Prologue

 

Ahmed downed the last of his cup of coffee and looked at his watch. Time to go, he thought: he had plenty of time to get to the office, but when the journey there was so enjoyable, it was always nice to take one's time and savour it to the full.

He kissed his wife goodbye and walked out of the front door. Outside his air-conditioned house, the temperature was already high; another hot day was in prospect. Still, he had lived most of his life in this climate and his office, like his home, would be nice and cool.

The taxi rank was only a few yards away. Ahmed walked lazily towards it, admiring the view. There were three lightweight carts there, waiting for passengers, each drawn by a beautiful young woman, naked but for boots and a harness.

One of the pony girls was familiar to him, but the other two were new and it was they who held his attention: he always liked new girls. The one was slightly short, but with impressive, thrusting breasts. She had jet-black hair and slightly dark skin, probably European but with a little Indian or Pakistani blood in her family tree. The other girl was a Nordic-type blonde, a big girl, powerful and athletic, a solid frame and well-toned muscles without a trace of fat. He walked in front of them as they stood docilely, their hands holding the shafts to which their wrists were manacled. Neither of them met his eyes: it wasn't a particular rule that pony girls should have their eyes lowered, but it would be a very rare girl indeed who did not feel humiliated, harnessed nude as they were and being treated simply as animals. Speaking, of course, was both illegal and impossible, as each girl's luscious lips were parted by a metal bit, revealing even white teeth.

Both girls had obviously already ferried a customer or two this morning, even though it was still very early. One could tell by the droplets of perspiration on their brows. Ahmed moved closer and saw little rivulets of sweat running down their sides from their armpits. He inhaled, smelling the delightful odour of fresh feminine exertion. Delightful!

When he looked behind them, he saw another indication that they had already been working: thin lines running down their backs where the reins had been used to spur them on, as well as the odd mark on their bottoms. By the end of the day, backs and bottoms would both be liberally marked.

Well, which one should he choose to ferry him to work? The dark-haired girl looked good, but he couldn't resist the big blonde. She was just perfect for pony work, and he would be able to get a good speed out of her. He moved behind her and climbed into her cart, watching her go slightly tense as she realised he had chosen her and felt him settle down into the cart. He picked up the reins and gave her a leisurely flick on the back with them.

"Isram Way," he ordered imperiously. She might be new - he had been out of town for a few days, so it might not be her first day - but she would already have memorised the street map. And if not, it would be the worse for her.

Immediately the cart began to move. Ahmed was a big man, but she was a strong girl. He settled down and watched the large, wonderfully shaped buttocks as the girl laboured, admired the muscles as they rippled beneath the flawless skin of her legs. He wondered what nationality she was. Swedish, maybe? If so, it was a long way from the fierce, clean northland wastes to this middle eastern land.

Very quickly, Ahmed found himself well on the way to an erection. He would be distracted all day by the vision of her rear unless he did something about this. "Stop!" he called out gruffly, pulling on the reins as he did, making her head lean back somewhat. She brought the cart to a halt, panting just slightly. "Kneel down, legs apart," he added. She did so without hesitation. He arranged his flowing robes to allow his manhood its freedom, and moved forwards from his seat. It being still early, there were not yet many people about, not that Ahmed cared much. He thrust in, his hands roving over the sweaty flesh, ignoring the little gasps and moans that came from behind her bit.

It was a quick and fairly mechanical coupling. Her reactions and moans and groans indicated that she hadn't enjoyed it, but was not immune to being aroused. He wasn't much bothered either way: what she felt or thought was not important. She was only a pony girl.

Shortly afterwards, they resumed their journey. A slight trickle of viscous cum which inched very slowly down her inner thigh, mixed with a little of her own juices, was clear indication that she had been mounted, probably adding to her humiliation. Ahmed sighed contentedly and relaxed in the cart seat. Life was wonderful ... unless, of course, you were a slave girl between the shafts!

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

A WEEK OR SO EARLIER

 

The heat blazed down.

The coach was hot and stuffy and each of the dozen or so passengers was perspiring. Jane sat looking out at the scenery. The land was dry, not quite a desert, but hilly, uncultivated and unpopulated. Apart from the sentry station they had passed a while back, she had not seen anybody outside the coach for hours as the vehicle made its way along the bumpy, pot-holed road to the "closed community" of Sanxta.

Sanxta was apparently an isolated town in an otherwise uninhabited area of a Persian Gulf state. Jane had arrived in the previous day. She wasn't sure which state it was: her geography of the region was such that the name would have meant little to her anyhow. Nor did it really matter: they were there, and that was that. Wherever it was, it had once been part of the British Empire and consequently English was the predominant language. The people were a mixture of Arabs and expatriates, both recent and those who had settled here during the days of empire.

One could not just go to Sanxta. The country's government (dictatorship was a better word) kept it off-limits to all but a select few with sufficient money or political pull. Even the workers and servants were subject to selection, mainly chosen as a reward for loyal service elsewhere, in the armed forces, for example. That left just one other social class of people who might go to Sanxta, and the reason for all the secrecy in the first place: the slaves.

The cosseted European who thinks that slavery is dead and gone is living in a fool's paradise. In many countries it still continues in isolated settlements; in the country they were in now, and perhaps others, it was quietly accepted and even tacitly encouraged by the government. It was even a small but useful export earner; there was quite a trade in kidnapping victims, generally beautiful young females, and selling them to wealthy clients all over the world.

For political reasons, of course, this was all kept very secret: most people in the state itself were not aware of it. The few roads leading there were monitored, hence the sentry point they had recently passed, and the terrain was otherwise sufficiently rough and the distance to the nearest other habitation so great as to ensure that no unauthorised visitors would 'drop in'. Equally, of course, it was impossible to leave without the permission of the authorities.

Of the three people in Jane's party, one was a "select person". This was a man called Simon Yates; although Jane knew him intimately, in the physical sense anyway, she knew little else about him. He was in his late thirties, and was involved with a secret slave organisation in southern England. Jane and the other person in the party, a statuesque beauty who went by the name of Hercules, were also involved with this organisation, but in a way they would not have wished: for they were slaves.

 

***** ***** *****

 

Simon was basically on holiday, although he referred to it as a "fact-finding trip" on behalf of the organisation. There was some truth in this, as he would be taking the opportunity to look at slave training and usage over here, but on the whole the trip was really mainly for pleasure rather than business. The authorities here had accepted his application for a six-week stay at Sanxta, but had specified as payment for the visit that he provide two slaves for the settlement's use for the duration of his stay; hence the presence of Jane and Hercules. Simon had gone to Master Charles, the head of the British Slave Trading Company, as they termed themselves, and hired the two girls. The girls themselves, of course, had not been consulted. Their wishes were totally irrelevant: they were hired the same way one might hire a car.

Jane was nineteen. She had jet-black hair, worn not too long, and slightly dark skin, a legacy of being a quarter Asian on her mother's side. At five feet four inches she was a little shorter than she would have liked to be, but she had a fantastic body, with stunning, thrusting, firm young breasts, a slim waist, a curvaceous bottom and shapely legs. Her impressive chest had landed her with the slave name "Booby", which had since been amended to "Boobs". It was, of course, a far from dignified name - slave names are meant to denigrate and humiliate - but she had no choice in the matter: Boobs was the only name she was allowed to be known by, just as she could only address her friend by her own slave name, Hercules. Of course, rules could be broken, sometimes with safety; but it would be a foolish risk to take. The consequences if caught were likely to be most unpleasant.

Whoever had come up with the name Hercules had been on to a winner. She was a striking flame-haired young woman of Amazonian proportions, almost six feet tall, with muscular yet feminine arms, a large and firm chest with a flat tummy and excitingly sculpted legs rising to an inviting love nest guarded only by luscious curls of red-blonde hair. Names like Amazon and Supergirl had been considered for her, but Hercules was far more insulting, impugning (quite unreasonably) her femininity and suggesting an image of a hairy labourer or even a ponderous heavy-duty horse instead of the curvaceous beauty she really was. She was twenty-one, so two years senior to Boobs, but on the other hand Jane had been a slave for longer, about eighteen months to Hercules' twelve.

Both girls had led fairly normal early lives that had ill-prepared them for the horrors of slavery. They had been, in effect, kidnapped and forced into this life and would not be released until their thirtieth birthdays. Jane, who had just turned eighteen when she had been enslaved, would endure twelve years of her life as a slave, whilst Hercules' sentence was ten years.

An Austrian with excellent English, Hercules - real, or rather former, name Astrid - had been abducted on holiday in England. At first, of course, she had resisted: they all do. But a few sharp beatings soon sorted that problem out. Now, like Jane, she was tamed, domesticated one might say. It came to all captives in time; it was only ever a question of how many whippings it took. For all her strength and determination, Hercules eventually succumbed like all the rest.

Both girls were absolutely and completely resigned to their fate: resistance was unthinkable, and great care was always taken to ensure that there was no possibility of escape. In England, chained up behind the high walls of the Manor, there was just no way out, and here, in a foreign country where the authorities would be entirely on the side of her captors, there was even less chance. Precautions were still taken: even now, in the middle of an inhospitable semi-desert, surrounded by people she was sure would not help her, one of her wrists was handcuffed to the seat in front of her. Occasionally Jane would pull on the handcuff, testing it, but it was only an instinctive reaction; the handcuff itself was only really for show. A long time ago, she had come to accept that she would still be a slave this time next year, and the year after that, and so on up to that thirtieth birthday, with not the faintest chance of early release. Sometimes she wished that the time would go faster, to get this dreadful chapter in her life over; but at other times she would reflect that these were the years when she would be at the peak of her youth, health and beauty; she would miss those assets when they were gone.

It wasn't all bad. Like a surprisingly large number of girls, Jane had discovered a quirk inside herself. These quirks varied from girl to girl: in her case, she had discovered a considerable appetite for sex. Good sex experiences made the rest of her life bearable, and the bad ones didn't bother her. Hercules, unfortunately, found it more difficult to take pleasure from sex, or at least the sort of sex that they were always experiencing, which could most accurately be described as rape; but as a healthy, fit young woman she had the inevitable desires which needed slaking from time to time. The rest of the time, for her, rape was simply an occupational hazard.

It was a hard life, but both Boobs and Hercules were spirited girls who, whilst forced to accept their situation, made the best they could of it. So what did the next six weeks hold in store for them? They did not know, but it would undoubtedly include plenty of pain and humiliation. They accepted it just as a pensioner accepts the aches and pains that come with old age, reluctantly but knowing that nothing can be done about it. Resistance was unwise, rebellion foolish. Just lower your head and get on with it. And hope that you can bear it.