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,