After applying a dab of the healing balm, and a pad to keep the incision from attaching to itself, he inserted a tube in her to drain urine while she healed and unclamped her outer labia. The balm was of a similar composition to the ointment Claire and Elliot had obtained from the gypsies. It would heal the wounds in just a few days.

  Majid moved on to numb the anesthetized Saida. He completely trimmed away her inner beauty lips and hood. Then he reduced her outer labia to proportions intended to match Claire’s. Pulling back Claire’s bandages, he compared Saida’s results to Claire. Noticing a difference still, he further trimmed back Saida’s still-more-protruding outer beauty lips to match and stitched them, where he’d made incisions, with the skill of a plastic surgeon.

  At Majid’s request, with gloved hands, Mbutu began to carefully massage Saida’s beauty bud. It did grow noticeably larger as it engorged. “I can puncture this safely, if you can keep it well-stimulated while I pierce its base,” he told Mbutu.

  “And you still believe she won’t lose sensation?” Aziz asked.

  “I think that’s even less likely, now that I can see how much it enlarges when stimulated. After it’s pierced, it will remain enlarged, compared to what it was before.”

  In a moment, her swollen, sensitive clitoris was pierced and a ring locked through it. Majid catheterized her, applied balm, and taped the dressings in place. He was exhausted but satisfied. The Grand Eunuch and, later, the Emir himself, would be well-pleased with him. He left the women in Mbutu’s care, and left to rest after a grueling two days.

  Before starting with the major work on Saida, Mbutu locked two small, gold rings in the upper two holes in both of Claire’s earlobes. He then fastened dangling gold earrings, ending in tiny desert lilies, in the bottom holes.

  Mbutu quickly pierced Saida’s ears twice more on each side and inserted gold rings and dangling lilies identical to Claire’s. Temporarily removing the bandages over her breasts, he efficiently punctured the nipples of the sleeping Saida at the very base with a dermal punch. He permanently locked the rings he’d created to exactly match Claire’s through them. He placed thick gauze pads with the center cut out over her ringed nipples and refastened the bandages holding her enlarged breasts.

  Mbutu moved on to Saida’s navel and fitted her with the complex piercing required to hold the bellybutton jewel and the lower ring with the short, jeweled chain in place to match Claire’s. This took a while to insure that it was perfect. In this case, the stone was a zircon – it had never occurred to Mbutu to check Claire’s for authenticity. He couldn’t fathom that someone would spend the amount of money necessary to obtain a real diamond of that size for a bellybutton, let alone for a girl to be given over to slavery in the harem.

  Very carefully, Mbutu pierced Saida’s reduced outer beauty lips, actually, her only beauty lips he thought, five times on each side, and inserted ten locking rings into the piercings. Later, when they healed, she could be tied shut with a chain beginning at her clit ring, crisscrossing through the rings in her beauty lips and locked at the end of her pudenda.

  He stepped over to Claire and duplicated the piercing on her small outer labia, her only remaining genital lips. He inserted ten rings identical to Saida’s, and identical to those Claire had originally worn upon arrival at the palace in her now missing inner lips. He then placed a large gauze pad over each girl’s altered intimacies and around the catheters, and taped it in place.

  Finally, a sweating Mbutu stepped back and announced to Aziz, “They are done!”

  Aziz was satisfied. He and Mbutu put diapers on both women and moved them back to the induction apartment, along with their feeding tubes. They strapped Claire and Saida immobile into their beds. Since they hadn’t responded well to the first group of changes to them, they’d be kept there, asleep, for several more days until rapid, balm-induced healing was complete. During that time, Aziz would continue to feed them through the tubes, and clean them when necessary.

  Chapter 12: Let Me Out

  It was morning, four days later. Majid had determined that, except for some remaining inflammation of Saida’s enlarged breasts, both women had been completely healed by the special balm. He unwrapped Saida’s breasts, exposing her now-ample orbs and new nipple rings. He removed the bandages, catheters and feeding tubes from both women, leaving them strapped down naked in the beds, covered only with a white sheet, while they were slowly brought back to consciousness.

  Claire felt that her head was stuffed with cotton as she struggled to awaken. She recognized the room as the surgery where she’d been taken while groggy from the spiked coffee. She remembered awakening the next day, finding her nose had been ringed and her belly and wrists tattooed. What was she doing back here? What else had they done to her? As her vision cleared and she looked around she saw the two Arab eunuchs, Aziz and Majid, standing between her bed and Saida’s. They’d returned her and Saida to the surgery, apparently to do additional things to them, but what?

  She tried to sit up from the partly reclining position and found she was restrained by straps on her limbs and across her chest, below her breasts. She couldn’t see her body since she was covered with a sheet.

  “What the hell is going on here?!” She tried to shout. The sound came out as a croak from her dry throat and parched lips. Aziz put a straw in her mouth and she drank greedily.

  For the first time, she noticed that Saida was also awake and drinking from a straw held by Majid. “What did you do to us?!” She finally managed to say in a loud but not screaming voice. Her throat was sore.

  “We completed the preparations necessary for you to enter the seraglio.” Majid stated matter-of-factly, after translating for Aziz. “You are now nearly-matched concubines of His Highness, and can henceforth be identified as such.”

  “Unfasten me. I want to look at myself.” Claire felt more-or-less normal everywhere, but something was odd between her legs.

  Anger flared in Majid’s eyes, then in Aziz’s as he translated. He quickly regained control and the emotion rapidly receded. “We will overlook your insolence this one time, since you are new here and your training has yet to commence. However,” his voice became very stern, “you are NEVER to use that tone of voice with a member of the harem staff again, and you will ALWAYS address us as ‘Sir.’ If you fail to do that again, I am authorized to punish you as per the harem code. At the very least, I’ll render you unable to speak for some weeks.”

  Claire was flabbergasted. Obviously, she’d crossed over into another kind of life, at least until they could be rescued, and had crossed a line of expected submissive behavior with this eunuch.

  It didn’t take much brain power to quickly realize that she was helpless and powerless here. The best she could do was to get through this with minimal damage until Elliot and Ali rescued them. She lowered her eyes and apologized. “I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I was shocked and not thinking clearly. If you would be so kind as to tell us, I would like to know what you did to us, Sir, please.”

  Majid translated for Aziz. Claire saw both eunuchs relax visibly as they seemed to accept her words at face value. They removed the sheets covering each woman.

  Claire looked down from her mostly prone position. She breathed a sigh of relief as nothing she could see appeared to have changed. She heard a loud, anguished moan from Saida as her friend burst into tears.

  “You’ve pierced me!” She sobbed through her tears. She was shaking with anguish. Her body was pierced and the idea of it was horribly frightening to her. The phobia of fear of needles penetrating her flesh kicked in and she couldn’t control her reaction. She could see the rings through her nipples and the jewel and ring fastened into her navel. She couldn’t reach up to touch her ears, but she could feel the rings and the dangling lower earrings when she shook her head from side-to-side in denial. “You’ve made me resent my own body with these awful rings and studs in it!”

  “They’re not ‘awful,’ they’re lovely,” a bemused Aziz told her in Arabic. “And they perfectly match C’amila’s.”

  “I … I can’t stand the idea of being pierced like this! I have this irrational fear of metal penetrating my flesh! And my breasts are huge, deformed! Why did you do this to me?”

  “Your breasts are large, but not at all deformed,” Aziz answered levelly. “And as for your fear of piercing – well, you are pierced and pierced you will stay. Your body has already healed around the jewelry. So you best get used to it. Besides …” Before he could speak again, Majid interjected in English.

  “I don’t understand the surprise either of you are exhibiting right now. I’ll admit that you wouldn’t have known the particulars of our harem’s traditions, but you certainly would know these kinds of modifications are done. If nothing else, your families would have told you that such things would happen once they signed the contracts for you to come here.”

  Listening to what he said, both Claire and Saida realized they risked giving away the ruse, and exposing themselves for whom they really were. Claire was almost of a mind to charge ahead with the truth anyway, but then remembered the stern, cautious warning they’d received from the Agha Rezai.

  Poor Saida. She really, really hadn’t wanted to be pierced. In talking privately with Claire, after they’d first heard they were to be matched, she expressed her phobia about having such adornments, even though she admired Claire’s. Well, she had them now. Then Claire thought of her clit and labia minora piercings. She assumed they’d done that to Saida too. But, lying there, her intimacies definitely felt different than they had. Something wasn’t right, and she needed to know at once what had happened. She’d heard awful things about women being cut in countries in Africa and the Middle East. In particular, their clits were removed. Oh God, they hadn’t done that to her, had they?!

  “Please, Sir,” she said with a heavy voice, “something doesn’t feel right between my legs. Have you done anything to our intimacies?”

  “Yes, of course, C’amila. As is customary, we’ve trimmed …”

  Claire screamed and felt the walls close in on her and her vision contract as she almost fainted at his words. “YOU … YOU … YOU’VE CUT AWAY MY CLITORIS?!”

  Majid looked shocked. “No, no, no C’amila. Your beauty bud and lovely ring are undisturbed! His Highness, the Emir, prefers his concubines able to receive pleasure from him, as well as give it.” Borrowing a phrase from Aziz, he noted that, “This isn’t the Middle Ages, after all.”

  “Then what did you trim and why don’t I feel the same down there?”

  “We will show you both and explain,” he laughed. Laughter was the farthest thing from Claire’s mind.

  With Claire and Saida still fastened down, they spread their legs apart by moving the stirrups, and tilted the head of the bed up until the girls were sitting. Each eunuch held a mirror so they could see their intimacies.

  At first, Claire couldn’t figure out what she was seeing. There was her clit ring, but it looked too exposed. And they’d obviously pierced her outer labia on each side. For some reason, she couldn’t see the rings in her inner labia. She realized her outer lips were closed together more than she thought possible until Majid spread them. Where she expected to see her inner labia, there was nothing! There was just a smooth area below, around and above her very exposed, ringed clitoris! When Majid released her outer beauty lips, they closed smoothly together.

  Claire instantly felt the room swirl around her. She became violently sick to her stomach and turned her head to throw up. Distantly, she could hear Saida screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Majid had grabbed a towel and caught most of her vomit. As she stopped heaving, she yelled out, “YOU’VE BUTCHERED US, YOU BASTARDS!”

  “Nonsense,” said Majid as he slapped her. “This is the look of innocence, symmetry and beauty that the Emir prefers. All harem concubines look this way, though not all have the rings in their beauty buds or outer beauty lips. We did that to maintain your ringed look, because you no longer have inner lips to hold them.”

  A stream of obscenities erupted from Claire. Saida was inconsolable and cried out in horror, unable to stop and not even trying to regain control. The eunuchs had had enough. Majid reached into a cupboard for a syringe and fitted a long needle onto it. Aziz fastened another strap over Claire’s forehead and then grasped her head on either side to prevent her from moving it at all. She felt the needle enter her neck and she screamed savagely. Suddenly, the scream cut off and no sound came from her at all. She continued to curse but emitted only a faint whimper.

  Aziz and Majid moved over to Saida, who was now shouting “NO, NO, NO!” Over and over. A needle entered her neck and, in moments, her voice was also gone.

  “I did not want to do that, but you forced my hand.” Majid told them angrily. “You two are acting unacceptably. You should be thankful that you’re about to lead lives of pleasure and relaxation that other women only dream of. But instead of praising Allah, you behave like spoiled children.

  “I’ve rendered you both mute. I can reverse the effect at any time, but I will not let you speak again until you’ve proven that you’re worthy of the harem, and of our trust. You belong to the Emir. Your bodies have been changed to honor his wishes for you. They will continue to conform to his wishes, whatever those are - now and in the future. You exist to serve him. In return, you will lead easy, pampered lives. BE GRATEFUL FOR ALLAH’S MERCY!”

  Majid injected each of them with a mild sedative to render them calm, while not putting them to sleep.

  “Now, you will lie here, fastened down, until Aziz believes you can be trusted to move about on your own.” And with that, both eunuchs left the surgery. The girls continued to weep for a few more minutes, until the drug took effect. Then, in spite of their distress, they did feel better from the calming influence of the sedative.

  Claire, immeasurably upset a few minutes earlier, was now composed enough to consider what had happened and what the eunuch had said. She was a survivor, of that she was certain. She’d survive this too. Elliot would come to rescue her at the earliest opportunity to safely do so. But she also had no idea when that would happen: tomorrow, or next month, or six months from now. Damn the stupid revolution! Why couldn’t these factions – all male, she was certain – just find a way to get along? And why did it have to happen when they were visiting this God-awful kingdom?

  She feared that, with what had been done to her, sex with Elliot would never be the same. She thought about it. No, it definitely wouldn’t be the same. Her sex-maker wasn’t the same, and nothing would restore it to the way it had been all her life before. Her sensitive inner lips were irretrievably gone. That source of arousal was denied her and she felt a sharp pang of loss that she feared might always overshadow her sex life. Perhaps, mercifully, she’d forget what the arousal of her inner lips felt like, meant to her, as time passed. Right now, the feeling of loss was overpowering.

  Thinking about it, she knew that sex with Elliot would still be good. Maybe just as good, only somewhat different, if she worked at it. Maybe better, as they grew even closer, even more in love, if the fates smiled kindly on her from this point on.

  She’d settle for good. She was so in love with Elliot, that that, in itself, would be great.

  She lamented the tattoos below her navel and on her wrist. They were very hard to accept. Unless she wanted scars where they were, she’d always wear them, and they’d remind her of what had happened to her during this insane time. She still didn’t even know what the writing on her wrist meant. She’d have to ask Saida when she could. I suppose it’s irrelevant now, she thought. I’m stuck with whatever it says. I hope Elliot can accept it – and everything else that they’ve done to me.

  In her heart-of-hearts, she knew, with supreme confidence, that nothing would affect how Elliot felt about her. That knowledge gave her immense strength and the determination to get through this time.

  She glanced over at Saida. Unable to speak, they tried to comfort each other with their expressions. Finally, Saida shrugged, indicating she’d come to something like the same place as Claire. Apparently the sedative had tempered her horror at having her body pierced as it was.

  By the time the eunuchs returned, some hours after lunch, both women knew they’d try to conform to the role that had been thrust onto them as best they could, with the smallest amount of complaining they could manage.

  “Have you had time to think about what transpired earlier?” Majid asked. Claire was beginning to realize that his English was far better than she’d thought at first.

  Both women nodded.

  “Are you now agreed that you will conduct yourselves in accordance with the customs governing His Highness’s concubines?”

  They nodded again.

  “I won’t restore your speech until your actions convince me. Unlike in the morally weak West, we require results in order to forgive.

  “You will remain mute for now. Before I release you, Aziz has asked me to review the rules of the seraglio, since Saida has so displeased us that she can no longer translate for C’amila. This is the code you will live by. It is simple, easy, and elegant.

  “For the most part, you’ll live a life of luxury and leisure within the harem. Your occupation is concubine, as is written on your wrists. Your job is to please and devise novel ways to please the Emir – in your case, as a matched pair.

  “Because of your strange and uncontrolled outbursts, you’ve already been subjected to uncommon seraglio punishment. There is a need for discipline within the harem, though punishment separate from training reinforcement is rare. However, as you’ve seen, the eunuchs have the Emir’s authority to punish, if infractions occur. The Grand Eunuch has sole discretion on severe punishments. You have no recourse to appeal to the Emir. His Highness, of course, can punish you for any reason whatsoever. However, our glorious Emir is not capricious. I’ve never known him to punish a concubine for no clear reason.