Tales of Drysdale House (17) Shipping Day, Pulled Back In (4)

 

Tale 17 Shipping Day

Pulled Back In (4)

Narrative of the Kajira Juli, formerly Miss Juli Chen

I have heard the Master’s talking. Today is Shipping Day. All or most of the newly branded girls will be lucky enough to be shipped to Gor, a paradise where a slave girl can be openly a slave, owned and truly submissive to her Master without anyone thinking it strange or wrong. Of course I would not want to be on Gor without Master. I can barely stand to be out of his sight.

One thing I would want to experience on Gor is to be auctioned, sold to crowd. I would be exciting and perhaps humbling for a girl to know her true worth, and what is the worth of a slave but what she brings in the market?

I would want to experience two types of sales. The first would be a sale of slaves at a proper auction with tiers of bidders judging me against the other girls for sale that day, and against other girls they have seen or even owned. To have every attribute minutely examined and ruthlessly compared. To move in a way the excites the crowd, how thrilling that would be.

Of course at such a sale, every teeny minor thing would be discussed with every minor flaw dissected. Is the distance between the eyes perhaps a half the width of a little finger too wide or too narrow. Is the upper lip perhaps a little too short. Are the cheekbones just a little too high or is the face just a little too chubby. What about the shape of the breasts? Perhaps just a scooch heavy perhaps, the areoles a shade too dark? Could the navel be a little more sexy? Are the ankles trim enough? The calves just right.

Master Scipio tells me that Masters are very exacting in their requirements, but that all Masters have slight differences in what they value. I told him that on Earth, women are always looking for flaws in their rivals, and even more so in their friends, to gain a dominance. He told me on Gor, Free Woman also compete, but not with their physical attributes, which are mostly hidden. They compete viciously, he says, in elegance and extravagance of display. It is, he says part of what makes a Gorean street so vibrant, the gorgeous colors and embroidery on the outer gowns of concealment swirling as the women of all castes and incomes compete with each other for status.

“It makes it difficult to judge the monetary value of the woman in the robes, one never knows until she is unwrapped if she is a beauty or a mat and kettle girl. It is the origin of the phrase ‘chain luck’. A tarnsman or a raider never knows if he risks his life to capture a prize or merely collar meat.”

I often get a chance to talk with Master Scipio. I volunteer as much as I can to work in the pens, to empty the poop buckets. Mistress Magruder compliments me for showing leadership as the First Girl, in doing all the nasty tasks. In truth I come down here to hide, because Master Don Emery is only rarely allowed down here. He worries me; if I were still free, I would describe him as a stalker. He follows me with his eyes and something about him creeps me out. I know he is here to sell silks to the Master and perhaps expand his business. He talks often about how he needs money, “with a daughter who is in her first year at Stanford, and a son who is two years behind and will be going soon.”

Some of the girls here are already adapting themselves to their new lives, others are resistant. None of them know they are going to Gor of course.

Except maybe Niki. Master Scipio has told her but I think she does not believe him, but more, she doesn’t care. Her capturing at Dragonwyck was traumatic for her. She had fallen violently and suddenly in love with a boy, one of the guards, and Master was forced to kill him. Watching him die in front of her, followed by the burning of her childhood house and being then enslaved has affected her. Master Scipio says her training should have been taken in hand right away. By the time he started, the trauma was seated. So he says, but I don’t know.

My Master Patrick keeps relieving the scene as well. I know, I have heard him tossing in his sleep. He says the eyes of Billy Jackson, Niki’s man, haunt him. He has taken me more than once from my basket at the end of his bed to sleep with him, skin to skin. Veronika tells me that he does the same with her, but she does not know why.

I thought when she came here, I would hate Veronika, a rival for my Master. But I have grown to love her. She looks up to me as Patrick’s first kajira and I try not to be jealous when she sleeps in his bed or when in the morning when I take in the breakfast tray she is caressing his balls or licking his cock. Master Patrick likes to wake up that way, with a girl’s lips caressing him.

Much of the time at first, Master Scipio put Niki in a hood especially when she was exercised or used. He made sure she was used a lot, it took her out of herself he said. He explained that the hood which eliminated light and sight, and severely limited sound allowed her to concentrate on the present, not the past.

He says she could easily be a gold piece girl with the right handling. Her face is excellent, and her body is nicely shaped. “The upturned breasts are exciting. And blonde hair brings a premium, that is why she is left unshaved.” Master Scipio is full of information. I think he is perhaps lonely here on Earth because he is a man who needs friends around him. He is always excited when Master Woodrow Frick visits. He knew Master Woodrow on Gor.

I heard Master Woodrow and Master Scipio discussing Earthmen on Gor once while I served them coffee (which Master Scipio calls Black Wine.) Sometimes Earth men, by the expense of much money and the use of contacts arrive on Gor. And are mostly quickly killed. They don’t know the language, and they don’t know the little customs, all of which marks them as strangers. And on Gor, the words enemy and stranger are not different words. They are the same; anyone not known to you or who does not share a Home Stone is an enemy. The men are slain; the women enslaved

Master Woodrow went on, “they can’t fight without firearms, they don’t know how and if they bring a firearm, they are obliterated by flame death as soon as they fire one.”

Earth women can survive easily on Gor. They are collared and branded and sold in the markets. To get to Gor, all that an Earth women needs to do, is to look fetching, show a certain proclivity for submission, usually hidden except to an observant watcher, and be lucky enough to be chosen.

Miss Jane Bennet has become an observant chooser of women for Gor. Even though she is not supposed to, I have seen her down in the pens gloating over the women she has chosen for acquisition. She used to fawn on me when I was the respectable Juliet Chen, Master Patrick’s fiancée, then she treated me cruelly when I was a collared slave slut visiting his office after we returned from the Bighorn. Not that she knew I was a slave then. Now she patronizes me as a slave. She even had Bruno, one of the pen keepers put me to use. She mocked me for my slave orgasm, but Bruno is very skilled at using women for his pleasure, and being used for his pleasure is my pleasure. I saw her looking at Bruno’s cock. All men are not created equal!

But she can’t have him, because I heard him tell Master Scipio that he only fucks women who are collared and branded. Master Scipio told Master Bruno, he is the same way. “It is often the way with men in our caste.” I suspect Master Bruno is Gorean. I am not sure about his fellow pen keeper, Master Niles. He is quieter.

Master Scipio thinks that Niki, despite what he calls her skittishness will thrive on Gor ‘with the right handling’. He has attached a metal plate about four inches by six to her collar. “It has my mark, and some instructions for her handling, some in Gorean, some in special caste runes.”

I love hearing about Gor. But the only way I would want to go there is with my Master, and Master Scipio believes that most Earth men who go there are killed quickly. “Only those with friends who help them through the first years are not killed. Gor is harsh.”

“But women, they survive in collars. Niki should bring a gold piece at her first auction, if handled properly. You too, despite only being half-trained would bring at least a gold piece.”

I was flattered of course. What girl doesn’t want to know exactly and truly what men think of her? And a girls’ price is the only true gauge of her value. What a man would pay for her.

I asked what other girls would bring good prices. I was told that curiosity is not becoming to a kajira. I know the saying so well, I finished the last part of the phrase with him. That made Master Scipio laugh and he relented and told me some of the girls he thought would bring good prices.

“Sheila, she would bring a good price, she has thrived in her collar. She oils quickly and moves well. Sofia, who was too curious, she will bring at least a 10 silver coins of Ar, a little less than Sheila. J’neicha, the girl who came in last week, between 6 and 8 in silver. A few of the white silk girls might bring good prices”

That is the thing that surprised me that most. That out of the 38 women in the pens, there are four virgins. Virgins’ hard to believe in these times! Master Scipio said they were too afraid of men, or too afraid of their own possible reactions to have ever been with ‘even an unthreatening Earth man.’

I didn’t really care about the foolish virgins; I wanted to talk more about my own value.

“But only Niki and I would bring gold, is that right Master Scipio?”

“Yes, you foolish vain creature. Now be about your work.”

An order did not need to be repeated. I went about my work.

Narrative of Jane Bennet.

Today is shipping day. I am not supposed to know that. There is no need to tell things. I am just the one who choses the girls to be shipped heaven knows where. But I listen and am smart enough to not ask a lot of questions. These people, the Drysdale people think that women should not be curious, they think it unbecoming. I saw that happened to Sofia. I try not to show my curiosity.

Although I had been very proud of the first six leads I had identified on my first night as a ‘chooser’ or talent scout, I had been crestfallen when only one of my selections had been accepted. I did not understand it. I was sure I had selected what they would want. I asked what had resulted in the rejections and over time I became better. I was very afraid in that first week that I would be fired and selected myself! But of course, I am too much a proper free woman to ever be looked at in that light!

I had only three of my choices accepted in the first week, but I spent some time in the pens, more time than I should have and saw what shameless sluts so many of the girls were. I also started dressing more in the fashion of the New Feminists, just to make clear I was one of the ‘good girls’. Even that prude Dana Winter noted my new fashion direction. If she ever loosened up a bit, she would look good in a collar.

I still have to ‘accommodate’ some of the men on the team, but at least Bruno and that monster Skip Metellus recognize I am a lady. They say they only fuck collared sluts. I am thinking better of young Zach Frick though. For a young guy he is quite energetic during accommodation, but he should learn to show a lady more consideration. He made me squeal though!

Even though it is Shipping Day, Patrick Masters still found time to meet with a friend, another Frick, but this one is a cowboy and really dreamy. He even offered me a position on his ranch in Montana, as if I would ever move to the sticks.

Still I think he would be a better and stronger accommodater than Zach Frick or even Mr Masters.

My campaign to interest Patrick Masters in becoming my fiancée is not progressing at all well, but it has only been five weeks. Maybe I should try to make him jealous by flirting with that cowboy, Woodrow Frick. Maybe if the money is really good, I could even become a cowboy’s sweetheart. I won’t live on any smelly ranch. No sir, not this girl.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

**

Narrative of Patrick Masters

As Jane left my office, Woodrow remarked to me,

“She would look well barefoot and in a collar. That is if you don’t mind me speaking of a free woman in your employ in such a way.”

“Barefoot, branded, and in a collar you mean. And she is not free, like those marked for acquisition, but not yet collected, she has been entered on the slave rolls by Scipio Metellus. She will continue in her present role for a while longer. I would like to find another woman like her to work at selecting suitable candidates, then pit them against each other. After a while Jane will be collared. It would not do for her to be pointed out as the common denominator in too many disappearances. Besides the more she sees of women in collars, the more her own nature asserts itself. Already she spends more time than a Free Woman should in the pens. Sooner or later, Scipio Metellus expects her to proclaim herself, ‘La Kajira’. Bruno agrees. After that she will be useless in her current role.”

Woodrow smiled. The idea of Jane Bennet as a slave pleased him. Maybe I will give her to him as a present. He cleared his throat.

“Do you recall the helicopter pilot who flew Vansittart, VanRijn’s lawyer and Hannah Quipley to Dragonwyck in the days before VanRijn’s demise?”

“Yes,” I replied. “He was convinced to say that no one resembling Hannah Quigley was on the flight.”

“She,” said Woodrow. “The pilot was a she, a former army pilot, Capt Kacy Jones. Kay Charlotte Jones actually, but everyone called her Kacy. She was given a sum of money and a job flying helicopters in Macao for a casino there. She was supposed to stay there for at least five years.”

I was suspecting there was a problem such as blackmail or some such.

“Wyandotte has learned that she is planning on sneaking back to San Francisco. She supposedly misses her boyfriend. He wants that loose end tied up. Can Joshua and the acquisition team pick her up this afternoon when she arrives at SFO?”

“They should be able to. There will be time before we have to load the trucks and go to the meeting point with the Silver Ship. Is that all?”

Woodrow shook his head.

“Wyandotte wants to make sure all the loose ends are tied up. That nephew of Vincent VanRijn, young Nicolas is pressing for greater investigation of what happened at Dragonwyck. To be fair to you, Wyandotte questioned at the time your carrying away of Nicolas’s twin, the girl Nicola. But it has turned out well. As she is the co-heir, Nicolas is having trouble getting probate as her body was not found in the burned-out ruins of the center-wing of Dragonwyck. Just VanRijn, Vansittart and three dead guards, one whose head was brutally destroyed by an ax.”

I interrupted. This was a sensitive topic. I had only done what I needed to do.

“I only hit him once.”

Woodrow looked at me. He raised an eyebrow. After a moment he said.

“Okay, if you say so.  In any case, Wyandotte wants that flight attendant who helped you and Anders acquire the kayaks you used on the river without being seen on camera acquired. The best place for her to go is on the Silver Ship”

“Anders won’t like that,” I objected. He esteems her as a superior type of Free Woman. I think myself she may not be suited to Gor.”

“Life is harsh!” Woodrow sounded every inch the Gorean Warrior now. “Gor is harsh. Many a Free Woman, some blameless, have found a new life in the collar. They thrive as collared sluts. Leigh Fraser will do the same. We should pick up that friend of hers too, that Scarlet. You can’t tell me that she is not suited to Gor!”

I did not argue further. I have learned that arguing with the Fricks is not fruitful. I am a lawyer, no good comes from arguing a fruitless case. I turned to practicalities.

“Joshua and the acquisition team will be picking up Capt Jones. Anders and Niles will need to bring in Leigh and Scarlet. Bruno and Zach can sort out the kajirae we are sending on the Silver Ship. We had a full shipment, they will have to hold two or three back to make room for Kacy, Leigh, and Scarlet. Scipio still takes little interest in things, he is not adapting well to Earth and his exile. Maybe you could spend some time talking to him. You are an old friend and might cheer him up.”

Woodrow seemed happy I did not protest more strongly about the flight attendants. What did he think I would do? Resort to violence? We left my office and walked up the street to Drysdale House. We found Scipio Metellus sitting just inside the Porte Cochere entrance. He was working on a wooden puzzle trying to fit all the pieces in the correct order. I went to the pens to watch Bruno and Zach sort the shipment into two truckloads. Apparently such sorting is more complicated than dividing by two. Each truckload was going to the same Silver Ship, but on Gor would be divided into two consignments, ideally to be dropped off at separate locations.

Once the dividing was done and the two acquisition teams returned after successful operations I spent some time talking with all the crew. I then when looking for Juli, I was tired of business and wanted some relaxation.

I could not find her anywhere in the cellars, and I consulted Mrs Magruder who had not seen Juli either.

“It is not like her to shirk or hide, she must be working somewhere. She takes her position as First Girl seriously.”

Woodrow Frick and Scipio Metellus were still talking by the Porte Cochere door. The two acquisition vans and the trucks were by the entrance.

Neither man had seen Juli since the morning. Woodrow had an idea.

“You could ask that Don Emery. He came in about an hour ago. He parked his car on the street, he said the parking area was too full.”

I went in search of Don Emery. I bet the neighbors would not be happy about Emery parking his ordinary truck on our exclusive street! But I knew he could not have left, as the front door was kept locked and Scipio and Woodrow would have seen him leave by the other door.  After Mrs Magruder and I had searched again with no sign of either Emery or Juli, I enlisted Woodrow and Scipio. There was no sign of either of them.

“They must be here somewhere. There is no way out without them being seen.” Mrs Magruder was certain.

“Yes there is!” I exclaimed. “Juli is wearing a smart collar, if she is returning from an errand, it unlocks the Front Door as she approaches.”

“It does not let her out though.” Mrs Magruder was still uncertain.

“It does if she is accompanied by Master. And Emery was scanned in as a Master.”

“Juli wouldn’t run away with Emery. She was afraid of him.” Mrs Magruder was certain.

“We will check the video.”

When I had moved in, cameras were installed covering the grounds and the outsides of the house. Not the insides, but all the approaches were covered.

The four of us went into the office attached to my Library. I scanned the front door video. Just five minutes after he had arrived, Don Emery had stolen Juli. She was back-braceleted and hooded. Don Emery had taken her out the front door and thrown her in the back of his truck and driven away with her. I was furious. I was bereft. I loved Juli with a fierce passion; and she was my property.

It was just after 5PM. The trucks would have to leave at Eight for the rendezvous. I selected Ethan and Seth of the acquisition team to drive the trucks with Zach Frick as their guide. Woodrow, Scipio Metellus, and Bruno would stay and protect the house with Woodrow communicating with Wyandotte. I dispatched Anders with Niles as guide and driver to check out Don Emery’s house. I initiated tracking on Juli’s smart collar. Joshua and I would follow the tracking. The collar, if it were still attached to Juli, would lead us right to her.

By the time all was organized it was nearly six o’clock and we were in Friday rush hour traffic. I was boiling with impatience.

By seven thirty Joshua and I were in Oakland. We were closing in on the collar. It was moving around on a two-block area. I was hopeful Juli had escaped and was hiding from Emery. I was going to get Juli back.

We drew up close to where the tracking said Juli would be. We pulled to stop. As we got out of the van, a man came out of a house and started talking to Joshua.

“That poor little girl’s dog is just the back yard next door.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Joshua was confused.

“You’re Animal Contral, ain’t ya?”

As I can around the van, I noticed that we had taken the one that the acquisition team used sometimes that was marked animal control. A very innocuous van in a city, easily forgotten, very useful. I walked up to him.

“Maybe you could brief us, sir. We did not get a complete rundown on the radio.’

That mollified him. As he began to speak he was joined by a couple more neighbors. With all three speaking at once it was difficult to disentangle with story but eventually I got it straight. Seven year-old Louisa Thompson had lived in an apartment with her mother and grandfather and her husky, Hudson. Hudson and Louisa were loved by the neighbors, but the mother, not so much. Last week the police had, to the relief of most of the block hauled away the mother due to outstanding fraud warrants. Then two nights ago, the grandfather had taken sick and been taken away by ambulance. Concerned neighbors had called Children’s Services who had taken Louisa to a foster home but could not take Hudson. Now he was stuck to a fence by something that had caught on his collar. I followed one of the ladies to the back yard followed by Joshua. Hudson was caught in the iron fence, something that was caught on his collar had caught one of the projections of the fence. I walked up, Don Emery had removed Juli’s enameled smart collar, and connected it to Hudson’s. The husky was very unhappy. Joshua slipped up beside Hudson and gave the dog a half dose of a capture jab. Hudson relaxed. I slipped Juli’s collar from Hudson’s and Joshua carried the Husky to the van. The mystery of why the collar had moved for a while was solved. The dog was running free looking for Louisa until he got caught in the fence. Disconsolate, we drove back to Drysdale House.

Hudson recovered remarkable quickly. Joshua was surprised as well. He thought it likely that huskies had different metabolisms than kajirae did. I did not really care. The dog wandered about sniffing everything, like looking for his young owner. Mrs Magruder brought food for Woodrow, Bruno, Scipio Metellus, Joshua and I. I picked at my dinner; I had no appetite. We tried to plot out where Don Emery might have taken Juli.

At ten, Anders and Niles returned. Anders reported.

“We could not get near Don Emery’s house. It was all lit up. Lots of black suburbans. Niles says they were likely General Security.”

Niles added.

“We are not the only ones looking for Don Emery. In addition to the ones I thought were General Security, the First Families Force, there were others I thought were Emery people. One thing is certain; he is not at his house.”

I was impatient and angry.

“Then where the hell is he? And what has he done with Juli?”

Joshua was at the General Information consule.

“He was not booked on any flight out of SFO or any other regional airport, No other reservations or car rentals. We have no idea where he is.”

It was late by the time Zach Frick with the truck drivers, Seth and Ethan, returned to Drysdale House from the rendezvous with the Silver Ship to Gor. The girls had been easily herded onto the ship and placed in their individual canisters. The helicopter pilot, Capt Kacy Jones, and the flight attendants, Scarlet and Leigh, still unconscious had been carried aboard. They were all on their way to new lives on a different planet. I hoped Niki would be happier in a new environment. Don Emery had not been with the Silver Ship crew and had not boarded before the ship took off.

I thanked all the men for their aid and told them we would have a fresh start for our search for the thief Don Emery and my slave Juli in the morning. Mrs Magruder appeared and asked if I wanted Lena, or Veronika or one of the retained captives for my comfort.

I told her no, there would be no comfort for me tonight. When she left, I pulled a blanket from a drawer and lay down on the leather chesterfield sofa under the bay window in the library. I would sleep in the Library tonight; my favorite room of all the rooms in Drysdale House. From the kitchen, I heard the husky, Hudson howl in longing for the little girl, Louisa Williams.

‘You and me both, Hudson’, I thought. Howling for what has been taken from us. I decided that in the morning, I would have Mrs Magruder retrieve Louisa from Children’s Services. With my connections that should be easy to arrange. Louisa and Hudson could stay here until her grandfather is better.

That night I did not dream of the eyes of Billy Jackson in his last moments before I was forced to kill him. I slept without dreams.

I knew that when I tracked down Don Emery I would kill him: kill him for stealing Juli from my house, kill him for taking away my love and my slave. I would kill him with my tomahawk. I would cleave his skull open as I had split the skull of Billy Jackson. I would not stop, I would hit his head again and again, smashing skull and skin and brains and blood into an indistinguishable mash. And I knew that after that I would sleep well. He would not haunt me as the eyes of Billy Jackson haunted me. And Juli and I would live happily the rest of days.