The two men forced Uta to kneel down and lean back so that her shoulders were resting on the rod connected to the upright stakes. Then her hands were tied to the rod so that she was secured. Then the men looped cords around her knees and tied them to the shorter so that Uta’s knees were spread wide. Finally, her ankles were tied to the shorter pegs. Thus, poor Uta was bound in an uncomfortable position with her legs spread and her back arched. This displayed her naked sex prominently. Then the men left Uta bound there in the hot afternoon sun and walked away.

Soon a small crowd, mostly children of the village gathered around her. They talked and gestured to her, but since they were speaking Arabic, Uta had no idea what they were saying. A few of the small boys poked at her with sticks; one jabbed a small stick at the large rings that pierced Uta’s labia. Finally, the old woman that had been inside supervising the women bathing Chloe and Muriel came out. She looked down at Uta, spat at her and chased the children away. Then she squatted down beside Uta. She looked at Uta’s face and asked in accented French, “Is the sun hot on you. Is it unpleasant? Are you thirsty?”

Uta answered, “Yes. Terribly so. May I have something to drink?” The old woman then gave Uta a sip of water from a bowl. Then she dipped her hand in the same bowl, wetting her fingers. She rubbed her wet fingers on Uta’s nipples which stiffened slightly. Then the woman rolled them between fore finger and thumb. They stiffened further. “Good,” said the old woman. Then she spit on her fingers and trailed them down from Uta’s mons venus to her slit. She fingered Uta for a while, enough to tease Uta’s clitoris from beneath its protective sheath. The old woman said again, “Good. You are still responsive.” Then she walked away, saying over her shoulder as she went, “I will be back.”

The door to the concrete hut suddenly opened. Chloe, Muriel and Uta looked up simultaneously to see three women and an armed guard enter. The women were carrying basins, and buckets of water and a small bundle. One of the women said in highly accented French, “We are here to prepare you for auction.” Nodding at Muriel and Chloe, she continued, “We will bathe you and dress you so that you will be presentable enough to attract a tidy sum.” Then she nodded at Uta who was crouched in the corner, still naked. “That one will remain as she is. She’s not worth the trouble to clean up. No man around here would want to buy a woman who is already marked as someone else’s slave. Perhaps one of the tribesmen from the south might be interested. They are savages and do not care about filth.” She spat out the last words at poor Uta.

As she said this, the guard came over too the woman. They spoke for a bit in Arabic, so quickly that even Chloe who spoke some of the language didn’t understand. Then the woman laughed and nodded her head. Then she looked at Uta and in French said, “At least you may serve as an example for the young women of this village. An example of what can become of a whore.” Uta who despite being at Roissy for almost five years had only a minimal grasp of French, only got the gist of what the woman said.

Moments later, two other men came in and took Uta away leaving Chloe and Muriel with the three women from the village and the original guard. The one who seemed to be in charge looked at them and said, “Now it’s your turn. Please remove those rags you are wearing, so we may bathe you.”

Hearing Inam’s pleas the guard inside the building rushed out; followed by the women who had been preparing Muriel and Chloe for the auction. As the group approached the crowd gatherd around Uta, Chloe was struck by the appearance of her fellow captive. Poor Uta was staked out in the hot African sun, her skin burnt to red. She was in a position similar to the pose she had on the cross back at the arena in Malaga, only prone. Her legs were tied wide so that her sex was clearly visible, as were the heavy rings piercing her labia. But what affected Chloe most was the visage of Jamilla, the old woman, standing between Uta’s widespread legs. In her hand Jamilla held a long needle that skewered a desert scorpion, its claws and stinger stabbing fruitlessly in the hot air. As the old woman moved the impaled scorpion closer to Uta’s sex, Chloe noted the look of horror on the German girl’s face.

Muriel grabbed Chloe’s arm and said, “My God! That old woman is going to let the scorpion sting Uta!” Then she added, “On her clitoris!”

Jamilla held the scorpion only centimeters away from Uta’s clitoris which due to Inam’s constant fondling had emerged from its protective sheath and looked quite erect. Jamilla spoke to the young girls gathered around Uta, their eyes wide with what? Curiosity? Horror? Glee? The old woman said, “See girls. See how this Christian whore’s clitoris has escaped from its cover. That is what yours would be like if it had not been removed. And you might become a whore like her. A whore who must be punished. Must be punished on that very thing that has made her become a whore.” Uta struggled against the restraints that held her. She looked at Jamilla and thru lips cracked by the sun begged, “Please no! Don’t do this to me! I beg of you! No!”

But it was to no avail. Jamilla, holding the needle that impaled the scorpion pushed it closer to Uta’s swollen sex. As Chloe and Muriel looked on in horror, the scorpion found something to sting, to revenge itself for being impaled by the needle running through its body.

Uta also felt as if a needle was being stuck into her. But this needle was hot, as hot as the sun. It was a burning pain, unlike any other pain Uta had ever felt. Although concentrated on her sex, the pain ran thru her body, seemingly setting every nerve on fire. A terrible, gut wrenching scream came from Uta’s lips. As it echoed in the ears of the European women, darkness descended over Uta’s eyes and her head slumped to the side.

Chloe heard the man who had been guarding them say, “Jamilla, you old fool! You have killed the whore!”

Uta had responded, “And you believed that? You believe I would willingly choose to be whipped, then marched naked, led on a metal chain attached to a ring that pierced my genitals to the arena and then hung on a cross with a rod up my ass?”

After that the three women were quiet. Muriel, though, thought about how she had watched Uta writhing on the cross and how it had affected her and the man she was with. After she drifted into a fitful sleep., Muriel dreamt that it was she on the cross. In her dream she was a slave of Rome that had escaped. When she was captured, her Master had told her that she was to be crucified as an example for the other slaves. It was a vivid dream that only ended when the truck bottomed out in a dry riverbed and the subsequent bounce threw all three women into the air.

Once Muriel was fully awake, she realized that she was wet and aroused. Shortly afterwards, the truck stopped in a small village. One of the men in the truck came around to the women and said, “Get out. This is your destination. Here you will meet your Fate.”

The ship carrying Michael, Nathan, Uta, Muriel and Chloe docked in a secluded cove in Morocco and the five were taken from the ship and put on the backs of two flatbed trucks – the men on one truck; the women on another. One of the men on the truck with the women looked European rather than Arabic and spoke some Spanish as did Chloe. She asked him, “Where are you taking us?”

The man answered in Spanish, “You Christian bitches are sabaya.” Chloe knew that Arabic word – sex slaves. “You will be like that one,” he nodded to poor Uta who was still naked and had been since she was taken off the cross several days earlier. “You will be either sold or, if you are lucky, given to a sheik. It is your destiny.”

Chloe fought back tears, but said, “And the men with us?”

“They have no value. Things in the desert without value don’t last long.” And then he smiled. “But you have some value. It is found between your legs.” The man then placed metal ankle irons on each woman’s leg and ran a chain through the outside ring on each and secured it to the frame of the truck. Then he got down and banged on the hood and said, “Go on now. The sabaya are all chained. They aren’t going anywhere.”

The truck drove away. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Muriel moved over to the naked Uta and sat close to her providing some warmth in the night air. Muriel attempted conversation, but Uta did not respond.

Chloe looked at them with a disdaining air. “Poor whore is probably still in shock,” she said. But Uta looked up and said, “Not shock. Just disgust. Less than three days ago, you were sipping wine with your friends while I was hanging on a cross, gasping for breath. I hope you enjoyed the show of my slow torture.”

Both Chloe and Muriel were quiet. Finally, Chloe broke the silence. “I did feel sorry for you. But my lover, Rene, told me that you were heartbroken because your lover had abandoned you and you wanted to die. He said you chose crucifixion because the physical pain of it would alleviate the pain of your broken heart.”

“And you believed that?” said Uta. “You believe I would willingly choose to be whipped, then marched naked, led on a metal chain attached to a ring that pierced my genitals to the arena and then hung on a cross with a rod up my ass?”

Chloe responded, “Well, you did choose to be a sex slave.” She was silent for a bit, then added “Now all of us are sabaya. That’s Arabic for sex slave. Now we are all in this together.” And the truck sped southward into the night.

Uta recovered enough to get on the small boat with Matthew, Nathan, Chloe and Muriel under the watchful eye of several men holding AK 47’s. The small boat went out into the harbor and the captives were loaded onto a larger ship, then they were unceremoniously thrown into the ship’s hold. In the dim light they looked at one another.

Matthew was a well-off Englishman, a friend of Sir George who was killed during the terrorist attack. He sat glumly to one side. Nathan, Ari’s younger brother who had orchestrated Uta’s crucifixion was sobbing softly, “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me. My brother is famously wealthy. Rich people aren’t captured by terrorists!” Chloe was Rene’s latest love; he had been trying to convince her to go to Roissy, but Chloe was a strong-willed young woman. Muriel had been a tourist enjoying the beach and climate of southern Spain when she met Marc who had romanced her. Both had been at the coliseum the night of the attack, and Marc had been killed along with Sir George trying to defend the group. And then there was poor Uta. She had been hanging on the cross when the attack started. After several hours hanging there, she thought she was dying, but then one of the men in baggy pants had undone her hands and feet and lifted her down from the cross. At first Uta was sure she had died, but as Anne Marie once said of her, “That girl is one tough Kraut. She can take a beating like no one I have ever seen.”

Yes, Uta was a survivor.

The ship carrying Michael, Nathan, Uta, Muriel and Chloe docked in a secluded cove in Morocco. One of the men in baggy pants came into the hold and separated Michael and Nathan from the women. He led them away. About an hour later, the same man came back and motioned for the women to come with him. They were taken down the ramp of the ship and placed in the back of a truck where one man sat holding an AK47 in his lap. Chloe looked around. In the twilight she could see nothing but a few flat buildings with no people other than the terrorists in evidence. The man sitting in the back of the truck looked European rathe rthan Arabic. Chloe who spoke some Spanish thought the man might also, so she asked him, “Where are you taking us?” The man answered in Spanish, “You Christian bitches are sabaya.” Chloe knew that Arabic word – sex slaves. “You will be like that one,” he nodded to poor Uta who was still naked and had been since she was taken off the cross several days earlier. “You will be either sold or, if you are lucky, given to a sheik. It is your destiny.” Chloe fought back tears, but said, “And the men with us?” “They have no value. Things in the desert without value don’t last long.” And then he smiled. “But you have some value. It is found between your legs.” And the truck sped southward into the night.

One of the braver young girls spoke up, “Jamilla, will you do tashwih al'aeda’ on this woman?”

Jamilla answered, “No. That is a rite only for our people. For this one I have something different in mind.” Saying that Jamilla reached inside her robe and withdrew the jar containing the desert scorpion. “Look and see what I am going to do to this Christian whore.” Inam who had been watching and listening to Jamilla saw the jar with the scorpion. Then she got up and ran to the hut where the other women were finishing the henna tattoos on Muriel and Chloe. Inam burst into the hut, grabbed the guard by the sleeve and said, “You must come quickly. I am afraid Old Jamilla is going to kill my Christian doll!”

Puzzled, the guard went with Inam and the other woman followed with Chloe and Muriel in tow.

“No. She is my doll. My big doll. I like her,” said Inam.

“Inam, everyone in the village knows you are dimwitted. This woman is a whore, not a life size doll. See she makes me hard.” And he pulled up his robe to show Inam. Then pointing to Uta’s open sex, he said, “There. That is what makes her a whore. Yours has been removed so you cannot play with yourself, but when you play with her; she seems to enjoy it.”

“That is why I use the sawt on her. So she won’t enjoy it so much,” said Inam as she grabbed the sawt from the younger boy and gave Uta’s sex several sharp blows with it. Uta groaned and Fazim pulled mightily on his member.

Just then Jamilla, followed by a group of younger girls came up. She said to Fazim, “Stop! Do not let this Christian whore cause you to soil yourself. Go away now and take your younger brother with you!” The boys quickly scurried off.

“Afterwards, I was broken. Used and abused. Ashamed at who I had become. Yet Rolf told me he still loved me. He enjoyed having the power to give me away. Watch me writhing under strange men. He said it made him feel powerful. And that it in no way diminished how he felt about me. And I believed him. Then he said that I could prove my love for him by agreeing to go to Roissy. To be trained as a sex slave there. His sex slave. So, I went.

“I remember my time at Roissy and how it all began. I was used regularly by strange men. Whipped and abused daily. I came to feel it was my Fate. Who knows? Perhaps I enjoyed it on some level. Being taken with no say so in the matter. No guilt about it, not even when strange men forced me to pleasure. “Pleasure that I did not seek yet did not avoid. I remember the other girl there. Her name was Doutzen. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. We suffered together. Then on New Year’s Eve Rolf had me branded with his initials. He held me and kissed me while he had Doutzen take his member in her mouth. Later he told me that he came in her mouth just as the hot iron was burned into my rear.

“And then Rolf abandoned me at Roissy. I remember Anne Marie telling me that as I was considered personal property – branded and pierced with my lover’s insignia – I would be paid twice as much as the ‘regular’ prostitutes at Roissy. And Rolf would get half of what I earned there. Rolf had made me his prostitute! And still I loved him. And for over four years I was at Roissy – a whore just like this old woman here had said.Used and beaten daily.

“And then I almost died when a man choked me so hard while taking me that I had a stroke. For a while I couldn’t talk or think clearly. I remember being in Anne Marie’s office when she told Rolf that I was no longer of use at Roissy and must be disposed with. ‘Disposed!’ And then Rolf sold me to that awful Nathan and Anna’s lover, Tristan. They intended to crucify me and charge admission for people to watch me writhe and suffer and probably die on a cross.

“I remember men using me and beating me. Then a man came and attached a leash to the rings that pierce my sex. He led me, naked, from there to that old Roman coliseum. There I was hung on a cross. I suffered. I was sure I was dying, Tristan had Anna come and place a vibrator on my sex while I hung there. And suddenly his head exploded. There were shots and explosions. I thought I was in hell. Then a man cut me down from the cross. I wasn’t dead. Instead I was captured by these men. And now…”

Jamilla went into the small hut that she called home. There in a corner was a glass jar. Inside was a desert scorpion that she had captured several days ago. Jamilla picked up a long needle, put the jar under her garb and went out to gather they young girls of the village. In a few minutes she had a small group of five or six prepubescent girls. She said to them, “Come with me. I am going to show a you a Christian whore. Then you will know why you must undergo tashwih al'aeda’. Otherwise, you might end up like her.

Then with the young girls in tow, Jamilla set off back to where Inam was guarding Uta.

Hearing this, Chloe said under her breath, “Poor Uta. As if she hasn’t suffered enough already.”

After applying perfume to the two Europeans, the women began doing henna tattoos on the back of Chloe’s and Muriel’s hands. The women were meticulous in their work, making intricate designs similar to those found in Muslim shrines in Saudi Arabia. The older woman said, “These should last for perhaps two weeks or so. Long enough for whoever buys you to enjoy seeing them on your flesh.

Finally, when the women were finished with the henna tattoos, one of them reached into a bag and withdrew a kaftan of some type. It was made of a silk like material – quite light and almost transparent. One was given to Chloe and Muriel. The old woman said to them, “You should not be naked when the auction occurs. There will be plenty of time for that later. Besides, your being clothed will be a pleasant contrast to that whore friend of yours. She will be auctioned off as is – naked and filthy.”

As the children of the village tormented poor Uta, preparations for the auction continued. In the concrete hut the three Arab women continued their work on Muriel and Chloe. The two European women were first washed, using stiff brushes that irritated the kin of both women. Then using the same water, their hair was washed. Finally, one of the women used a straight razor to shave them – under their arms, legs and pubic areas. As she wielded the razor on Muriel’s tender areas, the woman said in highly accented French, “Soon you will look as f you did on the day you were born. At least here.” Then she laughed.

After both women were bathed and shaved, they were left alone. “You will be dry when we return to apply perfume and markings,” said the woman as she and the other two left and locked the door behind them. The man stood guard at the door and allowed no one to look inside. And he watched the crowd now gathered around Uta.

Inside the hut both Muriel and Chloe were naked. Muriel whined, “That old woman said we’d be dry when she returned, but as hot as it is, we’ll be all sweaty again. It’s stifling in here.” Chloe responded, “I bet we’re not as uncomfortable as Uta. I wonder what has become of her.”

Muriel responded, “Yes. Probably not. I wonder what they are doing with her. I understood the old woman to say that she is a whore and will be used as an example.” Then after pausing a bit, she continued, “Just what is her story anyway. All I ever knew about her was what Matthew said, ‘They are going to hang some whore on a cross. Want to go watch? It’ll be really cool.’ And then poor Matthew was killed in the attack and we were taken prisoner. So, who is Uta and how did she come to be crucified in that arena in Malaga?”

Chloe responded, “I do not know the whole story, only what Rene told me about her. But here’s what I know:

“Uta was born in a small village outside of Hamburg. By her late teens or early twenties, she was working as a shop girl in Hamburg. There she met a man named Rolf. He, like Rene, is a member of the Roissy Society. I met Rolf once when Rene and I first began dating; he’s very handsome. Evidently, he wooed Uta and they became lovers. After they had been lovers for a while, Rene told me that Rolf convinced Uta to go to Roissy and agree to be trained as a sex slave. Rene was trying to get me to agree to go to Roissy when we were in Malaga, but I didn’t want to. I never thought of myself as a sex slave. Anyway, Rene went on to tell me that once Uta was there, she was whipped and abused. Then around Christmas, Rolf asked her to have her labia pierced and be branded, just like Rene’s old girlfriend, O. Uta agreed and was branded with Rolf’s initials on her rear. Then he abandoned her at Roissy, so he would get a percentage of whatever money she earned there as a prostitute. So, she became a regular sex slave there, used by whoever wanted to take her.”

“How awful,” said Muriel.

“It gets worse,” said Chloe. And she continued:

“Evidently poor Uta was at Roissy for almost five years – having strange men use her in all sorts of ways and being beaten most every day. Sometimes more than once. Then one man choked her during sex so hard that Uta had a small stroke. She wasn’t quite right after that. About that time two other Roissy members – Tristan and Nathan. Remember Nathan was captured with us and Tristan was killed in the terrorist attack. Anyway, they had a scheme to make a bunch of money by having a girl crucified and charging people to watch. All they needed was a girl.“

“And that was Uta?”

“Yes. As she wasn’t suitable for prostitution at Roissy anymore, Rolf agreed to sell her to Nathan and Tristan. They had her transported to Spain and held and abused for a couple of days. Then they had a man attach a leash to the rings in Uta’s sex and marched her to the arena where she was to be hung on a cross. I can only imagine the thoughts going through her mind, knowing that she was being led to her Fate on a leash attached to her most intimate parts.”

“Oh, I bet that was almost as humiliating as hanging naked on a cross!”

Then the door to the hut opened and the old woman and her helpers came in. She looked at the two naked Europeans and said, “Now we will apply perfume and decorations so that you may fetch a good price at the auction.”

Inam fondled Uta’s clitoris using her fingers and saying in a sing song voice, “I used to do this when I had this thing as a part of me. But now it’s gone and yet I have no husband.” Then she would slip her fingers or the handle of the sawt into Uta’s vagina and move it up and down. After this, Inam would remove the sawt from Uta’s vagina and place it in her throat, moving it up and down choking Uta a bit. As she did so, she sang again, “I have heard men like for women to do this to their ‘thing.’ Is that true, my whore? Did you do this and enjoy it?” She would leave the sawt in Uta’s mouth and pull on her nipples as she did so.

The agony of Uta’s tired muscles was exacerbated by the increasing sexual tension that Inam was inflicting. Despite her shame at being manipulated so, Uta’s hips began to involuntarily roll. Inam noticed, took the sawt from Uta’s mouth and struck the German woman across the lower belly with it. It made a slapping sound and brought a cry from Uta, “Please don’t!” But of course, Inam who spoke only Arabic didn’t understand.

A short way from Inam and Uta, a small crowd of young boys had gathered. One of them – the same boy, whose name was Fazim, who had earlier poked Uta with a stick said to the others, “Look at that brain addled Inam, playing with that whore as if she was a big doll. Let’s go closer and see.” So, the group of several young boys went over to watch as Inam went back to her routine of alternating between fondling and hitting Uta with the Sawt.

Fazim who was just entering puberty said to Inam, “I rather like your ‘doll.’ Did you know that she was a Christian whore? Does she get any pleasure when you play with her?” Another boy – younger- asked, “Why do you beat her?”

Inam looked at the boys and said, “It’s fun to play with her. I think she enjoys it. But if I think she is enjoying it too much, I hit her with the sawt. Jamilla told me to do so.” The older boy said, “Let me see her closer,” and he peered at Uta’s now swollen sex. He said, “I see she has rings there. I wonder if all Christian whores do, or just this one.” Inam answered, “I am glad this one does. I think they are pretty.” Then Fazim said, “Why don’t you continue to play with her while I have one of the younger boys hit her with the sawt to keep her from enjoying it too much.” Jamilla answered, “Okay.”

And Uta’s agony continued.

The two – the old woman and the younger one – stood over Uta and talked. Of course, Uta who didn’t speak Arabic didn’t understand them. If she did, here’s what she would have heard:

The old woman said to Inam, “Our warriors captured several infidels when they attempted to slay the vile Emir. Three of them are women. Two appear to be women of means. They will be sold as slaves tonight. However, this one was naked when she was captured, hanging on a cross. The infidels were crucifying her for some reason – probably because she is a whore. Look! See the marks of whoredom on her – tattoos and rings in her sex, and on her rear is a scar where she has been branded. She must have done something awful to be condemned to death by crucifixion. We should probably carry out the sentence, but first I want to use her as an example for the reason we practice tashwih al'aeda’ on our young girls.”

Then the old woman who was called Jamilla bent down and using her fingers spread the lips of Uta’s sex revealing her clitoris. She continued, “See this. This is what we remove to prevent our young girls from becoming whores like this one.” Then Jamilla stroked Uta’s clitoris a bit. “See how it gets more prominent when it is stroked.” Then Jamilla looked at Inam and asked, “When you were younger, before you were tashwih al'aeda’, did you ever stroke yourself like this? Be truthful, child.” Inam who was terrified of Jamilla was silent for a bit, her eyes glued to Uta’s sex which was being manipulated by the old woman. Finally, Inam stammered, “Yes. I did once or twice.”

Jamilla then smiled and said, “So you see we were right to do tashwih al'aeda’ on you, else you too might have ended up like this.” Then she withdrew a stout sawt (whip like instrument) from beneath her clothing and said, “I am going to gather the village girls and bring them here to see what happens to this infidel whore, but while I am gone I want you to attend to her.” Then Jamilla handed the sawt which she had obtained from a trader to the young girl. “This sawt is made from the penis of a rhinoceros. I want you to fondle the whore’s clitoris, use the sawt’s handle to penetrate her mouth and vagina, pinch her nipples. In other words, I want her in a state of constant arousal. But do not let her find her pleasure like you did as a child. If she gets close, use the sawt to beat her with it a bit. Understand?”

Inam nodded and Jamilla went off again.

The old woman walked to another part of the village. There she encountered a teen aged girl called Inam. Inam was thought to be ‘not quite right,’ but was quite obedient, especially to the old woman. The older woman looked at Inama and said, “Come with me. You are going to help me show the younger girls in the village why they are tashwih al'aeda’ (Clitoris removed and infibulated).

Inam thought back to the time she underwent the operation that was quite common in some areas. Her mother and the old woman had told her that she must sacrifice a part of her body in order to be suitable for marriage. She remembered the old woman saying, “No respectable man would take a whore for his bride, and only whores retain that part of themselves that tempts them to pleasure themselves.” Then the old woman and several other held her down. The old woman produced a straight razor. It was over in a minute. Inam bled quite a bit and hurt there for days, but her mother consoled her and said it would be worth it to gain a respectable man for a husband. But alas, no man had yet chosen Inam.

While the old woman was gone, Uta suffered greatly. The hot African sun shone down on her, turning her fair skin red. Her arms and wrists, tied to the parallel rod ached, as did her back which was bent backwards. Her thighs, held apart, ached also. And Uta was aware that she was open for any and all to see should they wish. She wondered how it had come to this. “Am I cursed,” she thought. “Dd I commit some great sin that I am being punished for. I thought being hung on that cross in the Roman arena was awful after being led there on a leash attached to the rings piercing my sex. But now…”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the approach of the old woman who was now accompanied by a younger one.

It was Michael, one of the survivors of the terrorist attack in Malaga the previous December. He and Nathan had been separated from the captured women: Muriel, Chloe and Uta and taken to the east across the Sahara. Michael, who understood both French and Arabic had heard the terrorists talking. They discussed holding Nathan for ransom as his brother was very wealthy, but when one of the terrorists had asked the other about Michael’s fate, he only shrugged. Michael also knew that it was Great Britain’s policy not to negotiate with terrorists. Michael thought his fate was sealed, but he was able to overpower a guard at a stop and escape into the desert. The terrorists did not pursue him, thinking the desert would take him.

But Michael survived!

M’Bo could hardly wait to tell the people of his village about meeting a French speaking missionary while he was in Mongo. It was a story about a woman giving birth to a god, but the woman had never had sex. And something about a person who had been tortured, hung on a cross, had died, but then miraculously rose from the dead. And this person became a god. It was all very confusing to M'bo, who did not understand French, and the stories had become jumbled in his head.

But as he was passing by another village, he heard a soft moan coming from the trash pile where the villagers put things they no longer wanted or could use. Curious, M’bo went over to the area where he thought he had heard the sound, keeping his walking stick at the ready in case it was a wounded animal.

As he pushed away bits of trash near the sound, M'bo saw something that shocked him to the core of his being. It was the flank of a human. But unlike any human M’bo had ever seen. This human had lighter skin than M’bo had ever seen. True, the missionary in Mongo was of a lighter shade than M’bo who was quite dark, but he was still brown in color as most north Africans are. But this creature was almost white. M’bo pushed it with his walking stick. Another moan. He pushed away more trash and saw that it was a female.

Startled, M’bo ran into the village where he encountered old Jamilla, he said to her, “I heard something in the trash pile by the trail and when I went to investigate, I saw a woman with white skin!”

Jamilla spoke a different dialect from M’bo who was what some call a ‘Bushman,’ but she understood enough of his dialect – vocal clicks, stops and all – to get the gist of what he was saying. She replied, “It was a Christian whore. The Arabs brought her and two others here to rest before they sold them, but I used the one you found as an example to our village girls of how they could turn out if they did not have their ‘thing’ removed. The thing that makes them want to masturbate. After all, her own people had crucified her, so she must have been evil. So, I got a desert scorpion and made it sting the Christian whore on her ‘thing.’ I thought it killed her, so I had some of the village boys put her body in the trash heap for the hyenas.”

M’bo hardly understood most of what Jamilla said, but he did understand the word ‘Christian.’ He thought to himself, “Perhaps this is what a Christian looks like. Could this be what that French speaking missionary was talking about? I thought the story was about a man who was crucified and ten rose from the dead to become a god, not a woman. Perhaps I misunderstood.” Then to Jamila, he said, “Do you mind if I take this ‘Christian” god with me. It might be good for my village to have such a god.”

And Jamilla laughed and said, “It might as well be you who takes her rather than the hyenas.”

The Others: Part Three

Don’t forget. There were some survivors of the terrorist attack in Malaga who were taken prisoner.

The ship carrying Michael, Nathan, Uta, Muriel and Chloe docked in a secluded cove in Morocco and the five were taken from the ship and put on the backs of two flatbed trucks – the men on one truck; the women on another. One of the men on the truck with the women looked European rather than Arabic and spoke some Spanish as did Chloe. She asked him, “Where are you taking us?”

The man answered in Spanish, “You Christian bitches are sabaya.” Chloe knew that Arabic word – sex slaves. “You will be like that one,” he nodded to poor Uta who was still naked and had been since she was taken off the cross several days earlier. “You will be either sold or, if you are lucky, given to a sheik. It is your destiny.”

Chloe fought back tears, but said, “And the men with us?”

“They have no value. Things in the desert without value don’t last long.” And then he smiled. “But you have some value. It is found between your legs.” The man then placed metal ankle irons on each woman’s leg and ran a chain through the outside ring on each and secured it to the frame of the truck. Then he got down and banged on the hood and said, “Go on now. The sabaya are all chained. They aren’t going anywhere.”

The truck drove away.

Muriel moved over to the naked Uta and sat close to her providing some warmth in the night air. Muriel attempted conversation, but Uta did not respond.

Chloe looked at them with a disdaining air. “Poor whore is probably still in shock,” she said. But Uta looked up and said, “Not shock. Just disgust. Less than three days ago, you were sipping wine with your friends while I was hanging on a cross, gasping for breath. I hope you enjoyed the show of my slow torture.”

Both Chloe and Muriel were quiet. Finally, Chloe broke the silence. “I did feel sorry for you. But my lover, Rene, told me that you were heartbroken because your lover had abandoned you and you wanted to die. He said you chose crucifixion because the physical pain of it would alleviate the pain of your broken heart.”

“And you believed that?” said Uta. “You believe I would willingly choose to be whipped, then marched naked, led on a metal chain attached to a ring that pierced my genitals to the arena and then hung on a cross with a rod up my ass?”

Chloe responded, “Well, you did choose to be a sex slave.” She was silent for a bit, then added “Now all of us are sabaya. That’s Arabic for sex slave. Now we are all in this together.”

And the truck sped southward into the night.

Uta recovered enough to get on the small boat with Matthew, Nathan, Chloe and Muriel under the watchful eye of several men holding AK 47’s. The small boat went out into the harbor and the captives were loaded onto a larger ship, then they were unceremoniously thrown into the ship’s hold. In the dim light they looked at one another.

Matthew was a well-off Englishman, a friend of Sir George who was killed during the terrorist attack. He sat glumly to one side. Nathan, Ari’s younger brother who had orchestrated Uta’s crucifixion was sobbing softly, “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me. My brother is famously wealthy. Rich people aren’t captured by terrorists!” Chloe was Rene’s latest love; he had been trying to convince her to go to Roissy, but Chloe was a strong willed young woman. Muriel had been a tourist enjoying the beach and climate of southern Spain when she met Marc who had romanced her. Both had been at the coliseum the night of the attack, and Marc had been killed along with Sir George trying to defend the group. And then there was poor Uta. She had been hanging on the cross when the attack started. After several hours hanging there, she thought she was dying, but then one of the men in baggy pants had undone her hands and feet and lifted her down from the cross. At first Uta was sure she had died, but as Anne Marie once said of her, “That girl is one tough Kraut. She can take a beating like no one I have ever seen.” Yes, Uta was a survivor.

And so the scene is set for this group.