by Sharon Green
When I was lifted up to kneel on the platform, it came through the cloud of mindlessness I was wrapped in that this particular platform was covered with silky, long-haired furs, and that although the other slaves on display wore their green slave shifts, the three on my platform were as naked as I. Golden-shirt took out a key, unlocked the two rings holding my wrist chain to the chain around my waist, unlocked the right wrist cuff, then lifted the chain and my left arm to a thick 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 halfdistracted 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 here, 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-to-do 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 to examine 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 for 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 now 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 here 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 casually looking 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 wa
s 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 here, 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 supporting me, mindless 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 are always alternate methods."
"I dislike being limited in my use of a slave," Fallan answered, sounding bored with the whole thing. "I believe I have had enough of this slave. What of that blac
k-haired one?"
"That one you may enjoy as you wish," light-shirt said, professional friendliness now heavy in his voice. "The use rooms are to your left, and you may also see to the fees there. I wish you a pleasant time."
There were sounds of movement all around me, bringing Bellna part way out of her stupor with whimpering protests, but this time she didn't have a chance of taking over and wouldn't have been able to change the situation even if she had. I opened my eyes to see the black-haired girl being released from the bar and the ankle chain restraint, her whole body quivering with anticipation. I didn't have the strength to quiver with anticipation, even when light-shirt began unlocking my own chains. When my wrists were released from the bar I sprawled face down in the furs of the platform, and light-shirt chuckled and patted my bottom.
"You have come a far distance this day, little slave," he said, working on whatever held my ankles in place. "You have earned a time of rest before your lessons continue. You may thank me."
"Thank you - master," I whispered, silently cursing the now disappearing Fallan for having put me in a position where I had to say that. I didn't know what would happen next, but my mouth was dry and swallowing was difficult.
Light-shirt closed the cuff around my right wrist again, locked the chain under the two rings at my waist, then stepped back. My golden-shirt, whom I hadn't seen, was behind him, and he was the one who lifted me off the platform. I felt completely surrounded and out-numbered, which had to be the way I was supposed to feel - according to my training program. My golden-shirt steadied me on my feet, pulled my wrist-chain out the way he had earlier, then led me out of the tent.
We moved through the late afternoon sunshine at a slower pace than we had on the way there, and although I knew there had to be a specific reason for it, I didn't care. The cooling air was like a - a breath of fresh air after the closeness of the tent, and I wished I had the strength to appreciate it. I stumbled along in my chains after my golden-shirt, feeling my mind uncurl and spread out to the openness above.