I owned two women that I was most interested in breaking.
One was a Danish girl from my own time. She had come through the regular slave training all captured females are put to on this world - and had come out spitting and cursing. This made no sense and suggested her trainers had gone easy on her for fear of getting into trouble (unwarranted, but there it was). The Danish girl I would come back to.
The other one was perhaps just as strong a woman but was already a slave girl. This was the lovely Layla, down in my breeding cages.
Layla knelt as well as any labor, pleasure, or breeding slave. If given a bowl of stinking algae, she would eat it without a complaint or the thought of one. After two years not being permitted any pleasure, except sex, she was excited by the smell and taste of semen. She should have been the model for every slave girl who survives the first two years.
However, Layla was no timid peasant meat or cowering slum girl. Layla was strong - very strong. This was not ordinarily a problem. The girls I valued the most were all strong. However, with Layla, it had become a problem because of how she felt about me.
Layla had powerful feelings for me. Just the sight of me could make her wet (I had tested this). It is a trait of the least composed and most shameless of slave girls. The same girls who screamed for their master as he passed, throwing themselves across his path, knowing he would kick them for it. After this happens, they touch themselves where his foot struck and follow his departing form with blissful eyes.
Being a strong woman, Layla could never countenance being such a girl. I had seen her glare at ones like that with utter disgust - and hate.
Herein, I believed, was the problem with Layla. I think she wanted to throw herself in front of me, whether I’d then use her or beat her. I think she could feel such feelings rising in her every time she saw me.
That, therefore, is why she went out of her way to hate me.
It wasn’t the quiet, seething hate of a captive on her second day who has decided it is better to obey the order to be silent than to be whipped into silence. That is hidden, passive hate. Layla’s, instead, was demonstrable, closer to a performance. When a slave hates her master, she tries to hide it from him so that she isn’t punished for being ‘ungrateful.’ Layla, however, did the opposite. Being thrashed by me was to her a much lesser price. The greater price, the one she feared, was to admit to herself that all she wanted was to lie at my feet and feel my fingers curled around the back of her collar.
How, then, could get her to stop with the angry dramatics? To move her on her journey and make her accept her nature?
My solution, I decided, would be to get her to beg for my touch - but give her the grounds she needed to completely excuse herself for doing so. To enable her to tell herself that she was maintaining control of her feelings. All the while, she would be giving in to them.
On achieving that, well, a few nights with me, chained by her ankle, would do the rest... Believing herself in control, she would let herself go and savor the experience. It would be the best sex of her life. The experience will do the rest, giving dominance to thoughts that terrified her. By then, it would be too late.
Towards this, I began a form of slave-breaking with her known as ‘Chains for Cakes.’ This was where the master made the slave barter her away control. It is the simplest form of training and very effective. It is not time-intensive and can be practiced upon a group of girls at a time. I had learned Chains for Cakes back at the Red Water slaving camp. We used it in my own training yard behind the Master’s Inn.
With Chains for Cakes, the slave must pay for all her basic needs with obedience. Whether it be food, water, sleep, or some other need, the slave must obey the command given by you in order to have her needs met.
You start with simple acts like having her call you master or perform an obedient stance. It does not have to be the most degrading one - there is time to get there. The important thing is to start the slave girl on the process. If she wants to eat, make her present herself before you as a slave and call you ‘master.’ After a day, at most, she will. It is a small price to pay, she tells herself.
The next day, make her worship you and lick your hands - and thank you for the opportunity. This may lead to another day of resistance. That’s fine - you have time. She does not. If she wants to eat, she will put her head to your feet, then look up to lick your open palm. She will. It is another small price, she tells herself.
The day after, have her lick your feet. Make her do it for ten minutes, straight. The same hunger protest will begin, but it will end much sooner. She has become used to bartering. Each successive act has shifted her bounds of what she finds acceptable. She will lick your feet - if it is in her nature, she will enjoy it.
Foot licking is key. This is because if a slave girl licks your feet, she will also suck your cock. This is what you make her do on the next day. Have her please you and swallow your semen. It is important she swallows - the taste of it in her mouth forces her to dwell on the act. After that, the waiting is over. Use her however you like: she has bartered away all control to you. Set her to her tasks; she is ready.
Now, Layla was too strong a woman for a battle over basic needs to be effective with her. She had already made those accommodations to survive in this world. I could submit her to barter control but achieve nothing. The dividend would be even more hate, not transformation.
However, Layla was a drama queen. I think she believed herself quite special. Slave girls have no avenues to indulge in such fantasies. Layla, however, had created one. Her solution was to draw attention to herself. What better evidence was there that she was special, better than all the other slaves, than an excess of attention from her master?
My attention then was what I could use for barter control with her. While she would see through barter control for basic needs, she did not have the self-awareness of her own desire for attention to understand it being used against her. If I could manage it, and I was right about my assessment of her, it would be a coup!
So it was that the last time I visited the breeding cages, I had made a point to ignore her. It worked. She had been agitated that other slave girls had been attended to. Afterwards, the handlers told me she had started screaming at those girls and had refused to eat. Per my instructions, they let her scream and did not bring out the force-feeding bag. Instead, they gave her slave gruel to a shameless Hataduri girl Layla hated in particular.
It was now time to visit the cages again. To make her barter. However, this time I would up the ante.
This time, I would give her a choice.
***
“Listen up, you dirty slave sluts,” said the female guard they called “Mean.” “Your master is coming to fuck. Not to breed you,” the female guard shoved her hand into a cage and pinched a brunette girl’s belly till the slave cried out. “He just wants to taste his meat.”
“You mean have his meat, taste his meat,” said the one-eyed guard they called “Meaner.” Meaner leaned against the cage, her whip drawn. Inside, a dark-haired slave girl covered against the other end of the cage, trying not to be noticed.
“So, which of you cunts wants to spread your legs for him today?” Said Mean.
The chamber rang with the clamoring of yelling slave girls. A long-legged Shang girl started squealing in broken, Low Hyperborean. Her pitch rose, and she broke into a Shang dialect - something forbidden. Meaner strode to the Shang’s cage, reached in, and slapped the girl.
A small-made Hataduri girl with elfin features and jet black hair began thumping the bars of her cage. Mean gave her a dirty look. The Hataduri girl stopped. As soon as Mean looked away, the Hataduri began thumping the bars again.
“Let me serve my master!” Yelled a brunette. She was one of the new girls that had been brought in a few days ago. She was 1tall and pale, with long, silky hair. When the two guards passed her cage, Their lamps lit her body. Layla noticed then the tattooed constellations on the girl’s breasts, the iron cuffs on her limbs, and the fused collar around her throat. She was one of Master’s harem girls. They thought they were so special! Both Mean and Meaner walked past the harem girl without a glance.
“You,” Meaner stopped and looked down at a cage. Inside, a small-made Shang girl looked up. She was pretty enough for one of their kind, Layla thought. Zana, she thought the slave’s name was.
“What about you?” Meaner said to Zana. “You’ve been well behaved, Slave.”
“I serve Master,” Zana replied in a small voice. “Anything he wants of me is his.”
Meaner bent down and opened Zana’s cage. Then, she reached in, grabbed the Shang by her collar, and dragged her out. Keeping Zana on her hands and knees, Meaner fitted a leash chain to the slave girl’s collar.
“Heel, Slave,” said Meaner.
She walked around the stack of cages, Zana crawling after her, on her hands and knees.
Meaner started walking down the next stack of cages. This was the stack that Layla’s cage was in. Meaner stopped in front of Layla.
“What about this one?” She said.
“Mistress, please!” In the cage above Layla was a petite girl with blonde hair. It fell in thick, heavy curls past her shoulders. Her body was fit, her curves athletic. Locked around her ankles were heavy cuffs linked by a short chain. Similar cuffs held her wrists. Tied around the blonde’s head was a blindfold made from a soiled rag. Her thigh and the side of one breast had been marked with the thin, raised scar tissue lines made by a branding wire. Layla wondered what it would be like to be chained down to a bench while Master wrote his name on her back with a branding wire… She banished the thought an instant later.
“Let’s see then,” said Meaner. “About time for her, too.”
Meaner opened the cage. The blindfolded blonde raised her head, turning it this way and that. Meaner reached in and pulled off the blonde slave’s blindfold.
Her blue-green eyes blinked again and again in the dull lamplight. Layla wasn’t sure how many days ago Master had blindfolded the blonde girl. Three days? Four?
A week?
How long had any of them been underground?
“Slave,” said Meaner in a gentle tone, “can you see? Have you been blinded?”
“I can see, Mistress!” Said the blonde, staring about herself as if seeing the room she was in for the first time. “Thank you, Mistress!”
“Do you want water, Slave?” Again, Meaner’s tone was gentle.
The slave nodded.
Meaner put a clay bowl in the blonde’s cage and filled it with her own waterskin.
“Thank you, Mistress!” The blonde threw her hair back and lowered her lips to the bowl. She drank like a dog, as she’d been trained to do.
“Do you know how long you have been inside this cage?” Asked Meaner.
“I-I don’t know, Mistress.”
“Guess, Pretty One.”
The blonde seemed to be deep in thought.
“Seven days,” she said at last. “Or 10. Or 14. I am sorry, Mistress, I do not know.”
“Do you want to get out of the cage?” Asked Meaner.
“Yes, Mistress!” Her blue-green eyes lit up, and her hair jerked back and forth as she nodded.
“And do you want your cuffs removed?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“It’s not time for her yet,” said Mean, in an Ebugal Darfuri dialect. It was one Layla understood well.
“But she is fertile now,” said Meaner, speaking in the same language.
The blonde looked from guard to guard. She did not understand their words.
“It will be nice for Gerard if he can breed her today.”
“She’s not ready.” Said Mean, folding her arms. “It will be a problem.”
“Then he will have to force her.”
“That is not his way.”
“Many things were not his way! Meat is meat. It is time for him to breed of this one. Otherwise, it will be another month. If he does not wish it, he will not do it. Let him decide.”
She turned back to the blonde girl in the cage.
“Your master is coming to fuck,” she said. “He would enjoy you. If you please him, I will take you out of this cage and remove your chains. When he leaves, you will go back inside. You will have several hours before that happens. Will you swallow his cock and rub your face in his balls for a few hours outside this cage?”
“Yes, Mistress! A hundred times yes, by Set!” Her knuckles whitened as she gripped her chain, her eyes wide.
Meaner laughed.
Mean did not.
“Come, Pretty One,” Meaner reached in and grabbed the slave by her collar. “He likes you. You look like his old favorite, A tall, Landing Beast girl with hair the same color as yours. He will be happy to lick your face and spit on it.”
Meaner pulled the blonde slave out of her cage. The slave knelt, ankles together, thighs apart. Meaner took the girl by her wrists and unlocked the cuffs. The blonde rubbed her wrists, turning them this way and that to look at them in the lamplight. Marks had formed where the cuffs had pressed into her skin. Meaner uncuffed the slave’s ankles next.
“Collar,” she commanded.
The slave pressed her hands to her knees, tossed back her hair, and bared her throat.
Meaner fastened a leash chain to the girl’s collar.
“Heel.”
Both the blonde and Zana crawled after Meaner. Layla studied the movements of the blonde’s buttocks and the tone of her legs. Yes, this one did look like Master’s favorite, Haley. Why had the guard said she was the old favorite? Haley was a beautiful girl. Layla could not imagine falling out of favor… For a moment, all she could see was how long the blonde’s legs were. At that moment, Layla’s petite ones felt even shorter. A surge of jealousy followed.
“She is coming this way,” whispered Molly, the very white girl with the nice red hair. Molly squatted and gripped her cage’s bars. “I hope she picks me!”
Meaner walked right past Molly and stopped, instead, in front of Layla.
“Slave,” said Meaner.
Layla crouched on her hands and knees and pressed her forehead to the floor of the cage.
Mistress,” she replied.
“Your Master is coming,” said Meaner. Again, she was using her gentle tone. Layla was fast learning not to trust it. “Do you want him to fuck you?”
Layla regarded the two leashed girls. If Master took several girls to the furs, he wouldn’t just make them please him. He’d also make them please each other, for him to watch, or to control their pleasure.
Zana looked away. The Shang, like all Shang, thought of a Bharaji like Layla as no more than an insect. The feeling was, of course, mutual. There was a fair chance Zana’s head would end up between Layla’s thighs - how Layla would lord that over her! Of course, it could go the other way…
The Hyperborean blonde smiled at Layla. It was a timid, uncertain smile. She kept blinking, her eyes still adapting to the light. She was quite beautiful, thought Layla. The breasts were large, perky, and well-shaped, like that of so many Hyperborean girls. Layla imagined her’s being pressed against them, oiled. She’d enjoy kissing the blonde’s timid little smile…
Well?” Asked Meaner. “Do you want to spread your legs for him?”
“Has Master asked for me?”
Both Mean and Meaner laughed.
“No. He has not asked for you. Not even once.”
Layla felt anger - and hurt. Surprised at the depth of the second feeling, she became angrier still.
“No, I do not want to serve him!”
“Why are you wasting time on that one?” Called out Mean, shrugging. “Just give him the Landing Beast redhead. He can drink her milk straight from her breasts.”
Meaner opened Molly’s cage. The little Irish girl raced out of her cage and bared her throat for the guard. Molly was leashed, and the guards left, the three selected girls crawling after them on their hands and knees.
Not a second glance was given, by any of them, to Layla. She watched them go, her heart sinking.
Should she have gone crawling, like that worthless Shang creature, to lick Master’s feet and feel his cock ramming inside her? His hands holding her down, his teeth at her nipple?
She shook the thought away as it turned into a fantasy. The kind she did not want to think about. No, she sat back in her cage and drew her knees up against her breasts. She was not some kind of animal, like these strange foreigners and planet-born barbarians. She was a daughter of the city of Great Bharaji! Even in a cage, she was a queen.
***
After what seemed ages in the timeless dark without reference, Meaner returned. She chose three girls, uncaged them, and leashed them. One of the girls had a hood tied over her head. She was tall and athletic, with what Layla knew masters considered ‘splendid curves.’ There was something familiar about her… Layla couldn’t figure it out in the poor lighting.
Meaner went to Layla’s cage and opened it.
“Out. It’s the Wheel for you!”
Layla crawled out, and Meaner leashed her. Then, the guard crawled the four slave girls out of the breeding battery.
***
The wheel room was a small, low ceilinged chamber cut into the earth. Old stone pillars braced the walls. The floor was made from broken paving stones pressed flat. Fine-grained sand had been strewn across it to prevent slipping.
In the center of the room was the Wheel.
The Wheel was a wooden mast that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Four thick, wooden push bars were mounted around it. They were positioned at standing height. The push bars made a “+” shape but horizontal. Fitted along each bar were shackles and chaining rings.
Chained at the end of each push bar was a large stone block. The blocks lay on the floor. There were circular scrape marks on the floor where they had been dragged, round and round, for almost a year.
To one side of the wheel room, crouched with their backs to the wall, were four slave girls. Their bodies gleamed with sweat. Their hair stuck against their skin. There were marks on their wrists from wearing shackles for hours. They did not react as Layla and the other girls were led in.
Meaner looked down at Layla and the other three girls.
“Stand,” she ordered.
They stood. Layla’s knees cried out; she had not been permitted to stand in days.
The light in the wheel room was a little better than it had been in the breeding battery. Here, Layla could see that one of the girls brought with her was the tall, dark-haired one Master had used the last time he had visited.
“Slave,” Meaner pointed to the dark-haired girl. “To the Wheel,” she pointed to a push bar.
“Yes, Mistress,” the slave stepped up to the bar and placed her hands on it.
Meaner fastened the shackles to her wrists. Next, she took the girl’s leash and pulled it through a chaining ring. It went taut, and the girl’s head was jerked forward.
Meaner laughed. She pulled the leash till the girl was forced to bend forward. Then, she fixed the chain in place.
“Mistress!” One of the exhausted girls had raised herself up onto her elbows. “Mistress, please! Water!”
Meaner kicked the slave in the face.
The girl cried out, rolling to the side and pressing herself against the earth wall.
“Slave,” Meaner pointed to Layla. “To the Wheel.”
Layla stepped up to the second push bar. She remained still as her wrists were shackled and her throat chained to the beam. How many times had she pushed it? She could not remember. The wheel ground no flour, crushed no dried insect meat. She pushed it for no reason.
Meaner chained the other two girls to the Wheel. Only then did she remove the cloth bag over the mystery girl’s head. The girl’s hair, blonde, fell out of the bag and down to the small of her back. Her eyes were sky blue. Excitement surged inside Layla as she recognized her.
“Up, Slaves,” Meaner drew her whip and kicked one of the exhausted girls. “On your knees!”
The four spent girls got to their hands and knees. Meaner leashed them and led them out of the wheel room.
“Haley!” Layla hissed. “Haley, what are you doing here?”
Haley looked at her and smiled. Even through that, Layla could see the strain in the girl’s face.
“We are all here now,” she replied, her voice quiet.
It was a tone Layla had not heard before from Haley. It reminded her of a girl back in Master Fogrim’s slave pen; Cream. Last winter, Cream stopped smiling. She did not beg when Master Fogrim stood over them, holding up spoiled cheese or overripe berries. When Master Fogrim dragged her to his bed, she neither struggled nor groped his cock. Master Fogrim tried to heal her, giving her great pleasure for an entire night. However, come the next day, Cream was the same.
So he snapped her neck.
“I am glad you survived,” Haley smiled - it was a tired smile. “I have heard only bad things happening outside of Dura.”
“Haley, Sister, are you not Master’s favorite anymore?”
She lost her smile. In Haley’s eyes, Layla saw Cream.
“I do not know what happened. He has not taken me to his bed since Aymund. I go many weeks without seeing him. He has so many slaves now - I am no one to him, Layla. No one, and nothing.”
Horror coursed through Layla.
“No talking!” Meaner returned a heavy training whip in her hand. She cracked it against the wall - dust flew from cracks in the stone.
“I can’t be here!” Layla tugged at her wrist chains, turning her head back to look at Meaner. “I will please Master! I will suck his cock! Mistress, please!”
Meaner struck.
Layla shrieked as the heavy training whip landed across her back. The pain was like fire; her skin throbbed. She screamed again as the whip struck a second time against her thighs.
“You are an ungrateful bitch!” Said Meaner, drawing the whip back. “You had your chance! What the other meat here would’ve given for that! I hope you remain here, underground with me, for the rest of your life! Push, slaves!” She whipped another girl. “Push the Wheel. Know that this is the life you deserve!”
The slaves pushed.
***
Everything had been staged.
As I had expected, Layla, given a choice, still refused. The chamber I would be using was next to the exercise wheel room. She would hear everything. This allowed me both to ignore her and taunt her at the same time.
She needed to feel forgotten, that she might never have attention again. The more she believed herself forgotten, the more I could use that to break her - once and for all.
I would have her lips at my cock! I would see her eyes filled with worship as she drank from it. I wanted nothing less. I would take everything from her!
When that time came, she would be grateful for it.