Voyage of the Tunisian Rose

"I would have expected more to be enjoying this place," Hamilton said.

"Massih Bey has caused... difficulties.... in Tunis. That are not many who would be associated with him."

"And yourself, Miss Nasira? You have no qualms about such associations?"

Nasira didn't answer, she dragged Lamesa towards an ornate wooden box. Inside were a series of soft leather bands. The Janissary carefully selected four and placed them around the slave's wrists and ankles.

"Torturing a slave does not violate your sense of honor, Englishman?" Nasira asked playfully as she tied the leather bands carefully on Lamesa's limbs.

"It should." Hamilton had set down his cocked hat. He took off his jacket as he looked down over the olive skin and small, perfectly shaped breasts of the terrified slave.

"Then to answer your question, Mr. Hamilton: it should."

Nasira gathered a few short lengths of silken cord. They pulled Lamesa to a thin hardwood pole that was suspended from a pair of posts. Nasira bound the slaves arms behind her back and then pushed her under the horizontal pole. The ropes around her wrists were tied to the wood. Her ankles were then tied to a pair of rings in the floor. Nasira places two pair of short wooden splints against Lamesa's knees and bound them in place, forcing her knees straight. The result was that the naked slave had her legs spread wide as she was bent forward at a right angle with her arms back in a painful strappado.

"I really shouldn't do this," Hamilton said, more to himself than anyone else.

"Many have the desire to rule, though not many can command with power," Nasira said. "I see the power to command in you. And more. I see the desire to control."

Hamilton took off his shirt, "And you?"

"I have a taste for control." Nasira began to take off her short Turkish jacket and shirts. She was soon topless, her long red hair flowing over her breasts. Hamilton stared at Nasira, lean and paler than he had imagined, with ample breasts and hard nipples. She smiled at him and added, "though I have made exceptions."

Hamilton also put his hand on Lamesa's ass. The bound slave began to breath faster, and kept trying to look back to see what was happening. Hamilton touched Nasira's hand, almost accidently. He looked up at the Janissary and their eyes locked for what seemed, to them, like hours. It was a simple, touching gesture, made across the sweet ass of a tightly bound sex slave.

They pulled their hands away together. Nasira struck first, her hand slapping hard on the slave's tender ass. Hamilton did the same, smacking hard on her soft flesh. They both began to spank, one after another, a rapid volley of painful blows that pushed Lamesa forward again and again, straining her bound arms and adding to her misery.

Lamesa began to cry and then beg and plead in Turkish. Nasira said something to her in her native language which only made the slave cry harder.

"She pleaded for mercy, but this one is a spiteful bitch always reporting to the Bey. I told her as much."

They stopped spanking. Hamilton ran his hand over the warm ass and let his fingers slip along her slit. The slave was frightened and terrified, but she knew what was expected. She began to wiggle her ass and press her cunt into his hand hoping he would fuck her and the torture would end.

Nasira walked to Hamilton and leaned down. She undid the buttons along his breeches and pulled them down. His cock was already rock hard when she took it in her hand. She leaned close, as if she was going to suck, her tongue just flicking lightly over the tip of his shaft. But then she pulled back and stood up.

"What's wrong?" Hamilton said.

"I am forbidden to have cock inside my body."

"Oh."

Hamilton hesitated but then pulled off his shoes and breeches. Nasira slapped the slave and she yelped. The topless Janissary walked over to the wooden box and came back with a pair of small golden chains. At the end of each one was a clasp. Lamesa saw the chains and begged, her body shaking, adding more strain on her arms bound to the pole behind her. Nasira stepped in front of the slave and bent down and opened one of the clasps. She reached out and snapped it onto a nipple. Lamesa cried out. Nasira simply smiled and snapped the other clasp on her other nipple.

"Please, mistress, please...." Lamesa said as tears streamed down her face.

Nasira ignored her. She handed the second identical chain to the naked Lieutenant Hamilton. "I am also a slave."

Hamilton held the clasps in both hands. He looked down at the Janissary's nipples, hard and erect, and then stepped closer and snapped the clasps on each tender nub. Nasira grimaced and then smiled broadly. Hamilton pulled hard on the chain, yanking her close.

"Never?" he asked.

"Never." Nasira, let out a soft cry as her nipples were pulled. She smiles as she leaned in and brushed her lips against his. "That is why this slave is here."

Hamilton took hold of Lamesa's hips. The slave dutifully began to wriggle her hips.

"Take me, master... please," the bound slave begged.

Hamilton slapped her ass, hard. "I'll take you when I damned well want to, slave."

"Yes, yes, master."

Nasira moved to her knees next to the olive skinned beauty. She reached out and took hold of Hamilton's cock and slid the tip up and down against Lamesa's slit. Hamilton held on to the bound woman's hips and he smiled, looking down at the topless Janissary who held his cock tightly.

"Never?"

"Never," Nasira repeated. She held his cock as his tip moved into the slightly damp pussy of the slave and then stood up. Hamilton thrust his cock in deep, his fingers pressing in hard on Lamesa's skin as he fucked her full force.

Nasira walked behind Hamilton and put her arms around him. "You might imagine it is me."

"Oh, I am... oh, I am," Hamilton fucked Lamesa harder and faster as his cock slid in and out of the tight cunt. Lamesa made the right noises, she was a well trained pleasure slave, but with her arms still bound in the stressful strappado there was not much conviction.

Hamilton slammed in harder as the intense pleasure of fucking a beautiful bound woman took hold. Nasira had slipped off her own pants and boots, and he could feel her thighs and mound against his body as he fucked the bound slave. It was too much. He cock erupted and his cum blasted into the pussy of the helpless Lamesa.

"Your cock must be cleaned," Nasira said as he pulled back.

"I.. I will clean your cock, master," Lamesa said, quietly.

Nasira knelt down and ran her tongue around her cock. Hamilton took a deep breath wanting his cock in her mouth. But Nasira on licked and kissed. Then she stood up.

"Never?"

"Never." Nasira unbound Lamesa and pushed her to her knees. The frightened slave leaned in and cleaned his cock carefully, her eyes looking up at him, as he only looked at Nasira.

##

The training of the crew continued, on the deck and masts of the half built brig sloop which Wray insisted be called the Ann. On the third day the slave Hayfa had fallen from the main yard but had managed to get by with only a broken arm. She was replaced with a French beauty, taken only the year before, who had been renamed Luloah by her Corsair captures. It meant, the Pearl. Hamilton decided there was no point in teaching the women more than very basic sail handing. Other slaves would be forthcoming, ones who did not speak English, and the eight they trained now would have to be the leaders of the groups assigned various tasks such as working the topsail or simply hauling on a brace from the deck. The ship, the real ship, would have to make do without a bosun, carpenters, coopers, midshipmen or any real officers other than Hamilton and Wray.

In the end each slave was allowed to wear the short breeches which clung tightly to their ass and thighs, with small wrappings around their hands and feet added after Nasira expressed concern about Massih Bey not wanting his elite slaves developing calluses.

"That's going to just happen!" Wray had said to that, in exasperation. "Every real sailor has calluses!"

"I know." Nasira had replied. Her expression had not changed, although Hamilton couldn't resist shrugging.

"Aye, I wondered." Wray laughed.

Wray himself spent each night with the English slave Samira, whose name before her abduction was Ann Whetherlocke, and who Wray insisted did live up to the meaning of her slave name: the Fuckable. But the other women were used as well by both officers. A routine developed with two breaks during the day during which each man used one or more of the slaves. The Pearl Room was used a few times, but the erotic strain of watching the topless beauties running up and down the shrouds, moving out along the yards or just standing there, usually meant that the officer's cocks didn't want to wait.

Hamilton spent most of each night with Nasira, their naked bodies entwined. Nasira would work his cock well with her hands, a satisfying, if messier approach.

##

Three weeks after his arrival in Tunis, on a dark night, Hamilton held Nasira and watched the faint glow of torches and lamps from the city shift the shadows over the naked woman's body.

"So why do you know your mother was Russian?" he asked her.

"That is what I have been told by two slaves, once when I was a girl living in the Harem and once when I was a soldier in Cezayir. They said they knew her, and that she had been the wife of a Russian officer who was with child when they had been captured near the end of the war."

"Did they tell you the name of the officer?"

"No. They were young too, only children when they were brought back to Istanbul. Why do you ask?"

"I'm starting to think of you as English."

She pressed he down on his back, sliding up so that his semi-erect cock was between her thighs. It quickly grew hard.

"You would have me dress like a barbarous infidel? With a long plain gown cut down to the show almost all of my breasts?"

"That sounds more French than English, but why not?" He leaned down and licked her breasts.

"That would never be allowed, Edward, by the many rules of my order."

"Well, I would imagine the rules of your order don't include women with muskets now, do they?" Hamilton laughed. "So I think that your rules can be.... oh... did I pinch you?"

"They only created my bulecka as another entertainment," Nasira said as she slid back down him, using the Ottoman word for her company of Janissaries. She was no longer smiling.

"You are very entertaining," Hamilton said, trying to cheer her up. "And a very good soldier. I wouldn't want to be up against you in a saber duel."

Nasira laid still, next to him. "Perhaps they are right. War is not the place for a woman."

"War is not a place for anyone." Hamilton looked at her, his expression now grim. "I remember when I was a midshipman on the Orion during the Glorious First. When Lord Howe ordered our fleet to cut the French line the ship turned, and we moved closer and closer, all the while facing their broadsides. And... well... well, perhaps it is of no importance."

"Tell me Edward."

"I've never told anyone this, not even James." He hesitated. "I was standing next to my best friend, Porter -- I told you about him, he was the middie from Yorkshire -- I asked him a question and he started to answer but then a French shot took off his head. I was talking with him and then... his head was gone and what was left of him toppled over. Two seamen, even before he'd even hit the deck took hold and... they heaved.... heaved him overboard while I stood there gaping." Nasira leaned up to look at him. "And after all these years I keep thinking, not of the good and true friend cut down in his prime, not of the future officer lost to the service, and not even of the fine line with my own mortality, but that... that... I've forgotten what I asked him. How foolish is that?"

Nasira was silent for a minute. "I have never told that I still dream of my first real battle. It was in a wretched town in Rumeli that wouldn't produce their allotment of taxes. The Sanjakbey brought his whole household to see a massacre, but when his first lines were repulsed at the town walls he suddenly had to use his pretty soldiers. It became a siege and so a mine was dug. The Sajakbey was a young fool, the tunnel was always filled with mud, and the enemy knew of it. They waited and dug a countermine. When the last of the waterproof powder casks were being set... right before we were to blow a breach in their walls... they broke in. They seemed to emerge everywhere, from the walls and even the ceiling. From everywhere." Nasira paused. "We fought and we won. I fought and I killed. But when I dream... when I dream of this I can't find my saber and the enemy are coming closer and my hands are down in the mud as I try to find it, and my hands are pulled into the mud, and I see them coming and I try to pull out my hands and I try to look for the saber and..." Nasira's voice trailed out.

"I'm sorry."

"It is not good to speak of these things. Not in this way."

They were quiet the rest of the night although neither slept. Two hours before dawn, as always, Nasira crept out of his room.

##

The next day thirty six other beautiful female slaves were brought to the training ship. They were taught to do the simple but hard work of hauling on the lines to move the sails and yards. Ten were deemed capable enough while aloft to be added to the small top crews.

And at last, a week after that, Hamilton and Wray were taken down to the quay on el Bahirah, the Lake of Tunis, where a wide range of ships, large and small, were tied close or anchored just off shore.

"There she is, gentleman!" Van Schoonhoven pointed to a brig sloop tied to the quay, with mast and rigging identical to the training half-ship, the Ann. "The most pious Massih Bey, Bey al-Mahalla, Wazir al-Bahr, yes, has named this fine vessel The Most Delicate Flower."

Nasira, dressed in her full uniform of colorful clothes, her saber in its jeweled scabbard, her heavy musket on her back, looked slowly over at the Dutchman and said, "The name is Cunt."

"The Cunt?" Wray said. "Bloody hell!"

"Of course, gentleman," Van Schoonhoven said with a broad smile. "And the most pious Massih Bey, the heir to throne of this fine, fine nation, yes? He is watching these proceedings from his palace and so we will be very happy with the name of his fine, fine ship."

"I'm not sailing on any bloody ship named the bloody Cunt!"

"Lieutenant, yes, of course your enthusiasm is most --"

"Enough!" Hamilton snapped. "We can devise a new translation later. First, however, I insist that we be allowed to inspect the vessel whether or not that offends his pious majesty."

The two naval officers, trailed by Van Schoonhoven and Nasira walked slowly through the ship inspecting from the masthead to deep in the hold. They were both impressed by the solid work. They were, however, surprised that there were six brass 12-pounders in an enclosed gun deck.

"We never drilled these women to fire guns," Hamilton said.

"I most seriously doubt that will be necessary, my dear fellow." Van Schoonhoven leaned in. "You'll have food and water for no more than three days, hm, perhaps, enough powder and shot to fire each gun twice."

"He thinks we're going to steal the ship?" Wray said with a laugh.

"I suspect he doesn't want his trained slaves to make a run for Sicily," Hamilton said.

"The women? Hah. Mr. Wray is correct, the ship is what he cares about. Women are cheap when you're the Vizier of the Sea with three dozen war galleys, always primed to raid for the coasts for more, yes?"

##

An hour after sunset Hamilton walked along the battlement of Massih Bey's fortress, the city of Tunis arrayed before him in the moonlight. The mehterhane, a military band, was playing on the parade ground and the laughter of women filtered from the windows. Nasira had spent the afternoon with her company, marching and drilling with muskets. He hadn't see her after sunset, which was unusual, but was very pleased when she walked out along the battlement. She dismissed the soldiers around her, and they were alone.

"So, now that we are far from the many pretty ears of Massih Bey and the Grand Vizier and the Pasha-Bey, can you tell me, Miss Nasira, about a man who wants a ship with a crew of sex slaves?" Hamilton asked, looking very correct for a somewhat public setting, or at least trying to.

"Massih Bey is a most pious ruler, wise and far sighted. There were great omens heralding his birth. As a baby he spoke the Koran. As a child he won battles and personally slew thousands of our enemies. He has lead fleets across the world. Infidels across the world tremble at the merest mention of his name and beg to give tribute to stay his wrath."

"Yes. I was afraid of that."

Nasira smiled. Her red hair was visible under the high crowned kalpak on her head. "He is worse than a fool, he is an embarrassment."

"Is that why we never see him?"

"He remains under the protection of the Kocek Kapikulu," she said, meaning the female Janissaries. "He finds women to be far more trustworthy."

Hamilton nodded. Then he laughed. He quickly stifled that with a forced cough. Hamilton looked out along the waters of el-Bahira, the Lake of Tunis, where the lights of the many lamps, candles and fires throughout the city were reflected on the wave tops. The Rose, the English name Hamilton and Wray had agreed to use for the brig-sloop, sat at anchor now, a few hundred yards from the quay.

"I would like you to come with me," he said, suddenly.

"If the great Massih Bey feels you need protection he will send me with you."

"Not on the ship. I mean --"

"I know what you mean, Edward." Nasira maintained an impassive expression but Hamilton thought that in the twilight he saw a trace of embarrassment. "Would you have me in gowns held wide with barrel staves while drinking tea and eating cake with the other Christian wives?"

"Well. I, uh, I think you would... you would look very nice."

"And when you went to sea? I would visit these infidel wives and talk about the local vicar or my service as a Ghazi?"

"Well...I, suppose... uh..."

"Have you forgotten that I am forbidden to have a man inside me?"

"Well..." He looked at her and saw her smiling. "I have indeed noticed that quality about you, Miss Nasira."

"You could come with me to Istanbul."

"What?"

"They could give you a ship and I could fight at your side as we raid the infidels. Many slaves would be ours."

"There is an appeal to that," Hamilton said with a laugh. Then he looked out at the harbor and nodded. "But, I see your point."

They both turned as the gates slowly opened with a loud groan. There was a loud grinding which Hamilton had come to recognize, the combined clink of heavy chains as a group of slaves was moved about the city. Several horsemen came in first, followed by a line of thirty women chained together. Merchants and guards kept the women moving as they were directed across the parade ground to the outbuilding.

The women cried and pleaded in multiple languages, but except for the occasional snap of a short whip, there was no mercy. In the dim light it was difficult to see what they looked like, although if nothing else Massih Bey owned only beautiful women.

"I may not be able to have a man inside me, Edward, and if the slaves on your ship have become tedious then perhaps you should buy your own."

Hamilton looked at her and said, "What? Oh, I can't, I can't do anything like that."

"You are not in England." Nasira said quietly. She put the silk across her face and made her way off the battlement, yelling orders to the guards to return to their posts.