Chapter 5

Next thing I knew I was being gently tapped on the cheek. Itoomawa, fully dressed in her pants and leather jacket once more, mumbled drowsily at me on her way out.

“You snore. Sleep on your front. Roll up the bags and help Alsoomse roll up the tent.”

“Huh?” But before I’d even uttered the syllable she was out. For a moment I wondered what the condescending bitch from my nightmare about being enslaved in a postapocalyptic future was doing at my old campground. Then my mind separated the two worlds and a wave of nausea hit me and left me curled up in denial. “Fffffuuuuuuuuuuuccckk...” I mumbled, rubbed my eyes and took a few deep breaths of the cold morning air. A scratching sound on the tent and a gruff female voice:

“Hurry up in there tube stiff.”

“Oh, fuck off” I mumbled under my breath, but apparently still loud enough to prevent a short, snorted laugh from outside. Remembered threats of whipping dragged me out of the sack. One thing I noticed about this new world: like, zero noise pollution. Every little sound from me rolling up the sleeping bags to all of the footsteps, wind and crackling of a fire outside were clearly audible several steps away. Seeing the bags had string on the ends I tied them up and crawled out, unkinked my back and looked around. The old slave woman Cam was busy turning a mesh grill over the fire. Most of the others were busy with the wagons and cows. No portable toilets ... right ... well, camping rules should apply. We stood in mostly bare scrubland but I spotted a clump of trees and brush tall enough to hide behind. A quick, low double whistle stopped me. Arms crossed, a tall muscular woman with close-cropped black hair and pale eyes, torso covered in a hauberk of stiff overlapping leather plates, scowled at me.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to ... y’know...”

“What?”

“Umm, take a leak?”

She snorted in amusement. “Your mistress gave you a job. I heard her. You can piss when we’re done. Put the bags in that wagon.” When I returned, she handed me a loose tent flap: “Hold that.” With the casual efficiency of a lifetime’s practice she wedged a stick under the remaining tent stakes, pulled them up, rolled the tent around them then pressed it against my chest.

“In the wagon. Then you can piss.” After a few seconds’ pointed staring she shook her head and walked off. Nobody else bothered me until I relieved myself. Dropping my robe back down behind the trees I looked desperately around for escape, but the relatively flat plain offered little cover and the sight of a couple of figures on horseback passing our camp on the road suggested I’d be overtaken quickly, lack of combustion engines aside. The same double whistle from earlier snapped my head around to the same female apparently unconcerned for my potential privacy.

“Don’t do it. It’d be stupid.”

“I wasn’t going to –” I swallowed the rest of my words.

“Like dust you weren’t.”

Most of the women were crouched around the fire now, talking. Seeing us approach, Itoomawa smirked maliciously, got up and tore up a clump of grass, trimming the blades in her fist.

“Alright ladies, let’s entertain ourselves before breakfast. Adam here talked back at me a few times yesterday so let’s call it ... oh, say, ten spanks. Whoever likes the look of that scrawny ass, draw for it. Show them your ass boy.”

“What?” My jaw dropped. She smirked like I’d fallen into her trap.

“Twenty. If you want be able to sit down this week, don’t make us wait any longer. Show the ladies your big bony man-butt.”

Cam, dumping another load of roasted vegetables from the grill into a pot, lifted an eyebrow at me. This was no joke. Itoomawa was driving home the point that I had no right to privacy. Feeling myself blush, I turned around and hiked my robe up to my waist. The women cackled.

“Just take it all the way off, tube stiff. You can turn around now.”

I turned, slowly, hands casually draped in front of my genitals, not daring to do more. Itoomawa held out her hand and each (except for Cam and a teenage girl) drew a blade of grass. The tall one from earlier held up the shortest one triumphantly, sounding a ‘wolf’ whistle at me. Itoomawa said:

“Alright Alsoomse, have at him. Adam, bend over, hands on your knees and stick your ass out at us, you wanna show off properly. Ten on each cheek Alsey.”

Embarrassed but glad she at least wasn’t bending me over her knee like a toddler, I flinched as a powerful palm caressed one buttock, then outright jumped as a loud smack landed on the other. A chorus of laughter rose from the audience.

“Hands on your knees, stick your ass out.”

A firm, stiff slap stopped my breath for a moment and made me lose my footing. I stepped back without being asked this time, eager to get the ordeal over with. Alsoomse varied each spank, alternating or repeating side and direction unpredictably, making me mumble curses and gasps. Chick had an arm like a shot-putter. Tears came to my eyes. Finally, one last spank drew a loud yelp out of me and almost knocked me over. The guffaws of laughter at this only cemented my humiliation. I blinked rapidly, not daring to turn. Grabbing me by the chin, Itoomawa did it for me, suppressing her giggles.

“That’s twenty. Thank the woman for bothering with you.”

“Th-thank you” I mumbled, avoiding the taller one’s steely gray eyes. The fingers dug painfully into my chin. I corrected myself:

“Thank you ... ma’am.” She just nodded, leaned in for a quick peck on my lips, and walked off. Itoomawa tsked and pointed me to the teenage slave holding some clothes:

“Put those on, then you can wear the robe over them for warmth.” Seeing me mince over with my hands cupped over my gonads drew more laughter from all assembled. Giggling, she added: “- and don’t cover yourself, for fuck’s sake. I bought every part of you back in town. You don’t hide yourself unless I tell you to. Got that? Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

The little fight my half-starved body could muster had gone out of me. Slowly, I dropped my trembling hands and turned to her: “Yes ... mistress.” Then I turned again, flashing my bait and tackle to the women clustered around the cooking fire and hurried over to where the girl held out my new outfit. She seemed mostly unphased, merely amused by the whole proceedings, though she couldn’t even be out of high school ... if there still were such things. I was glad to find a pair of loose pants and a shirt. Quickly grabbing the robe from the ground as well and feeling the adrenaline begin to ebb, I couldn’t see anything else for it but to join everyone by the fire, where we each grabbed handfuls of roasted vegetables and meat out of the common pot. Washing our hands and the cookware in the river again, we loaded everything and got the wagons moving.

The rest of the day was thankfully dull. My body still recovering from suspended animation, I found that after an hour or two of rocking and rolling at casual bovine speeds along the gravel, then simple dirt road, I was able to even doze off. We broke several times to let the animals rest, drink and feed, ate a summary lunch, passed an unassuming hamlet of low, shingled wooden cottages and several homesteads with thatched roofs, then repeated the previous evening’s dinner ritual. I wasn’t feeling particularly chatty with Cam or the younger slave and I found myself, once again, rooming with Itoomawa while most women just slept in the wagons or shared the other tent. She once again demanded to see me naked. To my shock, this time she lay back on one elbow and began rubbing her cunt in earnest while pinching her nipples under her shirt. Before long she was masturbating openly, shamelessly, still staring at me as I did my best to pretend I was somewhere else, not knowing whether I was expected to or forbidden to do anything, not-not-watching her fingers rubbing, parting, kneading and spreading her labia. Finally, she gasped through a small climax and, wordlessly, slid into her bag and turned out the light. Figuring my role as masturbatory aid was over, I curled up again in my own bag, feeling my buttocks sting still, shivering until I warmed it up and wondering at this bizarrely open yet restrained sexuality.

“Told you to sleep on your front. Woke me up with your damn snoring.” I gasped awake with my nose being pinched closed. Reflexively, I slapped her hand away. Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll add that to your next punishment.”

“Sorry, I just –”

“Shut up. Pack the bags and tent again like yesterday.” And, without further comment, she pulled her pants on, grabbed her jacket and crawled out of the tent. A different woman came to pull up stakes, not favoring me with any conversation beyond telling me what parts of the canvas to hold. We ate breakfast then washed up, leisurely. The day seemed warmer than before, reminding me to ask the Cam the elderly slave woman something that had been bothering me:

“Hey, um, Itoomawa said this is the month of ... Walnut, I think?”

“Moon of Walnut, ‘cause it is, yeah. Almost over.”

“What season is this though? It feels cold.”

She snorted, casting a sideways glance at me while sweeping a rag across a plate.

“Season’s fall. Walnut’s what you used to call in the old days ... amber? Sender? Something like that. Now it’s called Walnut ‘cause it’s when the walnuts drop in the plains. Better, see?”

“September?” I retorted incredulously. “This is September? Feels almost like winter! How far north are we?” I had no idea where my suspension center had been buried but knew the slave wagon had traveled with the sunrise to our right to Fort Loud where I’d been sold.

“Farther south than I was born, farther north than I was first sold, downhill from where we’re going. What’s that tell ya? Nothin’. It were your dust made it this cold, so everyone says.”

With that, she turned and hauled the pots off to the wagons. The conversation was over. Apparently I’d hit a nerve. Nuclear winter? Was that what she’d meant? If so, not as severe as it might’ve been, given the amount of vegetation still thriving. The day seemed sunny enough, if not particularly blinding. Would these degenerate dregs of humanity even recognize nuclear winter if it hit them? We set off at a relatively brisk pace with the sun at our back, passing a dozen-house hamlet surrounded by a wooden palisade. Against what dangers, I wondered, but dozed off before asking. We stopped for lunch at a two-story inn, mortared stone topped by heavy timbers, with heavy wooden shutters on its few windows and several large, angry-looking dogs kenneled near the only door. An older woman in a fluttering, multicolored dress ushered us in then at a couple of long rough-hewn tables. There were no menus. Apparently you ate what they had, but the smells from the kitchen were promising enough. To my shock, the food was brought out by a shirtless, mustachioed middle-aged man followed by an equally shirtless young woman holding the hot tray out from a pair of proud little B-cups. I avoided staring by digging into the plateful of meat and potatoes Itoomawa slid in front of me. Casual conversation sprang up all around, mostly about people I didn’t know and places I’d never heard of.

“What is this?” I hazarded at one point, forking a bit of gamey meat into my mouth.

“Never ate moose before?” Itoomawa answered quickly, though a couple of women’s heads had snapped in my direction. I’d forgotten myself and spoken out of turn again. The colorfully-dressed proprietress immediately asked:

“Is he from that last tomb they dug up, Itoo?”

“Um-hmm” the latter nodded with her mouth full. The innkeeper nodded sagely:

“Yeah, got that starved and clueless look to him. So he’s not...” she let the question hang. Itoomawa shook her head:

“Bossh Tara paid hish prishe.”

“Speaking of” Alsoomse, the tall martial woman who’d administered my spanking yesterday, inclined her head toward the shirtless servers “usual price?”

“Sure” the innkeeper answered “they’re done in the kitchen anyway.”

“Split?” Alsoomse asked another woman, who nodded. They got up, fished some coins out of their pockets and handed them to the innkeeper, then accosted the waiter. For his part, he just smiled politely and led them upstairs. Another woman flagged down the waitress, slipped the boss a few coins and also headed up with an arm wrapped around the slave to dig her fingers into her soft, yielding tit. By the time we finished eating and chatting maybe half an hour later, all three rejoined us, grinning widely, at the wagons. Well, I thought, that answers a few questions. Apparently I was to be whored out to a specific woman, which brought Itoomawa’s concern over my continued flaccidity into focus. She was afraid she’d bought a dud. And, though impotence would’ve seemed a petty concern in my current apocalyptic circumstances, I also spent the next few hours under the wagon’s canvas wondering what it would mean for me to be unable to ... perform ... for this boss-woman.