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First off let me start by apologising if this is the wrong place to post this. I am new here and not sure if I am breaking any 'rules' or not abiding by the correct etiquette.
I started this story a long time ago and got stuck. I would like to finish it and make it quite long - novella length perhaps. I'll post what I've written here and let me know what you think.
Without wishing to sound conceited I was thinking of a kind of 'audition' for a co-author. If you are interested in the start, the premise then perhaps you'd like to write the next bit. Or at least an outline of what you see happening. I want to make it quite relastic and do a bit of research into the period and perhaps even populate the story with real historical characters.
I am looking for someone who shares my interests and wants to see this story go the same way as me. I hope that makes sense and I look forward to your response.
1781, Istanbul. The Slave Market.
Lady Anne Darnley concentrates on trying not to show how scared she is. It is becoming harder and harder to maintain this mask of unconcern and coolness. The cruel sun beating down on the enclosed marketplace makes it well nigh impossible. Her ‘stiff upper lip’ is starting to wilt after nearly a fortnight of constant terror.
She tries, vainly, to smooth the dirty ruins of her dress and repeats her mantra, taught to her by her father, ‘Remember girl - you’re British!’ But in these alien and frightening surroundings the words do not have their usual effect. The leering, sweating crowd of Turkish men around the auction block is too much of a distraction. Their language may be foreign and unintelligible but the meaning is unmistakable, reinforced by their crude gestures when they notice her looking at them. Glancing away she straightens her shoulders and tries to shore up the crumbling facade of her dignity. ‘How can I be dignified when I am in chains?’ she mutters to herself. The unconscious gesture that accompanies this thought causes her shackles to clank. The heavy links join her hands and are then attached to a post in the centre of the auction block. The block is like a stage, raised above the flagstones of the market square, making her visible to all the potential buyers.
The sound of sniffling reminds Lady Anne that she is not alone. Beside her, also in chains, is Colette. Poor Colette, hired in Paris to accompany Lady Anne as her maid servant and now to face the same fate as her mistress, sold to the highest bidder - like cattle. Anne has given up trying to reassure the scared girl. She has done virtually nothing but sob since their capture. Perversely her misery makes Anne feel better. ‘Typical of the French. No backbone,’ she thinks to herself. Nothing like a bit of xenophobic sneering to cheer up a Briton.
Gradually the increased jostling around the stage makes Anne realise that the auction is about to begin. A short Turk in dirty white robes ascends the auction block and immediately the noise increases to a new pitch. Seemingly every man is shouting, making bids. ‘Making bids to buy me,’ is the horrible thought that runs through Lady Anne’s mind. The word ‘buy’ suddenly becoming utterly vile in this context. She vainly wishes that she were somewhere else, somewhere safe. Anne closes her eyes and with a huge effort tries to remember the last time she felt safe.
The last time she felt safe.
Her mind drifts back to the ship, unable to remember it’s name. It seems so long ago, although it had been only a fortnight by her best reckoning. That last safe day she had just finished dressing for dinner. Even on that horrible Italian merchant vessel certain standards had to be maintained. The ship was en-route from Venice to Alexandria. Anne was to spend a year with her father, Lord Darnley. He was His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Pasha. The unspoken hope of Lady Anne’s mother was that her daughter would find a husband in Egypt. (Amongst, it went without saying, the British community.) At 24 years Lady Anne was well on her way to being an ‘old maid’ by society’s standards. Despite her enviable good looks and superb figure she was still unmarried. Her mother had given up all hope of finding someone in England. Anne has sent away every suitor, finding fault with them all. Some found themselves pleased to be rejected. Her supercilious attitude endeared her to few. She had quickly gained a reputation for being unapproachable and frosty. One such reject has drawn laughs from his friends by commenting, ‘the finest body in all the Home Counties, but cold as a witches tit.’ Her blonde hair and cool blue eyes only added to the effect. Soon everyone was whispering about ‘Ice Maiden Darnley.’ The stream of eligible men presenting their credentials became a trickle, then dried up all together. Without the support of her husband, Lady Darnley was too weak to insist that her daughter be sensible. Tired of the gossip Anne had come up with the idea of visiting her father. In the end Lady Darnley was worn down and let have her wish.
‘How I wish my mother had been stronger’, Anne thinks to herself, fighting back her tears. Once again she tries to block out the distasteful smells and sights that assail her senses. She tries not to hear the unintelligible chattering of the excited crowd, no doubt ‘bidding’ for her. She tries to ignore the pain in her chained wrists. But it is impossible. Coming back to the present, to reality she opens her eyes, only to see the auctioneer grab Colette’s elbow and tug her forward. This produces more wails and tears, which are silenced with a vicious slap. (‘Why didn’t I think of that,’ thinks Lady Anne unkindly.) Then with a wrench he tears the bodice of Colette’s dress down with an unexpected, violent wrench. Her small, dark nippled breasts are exposed to the crowd. She tries to cover herself, but another slap forces her to drop her arms by her side. As she stands, eyes downcast, silent tears streaming down her face, the auctioneer strips the rest of her clothes from her body. Anne watches, she knows she should look away, but she finds herself unable to do so. As the girl’s luxuriant, black pubic hair is exposed to the crowd the noise of shouted bidding increases. Even this peak is surpassed when Colette is roughly forced to turn and bend from the waist, presenting her vulva for examination by the crowd. Anne closes her eyes and tries once again to escape, escape into her mind.
The last time she felt safe.
On the ship, making the finishing adjustments to her hair. In front of the mirror in her tiny cabin, wondering if Captain Fisher would like the way she had done her hair. Wondering if Captain Fisher would even notice her hair, or anything about her for that matter. What was it about this taciturn naval man that stirred her. Her suitors in England had been the pick of the upper crust’s bachelors, handsome, witty, charming, well educated and rich. Yet she felt nothing for them as they danced attendance upon her. Now this man, their opposite in nearly every way, made her experience entirely new feelings. With a sigh she realised she felt this way because he did not to seem to know she existed. She tries to make him less attractive in her own mind. ‘He’s SO old,’ she tells herself, ‘he must be over 30.’ But this only causes her to think how distinguished that touch of grey looks in the hair at his temples. ‘And he’s so ugly,’ she tries to convince herself. But in her heart she knows that he is not ugly, it is just that he is not good looking in the accepted sense, but craggy and interesting. She shakes her head as if to rid her mind of such thoughts. Suddenly she is distracted by shouts from outside…….
That was the point at which everything had started to go wrong. The sailor’s cries that had broken her reverie had caused her to make her way to the deck. She suppressed a tingling thrill when she saw Captain Fisher. The thrill quickly disappeared when he informed her that Corsairs had been sighted. A name to strike terror into the hearts of any Mediterranean traveller. She was obviously not the only one who was afraid. She watched in tears as her ship’s escorts set extra sail and fled.
The Corsairs ignored the departing men-o-war and fell upon the slow sailing merchant ships. Lady Anne cowered behind some cargo lashed to the deck and watched in horror. From that time on her memories were a welter of confused images. The pirates swarmed on board in an unrelenting tide…..the helmsman slaughtered beside her…..Colette, dragged by her hair from below decks, screaming…….. Captain Fisher, fighting off three pirates with his cutlass, being forced over the railing of the ship into the sea.
(I want to change this bit to be a bit more believable. Anne sees Captain Fisher lead a counter attack form the forecastle that drives the Corsairs back to their own ship, but taking Anne and Collette with them. This leaves the exciting possibility, nay, certainty, that he will rescue her (eventually). He will return to England with her as his fiancee, little knowing that she is a changed woman after her time ‘at the court of the Sultan’. (Which is a potential title now I come to think of it.)
At that point all other resistance had ceased, the surviving sailors throwing down their weapons.
All those left alive on board were captured and then shipped to various markets for sale. For the sailors slavery was better than death. By all accounts the Turks treated their slaves relatively well, their male slaves. For women it was another story, especially European women. Lady Anne had heard the expression ‘a fate worse than death’ many times, now she felt she was going to experience it.
These morbid musing are driven from her mind by the touch of the auctioneer’s hand on her arm. Obviously the bidding has gone as high as it will on the basis of Colette’s naked form, now it is Lady Anne’s turn. She shrugs off his hand, ‘I will not be stripped like Colette,’ she promises herself, ‘I will not be broken by these foreigners.’ With that thought blazing in her mind she raises her shackled hands to the auctioneer in an obvious request. Something about the imperious blue-eyed gaze that is turned upon him makes him comply. Once the manacles are removed Anne faces the crowd and composes herself. ‘Remember, you’re British!’ Then, quickly, she takes off her dress, staring at a point high above the crowd, trying to be somewhere else. When her underwear follows a silence falls over the square, an almost reverential quiet. Anne stands still and haughty in front of all these men, her proud breasts standing firmly without support. The curves of her bust flow down to a slim waist and flare out over a most shapely posterior. A sparse thatching of blonde hairs cover her intimate triangle. Only a slight trembling of her chin and a sheen of moisture in her eyes betrays the inner turmoil, tells of the effort required to maintain this masquerade.
The silence only lasts a second before the shouting begins again, slapping at Anne like wave of sound. The auctioneer seems in awe of the proud Englishwoman. Not willing to touch her he makes an easily understood ‘twirling’ motion with his hand. Lady Anne knows what is expected of her. She turns her back on the crowd. ‘I will not be forced to do these things. I will choose to do them.’ This is the only shred of comfort she can cling to as she bends and exposes her most secret places to her potential purchasers. No man has seen her vagina, let alone her anus, in her entire lifetime. Now she is presenting them to hundreds, perhaps thousands, in a public marketplace. The effect of this display is immediate. The tone of the crowd’s voice changes, the volume drops. Anne guesses that bids have reached such a level that only a few are left in the race so she stands and turns to face the crowd again.
Suddenly it is over. The auctioneer gestures to Anne’s clothes and she realises she can dress. Once she is covered the crowd start to drift away. She helps Colette dress, in a reversal of their usual roles. The poor girl is practically catatonic, but at least she has stopped snivelling. Then the auctioneer leads them down some stairs and into a luxurious carriage, drawn by six matching Arab horses. Lady Anne hears the carriage door being locked from outside as the two woman collapse onto the seats. Hardly are they seated before the carriage starts off with a jolt.
After half an hour the carriage halts and a bustle of activity outside results in the carriage door being opened by a servant in magnificent livery. Anne and Colette alight, encouraged with gestures by the servant. Once out of the carriage Anne sees that they have arrived at a magnificent building, a palace in fact. Beautiful carvings cover the imposing facade. Stone shaped to resemble the finest lace, virtually translucent in the setting sun. Tall, pointed minarets cap the towers at the corners of the building. Numbly following the servant up the stairs the women enter through the huge doors into the dim foyer. The door slamming behind them makes Colette jump and reminds Lady Anne that they are still prisoners, however luxurious the surroundings. When Anne enters the central courtyard she feels dazed by the contrasts. Gone is the heat and dust of the marketplace along with the squalor of their prison cells they have been held in. A fountain plays in the centre of the courtyard, fruit trees flourish and a peacock roosts on the roof edge. Finally Anne notices the tall, shaven headed figure to whom they have been lead. She wonders if he is her new ‘owner’. How that word makes her tremble, making her feel literally nauseous.
After a long, silent inspection the man finally speaks, in a curiously high pitched voice. ‘I am Mustafah, Chief Eunuch of this house. You have been purchased by Prince Bin al Sulemian for his harem. I am to oversee your ‘training’. But first we must have you ‘prepared’. The Prince will wish to meet you later tonight. Come, come ladies, a bath has been prepared for you.’ With that he bustles off and Lady Anne and Colette are urged to follow by other servants. His words have not yet fully sunk in. Anne is able to grasp only one thought, one happy thought. ‘A bath!’
I started this story a long time ago and got stuck. I would like to finish it and make it quite long - novella length perhaps. I'll post what I've written here and let me know what you think.
Without wishing to sound conceited I was thinking of a kind of 'audition' for a co-author. If you are interested in the start, the premise then perhaps you'd like to write the next bit. Or at least an outline of what you see happening. I want to make it quite relastic and do a bit of research into the period and perhaps even populate the story with real historical characters.
I am looking for someone who shares my interests and wants to see this story go the same way as me. I hope that makes sense and I look forward to your response.
1781, Istanbul. The Slave Market.
Lady Anne Darnley concentrates on trying not to show how scared she is. It is becoming harder and harder to maintain this mask of unconcern and coolness. The cruel sun beating down on the enclosed marketplace makes it well nigh impossible. Her ‘stiff upper lip’ is starting to wilt after nearly a fortnight of constant terror.
She tries, vainly, to smooth the dirty ruins of her dress and repeats her mantra, taught to her by her father, ‘Remember girl - you’re British!’ But in these alien and frightening surroundings the words do not have their usual effect. The leering, sweating crowd of Turkish men around the auction block is too much of a distraction. Their language may be foreign and unintelligible but the meaning is unmistakable, reinforced by their crude gestures when they notice her looking at them. Glancing away she straightens her shoulders and tries to shore up the crumbling facade of her dignity. ‘How can I be dignified when I am in chains?’ she mutters to herself. The unconscious gesture that accompanies this thought causes her shackles to clank. The heavy links join her hands and are then attached to a post in the centre of the auction block. The block is like a stage, raised above the flagstones of the market square, making her visible to all the potential buyers.
The sound of sniffling reminds Lady Anne that she is not alone. Beside her, also in chains, is Colette. Poor Colette, hired in Paris to accompany Lady Anne as her maid servant and now to face the same fate as her mistress, sold to the highest bidder - like cattle. Anne has given up trying to reassure the scared girl. She has done virtually nothing but sob since their capture. Perversely her misery makes Anne feel better. ‘Typical of the French. No backbone,’ she thinks to herself. Nothing like a bit of xenophobic sneering to cheer up a Briton.
Gradually the increased jostling around the stage makes Anne realise that the auction is about to begin. A short Turk in dirty white robes ascends the auction block and immediately the noise increases to a new pitch. Seemingly every man is shouting, making bids. ‘Making bids to buy me,’ is the horrible thought that runs through Lady Anne’s mind. The word ‘buy’ suddenly becoming utterly vile in this context. She vainly wishes that she were somewhere else, somewhere safe. Anne closes her eyes and with a huge effort tries to remember the last time she felt safe.
The last time she felt safe.
Her mind drifts back to the ship, unable to remember it’s name. It seems so long ago, although it had been only a fortnight by her best reckoning. That last safe day she had just finished dressing for dinner. Even on that horrible Italian merchant vessel certain standards had to be maintained. The ship was en-route from Venice to Alexandria. Anne was to spend a year with her father, Lord Darnley. He was His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Pasha. The unspoken hope of Lady Anne’s mother was that her daughter would find a husband in Egypt. (Amongst, it went without saying, the British community.) At 24 years Lady Anne was well on her way to being an ‘old maid’ by society’s standards. Despite her enviable good looks and superb figure she was still unmarried. Her mother had given up all hope of finding someone in England. Anne has sent away every suitor, finding fault with them all. Some found themselves pleased to be rejected. Her supercilious attitude endeared her to few. She had quickly gained a reputation for being unapproachable and frosty. One such reject has drawn laughs from his friends by commenting, ‘the finest body in all the Home Counties, but cold as a witches tit.’ Her blonde hair and cool blue eyes only added to the effect. Soon everyone was whispering about ‘Ice Maiden Darnley.’ The stream of eligible men presenting their credentials became a trickle, then dried up all together. Without the support of her husband, Lady Darnley was too weak to insist that her daughter be sensible. Tired of the gossip Anne had come up with the idea of visiting her father. In the end Lady Darnley was worn down and let have her wish.
‘How I wish my mother had been stronger’, Anne thinks to herself, fighting back her tears. Once again she tries to block out the distasteful smells and sights that assail her senses. She tries not to hear the unintelligible chattering of the excited crowd, no doubt ‘bidding’ for her. She tries to ignore the pain in her chained wrists. But it is impossible. Coming back to the present, to reality she opens her eyes, only to see the auctioneer grab Colette’s elbow and tug her forward. This produces more wails and tears, which are silenced with a vicious slap. (‘Why didn’t I think of that,’ thinks Lady Anne unkindly.) Then with a wrench he tears the bodice of Colette’s dress down with an unexpected, violent wrench. Her small, dark nippled breasts are exposed to the crowd. She tries to cover herself, but another slap forces her to drop her arms by her side. As she stands, eyes downcast, silent tears streaming down her face, the auctioneer strips the rest of her clothes from her body. Anne watches, she knows she should look away, but she finds herself unable to do so. As the girl’s luxuriant, black pubic hair is exposed to the crowd the noise of shouted bidding increases. Even this peak is surpassed when Colette is roughly forced to turn and bend from the waist, presenting her vulva for examination by the crowd. Anne closes her eyes and tries once again to escape, escape into her mind.
The last time she felt safe.
On the ship, making the finishing adjustments to her hair. In front of the mirror in her tiny cabin, wondering if Captain Fisher would like the way she had done her hair. Wondering if Captain Fisher would even notice her hair, or anything about her for that matter. What was it about this taciturn naval man that stirred her. Her suitors in England had been the pick of the upper crust’s bachelors, handsome, witty, charming, well educated and rich. Yet she felt nothing for them as they danced attendance upon her. Now this man, their opposite in nearly every way, made her experience entirely new feelings. With a sigh she realised she felt this way because he did not to seem to know she existed. She tries to make him less attractive in her own mind. ‘He’s SO old,’ she tells herself, ‘he must be over 30.’ But this only causes her to think how distinguished that touch of grey looks in the hair at his temples. ‘And he’s so ugly,’ she tries to convince herself. But in her heart she knows that he is not ugly, it is just that he is not good looking in the accepted sense, but craggy and interesting. She shakes her head as if to rid her mind of such thoughts. Suddenly she is distracted by shouts from outside…….
That was the point at which everything had started to go wrong. The sailor’s cries that had broken her reverie had caused her to make her way to the deck. She suppressed a tingling thrill when she saw Captain Fisher. The thrill quickly disappeared when he informed her that Corsairs had been sighted. A name to strike terror into the hearts of any Mediterranean traveller. She was obviously not the only one who was afraid. She watched in tears as her ship’s escorts set extra sail and fled.
The Corsairs ignored the departing men-o-war and fell upon the slow sailing merchant ships. Lady Anne cowered behind some cargo lashed to the deck and watched in horror. From that time on her memories were a welter of confused images. The pirates swarmed on board in an unrelenting tide…..the helmsman slaughtered beside her…..Colette, dragged by her hair from below decks, screaming…….. Captain Fisher, fighting off three pirates with his cutlass, being forced over the railing of the ship into the sea.
(I want to change this bit to be a bit more believable. Anne sees Captain Fisher lead a counter attack form the forecastle that drives the Corsairs back to their own ship, but taking Anne and Collette with them. This leaves the exciting possibility, nay, certainty, that he will rescue her (eventually). He will return to England with her as his fiancee, little knowing that she is a changed woman after her time ‘at the court of the Sultan’. (Which is a potential title now I come to think of it.)
At that point all other resistance had ceased, the surviving sailors throwing down their weapons.
All those left alive on board were captured and then shipped to various markets for sale. For the sailors slavery was better than death. By all accounts the Turks treated their slaves relatively well, their male slaves. For women it was another story, especially European women. Lady Anne had heard the expression ‘a fate worse than death’ many times, now she felt she was going to experience it.
These morbid musing are driven from her mind by the touch of the auctioneer’s hand on her arm. Obviously the bidding has gone as high as it will on the basis of Colette’s naked form, now it is Lady Anne’s turn. She shrugs off his hand, ‘I will not be stripped like Colette,’ she promises herself, ‘I will not be broken by these foreigners.’ With that thought blazing in her mind she raises her shackled hands to the auctioneer in an obvious request. Something about the imperious blue-eyed gaze that is turned upon him makes him comply. Once the manacles are removed Anne faces the crowd and composes herself. ‘Remember, you’re British!’ Then, quickly, she takes off her dress, staring at a point high above the crowd, trying to be somewhere else. When her underwear follows a silence falls over the square, an almost reverential quiet. Anne stands still and haughty in front of all these men, her proud breasts standing firmly without support. The curves of her bust flow down to a slim waist and flare out over a most shapely posterior. A sparse thatching of blonde hairs cover her intimate triangle. Only a slight trembling of her chin and a sheen of moisture in her eyes betrays the inner turmoil, tells of the effort required to maintain this masquerade.
The silence only lasts a second before the shouting begins again, slapping at Anne like wave of sound. The auctioneer seems in awe of the proud Englishwoman. Not willing to touch her he makes an easily understood ‘twirling’ motion with his hand. Lady Anne knows what is expected of her. She turns her back on the crowd. ‘I will not be forced to do these things. I will choose to do them.’ This is the only shred of comfort she can cling to as she bends and exposes her most secret places to her potential purchasers. No man has seen her vagina, let alone her anus, in her entire lifetime. Now she is presenting them to hundreds, perhaps thousands, in a public marketplace. The effect of this display is immediate. The tone of the crowd’s voice changes, the volume drops. Anne guesses that bids have reached such a level that only a few are left in the race so she stands and turns to face the crowd again.
Suddenly it is over. The auctioneer gestures to Anne’s clothes and she realises she can dress. Once she is covered the crowd start to drift away. She helps Colette dress, in a reversal of their usual roles. The poor girl is practically catatonic, but at least she has stopped snivelling. Then the auctioneer leads them down some stairs and into a luxurious carriage, drawn by six matching Arab horses. Lady Anne hears the carriage door being locked from outside as the two woman collapse onto the seats. Hardly are they seated before the carriage starts off with a jolt.
After half an hour the carriage halts and a bustle of activity outside results in the carriage door being opened by a servant in magnificent livery. Anne and Colette alight, encouraged with gestures by the servant. Once out of the carriage Anne sees that they have arrived at a magnificent building, a palace in fact. Beautiful carvings cover the imposing facade. Stone shaped to resemble the finest lace, virtually translucent in the setting sun. Tall, pointed minarets cap the towers at the corners of the building. Numbly following the servant up the stairs the women enter through the huge doors into the dim foyer. The door slamming behind them makes Colette jump and reminds Lady Anne that they are still prisoners, however luxurious the surroundings. When Anne enters the central courtyard she feels dazed by the contrasts. Gone is the heat and dust of the marketplace along with the squalor of their prison cells they have been held in. A fountain plays in the centre of the courtyard, fruit trees flourish and a peacock roosts on the roof edge. Finally Anne notices the tall, shaven headed figure to whom they have been lead. She wonders if he is her new ‘owner’. How that word makes her tremble, making her feel literally nauseous.
After a long, silent inspection the man finally speaks, in a curiously high pitched voice. ‘I am Mustafah, Chief Eunuch of this house. You have been purchased by Prince Bin al Sulemian for his harem. I am to oversee your ‘training’. But first we must have you ‘prepared’. The Prince will wish to meet you later tonight. Come, come ladies, a bath has been prepared for you.’ With that he bustles off and Lady Anne and Colette are urged to follow by other servants. His words have not yet fully sunk in. Anne is able to grasp only one thought, one happy thought. ‘A bath!’
