Panther Girl of Gor Chapter One

Chapter One: The Exchange Point


An armed band of five Panther Girls had arrived during the night and by the morning they had set up their space at the exchange point close to the banks of the Laurius River. They looked magnificent, standing proud in their wild animal skins, necklaces made from animal teeth, their wrists and ankles adorned with savage and barbaric looking bracelets and armlets made of gold and shells, with spears in their hands, knives in their belt sheaths and short bows slung over their shoulders. I was fascinated by these women, for although I had met Tallia on my first day in Corcyrus, she had been a captive then, stripped of her weapons and skins and I had never seen her looking the way these women did – fierce, powerful, dominant. These Panther Girls were living proof that there was a third role for women on Gor, aside from the diametrically opposing roles of Free Women or slaves. These Panther Girls did not conform to the strict rules laid down by men; rather they made their own rules and carved out territories of their own where the laws of men were irrelevant.

The Laurius river, like the mightier Vosk river, flows in a generally western direction towards the coastal port of Lydius, though the Laurius inclines more to the southwest then the great Vosk. It is wide and deep enough at its central depths for ships from Lydius to sail virtually its full length, though once beyond the city of Laura the river becomes rougher and less navigable, especially near the end of the summer season.
To the south of the river are fields and grasslands cultivated by peasants, while to the north are the edges of the great forest regions of Gor where outlaws and Panther Girls lurk in significant numbers. Various river tributaries extend their fingers into the depths of the forest regions, though chancing these in deep bottomed ships can be a risky business due to the nature of unexpected shallows and rocks barely hidden by a yard or so of water. Certain crossing points exist in the more narrow areas of the river, where flat bottomed barges ferry passengers, livestock and cargo from south to north and back again.

The forest region covers hundreds of thousands of square pasangs and extends from the river's edge to the border of Torvaldsland where bearded Viking-like raiders dwell. And the less said about them the better. The forests also extend eastward, well past the Thentis Mountains and the lands of the Barrens, and on into the unmapped areas of Eastern Gor that could be anything and most probably are. To most Goreans the forests are a vast unmapped wilderness containing a multitude of different types of trees and vegetation. The most common tree in the forests is the reddish Tur tree that grows to two hundred feet or more. Within the emerald canopy lurk animals such as panthers, sleens, tabuk, tarsk and hith.

Lydius is a port city dominated and administered by the Merchant Castes and it represents a compromise between the simplicity of the harsher Northern regions with the luxuries and civilisation more representative of the Southern cities of Gor. Lydius is one of the only cities in the northern regions that has public baths for example. It is also famous for its coin mint and often it is coins minted in Lydius that you will find exchanged throughout Northern Gor, as the stamp of Lydius is said to be a guarantee of bullion quality. Many Gorean cities own or rent buildings in Lydius for business purposes, contributing to the diverse mix of ethnic cultures within its streets. Lydius enjoys a near monopoly in the Northern trade in wood and hides which are brought down the Laurius River to the various markets. The nearest major town to the east of Lydius is Vonda of the Salerian Confederation.

Laura on the other hand is a small port city, northeast of Ko-ro-ba, on the northern bank of the Laurius river. It is located about two hundred pasangs inland from the city of Lydius. It too is primarily a trading city and it is the only civilised area within what I have already described as a lawless wilderness. Unlike the more affluent Lydius, the city is comprised mostly of wooden warehouses and taverns. Stone is not a common building material in Laura, perhaps on account of the plentiful supply of wood nearby. Laura tends to act as the last major base for supplies for men who may wish to travel into the northern forests.

If you sailed a vessel along the length of the Laurius River and up the northern coast of Thassa, following the border of the forests, you would soon pass a number of safe exchange points where outlaws and Panther Girls display merchandise for sale to passing ships. Most of the goods are slaves, though other items such as furs are in plentiful supply. At each defined exchange point  you would see a number of sloping wooden beams, positioned in an upside-down "V" shape, set onto the northern bank of the river, facing outwards. These are very large and heavy structures with solid iron rings set into the beams at ankle and wrist positions with which to restrain and display prize slaves for sale. During the early months of spring the exchange points become very busy and Merchants from Lydius and Laura will sail cargo ships to procure girls and men for relatively cheap prices. These slaves can then be re-sold at considerable profit further south. The summer months tend to be the busiest season for selling slaves in the cities below the Laurius and so spiring time along the river bank is considered to be the ideal time to re-stock. Male and female outlaws have an unwritten truce concerning these exchange points, such that they will not attack, hinder or try to enslave one another at these places. With this truce, the exchange points become practical and effective, because if the neutrality was not observed then the markets would eventually diminish or disappear altogether.

What amazed me most about the Panther Girls was their open sexuality. They did not cover themselves up in a multitude of long gowns and robes. They did not veil their faces the way I had done when I was free. The animal skins they wore were brief, perhaps even briefer than some slave-girl garments, and worn tightly about their lithe bodies. They were not scandalised to appear this way, not even in front of men! They understood their sexuality, and displayed it openly, not caring what men might think of them.

Of course they did so knowing that here at the exchange point on the banks of the Laurius River a safe zone existed. They could walk, sit and do business without fear of a man trying to enslave them. A Panther Girl of course would not take such a risk anywhere else on Gor, by travelling for example to a city. In fact Panther Girls did not generally leave the confines of the Forests, for if they did they knew they would be vulnerable and fair game for any man who saw them.

They had arrived at the exchange point with captives to trade. Three of the captives were girls, and they sat or knelt in the grass in an ankle chain arrangement. They were naked of course, for men generally wish to inspect the merchandise before they decide whether or not to buy it. All three were white skinned; two had brunette hair while the third was blonde. Interestingly only two of them were branded. I presumed they might be runaway slave-girls, or slave-girls that had been the property of men who had ventured into the Forests. The third woman did not have a brand. She was one of the two brunettes, and she seemed the girl who was the most frightened. What she had been doing in the forest is anyone’s guess, for it is hardly the place that a Free Woman might venture into. Even if she did not fall prey to Panther Girls in all their savage finery, the forests are also the home to bands of outlaws and hunters.

And then there was the other merchandise being exhibited by the Panther Girls. A heavier coffle chain held two men, both strong, muscular, magnificent specimens of Gorean masculinity, and yet they were now naked, their wrists chained before them with but inches of steel between the heavy cuffs, and their ankles confined in the coffle arrangement. Despite being the dominant sex on Gor they had been stalked, tracked, hunted and taken by women! I was astonished. They were precisely the sort of men I had been conditioned to regard as Masters over the last few months. And yet here they were in heavy chains, helpless before women. As I watched, a Panther Girl approached the men and ordered them to kneel. To my amazement they did so! They actually seemed afraid of the girl, even though they were far stronger than her. She had some sort of hold over them that I couldn’t understand, for it was inconceivable that Brinn for example would obey such a command from a Panther Girl without some extreme coercion. Now the men knelt with their thighs spread, which I found fascinating. How humiliating it must be to be a man on Gor and to fall prey to women hunters! How ashamed you must be to be a man, used to being the dominant sex, only to wake up one morning confined in steel by a Panther Girl. The Panthers had followed their usual tradition of shaving a long stripe across the top of each man's head. It is the universal sign that marks a man as a captive of Panther Girls and it is commonly referred to as a degradation stripe. The men wore steel collars locked about their necks and they were confined in heavy chains, far heavier than the chains I usually wore. They would not be escaping their chains as far as I could see. The Panther girl was now feeding the men with scraps of meat from her right hand. She smiled as the men were forced to take the food with their teeth as a slave-girl might. Oh, but I thought this was wonderful! They were exactly the sort of men who would have ordered me to my knees and fed me that way, but now here on the banks of the Laurius river they were helpless and forced to feed in that fashion.

“Pretty slave boys,” said the Panther girl. “You entered the Forests carrying blades, nets and chains, but it is you who now kneel before me.”

I laughed, my voice soft and almost musical as I watched the men struggle with indignation in their bonds. The Panther Girls also laughed and one of them picked up a stick and beat the men harshly on their backs until they were still.

“You take food from a woman's hand, Tersus. And you do so on your knees.” The Panther Girl laughed again. How I admired her! She seemed so confident, so self-reliant, so sure of her own strength.

“I thought you were men,” said one of the other Panther Girls as she stuck her spear point first into the soft ground. She had red hair and a small button nose that looked exceptionally cute. As I watched she strutted over to stand in front of the two kneeling men, to look down at them. “and yet I must be mistaken, for here I stand before you, clad only in revealing animal skins and bangles, and yet you do not wish to touch me!” She struck a pose right next to Tersus. It was a provocative and teasing pose as she stuck out one hip and ran her hands through her hair, lifting the swell of her breasts in the process. She laughed as she saw Tersus's penis respond accordingly. “A man would surely reach out and take me, would he not, Aphris?” She asked the Panther Girl who had fed the men.

“I think a man would, Nessa. But then these are not men.”

“Look, Aphris, I am so close they only need reach out and take me, pull me to the grass and strip me!” Nessa laughed as she swayed enticingly before the man with his wrists chained in front of his body. Personally I thought she was taking a risk, for Tersus could indeed suddenly grab her and throw her to her belly, for his hands were not bound behind his back as would be safer for the Panther Girls. But he did not do so. Instead he gazed down at the grass, a look of tense frustration rippling through his steel hard body. Perhaps he realised that if he so much as touched Nessa, the other Panther Girls would swiftly pounce and kill him with their spears, and chained as he was, he would not be able to stop all four of them.

“Perhaps they think you are ugly,” said Aphris as she leaned on her own spear.

“Do you, male?” Nessa reached to the back of her belt and pulled a sleen knife from the sheath there. “Do you think Nessa of the Silver Moon Panthers is ugly?”        

“No.” Tersus looked up at her. With his thighs spread like a slave-girl in Nadu, it was obvious how aroused he was by the Panther Girl flaunting herself like that. “You are not ugly.”

“Then perhaps you are not attracted to women?” She shook her wild mane of red hair.

“I hunger for women, especially ones with red hair. If I was not a prisoner now, I would make it very clear how beautiful I think you are.”

“Then perhaps you are scared of me?” she smirked and pressed the point of her knife so that it gently pricked the skin beneath his collar. A red drop of blood appeared around it.

“Perhaps.”

“These are not men!” said Nessa as she turned away and re-sheathed her knife. “We should give them slave-girl names.”

“I agree,” said Aphris. “Which names did you have in mind?”

“This one...” she flicked Tersus's hair, “shall be called Karina. And this one,” she pointed to the other captive man, “we shall call Bina.”

“Excellent,” said Aphris as she laughed again. She tapped Tersus on the top of his head with her spear point and said to him, “Tell me your name, slave.”

“Karina, Mistress.”

I swear the man was red with embarrassment as she regarded the beautiful Panther Girl.

“And you, boy?” She tapped the other man with her spear point.

“Bina, Mistress.” He too looked shame faced, as well he might be. They both had slave-girl names now! How marvellous!

My Master was busy this morning and so he had allowed me some personal time in which to stroll around the tents and marquees that were springing up along the length of the exchange point, provided I didn't stray too far. Already there were kiosk tents offering cooked breakfasts, the smell of which made my stomach rumble. I could smell some sort of syrupy pancakes and I stared at them with such longing. A couple of men stopped to buy some and I had to watch in helpless need as they ate. Slaves of course never have money.

In a few days time I would probably be travelling into the interior of the Forest region. The desert sands of the Tahari region were now a distant memory, and it felt good to feel soft grass under my feet. I wore a new camisk in the Turian style, pale blue in colour, that my Master had bought for me yesterday to replace my dirty and torn slave tunic from Lydius. The Turian camisk is essentially an inverted 'T' shaped piece of material with a beveled crossbar fastened behind the neck. The inverted part of the 'T' then falls over the front of my body and the crossbar of the T is then drawn between my legs and brought snugly up around my hips. It was secured in place by a single cord that ties it first at the back of the neck, then behind the back and then in front at the waist in a slip knot. A single tug on the cord, releasing it, will of course strip me. It is a shameful garment but one that enhanced my beauty. It is also unusual in that it effectively provides a girl with a nether closure, which slave silks, slave tunics and the ta-teera do not. The more common camisk is a simple rectangle of cloth with a hole in the middle. This hole is drawn over a girl's head and the garment then serves as a loose poncho. A length of binding fibre is used to belt it snugly around the waist. My preference I think is for the Turia style camisk as it reveals rather more of  my body to men.

As the weeks had turned into months since I had left the slave pens, I found myself more and more interested in displaying myself before men. I often liked the way they looked at me, and the way such attention made me feel. I was thinking about sex more and more as the months went by. It was now very much the case that if a night or two went by without me being used, I would grow restless, anxious; I would feel frustrated and it would affect my sleep. That had been the case last night. I had been chained to a tree trunk and left there while my Master went to a nearby camp fire to drink paga and talk with other men. The hours had ticked by, and my Master did not return. Soon it became apparent he would not. Perhaps he was intent on drinking until dawn, or maybe he had been offered the use of some girl who had crawled around the feet of the men, kissing each one in turn, offering herself for their use. I grew incredibly frustrated as I heard other slaves in the darkness moaning and gasping, crying out in the rapture of slave orgasm. They were such sluts! I pulled at my ankle chain and wept, knowing that I would be a slave-girl who slept alone that night. My Master would not touch me! My Master would not make use of me in the darkness. I twisted and turned on the grass, unable to get to sleep properly. I think I scratched at the bark of the tree with my nails in growing frustration. I was highly sexually charged that night and would easily have begged on my knees for slave rape if I could.

Come the morning My Master found me, woke me, unlocked my ankle chain, and gave me a breakfast of grilled tarsk strips in a bread roll that I devoured with gratitude. I felt like asking him where he had been, what he had been doing, but I didn't want to seem needy. Better that he thought I didn't care. Yes, let him think I relished a good night's uninterrupted sleep, free from the distractions of his touch.

“Did you sleep well, Emma?” he asked.

“Yes, Master.” I gazed up with a small morsel of the breakfast in my mouth, chewing softly.

“Perhaps you wondered where I was?”

“Not really, Master, no.” I took another small bite of the breakfast and feigned disinterest. Oh, look at those pretty trees in the distance, I seemed to say with my expression

“Oh?” He scratched his chin and gazed down at me. “Because normally you're wet and hot and impatient by the time it's getting close to bedding down in the furs.”

“Am I?” I licked my fingers from some of the cooked meat juices and regarded Brinn with innocent eyes. He had not sold me in Lydius after all, though I suppose the circumstances had taken that decision out of his hands. We had been waiting now for some days in the hope that Limidius and his men would make the rendezvous point. Brinn had been growing more and more concerned that we were losing valuable time camping here while Seremides was searching for the weapons cache, and Kurgus was assembling his own forces based in Laura. I feared that if Limidius didn't arrive soon, Brinn might do something incredibly rash and foolish, like marching us into the Forest on our own.

“Well, yes, you're normally crawling all over me the moment I lie down.”

“Sometimes maybe. I really haven't noticed.” 

“I see. I was thinking of furring you now, but obviously it can wait until...”

“Oh no, Master!” I quickly dropped the breakfast and threw myself to his feet. I began kissing him and I may possibly have raised my ass into the air. “Emma begs your touch! Please have Emma now! Please!”

He laughed, threw me back onto the grass, stripped off his tunic and fucked me long and hard, relishing all the cries and screams from my pent up needs.  

“Are you my slave, Emma?” he growled.

“Yes, Master, yes! Yours!” I was close to coming within minutes of him entering me.

“I neglected to sell you in Lydius. I am not normally so careless.”

“You won't regret it, Master!”

“We shall see.”

The large marquee tent was blue and yellow striped and open for business. As I approached it I saw a couple of Panther girls laughing as they sat cross-legged with spears in their laps beside the entrance. One of the girls held the leather leash of a wide-eyed and frightened looking girl with straw coloured hair who knelt before them. She was not yet branded, nor was she collared, suggesting she must be a very new acquisition. Her wrists were tied behind the small of her back with tight binding fibre and from the expression on her face she was obviously in a state of distress.

“It will be your turn soon, Lady Sansa,” said one of the Panthers.

Slipping inside the tent, my first impression was the smell of burnt flesh. There was a brazier of hot coals with a chimney that permitted smoke to rise vertically in a controlled manner and not fill the tent. Within the hot coals were a number of branding irons. There were two slave racks to one side of the tent and I could see both were currently occupied, for business was going well this morning. On one of the racks was a brawny man, sweating, struggling, as a short haired Panther Girl wearing nothing but animal skins around her loins, and multiple barbaric necklaces comprised of gold and panther teeth around her throat, directed a slaver as to her requirements. She pointed to a spot on the man's thigh that the slaver then marked with a grease stick for reference.

The other rack held a girl, and she was in the process of being released. A slaver unscrewed the clamp that had held her left thigh immobile while the beautiful kef brand had been perfectly sunk into her flesh, permanently marking her as a kajira. The girl was in shock of course, weeping uncontrollably from the pain as her wrists and ankles were untied. A long time ago I had been secured to a similar branding rack and I too had endured the agony of being branded. The pain is unimaginable and it lasts long after the branding iron is removed from your flesh.

The girl was naked of course. I could see even from this distance that her brand was clean and perfectly formed. This is why men often pay a slaver to brand their property rather than attempt it themselves. Why risk ruining the value of your girl with a botched job? A brand is permanent and you therefore wish it to be professionally applied by a man who knows what he is doing. My brand for example was beautiful and I often flaunted it in my dances. Sometimes I would touch my brand and remind myself what I was – a slave-girl on Gor.

The girl fell onto the grass, crying, her body slick with perspiration. One of the slavers routinely locked her small wrists behind her back with a pair of close chain slave bracelets to ensure she could not interfere with her brand. A healing salve ointment was applied to the burn, and then she was lifted to her feet and force marched to an ankle chain arrangement along another side of the tent where 'processed' slaves were locked into place to await the return of their Masters. I watched as the girl was forced to her knees and an ankle chain was locked to her left ankle. Water was given to her, for her throat was probably parched from the shock of the branding. Some girls can be very dehydrated as a result of fear while they wait to be branded and then terror once it happens.

But the slaver was not done with her. Now that she lay there he produced a set of pliers with thin needle points and despite the piteous cries of the girl, he pierced first her right earlobe and then her second. She begged him not to do so, but of course her pleas were pointless. Finally he clipped the septum of her nose. Earrings were put on her, as was a small steel nose ring.

There was now a scream from the man on the branding rack as the previous slaver set the branding iron to his thigh, much to the satisfaction of the short haired Panther girl. If you are a man, you may believe you would not scream if you were branded. Let me assure you that is most certainly not the case. You will scream just as I did, strong man of Gor.

“Excellent,” said the Panther Girl as she stepped forward to examine the brand. The man had been branded with a Dina brand which is normally reserved for slave-girls. Panther Girls can be cruel like that with men they capture. It is often not enough that they simply enslave men – they often then wish to impress upon them the consequences of falling into the hands of savage, dominant women. Panther Girls have little if any respect for a man who is weak enough to be taken by them. They also do not have any respect for slave-girls and will treat us with great cruelty for we perhaps remind them of what they might be like if men ever captured them. They hate and despise us for surrendering to the dominance of men.

“I have had you branded, slave,” said the short haired Panther Girl as she seized the man's hair in her right hand and lifted his face to look at her. There were tears in his eyes from the pain. “You cry like a slave-girl,” she said with a cold and arrogant sneer. “You will be displayed for sale this afternoon. I hope to receive twenty arrow points and a half stone of candy for you.”

I wondered who the man might previously had been. Had he been some powerful hunter who had stalked the forest glades with bow, spear and sword, carrying perhaps nets with which to catch girls, and steel collars to lock around their throats? Had he travelled alone or with companions? All I knew was he had eventually become the prey instead of the hunter. Had he been scared once he realised he was being stalked by a band of women who knew the forest better than he did? Did he in the end run blindly though the forest, knowing women with bows and spears were all around him, cutting off his escape? Did he fight, or did he run blindly into a snare trap or a net? I did not know. But I was pleased he had been caught. I was pleased that there was a part of Gor where men were not necessarily confident and masterful. I was happy to know that in the Northern Forests men might find themselves outclassed by women.

The girl who was secured in the ankle chain arrangement continued to cry, lying on her side. I felt sorry for her. It is a terrible thing to be branded. It is many months before you come to terms with your brand, and many more months before you begin to think of it as beautiful. The girl would get little sleep tonight from the burning pain and the discomfort of trying to sleep with her hands locked behind her back. She would wake in the morning feeling miserable, tired, in pain. It would not be pleasant.  

“Tell me your name,” I said to the girl as I knelt beside her in the tent. Her cheeks were streaked with tears as I stroked her hair to comfort her.

“Rachel...” She sobbed. “I've been given the name, Rachel.”

It was an Earth girl name of course. Gorean men like to give such names to their slaves, as Earth girl names are commonly regarded as appropriate slave names. Sometimes a girl's name is engraved on her collar, along with the name of her Master. This is in case she may be lost, and it helps for identification purposes to ensure she is returned to her Master.

“The pain will not last forever,” I said. “The brand will heal cleanly. It will be beautiful on you.”

“I don't care that it's beautiful!” she cried. “It hurts so much!”

“I know, I know.” I hugged the girl and pressed her face to my chest. I had been through the same thing in Patashqar. “But it is done. The worst is over.”

“My ears are pierced!” she sobbed. “I have pierced ears now!”

What could I say? It was true – she was now marked as the lowest of slave-girls. There could be no going back from pierced ears. There were another couple of freshly branded girls in the chain coffle, and they too were sobbing and crying; their slim bodies trembling from the pain. Men can be so cruel and uncaring to us.

“My Master is going to fur me tonight,” sobbed Rachel.”He is going to take me for the first time.”

You will have to please him, Rachel. You will have to please him well.” The girl was new to her collar of course and would have no understanding of what she might have to do to please her Master. She would be unskilled, raw to love making, and clumsy. It was possible that her Master might be angry with her ineptitude in bed, particularly if he compared her technique to that of an experienced girl he owned.

“I can't! I don't know how! I do not want to!”

“Then you will be beaten. And if you are lucky you might later be given another chance. Or you might simply be sold. This is a market place, Rachel. Masters sell girls here. Do you want to be sold, Rachel?”

“No, no I do not...” Most girls fear being sold. It is a leap into the great unknown. There is too great a chance that you might endure great hardships and deprivations, possibly a period of time in a slave pen if you are bought for a few copper tarsks by one of the slave trading houses who buy in bulk very cheaply. Some girls can remain in the pens for months until market conditions change and a small profit can be made on them.

“Then please your Master, Rachel. Beg him to keep you. You can do that, can't you?”

“I do not know what to do!” She was terrified. I felt so sorry for her.

“I am experienced. I can tell you a few things you can do that may make a difference.” And so I did. I was kind to a new slave-girl, and for the next few minutes I quietly taught Rachel a few simple techniques that slave-girls learn in the early days of training. I showed her on my own body where to touch, how to touch, when to touch. I demonstrated how to move in the furs, how to look at the Master in certain ways at certain times. It was perhaps enough for the girl to demonstrate that although she hadn't yet been trained, she was trying her best.

Rachel was of course horrified at the thought of having to practise what I showed her. She had until very recently been free. It is difficult for Free Women to make the transition abruptly into slavery I suppose.

“It is that or the whip,” I said. “You have not felt the whip, have you?”

“No.” Rachel shook her head.

“I know, slave-girl, for if you had felt the whip, I wouldn't be suggesting these things to you, rather you would now be begging me to tell you these things and more, that you might then please your Master, for fear of feeling the whip a second time. You have no idea what the whip can do to a girl.”

“I can't do this! You don't understand – I'm not like you. I'm not a natural slave.”

Free Women can be so stupid. They say things like that when they are first collared and branded. They still think of themselves as Free and can't imagine that they might soon be writhing in the furs, being driven wild by the touch of a man, but they soon learn. I looked at the slave-girl called Rachel and wondered whether she had ever secretly fantasised about being a slave-girl? Many Free Women do. You would be surprised. If you are a woman then I suspect you may have had such fantasies. It is natural enough. The fantasies of course are very, very different from the reality though. But the reality itself can be even more delicious.

“You will never be free again, Rachel. No man will ever free you. You will be a slave-girl for the rest of your life”

“No...” she wept.

“Yes. You have to come to terms with that fact. You are a slave now. You have to obey men in all things, and you have to do so perfectly. And you will learn to fear Free Women. They will be cruel to you.”

“This is a nightmare... this can't be happening to me...”

“Hush. Compose yourself.” I hugged her again and kissed her softly on the top of her head. “Your Master will be back to claim you soon. You probably can't imagine it now, but there will come a time when you will be deliriously happy in your collar. There will be nights when your Master will send you crawling to the furs and your body will be on fire, you will feel so aroused by your bondage and the knowledge that you will be fucked throughout the night. You will live for moments like that, and when you are close to orgasm, everything will be right with your world and nothing else will matter. And you will scream as you come, and you will beg your Master not to stop.”
 
 “No!”

But yes, Rachel. You will be a slut in the furs. I guarantee it.”

“I hate you!” She sobbed and turned her head away. I shrugged and regarded her until she turned back to face me, her hands still tightly braceleted behind her back.

“I am not being cruel to you, Rachel, I am simply telling you what will happen. It is a certainty, as sure as the sun will set tonight and rise again tomorrow.”

“I will not be like that! I won't! I can't! I'm not like that...”

As I said, Free Women say the most stupid things. But they learn. It takes time, but they always learn.

I rose to get up.

“Where are you going? Please don't leave me here! I'm so scared...” There was a clink of ankle chain as Rachel moved on the grass and forced herself up into kneeling position. “Please don't leave me! Please!” Her wrists were bound and she was completely helpless.

She had never looked more beautiful.

I gazed down at the former Lady Jacinta, now the slave-girl Rachel, and I knew that in ten minutes or so Brinn would be back to claim her. I had done all I could to prepare her for what would inevitably happen next.

She was, after all, my friend.