Mind Guest (27 page)

“Ah, how quickly you have learned,” he chuckled, continuing to toy with the device. “You beg that I choose to ease you, rather than believing that I am bound to do so. Am I bound to ease you?”

“No!” I wept, beside myself at what he did to me. “You may choose whether I am to be touched, and I beg that you do!”

“A slave touched is a slave given a great gift,” he said, taking his hand from the device. “The slave may earn such a gift in only one way, and that is to obey without question and serve eagerly. This is what you will learn.”

No longer was I able to respond to him, for with the last of his words did he touch me, fully, strongly, and with great knowledge of my need. I, too, screamed as the female slave did, touched again and again so deeply that consciousness was soon lost to me.

When I came out of it Bellna was still in a daze, so the turn was mine again. I lay on my side on the rough mat, aware of all the people around me, aware of everything Bellna had gone through. For once I had to admit it was a damned good thing she’d been there to take over, even though it was my body being put over the hurdles.

These slavers were obviously trying to condition their three victims, and the purposes they had in mind clearly called for a type of conditioning beyond the usual fear-of-a-whip sort. Bellna had reacted properly to the conditioning, whereas I, aware of it, probably wouldn’t have done such a thorough job. I needed to be thought of as nothing out of the ordinary, so they’d turn their backs on me without a second thought. As soon as that happened I’d be gone, and they could take their conditioning and use it on themselves.

A couple of minutes later I was slapped “awake,” and a minute after that I was back on my knees, right in the same spot I’d been in earlier. The other two girls on line were crying, and had obviously been given the same treatment Bellna had been put through. Their goldenshirts didn’t look as pleased as mine, though, and I wondered what sort of test Bellna had passed that the others hadn’t. It felt as though I’d been out for some time, but that wasn’t possible; the male slave was still at it with the girl slave, and they both seemed to be enjoying the rapid movement. A second go around would have been more leisurely and undemanding, so they still had to be at it from the first time. My knees began aching again almost immediately, and that device was more uncomfortable than it had been earlier; I listened to the other girls crying and watched the two slaves enjoying themselves, and thought about how nice the deep, empty woods would be right then.

My mind wandered a short distance, but it was brought back rather quickly when the male slave was commanded to finish his fun. Very reluctantly he did so, emptying his played out need into the girl who was also reluctant to let him go, and then he leaned down and kissed her briefly, something he hadn’t done even when he was using her. The girl seemed touched by the kiss, but she was given no more than a matter of seconds to enjoy the gesture. As soon as the male slave had withdrawn from her and stood, one of the armed men took her by the hair and dragged her in front of light-shirt.

“I seem to recall, slave, that you attempted to counter a command of mine,” he drawled, looking at her with an unblinking stare. “Could such a thing be possible?”

“Master, forgive me!” she whispered, beginning to tremble violently despite the fist in her hair. “I had no knowledge of what I said!

Never would I have…”

“Enough,” he interrupted mildly, cutting off her outpouring with the single word. “There are no excuses and there are no exceptions.

Punish her.”

The girl fell apart into absolute hysteria, but that didn’t keep her from being dragged farther into the space between our line and the seated man in the light yellow shirt. She was forced to a kneeling position with her head to her knees, a position that her extreme terror kept her rigidly locked into. No one said anything about what would happen if she broke the position, but no one had to. It might have helped the girl a little to know that the male slave stood with his feet spread and hands curled into fists, a furious expression in his eyes and the point of the sword of the second armed man in his back, but only on a moral-support level. Physically nothing was going to help her, and when the first armed man, who had dragged her to where she knelt, opened his swordbelt and slipped the scabbard off, even the sniffles of the two little girls to my left died to silence.

The beating was pretty bad, especially since it was given so matter-of-factly. There was no anger on the part of anyone, but the poor girl was beaten until her body was covered with welts, until too many of those welts were split open, until the blood covered all of her back like oozing paint. Toward the end of it she didn’t even twitch, showing she was unconscious, but knowing that even that hadn’t stopped the beating made the whole thing much more chilling. The trembling I was taken with wasn’t all Bellna’s doing, and there was no dispute as to who was in control. The Bellna presence was able to pick up the tenor of my deepest feelings, and they frightened her even more than the beating.

When it was all over, men were called in to carry the unconscious girl out, and then we were back to lesson time. Or, rather, specific training time. The girl’s beating had been a lesson for the three new slaves, and that lesson wasn’t lost on any of us. I trembled and cowered just as much as the other two girls, but only because I’m a professional and therefore able to force the necessary self-control.

Light-shirt had the male slave chained down tight on his back, and then we were set to practicing on him, touching, caressing, arousing.

His obvious displeasure at the girl’s beating hadn’t been missed, and he was next in line as an object lesson, his lot only a little less painful than the girl’s. We took turns at the various tasks, practicing until we got some response out of the slave, all the time being urged on, directed, and aroused ourselves by our individual golden-shirts. The key word for the conditioning turned out to be

“serve,” and the conditioned reflex itself was arousal. Given enough time, the slavers could have had almost anyone writhing just about instantly, and that became a considerable worry for me. I can fake interest and desire better than most, but true arousal involves bodily reactions that simply aren’t on my instantaneous list. The golden-shirts were arousing us slowly and checking those bodily reactions on a casual basis just then, but the longer that training went on, the faster they’d expect a reaction and the closer they’d be checking. I had to be out of there before that happened, or else allow myself to be really conditioned. Anything in between would be a dead give-away, of my differences if nothing else. The male slave strained at the chains that held him, gritting his teeth at the way we were being taught how not to allow release in order to increase pleasure, his suffering getting my full sympathy. We three girls were too clumsy to suit our golden-shirts, so we weren’t being allowed release either.

The training seemed to go on for days before we were allowed a break.

We three and the male slave were covered with sweat, aching all over and with no strength left, but the training didn’t stop until the slavers decided it was time. We girls were each sent to a separate wall of the room to lie down near, but our guinea pig was left where he’d been chained. I lay on my side beside the wall I’d been given, my eyes closed, but there was nothing I could even try to do about how hot I was. My golden-shirt was very thorough when it came to women’s bodies, and he’d been trying to see how eager he could make me and how long he could keep me that way. I’d stayed in character and had begged him to decide to touch me, but that hadn’t been part of the training program, – so he hadn’t. We were up to having to earn our caresses of release, but as clumsy and inexperienced as we were that was just about impossible. I’d cried the way the other girls had, and had gotten patted on the bottom as punishment like them, and then I’d gone back to practicing as they had done. The only thing I hadn’t done was show how practiced I already was at those lessons, and even as strung out as I felt, the omission wasn’t hard. I don’t believe in cooperating with the enemy unless forced to it, and I’d taken a lot worse in my time.

I was left alone for about twenty minutes, long enough for the sweat to dry and some measure of strength to return, but not long enough to be over squirming uncomfortably where I lay. The worst thing about those devices that had been put in us seemed to be the way they continued arousal and made it worse, an on-going feedback from one set of sensations to the next. The absolute worst was when they were patted or deliberately moved around, and the sadistic sons had done a lot of that during the hours just past. Bellna was beaten down and miserable in her hidden corner, well into the need for tears, so I had taken my cue and let the tears roll silently down my cheeks to keep me in character. I didn’t know what was on the schedule to be done to us next, but when footsteps came up to me and stopped, I knew it was about to happen.

“Do you weep, little slave?” came the voice of my golden-shirt, sounding smugly superior. “Are you harmed in some way?”

“I am not harmed,” I sniffled in answer, opening my eyes to look up at him. He stood above me holding a wooden bowl, and looked as distantly amused as he sounded.

“For what reason, then, do you weep, little slave?” he asked, folding down to sit cross-legged at my side.

“I am-in great discomfort,” I got out, coloring with embarrassment as I said it. “Never have I been given such discomfort before, and I dislike it a great deal.”

“Your discomfort comes from the fact that you have not been pleasing,” he told me pointedly, with an air of mentioning something I knew as well as he, but just wouldn’t yet admit. “Slaves who are displeasing are often left in discomfort for days, despite the fact that they dislike the state. Would it not be better to serve properly?”

I gasped at the twinge and rush of heat I felt at the use of the key word and immediately closed my eyes again, pretending to feel more of the reaction than I really did. The conditioning had gotten a weak hold on me after all – since I was human, it would have been surprising if it hadn’t – but I was still well in control when wanted to be. Right then I couldn’t afford to be in control at all, and the tears welled up in my eyes even more.

“I have not refused to do as I was told,” I sniffed, just short of sobbing. “I have tried and tried, and still am I left in terrible discomfort. I have not refused!”

“You have not been permitted to refuse,” he answered, still in that same tone. “Nor shall you be permitted to refuse. It is true you have attempted to obey, yet you have not succeeded. Rewards are given for obedience alone, the mere attempt being insufficient. When you have succeeded in being truly pleasing and obedient, the reward will be yours. For failure you may expect no more than punishment.”

I opened my eyes fast to look at him through a film of tears, seeing what I hoped I wouldn’t see. He was trying to look solemn and stern out of necessity, but his eyes said he was about to have some fun.

“No,” I begged, shaking my head against the rough floor mat. “Do not punish me, I beg of you!”

“Punishment is the manner in which young slaves are taught,” he chided, sticking to his decision. “The sooner you are able to be totally pleasing, the sooner will true ecstasy be yours. Were I to withhold punishment from you, so would I be withholding your ecstasy.

Do you wish to reach perfection?” I had no choice but to nod miserably as I cried, but all he acknowledged seeing was the nod.

“Very well, then. Ask that I punish you.”

“I-ask that you punish me,” I sobbed, silently damning him for his sadism. He smiled in full approval, put down the bowl he was holding, then moved me to my back. It didn’t take long before I was kicking and screaming from his ministrations, but I was just led up to the threshold, not allowed to cross. He seemed to know exactly when to stop what he was doing, when to keep it going, and when to increase the rhythm. Every once in a while he moved his hand beneath me to play with the device, – and that made it all terribly worse. My whole body screamed with need, but all I was given was punishment.

When he finally took his hands away, I lay crying for some time before I was able to control it and then I was given some help. I was told to calm myself, and when I couldn’t I was touched again, lightly, enough to know that the longer I kept it up, the more I would be touched. Out of desperation I swallowed down the sobs and half-screams, dimly realizing that I wouldn’t be allowed to cry at all pretty soon. They would tighten the chains slowly, slowly, until nothing was left but those actions demanded of a slave.

The bowl he had brought over was filled with pieces of soup-soaked dark bread, and I was forced to my belly and made to eat what he put in my mouth: The mess was unbelievably tasteless, but I needed the moisture content desperately. As far as hunger went I didn’t have much of an appetite, but Bellna was starving so I had to be the same.

I had to lick his fingers clean when I’d had all he wanted to give me, and that really put my self-control to the test. If I’d had any fast way out of there, he would have had one or two fingers less.

As soon as my meal was done, I was put back to practicing on the male slave. He hadn’t been given anything but a couple of swallows of water, and despite the savagely determined look in his eyes, he was really suffering. Once the other two girls had been punished and fed the way I had been, they were sent to join me in working on the slave while our golden-shirts and light-shirt had a meal served them. The meal was an elaborate multi-course thing served by slave females in faded green, and it wasn’t long before it became clear that that meal would be used as another training device. The slaves in green were treated as so much furniture, but we three in white were under constant observation. They waited until we’d begun casting covert glances at the food and were nearly drooling, and then we were offered bits of it as a reward for setting the male slave to moaning.

The offer seemed to be totally on the up-and-square and completely logical in a slave-training sense, but something bothered me about it right from the beginning. Our training had been different from the slave-training procedures usually used by slavers, but I couldn’t see where the kicker could be. The dark-haired girl was the first to earn her reward, and although she was required to crawl on her belly to her golden-shirt, she got it without more than a little “good-natured” teasing. The small, auburn-haired girl was next, and she, too, got a mouthful of juicy, nicely roasted fowl. I was the only one who hadn’t been rewarded, and I couldn’t afford not to earn what the others did, so I cheated a little and got my squirming howl out of the male slave, then turned anxious eyes on my golden-shirt. He smiled in approval and gestured me to him, and once I had wiggled and crawled my way over, he held out a good, dripping chunk of roast.