Claire wanted to collapse to the floor and cry her eyes out, but Aziz, holding the chains, led them away to the large sleeping chamber. Claire lay on a double mat on the floor with Saida. Unlike the other harem girls in the dormitory, their hands remained cuffed and their nose rings chained to steel rings in the floor. In the morning, they were finally released.

  * * * * *

  Along with the other odalisques, Claire and Saida, accompanied by Rafidah, showered together, then took their turns fixing their hair and applying makeup as they’d been taught. Rafidah made sure that the two new houris looked as much alike as possible.

  Breakfast was buffet-style. Claire and Saida were told exactly what they were to eat, based on instructions that Rafidah read to them when they stepped up to the buffet. The amount of food was, as always, considerable. Claire was sure she could already feel a slight weight gain from all the rich meals they’d been forced to consume. But she was so hungry, all the time.

  After breakfast, Rafidah took them into a room containing a bed, which consisted of two mattresses stacked atop each other. Aziz was waiting for them, impatiently tapping a short cane against one hand. He spoke to Rafidah who translated.

  “The eunuch Aziz wants to understand the current depth of your sexuality. You are to remove your clothes and lie next to each other on the bed. Through me, Aziz will instruct you on what to do, and he will observe your talents in pleasing each other. You are not permitted to climax during these evaluations. If you do, we will all be caned. If Aziz senses that you are not trying, we will also be caned. So you must use caution to fulfill his instructions. In addition, you must endeavor to do everything exactly alike. I will instruct you if you behave differently. If you do not correct your mistake, we will all be caned.

  “I have rarely been punished in this way, but when it was done to me, it was very bad. Please try your best. Now, strip and lie down next to and facing each other.” Claire was surprised when Rafidah also removed her pantaloons and bolero, not realizing that the experienced slave was displaying herself for punishment, if Aziz decided to apply it.

  “Place your arms around each other and kiss, slowly building your passion.”

  Claire looked into Saida’s sad eyes as she put her arms around the Arab girl’s neck. Saida was clearly distressed and shook her head to indicate she didn’t want to do this. Her arms didn’t move to encircle Claire’s neck.

  Immediately, the cane came down onto Saida’s bare bottom and she jumped and squeaked in acute pain. Almost immediately, Claire felt the same sting of the cane, then heard Rafidah yelp as Aziz struck her too.

  Saida’s eyes filled with tears, partly from the stinging in her butt, and partly from her personal upbringing and experience that told her that femme-femme sex was wrong. Claire looked at Saida, tried a little smile, and mouthed the word “Please.” Claire understood Saida’s reluctance; she would probably have felt the same, had she not experienced play – come on, Claire, she thought, call it what it was, sex - with Vara. As it was, Claire had no interest being forced into this, but she wasn’t horrified either.

  They heard Aziz clear his throat – the eunuch really didn’t want to punish, he only wanted them to learn to perform. But he was ready with the cane again.

  “It is a must that you kiss as instructed,” a concerned Rafidah said. “Please do so immediately.”

  Saida’s arms reached around Claire’s neck and they kissed, slowly at first. As instructed, Claire attempted to increase the evident passion of the kiss, and was meeting with some resistance from Saida when Rafidah commanded, “C’amila place your tongue into Saida’s mouth, then Saida, you do the same to C’amila. Continue until I tell you to stop.”

  Saida opened her mouth to admit Claire’s tongue and their kiss became more passionate. Repeatedly, they were told to start and stop until Aziz was satisfied that they could repeat the kiss convincingly and identically.

  They were told to move their outer hands down to each other’s pussy and carefully fondle each other’s love bud. Claire felt herself become a bit wet immediately. Saida took somewhat longer, but then her clitoris, made permanently erect and hyper-sensitive with the presence of the ring just as Claire’s was, inevitably forced Saida’s body to respond with unavoidable passion. Her face flushed red in embarrassment. Claire understood that Saida had only now realized what the piercing of her clit had done to her, how closely it now kept her to the edge of arousal. Saida wriggled, trying to pull back from Claire’s toying fingers. WHACK! The cane came down on Saida’s bottom again, then on Claire’s, then on Rafidah’s.

  Both women rolled away from each other, rubbing their stinging backsides.

  Aziz shouted a command in Arabic. “Resume!” Rafidah announced urgently.

  Enforced by the cane, they continued. Saida realized that she would either do as told, or everyone would be punished. It hurt! It was bad enough for her – and it was her own fault that her friend Claire and the innocent Rafidah were being punished.

  The girls continued to kiss, and play with each other’s pussy. Claire realized that if there were much more of this she was going to cum. She had no way to tell Saida, so she lightened and slowed her playing with her partner, to try to get Saida to ease up on her. It didn’t work. Claire looked at Saida fearfully and shook her head. Saida finally realized, too late, what was happening as Claire climaxed.

  The orgasm was as obvious to Aziz as a sign in Arabic reading “CUMMING!” would have been.

  The cane came down in the midst of her pleasure and Claire’s orgasmic pulses ceased immediately. Then she heard the “WHACK!” on Saida and Rafidah.

  All three women were told to lie on their backs on the bed and spread their legs, overlapping each other so that they were well-spread. Pulling a leather strap with several knotted tails from his belt, Aziz whipped their pussies, once each, eliciting a violent scream from Rafidah, and squeaks followed by writhing in pain from Claire and Saida. Claire feared that her clit ring had been torn from her. Fortunately, due only to the skill of Aziz, that didn’t happen.

  They were ordered to resume again. Their forced sex play and practice continued all morning and through the afternoon. By evening, both girls were, in their minds, trying to accommodate what neither wanted. Fear of punishment and the need to survive in the seraglio dominated their thinking and provided all the necessary incentive to perform. Aziz observed that they were doing what they knew they must, but had yet to internalize their new roles at any fundamental level of their personalities. Thank Allah for the absence of the Grand Eunuch, he thought.

  In that, Aziz was wrong. The Grand Eunuch had spent the entire day watching the new houris. He was at least as observant, and discerning, as Aziz.

  The next day, Claire and Saida spent several hours repeating the previous day’s activities and training. In the afternoon, they were told to attend to each other in half 69 – each woman’s mouth pleasuring the other’s nipples and breasts, while lying in opposite directions, Saida on top.

  Once again, Saida was unable to overcome her initial revulsion to femme-femme sex. Once again, they were punished, with the cane whipping hard against their breasts.

  As their practice continued, mouths on nipples and flicking nipple rings, one hand now reaching up to each other’s pussies, both suddenly felt a rush of titillation and were unable to stop climaxing together. Aziz, though appreciating the coordination of their arousal, was infuriated. For a moment, he considered using the drug incapacidide on their love buds, but decided that they needed to learn the discipline of controlling their arousal using their own, apparently undisciplined minds. So he beat their intimacies again – three applications of the leather whip to each, including poor Rafidah.

  Claire almost fainted from the pain. Saida did faint.

  Another day of half-69 practice followed. They either didn’t get it right, or had to stop and relax back to a pre-arousal stage to avoid orgasm. Aziz was frustrated. He resisted taking his frustrations out on the three women, but was at a loss of how to proceed. He finally decided to skip the half-69, and try scissors instead.

  The next day, Claire and Saida were told to warm-up with kissing and fondling each other’s breasts and intimacies. Then, through Rafidah, Aziz instructed them to meet in scissors: their heads faced in opposite directions; their legs spread and joined like two pairs of scissors opened and thrust together; their pussies pushed against each other. With their inner beauty lips trimmed away, Aziz thought the two could have sex in this way – a position that frequently excited the watching Emir – without reaching climax.

  Unfortunately, the women still became quickly aroused by the rings through their clits pressing against each other’s intimacies. The position felt so good to Claire that, without thinking, she gripped Saida’s ankles and pulled her even tighter against her pussy, subconsciously seeking the fleshy arousal that her missing inner lips would have provided – as they had with Vara. The touching of their pussies, though devoid of the moist, sucking contact of inner lips, still thrust them together in erotic pleasure emanating from their clits, and propagated from the rings piercing their buds’ nerve centers. Suddenly, realizing that once again she’d gone too far, Claire pulled back, but it was too late. She came again. All earned a stiff, painful punishment from Aziz.

  By the end of the week, Aziz was totally unsure of how to proceed with the two new odalisques. He recognized the exceptional sexual depth of both – especially C’amila – but couldn’t determine how to channel it into behavior worthy of the Emir’s attention. He decided to spend one leisure day contemplating a plan to proceed by, thankful that the Grand Eunuch hadn’t yet called him out for the frustrating lack of progress.

  * * * * *

  Two days later the Grand Eunuch called Aziz and Majid in to confer with him. “How is the initiation of the new matched girls going?” He asked them.

  Aziz spoke first. “Thanks to the efforts of Majid and Mbutu, and of the salon concubines, we’ve had considerable success with matching them. They now look like close sisters, if not actual twins. Sometimes I can’t tell them apart at first glance.”

  “That is good to hear, Aziz. You’ve done well in assembling and coordinating the team which has modified them. What about filling them out? They were very thin when they arrived here, just like all our other concubines. They’re to be exotics, with their bodies full and well-rounded. Have they resisted eating at all?”

  “They have not, Grand One. The appetite stimulants Majid provides in their food or drink have apparently boosted their desire to eat and snack considerably. Had they eaten before like they are eating now, they would have been quite fat at this point in their lives.”

  “We don’t want to overdo this, you realize,” The Grand Eunuch cautioned. “We can’t have ball-shaped concubines waddling around the harem.”

  Everyone chuckled at the Grand Eunuch’s rare joke. Then Majid spoke up.

  “Their appetites will decrease once we’ve stopped the stimulants, Grand One. We’ll watch their weight carefully, and wean them from the drugs as they get close to the weight we target for them.” There may be some residual effect; after all, their bodies will have reset, so to speak, at a higher weight. But that residual effect will keep them at the desired level of plumpness. We can control their caloric intake to hold them at whatever weight you and His Highness want, or vary it over time, for that matter.”

  “How far along are you toward the goal we set?” The Grand Eunuch asked Aziz.

  “They’ve each gained five pounds in the one week they’ve been here. When they arrived, they both weighed about 125. As you may recall, our target is for them to gain 45 to 50 pounds. So they will probably reach our goal between two and three months from now. That will make them plump and full-figured, without making their bellies protrude unduly. From time-to-time, while they’re in a deep, drug-induced sleep, Majid will inject their hands, arms, upper and lower legs, butt and breasts to stimulate those areas to pick up most of the extra fat. That way, their faces and tummies, though certainly filling out some, will remain pleasing to the eye. They will provide a soft, fleshy, delightful diversion for His Highness, the Emir.”

  “Good. Now let me express my concern, since you’ve failed to mention it.”

  Oh shit, Aziz thought. And this review with his boss had been going so well.

  “These two girls don’t seem to fit in here like newly arrived women usually do. Most new houri are openly delighted to be in the Emir’s seraglio and care. Most of them do, after all, live a far better life day-to-day than they ever have before. Their duties are light and they develop to a point where they enjoy serving His Highness – in the bed and in attendance on Him.

  “I have watched these two, er … Saida and C’amila … surreptitiously through the viewing grates on several days. They seem to go through the motions of learning their duties, responsibilities and techniques, but without personal conviction. It is as though they seek to avoid discipline, rather than desiring to embrace their submission to the customs and traditions of the seraglio. In some ways, they react like recent captives, not women who knew their destiny lay here.”

  “You do agree, Grand One, that they make progress in their training? After all, we have focused on lesbian sexual theater, and both – Saida in particular – appear to have little or no experience.” Aziz couldn’t understand what his superior was trying to tell him.

  “I agree that they learn and mimic what they’re taught. But they do so without soul, without feeling, without commitment. Worse yet, I can’t escape the nagging thought that they are teetering right on the edge of insubordination. That some small occurrence, what they might consider an infringement or slight, would set them off. If they were able to speak, I suspect we would find them mumbling in dissatisfaction. That would foment discord within the community of the seraglio. If they weren’t previously muted, we would probably have already had another occasion to impose it on them.”

  “Grand One, of course, I want only to please you and the Emir, but I’m at a loss as to how to make a concubine happy if she simply chooses not to be.”

  “My dear Aziz, I couldn’t care less whether or not they are happy. I care that they learn to submit to their position within the harem. I care that submission to the will of those over them becomes an integral part of their intrinsic personalities. I would have them broken to the saddle, so to speak.”

  “And that’s why you brought us here to discuss them.” It was a statement by Majid, not a question.

  “Yes, Majid. I want to know what options we have to move this along. What potions you may have in your repertoire, and what procedures we could couple to them in order to effect the change in these two that we seek.”

  “I do have two potent hypnotic drugs that make the mind highly susceptible to suggestion. Used individually, either drug causes loss of personal willpower, and replaces it with the will of the authority figure. Used together, the combination erodes personal preferences entirely – indeed, even the desire to have personal preferences – if used long enough. The person becomes devoid of individual wants and needs. The problem is, of course, how to fill the ‘hollow’ person with the wants, needs and behaviors we seek in a harem girl.”

  Aziz felt the need to redeem himself, and thought fitfully for an idea. To his relief, one came to him.

  “We have a well-proven regimen of disciplinary activities designed to instill submission in the most novice of girls, assuming that they’re receptive to being true harem slaves. Could we couple some weeks of repetitive training using those routines with Majid’s hypnotics, to make the habits of submission second-nature to them? I want them to have a need for and allegiance to their servitude and obedience deeply embedded in their conscious and subconscious minds.”

  “Well spoken, Aziz. And, as usual, your technical expertise has not let me down, Majid.” Both men swelled with pride, and relaxed for the first time since the Grand Eunuch had expressed displeasure. “We will use both drugs to effect the deep-seated transformation we require. When can we start?”

  “I can have the drugs in their food by tonight’s meal, Great One. We will include them in every meal thereafter. The women will stay in the suggestive state until we wean them off. Done properly the new, drug-reinforced matrix will become permanently embedded in their personalities. This should also further their ability and need to be identical in everything they do. But, of course, we don’t want to start until Aziz has his program of discipline ready.”

  “I will be ready by tomorrow morning, so we may start the drugs tonight.” Aziz knew he’d be up all night planning the details of the 12-hour-per-day exercises. Oh well, when success was proven, he’d surely receive a healthy bonus in his wages – and score important points with the Grand Eunuch.

  “It would simplify instruction if speech were restored to C’amila and Saida.” Aziz added, hopefully.

  “Yes, but it sends the wrong message, one of leniency,” The Grand Eunuch noted. “After all, they were told they would be mute for some longer time.”

  “Perhaps I can use some of my skills with incapacidide to help,” Majid offered. I believe I can reactivate their vocal chords in a way that will enable them to talk, but with some pain each time they do. Like a tearing in their throat and uncomfortable pressure in their head every time they try to speak.”

  “That is acceptable,” The Grand Eunuch replied. Do it so that Aziz can begin on the morrow.”

  Chapter 13: I’m Not That Girl

  Claire and Saida both awoke the following morning with a strange feeling of confusion and detachment. As they completed their morning ablutions, Majid appeared and told them to follow him to the infirmary. Still in a befuddled daze, but fearfully, they went with him.

  “I’m going to restore your ability to speak, since you will begin new, disciplined training today. Speaking will expedite the process. However, you’ve been punished with silence for your insubordination shortly after you arrived here. To continue your punishment, I will make speaking possible, but painful. You will remain that way until we decide that you’ve accepted seraglio life as you were expected to.