais, and the assistant's quiet patter had begun again. I looked at Ahmed and he was smiling as he looked at me.

For just under an hour, the viewing went on uninterrupted and I did not lose interest for a single minute, because if I had, I would not have seen the next slave for viewing.

Little by little, I could see the pattern arising. All the slaves were between five eleven and six one in height, good build in the shoulder and upper body. Some were well endowed and some not, but almost all of them had nice firm buttocks or what our American cousins call a `bubble-butt'. None of them had body hair on chest or back to speak of, and where it was, it was very fine and light. There was no particular shading of hair dominating their colouring, though all had a closely cut hairstyle. Some of the slaves, when displaying their most private of orifices, seemed to have been used more to the rear than others. Some were cut, but an almost equal number were not.

There was a movement at my elbow and I saw a slave replacing an almost empty dish of dates. My glasses of fruit juice had been refilled.

I was impressed that the slaves who earlier on in the hour had taken up a position on the dais had stood still during the full performance without any movement that I could perceive.

When the performance, for that was what it was, had finished with the last slave in place on the dais. I turned to Ahmed and gave him a small round of applause.

`Yes, Ahmed, your programme seems to work. This is generally the type of slave I buy. Perhaps, there are more Brazilians and western Europeans here than I would normally consider and definitely more Mediterranean types.'

`Yes, Sir Jonathan, we have had a lot of Brazilians into Dahra in the past two years.

`So, what is the situation here? Are you saying that the owners of these slaves will sell them?'

`Yes, indeed. That is if you want to buy any of them. Most slave owners sell their stock if the price is right. All of these are on offer from nineteen thousand to twenty eight thousand.'

`I do have this new al-Kadir property to finish and I still need over a hundred and fifty slaves to get it finished. But these, Ahmed, are very nice slaves you have shown me. Only about a third of them have ever been near a farm from what I hear from their files. Most of them seem to be on inconsequential duties looking after property or having light industry work. Did I not hear correctly that two of them are in a chicken factory?'

`All very valid points, Sir Jonathan, but you can clearly see they are well trained and ready for any manual work that you might wish to give them.'

`Nineteen to twenty eight, you say? Twenty eight is quite above what I normally pay as you well know.'

`Sir Jonathan, if you want a batch of them for your new farm, let me make you this offer. Choose any of them you like for twenty four thousand. If their owner is one of those who wants twenty eight for him, then I have made a loss. If on the other hand, the owner wants only nineteen thousand euro, then I have made a gain.'

I do not know if it was the heat of the afternoon or the closeness of other slaves to them, but various of the slaves were beginning to get erections. If nothing else they were healthy in that regard.

I turned to the assistant and asked for a calculator which I had seen on the table with the files. He handed it to me and I made a rapid calculation.

Looking at Ahmed, I said, `all thirty seven for seven hundred and fifty thousand euro.'

Ahmed smiled like the salesman that he so capably was, and producing a calculator of his own, punched in some figures and said, `eight hundred and seventy thousand.'

Three counter-bids later, I acquired the entire batch of slaves. A niggling thought came to mind that I should have had Georgi Gridov here at hand to smell them for sickness and to ask each of them his question.

In one sense, I had bought blindly as I had not personally examined the slaves in any close or physical way, but realising what Ahmed had done, I knew that any of the slaves would not be too damaged or he would not have had the slave on view in the first place.

`Now, Sir Jonathan, if this has been a surprise, I hope my next surprise is no less. Again, it is something that we have not done on quite this scale before. You will know that sometimes we are asked to provide slaves who have been gardeners or cooks, and where we do not have them in stock, we have searched the databases for them to supply the client's needs. This has been a slightly different exercise. If you will come with me,' and Ahmed extended his left arm, palm upwards, in the direction of the doors where my newly purchased slaves had exited.

Ahmed led me down a corridor and into what looked like a spacious warehouse. I noticed that several of the large carton boxes which pack the plastic bags of slave biscuits were stacked off to one side and various bins and containers to one end. High steel rafters crisscrossed the ceiling and roof as in any warehouse or distribution centre.

What differentiated the warehouse from any other was a forty square foot blue rubberised floor covering on the floor at the far end of the warehouse, to one side a set of horizontal bars and a pommel horse. Further down, the warehouse to one side of the blue floor coving was a vaulting horse, a beam about five feet from the ground and suspended from the roof beams were two circular rings on their long ropes some ten feet from the floor.

`Well, Sir Jonathan, what do you think?'

`A gymnasium?'

`A gymnastics hall, would you not say?' and as he was speaking, eight slaves entered the warehouse from a side door.

`The result of our database search, Sir Jonathan. You mentioned a while back that one of the slaves being viewed looked like a gymnast, so I had this new computer programme check out any slave who may have had a background or training in gymnastics. It was a practice run for speciality slaves in a real life business situation. We found eight of them out of the thousands in Dahra, and here they are. They have been practising for five days.'

I looked at the naked slaves who had come in. They all looked cleaned up, though two or three of them did not look all that well-fed.

`Shall we see what they have been doing for the past five days?'

I nodded out of curiosity more than anything else.

Ahmed al-Atti clapped his hands and said to me `quite an interesting sport is it not?' as one of the slaves stepped forward and raised his right arm to indicate the beginning of a routine.

The slave who had stepped forward and who had raised his right arm seemed to be Slavic in his features, and in his early thirties. He ran over to the pommel horse and, with what appeared to me a fluid motion of his body, placing his right hand on the horse gave a display of rotating flares moving up and down the horse for some thirty or so seconds. I noticed that when the slave landed after the exercise that he was breathing very heavily and swayed a bit on his feet but held his stance.

Each of the seven other slaves went through several exercises on the differing pieces of equipment. I noted that each of the slaves did not speak to the others but sometimes after an exercise gave a pat of encouragement to the slave who had just performed.

The last exercise comprised of some exercises on the rings suspended from the roof, and the first slave who had performed for us walked out the centre of the blue floor covering with a second younger very well-muscled slave, who could not have been over twenty, whom he gripped by the waist and hoisted him up and then ensured that the slave was hanging perfectly still from the two wooden rings.

As I looked at the young slave, it struck me as slightly incongruous to be sitting there in the middle of a slave centre looking at a gymnastics display about to be performed by a slave whose hands were wrapped in thick bandages.

The slave raised himself up into what was an L-shaped movement, extended his arms and lowered his legs into the form of a cross, swung himself a couple of times in a full circle and did a hand-stand. I would have to look up the names of these moves, I thought to myself.

The slave relaxed his arms and swinging his body twice did a back flip to land quite firmly on the floor. I noticed that the other slave had stayed close by, standing near while those exercises were being performed.

Again, Ahmed asked his question of previously as to what I thought. I wondered if somehow he knew of the fitness programmes at the Palaces which did involve Komil's training of some of my slaves in gymnastics. I am sure, well I think I am sure, that Ahmed al-Atti does not have a spy in my Palaces. Then again, in this world, is there ever a true and lasting secret?

`Very nice, Ahmed, but really of little interest to me. I have my fun with seeing my slaves simply well and truly fit through hard work.'

`But think of the enjoyment that these slaves can bring you and your guests when you entertain, Sir Jonathan!'

`Ahmed, no offence, but I would have to bring my guests into an exercise hall with all its sweat and smells. And these slaves would not be productive, and more, any of them could break his neck while exercising.'

Ahmed had signalled the eight gymnast slaves over near us from the side of the warehouse where they had been standing, two of whom were still perspiring heavily.

`Sir Jonathan, all of this they have done after just five days. Imagine what they could do after five weeks, or imagine after five months.'

As the naked slaves walked over towards us, I thought I spotted something, and I said to the assistant who was in hover mode beside me to have them turn round.

Ahmed's assistant gave the command in both Arabic and English and some, then all of the slaves, turned round so that their backs were to me.

Yes, indeed. I had not been wrong. All the slaves had been caned and recently. The last slave who had performed on the rings apparently most of all, as the weals on his buttocks proved.

`You had to beat them to perform, Ahmed?'

Ahmed did not reply, but looked at the assistant and raised his eyebrows.

`Sir Jonathan, it was nothing more than an encouragement to concentrate on their training. That was some days ago.'

I looked at the slave who had performed on the rings, smaller and more muscled than the others, standing at the end of the line. I got up and walked over to him. Standing at his side, so as not to surprise him, I let my hand touch his scapulae which were boiling hot after his strenuous performance. I ran my hand down his back and as soon as I touched his buttocks I could feel the heat coming from the weals. If this was the case after some days, it must have been some caning the slave had received previously.

He's Ukrainian, Sir Jonathan,' the assistant commented, and was in the Seoul Olympics. Unfortunately, he did not win a medal.'

For some visceral reason, the assistant's voice grated on my entire psyche. He was a sycophant. His accent was not Dahran, most likely from one of the other Gulf States attracted by a large salary, and nothing else, to work in the slave-centre. I would really have liked to have him tied over the pommel horse and not for any gymnastics unless they involved a four-foot camel-cane!

Ahmed al-Atti, who can sense a client's moods like a satellite can spot a golf ball on a green from a hundred miles up, was immediately on his feet waving the assistant away.

`Sir Jonathan, this was a bad way to test the new programme and I have instead stretched your patience. My sincerest apologies!'

`No, Ahmed. It is the heat of the day. Your computer programme works fine. It may be a case of everyone not wanting to purchase the millions of combinations that it can produce for you.'

I was still standing beside the slave who had performed on the rings and could feel the heat emanating from his body from a first floor exercise he had done and then the exercise on the rings. I don't know if he thought that I had been speaking to him instead of about the heat the day to Ahmed, but he nodded his head in my direction from the neck down, his chin actually touching his chest.

I could not but smile at his courtesy.

`Al-loghah alaarabiyah?' I asked the line of slaves.

One slave down the line half put up his hand indicating he spoke Arabic, if not too surely.

`Do you speak English?'

Four of the eight slaves, including the slave who had just put up his hand, put up their hands, and I heard some murmurs of `Yes, Master.'

I was looking still at the Ukrainian gymnast who did not speak either language as he had not responded to either question, and I found myself wondering just how lost a slave he was in Dahra without any means of communication.

`I have no need of gymnasts, but I need slaves to work on my farms.'

I noticed my Ukrainian's eyes glanced down the line at one of the other slaves. He had not understood what had been said and was seeking help.

`Tell him,' I said to the slave at whom the Ukrainian had looked. The slave rattled off something which I took to be Russian and two of the other slaves nodded.

Looking over at Ahmed, I said, `what is the going price for eight farm workers?'

`For all of them, Sir Jonathan?'

`Yes, I am sure that they were not sold to their owners as speciality slaves or gymnasts.'

`We would be talking of two hundred thousand, Sir Jonathan.'

`A hundred and fifty.'

`A hundred and ninety.'

`Eighty.'

`Seventy'

`For you, Sir Jonathan, a hundred and seventy five thousand.'

My smile sealed the bargain. I had bought a total of forty five slaves for just under a million euro -- all of five days' revenue from my two water wells. Such is the relativism of things.

`Just one further thing, Ahmed. Tell me is this new assistant of yours for sale?'

Ahmed looked a little surprised. The assistant looked horrified.

`Ah, no, Sir Jonathan, he is an employee here and a free man.'

`Such a pity! If he ever comes on the market, please let me know immediately. I would love to see him being trained as a gymnast by my new Ukrainian slave here,' and I put my hand on the shoulder of the gymnast.

The terror now in the eyes of the assistant showed that he knew that I was not joking and he knew what he could expect were he ever to come into my ownership.

I clapped the Ukrainian slave on the shoulder, and said `well done!'

He did not understand and I looked down the line to the temporary interpreter who said something in a low voice.

I nodded backwards in the direction of the rings.

He now nodded in understanding and I patted him on the shoulder again. If we did not meet again at the Lemon Palace after his induction into the life of my Palaces, I must remember to seek him out and test my unproven theory that gymnasts' back-passages can squeeze harder and longer than any others due to their long and hard athletic training. We would see. We would see.

When I turned around again to Ahmed, the assistant had disappeared. I would not have been at all surprised if he was already packing a bag for the airport and relative safety outside the borders of Dahra that he deemed might ensure his condition as a free man.

`Where do I sign a cheque, Ahmed?'

As I was about to move off, the Ukrainian slave beside me coughed twice as if clearing his throat. As I automatically turned round at the noise, he took my hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it very gently and then gave that little bow of his head again.

One by one the other slaves moved up the line and did the same. Maybe, just maybe, I thought to myself there might be a greater place for gymnastics at the Palaces. And I would definitely not forget that Ukrainian now that I had felt the softness of his lips on the back of my hand.

When last in London, I had given my business card to my son, Richard, and he had reciprocated with his. I found myself every second day sending him an e-mail. I wanted to know so much about him and also about Caroline's precarious health.

On the other hand, I did not wish to appear to be bothering him with trivial matters while his mother was dying. It is strange but I had no love for Caroline. Fondness, yes; a vague fuzzy memory, yes, but no genuine feelings of any depth that might by any stretch of the imagination be called love.

That was not the case with Richard. I found myself slipping off into daydreams thinking of him. My secretary, Ben, had to remind me of what I was doing at my desk a number of times. I had sat in the great salon and listened to Kent Kialka practice his piano music and on two occasions I found that I had fallen asleep thinking of Richard.

He was flesh of my flesh; the look of him, the shape of his jaw, his walk, his flicking of his quiff, his eyes. Everything about him spoke of me some twenty five or so years previously. From him, I was only getting good vibes and good feelings that we would get on okay.

I would not know how many children reject their errant fathers in such circumstances! But that was the fear in the back of my mind. Maybe he would wake up to something in me or in my past or even in my present and reject me. Although I had given him a cheque, I knew that he was not the type that could be bought with mere money.

His return e-mails to me at the Bank were polite and to an extent cautious. They revealed postage stamps of information, each one lifting but one corner of his life at a time, small nuggets of fact which I treasured and stored away like the most hibernating of squirrels packing away a horde of nuts for use over a severe winter.

There were no positive words about Caroline except in the negative or near-negative sense that she was in no pain', sedated', `sleeping patterns uninterrupted'. But the other side of that coin reported loss of appetite, swelling of the lower limbs and increased amounts of morphine.

Richard never gave me any time schedule or forecast of his mother's approaching death. So now in the second week of April, three weeks after our first meeting, an e-mail announced simply, `Caroline died in her sleep early this morning. She was at peace. I was at her side.'

It was signed `Your son, Richard'.

There was no invitation to come to London. No indication of funeral arrangements.

I tried ringing Richard on the numbers he had given. His office said that he was on compassionate leave due to the death of his mother' and would not be back for a week'. His mobile put me on to voicemail each time.

I was therefore reduced to sending an e-mail of my condolences and a simple statement that I was coming to London on the New Concorde the following morning, as I had to be there the following Monday on Bank business anyway, and would simply arrive some days early and I could overstay a number of days. It would be my longest intended stay out of Dahra in five years.

Whether it was the uncertainty of some salad days without the refreshing releases of sexual activity, I called for Jake Peoples that night as my bed companion. Jake's golden body is a sight to delight and his demeanour as a slave means that he never assumes, sees what I, the Master, may want, and sets about providing that pleasure. However, as he followed me up to the bedroom that evening, with his usual ear to ear smile -- never a grin mind you -- I took him by his semi-erect penis and led him in through the door, and had the two slave attendants, Daniel and James, strip me of the clothes of the day.

The two American Pentecostal missionary slaves, Daniel and James, were again the best of pals and their attention to detail without the need of punishment or its threat is one of the reasons I keep them close. Anyway as soon as he had showered for the evening's sexual activities, Jake having been limbering up in the bedroom, I dismissed the two bedroom attendants and beckoned Jake over.

Jake Peoples is the most manly of young men and he came over to me and putting his arms on either side of my neck, he said `Master, tonight is going to be special,' and gave a wiggle of his hips and raised and lowered his eyebrows suggestively a couple of times.

`Yes, Jake, it is, because I am going to do all the work. I need a good workout, so why don't you just lie back on the bed and let me do the work on you, and when you are nicely excited, I'll then let you take over.'

The beauty of Jake's body lies in its curves. His shoulders curve, his neck curves, his pecs curve. I went on a tongue voyage of exploration testing for undiscovered erotic points on his body with all the dedication of a wildcat oil-driller -- a taste of tongue here, a tip of tongue there, a probe of tongue hither and a circling of tongue yonder. I refuse to believe that any inexperienced youth actually understands sex or how to resist or control the rising of the sexual demand and emotion. Young Jake erected like the national flag up its post. His nipples rose, his heart hammered just under his breast bone, and his gasps were linguistically unintelligible in half a dozen languages.

Jake begged a stop and I had not gone further south than the underside of his ribs.

`Master, stop please, I'm about to explode. I'm afraid what will happen if you touch me down there.'

`Where?' I laughed as I licked those tender spots between his sternum and navel, and his back arched up and his body concaved down. Sex is so enjoyable even without fucking, and with a lover as tender and enjoyable as Jake, the sexual emotion rode high so lightly and easily.

There is a very thin dividing line between pleasure and pain, and indeed vice versa, Jake's lower belly and hip bones upon being merely touched caused him to jump so hard that his belly hit my jawbone.

`Master, you're doing all the work. Please, please let me try to please you before I go into the stratosphere.'

I relented a second in my onslaught and found myself flipped on my back, to a `now I have you,' and Jake lived up there and then to his tested reputation as one of the Palace's great and tender lovers.

Two hours later when we were both sated, exhausted, deflated and fully ejaculated, I looked at a heavily breathing Jake as he lay on his back, his face half-turned to mine.

`Did I miss any spot, Master?' he asked with that impish grin of his.

`Not one, that I can remember. Now get up and get those bedroom attendants back to change the bed clothes.'

`Yes, Master. That will be the easiest command of the night to follow,' he said, which in a way it was.

End of Chapter 6

===========

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The Dahran series -- a fictional adventure story about the life and times of Sir Jonathan Martin -- comprises the following novels to date:

1. The Changed Life

2. The Reluctant Retrainer

3. The Market Offer

4. The Special Memories

5. The Dahran Way

6. The Dahran Rebuttals

7. The Seventh Desert

8. The Dahran Sands

9. The Time Line

These novels are all serialised on Nifty (Gay -- Authoritarian) and on YahooGroups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/erotic_gay_stories