Alice Sinclair Gorean style BDSM fiction

“Yog and Set! Look what happened to that ship!”

The docks were busier than most days. The day was brighter than before and more so than the day before that. Lamps still needed to be lit, but one could walk without risk over the loose and creaking boards of the jetty. With the lightening of the sky, the seemed more energy in the air. More of a bustle. 

“Who would do such a thing? Was it Starka? Curses upon the snake-worshippers; if it’s a war they want, let’s give them one!” 

There were four boats anchored along the jetty. One was a large, crude barge of logs lashed together. Not even the bark had been removed. Workmen with iron axes and safety ropes around their waists got to work, hacking the logs free. On the jetty, alongside the log barge, was a group of woodsmen in heavy fur cloaks, axes, and knives at their sides. They haggled with a merchant for the best price for their lumber. The merchant threw up his hands and made a show of walking away. The woodsmen watched him leave but made no protest. They would wait for a better offer. 

“Stop gawking and get out of the way! There are people on the ship who need help!” 

The second boat was a Shemite Dow with bright red and yellow sails. The men aboard it spoke a dialect I did not understand. They offloaded large clay jars, each carried by two straining men. They arranged them in rows on the jetty. A Duran merchant lifted aside the lid from one and dipped his finger in. It came back gleaming. He licked it, seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. Behind him, dockworkers began unloading sacks of black rice from a cart. There were three carts, all parked in a row. 

On the other side of the jetty was the third ship. It was a large, sea-going, Armanean vessel. Its sails were black: it was a pirate ship. An unsmiling crew of Armaneans, Shemites, and Zidonese went up and down its gangway. To one side, they were stacking sacks of rice - each patterned with the design of Starka, our rival city. Across from the rice sacks, a group of naked, Shemite slave girls huddled, kneeling, heads down, wrists crossed behind their backs. Each girl’s hands were cuffed, and a chain ran from one girl’s collar to the next. Their thighs were marked with the brand of Marna, a Shemite city-state that supported Starka. The girls were quiet, even for slaves. Some rocked back and forth. Others were covered in blood - I knew well, sadly, the pattern of arterial spray. It was, I imagined, the blood of their last owners… City guardsmen stood to attention in front of the pirate ship. Their captain, a bald man, counted out the rice bags and pulled out gold coins for them. He seemed in no rush to value the slave girls.

Sailing towards the jetty - if the word sailing can be used - was the fourth vessel, a half-burned ship. One side of it hung too low, the sign of compartments filling with water. Its sails were tattered and fire-blackened. The ship flew both Dura’s colors and the Burgher Council’s. It was as a ship that had been on official city business.

“It is Burgher Agret’s ship!”

“It is back from the Hataduri settlement!”

“Yog, take these marsh tribals! We should burn them all out!”

“Marsh tribals didn’t do that, you fool!”

I joined the crowd that was gathering on the jetty. Most were lookers-on. Whistles blew, and city guardsmen came running. They shoved their way forward.

Lines were thrown from the ship, and teams of dockworkers grabbed them, quickly tying them to posts. There was the splash of the anchor dropping, and the half-wrecked ship came to a halt. Even before the gangway was thrown down, men were climbing the ropes to the ship like hanging monkeys. The city guards began yelling at the crowd, then each other and formed a cordon. The gangway was thrown down, and the first of the damaged ship’s crew came down it.

They were perhaps the sorriest-looking group of men I had ever seen.

One had his arm in a sling. It was wrapped in a dirty bandage. Leaning on his shoulder was another sailor with a bandage tied around his eyes. A pair of men carried a stretcher between them. Lying on it with a piece of torn sail for a sheet was a pale man. His face was covered in sweat. There was a dirty mass of bandages where his left leg had been. An officer in what remained of the full-ceremonial uniform of the city guard staggered down the gangway. His eyes were bloodshot. He stared this way and that as if unable to understand what he was seeing. One of the guards on the jetty went towards him. The bloodshot-eyed soldier drew his sword. His fellow sailors ran to him and pulled him aside.

“Where are they,” asked the city guard. It was the bald captain I had seen earlier, paying the Armanean pirates. “Where are the Burghers?”

“They’re dead,” said the officer with the bloodshot eyes. He laughed, his white teeth standing out like desert-polished bones in his grimy face. “They killed them all.”

“The marsh tribes?” Asked the bald officer.

“The Hataduri. They killed them all. Agret died in battle. Stanma, and Jada, they sacrificed. The Hataduri worship spiders,” the bloodshot guard giggled again. “We heard the screams.”

“Come to the Council, now,” said the bald officer. “Waste no time; come now!”

“Have you wine, Brother?” Said the bloodshot guard.

The bald officer stared at him. One of his men whispered something into his ear. The officer nodded.

“Yes, we have wine. At the Council’s meeting chamber. Come now, you and your men will have wine, and you can tell of what you saw.”

A junior officer yelled a command, and a detail fell into place around the bloodshot survivor. With the bald office at his side and several of the survivor’s ragged shipmates, they made their way down the jetty.

“What does this mean?” Asked someone.

“Is it a misunderstanding?” Asked another, standing behind me. “Surely, the Burghers will come to some settlement?” 

“It’s war. That’s what this means,” I said, turning around.

There was a gasp: a one-eyed dockworker recognized me.

I drew my hood and began pushing my way past the crowd, leaving the jetty.

There would be an emergency council meeting to decide what to do. I would not be attending. This was not Dura’s problem. This was a Burgher problem. All that would happen in the Council would be cowardice, blaming, or machinations to somehow turn it into Dura’s problem.

I wanted none of it.

***

“What’s this, Gerard?”

The veranda looked out on my home’s little courtyard. Blue, gold, and green glazed floor tiles made a mosaic of a hill at sunrise, with deep, blue-black waters coming up to swallow both the land and the sun itself. Across from the veranda, the courtyard was a cozy, open, green space with a stone fountain at its center. The fountain had never worked: from what Dura’s finest lazy and entitled masons told me, the engineering required the skill of a Mi-Go. Instead, water plants pushed their way up along its sides. Tiny, armored fish made ripples as they disturbed the surface. Hanging from stocks were dragonflies larger than my hand. Their insect minds, optimized by millions and millions of years of evolution, weighed whether to lay eggs in the water that would be eaten or to hunt those that would eat their eggs.

Across the courtyard, the grass was in full retreat. It had been foolish of me to try and grow it in this hostile soil. Without most of my harem here anymore, I didn’t have the slave-power to keep pulling out all the weeds. Crawling plants and ferns had popped up between cracked stones and empty, shaded patches. Conifer-like seeds dropped by giant bats had spawned a stand of bright green shoots as tall as my knee.

I sat at the veranda table, a large wooden slab cut and sealed with an oil that gave the light wood a yellow tinge. Stretched out over half the table were parchment maps. Some I had collected from fishermen and farmers who lived along the Black. Others, I had drawn myself.

Fogrim appeared from a doorway onto the veranda. Standing on either side of him were two tall, Caucasian girls. Their builds were elegant, graceful, and athletic. They were a picture of Amazonian beauty. Both were brunettes with hair that fell down to the small of their backs. One had lighter brown hair. The other’s was much darker. Both girls had dark, intelligent eyes. Their faces were oval, with well-formed cheekbones.

Both were tanned. 

“Where did you - how?” 

“Been a long time since you’ve seen that, yes?” Fogrim grinned. “One almost forgets the tones.” 

Both the tanned girls had their hands bound behind their backs. There were rope marks where their ankles had been tied until just recently. Each wore the most simple of collar designs, just rough, cast iron semi-circles held together by hammered pins. It was the kind you saw camp followers stamping out behind besieging lines while waiting for a city to fall. Cheap, quick, good enough for the job. 

It wasn’t just their skin tans that were unusual. Their eyes also kept darting back and forth, assessing their surroundings. It was how captured soldiers might behave, readying for their chance to break out. 

The girls kept glancing at Fogrim. There was no nervousness in their eyes. No urge to intrigue him, either. They seemed to be watching for him to misstep. To give them the opportunity they were waiting for. 

As they noticed me, they regarded me in the same way.

Fogrim was holding each of the girls by the back of their necks. All of a sudden, he gave them a hard shove. The darker-haired girl stumbled to her knees before my table. The other stumbled forward two steps but did not go down. She turned to look back at Fogrim, glaring. Her back was straight. The slim lines of her long arms and endless legs made my heart skip. Such a beauty! 

“How are they tanned?” I put down my quill.

“They are Siberians!”

Fogrim grabbed the still-standing girl by her bound arms. She gritted her teeth and tried to shake free. Fogrim laughed and forced her to her knees. Side-by-side, the girls, exchanged knowing glances. They began murmuring under their breath, right in front of us! Only girls who have not been slaves very long are so foolish or brazen. 

“Are they not the loveliest beasts, Gerard?”

The ‘Siberians’ were Ancient North Eurasians. A people from 24,000 BC that survived the Last Glacial Maximum; a world of drought, deserts, and titanic glaciers. They had persisted in the Siberian steppes before mixing with neighboring peoples as the planet warmed again – spreading a new trait they had evolved; blonde hair. These two were fine examples of their people; strong, hardy, beautiful. 

However, the Event had transformed the market for such girls. With so many docile, Hyperborean women kneeling to wear a collar for a fistful of rotting rice, the price of “vulgar,” harder to train, Landing Beast meat had dropped. As such, there were fewer slavers working the wastelands of the Red River, as Frogrim and I had once done. 

This, in turn, had increased the average time from when a Landing Beast captive emerged from her egg, dazed and mindless with Landing Sickness, to when slavers would find her. Most Landing Beast girls no longer came to their senses to find themselves already caged. Instead, most had recovered their wits when slavers made contact. 

For the most part, the result was the same. Instead of slavers catching disoriented, wandering females, they found starving and dehydrated ones, more than happy to face whatever dubious future lay beyond the certainty of rescue by men with ropes and cages.

Not so, however, with Siberian women. If you came for a Siberian girl a day late, it was the difference between taking her off her hands and knees and throwing her across your saddle to finding her armed with a club or sling - and a few other girls. Slavers are not warriors; they are business people. It is not in their interest to be injured, enter skirmishes, and lose men. An armed Siberian girl is more desirable, if anything - but there was nothing profitable about pursuing her. I have talked to slavers unlucky enough to have scars made by Siberian short bows but lucky enough to have scars to show me.

These armed-Siberian girls were creating their own culture in the clay-red wastes of Red River and beyond. Here and there, men found half-cleared river-side plots sowed with wild, black cereals and (the more) edible root vegetables. Others came across fishing lines made of sinew and twine. Black smoke in the mornings would lead to dying fire pits, circled with footprints made by shapely, dancing feet. The smarter slavers left these places before nightfall. They also discovered what happened to those foolish enough to stay the night instead.

These bands of Siberian and Siberian-lead girls were changing the Red River wasteland region. Some traded with the slavers, giving them girls they had captured themselves in exchange for tools, iron, and weapons. Others became guides or even guards, protecting against attacks by other girl warbands and leading slavers to more distant landings. 

Most, however, were hostile, taking what they could from whoever they came across, making alliances with other warbands, and setting traps for men with more chains than sense.

What all this meant was that new Siberian girls were now rarer in the markets. They were captured less by business-minded professionals and more by adventurers and sport hunters, who would more likely keep their beauties as trophies than sell them. This was what made these two girls so unusual.

The darker-haired one noticed my eye on her. She returned my gaze but then didn’t look away at once as any other slave girl would. It was only after a few seconds too long that she seemed to remember her situation and glanced aside. She muttered something to the other. The other girl then looked at me and grunted a reply.

I studied their thighs. Neither girl had been branded. That they still had their tans meant they had been in the dark of Hyperborea for less than a week. 

“Are they even broken?” I asked.

“Not by our standards,” said Fogrim. “But they were broken on the cross. They tense at the sight of the whip. And, both know the taste of a man at the back of their throats.”

Fogrim grabbed the darker-haired girl by her collar and yanked her to her feet. She wheezed and choked, eyes wide, as the crude collar bit into her skin.

Before she could recover, he pushed her forward and bent her over the table. 

“What are you doing?” Asked Fogrim. As he did so, he forced the girl’s face against the table, her cheek pressed against its surface. Her face was just inches from my hand. Her lips were pouty, large. With his other hand, Fogrim began rummaging inside his pack.

“I’m studying the region where that Hataduri plantation is,” I replied.

The slave girl stood on tiptoe and parted her legs, making them form a “Λ.” Fogrim had been correct; the two had indeed made it through a slave camp, no matter how raw and under-trained they were. This beauty was hardly keen to be fucked over the table by him. However, she had learned that the best way to survive a Hyperborean male was to redirect his energy. Those in her camp that hadn’t learned this had failed training. They would have been culled. 

From the floor, the lighter-haired girl watched. Her eyes opened wider and wider, and her jaw dropped. Her face was a picture of open shock - and disgust.

Fogrim, however, did not use the girl bent over the table. He had other plans. 

“I thought you said you would not get involved?” he said. From his pack, he pulled out a small mallet and an iron pin, not unlike the one that a sculptor might use. Next, he pulled out a pair of good quality snap-lock collars. They had leash chains attached. They clinked as he drew them out.

“I still need to know what’s going on,” I looked back down at the map. “What kind of a ‘plantation’ can do that to a ship like the Open Sky? It sounds more like a military force.”

“It must be. They would not send their farmers and slaves out here without protection. It is impressive that they have sailed so far from their home continent! We can only imagine the hunger in their land.”

There was a chaining ring set in the center of the table. It was covered by one of my maps. Fogrim moved the map aside (with less care than I would have liked) and fastened the leashes to it.

The darker-haired slave, the side of her face still pressed against the table, watched him.

“It is not the only one like it, either,” I pulled out another map and unrolled it over the first. “There are reports of more plantations. One is here, on the Jagged Teeth tributary. Also, here, in the Kostmark Shallows,” I tapped on an island. “This one has several ships.” 

“Are the Borderlands being invaded?” Fogrim frowned. 

“I think we are looking at the beginnings of a migration, instead.”

“You are optimistic about such things.” 

“Well, it can go badly. If it does, it will do much more damage than any planned invasion could.”

The Armanean riot, and the ongoing disarmament of their entire ethnicity that had followed, did not need mentioning between us. Like Rome with the Mongol-fleeing Goths, Dura had had an opportunity. And like Rome, Dura was squandering it.

Fogrim placed the tip of the metal pin against one of the bolts that held the slave girl’s collar together. He took aim with the mallet, frowning with concentration. Her eyes became wide, but before she could react, he struck. There was a loud clang that reminded me of my blacksmithing days, and the whole table shook. The slave kept still. Fogrim struck the pin a second, then a third time. The fourth time, the iron pin came out. In this way, he removed the second pin as well and tossed the two halves of the collar to the floor. It clattered in front of the fairer-haired slave.

Next, Fogrim took a snap-lock collar and closed it around the girl’s throat. Click!

“To the table, Slave,” he said, turning to face the other girl.

She stared at him, her face blank. 

The next moment, she was crying out as Fogrim picked her up and deposited her on top of the table and on top of my maps.

“You know,” I pulled the inkpot away before it could be knocked over, “I am trying o work here.”

“So am I,” said Fogrim, “but my work is so more interesting.”

With one hand, he grabbed her by her throat and squeezed. This was a tactic - if you want a slave’s girl’s hands out of the way, squeeze her by her throat. This one clutched at his hand, trying to pull it away. 

With his free hand, Fogrim pulled her legs, one at a time, to make her stand against the table. 

She snarled and tried to shove him back, her feet braced against the stone floor.

Fogrim laughed and bent her over the table. His fingers disappeared into her thick hair, and he forced her head to the surface. Her chin was pressed onto a map. In her dark eyes was quiet rage.

“Spread your legs, Vilka,” the darker-had slave said in a Siberian dialect that I understood. Her expression was insistent. “By the Mammoth and the Bear, spread your legs, Vilka! You know what will happen if you don’t!”

Vilka spread her legs.

This time, however, Fogrim responded to the offering. He pulled down his pants, took hold of his penis, and shoved it into her. With one hand, he gripped her by her side. With the other, he kept her head down, hand around the back of her neck.

Her expression became one of long-suffering annoyance. She pouted as Fogrim began thrusting. At one point, she even rolled her eyes. The table shook as she was buffeted, her hair tossing. Fogrim was done in about 15 thrusts. He pulled out and let go of the girl.

She turned her head back to glare at him.

Fogrim smiled back. He locked one arm around her chest, the other around her throat. He then pulled her up and pressed her to his chest. She winced as he made her kiss him. It was a long kiss. He probed into her mouth, going where he pleased. 

It got my heart racing just to watch. I took in the sight of the darker-haired girl before me. The shape of her feet. The rising and falling of her chest. The light brown of her nipples. I noticed her eyes upon me. I regarded her, and she looked down, not holding my gaze, not looking away. Looking down meant submission.

A slave girl does not watch another being dominated without taking instruction herself. If these two survived another two weeks on Hyperborea, they would be as submissive and obedient as any well-thrashed cage meat.

Satisfied, Fogrim went back to work and removed the girl’s crude collar. I handed him the second snap-lock collar.

“You should do it,” he gripped her by her hair and yanked her head up, baring her throat for me. Her dark eyes found mine but did not waver. Still so full of fight, this one!

I pressed the collar against her throat. Her skin was cool and soft under my fingers.

“Such a beauty,” I said. “Welcome to Hyperborea.”

Click!

Fogrim made both girls climb onto the table and kneel, facing me. 

“What do you think of them?”

“They are lovely. A real find, these two. I’m impressed that you could pick out such quality in such a huge market. What I don’t understand is why you want them on my table when I’m trying to work.” 

“So you can examine them, Gerard. As if they would be yours.”

“You want me to value them?”

“I want you to take them.”

A wave of hot emotion flashed through me. It was the warm, nonspecific flash of sexual hunger. It is a feeling everyone knows, but infrequently, in the 21st Century. However, in a hyper-sexualized environment like Hyperborea, different emotions and reactions can form. Different psychologies develop that don’t exist in our time. I have seen slave girls whimper and rush to lick an unknown man’s feet and beg to be fucked. Even I had caused such reactions - and not been surprised at them when they happened. I cannot explain it. Hyperboreans are more sexual creatures than people of our time, and the bricks and mortar of their sex is not consent but power. 

As if with minds of their own, my hands moved to grip the dark-haired girl by her ankles.

“Tryina!” Cried Vilka.

Tryina - so that was this one’s name.

Her skin was warm, smooth. I felt the throbbing of blood in the veins just beneath her skin. She stared at me, her lips parted, as if about to speak but at a loss for words.

I moved up her carves, taking them in under my fingers. My hand slipped under her knees, then further along to stroke her thighs.

This was too much for her: she jerked and turned around, crumpling my map, kicked her legs, and brought her knees up against her chest. She glared at me, her hands behind her, pressed to the table. There was anger and fear in the glare. Yet, also confusion - and desire. 

Good meat, indeed. I stood, grabbed her by her ankles, and yanked her to me.

She cried out as she slid across the table, her crotch now pressed to mine. Her thighs were on either side of me. I slipped one hand behind her back and pulled her to me; she gasped as her breasts were pressed to my chest. They were warm, soft. With my other hand took hold of her dark, thick hair. It was so soft!

I yanked her head back, forcing her to look up at me. Her dark eyes twinkled. She looked back and forth between my eyes. Those full lips were parted, I felt the breath from them against my neck.

I kissed her. I closed my eyes and pressed against her lips, hard. I pushed him with my tongue and probed, showing her I could do with her whatever I pleased.

She did not try to pull away. 

After a few moments, I broke the kiss. I stared down into her eyes. They still darted back and forth, staring at mine. Her face was flushed. Again, she did not try to pull away.

I kissed her again, this time gentler. I had shown dominance, and she had not resisted - this was her reward. I teased her lips with mine and stroked her tongue. I let go of her hair and instead cupped and stroked her cheek. I took in her sent: her body was beaded with sweat.

I broke the second kiss and pressed my forehead against hers. Our eyes were not more than an inch apart. I held her like that, holding her. Her breathing began to match with mine. I felt her heels pressed gently against my back as she locked her legs around me.

“You can be happy, pretty flower,” I said in the Siberian dialect the slaves had spoken in.

Tryina’s eyes become surprised. 

“Or you can be miserable. What will you pick, Slave?”

“I - I am scared.”

“Do not be. This is natural. Is the wolf afraid that he hunts? The deer afraid that it runs? You have learned something about yourself. Something that I knew was in you from the moment I touched your ankles.”

“Please!” Her expression became pained. “I am afraid! I cannot be like this!”

I knew just what to do to push her over the edge.

“On your knees, War Bride,” I used the Siberian term for a girl captured from another tribe. I took hold of her again, by her hair.

Meek as a mouse, the Siberian, lifted her legs back onto the table, moved back to better position herself, and knelt before me. 

I pulled down my pants. 

She saw my penis and lowered her head to it. Those full, soft lips closed around me. It was a most delightful, warm seal.

“Begin, War Bride.”

She began rocking her head back and forth.

Tryina was a submissive. To become a Hyperborean slave was a dream come true for her.

“Tryina!” Yelled Vilka. “No!”

“Will you silence that one?” I asked Fogrim.

Vilka cried out as Fogrim slapped her. The force threw her head to one side. Then he slapped her again, throwing her head back the other way. 

A bead of blood formed in the corner of her mouth. She regarded Fogrim: it was a look of fear. She had realized, I think, how easily he could have broken her neck, instead.

Tryina’s head rocked faster. She pushed forward, her lips moving to the base of my cock. I felt the tip of her nose against my skin with each stroke. She stared up into my eyes and did not look away, even for an instant. 

I tightened my grip on her hair. With my other hand, I took hold of her bound hands. She clenched my hand and squeezed.

I came. She became still as I spurted. I savored the orgasm.

When I was done, my hand slipped from her hair to the back of her neck. There were beads of sweat there. I stroked her, my fingers going from the iron of her collar to the start of her hair.

Tryina looked up at me. Her mouth was full. I heard her swallow and saw the movement in her throat. Her face was flushed. She smiled at me and then licked her lips.

“Thank you, Master!” It was profound and unfeigned gratitude. She had learned something about herself - and been made to give into it. There would be no going back for this one.

I wiped myself with her hair; the semen glistened in it. She turned her head to try and lick it away; she had not yet been taught to clean the cock first after she had been used. 

“What will it be, pretty flower?” I scratched her under her chin as I would a cat. “Will you be happy or miserable?”

“I would be happy, Master!”

“Then get off the table, kneel at my side, and lick my feet. Perhaps, before the day is over, I will order you to stop.”

Tryina climbed down from the table. She knelt beside me, her knees together. Then, she tossed her hair aside and lowered her lips to my foot. She closed her eyes as she kissed and licked them. I felt those full lips pressing it, dragging over my foot. So soft!

“Part your knees.”

She spread her knees apart, wide.

“If I see your knees come together again, I will thrash you.”

Her lips made soft kissing sounds. She opened her jaw wide and stuck her tongue all the way out. She licked, going from one end of my foot to the other. Her head tilted all the way with the motion. It began with a chin pressed almost to her throat. It ended with her head tilting up and back as if coming up for air. Her eyes were shut; she was savoring every moment.

Vilka stared at her. Her expression was one of quiet, stunned, surprise - and horror. Her eyes met mine.

“Lick,” I commanded her. I extended my other foot. From my belt, I drew my whip; this one needed a boot on her neck.

Vilka looked down. Then, she crawled forward on her knees. Her leash chain jangled with each motion. When she had got as close as she needed to be, she lowered her head to my foot. She paused there, her head hovering.

“Ah!” She cried out. She jerked back, rising on her knees. The whip left a red mark on her back.

I grabbed her by her leash chain. It went taut as she tried to crawl back. She grimaced and jerked her head from side to side.

I pulled down on the leash, forcing her head almost to the floor. Then, I put my foot down on the chain.

She looked up at me with bright, intelligent eyes.

I spat.

She winced, saliva on her face.

“Lick it off, Slave.”

She did not.

“Ah! No, no! Please!”

I gave her five well-placed strokes. Three went across her back. Two, across the buttocks. The buttock strokes also caught the soles of her feet.

“Lick it, Slave!”

Her tongue darted out. It moved up and down like a windshield wiper, trying to reach my spit.

I pulled on her leash and dragged her to me. Her shoulder was pressed against my shin. Her hair fell down over my foot. It was soft and tickled.

I reached down and moved her hair out of her face.

She did not look up at me. She remained staring down at my foot.

If a slave licks your feet, she will lick your cock.

“Lick my foot, Slave.”

She lowered her lips to my foot and began to lick. I could feel just the barest tip of her tongue. She tried not to let her lips press against my skin. It was poor work, but it proved what I wanted to know.

“Will you make her suck your cock?” Asked Fogrim.

“In a bit, yes. What do you want for these two beauties? They are rare treasures; they must cost a good deal!”

“They did,” Fogrim sat down across from me. “But I would ask of you something dear, in exchange. Will you trade me, Haley, for them? Gerard? Gerard? It is a serious question, Friend.”

His words had hit me like a hammer.

“Gerard?”

I did not know what to say. I did not know what to think.

“Gerard?”

It was nothing I wanted to think about.

“I must ask if you will sell me her, Friend.” 

“Haley is not for sale.”

“I know you do not use her,” He leaned back. His manner seemed that of one going through a conversation they had practiced before a mirror many times. 

“It just hasn’t - I been so busy - and there are so many other slave girls -”

“It is good to see you treat the meat like meat. You have come a long way from the man who once killed other slavers just to protect slaves. Yet, there is no point in hiding Haley away in some dungeon. That is just you hiding from doing what you must do.”

“And what’s that?” I snapped.

Fogrim pointed to the foot-licking Vilka.

“To treat me like meat. It is important that you do it to her, Gerard, or at least allow it to be done for your own sake. Otherwise, you will always be that weakling you were back at the Red River slaving camp.”

“You thought I was a weakling?” I frowned.

“You understand many things now, Gerard, that you did not before. So, now, I can tell you this. Yes. I thought of you as a weakling. Everyone did.”

I said nothing. How could I dare? I was sure my next words would betray me worse than any traitor with a dagger could.

For a while, there was silence between us. The only sound was the splashing of water from the defunct fountain and the kissing of slave girl lips.

I had kept Haley locked away in a dungeon - and for quite some time now. I did not want to see her! The idea of treating her no better than I did these two disturbed me. Yet, why did I still have her if not to be used so?

I once gave a slave girl away as a door prize. Another I made thank me after whipping her behind till she could not stand. Then there was a redhead I had sent to Starka as a canvas for their finest tattoo artist, Sondaren the Needler. When returned, and worth fifty times her unpainted price, I had gifted her to Burgher Iskelda as an art piece. 

Yet, I could do none of these things to Haley. Not one. Not anymore. Not even close.

“It is alright,” said Fogrim. “Take these two beauties for now. Treat them as if they were your own. When I leave for Darfur, I will either take these two back with me, or I will take Haley. It is your choice. Save your decision for a later day. For now, put away your maps and enjoy these girls.”

He stood, patted me on the back, and left. Again, the only sounds were those of slave girls licking.

“What happens now?” Vilka asked Tryina. She was using a more obscure dialect this time, though it too was one I knew. “Do I suck his cock?”

“Something is wrong,” replied Tryina in the same tongue. “Suck his cock. Otherwise, I think he will beat you.”

“He might beat me if I try, too,” she replied, tossing her head to the side and taking my foot in both hands. “Look at his face. Be quick about it.” 

“Just suck his cock, Vilka.”

“You suck the bastard’s cock! Mammoth knows you seem to enjoy doing it.”

Tryina, unbidden, rose on her knees. She stuck out her tongue and ran it all the way up from my ankle to my knee.

“That’s right,” she took hold of my penis. “I will. I will be well-fed, and slept on a cushion, tonight.”

“With a chain at your throat!” Vilka hissed.

“So? You will also wear a chain. But you will not eat, and you will lie on a cold floor, and men will beat you.” 

Tryina took my cock in her hand and started pumping it. She paused for a moment, then resumed, dipping her head to lick it, as well. Then, she paused again and looked up at me.

I looked down. I didn’t even have an erection.