THE GLADIATOR (7 page)

As her hands were once more clipped behind her, Tara fervently hoped she might get some of the same before the night was out. Carlo was plainly furious about the state his beloved fighters were in and was muttering something about studded whips as he bustled around. Maybe the host stable was cheating again, Tara thought. It didn’t really bother her, they would cope somehow. Her final contest of the day was the hardest and even though she won it, she was on all fours, her lungs burning as she dragged in gasps of the foetid air. Her opponent, sweat and sand-coated lay beside her, flat on her back. Her breasts heaving as she too panted, her body whip-scored and scratched all over. It had been a good fight and she got only ten lashes. The guards didn’t bother with taking her to a post and as Tara watched, they lashed her where she lay, too exhausted to even try and shield her breasts.

The slaves were simply chained to the wall as usual, but before lights out their guards took their pleasure with them. The one who chose Tara started by allowing her to kneel up and lick his hard shaft as it reared above her, letting her roll her tongue around the tightly gathered scrotum, then slowly lick up the length of the underside until she reached the rolled-back foreskin and shining dome of the helm. As she raised herself up a little more, opened her mouth to its widest and pushed down so that she felt the hardness of him fill her, she could tell by his taste that he had given other slaves the benefit of his attentions during the day.

Tara was only slightly disappointed when he didn’t finish himself in her mouth, instead he pushed her back onto her straw and plunged up between her wide-spread legs, forcing a grunt from her as he pistoned into her vagina, his cock shouldering apart her slick and still-stinging labia. Her hands were still imprisoned behind her back so all she could do to express her gratitude for the relief he was bringing her was to brace her feet and buck upwards under him as he thrust down onto her. Their urgent coupling soon became a frantic race for the crest of the wave and both slave and guard joined their cries of triumph to the chorus that rang through the barn.

Chapter 7

The next day began with running the assault course. There was only one route and all seventy two squad girls ran it together. With that many slaves competing for the track it was inevitably a free-for-all. Elbows flew as they ran, fists as well, their bodies jostling hotly as the race went on, their breath forming a cloud round them in the morning air. There were certain points on the course where tiers of benches had been erected for the spectators, these were at places like the greasy poles where crowds of naked girls had to mill around while four girls at a time swarmed across, some of them falling into the mire beneath. The crowd of waiting slaves behind them gave great sport as fights went on continually, and the losers slithered helplessly down the steep bank into the mud and had to wade across. Similarly, where the track narrowed to run between thorn bushes, there were more spectators to watch as girls fought for space and then fought not to be pushed into the brambles. Down the home straight, which the slaves entered once they had scrambled over the third set of climbing nets on the course and then crawled under more nets, over which some of the guards stood, with whips at the ready, they ran a gauntlet of yet more whip-wielding guards. The men picked out the slaves from the opposing stable and punished them with burning stripes from wetted leather. There were four circuits to be completed and by the time the squads started on their fourth, they were well spread out. Tara and her opposing captain ran neck and neck, behind them El Tigre loped smoothly along occasionally scrapping with a black girl. Once they were clear of the melee behind them, all four relaxed a bit, they knew they had a long day ahead of them. They punched and kicked enough to keep the onlookers amused and crossed the finishing line under a hail of lashes but in relatively good order.

As she sat and got her breath back, Tara was pleased to note that her squad seemed to be trailing in fairly well up the field. Carlo was beaming again and the opposition’s trainer wasn’t. The finals of the chariot races went well too and by the time the finale was due, Tara was pretty sure that they had done well again. Carlo walked amongst them as they stood by the banks of the river, giving them encouraging slaps on their rumps and flanks.

“One more scrap my beauties then it’s back home for a few days off, eh?”

Tara’s assumption that the strange bridge she had glimpsed on her arrival here would feature in the show proved correct. She and her squad stood on one bank of the river while the opposition stood on the far one. Both squads were armed with staves as well as whips and nets this time. But what intrigued and puzzled her most was that the spectators weren’t seated, instead they milled around beyond ropes which had been set up to form temporary compounds on either bank, and why were there so many horses? But Carlo spoke again and interrupted her thoughts.

“You’ll fight on the centre platform, and the first one of you who goes into the water will taste an hour or two under my whip when we get home. Don’t give an inch!”

He turned and raised his arm to signal his readiness and the opposing trainer did the same on the far bank.

“Charge!” Carlo yelled, and to a fusillade of whip cracks from their guards, Tara led her squad out towards the strange, wide platform in the middle of the river.

The logs beneath their feet drummed and shook under them as they ran. From the banks came the cheers of the spectators and towards them came the crowd of grimly determined, semi-naked fighters. Above their leather corsets, their breasts shook and swung as they ran. Tara felt the familiar surge of elation as she heard the spectators’ roar rise towards a crescendo, a cry of avid, animal lust at the feast of female combat which was about to be served up for their pleasure.

At that instant Tara understood with complete clarity that she loved this strange life and wanted nothing more. She belonged wholeheartedly to her owner and his trainer. She was their creature to release for the fight and then to put back on the leash until she was required again. Shouting for the pure joy of naked struggle and the sexual slavery which would follow, Tara ran to meet her foes.

The two squads crashed together in the middle of the wide platform. A few whip strikes were possible as they closed but then it was just body against body; shield against breast, snarling defiance, knees raking up for crotches. No strategy was possible in the crush, it was pure brute force until slowly the melee began to break up and individual fights developed.

Back on the bank, Carlo watched happily. He could see his squad captain’s blonde mane flying over the crush of heaving bodies. He punched the air as she broke away from the crowd for long enough to swing her whip and begin to split the enemy lines. He had no love for his opposing trainer who had cheated at every turn but he had to admit that the man had come up with an excellent twist for this finale. He turned to where several of his men held horses and motioned for them to wait.

Out on the platform, several of the fights had developed into mauls of three or four bodies all twisting on the ground, biting, scratching, pulling hair, grabbing at breasts and nipples. The cries and squeals formed a descant to the roar of the crowd. There was a splash as the first girl was pushed off the platform and that was quickly followed by several more. Carlo didn’t care whose slaves they were, it was time to get the
real
action underway. On the opposite bank he saw his opponent raise his arm and he did likewise, then both dropped them simultaneously. The guards holding the horses began to urge them to pull.

The joy of the fight had banished from Tara’s mind the thought that there was bound to be a cruel twist to this finale. So it came as a complete surprise when, having just disarmed a girl, then held her by her hair while she cracked in a dozen or more lashes across the sweating body writhing and shrieking in her grasp, she felt the whole platform suddenly lurch. She staggered, regained her balance for long enough to see the horses toiling up the banks pulling long ropes behind them, then screamed in despair as the whole platform groaned then began to disintegrate as the props were pulled from under it.

In a confused and screaming mass, the squad girls fell into the river. The water was icy cold and some four feet deep, the girls came up spluttering and gasping at the shock, all thoughts of fighting banished by the cold. Then they were hit by the flood. Upstream, louvres in the dam had been opened and the river poured through. Tara was swept away with all the others, in a tangle of legs and flailing arms. Water filled her ears and eyes as she fought to hold her breath and try to swim. For a seeming eternity she was swept along until at last her face broke through into the air and there was solid ground under her feet. She lurched upright and saw that they had been swept about a hundred yards downstream and were at the far edge of a large pool where the flood had dissipated its fury. Ahead of her there was a shallow, shelving bank of mud which ran up to the grass. She reached it and collapsed onto all fours, around her the others were doing likewise before they set off to flounder up the mud and back onto dry land. But before any of them could do that, the final surprise was sprung. Down over the bank swarmed the whole crowd, whooping joyfully and shedding their clothes as they charged down onto the wet and exhausted gladiators.

Tara found herself actually laughing as she struggled upright to face the eager horde, and to her amazement the girl beside her, one of her opponents, was doing the same. It was going to be one huge mud-wrestling free-for-all, with unconstrained sex and fighting thrown in. What more could they have asked for?

The first men came careering down onto her and bore her back into the water before dragging her out. She fought and kicked joyfully in the slippery mud as their superior strength told and then cried aloud as she was penetrated for the first time that afternoon. From then on, covered from head to foot in thick mud, her hair a single mass of muddy rats’ tails, she was taken again and again. Hands slid around her, under her, into her. Thickly erect cocks pushed at her every entrance as she squirmed in the cold ooze. Sometimes she was face down as someone sought her anus, sometimes she was held up by several men while one by one they plundered her sex. She came and came until she was simply a limp, rag doll, hardly able to respond, just acknowledge the thrusts into her by letting her body jerk as it would. Some of the whips had survived the flood and washed up on the beach. Inevitably these came into play, and Tara found it a welcome relief to be held still while she took a good thrashing. It let her recover from her sexual use just a little and when the men started in on her again, she was able to respond with renewed vigour. All round her, her fellow gladiators were squirming under male bodies, or being taken from behind on all fours, their cries of ecstasy filled her ears, along with the crack and splat of the whips landing on mud-coated skin. The sight of so many, chocolate brown, exhausted slaves being used so repeatedly, drove Tara into a frenzy of excitement and she reached for and grasped every hard rod of maleness she could find, guiding it between her legs, holding it while she licked it, mud and all, or turning and pulling it towards her anus.

She had no idea how long the orgy went on but eventually they were dragged from the mud by the guards and hosed down, then led back to the barn, fed and chained for the night. As with the first show, she felt unbearably bruised and battered but hoped secretly that they might be put on display like the last time. But it became clear that the owners thought they had taken enough when the chains were run from their collars to the wall behind them and the securing rings. Tara settled herself carefully on her straw and breathed out a long sigh of contentment. And at that moment her world fell apart.

The barn door opened and a small crowd of people came in. There was her owner, followed by the copper- haired woman, Carlo, two of the guards and behind them came a large man. At the first sight of him, Tara’s stomach turned over and knotted itself into a kernel of pure hatred and fury. It was Conor Brien.

“Cheer up, Carlo,” he was saying. “The studded whips made for a good show and there’s no harm done. In fact at the next owners’ meeting I’ll suggest we make it a regular event.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Carlo conceded. “They’re tough enough. And this one’s ready to go solo with them.”

The group stopped where Tara lay. She shut her eyes. Not him! Dear God, not him of all people!

But Conor was speaking again, his Irish burr unmistakable.

“She’s a peach isn’t she,” Tara felt his shoe touch her naked foot and she flinched in disgust. The casual arrogance which she so loved in other men, in him seemed odious. He had tricked her, he was the only one of these new men who now commanded her every move to have ever done that. They were honestly, carelessly masterful. But Conor had taken her, then left her to be abducted by two henchmen, and she couldn’t forgive that. And the worst of it was that she had been so besotted with him that if he had kept her for two weeks, she would have happily walked into slavery quite voluntarily.

“Can’t remember where I picked her up from, but it was a good day’s work. We’ll tongue ring her and move her on when we get home,” he concluded.

Carefully Tara opened her eyes and looked up. Fortunately they were ignoring her, Conor had his arm round her owner’s shoulders and was addressing him.

“We won again Mark, me bucko! Despite all the tricks of them! Ah, we’re a great team, you and me. Just like I said we’d be when you first came to work for me. I stay out at the sharp end; you and Carlo see to the rest!”

Tara’s breath caught in her throat in horror. She wasn’t even owned by the man she worshipped. She was owned by Conor Brien! A blaze of hot rebellion roared through her. She had no idea what she was going to do, but no longer was she a willing slave. She glared up in fury as the men started to move off. They had paid her no attention at all and didn’t notice how her gaze followed Conor’s back.

Patti Campbell noticed though. Her master had promised her to Conor for that night and he was one man she was frightened of. He had a fearsome temper and whenever he took Patti, she was always terrified of what he might be capable of, particularly, if like tonight, he had had a glass or two of whisky first. As the men moved away from the blonde slave, she caught a glimpse of the hatred that speared from the girl’s eyes towards Conor’s back and at long last her plans fell into place.