The White Rat – Chapter Twenty-Seven

The White Rat – Chapter Twenty-Seven

David, of course, has no idea what is happening back in England: he’s too busy trying to survive to care. But since his selfless act in protecting Djamel things have started to improve for him, and in this chapter we’ll see what effect it has on his life. And he’s going to find himself doing things he had never foreseen when he first became a slave…

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David didn’t see much of the other slaves on the day after he had stepped in to save Djamel because it was a Friday, but when he went to their eating area for his evening meal he was greeted warmly, especially by Djamel, who asked him to sit next to him and seemed eager to pass most of his food to David.

“Thanks, Djamel, but you should eat it yourself. You are too thin.”

“If I had been fat you would have let them whip me,” said Djamel, grinning at him. “It’s better to be thin, I think.”

And David supposed that was true.

It wasn’t just Djamel whose attitude had changed: all the slaves now spoke to him in a far more friendly way, and Samir in particular seemed keen to make up for how he had treated him before by offering to help him improve his Arabic.

“I can help you to speak, but if you want to learn to read you should go with the youngest slaves to their lesson with the imam,” he said. “He will teach you to read the Qur’an. All Muslim boys have to learn it, and while much of what we learn is recitation, I think the imam will be happy to help you to read.”

David wasn’t sure about that: he had no intention of converting to Islam, or to any other religion, come to that. But if he was going to be spending the rest of his life here it would obviously be useful to learn to read and write in Arabic as well as speaking it. Maybe if he could do that he could hope for a position as a secretary to Ali’s father, or something like that, in a few years’ time. Or maybe Ali would keep him in his own service, in which case he would need his own secretary eventually.

So he agreed to go to speak to the imam, and was delighted to discover that the imam spoke French, which would make communication a lot easier. The imam agreed to help him to learn to read and write Arabic, though he insisted that David bring a blanket to wrap himself in while he was learning: the imam said that he thought David’s nakedness unseemly in a schoolroom.

He resumed his duties the next day, and immediately found that his life was a lot easier: instead of standing over him with a stick or a whip and shouting at him, the other slaves simply shared the work with him, which generally meant that it got finished a lot faster. Of course, they still wanted to be sucked, and the storeroom on the ground floor that David used for the purpose still saw a lot of visits; but now it was done without beatings or threats, which made it a lot less of an ordeal for David, even though he still didn’t like it when the older boys came in his mouth.

On the Monday after his beating he was scheduled to help Djamel clean the kitchen hatch room. At first Djamel didn’t want to let him work at all, but he insisted, pointing out that if they both worked the job would be done a lot quicker, which would give them some free time afterwards. And in fact with both of them working the room was sparkling clean in half the time it usually took.

“I’m free until it is time to serve the midday meal,” Djamel told him. “And you are assigned to me for the morning, so you’re free, too. So… let’s go to the storeroom.”

That surprised David, because Djamel had only wanted to be sucked once before, quite a long time previously. But he followed the young slave to the storeroom, put the marker on the door to indicate that the room was occupied, and knelt down on the mattress he had scavenged to make his ‘customers’ comfortable.

Djamel kicked off his sandals and pulled his robe off over his head.

“Lie down,” he said. “Today it’s my turn – I’m going to make you feel good.”

“What! No, Djamel, you can’t do that! I mean, it’s my job – and you’re senior to me, too…”

“I want to,” said Djamel, simply. “I can’t repay you for saving my life, but I can do this.”

“Yes, but… seriously, Djamel, you don’t need to. I mean…” Inspiration struck. “I’m not supposed to do sex yet – it’s less than six weeks since I was cut.”

“It’s almost six weeks, and sucking will not damage it. Now lie down, or I’ll whip you for disobedience. I’m senior to you, remember?”

There was no way to argue with that, so David lay on his back, though he did make one last effort.

“Djamel,” he said, “you really don’t have to do this, okay?”

“I know. But I’m going to.”

And he did, and it was the first time in David’s life that this had happened to him. Djamel was no expert, but once it was under way David stopped arguing and gave him instructions instead, and soon it was feeling really nice. He’d been getting erections again for a couple of weeks, but of course he hadn’t been able to masturbate because his six weeks were still not over, and so this was his first chance to discover that being circumcised had not destroyed his sex life: this still felt really nice.

In fact it felt so nice that he got Djamel to stop a couple of times so as not to get there too soon, and the younger boy grinned at him each time, happy to think he was doing a good job. Eventually David let him keep going, and it was a really good orgasm, making him arch his back and clench his fingers and toes as Djamel kept on sucking hard all the way through.

At last it was over and he relaxed, telling Djamel to stop.

“Was that good?” asked Djamel, smiling at him.

“That was really good. Thanks, Djamel.”

“Good. We’ll do that every week, then.”

“Not unless you let me do it to you as well, we won’t. Lie down.”

“You can’t tell me what I must do. I am senior.”

“I don’t care. Lie down.”

It wasn’t often that David actually volunteered for this – in fact, except for helping out the twins when they couldn’t fuck, this was the first time. But he wasn’t going to let Djamel commit himself to this without it being a two-way relationship, so he more or less forced the younger boy onto his back and started to suck him, doing everything he could think of to make it feel good. And it worked, as Djamel had a noisy, though still completely dry, climax.

“You must teach me how to do it like that,” said Djamel, when he had recovered. “Cockroach… what is your true name?”

“David,” said David. “But I’m not supposed to use it here, I don’t think.”

“I don’t care. When we are alone, I will call you by your true name. I can’t think of you as a cockroach.”

Djamel seemed in no hurry to get dressed, so David lay down beside him and they talked for a while. Of course, David’s Arabic still wasn’t very good, and that meant a lot of rephrasing and simplification went on, but they still managed to understand each other. They lay naked together for a while, side by side, a lot of it in companionable silence, until the meal-gong went, and then Djamel got dressed and they went back to the servery to collect the midday meal. And David took the three bowls of food up to the twins’ room, thinking that maybe he had a friend among the slaves at last.

As the days went by he found that Djamel wasn’t the only one: gradually he got to know the other slaves as individuals, finding out more about each of them. As his Arabic improved and he was able to talk to them more easily, he found that, like kids everywhere, some were bouncy and energetic, and some were quieter and more withdrawn, and some were perfectly happy living here as slaves, and some had dreams of earning their freedom and becoming paid servants… he stopped thinking about ‘the slaves’ and started thinking of them as individual boys.

Little Abdelkader was still very bouncy and energetic, and he loved being sucked, and he told David he had a plan: he was going to make David suck him off in every room of the palace.

“But… we’re not allowed in any of Ali’s private rooms,” David objected.

“That doesn’t matter – we can do it there when he’s with his father, or at his lessons,” said Abdelkader, airily. “I think it’ll be fun. So today you can do it to me in the kitchen servery – I know Djamel’s washing dishes in the kitchen at this time of day.”

So he led David downstairs to the kitchen hatch room and hoisted his robe to his armpits, revealing his small erection.

“Suck!” he ordered, imperiously.

David wasn’t entirely happy about this because the servery didn’t have a door, just an arch leading to the corridor, and that meant that anyone walking past could see what they were doing. So he moved Abdelkader over to the wall close to the arch, where at least they might be hidden from the casual passer-by – though if anyone in the kitchen opened one of the hatches, they’d see them straight away. There was no reason to open the hatches in mid-afternoon, but even so David was keen to get this over with.

But Abdelkader was in no hurry and told him to slow down so that he could enjoy it. “Don’t worry, Cockroach,” he said. “I’m in charge, remember – so if we get caught it’ll be me that gets told off.”

“I don’t want to get caught,” said David. But he did his best to make Abdelkader enjoy it anyway, using his hands a lot and make the small boy gasp and wriggle as he climaxed.

“Well done, Cockroach, that was really good,” said Abdelkader, dropping his robe once more. “This is going to be a good game – but we’ll have to try to find some free time together so that we can do it three or four times a week, or we won’t manage to get through all the rooms for ages.”

Over the next three or four weeks they worked their way through some of the easier rooms – Ali's dining room, the slave dining room, washroom and toilet (David didn’t enjoy that a lot, and neither did Abdelkader make him draw it out, either – he was as keen to get away from the flies as David was) and all of the storerooms. They did it in the twins’ room when the twins were on duty, and they did it in David’s own closet, where they were able to take their time: Abdelkader took his robe right off and David caressed his body all over while he was sucking him, on and off. He didn’t have a watch, of course, but he guessed that he managed to make that session last a good hour.

“We’ll do it in there again,” said Abdelkader, afterwards. “That was wonderful, Cockroach.”

But the remaining rooms were going to be more of a challenge, David thought, because they weren’t supposed to go into the servants’ quarters, or any of Ali’s private rooms. Still, by now he was starting to appreciate the fun Abdelkader was having, and the idea of adding trespass to the mix was sort of interesting, somehow.

After that he started taking Djamel to his room for their mutual sucking sessions, and even though they had to leave the door ajar so that they could see what they were doing Djamel liked doing it there, as he was sure nobody would interrupt them, except maybe the twins, and they weren’t around a lot during the day. It meant they could relax far more easily. And sometimes they didn’t suck at all, just lying together on David’s mattress and talking quietly, though Djamel always removed his clothes at the start of their sessions so that if they did decide to suck each other he would be ready.

Most of the other slaves were also happy to help him develop his understanding of Arabic by talking to him. Samir gave him properly structured lessons to complement the ones he was getting from the imam, and Mohamed, the junior stable slave, started taking him to a remote corner of the garden and lying beside him, telling him of his dreams for the future.

“Abdelaziz is fifteen now, so he’ll be going to the main palace stables soon,” he said. “So Ali will need a new stable servant. Cherif isn’t really interested in horses – he’s only senior stable slave because he was sent there. But I love them – I’m sure there’s some Tuareg in my ancestry somewhere, because I think the horses are beautiful, and I’d love more than anything to be able to ride one – properly, I mean: I’ve been in the saddle in the yard, but that’s not really riding. I suppose I’m too young now, but maybe in a couple of years I’ll get a chance to show Ali how much I love horses, and how good a stable servant I could make. That’s my dream, David” (like Djamel, he used David’s real name when they were alone) – “I’d love to be Ali’s stable-boy, so I could ride out with him when he takes the horses out for exercise. He’s the same age as me, too, so if I could prove how good I could be, maybe I could stay his stable-servant for good…”

“Does that happen?” David asked. “Slaves becoming servants, I mean?”

“Well, not very often,” admitted Mohamed. “But if a slave is very, very good and works hard, and if he can do something that is useful – like caring for horses properly – well, it can happen.”

David wondered just how hard he would have to work before that happened to him. He guessed it wouldn’t, ever – at least, not unless he could show Ali that he’d changed, and he didn’t know how to do that.

Ali still called on him regularly when he wanted to be sucked, and David did everything he could to make his master enjoy these sessions, applying every trick he had learned to increase Ali’s pleasure. And certainly Ali seemed to enjoy it: the last couple of times he had called David to his bedroom instead of the day-room, ordered Rafik, Nacer his runner and the twins to leave the room, and had then removed his clothes completely and got David to pleasure him on his bed. And in the heat of the moment Ali forgot himself so far as to actually return some of David’s caresses, which David found himself liking, even though he was fairly sure that Ali was thinking about someone else while he was doing it.

“Cockroach, you are really good at that,” said Ali, after one session. “I know you probably hate me, and detest having to do this, but I would never know it from the way you do your duty.”

“Master, I don’t hate you,” said David. “It is true that I don’t really like to suck, but there are many worse things I could be made to do. And I do sort of enjoy making you wriggle about, just before you get excited.”

“Because, just for that moment, you control me?”

“Well… to be honest, I haven’t thought about it like that. I think it’s more that I want you to feel good, because if you’re happy… well, when you’re in a good mood none of us has to worry about being beaten.”

“What do you mean, ‘none of us’?”

“Us, Master – your slaves.”

“So you truly think of yourself as one of ‘us’ now, do you?”

“Yes, Master, I do.”

“Good. I’ve been hearing good things about you, Cockroach, and if you truly do see yourself as a member of the household, not an outsider, then you are turning out far better than I expected when Brahim brought you to me.”

The only one of the slaves whose treatment of David hadn’t changed was Madjid, who still seemed to hate him as much as he had before. Now that Samir had taken David under his wing Madjid was limited to those times when David was assigned to him, which happened twice a week. Madjid was responsible for the cleaning of Ali’s day-room, which was done while Ali was at his studies, and the school room, which was done between the end of lessons and the evening meal, though in practice it was David who did the work on the days when he was assigned to Madjid.

Madjid’s attitude towards him didn’t seem to have its roots in the way David did his job, and clearly his saving of Djamel cut no ice with Madjid, either. But now that David was accepted by the rest of the slaves it was harder for Madjid to ill-treat him as much as he had before. One afternoon he announced, for no reason whatever, that he was going to whip David.

“I’ll manage not to break your precious skin, so it’s permitted,” he said. “Come on – we’re going to the punishment room.”

“But why?” asked David, reasonably enough.

“Are you questioning my orders? Right, it’s a double whipping!” declared Madjid, smiling nastily.

David bit his tongue and allowed Madjid to herd him out into the corridor, but before they reached the punishment room they met Samir, who was coming out of the slaves’ toilet.

“Where are you going?” he asked David.

“The punishment room.”

“Why?”

David shrugged. “Because I say so,” said Madjid, shrilly.

“For what offence?”

“Does it matter? I have the right!”

“Not on a whim, you don’t. What is his offence?”

“I don’t know… insolence! Yes, that’s it, he was insolent to me!”

“Is that true, David?” (The use of his real name was still spreading).

“His name’s Cockroach!” shouted Madjid. “And there’s no point in asking him, he’ll just lie!”

“David?”

“Well, I don’t think I was insolent. But he is senior to me, and you know my Arabic is still not too good, so I might have been insolent without realising it.”

“Not good enough – you can’t beat him for being poor at Arabic, Madjid. Take him back to work.”

“But I have the right!”

“Not while I’m senior slave, you don’t. In this household we act justly. Now take him back, or it’ll be you that gets beaten.”

Madjid turned and stomped back to the day-room, and David said ‘Thank you’ quietly to Samir and followed him. When he got there he found Madjid slumped in a chair, his face buried in his hands, and when David closed the door he looked up and David saw that his face was covered in tears.

“Fuck off, you white bastard!” cried Madjid. “You’re dismissed – now piss off and leave me alone!”

Common sense told David to do just that, but he’d changed to the extent that he didn’t like to see anyone – not even Madjid – in this state. He took a couple of steps towards him.

“Madjid…” he began, quietly.

“Get lost! I don’t need your pity, you…. you animal!” shouted Madjid.

David hesitated a moment longer, but then did the sensible thing and reached for the door-handle.

“Do you want me to send someone to be with you?” he asked.

“Piss off! I don’t need any of those bastards, any more than I need you! Just go!”

So he went. He went and found Samir, who had gone back to work and was now tidying Ali’s bedroom. David wasn’t allowed into that room without permission, so he waited at the door until Samir noticed him and told him to come in but not to touch anything.

“Samir… what’s the matter with Madjid?” he asked. “Why does he still hate me so much?”

“Oh, it’s not just you – he hates all of us,” Samir told him. “See, most of us were born slaves, or sold when we were very young, so it’s all we’ve ever known. And Ali is a fair master – he’ll punish you if you deserve it, and harshly sometimes, but he is fair, so we’re pretty much okay here. This isn’t a bad place to live. But Madjid was born free, and was only sold a year or so ago when his father got into heavy financial difficulties…”

“So he sold his son into slavery?” asked David, appalled.

“It’s the way we do things here. If you can’t pay your debts any other way, you sell what you can. If Madjid had had a sister, it would have been her that got sold – girls generally fetch a better price, though obviously what happens to them once they’re slaves can be unpleasant, depending who buys them. But he was the youngest son, so he was the one to go. And he still can’t accept it: he thinks he’s better than us, that he shouldn’t be a slave at all, that his father is going to buy him back… that’ll never happen, of course. He’s a slave for life, but he just won’t accept it. We tried helping him at first, but he just treated us like dirt, so after a bit we started treating him the same way. He tried bullying the younger slaves, but me and Rachid are both older than he is, and we wouldn't permit it. And when he kept being horrible to everyone we did some bullying of our own. Now he just ignores us most of the time. He'll learn in the end, though, because he'll have to, otherwise someone will stick a knife between his ribs one night.”

David went back to his room, thinking that maybe he and Madjid weren't so very different. The old David would have joined in baiting Madjid and treating him badly, but now he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end he felt very differently, and he wondered if there was any way he could help Madjid to adjust. But then he shrugged: it was obvious that Madjid didn't want his help, and in any case it was really none of his business.

The days went by, and now it was November, though here in the south of the country it never got really cold: instead it was still well over twenty-five degrees, which to David was comfortable. It did get a little colder at night now, though the twins supplied him with a blanket, and he had no trouble sleeping with that wrapped round him.

He and Abdelkader had by now successfully used all the rooms in the servants' quarters, including their bathroom: of the four overseers, two were generally off-duty at a time, and they usually left the palace to go into town on their days off, so by picking a time when the others were all likely to be busy it was reasonably certain that they wouldn't be interrupted. They talked Rachid, the slave in charge of the servants' quarters, into looking the other way, and so were eventually able to cross another five rooms off the list.

That left the really tricky ones: Ali's day-room and the schoolroom were Madjid's territory, and it was a certainty that he would blow the whistle if they tried using those, and Samir would never allow anyone into Ali's private rooms. But Abdelkader wouldn't give up on the idea: he was sure it would be possible somehow.

David's friendships with Mohamed and Djamel, who seemed almost to view him as an older brother, continued to grow. His Arabic went on improving, too, and now Ali addressed him in that language instead of French. Being naked no longer bothered him at all, and he only thought about it when the imam told him to go and get his blanket during their lessons.

He hadn't given up on Madjid, either: every time he was assigned to help him he did his best to be polite and to do us much work as he could, and when he sucked Madjid's penis he did his best to make it feel good. But none of it seemed to do any good: Madjid still treated him badly and calling him names, and he never failed to piss in David's mouth after being sucked.

Finally, in mid-November, Abdelkader got the chance he was looking for: Samir caught a really bad cough and was excused work for two days, and Abdelkader was one of three junior slaves assigned to cover his work while he was sick. And that gave him access to the biggest prize of all, Ali's own bedroom.

He grabbed David and took him into the forbidden room, threw off his robes and lay back on the bed.

“Come on, then – show me how you do this with the Master,” he commanded.

David was really nervous about this: he knew that if any servants caught them, they would be in serious trouble – plus, in his case, he would feel that he'd let the twins down. But Abdelkader insisted, and so he set to work, doing his best to finish the job as quickly as possible. And, of course, Abdelkader was just in the throes of orgasm when the door opened and in walked Ali, followed by Rafik and Kuyo.

“Punishment room,” said Ali, once Abdelkader was back in a state to hear him.

They all went to the punishment room without speaking, and when they got there Ali had Abdelkader stripped and strapped to the frame.

“Master, I am the one who should be beaten,” protested David. “I am older than him, and I knew how wrong it was. If I had refused him...”

“Did he order you to do it?"

“Well, yes, but...”

“And he is senior, so you had no choice. You are not at fault here, Cockroach.”

“But I am! I could have refused – I am stronger than him, I could have pulled him from the room...”

“But you have sworn to obey all the other slaves in the palace,” Ali reminded him.

“Yes, I know. But still – he's only eight...”

“I'm nine,” Abdelkader managed to say, though he was trembling.

“Okay, nine... look, please don't hurt him, Master – I mean, I encouraged him...”

“He is going to be beaten,” Ali told him, “and you are going to witness it. You may stand wherever you want in the room, but you must look at him while the beating is taking place.”

That was a strange thing to say – what does my position in the room have to do with anything, David thought. And then he thought about it for a moment longer and got the message.

“Then, Master, I will stand here,” he said, taking up a position directly behind Abdelkader and trying to brace himself.

“Are you certain? You will not be strapped, and so you may move whenever you will,” Ali told him.

“I will not move,” David assured him.

“As you will. Kuyo, nine, please.”

Kuyo took a whip from the wall and lined up, and if David thought his master was going to hold back he realised very quickly that he wasn't: the first blow hurt as badly as any blow he had yet taken. By the third blow he was drawing on all his reserves of willpower not to move away, but the fact that Abdelkader was whimpering in fear strengthened him a bit.

“Don't worry, I'm not moving,” he assured the frightened boy, putting his arms round him, as much to keep himself in place as to comfort the other boy.

Numbers five and six drew screams from him, and he was hanging on to Abdelkader in a death-grip, because he knew that if he once let go he would not be able to prevent himself from moving away.

One more blow landed and he shrieked again, desperate to move away but still determined, if he could force his body to obey him, to protect the younger boy to the end. And then Ali spoke.

“Move away, Cockroach,” he said. “It is an order.”

“But... yes, Master,” he said, because he knew that disobeying Ali would get him a far worse beating than this.

“You are brave, Cockroach,” Ali told him. “You show great courage and honour to defend your fellow slave like that. But he must take some punishment, or he will be tempted to perform such stupidities again.”

So Kuyo whipped Abdelkader twice on the buttocks, and the small boy squealed at the first one and yelled at the second.

“Tell me, Abdelkader,” Ali asked him as he writhed against the straps, “how many rooms remain for you and Cockroach to perform in?”

“You knew, Master?” asked Abdelkader, staring at him.

“Of course I knew! This is my household, remember? So, how many rooms remain?”

“Well, there's the schoolroom and the day-room, and your office and your bathroom and toilet.”

“Is that all? I'm impressed,” said Ali. “Perhaps we can arrange for you to have access to those rooms at some point, though you may have an audience for some performances. But... what about this room? Have you done it here?”

“No, master - I don’t like to come into this room.”

“That is sensible. Then I order you to perform here, as you are now, before you leave this room. Cockroach, you are not to release him from the frame until you have brought him to excitement. You are both in pain, so it might take a while, and so we will leave you to continue without an audience. But you are on your honour to obey, understand?”

“Yes, Master,” they both agreed, and Ali led Rafik and Kuyo from the room.

“Are you okay?” asked David, once they had gone.

“No. My bottom hurts. I was only beaten once before, and that was with a light strap, not a proper whip.”

“It looks okay,” said David, stroking the prisoner's sore bottom gently. “It will hurt for a short while, but the pain will go.”

“It wouldn't if I had been given nine. You're so brave, Cockroach... you didn't have to do that for me. I told you when we started that I was the senior one, so it would be my fault if we got caught.”

“Yes, but I could have refused, like I told Ali. I don't think you'd have whipped me for refusing, would you?”

“I might have... but probably not.”

“See, it was at least partly my fault, then.”

“So why didn't you refuse?”

“Because you were having so much fun, and I really enjoyed seeing you so happy.”

“Really? Wow, then Djamel and Mohamed and the others were telling the truth, then.”

“What do you mean?

“They both said you're really nice, that you talk to them like a proper friend, not like they're just some stupid slave kid who doesn't matter to anyone. And all the others like you, too, because you work hard and don't mind doing even the messiest jobs, like Karim told us you didn't argue once when he got you to try to clean out the blocked pipe in the toilet...”

“I remember that one. The twins had to soak me in the servants' bath for about an hour to get the smell off me.”

“See? That's what I mean about you being nice.”

“Oh. Look, do you think you'll be able to go hard if I start sucking you? Because my bum really hurts and I'd like to get back to my room and lie down on my tummy for a bit.”

“Try it and we'll see. But it usually works, doesn't it?”

“You're not usually strapped to the punishment frame with a sore bottom. Still, let's try.”

So he knelt in front of the frame, groaning as the muscles in his bottom moved, and slipped the other boy's small penis into his mouth. He stroked the boy's sore bottom gently, played with the tiny balls and caressed his stomach and groin, and soon the little penis grew hard and he was able to start work properly. It wasn't long before Abdelkader was wriggling about, and then to his surprise the other boy told him to stop.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. This is sort of exciting, and I don't want to finish too quickly.”

“What, you actually like being strapped to the frame and helpless?”

“Yes. I can't say why, it just feels sort of... I don't know, but I like it.”

“Okay, but please can we finish soon? My bum's really sore.”

“Oh, damn, I forgot. Sorry, Cockroach – I won't make you stop again.”

So David set to work again, and this time he kept going until Abdelkader had a really strong orgasm, which seemed to go on for some time. Finally he said that David could stop.

David stood up, reached for the wrist straps, and hesitated.

“I could just leave you here, you know,” he said.

“But you won't,” said Abdelkader, confidently. “I won't even have to order you to undo me, because you're far too nice to leave me here like this.”

“One day you'll annoy me a bit too much and I will do something like that, though,” said David, undoing the straps.

“No, you won't. You're my friend.”

“In that case, do you think you could call me 'David'? Most of the others do.”

“But I like calling you 'Cockroach'... well, okay, maybe I'll call you 'David' if you behave.”

“Come on, then,” said David, undoing the last strap. “Let's go.”

“Okay. Do you think Ali really meant it when he said he might let us do it in the last five rooms? That'd be really good.”

“Depends how big the audience is. I prefer to do this stuff in private.”

“Me, too, really. But... do you think we could do it like that again sometime – down here, I mean?”

“Are you serious? You want to be strapped to the frame?”

“Well... it was exciting, not being able to move. Except next time you should gag me, so I can't give you any orders. Then you'll be able to do anything you want to me. Just as long as you suck it for me to finish with, of course.”

“You're mad!”

“No, I'm not. Of course, if I didn't trust you I'd never let you do it, but I think it might be fun, knowing you can do anything you want to me... I want to try it, anyway.”

“Well, I think you're insane, but if it's what you want...”

“I might change my mind, of course... look, you'd better go and rest, because I bet your bottom really hurts. And... thanks, David. That was really brave, what you did for me.” And he hugged David and ran off up the stairs – obviously his bottom wasn't quite so sore as David's was, because running was impossible for him at that moment.

A couple of days later Ali summoned him to his day-room. He found Abdelkader already there, looking a little nervous, and he wondered if they were in trouble again, even though they hadn’t had a chance to misbehave anywhere in the past two days.

“I believe you still need to add this room to your list,” Ali said to Abdelkader. “So today you have your chance. Lie down on my cushions so that we may see how Cockroach does it with you.”

A little nervously – after all, hitherto there hadn’t been an audience, whereas today Ali was there, and Rafik, and Nacer, and both of the twins – Abdelkader reclined on the cushions, lifting his robe up to his chest, and David knelt down between his legs and got on with it. He didn’t do quite so much stroking and so forth today, both because he didn’t like having an audience either, particularly one that included the twins, and because he wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. Plus, he thought it would be good politics to give the impression that he saved his best performances for Ali himself.

So fairly soon he was sucking steadily, and Abdelkader seemed able to forget the audience and enjoy it the way he usually did. David could hear the odd giggle, particularly from young Nacer, who was about the same age as Abdelkader, and he could hear the odd muttered comment from some of the others, too. But he did his best to shut this out and just get on with it, and before too long he had Abdelkader right on the brink. If they had been alone he would have stopped here to prolong his partner’s enjoyment, but with an audience he preferred to get it over with, and so he just kept going until Abdelkader had finished. The younger boy seemed to have enjoyed it as much as usual, and he supposed that was the important thing.

“So, Abdelkader, was that good?” asked Ali, grinning at him.

“Yes, Master. But Cockroach is always good.”

“That’s true. Right, we’ll arrange for you to use another of my rooms in a day or two. Now, Cockroach: did you know you have some hair on the back of your balls?”

“No, Master,” said David, looking surprised.

“Well, they are still quite short, and you probably don’t notice them unless you actually examine yourself. But when you’re kneeling up with your legs apart and your bottom in the air we can see them. So – do you have any sperm yet?”

“I don’t think so, Master.”

“Don’t you know? I mean, don’t you play with yourself?”

“Not for a long time, Master.” And that was true: circumcision, then whippings, plus having Djamel to suck it for him, all meant that David hadn’t masturbated for three months or more.

“We must check. Abdelkader, rub Cockroach’s penis for him.”

So David relaxed on the cushions and Abdelkader wanked him. David thought he might have quite enjoyed this if it hadn’t been for the audience – Nacer was giggling again, and everyone else was staring. But he closed his eyes and tried to enjoy it – after all, this was the first time his penis had been rubbed since his operation, and at least everything still seemed to be working properly, and without hurting, either.

One thing was clear: he was definitely growing at last. Abdelkader was holding him below his scar and still had enough to work with. Of course, he would prefer it if he didn’t develop any more…

He felt the moment approaching and tensed up, gasping, and Abdelkader kept working steadily until he couldn’t hold it back any more, and…

“You’re wet,” said Ali. “So you have got some sperm. There isn’t very much, but it still means you’ve reached puberty – and you know what that means, don’t you?”

David stared at him in dismay: he’d really hoped he’d done enough to have that sentence commuted. Ali saw the look on his face.

“I see that you do,” he said. “Look, Cockroach, I admit that I know you better now than I did when you arrived, and if I’d known then what I know now I wouldn’t have made that promise. But Brahim is family, and I’ve sworn an oath to him to have you castrated at puberty, so I can’t go back on it. I’m sorry. But I’ll have the operation done properly, in my father’s clinic under anaesthetic, not with a knife in public. You’ve earned that. And maybe I might let you keep your penis, if you work hard in the meantime. And I’ll do something else for you, too: I’ll call Brahim first. He’ll want to be invited to see it happen, but I’ll try to persuade him to change his mind, because I don’t think he realises what you’re really like.”

“Thank you, Master,” said David, dully. He thought there was absolutely no chance of Dhif letting him off, no matter what Ali said to him. But he realised that Ali was doing far more for him here than he had a right to expect, so he knelt up and added, “Really, Master, I am grateful. I know you don’t have to do any of that for me. Thank you.”

“Very well. You may return to your duties. Abdelkader, I want you to tell me a bit more about what you were talking about before Cockroach got here…”

So David went back to work. That afternoon he was assigned to help Madjid again, and he thought that one person in the palace at least would be glad to hear the news – and maybe it would finally give him a chance to get through to him.

“Hello, Madjid,” said David, when he reached the schoolroom.

“Call me ‘Master’, said Madjid. “I’m senior to you, remember?”

All of the other slaves were senior to him, too, but none of them had ever wanted to be called ‘Master’, even before their attitude to David had changed.

“Yes, Master,” he said, obediently. “I have some news for you.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say.”

“You’ll want to hear this, Master. Ali has just discovered that I have reached puberty. I’m going to be castrated.”

Madjid’s face lit up. “You’re right, I do want to hear it,” he said. “Brilliant! I’m going to ask if they’ll let me do it, over about ten hours, using a rusty saw or something like that.”

“I’m sorry. Ali says it’s going to be done in a hospital, with anaesthetic. But at least afterwards you’ll really be able to make fun of me. And, since you like the idea so much, I’ll try to persuade them to give me my balls afterwards, if they can be preserved somehow, and then I’ll give them to you, to go with my foreskin.”

Madjid stared at him. “Why? What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch. I certainly won’t want them, and nor will anyone else. I suppose they’d just be thrown away otherwise. But you’d actually appreciate having them: you could make me look at them every time I have to work with you, and you could keep them the rest of the time to look at when you feel bad: they’ll remind you that things could always be worse.”

“Okay, I’ll take them. But I hope you realise that sucking up to me isn’t going to make me ease back on you.”

“I know.”

“Good. Get on with scrubbing the floor, then.”

So that idea didn’t seem to have worked, either. David was starting to think that Madjid might really be unreachable, but he still wasn’t ready to give up.

His next attempt was a little more drastic, but he decided to try, anyway. And so four days later he decided to give Madjid what he wanted. Five minutes after entering the day-room, which was otherwise empty at this time of day, Madjid ordered him to scrub the floor.

“Fuck off, Madjid,” he said. “You’re a lazy bastard, and I’m not doing your work for you any longer.”

Madjid stared at him in shock. Then he recovered. “Punishment room,” he said. “Now.”

David obediently set off down the corridor, and this time they found Rachid loitering outside the slave quarters, and David realised that Samir had arranged it so that Madjid couldn’t sneak him to the punishment room unseen.

“Where are you going?” Rachid asked.

“To the punishment room,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I was rude and abusive to Madjid. I told him to fuck off and refused to obey his orders.”

Rachid looked confused, and Madjid looked positively astonished.

“Is that true?” Rachid asked Madjid, and he recovered enough to agree that it was.

“You’d better get on with it, then,” said Rachid, still looking bemused.

So David carried on to the punishment room and started to strap his legs against the frame.

“Why did you do that?” Madjid asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You could have lied to Rachid and he would have believed you and stopped me punishing you. And, come to that, why did you defy me in the first place? You’ve never done it before.”

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” said David, stretching his arms up so that Madjid could strap his wrists. “Now you can give me the beating you’ve been wanting to for so long.”

“Yes, but… oh, never mind.” Madjid selected a mid-range whip and beat David hard. It was only a few days since he had taken Abdelkader’s whipping, so it hurt more than it might have done, and at the end of it David was in obvious agony, writhing about on the frame with tears rolling down his face. Madjid looked at him; entranced, and actually had to shake himself out of it to release David from the frame.

“Take me to the storeroom,” he ordered, as David struggled to stand up. “I want you to have to suck me while you’re still hurting.”

David struggled his way up the stairs to the storeroom and knelt on the mattress, while Madjid pulled off his robe and lay on the mattress, his legs apart. David lowered himself until his head was just above Madjid’s erection, which was only a little larger than his, though Madjid had a few proper hairs around the base, and his balls were larger, too. And, as David already knew, he could shoot.

Normally when doing this for Madjid he got this over with as quickly as possible, but today he gave his best performance ever, stroking the boy’s whole body, kissing and licking his nipples, rubbing his own body against the other boy’s, sucking on his balls, licking the tip of the penis for several seconds before finally starting to suck properly. And Madjid absolutely revelled in it, gasping and groaning and thrusting and trying to force David’s head down whenever he paused. But David knew what he was doing, and managed to get the other boy to such a pitch of excitement that he actually started to beg and plead with David to carry on instead of just issuing orders, which David had so far been ignoring anyway.

He brought Madjid to the very edge once more and then drew back, leaving the boy gasping in frustration and pleading with David to let him come. But instead David wriggled up to lie next to him.

“Which is better,” he asked, “whipping me, or this?”

“Both! I want both… but I suppose this is best.”

“Good. Look, Madjid, I can do it like this for you every time if you want, but there’s a price.”

“You want me to stop bullying you and beating you, I suppose?”

“No, you can still do that, and you can beat me if I mess up. But I want you to talk to me, too. I want you to spend some time with me every week, just talking to me. If you do, I’ll suck you properly whenever you want.”

“Why should I want to talk to you?”

“Because nobody else will talk to you. I will, and I’ll understand you in a way that the rest of that lot can’t possibly. Wait, I’ll finish you, if you want…”

He slipped back down and played with Madjid’s body some more, though still without letting him climax.

“If you like we can do it like this,” he said. “I’ll suck you while you’re talking to me, and as long as you keep talking, I’ll keep making you feel good. And if I don’t do a good job you can whip me again, okay?”

By now Madjid was desperate for a climax. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I agree – as long as you promise to do it to me properly in future.”

“You mean like this?”

“Yes, dammit – but you have to let me finish!”

“I will. Now swear it.”

“I swear it!” cried the desperate boy, humping the air as David kept his mouth just out of range.

“Good. Now, let’s see what we can get out of you…”

David sucked and teased and stroked and caressed, and when Madjid finally came he produced more spunk than David would have felt possible for such an immature boy. Madjid was thirteen, but small for his age and skinny, like many of the slaves, but he seemed to have as much spunk today as Michael Stagg had done on that long-lost first occasion with him…

“Was that okay?” he asked, when Madjid finally stopped moving.

“That was fucking amazing, Cockroach. You really swear you’ll do it like that in future, even if I go on treating you like shit?”

“It’s my job,” David told him. “If I want to put that much effort into it, I can.”

Which wasn’t answering the question, of course.

Madjid took him back to the day-room and watched him finishing cleaning the floor, and because time was a little short now he actually polished the furniture himself, and David didn’t call him ‘Master’ once, but Madjid didn’t seem to notice.

David went back to the twins’ room to make sure it was clean and tidy and then went down to the servery to fetch their midday meal, thinking that maybe he finally had the breakthrough he wanted. Of course, maybe it wouldn’t do any good, but he might at least now have a chance to make Madjid listen to him.

Over the next week Ali allowed him and Abdelkader to have oral sex in the remaining rooms on their list. There wasn’t enough room in Ali’s toilet for anyone to watch, but in the office and the schoolroom the same audience watched them with interest. And for the final performance Ali had his bath – which was more like a plunge-pool than a normal-sized bath - filled with hot water and he made David try to suck Abdelkader to orgasm under water. That was quite difficult, but somehow he managed it, though he wasn’t sure it was quite as good for his partner as it usually was.

Once Abdelkader had dried himself and put on his robe Ali dismissed everyone except David, then took off his clothes and got into the water, ordering David to bathe him. David had no expertise as a bath attendant, though he had washed the twins in the servants’ bathroom from time to time. But they were simply interested in getting clean quickly, whereas Ali saw bathing as a sensory experience.

He explained to David what he wanted, and David set to work with the various oils and soaps and shampoos and so forth, giving his master a massage as he washed him.

“You know you could drown me quite easily if you wanted,” Ali said, quietly.

“Why would I want to do that?” asked David.

“Because I’m going to have you castrated.”

“But you have no choice – you gave your word.”

“I know, but you might not see it that way – after all, I am ruler here, and I can do what I want.”

“I would still not want to drown you. You’re our master. And even if I did go mad and do something like that, I’m pretty sure your father would torture me to death for it.”

“True, but you could probably manage to commit suicide right after killing me. Some boys might prefer to be dead than to have no balls.”

“Master, if I thought that I would just kill myself, not you as well. You gave your word. That is good enough for me.”

“Then you ought to know that I tried to call Brahim,” Ali told him. “And I couldn’t speak to him, because he is in hospital. There was an accident, and now he’s unconscious. And that means that he can’t travel to watch your operation. So I’m going to postpone it until the end of your Western year, to give him time to recover. But if he still can’t come by then, we will have to go ahead, because it’s important for the operation to be done before any serious changes take place, to your voice or your body.”

“I understand,” said David, not sure whether to be grateful for this short respite or scared of the inevitability of the thing. After all, he’d had to wait for his circumcision, but that had still gone ahead, and no doubt his castration would be the same. If he’d thought there was any way out, he’d have taken it, but he knew that escape was still impossible, and that Ali would respect him far more, and so be more inclined to mercy, if he accepted his fate gracefully, rather than grovelling and begging.

He finished bathing his master, dried him, helped him into a clean robe and then allowed himself to be led through to the bedroom, where he sucked Ali to orgasm in slow motion as usual.

“Abdelkader said something strange,” he told David as he lay on the bed recovering. “He said that the most exciting and most powerful feelings he got were when he was with you in the punishment room, unable to move. I find it hard to understand, but he was most insistent. So tomorrow I want you to do it to me in the same way.”

David stared at him. “Are you sure?” he said. “I mean, it wouldn’t be right to strap you up like a common slave.”

“It will if I tell you to.”

And there was no arguing with that, so the following afternoon he reported to Ali straight after the end of his lessons and went with him, accompanied only by Yeyne, to the punishment room. Ali stationed Yeyne outside the door with strict orders to allow nobody to come in, and then he took David inside and closed the door. He removed his clothes and got David to strap him into position against the frame, and was obviously found this an exciting situation because his penis was already extremely hard.

“This feels really strange,” he said. “It must be frightening to be like this and unable to move, knowing that you’re going to be beaten. So…” He took a deep breath. “I want to do this properly, so from now on you are allowed to do whatever you want to me. I want to feel completely helpless, because Abdelkader said it made him feel really excited. So if you want to hurt me a bit, you can. The only rules are that you mustn’t make me bleed, and you have to finish by sucking me until I get excited, but otherwise there is nothing that you can’t do. You can touch me all over, you can tease me, you can… well, you understand. And I swear to you that you won’t be punished for anything you do. Just for once I want to feel completely helpless, just to find out what that feels like.”

“Then I’d better gag you as well,” said David, remembering what Abdelkader had said. “That way you can’t change your mind and order me to stop.”

Ali looked at him for a moment, and then he gave a short nod. “Do it,” he said. “And then just have fun.”

“Master, I don’t think it’s fun to hurt people – at least, not any more,” he said. “But I will try to make this exciting for you.”

He put the gag on and then thought about what to do next. He was under no illusions: although in theory he was free to do as he wished, he was fairly certain that if he set about Ali with a heavy whip he would suffer for it later. And he’d obviously never done this to anyone before, except for Abdelkader, and in his case he had simply sucked the helpless boy. He knew that he had absolutely hated being tied up and fucked, both here and when the Devlins and Sherwood had done it to him back in Cheltenham, so it was hard for him to understand why someone would voluntarily let himself be tied up like this.

But it was Ali’s choice, and so to start with he stood behind the trapped boy and began to stroke his body gently all over, tickling a bit where he thought Ali would be sensitive to it, in his armpits and down his ribs, and it did make his prisoner wriggle and utter muffled sounds. Next he decided to try humiliating him a bit, so he squatted down and began to run a finger round Ali’s anus, which was open and exposed in this position.

“I bet none of your slaves have been able to see this part of you before,’ he said, pressing against it. “You must feel so ashamed, having a slave boy look at your hole. I wonder what’s inside?” And he pushed a finger carefully in as far as the first joint, making Ali utter a muffled squeal through his gag.

“I could put other things in there, too,” he mused, finger-fucking Ali slowly and carefully. “I think some of the whips have handles that could go quite a long way inside you – or I could even fuck you. Fucked by a slave – you’d never be able to forget that, would you?”

Ali squealed, but of course he couldn’t speak, so David pulled his finger back out and stood up.

“Perhaps later,” he said. “I can see that you’re really stiff, though – maybe I should do something about that.”

He slapped Ali’s penis back and forth a couple of times, then pulled it down and released it so that it sprang up again, quivering. “It would be really easy to hurt it,” he commented. “Just think how a whipping would feel on your knob.”

Ali trembled, and when David stepped over to the wall and came back with one of the lighter whips he tried speaking again.

“Sorry,” said David, “I can’t understand you. Now, then…”

He flicked the very tip of the whip against the underside of the tip of Ali’s erection, making it jerk, and then he did it from the top instead, which drew another stifled gasp.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be too cruel to it, though,” said David, sitting in front of the prisoner and starting to suck his penis very slowly. Soon he was in his usual routine, caressing and stroking as he sucked, though he made sure that he stopped long before Ali got to his climax.

He picked up the whip again and whipped Ali’s bottom with it, hard enough to sting a bit, but not enough to really hurt.

“Do you like being helpless?” he asked, putting the whip down, standing close behind Ali and pressing his own erection – for doing this had turned out to be quite exciting – into the cleft of Ali’s bottom. He stroked Ali’s chest, and ran his right hand down to take hold of Ali’s erection while tickling his nipples with his left. “Do you like knowing I could do whatever I wanted to your cock, or fuck you properly, and you couldn’t do anything to stop me? Do you like being totally at the mercy of the lowest slave you own and knowing that I could hurt you really badly if I wanted, or whip you till you scream, or fuck you over and over again?”

He started to masturbate Ali in slow motion.

“That feels nice, doesn't it?” he said. “But it could just as easily hurt, if I dug my nails in, or bent it so far down that it broke right off. And your balls, too – if I'm going to lose mine, maybe I should whip yours hard, so they can't work properly? I suppose that might be a bit cruel. Or – how about this? Suppose I put my head outside the door and told Yeyne that you want all the slaves and servants to come down here right away? How would you feel if every one of your slaves and servants could look at you like this, stark naked, tied up, and completely helpless? Think about them laughing at you, making fun of you because you've got a small cock and no hair yet, and then think about them all coming and playing with it, and you couldn't do anything to stop them... you'd be so ashamed!”

He went towards the door, but then turned round, knelt in front of the prisoner and began to suck him again, but this time he pushed a finger back into Ali's hole once more, pushing it carefully but steadily in until he was able to press against Ali's prostate. And then he really went at it, sucking, finger-fucking and dragging his master closer and closer... and then he stopped.

“Do you want me to keep going?” he asked, grinning up at Ali, and the prisoner nodded frantically.

“No, not just yet, I don't think. Maybe I should whip you some more first.”

And David dragged it out for at least another quarter of an hour before finally bringing his master to a phenomenal climax. He gave Ali a moment to recover a little and then released him.

“So, was Abdelkader right?” he asked.

“He was – that was unbelievable. Next time you should whip me a bit harder, though – that was exciting, somehow.”

“Next time? You mean you want to do that again?”

“Definitely. You did everything really well. The only bad thing was that it made my arms ache after a while.”

“We'll have to try to find a different way to tie you to the frame, then.”

“Maybe – but it should be done properly. And the best bit – apart from the end, of course – was when you threatened to get the rest of the slaves, and even started to walk towards the door. For a moment I actually believed you, and that really would have been bad. Do you really think I've got a small cock?”

“Well, you are only eleven. And it's normal not to have hair at eleven. But being told you have a small one is really embarrassing, especially if you think it's true. And... how did you feel about me putting my finger inside you?”

“That felt weird, but really good – something was happening inside me while you were doing that. And for a moment I thought you were really going to fuck me, and I'm not sure that I'd have liked that, though I couldn't have done anything about it if you had. And I did say you could do anything... but I'm still glad you didn't.”

Ali pulled his robe on and did up his sandals.

“Thank you, Cockroach,” he said. “I wouldn't trust many of my slaves enough to do that with them.”

“Thank you for trusting me, Master. But weren't you just a little scared I might really hurt you?”

“Yes, a little. But that just made it more exciting. Anyway, it was good, and we will definitely have to do it again. Oh, and one more thing: when you get back to your room you must ask the twins to remove your collar and bring it and the lock to me. You don't have to wear it any longer. Actually, next time we play this game I think maybe you should put it on me, so I can find out how it feels to be a slave... We'll store it down here, just in case.

“Now, once we're through that door we are master and slave once more, and obviously you are not to speak of this to anyone. If you do, I'll have you whipped, and it won't be a game, understand?”

“Obviously, Master. I would never make fun of you in front of the other slaves.”

“Good.” And Ali straightened his shoulders, getting his thinking back into its normal track. He opened the door and marched out, and Yeyne fell in behind him and followed him up the stairs. David watched them go, thinking that being a slave could sometimes be a lot more interesting than he had previously thought...

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Apparently a slave’s life isn’t just scrubbing floors, then, or even just sucking cocks. In any case, David’s situation is a lot better than it was before, with just one – or maybe that should be two – teeny little problems: with Brahim still in no position to intervene, can anything save David from losing his balls? In the next chapter we might find out…

Oh, and: gothmog@nyms.net – you know what to do.

Copyright 2009: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.

David Clarke