"Arabian Nights"
Part 8
by Emspike
Sean awoke slowly, blinking bleary eyes into focus as he looked around the dark tent he found himself in, arms tied to a wooden post behind his back. He remembered what had happened, why he was tied... half naked, it appeared, inside a tent, and felt furious, but ached far too much to do anything. He wasn’t broken, not at all, nor was he beaten. He would *not* give in. He remembered too well the past few days with his previous master; a lecherous man not ten years his senior with a perverted pleasure in using all he had at his disposal to break new slaves.
Sean was sure he would have at least a dozen new scars to bear witness to his humiliation. Scars he would bear both inside and out, ones he would bear alone, for the only one who had ever treated his scars, tracing each one as if a story could be read from the line of mended flesh, was gone. His prince was missing and Sean despaired of ever seeing him again, of ever being given the chance to give voice to his hidden feelings. But he digressed.
He took inventory on the scars he could see, red circles from candles left to drip their scalding wax on his bare unprotected skin, long thin marks from whips curled around his arms to bring him back to his place, and deeper wounds, left from knives, daggers, and swords. None of which counting the ones on his back and those on his soul from the indecencies and repeated rape upon his body when he was finally too weak to move.
A warrior knew pain, and let it leave him; a warrior felt sorrow, which he released to the night sky. A warrior knew discomfort, but never suffering, for one only suffers when one allows them to. Nor did a warrior know despair so deeply that he ever felt reason to extinguish his life. Yet Sean could not release anything to allow himself to heal, for he was sure he was nearly beyond healing. Bodies could heal; souls and hearts had more difficulty in doing so.
A figure swathed in white entered and Sean tensed, knowing the following hour would bring him nothing but anguish. This was Sarisa, the woman, barely more than a girl, who was to tend his wounds. She tried to be gentle, but they were deep and near infection, his body not adapted to handle sand and the harsh dryness of the land. At the cleaning of the fifth cut, his head swam and he sank thankfully into blessed darkness.
When next he woke, it was to the rough hands of his guards, hoisting him up to his feet and dragging him into the harsh sun, back onto the auctioning block. His time of peace, if that was what one could call days spent tied in a dark tent with sweat rolling down your back, was over. He struggled, refusing to be sold without a fight, but a sharp cuff to the side of his head stilled him and he went lax, his head too muddled to allow him to struggle further.
Sean was shoved to the front of the block and he went down on his knees, heavy hands upon his shoulders to prevent him from rising. His captor's voice, in her native tongue, rang out over the crowd, offering him once again for sale, and his blood boiled. He would be sold... but his master would not live to take pleasure in his body. No. Sean would take his pleasure from the master... with whatever form of weapon he could devise.
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Emspike
go to PART 9