After The Bighorn, Chapter Thirteen, Slaves and Free Women.

Patrick Master’s Narrative.

(Illustration, Master, Freewoman, slave, by TroyDM. Used by permission, all rights reserved by the artist)

After Monday’s clash in court, we lawyers on the Frick patent case buckled down to the hard but unglamourous work of preparation and study. This is the part that is never shown on the screen in movies and TV. Indeed, I don’t know how it could be made to look dramatic. It is study, study, study; knowing the law, and gaining mastery of the facts.

It is not glamourous, but it is where cases are won. It is what makes moments in court possible. J. Augustus Frick IV and the Frick company lawyers prepared documents to turn over to the VanRijn team, while I, Richard Thornton and Dana Winter, with two junior associates, scrutinize information turned over by the VanRijn people. Dana handles the coordination with our data team headed by Gerry Reiss back in San Francisco. Gerry has done an amazing job of bringing on board the temporary data staff which will document all our exhibits, making sure that they are numbered correctly and entered in our system. He is still trying to find a computer data specialist, but finding those through temp agencies is nearly impossible.

Zack Frick is handling the making sure all the teams are working together and not at cross purposes. He is doing an amazing job, considering his youth, indefatigable in his energy. There was one incident with Dana Winter, who tried to patronize him, due to his recent graduation from Law School (at an age when most are graduating from High School), and she being seven years his senior.

Zach’s sarcasm and commanding presence made her back down; she was confused by his lack of deference to a woman, and the arrogance with which he dismissed her. And it was all done with immaculate politeness, and of course the assurance of a man raised in a Gorean atmosphere. I saw in his attitude the same bearing he had when acting as slave-master he cowed the twenty women, collared in the dungeons under Frick House, who were destined for slavery on Gor. To him, as an earth woman, without a Home Stone, she was just a female of the Slave World, collar-meat.

Dana, though, is efficient, and I am more likely, at the current time, to regard her as more useful as a lawyer and a Free Woman, than as a prospective slave. Jane Bennet, while capable as a lawyer, is somewhat lazy, and more reliant on getting men to do her work for her. In the future, she is slated for the collar, when her current role can be filled. The world is full of prospective candidates for the collar; there are fewer to fit the roles my office needs.

Richard Thornton, full of the chivalry which has weakened the men of Earth ( in Gorean views anyway) tried to step in to shield Dana.  Zach, quelled him even more quickly, Richard feeling threatened back down from physical confrontation as uncivilized.

Looking at Dana, I felt it wrong that she tried to push Zach aside. I find myself between Gorean and Earth attitudes, on the one hand regarding women as fit for the collar, as my beloved Juli is, and the other, still regarding women with some degree of deference.

Maybe this is the same as the Gorean dichotomy of Free Women and Kajirae, one that is especially enforced by Free Women. I don’t think that Dana Winter is especially destined for the collar; I know that she carries herself much more modestly than others, such as Jane Bennet.

On the other side of the elevator bank on the third floor of the Frich Building is a department entirely different to the Legal Department. This is the packing and testing division of the Frick Steel Home Products Dept. This department deals with equipment for those who are submissive in the lives: collars, cuffs, chains, etc. This department serves the Fricks in many ways. It is a profit centre for the business, it provides them with a list of women and some men who may be suitable for dispatch to Gor as kajirae or kajirus, and provide a group of women working as packers, who may also be suitable for the Frick’s export business. After all, employees in the packing business come and go, and so no one is surprised when one disappears: it is just assumed they found another, better paying job. Many of the lawyers working on our side of the third floor, would gather near the water cooler in the elevator lobby as the women packers arrived and departed for their shifts. It was old fashioned girl watching and even Richard Thornton participated, although he pretended he didn’t. Dana Winter did not, although she sniffed at the ‘inappropriate clothing’ of many of the packers. As the only professional woman on the legal side, she was quite alone, except for the secretaries, with whom she did not associate on class grounds.

I found my Earth attitudes amusing, as I regarded the packers more suitable for the collar than Dana or the secretaries, as they dressed more modestly and conservatively. Really of course, either is suitable for the collar, but I still regard the modest Free Women of our legal department more highly.

Strangely I don’t have the same attitude to the women waiting for transport to Gor currently waiting in the Frick cellars for the Silver Ship to arrive. Even though I know their backgrounds as intelligent women mostly from well regarded universities, once viewed naked and collared, their former status does not seem to matter. J Augustus Frick IV reminds me that Goreans appreciate intelligent women in the collar, perhaps even prefer them. I am still working out the contradictions in my thinking.

There is one Free Woman who I have no difficulty envisioning in a collar: Chelsea Frick. I would love to have that proud beauty kneeling at my feet, wearing my collar, beside my beloved Juli. That however is very unlikely, Chelsea being the daughter of my allies and thus out of my reach. Perhaps someday something might happen that brings her into my clutches.

I have talked to Juli in my office recently. She was there collecting my mail, and sorting office mail from personal mail. It is a task I have set her every day. Every day that she goes to my office, dressed in her collar and the skimpy garments she wears as a slave, it reinforces in her mind the change in her status from a Free Woman to my kajira, my property. When she is seen by the people that knew her as my companion, who wore conservative clothing, now dressed as something to be displayed they know her status has changed and that she is to be treated differently, even though they have no ideas of the details. Mrs Hernandez, the receptionist, has forbidden Juli to use the elevator, as one dressed as she is not really fit to ride with the clients and lawyers. She must climb the stairs to the Fifth Floor offices. She can no longer just walk back to my personal office as she could when she was my companion Juliet, now she must be escorted. Juli must learn to accept this, her status is different now than that of a Free Woman.

I have also talked with Gerry Reiss, who is helping on this Frick case. He raised again the matter of me keeping Juli as my slave. I told him again, that she is bound by contract until she objects; and reminded him that not all countries ban all forms of slavery.

“Yes, Patrick, I know. I have been doing some research. Among the countries are some that are surprising, some even in Europe.
I feigned surprise.

“Among other, the Grand Duchy of Lutha. I recall you had some dealings with that country. Is that how you intend to make Juli irrevocably your property, a possession not a person?”

“It may well be Gerry, it seems she will be happier in that condition, I think more women that you suspect might crave that status.”

“I know you have looked at this closely, Patrick, and that you are a stickler for the letter of the Law. Do you really intend to do this?”

“If I can make it work, Gerry, I truly intend to do so. If not in San Francisco, then I will move to a place where I can live as Juli’s owner.”

“It is hard to get my mind around.”

“In the meantime Gerry, feel free to use my office for your work. You will be more respected at the firm, if you sit in a place of authority. Juli will be coming by weekdays to sort my mail, the official from the personal.”

“It will be hard to face Juli every day, as we will both remember I saw her displayed as a naked slave, not a person.”

“Continue to view her that way, Gerry, it is the only way she will be comfortable in her situation. If you choose, use her as a slave as well. There is no use pretending that she is free, any pretense will only make things uncomfortable.”

“I am not sure I know what you mean, Patrick.”

“Juli is a slave, a kajira, Gerry, use her as such. It is only appropriate. Goodday Gerry, I must return to work.”

“Good bye, Patrick.”

Kajira Nineteen’s Narrative.

(One of the books read by Twenty, that she had thought was only a pleasant late night fantasy)

We have been held captive here in this dungeon for seven days now. A week of abuse, a week of eating nothing but gruel, tasteless, unflavoured NutriGirl. Those girls among us who are ‘Red Silk’, that is ‘opened for the use of men’, and baring the brunt of our situation. Many times a day, one of them is randomly taken to the curtained alcove and ‘put to use’, sometime by more than one of the brutes. We can hear them, and her, as her torment goes on. The worst thing is that most of the ‘Red Silk’ girls do not regard it as torment, but as a form of pleasure. I asked Eighteen, the only one in our pen who is ‘Red Silk’.

“How can you stand it, the unspeakable things they do to you?”

“I don’t feel it is unspeakable. It is not something I would have considered before I was brought to this place, but what they force me to do, the surrenders they force from me are wonderful.”

Her face lit up.

“They are so demanding, they allow me no pretense. I must yield fully as a slave. They accept nothing less. I am fulfilled. I feel I have found my role.”

“Don’t you want to escape, don’t you want to be free? To become free again?”

“No, I feel this is what I am. It is not what I would have answered a week ago, but I have never felt so alive. Even our nudity, it feels right to be under the gaze of men. Men who own us.”

“No, no no, I will never be a slave. I have to escape. Those men who look at me like they own me.”

“They do own you,” interjected Twenty. “They own all of us. We are bound for Gor, for a life of bondage in slavery to the men of that planet. We are women of the Slave World.”

“Is that what your Gor books tell you? How can that be true.  It is just propaganda for traffickers of women here on Earth. There is no Gor.”

“Then why are we learning Gorean, why must we learn that language? I never thought that Gor could exist; I thought it was fantasy. Just something erotic to dream of in the night. But it seems real, our captors believe it is real. I am sure that Kailieka must be Gorean. She and Bruno have the same accent. I am sure they come from another place, another planet.”

“I cannot accept it, my mind will just not let me believe it. I want to be free, I want to escape”

“There is no escape for us, no escape for a kajira, here or on Gor. I know you have felt it, I know you have known, as you kneel, legs wide open at the feet of men, that you have felt that you are a slave.”

“I won’t admit that; I can’t admit that.”

Sometimes what Twenty said was true, but mostly I was sure it was just brainwashing, I admitted to myself now that perhaps some women had slave tendencies, but not me, not really.

 Mistress Kailieka, and Mistress Jade, slaves really , but put in charge of us had a group of four of we ‘white silk’ girls kneeling closely to a post. Attached around the post were four dummy penises, and we were made to practice pleasuring them, using our mouths. Very submissive behaviour, even in Free Women, but expected of us captives (not slaves, nevery slaves). I was with my kennel mate, Seventeen, a girls from Ohio State, and Ten, the girl who every one thought was a slut, but it turned out was white silk, and One, the girl who was whipped when she refused to disrobe. Every since her clothes had been cut from her and she felt the slave whip, she had oscillated between eagerness to please and the remains of her modesty. Kailieka had demonstrated what was expected of us and now we were practicing this most degrading task.

I had asked her a question earlier and was turning the answer over in my mind.

“If we are very good and pleasing, will our master love us and free us?”

“It is a saying that ‘Only a fool frees a slave”, and anyway Nineteen, you are too pretty to be free. You are destined for the collar. A curvy wench like you will always be in demand on Gor. You will serve well and be pleasing. The masters will not have it any other way.”

‘Too pretty to be free’! I had heard that phrase before. I could remember the older man in a suit saying that the day we were processed: stripped of our clothes and marked with numbers as they took away our names.

Too pretty to be free. I knew I had heard it some where else.

Then suddenly, as I swallowed the artificial penis, it came to me. I had walked in on a conversation in the common room as Jimmy Klein, who was courting Amanda Sloan was talking.

“Janey Anstruther, she is curvy, she is too pretty to be…” Then he had seen me and broken off the conversation. I rebuked him for talking about women that way, but he was adamant that he admired me. Well who doesn’t like to be admired. I pretended I was angry with him.

Now I knew what he had meant to say, that I was too pretty to be free. I bet he was one of the people who named me to these kidnappers. Now more than ever, I have to escape, so I can warn Amanda that her boyfriend is not to be trusted.

We all did well at our training. I did not look forward to having to pleasure a real man, but I at least passed my test. Kailieka was scornful, “barely competent, much more will be demanded, but at least it might keep them alive.”

Jade countered.

“They did well enough, let us exercise them in the gardens.”

Kailieka nodded, reluctantly.  We were lined up and our collars connected by short lengths of chain, while our hands were secured behind us. We were marched up the stairs, past the door on the landing by which we had entered, and continued up the stairs to near the roof. Kaikieka produced a key and opened a trapdoor, and we climbed out into a large room. It was an old fashioned ballroom, like in a movie about the Nineteenth Century. We past a girl practicing dance moves over and over, so sexy and demeaning, and out a garden door. There was a small enclosed space, with stone walls, trees and grass all around. It was lovely to be in the open air.  Our collars were unleashed and we could wander. I looked around but there was no way to climb the fence, and the only gate was locked. It was evening and the cooler air was lovely. Seventeen and I were one corner, running from tree to tree, when I ran into a lady. I was shocked. She was the first clothed woman I had seen in this place. She wore no collar. Seventeen  sunk to her knees, I followed, Jade and Kailieka had warned us to beware of Free Women. They said they had a hatred of slaves. I don’t know why, we are the unfortunate ones at the mercy of men.

“Can you free us, please Mistress? You see what men have done, you are a woman like us, cannot you help us?”

Evidently Seventeen had said something wrong. The woman’s face grew very angry.  Then she stopped and smiled.”

“You poor dears, how unfortunate for you. I cannot do anything for you right now, but maybe I can get you away from this place. What are your names? Oh of course, you are Seventeen and Nineteen.”

Her laugh was not a pleasant one, but her promise to help us escape gave me hope.

“Now you mustn’t say anything to any one. Perhaps I can get you both away from here, but no more than you two. But you are both very pretty, but perhaps, just perhaps you will do.”

I don’t know why Jade and Kailieka warned us against Free Women. She seemed like she would help us.

Slave Juli’s Narrative.

(Slave Juli in Patrick's office, Illustration by TroyDM. Used by permission, all rights reserved by the artist)

I have to return to Patrick’s office today.  After what happened yesterday, I am afraid. But I am a slave, I must obey. Yesterday when I climbed the stairs to the Fifth floor where Patrick’s Law Office was, I was very embarrassed. In the lobby where the elevators and the stairs are, a security post had been established. There were a man and a woman there, both in uniform. I went towards the stairs, to climb to the Office because I had been forbidden to use the elevator for fear of offence to clients and staff in Patrick’s office. Both the guards were suspicious of me, especially the woman. I don’t think she liked my skimpy clothes, the only ones allowed me by my Master. I was desperate to reach the office, my Master would punish me if I did not fulfill my errand. Finally I prevailed on the male guard to call upstairs; I am sure the female guard just wanted to shoo me away and forbid me to ever come back.

Finally the male guard finished talked to Mrs Hernandez the receptionist and instructed to let me come up. The female guard looked disgusted, the male guard insisted on accompanying me up the stairs. He followed me, I am sure that he just want to ogle my bum; my skirt was short and he could see everything as he climbed behind me. When he got there, he winked and said, “see you tomorrow.”

Mrs Hernandez made me kneel in the supply alcove for fifteen minutes before escorting me back. I am sure it was just to show me she could, there were not a lot of calls or business for her to attend to.

I was sorting the mail, putting it in piles on the coffee table when Gerry Reiss walked in. Master Gerry Reiss now. I was so embarrassed. When last I had seen him, he had seen Master Patrick display me as a slave, naked for inspection.

“Patrick told me I could use this office. He also asked me to remind you that you are slave. That is what the collar on your throat means, isn’t it. Not just a fashion statement.”

“Yes Master.”

“Should you not be kneeling, in the presence of a Free Man?”

“Yes Master, my apologies, Master.”

I knelt before him, in the position of a pleasure slave. This was humiliating; I had known him when I was free.  He went to the desk and began to work, he seemed a little embarrassed to have a kneeling woman in the office.

He worked away while I finished sorting the mail, kneeling now instead of sitting on the couch; I had not been given permission to get off my knees. He kept looking me, more often as he continued to work. Finally he seemed to make up his mind.

“Take off your garments. You are a slave after all.”

It seemed the more he had looked on me kneeling, the more he regarded me as a slave. I knelt before as a slave. He regarded me. He took out a chain, and secured me. It was over an hour before he allowed me to get dressed. Mrs Hernandez arrived to escort me out just as I got my clothes on. I am worried today may be worse,

 

After the Bighorn Chapter Twelve, Back in Court

Patrick Master’s Narrative

Monday afternoon and we are back in court. Augustus Frick, Zach Frick, Dana Winter, Richard Thornton, a couple of Frick Company lawyers and I were all in court to confront the VanRijn people. Vansittart has brought an associate from Oakland, and their local lawyer, Barbara Quigley, Esq. has brought two associates, one female and one male, whose job seems to be to carry the briefcases. Vansittart seems upset that we still have them outnumbered. Augustus Frick speaks for us today, presenting motions that Zach, Dana Winter, Richard Thornton, and I have been working on all morning. We are prepared, more prepared than Vansittart and Quigley. It appears that Vansittart has not communicated well with Quigley and their presentations are not coordinated. This confirms my decision to have members of my team resident in Pittsburgh, working out of the Frick Steel offices. We make far more demands on them, than they on us. We also dump lots of discovery materials on them, mostly unsorted and innocuous, but it will take them a lot of work to figure that out. As Judge Kellogg makes his rulings, there is quiet bickering at the VanRijn table. Good.

As they leave, Quigley and the female associate have the junior male lawyer carry their briefcases. He seems browbeaten and not at all assertive. The women in that office are clearly in charge. Dana Winter tries to give her briefcase to Richard Thornton to carry. It seems she is trying to emulate Barbara Quigley. J Augustus Frick turns to her, he looks unhappy. She backs down and picks up her own briefcase. Richard Thornton, who had let her precede him on our way into court did not defer to Dana on the way out of court.

It made a contrast as we left. Barbara Quigley and her female associate preceding the male lawyer who carried their briefcases. Our side left with Dana Winter bringing up the rear, carrying her own briefcase and some other papers from our presentation. She did not seem happy.

On the way back to the Frick legal department offices on the third floor of the Frick Building, I tune out the conversation and think back to the quiet Saturday I spent alone in San Francisco with Juli, my beloved kajira. We were in the gardens of Drysdale House in San Francisco, under the trees. I had taken her in the grass, and after I was sitting in a comfortable chair enjoying the breezes while I read the overseas letter. It was from Franz Rupert, the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lutha, a micro-country tucked between Austria and the Balkans. He was inviting me to apply to be Luthan honorary consul in San Francisco. Lutha had never gotten around to outlawing slavery and still had old laws on its books allowing enslavement for debt, for trespassing on certain properties, and some other offences. With Drysdale House as a consulate, Luthan law would apply, and I could legally own Juli, and maybe others as well.

“Good news, Master?”

“You kajirae are such curious creatures, Juli.”

“That is because no one tells us anything, Master.”

“It may be good news; I will let you know when it is final.”

She rested her head back on my knee. She had her arms around my lower leg, her slave bells jingling as she moved slightly. I had attached dancing bells around her ankles and calves when we returned home, five circles of five bells each on both her legs. She tinkled pleasingly when she moved. The bells, her collar, and a golden chain of small links around her waist were all she was wearing. Her skin glistened with the clear sun block I had worked into her body. How sad that we have damaged our planet so much we have to be afraid of the life giving sun! We dozed there, content, for most of the afternoon.

As we walked back under the trees to the garden, I asked Juli, why she was perturbed when presented as a slave to Gerry Reiss.

“You have been presented as a slave before; it is what you are. You were not as upset when the whole ranch at the Lazy F say you presented thusly. You even served at a feast.”

“But they had not known me as a Free Woman, Master. Master Gerry Reiss had known me as Juliet, your companion, your friend. It was a shock for me to have him behold me as a slave, naked and collared. To know that you could give me to him without a second thought.”

“A slave, a kajira is what you are now. Soon more may see you that way.”

“Yes Master.”

Kajira Nineteen’s Narrative.

“Sula, Bara, Lesha, Nadu”

“Lesha, Bara, Sula, Nadu, Lesha, Bara.”

Mistress Jade was calling out positions while Mistress Kailieka was leading us as we snapped from position to position. We have to call them Mistress, even though they are collared slaves, just like us. No No, not like us, not like me, I am not a slave. I am free.

Well, not free, a prisoner.  But not a slave.

“Nadu, Lesha, Bara, Lesha.  Keep up Ten, legs wider Seventeen, up on your heels in nadu, Seven, curl those toes under heels Ten, I won’t tell you again.”

Mistress Jade has told us she used to be a teacher before she was ‘acquired’. She and Mistress Kailieka has switches, very painful, though not as painful as the slave whip the men used.

“The switch helps you learn swiftly, it is an excellent pedological tool. A slave, a kajira must learn quickly to be totally pleasing. It is a matter of survival.”

“Nadu. Now all of you look at Mistress Kailieka. Improve your form. Legs wider Ten, back straighter Nineteen! Shoulders back, stick out those tits.”

I tried to emulate Mistress Kailieka in the Nadu position. She looks so elegant and also so vulnerable when she does it. We girls can only try to look as desirable as she does. Sometimes we will receive a candy if we are good. It makes such a change from the everlasting tasteless slave gruel, Nutri-girl without flavor which we receive twice a day. It is transparent conditioning, but like the switch, it works to make us learn.

Nadu is such a vulnerable position. The girl kneels back on her heels, legs very wide. The heels are together, and the knees wide spread, the girl is open and vulnerable. Very open. The widespread knees, and the heels make a stable triangle. The girl has her shoulders pulled back and her chest out. Nothing is concealed from the man in front of whom she kneels, she is helpless, her hands on her thighs. It is beautiful to see, but the girl is so exposed and vulnerable. Mistress Kailieka had me hold this position in front of Master Niles for almost fifteen minutes this morning. He looked me up and down, he walked behind me, he watched me from all angles. Despite the inherent stability of the Nadu position, I felt myself feeling faint, I felt myself wanting to please him. My hands fluttered on my thighs; I felt so open. I was so happy when he gave me a hard candy. I kissed his hand when he put it in my mouth.

We are not allowed to be shy when in front of the Masters and our trainers. By now we have nothing to hide, it is becoming scarily normal to be naked and open in front of them. Slave girls are allowed to hide nothing from our owners.

“Sula”

Oh god, I hate this position, flat on my back, my hands palms down at my sides. But the worst is legs wide open, spread wide. It is clear what this position is for. To please men. To please them sexually. I hate the idea of being taken without a say in who takes me. It could be anyone! It could be more than one! But why does it seem normal sometimes? To be an object, an object that can be used at will, disposed of at will.

This is our fourth day in this cellar, what can truly be called a dungeon. We learn some Gorean words, chiefly regarding learning to be slaves. I know from my psychology studies that learning the words and positions means learning the attitudes. God, it is becoming normal in my mind to kneel before men, to beg for food, to call them Master. The men we come in contact with are masterful, I must admit that. Mostly Master Bruno and Master Niles, and the other two men whose names I do not know. I think that they are henchmen or employees, but they certainly command us.

“Nadu, Sula, Nadu, Sula. Make your transitions more graceful, more fluid. Especially you Nineteen. Remember you can be beaten for not being pleasing. Be pleasing in every movement. Be graceful and exciting at rest, in movement. Your price depends upon it; your master will demand it.”

Jade is incessant in her demands.

I hate her. I hate this place, I hate this situation. I hate that I am not even the person in charge of my own cell. There are eight cages, or kennels alone the back wall of our prison, so we could all be accommodated two or three to a kennel, but they have put us four to a kennel, leaving three unoccupied. The remaining kennels are crowded. I am sure that this is deliberate on the part of our captors. And of course we have to kneel down and crawl into the kennel and cannot stand up inside them.

Seventeen, Eighteen, Twenty, and I are in one kennel. We have a bucket for wastes and one for fresh water. I tried to take charge of our kennel from the first night we were confined there as I do in every group. I feel that I am well qualified to lead and guide and that my advice is always appreciated. I spoke up, as soon as we were locked inside and the men and the two kajirae left the dungeon.

“Hi, we should get started and set some rules. First our names, my name is …”

Suddenly I was pinched and then slapped. I was so shocked I was immediately silent.

Twenty spoke to me and the others in an urgent whisper.

“We have to go by the names the Masters have given us; even if they are just numbers. If we forget and start using our old names, our names when we were free, we might get confused and make a mistake in the hearing of the Masters or their kajirae. Remember what they said, if one person in a kennel transgresses, all the slaves in that kennel will be punished.”

I had forgotten that.  I did not want to believe it. But it appeared that Twenty did, and the other girls in our kennel backed her up. I had lost control of the situation, the first time in a group setting that I had lost control in a long time.

Twenty started giving orders. The water bucket would go in the back left corner. The waste bucket in the front right, where there would be the most air movement. That made sense, I could not argue. Again I was put in my place, a place with which I was unfamiliar; taking orders rather than giving them.

Twenty introduced herself. “My name is now Twenty, I was a plumber’s apprentice. The work is easy enough for a woman, and I can show I am just as good as a man. I let the male brutes work as framers and carpenters and masons and the rough work.”

Seventeen and Eighteen introduced themselves as sociology students from the Ohio State University. I was a fine arts photography student. Then Twenty got personal.

“Eighteen, you are not white silk, how did you give yourself to a man, or men. Why were you so needy?”

“He was my boyfriend, we were talking of becoming engaged. I loved him.”

“Then what happened after he had you, did he abandon you?”

Eighteen hung her head in shame.

“No, no, not really. It was okay, I guess, but he did not fill me with excitement. I expected more, he was very gentle. We drifted apart.”

Twenty nodded, “He did not overcome you, perhaps you were looking for a Master, not an equal?”

Eighteen sobbed, “No, no, I wanted an equal partner, really I did.”

Seventeen was scornful, “yet you left him because he did not overwhelm you, throw you down and take you.”

Eighteen lashed out, “You slut, was it not you who was adjudged as easily aroused, when you knelt before men and they touched you, fingered you, penetrated you? Did you not yearn to be taken?”

She was angry and crying at the same time. Then for some reason she turned on me.

“And you, you who don’t want the name the Masters gave you, you were judged as quick to juice, to oil to become wet and slick for the men!”

I was shocked. It was an involuntary action, not my fault or volition. It was unfair to claim I wanted to belong to men, to be a slave. I was a free woman. Before I could answer, Eighteen turned on Twenty.

“And you, you already knew about Gor before they mentioned it. Are you one of them, a kajira like Jade or Kaileika?”

She stopped, out of breath.

Twenty answered.

“There are books, fantasies I thought them, about Gor. A place where men are strong and women are slaves. A savage place, but a place of beauty and wonder. It is true, I read some of them, that I felt sometimes late at night, that I might be a slave there. But it was just a passing sexual fantasy; not something I really wanted.”

She stopped, then started again.

“Once, for Halloween I dressed up as Princess Leia, from Star Wars.”

After a moment she went on, “I wore that costume, you know the one, Slave Leia. It was exciting, but it was just a fantasy,”

We all nodded. We all knew ‘that costume’.

“My boyfriend wanted to take me that night, but I didn’t let him. He just did not seem the type of man I imagined holding the other end of the chain.”

“So you do want to be a slave.”

“No, it is just a middle of the night fantasy.”

“Now lets go to sleep.”

I was happy for the conversation to end. I did not want to confess the time I had gone to a costume party in a long T-shirt as a Roman Slave. I had ripped some rents in the fabric, and wore it off one shoulder. Being a small girl I could do that. I remembered that Amanda Sloan’s boyfriend had asked if I had a nether closure, but I did not know what that meant. He was going to explain when Amanda stopped him. I will say this for Amanda, she believed in the proprieties.

“Nineteen, stop day-dreaming, Nadu, then Sula, watch the transitions”

“I am trying Mistress.”

“You are not trying hard enough. Come up here on the dais, beside Kailieka, watch her closely.”

On the dais, beside Kailieka I was put through my paces, trying to move smoothly between sula and nadu and back again. It was very hard. I did not like being so open. I was frightened by what had happened the afternoon before. Since we arrived, we girls had washed with water from a bucket, and a cloth. The four from our group had performed the best in our Gorean Language lessons thanks to the coaching we had had from Twenty, who knew some words and concepts from reading the books of Master John Norman. (She says she has read five, but I suspect she has read more than that). Kailieka announced that as a reward we were to have proper baths. We were so happy, until Jade led us through a small door into a room with four corrugated iron tubs. I have seen similar tubs for feeding animals on livestock documentaries. I guess that is what we are. Livestock.

Bruno and Niles and the two other henchmen were there. Our reward was a trap! Our hands were bound behind us with rope; what Twenty calls binding fibre. Each of us was placed in one of the tubs. The warm water was the exact right temperature; it was sweetly scented with lavender. It was divine to be in a tub, except that we were being washed by men. The men probed everywhere, working our muscles to get out kinks, but they touched us everywhere, cleaning us internally with their fingers, stroking our thighs, our bodies, our breasts. It was both relaxing and arousing at the same time. When we were removed from our tubs we were dried with rough towels that made our skin come alive, the men brushed our hair then massaged us, sometimes intimately.  Twenty moaned as she was touched and Eighteen suddenly cried out, “take me Master, use me, I submit.”

Niles looked at her. She had fallen to her knees and had wrapped her arms around his leg. She kissed his shoes.

“Take me, use me, use me as a slave.”

I was shocked. I could still feel Bruno’s hands on me. I almost cried out.

“Sula, kajira.” Niles commanded Eighteen. She lay in the position, Niles stood between her thighs. “Do you beg slave use, kajira?”

She sobbed, she was panting, “Yes please, I beg it, use me.”

Niles swiftly prepared himself, then took Eighteen right there on the floor using her hard. She panted and begged for more. She moaned and shook, as she told us she did not moan with her fiancé. He made her beg for release.

“I have never felt like that. Is that what being a slave is like?”

Bruno was scornful, “a minor slave orgasm, barely better than a free woman.”

One of the henchmen gave up brushing Seventeen’s hair. When Niles was done, he decided to use Eighteen as well. It was horrible what they put her through, one after the other.

But the slut liked it! She begged for more, she asked to serve them in other ways. Twenty as well asked to be put to slave use, but Bruno told her to wait until she got to Gor, then her new master might well auction her ‘first use’. She cried in frustration. I bit my lip to prevent myself from speaking.

Eighteen was taken to one of the alcoves opening from the main room. The other three of us were led back to our kennel. Before the curtains were drawn on the alcove, I saw Seventeen chained inside, a chain to her collar, others to shackles that had been attached to her ankles and wrists. She could be adjusted any way the men chose. The curtains were closed. Eighteen was not returned to us until after midnight. She was exhausted but smiling.

“Slut!”, said Seventeen.

“Yes”, replied Eighteen.

I thought she was a complete slut too, but why did part of me wish that I too had been taken to an alcove?

Now I was on the dais, beside Kailieka, moving from Nadu to Sula. Bruno came onto the dais. When I was in Sula, he stepped between my legs, his feet touching my thighs, I spread wider. He looked down on me; it was all I could do to refrain from grabbing his ankles. I was ashamed of myself.

He turned and scanned the room. He pointed at Two, another girl with a red band on her collar.

“To the alcove!”, he pointed.

He looked at me, “too bad you are white silk.”

I was relieved and disappointed.

When we were locked in our kennel that night, Jade spread some candies in front of us.

“A reward for your group. Seventeen served the men adequately last night.”

We gratefully sucked on the candies, which, I suppose, made us complicit in Seventeen’s sluttishness.  From the alcove, we could hear Two, trying to earn some candy

 The Trojan Women

( A version of this post featured in the BDSMLR Blog Erinn the Journalist and was excerpted in Steel Worlds Inc, Chapter Six).

Erinn Swyft was an ambitious young journalist who had come to popular attention while presenting a series on modern day slave trafficking. She had hosted and presented a number of programmes on ancient antiquity for the BBC. As part of the series, she presented a programme on the Trojan War. Erinn was a professional, she made an excellent job of presenting the story in an understandable way, that would interest the general public while not infuriating (too badly) the professionals.

 

It was near the end of the program, and Erinn dealt with the aftermath of the fall of the great city, and the fate of the Trojan Women, a subject of interest in plays and sculpture since ancient times. The Warbands of the Greek warlords and Petty Kings had swept into the city, killing all the population, exempting only the women and young children. These, along with the other loot of the city they carried off to their homes in rocky Greece. Erinn was interviewing a distinguished Professor on the subject, with the interview itself cut with scenes of bronze statues of questionable taste.

“Of course, these captive prize women were the basis of Greek wealth and of democracy itself.”

 

“How is that, professor?” asked Erinn.

 

“Although the 'Kings' took many of the women for themselves, each surviving warrior was allocated two or even three for himself. By putting them to work spinning and weaving the wool from his flocks by day, more cloth than his family needed was created, leaving a surplus to be sold to increase his wealth. He could expand his flocks and wealth. By night, the slave women would share his bed, breeding more slaves for his fields, and more women for his bed and clothmaking.”

 

“And how did this exploitation create civilization and democracy?” asked the young presenter.

 

“The wealth gave him the ability to buy better armour and weapons, making him the equal in battle of kings; the surplus wealth allowed the creation of cities and the time to contemplate ideas and the time to rule themselves. A man with a slave at his feet is a confident man; his triumph over the flesh of his slaves makes him believe he is master of his own fate.”

 

“Leading to the rise of the Citizen-Warrior?” suggested Erinn.

 

“Yes, democracy relied on slavery. The citizen phalanx, all well armoured, marching to acquire more land and slaves and to protect their own. Ruling themselves and the city as they ruled their slaves. Think of the confidence of a citizen-warrior with a naked slave chained at his feet! The Greeks knew this - look at their statuary, their sculptures, their poems and plays, the odes to the conqueror with slaves at his feet. In time it would allow them to defeat the Persian Invasion, and, under Alexander, conquer the known world as far as Egypt and India.”

The show ended with the studio camera panning out, leaving a few silent seconds of the Professor and Erinn contemplating the vision of a confident citizen-warrior with a naked slave woman in chains looking up adoringly at her master. It was a powerful image to end the programme on, and if many in the audience imagined Erinn as the naked chained woman, that was only natural. In that moment, both the professor and Erinn had possibly been imagining that scene as well.

 
Scipio Metellus and the Fall of Aetna

(Illustration of Scipio Metellus by TroyDM, used by permission)

Scipio Metellus was assembling his caravan outside the imposing Main Gate of Aetna, a city near the Northern Forests, close to the mountain range that contained the Sardar, the home of the Priest-Kings. Aetna was twenty days travel North of the Sardar and the location of the Fair of En’Kara, the spring fair. Not at all co-incidentally, it was twenty-one days until the opening of the Fair. Scipio had twenty days to arrive at the Fair with his merchandise of two-thousand- five hundred slaves.

For Aetna had fallen; fallen completely. Sometimes when a Gorean city fell, it had to pay a tribute in goods, coins, and slaves to the conqueror, but survived to continue to exist. Ar had paid tribute to Cos and Tyros when it surrendered under the traitoress Talena, Corcyrus had paid tribute to Argentum, but had survived; even proud Turia had continued to exist after its fall to the Tuchaks because of its utility to the conquerors.

But Aetna had no utility for its conqueror Vesuvium. They were rivals, similar cities close to the Northern Forests, and the destruction of one meant the rise of the other.

And Aetna had fallen. Warriors and citizens of Vesuvium had poured through the Gates of Aetna just before dawn, five days ago. Aetna had not even known that there was a war. The troops of Vesuvium had travelled by seldom used tracks through the open woods, hidden from patrolling tarnsmen and casual travelers.  

It is a saying on Gor that more strong places fall to gold than to steel, that gold opens more doors than does a key. Scipio Metellus had provided the gold keys, paid in advance to the Twenty Traitors of Aetna. Now Scipio Metellus was collecting his reward, his gold repaid from the captured treasury of Aetna and his pick of one tenth of the women of that city.

Over the past five days, Scipio and his men had sorted through the masses of captured women, those already slave, and the new captives and had selected two thousand five hundred of the best. These captives, naked and chained, now stood waiting for the order to march to the Sardar Fair of En’Kara where they would be sold. Some where formerly High Caste, some from the artisans, or the families of Warriors, all now equally stripped of veils and clothing, chained and destined for sale.

The Main Gate of Aetna was still standing, but it was a mockery. All the other gates had been cast down, their rubble filling the deep defensive ditch that had surrounded Aetna.  The walls, high and proud, likewise thrown down into the ditch. The work was done by the surviving men of Aetna, chained into work gangs, bound for sale to the mines and fields. All the Cylinders of the city had been thrown down as well, except the Main Cylinder, and that is the ceremony that must be completed before Scipio Metellus can begin his march.

Aetna had been well looted by the conquerors. The goods, and the other nine tenths of the women of the city were being prepared to march. The Main Cylinder had been undermined on one side, like a tree being prepared for felling. The beams propping up the cylinder had been soaked in oils, cooking oils, oils from tanning, anything that would burn. The records of Aetna, back to its founding were stacked around the beams, and then other combustibles. The roof of the cylinder had been removed. When the fire was set, the cylinder would act as a chimney, drawing air up through it, consuming all mention of the city as the beam supporting the cylinder where the stones had been were turned to ash. When the cylinder fell, fires would spread as it crashed to the ground. Aetna would be consumed. Ash would cover the ruins, then dirt and dust would blow in.  In ten years it would be hard to say a city had stood there, in a hundred only a mound would remain.

The Home Stone of Aetna was already loaded on a wagon. The wagon was to be trailed by four hundred captives, stripped and chained in the same manner as the captives of Scipio Metellus. Scipio had not been allowed to make his choices from among those women. They were the Companions and daughters of the ruling council of Aetna, the companions and daughters of some of the highest families of the fallen city. Half of these captives would be given by Sergius, the young commander of Vesuvium’s forces to the members of the Council of Vesuvium for their private use.  The other half would be placed in rape racks around the central plaza of the conquering city for the use of the citizens.  To gain the right of usage of these high ladies of the fallen enemy, a citizen would need to take a file, and of the five pieces of the Home Stone of Aetna, select one and file off some stone. Each day, the stone dust would be collected and scattered throughout the plaza, so that for all time the citizens of Vesuvium would tread on the dust of the Home Stone of their enemy. Only after all the pieces of the Home Stone of Aetna had been reduced to dust would the women of the High Castes and Council of Aetna be sold to the Paga Taverns of Vesuvium.

Stony faced, the Twenty Traitors of Aetna watched the wagon bearing the Home Stone roll away setting out for Vesuvium. They and their goods were exempt from the looting of the city, their daughters and companions, their sons and their families exempt from the rape and killing that was the fate of the rest of the city.

They had been the minority on the Council, the minority in the councils of the High Castes. They had decided it was better to rule a small village or town than be ruled in a renowned city. One of the Twenty had opened each of the six gates of Aetna; while others had opened the barred doors of the fourteen tall cylinders that were the boast of the city.

They would take their goods, their women, slave and free, and their followers and find a small village or town, conquer it or join with its ruling families and build a new city, extending an invitation to broken men to join them. It would be a larl of a city, cruel and rapacious, reflecting the sort of men who built it.

Being untrusting men, as untrustworthy men often are, they had already smuggled out of Aetna and buried the gold that was the price of their treachery. They had also hidden much of what they had embezzled from the treasury of the Aetna and their guilds. Still their wagons contained much treasure, and they were eager to be gone.

The story that they would tell in future years in their new abode would be different of course. It would be one of heroic flight from a burning city, how they had cut their way out through countless foes.

 

Incidentally, Sergius of Vesuvium would tell a tale of the seizing Aetna which laid stress on his bravery and that of the men and warriors of Vesuvium with little mention of the Traitors who opened the gates and the barred doors of the cylinders. There would be mention of the cleverness of the stratagem that opened the gates, and none of the amount of gold

Scipio Metellus had never heard of the city of Troy on the slave world, he had never heard of the story of the wooden horse. He would not be surprised that the Greeks laid much emphasis on the cleverness of Odysseus, and none on the gold that persuaded some Trojans to urge that the Horse be brought into their city. After all, why spoil such a good story with grubby facts.

The traitors of Troy, led by Aeneus, fled with their ill-gotten loot and families, first to Carthage, where Aeneus seduced and tricked the Tatrix, Dido, and then to Italy, where they later founded Rome, telling many tales of their own bravery and probity. Rome, a city of thieves, betrayed their allies and became great. But the people of Carthage knew the truth, and Carthage had to be destroyed. Carthago delenda est. And so Rome destroyed Carthage to cover for the treason at Troy a thousand years previously.

Scipio knew nothing of this, being a Man of Gor, but his cynical soul would not have been surprised. He stood by his five wagons as the fires burned in the Main Cylinder.  As the cylinder fell and fires spread in the city of Aetna, he raised a fine goblet in the direction of the leader of the Twenty Traitors. The man’s face empurpled as Scipio Metellus smiled at him. The fires of burning Aetna caused the sky to turn red as the clouds reflected the glare of the burning. Some of the traitors turned their heads so they could not see. The chief of the Twenty, just glared at Scipio, as the slaver sipped his fine wine. Scipio was a collector of fine things. In his wagon, which was more a house built on wheels, he had many fine things, including the red-headed daughter of a potter, a humble man who had died in the attack on Aetna. He was sure that the slim fire-crotch secured in his wagon would warm him well after her fires were lit.

The heat from the fires had become uncomfortable as the four hundred captives destined for the rape racks of Vesuvium trudged between the caravans of Scipio Metellus and the Twenty Traitors.

Suddenly the Companion of the Chief of the Traitors stood up on the driver’s seat and began to wail.

She tore at her robes, disarranging them, then beginning to remove them. Her Companian turned around to seize her, but she eluded him, running into the road, now shedding her under-robes. Troops from Vesuvium restrained the Traitor as he tried to pull her back into his wagon.

She shouted, “better a slave than the Companion of a Traitor, better the bed of a Master than that of betrayer of his Home Stone.”

Troops of Vesuvium appeared ready to collar the woman, but Sergius, their leader, restrained them.

“I swore I would not enslave any belonging to the Twenty Traitors”, he proclaimed, while clearly trying to think of a loophole in his oath.

“I see only a naked woman begging for enslavement.” As a slaver, Scipio Metellus had fewer scruples. Besides the woman was one of surpassing beauty. He snapped a collar on her, and threw her in his personal wagon, there to share a cage with the low born, slim red-headed potter’s daughter High Caste and Low Caste together, now just slaves in the collection of Scipio Metellus.

Scipio Metellus started his caravan towards the Fair of En’Kara. He wanted to get there before word of the completeness of the Fall of Aetna spread. Twenty-five Thousand new slaves flooding the market would lower prices, so he wanted to sell his prime stock before the market fell.

He was after all a seller of slaves; even if his major enjoyment came from his collections and bringing off coups like the Fall of an entire City.

After The Bighorn, Chapter Eleven, Patrick in San Francisco

 
After the Bighorn Chapter 11 Patrick in San Francisco

Patrick Master’s Narrative

It is so good to be back in San Francisco. Away for a wilderness vacation is one thing; to be away on business is another. As I left the plane, my assessment of the two Business Class flight attendants was confirmed. Leigh was modest and helpful; Scarlett was a tease, and lazy to boot. The type of girl who would benefit from a collar and a trip to Gor. Leigh, even though a earth girl, gave off modest Free Woman vibes. Perhaps the modesty campaign of Myrna Reiss and the New Feminists had a point.

When I got to Drysdale House, I went in the Front Door, unlocking it with my code. Juli, now my slave, does not have a code, a chip in her collar opens the door to let her in; the chip only lets her out at programmed times. A useful little device. The same chip lets her out of her kennel in the morning.

I had expected to find her kneeling by the door, waiting for me. I looked down the entrance hall, and there she was, my beloved possession, kneeling where the two main hallways met. I motioned for her to remain where she was and strode to the central point where the two corridors crossed.

I looked down on her and around the lovely big house. She had picked the right place to wait, at the central point of the main floor where the curving staircases rose to the levels above. 

The wide shorter corridor lead from the front entrance running right through the house to the balcony and back terrace overlooking the gardens. The longer corridor ran from the side entrance under the porch roof where visitors could disembark from their vehicles without being in the rain or wind. This corridor runs from the Side entrance past the Large Salon on one side and the Large Dining room on the other. The ballroom is reached through the Dining room and is in a wing which projects into the garden.

Juli broke position and started licking and kissing my feet, her arms around my ankles so that I could barely move.

I did not rebuke her. Even after enjoying the charms of several of the house kajirae of the Fricks, it felt splendid to own such a creature as Juli.

I took her then and there, on the marble floor of the rotunda, under the eyes of the Grecian statues. I led her to the kitchen, had her prepare me a meal, simple pasta and some wine. After feeding her from my fingers, I watched her clean up and tidy, as a good slave should do, while I read my mail.

Most was unexceptional, some required attention, one I did not yet open. This was a larger than usual envelope, of superior paper and with foreign stamps. I decided to open that one alone later.

Juli heeled me, as I walked to the Library. It is my favourite room in the house, to the left of the Front Entrance. The main part of the library is a big room, with a large fireplace, shelves for books, high ceilings. It has a large desk, a couple of other library tables and many comfortable chairs. It is part of a suite, because there is a smaller office, a toilet room and a small separate sitting room. It also includes hidden doors and rooms, including a staircase to my bedroom from the small office.

It was also in disorder. Juli had not yet finished shelving all the books. She explained that she had been practicing her sewing, keeping up with her exercises and classes, and trying to keep Drysdale House clean, she had run out of time. She was in tears because she had failed in her tasks.

Her tasks were impossible to complete, but for a kajira, that is not an excuse for failing to fulfill a master’s commands. Because the commands were impossible, I only switched her twice before taking her over the big desk in the library. I allowed her to sleep that night in the basket at the foot of my bed rather than in a kennel. We both slept satisfied and well.

When I awoke Saturday morning, I was a little discontented with Juli’s progress as a slave. After viewing the training and the deportment of the slaves at Frick house in Pittsburgh, and the Lazy F ranch in Montana, I felt she should be making greater progress. Progress in her submission and slave fires, and in the way she carried herself and adapted to a new role.  Part of this of course was that I was new to being a Master, to owning someone like Juli. Perhaps also, I was restrained due to my love for Juli, love which seemed to grow, the more she became immersed in being a slave. Without role models and without instruction, mostly Juli and I on our own, we were guided only by instinct and biological memory. I resolved to be a better, stricter Master. I hoped to forge stronger ties with the Fricks and other families.

I am a lawyer. I like things to be absolutely legal. For that I needed to own Juli absolutely, outright and legally. I hoped that there was good news in the foreign envelope. I would open it tonight after all my meetings.

I pulled off the blanket covering Juli’s basket. The one that signaled to her as a slave that she was to remain still and silent. She knelt in the basket.

“You may stand and stretch.”

“Yes master, thank you master.”

Watching a naked woman, an owned woman, stretch and move is such a delight. It is why, I think, that we keep cats; their movements remind us of the beauty of women.

Her collar was attached to a chain at the bottom of the bed, the links made small rustling sounds as she moved, stretched, touched her toes, extended her legs and arms. A good performance, but still some stiffness, not fully embracing the slave she now was. The kajirae at Frick House had learned and the captives in the slave pens under the house would learn as well.

So would Juli; perhaps it was because she was still just a slave by contract, but not by law? The sooner that was handled the better.

“Start the shower, then you can wash me for the day and prepare yourself as well.”

“Yes, Master.  Maybe some other things in the shower as well.”

“Perhaps, there should be time.”

I dressed after the shower in a bespoke suit. Juli tied my tie and then tied my shoes. I picked out a short sleeveless dress for her.

“Master, that is my shortest dress.”

“I could put you in a camisk, or nothing at all. It is only a two block walk to the office.”

A camisk is a short garment for slaves, it has no sleeves, no sides and is very revealing.

“The dress, please Master, the dress.”

It was still early Saturday morning when we stepped out the front door of Drysdale House onto Drysdale Avenue. The trees in Fremont Park across the street were still touched with dew; there was still a wisp of fog. I was in my suit, with pressed shirt and polished shoes. Juli was barefoot, in a short cotton dress of thin weave and her collar. She was allowed leather sandals, but I reminded her, that, like her clothing, the sandals were a privilege that could be withdrawn at any time.

From Drysdale Avenue we walked the two blocks downhill on McMurtry Street to Hathaway Avenue. On our right were the high brick walls of the gardens of Drysdale House; Juli heeled me on my left. We turned on to Hathway Avenue, The Hathaway Building, where my offices were, was a recently renovated 150 year old office and warehouse building. It stretched for an entire block. There was a Starbucks on the corner. Kitty corner, there was another Starbucks, and at the far corner of building, there was a tea-shop.

We entered the lobby of the building, the entrance next to the Starbucks. There was a bank of elevators. I pressed the button for the sixth floor, where my offices are. Juli hung back.

“Master, Mrs Hernandez has said I shouldn’t use the elevator anymore. She said that it was a disgrace to the clients and visitors that someone dressed like me should share the elevator with them.”

I considered.

“Mrs Hernandez is correct. You will always use the back stairs. In this case, you can proceed me. I want to watch your bottom as you climb the stairs.”

“Yes Master.”

I wanted to be more Gorean as a Master, so that Juli would be more Gorean as a kajira, and it was no hardship to watch her climb the stairs in front of me.

We were the first ones in, at the reception area there was a stack of papers to be placed into information packets. There was a note from one of the associates, Jane Bennet saying she did not have time to finish collating the packets before a date she had planned, and that she was sure that Dana Winter, another associate, would finish the job in the morning. Those two had a rivalry.

I had Juli bring all the materials to my office.

“You can finish collating all this information for my staff meeting later today. I will be meeting my friend Jerry Reece for breakfast. Do you understand?”

“Yes Master. When will I have breakfast? We left the house before I ate?”

She dropped her eyes, she knew that she should not have said anything. She knelt in contrition. I removed her sandals and her dress, leaving her wearing only her collar. I secured the ring in the collar by a chain to a ring in the floor, then left her to get on with her task. If the meetings did not run long, she might get lunch.

 

Jerry and I met for breakfast in an independent bagel shop. The bagels were San Francisco sour dough and, in my opinion, better than any New York could offer. A minority opinion to be sure. The coffee was certainly better than Starbucks.

“Thank you for considering handling the Frick patent case from this end, Jerry. It would make me very happy if you did so. And it should raise your value in the eyes of the firms that you are considering joining.”

“Myrna won’t like it, though, she would want something a little higher profile. And couldn’t Billy Purden handle it; he is the Administrative Partner? I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“Bill will need to oversee all our other routine work, and I am taking a significant number of the firm’s resources for this one case.”

“Why so many lawyers and so many resources? Usually, these patent cases go on for years.”

“The client, Frick Steel, has decided to be aggressive, to smack this attempt down. So they are going on the attack. In addition to legal resources, we will need lots of clerks to mark and file the exhibits, and to docket all the exhibits.”

“That will be a problem. Most of the agencies dealing with temporary help of this kind are overwhelmed, and VanRijn’s lawyer here has hired two of the biggest,  I believe just so that you can’t hire them.”

“Damn” I was not happy.

Jerry was grinning. “But I know of a small, very discreet agency. We used them in the investigation into the missing, supposedly kidnapped women.”

“The one that came up empty, when you couldn’t find where on earth the women were disappearing too?” Someday I would have to tell Jerry that I had found out where the acquired women were going, and that it was no where on Earth.

“Yes, that one. The agency is very good and very discreet. The problem is that they have lost their lease and one of the partners wants to sell his share. The old man and woman who own the rest don’t know what to do.”

I knew immediately what to do.

“Jerry, there is a storefront, several actually, but the one I am thinking of is the one in the Hathaway Building, over by the Tea Shop. I want you, as my agent, to buy out the discontented partner, and have the other owners, move into the Hathaway Building.”

I was pleased with this idea. It would, in the future, give Masters Patent Law LLP, preferential access to a trained pool of temporary evidence clerks. Just as importantly, it would provide me with a database of young women who were transient in their employment. It would provide addresses and contact information for these women. It could develop into an Acquisition Referral Service. But that was the future, the important thing was that we could fight VanRijn in this patent fight over the Frick patents.

Jerry agreed to contact the owners of the Temp agency that afternoon. He also agreed to run the San Francisco end of the case. Full, and in perfect amity we walked the two blocks back to the Hathaway Building and my office.

Jerry went to the conference room, to meet with the assembled members and associates of the firm. I collected the collated folders from my office. Juli knelt as I entered. It was clear she wanted to say something, to beg for clothes or food, and also she knew she was a slave under discipline so that had to remain silent. The sensation of being under discipline seemed to give her a feeling of excitement as well.

Leaving her there, alone in my office, on her knees, naked, chained to the floor, I went to the meeting.

In the meeting, I explained that the case would be difficult and a lot of work. Some of the staff would have to relocate to Pittsburgh, I hoped for only a short time; others would work exclusively on the Frick case here in San Francisco.

“It is a patent case, usually if these go to court, it is a long, drawn-out process. We are not fighting this case in that manner. We are going on the attack, throwing resources at it to shut down this patent squatter immediately.”

There was no rush of volunteers. I could understand why. To take on this case meant giving up their seniority on other cases for other clients. Many of these attorneys were risk-adverse. They thought the client, The Fricks, might fold, leaving them looking foolish. A defensive attitude is not all bad in a patent attorney, but I made special note of the most timid ones.

Dana Winter, one of the associates, raised her hand.

“I want to join the team; I will even go to Pittsburgh with you.”

That broke the logjam. Some of the lawyers had not put it together that I would be leading things in Pittsburgh personally. Now lots of people wanted to work directly with me in Pittsburgh. Still some held back. Giving up their current cases, but having to stay in San Francisco would be the worst of both worlds.

Jane Bennet volunteered as well. She did not want Dana Winter to get ahead of her. In the end, I selected eight for the team, four to go to Pittsburgh and four to work in San Francisco. The Bennet girl sulked when she was chosen to stay in San Francisco, and Dana Winter was selected to go to Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh team would be staying at the Marriott across from the Frick building, only I would be staying at the Frick Mansion. Dana, Richard Thornton, and I would fly out Sunday evening, two others on Monday.  Jane Bennet and three others would work with Gerry Reece at the Masters offices.

I went back to my office as most of the rest left to get on with their Saturdays.  Juli was still kneeling on the carpet, as I packed up my briefcase.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in” I said.

Jerry Reece walked in, saw Juli and stopped.

“What’s this?” He was shocked, both looking at Juli and trying not to look, and then trying to make it look like he wasn’t looking.

“Jerry, since we came back from the Bighorn, Juli, no longer Juliet Chen, just Juli have entered on a new relationship. She wears my collar, she is to all intents and purposes, my property, my slave.”

“You can’t own people, Patrick, it is against the law.”

“Juli has signed a contract, a contract acknowledging that she is now my slave, with restrictions or restraints.”

“Patrick, you of all people, should know that that contract is not valid. It is not valid anywhere on earth.”

“Come on Jerry, from your work looking for those allegedly missing women, you know that there are places on this planet where slavery is legal. Especially female slavery; women condemned for crime or debt. And such slavery has been the foundation of many ancient civilizations; some even believe it is encoded in our DNA. Besides the contract can only be invalidated if Juli challenges it.”

I turned to Juli, “Are you unhappy with your state Juli, do you beg to be free, to have my collar removed?”

“No Master, I love you, I want to wear your collar, if you took it off, I would beg to be collared again.”

“Stand up Juli, stand in the position, hands behind you.”

She rose, gracefully as a slave rises, she stood facing Jerry directly, eyes lowered, legs apart about the width of the shoulders, the right hand grasping the left elbow and the left hand grasping the right. Her shoulders were back, making her breasts more prominent.

“Look at her Jerry, does she not look magnificent. She looks healthy, happy, content. Look at the glow of her skin, the flush of excitement as men look upon her as a slave. Can you deny that she seems happy, Would you deny her that choice?”

Jerry seemed less shocked now. He gazed openly on Juli, no longer Juliet Chen, just a slave named Juli, a plaything, a piece of property. His view of her seemed to me to be changing by the second.

“Is this what you want Juli, are you content to be slave, to be owned?

 I noticed he didn’t address her as Juliet, but only as Juli.

“Yes Master Reece, I am a slave. I admit it.  I feel it inside me. It started as a game, but now I am a slave.”

Jerry addressed me, but still looking hungrily at Juli.

“Well that is I guess your business Patrick, yours and Juli’s. We were to have dinner this evening, You and Juli, and Myrna and I, but I think it best if Juli does not attend. It would be an insult to Myrna to have a person who does not think herself free eating with us.”

“I entirely understand.”

We shook hands, he left after one more long look at Juli’s naked form. She was well worth looking at.