by Mind Guest
be touched by that sharpened edge would grow and grow-until the first,
light stroke came to approximate penetration. Abandoned frenzy would
grow as the pain grew and then, at the height of agony, release would
finally come. It could he done, I knew it could he done, and as I
stared at Clero's happily smiling face I shook with the revulsion I felt. I didn't know how many little girls he'd laughingly cut to pieces
while they begged for more, and I didn't care. I just knew I wouldn't
let him make me one of them.
"Now that we have seen her, you may begin with her," Clero said to the
guard holding my arm, the warmth of his expression and tone suitable
for offering cookies and milk. "Take her to the holding room beside the
punishment cells, remove those chains and replace them with the usual
coarse-fiber rope, and then use her. See that at least another ten of
my tower guard also use her, but take care that no permanent injury is
given her. Do not allow her to become aroused, and do not allow her to
feel pleasure. Others will make her feel those things."
Clero's pleasant chuckle turned his guests pale and made a couple of
them swallow hard, but all the guard did was nod wordlessly and begin
to hustle me out of the room. Bellna was crouched in a far corner of my
mind, pulsing out whimpering terror, and more than one tendril of that
terror was beginning to wrap itself around me. Clero had told the guard
to take the chains I wore and replace them with rope, which would make
the lock pick I had hidden absolutely worthless. The number of dates he
had lined up for me would also go a far piece toward ruining the day,
and I could feel desperation tightening the muscles of my body.
Whatever I did in the way of escaping would have to be done before the
line started to form; after the kind of rape Clero had prescribed for
me, I'd be in no condition to do anything but lie there and moan.
The guard dragged me out of the great presence and through the doors,
and then we went back the way we had come. We continued on past the
spot I had started from, went through four or five more rooms, then
came to a bare-stoned stair area, beyond which was a door. Another
guard lounged against a wall in the stair area, but the guard holding
my arm did no more than nod to him before opening the door, shoving me
through, then tossing it behind us. I'd been too preoccupied to notice
it sooner, but my guard was angry; when the door was closed behind us,
I found out why.
"Princess," he muttered under his breath, shoving me again toward a low
wooden table which was, along with a matching bench, the only furniture
in the bare stone room. There was also a pile of rope in one corner,
but rope didn't usually count as furnishings. "They waste what other
men would kill to possess. A slave such as this one to be put beyond
the reach of men!"
The idea made him furious, and he pushed me so hard that I stumbled two
steps and landed belly-down on the low table, the wrist chain digging
into my body again and the ring knocking the wind out of me. I lay
there with my teeth clenched, sucking air back into my lungs, suddenly
as furious as the righteously indignant guard. He wasn't bothered
because of what would be done to me he was bothered by the fact that I
would no longer be available for him to do what be wanted to do to me.
He was a junior grade sadist too limited to make the big time, and the
lack grated. I started to push myself off the wooden table, nearly
trembling with a rage that waited for nothing more than the chains to
be unlocked, but a big hand in the middle of my back pushed me flat
again.
"A slave does not stir from where she is placed," I was informed by a
cold voice, the hand holding me down to the table. "You will be
informed when you have my permission to move about else you will find
what punishment you did earlier. Do you wish to be punished?"
"No, master," I forced myself to say in a meek whisper. Just unlock
those chains, master, and then we'll talk about movement and
punishment. "A pity," he commented, bringing a key to my left wrist cuff and
opening it. "A body such as yours is made for no other thing than
punishment. I may perhaps fetch a whip before I am done with you.
And I may perhaps shove that whip clear up to your putrid heart, I
growled to myself, then gasped as my left arm was twisted hard behind
my back. A second later a rope was being tied around my wrist, and I
found out what Clero had meant by coars-fibered; the damned thing felt
like barbed wire digging into my skin.' I gasped again and jumped
involuntarily, but all that got me was a knee in the back and an amused
chuckle.
"After my first use of you, I shall use a length or two of this rope as
a seat upon which you may be ridden," the bastard said, reaching over
my right shoulder to unlock the right wrist cuff. "When the ride is
done, you will find arousal and pleasure completely beyond you just as
the Prince wishes. For your first use, however, you will respond as I
wish. Another moment and we may have a closer look at you."
The extra moment was used up tying my right wrist to my left, an action
I found as painful as you would expect with rope like that. It hurt
even though I didn't struggle at all, and then I was turned roughly on
my back.
"That slave rag will hamper my enjoyment of you," the man remarked,
bringing his key to the chain around my waist and unlocking it, then
pulling it free of my body and throwing it aside. "You will have little
further need of it, thereforea133"
The sound his hands made ripping the slave shift open ended his
sentence, and then he tossed the torn pieces of cloth to either side of
me, the look in his eyes heating up as he took me in. The small table
was so low and narrow that he was able to straddle me across my thighs
and still stay on his feet, and as I looked up at him he reached down
and stroked his fingers across my stomach.
"I am familiar with the slave market you come from,"
He said, grinning faintly as he watched' my face. "At one time I was
employed there, before I accepted employment with the Prince. You had
best be prepared to serve me."
His grin stretched as he watched me choke, the strength of the heat
flashing through me widening my eyes in disbelief. My body was writhing
uncontrollably on the narrow table, suddenly in the grip of a horrible,
crippling need. He'd keyed me with the conditioning word "serve," but
worse than that he'd keyed Bellna. It was mostly her lack of control
that was doing me in, but there was no way for me to stop it. I moaned
and struggled to reach the burning that was destroying me, and to my
horror the pain I felt in my wrists from pulling at the rope actively
increased my need. I was responding all at once to every bit of
conditioning I'd been subjected to, and the guard laughed as he put his
hand between my thighs.
"I do believe you are already prepared," he said, enjoying the way I
gurgled and bumped at the toying motion of
his fingers. I needed him in
me so badly I thought I would die, but he was in no hurry. "It pleases
me to see you so eager to serve, slave," he added with another laugh.
I screamed. Total insanity took me so completely that I remember
nothing of what happened immediately after the scream, not until the
swirling golden mists faded to the point where I could fight my way out
of them. The guard was deep inside me, jolting me into the table with
the force of pure abandonment, his swordbelt and sword gone, the ankle
chain gone from my ankles. I became aware of the Bellna presence in my
head, mindless with released need and simply floating, drinking in the
sensations being forced on my body. She was actually enjoying being raped, but it was still my body and I still didn't. My arms, wrists and
hands hurt, and so did my hack, but none of that mattered. What did
matter was that the guard was jolting me harder and harder, nearing
release, and that meant it would soon be over. Right after that, if I
could still move, it would be my turn.
The guard held back longer than I thought he could, but every man has
his limit. He held tight to my thighs when he reached his, enjoying it
to the end, and then he reached over to squeeze one of my breasts.
"Should the Prince wish to see a child put upon you, it may already be
done," he panted with a chuckle. "Once, a number of us were set the
task of filling the belly of a pain slave. She screamed and fought each
time one of us entered her, unable to feel pleasure in the absence of a
knife edge. We plumbed her well, we did, pleasuring ourselves in the
tightness of her even as we were forced to look away from the scars
which covered her. It was her time when she was given to us, therefore
did she soon begin to swell, and yet the effort was all for naught. The
brat she dropped was male, therefore was its throat quickly cut. Had it
been a girl child, the Prince would have had it raised in his own way."
He laughed as he withdrew from me, but I couldn't help shuddering.
Clero had surrounded himself with men as twisted as he was, and just
being there made me sick to my stomach. There was no doubt that I had
to get out of there, and no room for doubt in my mind that I would. I
forced myself to sitting on the narrow table, ignoring all pain and
weariness, and turned my head to see the guard crouched near a wall,
measuring out two more lengths of the rope already on my wrists. My
insides tightened at the sight, and I backed up away from the table to
the far wall.
"Do you seek to escape, slave?" the man asked, a chuckle accompanying
his glance as his hands kept working. "There will be no escape for you,
and now there must he additional punishment as well. First you will
ride the rope, and then you will wear it as I drive you about the room.
Afterward, you will no longer consider moving about without
permission."
The idea gave him such a kick that his chuckle grew a laugh, and I just
couldn't stand any more. If I didn't get out of there right then, the
game would he permanently over for me. The stone floor didn't look very
appealing, but there was no choice at all. I ran two quick. steps
forward, ducked my head as I dived for the stones, flipped over
smoothly despite what my body felt like, and came up out of the roll
with my bound arms in front of me rather than behind. It had taken me a
long time to perfect that maneuver, and I'd bothered with it only
because of the shock value it produced. My shoulders blazed with pain
as I came erect in front of the gawking guard, but pain didn't matter
next to the grim pleasure I felt. I took one more step forward and
kicked the crouching guard right in the face, hearing his nose and some
of his teeth break as he shot back against the wall. He hit with a
heavy thwak and slid down to lie motionless on his side, but right then
that wasn't good enough for me. I moved over to him, pulled him flat by
one arm, gauged distances quickly, then axe-kicked him right in the
throat. The downward arc of the kick caught him in the windpipe, and
that was the end of fun-and-games time for him for keeps.
I stepped back from the body and found that I was trembling, but more
with enjoyment than from reaction. The thought of enjoying that sort of
killing shocked me, and I turned fast to find the sword the guard had
taken off. That world was beginning to get to me, and the best thing I
could do was get off it as soon as possible.
It took me a few minutes to set up the guard's sword in a position where I could use its edge, and another few minutes to saw through the
ropes on my wrists. With the rope gone I could move my arms more
freely, but my wrists felt as though they'd been dragged through miles
of wire studs. The skin was rubbed raw in spots and a few of those
spots had bled, but the wrists them-selves should still be strong
enough to do what had to be done. Hell, they would be strong enough; I
was in no mood for throwing in the towel.
I'd been considering my plan of action while I was working on the
ropes, and it had become clear that I couldn't just walk out of that
place. I needed clothes and something to eat, and then I could be on my
way. A small window high up in one of the walls showed that it was
getting dark outside, so the delay of hunting up clothes and food would
work out rather well. It was easier losing pursuit in the dark, and
there would probably be pursuit to lose. Clero's guard setup would have
very few holes, even from the inside out.
With my arms free and working again, I took the dead guard's sword and
simply walked out of the room. The stairs guard wasn't so startled that
he didn't draw his own weapon when he saw me, but it didn't do him much
good. I held the sword sheath in my left hand, and used it as a
combination shield and main gauche; three passes and the stairs guard
was done, crumpling to the floor with blood running out of him in a
steady stream. I wiped off the worst of the mess on my blade onto his
shoulder, then moved more cautiously as I reentered the first of the
lower rooms. There hadn't been many people around the last time I'd
been through them, but there was no sense in taking any unnecessary
chances.
The first room was nothing but a sitting room with padded benches, and
the second was almost the same but with floor cushions as well. The
third had everything I was looking for, which was a damned good thing;
the deeper I went into that tower the more trapped I felt, and I
wouldn't have been able to go on very far. A table against the side
wall held half-a-dozen dishes of food, and a prettily carved panel slid
aside to show a wide selection of women's clothing. I had an idea that
Clero and his closest cronies made a habit of sitting in the
comfortable chairs in that room and nibbling at the food while they
played dress-up with their living toys. I could only guess at how
stimulating it was for those men, to have what looked to be high-born
women in front of them and be able to do anything they pleased with
them. To or
der them to strip naked, and then watch as they put on what
they were told to put on. Or have one put on nothing at all while the
others dressed to the teeth. I shook my head as I helped myself to a
side of cold roast fowl, then carried the food to the closet. I usually
try not to make value judgments on what other people consider fun, but
the men of that planet were just too much.
It didn't take long to make my choice among the clothing, and it was
perfect for my needs. The thing looked like a regular dress but it was
a riding dress, the two legs of the pants-equivalent flowing together
to disguise its nature. It would give me as much moving room as I
needed without being obvious about it, and there was even a cape and a
pair of boots that fit reasonably well. I pulled out the items I
needed, took another bite of the roast whatever, then began getting
dressed.
By the time the dress and boots were on and closed, there wasn't much
left of the roast. I chewed the last of the meat off the bones, tossed
away the half skeleton and wiped my hands on a delicately embroidered
cloth, then wasted another couple of seconds looking for some-thing to
drink. There was nothing on the table but a thick, heavy wine, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Water would have been perfect, but water
was much too common for the people who used that room. I made a small
sound of disgust, turned away from the table then stood very still.
"I do hope you are not thinking of leaving us, my dear," Prince Clero
said smoothly, that beautiful smile aimed directly at me as he looked
me over. "You would surely wound my self-conception as a host-in
addition to disappointing my other guests."
"Allow me to suggest that you entertain your other guests personally,"
I said, cursing the fact that he'd felt the urge to take a walk, but
relieved to see that he was alone. If he'd had a bunch of guards with
him, it might have gotten sticky. "They would surely enjoy the
opportunity of doing to you what you so often do to others."
"I do not allow impertinence to my slaves!" he snapped, taking one
angry step toward me. "Nor do I allow certain of them clothing! You may
now remove those things and put yourself at my feet for the beating you
have earned! You have my word that you will be well punished before you
are again allowed to serve!"