The Short Sexual History of Coora – A Slave.
Olga’s note:
Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight novels, wrote a short story retold from the viewpoint of a minor character, someone who walks into the scene of one of her novels and is almost immediately killed.
In my stories, at least the ones so far, the first-person viewpoints of characters in my Aghara-Penthay shave all been women on special missions, or women captured to order, which means they’ve been missing out on the experience of a more regular slave – someone unlucky caught as part of a raid, an insignificant victim among many other women, someone processed, and sold.
In my story ‘Queen of the Sex Slaves’, during the faction leader’s council meeting, Ajeedie briefly witnesses an alien female being raped and then strangled by Monad. We never learnt her name, but she had one, and she had a life. Her name was Coora, and this is her story.
1 - Alarm
I’m not sure if the unexpected deep booming noise wakes me even before the sudden alarm call of the ship’s klaxon begins. But somehow I instantly pass from being asleep to being alert, my heart immediately racing with the adrenaline compulsion to flight. Trindii, in the other bunk, has woken just as suddenly as I have, and she is already sitting up rubbing her eyes. We hear another boom. It is a deep sound, a noise like thunder that reverberates right through the hull, and then we hear a distance crackling. Our beds shake as though there’s an earthquake. There are more signs that something is amiss. I realize the ship’s engines are straining with effort, instead of making their usual relaxed shush.
“Coora,” says Trindii, “What was that noise?”
“That second one sounded almost like a blaster cannon,” I reply, puzzled, and seeing her eyes widen with panic, I try to project a calmness I don’t feel. “But I’m sure I’m wrong.” And yet, I wonder, if I’m wrong why is the emergency claxon is still sounding, it’s rise and fall repeating over and over?
“Coora!” Trindii squeaks, when there’s another bass thumping sound. She has one of the highest soprano voices I’ve ever known, and when she’s anxious, it pushes her pitch up to even higher registers. Trindii has been my best friend since the first days of us studying together, and I love her like a sister, but I have to admit she’s hopeless in a crisis.
“Get dressed, now,” I order, and I swing my long legs out my bunk. The floor is cold on my bare feet.
But Trindii continues to sit there, with her bed sheet clutched to her chest, as though that will help if there is a raid.
“What are we supposed to do after that?” she wails.
I fight down my frustration at her. I have no better idea than she does, but just dithering will make me get scared too. Like most travelers I paid scant attention to the safety briefing when we boarded this transport. How should I know where to assemble? But there are over two thousand souls on this ship. Judging by the additional noise I’m tuning into, most of those are streaming by our door, so the solution is easy.
“Let’s get dressed,” I say, trying to adopt a tone of firm reassurance. “We’ll follow the crowd.”
Trindii looks hesitant, but finally, thank the Gods, she begins to move.
The floor is cold, but our cabin, one of the cheaper ones close to the engine deck, is hot from its proximity to the gravity drives, so we both slept only in underwear.
Trindii, a human, has the body shape that would be described as voluptuous. She’s no doubt destined to turn to fat in later life, but for now, her pleasingly rounded figure is at its nubile best - big appealing eyes, and some of the largest breasts I’ve seen on a young woman. She’s at the peak of her life’s appeal to men. Her skin is tight with youth, a deep brown color, and it’s free from the least blemish.
In our cramped cabin a large proportion of one wall is filled with the mirror, and in it, I cannot avoid glancing at my own image, and considering the implications of what I see.
The reflection shows someone much like a human female in her figure, only my skin has a blue-green iridescent shimmer. My eyes are completely black - our species never evolved irises and sclera. And the most dramatic difference between myself and someone like Trindii, is that instead of possessing hair like a human or many other humanoid species, protruding from my scalp are thick tubes of flesh, a bit like giant dreadlocks coated in my same shimmering skin.
They’re known as ‘scorns’ in the language of my world. Women of my species cover their scorns on our homeworld, for they are as clear a sexual characteristic as breasts. Males do not develop them. Young girls have small stubs, and then as we mature their scorns grow rapidly, reaching their longest – down to our thighs – in our early twenties at the peak of our fertility. As a woman progresses through her adulthood they gradually shorten, but still remain for life - only withdrawing back to shoulder-length in the oldest women in society.
I reach for my dress, a garment which hugs my figure flatteringly, but still covers me from neck to ankle. As most of the galaxy is unaware of the significance of scorns, I quickly abandoned the head covering once I was offworld. I felt prudish compared to the human females merrily flaunting their heads, and even after a couple of years out in the universe, it still gives me a private thrill to behave so scandalously, when no-one around me knows I’m walking round in a state that’s our culture’s equivalent of half-naked.
Another concussion reverberates through the ship – the worst yet. For an instant the artificial gravity fails, silence falls, and the lights flicker as I’m weightless. Then normality is restored, including the unending call of the claxon.
The glitch ramps Trindii’s anxiety up further.
“This flight should be safe, Coora,” she says. “Who could attack something this size? And we’re deep in Republic space.”
Neither of us want to acknowledge the answer.
I can hear a man’s voice getting louder as he moves nearer along the corridor, ordering passengers like a drill sergeant. He pounds on each door he passes.
“Everyone out their cabins! All passengers must assemble in the entertainment hall. Captains orders. Everyone out! All passengers assemble in the entertainment hall.” The volume reaches is peak as he passes us, and gradually fades as he moves away.
I fasten my dress around me while Trindii forces her short legs into tight black shorts. My garment opens at my left side, the fabric just wide enough to wrap around me, and once it’s in place, it is meant to be secured with a series of buckles. I start with the buckles under my arm, and work downwards. It’s tight about my bust – I too have a full chest for a young woman, although I’ll never compete with Trindii’s twin balloons.
“Maybe we’re in an uncharted asteroid field?” I say while I secure the fastenings over the feminine flare of my hip. There’s another concussion. Again, the lights flicker, and the gravity fails for a moment. Neither of us believe my optimistic words. If we were being damaged by asteroids we’d slow down, and they’d muster us as the lifepods. But the entertainment hall is in the center of the ship, and the engines are firing fit to burst. No. We’re trying to outrun something.
Trindii pulls a tight shirt over her head, the cut high enough that it bares the skin of her belly. Not just her belly - it barely fits around her chest. She doesn’t mind flaunting what she’s got, that girl. My people, the Dystyr, are rather more conservative. Show our figures, yes. Skin, no. However, although I’ve fastened my dress as far as mid-thigh, I leave the remaining buckles flashing my shins, to allow better freedom of movement. I pull on some soft ankle boots, ones with only a low heel. Footwear designed for comfort rather than beauty.
“Ready, Trindii?” I ask when she’s pulled on some pumps, and with a nod from her we activate the door and emerge into the corridor.
Outside it’s crowded with people, all of them headed in the same direction, and we can only progress at the speed of the slowest. A diverse cross section of the galaxy is represented, spread by age, sex, and species. I see two aliens who must come from a methane world, and need respirators.
Trindii takes my hand in hers so we don’t lose each other. Her flesh feels warm.
It’s loud in here – everyone is talking nervously.
“Is it pirates?” an old woman in front says to her companion in a scratching voice. “Gods, don’t let it be pirates from Aghara-Penthay.”
“I survived a pirate raid near Coboron 6, once,” a man says. “You never forget that sound. I tell you – those are raider blaster cannons.”
Another jolt comes without warning, and the ship shakes like we’re in an earthquake. I’m thrown against the side of the corridor, hurting my shoulder. I hear the engines stutter for a moment.
The crowd moves a little faster.
Once we reach the entertainment hall, there’s enough room for us all to spread out and pick up our pace. Rows of seats face a stage. It’s configured for a much bigger crowd than the current ship’s compliment. I’m expecting to see crew on the stage already prepared to explain what’s going on, but there’s no-one here yet.
I recognize a few members of our class and we move towards them. There are nearly two hundred of us on this trip – final year university students of galactic politics, all of us being taken to Republic Prime to see the senate in action. With the exception of a few mature students, most of us are in our early twenties, by the standard galactic reckoning. Studying at Capital University on Iniver Four is, for most of us, our first time living away from our homeworlds.
“Coora,” a male voice calls my name. I know who it is before I turn around.
Jurong. I made the mistake in my freshman year of being warm to him. As an alien arriving at a largely human institution, I wasn’t sure I’d fit in, and I was anxious to make friends. I needed someone to talk to. But he hoped my interest in him was of a different kind, and by the time I told him that was never going to happen, the damage had been done.
He’s smart enough to keep just on the right side of becoming a full-blown stalker, so I can’t make a complaint to anyone without it sounding hysterical: “What’s wrong with someone helping you out?” – that kind of thing. But he’s worked his way relentlessly into membership of my circle of friends, and since then, it’s been pretty hard to go anywhere without Jurong showing up.
“Jurong - what do you think is going on?” Trindii asks him, as a machine gun rattle of smaller thuds vibrate the ship. We have space to spread out, but she’s standing so near me her shoulder presses on my upper arm. One of the reasons I like Trindii so much is she’s always been an understanding ally on the Jurong situation. We go to a club, he’s there, and even if she’s tired or wants to go with a guy, she’ll never abandon me to him.
“Everything points to a pirate attack,” he says gravely, “Even though we’re in Republic territory.” He’s answering her, but his eyes are only on me. “Don’t be afraid Coora - I’ll protect you,” he adds, but when he says it he’s looking me up and down with that longing, hungry look that reminds me that pirates aren’t the universe’s only predators.
I wish I was better at handling this kind of male attention. I don’t want to sound immodest, but for as long as I can remember I’ve been considered exceptionally attractive. On my homeworld, I even helped pay for my college fees with some modelling work – an activity which I found very boring, but lucrative. Once I left home and mixed with the humans, I soon found they thought me equally beautiful, but with no one suitable for reciprocating, I’ve remained inexperienced, and a virgin.
I’m tall for a female, and my face is almost perfectly symmetrical, with soft feminine features and high cheekbones. My body shape declares my ripe femininity as blatantly as my scorns – I have wide childbearing hips, and my breasts are large in relation to my narrow waist and slim frame. From an era before it was appropriate, I’ve always drawn the predatory stares of men.
“Yes, I’ll protect you, Coora,” Jurong repeats as his gaze drops to my chest.
Jurong is a good-looking guy, for a human. Part of the tragedy of our relationship is that instead of wasting his efforts in a fruitless pursuit of me, he could have had his pick of the human females. Our college course has a lot more women than men. But while some human males like Jurong might lust for Dystyr females, we don’t reciprocate for human men. Dystyr women might be similar enough to human females that their males assume our tastes are the same, but Dystyr men are much larger – eight feet tall being an average male. Furthermore, our men have prominent bulges on their foreheads which the human men lack, and once you’re conditioned to like a certain look, well that’s that.
Dystyr do not reproduce by forming pair bonds, like the humans. Males struggle for dominance, and our fittest are rewarded by mating with many women. Thus, our males are highly territorial, and in our pre-history, they evolved to mark their boundaries with a pungent smelling urine. The fragrance conveys the virility and strength of the male.
Now we’re civilized, it’s not like our guys still pee in the corners of our homes, but one can’t undo genetics, and for us females, smell is an important factor. I fully comprehend this concept is gross to the humans who focus on the visual, but to Dystyr women – well, inhaling a high-quality version of that musk is quite a turn on. Stores discreetly sell bottles of the stuff as an aid for women masturbating. So for poor Jurong with his human height and smell – no dice.
The hall is getting busy now. It’s so loud with conversation that it’s difficult to hear the continuing strikes on the ship, but we can still feel them through the floor. All our class seem to have found each other, attracting more and more mass like we’re a planet forming.
A woman in an officer’s uniform steps onto the stage. She must be wearing a microphone, because I hear the sound of her clearing her throat amplified a hundredfold.
“Passengers,” she greets us as the crowd falls to sudden silence, “I am Oshia Trondo, first officer of the Moons of Odaron. The captain sends his apologies, but he needs to remain on the bridge dealing with the situation you’ve all noticed.”
“As you might have surmised, the ship is currently under attack by a pirate vessel. But you are in no danger, so we ask…”
“Where are they from?” interrupts a man at the front of the crowd.
Trondo hesitates, and then she says, “They are raiders from Aghara-Penthay.”
Trindii is one of the passengers, mostly women, who immediately scream. I’m silent, but otherwise little better - terror grips me also, and for a moment I think I’ll faint. The Slavers? The Slavers of Aghara-Penthay are attacking this transport? Gods help us all if they succeed.
“Silence!” barks the officer with as much authority as she can, but she still has to repeat herself. “Silence!”
The initial panic subsides slightly, but the crowd remain too fearful to be entirely calm.
“A distress call has been sent to Republic Prime and the fleet are converging on us even now. Although this transport has little armament, its shields are very strong. These ships are built to run, and hold out until rescue arrives. All the same, for your safety, I ask you to remain here, as far as possible from the outer hull. And do not attempt to make for the lifepods, unless the ship does fall. In a lifepod, you will be easily captured.”
Captured… I look around, as many, many of the women, are doing. I’m feeling very aware that I’m female. We all know what it means to be female, and captured by Aghara-Penthay.
“How many women are on this ship?” a man calls. He sounds hostile.
Trondo consults a note.
“One thousand, two hundred and forty-seven adult females. Nine hundred and sixty-three adult males. Non-binary species – two hundred and…”
“That’s too many women!” heckles the man angrily, as though he blames Trondo personally for the ratio. She flinches.
Asshole. There’s no need to be mean – as a woman, she must be scared too. Trondo is approaching her middle years, but she still holds a certain elegant beauty, and that means she will be thinking about the same fate every other remotely desirable female in this hall is fearing. The specialty of the Slavers of Aghara-Penthay – the business that’s made their fortune, is trading their women captives to meet the sexual desires of the galaxy’s men. There are no free women on Aghara-Penthay – to be female on their world is to automatically be a slave. Uncaptured women, i.e. those such as I, still free in the rest of the galaxy, are referred to by the Slavers using the vulgar title “cunts”. That’s all we are in their eyes. Cunts. The place between our legs is the only thing that matters. It’s us women who have the right to be emotional. Not the jerkoff saying there’s too many of us on board.
“What do you expect us to do?” Trondo retaliates, as pissed off as I am. “It’s not as though we can just hand over every attractive woman on the ship.”
“Why not?” he calls back. “The idea gets my vote.”
There’s angry muttering, mostly directed at him, but the seed of the idea that others might be saved has been planted now. The Slavers take some male slaves, but not many. The old, and most of the men on this ship, will die if the raiders make it on board. Sometimes fallen vessels hand over their women, and then the rest are be spared.
“They won’t break down the ship’s defenses before the Republic arrive,” Trondo rebukes. “And then you, Sir, will regret making such a suggestion.”
But she’s barely finished her sentence before there’s an even deeper boom then, caused by something vast knocking against the hull, and the sound carries even to here. The ship lurches again. At first there are a few screams, but then everyone stops to listen for clues, and so we all hear the engines cut out completely. I hadn’t realized how constant the noise of them was until it’s gone. In the sudden quiet more women scream, filling the silence.
“Are there any weapons on this ship?” another man, more politely, is asking Trondo.
“Not many,” she replies, and the fear is blooming in her voice now. “A few blasters on the bridge, but that’s all. These ships rely on being too big and too fast to attack. We shouldn’t need weapons.”
“The engines just quit, ma’am. We need weapons now,” someone says.
The ship’s public address system bursts into life, so sudden and so loud it makes me jump.
“This is the Captain of the Moons of Odaron. Slavers from Aghara-Penthay are boarding the ship. We can no longer hold them off, so our guidance has changed. All passengers and crew must make for the lifepods. Evacuate! Evacuate! Your Gods be with you. I wish you all good…” but before he can finish, his voice is cut off with a sound like a blast. If there’s any more broadcast after that, the announcement is drowned over the deafening cries of the passengers.
The Slavers of Aghara-Penthay are raiding the ship.
2 - Flight
Blind panic has taken over. I start screaming. Everyone is screaming. What are we to do? I couldn’t bear being caught alive, but I don’t want to die. People begin to flee, and instinctively I start to run with them, but I fly aimlessly, changing direction and then changing again. Our chances of evading the pirates in lifepods are little better than our chances on the ship, but just waiting here to be caught is intolerable. I have to try something.
I’m not half way to the exit from the hall when a blaster bolt, a real blaster bolt, zips over my head, causing panic as it smashes the ceiling and rains debris down on the fleeing masses. I’ve seen blasters on screen many times, but in all my life I’ve never actually been in the presence of a weapon discharging before. Only moments later, a grey-haired woman next to me falls, and in her torso I see a blackened smoking hole.
I freeze, staring in horror at remans that moments before were a living, thinking, being. Someone grabs my hand and I’m pulled roughly towards one of the corridors.
“This way,” he says. It’s Jurong.
I don’t know how he’s managing to stay so calm when most are barely managing to control the hysteria. The fallen are suddenly lying around us everywhere. Where minutes ago there was order, I now have to step over corpses to reach the corridors. How can so many be gone already? But although the devastation presents superficially as chaos, I have enough wits remaining to confirm there is a method in the carnage. Younger women and the strongest and most handsome young men are the only ones being spared. They’re lying stunned – frozen there as inert as waxworks. Those of us with value as slaves. Everyone else is being killed.
I hurry after Jurong. I’m willing to go with anyone with a coherent plan to save me. The prospect of rape at the hands of the Slavers would be devastating. I’m a Dystyr. I left my homeworld before mating, and like most of us who go offworld, I’ve remained a virgin. I can’t be a sex slave. I can’t be a sex slave.
And there’s something as horrific as the rape awaiting captives. Decades ago, the Slavers would suppress their captives with sheer brutality. But now they do something far more insidious. It’s called implantation. A biochip is injected into the brain stem at the base of the skull. The chip grows tendrils into the tissue, which emit signals interfering with the neurons relating to free will. The victim of an implant is unable to resist a command, so long as it’s delivered by a male. Order the victim to screw – they will screw. Death is not even an escape. The implant has many protocols besides obedience, including one which prevents a slave ending her life.
Women freshly captured by the Slavers are always taken first to the surface of Aghara-Penthay. There they’re implanted and often given further barbaric augmentations, and then they’re branded with the slave mark. It’s a swirling mark on the cheek to signify she is a processed woman. A quality control sign for the buyer. A lifelong badge of shame for the wearer.
Please no - this cannot happen to me.
“Where’s Trindii?” I moan to Jurong. I realize for the first time she is not with us. We’re being swept along with panicked passengers making for one of the lifepod bays. Civilization is beginning to break down. An old man has collapsed face down on the floor, clutching his chest, alive but fallen, and no one helps him. Including us.
“Trindii is on her own now,” Jurong says harshly. “This way.”
Instead of following the herd, he pulls me roughly into a deserted corridor of cabins. These rooms are better class than the shared accommodation purchased on a student budget, which offered us little more than twin bunks. Through the open doors I see large double beds, loungers, viewing screens.
“This way,” Jurong repeats, hurrying. “Here,” and choosing one apparently at random, he pushes me inside.
“What are we doing?” I ask him, confused. “We can’t hide for long. They will have life scanners. They’ll search the ship.”
Maybe his plan is we try to conceal ourselves long enough for the Republic to arrive. Maybe he intends to shift from cabin to cabin and try to slip past the searchers. Hide and move, hide and move.
Jurong hits the pad to close the cabin door.
“Wait! We should go to the escape bays, Jurong. The ship has fallen. If the lifepods all launch together, at least we have chance,” I tell him, turning to leave, but he pushes me with all his strength, so I almost fly back onto the bed, and his true intent dawns on me. Immediately I start to lever myself up, but he quickly throws himself on top of me, and I scream. I can feel it pressing against me. That’s his erection that I can feel. That’s Jurong’s penis.
“No!” I plead, trying to push him away. “Jurong - No!”
Sometimes, I just hate men. We should be fleeing for our lives, and Jurong choses now to get an erection.
“We’re lost anyway, Coora,” he grunts in my ear, his voice heavy with lust. “Hear those men? If you’re gonna get fucked anyway, I’m going to have you first.”
I do hear them. Amidst the screams from outside are the unmistakable sounds of blaster weapons, and the shouting of hostile male voices.
“No!” I protest again – louder, more urgent. I’m continuing to fight him, but he’s stronger than me, and he has the advantage of his weight bearing down on my body. His hand first seeks my breast, and I’m unable to prevent him squeezing me. So it’s come to this. He’s won his wish. Finally, he’s got to touch what he’s imagined for so long.
“Gods Coora, you’re perfect,” Jurong tells me, and he buries his face in my neck. His human stubble is alien to me, and I hate the scratching and his hot breath. I struggle with all my strength to escape from under him, but it’s not enough to break loose.
“Help!” I scream. As though in the middle of a pirate attack, anyone is going to attend to one woman’s cries.
Jurong releases my breast, but only so he can start hitching up the fabric of my dress. I wish I’d fastened it all the way down now. I’m lucky I closed enough that most of the fabric is tight, and the task requires both hands. This means he only gains slow progress with our combined weights inhibiting him, and I’m resisting every inch of exposure, but gradually he wins, and I end up with cloth rumpled like a concertina around my hips. My legs are now bared completely to him – skin he’s never seen before - and he pauses a moment to caress my thigh.
“Jurong,” I say, “Please don’t. Don’t touch me.”
Jurong freezes, but not because my plea produced any positive effect.
“Wait. Quiet, Coora. Listen!” he says in a harsh whisper.
I hear more screaming, from somewhere very close. A voice cries out then is suddenly cut off. A man laughs without mirth.
“We don’t have long,” he says, and reaches for me again.
There’s a painfully sharp tug at my pelvis, as next, my panties are ripped forcefully away. I’m left in a state of unbearable openness without them. My newly naked genitals are pressing against his erection. Only the layers of his pants are between us now. Jurong reaches down, fumbling for the fastening to free himself.
I scream as loud as I can this time. Perhaps the fear of discovery by the Slavers will stop him.
“Be quiet, you fool!” he snaps.
Please, why won’t someone come? I have only seconds remaining to do something, and it’s going to be down to me to save myself. Looking round for any form of aid, I stretch desperately for the only thing in range. It’s a glass ornament – the form something alien and unknown to me. It’s heavy, but I can lift it with one hand.
Jurong releases himself from his pants and gods help me, I can feel him – exposed man pressing exposed female. The flesh of his cock is warm. There’s no softness to his organ at all. It’s as though a rod of iron is probing against my pudenda. In moments he’ll back up his hips to where he can point the foul thing at me, and the rape will begin. I have to do something. I’m not normally savage, but I’m not normally desperate. With no other option left, I swing the ornament into the side of his skull. It strikes with a sickening crunch. Jurong’s eyes roll back in his head, and at last I’m able to push him off me.
I’m on my feet as quickly as I can get up. In spite of the urgency I still pause to push my dress back into its correct place around my legs. The coverage is a blissful relief.
I look down at Jurong. For a moment he’s so still I think I’ve killed him, but then like a jump-started speeder, he jolts and groans. His cock is still out his pants. The erection is beginning to shrink. Gods it’s disgusting. How could anyone want that inside their body?
I spit down on him, venting my venom.
“Asshole,” I say.
The compulsion to escape Jurong is so strong I’ve hit the door release and I’m in the corridor before thinking of my safety. There’s a body on the floor right outside – one that wasn’t there before. An older male, face down, with a blaster hole the size of a dinner plate burnt out the back. There’s no more time to consider the dead. Which way are the lifepods?
My heart pounding, I choose a direction at random. But it’s the wrong one. After only seconds, at the junction ahead of me, two Slaver troops walk right around the corner. They’re mooching – not even looking for prisoners. Simultaneously we see each other.
The larger of the two men, a dark skinned, unshaven fellow, grins.
“Hello, pretty.”
Without hesitation, I turn the other way, and I run for my life. The adrenaline spike of fear makes it feel like everything happens in slow motion.
Behind me, the men murmur something to each other.
Perhaps they let me hope for a moment, perhaps, because I almost manage to reach the junction. Then something hits me in the back like the punch from a giant fist. I find myself sprawled face first on the floor before I know it. I try to move, but my muscles don’t seem to respond to commands. I can’t even move my eyes. I must just stare at the patterned laminate covering the floor until a Slaver boot fills my view. There is a red dust on it. The ground from Aghara-Penthay. My instinctive urge to get up and run is overwhelming, but I can’t budge an inch.
“Well ain’t you a catch?” a man says to me. “How did you slip past the others?”
I know what’s happened. Blaster weapons, of the type which have just struck me, come with stun and kill settings. Pirate groups long ago found that it was too easy to make mistakes switching between settings, so they adopted a tactic of having raiders work in twos. One man with the kill setting eliminates threats, and those who have no value. The other, with stun, aims at live captures.
I’ve just been stunned. I’m lost now. I’m beautiful, I’m woman, and they called me pretty, so they want me alive.
I feel a hand invade between my legs and my dress sliding up for the second time. I can’t turn to see who’s doing it, but his hand traces his path up my skin with dreadful slowness.
“Gotta check her hidden for weapons,” the Slaver says to his companion, and then, to my shame he calls, “Guess what, Tren? No panties on. We have ourselves a slut.”
No, Jurong tore them from me. I try to explain, but only manage to emit a soft moan.
The touch becomes intimate, as he reaches my fulcrum. I blink.
The Dystyr are relatively conservative and like most of our females I’d been saving myself, intending to be one of the women yielding myself to a worthy alpha. But fate had other intentions for me. The first man whose penis touched me was Jurong. And the first man who intimately gropes my sex organ is some Slaver lowlife, a human male whom I’d only set eyes on moments before. All my deeply held romantic dreams are torn to nothing in a matter of minutes.
His hand releases my core then, but only to squeeze my breasts, much as Jurong recently did. Although is interest has moved to groping my chest, he leaves my dress hitched up, and the presence of open air on my naked, exposed rump is unbearably humiliating.
“Nice!” my assailant voices approval of the flesh he’s squeezing.
“No!” I’m finally able to vocalize a plea, and gradually, I draw up my arm to try and push him away. A stun blast doesn’t disable the victim for long, and I find I can now move a little, but still too slowly to offer any practical defense.
Abruptly there’s a burst of sound from one of the men’s communicators. The hands leave me, but after they’re gone, I can still feel where I was touched.
“We’d better get back,” says one man.
I’m too late to defend my breasts, but with my muscle control improving by the second, I reach tentatively behind me, and start pushing my dress back over my rear.
“Put one of the shock collars on her,” the other guy speaks. “We don’t want a prize of this grade running away.”
I don’t know what a shock collar is, but avoiding it sounds more important than protecting my dignity. I look up fearfully, switching my efforts to raising my torso up from the floor. But I’m not yet fast enough.
The unshaven one is already leaning over me, holding a piece of alloy tech in his hand. It looks like a band, a circle of similar circumference to a woman’s throat. The device in his fingers hangs opened by the hinge, but at the free end I see the teeth of a locking mechanism.
I moan, trying to fight the thing away with my half-numb arm. This cannot be allowed. Whatever a shock collar is, I do not permit them putting one on me.
“What do you figure her fleshy things are?” unshaven-one says to his friend, brushing my scorns away to fully expose my neck, unaware that to a Dystyr, he’s doing something that’s a great intimacy. “Ah, no matter. Welcome to Aghara-Penthay, cunt.”
And the collar snaps into place around my unprotected throat. The alloy feels cool compared to my skin.
I’ve made it into a half-sitting position by this time. I tug at the band around my throat, aiming to pull it back off, but it’s locked itself, and I don’t have a key.
“Now, cunt, if you don’t come along, docile-like, this is what will happen.” And before he gives me a chance to cooperate there’s an intense jolt of pain from my neck. It makes the muscles in my body go rigid and I’m right back on the floor again, my spine arched with suffering. Abruptly as the pain came, it then goes, but I can still feel a tingling after-memory in my muscles.
Horrified, I look up at him from the floor. I see clearly how he delivered the pain - there’s a small controller device in his palm – nothing more than a pushbutton and a dial. I reach out a shaking hand. If I’m going to escape I need to overpower him and seize that thing.
“Oh no, sweet-tits,” he laughs as he sees the direction of my gaze. “Do you think you’re the first cunt to try and do that?”
The next blast of pain he inflicts lasts longer. I cry out, clawing at my neck a second time to try to pull the source of the hot agony away, but my arms lock and I’m paralyzed with the pain.
When the torture stops, any possibility of resistance goes with it. Violence is almost unheard of among the Dystyr, except for rival males fighting for alpha status. I’ve never experienced someone trying to cause me pain purely for its own sake before.
“Do you need another demonstration?” he asks, holding up the control.
“No!” I say fearfully, and I mean it. I’d rather endure him squeezing my breasts again than have another dose of the collar.
“Then on your feet, slit,” he says. “And come with us.”
I struggle to stand, but I’ve been left very wobbly after my ordeals, and I can only stay upright by supporting myself with a hand against the wall. With my free hand I surreptitiously reach for my throat. The collar feels hard – just a piece of alloy tech. I pull helplessly at it. There’s no sign of the suffering it can inflict. There’s also no sign of a release mechanism.
“It doesn’t come off,” the other man, who is watching me, says. “So unless you want another dose, you’d better forward march, sweet-tits.”
Shakily I begin to walk. The Slavers fall into formation around me, one going ahead, and one behind. I realize don’t know which of these two was the man who just claimed the honor of touching me more intimately than anyone before.
We reach a junction with the main corridor, and the evidence of Slaver brutality continues. The corpse of an old man is sprawled where the floor meets the wall. Then there’s another, and another. In some places, streaks of blood smear a path along the wall.
“You didn’t have to kill them all,” I feel compelled to protest.
“I didn’t kill them all,” laughs one of the men, unashamed at the carnage.
And then we see the first one I recognize – poor, unattractive Nee-Sin from our course. With minimal prospect of a boyfriend, she consoled herself with food and became morbidly obese.
“Oh, I did kill that one,” says the man at the front. “Ugly cunt.”
I feel hate like I’ve never felt hate for a sentient being ever before. Injustice always makes me furious. I clench my fists, vowing to find a way to avenge her.
“Look, you’re making the slit angry,” says the one behind me, amused.
Seething impotently, I proceed, trapped between my captors. The Slaver at the front leads us down to the lower level – the one with the docking bays. I see more and more dead. Always they are the old and the unattractive. I don’t know whether to envy them or pity them. Not when I’ve already had a taste of what’s in store. That Slaver groped me. Such a sexual assault could earn him a jail spell in the Republic. This ship is supposed to be Republic territory. But one of these men groped me anyway. He touched my very core. Legally I’m still free on a Republic vessel, so I should be allowed to run from him, as I please, to report him, but I’m afraid of the collar and I mutely follow the pirate in front. The pain from that thing around my neck was so terrible, what else can I do?
We reach one of the docking ports, and at the airlock, the friendly pastel decoration that was all over the transport switches to a cold alloy. Other Slavers are converging on this place, herding their own captives towards the airlock. I see only one male captive, and the rest comprise a growing group of women. Most of the prisoners have a collar like mine around their necks, and collars are not the only indignities the raiders have inflicted. One woman I see is already nearly naked above the waist. She clutches the meagre shredded remains of her top, vainly trying to hide her chest.
I hesitate before crossing the threshold into the Slaver ship. This is far more than a physical boundary. I know that once I’m there, I’m beyond salvation. But I’m prodded with a blaster in the back, and I’ve stumble on to the territory of Aghara-Penthay before I know it.
So that’s it. My feet are on a Slaver ship’s floor. I’ve just lost all my rights as a free citizen. Just by taking one step, because I don’t have a penis between my legs, I’ve become a slave. The unfairness of such a rule eats me inside. But my captors bark an order, and still I must move blindly on, following the others in a corridor that’s now getting crowded, much like when we made for the recreation hall.
Also similarly to that previous short journey, the corridor opens into a huge space. There’s no sign of any comfort in this new chamber – this is nothing like the transport. It is merely a ship’s hold. This is a space to transport goods. Living goods. A large crowd of prisoners are already gathered in the center of the space. I break ahead of my captors and hurry forwards towards them, eager to be separated from the two men who attacked me. In this big group, for now we’re largely unsupervised. The Slaver guards merely position themselves around the walls, leaving their captives alone in the middle. The pirate men are relaxed. They have the confidence of soldiers who have already won the victory.
Among the others, I’m thankful to be just one of a crowd. But the crowd are almost all women, and a disproportionate number of us are beautiful. We huddle together, feeling safer together even though that safety is an illusion. Everyone seems to be talking, trying to find a solution when there is none. Many, but not all the prisoners, are locked in shock collars similar to mine.
“Coora!” a frantic voice calls, and I see Trindii. Her eyes are tear-streaked and I see she’s also been collared, but she seems otherwise unharmed. We hug each other, and I burst into a fit of sobs, crying which I’m unable to control for several minutes.
“Where did you go?” she asks when I’m calm, looking into my face with concern. “What did the Slavers do to you?”
They did so much. The collar, and my dress baring my ass while he touched between my legs, and his hand on my breasts. And Jurong. I look away, too ashamed to answer.
“Me too,” she says, understanding, “but I’m alive.”
“Better we’d been killed,” I say to her gloomily.
A claxon sounds from somewhere, different in pitch to the alarm calls on the transport, and I feel a vibration through the floor. I know what that means. We’ve just undocked. We’re even more truly doomed now. There will be the familiar kick in a moment when we go into hyperspace, and then we’ll be beyond rescue. Please no… But there it goes. The tug, against my whole being, of the star jump. An instant has passed, and already we’re light years from the Moons of Odaron.
I’m hoping we’ll be left alone at least until reaching the Slavers’ world, but as soon as we’re underway, our captors resume our torments. A man’s shouting becomes audible over the din of panicked captives.
“Women to the front of the hold. Men to the back!”
In the throng, I don’t know which way is which, but those nearer the edge can probably see him gesturing, so keeping a tight grip on Trindii’s arm I simply follow the rest of the herd.
I‘m aiming to try and keep in the center of the female group, where it’s safest, but in the direction we’re moving, Trindii and I end up near the back, and when we stop again, we find ourselves at the edge of a large circle of galactic womanhood. There must be hundreds of us here. Across from the females’ circle, I see the much smaller group of males. Briefly I note Jurong is not among them, but that’s all the thought I’m willing to give to him. Demanding my immediate attention are the men between our circles – Slavers with officer rank. The captain is quite the ugliest man I’ve ever seen – a short fellow with a black beard, morbidly obese with lank greasy hair.
“Prisoners - form into lines,” he commands. “An arm’s width apart. Spread yourselves out.”
With no sensible options but obey, we shuffle ourselves around according to his orders. Like any new recruits, the procedure is disorganized, and it takes some time. But eventually we find ourselves arranged in position. In front of me is a pretty blonde girl. I do not know her – she isn’t part of our course group. To my left is Trindii. To my right there is only open space, and then the men. I’m still on the edge of the female ranks.
I look down with broken heart at my precious dress. I know what must be coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear.
“Now strip!” orders the captain. “Strip. Everything. No clothing. No jewelry. Put everything in a pile to your right.”
No! They can’t make me do this. Not in front of everyone.
A few women tentatively start pulling at jackets and footwear, but most, like me, look around uncertainly. Our guards seem to be expecting this. Before the officer has finished speaking, Slavers are already moving down the lines, activating shock collars on those who delay. My attacker unfortunately comes from behind me, and I’m on the floor before I know it, my body so rigid from the electric fire that I can’t even scream.
They only zap me for a moment – it’s a warning, not a punishment. The pain has gone and the guard has already moved past me and is torturing some other unfortunate. But it was enough. I scramble back to my feet. I’m not sure why, but my thighs have started aching.
I know it’s inevitable that I’ll finish up completely undressed in front of all these people, so it doesn’t really matter what goes first. But we all seem to instinctively remove the least intimate layers first. Reaching down, I pull my boots off my feet. The alloy floor of the hold feels cool, and hard on my soles. Barefoot, I drop my boots next to me, at my right, as I was ordered. My heart is pounding. Gods, this is unbearable. When will I next be lucky enough to have any covering on my feet?
At my left, Trindii is already down to her underwear. She looks around self-consciously, waiting for the others to catch up, but a guard notices her hesitation, and he activates her collar. The sight of my dear friend enduring such suffering wrenches my heart. Oh, Trindii - is that what I looked like when they tortured me? She convulses uncontrollably, and her face locks in a rictus of pain.
I start pulling at the fastenings for my dress. I’m aware I’ve got no panties on underneath – Jurong tore them from me – but there’s nothing I can do about that, and it’s not as though I’d have been allowed to keep them much longer anyway.
Next to me Trindii is unhooking her bra. Self-consciously, she lets it fall down her arms, baring her oversize breasts. Her nipples, a paler color than the rest of her java skin, are small in comparison to such fleshy balloons.
Meanwhile the last of my fastenings comes apart, and I can’t make the task of undoing my dress last any longer. Well, here goes. First, I ease it back off my shoulders exposing my cleavage, uplifted and presented even by my simple bra. Then my slim, flat belly is revealed, with the wide childbearing hips an advert of fertility in both the human world and the Dystyr one.
And then I do perhaps the bravest thing I’ve ever done, and I drop my dress to the floor. Gods, this is unbearable. I have to choke back the urge to cry. All I can think of is the way my bare ass and my core have just been exposed before a huge crowd. I cup my hand over the familiar folds of my sex organ. Dystyr are entirely hairless, and I don’t even have the protection of pubic hair afforded to the human females. I can feel my scorns touching my naked buttocks.
I make the mistake of glancing around. Most of the male captives are nude now. Some hide their genitals much as I’m doing. Some stand shameless. Many are watching the women strip. The majority of the men cling to their ingrained civility, and have the decency to glance only surreptitiously, but a few are leering blatantly. I look away. Around me almost all the women are naked. Trindii steps out her flimsy panties, and sorrowfully discards them on her pile. Then she begins to pull at her earrings. I wonder why she didn’t remove her jewelry first.
I try to unclip my bra with one hand so I can hide my groin, but it’s too difficult. Blushing with embarrassment I temporarily surrender the covering for my crotch, and I reach between my shoulder blades with both hands. I’m desperate to pause for a last second before yielding my final piece of clothing, but then I see a Slaver is watching and waiting with open enjoyment, the shock activator ready in his hand. His eyes flicker between my unprotected core and my chest. Scared almost to the point of panic, I slide the straps of my bra down my arms, and drop it quickly, that I might use one arm to conceal my chest and return my other to cup my groin.
I’m naked.
I’m naked, completely naked, in front of all of these people. Yes, my sex organ is concealed by my hand, and my nipples are hidden by pressing them into my arm, but my breasts are full, and for a woman with my proportions it’s impossible to conceal the swellings of my chest completely. No one would mistake me for a male for even a second. Hanging down my back are my scorns – another symbol of womanhood, which rest against my bare rump. Gods help me, I’m done for. I’m a naked female captive on a Slaver ship.
I look around me while continuing to concealing my privates as best as I can. The last of the prisoners are completing their process of undressing. No one offers our captors any more resistance, as though the removal of clothing took with it our spirits. The nude males are remaining stony-faced, but many of the women are crying. I wish they wouldn’t – it’s hard enough keeping my own emotions under control without the effect on me of their woes.
Trindii has her arms clamped over her body, much as I have. I hope my attempt at modesty does not look as futile as hers does.
And then I see my first slavegirl. My first live slavegirl, I think, although immediately I realize that isn’t true – all the women around me, including myself, are already slavegirls. But this one has on her face the mark of a woman processed on Aghara-Penthay – the Slaver’s equivalent of a symbol of quality. She has been marked because she has an implant injected into her brainstem – a fate feared by women across the galaxy.
I study her expression to try and see some sign of the abomination she carries – perhaps I’m expecting the glazed eyes of a zombie. But she looks perfectly normal, alert even, like any normal human female, except for the black swirling mark imprinted on the side of her head and her near-nudity in the Aghara-Penthay slave wrap.
The wraps are another defining symbol of Aghara-Penthay. A rectangular piece of silken fabric, the wrap fastens with a bow under the slave’s arm, so it can be easily removed even while the wearer is in any form of restraint. The garment is meant to excite the observer as much as conceal. It wraps around the wearer like a bath towel, but one which is too small.
Each is custom fitted to the slave so it hides just enough. With the nipples covered, the lower hem barely covers the pudenda, and the rump. At the side, there is deliberate design to provide not quite sufficient fabric to close, so it leaves a gaping swath of flesh exposed which hints at the shape of the wearer’s breasts. There is no lower fastening, so lean forward or back, and a woman exposes herself. Underwear is not permitted for slaves, so wearing a wrap, a slave is forced to constantly be aware of her body, and her slavery. Copied wraps sell in vast quantities across the galaxy. Husbands buy them for their wives to model in the bedroom. Women buy them to surprise their partners. A harmless erotic thrill for some, an everyday horror for too many.
The girl in the wrap moves along the line collecting our clothing and bundling it into a sack. There is no sorting to simplify returning items – this is collection only for disposal. I tremble as I understand I won’t ever be getting that beloved dress back. It was expensive. Underneath the covering of my arms, I can feel only my skin. I am naked. Me, and all these other naked women around me.
Other slaves move along other lines. There are too many captives for one servant to deal with all their property.
“Thank you,” I tell the one who takes my things. She does not reply.
Men move down our lines, then. Slaver men. I can see them visiting first the girls at the front of the rows, then advancing one by one along the ranks, so I have enough time to try and comprehend what’s coming. First, two men approach the captive. Then she puts her hands on her head, and parts her legs, so they get see everything. That is going to feel unbearable. The men consult each other. They write a number on her left thigh. And they move along. Five away from me. Four away. Three away. Each time it takes about thirty seconds to receive this… inspection?
Closer and closer, and then my turn comes. The two men stand in front of me. They are clothed. Males. Free. I am nude, my hands across my body.
“You understand me, alien?” the taller one barks.
I debate feigning that I don’t speak Republic Common, but my face has already given me away.
“Good. Legs apart! Hands on your head.”
I shake my head in horror – no, no, they can’t expect me to show myself. Human women, yes, but Dystyr? Without hesitation the shorter, squat man raises something towards me, a device like a baton he’s holding in his hand, and touches it to my upper arm where I’m hiding myself. It’s like a red hot iron has been pressed against me and I scream. People nearby look around.
He moves the baton away, and the pain fades almost immediately. My muscles around the area of contact are shaking, and I can’t stop them.
“Do I need tell you again?” he asks. He’s smiling. This is entertaining for him.
“No, I’ll obey!” I cry. Tears are coming now, and I can control them no more than the trembling. Abandoning my scant protection, I put my hands on my head, and open my thighs.
And they inspect me, their eyes moving over my body blatantly and intimately.
It’s bad enough being naked in front of all these people, but standing in this demeaning pose makes the ordeal into my worst nightmare. My breasts are lifted by the position of my arms, and presented even more completely. The private place between my legs feels open and exposed.
The men make noises of approval.
“A very fine cunt,” says the taller man. “Nine for the face, losing one just because she’s an alien. Shame. Ten for everything else?”
“Agreed.”
“Now, keep still while I do this,” tall one says to me, and with a different device he leans down and writes something on my naked left thigh. A number, in large print visible across the room, drawn with a thick red line.
It says “forty-nine”.
Then they move on to the woman behind me in the ranked captives. I hesitate, holding my pose for a moment because I’m fearful of another touch from that baton. I glance across and see that some of the nude men are watching me continue to hold position, and this triggers embarrassment to overcome fear. I risk dropping my arms, and resume concealment of my body.
Two men have been progressing down each of the lines. The pair dealing with Trindii’s line have only just reached her. I look across, trying to project my sympathy and support for her, as she places her hands on her head and parts her legs to put everything on show, as I just did.
“Nice face,” one says. “An eight. We can all see what her best assets are. Ten for those bangers. Short legs – a six. Seven for the body. Seven for the ass.”
“Not everyone likes their breasts that big,” his companion counters.
“But ten to the right customer.”
“True. Okay, ten for the boobs it is, then. What does that make?”
