Companions of Gor: Chapter Seven

 

  

Cassandra Assante

 

I paused for a moment on the darkened landing and gazed down the stairwell to the floor below where the café room was dimly illuminated by dimmed lamps. With the door to my bedroom now shut, the landing was quiet, save for the steady beating of my heart and my breathing which sounded pronounced and obvious to me. 

 

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves.

 

And then I took another deep breath.

 

And then I tried to make sense of my feelings. 

 

Always assess the facts, Lady Donna had once said to me. Unless you have the facts, solutions will not become apparent. 

 

Fact one. My guards were gone. They would not be back until the morning.

 

Fact two. I wore a collar and a slave rag. To a casual observer who might meet me, I was now a slave. Their critical assumptions would be based on that fact. 

 

Fact three. The café should be empty at this hour, except for any kajirae who would be chained for the night in the kitchen area. Despite the pounding of my heart, I should be able to come and go without encountering anyone. 

 

But if she was here, Donna would scold me now for making an assumption like that, based only on a casual remark from my companion. So fact three isn’t truly a fact until I prove it to be. Proceed with caution. 

 

Fact four. Tonight in the bedroom I had… 

 

Ignore fact four. Forget it. It is not relevant. Fact four doesn’t exist. Don’t dwell on it for now. It will cloud your thoughts. It will take over your rational thinking. Don’t think of the bed, the slave bracelets, the slave crop. Concentrate. Move on to fact five. 

 

Fact five. I needed the toilet urgently, even if it was just a toilet pot. 

 

I touched my collar and immediately scolded myself for doing so. The collar isn’t relevant. Forget it is there. It is just metal. Nothing more. 

 

(No it isn’t. it’s a slave collar and it’s locked on you!)

 

My heart was beating wildly as I felt the cold steel, and imagined what it symbolised. It was locked. The key was in the bedroom. I could not remove it. It was a slave collar. I was effectively, to all appearances now, a slave. I had behaved like a slave. 

 

No. Stop it!

 

I am Cassandra Assante. 

 

And I must not think about any of that. Clear my mind. I’m going to walk down the stairs, use the toilet and then return to the room. I won’t meet anyone on the way. The café is empty. 

 

Deep breath.

 

I ran my hands over the slave tunic and trembled. The fabric was thin, stretching over my curves, and so brief. When I moved, it felt like I was naked save for the very slight flare of the skirt that caressed the tips of my thighs. I smoothed the skirt with my fingers and tugged at it again, though the hem could go no lower. 

 

I felt a simmering heat in my loins. The sex had been intense and exciting, but I hadn’t climaxed like I had the night before. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand sex, or how it really worked. That previous night, several days ago, had come as a shock to me. I hadn’t known I could experience… whatever it was I had experienced. I didn’t even know what it was, or what to call it. I know what men would call similar feelings in a slave, but I was a free woman. It had felt like… 

 

I searched for the right words… it had felt like my body was falling off a cliff into a cloud of stardust. It's a feeling of sensual release that I had no control over. 

 

The feeling had been intense and it had washed through my whole body. It came like waves, growing bigger, more powerful until the ninth wave engulfed me. 

 

I had felt a pulsing from between my legs, growing stronger, moving through my whole body making me helpless, making me scream things, making my thighs clench.

 

It was a lightheaded rush that made it impossible to think straight as the feeling intensified. 

 

I remember tightening myself around Simon’s penis, rising the pulsing waves that came with each thrust, feeling like I was being carried on some fast flowing river to one final euphoric moment that, when it came, made me delirious with a complete loss of control and totally wild abandonment.

 

It was the greatest sensation I had ever experienced in my life, and afterwards everything else seemed dull by comparison. Like I had seen colour brighter and more intense than normal sight allowed, and then in contrast everything was suddenly muddy greys and browns. And as the days wore on, there was a growing sense of unease that I was no longer experiencing any of it, like being in the presence of nails down a blackboard and knowing you needed relief from the aggravating sound.

 

And tonight I had come so close to feeling such things once more, but then Simon had stopped and he had slipped out from inside me and I had choked back a frustrated gasp and I had…

 

Begged him…

 

To continue… 

 

Like a slut does…

 

Deep breath.  

 

I felt ashamed now, Deeply ashamed, as I had done that night, several days ago, in my villa, after the intense climax, when I lay silently in our bed, crying to myself, because I had felt so happy from something that was so shameful. 

 

I’m not stupid. I know that slaves are said to experience something intense in the arms of a man. But I don’t know what it is they feel. I only know what I felt, and I am a free woman. I have to assume that what I felt is very different to what a slave feels. 

 

I am Cassandra Assante. That means something.

 

I gazed at my wrists and the deep red lines scored on my skin from the slave bracelets. My feelings tonight had intensified quickly when I was in bondage. How was that even possible? It was like a tap had been opened. The bondage had made it easier to close in on the rushing sensation through my body. I had grown tremendously excited every time I tried to pull against my bonds. I had felt immediately wet between my legs. That wetness had, coincidentally, made it easier for Simon to penetrate me. Was that its purpose? Was that why I grew wet when I grew excited? To make it easier for a man, and less rough for a woman? He had slid in with just a thrust. I had felt only an initial tightness, which was actually very pleasant and exhilarating, as he literally opened me.

 

Oh yes, the thrusts. The feeling of being penetrated was blissful. It just felt… so fulfilling. I wanted it. I wanted him deeper, ever deeper. I remember squeezing him with my thighs, crying out, arching my back, pushing to meet each thrust in the hope he would go even deeper, as if that might make the feelings even stronger. 

 

The feelings had seemed to increase in an elevated series of plateaus, each one better than the last, with the promise of some sort of nirvana at the end. But it was a nirvana from which I was pulled back this evening, just as I saw it glowing on the horizon. I clenched my fists in frustration. I remembered dimly what I had missed tonight, the point of no return I had not been allowed to reach. 

 

Leaning against the wall, I reached with a hand under the short skirt and felt the lips of my sex. I touched myself, pushing some fingers inside, one, then two, then three, but it didn’t feel the same, and the pressure on my bladder was ruining the feeling too, so I gave up, to use the toilet. 

 

It wasn’t the same without the bondage, without the domination, without feeling helpless, without Simon stroking my breasts and kissing me, without the… dare I say it… threat of the vicious crop if I didn’t obey.

 

A wave of shame washed over me again. I must never give in to these feelings again! But I ached! I ached for some sort of release! Oh Gods of Gor, I ached for release! My fingers felt… nice… inside me… but nothing more. 

 

Frustrated, I lifted my hand away and sniffed my fingers. Disgusted with myself, I quickly wiped my fingers on my tunic to clean away the slut smell. I had smelled that before in rooms where kajirae had been put to use by my brother. 

 

The slut smell. 

 

We all called it that.     

 

I hadn’t realised I was capable of smelling like that between my thighs. 

 

I took the steps carefully and silently, walking down on bare feet, wincing each time a stair creaked. The café was as I had left it, only now darkened. The lamps were dimmed to just a warm glow, and the place was silent. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I stopped and listened carefully. There could still be a kajira cleaning up, or perhaps a man was resident in the house during the night. A guard, perhaps? Did places like this have night watchmen? Probably not, but ‘probably’ is not a word I take comfort from.

 

But this was ridiculous. I was a guest here, and I was creeping around like I had something to hide! Only of course I did. I didn’t want to be seen like this. I didn’t want to have to explain myself. How could I possibly explain a collar and a slave tunic! I couldn’t.  But as I moved across the café floor, I began to recover my confidence. I began to walk normally, for there was no one about. The floor really was empty. Simon had been right. I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt the sharp throb of pain still from my bottom. How could the slave crop have hurt so much! It was so sharp! How did slaves endure it! I touched my bottom under the brief skirt and felt how warm it still was. No doubt it had flared up to a bright red by now, and would look like that for many days to come. 

 

I found the toilet room with its flat wooden boards and sat down on one of the holes. With a sigh I released my bladder and felt the warmth of my water trickle down into the sewage pipes below the house. I had drunk so much wine. I sat there with my head in my hands and deeply regretted those last few glasses. Perhaps I would have been in greater control in the bedroom, had I not drunk them. For surely it was the wine that had made me act the way I did? I was not at fault. It was the wine that had made me so receptive to his hands.

 

I sniffed, rose from the wooden board and poured some water from a cistern down the hole. I wet a rag, from a basket, in a basin of water and then dried myself intimately with it, before I  dropped the rag into a barrel with a small hole in the top and a hinged flap that I then shut over the hole. Slaves would boil the used rags clean at regular intervals, emptying the barrel when appropriate. The toilets in my own town house followed a similar design but were obviously far more decorative and sweet smelling. The better off Gorean homes all benefit from interior plumbing for sewage. The poor though often have to relieve themselves in ceramic pots with handles and carry those pots to communal street sewer openings to dispose of the contents in Vonda’s central sanitation system.  

 

There was a mirror in the room and I gazed at myself. I rarely had my hair down, and now that I did I looked very different. The hair framed my face in a way that was very slave-like. And then there was the collar. In private I examined it with my fingers, turning it so that the locking mechanism was now at the front. I could see a small key hole and the collar was loose enough that I could fit my fingers between it and my neck. As I did so my fingers felt some irregular roughness along the flat bottom edge of the collar. It had to be engravings – letters or numbers that meant something to a man who might examine it with an optical glass. The position of the engravings meant it was impossible for a slave to see the inscription herself, even in a mirror. And anyway, the letters would be too small for her to read unless she was able to remove the collar and examine it properly. Clever, I suppose, though I was curious what it might read. 

 

I also now had time to take a closer look at my slave tunic. It was scandalous! The neckline was deep, showing off my cleavage. The fabric was tight, and the skirt barely covered my sex. It was slit at the sides, up to the high waist that cinched in on my body. And yes, my legs looked longer than they probably were. 

 

I pulled my hair back with my hands and held it together above my head, and once I did that, I looked a little more like my usual self, but the presence of the collar ruined the effect. I let my hair drop back around my shoulders as I had nothing to pin it in place with. And once again, when it fell, I looked like a slave. 

 

How could I look like a slave! How could the collar and having my hair down just do that to me! I was angry. I was very angry. I hissed at my reflection. 

 

“Don’t look like that!” 

 

I could see how my nipples showed through the thin fabric. Shameful! I suppose the sight of me like this was very exciting for Simon. I felt a little tingle of arousal as I imagined him gazing hungrily at me as I returned, and then I imagined what he might do if I posed innocently at the foot of the bed. He would be up in an instant, his hands all over me, pulling the hem of the skirt up, touching me down there. I smiled and sighed. I think I wanted to be touched like that. It felt very good. Before free companionship, I had never known a man’s touch might feel so good. Men must never know that of course. They are beasts. 

 

I turned and admired my bottom and the way the short skirt clinged to it and then the way the fabric just hung slightly over the edge of the curve of my ass cheeks like the lightest of table cloths. It swished just a fraction as I wriggled my bottom.  I had seen slaves do that before to get attention from men as they passed by in a hall. The sluts! I wiggled my bottom again and arched my back a little to thrust it out. Yes, that is what the sluts did! Disgusting. I straightened up and leaned against a wall. I felt a little hot and bothered now. I was still frustrated from the sex earlier on! Simon had not ‘finished me’. That is what I was going to call it, for I didn’t know any appropriate term. He hadn’t ‘finished me’.

 

I played with the loose hemline of my skirt and my fingers dipped beneath it again. The night was still and quiet and I was alone in the toilet chamber. I parted my thighs and slipped a finger and then a second finger inside my sex. I tried to think of things that might extend my excitement. I tried to recollect what it had felt like to have my wrists bound to a slave ring in slave bracelets. How it had felt to pull at those restraints, pull until my body was taut. I felt a warmth between my legs as I had those thoughts. I recalled how Simon had so roughly – so roughly! – parted my thighs with his strong hands. He was a brute at times! So strong! So very strong! And very handsome. I had always thought he was handsome once he had grown his hair long. Simon doesn’t know how handsome he is, and how other ladies look at him. I hate them all! He had moved between my thighs and I had felt the tip of his penis press against the lips of my sex. Oh Gods of Gor, that had felt wonderful. That first pressure! I began moving my now slippery fingers inside of me, leaning still against the wall. And then he had pushed so the head of his penis had slid inside me, and if it had felt good to begin with, it was a thousand times better now! I had felt the pressure of being opened by a man. Is there any better feeling in the world! The way it just forces its way in, inch by inch, opening a woman up! And then you feel filled and it is such an amazing feeling. And then the man moves inside of you and every nerve begins to tingle and the feelings grow and grow and grow! 

 

My fingers were moving quickly now inside of my sex. I moaned softly in the darkness, pressing the palm of my other hand against the tiled wall. This felt good, but it wasn’t the same. It still didn’t feel the same! I desperately tried to think of other things to enhance the feeling, to push past the first plateau of pleasure and on to the next. The way he had spoken to me in bed! So commanding! So dominant! I had no idea he could be like that! The way he gripped me, ran his hands over me, the way he played with my breasts and sucked my nipples while I was helpless to resist!

 

I was moving my fingers in an intense rhythm now, sobbing, gasping, but it was still nowhere near the highest plateau of pleasure that Simon had pushed me to. I began to cry out, helplessly, as I began to feel something of a build up inside my body. Yes, oh yes, this was getting good. Keep thinking of the collar around your neck, Cassandra, the slave shift you wear, the bondage on the bed!

 

My whimpers were coming fast and my body was shaking, trembling. I was in heat now, and this had to be a free woman’s heat, so imagine how much stronger a slave’s feelings must be! It was unthinkable. 

 

I felt a series of intense pulses wash through me as I had some sort of climax, but again, it wasn’t even close to that night when Simon had tied me to the slave ring in our bed at the villa. Try as I might, I couldn’t recapture the intensity of THAT climax. Nothing I did with my fingers got anywhere near THAT final plateau of pleasure. 

 

I hissed breath from my mouth as I felt the climax fill me and then release me. It would do. It was better than nothing. I felt dizzy from it, weak in my legs. My wet fingers had that slut smell again so I quickly washed them in the basin. 

 

Time to go. Time to return to the bedroom. I smiled softly. Simon would be waiting for me, his imagination running riot. He would see a slave girl enter the lamp lit room. Perhaps I would stand in the doorway for a moment, pensively, looking vulnerable. Maybe I might move the weight of my body from one foot to the other and hesitate, appearing so helpless. I wanted to feel helpless again. Actually, it was easy to feel vulnerable and helpless in just a slave tunic and collar. The feelings came naturally enough. I wanted Simon to rise from the bed and seize me with a growl. I would resist of course. I would demand he let me go. And he would tie me to the bed again, and I would lie there, breathing hard, feeling his rough hands as they pushed the skirt of my garment up past my hips. He would have to force my legs open. I wouldn’t open them for him! 

 

I walked confidently from the toilet chamber, my bare feet padding across the floor. I stretched my arms and relished for a moment the freedom of movement I felt in a slave tunic. Gowns and robes in comparison restrict movement considerably. My limbs felt free as I moved between the tables and dining couches. And then I suddenly froze and hurried back against a wall in fright. My heart was suddenly pounding as I crouched down low against the wall and slipped behind the back of a couch. Someone had just emerged from the archway leading to the kitchen! It was a woman!

 

I watched in the lamp light as she passed close by, not seeing me. It was the kajira, Esavina, the former Lady Esavina, but surely she should be chained with the other girl in the kitchen?! Why was she free to wander about at her discretion?! As I watched, she paused for a moment, turning her head around slowly. It was almost as if she sensed she wasn’t alone in the room. Kajirae have keen senses, and for a moment I thought she had somehow seen me, but as I remained still in the darkness, away from any lamp, she seemed not to spot me. After a few ihn of hesitation, she began walking again and then sat down on one of the couches, gathering her legs up until her knees touched her chin. She sat there in thought, as if she had nothing to do at the moment, but was still on duty.  

 

I watched her for a while. She extended her left leg and ran her hand down the skin. She glanced around the café floor and brushed her hair with the other hand, grooming herself. She seemed a little bored, and she yawned for it was late. Why wasn’t she chained in the kitchen? And then it occurred to me that a kajira might be left on standby in case we needed her services. Of course. There was a sash bell in our room which no doubt connected to the bell I could see downstairs. We might ring for service and Esavina would respond. 

 

It was good to see her in a collar. She had been spiteful and had insulted my family. I had learned a hard lesson from Esavina, that high born ladies resented women such as I rising into their ranks. I was competition to her and she had felt I didn’t belong at the fine banquets and social events in perfumed gardens. And now she was a slave, thanks to me. No doubt she hated me even more. Well, I was a free woman, and she was a slave, so there wasn’t anything she could do about it. I resolved to have her whipped in the morning. I would say to Simon that she had given me a displeasing look. Simon would whip her to please me. Men do that for free women. It is expected. 

 

But Esavina posed an immediate problem. I was stuck behind this couch so long as she sat there. There was just about enough light that I could tell she was wearing the same tunic as me. I pulled at the fabric below my breasts and let it spring back. The rep cloth used to make slave garments has some natural ‘cling’ to it.  

 

“Silly little kajira,” she said after lounging for a while. “Are you going to hide there all night?” She didn’t even glance in my direction, but she somehow knew I was there. 

 

I didn’t move. Sometimes it is just a bluff. I once had a girl reveal herself from hiding because she thought I knew where she was. I didn’t. Kajirae are stupid like that. 

 

Esavina sighed. “There is a mirror on the wall behind you, just above your silly little head. I saw you take position behind the dining couch.” 

 

I stood up with considerable dignity and simply looked at the slave. The light was dim from the tapered lamps. 

 

She rose from the couch and stood there with the air of authority of a first girl. “Why aren’t you in the kitchen? Why aren’t you chained for the night? In fact, who are you?” She furrowed her brow and did a slight swagger walk towards me.  

 

There was no way I could slip past her easily, and anyway, she would simply follow me. I shrugged and stood my ground.

 

“I asked you a question girl,” she growled. “You had better answer me!”

 

“Be silent, slut,” I said. She seemed surprised by my tone of voice. 

 

“Cah… Casssandra?” She looked at me now in surprise. I looked different, of course, with my hair down, but she knew my voice well enough. “By all the Gods, it is you! Cassandra Assante in a slave tunic and collar!” She clapped her hands to her mouth in joy. “You’re a slave now?”

 

I wasn’t happy about any of this, but resolved to bluff it out.

 

“Of course not.” I took some steps towards her, trying to be as dignified as I could be under the circumstances. “Move aside.”

 

“You’re wearing a collar!” She squealed in delight. “This is wonderful!”

 

“I’m a free woman,” I snapped. “If you don’t step aside, I will hurt you.”

 

“Can you take the collar off? No? Well, you’re a slave then! A slave! Cassandra Assante is a…”

 

I hit her hard, once, and she went down from my punch, screaming. I sighed and shook my fist as it hurt a bit from the blow. “Esavina, Esavina, you should know better than to provoke me.” I walked around her as she blubbered on the floor. I pushed at her with my right foot, moving her slightly towards the light. “You will forget you saw any of this. Whatever you think you saw, you didn’t. If I have any reason to remember your name again in the future, it will mean I will instruct a man to buy you from this café. You will then be conducted to a derelict warehouse on the riverside where I will be waiting for you with a skinning knife in my right hand. You will take a long time to die and you will not leave a pretty corpse. Are we clear?” I kicked her once in the stomach and made her throw up on the floor. “I said are we clear?” 

 

“What is noise?” came a sharp, abrupt voice from the staircase. I whirled round and blinked in surprise as I saw another woman appear from the upstairs landing. This woman was most certainly NOT a slave. She descended the steps slowly, with the swagger of a warrior. Her belt held two long knives and a vicious looking slave crop. She had strong shoulders and a ‘handsome’, but stern looking face, devoid of any make up. ALL free women wear heavy eye shadow at least. And most of us some natural looking foundation. Her dark hair was gathered back from her face in a tight pony tail and she wore a long mannish tabard over dark woollen hose and high leather boots with what looked like steel toe caps. Her arms were bare, showing incredibly strong muscle for a woman, and she wore no veils that I could see. There was a strong air of authority about this woman that shocked even me. Women don’t scare me, but some survival instinct suddenly alerted me as soon as she fixed her gaze on the two of us. I felt a rush of adrenalin – the flight or fight reaction Brinn had often talked about, meaning I sensed on an instinctive level that I had good reason to be scared of this woman.

 

She saw Esavina on the floor and then she saw me. A smile crossed her face. “Ah,” she said with a knowing nod.  

 

I found myself taking a few steps back. For once in my life, facing a woman I didn’t know, I felt genuine fear.

 

“Pretty little kajirae,” said the woman as she descended a few more steps. “Disturbing guests with their cat fights.”

 

“I am NOT a kajira,” I said sharply. “I am a guest here.”

 

“You wear steel collar. Steel slave collar.”

 

“I can explain. It is my man. It is a joke he played. We can speak to him now. He will confirm I am free.”

 

“And what is your name, kajira?” she said as she stood at the foot of the stairs.

 

“He is upstairs. I am Lady Lucia of the city of Lara,” I said. There was no way I was going to give her my real name, and luckily Esavina was in no state to speak. The river city of Lara is a trade ally of Vonda, and by claiming to come from there it meant I could explain away why I couldn’t verify family and home stone within Vonda, without appearing to be a woman from a city that Vonda viewed as hostile. 

 

“You look like slave. If you lie, I will have you chained and whipped.”

 

“I am not lying.” I held the palms of my hands towards her in a placatory gesture. I was feeling genuinely terrified as she now stalked towards me.

 

“Man will vouch for you?” she said with a smile.

 

“Yes. His name is Simon. He will tell you I am free.” I held my breath as this woman stood in front of me. She was a good head and a half taller than me, and her body looked hard with toned muscle all over it. I knew how to strike quickly, but I sensed her reactions might be very good. And I wasn’t sure I could accurately strike an area that was vulnerable. I would only get one shot, I felt sure of it.

 

“Hmm.” She jabbed at Esavina with her the edge of her foot. “Get up, girl,” she said. “Stop blubbering.” She stood there as Esavina hauled herself up. The slave was hoarse, out of breath from the stomach kick, and couldn’t find the wind at the moment to speak. Nevertheless, she stood up with a look of hatred directed at me.

 

“You think you are fighter?” said the huge woman to me as she moved her face close to mine.

 

“I’m Lady Lucia,” I said as fear gripped me. 

 

“You want to try hit me?”

 

“No.” I was quite certain on that point.

 

“Try,” she said with a broad smile. “Try, little kajira.”

 

“Please, if we just speak to Simon. I am a Lady of the city of Lara. Our cities have a mutual charter of understanding.”

 

“Go then,” said the woman with a sweep of her hand, indicating the stair case. “Lead way. Let us speak to your man. Let him tell us you are not kajira.”

 

I swallowed hard, from nerves and began to walk towards the stair case, knowing this powerful woman was walking close behind me. I took the steps, one at a time, tugging my short skirt down as I raised my feet. There was a laugh behind me as I tried to maintain that modesty.

 

“Hands by side, girl, fingers loose and relaxed. Leave skirt alone.”

 

I did as she said, feeling the rep cloth fabric lift and flutter a little as I took the remaining steps. The landing was in view, and with it the door to our bedroom. The thump of heavy boots followed me to the door. I placed my hand on the handle and opened it.

 

“Simon. I’m sorry, we have a situation…” my voice trailed off as I entered the room. There was the bed, but there was no sign of Simon. None at all. I looked to the side where he had placed his tunic and the key to this collar, and there was no sign of either. He had dressed and left the room while I was in the toilet chamber! I stared in stunned disbelief.

 

“Well,” said the woman who now filled the doorway behind me. “Any more excuses, kajira?”