Chapter 1

The kneeling slave girl looked up from her cage. The sea air cooled her hot sweaty body for an instant as it gushed over the docks, as the water did over the pier when the tide was high. Then the wind stilled and day lay hot and moist over her again. She licked her lips slowly, pouting, her tongue tasting salt mixed with the sweat, oily taste of the bright red gloss that was thickly layered over her full lips. Her mound burned between her thighs, hotter than the day, on fire, making her squirm on her heels, knees chaffing on the straw that lined tiny cage. More sweat built on her upper lip, cheeks and scalp, moistening her carefully set bonnet of shoulder length dyed blond hair, as it dripped dow her neck.

Traci's eyes searched the wharves. The docks were deserted; no ships had come into port for two hours. The three that had come in lay still and quiet. There were no sailors, no Masters about. The only male visible was Linus, the dock Master's wharf slave, who was pounding nails into strips of boarding, the muscles his wide forearms glistening and flexing with each blow of the hammer. Traci tossed her head, hissing with annoyance as he stopped and looked at her yet again. She hated the way he stared at her tits, boldly, as if he was free. He was just a slave; she was for free men, and she wished she could cover self when he stared. But more, he looked at her sneer-ingly as if her looks weren't very much, and he'd want a lot more from a slave cunt like her, if he bothered to use her. It made her an-gry; sour and bitter in her throat. She wanted to spit at him.

She ran a thumb on her collar, lightly, and the thought moved to the back of her mind, as she looked at him again. Yes, she sighed softly to self, reconsidering. Linus was right. Her face was too pointy to be pretty, and her hair hadn't taken well to the bleaching it went through each moon. The dyed blonde hair was now stringy, and thin, but her worst feature she knew were her tiny breasts. The man her father had married her off to when she was 18 had laughed at them, and then slapped her hard, when he removed her padded, pointed breast strap the first time on their wedding night. Now, a slave, she didn't even have that lie to hide behind. The slave girl touched her collar again, fingered it, and arched her back, thrusting her breasts out automatically.

The coin case which hung from the short chain on her collar, moved on her, and her hands went down to it. Still empty. Again. Nothing. Holding it in her hands, she looked at mesh box neatly af-fixed on the inside of cage lock. That was empty also. She knew that her kennel-mistress would be displeased with her again, and shud-dered anticipating her punishment. Maybe she would be thigh whiped again. She bit back a silenght scream, remembering the burn from last time. On god, no. She scanned the ships on docks again, thinking she'd seen a movement. Some times a few sailors were kept back for urgent work, and got off their vessals later. No, it seemed all was still. Closer to the dock cages, though, Linus was pounding away. Traci let her eyes move up the large male's hard thighs to his bulging loin pouch. Free men often were in tunics, or robes, but male slaves, especially if used as work beasts, were only allowed a cotton pouch, that supported their male organ. She could see the outline of his thickness pressing on his spreading testicles, as he worked, the light hairs of his lower belly, spreading densly downwards into his covered crotch. Despite herself, her nipples throbed and her breath quicked. Quickly she turned to the corner of the cage, the low roof brushing the top of her hair, and looked again in tiny, cracked mirror at her face, taking in her carefully out-lined gray eyes, hand going to the tiny mascara brush. Men like blue eyes with dyed blonde hair, the kennel-mistress always reminded her, not gray. She knew her eyes needed work, they just weren't attractive. Moving the brush on her lashes, she thickened them again, and then darkened the outline again with the kohl. She checked lips wondering if the color had les-soned. It had, of course, for she had been licking and wetting her lips unthinkingly for the last half-hour or so, after she had freshened her face the last time. She licked her lips again, hand on her collar, her mind wondering as she savoring the taste, feeling the familiar tug in her lower belly the slave-paste was designed to provide.

Traci shook her a head a moment later; pouting her lips in the mirror: of course she needed more color on her lips. Dipping her fingers in the sticky paste, she touched the tips her lips, rubbing the paste in slowly, keeping to the edges, layering. The slight, familiar sting of the paste made her gasp softly as always, as she felt her lips swell anew, puckered and heavy, coloring to a bright, shimmering suck-red, as her kennel mistress had called it sneeringly, when she had given her the pot. In the first few minitues after a fresh coating of gloss, touching lower lip to upper made the sting really strong; parted, pouting lips, open in a eager half kiss kept the sting down. Soon the pout became second nature; and as the girl tried to sooth the irritation with constant licking, she ingested the aphrosidiac homones in the paste.

Lips well painted, Traci lowered red tipped fingers to her breasts, she rubbed slowly, reddening the areola and breast tips with them, working the rest of the oil in to the soft flesh of her nipples. Her eyes watered with the sting she knew she would feel, but invol-untarily her thighs widened, as she felt a fresh tingle of heat between her thighs. She sucked in her belly, feeling her nipples swell and stiffen, as she arched her back, and thrusting out her small breasts. Feeling her slit fill with fresh juice, Traci pulled her hands away from her nipples, thumbs brushing the now stiff, throbing bright red points one last time. She whimpered in frustration, butt cheeks grind-ing into her heels and touched her collar. She sighed, breath is still quick but calmer, remembering the rule was right: slave girl's didn't finger themselves.

Traci, like every other slave girl in the great port city of Dam-ster, was collar conditioned. Few men understood how the collars really worked; many thought only the physicians of the High-Lords did. Pen trainers knew how to touch the collars to adjust them for each girl, so that her resistance to what she dispised about her slav-ery would lessen, and what ever habits of service wanted from the girl, would be re-enforced. Of course, they were careful specialists, they simply touched a girl's collar, focusing their minds on hers, and adjusted lightly: too much conditioning would sap any girl's vitality. Once the collar was lightly fitted in this way, the slave-girl she did the rest of the work, almost unconsiously continously and for ever after. The basic rules was this: A collared girl was conditioned touch her own collar when she felt recalcitrant, resistant or even angry at her Master's wish, explicit or implied. Just a feeling of slight resent-ment was often enough, she couldn't help herself, her hand went to her collar, fingering. And each touch helped her see that her Master's wish was right. That was wrong in her thoughts, wrong to be resent-ful. And that was usually enough; if occasionally her Master made her touch it as well, when she seemed to need it. Again, it didn't do to over do it, that was a sure way to make her a listless zombie, would have no thoughts at all. But Masters knew they didn't need to, a few touches, combined with a few slaps and the occasional whip-ping and any girl would slide deeper and deeper into submission, raw female need to please the male, just taking over, enslaving her from within. Or at least, such was the theory of it. The system worked, and worked well, but it worked best with thoughtful, skilled Masters, who took the time to know their slaves well. And as Mas-ters varied, poorly conditioned girls were not unknown.

Traci looked quickly and fearfully at other cage-whores in the cages around her, wondering if one had seen her touch nipples for a moment too long. Last week, Jena, who was caged on Traci's left, had watched her rub her nipples too long, and catted to the dock Master. That wasn't unsual of course, it was expected that the girls would tell on each other; it was part most slaves' collar condi-tioning, Masters and kennels mistress encouraged; it made controling slave sluts so much easier. It was called 'katting' — and any slave was expected to catt well. A good catt exposed some thing another girl did, that wasn't right from the male point of view, that she was try-ing to finger herself, that she was only pretending to swollow sea-man, that she was whining about being slapped. Complaining about what only effected just the other bitches in a kennel or chain, wasn't encouraged, that wasn't a good katt. That wasn't often a concern of the keepers; it didn't matter if a girl screamed in her sleep and woke the other girls up, or she tossed and turned, throw off the covering rags. Those were just kennel matters; what mattered in a katt, was the issues the Masters would really be bothered about. Even slaves who were really close and sisterly with each other were expected to catt on each otherand did, regularly. And often their Master or ken-nel-mistress would have the betrayed girl, kiss and thank the other publicly, for helping to her be a better slave, before beating her. And in time, like with everything else, the girls came to love it.