Chapter 2

I awoke with a smile on my face. Not because of sweet dreams. Something was tickling my foot. I looked down. A furry little brown head peeked above my toes in the shaft of light from my cell’s tiny window, twitching its long, whiskered snout. At my contracting my legs with an alarmed yelp, the rat darted back into a palm-width crack in the stone floor.

If only I could escape that easily. A male voice echoed down the corridor outside my door.

“Sounds like the second man’s up. I’ll get him. Wake up that last woman. They’ve had enough sleep.”

Footsteps approached.

“I’m going to open the door. Wanna see you standing straight with your hands in front of you, palms open, by your bucket in the far corner.”

I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck at the utter dismissiveness in his tone. At least he didn’t sound angry or particularly violent (for a prison guard.) In the couple of seconds of hearing the bar being withdrawn from the door and the hinges begin to creak I weighed my options and found them sorely sparse. Brandishing a wooden club menacingly in front of him, the guard peeked cautiously through the half-open door, then seeing me obeying his order opened it fully. My jaw dropped.

Expecting some Neanderthal in the same martial get-up as the women who’d dragged me out of the suspension center, instead I saw a young man, at most twenty years old, of modest height, with a cautious, diffident look in his eye and a neatly trimmed sparse teenage moustache, shirtless, with metal armlets above each elbow and a clattering necklace of what looked like glass beads adorning his clean, freshly washed chest. His dark hair hung in a braid down past his shoulders. Below the waist he wore sandals and bright red tights of a thin enough material to leave no doubt that he wore no underwear. Incongruously, he boasted a freshly swelling black eye.

“Good.” His shoulders relaxed a bit, lowering the club. “Good. You, uhm, you shouldn’t try to hit me or anything. That big lummox they brought with you took a swing at me. Now he’s got a sore head. And all the women are close by, with the other tube stiffs.” He hefted the club one last time then stuck it under his arm, reached behind the door and brought over a ceramic jar full of water and a small ceramic bowl full of some kind of vegetable stew. My stomach audibly growled. He watched me dig my fingers in and wolf down the greasy stuff, cleared his throat portentously and said in a lower, conspiratorial voice:

“Mistress Dana told me not to talk to you much but tube stiffs don’t know how to act so I should tell you. Keep quiet and do whatever the mistresses say. It’s bad to talk back.” He twisted his torso to show me a fading welt across his shoulderblade. My eyes widened, remembering the slaver from last night and her whip.

“Where am I? What town is this?”

“Fort Loud” he said proudly. “Biggest town in a month’s trip whichever way. Rebuilt back in 24. They say it’s got almost ten thousand people now, though I’m not sure anyone sat and counted them all.” He grinned at his own wit. “And they’ve got the best trackers out of the mountains so don’t think about running away. I’m not saying you would” he raised his hand as though the thought of escape might have offended me “but tube stiffs do stupid things like that sometimes. If the Fort Loud rangers don’t get you back, the bandits will. Or the wolves. Last girls who tried it wound up dead. And chewed up.” He shuddered. Kid was the weirdest mix of soulful and callous.

I mulled this over while licking my fingers. The clamor outside kept rising. “What’s going on out there?”

“It’s the big fall market until the full moon. Lots of people coming to town to buy and sell. Come on, you need to wash.” He grabbed the bowl and jar and pointed me out the door. I rose, pulling the blanket to me as makeshift loincloth.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Huh?”

“Leave the blanket. It’s supposed to stay in this room.”

“But they didn’t give me any clothes.”

“You’re not going outside yet.”

With that seeming non-sequitur he snagged the cloth away from me and pushed me buck naked into the hallway. A tall blonde woman leaning on her spear at the end of the hall ogled my junk shamelessly but didn’t seem to consider this event worth any sort of comment. If anything, she looked bored. A couple of turns brought us to a room smelling of damp soap. We stood aside for its last occupants, another female guard leading one of my female fellow captives, sobbing gently and every bit as naked as myself. On spotting us she attempted to backpedal only to receive a smack on the butt from the butt of the guard’s spear. She rushed past, huddled over, vainly trying to cover her breasts and bush while I mimicked her with my hands over my package, blushing to boiling point and averting my eyes.

“Tube stiffs are so funny.” Cackled the armed woman while making room for us. A sharp slap on my ass carried me through into the room.

“Why were we made slaves?” I growled at my own keeper after they’d gone.

“Huh? Well, you just are of course.” Of course? “And for her and the other women, they weren’t born to free mothers or freed by their mistresses so that’s how it works. Go on, wash yourself.” He added a bit impatiently. The room housed several metal wash tubs on its tile floor near manual water pumps. I was going to argue the point but suddenly became acutely aware of my own filthy state after the trip, and nothing sounded better than a bath, even supervised. I pumped some lukewarm water into the nearest tub, grabbed a nearby piece of soap and started scrubbing, painfully conscious of my guard’s eyes on me at all times.

“Is it true you weren’t even allowed to show your ass or prick or balls in the old days? At all?”

“It was against the law.” I mumbled.

“Everyone’s law?”

“I’m ... I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“Eh, crazy either way. Don’t forget your ass.”

I hadn’t, but gritted my teeth at the indignity and dragged a soapy washcloth between my cheeks again under his careful scrutiny.

“Not like that” he huffed petulantly as though addressing a toddler and before I knew it had walked over and was pressing my back down while reaching behind me. I half stood, balling my fists and almost tipping the tub over. He took a step back, looking scared and surprised at my reaction and reaching for his club.

“You ... you gotta do like you’re told. Remember? Mistress Dana says I have to get you clean for the auction!”

“Problem?” The door opened and the tall blonde from earlier poked her head in.

“No, ma’am!” answered the young man anxiously. I huddled back down into the tub.

“They had the same trouble with his others. Had to give one of the bitches three stripes before she let us make sure she was clean. Let me handle this.”

“But ma’am, mistress Dana told me to-”

“Mistress Dana’s not going to hear about this. About you not being able to do the job yourself. Right?”

“Err ... no, ma’am.”

She walked over to the tub, licking her lips, until she stood menacingly over my form hunched on all fours elbow deep in bath water, clapped a hand onto my wet ass, squeezing and humming appreciatively. With her other hand, she stuck the thick wooden haft of her spear under my face, rotating it suggestively.

“Now, boy. You’re either getting my finger up your ass or this handle. Which is it going to be?”

I clenched my teeth (and my ass) at her tone, her threats, her shameless invasion of what little modicum of privacy I’d thought I could retain. I gave myself even odds in a fight. She was armed, sure, but in coming in close to my face she’d forfeited her spear’s extra reach. She’d even stuck it under my face for me to grab. Then I realized her confidence was well-founded. I didn’t even know how many other guards would swarm in at any sound of trouble. Not even this primped-up little prettyboy would be on my side. Finally I gulped down some bile and whispered:

“Finger.”

“What was that?” The spear’s haft tapped me under the chin.

“Your finger.”

“Your finger what?” She clapped her palm to my ass again, caressing it.

The other man mouthed something helpfully. I gulped and guessed:

“Ma’am. Your finger, ma’am.”

“That’s a good boy.” She dipped her hand in the bath water. I clutched the edge of the tub as a slippery, wriggling appendage pressed against my anus. Paying no attention to its contraction, the digit fought its way inside then retreated, bringing up more water and soap and scrubbing the resisting muscle mercilessly inside and out, pawing my taint and balls in between for good measure. At the end of the humiliating ordeal, the woman leaned in close to my face, breathing heavily, eyes glinting, grabbed my head and pressed her lips against mine for a second. Her breath smelled of onions.

“Wish I could afford you, handsome.”

With that, she rinsed off her hands and took her post again outside the door. I was left speechless, trembling with humiliation and apprehension. I rinsed myself off, emptied out the tub into a nearby drain at my male guard’s instruction, toweled myself with a rough linen rag and allowed myself to be marched, still naked, to another room to brush my teeth, trim my nails and to have my hair combed by a surly, slightly flabby old woman. My keeper handed me a simple grayish-brown bath-robe and sandals and offered one last piece of advice before leaving me: