Uncharted Territory (closed for peterpan)

[Azalea]

OOC:Lorra, 25, dark hair and eyes
Slave girl from Kanos, subjugated planet, under transport to a master on the imperialist planet Vaikor.
She is on a small transport ship manned by one of her new master's most courageous and loyal knights.
Lorra is well-educated, trained in the work of a scribe, but has not received any instruction in the duties of a concubine.
She is a virgin.

IC:
Lorra sat huddled on the floor, one wrist bound to a strap on the wall on the single chamber inside the transport. She found it absurd that the warrior sent to procure her and bring her to Vaikor should think her sufficiently treatening to restrain her.
She was watching him at the console, checking his bearings and staring out of the small portal abive the controls.

He had been kindly enough, making sure she had water and food, and was comfortable....as much as she could be in such an awkward position. He had instructed the slave dealer to be sure she was dressed warmly enough for transport. He had supplid her with a gown and robe of some cost, she knew, and she was duly impressed by this show of her new master's wealth.

She sat with her knees drawn up and her head leaning back, wondering what lay in store for her. She did not know the name of the man at the control.....she had been so nervous, even terrified, during his inspection of her at the dealers's, she hadn't paid attention. He was quiet, had not spoken two words together to her since taking her aboard this transport and confining her.

His manner had not been harsh;on the contrary, he had been relatively gentle in his handling of her thus far. She sought the courage to ask him about her new masyer, her new home, but was too well-trained in the proper submission of a slave to speak to him before being addressed and given permission to do so.

She closed her eyes, feeling in need of sleep, when a sudden loud grinding noise startled her eyes wide open. She heard a loud exclamation of disgust from her pilot/procurer.........the ship began to hum with a vibration which she suspected was not normal.......

 

[Azalea]

**bump**
to make it easy for us to find

 

[peterpan]

OOC: Dane, 30, Brown hair tied back and blue eyes. Dressed in a leather cloak and pants, breastplate over a thick silk shirt.

IC:

Indeed it was not. Not normal. In all probability that sound, Dane knew, meant two people would die.

The superfluid turbines that cooled the ships quantum processor were losing efficiency. As core temperature rose, the ships mind would lose coherency cell by cell. Clamouring instrumentation, nothing more than rapidly winking lights to an unaugmented mind, projected fiery trajectories and cold numbers on Dane’s inner eye. Amongst all this confusion, the cacophony of belated warnings only Dane could hear, the words slipped out: “I am doubly cursed now, for choosing you.”

The last two words were spoken into silence. The hum had stopped abruptly, and Dane was painfully aware his careless, dangerous words had been overheard.

She stared at him with those strange dark eyes, a moment only, before diverting her gaze correctly to the floor.

What did that expression mean? Fear, animosity or something else? Rather less than he was reading into it, Dane expected. She had no reason to suspect he was speaking of her. Till now. Yet he did not turn his gaze away.

Her feet were bare. She wore only the cloth he had requested for her. Some voluminous frippery he had chosen only for its apparent warmth. It was not a gift. One does not give presents to the intended seven hundredth and seventy seventh concubine of the Emperor, it would no doubt be burnt as her other rags had been, but Dane had noticed her eyes and hands upon it, and was secretly delighted by the spectacle of her appreciation.

Now he had sentenced her to death. That was the second curse. The first was when Dane had chosen this nameless slave for his master, this slave he desired almost uncontrollably for himself.

Had done so, from the first time he laid eyes on her. He could have had her, taken her any way he wished for an hour, a day or a month and paid the traders the difference of her virginity. Then left her on that lowly mudball to whatever role her new status had earned her. With scarcely a word he could have extorted the same and had no paper record of his crime. He could have simply stepped past her, left her life to run its allotted course. What he could not do, no matter how his mind worked at it, was return to the empire taking this slavegirl for himself, and bringing another he desired less, for the emperor.

The slave-girl (Dane had deliberately not inquired of her name) undoubtedly perceived that her life was threatened yet had remained quiet, head bowed throughout his inspection. Perhaps she wondered why he was not busied with dealing with the crisis. She had not panicked, or questioned his inaction, which was well.

Everything that could be done was being done, by the failing ships computer sifting even now through the sensor logs for any sign in this lonely system of another craft, an unmapped mining colony, a planet whose surface would not melt lead.

Dane stood. Clasped his hands behind his back. Dane was practiced in giving speeches to men about to die. In his mind he tried to picture a shell-shattered battlefield and a battered grim host, to blot out the image of her.

“Circumstances dictate that I must commit you to your master in his absence. You will be listed as the seven hundredth and seventy seventh concubine of the Emperor of known space. All concubines are of equal status. There is no greater honour for any woman, slave or freed alike than to be the intimate property of the Emperor of known space. Your duties are to obey all commands given to you by the Emperor. When not contradicted by the wishes of the emperor, all your faculties shall be focused towards bettering yourself, for your emperor’s pleasure. You shall always conduct yourself according to your new station, in public and in private. Although your role may never be..”

Dane hesitated over the word. At that moment a navigation alert began to shrill.

 

[Azalea]

The shrill siren must signal some dire emergency, Lorra knew, and she finally began to lose her composure.

"My lord, are we going to die?" she asked in some panic, daring to speak without seeking his permission.

"Quiet, girl, while I tend to this...." he said brusquely as he began to fiddle with one knob and lever after another.

The constant sounding of the loud alarm grated on her nerves, and she shouted above it, "Does your ship not have en escape pod, Sire?"

Dane knew she was correct to assess the situation as hopeless enough to abandon the ship. He turned to her and said, "If I unbind you, will you attempt to harm me?"

"My lord, if I do you harm, what hope have I of living to see the planet below? I cannot operate a shuttle pod!"

Dane quickly unbound her her and pulled her to her feet.
"Come, girl, we go through this door." Pressing a switch to his left, he opened up the entrance into a very small shuttle craft, with just enough fuel to transport them a short distance......it would get them safely to the nearest planet, but he knew not what awaited them there.

Lorra stepped into the tiny cabin, and he strapped her into a seat, and then strapped himself in. Closing the entrance off, he pulled the separation lever which would break them away from this doomed transport and thrust them towards the uninhabited planet. A quick glance at his charts had indicated a viable atmosphere......but little else was known about the place.

Lorra shivered, her fear growing......this man seemed capable, and so far had been at least kind if not friendly. She trusted him to get them safely to the surface, but after that......nothing but questions.....

 

[peterpan]

Kanos slaves, what fool scholar thought a mere hundred years could civilize them!
Dane sunk the last of the perimeter pitons, but did not turn back to where the unconscious slave girl still lay, in the shade of the drop pod.

The sun was baking hot. There was no greenery in the vicinity, but the horizon was strangely near. They appeared to be in some form of basin. A crater, perhaps. The rocks were waterworn and the air not too dry. Dane wandered, not wishing to return to the pod just yet.

His mind flew back to her words. Such a practical answer:

“My lord, if I do you harm, what hope have I of living to see the planet below? I cannot operate a shuttle pod!”

As good to say, “I will not turn on you till it suits me!” Such words from a slave to the emperor would have seen her sincerely dead! And Dane, by choosing her, would have delivered her to that death.

It was not her fault. It was her nature. The nature of the women of kanos. When Vaikor had first brought the gift of order to that ravaged planet, mothers had chosen starvation for themselves and their children rather than service to the conquerors. Trusted Kanos concubines had slit their master’s throats as they slept. And children had walked into education facilties with explosives strapped to their stomaches. The horrors had never left Dane. On Kanos, a hundred years had passed, but for Dane it was only ten since he had been a foot soldier in the subjugation of Kanos. He had met someone there. It was an old story, on Kanos.

What to do with the girl now? What to do for himself? Dane knew there would be no rescue. Did the slave still belong to the emperor she would never meet and whom had never chosen her? No. Dane would not live like that. The emperor was now an abstraction, he told himself.

Resolved to name her as his own, Dane turned and strode back towards the impact site. He had walked further than he thought, and there was time for doubts to grow, but once decided he did not let them sway him, nor spend time rationalising his decision further. It was made.

But she was gone.

 

[Azalea]

When Lorra's eyes fluttered opened, a blast of hot air immediately oppressed her, and she sat up, blinking in confusion.
She found she was sitting on a small square of a silky cloth, in the shade of the shuttlepod which had carried her and her procuror from the doomed transport vessel. All around her was a barren, sandy plain. The superheated air created a blindingly bright haze, and she shaded her eyes with her hand.

She remembered little of the pod's rapid descent to the surface of this planet. The dying transport had fallen tinto the planet's gravitational pull, and was at present only a very bright flame in the alien sky.

Her last memory was of a bone-jarring collision between the luittle craft and the hard, unforgiving ground. She saw no sign of the warrior-knight, and guessed it was he who had carried her to this shady place and then gone off to explore.

Lorra slowly rose to her feet and looked for footprints, but all she saw were muddled, confused prints, as if he had paced around, undecided in which direction to go. Pushing her sleeves up to her elbows, she determined to go in search of him. She was fearful of being left alone in this inhospitable environment, and didn't see how he could have gotten very far.

She set out in what looked like a reasonable direction......actually, she had no real reason for taking that direction, but movement seemed preferable to remaining there alone. She hoped she would find him soon.....

 

[peterpan]

Her chosen path had proven more fortuitous than his own. After following her prints in the dust but a few hundred paces, Dane had detected signs of water. The way narrowed, and soon it became clear he was treading a dried creek bed, ascending ever so gradually as it lead him towards the crater wall.

Lichens now were visible on the shadowed sides of water worn boulders embedded in stony banks, that grew ever higher on each side. The slave girl’s footprints continued on. Perhaps she was convinced Dane was ahead of herself, or perhaps she had simply taken it into her head to explore. Incorrect behaviour but then, what of a Knight who coveted an Emperor’s concubine? The old rules were gone. He could call himself lord of this planet, who could deny him his claim? Only one.

The way had opened up into a valley, a cleft in the crater wall. Above him, a stone bridge joined the valley walls, apparently all that remained of the crater lip. Dane stood at a clear, still pool at its foot, fed by many small rivulets and waterfalls tumbling over the terraced stone of the valley walls. But where was she?

There she stood, at the highest point of the stone arch, looking silently down at him. Because he had not called to her, or because she was hoping he would not notice her? This ambiguity in their relationship irked him. Yes, even here she may obey him. But for what reason? Fear? Fear was not enough. A slave must both fear and trust her master. Would she slit his throat the moment she saw the drifting star of a Kanos corsair in the sky? Dane did not fear death, though neither was there pleasure in it as there was for some men. Dane would get no joy from possessing her body if her heart and thoughts were not his also.

Dane would give her a choice.

“Say nothing, then girl. And listen to me.” Dane kept his eyes on her as he began his ascent. “There will be no rescue. There are just the two of us, and this planet. There are no laws but the laws I make, and you obey. If you chose not to obey then there is no law at all. Merely a man and woman. I could make you my prisoner. But only you can make yourself loyal to me.”

“Therefore I give you a choice. As of this moment you are free. This is what freedom feels like. Do you like it?”

“If you chose to keep your freedom, then there are no laws between us. You will be free to go your own way, or stay. We may find ourselves to be close friends, or deadly enemies. I do not intend to force myself upon you if you do not accept me, but in truth I am not sure what sort of man I shall find myself to be, freed of any law or duty but that I chose to live by.”

“If you chose law, then you accept me as your master. I also will be bound by the laws of master and slave. You will be under my protection. As a good king would give his life for his world, I will defend your life with my own; for I will be a king and you will be all my people. However you must pledge your body, your heart and thoughts to me. Beware. You shall not be freed if you are untrue. But I shall despise you.”

Dane had reached the foot of the stone bridge and began to ascend the last few meters towards her.

“If you are my slave, you will call me Master. If you chose freedom, you may call me Dane. Title and family are no longer important.”

“Tell me your name, and tell me your choice. Chose well, but decide before I reach you. For until you do, there is no law and no agreement between us.”

 

[Azalea]

“Tell me your name, and tell me your choice. Chose well, but decide before I reach you. For until you do, there is no law and no agreement between us.”

In the few seconds it took Dane to cover the remaining distance to stand before Lorra, her mind was in a whirl of indecision. She was no fool, and knew she would need this man's protection and knowledge in order to survive at all on this alien world. On the other hand, Lorra also had a strong independent streak, and it did not sit well to think of this man as her master. She decided to try a delaying tactic.....

"My lord, I am called Lorra," she said in what she hoped was a steady voice. "You give me no time to reflect on your two choices, sir. I would ask a little time to consider......say, a day or two?"

Dane stood still and looked her up and down. His desire for the girl was growing stronger. Before, he had been able to tell himself, she is for my emperor, and then he could keep his distance. But here, apparently alone, with no higher authority looking over his shoulder, he could take her and be done with it.

Her question struck him as an eminently fair and sensible one. He could find no fault with her desire for time to think and consider the options he had presented to her. In fact, he had to admit he was impressed with the seriousness with which she took his options.......her acceptance of his right to make the rules.

Lorra watched as Dane thought over her request. Inwardly she was shaking, belying her outer calm.

"You may have one day in which to consider whether you will keep your freedom or be bound to my will as my slave," he finally said. "I will tell you one thing, Lorra. If you ekect to serve me, I will not be a harsh master. And, if you choose freedom, I will impose no demands on you whatsoever."

"Thank you, sir," replied Lorra, inclining her head slightly as a way of salute.

"For now, return with me to the campsite; from the look of that sky, darkness will soon be descending on this world, and we'd best stay close together."

 

[peterpan]

Tomorrow they should to leave this place, Dane decided. He did not trust this crater where nothing grew.

From the crater lip he had seen a diverse landscape flush with life. There were plateaus of grassland and others of rainforest separated by only a few hundred meters in elevation. Rocky overhangs jutted tens of meters, formed of some unknown mineral of unusual strength. It was as if this planet’s sun had reached out every few million years and baked this planet’s surface into a solid slab of glass, now content to let the erosion of windblown sand turn it into art. In all the canyons there was water, deep and blue like an ocean and where the striated cliffs had once apon a time tipped, and slid into that inviting blueness, there were beaches.

There were other craters. Nothing seemed to grow there either. Perhaps they were just too recent, or perhaps the topsoil was simply continually washed away and down whatever plughole kept these basins from becoming lakes. To Dane it felt as if something poisonous had fallen from the sky, and in those scars nothing grew.

What of the Kanos girl, Lorra? Would anything grow there? His own heart was not in doubt. For he wanted her more cruelly than when they had turned away from the setting sun at the crater lip. She had allowed him to help her down a deep step, and thanked him, and apart from that they had not spoken a word all the way back to the pod. He could still feel her flesh against his palms, that brief touch, and that was why now he was filling his head with anything but her.

Dane knew Noble fops that would have crumpled before his gaze, and they were made commanders of armies. She was worth any ten of them. She had not taken her freedom and fleed, nor lied to gain his trust. He would have seen it in her eyes. On the other hand if she had left, or given herself to him even in word only, Dane’s own honour would be less precariously balanced now

For the more he came to admire her, for everything that was not of the brothel and not of the even less innocent - even more grasping - ladies of imperial society, the more he desired to take her and force her to take him. Make her helpless beneath his strength. Make her scream out his name. Why? Were not these the thoughts of an animal – a lesser man? Then why would he not settle for a lesser woman?

The days when the cost of a beautiful slave girl would threaten his finances were long past. Many a freed woman also would trade her status for that of an Imperial Knight’s wife. He did not want them. He did not want their polite sounds of pleasure or their permission to be pleasured.

So why had he bound himself in promises, all that kept him from ravishing that woman now? Respect for her right to choose? Nothing so lordly. He had given her that right, and not to free her but to bind himself. To save himself from the aftermath: looking down into her eyes filled not with joyful submission, but disappointment and loathing.

Inside the pod, whose meagre contents he had been reviewing, Dane found a pocket-sized pane of material transparent like glass but much more durable. A touch and it lit up. Elegant script scrolled up to form some sort of menu. Dane could not read it of course. Script and scribes were an affectation of the noble class that Dane had no time for. Simple augmentations at birth let Vaikorian citizens decript the simple flashing of an LED into any form of media including the memory of speech, instantly comprehended. Ironically he had not a single functioning terminal here and the informational silence made him tense.

“Here, girl, Lorra.” Dane handed Lorra her scribe’s tablet. “I do not know if you have any attachment to this or the data therein, but I took it from the craft before it was destroyed. I have no use for it.”

“Perhaps you could read to me from it, or tell me some tale of your life.”

“Please.”

 

[Azalea]

"....and when the moons were in their full juncture, her lover's charm would begin to sound its harmonies, reminding her of what she had sacrificed for her father's safety. Her bravery would be remembered for generations, as would her deep sadness at what she had relinquished. And thus ends the woeful tale of Mira the unfortunate."

As Lorra ended her recitation of her favorite Kanosian fable, Dane opened his eyes. He had shut them not long after she began her telling, assuring her he would not sleep but would better be able to focus on her words.

"Thanks you, Lorra, that is a melancholy but beautiful story," he said graciously. "And now I think perhaps it it time to think about getting some rest, for we have much hard work ahead of us with the new dawn."

Dane started to rise, and then Lorra reached her hand out to touch his arm, pushing gently as if to indicate she wished him to stay.
"Dane.......my lord.......please, I wish to speak to you," she asked with a forthrightness that pleased him.

Dane settled back down and replied, "What is it you wish to say, Lorra?" She was looking into his face with such directness and intensity, he found himself eager to know her mind.

She rose and said, "Please, stay and let me fetch something," and she went over to the small bag of personal belongings which he had permitted her to bring onto the transport. She reached in and pulled out a length of purple ribbon, of the sort women often wound into their hair, and brought it back to where he was sitting.

Dane looked at her expectantly, and was surprised when she handed him the ribbon, and then knelt before him.

"My lord, I know I asked for a full day," she said with a barely noticeable tremor in her voice, "but I have thought things out these past few hours, and have decided which of your options I wish to accept."

Dane sat up straighter, a slight tension building in him as he waited to hear her choice.

"You have offered me the gift of my freedom, and I am grateful," she said solemnly. "You could have simply taken my slavery for granted, asserting your power over me. But you afforded me the dignity of a choice, and I shall never forget that."

Dane's heart was racing......what did the girl have in mind? he knew what he hoped for her to say......

"I do not have the knowledge or skill to fend for myself on this world, and I wish to place myself under your protection as my master. There is a little ceremony on Kanos, I am sure you are familiar with it."
She held out her hands, palms up, wrists together.

Dane knew the rite; by wrapping the ribbon around her open hands, he would be acknowledging that she was his bondservant, and she would likewise be accepting his lordship over her. Dane had to fight to control his feelings of mingled excitement and relief.

"Lorra," he answered, "if I do this, do you fully understand that I expect to be your master in every way?"

She blushed, maiden that she was, and Dane's breath deepened.
"I do understand, my lord........once you tie my wrists, I will begin to call you Master in every way," was her reply.

 

[peterpan]

OOC: This one is a monster, I am afraid




IC:
Dane the ribbon taut between his two palms, his hands rock steady but his chest shook with the need to have her. His need was too great.

“No.”

He paused. Hating himself for that sadistic pause, a weakness to hammer out. Not now. Speak, man.

“Not yet. Not here. Not like this on this jagged ground.”

Keeping the ribbon possessively in one clenched palm he touched her burning cheek. “You must have known you could have bargained for your freedom and protection both. Would I have watched while flood or tiger dragged you away?” Dane smiled. “You must have considered this. You could have thought to lend your body to me, choosing a fresh price each time. Many high and low women live this way. But how can compassion grow where advantage always rests with whomever needs less strongly?”

“I need you strongly. Almost beyond bearing. I do not yet know how much you need me, with your heart not just your sense. In this darkness I cannot see your face clearly and my own heart would lie to me, write joy where there were tears, and only in the morning would I know..”

“I will keep your ribbon.” Dane said, wrapping it around one wrist. “It is not Kanos way, yet I cannot live in doubt one night more. I choose to be bound by my oath one night more. You are free, one night more, but your choice is said. Tomorrow I will claim you, on a kinder bed than this.”

“I do not like this place,” Dane added.
…
Lorra tossed and turned in the pod’s crash couch. The couch beside her was empty. A free woman still, for now. She chose to sleep/Sleep wouldn’t come. Her dreams were her own/She could not wrench her mind from that long uncomprehending moment: her wrists held out, steeled to face rejection and freedom, or slavery and the true face of her master. What unbonded slave has not spent their life in exquisite anticipation of that moment, when every implausible romanticism and every whispered horror story is equally close to realisation? That moment had not ended for Lorra. She had seen a new face to her future lord. Something darkly passionate. Yet she still did not know his true face. How could she sleep?
…
Lorra woke biting and struggling. A strong hand clamped her mouth. Her wide eyed first sight was his face, inches from hers, filled with predatory lust and streaked with blood. She tried to scream, tried to wake, for this nightmare was too close to her nightmares to be real. She could do neither.

Something heavy and hard was pressed into Lorra’s palm. She looked down at it in confusion. Dane had wrapped her fingers around the grip of the photopistola, a solid black lump of molded alloy, and the only armament in the pod’s emergency stores. It was funny, really, the surrealism had removed any urge to use it.

Dane’s fearsome mien had not changed, But Lorra realised he was sharing it equally between her and something he wished her to see, and he had been speaking in a hushed yet urgent tone.

Black and spindly, studded with knobbled horns and compound eyes, the thing, the ant, (though it was not terrestrial it was plainly a six legged man sized ant) was only meters from her bared feet but plainly harmless now. It had been snapped in half; the legs and fist-sized mandibles still twitching. ‘Oh’, Lorra thought with relief. ‘That is all.’

…

The sun was well into the sky and still Lorra slept, lulled by the soft rocking surface that had finally provided their escape from a seemingly endless night of swarming horrors and desperate flight.

The black photopistola lay by her side, its weight indenting the deck of their surreal raft, (a giant lily pad they had discovered at what had seemed the last moments of their flight, and their lives). The weapon was exhausted, but even now recharging in the sun. She had used the last of it building a wall of scorched ant bodies around them while Dane had swum under the lily pad to sever it’s tough stalk with his ceremonial cutlass. Ceremonial perhaps, but the smiths of Vaikor never forged a weapon not intended for use. Dane had used it many times that night as bolt-cutter mandibles had snapped at their heels.

The ants had not followed them into the water. In many ways they were pathetically maladapted creatures, built for dryer climes and lower gravity, supporting Dane’s hypothesis they had indeed fallen from the sky mere centuries ago. Dane’s feelings for the ants did not extend to sympathy. They had threatened his own; they were no more.

Minutes from the shore, Dane had told Lorra to turn and face the island that had threatened her, and watch. The sky was lit as each strange crater erupted in quick succession, starting with the closest; the one they had fled. Then came thunder. The ocean shook, and all that remained of the kingdom of the ants were four warm glows of pooling magma within those four strange craters, now explained as entrances to a vast underground nest.

Dane had guessed the horrors correctly, immediately the pieces had fallen into place in his head when that first ant had made straight for the pod where Lorra slept. Each night they would emerge to scour the vicinity, secure their entrances and mindlessly drag in every object known as food, and every foreign object to be taken to the queen and judged as food or not-food. As Lorra had secured what could be carried, Dane had packed the pod with dead ant to make it even more delectable to the cannibalistic ant mind, and initated the crippled engine’s long countdown to launch, with every check blithely returning go. Deep under the ground the magnetic nozzles had opened to mix the most delicate wisps of matter and antimatter…

Dane looked down at all he now possessed, strewn before him on the pad’s surface. The items mentioned, a small survival kit unopened, one knapsack of salvage from the pod. It was much, for it included her.

Large shapes slid through the crystal water under their makeshift boat. Dane had no fear of them. They were reasonable creatures and amongst the small subset of their conciousness that Dane’s limited mind could relate to, they shared a very human curiosity. A curiosity that did not consume. If what they had communicated could be put into words, perhaps it would go something like this: <You are a curious thing.> <we are a man and a woman.> <Land dwellers.><We mean no harm. Are you safe?><We/Ocean are unthreatened. Land draws near. Bring us tales of it some time. Don’t bring hooks.>

Lorra stirred, and stretched dreamily, awake but gently so. Although she did not have his augmentations, Dane suspected she had woken from good dreams, having slept on the surface of the ocean mind. She was still muddied and streaked from their flight whereas he had bathed in the ocean.

Lust came over Dane once more and he unwound the ribbon from his wrist. He reconsidered. She deserved to be clean and comfortable. Her state might humiliate her though to him she was as beautiful now, bedraggled, dirtied and vulnerable, as she would be in a fortune of cold gold chain, perhaps more so.

So instead Dane helped her to her knees, and the ribbon lay on the soft pad surface for now. The only food he could offer were a few wafers of emergency rations and mouthfuls of purified water from the sea.

“Fear nothing in the ocean or on this raft,” he told her. “We will drift to that small island shortly. It is too small to support any significant predator. I promise safety there. We will complete the ribbon ceremony there, on the beach.”

“That torn gown is naught but rags. Perhaps something new can be sewn of it. That robe is filthy, but I suppose for now it is more useful dry…”

“But you must wash. Shun those rags. Strip of all your clothing and give them to me. If you can swim, do that. I will hold your robe. Else-wise tear off a strip of your gown and use that. Your hair also would do well from some rinsing.”

Lorra hesitated under Dane’s gaze. Dane grinned. “You are this moment still a free woman and I will avert my eyes if you wish. Or if you ask my aid you will be as safe as if you are a queen and I your chief eunuch.”

“Do it before we land, I beg -- free woman, for I am eager to release myself of my vow.”

 

[Azalea]

Lora began removing her filthy clothing, and said, "My lord, I do not mind your eyes gazing on my body. I feel no shame before you, and soon it will belong to you."

An unreadable look passed over Dane's already taut features, and he replied, "Free woman, do not address me as your Lord.....not yet. Until we bring your ceremony to its completion, I am Dane."

She removed the robe and gown, and was left with an undergarment of a delicate silk. It floated against her fine skin, in a way revealing and yet hiding her sex. She stood still, mking no attempt to be coy or to shield her body from his eyes, and he realized she wished him to look full at her.

Her breasts were exquisite......Dane had seen them briefly already, when the slave dealer had insisted on beginning to undress her, but he had made the rogue cover her immediately.
He controlled his breathing with great effort as he let himself drink in the sight of her nakedness.

Her nipples were small and firm, her skin appeared smooth as the silk of her undergarment. His eyes fell to her soft, firm belly, her little navel showing a few inches above the waistband. her pubic hair could be seen clearly through the almost transparent silk. her legs were straight and graceful and firm, and Dane 's mind began to paint vivid images of those fine legs wrapped around him in ecstasy.......shaking himself, he said, "Please, Lorra, descend into the water and wash.....refresh yourself."

The water was cool on her dusty skin, and as she lowered herself into it, she sighed and realized just how exhausted and dirty her body was. Her feet did not find any bottom, so she held on to the pad with one hand and rubbed the dirt off of her skin with the other.

"Why were you being sold as a slave? Have you no parents?" Dane's voice rang out clearly over her head, and she looked up.

"My parents were disloyal to the governing council, and were imnprisoned. I was taken to be trained in a skill, to be sold later to pay their debts. I have a sister....a younger sister, Alaina. She is very beatiful, and it was decided that she would be trained as a concubine."

Lorra dipped her head fully into the water to rinse off her hair. Bringing her head back up, she continued.

"I was considered too old to be valuable as a concubine, so I was made to learn the scribe's art. I think the man who sold me to you was surprised that you wanted me for the
emperor's.......sexual service. I heard his comments to his associate."

"I don't understand his confusion," replied Dane with a wry smile. "Wasn't your virginity a factor in your value?"

"It increased my value, yes, but my age was a greater factor. Sexual slaves are trained very young on Kanos, Sir......Dane."

Lorra finished her ablutions, then reached a hand up to him to be helped back onto the "craft." Dane pulled her up and sat backm watching her shake her hair, her body shivering. He took her robe and offered it to her. "It is dirty, but it will help you dry off and will keep the chill away."

He found himself regretting her putting it on, regretting the covering over of her beauty, which inflamed him. He looked down at the water as she wrapped up in it and sat down near him.

"What will happen on the beach, Dane?" she asked quietly. He turned his eyes upon her and found her looking steadily into his face, expectasntly.

He hesitated a moment, then replied, "We will complete the ceremony of the ribbon."

 

[peterpan]

“A hundred years ago,” Dane said, hauling their makeshift raft to shore, “A Kanos woman named Mira, as in your tale, told a Vaikorian peacekeeper named Dane, a peculiar joke. It goes somewhat like this:”

“If a man’s advances frighten you, daughter, and he is much stronger and you fear you will be raped, Show no fear. Laugh lightly at his wit so he may back down unchallenged. If his advances continue, play along at first. If he touches you inappropriately, tell him you like it. If he initiates intercourse, fake orgasm, Bide your time. Marry him, submit meekly to his every request, bear his children, and when you are certain you have the villain’s complete trust, one night fetch your sharpest scissors…”

Lorra stood on the sand, guarding their meagre supplies. Behind her the land rose steadily, the merest tip of a great slab that had tilted, and soon, geologically, would disappear entirely beneath the plateau they had fled, still pursuing them even now, at the rate of several centimetres a century.

The tilted plain appeared to extend all the way to a strangely skewed horizon, but Dane knew that in fact in little more than a mile’s walk, perhaps a hundred meters above sea level, the land would end in great cliffs smashed by deep ocean waves. This side was calm.

The rising plain was grassed, but small waterfalls over bare rock were dotted here and there, presumably tumbling into rock pools that fed tiny creeks, neither pool nor creek visible until they emerged as fresh falls. Groves of old, thick-trunked trees lay to the left and right of the sheltered bay where they had landed, itself formed of rocky overhangs rising from the water and continuing amongst the trees, offering the possibility of future shelter.

For now, the weather was perfect. It neared noon. The alien sun was hot, large and close, and yellow-orange as a fierce wood fire, but its radiation was benign.

The setting was perfect.

“Lorra, step from that robe, leave it with the rest. Approach.”

She did as he requested, eyes fixed on his. Her silk chemise was almost perfectly dry now but still it clung to her lovingly.

Dane took her shoulders, pressed her down. She knelt on the sand before him and, as she had been taught, lowered her eyes and raised her wrists, waiting once more for his judgement.

Dane, still in his armour and dark leather cloak, towered over the kneeling girl.

“No. No Kanos rules here. Lower your wrists. Look at me. Always look at me… so I can see the truth of your heart in your eyes.”

Lorra corrected her position. Yet now she did not know the rules. Her eyes widened slightly. Dane knew thoughts were racing in her brain, but did not know her well enough to speculate on their nature. Dane knelt also, and still he towered over her.

Gently he pulled her chest to his. The impression of her breast against his armoured torso was much less than the weight of her eyes still obediently fixed on his, their faces only inches separated. Dane grinned but Lorra did not. Her hands stayed loose at her sides. She did not know what to do with them. He would have liked to see her smile, liked to be embraced, but the fault was his. Dane had taken her out of one set of rules and given her no other. Her helpless anticipation, though, urged him to prolong the moment.

Dane took her wrists and crossed them behind her back. His height allowed him to observe where they lay against the delicate rise of Lorra’s heart-shaped bottom. With the purple ribbon he bound the wrists firmly together, looping the soft strong cloth several times criss-cross, not merely the symbolic single loop of the Kanos ritual, before ending in a bow only his fingers could reach easily.

“Lorra, you are now mine. I will call you Lorra or Slave, or as pleases me.”

“You will call me Master.”

“Not Dane, not Sir nor Lord. That is one of very few, very important rules I place on you. Each time you call me Master you reaffirm my authority over you, and you will remind yourself of this moment, the rules that followed, until that word is an icon, glowing in your mind. If.. it comes to pass that you find you can no longer address me as such..” Dane’s voice faltered. “I do not know. I do not think I could ever release you, now. But even that would be better than to use the word faithlessly.”

“Lorra. Obedience is not one of the rules I place on you now. That is a lesser thing. By calling me Master, you admit my moral right to punish you, to reward you, to satisfy my needs by force. I trust you will seldom require punishment. I prefer to reward. That I will have no guilt,” was that yet true though? “..in forcing submission does not mean your feelings are irrelevant to me. I never wish to see despair in your eyes.”

What had that been in her eyes, when she had spoken of her young sister.. What was that child’s name: Alanya? How deeply, how quietly, Dane wondered, could Lorra hate.

“Let me make this even more plain. I make no law you should not kill me. Who would be there to punish you? If you felt so trapped that this was the only escape, then either you had fallen into insanity, or I had become a monster. Either way, I would ask your forgiveness with my dying breath. I have placed only one rule on you so far. There are two more.”

“You will never be unfaithful to me with another man.”

“This is not a matter of punishment. You would not be fit to call me Master. Though there be no other man on this planet, this is one of the first rules. The third and final rule is perhaps the most important to your happiness.”

“You shall always be instantly truthful to me.”

“You will direct no guile against me. Keep no secrets from me. Not to spare my feelings. Not to avoid punishment. When I ask of your heart, of your hopes and fears, speak immediately. Do not consider and sanitise your words. Do not avoid my eyes.”

The master smiled down at his slave as he helped her to her feet. “..If you speak too much, I can always gag you,” Dane said with a slight smile.

“Now address me, my slave. Open your heart to me and speak.”

As Lorra, Lorra the slave, called him master and spoke her first words ( tumbling out all in a rush – attempting to be unconsidered, as he demanded - sometimes stumbling mid-sentence when a word could not be found ) Dane stepped around her, taking in the fine curve of her back and thigh.

He would consider her words; answer them if he could. Then she would walk and he would follow, drinking in the sway of those glorious hips, the delicate placement of each foot on sand, on grass, on stone. He would have her walk this idylic island he had sought for her, until she found her perfect place.

There she would be the unexplored territory. She would come to know her master also. She might find a gentleman, a man as careful in his lovemaking as he was in life, who treated her correctly and respectfully, as any woman must surely know defined a truly honourable love. Their relationship could be defined that way. But only if he was, in the end, a coward.

Or, Dane could show her his true face, the one he had kept so tightly hidden for fear that any woman that accepted him did so out of service, out of terror, out of having no other choice or place to go, smiling and laughing and screaming inside as his hands defiled her soul. To ever be happy Dane must take Lorra as he needed to, and demand to know if, in her heart, she could love him back.

 

[Azalea]

OOC: Lorra will be in first person for this response.


As I stood before my new Master, my hands bound behind my back, wearing only a thin, almost transparent chemise that I knew hid little from his eyes, I suddenly felt more naked than if I had been wearing nothing. But I did not care.......Dane wanted to know the truth of my heart, Open your heart and speak to me, he had said. And I would always do so.......but he did not know that about me.

I had watched this man quietly, as he negotiated with the trader for my purchase, as he readied the transport for our journey back to Vaikor, as he dealt with me both during our aborted flight and on the surace of this planet. How could he know the depth of my respect for him? The intensity of my desire to please him?

I tried to say a little of what was in my heart, hoping he would hear the honesty in my words and accept them at face value. He was so full of the tales of treachery on Kanos, how could I show him I could be trusted?

"Master....." I began, savoring the word in my mouth, learning how it felt to call another person that, "Master, I accept your rules, and I am honored to........it is an honor to be considered worthy to serve you."

As I spoke, he circled me slowly, looking me over, perhaps simply thinking of what to do or say next, I didn't know. But I continued.

"You want to be able to trust me, Master, and I want to show you that I can be trusted. I have known you only a few short days, but I have come to respect you." I hesitated, trying to frame my next words.

"Please continue, Slave," he said quietly, but with a smile in my direction. I thought I noticed a slight trembling in his hands as he paced around me.

"You know that I am a virgin, Sir......forgive me,...... Master........but there is more to it than that. I have not been touched by any man, and know very little of the ways of love, or desire. But I have dreamed...." I stopped, suddenly shy, but his smile encouraged me to go on. "I have dreamed of finding a man who was strong, brave, honorable.....who was just in all his dealings, yet capable of tenderness. I hope I do not overreach my status when I say that.....I believe I have found such a man."

Dane was very quiet, had stopped pacing and now stood before me, searching my eyes.
"And what of a man whose violent lust demands gratification with no regard for mercy or fear?"

I weighed my next words carefully, for I felt that on them hinged Dane's ability to accept my service without fear.

"I am not afraid of your lust, Master, for I know that you might take me forcefully but would also die defending me. I offer my body to you for your pleasure, willingly, asking only that my Master be true to himself and always honest with me about his needs and desires. For, " I added, "only then may I feel I have served him well."

At that, I stopped, for I found that I had begun trembling myself. A strong wave of desire for Dane had flooded through me....if only he could know how I feel, what I want, I thought. Please, Dane, I whispered to myself, please look at the woman trembling for you and know that she is yours.

 

[peterpan]

Her deep dark eyes implored I believe her. It was so hard not to accept all those lips said, those eyes said,. No shadow of hatred, in those depths. Not towards me, or what I stood for to her world. I knew that now. Everything she offered me, she offered truly.

Just believe, and we will live happily ever after, her eyes implored.

Yet… yet… Not all her words were entirely unweighed. When I had asked her that… Then she had considered quickly, and decided she must love me. She would bend herself to my service. If I demanded more, she would bend more. I would demand ever more proof that her love was more than service, and she would bend more. Till under my doubt and anger she would break. I wanted to shake her, to frighten her now. Do not bend for me do not choose me. I would destroy you.

She said carefully, “I am not afraid of your lust, master..” I barely heard the rest. Suddenly, she had stopped speaking.

“We shall see,” I told her softly. “Walk. You will find a perfect place. Then we shall see.”

I walked behind her, where she could not see me, stepping where she stepped without thought, erasing her delicate tracks as if this were quite a different world: where a woman dared leave no mark, for fear of what might stalk her.

I took our sparse resources with us from the beach where unknown tides could find them. The knapsack and kit I hung on a tree. My heavy cloak also. Noon was passing and the heat still grew. Her robe I carried over one arm, in case no softer bedding could be found. The cutlass I took for the use of such a tool cannot be scheduled.

Lorra had no problems in this heat. Kanos is hotter than icebound Vaikor, and I was dressed much as I had been on the Vaikorian transport. I envied her nakedness.

The chromed breastplate I discarded. I should have done so earlier. It was excellent against laser weapons but had done little to save me from getting an arm snipped in my battle with the ants. My torn silk shirt was damp with sweat. Another tree adornment. My boots I had removed long ago on the raft.

My chest and stomach were finely chiselled, entirely smooth. Body hair complicated wounds. I had earned many in my time, proud flesh reduced to faint white lines on bronze skin by time and regen shots.

I must appear some form of pirate in an eyetickler, dressed in nought but leather pants and cutlass, marching a hapless damsel to her fate. I felt powerful. I felt good. I wondered how my doubts had momentarily fled. The answer made me smile. To watch her walk was like a drug to me. The sway of a woman, the unconscious flexing of her bound hands. The way her head turned, but also all the lines of her neck, back and shoulders responded, when she discovered each new grove or pool.

Lorra started as I touched her, to help her balance ascending a natural stone step. I realised that I had said nothing all this time, had given her no company. I thought back to her last words I had neglected, clear in my head now.

I kept my hand on her back so she would always know I was there. Shortly I began to talk.

I told her about a woman she had once reminded me of. A joyful woman with a sparkling honesty and great heart, who loved her world and people selflessly, beyond all other things, and a Vaikorian soldier, ten years younger than I, who could not see her love, her loyalty belonged to an entire world, not to him, and unknowingly inflicted choices on her that raped her of her joy, her honesty, her heart and finally her life.

 

[Azalea]

I walked on as Dane commanded, my steps a little offblance in rough places because of my bound hands. I felt his mastery strongly because of that binding. My hands behind me, I would be unable to defend myself or get in the way of anything he wished to do with me. But that did not frighten me, really. I knew instinctively that he would not harm me or allow anything or anyone to do so without great cost. He himself might be rough with me, might even abuse me in some way......but I had given him that prerogative, and did not view it as "harm," but as his right as my Master to use me as he pleased.

I found the thought of Dane using me as he pleased to be strangely exciting, even arousing. There was something in me that needed to know he was my Master, my ruler, my absolute god. And I would be faithful to him, serving him with all of my heart, mind, strength. It was not clear to me why I felt these things about him, but they felt true and good to me, and I was determined to make him believe he could trust me.

He walked behind me without a word, and I felt his eyes on me as I marched ahead of him. I prayed that he liked what he saw. Even though I was no longer desirably young, according to the custom of Kanos, I knew that my body was shapely and my skin flawless.

We reached a natural step, and I stumbled a little as I stepped up, unable to balance myself with my hands behind my back. He reached out and touched me to steady me, and a shiver ran through my body at his touch. He kept his hand on my back as we continued walking, and began to tell me a story that seemed to have some importance to him.

 

[peterpan]

The story

“It was her sadness that first drew me to her, though what she was sad at on that day I never learnt. I think I may guess, now…”

“She never knew I had observed her on that raining, mud-spattered day. I never told her. But I felt I could feel the weight of the world upon her and wished nothing but to lift the burden from her. Already I had fallen in love, with a woman’s back and a single glimpse of her face in profile. I was very young.”

“I was a lowly soldier of no rank and nineteen years. Relativistically speaking, I may have aged but a decade in the century since but in terms of maturity and regret, I have lived my true years.”

“I had served on Kanos only six months, used as little more than a clerk sorting intelligence… and could bear it no longer. Seeing everything, doing nothing. Kanos one hundred years ago was very different from Kanos today. Nor was it much as you may have been taught. Yes, there were wars, starvation. That is accurate. There was however, very little gratitude. We brought medicine and peace. We took payment in the only coin of value Kanos had: Kanos’s unwanted daughters; highly prized for their exotic reputation, though their education tested many a man. Still they did not throw their gratitude at us. Gratitude had to be taught also.”

“I witnessed her sadness and desired her gratitude. What I could not do for a world, I would do for one fortunate Kanosian girl. Suddenly I had purpose. I followed her surreptitiously and discovered she was the daughter of a minor Kanosian trader with a verifiable lineage. A native barbarian princess! I saw it as a sign, for it was an unwritten rule that all daughters of native nobility were pledged to Viakorian masters to hasten the planet’s enlightenment. Minor though she was, only a miracle had kept this perfect woman free for my choice.”

“Her name was Mira.”

“I initiated negotiations with the father by mail. When the reply had come, not by mail but in elegant script on pressed wood pulp I had such hopes. I could not read it of course and had to take it to a Knosian scribe to be read out to me.
There I learnt, to my great disappointment, negotiations had already been entered into by unspecified parties. Parties whose better offer, the script tactfully informed me, removed any responsibility from me for further concern for the daughter-in-question’s ambiguous status.”

“The letter was signed with an elegant signature I came to know well; for I could not abandon her so easily. Months passed and my offer was not accepted but nor was she honourably claimed.”

“The father was naïve or greedy, I feared, or my rival was highly placed and would not prize her as I would.”

“Her father spent her on minor errands. She was never escorted or protected. I took the brash step of introducing myself in person though not as suitor. At first she was frightened but I was persuasive. Soon she would smile when she saw me. I came to know her as a person of great optimism, with a love for life and all it’s facets though barbaric Kanos was all she knew. I came to know her subtle wit, and, trusting me, she admitted her anarchistic politics with pride and confided her natural womanly fantasies with guilt, such were the queer sensibilities of her world.”

“I told her of my work, how it made me feel. She was sympathetic. At last I professed my love to her. She professed to love me also, but she knew her father was already negotiating for her sale, (though she did not know or love the suitor), and would not be turned aside. I demanded to know my rival’s name so I might challenge him. She warned me he was an accomplished warrior. I pressed her.”

““His name,” she finally admitted, is “Victor aDane, ne Viakor.””

“She saw my shock. “What do you know of him,” she begged. “How would he treat me?””

““With love, with honour, with true knowledge of your heart. You see, he is I.””

““Your father should be hung for the agony he has put me through,” I laughed, “but I will settle for a signature. Come with me now and I will wring it from him.””

“Mira was still white with shock, to know that all her time her suitor had been so close at hand, but finally a gentle smile took her. ‘There is no point’ she finally murmured. ‘He cannot write.’”

“She produced a Kanosian paper pad, a quill. Wrote a short script and signed it with the flourish I had came to know so well. She delicately tore the sheet free and handed it to me. Thus by her own hand she became mine.”

Lorra walked on, silent, knowing instinctively the tale did not end like this: happily.

“Such a tale should end “…happily ever after”, should it not, Lorra.” I said, the bitterness finally unmasked. “Or can you see the ending more clearly than that young boy that was.”

“For a year, while my love grew, her youthful joy melted into that gentle smile I came to love, for it was with the same smile she had given herself to me. How was I to know the pain that smile masked. I confided everything in her, not knowing that every word was being carefully scribed. I always joked I must learn her script, she always smiled at that sadly.”

“I had not the slightest clue to her true heart. She gave me everything I desired. I thought that was proof enough. She was in my heart my loyal loving concubine till the sunny afternoon my fellow soldiers arrived to arrest her. I would have fought. I would have killed them. But she turned to me with that gentle smile and explained to me why I should not: how she had never loved me, how she had fought to escape me, how her world needed every secret I had inflicted upon her, for a ‘greater good’. Very carefully, as if to a child, she explained.”

“She was sentenced to be hung. She would not see me. Using the greater part of my savings and what friends still would speak to me, I left Kanos a week before her execution would be carried out. I could not bear to be there. When I woke from hypersleep what happened on Kanos was old history and one execution more or less had no place in the history books.”

+++

Lorra sensed the tale was finished. She looked back into my eyes. I caught her face in profile, that troubled expression. Momentarily I lost control. I almost wept for I saw Mia, and at once that this was not Mia. This was a new person. A very different person with different needs and different delights.

My harsh grasp jerked Lorra to a halt then I was kissing her. Her shoulder, Her neck and the side of her face presented to me. Then her nape and lower. The silk shift impeded me. I ripped it down to the small of her back and kissed down her spine. I pulled her down with me, to her knees on the soft grass we tread. I pushed her down. Her wrists I twisted back so her face was in the grass and I could insinuate myself between the loop of her arms and her straining back. My hot face was against her back, hearing the thudding of her heart as I crushed her down, and grasped at the flesh of her stomach with my free arm. I wished to reach lower but her trapped thigh impeded me. For a moment I strained. Then the urgency passed and I was myself once more, blanketing her with my much stronger body.

We lay some seconds like that, her crouched so low the grass pricked her stomach and me a cage of hard limbs around her.

“No. Not here,” I finally said, more to myself than her. “You will find your perfect place. You will recognise it. Think of the place you go in your dreams. The place you go to be safe. I will have you there.”

 

[Azalea]

My heart melted with sympathy for Dane as he recounted his sad tale of lost love. I felt I now had insight into his attitude toward the women of my home. I felt a determination to show him that Kanos bred more than one brand of woman.

Suddenly, his guiding hand on my back moved and he gripped my arm with an iron-hard clench, stopping me in my tracks. Then his mouth was upon me, greedy and hard, kissing my neck and throat, almost biting rather kissing. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart began racing. I gasped aloud when he ripped down my dress and began kissing down my back. He grasped my bound hands in one huge fist and jerked my arms up at an awkward angle, pushing me to my knees and then face down to the ground.

I was now truly frightened, for he seemed out of control, and I feared he would strip me and take my virginity there, on the hard ground. He lay on top of my body and reached under me, clutching at my belly, trying to reach for my sex, and without thinking I tightened my legs up, pressing myself into the grass to keep his hand away.

Then, he stopped struggling and lay heavily on me, and I felt the fight go out of him. I heaved a sigh of relief, and waited to see what he would do. My thoughts and feelings were in a tumult. I wanted so badly to please him, to be a good slave, but he had frightened me with the violence of his reaction, and I suddenly felt unsure of myself. Would I be brave enough, strong enough, to submit to my Master's need when it was time?
My heart said yes, but my thoughts had misgivings.

Slowly, Dane picked himself up off of me and then he helped me to my feet, with surprising gentleness after what he had just done. The torn back of my gown fluttered to the side, and I felt his hand on my back again, but this time on bare flesh.

He murmured something about, "Not here...." and then he said, "You will find the perfect place,ou will recognise it. Think of the place you go in your dreams.
The place you go to be safe. I will have you there."

I felt so confused.....how could the place where I felt safe be the same place where he took me with such violent need?
I merely said, in a small timid voice, "Yes, Master," and we continued our search.

After walking a while longer, I heard before I saw, the loveliest little runlet, coursing through the grassy rocks. Ahead of us rose a sort of natural shelter, a level place, full of soft-looking grass, sheltered by a rocky overhang. The little stream bubbled its way along the far edge of the "shelter," and I stopped in my tracks, delighted by the beauty of the place.

Dane sensed my feelings and asked, "Lorra, is this the place? Is this where you wish to be taken?"

 

[peterpan]

Lorra turned her dark pleading eyes upon me, her soul bared for my inspection. Her gaze was fearful, not furtive. She had found her centre of beauty, of safety. She wished to please her master, let him know her truly. Yet that was not the question. She wanted to speak truth but she could not encompass what her master was asking. How could she? So innocent!

“Yes, Master”

“Take your place within, and wait.”

Lorra advanced into the clearing in the trees, to the lip of the shelter, where the shadow of the noon sun lay. She turned to face me there.

I waited a few breaths, for the place to become hers, then I entered after. I walked around her and threw down her robe in the centre of the grassy floor. I kept the torn gown in my hand. I had always intended it for another purpose.

But first I continued my circuit of the slave girl, inspecting. She turned her eyes and shoulders to follow me but not her feet. I tried the water in the stream and found it good.

“Are you thirsty, girl, or do you need to relieve yourself?”

“Yes,” Lorra blushed. “..I mean, I am thirsty, Master.”

“Then kneel and drink.”

Obediently Lorra knelt by the stream to drink. It was deliciously awkward, with her wrists bound, and before she had gotten the least water into her mouth, one leg was in the water for balance and much of her loose silk slip also.

As I watched her drink, my strong hands tore the warm gown into long narrow strips; to bind her with should I desire. The luxuriant material would not dry in winter weather, therefore useless to survival. This purpose met its qualities well.

Having swallowed a little water, Lorra returned to me. I saw her eyes widen as they took in the strips and I was pleased. I scattered them so one might always be near at hand.

The Chemise clung wetly to her belly and thighs. It had slipped from one shoulder. I smiled so she would know the effect was pleasing and she smiled uncertainly back. With a remaining rag I wiped droplets from her face.

As she stood I explored her gently. I traced the fine lines of her jaw and cheek, rolled down her lower lip with a finger and probed her mouth. I unified in my experience the white perfection of her teeth with their hardness and sharpness to the touch. I dipped in briefly to feel the velvet of her tongue but intruded no further for now, using the wetness I had gathered to moisten her lips once more, then swept back her hair from one ear with my hand and traced the line of her throat.

Lorra’s neck was delicate as a swan’s. I felt I could almost encircle it with my hand. I held it firm as I kissed her wet lips. My hand moved down to one breast and cupped it through the silk. It fitted my hand well – small yet not as a child’s was. The breast had a full curve to it. I allowed my fingers to take their time, with no particular effort to arouse but only to claim for myself, before moving down.

As I explored, I spoke.

“Lorra. My Slave. I know your word, your heart, is truly given. I know you will do all I require of you, to and beyond all limits inflicted on you by the low opinion and limited imagination of your instructors. I know you shall please me in every way.”

My hand stopped on the slight curve of her belly.

“In return your heart pleads but one thing, one simple thing. That your master accepts your gift, the gift of all you have to give, completely. Your gift is your life, your future, all you will ever be. Oh Master do not waste it, cries your heart! Not in murder, not in neglect, not in weakness of heart.”

“Do I speak truth?”

“Yes, Master,” she says, a tremor in her voice.

“You want dearly to obey me. You want only for me to speak clearly, to command you well, to whatever purpose I wish, to lift this paralysis. Your heart has chosen me as Master.”

“Yes, yes Master!”

“What if your heart changes,” I demanded harshly.

A moment’s shocked silence. Such a question was betrayal to a slave. “Master, I beg you, say I am your Slave.”

I held Lorra to me, soaking in the damp warmth of her against my chest, clasping her back, her arms, feeling the secureness of the bonds she had already accepted from me. “A good slave, my slave.”

“But there is one more test. A way to prove your heart can always be mine. You must use every scrap of your strength, your speed, your will. I command it of you. You must put all of yourself into this, knowing that if all you have surpasses all I can do, then… I fail.”

“I will always fear you only choose to love me. This is my weakness. The last test is mine.”

With those words I pulled upon the bow binding her wrists. I knew by giving her this little freedom I would make her task more difficult on her but it had to be.

“You must fight me, Lorra,” I commanded, as she wrung her freed wrists and stared at me. “You must bend all you strength and will to resist a moment’s perfect pleasure at my hands. Only if you fail can I know for sure that no matter what befalls us, should you come to hate me and bondage to me, and yet I find I can never let go of you, then at least I have this: a few precious moments every day I will own your heart still.”

My slave bowed her head, obviously distressed.

“Speak from your heart, Slave.”

 

[Azalea]

When Dane first approached me and began touching me, my heart raced, and I found it difficult to breathe evenly. His fingertip tracing lines on my face, my neck, down my shoulders, arm, back was like a little burning brand. When he delicately probed my mouth with his finger, I felt a little violated.....but quickly shook myself, remembering that he was about to "violate" a great deal more than my mouth.

Then he kissed me......and the world started spinning backward. I will never forget that first touch of his lips upon mine. There is truly nothing like it, no way to adequately describe how it felt, the first time. He did not linger, as his hand moved to cup my breast.
That set my body to trembling, and I knew there would be no turning back from this point.

Even through the thin silk, his palm felt warm, and an odd feeling began to spread through my body......of neediness, emptiness that needed filling. Looking back, I see how over-used and trite such sentiments are.....but when these feelings were brand new, they were more powerful than anything I had ever remotely felt before.

Then, Dane began to explain a little of what he wanted from me. He spoke of my own heart and desire to please him. Pulling me close to his chest, he reached around my back for my bound hands, and untied the knot securing them. Puzzled, I slowly brought my hands to my sides, feeling the sensation of looseness which had gone unappreciated before I had my wrists restrained.

Then hes tepped back and explained what he wanted, fom this taking of me......
“You must fight me, Lorra,..... must bend all your strength and will to resist a moment’s perfect pleasure at my hands. Only if you fail can I know for sure that no matter what befalls us, should you come to hate me and bondage to me, and yet I find I can never let go of you, then at least I have this: a few precious moments every day I will own your heart still.”

Then, he asked for my thoughts. In truth, I had little notion of what this new Master wanted from me. I stood, my head bowed, trying to frame questions.

Master.....," I began tentatively, "you wish your slave to fight you? To try to keep you from taking me? I beg your pardon, but I do not understand."

Rrrrrriipppp...............with no preamble or warning sign, he grabbed the top of my gown, which was already torn in several places, and ripped the thin material, tearing it all the way down the front and uncovering my nakedness. Before I could even think about what to do he had one of my arms bent back and pinned against me, and his mouth clamped on mine greedily, not at all like he had done only moments before. His other hand clenched my buttocks, pressing me hard up against him and squeezing painfully.

I didn't think of his words then, had no time to form thoughts, only felt panic and something akin to anger rising up within my breast. I writhed against him, trying to twist myself free, to tear my arm away from his vise-like grip. But Dane was a warrior, and i was a slip of a girl.......

Before I knew what was happening, he had me down on the ground, my arm trapped painfully underneath me as his body pressed fully against mine. I looked into eyes that before had seemed warm, just, kind, and saw only lust, and I began to try to kick at him.......

 

[peterpan]

I wanted her, and wanted her to hate me.

Lorra’s innocence had become a taunt to me. It separated us by a hundred years; I had lost my innocence long ago. Innocence’s sole purpose is it’s own destruction. It lures those in that have lost it, in an urge to possess it, but the result is always the same. The best one can hope is that, in some form, wisdom may come of it.

I had decided this course, somehow I know now I had decided this back on Kanos, when first I laid eyes on her, and only fortunate misshap had not seen me take this girl on Vaikor, as emperors concubine. My own lust must be sated if I were to be in control for what followed, I told myself. Her innocence must be dealt with. My reasons where methodical, considered, but in the end, despite all my wisdom, my reasons were just excuses. I took this girl’s innocence in an urge to possess it.

Lust.

She fought. I crushed her down, but now I had no reason to stop, no reason at all. My body long denied responded to her naked, writhing, perfect form with fierce joy, longing to gorge itself upon her. No it was not my body. It was I.

Panic in her eyes clamoured at me: Threat! Threat! Threat! My blood risen, time slowed. I lived three seconds for every one. I would pay for it later.

I watched Lorra drift towards the ground, delighted, in my new, more directed vantage. I pursued her down, but, you can’t rush gravity. Eyes, heavy in their sockets, swept across her freefalling body, momentarily weightless, one arm loosened from repelling her attacker in an instinctive attempt to break her fall. It would not be sufficient and if her thoughts had been accelerated, as mine were, her key mission would not have strayed. I exploited her poor planning by caressing a breast. It felt gentle, yet a ripple of impact slid across her soft flesh at my touch.

More glorious even than her arching slow motion descent, were the complex emotions sliding across her face. An instant earlier her expression had been an almost snarl, teeth gritted, eyes slit to defend that fragile, vital sense. But now her mouth and eyes were wide, her brows were raised in surprise, all instinct to draw in as much information as possible. Even so, for a definite tenth of a second her eyes had still sought mine, seeking reassurance or perhaps mercy.

She hit the grass butt first, undignified, and rolled along her spine till finally her head whiplashed into the robe. Lorra winced in preparation for the impact. An unwise landing but she was lucky. The grass and robe, and air trapped betwixt, cushioned her. My free palm slammed to the ground beside her shoulder, as momentum of her landing was arching her chest up into my other, grasping, hand. The arm she had wasted fighting her fall was trapped beneath her.

Pressure grew within my leathers. I was not engorged yet. Like gravity some things will not be hurried. Nor did I wish to conquer a dry desert. There was all the time in the world. Her struggles were a provocative, dreamlike dance. I took only what she unknowingly offered to me. Of the breast my hand possessed, my mouth claimed all the perfect areola, that heavenly aureole of a sinfully erect nipple, which soon I was sucking and batting with my tongue. Her free hand brought up to shun me merely caressed my side and shoulder, entangled there. Before it could travel all the way around the outside of my arm, to reach down, I had moved on. I kissed her stomach.

From the wide ‘O’ of Lorra’s lips issued a sound I perceived as a breathy, prolonged sigh. Combined with her twisting sway it was incredibly erotic. A knee drifted up to block the descent of my lips down her taut belly but I pushed it aside. The thigh slammed into the robe almost as hard as her head had done. One hand held it there while the other took her questing fingers at last. An elbow held my rebellious slave’s other thigh down and with no asking I dove my tongue into her moist slit seeking to swallow all of it also. Her sigh became a long gasping intake of breath, swelling her almost exhausted lungs.

My slave was already a little wet, no doubt from romantic thoughts she had entertained on her long walk in search of the fated place of her deflowerment. Had she pictured it like this? Had I? My thoughts were clouded by lust.

Finally I was ready. Fingers that felt slow and clumsy unbuckled my wide leather belt and I pulled the belt free. I admired it, coiling like a steel-toothed snake in my fingers, thinking somehow I should use it.

My slave’s eyes widened. Perhaps Lorra thought I intended to beat her with my belt. The sigh came once more but now higher, almost a keening. It was less pleasant but yet I laughed at her unfounded, silly concerns. My own laugh I perceived as a quiet deep gravely rumble and that is when I realised the sighs had been the slowed sounds of a woman’s shrill terror.

The sigh that had been pleasant now assaulted me. It offended me. Didn’t she know I had sworn to defend my slave with my life? The belt. I would silence Lorra with that.

Flicking the belt, its tail swum languidly through the air and in an eyeblink I had threaded it once more, all with the action of a single hand. Now it formed a business-like noose. This I tightened around my slave’s throat, and when her hand intruded, it was ensnared also, in a second loop. Now with just one hand gripping the belt’s tail to the ground by Lorra’s head, I held her throat down and her wrist down too. With gentle pressure or if she struggled the constriction would smoothly increase. There was a point at which the ‘sighing’ stopped but breathing was still permitted.

My handywork pleased me. The belt looked very comfortable with no unnecessary pinching. Lorra did not know it yet but she should grow used to this. Crisis over, the adrenal mode retreated. I returned to my full senses, still exquisitely aroused and unsated, looking down into the face of my terrified slave, captive beneath me.

What could I say? That I had not been in control of myself? I had. Exquisite, perfect control of myself and my environment. Her. Tell her it was all right now? I had still to take her maidenhead and still it may be painful.

As I held her, still holding her cries back with the belt’s smooth constriction, I stroked her face in totally inadequate apology. How long since I had grasped her. A minute? Less? It had seemed much, much longer.

“Lorra, whatever you think you may have learnt of me, I swear, I put your life ahead of my own. I am king but you are all my people.”

She was so brave. Biting her lip and trying not to cry as I began to explore her once more, gently this time. “Lorra. This is not the test. I still must take your virginity but that is no test for a strong man. When I have sated myself upon you my mind will be clearer. You do not need to obey my command yet. Don’t fight. Not yet.”

Then, gently as I could manage, I took what I said I would take.

 

[Azalea]

In my sheer panic, I had forced Dane to become almost brutal with me, and now he had me pinned to the ground, his belt controlling my neck and one wrist. I could breathe, but even a slight struggle would cause the belt to cinch my throat, blocking my air.

Now that he had me restrained, he grew quiet and began to touch me with more tenderness......it felt very much as if something important had been resolved in his mind. He caressed my face, and spoke of what he planned to do.

"I still must take your virginity but that is no test for a strong man. When I have sated myself upon you my mind will be clearer. You do not need to obey my command yet. Don’t fight. Not yet.”

My muscles were knotted with tension, but his words knockd some of the fight out of me. I was suddenly very aware of my nakedness beneath him, and could plainly feel the growing bulge in his leather pants. Woman;y instinct began to kick in, and I knew what I must do.....or not do, in this case. In order for my Master to take my virginity, I must try to relax my muscles and open my body up to him. This i understood.

The process had started, when Dane's tongue had found my cleft.
Such radical intimacy! A shockwave of sensation had coursed through me then, a hint of something.......exotic, something......wonderful, but not quite yet.

I lay still, quit any kind of struggling, and looked without flinching into my Master's eyes. "I will not fight you, Master," I almost whispered the words. "Take what is rightfully yours."

His eyes softened, and his hands began to explore me, more gently than I had expected at first. Fingers rubbing and tenderly pinching my nipples.......then tracing little spirals down across my belly, my thighs. Hand on my bushy hair, twisting it in his fingers, then probing into my sex, one finger sliding in, testing, pushing.

Dane removed his finger from my labia and brought it up to my face. "Do you see how your wetness has coated my finger, Lorra? Your body is telling me you are ready for me. Try to re;ax and I will stretch your maidenhead."

His finger returned to my labia and he inserted it and indeed began to stretch the tight little membrane that blocked his entrance into my vagina. The sensations flooding me were a combination of both discomfort and a kind of pleasure......my hips writhed a little as he continued getting me ready for his penis.

My free hand tiimidly explored his body, stroking along his side, and touching the soft hairs on his chest and belly. When my hand brushed vlose to his member, he shuddered a little and bent his mouth to suckle my breast, and I moaned softly.

Dane's one finger became two, and the stretching now hurt. I cried out, and he withdrew them, saying, "It is best I take you now, my need is too great to delay any longer."

He reached down and extricated his penis from his leathers, and at sight of his engorged member an involuntary gasp escaped my lips. Without any further delay, he knelt squarely between my parted thighs, spreading them much wider, and placed himself at my entrance.

"You are mine, slave, I claim you," he said breathlessly, thrusting his penis in very hard, all at once. My hips bucked up and I cried out......my hymen was easily breached, and my inner walls began to spread to accomodate him.

Being careful not to press upon my body needlessly, he began a steady little rhythm of thrusts,. I mainly felt a slight burning, sharp feeling, as my torn hymen and virgin sheath received him.

His mouth left my breast and he began moving in earnest, faster, harder....I did not know what to do, except to try to move in harmony iwth him, which I did. In and out he pushed, and I started to feel something new.......there was a point of intense sensation, driving me to seek more. My hips began to match his rhythms and I watched in awe when his climax took him.

 

[peterpan]

My slave made of herself a soft and willing bed - knowing nothing, really, of what was done to her or why – with no expectation to be pleasured. Even collared and pinned, her very breath at my whim, Lorra’s one free hand stroked me with timid innocence, exploring emotions and needs never touched before. No words could have declared her pure surrender better than that tender moment.

Her hips began to roll in instinctive reciprocation. I wished I had any will left in myself to play this out a little longer, to see where instinct alone would carry her. But my own pleasure was cresting, that sweetest point at the border of pain and her tentative motions removed any possibility of restraint. I would not dilute this moment.

Her dark eyes stared up into mine, as if she expected some great secret to be now at long last revealed.

Dropping the belt and gripping her wrist and shoulder, my long pent frustrations were released within her. My semen pounded into her, thudding like the pulse of blood straight from my heart and into her womb, it seemed to me.

I would have held her gaze for the whole moment, but at the last my face was buried in her neck and I clung to her as if nothing else would anchor me.

After, I lay there inside her, not protecting her from my weight any more, listening to both our heartbeats slow. Hers slowed less rapidly, less evenly. I could feel her try to relax because she thought that was correct; to be sated somehow by fulfilling her masters needs, yet twinges of tension still left her frustrated. She was so woefully unprepared by her scribe’s education that she had no idea why. Or if that frustration would ever be answered. Or what form that answer could take.

I lay there enjoying my attempts to extrapolate her thoughts, imagining they were somehow conducted to me by the nearness of our minds and via the moistness of our connection. At last I rose, using one hand to squeeze out the last of my juices inside her before withdrawing.

The thought occurred that I had no idea whether my slave was fertile. As imperial concubine, any child she bore could only have been her emperors, but would probably be the egg of some distant duchess. Some slave girls were used to bear the child of two men that way engaged. Each would sleep with her, satisfying the mores of society but the child would be none of hers. If the concubine herself was valued, a hundred of her eggs might be paired with a hundred sperm and a hundred dedicated, wide hipped slave girls would have the honour of bearing the child of a concubine as far above their status as the concubine was below the emperor. For such reasons few women beyond the very lower classes ever had or took the opportunity to bear a natural child… as scribe, she may well have been given treatments, long term or short term.

I put the thought aside. Everything this land bore was mine, to rule and in return respect. Whatever was beyond its reach was beyond my right to ask of it. I would not question Lorra, when even still I left her doubt her service could ever be sufficient to entirely earn my trust.

I rose to my knees, pulling on the belt like a leash to inspire my slave to rise also, pulling her face close so that I might briefly kiss her by way of praise.

With that kiss, another pleasant thought came to me. She was indeed all my people. Therefore to be my woman was insufficient. She must also by my bard, my wiseman and my fool. The thought amused me.

Then the belt was discarded and I instructed her to freshen herself thoroughly in the stream, wash my juices from her, and then return to my side.

The cold water would also quell her confused arousal. This test would not satisfy me were it so easy.

I watched Lorra a moment, merely for the pleasure of it, then made do with a rag to clean myself and closed my trousers. Taking my cutlass, I walked a little distance into the trees to find wood for four sturdy stakes, which I shaped with quick swipes of that exceedingly sharp and durable weapon. I cut each just below a branching so their heads were fist-sized knots, and the lesser branch of each was trimmed to form a hook.

Three, I pounded into the ground with a smooth rock from the stream, at equal angles around where Lorra’s robe lay. Their placement near stone would prevent any stumbling upon them though the grass largely concealed them, deeply imbedded as they were.

Lorra had completed her washing somewhat before I was finished. She stood glistening in the sunlight of the clearing watching me. Lorra was shivering from the cold water but the day itself was warm so I had no concern for that.

As I worked, I questioned her.

“What do you know of pleasure, girl. You must have at least shared whispers, in the slave’s dormitory at night. You must have learnt somewhat for yourself, unless they had you sleep in stocks.”

I listened to her answer then asked another. I would learn what she understood so I could guess to what degree she would understand what I asked of her.

The final stake was hammered into a crack in the massive stone overhang that sheltered Lorra’s place, just within my reach. I tested it with my full weight and found it to be firm.

Taking one of the many cloth strips I had made of Lorra’s gown, I bound each wrist with great care, allowing two feet of slack between them. She should not be able to hurt herself on these bonds if she tried. If it ever came to pass that she hated me, and only bonds such as these made her mine, they would cause her no pain but that of admitting pleasure by me.

“Step onto your robe, Lorra.”

She obeyed, turning to face me, hands at her sides. The length of cloth strip that hung loosely from wrist to wrist, below her belly, was her only defence against my eyes.

“I would show you pleasure. I command you to resist me with everything you are. Do not succumb to pleasure. Hate me if you must, to achieve this. You were frightened before? Remember that fear.”

“You could run. You know I will catch you. You could struggle; you know I will bind you. Yet you must not succumb.”

More quietly I added, “If it is in your power, you must succeed in this, or everything between us will be founded on a lie.”

I stepped forwards.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Please, Master,” Lorra said , backing a step. “I am your slave. I wish to satisfy your..”

“Then resist me.” I reached her in a stride, and began to stroke her shoulders, her sides. My slave froze.

“But, I,” she began.

“Resist me!” I barked. Lorra flinched, sprung back and was brought up against the stone cliff face. Cornered.

“Good,” I said, advancing on her. She stared at me. Her eyes flickered to one side. When she leapt, I was there. Lorra collided with my chest and found herself struggling in my grasp. “Better,” I told her.

I grasped her forearms, lifted them over her head and hauled her back to the wall she had just fled. Tangling the cloth that bound her wrists in one hand, I held Lorra arched back against the wall as my other hand explored her. For some seconds she was at a loss. She barely resisted as I stroked her side and then a breast. She kept glancing at me as if looking for advice on how to extricate herself. That was so sweet.

I grinned, then holding her waist to my chest, kissed a nipple lightly, wetting it with my tongue. Then the other. She strained a moment at her bonds, nose wrinkling in effort, to no effect.

“Try harder,” I whispered in her ear. Lorra’s expression was almost one of betrayal. Try harder how? When my free hand slid up an inner thigh to comb the dark hair of her delta, finally she began to fight. She struggled and kicked and twisted. At last lorra got a knee between us, and enough leverage to twist her pelvis away from my hand. That left her facing the wall, hands still tangled above her head.

“Better,” I told her, and began to caress a fine buttock. I felt a shudder of frustration pass through her. “Master, ” she began in an almost scolding voice, surprised me by kicking out from the wall. She might have got by me, but for the cloth binding her wrists, which I still held. She circled me, tethered.

“This is what you desire,” Lorra asked uncertainly? “I know I am powerless…”

“Did I give you pleasure,” I demanded?

My slave hesitated. “No…,” she finally admitted.

“Then am I powerless? Can I pleasure you only when you chose to be pleasured?!”

“How could I know, Master,” Lorra wailed. “I am a scribe. I was a virgin till you took me. I am not qualified to answer that.”

“You will be,” I said, dragging Lorra by the band between her wrists to the lip of the rock shelter. There I looped that band over the wooden hook I had affixed to a crack in the overhanging rock there. The material stretched, but she could not bring her wrists lower than her head. Her legs were strong, I remembered. Best to remove any obligation on her part to apply them in her defence. Mayhap she would prefer my use of them. Using the cloth strips I had left scattered about, I tethered an ankle to each of the stakes nearest at hand. More than a metre parted them. A third strip became her blindfold.

Quietly I paced around the slave girl, surveying my handywork. Lorra’s head darted at my least sound, expecting assault at any moment.

It began as fingernails brushing the taut muscles of her sides and arms. I stood so close that I could feel her hot breath on my chest. Sometimes she jerked at my touch, and then her body would brush with mine. She faced me, lips slightly parted. I stole the opportunity for a kiss. She pulled her face away. I kissed her throat. All the time my fingers traced her arms, her torso, her narrow waist and firm bottom. I let myself draw closer so my body added to the constant contact.

At first Lorra barely responded, but gradually her evasions became more intense. She would twist and arch to escape my fingers as if they scalded her.

“Why do you struggle, when you are powerless,” I asked her?

“Because you told me…,” Lorra began. “I thought, maybe it felt good!” She spoke all in a rush, then added a hurried assurance: “…just a little… And you said… not allow it.”

Lorra’s nipples had become firm. They would brush against me most pleasantly. I warned Lorra of this danger sign, and then lowered to one knee to take first one breast then the other fully into my mouth, before suckling firmly on the nipple. No longer just brushing her body with mine, I kneaded her flesh with strong fingers, arms gripping her smooth belly possessively to a muscular chest.

“Fight me,” I demanded between breaths.

Lorra emitted a small groan that may have been frustration, but I hoped was more.

Disengaging without warning, I rose and stepped around Lorra. As I slipped from my leathers, I observed her.

She was breathing rapidly and her legs trembled a little. I began once more, lightly as before, this time behind her and my fingernails lightly tracing her belly, her breasts, her inner thigh. My naked chest pressed into her, my semi-erect thallus a pressure between her legs. She did not need to be told, this time. She strained against the cloth binding her ankles but could not close her thighs against my exploring fingers.

A firm hand possessed the inviting hollow between her thighs, massaging the soft flesh but intruding no further yet. I could feel the exhaustion in her legs from fighting me, the muscles beginning to tremble. The support of my hands on taut inner thigh and soft flesh had become a cruel temptation of respite. She could not resist the entry of my fingers even when they explored her deeply. Her flesh was warm and wet and frictionless. Lorra moaned a second time, involuntarily.

“Would you like to rest your legs,” I enquired of my slave.

“Yes,…” she began, then hesistated. “But, does that mean I must say no?”

“I would not listen,” I replied, and rose to unhook her arms. I laid her down gently, her back and head upon the robe, and then, easily over powering her tired muscles, hooked her arms once more, this time to the stake opposite the pair that tethered her ankles.

Soft kisses were laided down her chest, her belly, till at last my lips reached her delta. Combing the hair aside with my fingers, I laid firm strokes between her labia with my tongue, pushing upwards, seeking her bud. Soon Lorra began to make small sounds of pleasure or protest. I still was not sure.

Keeping a hand to stimulate her, I moved up Lorra’s body to observe her face. She was biting her lip and her brows were arched. I pushed the blindfold from her eyes.

“Master,” she begged, seemingly on the edge of tears. “What if I fail.”

“You must not allow it! If it will give you more strength, promise me you will not submit!”

“I, I promise, master,” she said weakly.

I looked down into her eyes, now squeezed shut in concentration. Each breath a sharp gasp. It was cruel to make her promise, but I had to know.

Now fully erect, I mounted her, slipping smoothly inside her tight, warm, wet embrace.

Only if she failed, accepting pleasure from me despite her every iota of will turned against it, could I risk loving her completely.

 

[Azalea]

How can I begin to convey the muddle in my thoughts, as I struggled to obey Dane's command to resist his pleasuring. With every twist and turn of my body, my flesh made taut by my bonds, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated, wanting I knew not what.
When he held my waist and bent his warm, soft mouth to my breasts, my body burned with need. Such an aching began in my innermost parts as I never thought possible......I felt open, empty, incomplete. And every little flick of his tongue across my nipples was like a little hot flame, which I could feel inside, melting my most sensitive parts.

I tried my best to fight against what he was doing, though my motion was limited by the way he had my hands and feet restrained. It was a total mystery to me how my Master expected me to succeed in fighting him off when I could just barely wriggle away from his hands, his mouth, his penis prodding at my belly.

When he touched my sex with his tongue, licking at my delicate lips, I wanted to scream......I had never felt anything like this, so searingly delicious, so forbidden.....I wanted more. But then I remmbered I must resist, must fight, must not let him give me pleasure. I writhed and tried to get away from his tongue but my bonds would not permit me to make much progress. I sighed and grunted in frustration....wanting more, but wanting to please him. Oh, how badly I wanted to please him! To prove to him I would be a good slave, obedient totally to his wishes and needs. But the pleasure......ooooohhh,I groaned, and tried to think of awful, painful things.

Then, Dane mounted me.....there was no getting away from the sensation of his penis in my vagina. No amount of struggling on my part, my ankles and wrists pulled tightly in my bonds, would help me escape this invasion.

My inner walls spread to receive him and betrayed me. I fought, twisted futilely, cried out, "NO! NO! I won't let you!"

He moved inside of me, slowly, deliberately, driving me wild with the desire his penis was building up in me. He used his pubic bone to rub hard against me, in a pleasure-producing friction that I strove to block out.

"NO! Please, NO! Don't" I cried, and I began to sob, my efforts to ignore the pleasure beginning to peak inside of me exhausting all my reserves.

Dane knew he had me now, knew my body could not fight him,and he drove his penis in, harder....I gasped, and cried and fought the pleasure....but then he defeated me. He placed his fingers on my sex and began rubbing me, pinching me, and I bit back my tears as fireworks of sensation exploded inside me.
"NO!" I screamed. "YOU Can't!" And then, I realized what was happening.....I was in the midst of an orgasm and was helpless to stop it.....I could have sooner fought a tidal wave or eathquake as stopped the sweet hot waves of pleasure flooding my body.

My sobbing intensified, and I thrashed my head from side to side, muttering, "I'm sorry, I"m sorry, Master, I have failed you!" I wanted to hide my head in shame, to go where he would never have to look at me again, for I had failed this, his first test of me as his slave. The throbbing contractions of my vagina seemed to spread to his penis, and he began pulsing his seed into me, climaxing again, his eyeds closed in what I thought was a grimace of displeasure with my failure.

 

[peterpan]

After that cry I felt her body shudder and her loins gripped convulsively down on me. I knew she was lost and I had won.

I heard my slave’s sobs dimly, but my own pleasure was upon me. Her consolation would have to wait. I held her thrashing head still, her cries muted with a palm as I spent myself within her.

Afterwards, still within her, I hushed my slave, demanded she not avert her eyes from mine.

“You have pledged to be my slave, to surrender your freedom to me. To always be truthful to me. To always be faithful to me. Yet we both knew this to be insufficient.”

“Now, finally, I can truly be your master. You have made my heart strong again.”

Lorra’s lip trembled. “I failed you, Master…”

“No. I conquered you. You did not choose to be pleasured by me. You had no choice. I chose to pleasure you and not all your strength and will could deny me. I no longer fear the day your heart changes and your will is turned against me. If I must keep you by my side in chains and every ungagged word is of how you despise me, even so I will love you still, and when I chose, I will make you admit pleasure at my touch.”

“I am your master now, in heart as well as word. This ceremony of ribbons is complete.”

“I know the test was hard. I am proud of you, Lorra. You gave me everything. I will never accept less from you.”

Her wrists were unhooked so she could wrap her arms around me. I kissed her until Lorra understood, and believed. At last I rose and loosened her bonds.

“Noon is past. There is much to do before nightfall, and much for me to instruct you on. We must construct shelter, find wood for a fire and find what is edible. Freshen, and clothe yourself as best you can. There are many tasks awaiting you. By sunset they must be done, with time to spare for you to make yourself presentable to me. While you work, think on how you may please me tonight.”