by Alessia Brio
Hands moved around her, behind her; fingers slid inside the waist of her trousers, inside her panties, caressing her hips, making her shudder. Lips moved closer and closer to a nipple, as Heather writhed and whimpered. She wanted those lips on her; she wanted them so badly.
The girl whispered against Heather's skin, "Patience, sweet one, patience." Her hands moved to the front of Heather's trousers, released the clasp, and zipper, and with little preamble pushed them down and off Heather's hips.
Heather was shaking now, partly with fear, mostly with anticipation. She had never felt this way, this alive, this on fire, in her life. The lips finally moved and gently, so tenderly encircled one hard, hard nipple, and sucked.
The sound that escaped from Heather's mouth was unlike any sound she had ever made before. A cry of passion, of desire, of need. As her back arched, her hands moved to hold those lips to her, not wanting them to leave.
The girl's hands moved inside Heather's panties, easing them off her hips, moving down her skin as she removed them. She released Heather's nipple as her mouth set off on a downwards path making Heather groan. Down her ribs, across her sides, lingering over her navel, nails dragging over her soft, trembling belly. Heather was whimpering and moaning, her mind almost unable to make sense of the feelings surging through her body, the reactions to so many different touches. She felt hands pushing her trousers and panties to her ankles, urging her to lift her legs, and suddenly they were gone. Everything that had been before, had gone.
With a sudden clarity, she realised she was standing naked, in a wood, in a rainstorm, being loved, caressed, seduced by a beautiful stranger. And she was loving every single moment of it. Wanted it, craved it. This was the Heather she had always wanted to be, the Heather that had hidden inside her for so long. Just as she realised this, the girl's lips dropped lower into Heather's curls, her hands encircling Heather's hips, pulling her against that soft, but demanding mouth.
"Oh god! Oh god, yes. Yes. Please, yes."
She heard herself say the words, cry the words, but had no idea she could even feel this way. The girl's mouth moved lower, her shoulders eased against Heather's thighs, urging them apart. Without a second thought, Heather moved, opened herself up, felt the cool air, the even cooler rain, on her inflamed tissues, and then the intense heat of the girl's mouth all at the same time.
The effect was a strangled cry torn from Heather's throat. No words, just sounds, as she felt that tongue, those lips, move on her, rousing her, inflaming her. She felt the fire moving from that spot to engulf her whole body. She felt the girl's fingers spreading over her cheeks, squeezing them, pulling Heather hard against her face, as she filled the silky warmth for the first time with her tongue, plunging deeply into her soft sweetness. The pleasure was almost more than Heather could bear.
"Oh god, please, please, please" she begged, although she had no idea what she was begging for. And then suddenly she knew. The girl's lips had closed over her hard centre, and her tongue was flicking rhythmically over it.
The feeling was so intense, so unlike anything she had ever felt before, Heather did the only thing she could. She screamed. And as her hips surged back and forth against the girl's face, as her own juices added to the rain running down her legs, her scream of release echoed all around the trees, reverberating through the branches. She clutched her hands to the girl's shoulders, gripping tightly, as the pleasure rippled through her body, tightening every muscle, every sinew, hardening even more her already hard nipples, arching her back.
Gradually, the waves of pleasure slowed—and flattened.
Gradually, Heather remembered to breathe.
Gradually, the girl's tongue and lips slowed and stopped.
Gradually, the girl's hands began to move, gently caressingly over Heather's tingling, sensitive skin, making her shudder again.
Gradually, Heather's grip on the girl's shoulders lessened, and her fingers moved to touch the head lying against Heather's belly.
Then clarity returned. A different clarity. The clarity that comes from a new perspective. Heather reached for the girl, drew her up to her. They stood encircled in each other's arms, leaning against the tree, the rain slowing, a gentle showering now drifting over their soaked bodies, just like the gentle showering still present between Heather's legs.
The girl lifted her head to look into Heather's green eyes, now so soft and fearless. The fire she had seen earlier was now a gentle flame, where it had been an inferno, but still smouldering, ready to burst again. She began to speak, but Heather quickly placed one hand on her seducer's lips, and gently shook her head.
This was not the time for words; that would come later. For now, it was enough to hear the sound of the rain, as it played against the leaves, the branches, their bodies.
The sound of a new beginning.
The echo of a baptism.
~ ~ ~ ~
Curiosity is not becoming, Kajira
© Alex de Kok
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is set on the fictional world of Gor, created by author John Norman. I trust that I haven't taken too many liberties with his world. While the world is his creation, the story is mine.]
* * * *
I could smell the smoke from more than a pasang away. Aye, and see it clearly as I made my cautious way through the gorge, my sword in my hand. There were bodies sprawled in that slack way that only death brings, eight of them that I could see. Two high tharlarion were also dead. The draft tharlarion that had been drawing the wagons were nowhere in sight. Nor was there any sign of the light wagon in which the women were to travel. Nothing moved except the scavengers, moving down cautiously towards the bodies.
The other, heavy, wagon was burning. This was the source of the smoke. I had little doubt that anything valuable would have been removed by the raiders before it was fired. A movement caught my eye and I turned, my sword ready. One of the guards, one who I had thought dead, was pushing himself slowly to his knees. I went towards him and he groped for his sword, hatred etching his features. He was young, not long out of his teens, and I realised he thought I was one of the raiders. He was on his feet now and made a clumsy swing at me. I let him live, disarming him easily. It was an honest mistake on his part. My helmet bore no crest, my shield no insignia.
"Kill me, or I will slay you," he said, his voice hoarse with pain.
I looked at him. "Why should I want to kill you? I am not your enemy."
"You're one of the raiders!"
I shook my head. "No. Do you not remember, your party passed me on the road, yesterday."
He stared at me for a moment, then relaxed, nodding wearily. "Yes, I recognise you now. You talked to my captain."
"I did. He said you rode to provide escort for a Lady returning home from a visit." I looked around. "How many were of the guard?"
"Eleven, including the captain."
"I count only seven bodies. With you, that leaves four. Where are the others?"
He shook his head. "I know not. Prisoner, perhaps." He looked around, then at me. "There are no other bodies?"
"None that I could see. Who is missing?"
"My captain, Claudius Flavius. The others, recent recruits. Competent warriors, but not friendly."
"How long had they been with you?"
"Only a week or two. They only joined the escort because two of the others were ill. The captain likes to have ten men in an escort for the Lady Allina." A look of despair crossed his face. "They have her, the raiders. Her and her cousin, the Lady Melna."
"How old?"
"Nineteen, both. We have to go after them!"
"You, my friend, are in no fit state to travel."
"I am! This blood is not mine. I think I was knocked unconscious by a blow. The raiders left me, thinking me dead."
I looked at him, realising that what he said was probably true. There was a nasty gash on his head which had bled freely, so that his face was covered in blood. His tunic too, but that was, as he said, the blood of o
thers.
"Take anything of value from the bodies," I said. "There may be keepsakes for their families. Then we shall throw the bodies onto the fire. The wagon will be their funeral pyre. When we have done right by the dead, we shall follow the raiders."
"You ally yourself with me in this?" said the young warrior.
"For now, yes, I do."
"I am Tullius," he said. "You?"
"Han Lero."
"Tal, Rarius," he said. Greetings, warrior.
"Tal."
It was an hour before we took up the trail. Easy to follow, for there had been no other traffic. Tullius was young, fit, and the blow he had sustained seemed not to affect him. We made good time, in the measured pace of the warrior, alternately trotting, then walking, the pace that can run down a tharlarion. We travelled light, sword and spear, shield and helmet, some dried meat in our pouches, chewing as we travelled, drinking from streams.
It was near dark when we spotted where the wagon had turned off the trail. There were tharlarion droppings and I checked them. Tullius raised his eyebrows.
"Not more than an ahn old," I said. "They must need make camp soon. Be on your guard, it will not be far."
We moved more cautiously now, wary. As well we did, for we spotted the three tarns before their riders could see us, Tullius and I taking cover in a copse of trees. The leading tarn had a carrying basket and they came to ground just over the rise before us. We made our way carefully forward, cresting the rise in a crouch under cover of some bushes. There was a clearing before us and the Lady Allina's wagon was there, and tharlarion, both high and draft. Figures moved about, and we could see, to one side, three more, on their knees, who seemed to be restrained.
"We need to be closer," Tullius murmured.
I nodded. "Be quiet."
We inched closer. The three restrained figures were at the edge of the camp, no-one near them. It was not difficult to see why, as all three were shackled, to a length of chain fastened through rings on the wagon. Their bonds were fitted so that none of them could move closer than a handspan of the others. Two were female, in the voluminous garments of the free woman, and a warrior, in a torn and bloodied tunic. The women had been face-stripped, their veils ripped from them, their gloves removed so that the steel bracelets would be next their skin, so that they could feel the restraints against their flesh. This is done so that they may feel the incipient beginnings of their slavery.
Tullius nudged me. "Claudius Flavius," he murmured. "The others are the Ladies Allina and Melna."
"Which is which?" I asked.
"Lady Allina is in the blue robes," said Tullius. Blonde. "Lady Melna in the green." A redhead. "I see no sign of the other guards."
"Perhaps they are already slain. The captain may be worth ransom."
Tullius's hand closed tight on my arm. "No," he breathed. "Look yonder. They are allied with the raiders. A thousand curses on them, they shall pay with their lives for this treachery."
Two others came towards the captives. A tarnsman in leather and an older man in the robes of a merchant. In our concealment we were near enough to hear what was said.
"Uncle Pel!" said the Lady Allina, surprised. "You come to ransom us?"
"Alas no," the merchant said, his tone unctuous, oily. "You are to be enslaved, and with that, my dear, I am afraid that you will forfeit the right to inherit your father's wealth. So tragic, being carried off just before your inheritance becomes due."
There was a stunned silence and a gasp from the other girl.
"Sleen!" cried the Lady Allina.
"Quite probably, my dear, quite probably. But I will be rich enough not to care in four days time."
"My father left you his business, sufficient gold and jewels to keep you in comfort, and you betray his memory like this! Why?"
"I owe some money for unwise bets on the tharlarion races. Your inheritance will pay them off nicely, with gold to spare. So generous of you, my dear Allina."
"I hope you rot in hell!"
"I think not, my dear. And the noble captain, Claudius Flavius. If I thought you could be bought I'd have let you carry my niece off, but you're too noble aren't you? Speak up, man, I cannot hear you. Oh, dear. Is your gag too tight? I would ask Barus here to loosen it, but you'd probably say something silly." The merchant sighed theatrically. "Come, Barus. We'll leave them to ponder on their fate. Morning will be soon enough to brand them and complete their enslavement. Let them spend the night anticipating. Back to Rorus for us, I think." He took the tarnsman's arm as they moved away. "Can your tarnsmen carry the Lady Allina's guards as well as myself?"
"To Rorus? Aye."
"Good," said Pel, "for someone has to bring me the sad news of my dear niece's abduction." Pel and the tarnsman laughed as they moved away.
I had been studying the captives and realised that their cuffs were not of the kind that needed a key, but were capture cuffs, designed to be freed by pressing on a part of the bracelet that released the cuff. To stop a captive releasing their own cuff, the two cuffs were joined not with a chain, but with a rigid bar that kept the hands too far apart for a captive to free himself. I touched Tullius's arm and signed to him that we should move back.
Back under cover in the copse I crouched, drawing him down beside me. "Did you see the cuffs?"
"Yes. Capture cuffs. We could free them."
"Not yet. Wait until full dark, then we will free them. You and the captain, with the Ladies, go north. About five pasangs further on the road is a guard outpost of Ko-Ro-Ba. Tell them I sent you, and you will be safe."
"You are known in Ko-Ro-Ba?"
"Aye. Well known. My father is assistant to the Administrator."
"If Claudius Flavius and I take the Ladies north, what will you be doing?"
"Confusing the raiders, I trust. I intend to take a tharlarion and stampede the rest. South."
Tullius grinned, a flash of teeth in the gloom. "Simple, and probably most effective. Now, we wait?"
"Aye, but not long." A short time later we saw two of the tarns leave, one with the carrying basket beneath it. The other tarn stayed.
It was about two and a quarter ahn later that we crept forward again. We moved silently up behind the women, who were talking quietly, miserably. Tullius and I each put a hand over a mouth, effectively gagging them. As we had agreed, Tullius spoke.
"Lady Allina, Lady Melna. Please say nothing," he hissed. "I am Tullius, of the Lady Allina's guard. The raiders left me for dead, but a warrior and I have come to rescue you. Please nod if you understand, but please say nothing."
The Lady Melna, who I was holding, nodded, and I took my hand from her mouth. "Your pardon, Lady, but it was necessary," I murmured in her ear.
"I understand," she whispered. I reached up and freed one of her wrists and she quickly took off the other cuff herself. I moved to Claudius Flavius who was watching and freed his wrists. He quickly loosened the gag.
"My thanks, warrior," he said, his voice barely audible. "Your plan?"
"To get you in hiding and then raise a diversion. I saw no sleen. Do you know if they have any?"
"I saw none."
"Good. Come this way, and be quiet."
The five of us crept away into the darkness. In the cover of the copse again we stopped. I took Claudius Flavius's arm and we moved away.
"You and Tullius, take the women and go north. On the road, about five pasangs, there is a Ko-Ro-Ban guard post. Tell them I sent you and you will be safe."
Claudius Flavius showed no surprise, but merely said, "I know it. What of you?"
"I thought I might borrow a tharlarion and head south with the other tharlarions. In the dark, of course."
"Of course," said Claudius Flavius, his tone dry. "Have you a weapon I might borrow?" he said.
I passed him the spare sword I had carried and he grinned. He took my hand in his. "I wish you well, warrior. When I have the ladies safe there will be a reckoning."
I nodded. "When. Now, it is time for
you to be going. I have a diversion to create." I turned, and almost collided with the Lady Melna, who had been listening.
"Why do you do this?" she asked, her hand on my arm.
I smiled. "It pleases me," I said. I noticed that she was very lovely in the light of the first moon, just lifting above the mountains.
"Do you have a name, warrior?"
"Han Lero, Lady."
"May the priest-kings guide you, Han Lero," she said.
"My Lady?" said Claudius Flavius, "we must leave before our escape is discovered."
She nodded and turned away to follow him, but kept looking back until the four were lost in the darkness. Now for a diversion.
The tharlarion were penned in a corral of rope and thornbush, still saddled. I smiled. That would make my task easier. The guard was sleepy and died not knowing the nature of his assailant. His death had been a little noisier than I had wanted and I listened carefully for noise of alarm, but none came. I decided to breathe again, moving carefully, loosening the rope which formed the gate of the pen.
The raiders had left the high tharlarion saddled, and it was the work of moments to mount one, after I had gathered the lead ropes of the others. I left the draught tharlarion. Too slow. Very shortly after, I was urging the tharlarion I rode forward, the others following, docile enough. I held my breath, but no alarm sounded until I was about a hundred and fifty paces along the trail when a shout of alarm echoed round the camp. I guessed they had found the empty bracelets. I urged the tharlarion to a faster pace, yells behind me suggesting that the raiders had discovered the loss of their mounts. I grinned in the darkness, laughing as I rode. The tarnsman would never find me in the dark and by dawn I would be many pasangs away.
I headed south, towards Rorus, hoping that Tullius and Claudius Flavius had the two women safely away. I thought it likely. I kept moving south until almost dawn, early in the late summer, then penned the tharlarion in a gully, using thornbush. I made a dummy from grass and twigs and covered it with my cloak, it resembling a man sleeping. Then I moved away into the cover of an overhang shielded by brush, my sword across my knees, and waited. Thunder rumbled in the distance and I thought there would be rain before nightfall.