Panther Girl of Gor Chapter Five

Chapter Five: We wait for Limidius to arrive at the Exchange point with his men. Rachel begins her training, and more


Sometimes I wonder how it was that I developed sexual feelings for men on the planet Gor. I keep coming back to the perhaps paranoid possibility that the Kurii machines didn't just change my body, but they also subtly changed the way my brain was wired. These days I find it difficult to focus clearly on the feelings I had as a man on Earth, albeit a 'sissy' man who wore dresses and high heels whenever the opportunity arose. I don't think I was bisexual in those days. I do clearly recall being turned on by women, and I think exclusively so. But then I do also recall feeling a thrill when men would come on to me in clubs and bars, but that was to do with what I used to refer to as feeling like a 'rock star' – the ability to walk into a bar in heels and a dress and know that the bar contains men who are turned on by T-girls, and so within the space of a minute you find men trying to attract your attention and chat you up, and it makes you feel special, it makes you feel valued and it makes you feel, I don't know, a bit excited because suddenly you're in the spotlight and in demand, and that sort of thing doesn't happen when you're wearing boy clothes. It was addictive to a certain extent, and I used to crave it. I think I used to play up to it too, acting all coy and pretending I didn't notice when a man was giving me a 'come on' look, and I'd sit there on a high bar stool, with my legs crossed at the ankle and I'd deliberately strike a very feminine pose and play with my hair or check my makeup in a mirror, and maybe I'd accidentally glance his way and just smile and turn back to what I was focussed on, and then I'd know out of the corner of my eye that he was crossing the bar to speak to me and it made me feel 100% feminine.

But I don't think I actually wanted to sleep with any of them. It was a game. I got hooked on the attention, and the act of being pursued, which is something that reinforces your feminine feelings.


Or have I always been making excuses for myself? Have I secretly always wanted more but never admitted it to myself. Because sometimes in those clubs when I did allow a man to talk to me for a while and he was good looking and fit, and especially if he was taller than me, I'd sometimes imagine what it might be like if I was back at his place and I was sitting on the edge of his bed and he pushed me down on to my back, turned me over, pulled my knickers down past my ankles, and fucked me. And if I squirmed a little on my bar stool, it was only because in the fantasy I felt very feminine.

But I don't think I actually wanted to be with a man. Did I? I can't be sure. I remember a gradual change during my days on Gor when at first I was very attracted to all the semi-naked slave-girls, and then that moment when I recoiled from touching Kara, and then Brinn bought me and I experienced a level of sex I had never imagined possible before. But even before my sale in the Oasis, the morning in the stables in Corcyrus had been something of a rude awakening to my feelings in this female body. But how could I be sure these were truly my feelings? What if the Kurii machines had subtly made changes to my mind?

I really, really do not know.   

That first day at the exchange point, before he took Jacinta to be branded, Brinn bought me a new garment to wear – the Turian style camisk. I slipped it on over my body as he watched, and tied the single cord about my body as he showed me. I blushed a little as I posed before him in it.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yes I do.” His hands were around my hips and he turned me to the left and then to the right, admiring his property. “I swear you grow more beautiful in your slavery with each passing day, Emma.”

“I think that is because I am no longer fighting my slavery, Master.” I stepped up on my tip toes again and pouted with my lips until he kissed me. “I think I have come to accept my collar now.”

“Good. You will wear it for the rest of your life.” Brinn pulled the slip knot of the single cord and stripped the camisk from my body with a single motion.

“Master? You have only just dressed me!”

“And now the camisk has served its purpose in making me want to undress you.” As Rachel watched from where she knelt in sirik, Brinn threw me to the grass and took me, while trade goods were being unloaded from the cargo hold.

-----------------------------------------------


“Oh… oh… oh…”

That evening I lay on my belly on the grass, close to the glowing light of the campfire as I picked at some pieces of cooked meat on a plate while all the while Rachel’s whimpering and passionate moaning could be heard from the furs close by where Brinn was slowly and exquisitely bringing her close to an orgasm. He had been doing this now for ages, and I was feeling more than a little irritated by it all.

Brinn hadn’t touched her to begin with. Three stakes had been driven into the ground, set apart in a triangle shape close to the campfire where furs were thrown. Rachel was placed on her back and her arms were raised above her head. Brinn crossed her wrists and tied them to the single stake. Then he pulled her legs apart and loosely tied each ankle to one of the other stakes at the apex of the shape. Rachel was bound helplessly, though not so tightly that she couldn’t wriggle and move. But she was bound and helpless, and men know what that does to women mentally.

Brinn watched her for a time by the camp fire as Rachel came to terms with her bondage. She of course tested her restraints and found there was a certain degree of flexibility so that her muscles wouldn’t grow sore, but the more she pulled at the bonds, the more her body would come to understand it was secured, and that then has a profound effect on a girl.

After a time Brinn began to feed her by hand. He placed pieces of meat, one at a time into her mouth and watched her eat. She said nothing during this time, but I could see in her eyes how nervous she felt. Brinn took his time feeding her, letting her chew and savour each morsel in turn.

When he eventually spoke he said to her, “tell me about that first night when Kurgus walked you back to your campus room on Earth when you were a student there. Recount the events in detail.”

Rachel gazed round at me and shook her head. “Please, no… Emma is close by.”

“So?” Brinn reached into his day satchel and produced a quirt which he lay significantly on Rachel’s stomach. She gazed at it with horror.

“You’re asking me to describe a sexual encounter with Kurgus when I was young and inexperienced… I don’t feel comfortable doing so while Emma is listening.”

“Emma is First Girl, Rachel. You have no secrets from her. Besides which, it is useful for her to understand the type of woman you are.”

“Please don’t ask me this...”

Brinn picked up the quirt and moved it towards Rachel’s left thigh.

“No! I’ll tell you!”

“You call me Master, Rachel.”

“I’ll tell you, Master…” she blushed as she said that.

“Do so, slave-girl.”

Rachel took a deep breath and thought for a moment what best to say, how best to word it. “I knew what was going to happen of course as soon as Kurgus chose to walk me home that night. And if that wasn’t obvious enough, he didn’t say goodnight to me at the entrance to the dormitories, but rather walked me up the stairs to the door of my own private room. I was a virgin still – white silk in Gorean terms and Kurgus was very strong, very confident and… a little bit intimidating I suppose. I was a feminist, you understand – not a hard line one who refused to wear makeup or dresses, but I was involved with gender politics at my student union. A lot of what Kurgus said to me was provocative, inflammatory even. He had no time for ‘feminism’ and made no excuses for his views. I should have found him repulsive, and several of my ‘sisters’ did, but he had a certain magnetism that drew me to his side at the refectory when he would call me over.”

“He would ‘call you over’? Explain.”

“It was a bit embarrassing really. I remember one time I sat down at a table with my lunch and he simply walked up to me, told me that I was not to sit there and that I was to join him at his table. It wasn’t really a request.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Angry at first, then curious and then a little bit… excited. I ate lunch with him, and I found him very charismatic. We met then for drinks in the early evening after my classes on a number of nights. The first two evenings I finished early, made my excuses and said I had to meet with my friend, Sonya. The third time Kurgus booked a restaurant table and I was obliged to attend based on his timetable. That was I think when he decided he wished to have sex with me. Once he decided that, it was something of a foregone conclusion. I was very young, remember. I had yet to develop any confidence in myself.”

“Did he ask to enter your room?”

“No, of course not. This is Kurgus we’re talking about. I felt very awkward, self conscious – I had a man in my room and I was a virgin. He told me to pour him a drink, which I did. I had a bottle of cheap white wine on a shelf that had been a birthday gift from Sonya. I poured him some and he…” Rachel blushed a little as she twisted in her bonds. I could see the memories of that formative night were doing things to her as she recalled them.

“Yes?”

“He told me to unbutton my blouse to my waist, and to press the cup of wine to my bosom before presenting it to him.”

“Did you do that?”

“I’m afraid I did… I was young… it seemed exciting and forbidden and against all the conventions of normal decent behaviour that I was used to.”

“You unbuttoned your blouse before him? You obeyed a command?”

“I didn’t think of it in that way. This was Earth. It was fun. It was consensual. It felt... a little bit dangerous I suppose.”

“Of course you would think that. Continue.”

“He told me my serve was adequate. I was a bit offended by that remark and I told him so. He just found that funny. And then he reached for me and kissed me, and I felt something stir deep inside me, for it was a good kiss, a very good kiss.” Rachel turned her face to the side so she couldn’t see me watching her as she spoke. “I had been kissed quite a lot in my teenage years, but never like that. Kurgus was good. I had butterflies in my stomach. I felt like I was standing on tiptoe, floating on air.”

“Remember how that kiss made you feel,” said Brinn with a smile.

“Yes…” As I watched, I saw Rachel's eyelids flutter as she recalled that long drawn out kiss. She was silent for a moment, taking in a deep controlled breath. “And then… then Kurgus looked at me and said, ‘we are going to have sex tonight.’ I think I must have just nodded, too breathless to speak. He asked me where I kept my tights and I pointed to the chest of drawers. He took two pairs and told me to lie on the bed.”

“How did you feel?”

“Excited. Very excited. And very nervous of course. I was a virgin, remember. I didn’t really know what it would feel like.”

I could see that Rachel was moving in her bondage now, remembering how it had all felt that first night when Kurgus took away her virginity. “He tied my wrists to the bed posts and I was giddy with excitement. I couldn’t believe he was doing something like that! No one I knew had ever played around with bondage before.”

“Your hands are bound now,” said Brinn. “Just like that night in your dormitory room.”

“Yes… yes they are…” Rachel blushed again and bit her lower lip apprehensively. She flexed her wrists and moaned softly at the thought.

“He stripped you then?”

Rachel nodded, and I saw her close her eyes, remembering that moment, perhaps savouring it even. Already her nipples were raised and Brinn had yet to touch her. “He undid the last of the buttons on my blouse and opened it. He removed my bra and cast it to the side of the room. He pulled my skirt down away from my legs, and did the same with my knickers. My body felt on fire as he touched me.” Suddenly Rachel let out an unexpected gasp as Brinn’s hand touched her where Kurgus had touched her. Her eyes were wide open again now and she quivered in her bonds as Brinn stroked her breasts where a bra would have been, and her thighs where a skirt and knickers would have been.

“Do not pause, Rachel. I am enjoying this.”

“Please send Emma away…” pleaded Rachel as I saw her body move and respond to Brinn’s touch.

“No. She is First Girl. She needs to see this in you. Continue, or I will reach for the quirt. Leave nothing out.”

“My body felt on fire, every nerve cluster was tingling as he parted my thighs.”

“Your thighs are parted to me, Rachel. I can touch you there any time I wish. Did Kurgus touch you there?”

Rachel nodded frantically.

“Were you wet?”

“Please…”

“Answer the question. Do not think of Emma.”

“Very wet,” whispered Rachel. Brinn placed his hand between Rachel’s thighs and smiled. “You are very wet now Rachel. Your body is begging for use.”

“Emma shouldn’t see me like this…”

“And what will she see, Rachel? You are not like her, remember?” Brinn continued to touch Rachel, arousing her body the way he so often aroused me. “Kurgus took you then? Took you while your wrists were so helplessly bound above your head? Just like they are now?”

“Yes…” Rachel moaned and whimpered, caught between her erotic memories and the sensation of being in bondage and being caressed now.

“You resisted of course?”

“No...” she groaned softly.

“No? You complied? You co-operated? You wanted Kurgus to have you?”

Rachel nodded frantically as her body suddenly arched as Brinn stroked her sex.

“It is obvious from what I can see that Kurgus would have found you to be deliciously responsive to his touch, Rachel. I am sure he had you earmarked for slavery at first. That was why he was on Earth, yes? Setting up networks to seize and enslave Earth girls?”

“Yes.” Poor Rachel was twisting in her bonds, becoming more and more aroused by Brinn’s hands. I suppose she had not had sex for a very long time. Her circumstances on Gor as a Free Woman would have made that very difficult for her. But Rachel obviously had a healthy sex drive, and I wondered as I watched her respond so well to a combination of bondage, erotic memories and skilful foreplay, whether Rachel had in the past taken to relieving her sexual needs in private. Did she perhaps lie at night alone in her luxurious bed in Brundisium, masturbating herself to an orgasm? And if so, what delicious fantasies would go through her mind as she drove herself closer and closer to a climax with her fingers? I could perhaps hazard a guess based on my own fantasies, but I could not be sure.

“Did Kurgus take his time with you, in your dormitory room?”

“Yes… he had me many times throughout the night and…”

“And what?”

“At times he would pause, release me from the head board and… tell me to adopt certain positions on the floor.”

“Slave positions?” asked Brinn with a smile.

“I didn’t know what they were! It was just kinky consensual fun. It was exciting…” she moaned softly and gasped again, rearing up to the extent of her bondage as Brinn now inserted his fingers between her labia lips. “You can’t! You mustn’t!”

“Quiet. Concentrate on your story, and how you feel now.”

Rachel was writhing in the furs, pulling at her bonds. Her body was sexually heated and incapable of resisting as Brinn began to skilfully masturbate her close to an orgasm. I knew from past experience that he was an expert at reading a girl’s body language, and he knew when he was getting close to sending her over the edge.

“I can’t think like this!” she cried out, squirming in the furs.

“Concentrate. The quirt is nearby…”

“He put me through positions… degrading positions, and made me serve him wine and then he would take me again, sometimes from behind. The sex was wonderful.”

“Of course it was. He was treating you the way you wanted to be treated. He recognised the slave potential in you.”

“No! It was consensual! I gave permission.”

“And if you hadn’t? Do you think a man like Kurgus would have simply walked away, feeling unsatisfied?”

“No… he would still have had me…”

“And you might well have enjoyed it all the more if you had struggled and been overpowered by a man you secretly desired but were too scared to submit to willingly.”

“I’m not a slave!”

“The brand and collar say you are. Your body is trembling now, Rachel. I think you are getting very close…”

And she was. Rachel was crying out now, oblivious to everything else as she rode the waves of ecstasy towards a climax. I looked at her and realised that must be how I look when I am overcome with arousal in the furs. So slutty, so wanton, so overcome by desire.

And of course Brinn stopped just before she was able to orgasm. Rachel lay there, still bound, breathing heavily, trembling, every inch of her body on fire as Brinn sat and watched her.

“Please…” she whimpered softly. Her wrists would no doubt be marked by all the struggling tonight.

“It is in my power to give you an orgasm, Rachel.”

“Please…” Now she lifted her hips towards him, bringing a smile to Brinn’s mouth.

“Oh, Rachel, look at you. You’re not so different from Emma after all.”

“Please…”

“There is no hurry. We have a long night ahead of us. Relax, Rachel, let your body subside a little. I am going to fuck Emma now, and you can watch me. Then I think I will slowly arouse you again. Maybe if you plead better next time, I’ll give you the orgasm you wanted just now. We’ll see.”

And while Rachel watched, still trembling with need, Brinn took me by my left arm, threw me down on to the grass and began to arouse and use me in Rachel's place. I screamed with joy and showed Rachel just what an experienced pleasure slave was capable of.

Poor Rachel. By the time dawn rose, I had been fucked to orgasm five times, and Rachel in turn had been aroused to almost the brink of orgasm five times. By the end of the night she must have been seething with frustration in her loose bondage. She couldn’t even press her thighs together for relief, bound as she was. I saw her dig the nails of her fingers into the soft palms of her hands as she watched me scream in ecstasy time after time. But Brinn would not give her any relief.

“You must learn to beg properly, Rachel. Do not worry, there is always tomorrow night. And the night after that…”

Rachel’s training began immediately in the morning when I untied her under Brinn’s direction. I stood above her with a quirt while she knelt in Nadu. I walked around her while Brinn was eating breakfast, and I corrected seven subtle aspects of her posture with the tip of my quirt. Rachel was beautiful, slave beautiful, but she was raw, clumsy, inexperienced in her collar. She didn’t move as gracefully as I did, but in time she would get better.

“Okay,” I rearranged her hair a little to move it clear of her shoulders. “I need to say a few things. Obviously, as you can see, I've been appointed First Girl and...”

“Can I get up?” asked Rachel as she knelt there with her hands on her thighs.

“What? Well, um, I think it’s probably best if when we’re training together you kneel. I know you probably think it’s a bit stupid because we’re friends and all, and believe me, this isn’t some sort of ego thing going on here, but when I trained in the pens of Banu Hashim I always knelt while the First Girl spoke to me.”

“But you weren’t friends with her,” said Rachel.

“Well, no, no I wasn’t, that’s certainly true. I really didn't like her to be honest. She was a horrible bitch. Lording it over me with her quirt.” I rolled my eyes at the memory of her.

“But we’re friends, so there’s not really any need for me to kneel is there?” said Rachel.

“Well, how about we just stick to the established pattern, yes? I mean, that’s how everyone else does it.”

“Emma… are you ordering me to kneel in Nadu before you? Is that really what you're doing now?”

“Of course not! You’re my friend. I just think… look, I know this is really awkward, but it’s the way things are on Gor. If you were First Girl you’d want me to kneel in front of you when you trained me.”

“No. No I wouldn’t. So can I get up please?”

“Look, Rachel, I’d really prefer it if you knelt. Is that okay? Why are you making such a big issue of all this?”

“So you are ordering me to kneel in front of you? My God, Emma, what’s got into you?”

I scratched my head in exasperation. “Rachel, I’m First Girl!”

“So I can see. And it’s obviously turned you into little Miss Prissy all of a sudden.”

“You can’t speak to me like that!” Rachel could be such hard work at times. Why didn't she understand I was doing this for her benefit?

“Well it has done. Come on Emma, we’re both in collars, let’s not resort to this 'I’m First Girl' bullshit that men impress upon us. You know they do it to divide and conquer us. To turn us against one another. Don't give in to it.”

“But I am First Girl! Rachel, if someone else was First Girl they would have beaten you by now!”

“Oh. So you’re... thinking of beating me now? You're really prepared to beat me? Really?” Rachel gave me a look of extreme disappointment.

“Well, no, of course not.”

“So you're not going to beat me? Just to be clear?” She looked at the quirt in my hand.

“Rachel, you're my friend...”

“But you’re holding a quirt…” she nodded her head in its direction. “You certainly have been tapping me with it a lot to correct aspects of my position.”

“Well frankly Rachel, your Nadu position was awful. You were slouching! And look, you’re doing it again. You have to keep your back straight at all times! Come on, hon, work with me here. Please.”

“You're demeaning me and you're demeaning yourself. It's pathetic.”

“Look, if I don't act as First Girl then Brinn will buy another girl and appoint her over both of us. Believe me, you don't want that. Now, what we're going to do this morning is...”

Rachel rose to her feet and regarded me with a pained expression.

“What do you think you're doing, Rachel?”

“I'm standing up, Emma. I'm tired and I'm not in a good place right now. Let's do this later.”

“Rachel!” I stamped my foot and shouted at her.

“Is there a problem, First Girl,” said Brinn as he chewed on a piece of freshly baked sa-tarna bread and strolled over to where we were talking.

“No, no problem, Master.”

“Really?” He gazed at Rachel who was standing there, looking all pensive and guarded now that Brinn was close by. “You have the situation well under control?”

“Yes.” I could see he was watching me now, so I quickly turned back to Rachel and barked an order. “Kneel! Now! And call me Mistress!”

“Emma, please...” Rachel rolled her eyes and that was as much as I could take. I struck her suddenly, hard on the left thigh with my quirt. She screamed in pain and shock and jumped a couple of steps back. Now she looked at me in horror. I had hit her with the quirt. I was not a man, but even so, the punishment stroke had been very painful, and I could easily see a fresh set of twin marks appear on her skin.

“Kneel, Rachel! Now!”

“Please don't do this, Emma...”

“You call me Mistress!” I struck her again, this time on the right thigh. Rachel howled and quickly dropped to her knees. She never was very good at receiving pain. “What did I say?!” I shouted again, holding the quirt high in the air.

“Mistress!” cried Rachel as she shifted her position into Nadu. And it was a terrible Nadu.

“No! I told you – back straight! Head up! Thighs wider than that!” I slapped rather than whipped each part of the body I referred to. As I did so I quickly glanced at Brinn who nodded his approval of my actions.

“Is that it?” asked Brinn as he chewed on the bread roll. “The First Girl is happy with the way she was spoken to by Rachel?” The question was obviously a challenge.

“No, the First Girl is not satisfied,” I said as I glared back at Rachel. “You will be fed slave gruel for the next three days for your impertinence.”


“What?” Rachel could hardly believe what she was hearing.

“And you will sleep tonight without a blanket. In close chains.”


“Emma, for God's sake...” Rachel screamed again as I whipped her back with the quirt.

“You don't call me Emma when we're training! What do you call me?”

“Mistress.” Rachel was crying now from the three successive blows.

“Say it again!”

“Mistress...”

I glanced back at Brinn as he nodded his approval before turning away back to his tent.  

Do you think me a bad person for the way I treated Rachel? You have to understand I was actually acting in her best interests, though I admit also my own. For you see Rachel had no understanding of what the alternative might be. If she wasn’t pleasing, if she didn’t learn how to move sensuously for Brinn’s benefit, then Brinn would almost certainly sell her. And then I would lose my friend for ever, and she would be subjected to a nightmare existence very similar to my early days of slavery. That was what she didn’t understand – that instead of being in Brinn’s collar with me as a First Girl trainer, she might instead be in the slave pens of Banu Hashim, confined in a punishment pit the first time she acted up, regularly whipped and beaten, housed in a cold communal cage with vicious girls who turn on her as a pack. And then what? Sold perhaps to a man like Rashid and subjected to back breaking labour during the day, and gang rape in the evenings? I was doing my best to save her from that. Please don’t think that I was being cruel to my friend – I was doing what I had to do to impress her slavery upon her, because the alternative was unthinkable. She would suffer far more anywhere else.

It hurt to see the look in her eyes as I threatened her with a quirt, but Brinn was watching me, and if he felt I wasn’t up to the job he would simply demote me and buy a new girl to fill the role of First Girl. And then we would both suffer at her hands. How could that be a better state of affairs? But Rachel had to be so frustratingly stubborn. Sometimes I felt so angry with her. Why couldn’t she accept the reality of her situation and bend to the wind? Because Brinn would sell her if he ever grew tired of her resistance. And then she would quickly realise the terrible mistake she had made, but by then it would be far too late to do anything about it.

I was simply doing what had to be done.

“No! Rachel! No! Weight on your left foot, not your right! How many times have I said this to you now, clumsy girl!” She really was trying my patience today. It was one of the easier dance steps after all. I was determined to teach Rachel how to dance, at least at a basic level, for it is a skill that most Masters appreciate, and if anything was going to please Brinn, it would be the sight of Rachel trying desperately to dance before him for his pleasure. Of course she was unlikely to ever reach my level of experience in the arts of the Harem Girl dances, because I had been trained meticulously in the great tiled halls of Banu Hashim, and Rachel would have to make do with improvised lessons while we travelled through the Northern Forests. But even so, I would be able to teach her the most basic routines.

She had gazed at me in dismay as I had personally demonstrated a couple of the dance routines.

“I can’t do that…” she moaned, horrified at the prospect of flaunting herself before a man in such a way. I made the routines look simple, but in truth there is a lot to co-ordinate in terms of ankle, wrist and head positions. What I would do is break it down into manageable chunks and then piece it all together once I felt Rachel was coping adequately.

“I’ve never danced like that before, Mistress,” said Rachel as I finished my routine with a flourish. I was pleased she was now in the habit of calling me Mistress, rather than Emma, not for my own sake, but for the fact she had to learn discipline. The purpose of much of the early slave training is akin to the basic training in the army – the girl is meant to submit and submit without thinking. She is drilled to kneel as a matter of course, and address men as Masters and women (Free Women that is) as Mistresses. If it did not become second nature for Rachel – if she did not automatically use the term to the First Girl, then imagine what might happen if she forgot to do so to a Free Woman? The consequences would be severe.

Yes, Rachel was quietly angry with me, but I was keeping her alive in a collar that was better than most she might have. She just had to accept her new role and status on Gor.

“Look, I’ll go through the moves again. Watch me closely. Pay attention. Watch how I turn my ankles, where I place my feet. I’ll go through the routine very slowly. Memorise it.”

She looked so sad. I had permitted her to stand rather than kneel during the dance training, so that she might be able to move her limbs in quiet imitation of my own as she watched. I could tell she was hurting. She was terribly humiliated at standing there naked, being trained as a slave-girl dancer. The shame she must be feeling was more painful because of who she had been before being collared. She had been used to commanding men after all.

I took a series of fifteen steps, breaking them down in fluid motions, turning on the balls of my feet, counterpointing each step with exquisite turns of my wrists and fingers. All the while Rachel looked like she wanted to cry.

“Now your turn. Show me.” I picked the quirt back off the ground because I knew it focussed her attention. With a sob Rachel began to move, biting her lower lip in fear as she turned, skipped, danced, raised her arms above her head in imitation of me. Her footwork was better than it had been earlier on, but she was still moving stiffly and awkwardly. That is normal. It takes many weeks for a slave-girl to move like flowing water. The important thing to begin with is to impress the sequence of movements in her mind. But again she failed to co-ordinate her wrist movements with her dance steps. I could see she knew she hadn’t done particularly well from the expression on my face.

“Please Mistress… let me try again…” She gazed at the quirt in my hand.

“Is there any point? Aren’t you just going to make the same mistakes again?”

“Please, if you show me once more… I am trying, Mistress. I am really trying…” She looked close to tears, the once proud and independent Rachel had been beaten with the quirt so often today that she was now begging me for another chance. And of course I gave her another chance, for she was my friend.

“Once more. Watch me, Rachel. Watch what I do with my hands. Watch how I pose between steps.” And again I demonstrated, moving slowly again, nodding at her as I switched between each flourish. I didn’t want her to fail again. I didn’t want to have to beat her with the quirt. I knew she was trying.

An hour later Rachel lay on the grass, her ass covered in red marks from the quirt. I sighed. Maybe it was my fault as a trainer. She still hadn’t got the first and simplest routine down properly.

“We’ll take a break now, Rachel,” I said with another sigh. “Half an hour. And then we’ll go back to learning positions and walking postures. Go drink some water.”

Rachel rose up from the grass and wiped her face with her arm. She had been crying. I wanted to rush over and hug her, tell her I didn’t mean to be this way, but Brinn was watching me again. I could not show any sign of weakness as First Girl.

The first indication I had that we might be waiting at the Exchange Point for some time was when Brinn purchased a tent. He had no idea of course where Limidius and his men were, or how near they were to the Laurius river. He could only hope that they had escaped Kurgus’s patrols and would indeed join him in time for the expedition into the Forests. Brinn began to brood and I could tell he was feeling tense and stressed. He knew I think that he was obliged by duty and honour to hunt for Seremides with or without Limidius, but in going on alone was almost certainly doomed to fail.

“Limidius will come,” I said to him one night as we lay in the furs inside his tent. It seemed strange that I was in a position to reassure and give comfort to him, rather than the other way around. Rachel lay chained on her own not too far away. Brinn still hadn’t used her fully, content instead to arouse her each night and leave her to subside. I could see the effect it was having on the proud former Rachel Evans of Oakhampton, as she was feeling the raw sexuality of her body more and more as the each night wore on. By the fifth night she was visibly aroused before Brinn even began touching her. But still she did not beg as I might have done to be used. Her self control was admirable, if a little pointless. She would beg in time. All she was doing now was prolonging the inevitable.

“Sometimes I have doubts in myself,” said Brinn as he lay there gazing up at the roof of the tent. “I am not Tarl Cabot.”

“One day I’ll tell you my theory about Tarl Cabot,” I said as I stroked his chest. “You shouldn’t compare yourself with his exploits. They are almost certainly exaggerated over the years.”

“The man is a legend,” said Brinn with a hint of sadness in his voice. “He would not be daunted by what I now face.”

“He would have got himself captured at least three times by now,” I pointed out quite reasonably I think.

Brinn chuckled at that. “He does spend quite a lot of time in chains.”

“Exactly. And you, Master, do not.”

“That is true.”

“So. Who then is the better agent of Priest Kings?” I kissed him on the lips and moved my hand down to his groin where I began to stroke him with my fingers. I could tell he was enjoying that. “I am not scared to venture into the forests with you. I know you will protect me.”

“I will do my best,” sighed Brinn as he began to think less of the upcoming expedition and rather more about what I was now doing with my hand. “Kiss me Emma.”

I kissed him on the lips but he pushed me gently away. “Not there,” he said with a smile.

I laughed and wriggled down to place my mouth close to his groin. I began to kiss him again to the sound of contented sighs. When I eventually rose back to snuggle against him, having wiped my mouth, he was looking a lot more relaxed.

“It is good to have you with me,” he sighed.

“You would have sold me in Lydius,” I pointed out.

“I was wrong…”

“I think the Salt Pits of Klima must have just frozen over! Brinn of the Sardar mountains has just admitted to his slave-girl that he was wrong? Surely not.”

“Tell anyone I said that and I’ll give you six lashes of the whip,” laughed Brinn as he turned me on to my back and began kissing me again.

On the fifth day Rachel’s training at last began to ‘click’ at least as far as her positions were concerned. She was now switching from one to another with a sense of grace and poise as I barked the commands. Her Nadu in particular was very smooth. I began to reward her with pieces of candy that Brinn had bought from a merchant who often traded with Panther Girls. These were very good candies and I kept quite a few for myself. Why not – I was First Girl after all. To begin with Rachel declined the candies, perhaps out of a sense of petulant pride, but after I forced her to take one in her mouth, I could see she liked the taste. She had been eating nothing but slave gruel since her branding, and candies must have seemed like a tasty treat in comparison. She took the second candy I offered without too much fuss, as she did the third. Very soon she seemed happy to receive them.

“They’re good, aren’t they?” I said as I chewed one myself.

“I suppose.” Rachel was making hers last. “Mistress..”

“Yes, Rachel?”

“You say my Nadu is very good. You say I walk well. You say I am becoming graceful.”

“To an extent, yes.”

“I would like to eat something other than slave gruel in the mornings and at night.”

“I see.” I smiled softly. The pretty Miss Rachel Evans of Oakhampton was asking for a reward for training well. It was a good sign. “Let’s see how you do with your dancing this afternoon.”

On the sixth night Rachel wept loudly when Brinn ceased arousing her with his hands. I think he had left it very very close to orgasm this time around. I watched Rachel in the soft glow of the lantern lights inside our red tent, and I could see how much she wanted to beg for an orgasm. Her eyes were wild and her breathing ragged. She was in bondage of course, adding to her sexual torment. She was no doubt beginning to associate, subliminally at least, the achievement of an orgasm of earth shattering proportions with being in bondage. Sex would be inextricably linked with bondage before long. Eventually her training would ensure she might be aroused simply by being chained or tied with binding fibre.

“I think she would submit if I wasn’t in the tent,” I whispered to Brinn as Rachel twisted and moaned in her restraints.

“Perhaps,” smiled Brinn. “But that is not for her to decide.”

“You are very cruel, Master,” I said as I kissed him in front of poor Rachel.

“The decision is hers,” said Brinn as he kissed me back.

On the seventh night I had Rachel dance for Brinn inside his tent. She was terrified, totally overcome emotionally, begging me not to make her do this.

“I'm not ready! He’ll be angry – he might whip me!”

“Just remember everything I’ve shown you, try to relax, and let your body respond naturally,” I said. I had given her a standard camisk to wear in recognition of her progress to date, and I had reversed my decision on the slave gruel. But Rachel was terrified. She was going to be forced to dance erotically before a man.

“Please give me a few more days… just a few more days…”

“No. You are ready now. Brinn will not expect perfection, but he needs to see what you are capable of. You will dance for him, slave-girl.”

And dance she did. I could be wrong, but I think her initial fear added an exquisite and enticing innocence to her dance that intrigued and excited Brinn. She seemed to be dancing for her very life, and although the dance wasn’t perfect, and although I could spot numerous mistakes, Brinn was enchanted by what he saw. He beat out a rhythm on a small drum that he wedged between his legs and he watched engrossed in Rachel’s movements. I knelt close by, silently wishing Rachel not to stumble. But I needn't have worried. Her dance was natural and from the heart, and that more than made up for technical mistakes. When it was over and she finished in a flourish on the floor, with her head bowed at Brinn's feet, Brinn rose and gazed down at her body.

The dance had affected Rachel too. It is virtually impossible for a girl to dance semi-naked before a man and not feel a sense of arousal in doing so. Rachel’s body was flushed now with desire, and Brinn could sense it. He knelt down and touched her between the legs and she moaned piteously.

“I have grown tired of waiting,” said Brinn. “Decide now what you want. If you wish I will sell you tomorrow morning. There is a slave ship heading back to Lydius. You can be exhibited on the block there before the end of the week.”

“No…” Rachel shook her head.

“You do not wish to be sold?”

“No.”

“Then speak. What do you want?”

Rachel looked wildly at me. I could see she desperately wanted me to leave the tent.

“I need sex…” she said, choking on the words.

“I see. You wish to please me in the furs? You wish to be complicit in your slave rape?”

Rachel nodded, unable to speak, so overcome was she now.

“You wish to submit fully in the furs? You wish to be had as a slave?”

Rachel nodded again.

“Good.” And with that Brinn threw her to the furs and that night, for the very first time, he fucked my friend over and over again.

I slept alone that night while Rachel shared Brinn’s furs. Come the morning there was a contented and relaxed look in her face as she slept peacefully, cradled in his arms. I felt uneasy about this, but shrugged the feelings away. I was of course Brinn’s favourite. Rachel was a novelty. Also, compared to me she was raw, barely trained, and still quite clumsy. From the sounds of their love making it seems she had indeed pleased Brinn very much, but he would soon tire of her basic limitations after a few nights.

Still, I gazed down at them as they slept, and I felt a sense of unease as I prepared the camp fire outside and began to assemble breakfast. Normally this was something Rachel would be doing under my instruction, but I suspected Brinn would not care for me to rouse her from his arms. I reminded myself that compared to me she was raw and clumsy and barely trained. Brinn would only be interested in her as a novelty. Very soon he would tire of her.

And yet I felt a sense of unease.

As I knelt there cooking, I heard laughter, softly spoken words and some squealing from inside the tent. That normally was me, waking up in Brinn’s arms. There would be foreplay, kissing, and then being taken while still half asleep. An exquisite early morning fuck in the furs. But I wasn’t in the furs this morning. I was outside in the cool air, kneeling on grass still wet from the rain last's night. It was a strange feeling.

“Stop it,” I heard Rachel cry, half laughing. “You mustn't!” But I could tell her pleas were only half serious. Then I heard her squeal again and then there were the animal like sounds of a man and a woman engaged in sexual congress.

On the eighth day I found Brinn standing at the edge of the Exchange Point, staring out at the expanse of trees that formed the beginning of the Northern Forests.

“Limidius isn't coming,” said Brinn after a while. “Kurgus killed him just like he killed Marcellus.”

“You don't know that, Master.” I stood beside him and gazed out at the Forest's edge as the wind blew my hair about my face. “For all you know he may be just a day away.”

“No. I have to face the truth that I will have to enter the Forests alone. I cannot risk waiting any longer.”

And so on the eighth day we entered the forests to meet our inevitable fates.