The Slave World (13)

(13): Andromedus

The most sensual girl I had ever seen in my entire life was dancing on the mosaic tiled floor, her arms whirling around her body with a flutter of silks tied to each wrist in time to the piped music from a set of Bose speakers. She had a dancer's body – lithe, supple, beautifully proportioned with a soft nut brown tan and long dark hair that fell almost to the small of her back. She wore pleasure silk on her body – silk that is so thin it is practically gossamer and translucent and with each step she took the slave bells on her ankles chimed in accompaniment to the music.

I stood in the doorway feeling terrified as the slave bracelets were removed from my wrists again and the leash unclipped from my collar ring. I wore slave cosmetics and slave perfume and I had been told what to do by Kandi. Inside the room, sat on a wide l-shaped sofa with their backs to the patio windows that were open to the veranda, from which a cool evening breeze emanated, were two men. The taller of the two men looked exceptionally violent, with close cropped hair, a thick black beard, a cold unblinking stare, gangster style tattoos on his forearms and muscular chest, and heavy gold rings about his fingers. He looked like the sort of man who might take an enemy's head in his hands and quickly snap its neck with a twist. He looked like a thuggish boxer with his heavyweight build. As he watched the lithe erotic dancer he routinely flexed and cracked his knuckles. His hands looked rough, like the hands of a man who had used them as bludgeons repeatedly in the past.

The other man was Adam! I gazed at Adam in anguish as both men seemed oblivious to me as they watched the dancer swaying across the floor, using her body to seduce and arouse. The men had slave girls kneeling beside them – three in all, patiently holding goblets of drink and plates of smoked meats and cheese. The girls were all beautiful, all collared, all barefoot, and to my horror, actually branded for real on their left thighs. I knew this because all three were naked except for the adornment of bangles and earrings about their bodies. Their slave silks lay discarded on the mosaic floor where they had been torn from their bodies presumably earlier.

Had Adam torn the slave silk from one of those girls? Had he touched her? Had he summoned her to his lap? I had no way of knowing.

The dangerous looking man was naked except for a pair of black boxer shorts. Adam had discarded his suit jacket and tie, socks and shoes, and his crisp white shirt was now unbuttoned loosely. As I stood there, one of the slaves pressed her head to Adam's thigh and said something quietly that made him chuckle and stroke her hair. Her hands reached up to stroke his chest through the unbuttoned shirt.

He was certainly taking his character role seriously... But I had to believe this was just part of his act.

I felt Kimina tap my buttocks with the tip of her switch. I flinched, but walked forward, entering the room as commanded. And as I did so I winced as I heard the soft sensual chime of the anklet of bells that was locked around my right foot. I walked gracefully as Kandi had taught me, placing one foot elegantly before the other, keeping my arms at my sides, wrists slightly bent and my head held high. I wore a wisp of pleasure silk now instead of the silk chemise and I felt more naked than naked in it.

This wasn't me. This wasn't Caitlin Ambrose.

Pleasure silk is very different from the ordinary silk of underwear such as my chemise. It is sheer, clings to the body, wraps like a pareau, with a disrobing loop at the left shoulder.

When Adam saw me approach he nearly spilt his goblet of wine. The look of surprise was splashed across his face for all to see. Here was sassy Caitlin Ambrose approaching him in pleasure silk, a collar and slave cosmetics. I felt the signal tap of the switch on my ass again and I dropped serenely into nadu position, spreading my thighs and placing my hands upon the thighs palms down.

“Kajira sono,” said Kimina which was a command for me to speak. I also now knew the Gorean for silence which was 'shasta'.

“La kajira, vas eema Caitlin.” I am a slave girl and my name is Caitlin. “La vera servassi.” I beg to serve you. I didn't feel the switch on my ass so I must have pronounced the Gorean correctly. I now lowered my gaze as I awaited the reaction of the men, my heart pounding inside my chest.

“Your kajira, Adam,” said the bearded man in an accent I didn't recognise. “She has proclaimed herself a slave, identified herself by the name you have given her and she has begged to serve you. I trust you like the changes we have brought about in her in such a short space of time?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as then then stood up.

“Caitlin?” Adam sounded surprised. Of course he would be surprised. I could well imagine Adam was possibly staring at me in shock, but I didn't dare to meet his gaze to see for myself. He would be horrified at what he now saw – me kneeling before him as a Gorean slave, collared, silken, submissive. I had to trust though that his horror and anger at what they had made me do would not make him do anything rash and impulsive.

I felt the tap of the switch again in Kimina's hand. Another prompt. I would be permitted to speak now in English as Kimina understood that Adam was not fluent in Gorean. “I am a stupid girl, Master, who has much to learn. I was petty and argumentative earlier because I did not know any better. It is right that I have been collared. I belong on my knees before you, Master, for you own me.”

I winced inwardly as I was made to say those words. As I finished I looked up and noticed that the three girls kneeling close by the men were watching me with obvious hostility. They had been assessing me from the moment I had entered the room, and they certainly didn't like the fact that I wore a collar that denoted I had a personal master. If looks could kill I would already be dead. Now that I was closer I could confirm that each of the girls was indeed branded on her left thigh. This shocked me. Were they like Kandi? Were they so devoted to this lifestyle that they would agree to let men brand them? I knew that some people in the BDSM scene took things to extremes, but these girls didn't seem the type. They were conventionally beautiful and sensual – not the alternative/gothic looking types who might go for body branding. Any one of them would turn men's heads if they walked down Oxford Street in skinny jeans, floppy tops and high heeled pumps. And yet they had been branded. And by the state of the brands it hadn't been done recently. The brands were clean, neat and fully healed. They had been slaves for quite some time.

What sort of sick man would actually brand a woman, even if she consented to it? Looking at the face of the man who had sat with Adam, I guessed he was precisely the sort of man who would do something like that. I had no doubt that he was a man who did whatever he wanted without concern for the consequences. I would not like to be left alone with him.

He was almost certainly this Andromedus that Kandi had originally mentioned in her private messages.

“Caitlin...” said Adam again as he sat there staring at me, his mouth flapping open like a guppy fish.

“Master,” I said as I sensed Kimina move her slave switch behind me. My face was flushed with embarrassment and shame though whether it was obvious in the soft lamp lighting with all the heavy makeup I wore I don't know.

“Well?” said Andromedus.

“She's... beautiful...” said Adam. “I had no idea how beautiful she could be...”

“Slave beautiful. And yours now,” said Andromedus as he rose from the sofa. “Yours in all those ways you hardly even dreamed of before. Women exist for our pleasure, Adam. It's your birthright.” He walked towards me and moved to my right. “What are you, girl?”

“La kajira, Master.” I felt very scared as he reached out and lifted my chin with his hand. The hand was hard, calloused, with a grip that felt like an open vice.

“What do you desire most in life?”

“To please men, to please my master...” I couldn't look at Adam as I said those words. Surely he would know it was just an act! Surely he would see how scared I was?

“She wears pleasure silk,” he said as he touched the wisp of translucent sheer silk that adorned my body. “To see such silk is to want to tear it from her body. And her neck is in a collar where it belongs.”

”I am tempted to dress her in blue silk though,” said Adam after a while. “She would suit that I think.”

And there it was. A pre-arranged signal. I breathed a sigh of relief. Adam was communicating directly to me with one of our code words. Blue silk meant we were in a dangerous situation and we should remain in character and not panic. I flashed a quick glance and the very slightest of nods to indicate I had recognised the reference.

Andromedus shrugged. “She will wear whatever you wish. She is no longer a free woman. She exists only to please you.” He walked slowly around me as Kimina moved aside. “Can you dance?” he asked.

“Dance, Master?” I looked up but his eyes narrowed until I looked down again. “No, Master, not really, not like her...” the sensual beauty was still dancing to the soft Arabian rhythms that emanated from the Bose speakers.

Andromedus nodded in understanding as he walked over to Kimina and whispered something into her ear. The first girl nodded and turned to me with the switch in her hand.

“Fahsi, kajira,” said Kimina. “kajira tanli.”

I felt a rising panic attack. I didn't know what that meant!

“I don't know those words, Mistress!”

“Kajira tanli!” she snapped again, more direct than before.

“Please, will someone command me in English?” I screamed suddenly as I felt the switch come down against my right thigh. Then it came down a second time on my left thigh.

“Somodia puella!” she snarled as she took hold of my hair, pulled my head back and hissed further warnings into my face.

Andromedus motioned with his hand and instantly Kimina backed off.

“You are disobeying a command from my first girl,” said Andromedus as he looked down at me.

“I don't understand her, Master! I want to obey, but I don't know what she wants.”

“No one here cares if you want to obey, Caitlin. We only care whether you DO obey. You are currently not obeying her.” He motioned again and now Kimina raised her switch and barked orders again.

“Kajira tanli da! Tut tanli!”

“Please, Mistress, please...” I screamed again as two more slashes of the slave switch rained down across my body.

“Andromedus,” said Adam as he rose slightly from the sofa.

“Not now, Adam.” The man motioned for him to sit back down. “Your kajira is being deliberately disobedient. I cannot permit that.”

“She doesn't understand...” began Adam, but again Andromedus waved him to silence.

“And so,” said Andromedus to me, “we will have to keep beating you until you obey, won't we?”

Without thinking, some primal instincts kicked in and I dropped to the floor at his feet, kissing his feet, pressing my head to the tiles as I begged. “please Master, teach me the words so I can be pleasing. I am sorry I am so stupid. Please teach me. I want to learn and I want to obey!”

“Ah, better,” said Andromedus as he motioned for Kimina to back off again. “You see how easy it is, Caitlin. You only have to beg to be permitted to learn. What do you wish to know?”

I sobbed as I kissed his feet again. “A slave begs to know the Gorean word tanli.”

“Tanli is the Gorean order to dance.”

“But I...” I stopped myself from saying any more.

“She learns,” said Andromedus with a cruel smile. He motioned to Kimina once again.

“Kajira tanli da! Tut tanli!”

And now I leapt to my feet and hurried in tears onto the area of tiles on which the slave beauty had been dancing. I knew now I would never forget what the Gorean word tanli meant. The slave beauty grudgingly gave way to me with a scowl and a deliberate push past me with her shoulders. And then I stood there on the tiles with Andromedus, Adam and the hostile slave girls watching me.

And then, barefoot, belled, perfumed, dressed in a wisp of sheer silk, without any formal training, I began to dance for the pleasure of men.

I would feel the switch if I did not.