by Mind Guest
wooden bar above my head. The chain was wrapped around the bar above
and somewhat behind me, my right arm was raised and the wrist relocked
in the cuff, and then golden-shirt turned and left the tent.
It took a couple of minutes to fight my way through Bellna's constant
howling and the clinging aftermath of what I'd gone through, but once
I'd done it, all I could do was wonder how smart I'd been. I'd been
trying to buy some time away from the slavers' conditioning program,
but all I seemed to have managed was to find another phase of it. A
large number of people were strolling around through the tent, mostly
male people with less than a handful of females, and all of them were
there to look at slaves. Golden-shirt had decided to get me used to
being "unclothed" in front of large numbers of men, and putting me on
display was the way he was doing it. The other females on my platform
had struck me as being as beautiful as Bellna during the few seconds
I'd been able to see them, and that was probably why we were on the furred platform right in front of the entrance. Draw the suckers in and
get them to look, and even if they can't afford the best there's always
second or third best. I was being used as bait even while I was being
trained.
I took a deep breath and moved my head around a little to loosen the
knots in the back of my neck, but the effort didn't do much; being
comfortable in the position I'd been chained was just about impossible.
Not only were my wrists tight to the bar above and behind my head, the
bar itself was in exactly the wrong position in relation to the
platform: too high to let me sit back on my heels, too low to let me
kneel straight without bending. It took a minute or two of still
befuddled thinking to decide that I would be better off if my wrists
were directly over my head or in front of me, but I'd waited too long
for the decision to do any good. A guard in a dark gold shirt stopped
next to me, moved aside the furs right under my feet, then rattled
briefly. When the rattling was over, the cuffs around my ankles were
attached to what was probably a single, very short chain set in the
platform, giving me no movement room at all. I was set in place,
chained facing the entrance at a three-quarter angle, and that's the
way I would stay for a while.
"Pretty little slave," the guard murmured with a half-distracted sound
to his voice as his hands pushed my thighs apart. "You are to keep your
knees wide at all times. It matters not whether you weep or smile; your
knees must remain apart. Should you fail to keep them so, there is a
device to see to it."
His message delivered, he went on his way, not caring whether or not I
wanted to say anything. If I didn't obey there would be another
"device" to take care of the problem, so there was nothing to say.
Bellna whimpered miserably in my head, burning so urgently that it made
me squirm, which in turn set me to cursing silently. I didn't know how
long I'd be there, but the past five minutes had already been too long.
Another five minutes passed, during which time I asked myself why I'd
been stupid enough to decide to wait until dark to make a run for it,
and then another group of buyers came through the tent entrance. There
were five of them, and from their clothes they must have been well-todo
merchants or very minor nobility, and they didn't even pause to look
around. Just as if they'd done it many times before, they came straight
over to my platform and began examining each of us in turn, two of them
listing our major sales points, the other three listening carefully and
occasionally asking questions. I gathered that we four were a yardstick
to measure the other female slaves by, and we had to be gone over
carefully so that nothing important would be missed. Every one of those
sons found it necessary to touch me, not once but any number of times,
and once they were gone I trembled as much as the only one of the other
three girls I could see. Bellna wanted to jump screaming out of my
skin, and there was nothing I could do to calm her. Hell, there was
nothing I could do to calm me, and I supposedly had a lot more control
over me.
Not only did almost every new arrival visit our platform, lots of those
who had been wandering the aisles stopped on their way out to examine
the newly added main platform slave. Some few did nothing but look, but
those were very few indeed. It didn't take long before I was physically
hurting and mentally exhausted, and if I'd really needed to get used to
being surrounded and touched by men in large numbers, that little
interlude would have done it for me. I had followed one of Bellna's
urges and had taken to begging every passing guard to tell someone I
would obey any order given me if only I were taken back to the training tents, but the guards ignored me and continued on their rounds. I was
still able to think clearly enough to know they were probably waiting
for me to beg them to choose to send me back, but it was really too
soon for me to resort to that. If I used it immediately they'd either
think it was a con, or decide I was far enough along for them to get to
the fancy training. I kept picturing the welts on the body of the girl
on the furs, and from my reactions knew I'd better put that off as long
as humanly possible.
At least two or three hours went by before there was a real lull in
arrivals. The slavers were doing a thriving business, but none of the
sold slaves were taken out the patrons' entrance. The buyers left that
way, but the slaves were taken out the back way, to be brought around
and delivered to their new owners. A number of offers were made for me,
but the light-yellow-shirted overseers refused all of them in some way
that left the customers resigned rather than angry. Right then it
wouldn't have bothered me a bit to be sold; it would have gotten me off
that platform and given me a chance to unlock all those chains on me. I
was stiff and tired and uncomfortable and in need, but without those
chains I would have been heading south, over obstacles if necessary. I
wanted out of there so badly I could feel the tendency toward
irrationality growing inside me, a tendency that could get me hurt or
killed if I stuck around long enough for it to grow stronger.
I closed my eyes for a minute or two during that lull, and when I
opened them again the shock Bellna felt was so great that I was nearly
knocked out of control. The newest arrival, standing just inside the
entrance and looking casually around, was Fallan, someone I'd been
hoping I'd never see again. He wore the same black pants and boots,
swordbelt and sword at his side, but his shirt was no longer mercenary
red. His profession was disguised behind a shirt of dark green with no
neck scarf, and after he'd had his casual look around, he ambled over
to my platform and stopped in front of the girl to my left, the one I
could see.
"You are indeed a lovely slave, girl," he said to her, clearly enjoying
the sight of her long black hair and
nicely rounded figure. "Are you
well trained?"
"I am trained to give a master pleasure beyond any he has dreamed of,
master," she answered in a low, throaty, throbbing voice, moving her
body for him. "Should master choose to try me, he will not find himself
disappointed. I have not yet been used this afternoon, master. A slave
begs to be used!"
She moved her body again as far as she could, showing with words and
motion how badly in need she was. I'd heard clinking noises behind me a
few times during the hours I'd been there, as though the girls I
couldn't see were being taken from the platform and then put back in
place, but I hadn't known what was happening to them. If I understood
the black-haired girl correctly, the main platform girls were available
for being rented out. Discovering that led me to wonder if they were
for sale at any but a ridiculously high price. Few men would have been
able to afford to own a really beautiful, high-priced slave, but using
one now and then shouldn't have been beyond them. The girls would bring
the slavers more money that way than through any sale price, unless the
buyer was really wealthy, influential, and a very good customer.
Exceptions would be made for that sort, but not for anyone else. It
finally came through to me that the offers made for me hadn't been
offers to buy, and I wondered why the ones making the offers had been
turned down. The others on the platform were certainly available, and
Fallan smiled indulgently at the dark-haired girl's begging request. "I may, perhaps, choose you for use," he allowed, looking her over one
last time. "However, I must first see what else there is being offered
here."
He patted her round, bare bottom, then left her to come over to me. His
eyes worked their way up from my body to my face, and then he showed a
vast, entirely phony surprise.
"Why, you are a mere child, slave," he said, dark eyebrows high. "I do
not recall ever having seen a child on this platform. Are you, too,
trained to give a master delight and pleasure?"
"I am entirely untrained," I told him in a low, growly voice I couldn't
control, annoyed almost beyond bearing. Bellna was mewling and
fluttering around in my head, desperate to serve him and feel his hands
on her body, but she had no body. The body was mine, and Fallan had
already touched it more than I cared for.
"As I am such a child," I continued, "you may dismiss the thought of me
completely, and find another to see to your needs. I, in any event,
have no interest in one such as you.
I didn't know what Fallan had in mind by showing up there, but his
invaluable help had already screwed things up for me and I didn't want
any more of it. I was hoping he'd take the hint and get out of my life,
but instead he got annoyed.
"So you have no interest in one such as I, eh, child?" he asked in the
same low voice that I had used, even more of a growl in it. "You seem
rather high and mighty for a slave, and badly trained indeed. Have you
not been given punishment for failing to please?"
My body blazed hot at his words and heavy need flashed through me,
reactions triggered by his obvious disapproval. I'd been conditioned to
react like that by what I'd gone through, and Bellna's added reactions
made mine impossibly worse. I was being forced into wanting to please
him, and a grin touched his ugly face when he saw me squirm.
"So you have been trained to some extent," he murmured, reaching a hand
out to touch his palm to one of my hardened nipples. "Have they used
you harshly?"
"I have not been used at all," I gasped, really suffering from that
single, casual touch. "Do not touch me so! Do not..."
"You have not been used at all, and that is both punishment and
training," he said, a musing tone to his voice as he looked down into
my eyes. "Have you acknowledged yourself a slave as yet, or addressed
those about you as master?"
"No," I whispered, feeling my control losing its grip against Bellna's
frenzied attack for the upper hand. She had Fallan there, and she
wanted him so badly that I couldn't fight hard enough against her.
"I have come just barely in time, then," the mercenary captain said,
his voice still in the low murmur he had been using. "I will free you
as soon as I may, yet till then must you behave properly and become an
obedient slave. You must address the free men about you as master, and
refer to yourself as a slave, else shall they punish you terribly
before I am able to take you to safety. Do you understand what I say?"
My head was whirling so fast I barely knew where I was, but one thing I
did know was that Fallan was wrong as usual. I could see that the
slavers had been trying to make me acknowledge myself a slave without
forcing me to do it: if and when I did, I would be one step farther
along the road they had me headed up. But doing that would take me even
closer to that room with the furs and the beating that preceded it, and
that was a way I didn't want to go.
"I am not a slave-and shall not - call myself one," I got out, using
the last of my strength. "I am-I am-" "You are a spoiled, disobedient child!" he growled, his dark eyes
blazing with an anger that kindled Bellna even more. A foolish,
thoughtless wench who has not the wit to know that stubbornness at the
wrong time may cost her life! You think to refuse to obey me; I shall
prove that you may not."
Both of his hands touched my body then, the hands of a man used to
touching women and used to enjoying what he touched. I tried to hold
back the moan, but it slipped from my throat as he moved even closer.
"I see you have been punished for taking liberties," he said, then
chuckled as I gasped at the way he touched the device. "I wonder if you
have as yet had it used properly upon you."
His words came to me as if they were being filtered through a long
tube, telling me Bellna had grabbed most of the control she wanted. My
lips parted, ready to speak words I didn't want spoken, but this time
the timing went wrong for her. As Fallan's left hand toyed behind me
his right hand moved in front, reaching me as I strained away from the
device. His touch was more gentle than anything I'd had from the
slavers, but it forced me back against the device in his left hand with
something like an electric shock. Again I strained forward and again I
was forced back, and my mouth hung open like that of an idiot, empty of
any and all words of sense. The back and forth motion was immediately
overwhelming and Bellna, in control of my body, was completely caught
up in it.
"You have said you are not a slave," Fallan murmured slowly increasing
the speed of the motion he forced on me. "I believe you are a slave,
and I would hear the words from you. Tell me you are a slave."
"I am-a slave," I whispered, eager to say any words he wished of me.
"Louder," Fallan commanded, so near that the heat of his body was
evident above my own.
"I am a slave!" I shouted, lost to the touch of his hands.
"I am a
slave who is your slave! I am your slave!"
"Excellent, slave," he chuckled, again forcing a more frenzied movement
upon me. "And how do you address the man whose slave you are?"
"Master!" I screamed, knowing release would be withheld from me till I
acknowledged him so. "I am your slave, master! I am yours, master!"
"How obedient and pleasing a slave you are," my master chuckled, the
movement of his hands never ceasing. "Now you may dance for me, slave,
till your soul cries out the same."
My body flew back and forth in perfect obedience to his demands, and
although I wished to scream, I no longer had the breath for it. I
panted harder and harder, feeling as though my lungs would burst, and
then release was mine, the likes of which I had never before felt.
Again and again my body spasmed, obeying the continuing demands of my
master, and when it was done I hung upon the bar, my chains enfolded,
mind-less from the experience.
And I was able to take over again, but not completely. I'd closed my
mental eyes the way Bellna had closed my physical ones, but it was
still my body that had been put through all that. I think I was still
in shock over what Fallan had done-damn, but that man knew his way
around a woman's body! I shuddered as I tried to stop my heart from
racing around so fast, wishing I could lie stretched out flat and dead
somewhere instead of hanging by my wrists, and the sound of approaching
footsteps caught my attention.
"My congratulations, sir," came a voice I recognized as belonging to
the man in light yellow who had directed the training I'd been put
through. "You have helped this slave to know herself, and have taken
her a good deal closer to the goal she desires-and that we desire for her."
"I am fond of pretty little slaves," Fallan answered, a dryness to his
tone. "How much for this one?"
"Alas, but she has already been sold," light-shirt said, professionally
commiserating. "A high noble has reserved her for himself, at a price
we lesser mortals cannot even approach. She is here for training
purposes only, and yet-her training has progressed well in your hands.
Should you wish her use you may have it-if you are willing to curtail
that use in accordance with her level of training. That she may not be
fully used should not interfere too greatly with your pleasure-there