Alice Sinclair Gorean style BDSM fiction

"Yes. Yes, you will do nicely."

I was standing in one of breedery’s cells for pregnant and nursing slaves. To one side was a bare patch of stone; the cell didn't yet need its crib. On the other was a bed of straw, three inches thick. Lying on it, blinking, bits of straw in her long, black hair, was a Shang slave girl.

Her naked skin was pale. She got to her knees and sat up straight, tall and slender. As she sat back on her heels, she parted her thighs. There were four breeding marks inked on her inner thighs, three short, one long. She’d pupped three sons and a daughter for me. Each had been adopted by a prosperous farming family, allying me with them like a quasi-feudal lord. Tattooed above the Shang slave’s right breast was the number ‘7’.

A chain ran from her collar to an iron ring fixed to the wall. She looked up at me, eyes wide, her expression surprised.

"You are showing well, Seven.”

She looked down at her swollen belly and placed her hand against it. The transhuman female was in her second month of pregnancy. She appeared, though, as a baseline woman does, halfway through the whole process. One more month, and she’d pup. It would be a flawless birth - the transhumans didn’t have difficulty in childbirth. They had been well-engineered.

"Thank you, Master," she brushed a bit of straw from her hair and smiled. It was an innocent, almost simple-minded smile. "May I lick your feet?"

"Not yet," I unfastened her chain from the wall ring and wrapped it around my hand. "Heel."

I walked out of the cell with Seven crawling after me on her hands and knees.

"Master," she said, her leash change swinging, "are we going to the breeding cages below?"

"Shush, Slave."

Seven became quiet.

We came to a long passageway lit with oil lamps mounted every 20 feet. Their yellow lights didn’t flicker in the tunnel’s heavy, still air. My footsteps rang out on the stone.

Seven forgot her place and gasped out loud - for the past year, she'd only ever been in either her mother's cell or her breeding cage.  

"What did I say, Slave?" I stopped.

She rose on her knees and put her hands behind her head, looking down. This was an obedience stance, a slave position. There are many kinds, and they differ by region, city, and even household. Yet, you always know one when you see one.

This was a common kneeling stance. All my brothel girls were taught it. They were to do it whenever a man stopped and regarded them.

"I am sorry, Master."

Her tone was wrong. All wrong. What was missing? Something key. Fear! That’s what. There was no fear in her tone.

Seven was a tall, healthy beauty, but she wasn’t very smart. She was savvy enough to know how she should sound. Yet, she didn’t know how to fake it right.

This is the problem with breeding slaves; they know that once they are pregnant, and until they at last sent back to the breeding cages, they’re safe from the whip.

"That's all right, Seven," I reached into my pack and pulled out a leather device. She stared at it and gave me a look that seemed equal parts shocked, angry, and disheartened. "I know what to do with you!"

The device was similar to a ball gag. It had two leather straps with a buckle at the back. The ball-like structure was large and made of soft leather. It was covered in teeth marks. Running through the leather ball was a thin tube. It was sealed at the front of the gag by a wooden plug.

I held it before Seven.

“Open, Slave.”

Seven opened her mouth.

I slipped the ball in and pulled the straps tight behind her head before fastening them.

"There," I smiled, looking down at the gagged girl. I would make her wear it for the next ten days. Feeding and watering her was just a matter of removing the plug and inserting a funnel. They hated it.

The whip is not the only tool. It is just the first.

It was good for discipline for slaves to see a pregnant girl on your leash. It reminds the brothel meat they could be breeding meat, instead. It was for this reason I took Seven out of the breedery, for the first time, in over a year.

Wondering how many years it would be before her next time, I led the pregnant slave girl down the corridor and into the slave vaults under the Master’s Inn.

***

It doesn't do to spend too long away from the nitty-gritty of one's business. People slip into old patterns. Problems fixed become unfixed. Others appear that no one thinks to tell you about. This is no less true when you run a slave brothel. You have to roll your sleeves up and get involved with the day-to-day. You have to see what happens for yourself.

The ash-tainted morning sky looked down into the vault through large skylights. The poor light made the vault gloomy, but it was well enough to see by. Torches burned in wall brackets. The air was humid, still.

"There wasn't any pork at breakfast!”

"Yes, there was. Nadal ate it all, the shit!"

"I did not!"

"Where’s the mismating spice? Hurry up! Gerard is coming today. I’ll not have you lot make a fool of me in front of him!"

I stood at the entrance to the main vault. It was 90 feet long and about 50 wide. Chained all along its sides were slave girls. They lay on their backs, propped up on their elbows. Their right legs were raised, like opened scissors, held out straight, toes pointed. Iron cuffs were closed around each raised ankle. Chains fastened them to the wall rings.

"You think that’s straight, you godsforsaken bitch?" A whip cracked and a girl cried out.

"This one is not well."

"Did you whip her?"

“Yes. It has changed nothing."

"Then take her out of the line."

The slave girls stared as I walked the vault, studying them. Not a single leg wavered: my slave girls were fit. This was more than just a pleasant sight; it was a test. If a girl couldn't do it, or her leg wavered, it was a telltale something was wrong.

I stopped in front of a tall, slender girl. Her long, dark hair dragged against the stone floor. Her eyes were hazel. The brand on her thigh was still raw and healing. She had a close-fitting iron collar around her throat. Her eyes met mine - an instant later, she stared at the floor.

I went over to her.

"You’re new, aren't you?"

She glanced up at me.

"Yes," she said after a pause. "Yes, Master."

Yesterday's batch, fresh from breaking. I looked to her side and saw three red, finger-painted stripes on her unbranded thigh.

I stared at her.

She risked another look up at me, then seemed to decide against never ever doing so again… A few moments later, her raised leg began to quiver. Sickness? No, she just as strong and fit as the other meat. This was fear.

I let her be - for that moment and went to the next girl. It was a small-made blonde with large, brown eyes. I studied her leg, the angle, the point of the toes. The obedience stance was perfect.

"Good Slave," I took hold of her ankle. The skin was warm, soft. “You have passed waking inspection.”

"Thank you, master!" The blonde beamed.

I produced a key and unlocked the shackle. The two halves fell open, and the iron clattered to the ground. The blonde changed position, getting to her knees and rising up. Back straight, she raised her cuffed wrists behind her head.

Then, I turned walked back, skipping the nervous, newly enslaved girl, and going instead to the girl just before her. This was a brunette with long, wavy hair and the golden skin tone of well-mixed ancestry. Her stance was good; I uncuffed her ankle, and she too switched to sit up on her knees, cuffed wrists behind her head.

Then, I turned back to the nervous girl. She had been staring at me. Caught in the act - she didn’t seem to know where to look.

"Higher," I took hold of her ankle. Her skin was cool, smooth to the touch. Electricity ran up my fingers as I sild them along her calf muscle. I forced her leg up, higher.

"Yes, Master."

I stepped back and watched. The wavering increased, but she kept the angle.

I uncuffed her ankle.

"Thank you, Master," she said. Careful of her raw brand, the slave got to her knees and rose up. It was a lovely sight: she was a tall, long-limbed girl in her early 20s. She then crossed her wrists behind her head, the chain between the cuffs clinking. She looked to the two girls on either side of her, seeing how they did it.

"Good Slave," I nodded.

She smiled and looked down.

Three seasons ago, I had worked with slavers at Red Water, a camp down one of the Black’s great tributaries, the Red River. At that slave camp, we trained a thousand strong, intelligent, and very angry girls to lick our feet. There was nothing easy about putting so many captives together who all struggled against us. Wherever a girl looked, she saw others in the same plight. So much of our work was keeping them divided - and scared. Good livestock was culled just to make an example of them. It was wasteful, brutal, and attracted psychopaths masquerading as "butchers."  

Here, in my vaults, the situation was reversed. Five out of every six of these girls were already trained and obedient slaves. Wherever a fresh-taken girl looked, she saw how she should behave. No one had told that nervous, dark-haired beauty what to do when a man looked directly at her. She had picked that up from the two girls next to her. Even more important: she had realized that she ought to. These were new animals entering the herd. The herd would teach them how to survive. Low waste. No butchers.

I pulled myself away from the dark-haired beauty. I would make time for her later.

A large man with a barrel chest entered from the other end of the vault. He wore a heavy, multi-flailed training whip at his side. Jangling at his hip was a ring of keys. He was bald and had a tattoo on his forehead shaped like a snake. He waved to me and walked over.

Even in their obedience stances, the slave girls seemed disturbed at the sight of him.

"Burgher Gerard!" He smiled and nodded. "It is good to see you in the vaults. We need you here, with the livestock!"

"Oh, I'm with them, alright," I said, enjoying the feel of a girl’s leg before removing her shackle.

"Not like this, you aren’t!" He tapped me on the arm. "Come, we have begun the mismating. Would you like to join?"

“Very much, Kuros.”

Slave girls are always getting pregnant. It is the nature of their captivity. Venereal diseases are all but non-existent on Hyperborea because of the high proportion of Shang, Ansaru, and Bharaji genetics conferring rugged immunity. Further, Hyperborean masters use pregnancy as an index to measure how healthy their slave girls are. They see contraception as unhelpful.

The key to all this is that unwanted pregnancies are easily managed on Hyperborea. A simple concoction of herbs collectively known as ‘mismating spice’ can be used to end them. If taken early enough, there is no risk to the slave.

Except for my breeding slaves, of course, I mismate all my girls once a month. This is enough for most slave handling. A high-volume brothel, though, like the Master’s Inn, was a little outside these bounds. These are fertile young women. The best performers get used as often as ten times a day. Closer attention to them is often needed.

"There," Kuros pointed to a tall, dark-skinned Amazon with a bronze nose ring. The form she showed with her ankle stance was excellent - but she looked exhausted. To her left was the splattering of vomit.

We stood in front of the girl. She looked up at us, her eyes uncertain.

"Kneel, Slave," commanded Kuros. He did not uncuff her ankle.

"Yes, Master," said the girl. There was strain in her voice. She got to her knees.

Kuros produced a vial and removed its stopper. There was a sharp smell like strong cinnamon.

The dark-skinned Amazon tilted her head back and opened her mouth.

Kuros tipped in half the vial; yellow-green paste poured out onto her tongue. The slave shut her mouth and swallowed.

“Show,” said Kuros.

The slave girl opened her mouth for him to see.

Only then did he unfasten her ankle.

Watching from six feet away was a pale, petite, Armanean brunette. I remembered her: I had bought her out of a cage she and her cousins were being sold from, last week. Twice, during the dark-skinned girl’s mismating, the pretty, little Armanean had touched her own belly.

I walked over to her.

She looked up at me; her brown eyes were dark, intelligent. Silky, dark brown hair fell to her breasts.

"Are you pregnant, Slave?"

She paused a moment as if wondering what to say.

“Yes, Master,” she said at last. “It is by my husband-"

"Kneel and open your mouth, Slave."

Her eyes became wide.

"Master, please! let me keep my child!"

I studied her belly - sure enough, there was the beginnings of the bulge.

“My husband is dead, taken from me by the Cult of the Deep Dark. This is the only part of him that has survived, Master. Please, let me keep it."

Who were the Cult of the Deep Dark?

I drew my whip. Other girls around us gasped.

"Kneel, Slave."

The slave jumped to her hands and knees and bolted, her ankle chain going taught. She grunted and tugged at it with her leg, a trapped animal.

"Look at that," I said, looking down at Seven.

The gagged slave rose up on her knees and pushed her hands behind her head in the kneeling stance, but her eyes were on the Armanean girl. They did not seem kind.

"Seven, do you think she is stupid?"

Seven nodded, her leash chain rattling.

"Do you think she is ungrateful?"

Seven looked to me and nodded again.

“What do you think?” I bent and stroked Seven’s swollen belly. “Do you think I should let her keep it?”

She shook her head with energy.

The Armanean turned and began yanking at her chain with both hands. Seven’s hands became fists: her anger was endearing. I imagined her thoughts; Who was this precious bitch who didn’t know her place? 

It was not an unfair question.

I fastened Seven’s leash chain to the same iron ring that held the brunette. Then, I took hold of her chain with both hands and gave it a yank.

The brunette cried out as she was jerked towards me.

“You have no husband.”

Another yank, she flailed, trying to find something to grab hold of.

“You have no name.”

A third yank; her fingers clawed at the stone floor.

“You have no child.”

With the fourth yank, I’d dragged her back to me.

She turned her head to look up at me, her belly to the floor, her ankle held up by my grip on her chain. Her expression was one of horror.

I let go of the chain and stepped over her.

She tried to crawl away - I sat on the small of her back, pinning her.

She struggled, helpless, as I drew a bottle mismating spice I had in my pocket and removed the stopper.

All eyes were on me.

I pushed one hand under her chin and forced her head back. I pulled it back further till she winced. Then, I pitched her nose shut. The open bottle was ready in my other hand.

The brunette held her breath for 10 seconds, then gasped. She was quick, but I was ready for it. She grunted as the bottle went between her lips and the mismating spice went in. A split second later, she spat it out. Yellow-green liquid spraying on the stone floor. Again, there were gasps from the other slaves.

"Kuros, I need a feeding tube."

My chief slave driver gave me a thin, grey tube about a hand span in length. It was soft and rubbery. Halfway along it was bite marks.

The brunette whimpered as I gripped her jaw and squeezed. She clenched her teeth, face going red. I squeezed hard until she moaned and her jaw lowered. I rammed the cube between her lips and into her mouth. She began thrashing; I put her in a headlock and forced the tube in, deeper.

"Mismate her," I said.

Kuros took my bottle, held the end of the force-feeding tube, and poured in the liquid. The girl jerked and kicked under me as the liquid went down.

“It is done,” he said.

"Let's give her another dose."

Kuros poured a second time. A few moments later, the only sound was the whistling of air through the tube as the slave girl breathed through it.

I stood.

The slave remained on the floor, head to the side, her cheek against the stone. There was no fight left in her now. Nor, I expected, would there ever again. Had some idiot slavers captured her but not mismated her?

“It cannot be so,” said Kuros, reading my thoughts. “When she was taken, she would have been fed on the spice. Else, she would not have survived the voyage from Armanea. It must be some sailor’s seed she carries. Carried.”

The girl did not move.

"Have this one sent to the infirmary. This has been done late; the mismating will be troubled."

Kuros waived to a pair of men who came running over, iron keys jangling at their hips.

"And after, Burgher?"

I regarded the girl. Her eyes were as dead as the blonde I had used the night before. This is not how I wanted them.   

"Put her in the kitchens. Let us see, in a few months, if she becomes fit again to be a brothel girl."

You can always do with another kitchen slave.

***

The examinations done, it was time for feeding.

The slave drivers went about with their whips drawn, cracking them in the air- or against flesh - calling out orders. Crawling on their hands and knees, the slaves were herded together in groups of ten. I watched their buttocks move as they crawled away, each group with its own slave driver.

One does not feed livestock real food. The core of a slave girl’s diet is a high-calorie feed such as rancid rice flour, crushed insect larvae, or worms. Mixed with this will be scraps, waste, and semi-edible plant matter. If ground, it is ‘slave meal,’ if boiled, it is ‘slave boil.’ These terms are generic and understood across the planet. Their contents, however, vary with region and available foodstuffs. I have seen girls eating white paste that stuck to lips and their fingers. Once, I watched four girls knelt around a barrel, drinking stinking gruel with cuffed hands. Visit a farmer’s slave pen in the early morning, and you will hear the crunching of chitin as girls pull rat-sized infant wood roaches from infested feeding logs and eat them whole.

I opted for a slave boil. The Black was both Dura’s well, as well as its sewer. By boiling whatever we took from it, I could prevent sickness.

I followed the crawling slaves up a wide stairway that led out of the vaults. Coming down the stairs to meet us was an overpowering stench of fish. The stairway ended in the center of a large wooden shed. It was two stories tall and large as a basketball court. Its roof was propped by thick, wooden posts. A wintry morning gloom came from skylights and large windows. It was colder here at the surface: goosebumps formed on my arm. A blonde slave huddled against a girl with the "Middle Eastern" features of a Shemite. The Shemite shivered.

Arranged in rows across the floor were knee-height, feeding troughs. Two men walked along the troughs, pushing a cart mounted with an open barrel. Steam rose from it. The men stopped at each trough and, with a giant ladle, poured a steaming, grey-yellow liquid from the barrel. Black leaves and white chunks floated to the surface. Bubbles rose in the liquid but did not burst. They moved to the sides of the troughs and stuck there.

The trough nearest me was filled, and a group of slaves crawled to it. All were pale and had red, brown, or black hair. I recognize them at once: these were the Irish girls. Among them was one I didn't own: Juskar’s little redhead. Her hair was still in a ponytail, pulled through an iron ring. It bared her slender neck and the tight-fitting iron collar at her throat. Her breasts swung as she moved, the nipples dark pink.

I watched as the Irish girls dipped their hands into the fish-based slave boil and began to eat. A brown-eyed redhead spilled drops onto her breast. They jiggled as she wiped them dry and licked her fingers. I watched a long-legged girl with curling black hair that fell to the small of her back. She cupped her hands and ate from them, boil dripping between her fingers. A small-made brunette tossed her hair aside, blue eyes flashing. As the level of the boil began to dip in the trough, she started licking its sides. As her tongue darted out, I noted the elegant lines of her cheekbones and jawline. Trough Licker, I had learned, was the sister of Juskar’s woman. She looked, to my eyes, just as lovely.

I smiled; I was pleased to see how well they were adjusting to Hyperborea. Most girls the Landing Beasts brought had lived in marginal conditions. The worse off they had been, the better they adapted.

These would do quite well.

Juskar’s girl looked up from the trough for a moment - her green eyes found mine, and she froze.

I walked over to the trough.

One by one, the Irish girls noticed me and stopped eating. Juskar's girl put her wrist behind her head and rose up on her knees. The others followed her example.

It was not unusual for the men to put their own fresh slaves into the brothel pool. It got them excellent training, and if they brought in any coin, their owner would get a cut. This was especially helpful for my sailors, who could hardly take their girls with them everywhere.

I looked around the trough: I saw fear, but none of the ill-hidden rage, weeping, or depression you would see from a girl captured from the 21st century.

I noticed Juskar's girl's eyes on me. I turned and looked at her. Seconds, and so much more, passed between us.

Unbidden, she broke her stance and got down on her hands and knees. She looked up at me: I held my gaze, and she looked back down.

I remembered how she had pleased me in the captain’s quarters of the Vulture. Her lips around my cock. Her tongue stroking it. How she smiled as she gained confidence. No wonder Juskar had claimed her! All of them were lovely, but she was the prize of the lot.

"Molly?" Trough Licker stopped eating to stare and whisper at her sister. “Molly?”

So that had been her name! Juskar’s girl ignored her sister and started crawling towards me.

"Molly?" the long-legged, dark-haired girl hissed. She saw my eyes on her and looked down.

Once-Molly reached my feet. She turned her head to the side so I could see her face and lowered it to my sandalled foot. Then, she began to lick it.

It was different from how she’d done it on the ship. This time she made soft, gentle kisses, pulling her head away after each one. I felt her warm breath. She went from one side of my foot to the other, then from the top of my foot to the bottom. When she reached my toes, a tongue slipped between them. With exploring probes, she found and licked every crevice. She looked up at me: my expression had not changed since I had arrived at the trough. She stuck her tongue out and took a big lick, eyes not leaving mine.

One reason masters make their slave girls lick their feet is as a proxy for oral sex. If she licks your feet well, that’s not all she’ll lick well. When buying ‘branded and broken,’ always put your foot between the cage bars and see how the girl does. The seller will allow it.

Slave girls know that this is one of the reasons they’re made to do it. The ones who lick their chains at night while fantasizing about you delight in it. For them, it is the reassurance that they can show you what they are worth.

As for the others… they know if they don’t lick well, they will be whipped. Control and punishment.

The other girls at the trough stared at Once-Molly, their expressions of surprise. Their eyes then went to me, reading me as any female kept naked and collared learns to read a man standing over her. Their eyes went back to Molly, but there was no more surprise in their faces. Instead, they observed.

Her sister went first. The blue-eyed brunette crawled over and began licking my other foot.

The tall, dark-haired girl followed next. Then another. Soon, all the Irish girls were at my feet, heads bobbing as they licked. One of the slave drivers noticed; he stopped, yelled to another, and pointed. The other gave a cheer and clapped.

I bent and touched Juskar's girl's hair. It was soft and thick under my fingers. She froze.

My hand moved down, stroking the back of her neck. I slipped a finger under her collar and ran the tip back and forth. It smeared beads of sweat over the smooth, soft skin. I let go and licked her salt from my finger. She looked up and smiled. It was a big smile; vulnerable, committed to the act.

"Finish eating, Slaves."

"Yes, Master," they chorused - hearing them say it sent electricity through me. They returned to the trough. Juskar’s slave watched me as she ate. With some difficulty, I pulled myself away from the trough.

For hours afterward, I felt her lips on my foot.

***

Kuros walked up to me.

"That girl, the new one you said to keep an eye on," his expression dark, "she refuses to present her ankle."

"I can’t say I’m surprised. Did the men beat her?" I asked.

"No - we respected your instructions, Burgher -- even as they puzzle us."

"Good man! Let's go see her."

We left the feeding area and return to the vaults to see the Danish girl from the year 2020.

"Why is this one special?" He asked.

"I suppose she isn't," I replied. "But I know breaking her is not going to be a simple task.”

“I must disagree. It will be a very simple task.”

“No, her life couldn’t have prepared her less to end up as a slave girl. That’s what makes this more complicated.”

We walked through the now all but empty main vault, our steps echoing. A team of six girls threw buckets of soapy water on the floor and scrubbed it with brushes. Two other girls collected the bedding hay into a large, cloth bag. Every day, the vaults had to be sterilized, and the bedding burned. This is helped control disease and prevent lice.

“How does any of that matter?" Kuros asked, eyeing a pair of scrubbing girls as we passed them. They noticed his eye, stopped, and rose on their knees with their hands behind their heads. "The girl is but a girl. Any whip will leave a quick-fading but long-remembered mark upon her back. Let the men have her this night. Come morning; she will kneel as sweetly as any of these beasts."

"I want to break her, Kuros. Not destroy her."

"As do I,” Kuros shrugged. “Yet, some girls just cannot be broken, Burgher. One must then either cull them, sell them, or make them serve with face absent color and light.” I remembered the blonde who had licked my semen off her foot the previous night.  “Whichever way Burgher, they are destroyed."

He could not have spoken truer words.

He led me to one of the side vaults. It was the smallest one, a little further away from the others. It was where we kept the problem cases. Girls, who, if we failed to break them, would be sold to a farm or a mine. Mines were a death sentence, especially salt mines. A girl sent to a salt mine would be dead in a year, two years at most.

It was unfortunate - and troubling - but I had no problem as such with it. Any girl I’ve sold to a mine has always had the choice to just take a man’s cock in her mouth, right up until the moment she was sold. Not one made a scene as she left, shackled, naked, proud - to face the consequences for her actions.

The side vault was lit by a single skylight. The chamber was only 30 feet across. It had only one occupant, sitting at the end with her against the wall. The chain at her ankle rustled as she drew her foot back. Her back stiffened, and she scowled.

"Let us see your methods,” Kuros gestured.

I regarded the Danish girl. There were red whip marks along her buttocks and thighs. They would fade in another day - perhaps to be replaced by new ones… She was tall, slim, her muscles gently toned. It was strange seeing her tan; it was so long since I'd last seen the sun. Her light brown hair fell to the small of her back. The face was oval, angelic. Her eyes stabbed me like daggers.

"Ankle, slave," I tried.

She continued glaring. Her lips twitched: did she just hide a smirk?

"Did you show her the whip, Kuros?"

"No. If I did, then I would use it on her."

Yes, she was smirking. Why had the training yard passed her?

I drew my whip.

"Ankle, Slave," I barked.

Brown eyes held mine for a moment. Then, with deliberate slowness, she lifted up her leg and held out her ankle. She waggled her foot as if this was a game.

Beside me, I could feel Kuros boiling.

"Such deliberate insult!"

I grabbed the Dane’s foot.

Her lip curled in disgust, and she tried to jerk it back.

I held it in place, my grip firm. Then, I gripped her calf with my other hand. I ran the fingers up and down, feeling her skin. It was soft, smooth, delightful. I wanted to feel it against my cheek.

She glared, gritted her teeth, and tried to yank her leg free.

I yanked back - pulling her across the floor.

"That's taken the smile off her face," Kuros grinned.

The Dane swore under her breath.

"What was that, Slave?" I demanded in Hyperborean.

She looked up at me, eyes wide, uncertain.

"What was that?" I raised my hand to strike her.

"Nothing, Master!" She looked away. Looking away was defiance.

"The men of the training yard have failed you," said Kuros. "They should never have passed this one. I will look into it and speak sharpest, well-deserved words with the men behind this. Yet, I must ask - perhaps they would've failed, anyway? This one is still as defiant as the moment the net fell over her. Do you think she can be broken at all?"

I said nothing.

"If you cannot break her,” he went on, “then permit me to destroy her. I would have a beast this pretty upstairs, earning you coin, rather than sold to a mine - or the butcher’s yard."

" I don't know," I said. The words were as heavy as cannonballs. "I don't know if she can be broken."

I tugged at her leg. She regarded me, glaring.

"I've seen how this ends," I said, switching to English, "A hundred times. Actually, several hundred times. Don’t think you are special or different. Look at yourself: how different are you from any of the other slaves? What makes you think things will be any different for you?"

"Because it will be," she shot back. It was strange to hear a European accent after so long. "You can take my clothes, keep me like an animal, and have your goons beat me, but already I can see how your camp is breaking! The other girls see it too. I don't need to understand to know what they talk about when you bastards have your backs turned!"

"Do you know why we let them talk?” I crossed my arms. “Because nobody cares what they say or think. Nobody cares what you say or think. Do you know why? It’s because you’re slaves. You eat and sleep at our whim. Sit or stand. Orgasm, or die. Have you any idea what such power does to a person?"

"I can see what it's done to you."

I let go of her leg. She drew it back, the chain rustling.

"I told you I know how this end. It ends with you, kneeling at my feet-”

“Yeah, right!”

“-Opening your mouth and taking in my cock. When I finish, you’ll thank me."

She threw back her head and laughed.

"Is that what you think will happen? I'll tell you what will happen. Just what I said! I'll start a revolt, right here in this dungeon!"

It was my turn to laugh.

“This is how it’s been for thirty thousand years. And that’s at a minimum - it’s unclear just how long humans have been settled in this time. Thirty millennia of written history - against our six. You want to take that on?”

That was the moment when I realized exactly how I would break her.

"Yes, Slave,” I smiled. “I want to see you take on history."