THE PRIZE (16 page)

Chapter 19

Brian squinted up at the clear blue sky and pulled his T shirt away from his sweat-soaked armpits. Since Karen’s sudden disappearance his world had fallen apart. Sir John had moved overnight to clean his act up and there was now nothing whatever to build a case on. In one day he had lost his career prospects and the most exciting woman he had ever met. At work he had been moved quietly sideways and after two months he had handed in his notice, put his flat on the market and decided that although Karen was gone, she had shown him where he really belonged. All he had to do was figure out how to get there.

The final weeks of his employment had not been wasted, he had been able to do a little digging around in the files related to some of Sir John’s acquaintances and one name in particular had come to his notice. Some more surfing the net had provided some interesting cross references and finally he was here. The flat was sold, an extortionate amount paid for a ticket and he was standing, sweating, outside the arena in Bakhtar on the eve of a show.

He had arrived earlier that day at the city’s airport and then transferred to one of the helicopters shuttling people up country. He was checked in at one of the comfortable new hotels - which even served alcohol, although at frightening prices. There had been a brochure in his room, filled with pictures of arena slaves in combat or competition, explaining how bets could be made and how slaves could be reserved for the use of guests in the evenings and giving a programme of events. He had showered and then sauntered along the one street down to the harbour to watch the yachts of the super rich arrive and keep an eye out for someone in particular. After an hour’s fruitless vigil he had walked back up towards the arena itself. There were several hotels identical to the one he was in and crowds were gathering on their steps and in the street itself. There were cafes and souvenir craft stalls between the towers of the hotels and these were rapidly becoming packed with a cosmopolitan throng. There were brightly coloured clothes from all corners of the world, African robes contrasted with dark suits. Designer jeans and dresses mingled with djellabas and burnooses. The air was filled with the scents of kebabs and rich coffee and the sounds of female laughter rose above the babble of conversation occasionally. He had been genuinely surprised by the number of women in attendance, he had downloaded plenty of videos and knew they did attend, the frenzied sex on the terraces was another of the arenas’attractions, but there were a lot at this show. Brian’s cock began to twitch in anticipation, he would have to see if he couldn’t wangle a seat near a woman.

The gates leading into the arena compound stood open and the crowd became more dense there but Brian patiently went with the slow flow as it moved towards the tunnel which led onto the arena floor itself. The squads of slaves were being displayed there so ‘form’ could be studied and discussed. This was now a tradition of the arenas although the individual stables differed in how they staged the presentation. Everyone around him was plainly getting more excited as they neared the sands of the arena floor. He heard snatches of German, Czech, Italian and innumerable other languages he couldn’t identify and the voices echoed suddenly as they passed into the gloom of the stone tunnel. The noise faded as people maybe felt a little of the tension a naked gladiator might feel before she entered the arena.

Then quite suddenly they were out in the sun again and there was renewed excitement as the ranks of the squads came into view. The arenas kept the Roman chariot racing tradition of each stable competing under a colour. The home team’s colour was purple and each slave wore an armband of that colour. On Brian’s right the Prince’s squad were displayed in full extension and suspension, splayed out in X shapes and shackled to a long row of vertical bars, welded to thick, horizontal steel beams top and bottom. The whole arrangement ran almost the length of the arena supporting fifty girls, tied at wrists and ankles, thighs and upper arms. They had been strapped to the poles with their feet clear of the ground and were naked apart from collars, restraints and head-encasing leather hoods. Brian peered up at the first girl he came to and saw there were holes for the nostrils but a circle over the mouth suggested a penis gag built in to render each girl quite mute, blind and deaf. The rack on which they hung was surrounded by a low wooden rail designed to keep spectators back but allow them close enough to stretch out, touch and assess the slaves. From in front and behind hands were stroking, pinching, exploring the oiled and gleaming flesh. Breasts and sexes inevitably came in for the most mauling but there was a lot of pinching to estimate the amount of fat covering the sinew, followed by earnest discussions about whip tolerance, pain thresholds, strength and fitness. Even in the tightness of their bondage the superbly toned bodies twisted and jerked under the barrage of unseen groping.

On his left the visiting team’s slaves were similarly mounted but were wearing red bands. Both ranks were patrolled by guards who made sure that none of the groping got too hard and that no nobbling, in the possible form of injections, was taking place. He decided to inspect the home team first and looked more closely at the first girl. She was black with breasts that mounded smoothly on her chest, their nipples a deep red. Her buttocks were proudly rounded above her smooth and long thighs. Her cunt was soft and moist as he stretched his arm out and stroked her. He watched in amusement as she tensed, feeling his fingers probe between her open lips. From behind someone obviously started assessing her buttocks because she jerked forwards the little way she could and from inside her hood a faint murmur of protest escaped. He grinned as he felt her warm body shift around his fingers and probed her more deeply, rubbing at her clitoris with his thumb. Her hips began a limited push forwards and he took a cruel delight in withdrawing from her and moving on. Time was limited and there was a lot of girlflesh on display.

“Which team are you going to back?” The voice was soft, cultured and female. It came from just behind him and, turning, he saw a girl looking keenly at him with large, dark eyes. She was attractive in an unconventional way, her face was almost elfin, narrowing from the wide set eyes to an almost pointy chin via a wide and generously
-
lipped mouth. She wore her black hair shoulder length, and it was kept off her forehead by a pair of sunglasses. She seemed tense somehow and there was a sort of defiance about the jut of that chin.

“I haven’t decided yet. You?” Brian threw the ball back into her court.

She shook her head and nervously tucked her hair behind one ear.

“I don’t really know........how....you...er....” She gave a nervous little laugh.

Brian automatically glanced about for whoever was with her. She noticed and immediately her defiance became a little more pronounced.

“I’m alone.”

Brian’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re very brave,” he said.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “I don’t feel it at the moment! You see, I just had to know..........I mean I wanted to see......”

“But you know what happens to women on the terraces. Let alone what gets done to them in the arena!?”

She looked him in the eye. “In the arena they get whipped and fucked for the crowd’s entertainment. In the audience they get gangbanged. I know,” she said clearly, holding his gaze with hers. “Look, ever since I was a teenager I’ve found the idea of cruelty exciting. History books with horrible details of dungeons and racks and....things. I knew it was horrible but I was fascinated too. I thought it would go away but it never has! I mean.....Look at them!” She gestured at the lines of suspended, tormented, naked femininity. “I’m a woman too! I should be shocked, revolted!”

“But you’re not,” Brian said.

The girl sighed. “No. I think they look unbelievably sexy. I’ve got a good idea of what’s been done to them and what’s going to be done to them for my fun and I don’t care - I want to see it! I want to see what it’s like! My boyfriend wants to settle down and all that. But I can’t! Not till I find out.”

Realisation began to dawn on
Brian.” So
you came on your own, hoping to latch onto someone so you can find out about yourself without it getting out of hand?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “Sounds crazy - but yeah. And I was watching you, you seem to be alone, you seem to know what to do.......and you’ve got a nice face.” She gave him an arch smile suddenly.

Brian let his gaze travel down her body. Under her crisp and expensively tailored top, her torso was very slender and her breasts, although small, pushed at its fabric. He would be willing to bet they had those cute little up-turned nipples you sometimes got. Her fashionable pencil, denim skirt curved very nicely out over quite prominent hips and then followed her thighs tightly down to the hem some three inches above the knee. Her calves were well shaped and her ankles slender as well. Altogether a package that any man would pray to have fall into his lap at this time and place.

“Well?” she asked, tilting her head coquettishly as she saw him finish his examination.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “We’ll spend the next three days together. I’ll make sure things don’t get out of hand in here. But you have to acknowledge that if a woman does go to an arena she has to accept what happens.”

“Sure,” she smiled again. “I’m no hypocrite. The anonymous fucks of a gangbang to the accompaniment of screams from the arena. It’s what I’ve got to find out about. It’s why I’m here.”

Brian was suddenly aware of his throbbing erection. He had felt he was due some luck after the Fitzgerald debacle. But this!

He swallowed and steadied himself. “We’ll see where we get to by the end of the three days. We don’t know each other’s name and we’ll keep it that way. If you want to go on after that - let me know. Otherwise we’ll call it quits.”

The girl relaxed and gave him a brilliant smile. He suddenly realised that it was a very inviting mouth.

“Agreed,” she said firmly. “Now I’ve given myself a gambling budget of five hundred pounds, show me how you size up the quality of these.......sluts.”

For the next half hour or so Brian improvised, using titbits he had overheard earlier. They moved from body to body and he enthused about the depth of flesh, illustrating by taking pinches between finger and thumb at buttock and thigh, muscle tone, skin tone, sensitivity. Then he got the girl to reach out, very reluctantly at first and touch the flesh herself. Her small fingers only brushed very lightly at first and the slave’s skin shivered. The girl laughed excitedly once she had broken the first taboo - touching another naked woman. Brian watched as her hand smoothed its way across the slave’s stomach and up towards the breast. It was plain that the slave recognised the gentleness of another woman because they could see her stomach’s rhythm check as her breath caught.

Brian watched tensely as the girl summoned up the courage to reach for the oval of the stretched breast. Even in the slave’s current position it was obvious that she was big breasted. In fact Brian was fairly certain that he was looking at Ayesha. Of course he had never seen her naked but the build was about right, the olive skin tone was the same and the thick, glossy tail of jet black hair that spilled from the back of the hood all contributed to the impression. Of course he had long suspected that the Prince had her but had never considered, from everything Karen had told him, that Ayesha could have been turned so far round as to be made into suitable material for the arenas. Still it would be fun to encourage the girl to explore and torment the slave - if it was Ayesha all the better - if not, who cared?

“Get a handful of tit,” he urged. “That’s what she’s here for and look at the nipple, she’s gagging for it!”

Both nipples were hard and a deep red against the brown areolas. Biting her lower lip the girl reached up and closed her fingers around the left one. Again the slave’s stomach checked its rhythm. The girl smiled at him then suddenly someone reached through the poles from behind and put a measuring tape round the slave’s right thigh. The body jerked in surprise and the girl lost her grip on the nipple. She frowned in annoyance, reached again and gripped hard this time, then twisted. The slave’s body arched and twisted as far as it was able and the girl smiled. The measurer withdrew his tape and the girl let her grip relax.

“That’ll teach her to move while I’m feeling her,” she said proudly. Both her hands roved across the breasts now and a soft, muffled moaning came from inside the hood. Her fingers sometimes gripped the soft flesh, sometimes stroked and sometimes circled the nipples and made the slave’s breath hold each time she did. “God! I’ve always wanted to know what another woman’s breasts felt like!” the girl breathed. “And this one never knows if I’m going to hurt her or not and she can’t do anything about it anyway. This is fantastic!”

“Feel her cunt.” Brian felt the iron was hot and it was time to strike. He saw her wince at the use of the four letter word. “Slaves have cunts. Not pussies, or vulvas, or vaginas. They get fucked and whipped there,” he told her bluntly.

The girl stared at him, “Whipped?”

Brian’s memory supplied a tantalising image of Karen, writhing desperately with her legs tied well apart, her pink cunt flesh wet and clearly visible between her open lips. He felt the next few moments would tell him whether this juicy little morsel would be heading down the same road.

She seemed to consider the idea then turned back to the slave and reached straight between the spread legs. Her fingers vanished immediately and again the slave held still, awaiting developments.