Tyra confides in her sister. Tyra learns a few lessons about herself during her stay at the slave camp for serum girls. Tyra learns a dance. When a girl goes too far and must be rebuked. Tisa's plan for Tyra, or a brand from a woman's hand makes all the difference. What could happen when a 300 year-old man brols a virgin. A bitter lesson learned.

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The Legal Stuff: The Warrior from Batuk  © 2004, 2007 Aardvark
 
This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright, in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Permission is granted for it to be copied and read by individuals, and for no other purpose. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited, and may only be posted to free sites with the express permission of the author.
 

 
Photo Credit: 3.bp.blogspot.com

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Chapter 7
 
 
I thought about it, and decided that I couldn’t leave Tisa out of it. After breakfast, where she barely acknowledged me, I went her rooms.

Tisa invited me in without greeting me properly. She leaned back against the far wall, crossing her arms, and waited to hear why I’d been avoiding her. I told her, in detail, about the invasion and what we intended to do about it.

She remained silent the entire time, sometimes rubbing her arms together as if she were cold. “Are you going to tell Father?” she asked in a small voice.

“I can’t. You know he'd never let me go, and a word in the wrong place and we wouldn’t have a pigeon’s chance in a hawk storm. I'm only telling you because I trust you. It’s going to look awful when we leave. I had to let you know why -- I couldn’t stand to have you think the worst of me.”

Her eyes welled up and she turned away. “Why, Tyra? Why does it have to be you?”

I brought her around and pulled her to my shoulder, hating this part of it. “Because I’m the best one for it.”

“How can you go with Ketrick after what he's done to you?”

“I trust him to do what he says. He'll be risking his life along with me.”

“By the Goddess, Tyra! I lost you as a brother, just gained you as a sister, and now... If you die it would be as if you had never been.”

“I’m not completely helpless, you know.”

“I’ve seen Tyr fight, but you're a woman, and not much stronger than I am.”

I was already aware of that sad fact. Ketrick had demonstrated my deficiencies until it was seared into my brain. “Don’t ever fight a man like a man,” he’d said with his practice sword at my throat after he’d disabled me ten times in a row, mostly with humiliating ease. “You are quick for a girl, but a trained warrior is as quick, faster, has greater reach, and is far stronger than you are.”

Tisa sighed. “Will you need my help?”

“If you see Tulem’s Army marching towards the city, you can assume that we’ve failed. I’ll write some letters that you must give Father in case that happens.”

She nodded reluctantly. “It's for Batuk, I understand. I see Tyr in your eyes, and for the first time, I'm not sure if I'm happy about it.” She touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Tyra, you're still my sister. Remember that, and be careful. You have much to live for, more than you know.”

“I have no intention of dying.”

Later that morning I visited The Slave’s Dream. After I entered, I waved to my almost friend, Yar, the Bondage Mistress.

“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” she said. “Some of your admirers are here this morning. They will be pleased to know of your availability.”

“Their desire for me will go unfulfilled today. I'm here to find a camp to satisfy my need for discipline.”

She cocked her head in surprise. “Truly? The camps are for those who suffer. The discipline is realistic. I wouldn’t have thought this of you; your visits here have been extraordinarily effective, or so I had surmised. Are you sure this is what you want?”

I dreaded it already. When a bondage mistress says the discipline is realistic, one can only conclude that it is. “How long do the camps last?”

“A week. If you feel that you need more discipline, you may normally extend."

“I’d like the next available position.”

She shrugged. “Very well. You need only arrive at camp in mid-morning, and you will be instructed. I’ll write you a note of permission.” She extracted a form from below the table and wrote a few words. She handed it to me. “I hope this is all you require, Tyra. We lose too many girls after the camp.”

Early the next morning, as soon as the Lion Gate opened, Tisa, who had insisted on coming, Ketrick, and I departed Batuk for Ferlin, a town within the Batuk city-state limits. The road was pleasant at this time, the normal dust of afternoon kept down by the damp morning air. On the flat plain, our destination, only an hour away, was always within sight. The town was unremarkable, a center of low stone buildings surrounded by farms and farmhouses. This late in the season, the fields, normally dense with wheat or corn, lay fallow.

As we rode through downtown Ferlin, shopkeepers, tradesmen, and pedestrians watched us, mainly me. Our direction and my veil brought stares, knowing grins, and serum girl ridicule, especially from the women — the town sport, I suspected. More than few walked beside us or ran in front to hurl invective and occasionally inventive jibes. It didn't bother me. The camp would be much worse.

It was about three miles north of town, far enough away to make screams of pleasure and pain impossible to hear. Located on a small rise, the grounds were only about two hundred yards in diameter, ringed with a sheer stonewall ten feet high, sufficient to keep a girl from escaping but little more. The only gate was a weathered double-door reinforced with iron. A single guard in the leathers of the Guild observed our approach from a platform just inside the wall.

I sweat, as I thought of what lay within. I made a show of sitting up straight in the saddle for Tisa, but I didn't fool her. She offered me her hand a few hundred yards from the gate and I didn’t let go until we were practically in its shadow.

“Ho, the gate!” Ketrick called.

“Ho, yourself. State your business,” the guard replied.

I cleared my voice. “I have a pass!” I shouted, pulling it out from my saddlebag and holding it up.

It was obvious what I was and why I was there, but rules were rules. He motioned for me to approach. He climbed down and slid open a small viewing portal in one of the main doors. I gave him the pass. He glanced at it and looked me over. Nodding, he pulled the door open enough to let me in, leaving my horse outside. I waited long enough to wave to Tisa and Ketrick.

“I’ll see you in one week! Don’t worry, Tisa!”

He allowed me only that moment before he gripped my arm and yanked me through, then he slammed the gate shut.

He dug his fingers into my shoulders and forced me to face him. His visage was stern. “For the next week, you are a slave and will only be permitted to do as you are instructed.” He didn’t wait for my answer but practically threw me down. “Assume the slave position!” he shouted.

I went to my knees in the sandy path and lowered my head as fast as I could. He pulled my hair up from my back with a sharp tug and slapped a black leather collar around my neck, snapping the lock shut, then he took my hands behind me and secured them painfully tight with a leather cord. I was stunned at the speed of it. Within thirty seconds, I was already collared and secured. I waited, head lowered. I saw a shadow in the sand and heard the crunch of boots — another man arriving. This one lifted my head. Younger looking than the guard, with a shock of short white hair, his blue eyes were cool and impersonal. Naturally — he must have handled many girls like me.

“Get to your feet,” he commanded. I did, and had just enough time to set myself before he jerked me along with the chain. Between tugs on my collar I managed a quick look around the compound. Level, paths of stone and gritty sand crisscrossed kept grass. To the right was a well and what appeared to be a stage. In the center stood a structure of stone and slate, large enough for perhaps a dozen rooms, featureless save for windows with embedded bars, behind which a beautiful blonde girl watched us, and me in particular.

The man holding my leash lurched left, nearly tripping me. This was the last building, long and low, the Guild's quarters, a section beyond where smoke and cooking smells emanated, and an office, so marked on a hanging sign sharing space with the Guild's emblem. We went that way, past a man and a woman in leather who regarded me with interest. I had a glimpse of a man behind a desk before a final snap of the chain yanked me inside.

Crying out at the force of it, I fell to the floor onto my knees. Nobody told me to stay there, so, slowly, I rolled to my feet, watching my minder warily. He pulled a thin chain and leg iron from his belt and snapped it around my ankle, connecting the other end of the chain to a ring at the wall. Thus secured, he released the chain at my neck and untied the leather at my hands.

“Remove your clothing now,” he said. “You will wear clothes when I decide.”

As a freewoman, I wasn't used to stripping in front of men. I hesitated a fraction, and he responded with a motion to the slave whip at his hip. The men and women of the Slave Trainers Guild do not bluff. They don't need to. I pulled my clothing off with alacrity and placed them in a neat pile in a chair beside me.

I’d prepared for this earlier. The whole point was to respond like a slave, to feel the fascination for the power of men, and to become the woman that Ruk’s Serum wanted to make me. If I were to learn slave discipline I would have to release some of myself to the urges. Chained and controlled as I was, it was horrifying easy. The natural slave in me loved it: powerful men appraised me, a beautiful, helpless, naked girl. To my disgust, I caught myself posing.

“You are a pretty slave,” my minder said. “I’ll call you Amelia. My name is Gret. You will call me Master.”

“Yes, Master.”

He reattached the chain to my collar, released the leg iron, then stamped the vaec on my left thigh. The reaction was the same as at the slave club. I wanted to bow my head, more aware of the men in the room and of the gulf between us.

“I am Frew,” the man behind the desk said. He was shorter than the others with a brief beard that lined his chin, and his leathers were polished and tailored a fraction greater than the rest. He gestured to the pair I'd seen outside, who had come in behind me; the man was tall and brown as a nut, his bald pate gleaming with oil or wax. The woman had red curls framing a face that would have been pretty had her lips not been locked into a permanent sneer. “This is Ren, and Feda. You will never call them by name unless they grant you permission, an unlikely event.”

I'd met Ren's type before among the warriors; any man who cultivated a cruel look usually wasn't. Feda was another story: her blue eyes were cold; unlike the men, I was of no use to her.

“Yes, Master.”

Frew nodded. “This is your first time here. The training will be memorable. Gret, do as you see fit with her. No restrictions.”

There would be restrictions, of course. Entering the compound was a contract that worked to both the Slave Trainer's Guild and the serum girl's benefit. They could beat me, but not enough to injure me.

Gret led me inside the central building, a corridor flanked by rooms on both sides. The rooms I could see into contained equipment, mostly securing devices, some occupied with women bound and positioned. One lay facing us, mounted in a pleasure rack in a compromising posture. She wailed, “I’m sorry, Master, I will obey!”

I couldn't help shuddering. By the Gods, that could be me soon.

Gret took me to the last room. Inside was a cage suitable for two or three girls with furs and a variety of fabrics. “Get inside, Amelia,” he ordered. I climbed inside the bars and stood, looking out. He grunted. “You don’t walk at all like a slave. Why?”

“I’m ... I'm new to this. I don’t know what a slave really feels like, Master.”

“A neophyte?” He shrugged. “You will know more in a few days. Assume the slave position, Amelia.”

I went to the floor. He entered and retied my hands behind me. “Rise, Amelia.” He moved very close.

Don't fight it so hard! I have to learn! I looked up. Gret was a handsome man. The natural slave inside aroused me in ways hidden and otherwise.

He shook his head. “Fight it, Amelia. You'll never know how much your body needs it unless you fight.”

I thought I already had a fair idea, but I fought my urges as hard as I could. I bit my tongue until it almost bled, and I managed to rein in the urges, looking straight back into his blue eyes.

“You fight well. Now I'll show you that it means nothing compared to your true nature.” He took my breasts in his hands and, although I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from reacting.

I could have blunted most of it. I could have done it. I wanted to fight! But I forced my will down, and allowed the slave urges to come forth. Suddenly, I was terrified.

I wanted him, and my skin longed to be touched. Gret leaned forward and took my arms. He pressed his lips against mine, in what was, not the weak remembrance of a fantasy, but the reality, a master’s kiss, demanding all. Gret overmatched me with strength, exuding confidence that he would prevail in this most primal contest of wills.

My body screamed that this was right and proper, that I was softer, smaller, and designed to be taken. My head back, exposing my neck, his hand on my breast, I did what my nature told me, and for the first time as myself, I melted in a man's arms. The Guild's males were trained to know women, as he demonstrated superbly, first on my breasts, and then between my legs. I moaned in earnest — and then he backed away, leaving me dripping.

Hands on hips, he assessed me as I staggered. “Your urges are powerful; it’s amazing that you haven’t submitted by now.” He left the cage, shut the door, and locked it.

I stared at him, shocked at what he'd made me feel, and was still feeling. Damn him!

He grinned. “You're too much for normal men,” he added. “You will please crowds. Touch the materials in the cage. Bring them to yourself, feel them while you are hot. This will improve your tactile sensitivity, making you more responsive and aware of your surroundings. Learn well, pretty Amelia, and I will allow you to please yourself.”

Right then, it was a powerful incentive. I did as I was told, and was pleasantly surprised. A fur on an aroused girl is more than a warm covering, it's a collection of delicate hairs that can tickle or tingle. Silk against the skin is twice as erotic, and cotton can be painfully rough.

Gret came back, untied me, and gave me permission to pleasure myself, which I did shamelessly in front of him. Later, he returned with lunch, feeding me pieces of chicken and vegetables through the bars, and when I had to go, he watched me as I squatted. It was embarrassing, though not unexpected. A good master allows a new slave no privacy and guards her diet. The freewoman was appalled, not so the natural slave, who enjoyed the attention.

That night, I moved into a cage with another girl. She was about my size and curved in the way of siolat tavern girls. Her hair was nearly white in ringlets that, with my recent perspective, I thought would be difficult to keep up. The girl rolled onto her elbow gracefully, and looked me over.

“You must be new here. They call me Paula in the camp.”

“This is my first time. I'm, ah, Amelia.”

She smiled. “It's my fourth trip here. No need to be nervous. You're in the correct place. Like the rest of us, you seek discipline, and you shall not be disappointed.”

I was normally comfortable naked with other women, but her examination of me was more than casual, like a slave comparing herself to another. It jarred me enough to say the first thing that entered my mind: “Ah ... that's why you look comfortable naked, and in chains,” I said, regretting it when her light skin went pink. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.”

She held up her hand. “It's all right.” Paula lay back on her pelt, put her hands behind her head, and sighed. “You only spoke the truth: I am comfortable here, caged and collared, available for my master-for-the-week's pleasure.” She smiled ruefully. “For two years I've balanced what I've needed, making adjustments; I can barely recognized the rakehell I used to be.”

I told her that it was the same for me.

Paula continued wistfully, “I used to weave panegyrics for the women I admired.” Her voice took on a rhythmic cadence: “Your slender limbs that sweetly bind, carry you here, my love, 'fore I go blind. Thine plump melons heave, and red roses rise, fragrant hair and dewed saer, in my silks surprise.” She snorted. “My words have returned to mock me. Verse was my first love, but thievery paid better, and is why I inhabit this shapely form. These days, when I think of rhymes and meter, my thoughts turn to men, mastery, and penetration.” She rolled her hips insouciantly in her pelt and licked her upper lip in a way that would have looked at home on an alcove girl.

And I thought I was a slut. Then I had a disquieting thought, Is she expecting men tonight? I heard heavy boots in the hall. I sat up straight on my pelt and waited without breathing until it passed, then asked her about it.

“The men come at night sometimes, even after we are asleep, but I have the sense that when they fall upon a girl in the dark that it isn't for their gratification as much as is it for ours, establishing their right to our bodies, and making the training all the more realistic,” she said, the timbre of her voice hinting at letdown. “Regardless, the first night they always leave us alone — I heard one of them say that a girl responds better when she has to contemplate the time of her taking. Perfectly correct, of course.”

I wasn't against being taken; my urges allowed no illusions. I'd been a freewoman too long though, not to want to choose who brolled me outside of a fantasy, and my insides twisted when I thought about being awoken by a nameless man.

Paula and I talked late into the night. We never gave our real names — it didn't seem important — and we spoke mainly of the past. Paula was born in Teshruk, a neighboring city-state of lakes, marshes and woodland. She'd come to Batuk after her sentence to avoid disgracing her family, and lived in a small apartment near other serum girls in the East side. From what I gathered, she'd had a low libido as a man, which had saved her from the brand — so far.

Where I mainly lacked a woman's charm, Paula had more than most — a lot more, rivaling a siolat girl. I hadn't seen her walk, but I could imagine her displaying herself unconsciously in a room full of men. After a time, we knew each other well enough, I thought, to ask a question:

“Paula, how is it that you're so — feminine? Is it what the camps do?”

In the moonlight, I could just make out her teeth. “Feminine? Amelia, how polite you are. Most would call me a steaming slut, too debased for polite society. The camps effect varies from girl to girl, depending on how much willpower she has and how desperate her need for discipline, but each time through the camp is like a set of waves washing away the barrier between the man you were and the slave inside. You feel her a little more, her passion, her drives and,” she said, pointing her finger at my chest, “you never forget.”

“It's the camp that makes you act this way?”

She shrugged. “I could act like a man, like some of the other serum girls try to do, and in the outside I usually pretend to be a normal freewoman, but here, why bother? I find it deliciously ironic that in my natural state I resemble in body and spirit those whom I admired so greatly — all that verse I used to write directed to myself, as it were.” She laughed. “You're stunned, gaping. Are you worried about becoming like me? You won't be the same when you leave, but there's no need to fret, the Slave Trainers Guild knows girls. They'll know how much discipline you require. You'll get what you need, no more, no less.”

I didn't sleep well that night.

Paula's master, Ren came for her first. Ren locked his leash on her collar and led her away. I stood, holding the bars and watched. Paula did walk nearly like a slave, happy to be female and owned. She took a quick look behind her and winked at me.

When she was gone, a voice inside my head, distinctly Tyr, warned me not to do what I planned, that I could lose myself. I pushed it aside. As a man, I was prepared to lose my life for Batuk, as a woman, I might lose something else, just a different kind of risk. By Marten's red balls, they're not the same! returned the voice, but I knew from what Paula had said that I had to go further than I'd thought I would. I was strong enough to go through the camp more or less unaffected; I would learn much, but it would do me no good. Even Paula, as close as she was to a slave girl, couldn't quite manage the walk of a slave — not to the eye of an experienced master. Nothing less than a complete capitulation to my urges would suffice. I hated it, but it didn't matter. It had to be done.

Gret wasn't long coming. I went to my knees on the pelt and lowered my head. The words in my mind came hard to one who thought she had won her freedom. I ... I am a slave girl. I am a slave girl.

“Rise, Amelia,” my Master said.

“Yes, Master.” I arose, terrified, as the unknown slave girl whose DNA I bore made herself comfortable, altering my perceptions. Gret was a handsome man, and strong. I was smaller, weaker, naked — and a woman, beautiful, desired. I gazed into his eyes, startled at my thoughts: It's one thing to own a slave. Is he man enough to tame me?

Gret looked long, the eyes in his angular face shining at me like sapphires. “You will be well trained, Amelia,” he said, a simple statement that set my slave heart aflutter.

He brought me to his chest with his powerful hands and gave me a master's kiss. I fought him until it became unbearable, then gladly surrendered, my body alive in fire. Soon I was on my back in the furs, my wrists secured to a ring behind me, panting. I recovered some of my mind while he undressed, then lost it again when his twyll rose like a pole. The fur tickled my body; I smelled the pine floor and myself — this was no dreamlike memory! Except for the brief, unpleasant encounter at the siolat tavern, this would be my first time.

Gret descended upon me, his muscular chest against my breasts. For an instant, I remembered bitterly that I used to be like him, strong and taking pleasure, before the slave girl inside drove away the thought with joy — my Master was taking control! He slid forward, split my legs like opening a gate, lifted my bottom to be where he wanted it so that he.... I gasped. His twyll pushed aside the last barriers; there was nothing between us now! I inhaled my Master's masculine and leather scent, looked up to the ceiling, and then ... Oh, Gods! He thrust into me with a single slick motion, taking possession.

“Ahhhh!”

It wasn't enough; I had to have more! I rocked and moaned, clenched, and screamed, as he pummeled me, taking what he wanted and giving me what I needed. When he was ready, he pleased himself with hot bursts, then withdrew. The submissive slut in me was warm, pleased to have been his vessel, and desirous in his eyes. The sense of it faded somewhat over the rest of the day when I was taught discipline, but I remained ever-conscious of his body and power over me. When he brolled me again that afternoon I was ready.

When Gret led me to my cage, Paula was already inside. As he was leaving, she watched me. “How does it feel, slave girl?” she asked after a moment.

Blood rushed to my face. “I'm not a slave girl!”

“Really?” she asked, amused. “That last backwards glance, the soft sigh -- you've made a good start. A few stanzas for the occasion: 'Who is my Master, you inquire? My Master is my heart's desire, A touch of his and I catch fire, My brand, my bond, I'm his, my buyer, My legs apart, and no attire, His twyll between, my needs require....'”

I wanted to reply, but the words were too close to what I was feeling to scorn properly.

“No need to turn that fetching shade of red, Amelia. It happens to us all.” She raised an eyebrow. “Your Master still isn't permitting you to wear clothes.”

“How observant you are.” It was annoying. Paula was wearing a standard black slave tunic; I was likely the only naked serum girl left in the camp.

“Unless you're being punished, it means the slave trainers have decided to give you special treatment.”

“What special treatment?”

“Ah,” she said, “I thought you might not know. Most girls come here frightened and pliable. A serum girl who shows fight, though, will get extra.”

Paula couldn't tell me any more than that. On reflection, I decided to be happy about it. The more training I had, the closer I could impersonate a slave; nonetheless, it was a scary thought. Gret was a slaver, for Gods' sake, and I was already looking forward to the next time he forced me to the pelts and brolled me tied up and helpless.

I found out what Paula meant the next day, when I balked at dyff. I'd done it before in fantasies, but not as myself. Even the slut in me couldn't overcome my holdover disgust to have a twyll in my mouth.

Gret frowned. “You must have done this before, yet you have no skill. Why?”

I looked up from my knees. “It's — difficult for me, Master.”

He rubbed his jaw, but I had the impression that he'd been waiting for an opportunity like this. “You require incentive,” he said.

Swiftly, he bound me to the pleasure rack. I knew what was coming, but I could scarcely believe it, when the lash struck against my back. Me, beaten with a slave whip! Designed for a woman's softer skin, it felt like fire. After a few strokes, I could stand it no more and wailed for what seemed like minutes, completely humiliated.

He walked around the rack and spoke to my sobbing face: “Pretty Amelia, you will do what I want you to do whether you wish it or not.” After some instruction, I was on my knees again. This time I tried much harder. My bottom and back still stung, but the beating had been professional, not too long to be brutal, and not so little that I wouldn't fear it happening again. It was a reminder that he was my Master — and here the message resonated in my female core like the beating of my heart. Underneath the lingering sting of the lash, the natural slave swelled with pride that my Master was a real man, not one of those impostors that lacked the strength to control a girl like me. The thought intoxicated me, and I redoubled my efforts at what I would have never done before, abandoning all shame, and made his twyll the most important part of my my world.

Gret gasped, and if I could, I would have smiled. Yes, he was important, but I was the one who pleased him! I'd seen the way he looked at me; he wanted me, this man who would permit me no disobedience. I could protest or whine, but it would do me no good: in the end I would do what he wanted. I knew myself to be controlled, and my slave urges found peace in submission.

That afternoon he gave me a tasque, an exotic garment some men found more enticing than a slave tunic because it concealed the saer. A narrow, tight piece of cloth, it was held together by a clasp on the back, easy for a master to remove, that went through my legs and widened up the front to cover my breasts.

That night, after brolling me again, Gret moved me to a private cage. Still warm, soft, alive, and female from the aftereffects, I traced the vaec on my thigh with the tip on my finger. How easy it is to imagine myself owned.

Three more glorious days passed, and then Gret decided I should learn a dance, and found a teacher to train me. The last night in the camp, my Master ordered me to demonstrate what I had learned before the men and woman of the Guild of the Slave Trainers. The dance Gret chose for me was that of a slave who discovers her love master.

I approached the fire under a magnificent canopy of stars. The tasque hugged my body, a wisp of cold breeze blew through my hair, and the rough ground crunched under my bare feet. I was beautiful, and desirable. My Master was strong enough to permit me only the freedom to be a woman. Could life have been any better?

Gret pulled the clasp on my back, and the tasque fell away. There were five there to watch me, all those I'd met in the office, excepting Feda, who, like most freewomen, did not care to see a slave dance, and two more slavers I'd seen since then.

The fire was set between us, its flames high and close enough to warm me. From atop the stage, I gazed down at them. The men sat crosslegged on pelts, siolat mugs at hand, wonderfully male and secure in their places as men of Zhor. I concentrated on Gret, although it was not he I would dance to in my heart. One of the slavers, skilled with the zylar, brought the instrument forth. I closed my eyes for a second or two to clear my thoughts, and loosed the natural slave who longed for true love.

The zylar began with low, somber tones. I, a newly captured freewoman, dropped to my knees, my hands outstretched in a plea to be freed. My entreaty refused, I despaired, naked, secured, and with no options left. I looked towards my Master. My Master! I leaned over and ran my fingers over the mark on my thigh. My true nature, long denied, pushed forward. I came to my feet rebellious; I shook my head, willing it away, but as I stood there, my body trembling with emotion, I couldn't keep my eyes from the man who had taken me. He was so much larger, stronger, a man who had risked his life to take me. The walls that separated me from my true nature fell, and I searched for a way to express what had been hidden.

Sensing the time was right, the slave trainer pounded the zylar.. I was free to be myself! I whirled, naked under the clear sky, slid my hands up my sides and over my breasts. How wonderful it was to be a beautiful woman, unafraid to be herself! Gret and others adjusted their trousers. I smiled, then whipped my hair until it wrapped around my face, and stared, a brazen female challenging them to master me — if they could.

The zylar slowed, and so did I. At this point in the dance, I'd found joy in my chains. I raised my eyes towards Gret. I settled to my knees and, with the same hands that once begged to be free, I gave myself to the one I loved. I finished in slave position, my head down and hands crossed, a slave girl offering her soul to her Master.

Gret took me from the stage to his pelt, and then mounted me in a frenzy that had me gasping. I had a fleeting thought, looking up into the night sky, that this must be what Angel had seen and felt when I'd taken her for the first time in the countryside outside Ademar. In the dark, Gret, with his white hair and blue eyes must have looked like me. I had a twinge of regret when I thought of my ex-slave, and the faint perception that it wasn't meant to be this way, before Gret found the right rhythm and I lost the chain of thought in waves of fire. My body, this body, was made to be brolled, my beauty to inflame men, my female core to love it.

Unfortunately, Gret expended too soon, but another took his place above me. This one had brown eyes, a bigger twyll, and greater stamina. When he finished inside me, I returned to the cage well used and happy.

I was allowed to sleep late. Gret collected me and told me to come with him instead of leading me on the chain as he usually did. I was sad, of course. To me, it meant rejection; the time to leave was approaching. I followed Gret into the office and bowed my head. Frew looked up from behind his desk as we entered. He didn't seem to be pleased.

“I will speak frankly. You shouldn't have come here. This is a place where serum girls go when the slave clubs are inadequate. We alleviate the slave urge and, as a temporary measure, it works more often than not.” He made a growling sound deep in his throat. “You, on the other hand, by all accounts, arrived here without the urges and will leave us on the verge of submitting to the first strong man who wants you. We run this camp to make sure we have an adequate number of free serum girls to staff the slave clubs the Guild operates, not to make slaves!”

Behind my bowed head, I was in despair. “Master…”

He pounded the table. “Do not call me master! My name is Frew t’Kel and you are not a slave. By the Gods, you never were a slave!” He gestured to a clear bottle on his desk and nodded to Gret. I watched in dismay as the slave mark on my thigh came away. Then Gret unlocked my collar. Frew shook his head in disgust as he watched my consternation.

“The urges are strong in you. I’m amazed that you’ve kept free this long. If your will is to submit, girl, we won’t help you.” He stood, came around the desk with the box of my clothes, and thrust it at me. “Get out. You will not be permitted here again.”

After I put on my dress, Gret escorted me to the gate. “Mas … Gret, don’t you think I should be a slave?”

“All serum girls should be slaves, but Frew's right. It isn’t the camp’s business to make slaves, it’s to keep serum girls free as long as possible.”

The guard opened the door and Gret pushed me through. I turned and faced him, forlorn. He smiled wryly. As he shut the door, I heard him mutter, “Serum girls,” and then I was alone on the rocky plain.

I could just make out two riders and three horses approaching on the south road, kicking up dust in the light breeze, almost surely Ketrick and Tisa coming to take me back to my old life. I wanted none of it. Ketrick wanted me; I would make sure he would be pleased with his new slave, already partly trained. I waited patiently until they came within shouting distance. Tisa stood up in the saddle and smiled, waving to me. I waved back, but my thoughts were with the man riding the black stallion. My heart raced and my knees were weak as I waited for him to come to me.

As they drew closer, their smiles faded. Ketrick left his mount a moment before Tisa. I was about to drop to my knees when he pointed to me. “Stay on your feet, Tyra!”

Tisa hustled towards me holding her riding dress off the ground, her visage one of shock and dismay. As she ran, she screamed, “Don’t do it, sister!”

“Ketrick, don’t you want me?” I asked, surprised and hurt.

He came close enough where I had to look up sharply. His presence was overpowering, and I longed for his touch.

“Think back!” he growled. “You came here to understand slavery. Now return to us. Be the freewoman again!”

I moaned in frustration. “Ketrick, I’m ready for you now. I beg you to take me. I want to be yours!” I reached for him. He took my arms in his strong hands and held me.

Fascinated by his strength, I lost myself in his fierce black eyes.

“Errr! I want you, but not as a slave! Wake up! You’ve accomplished your objective; now come back to us!” He shook me. “By the Gods, fight it!”

He slapped me, a blow that left me on the ground semi-conscious and shaking my head.

“Ketrick, you son of a dog! How dare you hit her!” Tisa exclaimed. She went to my side and hauled me to my feet with my head still spinning.

“You’re right. You should hit her,” he acknowledged. Tisa looked at Ketrick strangely while my attention was mostly elsewhere. “Tisa, damn it. Look at her! You're going to have to break her loose before it's permanent. When I hit her, she probably thought it was discipline. From you, a woman, however…”

Tisa yelled in anguish. A split second later I felt another blow to the other side of my face. And then another. I was confused and despondent at the unfairness of it. Here I was, just a serum girl following my natural slave instincts, and I was being punished for it. Tisa struck me once more to the face, then kicked me in the shin. The last was truly painful and something inside snapped. I tore my dress to free my legs, caught Tisa in a front kick and followed it with a back fist that nearly broke her nose. I would have gone further, except a large body intervened between us.

“Enough!” Ketrick shouted, turning to me. “Are you all right?”

I was furious! Both of them had struck me unprovoked. I rubbed my face, considering an appropriate insult when I remembered my intentions a few moments before. It was like coming out of a dream. Ketrick still looked good to me, but the urge to become a slave had disappeared with the fight. Still angry, I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not in the mood to submit to you.”

He laughed. “That’s a freewoman speaking! Good!”

Tisa moaned on the ground, holding her nose and bleeding down the front of her blouse. I felt terrible. “Tisa, I’m so sorry I hit you. Thank you for bringing me out of that,” I said, offering her a hand up. She waved it off and rolled to her feet with Ketrick’s assistance. “Tis', I’m sorry, really.”

“Gods, you hit hard!” she accused, holding her still-bleeding nose.

I grinned, then winced; my jaw hurt. “You hit pretty hard yourself. Just be glad it was Tyra and not Tyr who hit you, little sister.”

“Huh! If you were Tyr, we wouldn’t be here. The next time this happens I swear by the Overlords that I’ll hit you with a club from behind! Are you going to be all right now, damn it?”

I was not all right. The slave in me lurked just under the surface. She was going to be harder to resist -- at least for some time. I still felt the lure, the freedom to be completely female that comes with being owned by a dominant man, but I had responsibilities to my family, to myself, and especially to my city. I forced a smile through the pain. “I'll be fine.”

After a short time to allow Tisa’s nose to stop bleeding, we mounted up and rode south towards Ferlin. I kept my veil off as long as possible to allow Ketrick to observe me and make his own judgment. His life would depend on my performance as well as his own. I patted his hand, grinning when he jumped.

The ride through town at mid-day was crowded with onlookers. The women were once again more bellicose than the men, a few actually forcing me to turn my horse. As we left town, a woman with large breasts I recognized before as being overly aggressive blocked my way to shout insults of slaves, sluts, and serum girls. I had had enough.

I removed my veil and leaned over the saddle to address her. “Large cow, either get out of my way, or I will tell your husband that you are a natural slave.”

Whether it was the surprise of a serum girl replying to her insults, or perhaps the dark man standing next to her really was her husband, she recoiled from my words. I tended to think it was the latter. Before we started forward, she was already cringing under his examination.

Ketrick grinned when we had passed. “Do you think that was wise?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “I don’t know if it was wise, but it made me feel better. I won’t be coming back here anymore, anyway.” I explained that the camp wouldn’t let me back in because they had decided the training had been too effective.

“I agree with them. If Tisa hadn’t been there, I would have had you on my silks tonight.”

Tisa glared at him, but I laughed. “I had to get an idea what it was like. To do that, I had to let my will go.”

“Very dangerous. How well did it work?”

My heart beat faster when I looked at him. “I learned a dance. I could show you tonight.”

Tisa stared at me. “You will do no such thing, sister! Hold!” She pulled in front of us and halted her horse. We stopped. She pointed to us both. “I don’t trust either of you! There is something going on between you two, and I want to know what it is!”

Ketrick spoke disgustedly to me. “This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone else to know about this. Now there may be complications.”

“This complication is my sister,” I pointed out, “and she has already saved me once today. Go ahead, Tisa, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know if there is a chance that you will make my sister a slave.”

He shook his head. “I told her that I would not force her to submit. It would be her choice after this was over.”

She lifted her chin in my direction. “And you, is it possible that you'd you submit to Ketrick afterwards?”

I sighed. “Barely possible, I suppose. I don’t know how I'll feel after being with him for so long. I offered to marry him afterwards, but he refused.”

She nodded to me respectfully. “That would have been an honorable solution.” Glaring at Ketrick: “And just what is wrong with my sister?”

This was too much and too personal. “You go too far!”

“What do you want, Tisa,” asked Ketrick impatiently.

“I want to give her a fair chance to make her own decisions when you come back! I don’t want to see her your slave when she returns here.”

“Tisa, I already promised…” Ketrick began, more than a little annoyed.

“Forgive me, Ketrick. I believe that you’ll stay within the letter of your word. It’s your influence on Tyra on the trip back that I’m worried about. You were going to brand her before going to Tulem, weren’t you? Look at her! In her condition, she'd be overpowered. She would be yours for the asking. There must be a safeguard.”

I wondered about that. It would fit his pattern of pressing to the limit. The way I felt now, if he tried, it wouldn’t take more than a day or two before he had me willing to fit his collar. “Ketrick, you wouldn’t do that to me, say on the way back to Batuk, would you?”

He looked at me straight on. “Honestly, Tyra, I wouldn’t try to make you my slave. After six months or so with me, you might naturally want to submit. I wouldn’t make some special effort, though. Your sister is making me out to be too devious.”

I wasn’t as sure of his appeal, but Ketrick had three hundred years of experience. “Tisa, what did you have in mind?” I asked.

She smiled brightly. “I have two conditions: Ketrick must marry me and you, dear sister, must become my slave.”

“What? This is insanity!”

Ketrick laughed. “Tisa, you have two minutes to tell me why I shouldn’t tie you up like a sack, deposit you in your room and leave a note to let you out when we leave for Tulem. I assume that if you didn’t get your way you were going to tell your father?”

Her hands whitened on the reins. “Yes.”

“Damn it!” I yelled. “I feel like tying you up myself!”

“Think!” she insisted. “If Ketrick marries me, then he must return to Batuk. He would be a disgrace everywhere if he abandoned his wife. If you are my slave, technically, then Ketrick can’t take you for his own without my permission, which I would never give. When you get back from Tulem, I'd keep you here separate from Ketrick to expunge his influence, if necessary, and then free you. You would be free to choose what you wanted to do then. Ketrick and I would get a divorce and that would be the end of the matter. No one would have to know of this except the magistrate who signs the documents and performs the ceremony.”

Ketrick and I looked at each other. “Tyra, you have a smart sister. I accept the conditions. I suggest that you do as well.”

My mouth dropped. “You want me to become my own sister’s slave?”

He chuckled, but his mirth failed to lift my spirits; the joke was not on him. “This is ideal. A slave of a woman is affected differently. A man’s slave almost invariably stays a slave in her heart forever. But a woman isn’t dominant like a man. She doesn’t have the physical power or the chemistry. It would be a weak bond. From her point of view it protects you from me, and she’s probably right.”

“My own sister’s slave?” I repeated. It was incomprehensible.

“I know it sounds odd,” Tisa soothed, “but it’s for your own good.”

I hated it, but I could see the logic. I tried to think of a better option and failed. “Very well,” I sighed, “I’ll do it.”

I was less animated during the ride back. Tisa held my hand occasionally trying to console me, but what I felt was the hand of my future mistress. I looked at her apprehensively. The effects of a stamped slave mark were bad enough, but the actual brand made a deep psychological impression on a girl. I was to be branded anyway for the journey, but it would have been impartial, with a smith doing the work.

By the Gods, my sister?

Ketrick tried to cheer me up with anecdotes of the men in Eagles, but my heart wasn’t in it. According to the timetable, I was to be enslaved that evening. We rode through the gates of the estate in silence. Under my dress, my left thigh was sensitive even now, anticipating the pain.

I had returned to my room after a supper I had barely touched when the knock came. It was Tisa and Ketrick, of course. I took my cloak and a slave tunic that Angel had worn and following them out, astonished that things had proceeded so far and so fast. We walked in silence to a city magistrate that Father and Mother didn't know. Tisa had spoken to him earlier in the day and made the arrangements. My heart beat itself against my chest when a pretty servant opened the ornate door of the magistrate’s house, and pounded even faster in the basement where I saw the branding equipment. The iron was already fiery yellow-white.

Once down the cold steps to the basement I approached the magistrate. He seemed an upright sort with a sharp nose and gray eyes. He looked me over. The process was legal but very unusual. Women very rarely submitted to women.

“Do you submit voluntarily to Tisa l’Fay?” he asked me carefully, making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing. My name didn’t matter. Unless I was freed again, my old name would mean nothing.

I swallowed. “Yes, Magistrate.”

He nodded. “Let the record show that this woman voluntarily submits to Tisa l’Fay,” he said to the notary.

The scribe inked my right palm and pressed it onto a page. Then he cleaned the ink from my hand. “Remove your clothes, girl,” he reminded me. “Slaves don’t wear the clothing of freewomen.” Nervously, I removed my clothes and put them into a small sack I had brought with me. I stood naked before everyone.

“Submit, girl,” said the Magistrate.

Numb, I knelt in slave position on the cold stone floor, my knees apart. I glanced down and crossed my wrists. I looked around the room briefly then up into my sister’s blue eyes. As soon as I said the words and she accepted, I would be her property. “I submit myself to you, Tisa l’Fay -- as your slave.”

She looked down at me with sympathy — and confidence. She took a leather bond and secured my wrists loosely; it was all the ceremony required. The most peculiar sensation swept through me, as pleasurable as it was horrifying. I belonged to her now.

“Rise, slave and move to the branding irons,” Tisa said with authority, again according to form.

The notary made another check on the document.

It was the custom in Batuk for an owner to do his or her own branding. As if I were watching another, I slipped my left leg into the stirrup. Tisa clamped the cold, black metal of the brace over my left thigh, holding it firmly in place. Tisa gave me a last confident look, then put on a leather glove too large for her and extracted the iron from the fire. I looked away briefly, but returned my stare to the glowing brand. It took forever. I felt the heat over a foot away. I tried to squirm at the last moment, but it was useless; I was helpless in the branding brace.

She brought it close, adjusted her hands for a the final thrust, and pushed it against my flesh!

I screamed. Tisa must have pressed the iron deep in my thigh for the customary three long seconds, but it felt much longer before she backed away. As I wept uncontrollably, I felt cool water poured over the brand.

The notary bent to examine the mark; any defects on the brand would have to be noted on the bill of sale. “Congratulations, Tisa l’Fay,” he said. “It was a perfect brand. You have a steady hand.” He rose and shook her hand. I continued weeping. By all the laws of Zhor, she owned me. I was her slave.

Tisa couldn’t treat me like her sister for some time. She commanded me to put on the slave tunic, and locked a black leather slave collar around my neck. To ensure I couldn't run away, she locked it to a ring on the wall with a black chain. The Magistrate and notary waited for her. She glanced back briefly — any more would have been considered weakness — and then left the room. She still had to marry Ketrick. I cried on the cold floor. Slave to a woman or not, I felt the effects of the brand. I touched it in amazement, tracing the outline of the red and swollen vaec in my flesh. Ruefully, I recalled a similar reaction from Angel after I had branded her.

It was cold in the basement, but I was a real slave now, legally, just an animal not fit to witness weddings. I sat and waited, then rose to rub my arms and legs. They returned about an hour later. Tisa unlocked the chain from the wall and whispered to me, “Tyra, you're going to have to act like a slave for a while longer until we get close to the estate. Do you understand?”

I noted that she was suddenly talking to me as if I were a child. “Yes, Mistress.”

She paused at my form of address, and then nodded. It was what I was in fact, and what I would have to call her. “You don’t have to call me mistress in private,” she whispered.

“Mistress,” I pleaded, “if I used your real name, it would look suspicious. Someone might even beat me for insolence. The brand’s effect makes me submissive. It feels natural to call you mistress. Even if you aren’t a man, Mistress, the compulsion to obey you is powerful.”

Her eyes were unreadable. “Tyra, if there were a better way…”

“If I might make a suggestion, you should give me a new name.”

“You’re right. What were you called in the slave camp?”

“Amelia.”

She nodded. “That will be your name, then. Come with me, Amelia,” she ordered. I followed on the chain. I waited at the top of the stairs while she exchanged pleasantries with the Magistrate, and then we left. It was dark, but there was enough light from the houses on the street to illuminate the way. It was cold in the slave tunic, but a slave is just a slave. So soon after the brand and with the effects of the slave camp still upon me, it felt natural to adopt the slave attitude, reacting unconsciously to the men passing by. It actually felt comfortable, but not so powerful that I was lost to it; I found that I could turn it off and on at will. Tisa looked back at me, biting her lip at what she saw. Ketrick saw what I was doing, and gave me an approving nod. We stopped at a park not far from the estate, where I dressed in my freewomen’s clothing.

Once through the back gate, we separated. Tisa walked close by Ketrick’s side, practically skipping as if it were all a wonderful adventure, sneaking occasional glances up to his face like a filly with a thoroughbred. I’d never been jealous of Angel or Wanda, but here, it turned my insides. Ketrick may have been indifferent to her, but she would be sharing her bed that night as his wife, not me.

That night the mirror reflected a lost slave girl. New slaves looked like that. I concentrated, remembering the time in camp when I was submissive, but proud to be a slave. When I looked again, I saw a trained slave, like Angel or Wanda.

The brand made me restless. Having a mistress didn’t remove my need for a man. Unfortunately, until the slave mark was removed, I would have to lie with men who believed I was a slave, or with Ketrick; the serum girl clubs wouldn’t accept me anymore. I went to bed that night writhing in the pelt, pretending I had a master.

By the Gods, I'm a slave. If Father knew about this, he’d beat Tisa nearly to death and sell me to the first slave trader passing through Batuk.

It was the brand and my time in the slave camp hat made me roll like a hot slut in the fur, but that was enough. I touched myself shamelessly, partly to prolong the moment and partly to forget what must be happening in Tisa’s, my mistress’ room. I managed, but I knew that I would have to do better in the morning.

I went to breakfast as usual. To my great relief, I could act as a freewoman or slave as necessary. The men were more attractive and interesting, but unless I was caught off-guard, it was manageable.

Ketrick visited me later that morning while I practiced. The brand's effect had mostly faded by then. He wanted to watch, so I continued to throw darts into a wooded board from different angles.

“You’re not bad at all for the time you’ve had to practice.”

“Thanks,” I said, throwing a dart from low to high. I wanted to ask him about last night, but it was none of my business.

“I asked Tisa for permission to satisfy you. I know how the urges must be for you now.”

I sagged, the blood draining from my head. “For you to tell me this, she must have said no.”

“She owns you; it's her right. Tisa is ... complex. For as long as we’re in Batuk, she’s decided to be a traditional wife. She wants her husband to herself.”

“All to herself? What about Angel and Wanda?”

“They’re just slaves to her. You, however, are her sister and a direct competitor for me.”

“Ketrick,” I said nervously, half-joking, “you aren’t trying to make her fall in love with you, are you?”

He snorted. “She’s young, too impressionable, and last night affected her unexpectedly. We’ll have a talk before we leave.” He shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to understand freewomen. I suppose that I am a rather handsome fellow.”

“Rugged, not handsome,” I pointed out.

“As you say. Seriously, I’m going to have to remind her that you're the one risking your neck, and the only reason you went along with this charade was to stay free. You can do your part, too. Don’t act like a slave around her unless you have to. Be her sister as much as possible.”

“I will. What time do we leave?”

I’ll come to your room around midnight. Don’t bother to pack anything. I’ll bring everything we need. First, I’ll wrap you up and put you on my horse. Then it will be several cold hours in a wagon until the Lion Gate opens. After that we’ll be on the road. Can you hold out until tomorrow afternoon?”

I shook my head. “I’d rather not. The brand and the camp brought back my urges in the worst way. I hate to ask you this, but I need a man.”

“It won't be hard to find a pair. I’ll be back in about an hour to pick you up.”

“I appreciate this.”

He took my hand. “Be strong, Tyra,” he said, then turned and left, taking the darts and knives with him.

I went to kick and punch practice to fill the time and to help stop some of the slut urges from getting to me. I was used to the split dress by then and experimented, using it as a distraction as I kicked and whirled.

After several minutes, I heard a knock. “Who’s there?” I called.

“It’s me, Tisa.”

She sounded tentative, not surprising after all that had happened. Regardless, she was my sister, not to mention my mistress. I had to remember to call her by name; such was the power of the brand. “Come in, Tisa!”

I smiled when she came through the door. The brand was having its impact; our easy relationship was missing a key element, equality. Trying to be her sister, I gave her a hug, but I felt some resistance.

“Keep going. I'll watch,” she said.

She watched me practice for a few moments. It was impossible to forget her, and her cool demeanor didn’t make it any easier. Eventually, I got around to the front kick/back fist combination.

She grunted. “That’s what you hit me with yesterday,” she said.

I stopped. “Yes. I’m sorry about that. It was a brave thing you did, breaking me out of that.” I smiled. “The bruising is barely noticeable. Are you still angry with me?”

She shook her head. “No. The physician was good. It was almost normal before the wedding last night.” She sighed. The way she examined me made me nervous. “We need to discuss a few things. Put on a good dress and meet me in the garden.” She turned and left abruptly, leaving me flustered.

It had been an order, still, she was my sister and she just wanted to talk to me in the garden, I rationalized. What could be wrong with that? I put on a new dress and a veil, and left to meet her.

I found her on the bench under the tree. She pointed to a spot beside her and said, “Sit.”

Her eyes were harder than I had known. “Tisa…”

“Sit!”

I did what I was told.

“This is not an easy time for us. When you became a serum girl, it was a terrible thing. We fought it together. Despite the visits to the slave club, you were my sister and were making progress. I thought there was a good chance for you to remain free.”

Shocked at this talk, I flipped up my veil. “Tisa, I still can! How can you say these things? I was doing just fine until it was necessary to go to Tulem. You saw! I was doing well at the accounts and I was free!”

She knit her brow, remembering. “Yes, you were,” she admitted, “but that was then. I’ve never seen you so happy as yesterday when you wanted to submit to Ketrick. If Ketrick took you now and dominated you, you would submit to him, wouldn’t you?”

“Before I crossed my wrists to you, any strong man could have forced my submission without some mental preparation. In a way, I’m glad you own me. You were right; it will give some protection.”

“Yet, if I sold you to a strong master who would dominate you, you would be happy?”

My blood ran cold. “That is not what I want. All this is to protect me. I don’t believe what I'm hearing. You can’t possibly want that for me!”

She shook her head. “You wouldn't do much good in Tulem as Ketrick's slave. Saving Batuk is everything. But afterwards, what then? Can you really survive months of acting as a slave? I saw you after the slave club and the way you walked after I branded you. You're not the same.”

“That’s ... that's why I’m your slave now, to help me get through it. After you release me, I’ll soon be back to normal — I’m sure of it!”

“I’ve never questioned your courage. Of course, you'll fight as long and as hard as you can, but I wonder if that's enough. You admit that you changed in the serum girl camp. Even now, as my slave, you barely maintain control. If I ordered you to do something, you would obey.”

What is wrong with you? “It was necessary to get close to the slave urges. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to be convincing in Tulem. Remember that, Tisa. I had to do it.”

“It was courageous to do what you did, and for the right reasons. Still, where are we? I have to know how much of you is still my sister, if you haven't come too far already.” Her eyes tunneled into mine relentlessly.

There was nothing I could say to that, but I was sure as Marten's bloody spear that it wasn’t just me she was worried about. “Does this have something to do with Ketrick?” I asked finally.

She stood suddenly and slapped my face. “You will never refer to my husband in that way! Do you understand?”

The blow hurt me, but my sorrow was greater; Ketrick had been right. On another level, my mistress had just slapped me. With my branding and the camp so close, the old reflexes returned. “Yes, Mistress! I understand,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

She smiled grimly, as if seeing something she had suspected. “Come with me, Amelia,” she said. My body wanted to follow her, but I managed to hold back. I had to know how far she would take this.

She glowered when she saw me freeze. “I could drag you to the street, and show your brand to men. As submissive as you are, you would not be able to stop me. They would strip you naked and beat you for disobeying your mistress. Or, you could avoid all that. Which is it to be?”

I bowed my head. “I will obey you, Mistress,” I said. I followed her out the gate into the streets of Batuk. I had my answer, but I would have to cry about it later. Mistress Tisa still had plans for me.

We walked to a deserted alcove where she had me change into a slave tunic from a bag she carried, then she put a slave collar around my neck. I wanted to weep. When this was over I couldn’t see how it could ever be the same between us again.

“Oh, don't be so unhappy! After all that stress, you must be feeling like a slut. This will make you feel better. My husband wanted to brol you himself, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?”

“No, Mistress.”

“Of course, not. When I return you will be a slave, Amelia. You do understand what that means, don’t you?” I nodded. She locked my collar to a chain, then secured the chain to a tree.

She left, returning a few minutes with a solidly-built workman. From his gray cotton tunic and the sawdust in his hair, I guessed him to be a carpenter. “This is your slave?” he asked.

“That’s her; her name is Amelia.”

His eyes roamed my body. I allowed my urges, barely under control anyway, to loosen, and I moved for him. He had calloused hands and clean sweat — and what I needed. I could have fought my desire; the bond to Tisa wasn’t that strong, but it had to be this way. One way or the other, Tisa was determined to see what she wanted to see.

“You want me to brol her — and you’ll pay me for it?” he asked unbelievably.

“Indeed, I will. One silver to brol her, but you must use her well, and I will watch.”

“Is this a jest?” It was scandalous that a freewoman would want to see such a thing.

“No jest. Are we agreed?”

He paused. “We are if you make sure nobody comes by.”

“I will be vigilant, have no fear,” she assured him. “I have no wish to appear before a magistrate.”

“Right.” He unbuckled his belt and kicked off his boots.

Tisa unlocked my collar. The man removed my tunic with a single motion and started slowly, stroking my breasts and body. After a week of training in the camp, I responded easily. Tisa was right: I was feeling like a slut. He was good, and had me moaning in very little time. Soon, I lay on his tunic in the grass in the warmth of midday, forgetting all about Tisa as my urges took over. I held him, moving as he wished.

Between a pair of intense slave orgasms, I spared a moment of gratitude for my Mistress. Here, finally, I could be myself, a natural slave, with no fear of being taken as a slave, for I was already branded and owned. My thanks were misplaced. Watching the carpenter brol me was calculated to burn an image of a shameless slave to replace the memories of the sister she had loved, and who had loved her.

He had been told to use me well. After an hour, if anyone had asked, I would have opined that he had earned his coin. I was ready for more, but Tisa had seen enough. After he was gone, Tisa ordered me to put on my freewoman clothing, and we left the alcove for home. Tisa didn't say a word, her tight-lipped visage said enough.

She left me in my quarters with a last look, sad, cold and dead; it was like seeing a stranger. I stifled a gasp; my sister was gone. She had been my best friend, had helped me immeasurably over the months adjusting to life as a woman — and I loved her. Thinking that we had come so far only to finish like this, I went to the pelts and sobbed until I could no more.

When Ketrick arrived, I told him what happened.

By that time I was through crying. Sick, worn out and furious, I ached to get out of Batuk. Tulem, with all its dangers, seemed like a better place.

Ketrick said, softly, “I had no idea it had come to this point. Tisa isn’t acting rationally.”

I glared at him. “Rationally? Ketrick, I think she loves you. I didn’t see it, but she must have been attracted to you for some time.”

He sat back on the divan and stroked his chin. “Tisa has watched me at practice, but most women find me attractive, and I thought little of it. I don’t doubt that she wants me; after all, I am a fine, handsome, rugged specimen, and, as you once claimed, good husband material, but I can’t be the only reason for her actions; she must be jealous of you.”

“What in ... Why in Hades would she be jealous of me?”

“You were proving that you could adjust as a freewoman, despite the odds, and I know from personal experience that you enjoyed your times at the slave club. You consider it a curse, but to her, it might have seemed the best of both worlds. Consider; you may have hours of the finest orgasms a woman can have, as often as you like, approved by the family. Compare this to Tisa, where the wrong glance at a man might earn her a lecture from her mother. Add to that the adventure, romance, and glory of saving your city, your beauty, your formidable fighting skills that protect you from abductors, and what do you have?”

“What you have is horseshit,” I said, dismissing it with a chop of my hand. “She’s not like that.”

“I understand that you would want to protect her…”

“It’s not that. I know her….” I stopped at a thought, and frowned. “She actually believes that I’m a slave in my heart, or will be very soon — and as angry as I am with her, I can’t say that I blame her very much.”

“You aren’t giving up, surely?”

I shot him a nasty look. “Of course not! She’s wrong, but look what she’s seen. When I saw you after the slave camp, I wanted to cross my wrists to you. Tell me that wouldn’t make a lasting impression on a young girl. She’s been clear with me from the beginning that she would support me until I submitted, and she was equally clear that she didn’t think a slave was human -- and certainly not a sister.”

I rubbed my eyes and wiped away a few tears that threatened to roll down my face. I shook my head, angered, disgusted.

“Gods, Ketrick, what Tisa must have seen. I submitted to her on my knees, naked. She branded me! I, her strong sister, call her mistress. I was completely submissive and obeyed her…” I gave him a frosty glare. “It forced her to the edge, but I was still her sister until this morning. Something else pushed her over the line, making her take that extra step to try to prove to herself that the sister she loved was a slave and lost to her.” I pointed straight at him. “It was you, Ketrick! You fool!”

He narrowed his eyes and shifted his weight, making him look like a cat ready to spring. “Urr. You’d better explain that.”

“Easily, you dolt. When you brolled my sister last night, did you seal the wedding perfunctorily, penetrating her but no more — or did you dominate her as you would any siolat girl?”

“Well … a girl should enjoy her first time.”

“Ketrick! Arh!” I screamed. “Did you ever think about what a man with great natural talent and three hundred years of experience would do to a twenty year-old virgin on her wedding night? She didn’t stand a chance. Tisa loves you, or thinks she does. She knows how I feel about you, and you just made me her rival. Of course she would want to think of me as a slave -- less than her -- and not a threat to her anymore.”

Ketrick rubbed his chin for an unusually long time. “I may have gone too far,” he admitted. “This is why I prefer slaves. They are infinitely more predictable.”

I would have fried him with a stare if if could. “Tisa talked about selling me. I don’t trust her anymore. Even if we survive, is this my future, a serum girl, alone in a foreign city, or returning to Batuk where my own sister might sell me?” I put my head in my hands and pressed my palms to my eyes. Damn it! This is self-pity. I will not cry!

Ketrick crossed the room and grasped my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “I swear to you, this will not happen. I’ll make sure that she frees you immediately. You have my word on it.”

I looked up. Ketrick was as grim as I’d ever seen him. I placed my hand on his above my shoulder and rested it there. “I believe you, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to depend on someone else for my freedom.”

“Understandable. As bad as that is, it’s a matter that won’t affect us for several months. I’m more concerned about what Tisa might do in the near future. If she’s jealous enough, she might come to Tulem in a few months to check on her husband, and you. That would be a disaster. Angel and Wanda would sense something almost immediately, and her presence as an outsider — even the attempt to get inside would bring unwanted attention. It could potentially ruin everything.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this side of her. She might do it. You did say that she doesn’t care about Angel and Wanda.” He nodded. “Then I think I have a solution.” I told Ketrick, who agreed, but looked on sympathetically. I reminded myself that all days end, and started preparing for the evening.

***

I knocked on Tisa’s door. With me, I had a pushcart draped in a covering fur. Tisa answered the door and observed me curiously. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

I looked down the hall for anyone who could hear my reply. “Mistress, your husband asked that I prepare a special late supper for you both.” Ketrick approached from behind her.

“Ah, very good,” he said to Tisa, “she’s here. I wanted our last night to be special and didn’t think you would mind me borrowing Amelia.” He put his arm around her waist and squeezed. The way she moved, it was apparent that she enjoyed his touch a great deal.

“Of course, not.” She smiled. “Come in, Amelia.”

After I rolled in the cart, I removed my freewoman’s clothes and donned a slave tunic. Tisa looked on, mildly surprised, but relaxed when Ketrick took it in stride.

Ketrick took over then, ordering me to serve them supper, using specific commands, so that I would be alert and attentive throughout the process. Tisa’s eyes opened wide as I served and bowed. It took her about a half-hour before she became accustomed enough to my presence to order me about for small tasks.

When I had taken the plates away and moved them to the cart, Ketrick pulled Tisa into his lap, moved her long blond hair away from her neck and kissed her, the first time I’d ever seen Tisa kiss anyone. There was no sign of the nerves a young bride might be expected to have. Knowing Ketrick, all that had been burned away in waves of powerful orgasms the night before.

She was aware of my presence, but it didn’t seem to bother her: I didn’t miss the flush of her skin and the deep breathing. When Ketrick moved his hand to her breast, though, she turned to watch me. Ketrick whispered something in her ear and she laughed. Whatever it was, she relaxed and moaned while his expert hands teased her hard points through the thin cotton. A moment later her blouse and halter had been removed, and then the rest of her clothing.

As they lay together on the bed, she stopped Ketrick’s hand on her breast for a moment and looked at me. “Amelia, what was your name when you were born?”

“My name was Tyr t’Pol, Mistress.”

She smiled so easily, my sister who was my Mistress. “What was your name before I made you my slave?”

I bowed my head. “I was called Tyra l’Fay, Mistress.”

She nodded. “That’s good. When you serve me it will always be as yourself, Amelia, no fantasies.”

I bowed my head again. “Yes, Mistress.”

She sighed contentedly as Ketrick resumed. His mouth went to her breast, and she gasped. I watched the man I wanted arouse my Mistress. Her nipples stood supremely firm, her back arched gracefully, and the rest of her moved to his every touch. He controlled her movements, guiding her gently into positions he preferred. There was little, if any, resistance to it. Without knowing it, she was submitting to his dominance. Her responses were signs that any dominant male would recognize in a submissive female. I doubted that Tisa was a natural slave, but in Ketrick’s talented hands, there was little practical difference. Very soon, her legs eased open and they were making love. Again, Tisa submitted to him unconsciously, only pausing occasionally from shuddering ecstasy to watch me.

After an interminable time, Ketrick finished her with some prolonged pleasure of his own, filling his wife with his seed. When he withdrew, Tisa was in a state I recognized, having been there many times myself. It wasn’t the complete satisfaction of the well-used slut, and her orgasms hadn’t been as intense as mine, but for a freewoman, she must have been feeling very good. She stayed in his arms for a short while then made motions of rolling out of bed.

“Where are you going?” Ketrick asked.

“To the bathroom, husband,” she smiled. “You left me a happy mess.”

He held her arm. “If you will indulge me, you'll see something instructive.” He turned to me. “Amelia, clean me.”

“Yes, Master,” I said, moving towards the bed.

“What is this?” Tisa exclaimed in alarm.

“Watch and learn. A slave lives to please. She enjoys serving and obeying, and the more dominant the master or mistress is, the greater her contentment.”

I watched her watch me carefully as I knelt on the bed and cleaned Ketrick with my mouth and tongue. I had been well trained at this in the camp, and had learned to love it as a slave pleasing her master. With my slut instincts already high from watching Ketrick brol Tisa, I performing this small task as a slave would, submissively and with attention to detail. I enjoyed it, surprising myself with my slave response, even getting an odd thrill at tasting my mistress on him. When I finished him, I retired to my position out of the way.

Ketrick nudged his wife’s arm, jolting her from her wide-eyed stare. “It’s your turn,“ he said in a command voice. “Go ahead, use her as a slave should be used.”

She licked her lips, took a fleeting look at Ketrick, and then spoke hesitantly. “Come, clean me, Amelia.”

I approached her, allowing my submissive desires, still strong from the brand, to come through fully. My Mistress wants me to clean her. Tisa spread her legs wide for me and raised her hips so that I might have easier access. I felt her eyes on me, and the warmth of her heavy breathing teased my hair as I applied myself.

Save for a natural slave’s enjoyment at pleasing her mistress, I didn’t like it. Serum girls weren’t designed to enjoy women or to please them in this way. I was also sure that my sister only liked men. This was all about showing Tisa how low I had become, that despite looking like her sister, I was really just a slave. I believe I was successful in this. To clean properly, I had to use my tongue in some sensitive places. If I were her sister to her then, I doubt that she would have been as aroused as she was when I finished with her.

Ketrick smiled when I backed away. “How was that, wife?” he asked her, although it was fairly obvious, her face was hot and her nipples were hard again.

She laughed. “That was much better than I thought it would be!” She looked at me with more arrogance than I had ever seen. There was no fear or remorse anymore; she clearly felt herself dominant and superior. “You really are nothing but a slave and a slut, aren’t you, Amelia?” she asked me amusedly.

I bowed slightly. “Yes, Mistress.”

With a gleam in her eye, she leaned over and whispered something in her husband’s ear.

His expression changed to surprise. “I suppose I could, but what about you? Are you done for the night?”

“I think so. Would you do this for me, please?” she asked him sweetly, stroking the hair on his chest and batting her eyes.

He shrugged. “Well, I suppose I could try.”

She laughed. “You jest! Tyr once told me that you were with a hot serum girl all night.”

He stroked his chin. “I do recall something of the incident. Very well. Amelia, come here.” he ordered. I came to his side at once. He removed the slave tunic in a motion, tied my hands behind my back with a leather cord, placed me on the bed beside his wife, and took me, allowing me no freedom to do anything but please him precisely as he wanted. I screamed several times with slave orgasms that he muffled with a pelt in my mouth. There was no reason to fake anything; I loved being a slut and a slave in his arms. I saw Tisa through the mists of domination long enough to know that she enjoyed my helplessness. I saw no jealousy in her any more, just satisfaction. After Ketrick had satisfied himself, he told me to dress in my freewoman’s clothes and return to my room. It appeared that Tisa wanted a little more of her husband after all.
 
 

 
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was quite possibly the hardest to write of them all, but necessary to show *that* side of Tyra, which is always there, under the surface, a part of her she never wanted, but *might* prove to be both a blessing and a curse. Much more to come. :) ~Aardvark