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“Yes, Lady Olivia.”

  * * * *

  Dee was a vixen. I ordered her to massage my feet. And she did, lulling me, and then she moved up my legs. I didn’t realize I should keep her busy until she was back on my butt.

  And what she was doing felt very good.

  I told her to massage my arms. She did, and I zoned out and didn’t become aware until she was stroking between my legs. “Dee!” I complained.

  She giggled. “You like this,” she said. “I like it, too. Please don’t make me stop.”

  “Dee, please don’t do that.”

  She didn’t stop, and Olivia chuckled. “If you don’t accept, then order different behavior. Dee, lick Claary’s tailbone until she orders you to do something else.”

  The woman didn’t hesitate. I’d never been licked there, and I discovered I liked it. A lot. An awful lot.

  I moaned with the pleasure.

  Olivia let that go on for about a minute before she said, “Claary, I won’t force you. If you tell her to free you, she will. But I really wish you’d tell her to do whatever she wants.”

  “Please don’t make me stop,” Dee said. “Please, Ms. Claary.” Then she flicked her tongue some more, and I went a little crazy.

  “Don’t stop,” I whispered. “Please don’t stop.”

  She licked, and she stroked, and then she said, “You must tell me if you want more.”

  “More,” I whispered. “Whatever you want to do to me, Dee.”

  Seconds later, she slid two fingers into me, and I went insane.

  * * * *

  Dee wore me out. From the noises, Olivia had every bit as much fun as I did. Finally I couldn’t take more, and after a long, thorough orgasm, I begged to be untied.

  “Untie her, girls,” Olivia said. “Then you may take turns tying each other in Claary’s place.”

  Both girls went to work untying me. Then Olivia helped me up and wrapped me in a robe. Bee helped Olivia into hers, and then Olivia took my hand and led me to the sofa. I was too numb to protest. We sat down in time to see Dee tying Bee to the table. Bee was squirming madly long before she was secured and moaning her pleasure soon after that.

  “They’re sisters,” I whispered.

  “They’re pleasure slaves, Claary.”

  “What?”

  “They aren’t just pacified. They are enslaved. They were given a choice, and they chose to become pleasure slaves.”

  “What choice were they given?”

  “Other forms of slavery.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “You weren’t saying that five minutes ago,” Olivia said.

  I shut my mouth. Was I a hypocrite? I didn’t know.

  “I told you I would answer your questions,” she said. “I spent a year as a pleasure slave, Claary.”

  “What?”

  “This is an aspect of Ressaline society,” she said. “We have citizens, like me, and we have slaves. Someone who is neither of those is referred to as a subject.”

  “That’s the word you’ve been using.”

  “When a child is born, she becomes a subject. She may become a citizen. She may become a slave. It is not decided. Sometime on or after her sixteenth birthday, she must offer herself as a slave.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am absolutely serious,” she said. “She may do so in a number of ways. She may approach someone and offer herself. Or she may ask the government offices to assign her to someone. She may offer some qualifications. She isn’t necessarily a pleasure slave.”

  “You have other kinds.”

  “Many kinds,” she said. “The outfits they wear is indicative of the type. Red and orange are pleasure slaves. Green are field hands. Blue are household servants. Do you see?”

  “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes from the girls.

  “If she does this prior to her 17th birthday, she is a slave for two weeks. After that, it doubles. Two weeks. A month. Two months. Do you see?”

  “I see. Why would someone wait?”

  “I’ll answer those kinds of questions later. This is one way a woman becomes a slave. It is temporary.”

  “All right.”

  “Another way is obvious: she may engage in a criminal act. Then she may be enslaved either temporarily or permanently. She may also find herself enslaved if she accrues debts with little hope of paying her creditors. If that appears imminent, then she can either make an offer with someone to pay her full debts, and she makes whatever arrangements she makes. Or she may either offer herself to the courts willingly or be taken there unwillingly. If she goes willingly, she is given a slight credit. Then she is auctioned, but the buyers are paying the full debt, and they bid on time. The winner is whomever accepts the shortest duration.”

  I didn’t say anything. I thought that was terrible, but I was barely keeping up with the conversation.

  “Now,” Olivia said. “I must tell you. Tonight, you will not be allowed to leave preemptively. Do not storm out, Claary. I mean it. Don’t do it.”

  I didn’t make any promises. She paused and then continued. “There are other ways a woman may be enslaved. She could offer herself.”

  “Why would she do that.”

  She gestured. “Do they look like they’re enjoying themselves?”

  I didn’t answer that. Dee was giggling, and Bee was moaning loudly, squirming under her sister’s touch.

  “They’re sisters, Olivia.”

  “They had choices,” she replied. “They had the choice of being separated. They had the choice of belonging to me. I told them how I would treat them. They took my offer, Claary. They had other choices.”

  I had no response to that.

  “There are two other ways a woman becomes a slave. One is a very broad category. She may be part of a conquered people.”

  I stiffened.

  “Your female soldiers have been enslaved. Your former council women have as well.”

  “And the men?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t intend to ask, but we don’t keep male slaves. If they’re enslaved, it’s not within our borders. We would have sold them elsewhere.”

  “I see. And so is that what is to become of me?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is what is to become of everyone who wasn’t worth special interest.”

  I said nothing for a while, then even closed my eyes so I would stop watching the sisters, although I couldn’t ignore the noises they were making.

  “There are two more things you need to know,” Olivia said. “At sixteen, a girl offers herself. She is pacified and enslaved for two weeks. After that, she is still a subject; she has not yet become a citizen, but she is not a slave, either.”

  “How does someone become a citizen?”

  “She accepts and wins a challenge.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A competition. We treat them quite like athletic events in other lands. There is quite the variety, but in short, the winner becomes a citizen. The losers become slaves, although not necessarily permanently. Furthermore, if a woman insults another woman egregiously, the insulted woman can demand the other accept challenge, and if so, she does so with a handicap applied. But if the courts determine the insult was not egregious, the handicap is reversed.”

  “I see. So a race?”

  “After a fashion. Sometime after having offered themselves initially, young women may engage in mock challenges. To be legal, they must be registered, and during the registration, the participants agree on the terms. The challenge can be entirely in fun or of limited duration. Or, of course, long term, full challenges, but those are always held in a public venue.”

  We sat for a minute until she said. “I know this is very strange to you.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  “There is one more basic rule, Claary, and that is nearly a complete discussion itself. If a woman does not offer herself by midnight at the start of her twenty-first birthday, anyone who wishes ma
y capture her and present her to the courts. If that happens, she is auctioned, and the duration is for a year.”

  I squeezed my eyes even more tightly and then said, “You are telling me this well into my twenty-first birthday. Is that why I can’t leave?”

  “No. The people here, those who are not enslaved from the beginning, will be treated as if they have all just turned eighteen. Well, unless they haven’t yet. If you offer any time before your next birthday, you will be enslaved for two months.”

  “You said you were enslaving all of us.”

  “Most of you,” she corrected. “Let us return to the age twenty-one rule. A woman may turn herself in.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “For the reward.”

  “That’s what you did?”

  “Yes. Now, it gets tricky. You cannot turn yourself into the courts until they open. That is at nine AM.”

  “You could be captured during those nine hours. What about the day before?”

  “That would be illegal. It is also illegal to intentionally delay someone who has expressed an intention to offer herself prior to her birthday. However, it is very dangerous to wait. I’ll come back to that. Because of that nine-hour window, and especially because your birthday may fall on a day the courts are not open, there are tricks. The tradition has been to walk into any court and say, ‘My twenty-first birthday is tomorrow,’ and then insult the judge.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at her. “That sounds foolish.”

  “Insulting a judge in her court is considered contempt. It is not a criminal charge, but she can send you into lockup until you apologize.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “The courts now hold you, and so you have already turned yourself in.”

  “Oh.”

  “But you have to be careful,” Olivia said. “She is not obligated to lock you in a cell. She could instead subject you to the pillory. And then when your time is up, which I almost promise will be after you are legally twenty-one, you are released in place.”

  “With forty people waiting to catch you.”

  “Yes. So you must offer a very clever insult, so the judge can decide to help with your plan.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her she would be lucky if she were ever half as wise as Gentieda.”

  “Which means nothing to me.”

  “The most respected judge in our history. It is an insult, but she could choose to laugh about it. She did and then had me shackled and off to jail I went.”

  “You did this for the money.”

  “I arrived looking as wonderful as I could. I spent months flirting with everyone with the slightest amount of money. And I didn’t accept a single assignation. I arrived a virgin. And when I was auctioned, while I didn’t break records, my share of the amount was 25 thousand crowns.”

  I whistled.

  “Daughters of the rich and influential have gone for more,” she said. “Much more. The record is something more than ten times that amount. Still, for someone twenty-two, that was a good start. While I would not have chosen the woman who bought me, the entire process meant I was as happy as those two are.” She gestured to the girls, both of whom were panting. I think they had changed places while my eyes were closed.

  I nodded.

  “I must tell you a little bit more, and then we will talk about your situation. It is dangerous to wait. An acquaintance of mine went to visit her cousins as a final vacation. They lived somewhat away from town, and she was having such a good time that she extended her trip.”

  “Should she have foreseen what happened?”

  “No. She left with plenty of time, and her cousins asked to come with her. They rode by carriage, but the carriage broke down while they were still two hours from Ressaline City. They made arrangements, but by the time they did, they would not have arrived in time to insult a judge.”

  “Oh, oh.”

  “No one knew where she was, and so in a way she was safe, but if she was spotted by someone who knew her, that wouldn’t remain true. And so her cousins offered to disguise and hide her. They stayed overnight in an inn.”

  “All right.”

  “They stayed up late, talking.”

  “As cousins do.”

  “And at two minutes after midnight, they drugged her.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Now remember, she was going to spend a year enslaved. That was a given. But the cousins drugged her, and tied her. In the morning, with their coach repaired, they brought her to the courts and turned her in.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “It’s only terrible because they took the reward. She was going there anyway.”

  “That should have been her money.”

  “She shouldn’t have cut it so close,” Olivia said. “Now, there is no evidence they manufactured the broken-down coach. But they might have. They were prepared to drug her, and she didn’t see it coming.”

  “She trusted them.”

  “She shouldn’t have. Within Ressaline society, it is perfectly acceptable to turn in your own sister, if she waits. It’s part of the game.”

  “I see. I think it’s terrible.”

  “If it’s any consolation, they gave her some of it when she was freed. Unfortunately, it didn’t help.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She gestured. “Imagine a year like that. You spent one day belonging to me, and I didn't take advantage of the situation. I gave you small tasks, and you loved each one, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were only pacified, Claary, and lightly at that. It’s addictive.”

  “Which means?”

  “A third of the women who go a year either offer themselves as slaves or intentionally lose their citizenship challenges.”

  “They want to be enslaved.”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t drugged me tonight.”

  “First off, I wouldn’t have to, and second, I don’t intend to do so.”

  “So what is going to happen to me?”

  “You have several choices. You may offer yourself tonight. You may offer yourself to me, or you may ask to be given to one of my officers. Captain Bess would be pleased to take you, as would the members of my personal security squad. You may ask to be a pleasure slave or a household slave. This is consistent with the same choices offered to any woman of Ressaline, and I am not singling you out. I faced the same choices.”

  “You waited.”

  “I will, if you ask, give you the choice of turning yourself in as a 21-year-old. You won’t make what I made.”

  “I’m not as attractive as you?”

  “It’s not that. We’re about to have a significant influx, Claary. Supply and demand.”

  “Oh.”

  “I will promise you five thousand crowns, if that is what you choose to do.”

  “Is that some minimum?”

  “No. That is what I will offer for you. It may be that you will go higher. It won’t be your choice who buys you, and it won’t be your choice how she uses you. You’ll like it though.”

  I said nothing.

  “So, I hadn’t thought about that choice, but you have two right there. You have two other basic choices. You may choose to promise to tell no one what we discussed tonight, and tell me you need to consider your choices. It will be your choice if you leave immediately or stay longer. I will answer any questions, or we can simply enjoy being together.”

  “Or?”

  “After you leave you could break your vow. If you do so, if can I prove it, you will be permanently enslaved and sold, and I will make every effort to ensure you are sold into a difficult situation. Do not make that vow and break it, Claary. I mean it.”

  “You don’t have to threaten,” I said. “Or?”

  “Once you leave, assuming you don’t break your vow, you have the same choices as you have immediately.”

  “Or?”
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br />   “Or you may ask to be permanently enslaved.”

  “In all of these choices, I will be enslaved for a period of at least two months and possibly forever.”

  “Yes, but that is no different than any other subject of Ressaline.”

  “So I’m really choosing to whom I belong?”

  “And you may negotiate with that person how you will be treated, but your owner is obligated to treat you as a slave. If you choose me, you will be my pleasure slave.”

  “You have two.”

  “And I would then have three,” she said.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Do you mean why am I giving you choices I’m not giving everyone?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “Because afterwards, you will be free to ask for challenge, and if you win, you will become a citizen. We don’t want to enslave all of you, Claary.”

  “You mean not permanently.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  I gestured. “So I would dress in red?”

  “Yes, but not like that. That is different and is a part of challenge. I took both of them in challenge.”

  “My sister? My mother?”

  “Your mother does not interest us. She will be enslaved, probably permanently, although any slave who is strong enough can demand a fresh challenge. It is very rare that someone who hasn’t had practice challenges is able to win a challenge, and I have never heard of a slave taken in this fashion who has asked, but it could happen.”

  “And Lisbon?”

  “She does not interest me, but I could be talked into negotiating over her.”

  “If I go along with your plan?”

  “You’re going to go along, Claary. All of you are. You can’t fight us and win. You know that.”

  “So what negotiation power do I have?”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “No.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to make a vow and break it?”

  “No. How are you going to prevent widespread panic?”

  “We won’t tell the entire truth at first,” she replied. “We’re going to do what we’ve done other places. Tomorrow morning, we’ll announce how our society works. Some of you will offer, the ones we’ve selected. You will be enslaved and then seen about town. In two months time, you will be released. Everyone will see this. They will see how happy you were. They will see you aren’t traumatized. Some of you will speak very positively about the experience. Some of you will begin talking about your challenges. We will begin accepting others. They will accept what they believe is temporary enslavement, but then when offered freedom, they will decline. They will then undergo challenge, but at a severe handicap, and then it becomes permanent. There will be fear but no outright revolt.”