After the Bighorn, Chapter Nine, The Processing of Kajira Nineteen

Janey Anstruthers’s Narrative.

Slowly all the girls around me in the big stone walled room awakened. There were twenty of us, each secured by a chain to a curved pipe in the centre of the floor. The curve was about the 8^th  part of a circle and faced the stairs and the doors. The room was about twenty feet high and huge, about 50 feet long and thirty feet deep. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all of stone, the ceiling vaulted like an old church. Facing us there was a broad platform, about three steps up from the main floor. The steps ran all along the platform, the platform ran the length of the wall. Steps ran up the wall from the left side of the platform to the right, with a landing and a door about halfway up. The door was made of wood planks and had a grill in the centre about eye height, like in an old movie about medieval times. The whole place had a medieval air. There were no railings on the stairway, likely built before modern health and safety regulations. The stair was of stone too, with arched niches built into the base. I wondered if there were secret passages behind the other niches. Ominously, pairs of medieval looking iron bracelets hung from the top of each niche. If the room was designed to scare people, women, brought there, it was succeeding.

 

Light came from what looked like medieval torches, but they were some kind of electric fixture, I think. Behind us, were more arched niches about five feet high, but these were barred like cells or cages, with little doors built into the bars. Each would hold about two people, I thought. There were eight of the cages. There were two more niches one at each end. There were curtains over the openings of these niches.

It was a gloomy and scary room, and it scared most of the girls chained to the pipe. Each of us had a steel ring locked around our left ankles, which rings connected by chains to the pipe, which was about four inches above the floor. I was second from one end, with a tall girl in overalls and boots to my right. Next to me on my right were two girls with hair ribbons, one multi-colored, and one a white purity ribbon with an Ohio State edging. I have said before I don’t like defacing the purity of the ribbon. Some of us were dressed properly and completely, some were wearing clothes that revealed entirely too much. Sluts! I could understand them being grabbed, but why the decent girls like me?

I was very hungry. It had been a while since I had eaten, and that was only the partial bowl of Nutri-girl, supplied by men, which had tasted off to me. I am a supertaster, and I think there was something in the Nutri-girl that had knocked us out. I assumed that once our captors, whoever they were,arrived, would sort us into the sort of girl who could not expect consideration, and the Innocent Girls, those of us who should be released. I could not wait to give them a piece of my mind!

Each girl, as she had awakened, had reacted very similarly. First, they wondered where they were, how they got there, and what this place was. Their voices were loud and fearful, and in this large stone room, as big as a ballroom or a gym, had echoed. Then there was the screaming, then the sudden terrified silence. I tried to organize some sort of order, but even an exchange of names was beyond these sobbing, worried girls. Even I could not put some sort of backbone into them.

Quickly though they settled down, but I still could not organize them, they became giddy and started chattering, some thought it was some sort of adventure or prank. It did not help that I was second from one end of the line. Many of the girls were not as afraid as I was, or as scared as I thought they should be. It took a while for me to realize that they had all eaten an entire bowl of the drugged Nutri-Girl, and had no idea how long they had been unconscious. The girl to my left, in an Ohio State sweatshirt and one of those rainbow hair ribbons said to her companion that she thought she had been out at least as hour. I did not think it was the time to tell her she had been out all that day, then two nights and another day. I would not have been believed. If I was to lead this group to freedom I had to keep my credibility. Because I am a natural leader and a good giver of orders I understand these things. Even Amanda Sloan came to accept that, even that Claudia Rogers finally fell into line in our University of Michigan New Feminist Chapter.

Some girls thought this was a fraternity prank or even a Reality Program. The girl, to my left, on the end, was dressed in overalls looked worried and nervous, as did the girl on the other side of the two from Ohio State.  Because we were all secured by our left ankles, I could not gather them around to set up a strategy. I would have to wait and see.

The little peephole door in the Upper door opened, then quickly shut. I waited. Then the door on the platform opened. I expected it to creak, like in a movie, but it did not. That should have worried me. It meant that whoever these people were, they were efficient.

Five men came through the door. The first to enter onto the platform was dressed in a suit with a vest, what the English call a waistcoat. He seemed very young, like my age. The other four looked like brutes, very muscular in tight shirts and khakis; they had on boots; lace up boots like working men wear. Two of them walked behind us, which made me nervous, the other two went to the ends of the platform. Then two girls came in, each pushing a four-wheeled cart. They were not New Feminists. Frankly they looked like sluts with no hair ribbons at all, their hair was hanging all loose, and dressed in sleeveless very short tunics. One tunic looked almost sheer.

The young man in the suit stood at the centre of the front of the platform. He ignored all the pleas and shouts from the women chained in front of him. I did not join in the din, the pleas, the jokes. It would be undignified in a leader to be ignored as the young man was ignoring the women. As the noise settled down, I saw two older men, in suits, one in cowboy boots come down the stairs from the upper landing. They passed behind the young man and over to side of the room where I was chained. The man in the cowboy boots, stood just at the bottom of the platform stairs looking at me, he looked in his mid to late twenties. The other man, in his mid to late thirties, just sat himself down on the platform stairs, as if he had nothing better to do then look at us. Suddenly I felt grubby and unwashed.

The young man started speaking.

“You have all been selected and harvested because of your suitability to be slaves on Gor.”

The woman in overalls to my right stirred uneasily. I was confused, what did that mean, slaves on Gor?

“If there hadn’t been a mixup with the Silver Ship, you would all be in your travel canisters, not to awaken until you were being sold in the slave markets of Ar”

None of this made any sense, spaceships and slave markets? The two concepts did not even go together. Slavery and advanced civilization were anti-thetical concepts!

One woman, down near the other end said, “Reality Show of some kind, I told you. We don’t need to sign up though, unless the money is good. They need releases and agreements. The money better be good.”

The woman, on the other side of the two Ohio State women spoke up, saying what I had been thinking.

“Slavery is old fashioned and out of date, it has no place in modern life.”

The young man shook his head. “Slavery, especially female slavery, is ingrained in human evolution. The female belongs at the man’s feet. Even the New Feminists recognize that we are not the same. Changes in Society that go against biology as it as evolved over thousands of years are unsustainable.”

There were mutterings, but he continued.

“Some of you have become frigid, shying away from your natural urges, afraid to be sensual, sexual creatures.”

I did not like to hear that. I had priorized my education to be a leader, a contributor. I was someone to be listened to.

“Others of you have gone from man to man, trying to find, among the men of Earth, someone to submit yourself to, someone to obey and follow.” The woman next to me in the multi-coloured hair ribbon looked uneasy; I could see other women blushing.

“But you found no one who satisfied you, so you continued to seek out what you could not find. You have all been recommended for acquisition and transport to Gor, scouted and found suitable in looks, beauty, submissiveness to be acceptable as slaves, to men on Gor, kajirae to the Masters.”

Some of the words were strange, as was the whole concept, but the woman in overalls to my left seemed to recognize something when he was talking. She stood up taller and threw her shoulders back, as if to be better assessed.

It was time for me to assert myself, to tell this man off.

“I am not a slave, I am free, more than that, I am wearing my Purity Ribbon, I will not dally with men until I am properly companied. I am not a slave slut. You must release me, all of us who are wearing Ribbons, and treat us properly with deference as free and intelligent women. In fact you must release all of us; you have no right to seize any of us.”

Suddenly I was flat on my face; my back was stinging. I had been struck by something that had hurt my back terribly; struck with such force as to knock me to the floor and drive all the wind out of me.

“You were not given permission to speak. A kajira, a slave, only speaks when permission is granted by a Master or a Mistress, a Free Woman. You must be pleasing to all men and obey instantly. If a command needs to be repeated, you will be struck fifteen times with a Gorean slave whip.”

I was finally able to find enough strength to look up. The young man (he was only about my age!) was holding up an evil looking short, handled whip. The handle looked like it was made of wood or something and had five leather straps.

“This is the slave whip. It will hurt but not mark. It has five broad blades. As slaves you should fear it.”

I was not a slave, but also I did not want to feel that cruel thing again. Luckily I had been wearing my University of Michigan sweatshirt, but I was in great pain. From my hands and knees, I could see behind me one of the booted men in khaki pants and blue shirts with a similar whip to the one the young man in the suit was holding.

“You hurt me; you struck a woman!”

“I barely used any strength; you were hardly touched. Now shut up and attend the slavemaster!”

He then laid hands on me, daring to touch me, grabbing me by both my arms and lifting me to my feet. I could hear my ankle chain jingle as he set my down. It was a thinner chain, it would not have held a man, but I wasn’t a man; it was enough to hold a woman.

The young man, the slavemaster as the brute had called him, resumed speaking

“You have all received your one warning, speak only when spoken to, and obey all orders.”

He then walked right up to the woman at the far end of the line; she was almost as short as I, and more delicate. Any man would want to protect and cherish her. She wore, like me, a Purity Ribbon. She should have been freed. Instead the man spoke to her, standing in her personal space.

“Remove all your clothing for your assessment.”

“I can’t, I am modest. Look, I have my ribbon; you can’t”

“Does an order need to be repeated?” The young man was grim and insistent.

“Really I can’t, I just can’t.”

“An Order has been repeated.”

One of the brutes seized her from behind, grabbing both arms, just as I had been grabbed. He lifted her off the ground. With no purchase for her feet, and both arms seized, it is a effective way to seize a person. The young man undid her ankle chain with a key and the brute carried her to one of the niches under the stairs with the dangling bracelets. As her hands were placed in the bracelets and the bracelets raised up, lifting her arms over her head, the girl repeated again that she could not obey, just could not.

“You can; you will, you will learn.”

The bracelets had now been cranked up so high that the poor girl’s feet did not touch the floor. She was crying and begging. Then the young man, the Slavemaster, went to a chest and removed a pair of sheers. While one of the skimpily dressed women removed the young woman’s shoes, he cut along one side of her leg right up to her thigh, ruining her lovely dress. He did the same with the other side. He then continued right up to under her arm, first on the right them the left. He caressed a place on the outer part of her right thigh.

“You will be marked there.”

 The skimpily clad woman started gathering the braceleted girls shoes and socks, putting them in a large paper bag; she folded the pieces of cloth cut from the poor girl as they were handed her by the Slavemaster. In short order she was naked, hanging from her wrists. All that remained of her clothes were her Purity Ribbon.

I was relieved. At least she had not been whipped. I closed my eyes thankfully. I did not want to stare at her in her condition.

I heard a terrible sound; she had been struck. She cried out. Most of the women in the line gasped. One, three places down from me, just past the Ohio State women, spoke out.

“Stop that, she is already out of clothes, no need for that.”

She staggered as the man who had earlier struck me, used the whip on her. I cringed away.

The Slavemaster drew back and used the whip again, her body had swung around after the first blow, she was hit on a different part of her body. And then again. I was relieved it was over, she had felt the whip fifteen times, three blows times five blades. Surely her torment was over. Then he did it again. I was horrified, it was fifteen blows, each with the five blades of the whip.

After she had felt the whip about seven times, I noticed a girl down the line pull her top over her head, and then take off her bra. Another girl took over her top too. By the eleventh blow, at least half of the captives were totally or partially undressed. The Ohio State girl next to me in the multi-coloured ribbon was completely naked, the girl next to her almost totally so. She had hooked her thumbs into her panties and was pulling them down her thighs when the man in the cowboy boots walked up to her. The Slavemaster halted to watch what was happening. He did not seem surprised that so many of us were naked or partially so.

“Why did you do that,” the man with the cowboy boots asked the nearly naked Ohio State girl with the Purity Ribbon. I was curious myself. A Purity Girl should not have done that.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. The other girl was being whipped and I was afraid.” She went to pull up her panties. He stopped her. He touched her naked body! He traced something on her left thigh. He nodded to the Slavemaster, who resumed with the suspended girl. There was no sound in the large room except the landing of the whip and the girl’s cries.

The Slavemaster finished and turned. “Kajirae, slavegirls, must learn to obey. Men of Gor are not as lenient with disobedient slaves as I was.”

The man in the suit with the cowboy boots walked up to the girl in overalls who was at the end of the line of shackled girls.

“You did not remove your clothes.”

“I was given no orders.”

“Master, I mean. I was given no orders, Master.”

He turned to me.

“You didn’t remove your clothes either.”

“I didn’t because this is all a mistake, I shouldn’t be here with girls who took their clothes off. I have a Purity Ribbon, I am head of the University of Michigan Chapter of the New Feminists. We have 150 members, I am Janey Anstruther. This is all a mistake.”

I was babbling incoherently. I did not want to a slave, I did not want to be whipped. . These men were so strong, so overbearing. I could not put my ideas in order. The man turned, one of the henchman handed him a folder, it was a sort of ring binder. He looked through the pages. He turned back to me

“You are very much supposed to be here. You were scouted twice. Not only that, you were recommended to our scouts three times, by three different people. One was a visiting professor from Mount Holyoke; once by one of your male classmates, and once, interestingly, by one of your own members of your New Feminists Chapter. You are very much meant to be here.”

My mind reeled. A traitor in our ranks! I would have to escape and warn Amanda Sloan. We would have to root out the snake in our midst. We could get Claudia Rogers to help. Unless it was Claudia Rogers. Amanda would help me find out. Maybe her boyfriend Jimmy Klien could help us find out who the man who said I should be enslaved us was. I had trouble thinking clearly about this; these men were so unfeeling about my sensitivities.

The other suited man had come over to me. He looked down.

“She has a lot to say for such a little thing, Woodrow.”

“She seems to be about half mouth,” the suited man with the cowboy boots said.

“And half boob”, laughed the older man.  “She’s a little bit of a thing, half mouth, half boob.”

Well I do have a lot up top for a short woman, and how dare he use my hated high school nickname, L’il Bit!

“Oh, I think L’il Bit has some other interesting bits as well, let’s get her unwrapped,”

“Let’s see you then, display yourself in front of men,”

I did not pretend that I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to be whipped. I found I could not lie to these men. My ankle was untied, I was brought forward where the light was better.

Quickly, way to quickly I was naked in front of these three grinning men. One of the sluts of the Slavemaster gathered up my clothes. For the first time I noticed that she wore a steel collar.

“L’il Bit definitely shows some areas of interest”. The cowboy Woodrow was touching me while the henchman held me from behind. Three men, towering over me, I felt so vulnerable. They had me stand, legs apart, arms behind my head. My flanks were stroked, my muscles felt.

“I still say, Woodrow, that she is half boob,”  I felt like crying as I was caressed there by the older man. Then my hands were tied behind me with rope.

“Tracker of Gor recommends rope for the First Binding. It is so tight and conforms to the body. She knows she can’t get away.” It was the first time the henchman had spoken.

“Tracker of Gor?” enquired the older suited man.

“Tracker of Gor is one of the leading Slave theoreticians and writers. His scrolls are avidly sought after.”

“Thank you, Bruno. I shall have to seek out his works.” The men had this conversation as I was bent forward from the waist with Bruno’s hand in my hair. Then OMG, I was penetrated! By a finger. Then two.

“Definitely white silk, oils nicely though” Woodrow the Cowboy announced.

I started to cry. The men ignored me. Before when I had cried, men had always tried to be nice to me, to help me. Now I was bent over, naked while they talked of me. The older man was counting girls from the far end of the line. Other girls were being treated as I was. I was not special.

“Eighteen”, he announced as he came to me.

“Nineteen, Mr Masters, there is the girl on the platform.”

“Right, nineteen.”

Bruno produced what looked like a marker. Mr Masters held my left breast as Bruno wrote 19 on it. It felt wet going on, but dried immediately.

“Gorean slave marker, Mr Masters. Recommended by Tracker of Gor in the Intake Scroll.”

Then he wrote on me again, on my belly between my navel and my sex, they on my left thigh, then he turned me around and repeated, on my right buttock, my lower back, my right shoulder and on the back of my neck.

“What’s her collar size?” asked Woodrow.

I didn’t understand Bruno’s answer, it was in a foreign language. Woodrow took a collar from one of the carts that the collared sluts had wheeled in. It was a thin metal band, about an inch in height. It was held in front of me, it had a lock where the two ends came together, opposite the lock was a ring. It had a band of white enamel around the circumference.

“This is your transfer collar. When you are sold, it will be replaced by that of your master. It is engraved in Gorean, I will read it to you.

“Transfer collar, deliver to Atticus of Ar for sale. The white band means you are white silk, not yet opened for the use of men.”

He fastened a medallion to the collar, it read 19.

“As a slave, you have no name. Names are a possession of Free People, and as a slave you possess nothing. For now, you will be known as 19, Janey Anstruther is no more.”

He fastened the collar on my throat and led me to my place in line.

I was 19^th in a line of slave girls.

Nineteen.

After The Bighorn Chapter Five: Battle is Joined by Tracker

 Battle is Joined

by Tracker.

(Originally published by Emma Of Gor, 29 August 2024, https://emmaofgor.blogspot.com/search/label/Tracker%27s%20Stories)

(Illustration, entry of the Mistress, courtesy of The Palatine, , https://palatine.bdsmlr.com/

Battle is joined

( reminder that these events take place in 2016, the early days of the new feminism)

The Frick building, the Marriot Downtown where my lawyers were to be housed and  headquartered and the Federal Courthouse form a triangle within a block of each other in downtown Pittsburgh.  There is a sort of park between the Marriot and the Courthouse, with a Plaza connecting to the Frick Building.  The Hilton, where VanRijn’s minions lurked, was across the street from the Marriot.

Wyandotte Frick proved competent enough at Administrative chores, though I was still unsure if enough strength lay hidden under his bland exterior. He assigned me Zach Frick, who is a lawyer, though exceedingly young.  He should be able to understand my requirements though.  We first toured the Marriot Downtown.  It was Wyandotte’s idea that my team of lawyers should work and live there while he wanted me to stay at the Frick Mansion where I could be close for consultations.  I was not at all adverse to the idea of staying where there were so many curvy distractions, hot in their collars.  

I wanted to observe the running of a headquarters of an acquisition operation just in case the chance to operate one for myself should occur.  I truly miss Juli, I treasure her so much.  I know she has much to learn; she is eager but needs instruction.  But still, semi-trained as she is, I would not trade her for any of the hot lovelies in the Frick Mansion.  I would like, though, to have that Chelsea Frick at my feet, begging for mercy, begging for love and use in a collar.

Last night she was permitted to eat again with the Family.  She is very manipulative and seems to be worming her way back into Wyandotte’s favor.  Not by flirting, but by pretending to be all properly chastened and submitting to male authority.  She did not stamp her pretty little foot once during her appearance last night.  In a mirror, when she thought she was not observed, I saw the mask drop, just for an instant. Part fury, part calculation, all needing a spanking.  When Wyandotte, Woodrow, Zach, and I joined the ladies following our after-dinner brandies she was all honey.  I don’t think that Mrs Wyandotte Frick, or Mrs Magruder were fooled.

Chelsea maneuvered to have me help her distribute the coffee, which she poured daintily.  It was in no way blatantly sexual, not at all the gracious servings ritual performed by the collared girls when I had first arrived.  She seemed to follow a Victorian ladies ritual; I don’t think I would have been fooled, even if I had not caught that glimpse of malice earlier in the mirror.

“Do you live in a house or an apartment in San Francisco,” Mr Masters.

“I have just purchased a house”, Miss Frick, “an old Victorian, built just following the Civil War by a banker.  It is, I think, about the same vintage as this house, built by your illustrious ancestors.”  After that thrust, reminding her that she did not own the house of her ancestors, the house in which she grew up, I went on to describe the glories of Drysdale House.

“It is French Second Empire in architecture, a grand main floor, bedrooms above, and more on an additional floor under the Mansard roof.  A lovely grand ballroom, with dining room.  Because it is on a slope, the level below walks out into the gardens.  There is a swimming pool on that level, and below that cellars with all the room, space, storerooms and accessories one could desire.”

She was rocked a bit by the veiled reference to her not being the Mistress of Frick House, but did not show it.  That was not part of her plan, whatever her plan was.

“You must have me out to visit some time, Mr Masters, I would truly be excited to visit you there.”

“And I would be happy of your visit.  I hope I can accommodate you as you deserve; as is fitting for one of your qualities.”

She went on, “Of course here at Frick Mansion, we have some land and can keep horses, with stabling and forges for horseshoes, and for branding beasts.  And cages to keep dogs and other animals.”

I was not fooled by her smiling allusions.  She wanted her slaves back.  Fliss and the other handmaiden that had been repossessed as the property of the Mansion.  I could not remember the other girl’s name.

I smiled blandly as she politely and, in all deference, poured me more coffee, then offered some to the other ladies and the men of the House, Wyandotte, Woodrow and Zach.  She was gracious enough, but a little stiff in her pampered freedom, not at all like the supple grace of Angela, the collared slave.  With only a little experience of slaves though, I could, I thought, discern the raw materials, the potentialities of the Chelsea Frick.  Or maybe it was from my imagination, born of desire? 

“We still have at Drysdale House the old stables, mostly converted to parking now, that were there in the old days.  The forge is still there though, I suppose we would have the capacity to mark such beasts as we might find necessary or desirable.  And the old kennels are still there in the basement.  There are rumours of the former owners’ involvement in the shanghaiing of sailors and other cargos in the old days of the Barbary Coast.”

Sadly, even if Miss Chelsea Frick did visit San Francisco, out of deference to her family, she would be unlikely to occupy a kennel next to my darling Juli.

We chatted after that, she trying to find out my financial circumstances, me deflecting with interesting cases and instances in patent law, which sadly, so many people do not find fascinating at all.

Janey’s Narrative.

I am so scared.  Ever since I was grabbed at the exit area of the Festival I have been disoriented and frightened.  

I keep going back over my last hours before being grabbed.

After the last night of the Festival, I went back to my tent to sleep. My plan for the morning was to grab one of the shuttle buses to the nearest town, and then take the commuter train back to Ann Arbor.  I go to the University of Michigan there and was fortunate to find an intern’s job in the Art Department for the summer, although I declined the extra money that would come with being a Life Model.  I have standards.

I didn’t want to travel by car with the friends I came to the Festival with, because it was a mixed company of men and women without a chaperone.  A single woman has to be so careful about her reputation these days.  Not that that bothers me, I approve of the New Feminism that is starting to make headway in advanced circles like Universities and Colleges.  I expect it will soon start to spread into wider Society.  I am proud to be innocent of congress with men and believe my innocence and demureness attracts men to protect me.

My tent was in the Women’s Protected Area of the Festival. This innovation provides a safe place for women to camp.  The portable sections of crossing wire keep us safe, even though they seem to have been borrowed from a cattle handling ranch.  Soon, I expect, as our New Feminist Movement Spreads I expect that there will be companies dedicated to making fences for keeping women safe.  Perhaps the Frick Company Lazy F Ranch division that made these Livestock fences will branch out?

Just before going to sleep, I got a text from Amanda Sloan, telling me that she had secured me a ticket on the first Woman’s Safe Shuttle to leave in the morning.  This shuttle would get me back to Ann Arbor earlier than any other method.  I was very touched.  Amanda and I had been tussling for two years over the leadership of our New Feminist Chapter.  Rivals in a way.  I had helpfully pointed out to her that sometimes her pursuit of Jimmy Klein had been a little too blatant, her skirts a little too short.  She had not responded well at the time to my kind suggestions, or to losing the leadership of the group to me, but I was very touched by her gesture.

I set my phone alarm to wake me at 6:00 Am and blissfully awoke to “It’s a great day to be Pure.” by the Veiled Ladies.  I quickly washed, packed and got ready to leave for the Exit Area.  I contrasted the order and neatness inside our area (I nearly said cage, how silly), and the disorder outside. Things were so much better when arranged the New Feminist Way.  The Safe Watching areas at the Festival where so much nicer than the free for all areas of those caged outside.  We were protected from the men leering at women from outside the enclosure, safe inside our steel wired walls.  Some silly women said they felt caged in, but they were just not used to being protected.  Of course, some women were not modestly dressed, wearing short shorts and skimpy bikini tops to encourage the beastly men outside.  One or two even pulled up their shirts!  I wrote in the suggestion box that a dress code would be appropriate next year.

As I approached the departure gate, I saw about 15 or 20 women already gathered. I joined them under the watchful eyes of three large burly men.  I was glad of their protection, but happy they kept their distance.  Just as I walked up, one stood up on a green and white picnic table and started speaking.  He had to start a few times before he could get all the women to be quiet and listen.  It was a bit funny to see him go red in the face waiting for the women to let him talk.

“Ladies, ladies, please.  The bus is a little delayed, but there will be a free breakfast while you wait.  In that grove behind those trees, the Nutri-Girl people are having a free tasting of one of their new flavors.  Please move there in an orderly way.”

Rudely, some of the ladies, laughed and shouted at him.  Many were not really dressed as ladies should be, nor behaving as they should towards a helpful, protective man.

I felt that in my position as Leader of the Ann Arbor New Feminists, a position I meant to keep from Amanda Sloan, I should set I good example.  

“Thank you, sir, for your consideration.  This way Ladies, to the free breakfast”

Sometimes a cheerful disposition and Innocent Manner are not appreciated, especially in the morning.  Some of the Ladies, especially a blonde who was not only dressed inappropriately, but in a way I can only describe as Modern Slut, told me to stuff it and stuff the Nutri-Girl.  Others joined her.  However, armored in my knowledge of my virtuous state, I led the way.  Some others followed saying, “free food is a good hangover cure.”

In the grove, nicely hidden from the views of curious gawkers, thus suitable for a group of Ladies to eat, was a small booth reading Nutri-Girl and a delicious smell.  There were wooden bowls ready to be filled, spoons and blessedly, hot coffee.

I asked the women serving, what flavor was being tried.  

“It is a variation on our Apple and Cinnamon flavor.  This is Apple, Cinnamon, and Tassa.”

I tried to look like I knew all about Tassa, but really it is hard to keep up with all the new foods, the Quinoas and bubble teas and such.  An immodestly dressed woman behind me, with lovely long black curly hair didn’t try to hide her ignorance, “What is Tassa?”

The older women putting Nutri-girl into the bowls laughed, “Why bless you honey, you will never forget your first taste of Tassa.  Or rather, you won’t taste it, but you will remember its effects.  It is odorless and tasteless, it is macrobiotic, and organic, and it promotes deep healthful sleep.”

Well, I love my Nutri-girl in the morning, so easy to prepare and so healthful.  And I had been having dreams lately that kept me up.  Dreams of strong men taking away Amanda Sloan as a slut and putting me in undisputed charge of our New Feminist Chapter.  Strong men putting her at their feet.  So I eagerly took a full bowl of the Nutri-girl.

I took my bowl and coffee a little distance from the rest of the group.  Some were too immodestly dressed and behaved for my liking and I kept my distance so it would not be thought I was with them or like them.

After three spoonful’s, I stopped eating.  Something about the taste was off.  One of the special things about me, besides my purity, was that I am a supertaster.  We are a small minority of the population who can taste minute amounts of flavors that others do not notice. We know the exact amount of pepper in a dish; we can detect the smallest dash of a spice.  Something was a little off.  I emptied the bowl of Nutri-girl out, but secretly and behind a bush.  I did not want to hurt the feelings of the Nutri-girl people or the nice Lady who so kindly served me the food.  A Lady is always considerate, even when pointing out the faults of others.

I must have dozed off a little.  I woke with a start when two men grabbed me.  A hood was pulled over my head, a smelly leather hood.  As it was being laced behind my head, an attached leather gag forced its way into my mouth.  I could feel it had interior pads over my ears and eyes.

I should not have wandered away from the group.  But what a shock these men will get.  Inside of one of the slutty girls, they got one of the few modest women in the grove!  The joke will be on them, as I am a certified Innocent, my wholesomeness will shine through and they will be prompted to led my go with apologies, as men do when they make a mistake with a virtuous woman.  I will let them beg for my forgiveness, maybe on their knees.  If and when they grovel enough, I will graciously grant them pardon.  I am a Lady, and a certified Innocent.

Then I was grabbed, my wrists were tied behind me..  I was too tired and ill to fight; I just went limp.

Now I think I am in the back of truck being taken who knows where to what I am sure is a terrible fate.  My Grandmother was right about men, they are such beasts.

Zach Frick and I crossed over to the Frick Corporation Building after settling matters at the Marriot Downtown.  It was a strong masonry building, but seemed also light and airy and beautiful.  Zach, almost reading my mind said, “Goreans respect strength but revere beauty.  The building went up in 1912, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, he did the annex too, in 1937.  The annex has our consumer products division now, well, the shipping and testing, the manufacturing we do in one of our factories.  We still manufacture here in the States.”

“Really, not offshore?”

“Home manufacturing keeps pesky customs officials out of our business, and it is convenient to have access to a supply of Factory Girls.  They come and go. Girls come, and Girls go.”

The offices of the Frick Legal Department were on the third floor.  The patents department was pushed up against an engineering section that shared the floor.  Beyond the engineers, mostly men, there was a portal to the annex, a sign said Product Batch Testing and Quality Control.

“The engineers would like to move to a blank space on the Fifth Floor, they find the lawyers boring and the girls in testing flighty and distracting.  They are very very serious men, obsessed with tensile strength and breaking points and the qualities of specialty steels.  We manufacture those in the US too.  The Chinese can make them too, but we have some secrets we want to keep secret, so we don’t manufacture there.  Besides, if we did they would keep the best stuff for themselves and we would get the rest.”

I looked around at the engineers’ section; it seemed like something out of an early 60s NASA photo.  All those serious men with very short hair, and wearing white short-sleeved shirts and ties.  The computers sitting on the wooden desks seemed the only modern things in front of me.  There didn’t seem to be any women in the department at all.  Not surprising, I guessed, with the way the Fricks ran their business.  The hard-working  men barely looked up as Zach led me to the Frick legal department.

Zach and I approached the Frick Corporation Legal Department, I noticed the carpet was thicker, the paneling on the walls became real wood.  

“Some of the original furnishings here, the distinctive Frank Lloyd Wright touches and decorations.  Wyandotte wanted to restore the building, but Willard Frick was not interested.  What he wanted to get done, got done, what did not interest him, did not get done.  He didn’t delegate well.”

Zach’s voice had dropped a little.  Even in death, Willard dominated the Fricks.

We stopped outside a door that read J. Augustus Frick IV, esq.  Zach knocked and entered.  A puckish man, cheerful looking, bald on top, white hair around the sides and back, came out from behind a huge desk.

“Patrick Masters?  A great honor, a great honor, sir.  So pleased to meet you.”  We sat down around a mahogany table, round and intricately carved.

“It doesn’t go with the FLW stuff, but I like it, I like it.”  The little man in the old fashioned but immaculate three piece suit could have come out of a play by Agatha Christie by way of Charles Dickens. He opened a file and took out his papers.

“Now, let’s get ready to tear these bastards a new one.”

In the next hour, I learned that Augie Frick had a keen legal mind. He wanted to go for the jugular against the Vincent VanRijn Patent Aggregators Corp.  

“Unfortunately we have been starved of resources here.  Cousin Willard believed in going hard and violently at any problem.  We only did basic work here, no defensive patent aggregation.  Not enough lawyers and not enough smart lawyers.  I hope Wyandotte will give us what we need here in the future. We will see what he is made of in the next few months.”

He went on, “One of the main problems is documentation, some of our most important patents don’t have a lot of work product behind them, to outsiders it might look as though they dropped into our hands from a clear blue sky.”

He looked at me to make sure I understood.  I nodded. I continued, “so the most important alloys and processes will be the hardest to defend?  Will I like a good challenge.”

“I want to have two teams of my people, one working here with your people, and one in San Francisco, sifting information and discovery and putting together exhibits.”

Zach Frick and J Augustus Frick IV, esq, nodded.  “Can we move the engineers to another location so my people can move there and be in direct contact with the in house legal staff.?”

The two Fricks looked at each other. Evidently it might be a problem.

J Augustus Frick looked at Zach, “talk to Wyandotte tonight.”

Apparently previously every thing of any consequence had gone through Willard the Strong.  Now it was up to Wyandotte to either step up or delegate.  I wondered if he could do either.

But now it was time for Court.  A short appearance for formality’s sake.