Kajirus of Gor Chapter Thirty Seven

 

“I’m Felicity Emery! Please, Mr Hawkins! It’s me! I’m Felicity!” A couple of the wyld wymen found it funny that Felicity was crying out to the men as she was brought down from the back of the flatbed and thrown to her belly on the bare grass. “You know me! You must know me!”

 

“So you are, Miss,” said Hawkins. “How come you’re naked? Shameful way for you to be.”

 

“They took away my clothes!” she sobbed. “Please Mr Hawkins, you have to help me! These women whipped me!”

 

Beside Hawkins, Hadley laughed, as she allowed the man to put his free arm around her waist. 

 

“I’ve been whipped!” cried Felicity. Rowan had put a leash about her throat and was leading her forward. 

 

“That’s a mighty rude thing to do to an Emery Lady, Miss. I can see you’re pretty vexed about it all.”

 

“They want to enslave me!”

 

“The little slut enslaved herself,” said Hadley. “She spoke the words.”

 

“That right, Miss?” Hawkins narrowed his gaze. “You said them very words? La kajira?”

 

“I… I… they were going to whip me!”

 

“They wouldn’t whip a Free Woman, Miss. Not the way you might whip a slave. ‘Specially not an Emery. The Accords don’t rightly allow it. I wouldn’t allow it. A slave though, a slave by her own admission… well, shit, that there’s a whole damn different matter. You can whip a slave, right enough. Especially when she needs to know her place.”

 

For one horrible moment Felicity and I must have thought the same thing. Was it really true that while she was a Free Woman the wyld wymen wouldn’t have whipped her for being a runaway slave? But the moment she spoke words of self-enslavement, everything became different, and the Accords no longer applied? I recalled how Kelly had been told she would be hunted for five days, and how that was a deception, too.

 

“Mr Hawkins, it’s me, Felicity! You’ve known me for years! I’m Chelsea’s friend!”

 

“Nope.” He spat some chewing tobacco on the ground. “You ain’t Miss Felicity Emery no more. You’re just a slave girl now. Shit, you don’t even have a name, honey.”

 

Despite Rowan holding her leash, Felicity sank to her knees on the soft ground. The men from the Lazy F were not going to save her, it seemed.

 

Anthea walked forward and held out the Bannon ring to Hawkins.

 

“Pretty little thing,” he said as he plucked the ring from her open hand and held it up to the light. I wasn’t completely sure whether he was referring to the ring or Anthea. “Mr Frick will be right pleased with you girls. When a family has two rings, that means another family has none. Cut off from Gor, they are now. All set to wither and die, like an uprooted vine, unless of course they toe the Frick line in future.”

 

“You have something for us?” asked Hadley. 

 

“Damn right I do, sweet thing.” He gestured to his own truck. “Big crates of goodies you girls can do with. Delivered with the kind regards of Mr Wilson Frick himself.”

 

“Candy bars?” asked Brielle, hopefully.

 

“Plenty of them, sweet thing. Couldn’t leave out the treats, now, could we?” 

 

“And medicine?” asked Anthea. 

 

“Yep, the sensible stuff, too.” Hawkins signalled to his two men, and they approached their truck and began unloading several crates. One of the men took a crowbar to the nails securing a small crate. Once the lid was prized open, we could all see it was stacked full of candy bars. The man in the blue denim shirt picked out a handful of candy bars and carried them over to Brielle.

 

“Missy,” he said, handing the five or six bars to the animal skin clad girl.

 

“I haven’t had candy in months,” she said, taking the treats. Presumably the wyld wymen had few, if any, supply runs to the towns and cities. I wondered why that might be? Was it the consequence of a self-imposed exile, or was there some dictate that they weren’t permitted to enter the towns? The man in the blue denim short smiled as he watched Brielle tear open the plastic wrapper and bite into the Hershey bar.

 

“Mmm, I’ve missed this!” she said. She was swiftly joined by Summer and Aubree, and now all three girls shared the Hershey bars between themselves. They planted their spears, points first, into the ground as they ate the candy. 

 

Only Rowan remained on watch, as the other girls broke discipline, though I could see she was tempted by the treats, too. The man in the blue denim shirt tossed a bar towards her. Rowan caught it, reluctantly, looking a little guilty for doing so. 

 

“No sin in wanting a treat,” he said to her. 

 

Anthea watched and declined a treat when the man in the denim shirt waved one at her. “Later,” she said. 

 

Summer, Aubree and Brielle walked to where the men’s heavy truck stood, and began carrying the crates back over to where their own flatbed waited. Hadley stepped away from Hawkins and helped, lifting and carrying a single crate all by herself. 

 

“I believe that mostly concludes our business,” said Anthea as her girls finished the loading, and now stood guarding her. She motioned to Dexter, Felicity and myself. “Three slaves for your next coffle. Give my regards to the Fricks.” 

 

“Mighty good of you, Anthea. And Mr Frick will appreciate the respect. Thing is,” said Hawkins as he leaned against the cab of his truck, “we’re a girl short.”

 

“Why are you a girl short?”

 

Hawkins shrugged. “We just are.”

 

“Well, that’s not my problem.”

 

“It kind of is.”

 

Without warning, Hadley placed a knife at Anthea’s throat as Brielle seized the girl’s spear from her hand, and then drew the knife out from Anthea’s belt sheath with a clean sweep. At the same time, Summer and Aubree grabbed hold of Rowan from behind and quickly restrained her. 

 

“Hadley!  What is this!” cried Anthea. The edge of the knife was close enough that it had pricked her skin. A tiny drop of blood rose from her soft skin. 

 

“A natural succession of leadership,” said Hadley. “I have an Accord with James Hawkins. You’ve always lectured me on how important the Accords are. Here I am following your advice, signing a new one.”

 

“Don’t do this, Hadley. You’re making a big mistake. Wyld Wymen must never turn on their pack leader.”

 

In response, and with Brielle’s support, Hadley forced Anthea to the ground, placing her on her belly. She swiftly took Anthea’s wrists and tied them behind her back with binding fibre while an agonised Rowan looked on, unable to help. Hadley was obviously a lot stronger than Anthea. I saw the girl struggle wildly as she was bound, but she may as well have been a child compared to the six foot tall Amazon. It wasn’t even a contest.

 

“You underestimate my strength, I think,” said Hadley as she checked Anthea’s bonds. “Like you always underestimated so much about me. Compared with me, you are just a female.”

 

“Whatever men have offered you, it will be a lie,” said Anthea. She looked very scared now. Women tend to, when they are made helpless.

 

 “We have a new Accord. The Fricks do not break their Accords.”

 

“No,” said Anthea, bitterly, “they don’t. They persuade women to do their dirty work, instead, it seems.”

 

“Nothing to do with me, missy,” said Hawkins. “I’m not involved in the internal politics of the wyld wymen.” 

 

“Out of respect for what you have done for us in the past, I can offer you an honourable death if you wish it,” Hadley said. Her knife touched Anthea’s windpipe. “Just say the word. A quick, clean death.”

 

“No,” said Anthea. The word came quickly to her mouth. I think it surprised even her. 

 

“No?” Hadley expressed mock surprise. “What is this ‘no’ you speak of? Don’t you understand the alternative? A collar, a brand, and submission to men?”

 

Anthea closed her eyes tightly. 

 

“Slavery, Anthea. Think about it. You have always said that a wyld wyman does not submit to the collar. Only a natural slave submits to the collar. Just say the word and you will never have to submit to any man. Just say the word. Surely, the proud Anthea of the Bighorn territories does not want to submit to the collar?”

 

“I don’t want to die,” said Anthea, quietly. “The truth is, you never know until you face death.”

 

“Weak,” sneered Hadley. “So weak. You deserve a collar. You deserve to crawl and lick the feet of men.” She lifted herself up, took hold of Anthea’s hair, and forced her to kneel before Hawkins. “You are no longer a girl short, James.”

 

“What about her?” asked Hawkins, as he nodded towards Rowan. He seemed to like the look of the beautiful, long legged Rowan, very much.

 

Hadley walked over to Rowan and indicated the girls should release her. As we watched, Hadley pressed a knife hilt into Rowan’s right hand and then stepped back, drawing her own in a fluid motion. “It’s your lucky day. Anthea submitted. Do you wish to fight me?”

 

“No,” said Rowan. She couldn’t look at her former leader, Anthea, who knelt, bound, before Hawkins.

 

“Fight me!” snarled Hadley.

 

“No, please, Hadley, no.” 

 

“Do you want to be a slave?” asked Hadley.

 

“No, Hadley. Please, no.”

 

“Do you swear to obey me?”

 

“I do, Hadley. I do.”

 

“Very well then.” She turned to Hawkins. “You get one extra girl, not two.”

 

“Fair enough.” Hawkins tipped his hat and motioned for his men to bundle us all into their truck. He seemed disappointed, though. 

 

“Please,” begged Felicity as she was chained inside by her ankles. “Let me speak to Chelsea! Chelsea will not let you do this to me!”

 

“All the more reason for you not to speak to Miss Frick, then,” remarked Hawkins. He slapped her ass hard and grinned as the former Miss Felicity Emery cried out. 

 

And then we drove back to the Lazy F ranch. 

 

The sun had set by the time we drove through into the area of the ranch land where the cattle corrals stood. The main building was distant, perhaps a mile or so as the crow flies. 

 

Tonight there were no cattle in sight, but various trucks were arriving singly, or in twos and threes, loaded with naked girls chained by their ankles to central bars. The area was lit up by tall flood lights, adding a further sense of horror to the proceedings with the stark contrast between sharp fluorescent lighting over the pens and nearby ground, and the dark shadows that lay beyond.  

 

The girls were herded together into a steel corral designed not for cattle, but for women. It was a sturdy construction, built with a high frame and solid looking bars with the spacings narrow enough that even the slimmest of girls couldn’t squeeze through. Many of the girls were crying. Some were wailing. They were all naked. 

 

“Always a pretty sight, at roundup,” said Hawkins as he rested his rifle against his shoulder. I had been bundled out of the truck, my wrists bound. Dexter and myself had been kept markedly separate from the girls. “So many fillies getting hot and flustered, stamping around in the dirt, like it’s that time of the month.” The floor of the corral was bare earth, long since trampled clean of grass. There were two entrances to the main pen. The first was the double gate through which girls were introduced to the corral. It resembled an airlock of sorts. A rancher sat on a raised podium to one side of the double gate. He could raise the first gate with an electrical switch to receive a new girl, and then close it when she stood in the small space, barely large enough for her to turn around. 

 

A second rancher stood outside this small, single enclosure, waiting for each girl to find herself squeezed against the solid bars. At this point she had her wrists secured behind her back with a plastic zip tie. The rancher picked up a hand held gun tool and with it he reached through the bars, took hold of the girl’s head by her hair, and quickly stapled a plastic ID tag to her left ear. As the girl screamed, the rancher would read out the tag number. 

 

“337. Blonde. Frick collar.” A third rancher tapped the details into an iPad. The girl was registered now in the system. Details such as her former name, occupation, residence, nationality, these were all now irrelevant. Other details pertinent to the measurements of her body, the quality of her teeth, the wetness of her aroused sex, her breast and cup size, these and other details would all be collected and logged later to the Frick 337 entry. 

 

The inner gate was then raised and, seized by her hair, a rancher would push the girl through into the inner holding pen. I watched as Felicity was fed in with the other women. She too screamed and cried, after having a plastic tag embedded through her earlobe. 

 

“338. Brunette. Frick collar.”

 

I saw Anthea fed through, too. Her eyes seemed to channel her despair as another plastic tag was clipped painfully into her earlobe.

 

“339. Brunette. Frick collar.”

 

A plastic tag dangled from the left earlobe of each girl in the inner corral. This pen was deeper than it was wide, and men stood on either side with long cattle prods that could send 4,000 volts into a girl’s body if she protested or refused to co-operate. Each girl was then called to the second of the entranceways which, like the first, had a double gate. This time, however, the double gates were at either end of a ten foot funnel. The floor of this steel barred funnel was filed with blue disinfectant, like cattle wash. The screaming, hysterical girls were called up by their tag numbers and compelled to splash through the cattle bath, encouraged to move quickly by the presence of the electric prods that hovered through the bars. This funnel took them through another barred gate that was raised up, and into another small confined space where each girl now shrieked as she was hosed down with cold soapy water. A second hosepipe, containing just cold water, then rinsed her off. 

 

“I’m Felicity Emery! I’m not a slave girl! Please let me speak to Chelsea Frick,” begged Felicity as she shivered, her hair and body now dripping wet. “Please! I’m not a slave girl!”

 

She screamed again as she received a jolt from the cattle prod. She had lingered too long. Now she scurried quickly to the next door in the corral. Here she was fed through another funnel system and into another confined space resembling a chute. Two bars came together and caught her neck, immobilizing the girl. Clamps were then locked above and below the area of the left thigh where Felicity was to be branded. The clamps were capable of completely immobilising a thigh, for branding is a precise business if the brand is to be clean and neat. 

 

“Please, no! I’m Felicity Emery! Felicity Emery!” She screamed horribly as a rancher touched her thigh with a white hot iron. Felicity’s body shook and spasmed, except for the left thigh that couldn’t move in the slightest as the branding iron sat there, burning her flesh to the count of three.

 

She was still weeping as her thigh was released, and the bars around her neck lifted. 

 

Felicity Emery now had a raw brand of a cursive letter ‘k’ burned indelibly into the flesh of her left thigh. It would mark her as a Gorean slave for the remainder of her life. 

 

Slowly but surely, the central corral pen began to fill with naked, branded, ear-tagged girls, their wrists still secured behind their backs with zip ties. To the left and right of the steel barred pen there were feeding troughs, each one wide enough for five girls to feed. Ranch hands poured dried powder from heavy sacks marked Nutri-girl K basic. The contents resembled muesli in consistency. Water was then added to the powder with a hosepipe, and stirred with a long handled ladle through the bars until it resembled a porridge like formula. In groups of five, girls were called to feed. 338 and 339 were called together in the same coffle of girls to feed at the left hand trough.

 

“Please, please,” begged Felicity as she stumbled forward. “I’m Felicity Emery! Please tell Chelsea Frick!”

 

The men ignored her, except to tell her to feed. With their wrists secured, the girls had to kneel and feed, bending forward, dipping their faces in to the porridge like mush. 

 

“Nutri-girl. I’ve heard of that. Isn’t it a diet fad?” I remember seeing the packets in supermarkets in the diet section. The boxes tended to have a young smiling girl on the packet art, dressed in a vibrant sixties mini skirt. It had proven to be surprisingly popular amongst body conscious women, mostly young ones who compared themselves endlessly to perfect images of perfect bodies on Instagram. 

 

“That’s right,” said Hawkins. “Nutri-girl for that beach ready body,” he said, mimicking the voice overs in adverts. “Slim and tone with one simple formula. Provides all the working nutrients a modern girl needs to look and feel just great.” He laughed. “What’s really funny is that the stuff is made by her family – the Emerys. And now she’s eating it herself.”

 

I saw Felicity’s pained expression as she raised her head from the trough. Her hair was sticky with Nutri-girl feed, and there was more of it smeared across her chin. 

 

“Feed,” said a rancher who touched her lightly with the medium setting of the cattle prod. Felicity screamed again and sunk her face back down into the trough.

 

“On Gor the feed has another name,” said Hawkins. “It’s called Slave Gruel. It’s certainly nutritious and good for them. Does just what it says on the packet. ‘Course, the stuff you buy in the shops is flavoured. Six different flavours, I think. And the Emerys have added a mild addictive compound to it. Once you’ve eaten Nutri-Girl mix for a couple of weeks, you’ll find it as hard to give up as a chocolate treat. And there’s something else added to it that acts as an appetite suppressant, so girls find it easy to diet. That’s what makes it so popular. You don’t need much else once you’ve had your bowl of Nutri-Girl. You could live on Nutri-Girl, alone.”

 

I must have looked confused because Hawkins went on to explain. “Goreans are way ahead of us when it comes to nutritional science and disease control. The slave feed formula we have here – the formula the Emerys were given and manufacture in them pretty packets – the formula that all those fancy college girls wolf down to keep in shape, well, Mister, it’s clever stuff. It targets weight loss, yes, but it also adds some much needed flesh to a girl’s breasts and hips. Fills them out in all the right places. She starts getting the curves that Goreans like on a girl. She gets a slim waist, but bigger tits and ass. Glossy hair, too. Stronger teeth and bones. Clever stuff. Don’t know how they do it, them Goreans. Think of it as us improving the herd where its naturally grazing. ‘Course, she’s not eating the flavoured version. Nope, she’s wolfing down K Basic. That’s unflavoured, that is. Blandest thing you’ve ever eaten. Like cold lumpy porridge mush. Slave gruel at its most natural and unappetising.”

 

“You don’t actually believe Gor exists, do you?”

 

Hawkins spat some tobacco onto the ground. “Mister, right at the beginning I didn’t know and I didn’t care. You know where Gor is? “He tapped the temple on the side of his head with two fingers. “It’s here Mister – it’s in the way I live my life, and it’s here on the Lazy F, where life is good, and we don’t put up with any of that woke shit you have in your country. I used to think it didn’t matter one jot if there’s actually a Gor, because we’ve built our own Gor, where men don’t snivel around the skirt and feet of a woman. But then, you know what? One night I saw the silver ships. Actual fucking silver ships, landing and taking off. So, hell, yeah, there might well be a Gor. Who fucking knows. Space ships gotta come from somewhere.”

 

“You’ve actually seen…”

 

“With my own eyes, Mister. My own eyes. But it don’t matter anyway, ‘cause Gor is here, and that’s good enough for me. I mean, ask yourself, if Gor was real, wouldn’t you want a piece of it?”

 

“You mean brutalising and enslaving women? No, I wouldn’t.”

 

Hawkins laughed. “How the fuck did you people ever rule a third of the world? They should just cut your balls off and put you in a skirt. Hell, up in Scotland I hear you all wear skirts, anyway.” 

 

“Kilts,” I said.

 

“Kilts,” he sneered. “Looks like a fucking skirt to me.”

 

Almost all the girls had been fed through the corral funnels by now. One by one they had been called to the bars after feeding; had been told to turn round with their backs to the bars, and the zip ties had then been cut away from their bound wrists. They now stood or knelt, weeping, hysterical in the central corral space, gazing out through the bars at the floodlit ground, outside. I could see that the high structure was topped with razor wire, and, just beneath the wire, what looked like the wire from a cattle proof electric fence. No girl would successfully climb out of that tall structure tonight. Piled up against one side of the bars were stacks of old horse blankets that the naked girls might use to keep warm. 

 

I saw Anthea and Felicity look at one another. They both wore ear tags. They were both freshly branded. They were both now slaves. Felicity sniffed and cried. I saw Anthea do the same. I didn’t think there was any chance of them becoming friends and comforting one another.