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Ch 15
Dungeon
Aisha approached the dungeon door. When she left the gymnasium she heard Lila’s screams, and she looked back; she wished she didn’t. She saw Manu as he nailed her breasts to the sawhorse; and then she left.
Over the parched grass she saw the high walls that surrounded the sheik’s property. They were thinly guarded today; most of the guards were enjoying themselves with Lila in the gymnasium; the only guards on the walls were those who had been punished by missing the festivities, or the officers that, having already enjoyed Lila in private, now watched over the watchers. She saw a guard, sullenly pacing the parapet. If only she could be as docile, as accepting of her fate as Lila. Lila who, she knew, had had a chance to avoid her doom, and did not take it.
It took all her willpower to descend the steps into the cool dungeon area. Her body shook with fear; not only of her upcoming mutilation, she knew most women in Somalia and other places in Africa had this done routinely, as a coming of age ritual, but of what it meant. She would not leave this place alive. Her last gleam of hope would be gone. All the slave girls, in the compound, lived in the hope, not of being freed, that just did not happen, but of being sold to some other, perhaps less cruel, less sadistic master; anyone, they believed, would be better than Al-Mansour.
Inside the dungeon, she felt a bit calmer, although she could feel her heart racing. She paced through the library, and peeked at the dormitory where Lila and Manu had slept together; she dared not look at the torture chamber, the dungeon proper.
Where was Manu? He was taking his time coming; was he toying with her? On one hand she dreaded his arrival because of what was to happen, but on the other hand, deep inside she wished to have it over and done with. Still, Manu did not return.
Aisha crept to the dungeon door; the dark wood repelled and beckoned to her at the same time. She touched its rough surface, and pushed it open. The dungeon, dimly lit by a roof bulb, was even cooler than the living area. She entered it.
She saw the table where Lila’s body had been mutilated, placed to a side, against a wall. She saw an X shaped cross against a wall; she hadn’t seen that one before. Perhaps Manu planned to use it on Lila later today. She approached it; she extended her hand and touched the wood with trembling fingers. She left the dungeon, and ran to the stairs; she stopped half way up.
If Manu doesn’t come soon I will try to escape, she thought; the inevitable consequences of being caught however restrained her. She walked back into the living area and, after a few moments, she undressed. Perhaps being nude would help her control her fear, would prevent her from trying to escape; at least that is what she hoped.
How does Lila do it?
Of course, Aisha had never loved a master; she had been sold as a thirteen year old, when her mother saw her flirting with her stepfather, back in Saudi Arabia. The next day, she handed her over to a Yemeni trader, who raped her that very evening; on finding she had been a virgin, he got very angry and lashed her for not telling him. He would have made more money selling her untouched apparently.
After two masters, each one worse than the previous one, she ended up with Al-Mansour. She could not understand Lila, or her devotion to the master that traded her to the sheik.
In an effort to be as far away from the steps leading to the outside, Aisha crept, slowly, hesitantly, to the dungeon proper again. Even there, her feet kept trying to lead her out, to the sun, to the faint hope of freedom. Trying to distract herself, she examined the cross where, she assumed, Lila would suffer some kind of torture, in the near future.
It was an ordinary St. Andrews cross, with heavy iron manacles at the top and bottom, to hold the ankles and wrists. The manacles shut with an automatic latch, needing no keys. Aisha extended her arms and legs along the cross beams and rested her back against the unyielding wood. Somehow, being spread-eagled there, against the cross where Lila, by now her role model, would be stretched and suffer, in perhaps a few hours, gave her an injection of courage. She felt her heart and her breath slow down and an inner calm surround her.
She stood, in the middle of the dungeon. The feeling of peace she felt when stretched on the cross continued to expand through her mind and body. A measure of understanding and, she hoped, acceptance, began to creep into her mind.
Action, she thought; it was action what sustained Lila; that was it, instead of being a passive victim, she became an active participant in her own sacrifice.
She now knew what to do.
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