5 – Wolfhome
I was surprised to find that I really did like Wolfhome. The pine forests and magnificent mountains were very unlike the dry deserts and constantly wind-swept oceans of Cetious IV. I breathed deeply of that fresh air and found myself really liking this place. Between the pines and ferns, there was a lot of green around me, and I found that pleasing. A clear blue sky overhead and the gentle singing of birds stirred something within me, a longing I hadn’t even known I had.
“There,” said Thala, pointing to the other side of the clearing with her sword. “That is where the slavers’ ship sat down.
Back to business. I picked up the backpack of instruments and hiked across the meadow. Behind us was the hunting lodge of Princess Adrianne, an impressive structure that looked as if someone had tried to construct a palace out of logs. It was several stories tall, quite large and had stables in back for horses.
I began taking readings. Captain Eddie began circling the area, taking her own recorder readings. I was glad for her help, trying to read traces of propulsion systems wasn’t my strong point.
We met on the other side of the circular shaped area and compared notes. Then we headed back towards the warrior women waiting nervously by Eddie’s ship.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell,” I began. “The propulsion system they used was a Cutler Repulsion Field Generator, a rather common type. There’s traces of antimatter annihilation, but all that means is that there was a anti-matter power plant. Again, pretty common.”
“You’re saying that you have found nothing useful?” asked Thala.
I didn’t like the way she said it, nor the way her hand rested on the hilt of her sword.
“No, this does eliminate some ships and races. I’ll run a search pattern over the field to see if I can pick up anything else.” Then I high tailed it across the field again before they could ask any more questions.
I didn’t really expect to find anything. The important information we had already picked up. But I walked slowly back and forth across the field, checking the readings and hoping for something that would tell me more.
I found it but it wasn’t from the recorder. It was a piece of fabric laying on the ground. And next to that was a small dagger. I squatted and studied the dagger. Then I picked both it and the cloth up to take back to the girls.
“You recognize this?” I asked as I held out the dagger.
Thala drew an identical dagger from her belt and showed it to me. “It’s a warrior’s grace knife. We all have them.”
I made a mental note to check for hidden weapons anytime I tried to crawl into the sack with any of these girls. That small knife had been concealed behind the sword and I had missed it totally.
“And this?” I held up the clothe. It was perhaps a foot square and tom on one side. I expected them to tell me it was a piece of the Princess’ clothing or some guard’s hankie.
“I have never seen cloth like that before.” The other two shook their heads in agreement with Thala.
I looked at it carefully. Maybe, just maybe, it was from one of the invaders. But what good would a piece of cloth do? I imagined myself spending the rest of my life wandering around the rim, trying to find someone with a uniform missing a piece that matched the one in my hand. Sort of like the king’s ministers searching for the maiden whose foot fitted the glass slipper.
Just then there came the sound of giggling across the field. I turned to see half a dozen of the Wolfhome girls racing back and forth over a grassy areas next to the hunting lodge. All were stark naked. They seemed to be playing some sort of game where one girl had to tag another on the left breast, then that girl had to find another one to tag. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Thala interrupted my enjoyment of the scene. “Is there anything else you can do here?” she asked pointedly.
I sighed. “Probably not. Let’s go into the ship.”
Of course I could admit defeat, collect my fee and go home. But I really wanted to solve this case. Maybe it was pride in myself as an adjuster. Maybe it just wasn’t fair for some interstellar bullies to drop out of the sky and steal women away from their home. Or maybe I wanted to impress Captain Eddie in hopes that she would consider playing some games with a real man.
Well, whatever…
Back in the ship, I studied the piece of cloth carefully under a microscope. I had the recorder count the weave pattern and analyze the type of fabric. I studied the shape of the torn section and tried to guess what the larger shape would have been. I tested for chemicals hidden in the cloth fibers and found minor traces of a general purpose cleaner and Dician peppers. But Dician peppers were used throughout the galaxy as a spice, so that told me very little.
I was afraid I was going to have to admit defeat.
Then I turned the fabric over and read the small label on the other side. “Union made on Alpha Galdia III” it read.
The ship’s computer supplied information on Alpha Galdia III: a class A5 planet circling a type G star about one hundred light years from Wolfhome. Also called Kronos by the inhabitants, a race of warlike and extremely aggressive people called the Kronosians. These Kronosians possessed a modern, well-armed star fleet and defended their territory with pronounced violence to all who came near. Slavery is an established institution and they were known to be inter-stellar slavers. Occasionally even ships in deep space have been boarded and female passengers taken. The system is classified H-3, hostile and dangerous, and all ships are warned to stay clear.
Wonderful.
My client’s Princess had to be kidnapped by the bad boys of this sector of the rim. A few minutes later I was displaying the information on the main screen in the lounge.
“We have no fleet that could go up against them,” said Thala. “There is no way we can demand the return of our Princess. Do you think it would be possible they would accept a ransom?”
I had to shake my head. Kidnapping across dozens of light-years for ransom was very rarely done, I told them. “Besides,” I added, “if that were the case, you would have gotten a ransom demand by now.”
I have never seen Amazon female warriors so sad before.
I was pushing the piece of fabric around the table with one finger, thinking. Finally I made them an offer.
“If we can’t come charging in the front door,” I began.
“And we can’t sneak in the back door…” I paused for dramatic effect more than anything else, “…then we’ll have to get them to ask us to come in.”
Thala’s eyes narrowed as she digested my words. Eddie’s eyebrows came down in a frown as if she didn’t like that she thought I was suggesting.
“You don’t mean…” Eddie began.
“They would welcome another slaver,” Thala cut in with a voice that held a hard cutting edge to it. “And his cargo of slavegirls.”
I nodded and was careful not to grin. I was a screwy idea and stupid and would never work. And I had no idea why I ever came up with it.
Eddie looked from my face to Thala’s and back. “You don’t mean that these girls will be…”
“It’s the only way I can think of to get to Kronos,” I told her, keeping my eyes on Thala. “Unless you have a better idea?”
“That’s stupid!” she retorted. “And dangerous. You’d be throwing these girls into a terrible life of slavery to barbaric goons…”
“We will do whatever we have to,” said Thala softly. Eddie shut up at that tone in Thala’s voice, then sat there staring at her.
In the background I could seen Rhonda and Fauna nod their full agreement. My mind was racing. Posing as a slaver, I could perhaps get into to Kronos. But what then? “Using you girls as part of the cover, I can maybe find out who has the Princess and see if I can buy her. It is obvious that she and the other girls have been kidnapped to be trained and sold as slaves. Maybe I can be the highest bidder. You still have quite a few Flame Gems. Should be more than enough to buy a slave at auction.”
I didn’t like the hardness in Thala’s eyes. And I felt sorry for whoever had kidnapped the Princess when this warrior woman caught up with him..
That being settled, we charted course and jumped for Smoo-Tau VI. Why? Because Rosin Nea Grayscalp was there.
Princess Adrianne was tired. It was obvious in the grayness under her eyes, the droop of her eyelids, and the way she could barely hold up her head. But she forced herself not to succumb to sleep no matter how much her body craved it.
As attractive as it may be, sleep was something she did not desire. For were she to nod off to sleep for even a few seconds, she would be rudely awaken by pain of a kind she had no wish to again experience.
The lovely woman was secured in one of the training rooms and had been for over two days now. She was naked and bound to a apparatus designed to hold her standing upright. There was a pole set into the concrete floor with a T bar across the top. Her legs were bound both together and to that pole, and her waist lashed tightly to the crosspiece at the top so that she could not bend at the waist nor move away from that spot. Her arms were bound behind her with thin cord, the elbows tight together, painfully so, and the wrists corded below that. An additional rope from her wrists around her thighs and the pole held her arms down.
A small wire passed across the floor, up between her legs, to disappear into the black pubic patch that hid her sex. In addition, there was an unusual gag strapped into her mouth. It was a ball gag, much like those normally used around that place to silence slavegirls when the training became too painful. But this one also had attached a small cylinder embedded in the front of the ball.
After spending a miserable night laying on her chest and hips on the gravelly table, and gaining little restful sleep in the process, the Princess had been kept awake all the next day by a combination of sudden, short whippings on her bottom coming unexpectedly, and buckets of cold water thrown upon her naked form as she stood lashed bent over a bar with her bottom sticking up in the air. Those single sudden and very sharp slashes across her bare bottom continued through the night, coming when she least expected them and preventing her from gaining whatever sleep the uncomfortable position would otherwise have granted her.
Then came the morning. After two nights of almost no sleep and a hard day before and after those nights, the lovely Amazon had reached the stage of fatigue and exhausting where she had trouble concentrating or even thinking. Then they tied her with that special gag and the real punishment began.
The cylinder in the gag contained a small mercury switch and a radio transmitter. If the cylinder were tilted, the mercury inside would trigger the switch which would turn on the transmitter. Then an electrical current in the wire going to her pussy would activate and the rod implanted within her sex would come to life. It was a cousin to the pain sticks the guards carried, not as strong but still extremely painful. Especially when delivering it’s nerve-shocking stimulus to the most sensitive area of a woman.
During the first few minutes of being left alone in that room, Princess Adrianne had sighed and allowed her head to sag forward. The surprise shock within her sex jerked her head back up. And the pain continued until she realized that she had to hold her head level and still to make it stop. By then she was sweating and her vagina felt as if it were on fire. Whines of disbelief and pain escaped from around the ball gag, but she held her head rigid in fear that the pain would suddenly come to life again.
It was terrible. What she had thought was bad on the muscles of her leg was ten times worse insider her private place. At that point she would have begged, pleaded, even promised anything to be free of the threat of such pain. But there was no one present to accept her acquiescence and submission. There was only the ropes holding her in place and the small silver cylinder that she could just see sticking out of the front of the gag.
Hours crept by very slowly for Princess Adrianne that day. Several times she nodded despite her best efforts not to, and those times she was jolted back to full awareness by terrible pain shooting into her body. Some times her hands tired to twist under the ropes, fingers seeking any knot they might reach. But the knots were all tied tightly up at her elbows and beyond her reach. Other times she tired to expel the horrible thing from within her loins, but her legs were bound very tightly together and additional rope had been tied through her crotch to insure that the pain stick would not come out.
She did not know it, but it was nearly evening when her main tormentor, Shaden, came in. He looked her over, noting the stress and fatigue in every line of her body. Then he took a position directly in front of her.
“Are you ready to obey, slave?” he asked.
The Princess’ eyes shut and a tiny tear formed at one comer. Then she opened them and gave the slightest nod. She knew by then how much tilt it took to set off the pain stick and was careful to avoid it.
“Was that a nod? I can’t tell,” he said sarcastically. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
She nodded again, a little deeper but still just within the safety limit.
“Not good enough. I can’t tell if you’re saying yes or not.” She tried to say yes around the gag but the sound bore little resemblance to a word. “I will repeat the question,” he said. “Are you ready to obey me, slave? Nod deeply enough so I can see it.”
Princess Adrianne swallowed and whined in torment. Then she steeled herself for the terror she knew was coming and nodded her head once, quickly.
Her whole body jerked and she screamed around the ball gag. But she also held her head as still as she could when she again regained control of her muscles.
“That was better, slavegirl. But I like to be sure. Nod again.”
Telling herself it was stupid to resist when there was no hope, a once-proud Princess again caused herself incredible pain by nodding her head. And again she screamed into the gag.
“Will you do anything I tell you? Anything?” His grin was wicked as he again asked a question that required a nod to communicate the reply.
She closed her eyes and nodded again. Perhaps the scream was a little less this time. Maybe she was getting used to pain, or maybe the nerves in her sex were becoming overloaded.
“Good. If I untie you, will you lay on the stone floor and spread your legs for me? And then beg me to give you a good screwing?”
She nodded. This time the scream was more of a loud gasp. But the muscles in her flanks and across her stomach were trembling.
“If I told you to take a knife and cut-off the breasts of that Rachael girl you like, would you do it?”
The Princess’ eyes opened wide. For a long second she looked pleadingly to the man who controlled her future, then she closed her eyes and nodded again.
“I do not believe you,” he told her evenly. “But you have made progress. No use rushing things too fast.” He turned his eyes towards the dark ceiling to add, “By the Spirits and Gods of Deep Space, I love this work!”
He started to walk out and the Princess whined in protest and question. He turned around to meet her imploring gaze. For a few long seconds he seemed to be considering something. Then he took a few steps back into the room.
“You will do most anything to get that gag out of your mouth,” he told her. “But not anything. A real slave will do whatever she’s told, no matter what the cost or pain.” Suddenly he slapped her face.
She jerked and screamed and was a full two seconds before she could steady her head enough to get the switch to turn off. It had been a very unexpected blow.
Suddenly he smiled and reached behind her head. Unbuckling the strap and removing the ball from her mouth caused the switch to trigger again and for the full ten seconds of so that procedure took she was shaking and crying with the pain. But then he sat the gag down on the floor in a level position and the pain stopped trying to destroy her sex. She was weeping with eyes she had thought held no more tears.
Through those tears she saw his back as he departed the room, and a wonderful wave of relieve and gratitude flowed over her. No longer did she live with the constant treat of terrible pain to reward a wrong move of her head or the simple act of falling asleep. He had taken away the source of her pain and she wept with gratitude.
It did not occur to her that it was also he who had subjected her to that pain in the first place, such was her mental state right then.
No one came to untie her from the pole, so she slept standing up, leaning forward within the confines of her bonds, sleeping despite the pain of tight cords cutting into her body in numerous places.
The Princess did not know it, but she had passed another milestone on her road to becoming a slavegirl.
6 – How to Become a Slaver
The trip to see Rosin Nea Grayscalp took only two days. I would love to be able to say that I spent most of the waking hours inventing new sex games with the four lovely female creatures with whom I shared the confines of the star ship. I would love to say that, but I’d be lying. Truth is that I spent a lot of time in my cabin wondering what was going on in the other cabins. There seemed to be a lot of traffic between the Captain’s cabin and that of my three clients. And at all hours of the day and night.
There must be a Great God of the Universe. And he must hate me. Have you ever heard that old expression, “So near yet so far?”
I spent a lot of time plotting my revenge, a revenge that was sure to come once we jumped for Kronos and I had those three in “costume” for their parts as slavegirls for sale. I cannot tell you of the many scenes I envisioned in which those three were dressed in very scanty costumes and wore shackles and forced to do my bidding. Sigh…
If my clients thought that Homeport on Cetious IV was the big city compared to their Wolfhome, they had a lot to learn when we landed on Smoo-Tau VI. We were just one of a thousand ships using that one port, and a huge city sprawled along the coast covering at least a hundred square miles. At least the sight of skyscrapers and thousands upon thousands of people humbled them a bit. At least it quieted them.
Rosin, with whom I had done business twice before, had a penthouse a modest half way up one of those towers. I called to make sure he knew we were coming. We were going to see Grayscalp because he knew most of the shady dealers in this part of the galaxy and didn’t mind selling information — for a price.
The door was opened by a lovely Rigilan miss, just as tall as my clients and done out in a semi-transparent gossamer dress that left little to the imagination, and whose soft lavender set off her pale blue skin very well. She looked us up and down as I did the same to her, then we were invited in. I knew that the little pause at the door was to give his scanners time to check us for weapons, bombs, etc. Grayscalp had enemies.
The Rigilan waved a graceful hand towards a table just inside the door. I slowly removed the blaster from my belt and placed it here. Captain Eddie put hers down without being told to and turning to my clients, I suggested they do the same. Their blasters soon rested next to mine but they made no move to detach the swords. I looked to the receptionist. She waved us on. Apparently Grayscalp didn’t feel too threatened by cold steel in a universe filled with blasters.
“Welcome to my humble home,” came a voice from beyond the next doorway. The humble home had paintings hanging on the wall that would cost more than I’d made in my whole life. The carpet was so soft that the girl’s high heel boots sank into it. Soft music drifted down from somewhere and the very air was perfumed. All was done in shades of lavender and gray with the only touches of color being some large blood red flowers and the flowing puce robes of Grayscalp that swirled around him as he came towards us. I don’t know his sexual orientation but this was one man who came across like he was trying his hardest to be a woman. His robes were silky and flowing, his hair long and half way between ash and blonde, and his lips full and red. Yet he didn’t lisp or seem to be trying to act feminine. And he didn’t have a gray scalp, that was a family name only.
“Please do sit down,” he said with a wave of his arm towards cushions piled around a fireplace. There was no fire in it and it looked as if there never was. Which ruined the scene. “Can I get you some drinks? Jasimine Tea? Genuine Terra coffee? Prune juice? The bone heads love that.”
I told him to cut out the crap and bring out some of the good whiskey made on that planet called Ireland. At least that’s what the label said and it was the best whiskey to be found anywhere. He lifted one eyebrow at my uncivilized manners but sent Miss Blueskin away to fetch it. I knew the Wolfhome girls would like it and Captain Eddie… Well, I still wasn’t sure about her.
With a large glass of chilled whiskey to sip from, and from my position half enveloped in a cushion that seemed to be trying to eat me, I explained our problem. Grayscalp listen politely, nodding his head from time to time. “So I figured you were the best man to tell us how to dress and act so we can get onto Kronos and into the slave trade,” I finished up, then waited for his answer.
He pursed his large, soft lips and sucked in air. “Well, it can be done,” he finally announced. “But it will be very dangerous. Very dangerous.”
I could see Thala was about to explain how little they worried about danger, so I raised a hand to stop her. I had told them to let me do all the talking, and I hoped they would. “We accept that. It is important to my clients and their world.”
“You will have to appear in every respect as legitimate a slaver,” he continued. “And there’s no better way to do that than to actually be a slaver.” His feminine features settled into an amused smirk.
Thala raised an eyebrow in my direction which I interrupted as her asking if this man meant I should really sell them as real slaves. Captain Eddie just swirled her drink and keep looking into the brown liquid.
My mind was racing furiously. “You mean we should actually buy some slaves and have them as cargo when we reach Kronos?” I asked.
Grayscalp nodded slowly. “I can tell you much of what you will need to know to pass yourself off as a slaver, but there is not substitute for real slaves. These three lovely women can, of course, play the part of freshly captured slaves, not yet trained. Those are called raws. But it would raise eyebrows on Kronos if you were to come in with only them as your cargo. Some trained slaves, at least as many as untrained, would make a much more believable picture.” He gently lifted one eyebrow in the silent question, “Don’t you agree?”
I had to admit that there was logic in his view. And that was both because it was true, and because it suddenly dawned on me that he was suggesting I load up the ship with at least three more women — this time women trained to please a man. Suddenly this was looking more interesting.
“Is slave trading really that common out here on the rim?” asked Captain Eddie. She was trying to act casual but I could tell she was having trouble believing this whole scene.
“Oh, yes, my dear. The capture and trading of human lives has been with our race as long as recorded history. It is human nature to wish to own other humans.” He paused with his fingers forming a steeple before his lips. “Of course, the urge is mostly sexual, but it is very strong and is in full flower in this days of non-existent central authority. Yes, dear Captain, there are many planets where slavery is not only legal but encouraged. This Kronos is one. Every woman there is a slave, some a little less than others, but all are slaves. And there are many, many other male-dominated cultures among the stars.
“Oh, dear, don’t take offense, my dears,” he said in mock alarm at the Wolfhome girls’ frowns. “There are also many worlds were the-women rule, as it is fit that some women should. But we are most certainly not talking about those worlds now, are we?”
I’ll admit this about Grayscalp, he was smooth. He had just told three men-hating, sword-carrying Amazons that most of the universe was male dominated, and made them forego their anger at the very thought.
We talked a bit more about details of what we would need to get and do, then Thala broke in with, “How real will we have to be treated as slaves?”
Grayscalp lifted an eyebrow again. “I thought that was perfectly clear, my dears. You will have to be treated exactly as what you are posing as — wild, freshly captured women from a backwater planet.”
My three clients looked at each other nervously. “Yes, my dears,” Grayscalp went on, “that does mean that you will have to be restrained in shackles and bonds. And,” he lifted a finger to emphasize the point, “they must be very real. Those on Kronos who handle slavegirls will know instantly if anything is amiss.”
I could have kissed Grayscalp. I couldn’t have written a script any better.
Sensing their unease, he then closed the argument better than I could ever have. “Unless, of course, you women cannot perform this simple act. I am sure that it will require an exceptional degree of bravery.”
I could see their mouths tighten and knew the battle was won. I now had three slavegirls for our little masquerade.
Seemingly laughing behind those pale gray eyes, he continued, “I will teach Adjuster O’Connor what he needs to know. After that, I suggest you put yourselves in his hands. If he learns properly, it will be easy for you after the shackles are on.”
I could sense the double meaning in his words, and had to wonder if they did. What he was saying was that once I had them chained and bound, there was little they could do about it. They would not only look like real slaves, they would be. Of course, it meant that I would have to keep them restrained at all time with no chance for them to rebel and free themselves. That’s what a real slaver would do. And those men on Kronos could spot a fake immediately.
I was getting to like this assignment more and more.
We talked some more and the whiskey glasses were refilled silently by Miss Blueskin. I knew that the Wolfhome girls’ pride and dedication would force them to go through with this charade. But what about Captain Eddie? Unquestionably there had developed a relationship between her and the three of them over the last few days. How would see take to seeing her friends and lovers chained and imprisoned? I couldn’t read her thoughts at all, her face failed to reflect whatever emotions this scene brought forth.
We haggled about a price for his services, but not too much. It was my client’s money after all, and besides, the whiskey was good. Grayscalp promised to send over material that I would need to study, arrange for contacts on worlds where I could pick up the rest of my cargo, and prepare a list of supplies I would need. I knew he wasn’t talking about coffee and flour, and my sexually frustrated brain began throwing up visions of metal shackles, leather restraints and good, old fashion rope, all applied to those lovely Amazonian bodies. Maybe it was the whiskey, but those visions were looking awfully good.
“There is only one other problem,” said Grayscalp after most loose ends had been tied up. “Captain Eddie Wilks, you are a female.”
Eddie looked up with eyes only slightly glassy from a couple glasses of good whiskey, and said, “No shit!”
“The men of Kronos consider all women as less than men, and would never accept a female star ship captain.”
“You’re not suggesting that I find another charter?” I asked, not quite sure which way he was heading this conversation.
“No, adjuster, that will probably not be necessary.”
“Hey, you’re not suggesting that I turn my ship over to this two bit adjuster from a backwater world and become one of the slavegirls! No way, buddy!”
Grayscalp sighed. “That would be a good answer, but, no dear, I am not suggesting that. For these ladies it is required, but it is not your Princess who has been taken. Were it possible, I would offer that you might disguise yourself as a man… But that would take some doing,” he mused while looking at her fine display of frontal development. “So I would suggest that you let Adjuster O’Connor do all the talking to the spaceport authorities and you stay hidden in your ship until your task is finished.”
Captain Eddie didn’t look happy with that but couldn’t seem to come up with a better suggestion.
We made our departure with the Amazons walking straighter lines than the Captain or I.
The young handmaiden to Princess Adrianne, one Melinda by name, was looking very nervous. But then she had every right to look nervous that morning. She was tightly bound to a pole, which in itself wasn’t too unusual in the training areas, but the pole had been tilted and moved over a rather deep and unpleasant hole in the floor. The naked teenager was face down on the underside of the pole, her arms tied behind it and enough rope wrapped around her body to hold her firmly affixed to the four inch diameter metal pole. And actually she was not in very much discomfort from the ropes holding her weight. What bothered her very much was the thin wire that had been looped around each nipple and tied quite firmly. Those two wires passed in a gentle curve over to the edge of the pit she hovered over and were tied to a rather large hunk of metal there. It was a bar of lead with a hole drilled in one end for the wires to be attached to. Melinda couldn’t guess at its weight but from the clunk it had made while placed there, she knew it was heavy. After she was in position, that big man with the black beard had pushed the weight over until it rested with almost half it’s length over the edge of the pit. It was an obvious indication to the naked girl that the weight might be pushed over with disastrous results for her poor tits.
For almost two hours she hung there, not comfortable but a little more at ease since there was no one around to give that weight the tiny shove it would take to make it fall. The pit beneath her went so far down that she couldn’t see the bottom in the darkness. If the weight fell, the small amount of slack in the wires would cause a terrible jerk, perhaps enough to cut right through the tender girl flesh. If not, then she would be forced to endure a horribly heavy pull upon her nipples, and there would be nothing she could do about it.
She heard footsteps returning and with them her nervousness. It was the ugly man with the beard and with him was Princess Adrianne, whom she had been serving only a few days before. She gasped to see what the beautiful Princess looked like now. Her hair was not the usual long, shining black tresses Melinda had so loved to brush. Now it was disheveled and messy. The Princess was also naked and her arms were attached behind her in a leather device that fitted from her fingertips up to above her elbows and held her arms tightly together. There were laces from the wrists up and two straps that went up and over her shoulders to keep the device from slipping down. There remained whipmarks in various stages of fading over much of her body, but especially covering that wonderfully rounded bottom. The Princess looked like anything but royalty.
“You said yesterday that you would obey me,” said Shaden as soon as they stopped by the edge of the pit. “Now we will test this. Look at his girl and the way that weight perched on the edge.”
Princess Adrianne looked up to Melinda and then her eyes followed the wires down to the weight. It didn’t take her very long to realize the danger to her handmaiden. Her eyes opened wider with fear.
“I see you understand. Good. Now I’m giving you an order. You are to push that weight over the edge with your foot. It will not take much, just a little shove.”
The Princess looked up at her keeper with a frown. “But that will hurt Melinda… I mean it will do her damage,” she said.
“True. Those wires are rather thin and a girl’s nipples can only take so much.”
“Would you so damage a slavegirl?” asked the Princess, hoping to appeal to his business sense. “Damaged goods bring in less money.”
“Part of the overhead,” he casually returned. Then he laughed good naturedly. “Oh, a pun! The girl is truly overhead! See, she’s above us.”
The Princess did not share his amusement.
“Okay, so you aren’t in the mood for a good joke. But I hope you’re in the mood to obey me.”
She looked down at the lead weight only a few inches away from her foot. It certainly did look as if it would not take a great deal of effort to push it over. But the Princess had been refreshed by a night’s sleep in only metal shackles, and retained some of her old spirit. Without looking at him, she softly said, “I cannot. Do with me as you will, but it will not be my hand that causes such harm to one of my people.”
“It won’t be your hand,” he laughed, “but your foot! Still, your message is clear. The promise you made yesterday was worthless. You have a long way to go in your training.”
He placed his toe next to the weight and nudged it half an inch farther out. “Do you remember the pain yesterday? Do you remember how each movement of your head brought more pain inside you? Would you like to return to that?”
“No, Sir,” she whispered.
“Then push the weight.”
“I cannot.”
“Very well. Let us continue your training.” His hand upon her leather-clad arms guided her towards the door. But he paused just outside in the hallway. “Forgot something,” he said.
A second later there was a loud scream echoing in the room. The Princess’ body jerked at the sound but she did not look around. “Oh…! No! NO! NO!” came the pitiful cries from behind her. “Please no! It hurts so much!”
“You were too pessimistic,” said Shaden as he again clamped a strong hand upon her arm above were the leather held them tightly. “A girl’s nipples can take much more than you imagine.”
For a long ways down the hall the Princess could hear the screams from the tortured girl. But finally the sounds faded away as they worked their way towards whatever destination he had in mind.
The Princess had expected to be returned to the room where she had been tied in the standing position with the pain stick inside her. But she was not. Instead she was taken into a room with one wall missing. For the first time in many days she saw the sun. It wasn’t the golden, warm sun of Wolfhome, but it was at least warm, natural light if a little too red for her comfort.
There was very little in the room save for a stout beam of wood that extended from the ceiling out into the open space. Along the bottom of the beam was a metal track. At the inside end of the beam, a metal ring was set into the track. There was a length of rope passing through that ring, one end simply sitting on the floor, the other wrapped around a large drum.
Shaden guided her over to the opening where she found herself looking down hundreds of feet. They were in an outside room of a building perched on the edge of a cliff, overhanging that cliff, in fact. Far down below she could see a river winding through a canyon. But right under the edge on which they stood was a drop straight down to ragged rocks at least two hundred feet below. She tried to back away but his hand held her firm.
“This training facility used to be a castle,” he informed casually. “An ancestral home of my family, actually. From this room and that beam my fathers and their fathers used to hang prisoners. Some were executions, but some were simply being tormented by hanging from a great height. Of course, in the last few hundred years, we haven’t done as much warring with our neighbors, and have turned to training slavegirls instead. So this room was fixed up with that pulley as a sort of torture device.”
He stopped talking and pushed her down to the stone floor. Then he took a length of rope and bound her ankles together tightly. Then he looped the rope from the ring between her legs and around that rope binding her ankles, and knotted several times very tightly. Then he stood and went to a small control panel set into one wall.
“I’ve added a nice touch to it,” he said with some pride. “Instead of just hanging the slavegirl over a big drop, I let her feel what it’s like to actually fall.” He paused to grin and enjoy the look of fear on her face. “This rope is elastic.” He touched a button and the drum began winding up. The rope grew taunt and then pulled on her ankles. Slowly she was lifted up until she was hanging upside down completely off the floor. She was biting her lips and trying not to whine in fear.
Shaden picked up a short length of cord and looped it around her waist tightly. Then he passed the rope between her legs and through a small ring at the end of the leather sheath covering her arms, back between the legs and the up to be knotted at her waist. “That’s to keep your arms from flopping around,” he informed, then returned to his console.
“You probably have never heard of it but back on ancient Earth, long before star flight, there was a sport where people used to jump off heights with elastic cords attached to their feet. The idea was that they would enjoy the adrenaline rush of falling through the air but be safe because the cord would slow down and stop their fall before they banged their heads at the bottom. It was called ‘Bungee Jumping.’ Didn’t last too long, as most fads do. But it gave me an idea.”
He touched another button and the ring moved slowly outward, bringing the hanging, naked woman with it. The Princess gasped as the floor under her slid away to be replaced by a terrible long fall. She grew dizzy and closed her eyes. For a while he was content to simply watch her hang there. She swung a bit but settled down. She could feel both the warm sunlight and the slight breeze upon her bare skin. Finally she opened her eyes.
“There is a computer here,” he continued in a little louder voice so she could hear him. “It calculates your weight and exactly how much elastic cord to let out before stopped the drum and your fall. If the calculations are correct, you’ll reach a few feet from the rocks below at your lowest point. If not… Well, you know the saying, ‘In Computers we Trust.’” He laughed.
“And this will happen not once but repeatedly. Until someone comes to fetch you back in.” He loved the look of fear in her eyes, it was so very real. “Have a nice day,” he said, then pushed the red button.
Her royal Princess Adrianne screamed as the rope suddenly became totally slack and she fell. She screamed as the air rushed by her face and at the sickening sight of rocks rushing up to smash her to pulp. Then there was a sudden jerk and her downward flight slowed. At about ten feet from the jagged rocks she was jerked back up. For a dozen times she bounced up and down at the end of hundreds of feet of elastic cord, like a human yo-yo. Then the cord began winding back in and she slowly was lifted.
Adrenaline rush was not a very good term to describe it. Pure, raw fear was closer. No human can fall from a great height and not feel a primitive, instinctual fear of the most major proportions.
At the top she saw a grinning Shaden and wanted very much to plead with him for no more of this terror. But she was still a Princess of the warrior women and there was still some pride left in that naked and bound body. Telling herself harshly that he would not really damage good merchandise, she forced a smile to her face and told him in mock cheerful tones, “That was fun. I can see why the ancient Earth people did it as a sport.”
She was lying and they both knew it.
Shaking his head and still smiling, Shaden pointed one finger upward so she could see it. Then with elaborate ceremony, he brought the finger back over to the red button.
The Princess screamed again as she fell. It was instinct and she couldn’t help it.
When she returned to the top she was surprised to find the room empty. For a minute she hung there, just enough time to begin to wonder if that was all there was going to be to it. Just hang there until he returned. Then she was dropped again.
The pattern repeated itself all morning. At times she could see some of the guards looking over the railing at her. They seemed amused by the way she screamed each time the rope suddenly went slack.
But human are adaptable. After twenty or thirty falls, Princess Adrianne stopped screaming. After forty she stopped worrying that the knots on the ropes tied around her ankles would fail and there would be nothing to stop her fall. After fifty times the fall no longer made her tremble with fear. She never really got to the point where she enjoyed it, the pain in her ankles each time she was snubbed by the ropes, and the jerking around her body took as it danced at the end of its rope were too unpleasant. But the raw fear of falling faded away from over exposure. Humans can get used to anything.
Shortly after noon she was taken in, led to another dungeon room, tied spread-eagle in a metal framework and her bottom and back whipped with a small leather beastie that stung like hell but didn’t cut the skin. She was left crying and hanging with wide spread arms and legs for the rest of the day.