Free Girls!

SEX CARDS

THE LADY AND THE SLAVER:

The Contract

A Tale of Zhor

By Ranbarth of Dusain

"You don't have to apologize," said the slaver.

Lady Carran, her nervous hands on her knees, regarded the woman behind the desk. The latter made a strong impression, as she was no doubt meant to. The lady did not think that Mistress Kain had been born with such beauty, simply because most women were not. Chances were that it had come as a result of a genetic enhancement injection. Any person could change his or her appearance by such means, but it was far more popular with women than with men. Adding to the impressive effect of her features and physique was her smart leather uniform, form-fitting and the color of Tubrian wine. It was so easy imagine such a charismatic person breaking a new slave wench to the collar with a smile on her face.

"I didn't mean to misspeak myself," said the blonde, whose costly day dress suggested both taste and wealth.

"Most of our new clients tend to be nervous," Mistress Kain continued. "Slavers have a bad reputation. But this house is here for women like you. It's futile to argue with bad opinions held by people who don't know better. It has to be left to our clients to decide whether their experience is a positive one or not."

Lady Corran shifted in her chair. Her transparent uneasiness embarrassed her. She had prepared herself to be cool and steady when she set foot into the slave camp, but here she was, hardly able to keep her hands from shaking.

"Would you like something to drink?" asked Kain.

Corran took a deep breath. "I'd appreciate some siolat, yes," the noblewoman replied.

The slaver, as lithe as a cat, rose in a unified, fluid motion and went to the liquor cabinet. The lady couldn't help but admire her shape, so unabashedly displayed by her outfit. Mistress Kain was any man's idea of what a female slaver should look like. Tall, probably ten ongs and ten yhus, she looked athletic and physically capable.

The slaver returned and handed the beverage to the noblewoman, who swallowed half of it rather quickly, and then took only small sips as they continued what amounted to a negotiation.

"How long have you been a serum girl?" Kain asked.

The lady frowned. "It's in my written application." This was a sore subject to bring up. The before and the after. The before was so much missed, and the after so hard to bear.

Kain smiled, but not mockingly. "It is, but we find that some unhurried conversation may set a new client at ease. Is your fantasy something that you find difficult to discuss?"

Corran sighed. "It is. But considering where we are, I suppose that's foolish."

"One can't wish his feelings away, no matter where he is."

Carran had to concede that much. "That is too true."

Kain nodded and waited for Carran to say more.

"I've been this way for a year," she confessed. Having said that much, Corran felt impelled to slog forward. "I was captured in a military action. Because of the standing of my clan, instead of being ransomed, I was sent home this way, as a warning to our city's leaders."

"It was generous of the Vahera not to enslave you."

"Yes, I suppose it was. Especially since I had overseen the sale of so many of their city's sons as serum girls."

"You were a officer of prisoners?"

"Yes."

"What do you feel about your former duties?" asked Kain.

"Was there something wrong with my duties?" she sharply asked.

"It is necessary work. But do you suppose that the Vahera singled you out because of that?"

The lady frowned. "I feel that whatever their motivation to release me was," she finally said, "I'm glad that I didn't become a slave. But it is hard to accept generosity from the enemy."

Kain frowned thoughtfully. And the thought probably crossed her mind every day, making her wonder what her life would be like today had the Vahera sent her to market.

"Perhaps they were not being so generous."

The lady shifted again. "Why do you say that?"

"A free serum girl often suffers most if she goes home." Traditionally, a family member transformed by Ruk's serum was remembered as one who had died. The serum girl who remained in plain view after that was usually an awkward embarrassment.

"Yes, I know," confided Carran glumly. "Some members of my own clan haven't come by my house in months. It's…lonely."

"I'm sorry, my lady. It's not an unusual story, but it is always a sad one."

Carran nodded impatiently. "That's….not why I'm here. In fact, all my family would think even worse of me if they knew where I was this afternoon."

Kain did not pursue the subject. "I suspect that you have much more to say about the nature of your request than you have put on paper."

"My braed tells me that my mental and emotional state is normal for a…a ripened serum girl…" Carran took a deep breath; that was a humiliating revelation. But at least a slaver would be so used to ripened girls that there would be no reason to smirk. And, indeed, Mistress Kain's face didn't change at the whispered word, "ripened."

"He advises me to do what I must do," the lady persevered, "hoping that I can get the relief that I need -- to continue to function in a normally."

The slaver studied her face, noted the tone of her voice. The bland reason she gave might be enough to explain a run of the mill fantasy, but not this one. "And there is another reason, too, isn't there?" coaxed Mistress Kain.

The noblewoman scowled. "If you know, tell me."

"Usually a woman wants a fantasy because she expects it to give her pleasure."

Carran shook her head. "I'm not so certain that mine will give me anything of the kind."

In the policy of the house, the fantasy had to be carefully fitted to the client's psychology, so that it wouldn't do her emotional harm. To get a reputation for harming clients would be very bad for the house. Kain was still not sure whether the circumstances would allow the granting of Lady Carran's fantasy.

"You speak of relief, my lady. What other measures have you taken so far -- to get relief, I mean?"

Another probing question. Carran sighed. "Is such interrogation necessary?"

"The more our trainers know about a client, the better their therapy. A virgin will normally have a fantasy much different than an experienced serum girl who has already engaged in intense slave play." Now Kain tried to put what she was leading to delicately. "Have you…?"

"No," Carran said, softly but determinedly.

"Is the idea of engaging in slave play hard for you?"

"It may be hard. But that's not why I have so far refused to register with a slave club, or even to have -- sexual relations -- with any man."

A Ruk virgin? Kain frowned slightly. This certainly seemed to be an atypical client, and that made her wary. "Then what is the reason, if I may ask?"

"At first I simply refused to give in. But now…I think that if I experimented with…wanton behavior, the fantasy that that I'm asking for would be spoiled."

"Spoiled, how?"

"I want to enter it pristine. I want to be as … as you say, a virgin… very inexperienced… when it happens to me."

Kain returned to her chair and rested her weight back, her arms crossed. "Most of our clients have definite expectations, just as you do," she confided thoughtfully. "And, of course, our business is the granting of a woman's heart's desire. But sometimes clients ask for things that are not good for them."

"Clients? Serum girls?"

"We have many natural women as clients," said Kain, "but they have a different camp. We find that mixing serum girls and born-women is disruptive, particularly for the serum girls."

Carran nodded. "Then all the…guests I meet here will be...like me?"

"Certainly. No other client is likely to mock another just for being a serum girl."

Carran drew a deep breath. "That's good to know."

"Most serum girl clients are happy with the rule," Kain affirmed. "But down to the matter at hand. Your application doesn't say why you are asking for such an extreme first-time fantasy. It could psychologically scar an inexperienced woman."

"I can't quite explain it, but I don't want to have any experiences beforehand. Anyway, what is the need for experience? Isn't it the slaver's specialty to teach women, even raw, newly transformed woman, all about making love?"

Kain's verdant eyes narrowed. "Our people can teach a woman how to brol skillfully and to behave cheerfully as they do it -- if you would excuse the terminology. But 'making love' is something very different. It's not a technique; it's a thing of earnest emotion. It comes from the depths of a woman's spirit and is not a thing to be taught."

Lady Carran found herself regarding Mistress Kain closely, as if she had not expected to hear such a thing from this beautiful and formidable-looking slaver.

"But I think I understand what you are saying," Kain continued. "You want to begin this feeling like a virgin, but you especially relish the idea of having that purity ripped from you, and you do not want to feel like you are being given any choice in the matter."

Carran's look was inscrutable, but the taller woman thought that she was on the right track.

"But, Madam, a fantasy like this one might profoundly shock someone who is unprepared. Slavers shock true prisoners to reshape them psychologically. Harsh shocks are not desirable in therapeutic fantasies. You have no experiences to cushion the severity of such a real-seeming slave-breaking experience, nothing at all, other than your memories of your male sexual experiences. And exclusively male experiences may only complicate the trauma."

"I don't know how I will react," the lady confessed. "I have no frame of reference, obviously. I have had slaves of my own, but I was never very good at projecting myself into their skins. But something, something as urgent as the slave need itself, tells me I have to do this, that I should want to do this."

"My lady, if you will excuse me for saying so, there are persons whose pleasure comes from being hurt. What do you feel about physical and emotional pain?"

Carran felt a hot blush. "I've never considered myself a vadinist." She had used the term that braeds used. The lady Vadine had given her name to the passion that some had for enjoying pain and bondage. How the woman had lived her private life was little known to the general public, but she had been a writer of erotic slave novels that were so shocking that they had never been hugely popular, except with braeds doing psychological research. "It is so hard to explain what I feel," the lady said. "Especially to a real woman."

Mistress Kain now learned forward over her desk, her expression sympathetic and encouraging. "It may set your mind more at ease if I explain that I was born male, myself."

Carran looked askance. This was something that she hadn't expected. If it were true, Kain's beauty had not the product of a cosmetic serum after all, but of the dreaded Ruk's Serum.

Most Ruk maids looked like voluptuous dancing girls, Carran knew. They looked like her: not tall, not strong, curvaceous, full breasted. Mistress Kain did not look like that. But if a serum girl was unhappy with the "luck of the needle," physicians could prepare a new Ruk injection to make a girl look like any other sort of woman, even a short, homely, or masculine one, if it suited her.

She had to ask, "How…?"

"How did it happen?" Kain shrugged. "Slavers make enemies. I was a field slaver back then. I bought many captives from war camps, often from officers with appointments similar to yours, in fact. I personally injected my share of prisoners with Ruk's Serum. Some of those men whom I turned into ravishing females I trained for sale, and they brought good prices. I also collared a good many men's wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters. Some who lost a loved one may have thought that what I did was more than a means of making a living for me, that I was evil, I mean. To make a long story short, a Ruk dart thrown from behind a tavern door changed my life."

"I'm sorry."

Kain grinned ruefully. "And I'm sorry for you. Admitting what I am sometimes makes these conversations go easier."

Carran smiled back as best she could. But in doing so, a dark thought crossed her mind. It was said that one shouldn't smile at a wild kahek, and one shouldn't smile at a professional slaver. Mothers told their children to never do anything that made a slaver notice him or her, and most of all one should never make him or her feel welcomed. It was like calling a mundor into the burrow of a durgoth. The young of the durgoth normally did not fare very well.

Slavers, they lady knew, were trained as harshly as soldiers were trained. But they were not trained to kill; they were instead drilled in the science of crushing the human will, of stripping the dignity from even the most secure and confident woman, of inflicting hurt and humiliation as a matter of routine. This was how they instilled the slave mentality into ordinary women, or into men changed into women. If assigned to break even a former friend to slavery, it was said that a slaver would consider it professionally unacceptable should he refuse to do so.

"It was an instructive experience," Kain continued. "I decided to leave the field-slaving profession after that. It wasn't so much that I started to feel sorry for our captives' pain. What was disconcerting was the speed at which I came to envy their pain."

Lady Carran continued to listen, fascinated.

"It was an amazing thing," said Kain, "to realize how little resistance an abductor would encounter in me. I felt the urge that almost all serum girls feel -- to kneel and cross my wrists before one who I would have selected especially because I thought he would give me the brand and the collar."

This statement coming from a stranger surprised Lady Carran. Kain's words might have been coming from the noblewoman's own secret thoughts.

The slaver was staring at her comely reflection on the tabletop. "I selected a new appearance as soon as I could medically do so. That helped; one's looks does give a person confidence. This has been good shape for a lash mistress. But this body, so impressive from the outside, has always been like a costume that I wear. Nothing can rip the slave genes away from my nervous system. I had to learn the hard way how weak the human will can be against the desired outcome that Ruk sought."

Kain glanced up and thought that the lady was looking at her strangely.

"I'm sorry. Have I said more than you wanted to know?" the slaver asked with a wane smile.

Carran shook her head. "It only surprises me to hear a slaver to admit to human weakness."

Kain raised her chin and tried to look strong. "One shouldn't do so in front of a woman he or she is training -- that cheats the trainee of her fantasy. But I did want to let you know that I can listen to almost anything you have to say with sympathy.

"Your…frankness…is a relief. But you said, 'used to threaten.' Did…your condition…get better?"

Kain nodded, remembering those days. "I was very eager to kill it. I tried to find relief in the old time-tested ways, through sublimating -- with oernads, casual lovers, slave clubs, even slave camp fantasies. I think it helped, since I never actually went out seeking the collar." She smiled ironically. "Well, I suppose that part's obvious, since I wouldn't be here speaking to you if I had. But what really brought me out of what I considered was a very dark place was finding this job and making it my business to do it well."

Carran blinked. She didn't see how any sort of a desk job could satisfy a serum girl's terrible desires.

"Here, I'm safe and I dwell in a protected environment," Kain explained. "Getting beyond the paralyzing fear that one can be abducted and collared by a treacherous friend or a lurking stranger at any moment is important. Also, I like this work better than I every liked buying and training slaves. We are using the best psychological science there is to try to help serum girls stay free. I still make a living, but this is a much more fulfilling way of doing it."

"Again, that's not what I would have expected any slaver to say."

Kain shrugged. "Most sons follow in their father's craft or profession. The work of slaving has always seemed as natural as pie selling to me. My father was -- and is -- a slaver; my mother is the slave who loved him then, and who loves him now. It used to make me wonder how be he could break any woman's will with such ease, and still be kind to my mother and me. I think I loved him ten times more then before when he first saw me as…a serum girl…and his reaction was not to drive me from his sight, but to take me into his arms and weep. I thought he was weeping not for his family's shame, but for my sorrow, and the strange life I would have to live from then on."

Kain caught herself and cleared her throat. "But this is about you, not me," the slaver said. "We are here to help make your stay a happy and curative one."

Carran nodded, noting the sudden shift from personal honesty to the company spiel.

Mistress Kain, for her part, was trying to read the serum girl intuitively. She believed that she did have a fair instinct in that regard. Understanding the person before one had made Kain a good trainer and, more recently, a successful counselor.

"Sometimes these things are hard to put into words, my lady, but think about it this way: People have to tell their physicians all sorts of embarrassing things. We are professionals here, just like medical men are. They give relief in their own way; we give it in ours. A troubled psyche is like a cancer in a serum girl's body, and it needs to be treated."

Carran sighed. "Cancer can be cured. Can a serum girl's need ever be cut away?"

"Not so easily. But with therapeutic sublimation, a serum girl's compulsions may be kept in check. A serum girl is most vulnerable if she forgets who she is. Not who she was, but who she is." Kain was looking directly into her guest's eyes. "I will be perfectly honest. Although small percentage of our clients has crossed wrists and accepted the collar even after therapy, most who receive our help are able live free and productive lives. I would like to think that I'm the living example of one such person who is doing just that."

"You make slavers sound just like braeds," lady with the beauty of a silk slave said.

Kain's full lips tightened with amusement. "We may be more effective than braeds. You've been to at least one. How did it go?"

Carran grimaced. "It was hard for me to speak to him. When I finally did, he recommended that I come here."

"It was probably the right decision, but, as I've said, your fantasy is a very rigorous one. Imagine yourself lying in the dark, treated as less than an animal, naked amid itchy straw, crying your heart out with fear and humiliation -- as you almost certainly will. There will be no one to comfort you, because that is part of your fantasy, too. Won't you reconsider what you are asking to put yourself through?"

When the lady didn't respond, Kain said, "We find that a fantasy of romance is best for a raw serum girl. Sex a powerful thing, and her first exposure to it should be with tenderness. There are several standard scenarios that our clients always extol. In one, a serum girl is abducted by a man who has loved her from afar. She used to be a rich and powerful man and she's still trapped in her old self-image. She yearns for the touch of a man, but she still can't see herself as a female who can accept a suitor. She's become so painfully ripe, but cannot bring herself to admit that she is obsessed with enjoying the pleasures of the silks with a male. The man who desires her has to use aggressive tactics to make her see herself as she really is, if he is not to suffer alone in anguish.

"The rogue is very daring when he steals her away from her bodyguards. His flamboyant audacity impresses the girl and makes her realize that her abductor is not from among the common stamp of men. But she remains too stubborn to admit to herself that she has more to gain from surrender than from resistance.

"Over a period of time, her lover masterfully conquers her pride and her vulnerable heart is laid bare. She does not grasp the dynamics of the situation at first, but she is becoming a true woman. Ruk's serum has given her the means to free the part of her soul that desires to belong utterly to another, and she begins to learn that tenderness calls out to tenderness…"

"No!" said Carran with a determined headshake. "That's a vintage that won't fill the cup of my thirst. If I think too much longer on this, I'll start thinking about jumping off a high bridge."

Kain met her frustrated glance foursquare. "Don't give into that, Lady Carran. Life is precious. I've been where you are, and I've been there longer. I know there is a new stream to follow on the river of life, and each of us can find the way to new fulfillment."

Carran tossed her hand dismissively. "Yeah, sure."

Sighing, Kain picked up a page and skimmed it. "You are requesting the longest possible fantasy," she said, "one to be done as realistically as possible, and it involves your being kidnapped and enslaved professionally. They aim should be to prepare you for a life of public pleasure slavery. You are asking that only the most basic legal restrictions be placed upon the nature of that training. When you are deemed ready, you will then be installed into our camp siolat house, there to act in the role of a lowly cup girl, one with absolutely no privileges. You will be required to do in all ways what a common tavern slave is expected to do."

"That's about the sum of it," Carran affirmed in a very low tone.

Kain made a small, thoughtful sound in her throat. At least the lady sounded somewhat embarrassed by what she was asking. But why ask at all? Why did Carran need such a brutal whore fantasy? Was it because brutal enslavement was her greatest fear? Did she need to face it in as much realism as possible and overcome it, to have the confidence to go on without fear?

When the lady didn't expand upon her statement, Kain glanced at the document again. "You want to be sexually trained as a public slave. The sex you have should be with a wide variety of casual lovers. Furthermore, you do not wish that any of your trainers step out of the fantasy at any time, nor should ever permit you to do so. Is this correct?"

Carran's mouth must have felt dry, for her simple reply came out as a stammer. "Y-Yes."

Kain nodded. "This type of fantasy is normally asked for by a very jaded Ruk-maid. She has worked up to it gradually. But you? You're asking us to help you go from chalet to the mountaintop in one single jump. It's difficult to believe that any responsible braed could endorse such a plan."

Carran reply came slowly. "I…managed to…explain it fully to my physician, and he really, truly, did endorse it. He understands that I am a very hard case that needs extreme measures."

"What end do you seek by such extreme measures?"

She shrugged again. "Satisfaction? To prevent me from submitting myself to true slavery? To prevent a suicide attempt?"

To Kain, these seemed like questions, not answers. How could she, as a contract negotiator, approve in good conscience such an extreme fantasy. Such a scenario, should it go bad, would place the reputation of her whole company at stake. Why, the client either wouldn't admit why to the real reason why she sought to have it, or else truly didn't know herself.

There had to be something that Carran was afraid to say, or that she was ashamed to admit to? But what was it?

Finally, Kain said, "Maybe what you say is true, but we have to verify that you have your physician's consent. She took another paper out of the small stack. "This is a release form, authorizing your braed to state formally and professionally that the fantasy you have requested is an appropriate one; appropriate, I mean, for a woman in your state of mind and health. He must also declare that in his best professional assessment, the said fantasy will be beneficial to you, or at least not harmful."

Carren sighed. "I don't think there will be any problem getting my doctor's consent."

"Very good." Kain handed her the paper. "Before you go home, please fill this out and leave it with the receptionist."

"I will," the lady responded dejectedly, as if she hated the idea of paperwork.

Mistress Kain now rested back in her chair, her arms folded. "You were a soldier, Lady, and maybe you are not daunted by the prospects of a physical and emotional ordeal. But if you have any doubts at all, may I suggest a plan that should save you some pain, as well as a loss of sleep?"

"I assure you, I don't want to be actually injured. It's just that there should be pain, just to make it feel real."

"Hear me out, my lady. Are you familiar with Chadwor's serum?"

Carran scowled, as if Kain had made an inappropriate joke. "Everyone knows about that stuff," she replied testily. It was, in fact, meat for all sorts of dirty japes around military camps.

"The serum makes a woman hyper-ticklish," Kain explained, "so that a mere bird's plume is as effective as a whip when it comes to breaking the will of a resisting slave. The sensation is so unbearable that even a child could force a grown woman to beg for slavery rather than be subjected to it for very long. If you received Chadwor's serum, our people wouldn't have to use the lash for discipline, but they would simply give you a good tickling."

A light seemed to come to Lady Carran's eyes, as if she were considering new things in a new way. "It's something to think about," she at last said.

"Discuss it with your physician, or with your temple," Kain recommended. "We can administer a proper dosage here at the camp prior to the beginning of your visit, or else a doctor of your choice can give it to you. It takes about a week to become effective, and the effects are life-long. Unfortunately, the cost is dear. If it were not, every silk slave in the world would probably receive it.

"The last I knew, the cost of an injection was about three hundred silvers. Free woman often take the serum voluntarily, so that a slaver would not have to inflict the much crueler punishment of the last should they fall captive. The advantage to the slave is that the effects of a tickling vanish almost immediately after the feather, or the camel hair brush, is put aside."

"So I have heard," replied Carran in a murmur.

"Now," continued Kain," here is one thing that is especially problematical in your application."

The lady raised her chin, clearly not liking to have her application challenged further. "What?"

"You seem to want to waive the option that allows for an early release from the camp. Is that correct?"

Carran looked uneasily away. "It...is."

"Would that be wise? Some people ask for a fantasy that turns out to be too intense for them. To send such a person home early is usually the best solution."

Lady Carran shook her head. "A real slave girl doesn't have the option of going home early. If I knew that I was able to opt out, it would absolutely ruin the experience for me. I want to know that the only alternative to obedience will be punishment, not release."

Kain's mouth puckered thoughtfully. "It may be too easy for you to say that now. But you can't possibly be ready for what a woman undergoes when she is being forcibly prepared for…public whoredom."

"Why should I be any less ready for -- whoredom, as you call it - than is some teenaged girl who's been ripped from her home and subjected to much worse treatment than the law allows a slave camp to subject a client to?"

The slaver shook her head. "But there's a difference. A slaver is trying to remake a captive's personality utterly, to make her suitable for a new role in life. Our therapy, on the other hand, seeks to satiate needs and impulses which much be fed periodically if a woman is to carry on comfortably with her day to day life."

What has been your experiences as a serum girl if you find it so hard to understand me?"

Kain looked closely at the woman. "My experiences have been many and varied. But not all serum girls feel the same way about everything. Repressed girls, or girls who had very weak sexual libidos as males, hardly need sex or slavery at all. But I guessing that what you are really saying this that you are not seeking either pleasure or pain in this request. In your own eyes, it is something that you need to complete yourself, isn't it?"

Carran felt surprised. What Kain had said felt approximately right. It was such a relief to be understood, at least partially. Carran began to wonder if she didn't share more than she had thought with this dark-haired woman. It suddenly occurred to her that she actually liked Mistress Kain.

But the ex-soldier inside the former Captain Carran gave warning. One couldn't expect the return of friendly sentiments from a slaver. It was a slaver's business to practice cruelty, to destroy and reshape personalities. Those in the slaving trade had to be amoral, just as Carran had had to be amoral as a staff officer.

Should the lady have to meet Mistress Kain while experiencing her fantasy, the slaver would take the role of a thrall-mistress encountering a slave. She would be harsh, condescending, and dismissive. When treated that way, how foolish would seem any good impression she had ever had of this impressive young woman?

"Lady?" Mistress Kain inquired.

"I'm sorry. Were you waiting for an answer?"

"Not exactly, but there is another problem in your application."

"And what is that?" Carran asked, her tone strained.

"It's this rule you want, to the effect that no one shall step outside the fantasy. We do not, unless there are good reasons. And, in fact, there could be any number of good reasons. The time may come when we would have to communicate with you, not as a slave in a role-playing scenario, but as the Lady Carran."

The blonde seemed about to protest, but Kain forcibly pressed to finish what she had started to say.

"I propose that we designate at least one staff person to be allowed to speak to you as the person whom you really are. A camp counselor would be the best choice. Not only could he discuss matters of business, but also help you regarding any difficulty that you may have in adjusting to your fantasy."

Carran regarded the handsome woman intently. "You're a counselor, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, I am."

"Well, the whole proposition goes against my idea of a perfect fantasy, but I could agree to it, providing that my liaison with the camp authorities was you."

Mistress Kain blinked. This wasn't anything she had bee angling for, but it made sense. Carran knew no one else in the camp, and it has seemed that the two of them had been gradually coming into rapport. Did Carran lack anyone to help or understand her, so that she was turning to someone she had just met?

Kain knew about that. When a man became a serum girl, family and friends often became like strangers. Kain herself had been spared that, with her parents at least, and with their love and support, she had found her courage, her own way out of the darkness. She was guessing that Lady Carran had nothing and had no one, that she was feeling totally lost. If the lady had someone she could depend on, for at least a little while, she might escape from her own darkness. Kain had always taken her counseling duties seriously. And now to take this lady's hand and guide her would feel satisfying, both personally and professionally.

"That type sort of counseling is not among my usual duties any longer," the slaver said, "but it shouldn't get in the way of my other responsibilities. Yes, I'd be glad to accommodate you."

Carran looked relieved, but Kain's expression grew more serious. "But we haven't settled the matter of the most serious objection to your application as written."

"Something else?"

"I'm afraid so. It's this no-opt-out clause. To hold you and not let you leave despite any protest you might make would make the camp vulnerable to a charge of illegal restraint. This is something that the legal department might not want to touch." She saw a flash of disappointment on the lady's face.

Not many minutes before, would have used this excuse to summarily dismiss Lady Carran's application. But being accepted as her counselor put another face on the matter; it empowered her to help make this risky affair turn out right. If the application were rejected, Carran only need go to a less scrupulous camp, probably in a foreign city, where her rights might not be so well regarded. She could end up emotionally scarred for life. On the other hand, if Aljama City Slave Camp conducted the slave-play scenario, Kain might herself have enough leverage to ameliorate the lady's experience, should its high-risk stipulations make it go out of hand.

"But before I upset you needlessly," the slaver said, "I can suggest a way to satisfy our lawyers and yet save your fantasy."

"What way?"

"The laws of some cities, including ours, allows for an adult citizen to voluntarily assume a legal minor status. It can be set to be in effect for a definite term, such as a month. Any adult citizen can apply to the magistrate of guardianship to have some responsible person of his choice appointed as his temporary guardian. This goes beyond mere power of attorney. He would able to enact contracts and obligations binding upon his ward, and make all decisions that an adult would otherwise make for himself. The ward is treated under law as a legal incompetent."

"I'm vaguely familiar with that arrangement, but I thought it was very rare."

"Yes, it is that. But once the arrangement is enacted, it's like being under the authority of a traditional father."

"And the point is?"

"The point is that it's an arrangement that would probably be acceptable to our legal department. You will have time to select the trustworthiest guardians, one who will respect your wishes in every way. In particular, he could agree not to allow for your release until you have experienced every day of your contracted visit. Then the onus of…of any problems that may arise would be on your representative, and not on the camp."

Carran's thought that through. "It sounds like a workable idea."

"But I caution you, don't be hasty or careless in your choice. Sometimes a kinsman, or a child, or a spouse can be the worst possible nomination. Family members may harbor secret resentments, or lust after legacies. You would lose all control over your own life and be at that person's mercy."

"You certainly make it sound risky."

"It is risky. In some cities, the law does not prohibit a guardian from putting his ward to death, just as a father is empowered to put family members to death under the Ancient Law. What works best is the appointment of a major law firm to act as your appointed guardian. Choose one that will have a good reputation at stake. Any chicanery should put them at risk to lose important future business if they treat their client's case with bad faith or negligence."

The lady sighed. "It's a sad day when we seem able to trust lawyers more than our own families." She paused, and then decided to say what was on her mind. "Some members of my our consider me an embarrassment and wish that I would just disappear. If I were branded and collared in a tavern in earnest, I doubt many of them would worse about my being a member of their family than they already do. I suppose they'd prefer it, since I'd be far away and somebody else's problem."

Mistress Kain's expression conveyed her condolences. "Whomever you choose," she said, "it will be up to you. The board will insist on reviewing any proposed arrangement before accepting you as a client. If it turns out that your appointment leads to anything unfortunate, any resulting scandal or dispute would reflect badly on the Aljama City Slave Camp, even if we could escape direct culpability."

Lady Carran let that idea soak in and then, finding nothing to add to it, said, "Providing everything goes well, how long will it be until my fantasy is ready to launch?"

"Once all your documents are filed and approved, we shouldn't need more than thirty days of lead time. Most of that will simply be a matter of finding open spots in the work schedule of an appropriate cadre of trainers. The demands on our personnel are considerable. Many different fantasies are going on at the camp every day."

Lady Carran rubbed her chin. "Thirty days sounds acceptable. I'll do what I must to help facilitate the processing. I ought to have had my injection of Chadwor's serum well before the start date."

"Good. And once you're settled in, I think you'll feel like you really have been abducted and enslaved. Once you're deemed ready to be put into our little siolat tavern -- probably after only two to three weeks, it will seem like you are living the life of a real cup girl. You'll treasure the memories of your experience forever, I'm sure."

"I just hope that I can take something valuable away from it," she said, hardly seeming giddy with enthusiasm.

Again Kain wondered what, precisely, did the lady hope to take away from it. But all she said was, "And there is one important thing you ought to remember."

Lady Carran regarded the mistress curiously. "What's that?"

"That there is no law that says that you need only have one visit or one fantasy. We allow our clients to come back ninety days after the end of their last visit. In fact, we have serum girls, some of very high social rank, who have come here so often that they could pass qualifying tests and be certified as a fully trained pleasure slaves. Of course, they are not slave and know it, so they cannot attain ignition. Without ignition, there will always be a difference between a free woman in slave play and a true slave."

Carran looked sober. "It seems strange that so many of the prisoners of war whom I interviewed are now ignited pleasure slaves, and they certainly must be. But I don't know how many more times I need return here. I may be a very different sort of person after staying a month at your camp under the conditions I've asked for. This is all very new to me."

"I understand, my lady," Kain said sympathetically. "I remember having my first full-length fantasy; I don't think I was completely the same either. I choose to do it in another camp, away from the people I work with every day.

"Check the display board outside. It has descriptions of all the most popular fantasies. It should give you some idea of what you might like to do for future visits. And, of course, custom requests are always possible. Occasionally a custom request is used to pattern a standard scenario that other women may enjoy later one. Someday soon, you ought to try a romantic scenario, one with considerable kissing and petting. The only problem with that sort is that it's always over too soon."

Lady Corran smiled. Kain seemed to push romantic slave play very hard. She liked knowing that much about the handsome, dark-haired serum girl. From the faraway look in Mistress Kain's eyes, the noblewoman had no doubt at all that when she spoke about fantasies, she knew exactly what she was talking about.


End




















Corran thought that her assigned contract negotiator, Mistress Kain, impressed her somehow. Did Kain project danger? Not quite. The lady, before she had become a lady, had had dealt with slavers before in military camps. Some of those looked very dangerous and one could almost pity a serum girl who got into their hands. But she didn't feel any anything like that in the young-seeming woman. And she wasn't a field slaver; she had a desk job. The noblewoman shrugged imperceptibly, and sized her up as a serum girl's fantasy of the perfect lash mistress. Even a serum girl might wish to be broken to the collar by a woman of physical perfection, rather than some toad on two legs.

Of course, except for the tiny minority that was allergic to the genetic serum, no woman needed to be ugly. But some slavers believed that ugliness helped them in their line of work. For herself, Corran would much rather be whipped by a man or woman of beauty. The beauty of Mistress Kain evoked a delicious fantasy of pain; no doubt that was why she was a contract negotiator.

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