Harem Girl of Gor Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Kara and I enter the public pens of Banu Hashim where I am forced to fight the slave-girl Kima and where I gain a chain sister


I have been writing this account of my time on Gor for sixteen long nights now, by the light of the three moons, inscribing words on paper from early dusk in the place I now call home, and during that time I often speculate on who you are – that is, you, the person reading this account of my adventures here. I suspect you are a man, and for reasons I will not elaborate on just yet, I suspect you are also of Earth.

Am I wrong?

I think not.

More than that it is impossible for me to know. Are you young, old, powerful, poor? Are you a kind man? A gentle man? A man accustomed to treating women with respect?

Are you the sort of man who perhaps feels guilty and embarrassed if a pretty girl catches sight of you staring at her? Are you the sort of man who would quickly look away at the first sign of annoyance on her face?

What do you think as you read my words? I assume you know they are not fiction, but even that is an uneducated guess on my part. I wish I knew something about you, and why you have asked to see this account. What is your interest in me? Sometimes I have wild theories, perhaps a consequence of the elaborate deceptions and implausible twists of fate that I have endured, most of which I have yet to reveal. In some of my wilder speculations I sometimes wonder if you know me? Have we met? Did you know me before I was taken to Gor? Did you know me before my body was transformed into the beautiful feminine creature I am now?

No. I suspect you did not know me. For surely if that were the case, and you were a man of Earth, then you would have intervened long before now. You would not have left me to my fate. If you are a man of Earth then surely you feel pity for me. Surely you are angry, distressed, when you read of the indignities forced upon my person. Surely you rage against the injustices I have suffered?

Are you the sort of man who, if you found me kneeling at your feet in pleasure silks and a slave collar, you would grow alarmed, you would seek to cover my shame and look away so that I might not be embarrassed? Would you insist on buying me, whatever the asking price, so that you might then free me and ensure I was safe again?

Or am I wrong? Are you perhaps a different kind of Earth man? Do you perhaps relish the thought of me being brought to my knees on Gor? Do you enjoy the thought of me in chains, branded, my ears pierced, being forced to call men – men such as you perhaps - 'Masters'? Do you feel such a place is fitting for one such as I? As you read this account do you secretly look forward to the point in the narrative when I will presumably accept my slavery and beg for the touch of a Master?

Who are you? Why have you asked to see this account of my life on Gor? What do you want from me?

Have I perhaps served you in the furs? Or did you perhaps see me in a collar once and desire me, the way Brinn desired me in what seems another lifetime when I so cruelly teased him at the villa in Corcyrus? Oh, but I was such a bitch to him then. I enjoyed belittling him. I truly did.

It is something he remembered all too well when he bought me at the Oasis of the Twenty Three Palms.

But then sometimes I have another theory. Perhaps you are instead the third type of man on Earth, the type of man I was before I met the beautiful and dangerous Udumi in that club outside Milton Keynes? Perhaps like me you too have fantasised about being a woman, a beautiful woman, a woman desirable enough to be a slave-girl on Gor?

Is that perhaps it? Do you read this and dream you might be like me? You might wear a collar and pleasure silks and a brand on some barbaric planet on the counter side of our sun? Do you perhaps wish you were a slave-girl on Gor?

Hmm.

Perhaps one day you will be.



       

I think the following words will be insufficient to truly describe the horror of what Kara and I now faced. A couple of years ago on Earth I visited Bodmin Jail in Cornwall in England – a crumbling Victorian prison that had been partially restored as a morbid tourist attraction. Walking through the dank, oppressive levels with their bare stone walled cells, and iron grates, I could barely comprehend how awful the suffering of prisoners must have been in that place during the years it was operating. I thought to myself then that surely it would have been preferable to have been hung for whatever petty crime you had committed, than to spend a lifetime in such a hideous prison. But now I was being housed in an underground slave pen that resembled all the worst parts of that jail. As Kara and I passed through the entrance to the subterranean chambers, I realised what a terrible mistake I had made in agreeing to this mission. I felt a rising tension in my throat that was a scream bubbling under the surface as my eyes slowly grew accustomed to the gloom, and extreme panic set in.

"Please! This is a mistake! Let me speak to my Master!” I turned my head as far as the throat leash would allow and could just about see his broad shouldered back as he walked away from the entrance to the pens, heading towards some market stalls to buy an early morning breakfast. “I need to speak to my Master! Please!”

"You can speak to him when you've finished your training,” said Jubal as he tugged on my leash. Jubal was bald, with a shaven head, tall, muscular, and wore white robes belted tightly about his waist. A set of dozens of steel keys were attached to his leather belt, as was a coiled slave whip.

"If you just let me speak to him...”

But with my wrists confined behind my back I was led deep inside. Moments later I lost sight of the outside world as we turned a corner in the wretched complex.

The slave pens of Banu Hashim differ considerably from the Slaver House of Abdul Hamid. Above ground the complex is essentially a large courtyard completely enclosed by a square building with slim three storey towers that contains the administration offices, guards quarters, reception rooms and some of the more pleasant slave training areas for valuable girls. The floor of the courtyard is mostly comprised of stout iron grilles locked in place, through which sun light can enter. Beneath the courtyard grilles is a deep natural chamber which has been further excavated over sixty or so years. Imagine a deep stone pit with a complex system of tunnel mouths along the sides leading to artificially dug rooms. A series of metal gantries and inter-connected walkways descend down through the pit, giving access to each of the levels and more importantly the lowest level of the pit where many of the basic slave pens are housed. The deeper you go, the less penetrating is the daylight, and the more the chamber relies on oil lamps. It is surely a vision of Hell.  

The guardsman, Jubal, led us in coffle down a sloping corridor and through various intersections towards the lower pens within the tunnel complex. As we descended below the street level, Kara and I heard voices and cries from all directions. There was the distinct sound of men laughing and taking their pleasure with the girls who worked in the brothel areas on level one, closest to the surface. We also heard intermittent chatter from rooms nearby that sounded like training sessions. We heard screams – sharp, piercing screams that went on for twenty or so ihn before they were silenced.

"A girl is being branded,” said Jubal. “She has probably fainted.” He glanced down at my bare thigh as he said that. 

"I am not to be branded!” I said in rising panic.

"No, apparently not. Were you someone special, girl?”

"No.” I shook my head quickly.

"You are unbranded and you wear an iron belt. That is unusual.” Jubal paused to regard me by torchlight. He moved the light slowly about my body. I shivered where I stood for I was nude and accustomed by now to the heat of the Tahari, while down here it was cold, though perhaps no less than twelve to fourteen degrees centigrade. The deeper I went though, the colder it would seem.   

"I am reserved for use, that is all.” I looked quickly to Kara hoping she might confirm it to be true.

"My Master knew her when she was free,” she said. “They were travelling together.”

"Interesting.” Jubal considered this for a moment before he tugged once again on our leashes. We descended down to one of the lattice work ramps, and in the dim light, peering down through the central portion of the chamber, round which the walkways circumnavigated, I could just about make out a series of steel cages bolted to the stone floor below. The vague shapes of hundreds of naked girls were housed in these cages in appalling conditions, with just thick beds of straw for warmth. A cacophony of voices echoed up through the levels of the walkways, and in amongst the voices I heard some girls shouting and others screaming.

The light here was dim at best, and the air was dank, humid and oppressively cold the further down we went. Bare rock pressed in around us, supported in regular intervals by thick beams, adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere. The floor was rough, cold and uneven against my feet.  

Eventually we came to the final metal grilled walkway that looked down into the cavern floor. The visibility was better now. Below, to a depth of twenty feet or so were rows of pens with girls sitting, kneeling or standing in them. The grilled walkway was suspended in straight lines above the pens, so that men on the walkway could look down at any time at the girls below. A set of stairs from this section of the walkway descended to the basement level where the doors to the pens could be reached. Jubal didn't permit us any time to observe the layout in detail though, as he tugged on our leashes to hurry us along, keen as he was to finish his shift. Somewhere in this frightening labyrinth of cages and cells was the slave-girl Erin that I had been sent to make contact with, but where would I find her?

Through the bars I glimpsed the variety of girls caged in the tunnel complex. Most pens seemed to hold groups of five to seven girls at a time, but there was some variation amongst the arrangements, and some cages held up to twelve at a time – possibly a sign of overcrowding due to a recent influx of girls from plundered caravans. Many of the girls had varying shades of black and brown skin, and at first glance it seemed that they were in control of the mini-gangs that had sprung up in this lawless slave society. Racism is a lot less prevalent on Gor than it is on Earth, and in the time I've lived on Gor I've seen people of all skin colours interact quite amicably. Perhaps this is because while Goreans mistrust 'strangers' the way we do on Earth, on Gor it is more to do with rival homestones than skin colour. Goreans on the whole don't particularly care whether you are white, black, brown or any shade in-between. Any prejudices they may have about you are based on long standing rivalries such as the enmity between the cities of Corcyrus and Argentum or Ar and Cos. Nevertheless, in the public slave pens of Banu Hashim, slave-girls fought to assert their personal dominance amongst one another, and like prisons on Earth, it was natural for tribal groups to band together against perceived outsiders, especially if those outsiders were in the minority and could easily be identified by a differing skin colour. Slave-girls can be very harsh to one another in the pecking order, for slaves have to be very competitive if they wish to better themselves with their Masters.

I saw a couple of white skinned girls in one cage kneeling with their hair tied to the bars of their cage, while 3 other dusky skinned women from the regions of the Tahari sat and talked amongst themselves. Kara looked as frightened as I must have appeared as we moved down from the metal grilled walkway, our arrival now coming to the attention of many of the women in the barred pens below.

It was like entering a prison for the first time  - the arrival of fresh new girls, and white ones too, had aroused a great degree of interest amongst the girls stationed in the pens. Many of them turned, smiling, to see which pen we would be placed in. The smiles were not necessarily friendly ones, but rather the sort of smile a cat would give when it spots a small bird on a garden lawn with an injured wing hopping closer and closer to where the cat lay hidden...

"Oh God, I've made a terrible mistake. I shouldn't be here...” I moaned softly as Jubal paused for a moment to check an inventory that was fixed to a hook on the wall. What had I done by agreeing to this insane mission? I couldn't possibly stay safe in a place as dismal as this, let alone conduct subterfuge in the process. It was beyond me.

Jubal made his way along the cavern floor which was damp from the condensation dripping down off the ceiling and stone walls. He led us in our coffle chain away from the main central cages for the time being, and along a corridor between two rows of cells, their side walls barred so that there was no sense of privacy for any of the women held in them. A few slaves called out to him as he passed, some pressing against the bars as they begged for his touch. One girl reached a hand out through the bars to try and touch Jubal as he passed, but he simply growled and smacked her hand aside as he led us both along.

I was shocked. They were such sluts!

Now I felt the eyes of the girls in the pens watching us, assessing us, judging us. Finally we stopped before a partially occupied cell and as Jubal waited, another guard walked over to take receipt of us. Jubal removed the coffle chain from our collars and freed our wrists as the second man unlocked the pen door. Jubal also removed the bells from our ankles.

"Kneel,” said Jubal. I could see that the normal size barred door to the cage had a smaller kennel style door set within it as a sub-door, such that either it or the larger door could be opened if the bolts were slid back. Should a guard be required to enter a girl cage, he would do so upright, on his feet of course, using the larger of the two doors. Slave-girls however would enter through the smaller kennel door, on their knees.

As we crawled into the pen, a tall girl (maybe 5'10” in height) stepped forward from the other four. She regarded us both for a moment and tilted her head to one side as if taking a measure of our soft bodies. If her eyes lingered anywhere it was on Kara's truly splendid legs. Like the other four occupants of the cell she was dusky skinned, from the Tahari region, and like the other four, very beautiful. All the girls here were naked like us.

"Greetings slaves.” She seemed to sneer the word slave. “I'm Kima, and I rule here.” She pointed to one of the other girls. “That is Sanja – she used to rule before I arrived. Now she kneels and feeds me when food is brought in the morning and evening and washes my hair. She is a low slave, but not nearly as low as the two of you.” She stared hard at Sanja who quickly averted her eyes and dropped to her knees. She then turned back to face me in particular. “You are new, and so you will do what I tell you to do. You will kneel. You will call me Mistress. You will be the lowest slaves within this kennel. Do you understand me?”

I glanced back through the bars at Jubal and the other man for help, but they were talking now, engrossed in conversation about a local sport of some kind, and either oblivious to, or uninterested in the bickering of slave-girls.

Panic set in quickly enough. Kara and I were alone and defenceless in what was obviously a hostile environment. Everywhere I looked girls in other cages were watching us now through the bars, keen to see how we were going to react.

"There's no need for this, Kima. We're not here to cause trouble,” I said as I tried to look confident. She was much bigger than me of course and fiercer looking. I had never seen a fierce looking slave-girl before, but then I suppose that was because until now I had been free. Slave-girls had therefore always shown me deference and submission, no matter how strong they might have been. In truth slave-girls would be like any other women – some weak, some strong, and within their own company those character traits would determine who would be in charge of a pen and who would acquiesce. It was the same principle as in prisons on Earth.  

"Please hush, Emma, you're only going to get us in trouble," said Kara as she touched my arm. I could see she was prepared to submit. She was scared of Kima, as I was, but unlike Kara I knew we had to make a stand. 

Behind us the heavy barred door closed with a clang of metal before being locked. Jubal grinned as he pocketed the key. “Play nicely girls!” he said with a laugh as he walked off with the leash chains, ankle bells and slave bracelets dangling from his left hand. The other guard remained for a few moments to eye us appreciatively, as if assessing us for possible later use. His eyes strayed to my iron chastity belt, the sight of which seemed to displease him. Obviously it meant that my use was restricted. Kara of course would not be so fortunate. To my surprise, as the men walked back down the length of the cells, various girls in the other pens cried out, begging Jubal in particular to pick them for slave rape, each promising to be more pleasing than the others. While this no doubt amused him and swelled his insufferable male ego, Jubal simply ignored the plaintive cries and continued on his rounds.

I moved close to Kara for mutual support as Kima narrowed her eyes and stalked towards me. No matter how scared I was, I knew I had to display some backbone now and stand up to the girl, otherwise our lives would be even more miserable. Kima obviously had status – I could see that by the way none of the other  girls would look in her in eye.

"I'm Emma, and this is Kara and we will not be kneeling, crawling nor submitting to your commands, Kima." There, I had said it. My heart and stomach were doing double flips as I stood there, defiant, hoping Kima would have the sense to back off. I had to appear tough if we were going to survive the next few days penned in cages with these wild Tahari girls.

"Oh, so we have a mouthy one.” Kima sneered for the benefit of her cell mates as she dropped into a crouch, her hands curled and outstretched in front of her. “You look soft, slave-girl. I think you must be new to your collar, hmm? I think you must be terrified and out of your depth here. Were you recently free? Is your heart beating fast? Are you scared of me?” She paused as she circled slowly. “You should be scared of Kima. You should be very, very scared of Kima.”

"Beat her, Kima!” shouted one of the other girls who spat at me, perhaps to show her support for the cage leader. “Tear that pretty hair from her scalp! Look at the little thing – soft and white - fit only for keeping men warm at night in the furs. A young girl from our tribe could take her!”

Kima made a pretence of jumping forward, but it was only a ruse to frighten me, which of course it did, and she laughed as I instinctively jumped back. “Understand girl that I am Kima of the Nassa tribe, and in my tribe the men file their teeth at puberty into sharp points so that they can tear the flesh from their enemies in battle. We are feared throughout the desert and today I will see you crawling in submission to me, you little slut.” I saw the other four girls draw back, ready to respect the outcome of the fight. “Before I was taken by slavers I was the proud companion of Hamzah Jabir, mightiest warrior of the Nassa! Other women bowed before me! I was born to kick snivelling little sluts like you to the ground, slave! You dare to challenge ME! You dare to question MY authority!” She suddenly beat one of her breasts with a fist. “I will show you who rules these pens, you snivelling slave!”

"Emma!” Kara looked petrified as the other girls in the cage snarled and spat at us in support of their leader.

I was a man, I thought to myself, as my heart pounded and my hands shook with fear. I was once a man, and I could easily have taken this girl. Yes, now I was smaller than her, lighter than her, weaker than her, but I had once been a man.

Kima suddenly sprang without warning, and lashed out with her nails to try and scratch deep furrows across my face, to draw blood into my eyes, but I twisted to the side and her nails caught me across my left shoulder instead. She had moved surprisingly quickly and was already recovering to strike again. I swung my fist toward her face but missed, and she in turn reached out and caught my wrist, while a foot snaked out to kick my legs out from under me. I fell hard onto my back into a heap of straw as Kara screamed nearby. But somehow I managed to draw my legs back and kick out into Kima's midriff with the soles of my feet.

From where I lay I could hear girls in the other pens close by screaming and yelling, their words seeming an unintelligible roar of sound through the adrenalin rush I was now experiencing. We rolled within the straw, snarling and snapping at one another, myself taking brief advantage of the way I had winded Kima. I felt a fist in my hair and another fist punch, the heel of the palm first, against one of my breasts. Our legs tangled and a balled fist struck me once, twice. I screamed and struck back, hitting Kima too, but we were too close on top of one another to deliver the punches with anything more than minimal force.   

The noise in the pens must have been deafening by now with girls everywhere rattling the bars and shouting as Kima and I hissed and rolled across the floor. For a moment I was on top of her, pinning her down, tearing at her with the nails of my left hand as she gripped that wrist, drawing blood from her breasts, but then she smacked me in the face with her forehead and I fell back, my nose almost broken by the impact, blood streaming down my face. A palm strike struck up at my stomach and I doubled over, gasping for air. Suddenly Kima was up, seizing me by my hair with her left hand and striking me again in the stomach with the hard heel of her right hand. I couldn't see, I couldn't understand where I was, I couldn't defend myself.

Spit landed just over my eyes impairing my vision briefly as the spittle turned pink on my skin where it merged with blood from my nose. My vision was blurred as Kima  turned our bodies round until I was lying beneath her on my back. Now she closed her hands around my throat above my collar.

"Submit!” she screamed into my face. “Submit!”

I struggled and tried to tear her hands from my throat as she rested the full weight of her body on me to keep me pinned in place, but I could barely see what I was doing. Everywhere was noise – a cacophony that made no sense. I was choking and I was in pain.

I scratched jagged long marks down the sides of her arms with my nails, marks that would take a long time to heal, but I think she must have been impervious to the pain, boosted on adrenalin as I was.  

"Submit, slut!” she screamed again.

And I did. “No more...” was all I managed to say. Kima relaxed her grip on my throat so I could speak clearly. “Submits...” I said as I gasped for breath. “Emma submits...”

I lay there now, bloodied and beaten in the straw as Kima walked around the interior of the cage, snarling to every other cage in the pens, seeming to mark her territory perhaps. She gazed down at me where I lay and snarled again.

"Who is first girl in this cage?”

"Kima is,” I sobbed as I wiped blood from my face.

"Who is least girl in this cage?”

"Emma is.”

Now Kima stood beside me and with a dismissive gesture she placed her right foot before my nose. “Kiss and lick my feet, slave-girl, Emma.”

And I did. God help me, but I did. I was beaten and broken and I feared what more she might do to me if I refused. I, the former Lady Felicia Fonseca Gebara Torres of Corcyrus, lay there and licked and kissed Kima's feet in submission.

I lay there for a couple of Ahn as the other girls in the pen ignored me. I was beaten and humiliated. I was no longer a threat. I had been taught my place in this pen.

Kara knelt beside me and cleaned my face with spittle on the palms of her hands. As disgusting as that might seem, saliva is a natural antiseptic and in the girl pens of Banu Hashim it was all she had to offer me.

"You were so brave, Emma.” She cradled my head in her lap as she whispered that. “You fought for us.”

"I lost,” I said, feeling the pain and the shock of the fight now that the adrenalin had worn  off.

"But you fought, Emma, even though you knew Kima was stronger than you. You were very brave.”

"I was very stupid.”

"I will not forget this, chain sister.” Kara smiled down at me for the first time since that night when she had asked me to be her guest at her Free Companionship ceremony.

"Chain sister?” I almost laughed until my ribs hurt too much.

"Yes.” She kissed me softly on the nose. “Chain sister. Do you mind?” It was I suppose a term of endearment – a way of offering her friendship in circumstances such as this. It was a way of saying, there are many slaves in these pens, and we are all girls in bondage, but you and I have one another's backs from now on in.

After all we had been through, Kara was offering me friendship. And God knows, in the slave pens of Banu Hashim, I could certainly use a friend.

"Chain sister...” I said with a painful smile as I squeezed the fingers of her right hand.

"I am sorry the way I spoke to you after that night in the oasis,” said Kara as she lay down now in the straw beside me. “None of it was your fault. I took my pain and suffering out on you because you were spared. It was very wrong of me.”

"It's okay.” I tried to turn on my side in the straw to face Kara, but it was too painful to do so. “I can be a bitch too sometimes.”

"Yes you can.” Kara traced her fingers along my unmarked left thigh and I felt a slight tingle of arousal as she did so. I gazed at her long, lovely legs, her naked breasts, and that beautiful face and I felt a warm sensation in my loins. It wasn't overwhelming like when Brinn had tied my wrists to a slave ring in the stables in Corcyrus before arousing me with his dominating touch, but it was a welcome sense of arousal at the sight of a naked girl. “It is strange that our Master did not brand you the way he branded me.”

"He intends to brand me later,” I said in a less than convincing manner.

"Also, I do not truly understand why he enslaved you. When last I saw you, he seemed to be protecting you?”

"He enslaved you,” I pointed out.

"But that is different, Emma. He did not truly know me. I was simply a girl he rescued in the hope of earning a reward from my Free Companion to be in Patashqar. He stood to make money. When that reward wasn't forthcoming...” she shrugged her shoulders. “He owed me nothing. But you... you share a homestone?”

"Something like that. It's complicated.”

"Did you do something to provoke him in some way? Were you... how you say... a bitch?” She wasn't familiar with the Earth word I had used, but in the context of some of my stroppy behaviour in the past, she had guessed the implied meaning.

"Kara, I... look, can we change the subject?”

"But we're chain sisters now. You can tell me anything. I will not judge you, Emma of Corcyrus. I know you have secrets. I think you have a bitterness inside you – some great burden perhaps, or some terrible secret you dare not tell anyone?”

"You have no idea...”

"Then tell me? Tell me, chain sister Emma.” She stroked my forehead and it felt so good, but how could I tell her that her chain sister had once been a man, and more than that, a man who had spent a large part of his life dressing as a woman before being brought to Gor where his sex was changed by some alien technology she'd barely comprehend? She would probably turn away from me in revulsion, for sexual differences are strictly regimented on Gor. There very few shades of grey.

And so I told her a semi-truth,  which was also a semi-lie. “I'm frigid. I don't like men.”

"I don't understand.”

"I do not find men sexually attractive.”

"Of course you wish to appear modest and chaste, Emma, we all do, but that is behind you now. You are no longer free. I am no longer free. It is all right to confess to me that you secretly find men of interest. We are slave-girls now. Such a thing is expected of us. We no longer need to hide such feelings from one another.”

"But I don't. It's not an act. I don't like them.”

"I… don't understand. You must have had dreams... shameful dreams at times... we all do.” She blushed slightly, admitting this. “True, it is not the done thing to talk about it in polite company, but we are no longer Free.”

"No.” I lied. “Never. I am not sexually interested in men.”

"Oh,” Kara blushed and sat back up. “Now I feel stupid. Now you make me feel like a slut for saying what I did. You must think me shameful for confessing that sometimes I felt... Oh, I'm so sorry... you must despise me.”

"No, Kara, I didn't mean that...” but as I reached out to her, she in her embarrassment  drew away and moved to the other side of the cage, where she sat with her head between her knees, afraid to meet my gaze.

"Oh, fuck...” I whispered quietly to myself as I lay back in the soiled straw.      

It must have been another two ahn before we heard the bars being rung to announce feeding time in the pens. Kima had been holding court during this time with her gang, ignoring me as I lay in the straw recovering from the beating I had taken. But at the first sound of the bars being rung, she and the other girls quickly knelt in the slave position, nadu, with backs straight, heads up, hands palm downwards on thighs, belly in, shoulders back, kneeling back on heels, and of course knees spread wide. The girls knelt with their backs against the walls, leaving the area in the middle of the pen open.

One of the girls, Tuala, barked orders to Kara and myself. “You must kneel, all must kneel or we will not be fed.” The eyes of the other four girls regarded me for any sign of disobedience in the matter. I had by now recovered from the worst of the beating and I was glad to see my bloodied nose had congealed, so I drew myself up and placed myself in nadu beside Tuala, with Kara to my left. I felt hungry, but not as hungry as I expected to be, for I still had a sore stomach and finger marks around my throat.

"Do as we do,” snarled Tuala. “Remember you eat after we do.”

I knelt there with my back straight and my knees spread wide, hating the posture I was forced to adopt. It made me feel submissive, acutely vulnerable, and exposed me totally to the gaze of a man.

It made me feel so very much a slave-girl.

I gazed at Kara but she quickly looked away, for she still seemed embarrassed to have secretly confided in me that she had sometimes fantasised about men when she had been free. She had expected that I would have confided the same thing, but I hadn't, which made her now feel like a slut. I wanted to tell her it was all right, that truly I didn't care – it was natural for women to want the sexual attention of men.

Except I was a woman too now, and I didn't want the sexual attention of men. Well, it was perhaps more complicated than that, but I wasn't going to debate the issue with a Gorean girl.

I looked up, hearing the sound of a key in the door to our pen. As I watched, two guards walked in, one with a whip in hand, the other carrying a large bucket. The man with the whip looked around at us, taking in our positions of submission and then after a few moments nodded. “Pen seven is well presented. Pen seven will be fed.” He turned and walked out, leaving the second guard to upend the contents of the bucket in a pile in the middle of our cell. As we knelt there, not daring to move, the man left the pen, closed and locked the door behind him and moved on to the next cage in sequence. Sitting in a heap before us was what was clearly kitchen wastes: the crusts of bread, congealed lumps of cold cous-cous, bones with bits of meat on them, off cuts of vegetables and the scrapings off plates. A large pile of leftovers from meals eaten last night perhaps.

I stared at the food in dismay as my stomach rumbled just a little. Kitchen waste! I glanced at Kara to see her reaction to this refuse and saw her wrinkle her nose in distaste.

Around the pen the other girls knelt and watched as Kima rose to sort through the meagre offerings with her hands, selecting the best pieces of food for herself and for her second in command, a girl called Ayanna. The other girls waited until Kima seemed satisfied with the two best shares. Then the other girls, aside from Kara and myself, were allowed to pick through the remaining refuse. Kima watched to ensure no girl took too large a share. Then, and only then, did she signal for Kara and myself to crawl forward.

"The rest is yours, slaves. Thank your Mistress for allowing you to eat.”

"Thank you Mistress,” said Kara from where she knelt in the straw.

"Kima stared down at me. “Does Emma wish to eat?”

"Thank you, Mistress, for feeding Emma,” I said through clenched teeth.

"I think we understand each other, slave slut,” said Kima as she flicked my blonde hair with her hand before walking away.

I tried to remind myself that the food here probably hadn't been kept too long. It was probably only leftovers from yesterday, but even so, it was food waste in highly unsanitary conditions in a hot environment. Dare I risk it? I could imagine myself curled up for several days in the straw with food poisoning. And yet, the girls around here seemed healthy enough, and this had to be their only source of food.

I handed the best of the pieces of food (which wasn't saying much) to Kara and kept a bit of stringy meat for myself and a long piece of what resembled a giant carrot and several rinds of a citrus fruit that still had some flesh remaining around the edges. I sucked on these and licked at the juice that ran down my chin as I sat against the bars, watching the other girls in the pen with a sense of unease. Would they try to snatch the food from me after they had finished theirs? It was possible, so I ate quickly to be on the safe side.

Kara handed me some vegetable peelings, and some half eaten pieces of wet bread that still contained pieces of cold meat, slightly congealed in fat, from what she had been able to acquire.

"For my chain sister,” she said softly.

"It's too much, “ I said, seeing how little she had kept for herself.

"You may need your strength more than me,” she said. “Other girls in this pen have seen you fight. They too may challenge you in days to come.”

"Oh, please no...” I couldn't bear the thought of losing another fight. But Kara forced the food into my hands.

"Please, have this.”

"I can't... it won't make any difference... it won't. I'm not strong like these girls.” But I could see the respect she had for me in her eyes, and somehow I couldn't allow her to lose hope in me. “I'll do my best,” I said and chewed now on the pieces of wet bread. As I did so, Kara curled up beside me in the straw with her head in my lap. And once again I began to feel a warm glowing sensation in my loins – a feeling I had not had from the casual touch of a woman in quite a long time. I was remembering what it was like to feel attracted to a woman. My male brain was beginning to overrule my female body. I felt elated. This is what I wanted – I wanted to be aroused by women, not by men, and yet... and yet... the feelings were nowhere near as intense as that morning in the stables with Brinn.

Why did I keep thinking of that?

Now I was feeling aroused by the memory of being tied, helpless, to the slave ring in the stables, instead of by the sensual way in which Kara's beautiful head was resting against my thighs. I felt frustrated and tried to concentrate again on Kara, beautiful sexy Kara and her exquisite legs, lying softly across my lower body, but the warm feeling was now replaced by erotic feelings from the memory of being helplessly bound and teased into submission by a strong man.

I hated myself!

I hated the way my body had betrayed me that day!

The way it was confusing me now.

"Emma?” Kara gazed up at me, sensing something was wrong. “You seem troubled?”

"It's nothing.” It was gone now. I suddenly felt nothing from pretty Kara's body lying next to mine. I felt a tingling arousal from memories of being touched by Brinn while helpless in bondage, but I didn't want to feel that! I wanted to feel aroused by Kara. Kara was beautiful – back on Earth I would have crawled across broken glass to have had sex with her. But now...

"Oh Emma... you're crying.”

My sexually delicious chain sister carefully dabbed the tears from my eyes as her near perfect breasts swayed mere inches from my face.