“Are you going back to Tom?”
Marci Gotz didn’t answer her older sister at once. She closed her suitcase and applied her thumb to the thumb-locks, sealing it, before saying: “No, I’m not. I’m going to join the Hostage Corp, and neither you nor Tom will ever see me again.”
Jane sputtered. Marci brushed past her sister, suitcase in hand. “Are you nuts?” Jane finally managed when Marci reached the front door of the small rented house. “Tom is infinitely better than one of those blue beasts!”
Marci didn’t answer. She stepped out and walked quickly, following the sidewalk around the corner and down the two blocks to the bus stop. Dressed in plain slacks and a short-sleeved blouse, she stood a little below average height, her olive-complexioned face featuring a button nose and brown eyes. Her hair, as brown as her eyes, was cut to a sensible shoulder length, and she brushed a stray wisp from her face as she walked.
At the bus stop she waited, suppressing jitters. If Jane decided follow, she could only nag. She couldn’t physically drag her back; she could only embarrass them both. She’d repeat her pitch about how wonderful Tom was and what a fool Marci was being to leave him. If she liked Tom so much, she ought to marry him. It would serve her right. Now, if only the autobus would arrive before Jane did…
The robotic bus pulled up and let out a half dozen passengers. One was a middle-aged man carrying a bisnik female in his arms. As Marci waited her turn to board, she saw him set the blue-furred alien woman on her feet, giving her all his courtesy and attention. He then led her away on a leash, her wrists fastened before her with padded cuffs, and her ankles hobbled as well. Marci could practically see the little red hearts popping around them as she followed him with the mincing steps that her hobble enforced.
The man had to be an ex-POW – they were practically the only ones allowed custody of alien captives under the New Conventions. (‘New’ in a relative sense – they had been ratified well before Marci’s birth.) That meant the bisnik woman was Marci’s opposite number. Marci considered this as she slotted her fair card and punched in her destination. She took a seat, and as the autobus started forward, she decided that it was a good omen.
#
Marci’s last conversation on Earth was with a nice lady whose Marine uniform said that she was SGT LORELEI ELLIS. “I see you’ve just filed a no-contest divorce. I hope you realize that you don’t have to become an exchangee for that. It will go through just as quickly – more quickly, actually – if you just sign in at a shelter, or if you invoke your privacy rights and move to another state.”
“I know,” Marci answered. “The paralegal laid it all out for me. It’s not the reason I’m joining the Hostage Core – or rather, there are a lot of reasons, and that was only a tiny part of it. I wanted to join the Marines, to serve, back when I graduated from High School, but I couldn’t meet the physical. This way I can contribute – by exactly the amount of whatever marine is released in my place. And I want to see what it’s like – really like. And finally, there’s this little voice inside that says it will be good for me. Like broccoli.”
“I like broccoli,” Lorelei said with a smile, then turned to business. “OK, we just need to be sure you don’t have any false ideas. Major false ideas, anyway – you’re certain to get surprised by some of the little things. Also, you need to understand that you can still back out – any time before you walk through the Door.” She nodded toward the door to the side, loudly marked with red, yellow, and blue safety tape, and sporting a big ‘DANGER!!!’ sign. “Women have turned back, you know, right at the last moment. But now let’s put you into the mind reading machine.”
This was a helmet that fit loosely over Marci’s head – the modern version of an old fashioned 20th century lie detector. It would monitor certain parts of Marci’s brain activity as she answered the next few questions:
“Are you Marci K. Gotz, SSI 314-AXN-6970?”
“Yes. I am.”
“And have you read form 9524B and datapak 412S, and do you understand what they say?”
“Yes. I’m selling myself into slavery, to be bought by blue-furred alien men who want our women.”
Lorelei chuckled. “Crudely put, but more than accurate enough for government work. Now last question: Are you volunteering for the Prisoner Exchange Service as the result of any threat, bribe, or other illegal inducement or activity?”
“No, I’m doing this for good and legal reasons.”
“All right then,” Lorelei lifted the helmet from Marci’s head. “Last thing: You need to take off any jewelry you’re wearing. Small stud earrings are OK, but your wristwatch and anything else comes off now. Oh, and your shoes and socks too. Then you can step through the Door.”
Marci nodded. She still wore her watch, but had removed her earrings – large dangly things, rather than little studs – before setting out. They, along with the few other pieces of cheap jewelry she owned, were in her suitcase, and that suitcase was currently in a 25-year storage locker, sealed with a thumb-lock set to her print. So that was taken care of. All she needed to do now was take off her watch and strip herself barefoot. “Sergeant Lorelei?” she asked as she pulled off her socks. “One last question: Why just shoes and socks? Why not take everything off, or go in fully clothed? The datapak explained about the jewelry, but didn’t say anything about the shoes.”
“Tradition. Twenty or thirty years ago you’d have to go in barefoot because the machinery couldn’t handle shoes or socks very well, but now it’s just an unwritten tradition. And there’s another tradition as well. Just before you step through, you need to say: ‘I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.’“
Marci nodded and walked barefoot to the Door. Opening it sounded a loud musical chime that repeated every couple of seconds, and lit up red and blue flashers that chased each other around the doorframe in an eye-catching pattern. Ignoring this display, Marci shouted into the darkness beyond the Door: “I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault!” Then she stepped through.
Datapak 412S includes a description of what happens when a recruit-exchangee steps through the Door. First, a puff of gas induces short-term paralyzation. The victim can still see, hear, and feel, but cannot move or speak. A pair of manipulator arms then catches the victim before she can fall over, and more manipulators move in from all sides to remove her clothing, shredding it to rags in the process. If the manipulators encounter any jewelry (other than small stud earrings) they attempt to remove them with care – but sometimes its care is not enough, which is why the victim is advised to remove any jewelry beforehand.
Still paralyzed, the victim is carried to the next stage. Here, rubberine straps bind her legs at the ankles and above the knees, and more straps fasten her arms to her sides. Loops are thrown around her wrists, connected to a belt set about her hips so that she cannot bring her hands together either in front of her body or behind it. A lightweight plastic slave collar is also fastened around the victim’s neck at this point – or rather is molded around it, allowing no weak points where the slave might later break and remove it. This collar is temporary, of course, and can be removed even with hand tools. But equally of course, the new slave will not be permitted access to such tools.
Now the new slave is placed into her transport module. This is a rectangular block on the outside, and an oval cavity on the inside, resembling a first-class sleeper-seat: Well padded, well lit, and provided with high-quality audio-video. In addition, it is equipped with sundry devices that provide water, food in the form of a liquid meal, sanitary amenities, and other services considered desirable for a captive. The slave is granted limited control of these via voice activation, and this also begins her slave-training: Every request she makes must be proceeded by the words “Master, I beg.”
The slave usually recovers from her paralyzation while being placed in the transport module. If she doesn’t, the compartment is flooded with pure oxygen, and she is instructed to attempt deep breaths. If this fails, help is summoned to administer the antidote and provide any other medical treatment necessary. However, 99.4 percent of all new slaves recover without assistance. Roughly half of them scream when the lid is closed on their transport module.
Marci didn’t scream, but she did squirm as her paralyzation lifted. The compartment of her transport module was comfortably warm, against her naked skin, the padding beneath her was comfortably soft, the large display in front of her scrolled advice and information both in human English and in bisnik Ustani. However, her helplessness was starting to arouse her. It was a reaction she’d had back as a teenager, until she had been chided out of it by her parents and teachers, and later by Tom. Then, when she decided to leave Tom and join the Hostage Corp, she started trying to cultivate it again. But she hadn’t had much success. Until now, when the exotic seriousness of her helplessness made her feel more, well, helpless.
She was also thirsty, she realized. “Could I have some water, please?”
“Incorrect form of request, Slave Marci,” a deliberately mechanical voice chided her. She swallowed dryness, and shivered. Those six words shocked her with the realization that, in exchange for the freedom of a human POW, she had really and truly sold herself into slavery. Heart pounding, she tried again.
“Master, I beg: Can I have some water, please?”
“Better, Slave Marci.” A drinking tube extended, and she sucked down a long draught of cool pure water. Thirst quenched, she lay back and squirmed a bit more, struggling against her bonds. They were impossible to escape, of course. She was now a slave. She was nude and bound and helpless. She was being shipped out into space, where she would be sold at auction to blue-furred alien men who desired her. Who would keep her as a slave, bound and helpless, even as they pampered her. She shivered again, scared, excited – and happy.
#
It took a nearly a full day to transfer Marci’s transport module first to Memphis Spaceport and then to the Memphis Orbital Station. During this period, her restraints were adjusted dozens of times – now loosened, now tightened, but never removed completely. This allowed her (and sometimes required her) to shift into different positions, easing the strain on her body. Always, however, there was something binding her, if only a tether to a wrist or ankle, so that even if the module opened, she would still be unable to escape.
Marci listened to music, read, watched vids, and drank water and liquid meals. She squirmed. Eventually, she calmed down from her initial peak of excitement – and then the e-mail from Jane arrived. Too late now Marci thought with a smirk. She considered deleting it unread, but curiosity got the better of her and she opened it.
Marci continued to smirk as she read Jane’s purple, over-done plea for her to reconsider. To return to Tom, quitting the Hostage Corp. As if she could. She pulled on the bonds holding her ankles apart, luxuriating in her helplessness. Even if, in a fit of insanity, she did decide that she wanted to go back to Tom, the thing was impossible. Her next man would be a horned bisnik. Her smirk became a grin.
Then came the part about the posted ransom, turning Marci’s grin into a sudden frown. “Master, I beg: May I please see the last e-mail from my paralegal?”
Paging through this by verbal command (since her wrists were currently tied down on either side of her body), Marci found the section she was looking for, where the paralegal had boiled away the legalese to explain what a posted ransom would mean.
The slave auctions had a reserve bid, but normally, if the bids on a slave woman didn’t reach that amount, the auction house would hold her until the next round. But with a posted ransom, the bids on Marci would have to exceed the ransom amount or else she would be sent back to Earth. The Hostage Core would discharge her, and her plan would be in ruins.
Nothing to worry about, Marci lied to herself. All she’d have to do is entice a bisnik master to outbid the posted ransom. And the first step for that is to stop worrying. She begged for more music, and managed to distract herself with another romance novel.
Eventually she grew sleepy. “Master, I beg: Could you turn the lights down? Not all the way off, just dim.” In response, the light in her compartment slowly faded. “That’s good enough,” she said, then added on impulse, “Thank you, master.”
“Very good, Slave Marci,” the mechanical voice answered. “You are welcome.” Smiling slightly, Marci dozed off.
#
When Marci awoke again, several hours later, she didn’t remember at first where she was. “Could someone turn up the lights?” she asked.
“Incorrect form of address, Slave Marci,” the mechanical voice told her. Memory flooded back: She was a slave, now. Naked. Captive. Tethered only loosely at the moment, but her computerized captor might choose to bind her tightly at any time. She had gotten here by walking through that Door, and just before then…
“I was warned,” she muttered. Then she spoke up. “I’m sorry, master.” A deep breath for calm. “Master, I beg: Could you please turn the lights back up?” The inside of her compartment lit up again, and she made a small sound of relief. Then she begged for music, water, food, and clean-up, and managed to relax again as these were provided. And then, more vids and written material.
Some time later, Marci begged for the story to be put away; she was tired of reading. She lay back, considering. She wasn’t bored, she realized suddenly – she was horny. At the moment the security system had her ankles fastened down firmly and separated by about a third of a meter, but her wrists were on loose tethers. She could reach herself, and she did, rubbing the insides of her legs, touching her pussy. In response, the transport module pulled her hands away, fastening her wrists up near her head. “That is not allowed, Slave Marci,” the mechanical voice told her. “If you wish pleasure-stimulation, you must request it, and allow another to provide.”
Marci wiggled. She pulled at her bonds, twisting. They continued to hold her perfectly helpless, of course, and her struggles just made her hotter. Begging would be embarrassing, but not begging was frustrating. She struggled some more, and made a frustrated little moan-cry before finally giving in. “Master, I beg.” She paused to consider what to ask for, and how to ask for it. She clenched her hands and her toes; she couldn’t move her wrists or ankles at all. “Make me cum!” she said at last.
A fist-sized ball pressed against her pussy, vibrating. Another vibrator wandered over her torso. She twisted, trying to press herself against it. It moved down her legs, and pressed against the soles of her feet, one at a time. Tickling them. She giggled, and tried to pull in her arms and legs. A delicious sense of helplessness flooded her when the straps on her wrists and ankles prevented her from doing so. She fought her bonds, unable to make herself stop. It felt too good to stop struggling. She could not escape from the first vibrator between her legs, nor from the second one that now circled her breasts. They were pushing her closer and closer to the edge.
She went over the edge. The orgasm swept through her, making her cry out and cry out again. It subsided, reluctantly, and the vibrators withdrew. She lay there, panting.
The top of her module opened, and the broad face of a male bisnik looked down at her. Like the female Marci had seen on her last day on Earth, he had large dark eyes. Unlike that female (or any other bisnik woman), he also had short horns growing flat against his forehead; the sign of adult bisnik masculinity. The skin around his eyes crinkled, and then he smiled human-style. “I have timing,” he said in accented English. “Module: Clean this mess up, please.”
Marci told herself that she was silly to be embarrassed by a bisnik man staring at her nudity. Staring was the least they would do to her as one of their slave women. She made herself relax as the module caressed her with damp towels followed by dry ones. When they withdrew, she realized that the straps binding her had been removed as well. But of course she still wore the plastic slave-collar.
“Climb out under your own power, if you are able to, Slave Marci,” the bisnik told her. “If you are not able to, I will assist you.”
“Yes, um…”
“You may call me Onocol, Slave Marci. That means ‘slave trainer,’ or ‘overseer,’ roughly. Or you may call me ‘Master,’ although that is not technically true.”
Marci reached for a handhold. “Yes, Master Onocol.”
He gave her another crinkle-eyed bisnik smile. “That will serve as well, Slave Marci. Technically I am also a prisoner, for the moment. After you go through Medical, I will be your onocol – overseer and trainer – on board the transport.”
As it turned out, Marci could climb up out of her module unassisted, but needed help getting down. The bisnik – Master Onocol – wore gloves, Marci noticed as he assisted her, white cloth gloves that clashed slightly with his shorts, sandals, and leather chest harness. She also noted the well-developed muscles that let him handle her lightly as he set her on her feet. Bisnik, she knew, had a slightly greater sexual dimorphism than humans: The average bisnik male was as big as a large human male, while the average female was as small as a petite human woman.
Once she stood on the freighter’s deck, Master Onocol snapped cuffs on her, fastening her hands behind her back. “Follow the indicated path, Slave Marci,” he told her. “It will lead you to medical, and then to the transport. If you see any of the other slaves, you may speak with them. However,” he fixed her with a stern look. “You are to address them formally, by the title ‘Slave’ and their name. Not by name alone, nor as ‘Slave’ alone. Do you understand?”
“Yes Master.” Marci bowed her head. Then, as Master Onocol turned to the next module, she set off, following the string of blinking lights.
#
A short walk later, she came to a padded ramp leading up to a circular opening of perhaps one meter in diameter. An illuminated sign to the side read “Place the cuffs in the receptacle provided and crawl up through the opening.” When Marci came to the foot of the ramp, she heard a faint click and felt her cuffs loosen and release. The sign begin to blink. She followed its instructions, placing the now-opened cuffs in the opening beneath it. Then, falling to her hands and knees, she crawled up the ramp and through the opening.
On the other side, she found herself on a padded bench, flanked by a male human and a female bisnik. Both wore the blue coats, gauze masks, and rubber gloves of medical personnel. In addition, the female wore the medical symbol of a bisnik nurse, while the human had the caduceus insignia of a M.D. “Slave Marci Gotz?” he asked.
“Yes Doctor,” Marci confirmed her identity.
“Welcome to the Hostage Corp. Lie flat, please, and spread your arms and legs. Do you have a cold, any aches or pains, any sores or bruises?”
Marci complied, and felt the bisnik nurse attach soft-lined cuffs to her wrists and ankles, fastening her down. “No Doctor,” she answered the doctor’s question.
“Good!” He unwrapped something. “The last one did have a cold, and we had to put her in isolation until she gets over it. Open wide now.”
Marci did so, and the Doctor filled her mouth with a disposable gag. “Mmph mmm mmm mmpph!” Marci said.
“Yes, it is effective. Chewy too.” Marci felt him place the cold end of an old-fashioned stethoscope against her back. “Breath deeply now.” Marci complied. “That’s enough now.”
The cold stethoscope went away. Again, Marci tried speaking through her gag. “Mmm mmph mmphmmph mmmp!” The clever shape of the gag made it hard to talk, or even to produce much sound. If she didn’t know what she was trying to say, Marci wouldn’t have understood it herself.
“I’m afraid I can’t make out a word,” the Doctor confirmed. The gauze mask hid most of his face, but Marci could see the amusement in his eyes when she looked up. “What about you, Nurse?”
“I cannot understand her either.” The Nurse’s alien eyes had a healthy dash of sympathy mixed with their amusement. “It is a new design,” she told Marci. “A joint bisnik-human venture, I understand. And very good at its job of silencing slave women.”
The bisnik nurse spoke those last words with the tone of one who had personal experience. Marci wanted to ask about that, but of course that gag in her mouth prevented her from doing so.
Silence, as the nurse typed some commands into a keyboard, and the doctor made notes into an electronic notepad. “The alpha readings are ready, Doctor,” the nurse said at last.
The doctor displaced her from the display. “All right, go ahead and start beta.”
“This will not hurt,” the bisnik nurse told Marci as she moved back beside her. “It will feel a little rude, however.” She began a massage: Feet, legs, back, arms, reaching underneath to stroke belly and breasts. Her touch was expert, and aimed at arousing Marci. It succeeded.
“Mmmph!” Marci protested. It did no good, of course. The nurse continued her erotic massage.
“Yes, it does feel rude,” the nurse said, continue to caress and tease Marci. “And there is nothing you can do about it.” Marci pulled against her cuffs, making little metallic clinks as the attachments shifted. She could only move them a few centimeters, no matter how hard she pulled, and she became acutely aware of her helplessness. She felt herself grow wet.
“You’re in pretty good shape, overall, Slave Marci,” the doctor told her, still looking at the display. You’re a little too skinny and flabby – anti-obesity shots can’t do everything, and you need to get more exercise. Well, that won’t be a problem.” He keyed in a command. “And it looks like you have some very good arousal reflexes,” he added.
Marci didn’t need to be told that. This, this bisnik nurse was touching her every where except her pussy, keeping her just on the edge of boiling over. Struggling against her restraints just made things more frustrating, but she couldn’t keep herself from doing so. That gag in her mouth restrained her as well, keeping it all bottled in, preventing her from making any noise louder than a mew when what she wanted to do was scream and roar.
“That’s enough now, Nurse,” the doctor said. He moved to displace her, and then his expert hand began to finger her pussy, providing blessed relief.
“Once you are sold, you will be frequently brought to orgasm,” he told Marci. “It amuses bisnik masters to do this to their slave women.”
“It amuses human masters as well,” the alien female added in a reminiscent tone. Marci only half heard her, for just then her second orgasm in fifteen minutes rumbled through her.
Afterwards, they took her to the antechamber of a locker room, carrying her there on the detached top of the padded bench. Her gag was removed, and Marci felt her cuffs fall away, released by remote control. “When you can stand,” the nurse told her, “you are to shower before boarding the transport.”
#
The shower had space for half a dozen, but held only one other occupant. The other woman stood only a bit taller than Marci, but her skin was much darker: Beautiful ebony skin, matched with large dark eyes and masses of curly black hair.
“Hello,” Marci said. “I’m, um, I’m Slave Marci.”
“I’m Slave Elizabeth,” the other woman answered. “Slave Elizabeth Baker, if you want my full name.”
“In that case I’m Slave Marci Gotz.”
“It feels funny, doesn’t it?” the darker woman said. They entered the blow-dryer, and the noise put their conversation on pause. On the other side, Elizabeth picked it up again as if it hadn’t been interrupted. “Like one of those historical romances with emirs and plantation owners and Italian Counts exiled to their North African villas. But I guess that’s what we signed up for.”
“Except that our lords-and-masters will have blue fur.” Marci pointed out, as they entered yet another waiting point. A pair of those blue-furred lords-and-masters, dressed in the uniform of their navy and wearing truce-armbands, waited there to put leashes on the arriving women. Each leash gave about a meter of slack, with the far end permanently fastened to fixtures set in the walls.
“You are to wait here until your name is called, Slave Women,” they repeated over and over as more nude and collared slaves came out to be fastened in place.
Marci examined, by touch, her leash where it fastened to her collar. One of the ubiquitous thumb-locks held it in place. It would open at the touch of an authorized person, or by remote control, but it would not open for her. Her arms and legs were free, but she was leashed. Captive. She could only stand there, in her meter of space, and listen as an overhead speaker called out the other slave women’s names. She saw the leashes drop away, one by one, and the women walk to the exit, some slowly, some quickly.
Then it was her turn. “Slave Marci Goetz,” the speaker called. Her leash dropped away from her collar. She hurried to the exit, and then made herself slow down.
She came to an open hatch, leading to a tubeway connecting Memphis Orbital to the bisnik transport. As she stepped through the hatch, she saw a human marine at the other end, a soon-to-be-ex-POW in an undress uniform. They walked toward each other, stopping at the halfway point. The marine drew himself to attention and saluted. Marci, nude, returned the Hostage Corp gesture made famous in vids, her hand over her heart. The marine then gave her a nod, unspoken gratitude gleaming in his eyes, and the two of them continued on in their opposite directions.
This was the official purpose of the Hostage Corp. The marine ex-POW could now return to duty, with Marci taking his place as a bisnik captive. With this exchange, the human forces had one less incentive to commit a dangerously lethal raid against bisnik homeworld of Ustan, and one more reason to avoid doing so. Similarly, each exchange of a bisnik space-soldier for a blue-furred female, back on Earth, would give the bisnik forces an incentive and reason to hold back as well. And so the navies of the two sides could go back to zapping each other’s ships until the negotiators finally managed to agree on a peace settlement.
Marci reached the hatch at the end of the companionway and muttered to herself “I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.” The tubeway was still, technically, human space. On the other side of the hatch she'd be on the bisnik transport, officially in bisnik territory and truly and fully in their power. She stepped through the hatch and into the blue-furred aliens’ hands.
Literally into their hands. Two bisnik men waited for her, dressed in dark red pantaloons and a mesh top of some iridescent material – the alien equivalent of business suits. Like the pair with the leashes, they also wore the white gloves of slave-handlers, but unlike that pair these two did not avoid touching Marci. With practiced efficiency they turned her about, lifted her arms, and locked her wrists into a pair of shackles hanging from overhead. They then knelt and, pulling her legs a bit further apart, locked her ankles into another set of shackles set in the deck. Finally, as Marci stood bound and helpless in a standing spread-eagle, the two quickly wrapped a couple of wisps of cloth around her – the bisnik equivalent of a bikini.
“You do not yet know how to dress yourself, Slave Marci,” one of them explained in a familiar voice. Marci blinked as she suddenly recognized Master Onocol. “When we release you, you will run to the gym,” he said, nodding to where lights disappeared down a passageway. “There you will find other slave women waiting. Do you remember what I told you about speaking to them?”
“Yes, Master Onocol. I can speak to them, but I am to address them formally. As ‘Slave’ followed by their name, but not by their name alone or as ‘Slave’ alone.”
“Good! It is good that you remember.” He touched a control, releasing her from the shackles. “Now run, Slave Marci!”
“Yes Master Onocol!” Marci cried as she hurried to follow the now-familiar trail of blinking lights.
#
The gym turned out to be a high-ceilinged chamber, roughly half the size of a basketball court, with a floor coated with some cushiony substance and marked off in two-meter squares. Scattered across the floor were clusters of new slaves: Barefoot human women, collared, and clad in alien bikinis. They stood talking with each other, speaking about their hopes, fears, and experiences, and about their lives before joining the Hostage Corp.
After a half-hour of this gossip, Marci noticed Master Onocol entering. He climbed to a raised platform in the front of the gym. “Slave Women!” he called, his amplified voice booming. “Take your positions! You have twenty-five nis to enter your squares. That is 30 seconds, human time. If any of you are not in your squares by that time, you will all be disciplined!” He flourished his goad, the furry-tipped stick made popular in vids and stories, and pointed up at an overhead timer that showed human and bisnik digits side-by-side. “Go!”
Thirty or so women scurried about. Marci hunted for, and found, the square marked ‘Slave Marci Gotz.’ The others found their own squares, the last making it into position with just two seconds to spare. The dual timers reached zero and dinged. “Good!” the bisnik said. “Very good. Now: I have met all of you before, and you know me as ‘Master’ or ‘Onocol’ or ‘Master Onocol.’ You shall continue to refer to me as such.”
He gestured at them with his goad, taking them all in. “I am here to train you, during the 29 days it will take to journey from Earth to Ustan. They will not be hard days – except for the Language Troll – but they will be long ones. Out here in the deep void, you will have nothing better to do but study and exercise. In the course of that study, you will all make mistakes and you will all, at one time or another, be disciplined for those mistakes. But you should not fear making mistakes; you should not fear being disciplined. The purpose of the discipline is not to punish, not to hurt or humiliate. The purpose of the discipline is to be memorable, so that your next mistakes will be new ones, and not old ones repeated.”
He flourished his goad again, and Marci though she saw an eye-crinkling smile on his face. “No, what you should fear is the exercise. For you all need to build up your endurance, and for that there will be a great deal of exercise. Beginning now.”
He stepped back, and a hologram appeared. A chorus of groans greeted it as the women recognized the sprightly virtual figure. It was Daisy Cheng, the (in)famous aerobics instructor. “Lets exercise!” she called out in the disgustingly cheerful voice that millions of human women loved to loathe. “One! Two! Three! Four!”
#
Evening finally came around, according to the ships arbitrary clock, and Marci was too tired to be surprised when she found herself back in the same transport module that had brought her from Earth. Like Marci herself, it had been transferred from human custody to the bisnik transport. Its now-familiar closeness comforted her (which was the reason behind the policy of transferring the modules along with the slave-trainees) and she slept well.
The next morning, Marci woke early and crawled out of her module for her first encounter with the Language Troll.
Language lessons are necessarily the worst part of slave training. Because there was no ‘nice’ way to give those lessons, the nastiness is deliberately emphasized and given a cartoonish air. Thus the Language Troll, and the cage in which he keeps his victims.
Marci sat nude in the Troll’s spiky-barred steel cage for her first lesson in Ustani. Her attention was honed to an unnaturally sharp edge from extra oxygen pumped into the air. Heavy earphones covered her ears, providing subliminal instruction and blocking out the sounds from the other cages nearby. Her legs and arms were tied widely apart, leaving her feeling exposed and horribly vulnerable, and a yellow gag of that odd and effective shape had been stuffed into her mouth.
It wasn’t a simple disposable gag this time, however. Known informally as the ‘lesson lemon,’ the Language Troll’s gag was rigged to punish and reward. It would sometimes reward her with a sweet taste if she performed well, it would chide her with a sour taste when she made mistakes – and it would scold her with bitterness if she didn’t attend to her lessons.
Marci’s attention snapped to the hologram that appeared before her: A bisniki monster, with a cruel face and leering eyes. “I am Language Troll,” it said, “and you, Slave Marci, are my next victim.” It spoke in Ustani, but Marci could understand. She knew that a faint English translation was being fed through her earphones, along with the Ustani words, but in her hyped-up state she couldn’t consciously perceive the English.
“I will make you suffer as I teach you, Slave Marci, and I will make you suffer more if you do not work hard at your lessons. Heh heh heh.” The Troll laughed, showing its fangs and displaying its claws. “First lesson: Repeat what I say. Do your best to speak, despite your gag. Red ball!”
A red sphere suddenly appeared and flew at Marci. “Aaamh!” she tried to shout, the wordless sound muffled to a mew by the gag. The ball disappeared before it touched her – or before it would have touched her, for like the Language Troll the ball was a hologram.
A sour taste filled Marci’s mouth; the lesson-lemon’s response to her failure. A whip appeared in the Trolls hand, and cracked with a thunderclap. “Repeat what I say, Slave Marci!” the Troll commanded. “Red ball!”
Another red sphere flew toward Marci, and she managed to squeal in to her gag “Mmmpht mmf!” The ball vanished.
“Green ball!”
“Mmmph mmf!” The green sphere vanished and Marci tasted sweetness in her mouth.
“Blue ball!”
“Mmphth mmf!”
“Pillow!”
“Mmfphtf!”
“Chair!”
“Mmth!”
The lesson went on and on. Sometimes Marci would taste sweetness delivered through her gag, when she did well. Occasionally with would flood her mouth with sour, as she made a mistake and the Troll made her repeat. Once she tasted bitterness when, unable to satisfy the Troll with her attempt at the word for ‘hairbrush,’ she screamed in frustration at the fifth retry. The session left her terrified and exhilarated, cringing and angry, and sweating and shaking by the end. When Master Onocol finally let her out of the cage, he wrapped her in a towel-blanket, and she sank to the deck, hugging it close around herself.
“Language Troll is cruel, I know,” Master Onocol told her. “Unfortunately, it is the best method, if you are in a hurry.”
“Yes, Master Onocol,” Marci agreed faintly. “I know.” She pulled herself together and looked up at him. “I know,” she repeated. “‘I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.’“
The bisnik grinned. “You will hate me for telling you this now, Slave Marci, but you should say that in Ustani.” He switched languages: «I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.»
«I was warned;» Marci said slowly, stumbling a bit over the pronunciation. «Whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.»
“Good, Slave Marci. But now I must see to the others.” Master Onocol left her.
A short time later, Marci managed to stand up, and to join the herd of naked slave women as they left the language-training chamber. “What next?” one of them asked her. “More exercise?”
“Probably,” Marci answered. And so it proved.
They came out onto a running track, with Master Onocol chivying out the last few women in his class. “Slave women,” he told them all. “If you wish to run and scream in relief, now is your chance. Run! Scream!” He waved his arms at them, and they all began running and screaming, racing around the track. When the collared and nude women flagged, he would exhort them to keep going. When one of them stopped, gasping for breath, he would take her into the center of the oval and bind her hand and foot. One by one the running women fell to him so, until the center oval was filled with dozens of nude, sweating, squirming females. “You all need baths,” he laughed, and releasing their ankles, sent them to the showers with their hands still bound behind them.
So the days went, as the star freighter made its way to Ustan. Lessons with the Language Troll in the morning, followed by exercise. Sometimes it would be ‘free’ exercise, aerobics led by the hologramic Daisy Cheng, or a screaming run around and around the track. But, as time passed, ‘slave’ exercise became more and more common. In slave exercise the women were bound with cords in various positions – hog-ties, ball-ties, frog-ties, or other, more creative positions – and then required to struggle in futile efforts to escape. If a woman slacked off, a jet of cold air directed against her bare skin would encourage her to start squirming again.
Then, after a quick shower, the slave women would receive a training session in clothing, dance, or the pleasing of bisnik men, more exercise, a food break, another training session, yet more exercise, and a final short session before returning to the transport modules that served as their kennels for the trip. During this time, Marci and the others were always barefoot, usually nude (and scantily clad when allowed clothes at all), and frequently trapped in restraints of various sorts. Except for the language lessons (which everyone hated), Marci generally enjoyed her situation, although she did look forward to the end of her training. When the freighter arrived at Ustan, she and the others would be put on the auction block and sold. At that point, Marci thought, she would be a real slave woman, owned by a blue-furred bisnik man would tie and chain her in inescapable bondage, paw over her nude body, and pamper her mercilessly.
#
There were, of course, days when Marci grew frustrated with her lessons, and times when she experienced the discipline that Master Onocol had promised. One day, she was paired off with Slave Elizabeth, practicing the art of dressing and undressing with the bisnik version of a silken harem outfit. It wasn’t by any means a practical outfit, having been concocted by a designer who had been stronger on imagination than on either historical knowledge or common sense. Its one great virtue was that it looked good on female bodies of either the human or bisnik sort.
At least it looks good when tied properly. Marci thought as she made an exasperated noise.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked. She spoke in Ustani now, as did all the slave women. After their first few sessions with the Language Troll, their collars had been programmed to speak a correction if any of them slipped and used an English word, or if they made mistakes in Ustani grammar.
“The knot jammed. I keep forgetting to loop the drawstring proper.”
“properly,” Marci’s collar corrected in its mechanical tones.
“Again?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, her own yellow silks looking elegant against her dark skin. And properly and neatly tied, Marci noted with annoyance.
“Yes, again!”
“Idiot,” the dark woman said. Marci stuck out her tongue in return.
“Kneel Slave Elizabeth! Kneel Slave Marci!” Master Onocol’s voice came from the overhead speaker. Both women knelt, glanced at each other guiltily, and looked down at the deck. That tone of voice could mean only one thing: They had made a mistake, and he was coming to discipline them.
A minute later, the bisnik appeared in the doorway. He dropped a pair of chains on the deck in front of the women. “Hobble yourselves,” he commanded. Marci took one of the chains and fastened the larger ring around her left ankle. Then she took the smaller ring, on the other end, and fastened it around her right wrist. Elizabeth took the other chain and did likewise. The rings clicked as they snapped shut, secured with thumb-locks that slaves could not open. Marci saw Onocol relax when she and Elizabeth finished binding themselves. He’d been in a hurry to start their disciplining as soon as possible, she realized, and their hobbling was the beginning of it.
“Rudeness is forbidden to you,” he reminded them, his voice gentle now. “No matter what the provocation.”
“Yes, Master Onocol,” the two slaves chorused.
“You will now be blindfolded for a time, to help you remember that.” He stepped around behind Elizabeth and applied a blindfold – and not a simple one either. It was a harness-thing with straps that went over the head and under the chin, locking in place. He then fastened an identical blindfold on Marci, rendering her sightless. She could hear him step back, could hear the click as the hobble-locks opened and the hobbles dropped away, but she couldn’t see a thing.
Small metallic sounds as Master Onocol picked up the hobbles. “You will now continue your practice session,” he told them.
“Yes, Master,” Elizabeth said.
“Master Onocol?” Marci asked. “If we make mistakes in this practice session, from being blindfolded, will we be disciplined for them?”
In her darkness, Marci could imagine Master Onocol’s smile. Certainly his voice had amusement in it: “Only if it will help you better learn your lessons, Slave Marci.”
Marci and Elizabeth stumbled through the rest of the session; dressing and undressing blindly. This was not Marci’s favorite lesson in any case, and having to do it while blindfolded made it almost as bad as the morning session with the Language Troll.
Almost.
The tone sounded at last, marking the end of the lesson, and Marci waited for her blindfold to unlock. It wasn’t to be, though. “Slave Susan,” Master Onocol’s voice called. “You will please lead Slave Marci and Slave Elizabeth to the VR chambers for the next lesson. I have decided that their blindfold-discipline will continue until the exercise period.
Elizabeth groaned.
“That’s not so bad,” Marci observed. She heard Elizabeth make a noise, biting back and reconsidering what she was going to say.
“Bondage conditioning is my second-least favorite lesson, after the Language Troll,” Elizabeth said at last, struggling to make her voice as neutral as Marci’s. “It’s an acquired taste, and I’m having a harder time acquiring it than I expected.”
Slave Susan arrived, and took them each by the hand, one on either side of her. “Ready for the next torture session?” she asked cheerfully. Marci couldn’t see her, of course, but she remembered her as being one of the few women on board who was even shorter than Marci herself. Physically, Susan was very Asian, despite her name, and had long black hair like pure silk.
A walk with a few twists and turns brought them to the VR chambers. “I have to go to my own rack now,” Susan said as she left them. “Good luck!”
Marci felt for the open hatch to her own chamber. She sensed Elizabeth shivering beside her. “Slave Elizabeth,” Onocol’s voice called soothingly from above. “Breathe deeply. Let the fear flow out of you like water.”
“Yes, master!” Elizabeth’s voice shook, and Marci suddenly felt sorry for the ebony woman. This was as much a trial for her as the harem dress had been for Marci.
“Slave Marci?” Elizabeth asked. “You enjoy this; you’ve always enjoyed this. How do you do it?”
Marci considered how to answer. The blue-furred alienness of the bisnik had never bothered her. Even the nastiness of the Language Troll had been a generic nastiness, rather than anything specifically bisniki. How could she answer, about something that had just seemed so natural? “They’re men, Slave Elizabeth,” she said at last. “You’re not scared of Master Onocol, are you?”
“No…”
“The other bisnik males are the same. They’re men. Even when they’re not real.”
“Oh.” The monosyllable had a thoughtful tone, amplified in Marci’s ear by the way her blindness shifted her concentration to her sense of hearing. Marci could also hear the small sounds of the other women crawling into the VR chamber, and of the hatch clicking and latching behind her.
Marci crawled into her own VR chamber. The hatch closed and latched behind her, and she caught the pleasantly musky scent of a male bisnik. Synthetic, of course; part of the virtual reality just like the hands that caught and restrained her. This time they used fabric-cuffs, soft and flexible, fastening her in a sitting position with her legs spread. She couldn’t see it, but she could imagine the grinning, leering face of the virtual bisnik master watching her as she squirmed, testing her bonds. She felt a broad bisnik hand brush lightly over her breasts, and then even more lightly over the fur of her pussy.
She smiled and squirmed some more. This was what bothered many of the slave-trainees. Not the bondage. Women who didn’t ‘take’ to bondage weren’t accepted into the Hostage Corp. But helplessness at the hands of a blue-furred alien did disturb many of the women, at least until time and experience wore away the sharp edge of alienness.
Marci felt her nipples harden as those virtual hands continued to tease her. In her case, it had taken no more than three seconds to lose any apprehension over the sight, scent, or touch of a bisnik male. Now she was developing a creeping dislike of those blankity blank bisnik harem outfits, and their blankity blank blank bisnik-style knots. But this… she arched, attempting to maintain contact, as the virtual hand brushed its fur-covered back over her belly. In response, her virtual master fastened a band around her waist, making her even more helpless.
This was the opposite of the Language Troll; the best part of each day of training. Even if she was being disciplined by her blindfold.
That blindfold came off at the end of the VR session, and the first thing Marci saw on exiting her chamber was the huge grin on Elizabeth’s face.
“It worked!” the dark woman said. “Thank you, Slave Marci.”
“You’re welcome, Slave Elizabeth,” Marci answered automatically through her puzzlement.
Elizabeth responded to her unspoken bafflement. “Your advice, and Master Onocol’s. It felt good in there.” She nodded toward the VR chamber.
“That’s good,” Master Onocol said, suddenly coming up. “But now it time for a ‘free’ exercise. Run, Slave Women, Run!” He grinned and waved his arms at them, and they groaned as they turned to run for the gym and yet another aerobics session.
#
The transport’s arrival at the bisnik homeworld of Ustan was celebrated with a parade of sorts. Each of the thirty-five slave trainers arranged the women under their control into coffles and marched them out to their ground-side quarters past an appreciative audience of potential buyers.
Master Onocol had ‘his’ women dress in scant, gauzy wisps of cloth, and locked them in a neck-ring-and-handcuff arrangement: The handcuffs that locked each woman’s hands behind her had a chain attached, leading to a neck ring that locked on the next woman in line. The last woman had her hands locked in a simple pair of cuffs, and the first woman in line – Marci – had the chain from her neck ring held in the firm hand of Master Onocol.
In addition, each woman had an anklet, ornamented with flashing electronic lights and jingling steel bells, locked around her right ankle. These bells had a cultural meaning. Although bisnik females, like humans, could have sex at any time, the bells signaled an increased willingness and desire for sex. “In other words,” one of the slave trainees had said back when the bells were first introduced, “If you put aside the sociological B.S, they’re ‘Fuck Me’ bells.”
“That was crudely put, Slave Annalee,” Master Onocol had said. “Truthful, but crudely put.” And then, as a discipline to ensure his words were not forgotten, he had fastened Annalee to the deck and forced her to orgasm, expertly arousing her with fur-tipped slave goad.
Master Onocol now brandished that slave goad as his other hand tugged on the chain leading Marci and the other human women forward. They walked slowly down a long, long carpet, passing between two ragged lines of bisnik men who watched them with smiling eyes. The captive’s feet were bare, in the thick shag of the carpet, their skimpy costumes left practically nothing to the imagination, and the ‘Fuck Me’ bells locked on their ankles jingled merrily. Proud and excited, they smiled back at the blue-furred alien men who soon would own them.
Near the end, a bisnik stepped out to embrace Master Onocol. “Welcome home, brother,” he said.
“I am glad to be home, brother,” Master Onocol returned. “And I am glad to see you. We must talk latter Tiim, but right now I have business to finish.”
“Of course,” Tiim stepped aside, allowing Master Onocol and his chain of beauties to continue forward. Marci smiled at him, and shivered inside at the long, frank look of evaluation he gave in return. He was, Marci realized, looking at the captive alien beauty that was first on his brother’s chain.
Marci had very pleasant dreams that night.
#
The next morning was rather less pleasant, even though Marci no longer had to face the Language Troll. She had received an e-mail, and after struggling through the alien alphabet she found herself wishing that she could have a remedial lesson with the Troll, instead.
A bisnik group had taken up her ‘cause’ – or rather her sister Jane’s cause. Marci didn’t want anything to do with it. But ignoring her wishes, the Unified Peace and Purity Associations had taken the issue of her ransom to the bisnik courts. The auction house had been temporarily blocked from selling her, as a result, and the UPPA representative was confident that the delay would keep her from being sold at all. In that happy event, Marci was informed, she soon would find herself returned to her home.
“Damn damn damn damn. Damn Jane, and damn all do-gooders!” Marci sat fuming until the alarm sounded, warning her to prepare for the first round of auctions. She made herself smile as she dressed carefully in a bisnik harem confection, this one a pale blue. If the block on her sale was overturned, and then no one bought her because of her sullenness, then that would be her own damn fault.
The auction-master looked rather sour when Marci presented herself. “You should choose your relatives better, Slave Marci.” He smiled briefly, bisnik-style. “That’s a joke.” But then his expression turned sour again; this turn of events did not please him at all. “We will have to put you on Station Zero.”
“Yes, Sir,” Marci said, and she soon found herself naked again, bound hand and foot on a padded circular platform.
There she squirmed, an attraction if not the center of attention. The bisnik men attending the auctions, dressed in their brightly colored pants and mesh shirts, stopped to look her over. Most of them paused only briefly, but some lingered. These drank her in with their eyes and encouraged her to keep squirming. Even the lingerers, however, eventually left for the auction chamber where they could put in their bids for a human slave woman of their own.
The last to depart was Tiim, Master Onocol’s brother. “You squirm well, Slave Marci,” he told her when the others had left.
“Thank you, my lord,” Marci answered. The Auction Master had made it clear that he preferred ‘Sir’ but ‘my lord’ was the more usual form to a bisnik man who was not the human woman’s master.
“You are a good choice for Station Zero. Are they saving you for the last?”
“I hope so, my lord,” Marci said. She’d been told that the auctioneers put their best women on the block at the beginning and end of the auctions. And since she could not now be sold at the beginning… She added, a bit reluctantly, “The UPPA has had a block put on my sale.”
“Ah.” Tiim’s blue-furred arm rose to make a bisnik gesture of annoyance. “Them. Well, we must hope that their plans for you fail, Slave Marci.” Then he followed the other bisnik into the auction chamber.
The auctions were set to run for three days, with three sessions the first two days, and two on the final day. As each session ended, that first day, Marci found herself once again being watched and encouraged to struggle by several bisnik men, with Tiim always being among them. The auction master checked on her frequently, changing her bindings, but with all the smiling and squirming and futile struggles, she was left exhausted by the end of the day.
“You did well, Slave Marci,” the Auction Master told her as he released her from the final hogtie. Looking rather less sour than he had that morning, he knelt over her, as she lay flat on her belly, and rubbed her down with a towel.
“Thank you, Sir.” Her hand drifted over to gently touch his ankle.
He chuckled. “You are an affectionate one. I should put you on Station Zero again, tomorrow. With the block on your sale lifted, you should be an even more effective lure. For now, though, you must shower, and eat, and sleep.”
The next morning, Marci did find herself bound once again at Station Zero. The Auction Master’s words, however, had proven optimistic: The block on her sale still had not been released, despite the appeals filed. Marci had received a copy of the gloating UPPA e-mail that morning, and the Auction Master looked sour once again as he fastened her arms.
Her first position of the day was kneeling, with her arms out and lashed to a crossbar. For good measure, a fleece-lined cuff was locked on her left ankle and attached to a heavy chain that ran to an equally heavy staple set in the side of the circular platform. As she knelt there the auction’s patrons came in, pausing to admire her helplessly displayed body before entering the auction chamber for the first session of the day. Some of them traded quips with her, among them Tiim, who had shown up once again.
“I understand that you are an affectionate one,” Tiim said.
“So I am told, my lord,” Marci answered.
“You don’t look very affectionate. That position is traditionally used for the most dangerous and violent of captives,” he told her, deadpan.
Marci pulled at the straps holding her arms to the crossbar, without, of course, having the slightest chance of breaking free. Her bare breasts bounced as she struggled. “But I am violent, my lord. Violently affectionate.”
“Ha! I see!” Tiim could no longer maintain his serious expression as he watched Marci squirm. In fact, the expression of glee on his face seemed to run a kilometer in each direction. But eventually he followed the other bisnik into the auction chamber as the day’s first session began.
The rest of the day ran much as the previous one had, except for being more frustrating. And worrying. If the block against her sale wasn’t removed by tomorrow, she’d be sent back to Earth. Even if it was removed tomorrow, it might still be so late that she wouldn’t get sold – and again, she’d be sent back to Earth.
At the end of the day, she was bound hand and foot, much as she had been at the beginning of the day before. But she was chilled, shivering as well as worn out. Tiim appeared to wrap a blanket around her. “Be warm, Slave Marci. Be warm,” he told her. It was good, for the moment, to relax as those alien, masculine, arms held her tight.
The next morning, however, was absolutely miserable for Marci. The block against her sale still hadn’t been removed, and the Auction Master’s expression was as sour as ever as he secured her to Station Zero. This was the last day of the auctions, with only two sessions, and after the second session ended, it would be all over. “Damn Jane and damn the UPPA,” she muttered. “And I can’t even say that this whole miserable situation is my own fucking fault.”
The usual group of bisnik men came to ogle Marci before the first session, but this time Tiim wasn’t among them. She found herself missing him, and she sternly told herself to be pleasant to the others. If the block was somehow lifted at the last minute, but these men didn’t bid on her, then that would be her fault.
The men departed for the next session in the auction chamber, leaving Marci alone. She drooped, and blinked back tears. The Auction Master came and put her in a new binding: Heavy chains leashing her wrists and ankles, but allowing a lot of slack. She assured him that she was all right, and he left again.
She curled into a ball, and then uncurled again. She would carry through to the bitter end, she told herself. And if she were sent back, she’d… she’d spit in Jane’s face, the first chance she got.
The auction session ended, and the bisnik drifted out of the auction chamber once more. The Auction Master came over to put Marci into another restrictive binding; one last display before the three-day set of auctions ended. “Hallo!” a voice called. “Auctioneer!”
Tiim came up, waving a soft-sided carrybag, face beaming. “Hallo!” he called again.
“Yes Sir? Tell me you have good news,” the Auction Master said. “Tell me this popular one can be put on the block for the last session.”
“No,” Tiim answered. He pulled an envelope from his carrybag. Old-fashioned physical paper. “I have here a writ, allowing me to purchase one of your slave women from Station Zero. And here is an opinion from High Judge Skaala, affirming that Judge Miir’s block only applies to selling this one at auction.” He gestured at Marci. “I will give you fifteen thousand Rings for her.”
A ‘Ring’ Marci knew, was one of the standard bisnik measures of currency, much like the ‘dollar’ and ‘yen’ of humans. She felt smug at having remembered this bit of trivia, and then her heart began to beat fast and hard as the implications finally sunk in.
“Unfair,” one of the other bisnik snorted. He turned to the Auction Master. “I will give you sixteen thousand for this one.”
“No auctions,” Tiim told the other with gentle smugness. “I have a writ; you don’t.” He turned back to the Auction Master. “Well?”
“I could not possibly let her go for less than twenty thousand,” the Auction Master answered. “You’ve seen how affectionate and popular she is; she’d bring at least that much at auction, if not more.” Everyone could tell, however, that his heart wasn’t in his bargaining. In the end, he managed to talk Tiim up to 16,500 Rings, but only because Tiim was allowing him to save face.
“Here you are then,” Tiim handed off his credit slip, and received a retro-style physical key in return. This key fit the equally retro locks that fastened Marci’s chains on her. Physical locks, rather than the more usual thumb-locks.
Marci sat very still, trying to take in the enormity of it. She had been sold. As a slave. To a blue-furred alien. Of a species at war with her own. Even though she’d been working toward this, hoping for it, training for it for the past month, it was still a shock. Her new master sat beside her on the platform, looming large and very masculine as he unlocked her chains.
“Kiss me, my slave,” he commanded her, grinning.
It was a warm and happy shock inside, Marci decided. “Yes master!” she said. She licked his horns – an intimate and seriously slutty gesture, among the bisnik – then kissed him full on the mouth. Her arms, temporarily free, reach around him to press herself against his body. His own hands, large and strong, pressed against her bare skin from behind, holding her in place.
When the kiss finally ended, Master Tiim looked both amused and enormously pleased. “You are very affectionate, my slave,” he told her. “But now your are to go into the sack.” Once more Marci found her hands locked together before her body. Her ankles, freed from the chains attaching them to the platform, were locked together as well, and Master Tiim slid her into the slave sack that was traditional for a newly purchased slave woman. This sack was soft and warm inside, Marci found, and Master Tiim stayed very close to her as he tied it in place so that only her head showed. Then he added a gag. A purple gag of that new design, chewy and mouth-filling and exceptionally effective. Now Marci was completely helpless. Unable to speak, unable to make any sound louder than a faint mew, unable to move more than a wiggle, she was the happy captive of the blue-furred alien who now owned her. And who stayed close beside her as he took her to his home.
#
Master Tiim’s home was a house in the suburbs, an alien analog to the earthly stereotype. The lawns were not-quite-grass, the trees were neither deciduous nor evergreen, and the sizes and proportions of everything was different. Marci found herself carried through rooms with white-and-black rugs, and placed on a large square bed with heavy corner-posts of an alien wood. A traditional bisnik ‘slaver’s bed,’ it had a fully-functional set of steel securement points set into the wooden posts.
The gag came out. “Are you hungry or thirsty, my slave?”
Marci swallowed. “Thirsty, master,” she said.
“Ah.” Master Tiim apparently expected this, for he had a water bottle right at hand. He gave her a drink, then stepped back and stripped off the mesh shirt and bright red pants of the bisnik business suit, tossing them aside for the household robots to deal with, later. “Ahh, better. We will eat first,” he told Marci. Then he visibly changed his mind. “No, we will eat second.”
His strong hands pulled Marci from her slave sack, released her wrists and ankles from the leather cuffs, and massaged her bare-skinned body. Her own hands reached up to touch the blue fur of her master, to run her fingers through that fur, briefly, until he took her wrists and secured them again.
Ropes wrapped around her wrists held her arms above her head and out to the sides, as she lay on her back, the ends of the ropes being secured to the steel fittings set in the bedposts for exactly that purpose. More ropes wrapped around her ankles held her legs apart – but not in a spread-eagle with the other ends attached to the foot of the bed. No, for this first time Master Tiim pulled her ankles up and back, with the ropes being attached to the same bedposts as the ones from her wrists. Then, to make her bondage even more secure, he added further ropes to her thighs, leaving her held well in place: Nude, open, and vulnerable.
“There,” Master Tiim said. “That should tame you, my wild little slave.” Somewhere along the way he had lost the remainder of his clothing, and now he knelt beside her in only his blue coat. His penis stood stiff and erect, ready for use; a tool of the same size as a human male’s, but different in detail. He did not yet begin to use it, however.
Instead, he applied his blunt fingers, and his lips and tongue, and the fur on his arms and legs to her nude human skin. She watched as he bent over her, to kiss her lips and forehead and the base of her throat, to tease her breasts, and her belly, to caress her arms and legs. She felt him stroke the insteps of her feet and behind her knees. She lay there, bound and unable to resist as he applied a bellows to her arousal, touching her here and there, daring her to attempt to struggle.
Marci began to squirm. She knew that struggles were futile, that she could not escape, that fighting her bonds would serve only to increase her arousal and to drive her to struggle harder. She struggled anyway, as Master Tiim watched and touched. His grin told her that he knew exactly what he was doing to her, exactly where he was driving her with those gentle, unavoidable touches of his. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”
Marci whimpered. She pulled at the ropes binding her, hard, as if desperate to escape his touch. But she knew that if he stopped, she would beg desperately for him to continue.
And now Master Tiim moved over her. He stroked her inside as well as outside. He put his tool, until now denied, into use. “Slave! Slave! Slave!” he chanted with each thrust.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Marci cried as each stroke of her master’s tool sent a jolt of pleasure through her, a pleasure that radiated out to the bonds on her limbs and was reflected back by them to the center of her being. It was coming. It was coming. It was coming.
It came. The orgasm welled up, huge and round. Explosively joyful, it went on, and on, and on. “Master!” Marci screamed. “Master!” And still the pleasure continued to fill her, sweet and loud.
#
Marci came to herself blissfully relaxed. Master Tiim had released the ropes holding her, but had also thumb-locked a padded cuff to her ankle, with a generous run of chain to one of the lower bedposts. She could not escape, ankle-leashed as she was. Nor did she want to. She snuggled closer to the blue-furred master who owned her, and smiled as she felt his arms tighten possessively around her.
Bliss.
(The End)
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