Page 1 of Enslaved by Anubis
1
Zanika
The stingof the whip never gets less excruciating, but you can learn to live with the pain.
As the leatherslices into my skin, I can’t help but curse my naive self. I thought sucking up and working for Ansapata was going to be a prosperous new chapter in my life. I had been a slave working in the fields for so long, I was ready to do anything to get out of the smoldering heat into the shade of a palace. ‘He’s one of the leading physicians in all of Thonis, after all; he has met the pharaoh himself, so it must be better working as the palace servant of a nobleman of his stature.’Stupid girl.
The leather strikes me again and I let out an involuntary yelp. I steel myself, refusing to give Ansapata the satisfaction of knowing he is hurting me. His shit-eating grin makes me want to rip the shackles off this post and rip out his fucking teeth, but I’ve tried before, and they are just too strong. Even twenty years of forced farming doesn’t give you the strength to break iron.
Finally, the last of the ten lashes ordered to me strikes me right between the shoulder blades. An agonizing tear rolls out of my eye, but I do not cry—I never cry.
“Back to your duties,” Ansapata orders callously, walking away with his entourage of guards. I know that he will be back later to see me. Ever since he took me in, he has been trying to break me. I thought palace life would be cooking, cleaning, polishing ornaments. At worst, I thought I might have to scrub the floors. After a week of living in the palace, it became apparent to me that I was brought here for a very specific purpose, and that is to be Ansapata’s personal sex slave.
* * *
It started innocently enough.I was doing the duties that I had expected to be doing, but then, one night, exactly a week ago, I was summoned to his chamber by one of the guards. I rushed over and walked in. I was shocked to find him completely naked, lounging on his divan. I averted my eyes immediately as not to shame him by gazing upon his nudity.
“Don’t be ashamed, child,” the heavy-set, wrinkly doctor said to me. “Kneel down here beside me.” I felt extremely uncomfortable, but I had no choice, so I knelt down by his feet. He told me to start rubbing them, but I didn’t really understand what he meant. He snapped his fingers, and another one of his slave girls, topless with a long golden skirt, came over and started massaging his foot. After a few seconds, she placed my hands on his disgusting trotter, and I started to copy her. I was so baffled by the situation, I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing; I was just going through the motions.
“You have adapted well to palace life. Are you happier here than you are in the fields?” Ansapata asked before plucking a grape from a vine held by another half-naked slave girl and placing it way too slowly in his mouth.
“Yes, my Lord. I am very happy here,” I answered, which, until that point, had not been totally untrue.
The juices of the grape spewed from his mouth as he said, “I’m always glad to hear such a pretty young thing is getting on well around here. You know, you stood out like a sore thumb in that field. In good conscience, I could not let a fine specimen like you slave away in the hot sun. Why, you would lose those looks in a matter of years. Inside the palace, you can stay beautiful for much longer.”
The doctor snapped his fingers and pointed at his other foot. I hesitated for a moment, and he snapped again, pointing more aggressively at it. I let go of his left foot and switched to his right and began rubbing.
“You will soon learn how things work around here. It’s okay, you’re still new, so mistakes are acceptable,” Ansapata said in a fatherly tone, like he was teaching me to plow a field. I didn’t know if I should speak, but even if I should have, I would not have known what to say, so I just looked down to the floor and continued massaging his clammy sole.
“I think now I would like to see just exactly what I spent all that money on. Disrobe,” the doctor commanded.
I could barely believe my ears; I was not sure I even immediately registered what he had said. I had been a slave since my father sold both me and my brother, but never had anyone wanted anything but my labor from me. My cheeks grew red, and anger rose up in me. Did this disgusting pig really think that I would let him be the first man to see my naked body?
“Are you deaf, slave? Stand up and disrobe, now!”
I stood up slowly, still dealing with the shock of the request. I made myself as tall as I could and said, in a calm voice, “I respectfully decline your request, my Lord.”
The three other slave girls in the room averted their eyes immediately. I don’t think they could quite believe what they were hearing. Ansapata himself didn’t really seem to believe it either.
“Excuse me?” he asked, clearly offended, while rising into a sitting position from his lazy stance on the divan.
Before I could answer, he stood up completely and stepped forward. I noticed that he was a hand shorter than me. The few remaining gray hairs that lined his patchy scalp were at the level of my eyes. “You dare deny me? Your master?”
“No, my Lord, I would never, I just—”
He took me by the throat and hissed, “You are my property, and you will do what I say whether you like it or not.” For a saggy little man, he could strangle pretty hard. Without thinking, as a reflex to being attacked, I kicked him in the groin. He growled in pain and released my throat as he fell to the ground, gasping for breath.
The three slave girls rushed over and knelt before him, feverishly asking if he was okay. I realized immediately that I had made a horrible mistake and knelt down timidly myself, feigning concern for my new master.
When he finally caught his breath, he called out, “Guards! Guards!” while giving me a look of pure abhorrence. Two of his burly men rushed in the door, golden-tipped spears in hand. He pointed at me, still groaning on the floor, and shrieked, “Hot box!”
The two guards took me by the arms and dragged me out into the fields just outside the palace. I saw the numerous slaves out plowing like I used to do for at least ten hours every day. In that instant, I truly missed the work that I had spent my whole life hating. I was taken to a half-buried copper box by the edge of the dusty field. Two large stones stood next to it, and I started to grasp what was about to happen to me. A few hundred yards in the distance I could see the Iteru river and thought how much I would love to just float away and never return. They lifted the top off the copper box that looked more like a coffin up close and threw me inside. The metal burned my skin immediately, and I screamed out in searing pain. One of the guards kicked me in the face to get me to lie down in the box. They placed the lid on top of me, ignoring my pleading for them to stop. I heard the clang of two stones being placed on top of the box, and I tried to push the lid off, but all I succeeded in doing was burning the palms of my hands. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t help but sob and scream out as the heat of the box scalded my skin.
I spent hours in that box. I was only let out once the sun had gone down. Luckily that meant that the box itself had also cooled and it was no longer quite so painful. Ointment was rubbed on my burns once I was dragged out of there, but some of them had already started to blister. I didn’t really remember much of the ordeal itself. I think my mind was protecting me from the horror of it. I just remember thinking about the cool river and fantasizing about swimming in it and drinking the delicious, hydrating water until I could drink no more.
After that experience, I knew that I had to escape. I had arrived in what I could only describe as hell, and I was not going to let my life slip away from me serving as a sex slave to some monster. I knew that the moment I healed Ansapata would come for me again. I knew that he would make me undress and do only Ra knows what else.
While lying in the slaves’ quarters in the little shanty village about a mile from the palace (I was not afforded the luxuries of the palace for my recovery) I formulated a plan for my escape. I wanted to get help from some of the field slaves in the village, but it was clear that they had been threatened by the doctor’s guards not to even talk to me. A slave girl from the palace would come and see me twice a day and treat my burns. After a week, only the scars remained.