Joy Girls of Zhor

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A word from Christopher Leeson:

We thank Overlord for his advice and support for all our Zhorian endeavors. In Joy Girls of Zhor we also wish to acknowledge our debt to Ranbarth for our use of the character "Master Hoel" and the idea of "the First Horse Lancer Troop of Prydferth," first introduced by him into his Zhorian novella The Lancer's Tale (FM).

This story naturally takes us to Overlord's adventure world of Zhor. Joy girls are the free prostitutes of that planet. But it is wrong to think of such women as dehumanized and interchangeable instruments for a customer's selfish pleasure. Each is an individual who has her own reasons for being where she is. As with most people, the life of a joy girl is usually complex and individual. The heroine of this tale has one of the most unusual stories. She dares to ask a divinity for something that she doesn't really want. Will she get such a boon? And if this unwanted boon is granted, will she like it?

Oct. 6, 2016
Revised Nov. 19, 2016
Revised May 21, 2017
Revised June 7, 2017
Revised Jan. 20, 2019

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Joy Houses, sporting establishments in which free women serve men's pleasure for coins, developed in parallel with the “pleasure houses.” Where joy houses and pleasure houses differ is that the latter have girls that are legal slaves. Buy why have free women been willing to compete in a lowly trade that is usually relegated to the unfree? No doubt some have considered it only a job, but in most cases women have seen it as the lesser evil, especially when the other choice is hunger and homelessness. Also, in times of banditry or war, joy houses offer unprotected women a measure of safety that is not available elsewhere.

But harlots are vulnerable to exploitation. Zhorian society, as a whole, takes care to protect its free women from de facto enslavement and most city-states have regulations protecting the rights of joy house workers. Such laws forbid that women should be placed under duress when they sign a joy house contract, or renew one that has expired. Such contracts may not be created nor renewed except under magisterial monitoring.

The commitments that joy house girls take on are rather like the contracts that gladiators signed in the days of the ancient Roman gladiatorial games. Most gladiators were slaves, but some were free agents. A willing freeman could accept a contract that stipulated that he would perform the services of a gladiator under penalty of punishment. These chastisements normally included flogging and being burned with hot irons for breach of contract. Some contracts allowed that he might even be killed for revolting against the terms of his indenture. The terms of a man's gladiator service would be spelled out in the agreement, usually stipulating a number of gaming seasons. At the end of that time, the surviving gladiator would be released back to civilian life with his earnings.

In most cases, a Zhorian woman's term as a joy girl lasts one year. Failure to live up to the agreement allows for punishment -- usually by the switch, the strap, the feather (if she suffers from Signir's Curse), periods of imprisonment, and solitary confinement, with or without bread and water diets. When the contract term expires, the girls are free to either sign up for another year or to leave the house.

Unfortunately, it is hard to prevent all abuses when a corruptible government is the monitor. Joy houses have been known to bribe officials in order to certify that a fraudulent forced contract was freely entered into. But this is does not seem to be a widely-spread problem and the existence of concerned citizen groups help girls' to exercise their rights.

Joy Houses have existed for as long as civilized history records, but it was only centuries ago that the concept of the joy house began to figure in the Zhorian penal system.

In the old days, women criminals were, as a rule, sentenced to permanent slavery. In effect, their masters were their jailers for what amounted to a life sentence. When civilization become less barbarous, reform led to the modification of some joy houses into “penal brothels” to punish women who broke the law, but less severely than in the past.

In penal brothels, the prisoners do not serve as slaves, but as indentured servants. A woman who is found guilty of a felony can avoid permanent slavery by a "voluntarily" acceptance of service in a penal brothel, which carries the promise of restored freedom when time is served. Their earnings may be withheld, in whole or in part, to pay for restitution for their criminal behavior and to settle statutory fines.

Beginning with the first appearance of Ruk's Serum, Zhorian, civilization suddenly found itself coping with a new problem, an explosion of “natural slavery” among the population. The genetic-alteration serum created by Ruk transforms a person by imposing another subject's genetic makeup upon him. He thereby acquires traits which are deemed desirable in slaves. Only females may be legally enslaved, so the most notorious effect induced by the serum is a sex-change.

A male who receives the serum becomes a “Ruk-girl,” a biologically-perfect woman motivated by an instinctual drive called “natural slavery.” Its definition is complex, but it makes the woman afflicted by it suffer from intense arousal, especially in circumstances involving male domination. Some argue that the serum awakes and reinforces biological drives that were born into the race at the dawn of the species. it was reinforced by the greater likelihood of a woman captured by enemies to be put to death if she did not submit to slavery, or performed badly in slavery. Thus women who did not hold slavery to be unthinkable, and who conducted themselves well in slavery, were the most likely to survive to breed and to pass their instincts on to descendants. This instinct, called natural slavery, can be transferred to a person who does not carry it naturally by means of gene transferal from one subject to another. The process is difficult; only the scientist Ruk, the creator of Ruk's Serum, managed to realize it through reproducible experments. Interestingly, the male transformed by Ruk's Serum retains his original male-intensity sexual drive, but not his male sexual orientation. "Serum girls" therefore tend to seek out sexual encounters with men more intensely than do most natural-born women.

Women may be condemned to receive the serum, also, and these are called “enhanced women.” Their physical sex doesn't change, but they, too, are transformed physically, usually to enhance their attractiveness. Additionally, like the males, they gain the gene for natural slavery. Bear in mind that their sexual desires are not enhanced, and that is because the natural sex drive of women is less intense and promiscuous than the male's. In effect, enslaved serum girls thrive as public pleasure slaves, while enhanced slaves are more frequently used as domestic servants, or placed into harems (which are called pleasure stables).

But enslaved or not, serum girls and enhanced women must deal with demanding needs that have become part of their essence. Sufferers frequently buy relief hiring sex workers, male oenads. But frequent oenad service is expensive and only the well-off can take advantage of it for long. The poor often find sexual relief through the ploy of enrolling into joy houses.

However, the thrills available in an old fashioned joy house were considered too tame by most serum girls, and even enhanced women didn't find them satisfying, suffering as they were, from the insistent craving called "slave need."

To give Ruked persons the enhanced experience that they required, some joy houses allowed women to perform their service under a routine of authentic slave-type discipline. In effect, women who entered such a joy house were agreeing to live like, dress like, behave like, speak like, and be treated as if they were true pleasure slaves. This was a logical desire for persons simultaneously suffering from both man-need and slave-need. Their contracts stipulated that this slave-style discipline mode would continue for the entire span of their voluntary indenture. The early social experiments along these lines proved generally successful and the practice spread widely. To differentiate these women from the joy girls working in the traditional houses, they came to be called “joy slaves.” But they were not, of course, real slaves, but merely employees under contract.

The introduction of Ruk's serum had a civilizing effect on the Zhorian penal system. Early Zhorian judicial sentences made major crimes committed by males punishable by death or bodily mutilation. (Flogging or terms of prison labor were used in cases of minor crimes, as they still are.) When cities began using Ruk's Serum to deal with serious offenses, the results were satisfactory and the plan was adopted by many city-states.

In earlier days, a transformed male could be either sent to the slave market or sent home after transformation. As time went on, Zhorians tended to reject permanent slavery for all but the most serious crimes. Therefore, for lesser law-breaking, the concept of imposing terms of service inside a joy-slave house were introduced for serum girls. Certain joy slave houses were therefore certified to serve as places of legal confinement. When the time came for a prisoner's release from a "penal brothel," the ex-convicts would benefit by having learned a trade that they could practice to support themselves.

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One of the most interesting joy-girl stories in the libraries of Zhor comes out of the famous case of the First Horse Lancer Troop of Pyrdferth. About a century ago, some five hundred of the city's knights had become surrounded in a mountain pass and were taken captive by an enemy army. Instead of the customary ransom, the victorious tyrant took vengeance against the city that had opposed him by ordering that all of the prisoners would be injected with Ruk's serum. The mortified sons of Prydferth were then sent home as serum girls. This was a disaster that caused the demoralized city to yield to all the tyrant's demands. Though free, the ex-knights suffered, as most serum girls do, not only from rasterization for their disgrace, but also from the bane of all those who receive the serum, "man-need" and "slave-need."

The stories of many of these transformed warriors of Prydferth have been told by biographers. These tales generally relate how a certain knight is transformed and made a slave, how she fares in training, and what becomes of her thereafter. Mimriem of the house of Kyvell has written the most important of these books. They are respected among their kind for their scrupulous authenticity. (Many so-called biographies of serum girls are actually highly-fictionalized examples of pornography). Interestingly, Mimriem was herself one of the transformed knight of Prydferth, but she appeared to have suffered from traumatic repression in the aftermath of her catastrophic misfortune. Others of the Troop had this repressive condition also, but, by the present time, all of the known sufferers of repression among the Horse Lancers, with the exception of Mimriem have come out of it, either before or after their enslavement. It is, in fact, a rare thing for one afflicted by the combination of man-need and slave-need to remain free -- or even retain the wish to remain free. Repression blocks the cravings that would lead to reckless actions or decisions that have so many times in the past brought women to the brand and the collar. As far as is known, all of these ex-knights of the Lancer troop are still alive, but all, by many different roads, have become pleasure slaves, with the exception of Mimriem. No doubt she has for a century maintained a curiosity about the feelings of her sisters in bondage, and consequentially works obsessively to tell their stories, in an attempt to understand them.

As one of Mimriem's biographies tells us, Ringan ob Brank, a junior officer of the First Horse Lancer Troop of Pyrdferth, who was one of many who became a comely woman while a prisoner of war. But Ringan, perhaps suffering from repression, was one of those who stubbornly maintained her free stratus. As an act of defiance, she persistently wore manlike garments cut to her size and scorned women's pastimes.

As often happens when a family member is transformed, Ringan gradually became estranged from her clan as well as from former friends. She started to see life as a burden and drank and gambled too much. When her parents cut her off for extravagance, she kept gaming regardless -- borrowing money from usurers, many of whom had criminal ties. The result was that she fell into debt to the evil elements of the city. In Prydferth, criminals organizations usually abducted debtors and sold them for gold to slave dealers in distant cities.

Warned that a gang was tired of waiting for payment, Ringan stooped to desperate measures. She needed to flee, but had no travel money. Fortunately, the ex-lancer had heard that a layman patron of the temple of Haliaka was paying serum girls a good bonus to take part in an experiment to prove the existence of the gods.

Legends say that Haliaka was formerly a male god who had rebelled against the king of Heaven in concert with his kin. Cast down by their mighty monarch, the clan was given the choice to continue to in Heaven in the demeaning shape of houris – the voluptuous servant girls of the gods – or be chained amid the dark and freezing stones of Kakako, the realm of the dead. All but Haliaka chose Kakako.

So it came to pass that the king bespelled Haliaka and made him – now her – his houri cup bearer. She suffered bondage at his hands and even beget a son, whose name was Yeadon. But Haliaka proved to be a better houri than she ever had been as a godling. In time, the king grew so fond of his divine wench that he enhanced her status and let her serve as a goddess in Heaven.

It was believed that the Goddess Haliaka became a protector of women, and especially of serum girls. Most serum girls have appreciated having a patroness of their own. They customerally offer her prayers and incense for favors and boons. Commonly, serum girls wish to keep from falling into slavery or, if already a slave, implore the goddess that they should not be used harshly, or that fortune should lead them into the arms of love masters. Even many people of faith did not believe that such requests were very often answered.

Ringan went to this layman. She found him to be an old-looking man, one for whom the rejuvenation serum was apparently no longer working. Such a person's thoughts often turned toward contemplation of the Beyond, she knew. The ex-knight was told by this elder that she would receive a hundred silvers as soon as she made a scripted prayer to Haliaka. A thousand gold pieces would be paid one year later, if she should reappear at the temple at that time, still a free woman. By this device, the wealthy layman wished to learn if the rate of women who were enslaved after requesting slavery from the goddess might exceed the statistical odds for enslavement among the general population.

Ringan was not very pious, but needed money. She doubted very much that a few words spoken to a stone statue would plunge her into a life of bondage, but she was quite certain that her enemies could and would do exactly that should they catch her.

Burning incense before an image of Haliaka, Ringan knelt and recited the prayer that she had been given to learn:

“Goddess, All-Powerful Haliaka, guide my destiny. Oh, Divine One, let my every path lead me into pleasure slavery. If I should live a thousand years more, let all those years be be blessed by the collar and the vaec. For as long as I live, let my face, form, and manner be found pleasing to males. I beg you, Great One, ignite my loins with slave-fire and at the dawn of each day inflame my life-blood with your own zestful spirit for love-making. Adopt me as your true daughter. Buoy my hearrt, Goddess, and never let it sink so low that I should despise my life in protected bondage, nor denigrate the sweet duties of a vaecwei .”

That said, Ringan received the hundred silver pieces and departed on her way.

As soon as Ringan left the temple, an inspiration struck her. Following her impulse, the fugitive journeyed to a nearby city. She paid a doctor to give her a fresh injection of Ruk's serum. Ringan did this as a form of disguise; her face was well known to the gang and she desperately needed a new identity. Ringan chose a dose of serum made from genetic material donated by a bred passion slave. It changed her physically as she lay feverishly in the ward, under going a new transformation. By the time the process was complete, she had come to look like a totally different woman, younger than before and almost goddess-like.

Ringan could scarcely live on her remaining silver for an entire year, and so preferred to gain employment. Her plan, after twelve months' indenture, was to claim the sum of a thousand gold pieces. Resolved, she returned to Prydferth, the city that she still loved, despite it being the scene of her many sorrows and troubles.

Did the ramifications of her plan alarm her? At one time they surely would have, but it was as if something had taken her fears away. She wondered why should that be? Was she already feeling the influence of the goddess? Was Haliaka guiding her steps? Ringan, of poor faith, refused to entertain such an idea.

Once in Prydferth, she contracted with one of the the city's many joy houses. Ringan chose an old-fashioned type; she would be a joy girl, but not a joy slave. The first time that a trainer gave her silks to wear, the sensuality that she saw reflected in the mirror shocked her. She was shocked even more by her first lesson in pleasure-giving with a male. It took time to adjust to, but once she had experienced the female-role in sexual play, her fondness for it surpassed the delight of her old male pastimes, such as drinking, gambling, and dallying with pleasure slaves.

The eagerness with which men took in brolling the new joy girl rarely exceeded her own. She had, in fact, succumbed to an intense man-need before realizing it. Over the months she was in service to a joy house, Ringan, who had taken the professional name of Tayla, changed in ways that dismayed her whenever she chose to think about them. But there was no doubt that her agreeable duties helped her to fit agreeably into her new environment.

The joy house catered to male fantasies. Tayla chose to specialize in a scenario that excited her beyond any other. She would portray an inexperienced serum girl who is abducted. Typically, the customer would seize Tayla, roughly remove her pageboy-style garments, and put a collar about her neck. Then he would subject his "new slave" to a mock drinning, which is a term that describes the initiation of a virgin girl into sex. Tayla would play the game on hundreds of occasions.

By the time that her span of service was completed, Tayla was already growing jaded by joy house duties. She could sate her man-need within its walls, but another, and stronger, craving was rising -- slave need. How could she satisfy it without losing her freedom? A new and daring idea came to her. But before she acted on it, she wanted to collect her fee from the temple.

Ringan did not look at all like the petitioner who had collected her silver a year earlier, but she had brought to the temple proof of identity. The layman greeted her pleasantly, as he had before. Without complaint, he gave her a draft for a thousand gold pieces. Such a form of payment was always safer than taking a treasure chest out into the street, where so many robbers lurked.

“Aren't you sorry that I returned?” Ringan asked. “You could have saved a thousand in gold if I had not.”

“True,” the man said, “but the goddess never promises how long a girl must wait before her prayers are fulfilled. What I need to know is your eventual fate. Return here in another year and receive a hundred more gold pieces.”

“How many girls have come back so far?” the serum girl asked.

The old man gaze up at the illustrated ceiling and smiled beatifically. “Few. Mighty is the goddess. Not half of the women I gave silver too at the outset have come back for their thousand coins of gold. And not half of the women whom I have paid at the end of their first year, as I have paid you, have returned at the end of their second. And never has any woman ever returned for a third payment. Have they merely retired to other cities, not interested in collecting the bounty that they have earned? Have they lost their lives to tragedy? I rather suspect that they are alive and well, glorying in their collars and brands, their requests to Haliaka having been fully granted. In fact, I have seen a few of these girls about the city, beguiling vaecwei in slave-face and pleasure silks. Nonetheless, these limited observations are of no value to statistical science. It may take a long time before my researches shall be conclusive enough to be worthy of publication.”

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This information disconcerted Ringan, but served only to redouble her determination to return to the safety of joy-girl service. But she could not do so as yet. Over the months, she had grown more and more curious about what it felt like to live and feel exactly as a pleasure slave lived and felt. This time she would join a joy-slave house and experience a close approximation of true slave discipline, but still be technically free.

As part of her plan, Ringan went to a physician of the soul, a braed, a Zhorian psychiatrist. The brunette girl asked him whether it would be possible for her to attain true ignition without being enslaved.

He frowned. "Many women have asked that question, but I have not heard of one proven case in which a free woman, remaining free, has ever been truly ignited."

"None?" exclaimed Ringan.

"You must understand that ignition is a biochemical change in your body, one that triggers dormant cravings -- genetic drives that entered into your fabric with the serum. Before ignition, a serum girl may feel her man-need and slave-need intensely, but they do not consume her totally. True ignition marks the moment at which a woman's mind and spirit surrender absolutely to her animal nature, a nature instilled into her by the serum. But she becomes a rare animal, because a real animal has only one season for heat; the human's heat is constant throughout the year.

“Let me explain it this way. The bodies of serum girls are configured to produce abnormally high amounts of chemical that trigger the mating instinct. Having one's flesh flooded with hormones that stimulate such happiness too often becomes addicting. When this addiction takes hold, ignition is achieved. That is why pleasure slaves behave the way they do. They crave to experience this chemical rush many times each a day.”

“If this phenomenon is physical and not supernatural, why do you say that free women cannot experience it?”

He frowned again. “There is something in the mindset of a free woman that blocks her responses. I have read of experiments wherein free women and new, raw slaves are both put through the same pleasure-slave conditioning. But despite every variable, the slave girls usually ignite and the free women never do.”

“That seems impossible.”

He shrugged. “There was another experiment. It seems that a number of women were deceived into believing that they were enslaved, when in fact they were not. Their trainers had deliberated violated certain local laws, and this invalidated the enslavements. I mean, though the women thought they were slaves, they were, in fact, still free under the law.”

“What happened?”

“They were given pleasure-slave training. And because they believed that they were true slaves, they easily ignited -- every one.”

Ringan frowned. “What if I were just temporarily enslaved, and then freed as soon as I have felt my slave-fire lit?”

"Why do you so much want to be ignited?" the physician asked.

Ringan threw up her arms. "It is a compulsion. I can't explain it. I think I will die of frustration if I know that out there there are lowly pleasure slaves who are feeling wonderful things that I'm not allowed to feel."

He nodded. "That sentiment is not rare among serum girls, though yours is the most extreme case I have ever encountered. I don't recommend such a plan. Ignition is forever. You could never go back, never be so much in control of yourself as you are now. And whom could you trust to only temporarily enslave you? As a slave you would have no right of protest about any broken contract, no matter how flagrantly you were betrayed.

"And even if all goes well, you can hardly live again as a free woman. An ignited free woman will be beset by continual and gnawing needs. They would be so distracting that you could scarcely think about anything else. Sexual pleasure would mean everything to you. All you could imagine would be your next sensual adventure. You would be unlikely to excel in any intellectual pursuit, such as writing a book or inventing a new device. Ignited slave girls who are freed usually return to slavery voluntarily. Those who don't usually commit suicide or go mad.”

“What if I became a joy slave, and remained one for the rest of my life? Wouldn't my drives be met?”

The physician shrugged once more. “You still would know that you were technically free, so that solution might not forever satisfy you. Or it may. I don't know. I think it depends very greatly on the individual. Most serum girls are probably not in such a sad fix as you are. But, again, I don't advise experimenting on yourself. Your whole life could be ruined.”

Ringan thanked the doctor and left, bemused. His words has stirred up doubts, but as early as the next day she was willing to take the risk. She knew of an old friend from the First Horse Lancer Troop, one who was a serum girl herself, Waylard. She hoped such a one would be the least likely to play unfairly with her. But she cautiously hedged her bet.

Ringan found Waylard living alone on a small property belonging to her family. As with many of the other lancers, her clan was holding her at arm's length, providing her with what she considered a stingy allowance. What should have been her family inheritance was now slated to be bestowed upon her untransformed younger brother.

Ringan and Waylard had cruised the siolate taverns of Prydferth many a time, both before and after their encounter with Ruk's serum. Waylard was the closest thing to a friend that Ringan had left, so many ex-knights having drifted away or fallen into slavery. Lately, Waylard had seemed obsessed with a tavern in the city where the cup girls were all former lancers, their own comrades. The owner seemed to be collecting them, like gems stored in a box. Her friend had taken Ringan there once, an experience so disturbing that Ringan hadn't gone back. The branded and collared girls serving in the siolat tavern, balanced on dagger-point heels, wearing the briefest of pleasure silks, had seemed so utterly typical of cup girls. It had made Ringan realize, beyond any doubt, that if she were to fall slave herself, she, like the other knights of the troop, could be easily tamed and brought to perfect obedience.

Ringan, having greeted Waylard, made her an offer. If she were willing to enslave Ringan legally and then free her immediately when she asked her to, she would be paid paid three times the usual price that a quality pleasure slave could hope to gain at the going rate in the slave market.

Waylard was incredulous at the request at first, but, with haggling, agreed. They went together to the magistrate in charge of slave registry. It was unusual for a serum girl to ask for legal enslavement to another serum girl, but the magistrate had served long enough as to not be surprised at anything that dealt with the eroticism of the human heart.

The procedure was carried out. Then Ringan went home with Wayland, wearing the collar and the pleasure silks that she had picked out for herself. She had not received a true brand, but only a temporary ink tattoo. It would last a long time, but could be easily removed with a sub-dermal enzyme.

Looking at herself in the mirror at Waylar's cottage, Ringan trembled with emotion. In the eyes of the law, she told herself, she was now a true and legal slave girl. An amazing thought! A voluntary slave in her own city, there was now no place in the world where she could return to and be set free. Only Waylard could do that, for Waylard was her legal owner. Down deep inside, that fact made her feel strange . Was this the way that a true slave felt? No! She rejected that idea. These outlandish imaginings were no more than fantasies.

Now it was time for the next step in Ringan's scheme. It was a common practice to take a raw slave girl to a siolat tavern for training. In exchanged for a girl's service, – pouring wine, doing chores, brolling customers -- she would be subjected to instruction as a commonplace domestic pleasure slave. So Ringan, having given herself the slave-name of Jani, was duly taken to a tavern where she was to work as a cup girl.

Weeks passed and she became acquainted with every aspects of tavern service, including the smarting discipline that a slave received for poor performance. Being an experienced joy girl and supernally beautiful, she found herself escorted to the silks by many different carousers. Jani sometimes had more than two dozen men in a single day, even more than had been usual in the joy house.

Jani marveled to think that the orgasms that she was presently experiencing were true slave orgasms, not mere slut orgasms such as any free woman (dallying with a man not her husband) could enjoy. But to the serum girl's chagrin, no matter how she tried, no matter how determinedly Ringan blanked her mind and surrendered herself to mindless pleasure, she could not ignite. She wondered why. It was not that she didn't enjoy the sex. Something else, something she couldn't quite grasp, was blocking her.

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At last, the cup slave gave up waiting for the unattainable. The next time Waylard came by, she intended to have her “mistress" take her home and free her. Jani wondered if there were something wrong with her. Was she incomplete, broken? Would she have to accept the fact that she was tragically repressed, or else sexually flawed in some way?

When Waylard finally did return to the tavern, she had a man with her. The three went to a brolling room and Waylard informed her slave, “I have sold you to this man, Master Hoel. He owns a siolat tavern and very much wants you to serve there.”

Ringan was aghast. “But I have already contracted to pay you three times my sale price!”

Waylard shook her head. “Four is better than three.”

“I will pay five times my price!”

Waylard frowned. “The deal is already made. If you wished to offer more, you should have made the offer clearly before this. Do not look at me so. I'm not betraying you. I'm doing you a favor. You have so obviously become a natural slave and a slut, one who is absolutely out of her mind, that if you were freed today, you'd only get yourself enslaved tomorrow. Accept your fate...Jani...you are fit for nothing else except the brand and the collar. That is where your happiness lies; submit to it."

The cup girl stood there speechless.

"I have often visited Master Hoel's tavern often," Waylard went on, "and I can tell that it is a very good place to be a pleasure slave. And, above all, you will have the company of many of our former comrades."

Jani's mouth dropped open. She knew very well which siolat tavern Waylard was talking about. It was the tavern that hasd haunted her nightmares.

The day ended with Jani being conducted naked across town to the establishment called "The First Horse Lancer Troop Tavern."

Because Hoel knew that Jani had already received extensive cup-girl training, he turned her over to the whip-slaves to be put to work immediately. But because he had her wear a Chasity belt, she could not do much more than perform teur and gair with customers. Hoel did not want a girl who was not ignited to do the full range of brolling. Most new slaves are haphazardly ignited in the arms of whatever man happens to be with them at the right moment, but for years Hoel had taken special delight in personally igniting the girls of the First Horse Lancer Troop.

Jani's temporary tattoo was soon removed, and the vaec was pressed into her left hip by means of a hot iron. Zhorian slave girls are not to be crudely branded like cattle. To make theirs a clean brand, like a stamp pressed into smooth clay, the spot to be marked is prepared with an ointment that prevents scarring. When the iron touched Jani, it wrested a shriek of agony from her. Then, with the aim of improving the unblemished quality of the mark, healing salve and a bandage were allied. This regimen would take away the pain, prevent infection, and leave a very handsome vaec impression.

For a time, Hoel visited his newest siolat serving wench almost every day. When he took Jani into his arms for the first time, his vaec-pelda, a term that denotes the taking of a slave without her consent, she was surprised by his casual mastery. In subjecting her to cup girl use, he first conquered her fears and then conquered her spirit. To Jani, Hoel's lovemaking seemed like a magical ritual, one that was transforming her. When alone, she sometimes looked into the mere, to check to see if she had a face still unchanged from what she was used to.

But when Hoel was with her, how easily he could make Jani cry out in the joy of brolling. The cup girl found herself clinging to him, wanted him to never stop. Why did he seem so different from other men? Could it be that her master was more knowledgeable of a woman's pleasure? Or was her heart leaping like a roe simply because, for the first time, she was was being put to service by one who was her full and legal owner? When Hoel was not with her, Jani's thoughts seemed to be falling into a new order. Over the past month she had found herself changing, changing in emotion, changing in thought, changing in a way more profoundly than joy-girl service had changed her. It was like she had found in this tavern solid ground beneath her feet. She wasn't sure why, but slave girl service seems much different from joy-girl service. The more that her master bent her to his will, the more the meaning and importance of her old life seemed to melt away. In the silks, in the heat of passion, she was being reborn, remade.

The day came when her thoughts came back to the Goddess Haliaka, a deity that she had put out of her mind. The tavern had a small shrine to Haliaka, in a quite, shadowy corner where a slave girl could kneel out of sight when she prayed. For the first time, on impulse, Jani prayed before the figurine. "I have nothing to bring to you, Goddess, except my love and devotion. Bless me, Great One, and be merciful. Let my service be my sacrifice to you. Guide my life into a place of joy, My Lady, help me to become what you wish me to become."

Jani then hurried away, perplexed. She had prayed impulsively from her heart, not from any calculation in her mind, and so she was not entirely sure what, exactly, she had asked the Slave Queen of Heaven to do for her.

That very night, Hoel came to Jani, at an hour when she hadn't expect him. Since she had prayed to Haliaka that day, she'd felt that something new and important was going to happen. Now, standing over her, Hoel said, “I must stop dallying. Business calls me away from the city for a while. That is why I must do my best to set alight your slave fire before I depart. I have held back from my purpose too long, adoring you for your innocence. But the time has come for you to stand with your head held high among your lovely comrades in bondage.”

Jani gasped. “Ignition? M-Master, I don't think I can ignite. I have wanted to, but the goddess has not blessed me. Have pity on a frigid slave!”

Hoel laughed softly. “I doubt that you are frigid, apple blossom. Don't you see? You not fully realized the fact of your slavery. Many who are born free have a problem with the conflict. But how can a Ruk girl become fully a woman and fully a slave as long as her heart exists in two different places? You must decide where you wish your heart to dwell -- in the past or the future. Trust me, delightful one; I have opened the eyes and the hearts of so many other horse lancers, most of them not so tender as you. How furious some were when I first brought them in the door, naked and chain-braceleted. How defiantly they fought me in the silks for their pride. But all eventually surrendered to pleasure. Is there one of them in this house now whose eyes do not now flash with vivid slave-fire? Each in my arms at last opened her heart in abject surrender, and allowed joy to step in. Yield utterly and absolutely, sweet Jani, just as, one by one, they all did, and such a liberation shall be yours, also."

Jani did not think that such a thing possible, but she said nothing.

"I vow to protect you, as long as I live," Hoel continued. "The world outside is full of sorrow and emptiness. A serum girl by her very nature seeks sensuous slavery, just as all persons must seek food. This is, and shall be, your home and your port of safety. I have never sold a lancer girl, but should I ever need to, I vow that I will choose a buyer who will never demean her by taking away her collar. Should I die suddenly, my lawyers have already been directed to do the same.”

At that, Hoel began to engage with his newest slave in pleasure, and such a brolling never had Jani known before.

Hoel gave his girl no respite. She had learned much as a joy girl, but he wanted to teach her more. He was pushing her on and on, until she felt herself falling, as if over the edge of an abyss. Suddenly her back arched, her hips rose to press hard against his loins; he was deep inside her, but she wanted him deeper still. It was a moment like no other, it was the moment when everything changed. Over her there washed a inundation of joy and delight. Jani heard screaming sounds echo between the walls. They were her own.

A pleasure slave held on to her true and legal master, as if trying to drag his whole being into herself. It was as if her soul had been cast free amongst the stars, that she was allowed to fly loose from material flesh and to transform into a spirit ethereal. But the flesh called her back all too soon. Her back braced against the slik, she came volcanically. The slave fire scorched her vessels with its naked energy. Her whole past life flashed before her eyes. She remembered every orgasm of harlotry, but his was not an orgasm of harlotry. It was the release of a conquered and devoted slave. Before she swooned, she knew herself to be his possession, and felt herself part of him.

Hoel held her in her exhaustion, let her settle down. But her respite lasted only a moment before he mastered her again. Almost swooning at the end, she could not count the number of times that she had already been triggered to come. The taverner at last rolled away. Braced on his elbow, he gazed mildly into Jani's captivating face, a face that was certainly one of the most beautiful that he had ever beheld. He thought of the other passion slaves he had been with. They were women of perfection; he could never get his fill of them. “Dearest slave," he said finally, "I do believe that the goddess has blessed you with ignition.”

Jani gawked up at him, dazed. “I don't know, M-Master,” the girl stammered. “I don't know what ignition feels like.”

“From the way you look, you must be feeling something wonderful. You are feeling your translation from captive to true slave. The idea would have shocked you months ago, I think, but now it pleases and excites you, does it not?" He chuckled softly and stroked her pelt. She shuddered. So clearly, every particle of her magnificent body was erotically charged.

“Ah, naughty little Jani, your responds are purely instinctive. I think your passions have you completely enthralled.”

She blushed. “If – If this is ignition, my lord, it feels...very enjoyable.”

Her master nodded. “Do you feel your man-need like you never felt it before? Do you feel your slave-need?"

Jani's face changed with alarm. It was all true. She cried out in tears and shame. She had been defeated, so utterly defeated. She was no longer just slave to a man; she was slave to deep passions that her mind could never again control.

“Do not fault any other person for what has happened to you, and neither should you thank them,” said Hoel. “None enslaved you; you enslaved yourself. At your request, Haliaka has made your her true daughter. Never has she worked better magic than upon you girls of the First Horse Lancer Troop. Each of you is a magical gift to the world. You each have so much to offer. Each of you is like a houri sent from heaven, who must be treasured and protected, for diamonds, rubies, and sapphires all of you are.”

"Thank you, Master,” Jani gasped, pushing back the feeling that something had been lost and ended, while trying to grasp at a sensation of safety and contentment.

Hoel rose. "How dearly I would like to stay here with you to morning. But I must leave the city before dawn, if I am to reach my first stopping place by tomorrow's dusk." He picked up the discarded chastity belt as if doing so were some sort of a ritual. "You will not need this device further. You have come into your own."

That night, the night of Jani's ignition, was decades ago, but to this day in one of Hoel's establishments, there is a cup girl with the body of a passion slave and the spirit of a houri. She carries trays of wine between the close-packed tables of a siolat house, her movements so enticing that men sigh to see such a beauty go by. Rejuvenation serum has kept Jani's supernal beauty fresh and youthful. To see her in slave-face, pleasure silks and dagger-point heels is to want to broll her and, each day, many men do.

Since setting Jani's slave fire alight, Hoel has brought many more serum girls to his house, almost all of them veterans from the famous troop of lancers. Those who do not arrive ignited, he delights in igniting himself. The taverner's handling of his girls must be please the Goddess Haliaka very much, for his affairs have prospered consistently throughout the decades. Hoel has needed to buy a new tavern every few years to hold his growing collection of slave beauty, for he is loath to sell off any of his jewels. As a courtesy to his customers, the premier host of teh city instead rotates his vaecweis between different properties, so that many more men can gaze upon them with fresh eyes. Jani has been rotated several times already, so that there are none of her master's establishments that she is not intimately familiar with -- except for the new one. It seems that there is always a new one.

Jani's life story has been written by Mimriem. She has told the free serum girl that her life is one of nearly-continuous euphoria. She has declared herself proud that men cannot get enough of her. She has also wondered allowed how any woman can live a life objectively better.

As for Waylard, her biography, appearing in one of Mimriem's book, tells us that the selfish, bitter woman continued her treacherous ways unabated, until she finally went too far and was convicted of a serious crime. The judge ordered the former lancer to receive the vaec and the collar. Her misdeeds had disgraced her, and were too severe to allow for the leniency of the penal brothel. Waylard, regarded as a hardened criminal, was sent to an iron-slaver for training. All slaves fear the iron-slavers, specialists who break wenches roughly and rapidly. Under their tutoring, the ex-knight ignited within a week.

Sold in a rude market, Waylard was purchased and put to work as a tent-girl. Tent-masters are bawds who travel a circuit, often as part of a carnival, and at each stop their girls must kneel before a long row of men waiting to be served. Did Waylard's sanity survive this humiliating ordeal because she was strong? Or was it that her mind was saved by a miracle? Perhaps Haliaka takes note of a girl with special needs and blesses her accordingly. Waylard's case she seems to have infused her physical loveliness with the resilience and untrammeled lust of a vivacious natural whore.

But the mercy to Waylard did not stop there. Word at last came to Master Hoel that yet another former lancer had been enslaved. He remembered the glum, frowning Waylard as a former customer. That in itself was not remarkable; already many of his cup girls were former customers of his. Ignited, all were serving excellently. But of any beautiful female customer he had ever set eyes upon, it had been Waylard whom Hoel had most fancied adorning with his locking collar. Intrigued by the news that had come to him, Hoel sent an agent to purchase the tent girl and return with her. In one of his taverns, she was given the slave-name of "Veeda." And Veeda, whose slavery was already deep and indelible, did not disappoint him. How perfectly did pleasure silk set off her loveliness.

And it seems that Haliaka never turned her face away from the former tent girl who, from being a local bane, had become a blessing for the city. By Halika's grace, one who had been sour and calculating, had been remade as flirtatious free spirit. Jani, perhaps having been inspired by the Goddess, had never named her false friend Waylard as her betrayer. Because of this, Veeda settled easily into the tavern and became a popular wench there, not only with her master's customers, but among her sister cup girls, well-trained wenches who had been her former comrades in arms.

JoyG 4.jpg

The End

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Comments

Zhor Experts

This was a good story as is most of your writing. Please correct me if I am wrong as I do not claim even remotely an expert but wasn't Aarvarck's story "Warrior from Batuk" the first story of the Zhor universe or am I missing others? I thank you now if you can help me with this.

SDom111

Men should be Men and the rest should be as feminine as they can be

World of Zhor

Glad to help.

Aardvark has done an excellent story, and the longest work to date set in the Zhor universe. But the actual universe goes back a few years before "Warrior from Batuk." There are quite a number of works at the original website, http://www.pornhome.com/stories/zhor/world.htm In particular, check out Ranbarth's contributions.

For a tight summary of the Zhor universe, check the list of fictional universes at Metamorphose.org

http://metamorphose.org/entry/show.htp?rowid=9353&se0=entry&...

For a longer tour de force description of what the universe is like in vast detail, see Overlord's own notes at:

http://www.pornhome.com/stories/zhor/world.htm

Zhor is closely inspired by John Norman's Gor novels. There are quite a few Gorean fan stories on the net, but for a long time no really good writers were doing them. Also, the older works have no tg in them. But that's lately changed. At Fictionmania two authors have done full-length novels (4 of them) using the tg theme, well-written and worth a good reading. Check
http://fictionmania.tv/searchdisplay/authordisplay.html?word... and also
http://fictionmania.tv/searchdisplay/authordisplay.html?word...

As for myself, I have my more recently-done Zhor stories at the Full TG Show at

https://thefulltgshow.blogspot.com/search?zx=c4b670471286befc It's searchable.

Also at TFTGS there is my first real Gor story, DREAMERS OF GOR. It fits into the universe of Olga Turlovna and Cordellian (at FM), probably. (I mean, I tried to fit it into their universe, but my imagination raced ahead and I took the liberty of adding details of my own. These fine authors might, or might not, feel that my story ought to be considered in their true universe or is instead off in a close parallel world that is not quite their own). I should have a posting of DREAMERS here at BC before Christmas. Until then, it is available at TFTGS. And there are lots of good illos there, too.

By the way, I added some illos to "Joy Girls of Zhor" today, and I did a little more text editing. Anyone who has already downloaded the story to keep, I recommend that they get a fresh copy. I will be revising it again in perhaps a few days, so watch for an even better refined version yet to come. And, by the way, I have more than twice as many illos in the "Joy Girls of Zhor" posting at the Full TG Show link given above. Please do check them out.

A surprise - and for good!

My first glance over this story was a disappointment. Kinda addiction to forced sex fetish - one of the typical marks for a bad TG story. And the Gor-like stories are far from being my favorites... But at the same time, I noticed a good writing style, rich language and a fine sense for storytelling. Okay, I decided, give it one more chance.

And boy I am glad I did!

The style alone is an achievement, worthy of Leigh Brackett or Tanith Lee. Apart from the specifics, just by skill level, it is of the quality of Ursula K. Le Guin or Theodore Sturgeon. And the storytelling was fascinating and enthralling - I had lost the count of time while reading it, and missed an appointment. The rhythm and the pacing were almost playing a music.

The language work is absolutely impressive - not only the wealth of the dictionary, but also the exact measure and the creation style of the invented words. The knack for structuring a sentence, the feeling for the right place of everything, I could almost hear a voice telling the story. And I have a feeling that, had I known English better, I would discover even more. Saying that I am impressed does not even start to describe it. Hat down to you, Christopher. You deserve it.

One thing I particularly liked is that the characters find redemption and happiness, even if in ways that aren't to my personal taste. It helps me feel happy for them, and thus gives me the emotional support so many people seek in reading.

I am also amazed by the ability of the author to take even a plot that the reader (in this case me) doesn't like, and to turn it into a story that is full-blooded, engaging, displaying a lot of storytelling mastery and giving value to the reader. There are more than a few other good stories and writers on the TG sites, but this piece definitely impressed me.

And the biggest surprise to me was that the "addiction to forced sex" actually turned out to be a philosophical research on what is a woman, what is a man, what is there in each of them that the other misses... And I suddenly was able to see Jani not as a someone who fell victim to their own desires, but as a brave investigator who sacrificed herself to understand the truth about something deep and essential. Once again, kudos to Christopher!