“If you are required to speak, you will do so, regardless of the pain. After all, you brought this on yourselves. Do you understand and accept?”

  They both nodded. Of course I accept, Claire thought. Why wouldn’t I? That’s what I’ve just been told to do.

  That thought didn’t seem odd to her at all.

  They were ordered to eat everything on the table at their high-calorie breakfast. They did so without argument. Aziz couldn’t tell if it were because they were hungry from the appetite enhancers, or whether the new drugs were already starting to make them obedient. Based on their actions and facial expressions, they did seem more accepting. After eating, Aziz led them to a small studio where they joined two other young women and a dance instructor. They spent the morning learning the basics of the erotic dancing they were to perform whenever requested, for the Emir and possibly for guests at the palace. These lessons were to continue every morning for many weeks. Claire’s earlier, light-hearted belly-dancing lessons with Saida turned out to be very helpful at teaching her the basics of the moves she was required to make in the dances she would learn as a part of her concubine training.

  Fortunately, they weren’t required to say much and had few questions. Their partially-restored voices were barely louder than a whisper. Whenever they did speak, their throats burned with a sharp pain which usually caused them to stop involuntarily, then start again in something like a stutter. That only served to make the pain worse.

  The experience was more painful for Saida since she had to translate for Claire, requiring her to talk much more often. In addition, the more guttural sounds of Arabic further aggravated her burning throat.

  During breakfast, dancing and throughout the day, Claire and Saida were required to do everything at exactly the same time in exactly the same way. They even had to eat the same-sized bites of the same food simultaneously. The intention was to make their individual actions and motions automatically as much alike as possible. They were to become a matched set in every conceivable way.

  Lunch was another identically-choreographed, fattening feast.

  In the afternoon, they practiced matching their walking, standing, gesturing, and facial expressions. Aziz told them that these monotonous exercises would continue, day after day, until the two women would automatically do every task, exhibit every facial expression, and make every gesture exactly alike.

  Both Claire and Saida, in a mental fog with confused feelings of just wanting to go along with everything Aziz suggested, made surprising progress in the eunuch’s command to mimic each other. After dinner, they resumed their instruction in performing together as a team, for the eventual pleasure of the Emir and his guests.

  They were naked, sometimes chained together, sometimes not, as they were taught how to pleasure each other in such a way that their every action was openly on display for the benefit of their future audience. They met in full or partial 69 on the floor, lying on their side, so that any observer could watch their tongues flick across each other’s exposed clit and clit rings, and probe between their unobstructed outer labia. They were taught to position themselves so that their intimacies were completely displayed; this was now possible because their love openings were no longer concealed by inner lips. Since Claire’s outer lips had always been relatively small and non-protruding, and Saida’s were now matched to hers, their inner-lipless cunts were almost openly exposed anyway.

  Aziz carried a small switch which he would use, though sparingly, to enforce a particular way he wanted the women to act and react. His favorite targets were bottoms and thighs. By the time instruction ended, in spite of Aziz’s infrequent switching, both women had red, sore backsides.

  The next day was almost identical to that one. They reviewed what they’d learned the previous day, and then progressed to the next lesson. The hypnotics had reached full effect by then, and both girls felt compelled to do exactly as they were told, having no personal desire or will to do anything else. In the absence of specific instructions, they sat there awaiting a command - any command - from Aziz or the trainer-of-the-moment, who was automatically the authority figure in their pliable minds.

  When they practiced performing as lesbian partners they were usually told not to climax. In spite of the trainer’s order, and their own drug-induced need to obey, neither woman – but Claire in particular - was able to control her intense physical response all the time and occasionally climaxed multiple times as they tongued or fingered each other. Aziz, a relatively patient and not at all vindictive eunuch overseer, wouldn’t tolerate what he deemed carelessness and lack of obedience on their part. He had them stand on tiptoe and chained them to a grid suspended above by their nose rings. The tension in their noses and feet was acutely painful. Claire was deeply resentful that they’d turned her pretty nose into an instrument of pain and punishment by modifying it to suit them, with the horrible ring driven through her sensitive septum.

  Impatiently unsatisfied and wanting them to never disobey again, Aziz would beat them each ten times with the switch, delaying the blows such that they fell at random times, leaving each girl to wonder when the next was coming. It was impossible for Claire or Saida to hold still when they were struck. As a result, their noses were in agony, along with their bottoms, thighs and breasts. At those times when they were punished, a frustrated Aziz would end the lesson with his terse command, “You are NEVER to climax again without permission!”

  It happened often enough that Claire, still early in learning Arabic, understood those words and could hear them in her sleep. Eventually, the combination of punishment and the drugs induced a basic rewiring in the minds of both women. They became able to control their own arousal, stopping it at a point before orgasm. This would leave them frustrated and anxious. As instruction and indoctrination continued day-after-day, because of the intended damage that greatly weakened their own willpower, they were no longer mentally or physically able to climax at all without permission.

  Most nights they held each other, seeking comfort from the only source available. The first few times they lay thus, the eunuch overseer was instructed to let them alone, but observe what happened. As the two girls touched each other, their own feelings of arousal built until they were actively (and identically) playing with each other: lips, tongue, and fingers probing and gliding across their most sensitive places.

  When both were almost at the point of climax, they would each suddenly stop and roll onto their backs, looking up at the ceiling, shaking with fear of climax without permission. Their bodies gradually came down from their sexual highs, unfulfilled and defeated. They slept fitfully, back-to-back. The eunuch overseer always relayed the actions to a pleased Aziz in the morning.

  Claire and Saida were regularly forced to practice lesbian sex as erotic theater, and were often overcome by the need they had for each other in the absence of the men in their lives. The part of the day they most looked forward to, and most dreaded, was the practice sex with each other. It was a chance for them to be intimate. To Claire and Saida, it stopped being theater and became a somewhat sanctioned way to display passionate feelings for each other, a chance to show that Claire cared deeply for Saida, and Saida felt the same about Claire. It was also truly frustrating since they were never allowed to climax as part of the exercises.

  At night they held each other tightly, kissed, rubbed their naked bodies against each other and then turned away before either could reach the forbidden climax.

  Saida thought that, surely, the harem was turning her into a bisexual female with Claire as her lesbian sex partner and the focus of her affection.

  When Claire thought about it, which was difficult for her confused mind to do, she realized she was certainly in lust, if not in love, with Saida. Elliot was still most prominent in her consciousness, but Saida was there too, as a person of fervent interest. Saida satisfied a part of her that Elliot now couldn’t, and that Claire thought he might never be able to, even when they were reunited.

  The next day, both were beaten by the Grand Eunuch. Neither could figure out, logically, why they were punished, even after discussing it with their painful, whispering voices that night. In their minds, they vowed to be more obedient, more accepting of the orders of the eunuchs, more focused on what they needed to learn, more humble and submissive, and more centered on their current situation, not on some future rescue that seemed more and more remote with each passing day.

  Their minds had surrendered. The hypnotics played a role, as did the environment in which they were immersed. Both women found it less and less possible to think about a life outside the harem, and being something other than houris, subject always to the will of the as-yet-unseen Emir, and of his minions, the eunuchs.

  * * * * *

  Six weeks had passed since Claire and Saida had become established odalisques within the Emir’s seraglio. Besides their physical alterations, several other things had changed from when they first entered the harem, a time when they were still certain that rescue was imminent. The biggest change was in their individual demeanor. They were no longer inclined to make decisions, but relied on others to tell them what to do. Their personalities had changed in a way that made them unquestioningly submissive to the will of authority figures at the very center of their being – a dual effect of the drugs and the harem discipline and punishment. Both women were uncomfortable, almost incapable of making choices for themselves.

  They were frustrated femme-femme lovers, filled with desire for each other, and unable to satisfy the lust and the need through mutual orgasm.

  Their trainers had succeeded in matching their movement, gestures, facial expressions, and everything about their outward appearance. The daily drills - and unending correction if they differed by even a little - had already made their actions match almost perfectly, completely automatically, all the time. It was becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart, unless one looked at their very similar, but slightly different faces. From every other angle, and in their movement and gestures, they were indistinguishable.

  They both had continued to gain weight on the rich diet they were initially forced to consume, and later ate as a matter of habit without thinking about it. Besides, they’d been told that was what they were to do. The drugs were doing their job of suppressing the will of the two women, and supplanting it with the need to obey. That obedience, plus the appetite stimulants, had caused each to gain about thirty pounds; they both weighed exactly 156 pounds, and were noticeably plump. Claire and Saida realized what had been done to their figures, but no longer gave it any serious thought, or felt rebellious in any way. They were told to gain weight, so that’s what they would do.

  Majid’s occasional injections distributed the new pounds such that their stomachs, though nicely rounded, were still modest and attractive, and their fuller faces weren’t as chubby as might be expected. They looked more like girls who’d grown up chubby, rather than women who’d gained weight after reaching adulthood, and who tended to put it all on in the hips or around the middle.

  In six short weeks, Claire and Saida had evolved from Western or Western-influenced women to houris, well-grounded in the need to submit to the will of the Emir and his officials. They were almost textbook denizens of the seraglio milieu, as it had existed for more than 1400 years.

  Both the Grand Eunuch and Aziz had watched the intended and hoped-for evolution and ripening of the two new harem slaves. They decided that it was time to begin training the two in directly pleasing the Emir. In the evening, instead of going to the bare practice room with only the mattresses in it, they were brought to the Emir’s bedchamber. The Emir was, of course, still not in residence in the palace. In his place, one of the palace guards lay naked on the huge bed.

  Claire and Saida were made to lie on either side of the guard and attend him by massaging his head, the hard muscles of his arms and chest, his firm, solid stomach, and the area surrounding his manhood. Both women found themselves aroused by their proximity to a man and the feel and the fragrance of his stiffening member. They moved on to fondle his balls and penis in easy coordination.

  Saida was ordered to take the large, pulsing shaft into her mouth and follow Aziz’s instructions to service the organ. In spite of her drug-induced need to obey, she hesitated for the briefest of moments before complying with the eunuch’s wishes, earning her two rapid smacks across her buttocks from the overseer’s short, flexible switch. She yelped at the same time as she grasped the sizable shaft – at first firmly, then, gathering her wits, more reverently - and lowered her head over it, taking the manhood into her mouth. As directed, she ran her tongue along the soft, sensitive underbelly of the hard shaft, moving it ever deeper into her mouth. Following Aziz’s instructions, and trying to resist her own gag reflex, she took the head of the guard’s penis past her uvula and deep into her throat. Her tongue and lips continued to minister to the hard, engorged member. Her head moved back and forth, as she synchronized her breathing with the exit of the penis from her throat, before the next thrust cutting off her air.

  Claire, lying beneath the guard’s genitals, his lower back propped up on pillows to provide space, had taken first one, then the other of the guard’s balls into her mouth, using her tongue to delicately stimulate his scrotum. For his part, the guard was almost out-of-his-mind with the pleasure being administered to him. Following Aziz’s commands, Claire’s tongue flicked around his anus, and her fingers toyed with his asshole. Combined with Saida’s naturally-talented attention to his penis, the guard lost all control and came urgently into Saida’s mouth, his cum slamming into the back of her throat and sliding down it as she attempted, with Aziz urging her on, to consume all of the ejaculate.

  Saida was ordered to withdraw and Claire was commanded to clean the guard’s manhood with her tongue and mouth. When she’d completed her task, an angry Aziz chained both of them to a ceiling rack by their nose rings, and delivered ten slashes to the buttocks of each woman, for not being more talented at delaying the guard’s arousal, allowing it to build to even greater heights.

  They finally retired for the night to their shared mat. Once again, they held each other in a poor attempt at comfort, while they drifted off to sleep. The next day, Claire’s Arabic instructions began in earnest. Aziz judged Saida to be as yet too timid, and had her repeatedly sodomized and then made to service ten guards with her spread legs, and another ten with her mouth, before rejoining Claire after supper for another session with the training guard. Saida was both exhausted and devoid of spirit. Aziz punished her frequently during the evening, and openly mocked her in Arabic in front of a dozen or more other harem girls when they returned to the gardens, late in the evening. Saida’s self-esteem, what remained of it, was further crushed beneath the public humiliation, even though she was berated for something she never claimed to want to do in the first place.

  A few days later, their voices were fully restored. The eunuchs were satisfied with their obedience and attitudes and, in spite of the frequent punishments, were generally pleased with the progress of both concubines. Neither Claire nor Saida spoke much after their voices were normal again. They had become accustomed to saying little when it had been either impossible or painful, and they continued in that habit – to some extent, a side-effect of the drug therapy. The drugs and discipline had significantly weakened the smooth connection from their thoughts to their speech. They knew from experience that it was safer to just obey and not speak unless directly addressed by a eunuch or master. To them, the few men they saw while being trained were all masters.

  * * * * *

  Their tandem training on pleasing the Emir continued for many days. They practiced oral sex on the guard stand-ins and became adept at the many nuances of pleasing a man with their mouth, lips, tongue and throat. The Grand Eunuch wanted Aziz to have their tongues multiply studded, the better to pleasure the Emir orally. Aziz resisted for two reasons. The first was the distraction and delay even a few days of soreness would cause. The second was that he thought the two concubines already had enough piercings, and he didn’t want to make freaks of them. Besides, he argued, C’amila’s Arabic, on the rare occasions when she spoke at all, was finally becoming understandable; he didn’t want to distort her speech by piercing her tongue.

  A couple more weeks passed. Claire had put the idea of rescue out of her thoughts altogether. If it happened, that would be wonderful, but she no longer held out hope that she would leave the seraglio. Her life had taken another turn, and the circumstances had forced a basic change in her self-image, her world-view, and her perceived place in it. The old Claire seemed distant and irrelevant. Her will was the will of those commanding her. She had trouble imagining that previous Claire, who’d been well-grounded and forthcoming in her opinions and ability to make decisions. In fact, having any opinion at all was a confusing, foreign concept to her.

  She thought about sex all the time: sex with Saida, with the guards during training, and future sex with the as-yet unseen Emir. That seemed only fitting to her; within the harem, that was the reason for her existence. Furthermore, sex was her only source of personal satisfaction. She was good at it and getting better. She knew that without a doubt. And she liked it. She’d always enjoyed sex. Now, with all other distractions removed from consideration, she found herself embracing everything to do with sex, sex acts, and all the variations of human sexuality which were taught and practiced in the harem.

  Day-to-day, she didn’t live in fear. Without a doubt, she feared the whip or any other punishment, but less that she would have thought. The possibility of the lash added a spicy risk to what she did which was stimulating, with clear sexual overtones. As time went on, she realized that she enjoyed sex after punishment slightly more than sex without punishment preceding it.