Companions of Gor: Chapter Ten

 

 

I woke at dawn as the first rays of bright sunlight came through the loft space window and into my face. I groaned, turned on the makeshift straw bedding, and heard the clink of chain as I moved. My hands reached out and grasped the chain links that ran from my collar ring through the straw, across the wooden decking and terminated at an iron slave ring. 

 

Of course. I was chained. I lifted my head and felt the chain move with me, slithering along the surface of the floor boards. Mikos had chained me before he had descended the ladder. He said it was so no one could steal me during the night while I slept. Gorean men tend to take that precaution with their slaves, at least. It is not unknown for a thief to enter through a window and abduct a girl while the man of the household sleeps in another room. And this was, as he had pointed out, a rough neighbourhood.

 

I gazed at the chain. I suppose it made some sense. But even so…

 

“Good night, Cassie,” he had said to me, as he had left. “Sleep well, girl.”

 

I needed the toilet. I stirred and looked around. Mikos had left a ceramic pot for such things. It had a screw lid to seal it after use. My body felt stiff as I got up and squatted on the pot, rolling up the tunic about my hips. I felt another stream of water release and I sat there for a moment considering what I had experienced just hours ago. I felt tired from not enough sleep, but I also felt a contentment that had been absent from a long period of my life. I felt happy. Deliriously happy in fact. 

 

The sex with Mikos had been better than the sex with Simon. There was… a natural roughness to it that made Simon’s techniques seem contrived in comparison. Mikos had known what he wanted from me, and he had taken it, without question. He was a brute. I smiled and brushed my hair back from my face as I recalled some of the things he had done. The things he had actually dared to do without asking me! Such a brute. I must look a mess, I thought to myself. My hair felt so tangled. I lifted myself up from the pot and screwed the lid down tight and then slid it away as far as I could reach. I felt the steel collar around my neck and sighed again. 

 

Yes, the sex had been very good. 

 

I sat on the floor and began to brush the worst of the straw from my body and then did the same with my hair. Where was Mikos? I sucked at my lower lip and considered calling out to him, but for some reason didn’t. If he was sleeping, he might not want to be woken up. I crawled instead as far as the chain allowed and I managed to peer over the edge of the loft. It was dark down there as the lamps had gone out during the night and very little light came through the cracks and gaps of the shuttered windows. I could make out a shape on a bed of straw that seemed to be a woman. Trublia, no doubt. But Mikos wasn’t beside her.

 

Good.

 

I crawled further along the loft floor, peering through any significant gap in the planking, but I saw no sign of movement anywhere down below. It was frustrating. Was Mikos even in the stables? Or had he gone out for a walk?

 

I crawled back to my bedding and sat there for a while. I felt ravenously hungry for some reason, and then remembered that I had eaten so very little during dinner. Normally I would then have eaten in secret back at home, but of course I never made it home. My stomach rumbled and I felt how dry my mouth was.

 

After perhaps fifteen ehn, I heard the stable door creek open and I quickly scurried along the floor to my vantage point. Mikos had returned to the stables, carrying a light sack. He gazed down at the sleeping figure of Trublia, now silhouetted in light from the open door, and then glanced up in my direction. When he saw me clutching a pair of wooden supports with my hands, he grinned and made his way toward the ladder. I scurried back to my bedding and arranged the length of chain so that it wasn’t tangled up. 

 

“Cassie,” he said as he reached the top of the ladder. “Did the little kajira sleep well?”

 

“The night is over,” I said. “You don’t need to call me that anymore.”

 

“But it’s your name.” He placed the small sack down on the floor close to me.  

 

“I prefer Cassandra.”

 

“Do you?” He sat down and opened the top of the ack. “You must be hungry?”

 

“Ravenous,” I said with a soft smile. “Did you go for breakfast?”

 

“I did. Men start work early in this quarter and there are stalls catering for them from an early hour.” He produced some bread, some smoked meat and some cheese. It was simple stuff,  but to me now, with my hunger, it was a banquet. He also produced a bota of water and held it up to me with an enquiring look.

 

“Yes please. My mouth is very dry.”

 

He passed the bota to me and watched as I drank heavily.

 

“You had quite a night, Cassie.”

 

“My name is Cassandra.” I handed him the bota back. 

 

“Does a slave get to choose her own name?” he asked.

 

“No, of course not. But I’m not a slave.”

 

“Ah.” He smiled and regarded me at length.

 

“I suppose you have a busy day ahead of you,” I said after a while. He would want to unchain me soon and escort me home. Already he probably felt anxious that the hour was so late. He would want me to hurry up. 

 

“True. I have many things to do.” He reached out and touched my left ankle. He held it for a moment and then drew that leg towards him.

 

“What are you doing?” I said. I felt a tightness of breath in my chest. Surely he didn’t want to… not again… not that…

 

Every time I cried out, and that was often, as he thrust hard inside of me, Mikos placed his hand over my mouth. After a while he grew tired of doing this and he simply wadded some cloth, gently, but firmly, into my mouth and told me not to spit it out. My cries then were simply muffled. He took his time with me in the morning, savouring the warmth of the sunshine spilling through the open window. I scratched piteously at the boards with my nails as he kept me on a plateau of pleasure for longer than I was used to. When I did then come, my climax was like an eruption of sorts, or a dam bursting. He clamped his hand tightly on my gagged mouth as I cried out and thrashed. Only when I lay still, trembling from the afterglow, did he release me and remove the wadding.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

 

“Cassie,” I whimpered.

 

“Who gets to name you?”

“You do.” I clutched him and buried my face into his chest. I gripped him tightly as the waves of pleasure receded like an ebbing tide through my body. 

 

After I was done, after I lay there, breathing hard, he began to feed me. He broke off pieces of meat, pieces of cheese and pieces of bread and fed me by hand. He told me when I might eat, and when I might simply hold the food in my mouth, salivating from it. He controlled the pace at which I ate, and he made me thank him for each piece. We talked for a time. He seemed interested in my life, my upbringing, what it had been like to be born to a warrior household. I enjoyed talking with him. Somehow the sex had broken down the barriers I might normally erect in a conversation with a man I barely knew.

 

He asked me whether Simon had been my first man, and I assured him I had been white silk at my free companionship ceremony. The implication of course hung in the air that he was now my second experience of sex and therefore I could now make a comparison of the act. Mikos would touch me as I talked, and that made it easier to talk. I sat beside him, occasionally asking for another piece of food, which he would always present between his fingers. 

 

“Show me nadu,” he said. I sat back on my heels, my back and head straight and my hands on my thighs the way he had taught me last night. He had thought it amusing to teach me a slave position while he was coupling with me! I sniffed as I knelt there.

 

“Satisfied?” I enquired with sarcasm. 

 

“Good,” he said. “You learn quickly, Cassie. That’s a sign of an intelligent slave.”

 

“I’m not a slave.”

 

“You wear a collar.”

 

“Any woman can wear a collar,” I said.

 

“Any woman can be a slave.”

 

The logic was unassailable. 

 

“You made me kneel before you in nadu,” I said, angrily. “Both last night and just now.” 

 

“So I did. Eat.” He held a piece of cheese towards me that I took in my teeth. 

 

“What time is it?” I said.

 

“The chimes for the eighth ahn have been rung some time ago,” he said. That is quite late in the morning. Noon is at the tenth ahn. There are twenty ahn in a full Gorean day. 

 

“You have things to do today. You are a busy man,” I said.

 

“That is correct,” said Mikos. “I have many things to do. Eat.” He fed me some smoked meat. “Hold it in your mouth.”

 

I did so, feeling the saliva build up. 

 

“Now you may chew,” he said after twenty ihn. “Good girl, Cassie.”

 

“I hate you,” I said as I knelt in nadu. 

 

“That is of no consequence,” said Mikos with a smile. 

 

“I need to get home!” I said. I suddenly realised that if the tenth ahn had rung some time ago, my men, Ramon and Kesper would have called for me at the sixth ahn and found me missing from the café. They would have searched the streets and made enquiries, and they would now be ranging further afield trying to find me. 

 

“Do not break position, Cassie,” said Mikos with a firm expression.

 

“Oh! You are insufferable. I need to find my men!”

 

“Ramon and Kesper?” He enquired.

 

“Yes! That is them!”

 

“Do not concern yourself with them. I met them earlier in the market place where they were making enquiries. They seem fine men. They were relieved when I told them I had seen you and that you were staying with friends today. So you see, there is no rush for you to get back.”

 

“But I have to! Mikos, I can’t stay here. I’m as busy as you are.”

 

He smiled. “Trublia will be hungry too. If you’ll excuse me, Cassie.” He rose and walked back to the ladder, descending down it while I lay on the bedding of straw. 

 

Three quarters of an ahn later, I was tidying up the loft space, brushing the straw into piles, folding the sack cloth, and cleaning the toilet pot with a brush and rag and water. I was livid with rage. “Why are you making me do this!” I cried. Mikos sat nearby, watching me.

 

“It would be a discourtesy to leave the stable in a filthy state. Other men might wish to use it in the future.”

 

“Then get a slave to do it!’

 

“That is what I am doing,” he said.

 

“I am not a slave!” I glared at him. “What time is it?”

 

“The chimes for the tenth ahn will soon ring.”

 

“I have to go home!” I said. “Mikos, take me home.”

 

“Keep working, Cassie. The loft space is to be clean and tidy when I return.”

 

“Return? Where are you going?”

 

“I am taking the Lady Trublia home, of course.”

 

I sat beside the window, brooding, with my knees under my chin when Mikos returned, closing the stable door behind him and bolting it. I heard the heavy footsteps climb the ladder and then I saw him appear at the top of the loft space.

 

“The chimes for the fifteenth ahn rung earlier!” I said. “The fifteenth ahn!”

 

“Nadu, Cassie.”

 

I stared at him. He then brandished a switch.

 

I took up nadu position. 

 

“Where were you? You were gone for so long,” I said sometime later, as I lay in the straw, the skirt hem of my tunic rolled up around my hips. I watched him rise from the bed of straw, adjust his own tunic and pace over to the window, as he had done earlier today, and he gazed out into the courtyard, apparently looking for something. My skin was flushed and damp from my climax just now. My body was shivering from the after effects. The sixteenth ahn had rung a short while ago, and I had been put to use again.

 

“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, Cassie. You could be beaten for it,” said Mikos with a smile. He sat down next to me and stroked my breasts. 

 

“How long are you going to keep me here!” I rose up on my elbows, glaring at him. “This has gone on too long. You can’t keep putting me to use!”

 

“Oh?” he regarded me and lifted my chin with his fingers. “Why?”

 

“Because I am a free woman!”

 

“And what practical difference does that make?”

 

“Unchain me, Mikos! I’m serious. Please.”

 

“Nadu, Cassie. When you speak to me, you do so from nadu.”

 

Frustrated, I took up position on my knees with my hands resting on my thighs. The chain descended down from my collar ring between the valley of my breasts.

 

“Mikos…” Before I could say anything else he sniffed me. 

 

“You need to wash, Cassie. I can smell you have been put to use. Repeatedly.”

 

I blushed and put my hand to my mouth. No woman wants to smell of the after effects of lots of sex.

 

“There is a piece of soap and a pail of water over there, girl. Clean yourself up.” He watched as I moved to where a bucket of rain water stood. With it was a hard cake of some very cheap soap. I scrubbed myself clean, pulling and rolling the tunic up over my breasts while I washed and then I scrubbed between my thighs with the soap. I glanced at Mikos as I washed. He seemed absorbed in some thoughts and rose to walk to the window where he gazed out across the courtyard yet again.

 

“You’ve done that several times today,” I said as I began to wash my long hair. Like most free women, my hair grew very long, with just trimming at the ends when needed. I was very proud of it. Exceptionally proud. Washing it normally took a long time, with expensive conditioners, but all I had here was a pail of cold water and some harsh soap. 

 

“So I have.” Mikos watched whatever it was he had been in the habit of watching and then paced back across the wooden floor. Something was on his mind. Something he wasn’t sharing with me. 

 

“You seem to be waiting for something.” I began to squeeze the water from my long hair, running my hands down the length of it to wring it dry. 

 

“It would appear so.” He smiled. “You are very beautiful, Cassie, in that tunic. I can only imagine what you might look like in pleasure silk.”

 

I blushed. 

 

“Sit by the open window. Your hair will dry in the sunshine,” he said. And so it did. As it dried, I combed the tangles out with my fingers. I gazed occasionally at Mikos as I did so, for he seemed silent now. 

 

“Come, sit in front of me, with your back to me,” he said.

 

“Why?”

 

“Must a command be repeated?”

 

“No.” I rose and, with a slither of chain, did as he said. I felt his hands go through my very long hair, measuring it. And then he reached into that small sack that had contained our breakfast. He produced something and brought it up to my hair.

 

“What are you doing?” I said, sensing something was about to happen.

 

“I am cutting your hair with these shears.”

 

“What?! No!” I turned around in alarm. Free women are very protective of their long hair. It takes a long time to grow and a lot of upkeep. Slaves on the other hand typically have easier hairstyles to manage. The most common one is what is referred to as ‘the slave flame’. The slave flame is a medium length style to just behind the shoulders that is trimmed and shaped, as the name suggests, into a tapering flame. It is so commonly attributed to slaves, that no free woman would ever wear her hair like that.  

 

I felt Mikos grip my shoulders. He had expected this reaction.

 

“You will sit still, Cassie. Do not struggle.”

 

“You can’t cut my hair! Please, Mikos!” I struggled but was pressed down onto the boards. He dragged me to the slave ring where my collar chain was attached and now he bound my wrists tightly to it as well. I knelt there, facing the ring, hands helpless, and my back to him. He now gathered my long hair and began to cut it while I shook and cried.

 

“Not the slave flame!” I said.

 

“You will look more like a kajira,” he simply replied. “Trust me. I have my reasons. They are good ones.”

 

“I don’t want to look like a kajira!”

 

He ignored me and carried on cutting and shaping my hair, losing about half the length in the process. Soon my hair was indeed in the shape of the slave flame. The remainder of my cut hair lay around my knees. Mikos untied me and told me to clean up the mess.

 

“Why have you done this?! Why!”

 

“You will see.” He sat down on the window ledge and gazed out over the courtyard. The chimes rang the seventeenth ahn. “We still have some time. I shall teach you some slave positions while we wait. They may prove useful, later. Learn them well, Cassie.”

 

I was standing now with my legs widely spread, my head back, my hands clasped behind the back of my neck. The back of my thighs were blazing with pain where Mikos had casually used his crop on them when I had objected too stridently, and tested his patience too far. Gods of Gor, but the pain was horrible. He paced around me, modifying my posture in places and kicking my legs further apart. “Do you know what this is called?”

“No.” I fought back tears from the pain of the crop. I would not let him see me cry!

 

“Did your mother not teach you basic slave positions in case you ever had to submit?”

 

“No she didn’t. She would have rather I died.”

 

“I see. Well that would have been a waste. Most free women are taught a handful of positions in case that time ever comes. This is the examination position.” He touched my breasts and then placed his hand between my widely spread legs. I jumped as he did so. “As you can see, Cassie, you can easily be examined like this.” He brushed the much reduced length of my hair around my neck, allowing the point of the flame to form between my shoulders. “Did the crop hurt?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Do you want to feel it again?”

 

“No!”

 

“Good. That is an intelligent response to the whip. Show me the bracelets position. You must know it. All women do.”

 

I placed my wrists quickly behind the small of my back and crossed them. At the same time I turned my head to the left, chin slightly up. 

 

“Brand display,” he said, walking around me.

 

“I don’t have a brand!”

 

“Nevertheless…”

 

I turned to my right, toward him, and drew up the short hem of my tunic at the left hand side, with the fingers of both hands delicately touching the fabric, raising it to my waist and fully exposing my left thigh. A slave would have a graceful kef brand revealed high on the thigh, just under the hip.   

 

Outside the chimes rang the eighteenth ahn. It was growing dark again now. With a start I understood I would be spending another night in this stable. Panic gripped me and stupidly I began to thrash and pull at my collar chain like some animal with its leg caught in a trap. Mikos watched me, knowing that at some point a new captive always acts like this. Before long I had tired myself out and I sat down. I ran my fingers through my newly cut slave hair and sobbed. 

 

“Please let me go, Mikos.”

 

Something seemed to interest him, as he rose and walked towards the window, gazing out across the courtyard. “It is time,” he said.

 

“Time? What for? What is going on?”

 

“Simon,” said Mikos. “I fear something has happened to Simon, and it may be my fault. The lights have come back on in the café below. The lamps have been lit. It is open again for business. It’s time to find your companion, Cassie, and right this mess that I may be responsible for. You and I are going back to the café tonight.”