you that you will then be able to enjoy my body as is your right.’
Now she was in a new fever of impatience. She stepped out of her black skirt and with trembling hands set to unlacing her bodice. The bodice fell to the ground and, as she turned away from him, Orkhan saw that her broad shoulders were already covered with a light tracery of scars. Then she turned to him again and presented him with the whip.
‘Flog me now,’ she implored. ‘I am begging you for it. I need it.’ And she turned away and bent to present her back for chastisement.
Orkhan struck at her a couple of times, but she was not satisfied.
‘Harder. It must be harder. You have to draw my blood, for the jinns are in my blood. You have to let them out.’
Her broad bottom seemed made for whipping and he struck at it again and again. Ugly red weals began to break up its milky smoothness. For the first time since his release from the Cage, Orkhan felt himself to be truly a sultan and, as he continued to lash out at Roxelana, he began to fantasise about how he would deal with Anadil and the other ladies of the Harem. He worked a little way up her back before pausing for breath.
Then she said,
‘You must be able to do better than this. Harem girls have whipped me harder than you have. Come on, I really want to feel it — your touch of mastery.’
Her words had the effect she desired. Orkhan struck out at her in a frenzy. Now she was crying and calling out to him, but his rage was such that it was some time before he could hear that she was begging him to desist. He stopped and she turned to kneel in front of him and kiss the whip.
‘Thank you, master. Now you may do with me what you wish,’ and she lay back once more on the straw. This time it was different. The devils having departed, she docilely lay back and allowed herself to be penetrated. She embraced him tenderly as he moved inside her.
She sighed as he came within her,
‘Thank you master,’ she said again and kissed him hungrily. ‘It has always been hard for me, for the jinns that come into my body will not allow me to acknowledge the supremacy of a man. Now at last I am at peace.’
And Orkhan observed that her eyes were dulled, sated. Yet, it now occurred to him that, with her back such a bloody mess, she must have been moving on a bed of agony as she gave herself to him.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked foolishly.
‘Of course you did — a little, but women are used to pain. They are better capable of bearing it than men,’ and she smiled patronisingly at him.
‘I do not believe that. Everyone knows that men are stronger, tougher and better able to bear pain.’
‘With respect, O master, perhaps men think they know that, but I do not. Women are born equipped to face far more pain than men, for nature has prepared them in advance to suffer the travails of childbirth. And every month I experience such pain that you cannot imagine. Your whipping was a little nothing by comparison.’ The brightness was back in her eyes again and she looked at him mischievously. ‘You could never stand such a whipping as the one I received from your hands.’
‘You are being absurd, Roxelana. I should certainly be much better able to endure it than you were.’
‘Then let us try it, shall we?’
Orkhan hesitated. Why, after all, should he submit to being whipped by one of his animal girls?
Seeing him hesitate, she urged him on,
‘Come on my lord! It is only a game, like my game with the panther. Such sports make us feel more alive, for, though we may walk through life as if we walked in a dream, the flick of the whip can wake us up. Turn and turn about,’ she insisted. ‘You will enjoy it. Trust me.’ And she gave him a brilliant smile.
Tempted by the challenge, seduced by her smile, he agreed. Then she led him to a corner of the stables, and pointed to a pair of manacles which were attached by chains to the wall.
‘Put these on,’ she said.
Once again, he balked. Now she was angry and stamped her foot.
‘You have to wear these. Otherwise it is not fair. It will not be a real challenge, if you can cry off at any moment, or turn round and snatch the whip from me and start beating me again. You have to trust me. You have to trust me, as I trusted you. Believe me, you will find that half your delight comes from trusting the lady with the whip. Trust me, it will only be a gentle whipping — like a series of butterfly kisses on your body.’
Orkhan offered his wrists to the manacles.
‘We sometimes put an unruly monkey in these,’ she explained, as she snapped them shut.
‘Now its my turn!’ she cried and the whip sang in the air.
Orkhan was unable to stop his body wincing as the thong made its first incision in his flesh. She was more skilled with the whip than he had been and the blows fell fast and accurately.
He heard her cry out,
‘Oh my beloved, I swear to you that I am only marking your body because I desire it. My whip is making a map to guide my loving kisses.’
Then suddenly the blows increased yet further in ferocity and she seemed to be talking to herself in a foreign language, in which guttural words mingled with groans and hisses. It was not long before Orkhan, half swooning, slumped against the floor. Then she was upon him, pressing herself against his back and licking his blood.
‘You are mad,’ he groaned.
‘So I am,’ she replied. ‘My jinns have come back and they want your blood. Oh my beloved master, forgive me, but I cannot hold back from this.’ And she resumed kissing and licking at his wounds.
At last she raised her face from his body and gave a deep sigh. When she next spoke, her voice was calm and gentle,
‘Now the kiss of the whip has taught you a little about the strange delight of suffering. Even so, you still have no idea about the pain of being a woman. In order to really make love to a woman, you will have to learn what it feels like to be one and to be made love to as a woman.’ She ran a hand over his hair.
‘Don’t go away, will you?’
And she was gone, leaving Orkhan chained on the floor of the giraffe stable.
When she returned, she nudged him with her foot and used it to turn him as far over as his chains would allow. Looking up at Roxelana, he first noticed that her mouth was rimmed with blood. Then he saw a large, greased and gleaming red thing attached by an intricate array of straps to the lower part of her belly and he moaned in dread.
‘This dildo,’ she said, pointing to the thing ‘consists of a unicorn’s horn sheathed in red Cordovan leather. It is only used for the deflowering of virgins.’
Then she briefly caressed his mouth with her foot, before kicking and turning him again, so that he was lying face down on the straw. She prodded him again with her foot.
‘I want you kneeling.’
‘When I am free you will pay for this.’
But, she struck at him with the butt of the whip and he did as he was told.
‘How will I pay for it?’ Roxelana demanded sarcastically. ‘Have me flogged, will you?’
As she spoke, she knelt over his bottom and spat on her hands before using the spittle to moisten the passage of her instrument in advance. Then she mounted him and rammed the dildo in, or rather, she attempted to, but Orkhan was very tight.
So she began to whisper hotly in his ear, begging him to relax and calling him her ‘handsome darling’ and her ‘plaything’. But all the while she continued to thrust with the horn between her legs. It felt like a great fist which, in beating its way upwards, was seeking to cleave Orkhan from bottom to top. It was as if he was being impaled on the shaft of the animal girl. It was as if he was carrying the woman inside him. It was as if he was being possessed by a dark demon who would not be denied entrance.
There was a final shudder as she at last succeeded in driving the horn into him. Pleasure and pain, exquisitely compounded, surged within him, overwhelming his will, so that he suffered orgasm.
Roxelana stroked his head. He could feel her breasts pressing against his back. He was in agony, and yet he longed for nothing more than to be able to turn to embrace his violator.
‘Now, my Sultan, a door has been opened for the Holy Rapture,’ she whispered, and giving the dildo a final twist, she continued ‘It is possible that you are now ready to yield to the total extinction which is perfect love.’
