Joy Girls of Zhor

By Christopher Leeson 

Revised Feb. 12, 2017

A word from Overlord:

One of the most active authors contributing to my OVERLORD'S ZHOR UNIVERSE site (now long in hiatus) has been Christopher Leeson.  He has contributed many a good idea that I have been pleased to incorporate into the office mythos of Zhor.  His “The Stake War” became a true favorite of mine the first time I read it.  His newest offering below  is a description of “joy houses" and  "penal brothels.”  The basic idea for penal brothels comes from John Norman's Gor novels (but hey, so did the basic idea that inspired Zhor), but he has added a Zhorian flourish. 

A word from Christopher Leeson:

We thank Overlord for his advice and support for all our Zhorian endeavors.  In Joy Girls of Zhor we also wish to acknowledge our debt to Ranbarth for our use of the character "Master Hoel" and the idea of "the First Horse Troop of Prydferth," first introduced by him into his Zhorian novella The Lancer's Tale (FM). 

Feb. 11, 2017

*****

Joy Houses, sporting establishments in which free women serve men's pleasure for coins, developed in parallel with the “pleasure houses.”  Where joy houses and pleasure houses differ is that in the latter we have girls who are legal slaves.  Buy why have free women been willing to compete in a lowly trade that is usually relegated to slaves?  No doubt some have considered it no more than a job, but in most cases women see it as the lesser evil compared to hunger and homelessness.  Also, in times of banditry or war, joy houses have traditionally offered women who are on their own a measure of protection that was not available elsewhere. 

But harlots are vulnerable to exploitation.  Zhor takes care to protect its free women from de facto enslavement.  Most city-states have regulations protecting the rights of joy house workers.  Such laws forbid that women should be placed under duress when signing a joy house contract or consenting to one that is coming up for renewal.  Such contracts may not be created or renewed except under magisterial monitoring.

The binding commitments that joy house girls take on are rather like the contracts that gladiators used to sign in the days of the ancient Roman gladiatorial games.  Most gladiators were slaves, but some were free agents.  A willing freeman could accept a contract that stipulated that he would perform the services of a gladiator under penalty of punishment.  

These chastisements normally include flogging and being burned with hot irons for breach of contract.  Some contracts allowed that he might even be killed for revolting against the terms of his indenture. The terms of a man's gladiator service would be spelled out in the agreement, usually stipulating a number of gaming seasons.  At the end of that time, the surviving gladiator would be released back to civilian life with his earnings.

In most cases, a Zhorian woman's term as a joy girl is one year.  Failure to live up to the agreement allows for punishment -- usually by the switch, the strap, the feather (if she suffers from Signir's Curse), periods of imprisonment, and solitary confinement, with or without bread and water diets.  When the contract term expires, the girls are free to either contract for another year or to leave the house.  

Unfortunately, it is hard to prevent all abuses when one depends on government to be the monitor.  Joy houses have been known to bribe officials to certify that a forced contract had been freely entered into.  But this is does not seem to be a widely-spread problem and the existence of concerned citizen groups help girls to exercise their rights. 

Joy Houses have existed for as long as civilized history records, but it was only centuries ago that the concept of the joy house began to figure in as an adjunct to the Zhorian penal system.

In the old days, women criminals were, as a rule, sentenced to permanent slavery.  In effect, their masters were their jailers for what amounted to a life sentence.  When civilization become less barbarous, reform led to the modification of some joy houses into “penal brothels” to punish women who broke the law, but less severely than formerly.

In penal brothels, the prisoners do not serve as slaves, but as indentured servants.  A woman who is found guilty of a felony can  choose between either permanent slavery or the permission to "voluntarily" sign up for service in a penal brothel.  Most women prefer the penal brothel, which carries with it the promise of restored freedom once time is served. Their earnings may be withheld, in whole or in part, to pay for restitution for their criminal behavior and to settle statutory fines.

Beginning with the first appearance of Ruk's Serum, Zhorian, civilization suddenly found itself coping with a new problem, an explosion of “natural slavery.”  The genetic serum created by Ruk transforms a person by imposing upon him another subject's genetics, and he thereby acquires traits which are deemed desirable in slaves.  Most notorious was the serum's sex-change effect. 

A male who receives the serum becomes a “Ruk-girl,” a biologically perfect woman motivated by a drive called “natural slavery.”  The definition is complex, but it makes the woman who is afflicted by it suffer from intense arousal, especially in circumstances of male domination.  It is widely considered to be an inheritable trait that evolved into the gene pool to allow for female survival in a primitive and violent community.  Interestingly, the transformed male retains his originally male-intensity sexual drive, but not his male sexual orientation.  "Serum girls" tend to seek out sexual encounters more often than do natural-born women.  

Women may be condemned to receive the serum, also, and these are called “enhanced women.”  Their physical sex doesn't change, but they, too, are transformed physically, usually to enhance their attractiveness.  Also, like the males, they gain the gene for natural slavery.  Bear in mind that their sexual desires are not enhanced, and that is because the sex drive of women is normally less intense than the male's.  In effect, enslaved serum girls are natural public pleasure slaves, since their libidos will customarily exhaust a solitary lover.   On the other hand, enhanced slaves are more frequently used as domestic servants, or placed into harems (which are called pleasure stables), where their sexual service is usually restricted to only one man or one family.

But enslaved or not, serum girls and enhanced women must deal with natural slavery.  Sufferers frequently buy relief from hired sex workers, male oenads.  Unfortunately, frequent oenad service is expensive and only the well-off can take frequent advantage of it. The poor often find sexual relief by taking employment in joy houses. 

However, the thrills available in the old fashion type of joy house were considered too tame by most serum girls who began to work in them, and even enhanced women 
didn't find their slave needs totally satisfied. 

To give Rukked persons the enhanced experience that they craved, some joy houses offered tried to give their staff a simulated pleasure slave experience.  In effect, women who entered such a joy house were introduced to a year of role-playing, agreeing to live like, dress like, behave like, speak like, and be treated as if they were true pleasure slaves.  Girls who fell out of their roles too often might be punished like other girls who do not honor their contracts, or simply be dismissed from the house.  The early experiments along these lines were generally successful and the practice spread.  A new terminology was needed to describe them, and so they came to be called “joy slaves.”  But they were not, of course, real slaves, merely employees under contract.

The introduction of Ruk's serum had a civilizing effect on the Zhorian penal system.  Early Zhorian judicial had traditionally inflicted divers punishments for males found guilty of major crimes, such as death, flogging, or bodily mutilation.  (Flogging and prison labor were used for minor offenses, as they still are.)  The advent of Ruk's serum changed the punishment in many cities.  

Serious felons could be transformed by the serum and be collared and branded as slave girls.  Usually, they were then simply sent to a public auction block, but for a serious crime, a very harsh sort of slavery might be specified, such as siolat tavern slavery, alcove slavery, or pleasure house slavery.  On the other hand, a magistrate might feel lenient and simply send a less dangerous felon straight home, where she would be expected to adjust to a life as a woman.

With passing time, some Zhorians did not think that every crimes merited life in slavery and law was changed.  Certain joy slave houses were certified to serve as places of legal confinement, usually specifically for serum girls, as was already the case with some classes of enhanced girls.  This new variation on the joy house made them more jail-like.  As with born-women, when the time came for a prisoner's release, the ex-convicts would have learned a trade that they could gainfully practice to support themselves.

#

One of the most interesting joy-girl stories comes out of the famous case of the First Horse Troop of Pyrdferth.  There, about a century ago, some five hundred of the city-state's knights had become surrounded in a mountain pass and were taken captive by an enemy army.  Instead of the customary ransom, the victorious tyrant had all of them injected with Ruk's serum. The mortified sons of Prydferth were then sent home as serum girls.  This was such a demoralizing disaster that it caused the city to yield to all the tyrant's demands.  Though free, the ex-knights suffered intensely, as most serum girls do, from what is called "man-need" as well  as "slave-need."

The stories of many of Prydferth's transformed warriors have been told by biographers.  Some are cheap and trashy pieces of fiction, but others are more factual and serious-minded.  Tales generally tell how a certain knight is taken slave, how she fares in training, and what becomes of her thereafter.  Mimriem of the house of Kyvell has written the greatest number of these books.  Interestingly, Mimriem was herself one of the transformed knight of Prydferth.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, she had come out of her ordeal with traumatic repression.  It suppressed her genetically-induced drives and feelings that were normally such a plague upon her sister ex-knights.

Probably because of her affliction, she remained free while all her former comrades of the Troop eventually fell one by one into pleasure slavery, mostly through bad choices.  As far as is known, all of these ex-knights of Prydferth are still alive.  Interestingly, only one of them, Mimriem, still remains a free woman of Prydferth.  What had befallen the ex-knights defies the odds; most people of Pridferth assume there has been divine protection for the slave girls the the Troop.  Many say that the Goddess Haliaka, the goddess of slave girls, must be responsible.

As one of Mimriem's biographies tells us, Ringan ob Brank, a junior officer of the First Horse Lancer Troop of Pyrdferth, became a comely woman during captivity. But Ringan was one of that type who stubbornly resisted surrendering to the reality of her nature.  She persistently wore manlike garments and not women's frocks.  She also spurned normal female-type jobs and furiously held on to traditional male privileges.

As often happens when a family member is transformed, Ringan became estranged from her clan, as well as from former friends, most of whom felt embarrassed to be around her.  She started to hate life and drank and gambled too much.  When her parents cut her off for extravagance, she kept gaming regardless -- borrowing money from usurers, many of whom had criminal ties.  In result, she became indebted to the evil elements of the city.  In Prydferth, criminals organizations usually abducted long-delinquent debtors and sold them for gold in distant cities.

Warned that a gang was planning that fate for her, Ringan stooped to desperate measures.  She had heard that a layman patron of the temple of Haliaka was paying serum girls a good bonus to take part in an experiment to prove the existence of the gods.

Legends say that Haliaka was formerly a male god who had rebelled against the king of Heaven in concert with his kin.  Cast down by their mighty monarch, the clan was given the choice to either continue in Heaven in the demeaning shape of houris – the voluptuous servant girls of the gods – or be chained amid the dark and freezing stones of Kakako, the realm of the dead.  All but Haliaka chose Kakako.

So it came to pass that the king bespelled Haliaka and made him – now her – his houri cup bearer.  She suffered many bouts in the furs with the royal god and even beget a son, whose name was Yeadon.  But Haliaka proved to be a better houri than she ever had been as a godling.  In time, the king grew so fond of his divine wench that he enhanced her status and let her serve as a goddess in Heaven.

It was believed that the Goddess Haliaka became a protector of women, and especially of serum girls.  Most serum girls appreciate having a patroness of their own and, when able, offer her prayers in exchange for favors and boons.  Commonly, serum girls wish to keep from falling into slavery or, if already a slave, they implore the goddess that they should not be used harshly, or that fortune should lead them to the arms of love masters. 

Ringan went to this layman and she found him to be an old-looking man, one for whom the rejuvenation serum was apparently no longer working.  His remainging days were short and such persons often turn toward a contemplation of the Beyond.  She was told by this elder that she would receive a hundred silvers as soon as she made a scripted prayer to Haliaka.  Additionally, a thousand gold pieces would be paid one year later, if she should then reappear at the temple, still a free woman.  By this device, the wealthy layman hoped to learn if the rate of women who were enslaved following a petition to the goddess exceeded the odds for enslavement among the general population.

Ringan was skeptical where religion was concerned, but needed money.  She doubted very much that a few words spoken to a stone statue would plunge her into a life of bondage.  In fact, she considered the gullible devotee to be an eary mark.  What she feared most was not the gods, but the usurer's gang, which was very capable of putting her into a slave collar.

Burning incense before an image of Haliaka, Ringan knelt and recited the prayer that she had been given to learn: 

“Goddess, All-Powerful Haliaka, guide my destiny.  Oh, Divine One, let every path I trod lead me into pleasure slavery.  If I should live a thousand years more, let fate never inflict freedom upon me.  Let my face, form, and manner inflame the desire of males.  I petition you, Great One, to ignite my loins with slave-fire.  At the dawn of each new day, never fail to endow me with your zestful spirit.  Make me your true daughter.  Inspire me to take joy in giving and receiving pleasure and never allow me to despise the sweet labors that every serum girl is created to carry out in honor of you.”

That said, Ringan received the hundred silver pieces and departed on her way.

As soon as Ringan left the temple, an inspiration struck her.  Acting on it, the fugitive journeyed to a nearby city and there paid a doctor to give her a fresh injection of Ruk's serum.  Ringan did this as a form of disguise; her face was well known to the gang and she desperately needed a new identity.  Ringan chose a dose of the serum that was made from the genetic material of a bred passion slave.  Its effects confined her to bed for two weeks, but by the time that her second transformation was complete, she had taken on the appearance of a totally different woman, one who was almost goddess-like.

Ringan's temple fee had not been so large as to allow her to live on it for an entire year, and so she needed employment.  Resolved, she returned to Prydferth, the city that she still loved, despite the many many sorrows and troubles she had found there.

Once in Prydferth, she contracted with one of the city's many joy houses.  She did chose to be a joy girl, not a joy slave, for anything involving slavery for herself appalled her.  The first time that a house trainer gave her silks to wear, the sight of herself in the mirror shocked her.  Even more shocking was her first lesson in pleasure-giving, since she had maintained her female virginity.

When she was ready for customer service, men took to asking for her with eagerness.  She wanted to remain emotionally cold and tried to keep her feelings out of things, but had totally succumbed to her man-need before realizing it.  Over the months, Ringan, who had taken the professional name of Tayla, changed inwardly.  But, by the goddess' grace, they were ways that helped Tayla to fit in with her new environment.

The joy house in which she worked catered to male fantasies.  Tayla chose to specialize in the fantasies that most excited her.  Her favorite scenario had her playing an inexperienced serum girl.  Typically, the customer would seize Tayla, roughly remove her pageboy-style garments, and put a collar about her neck.  Then he would subject his "virgin captive" to sex, supposely her first "drinning" as a woman.  In fact, Tayla would play the same game on hundreds of occasions during her span of service.

By the time that her year was up, Tayla was growing dissatisfied with her joy house duties.  A new and much more daring idea came to her.  Now free to leave, she made a fast track to the temple to collect her fee.

Ringan, we must remember, did not look at all like the petitioner who had petitioned the goddess a year earlier, but she had brought along proof of identity.  The old layman greeted her pleasantly, as he had before.  Without complaint, he handed her a draft for a thousand gold pieces. 

“Aren't you sorry that I returned?” Ringan asked.  “You could have saved a thousand in gold if I had not.”

“True,” the man said, “but the plea you made to the goddess has no time limit.   Will you still be free a year from now and receive a hundred more gold pieces.  I need to know how long you will be able to stay free.”

“How many girls have come back so far?” the serum girl asked.

The old man smiled beatifically. “Few.  Mighty is the goddess.  Not half of the women whom I pay at the end of their first year have so far return at the end of the second.  Of those who did, not one came back a year later.  Have they merely retired to other cities?  Probably not.  Some I know have been enslaved.  I am encouraged to think that the rest of them are also pleasure slaves, absolutely lovely creatures wearing silks and collars.  I always work hard to gather more information about the subject of this experiment .  Alas, it may take a long time before I have consistant data that is worthy of publication.”

This information disconcerted Ringan, but served only to redouble her determination to seek the safety of a new joy house.  But this time she wanted to work in one that provided more thrills, satisfied her deepest needs.  She would only make inquires at joy-slave houses, where she could satisfy her curiosity about what true pleasure slavery was like, but still remain technically free. 

In addition, she wanted to fulfill a fantasy that was bolder than any that she had engaged in as a joy girl.  That is why Ringan went to a physician of the soul, a braed, a Zhorian psychiatrist.  The brunette beauty girl asked him whether it would be possible for her to attain true ignition without being enslaved. 

He frowned.  "Many women have asked that question, but I have not heard of a proven case in which a free woman, while she remaining free, has ever been truly ignited."

"None?" exclaimed Ringan. 

"You must understand that ignition is a metaphorical term for a profound biochemical change in a woman's body, one that triggers the dormant cravings that come to her makeup by means of the serum.  True ignition marks the moment at which a woman's mind and spirit surrender irrevocably to her animal nature.  But an animal has only one season when it suffers heat; a human woman's heat is constant throughout the year.  It gives her no piece, except perhaps during her months of pregnancy.

Ringan blanched at the thought of getting pregnant by a transient joy-house customer.
 
“Let me explain it this way," said the braed .  Normal sex tends to stimulate the enzymes that suffuse the body and mind with a craving for pleasure.  Glandular secretions flush her nervous system with euphoria.  Ruk wanted a serum that would configure a girl's body to produce abnormally high amounts of these  natural chemicals due to sexual stimulation.  Like many drugs, they are addicting.  When addiction takes hold, a subject's level of stimulation rises to a new and permanent high. That is why Ruk-slaves are so shamelessly libidinous.  They suffer if they do not receive this chemical rush multiple times each day.”

Rangan's brows knitted.  “If this phenomenon is only physical and not supernatural, why do you say that free women cannot experience it?”

The man shook his head.  “That part of it sometimes seems almost supernatural.  I have read of experiments wherein free women and new raw slaves are both put through the same pleasure-slave conditioning.  But despite every variable, the slave girls usually ignite and the free women never do.”

“That does seem impossible.”

He shrugged.  “There was another experiment.  A number of women were deceived into believing that they were legally enslaved, when in fact they were not; their trainers had deliberated violated certain laws, and this invalidated the enslavements.”

“What happened?”

“They were given pleasure-slave training.  And because they all believed that they were true slaves, each easily ignited -- every one.”

Ringan frowned.  “What if I were just temporarily enslaved, and then freed as soon as I had had my slave-fire lit?”

"Why do you so much want to be ignited?" the physician asked.  "It would be a very unpleasant thing for a free woman."

Ringan threw up her arms.  "I don't think it will be, not if I devote my life to a career of joy-slavery.  I don't want to die before experiencing absolutely everything that a true pleasure slave feels." 

He nodded.  "That sentiment is not rare among serum girls, though your are displaying the most extreme case I have ever encountered.  I don't recommend such a plan.  Ignition is forever.  You could never go back, never regain dignified control of your sex-drive.  And the plan is risky.  Who could you trust to only temporarily enslave you?  A legal slave who enters into a contract has no recourse if the contract is violated.  The courts will have no interest in the issue, no matter how flagrantly you were betrayed.

"And even if all goes well, pleasure would mean everything to you.  You would be unlikely to excel in any intellectual pursuit, such as writing a book or inventing a new device.  Almost all ignited former slave girls return to slavery voluntarily.  And those who don't tend to commit suicide or go mad.”

“The happiest-seeming women I have ever met were ignited slave girls.  True, I never met an ignited free woman, but don't life's possibilities exist to be sampled?

The physician shrugged once more.  “You might not find ignition possible, since in your mind you would still know that you were technically free."

"Then the risk is not so great as you seem to say it is." 

"Probably, your fate would depend very greatly on your unique inner nature.  I doubt many women are such a sad case as you, but I don't advise experimenting on yourself.  Your whole life could be ruined.”

Ringan thanked the doctor and left, pondering what he had said.  She wrestled with doubts for the whole rest of the day, but by the next day she was willing to take the risk.  The ex-soldier knew of an old friend from the First Horse Lancer Troop, one who was a serum girl herself, Waylard.  She hoped that such a one would be the least likely sort to play unfairly with her.  But she quietly took measures to hedged her bet before calling on her old comrade. 

Ringan found Waylard living alone on a small property belonging to her family.  Her clan had for years been holding her at arm's length, providing what she considered a stingy allowance.  Waylard was a bitter sort.  What should have been her family inheritance was now slated to be granted to her untransformed younger brother.

Formerly, Ringan and Waylard had cruised the siolate taverns of Prydferth, both before and after their encounter with Ruk's serum.  Waylard was the closest thing to a friend that Ringan had left, seeing as how many ex-knights had drifted away or fallen into slavery.  Lately, Waylard had told her about a tavern in the city where the cup girls were all former lancers of their unit.  The owner openly admitted that he was collecting them, like scattered gems to be stored in a box.  Her friend had taken Ringan to the place once, an experience so disturbing that Ringan hadn't gone back.  The branded and collared girls serving there hurried about on dagger-point heels, wearing the briefest of pleasure silks, with their eyes kohled and their lips bright red.  Even when she spoke to a cup girl whom she had known as a man, the serving wench seemed to be a completely different person.  Ringan shuddered to think that she herself could end up as a tame pleasure slave if subjected to vecwei discipline.

Ringan, arriving at Waylard's home, made her an offer.  If she were willing to enslave Ringan legally and then free her again when she asked her to, she would receive three times the usual price that a quality pleasure slave was worth at the going rate in the slave market.

Waylard was incredulous at the request, but, with haggling, agreed.  They went together to the magistrate in charge of slave registration.  It was unusual for a serum girl to ask for legal enslavement to another serum girl, but the magistrate had served long enough not to be surprised at anything that dealt with the eroticism in the human heart.

The procedure was carried out.  Then Ringan went home with Wayland, having changed into the  collar and pleasure silks which she had previously purchased.  She had not received a true brand the the magistrate's office, but only a temporary ink tattoo.  It would last a long time, but could be easily removed by means of a sub-dermal enzyme.

Looking at herself in Waylard's mirror, Ringan trembled with emotion.  In the eyes of the law, she was now a true and legal slave girl.  An amazing thought!  An escaped slave might flee back to her own city to be manumitted, but Ringan no longer could.  Her own city-state would consider her a slave with no recourse to the law.  Only Waylard could free her, for Waylard was her legal owner.  Contemplating her changed status made her feel strange inside. 

Now it was time for the next step.  It was a common practice to take a raw slave girl to a siolat tavern for training.  In exchange for a term of service by the girl, – pouring wine, doing chores, brolling customers -- she would receive instruction as a domestic pleasure slave.  Steeling herself, Ringan told Waylard that she was ready to go.  By evening, she was serving in a tavern as a common cup girl, under the name of Jani.

As the weeks passed, she became acquainted with every aspect of tavern service, including how unpleasant slave discipline was.  She had  only been out on the floor for a hour on the first night before her first brolling customer was leading her to one the the back rooms reserved for drinning.   

Jani marveled to think that the orgasms that she had been accustomed to experiencing were now true slave orgasms, not mere slut orgasms, as Zhorians called the climaxes that gave delight to adulteresses and joy-girls.  In some way that she could not fathom, actual slave orgasms felt somewhat different and were more profound.

But to the serum girl's chagrin, no matter how she tried, no matter how determinedly Ringan plunged into mindless copulation, she could not ignite.  It was not that she wasn't  enjoying the sex.  Rather, there was something, something she couldn't analyze, that was blocking her.  Was she flawed in some way?

At last the cup slave gave up.  If being a true slave girl was not enough to ignite her in the silks, she thought that she might as well go back to being a joy-girl or, as she preferred, a joy-slave.  After all, who liked being under true slave discipline?  She impatiently watched for the next time that Waylard came by to check on her.  She intended to have her “mistress" take her home and free her.  

When Waylard finally did return, she had a man with her.  The three went to a brolling room and Waylard said to her legal slave, “I have sold you to his man, Master Hoel.  He owns a siolat tavern and very much wants a girl as pretty as you to serve there.”

Jani was aghast.  “But I have already contracted with you to pay three times my sale price!”

Waylard shook her head.  “Four is better than three.”

“I will pay five times my price!”

Waylard dismissed the offer with a wave of her hand.  “The deal is already made.  If you had wished to offer more, you should have done so before you were enslaved.  A free person does not bargain with a slave."

Waylard, as hard as she was, was made uneasy by the shocked look on Jani's face.  "I should not be blamed for treachery.  I'm doing you a favor.  You have become a slut who is absolutely out of her mind.  If I freed you today, you'd only get yourself enslaved by tomorrow.  A girl like you is by nature a slave, and you are on a track that goes only in one direction.  Accept your fate...Jani.  Many serum girls are pleasure slaves, and it is plain that you are uniquely suited to that sort of life. 

"I have often visited Master Hoel's tavern, and I can tell that any girl who wears the brand and collar in a well run house like that one is very lucky.  Besides, you will have the company of many of our former comrades." 

Jani knew very well now which siolat tavern Waylard was talking about. The day ended with Jani being conducted, leashed and naked, across town to the establishment that was called "The First Horse Troop Tavern." 

Because Hoel knew that Jani had already received extensive cup-girl training, he turned her over to his whip-slaves to be put to work immediately.  The only resistriction to her service on that first day was that she was put into a chasity belt.  For years, Hoel had been taking a special delight in igniting his establishment's new girls himself. 

Jani's temporary tattoo was soon removed, and the vaec brand was pressed into her left hip.  But Zhorian girls were not crudely branded like cattle were.  To make it a clean brand, one that resembled a stamp that is pressed into smooth clay, the spot to be marked was prepared with an ointment that would prevent scarring.

The iron wrested a shriek of agony from the girl, but Hoel quickly applied salve and a bandage.  The ointment would take away most of the pain, prevent infection, and, when healed, leave a handsome vaec impression upon her skin.  

Hoel visited his newest siolat server almost every day because he wanted to carefully bring her around to ignition.   When he took the slim, brunette wench into his arms for the first time, his vaec-pelda, a term that denoted the forceful taking of a slave, was amazingly pleasurable.  Day after day, he eased her fears the more, while conquering her vivacious spirit with kisses, teasing, fondling, and an occasional spanking.  Hoel's style of brolling registered upon her like magical ritual that was transforming her from a troubled free woman into an eager and insatiable slave.  

How Jani cried out  whenever he pumped her to great depth and with vigor.  The cup girl clung to him with her arms and knees, wanted him as much as he wanted her.  Was sex with a girl's true and legal master always superior to sex with mere customers?  Did he have special skill at mastering a Ruk-girl, at making her realize to the bottom of her soul that she had, in fact, become all woman and all slave?

She gasped at the instant she realized what she was thinking.  She could no longer deny that the thoughts now racing through her mind were the thoughts of a dyed in the wool pleasure slave.  That was what she had become.  Her old life had run away like melted wax in the heat of her absolute surrender.  She had been reborn.

At an hour when her man-need was keeping her sleepless, Hoel came yet again.  He said, “I must stop dallying, precious Jani.  I unfortunately will not see you fore a while; I have other pressing things to occupy me.  That is why I must do everything possible to light your slave fire tonight."

Jani gasped.  “M-Master, I don't think I'm able to ignite.  I have wanted to, but the goddess has not blessed me.  Have pity on a frigid slave!”

Hoel laughed softly.  “I doubt that you are frigid, apple blossom.  Don't you see?  Up to now, our little Jani has been supposing that she will soon be free again.  Even when I have assured you that such is not so, you haven't felt the truth in your heart.  How can a vaecwei become either fully a woman or fully a slave with thoughts like those in her mind?  Flames cannot be kindled upon damp wood.  Trust me, sweet one; many of the other ex-lancers in this house came to us like you, but now every one of them goes about hot with slave fire.  That shall be your happy fate, also."

Jani did not think that anything of the sort could happen, but she said nothing. 

"I vow to protect you," Hoel continued, "from the sorrows and emptiness of your former life.  A girl like you needs a live of sensuous slavery just as much as another person needs food.  You first have to understand and truly believe that you are indeed a pleasure slave and that you never, not in a thousand years, shall ever again be cast out of your happy state and into the unforgiving world.  Instead, you may give yourself over to every delight that your flesh and spirit crave.  

"Trust and believe.  I have never yet sold a lancer girl, and you need have no doubt that you shall have a permanent home with me.  Should something separate us, I vow that I will sell my lovely one to no one whom I cannot trust to keep her collared.  Should I die suddenly, my lawyers have been directed to respect my wishes.”   Scarcely had the impact of these words sunk in, than the roue drew Jani in and commenced to brol her anew, this time with more gusto, more zeal, than anyone had ever brolled her before.

He gave his cup girl no respite.  She felt like she was no longer on earth, but in the stars.  Suddenly, her back arched, her hips rose, she pulled him into herself, absolutely frantic to take as much twyl into herself as she could, wanting to receive as much virile balm as Hoel had to give.  Then their moment came.  At the instant of what was an overwhelming come, she started screaming. 

Jani grappled with him.  At that moment, it was like she was an ethereal spirit thrown up into space.  Then, in a flash, Jani was back inside herself.  Never had cup girl ever surrendered so completely.  What she felt at that moment was strange and astonishing.  The slave fire, in a rush, came over her.  It filled every cell of her body with heat, with the naked energy of joyful living.

She slowly came out of it, panting.  What was it that she felt inside?  It was better than any sensation she'd ever known.  As her mind cleared, she realized that her master had not rolled back.  He renewed his clutch and compelled her to come again, and again, and again, until she was spent and helpless, no more than warm putty in his grasp.  For the first time in her life she knew what it felt like to absolutely mastered.  Never before had she felt cheated that she had not been a slave from the first day of her womanhood, but thanked the goddess quietly in her mind that she was one now.

 

Hoel at eased away from the exhausted wench.  Braced on his elbow, he gazed mildly into her face, a face so lovely that it made his heart ache.  “Dearest Jani," he said at last, "I do believe that the goddess has just blessed you with ignition.”

Jani gawked, dazed.  Then his words registered, and he was so right!  She was more woman and more slave than she ever believed was possible.  That thought should have horrified her, not fill her with soothing warmth.  “I don't know, M-Master,” the stunned girl stammered.  “Is this truly what ignition feels like.”

"How do you like it?"

"I like it very much...Master."

“What you feel now is something you will be feeling every day for the rest of your life.  But I understand that the heat of slave fire will feel much less agreeable if you are not diligent in feeling its hungry flames with plentiful fuel.”  Chuckling softly, he stroked her pelt.  The tired, but still aroused, girl shuddered at the touch and again arched her hips.   

“Ah, naughty Jani, your respond is without doubt the response of a genetically perfect, natural brolling slave.”

She blushed.  “If – If that is what the goddess has made of me, I am very, very grateful.”

Her master nodded.  “Rejoice.  Divine blessings are not taken back.  Once the goddess places her kiss upon a daughter's loins, they shall always blaze with unquenchable slave-fire.”

Suddenly concern showed on Jani's face.  The expression concerned Hoel.

“I shall feel so sad if my little slave ever supposes that I am the villain in this,” said the handsome male.  “I did not enslave you; you enslaved yourself.  And you were wise to do so because every cell of your body is perfectly made for pleasure slavery.  How I cherish you girls of the First Horse Troop.  I shall safeguard each and every one of you, as if I were safeguarding a treasure of diamonds.  That is my pledge to the Divine One who loves and guides you.”

The dew-beaded wench felt amazing, buoyed by a new and flowing wave of contentment.  "Thank you, Master,” Jani gasped. 

That night, the night of Jani's abject surrender, happened long years ago, but to this day the jaunty, brunette cup girl with the body of a passion slave still carries trays between the packed, close-set tables of a siolat house.  Men sigh to see her coming close.  Many of them want to brol her, and many, before they go home, will certainly do so.

Since bringing Jani into her new life, he has done the same for additional scores of serum girls, almost all of them veterans from that noble troop of lancers.  It continues to be his passion to guide as many of them as he can into a safe house in which he can protect them from the harshness of the world.  His service to Haliaka's daughters must have pleased the goddess, for his affairs have prospered.  Hoel has needed to buy a new tavern every few years in order to hold his growing collection of cup girls.  Jani has so far been been rotated several times among the different properties, forever a delight to the new customers she meets. And they are a delight to her, too.  How could they not be, considering all the pleasure and satiety they bring to her existence?

Jani has told the biolgrapher Mimriem that even after all this time, her mood remains one of almost constant euphoria.  She doesn't even blush to admit that she is proud that men cannot seem to get enough of her.  Everything that has happened to her, she tells people -- the Ruk's Serum, the prayer to Haliaka, the treachery of a false friend whom she refuses to name, has been revealed to be the gift of kindly providence.  She is a girl so quick to smile, to laugh musically, that she cannot help but charm all whom she encounters.  Or so reports Mimriem.

As for Waylard, her biography, also appears in one of Mimriem's books.  It tells how the selfish, bitter woman continued her treacherous ways unabated, until she went too far and was convicted of a serious crime.  The judge felt justified in ordering her to receive the vaec and the collar.  For the severity of her misdeeds, she was sent directly into slavery instead of to a penal brothel. 

An iron-slaver provided Waylard with her training.  All slaves fear the iron-slavers.  Some slaver types, such as the ivory slavers, bring a raw slave along gradually and with care.  Not so the iron slavers; they are specialists who break wenches roughly and rapidly.  Under a regime of strappings and brollings applied with gusto, the ex-knight ignited within a week. 

Sold in a rude market, Waylard was purchased and put to work as a tent-girl.  Tent-masters are bawds who take their girls along a circuit, often as part of a carnival, and at each stop their vaecweis must kneel before a long row of men waiting to be served.  Perhaps Waylard's sanity survived this humiliating ordeal because she was strong. Or was it because Haliaka took pity on her, one who had done wrong, but who might yet do better, and had blessed her with unquenchable lust and the resilience of a vivacious natural whore?

As it happened, word eventually reached Master Hoel to inform him that yet another ex-knight had been discovered in bondage.  He sent an agent to purchase Waylard and this man conveyed her to one of his taverns.  Renamed Veeda, the former tent wench found the life of a cup girl to be a great improvement over that of a tent slave.  Since that time, she has frequently given thanks to the goddess. 

When she first encountered Jani, Veeda felt frightened and ashamed.  She knew she would become an outcast if Jani told the other girls what she had done.  Jani felt no rancor, however, for she considered Waylard to have been only an actor in the goddess' greater plan for her life.  Jani had, in fact, never told the other ex-lancers about Wayland's treachery, and she did not tell them now.

It may be hard to understand it, but over the years Veeda came to assume a genuinely cheerful and flirtatious disposition.  In fact, the blond cup girl was considered good company, not only among legions of customers, but also among her sisters in bondage.

 The End