3 comments/ 14510 views/ 3 favorites A Gorean Storean Ch. 01 By: sweetteaandarsenic That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In Gorean Sometimes she can't help feeling like she's throwing good love after bad; the way she's sitting here with her knees in the dirt, watching him so intently, listening to the soft words he's murmuring to the giant bird as he slides off the harness and grooms the feathers- she's thinking, I might as well be invisible- she's thinking I don't care I don't care I don't care... but she does. He reminds her somehow of a tear in the fabric of reality- she pictures this as a vertical oil stain, a viscous kind of anti-window, as thin and infinite as a mirror. Anything that touches it vanishes without a trace; it barely ripples the surface. He seems to draw her like the gravitational pull created by the abyss of a dead star, as cold and remote and utterly indifferent to the debris that cannot escape its orbit. Like me. She knows from the past that he can speak English- This is the last time I speak to you in your Barbarian tongue, girl. You learn Gorean or you don't speak at all. But she has a feeling that even if he were willing to speak her language, he wouldn't be the chatty type; if saved words were silver coins, he'd be rich, she thinks. She's only seen the money he keeps in the leather pouch down by his side once or twice. He has a few silver coins, a lot of smaller copper ones, and she saw the light hit something that looked like gold, but still, she doesn't think he has a lot of money. It doesn't seem to bother him. Ma, Ja Vana'she Harta! Sula Kajira She hears these words, mostly. Well, the first phrase is one she says, not he, but it is the only Gorean he actually taught her. He pulled her to her feet by the hair, speaking in that language whose beauty she noticed even in the violence of that day from which she kept expecting to awaken, she was so sure it was a dream, and even when he slapped her, it took her a minute to realize that he expected a response- pointing at her, he repeated slowly- Ma, Vana'she. "Ma, Vana'she," she was finally able to whisper, and she blushed when he laughed and whispered, below his breath so as not to seem to be speaking to her, but in English, "Barbarian." And then he said something in Gorean, and laughed again. She didn't know what he said, although now she has a pretty good idea. Now she just says "Ma, Vana'she" to everything. He communicates in gestures, clever ones really, almost like sign language- he'll point to the ground, then spread his first two fingers, and she'll kneel with her thighs apart and say "ma, Vana'she." She can say it well enough now that he doesn't laugh- much. She recognizes Kajira, because that's what he calls her. She doesn't know if it's a name. He pointed to himself and said, "Lo Vol. Rarius. Citetatavis Thentis." Then he pointed to her and his blue eyes lit up as he smiled- "La?" And so she started to introduce herself, but he interrupted her- "Kajira." She repeated "La... Kajira?" Hesitatingly, skeptically, having no idea what she was saying, but he laughed aloud- he doesn't laugh often, or smile, but when he does, he is curiously uninhibited, his flashes of emotion as bright and sudden as the crackle and glare of lightening. She's pretty sure that "sula" means "get on your back and spread your legs," it's what he says when he pushes her to the ground, and Harta seems to mean, "Keep doing that, but faster." No need to explain the context that made those meanings clear. In daylight, she can't keep her eyes off him; at night, after he has rolled off her and gone to sleep, she cries. She weeps for the briefness of the time in which his strong arms clasped her. She weeps for the tease of it- already they are divided by a barrier far more insurmountable than that of her inability to speak his language. She wishes she had the strength of character to resist her feelings, to force herself to attempt to resist him at least. It's not so much her fear (and she is afraid of him) that causes her to lose every one of these internal battles- she recognizes pure, animal lust when she feels it. She longs for him every second. She is furious with him. Not because he captured her and is holding her prisoner, not because he treats her with the casual, contemptuous affection that a man might his dog- no, it's this barrier, this wall that she cannot penetrate, this strange way in which she cannot touch him. This is why her knowledge that she loves him weighs on her like slow torure. He had heard of such things, of course- everyone knew such things had been known to happen, although not often- and so he felt a bizarre sense of familiarity even in a situation he had never seriously imagined occurring in his own life, which had been long and outré, although he would have described it as a rather prosaic one, at least for a man who wore the scarlet. He had the strange sense of having wandered into an off-color joke that seems unbelievably funny half-way down the second bota of paga. So when he saw the girl crouching, utterly still, at the spring in the little ka-la-na grove down the hill from where he had landed and whither he had come to fill his waterskins, frozen in her attitude of drinking, the water escaping her motionless hands curved to form a cup beneath eyes now dilated with fear, he laughed aloud. He had seen them, of course, these girls that were supposed to come from another world. Tarl of Bristol, one of those men whom one called friend and sword-brother and got drunk with every night and whose slave-girls you fucked while you were visiting his city, and whom on leaving you almost forgot about, had even taught him a little of their tongue. But to come upon one like this, in the wild, still wearing her outlandish garments, inexplicably wandering without a word of Gorean or, very likely, any idea where she was, seemed so like the premise of a dirty joke that he laughed, and laughed the louder when she jumped like a startled tabuk at the sound of his voice, and cried out in her strange tongue. She leapt to her feet to flee, and Vol of Thentis sighed. Neither his pride as a warrior, nor the strange and stony compassion that underlay his nature, could allow her to escape; she would have no idea of his world's dangers, nor any defense against them, and for all that Tarl had said about the barbarian girls trying to imitate men in their dress until they were taught better, he thought her small bottom moved sweetly, cupped in the tight seat of her strange blue split-legged garment, and she had pretty hair. Vol of Thentis was a practical man, and so he admitted to himself that she would be a trouble and a hindrance, but he was also possessed of the soaring passion and fatalism of a Tarnsman, and- "There never was a girl who wasn't," he told himself wryly, and by the time he concluded this train of thought with an image of the little barbarian squirming and whimpering beneath him, pressed to his pleasure furs, instead of squirming and dying in the grip of a carnivorous leech-plant or beneath the jaws of a sleen or a tharlarion, he was moving, stalking quickly and lightly with the deceptive speed of a hunter. He was weary, and ached from a long day in the saddle. Since he did not relish a long chase, he drew from his belt as he ran a leather cord and twisted it, without looking, in a matter of seconds, into a capture loop. In but a moment, he was within range to fling it, and the startled girl was jerked to a stop, her arms bound to her sides. With his left hand he searched his belt for a length of capture fiber or a pair of bracelets, swearing softly in disgust when he realized that chain luck, in the most bizarre manifestation he had ever experienced it, had let him down in that department, and he came up with only a short length of leather, never his preference. With his right he held the capture cord, allowing her to tighten the loop by her struggles and then taking up the slack to draw her to him. Taken off her balance, she stumbled into him, hard, and he laughed and took her trembling body in his arms and stood her on her feet, brushing her dark wavy hair, tangled and disarrayed from her wandering, out of her face. His laughter faded; it was the most genuinely frightened face he had ever seen, wet with tears and bright of eye. She stared him straight in the face, and trembled like a sapling in a heavy storm. He had carried off free women, stripping them of their rich veils and throwing their fine robes to the winds even as he left their cities below, that his enemies might know the fate of their noble kinswomen; they had often wept, and lamented loudly at their fates- he had taken slaves in fights and raids, had taken many women by right of conquest, and they had trembled as girls do when faced with battle-lust, but this girl, he saw, was as purely afraid as a child faced with a cradle-story monster come to life, and he wiped her eyes like a little girl's. She jumped again and cried out miserably when he abruptly flicked the capture loop from about her arms, and he found himself stroking her hair, trying to soothe her with his right hand while he gathered her little wrists before her with his left, that he might bind her at his leisure. There's no need to bind her wrists behind her, he decides; when she's stripped he'll find some fiber in the saddle-bags and bind her across the saddle when he's ready to fly again. Until his life took this strange turn, he hadn't been planning on making camp here, but now a part of him is thinking, why not, it will be dark soon enough and the morning is plenty of time, Thunder Bolt can fly off and hunt as soon tor-tu-gor is low in the sky, he'll like that. The men of Thentis pride themselves on their understanding of the great saddle-birds, bred in their mountains, and their connection with their noble mounts. And anyway, there's this girl. He has much to do before nightfall: there is the firewood to be gathered and the fire built; there is Thunder Bolt's grooming and his own; there is dinner to be hunted and cooked, and there is still the matter of the waterskins, from which errand he was so unexpectedly distracted. But he feels himself moving inexorably like a man bewitched, and suddenly his knife is in his hand, and the only sound that exists in the world is the somehow ominous purr of tearing fabric, and the only thought in his mind is his increasingly urgent desire to behold his little captive. It takes him perhaps two ehn to cut her out of her clothes, and it feels like as many years. Vol of Thentis feels a little guilty about the way he's treating this girl, actually- his friends, his sword-brothers and drinking companions, would kill themselves laughing if they knew he hasn't even whipped her yet. But she scarcely has a mouthful of gorean, and he knows she thinks he speaks and understands her language much better than is in fact the case. What do you want? He thinks, I'm not a Tarsk-rutting slaver. He scowls. Of course he knows how to handle slaves. But this situation is not something his experience has prepared him to deal with, at least as regards women. He is of Thentis, and so he thinks, almost unconsciously, of Tarns- if you catch a wild Tarn, you can't just go at him with your tarn-goad. He'll either lose his spirit and become apathetic, or turn vicious- you have to develop a rapport with a wild thing before you can train it. The rules that apply to domesticated girls, he feels, will be of little use here, with this creature that starts and trembles like a wild thing new to captivity. Now he's leaning over the fire, blowing up a cloud of smoke to hide his smile. The fire is hot, and he has to keep a close watch over the spit where his kill roasts slowly, but that's not the real reason he stripped to the waist- he's seen the way she looks at him, when he bathes in the river, how she drinks in his heavily scarred and muscled torso, and now she's at it again, staring so openly that one of those pretentious Ko-Ro-Bans would beat her 'til she bled. He's taken more women than he can count in his arms, and he knows that look in her eyes, that look that betrays her increasing fascination, her confusion as her fear softens into passion. It is precious to him, that look. He finds himself flaring up in anger at the thought of another man possessing her, and at these times he shakes himself back to reality to find his sword half unsheathed. "You make my blood run hot, kajira," he remarks casually, laughing inwardly at the unshed tears that sparkle in her eyes, her body inclining towards him even as she trembles in fear. "You make my blade thirst." This double entendre can be understood in the vulgar sense in English, but in Gorean the meaning, while deeply sexual, has an added dimension. In a sense, albeit a thoroughly Gorean and barbaric sense, he has paid to her the highest compliment a Warrior might to a woman. He has not only said "I would kill for you," but "I long to kill for you." Had she spoken Gorean, or understood even the most essential thrust of the language, he would never have said such a thing to a slave girl. But to this Barbarian, whom he should be raping every night instead of feeding by hand and bathing as if he himself were her silk-slave and she a fine Lady, he can unburden his soul. Here, in the wild, with a wild girl who mispronounces the words "Yes, master," when he describes her in situations even a paga slut would blush at, he is finally free to bare his heart. A Gorean Storean Ch. 02 Yes, this is a satire. You're allowed to laugh. * Another fire, pasangs away... She had not been able to keep from voiding her bowels when she heard the spear cut through the air; at what seemed to her the eleventh hour he had raised his shield, and the deadly missile struck with a dull, anticlimactic sound of wood on wood. She could hear the tearing sound of another pair of giant wings, rending the air asunder; a man's voice called out, and Vol of Thentis, who had been idly stroking her between her fettered legs, paused not at all in his teasing as he drew a spear with his other hand and turned, so fast she was hardly aware of his movement, to fling it in a smooth motion that sent it whistling in a deadly arc away into the darkness. He smelled her terror and smiled; her nether hole had leaked, albeit but a little. Still, the smell of her fresh shit was keen and immediate in his nostrils. Yet he felt her, warm and wet, helpless beneath his touch in spite of her fear, and as he reached for one of his own throwing spears he called her the name which in Gorean means "coward" or slave- literally, one who, in her weakness and fear, is worthy only to serve the pleasures of strong men. He recognized the voice carried on the wind, recognized that deep bellow, the unmistakable accent of the men of Treve; a lowlander might not have heard the subtle inflections that distinguished the accent of Treve from that of Thentis, but to Vol it is the difference between sunset and moonrise. He knows that voice, he knows it well, and it brings a smile to his lips to hear the voice of his old friend: "Coward! Son of she-urts! Yield me up the slave-girl and thank me for your life!" He fires back, playfully, slowly, although to the girl this bantering joust must seem swift and deadly as the movements of a flesh eating swamp tharlarion thrashing from the water to snatch its prey. "Festering thing from a Dar-kosis pit! You know her price is steel! Have her of me if you can, weakling and coward!" The two men's laughter mingles as a pie-bald battle tarn draws up alongside Thunder Bolt, and Vol of Thentis leans at a precarious angle (which maneuver makes the naked girl gasp in fear) to clasp the hand of his friend. "Tal, you son of a she-sleen! Well met!" "Tal, my friend! And your slut- does she ravish well?" "The slut, by the priest kings! There is a tale. Let us land and make camp- I have a tale that needs a fire and a bottle of wine, and I doubt me you will call me liar before I have had done." Teeth flash in the dark as his friend breaks into a broader smile. "I might call you many thing- rogue, vagabond- but liar? Never. Let us make camp- I would hear this incredible story of yours." She can't understand a word they're saying, of course; still, she finds the conversation (to her own subsequent embarrassment) easy enough to follow, in general outline at least; Vol of Thentis is a talented mimic, and she blushes when she recognizes a genially cruel and dead to rights portrait of herself in his words and gestures. That high pitched voice, that quavering, cowering stance, this is how she looks and sounds to him, she sees this suddenly and blushes heavily at this unadorned, unflattering insight. The man he was fighting earlier, who bewilderingly now transpires to be what looks like a close friend, laughs so hard that he sprays a mouthful of whatever they're drinking into the fire, which momentarily flares bright and tinged with blue; she has no idea what that liquor is, but she can smell it from here, eye-watering and strange- alien moonshine, she thinks, and suddenly, kneeling on another planet, naked and unregarded by two men who are rapidly becoming very drunk indeed, despite the fact that each is built like a brick shit house, she breaks down and laughs aloud. She's still laughing when a hard mouth clamps down on hers, an unshaven chin grinding and prickling against her face; still laughing as she's rocked back with her legs in the air and he, almost panting, finally manages to slide into her; she laughs as he turns to Vol of Thentis and says something in Gorean, in an unbelieving tone, and Vol of Thentis laughs that loud, boastful laugh that could make you hate him if it didn't seem so innocent, the pure pleasure of a little boy, the childish pride . She can't stop laughing; "This is my firetruck, and this is my giant flying raptor, and this is my X-box, and this is my sex slave." They're both slurring their words a little, and the man on top of her smells like a distillery, especially when he breaks a sweat; still, he's so hard it's almost alarming; he confirms her suspicion that he might shoot a load at any time by pulling out, slowly, and groaning like a man under torture- but then he slams it in, all the way, and bottoms out so hard it hurts and she lets out her breath all in a gasp. She feels something well up in her then, something effervescent and giggly, and she opens her mouth for the first time in...hours? Days? "Oh fuck me!" She hisses, and he lets out a sound between a grunt and a bellow and starts to pound her and after a time she can no longer distinguish where her sobs end and her desperate gasping laughter begins. When she releases her juices, all in a rush, he shouts something in Gorean and he and Vol of Thentis both share another one of those laughs; he seems perfectly at ease with his friend watching, they're enjoying it, like two men playing soccer or shooting hoops, but she's beyond caring. If anything, she squirts and spasms all the harder, whether because of all this scrutiny, or the perverseness of the situation, the sheer humiliating flattery of being used and enjoyed like this, she doesn't know. It has to be late- there are two moons visible at the moment, and they both look like they're about to set. But she can't sleep. Part of the reason she can't sleep is the snoring of the two men- stone drunk, passed out, each man has his sword clutched firmly in one hand and the other arm a part of the general tangle of limbs on the other side of the fire. Vol of Thentis has laid his dark head on his friend's shoulder, and the man's free arm clasps him tight. Almost as soon as they had finished with her they retreated to the other side of the fire, leaving her (not for the first time) both shocked and perversely delighted at their utter self-absorption, their genuine facility for blithely ignoring her unless they have a hard-on. Her outrage and amusement are also keeping her awake. Gritty dirt of a cleared ring around the dug-out fire-pit. Scratchy blanket. The grass would be softer, but even falling to ash the fire is warm, and she thinks it might be a bad idea to move from where Vol of Thentis put her. By no stretch of the imagination does she strenuously object to being bound hand and foot, but it does get a little tiresome after a few hours. If he notices this discomfort, he doesn't seem to care. It's not that Vol of Thentis is going out of his way to be a prick. He's certainly not demonstrably cruel (to her, anyway). But still, on this occasion, (as in so many others) before she rolls over to sleep, she murmurs, "You guys are assholes." If only her knowledge of that fact decreased her love. Tor-tu-Gor rises a few ahn later- a very few- and both men awake to a world of utter vileness. "I am as dry as the cities of dust," groans Vol of Thentis. They rolled over in the night and slept back to back, swords outward, instinctively assuming the habits of the battle-field, and he raises one arm slowly and painfully to block out the light. His friend stirs with an answering groan, which is incoherent in the main but consists primarily of a series of unrelated but piquant curses- he's essentially saying "shit-piss-cunt-fuck," only what Vol of Thentis hears is more literally translated as "explosive diarrhea of an ill tharlarion," and the like. They spend a few ehn consoling themselves with groans and heartfelt if extremely coarse expressions of their misery before Vol of Thentis raises his voice- "Kajira!" He raises his head (muttering "tarsk-shit" as he does so) and calls louder "Kajira!" "Curse the slut," he mutters, dropping back like a pile of stones, but with no real rancor. She wakes to the sound of his voice, and although it is peremptory and arrogant as ever she hears the note of sincere agony and smiles as she gets to her feet and folds the blanket under which she slept- The poor bastard has a hangover. The saddlebags are neatly stored near where the Tarns are roosting, and the lethal monsters coo sleepily and ruffle their feathers, eyeing her incuriously- not unlike the two warriors, they have thoroughly dismissed even the remotest possibility that she might be regarded as a threat. As she approaches the two men, who are painfully regaining consciousness, she feels a little nervous- it will not be good if they decide to take out the consequences of their debauchery on her. But when she kneels beside Vol of Thentis, he opens one eye and the gratitude on his face, to which she knows he would never give voice, is so palpable that she smiles all over again, and to her shock he smiles back. The two men gradually open their eyes and sit up, passing the water back and forth, and when he catches sight of her the stranger from last night makes a curious gesture- his hand perpendicular to his face, his lips shape a kiss, and he makes a motion as if brushing something toward her. He just blew me a fucking kiss. They collapse again after the water is gone, and Vol of Thentis says another of the few words she's picked up in Gorean, so she gets up and goes to blow up the embers of last night's fire and start the water boiling. If it had ever crossed her mind to imagine this mad set of circumstances (and one hardly sees how it could have done so) one set of skills she would not have imagined coming in handy, one aspect of her life, if any, that she would have supposed to be left behind her forever, is the job of barista. Try describing this situation in a resume. The black wine is very good. The two men, having managed to pry open their eyes, are now feeling appreciably better, and are regarding the girl with amusement. She's kneeling with her knees together like a tower slave, and Vol of Thentis reaches out lazily to spread them apart- "nadhu," he says, patiently, and when she holds the position obediently he strokes her between the legs, ostensibly to reward her. His friend reaches out and feels her, reaching across Vol of Thentis to take advantage of her exposure. "She is very hot," he remarks admiringly. "She is only a barbarian," replies Vol of Thentis modestly. "The slave-fires burn very hot in the bellies of barbarians. And she is eager enough to please you, my friend." He grins, "as well she should be." "She is very skilled in love," admits Vol of Thentis. "And in the brewing of black wine." "It is strange, my friend. She knows little enough now, and knew less when I found her, but she brews black wine as if she had been trained beneath a lash. A strange place must be her home, where women cannot cook nor sew- in those ways she is as useless as a free woman, yet she brews black wine like a slave." "And squirms in the furs like one." "As you say." "She would look well in a steel collar. Such a pretty animal should bear a pretty collar, and moreover were she mine I would wish her marked as such." "It is known to me. I must buy one." She cannot avoid a whimper when Vol of Thentis takes her nipple and squeezes with a burning sudden pressure. This sign of passion makes both men laugh, and Vol of Thentis jokes, "Her ears should be pierced also." A Gorean Storean Ch. 03 Vol of Thentis declines to have the girl branded with the popular khef symbol; she is a little wild flower, a tiny unexpected thing of beauty growing in the empty desolation of rocks and rubble on a barren hillside, such as might lift a solitary man's heart as the blossoms in the midst of desolation have often done, sometimes bringing tears to his eyes, and so he has her branded with the stylized petals of the dina, slave-flower of the north. He is proud that she lies down so obediently on the metal worker's bench; she makes no resistance as her left thigh is firmly strapped in place, and only her body, trembling like sa-tarna in a heavy wind, betrays her fear. He saw her eyes dart to the brazier where the hot irons repose. She knows what lies in store for her. Yet she justifies his faith, expressed in the brand that (almost redundantly, he thinks) marks her as kajira; the symbolism of the delicate and resilient flower. Kan-lara Dina. My little Talender. As the scorching metal bites into her flesh, he sees the tears stream and start from her eyes; he feels hard and powerful at the agony that marks her as his own, his property, and he is only half aware that he is stroking her hair, murmuring to her like a man, stalking his prey, quietly apologizing in advance for the taking of its life. The locking steel collar was another matter; Vol of Thentis simply pointed to one of a score of identically inscribed collars, and after a few ehn's friendly haggling, the metalworker cheerfully inscribed the final words of the message...Vol of Thentis. I am the property of... They both know, in a general sense, what it says, although neither of them can actually read Gorean- she, because she's from another planet, he because reading and writing are the business of Scribes, not Warriors, and that which he cannot purchase with coin he will purchase with steel. But it is with coin that he purchases the flask of Veminium perfume; she is his, and whatever far off land she might once have called home, she shall evoke henceforward his own landscape of the heart. A rainstorm, long ago, in the crags and valleys of the lower Thentis mountain range, and in the morning light a thousand flowers of the palest blue, a shock of beauty in all directions, coaxed forth by the tempest. It is this memory that he wishes to smell on his slave girl. She is the property of a man of Thentis now, a man for whom the smells and curves and dizzying heights of his land whisper in his heart: Pride. Homestone. His property shall remind him of his love of home and homestone, however far from them his wandering may take him. And for some reason she knows how to make Black Wine perfectly. The moons are casting a light so bright that visibility is almost perfect; but it's a cold light, white and penetrating, and the way it illuminates the scarred face of Vol of Thentis seems to capture a grim and shadowed man who appears, after all this time, a stranger. In moments of extreme fear the mind seems to take on a strange, schizophrenic life of its own; the consciousness darts away like a startled school of fish, and now her thoughts swarm in a scintillating cloud to concentrate all her notice upon how cold she suddenly feels. What a difference, her mind chatters to itself, it made wearing something for even one day, the scrap of cloth in which he indifferently sliced a hole with a stroke of that outsized knife and pulled unceremoniously over her head and secured around her waist with that soft twine stuff; it didn't cover much down below, but at least it kept her nipples warm; only hours ago they were acclimatized, but now they ache with the cold. He keeps her naked while they're traveling and alone, but apparently he feels it incumbent upon him to make some nod towards modesty now they're entering a village. She'll say this much for the ta-teera, the slave rag- it's totally punk rock. The wind blows against the raw brand on her left thigh; she can feel the clear fluid that's dripping from it, but she can't touch it because her hands are tied behind her back. She remembers, back on Earth, how when you got a tattoo or a piercing of a smaller gauge than people were used to seeing, how you got asked the same lame question over and over: Did that hurt? No, asshole, someone just stuck a fucking needle in my flesh, Christ, what do you think? She smiles. Amateur hour is over. Time to go back to being scared, a feeling she has with some success been keeping at arm's length so far, which considering the events of her day so far she's been justifiably proud of- -All up until now. She doesn't like this look, this serious look, at all; she's shivering, her hands are shaking, and she tells herself, it's just the wind. A cold wind is blowing from the north when Vol of Thentis takes out the whip. He wants to collar her while the brand is still fresh, to impress her slavery on her for once and all, but most of all he wants to hear her scream. She was brave on the branding rack, but that only made her a slave. The collar will make her his slave. He hefts the whip, and the moonlight touches the soft, worn leather with a mellow glow.' KAJIRA...that's six, he reminds himself, and pulling her to her feet by the hair, bending her at the waist, he begins. She screams beneath the three moons of Gor, a sound of pure agony echoing from a private universe of pain, and the welts raised by the whip stand livid in the frigid light. A Gorean Storean Ch. 04 He likes the way she laughs to herself, as if at a joking, merry voice that only she can hear. She tries to disguise it, but he can see her eyes dancing and the twitching of her lips as thoughts cross her mind, thoughts that for him will remain forever a mystery. She likes that the one thing he can't control is getting an erection whenever he looks at her. He tries to disguise it, but it makes her bite back laughter. She's naked, she's way smaller and weaker than him, he keeps her tied up a lot of the time; he can strike her or whip her whenever he likes (and does) but- But I turn him on. When he looks at me, he feels something he can't deal with by throwing a spear or hefting a sword, or even just by fucking me. But that doesn't stop him trying. She smiles. This one thing, in her opinion, goes a great deal of the way towards evening the score. She's kneeling by the remains of last night's campfire, scouring a pot with ashes, and even if she weren't wrapped up in her thoughts and private laughter, she wouldn't hear him approaching from behind. The ashes spill out of the cooking pot as he takes hold of her nipples, and she holds to it desperately as the pinch deepens into pain as loud and bright as Studio 54, clutches it as he twists and pulls; her whimper elicits a satisfied grunt, and before she knows it she's on her back, lifted and flung in a single dizzy confusion of sky and grass, and ashes are streaking her thighs in alternately dark and light streaks like a thunderstorm and dissolving as drops of sweat rain down and wash them away. As his breathing roughens and accelerates, she tightens around him, squeezes him, and he gives a loud bellow and jerks still, and she smiles up at him and thinks, That's another one for me, then. Lying back in the grass, regaining his breath, feeling that the squirming little she-sleen has sucked him dry, throbbing and tender, Vol of Thentis has occasion to reflect upon the consolation gift awarded to women after the Great War of the Sexes. It had always seemed a bit of a joke up to now, but he's currently feeling inclined to reconsider his religious doubt. She did something to him, by the Priest Kings; kajirae are, of course, by definition, passionate, but this one? His balls ache as if she'd pulled them inside out. He had spent his seed into her until he was in debt. What have you done to me, girl? But it is with his accustomed arrogance that he slings her over the saddle as they prepare to fly, and he prevents himself from smiling just in time when she struggles (as she always does) when he ties her to the saddle rings; she knows it won't do her any good, and even if it did, where would she go? But he thinks she knows he likes subduing her. He thinks she likes it, too. She gives him a little smile, and he kisses her before vaulting up behind her. He takes up the straps that he uses to direct Thunderbolt , and the world drops away. As the great wings spread and they gyre, weightless, ever upwards, brothers of the wind, Vol of Thentis thinks he could die at this moment and be content. Not that he normally feels otherwise; he's simply not aware of the thought- making the other man die, that's what he thinks of and it' s served him well. It is only at times like this, rising, feeling the wind and watching the trees and rivers fall away below him, that he consciously thinks of death, now, rising, rising into the sky, rising forever. At night, he sometimes tosses and breaks a sweat, speaking in a hoarse dreaming voice to people only he can see; ever since she woke to find a sword point at her throat, she's tactfully withdrawn from him when these dreams rack and contort him in a violent cradle of suppressed memory. However, he more often sleeps like a stone, and at those times, when he rolls away from her, she slides her arms around him and regards the strangely shaped scars that dot his back like islands in the firelight. The feelings and motives of warriors are difficult to ascertain. Vol of Thentis is a hard man- neither friend nor foe would disagree- and romance is most certainly not a feature in a relationship between a warrior and his slave girl- so it must be simple miscommunication, the way she feels when he (already drunk, holding her between his legs and almost crushing her in his absentminded caresses, squeezing her breasts and stroking her hair) pulls out a skin bottle of ka-la-na wine and passes it to her, and drinking together he notices her eyes upon his scars (he's wearing nothing but a blanket around his shoulders) and takes her finger, tracing the pink raised flesh where a blade missed his descending aorta by inches; he is a vivid story teller, and although she understands few of his words she finds herself able to follow his story by his gesture and inflection. It makes her gasp and shudder, and he laughs when she leans down to kiss the healed wound, but his heart rises when she does so- It must be pure coincidence that she thinks- This is the most romantic night of my life. Especially when he shows her, with a remarkable economy of gesture, exactly what he did to the man who stabbed him. And then there are times when he draws away altogether- he won't be touched, or spoken to. He gags her, ties her hand and foot- then looks away at battles that play over and over inside his eyes, watches the procession of the dead that pass before him, friend and foe alike, marching with muffled feet towards the cities of dust; hears inside his head the screams of Tarns and of men- the pure joy and the pure terror, the moments when thought was fled and all was blood and the taste of the enemy's terror keen on the tongue. Now thoughts swarm and gnaw at him like battlefield Urts feeding on the fallen, and he reaches for the bota of paga in the saddlebag. A Gorean Storean Ch. 05 A war camp is a noisy place- everyone seems to feel compelled to call out to one another at the tops of their voices, and the clash of arms and rhythmic pounding of men's boots and their call and response as they pass at all hours, seem to fill the world. Women's voices too- laughing, sobbing, gasping- girls with soft little hands that pluck at her like gentle, curious birds, their questions musical and incomprehensible as birdsong. They stare at her even as they draw her in to their tasks, showing her what to do quite patiently and kindly, but she thinks wryly- you'd think I was from another planet or something. She likes the Gorean girls though- they're sweet. They have blazing rows between themselves over trifles that are forgotten in a matter of minutes, their respective sides of which they indignantly explain to her - she thinks they tend to forget she doesn't understand what they're literally saying because in general terms it's fairly obvious to her- and she's glad that they seem to accept her-they've given her the nick-name Earth-girl- and even come to her when they're upset, but she also thinks to herself that she sort of wishes she weren't improving the little Gorean she knows with conversations like: Earth-girl: to the disheveled young girl in a ripped ta-teera and a flood of tears with visible lash marks on her back who just threw herself into the tent and flung her arms around me: Oh my God, Binah! Were you whipped? Her: Ai, Earth-girl! Ma Vanashe (something something something)! EG: Honey, did he hurt you? Let me look at it... Her (turning back to face me and shaking her head impatiently): Ma Vanashe (SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING)! And she bursts into tears again and cries bitterly while Earthgirl holds her, and Earthgirl finally figures out that she's saying "I displeased my Master." The fact that she got whipped is tangential to that- she's crying because she displeased him. And Earth-girl rather wishes she didn't have a strong enough degree of self -reflection to realize she understands that feeling a lot better than she wishes she did. Vol of Thentis has at least one emotion that she's been able to identify; she thinks of this emotion as "angry-happy." Angry-happy is relatively rare. Tempists blow in and out; sometimes he slips her a smile or wink, but he is for the most part inscrutable. But when he shoots his bow (Thunderbolt wheeling perilously low into the rocky narrow valleys that make up the outskirts of the camp) and he shoots a Tabuk, or a Tarsk, he swears excitedly in Gorean and clasps her wrist, hard, so enthusiastic in his vicious joy that he simply has to share it with someone, and she, clinging for dear life behind him, ceases for that one moment to be girl, Kajira, mat and kettle girl: angry-happy is when he acknowledges her humanity. He's the only man around here who does. She thinks the Gorean Kajirae are kind of flakey, with way too much drama for her taste, but they at least look at her and talk to her and smile back when she smiles. She feels not so much pity as a defiant feeling of affinity for these women conditioned to desire nothing but slavery. Everyone wants to be good at what they do, to be good at what they are. I used to consider I was a pretty damned good barista, in my pre-concubinage days. The other warriors though, swarming the camp, striding figures in leather and mail that look right through her and give her a chilly feeling; they look at her but they don't see her, and she wonders if they believe that there's a person there to see at all. If anything they look pissed at me, like they're not the reason I'm here in the first fucking place. She feels profoundly unwelcome at these times, even as indifferent eyes run over her all-but-naked body, utterly cut off in a way that neither language, nor mores can fully account for. Even as she resents being treated as if she were beneath contempt, she has a terrible, half-acknowledged feeling that she might be. The girls who weep aloud too often are invariably mocked and whipped. These guys would tell me to look for sympathy between shit and syphilis in the dictionary, if only they could read and knew what a dictionary was. So she cries alone. She does her work; she weeps. She irons tunics; she weeps for home. She dusts wooden tables and chairs; she weeps for her parents, fights and tears and all. She fetches and heats water; she weeps because there are, as far as she's seen, no chocolate chip cookies on this planet. She had Bina help her sew a super-cute Camisk; She washes and brushes and shaves and does what she can with her hair, (they're said to like it loose and flowing by the girls, each of whom is apparently an expert at pleasing men and rarely reach such a consensus). But she feels deeply, achingly lonely, too thin and pale and tattooed for this world of nubile, rounded flesh of Kajirae and the robust, hairy limbs of the warriors in almost absurd contrast, their bodies ranging from a lean easy power to sword and sorcery hyperbole, yet all, in some inexplicable way, completely different from her own. I don't belong here. The devices on the shields and heraldry of the Warriors, which speaks complex volumes to Warriors and Kajirae alike but fails even to include Earth-girl in a mass e-mail; the rankings and rivalries and orders of precedence of which she is only vaguely aware; the suddenness with which the warriors move at mysterious summons, and she has only the most marginal of places in any of it, feeling superfluous and under foot, marginal, and a line from the Dixie Chicks flickers through her mind- "they watch you dancing without the sound." Only now does she understand the sourwood twist of that honey voice as those words rode the anger of fiddles; she remembers the sobbing backbeat and shudders with an angry, silent sob. They watch you dancing without the sound. They stood about as she leaped up on tiptoe, watching as she stretched as high as she could to beat the dust from a costly carpet of her Master's; The pay of Warriors consists, of course, largely of plunder, and it fell to her to see that the treasures which now adorned the tent of Vol of Thentis (itself gift from the foe) should be clean and orderly. Although the men watched avidly as her camisk rode up to reveal her, they spoke and laughed quite contemptuously though of course she could understand very little. But certainly she understood enough to know that they were appraising her like an animal; even had she understood every word, it would have made no matter, as they each of them exhibited a healthy disdain for whatever faculties of understanding the earth-wench might possess, if any. Her long legs trembling from straining to reach; her arms numb; a stitch in her side. Her tautened buttocks were revealed again by her slit, too-short garment, and her clumsy effort to straighten it served only to pull the two panels of the camisk apart further, revealing pale flesh that would shrink from these cold gazes if it could. A Gorean Storean Ch. 06 It's really odd how long it takes her to realize he's the villain of the piece, considering all the evidence that's staring her in the face. He rides a black tarn for christsake, what were you thinking, woman? Were you somehow thinking he was the good guy in all this? Just cause he does these daring night raids and he swept you off your feet doesn't make him some kind of hero. You think just cause someone has balls it makes him this paragon of manhood? Bitch, please. You loved the evil. You stared straight into the darkness, and you smiled like a good little slave and you said, "fuck me harder, darkness." Ja, ma vanashe. All the time you had him inside you, you knew were just thinking "give it to me. Give me all that pain and anger. I know part of you hates me, and here's the thing- I totally feel you on that. And I want to feel the hate, the rage, the pure unadulterated loathing, hard and painful, thrusting into me." He hurt you, and you wanted him to hurt you. You liked the pain. Now, as you spiral down into miles of empty air, don't forget how enthusiastically you fucked your own destruction back. You liked it when you made your rapist moan in spite of himself. He didn't want to give you what you really wanted, but he couldn't help himself. He didn't want to love you, weak and pathetic and naked, at his mercy, but you made him love you. You made him want to protect you, pain in his ass that it was. You made him want to be the good guy so you'd believe it, and that got you off. What's the point in lying to yourself, here at the end of the story? You're dying. It's over. And soon the voice you were forbidden to raise except to agree or flatter will simply cease to matter, and who gets to talk, and what language they do it in, will be an academic point. Her stomach drops out, and its funny to her that falling like this feels exactly the way she thought it would. Everything that she was afraid would happen, each time Thunderbolt would rise from the ground in a jarring gyring fury of wind, is happening- there was never really anything she could do, lashed by her wrists and ankles, and even if she could get away, where would she go? She'd die out there for sure, the other girls know how to make snares and all kinds of crafty stuff that would keep them fed if they had to kick around the wilderness for a while, but she doesn't have the first clue how the fuck to go about keeping herself warm and fed. Vol of Thentis loves to hunt. He hates the girl for that look she gets on her face, like she's too good to eat that bloody meat- butchering is hard work, and she's really not much help- he can see how frightened she is that he'll see her disgust when he laughs aloud at the dying thrashing of the animal caught in his snare, and he wants her to share his joy so badly that he strikes out before he even thinks and catches her a blow, and he hates her for the self loathing that rises instantly when her bright strange eyes fill up with tears. She makes him ashamed of himself, so he rapes her. If she were worth anything, surely the gods would have granted strength to her arm to fight him off. No warrior would suffer such indignities with such a disgusting gladness. She likes it, and he can tell she knows he knows, and it makes him unreasonably angry that she tries to hide it. He's tried speaking slowly, constructing simple sentences that even a barbarian should be able to understand, but she's too scared to even try to learn or comprehend. "Stupid slut," he laughs, and when her eyes fill up with tears, he just sighs angrily and pushes her down to fuck her. Dear God, she thinks, as the drops of his sweat fall to prick her skin like chilly raindrops, I think he meant that as a compliment. She glares into his eyes, and he wants to strike her for her disrespect. You cannot judge me, you little whore, I own you! He thinks. And then he laughs aloud at how ridiculous the thought is, now that he comes to think it. He's laughing at me, she thinks, but he was angry a minute ago. Maybe this is good, at least if he's laughing he won't go looking for that whip of his. Just how the blue fuck did I end up in this situation again, anyway? The whole part with the spaceship and the monsters just felt really unclear and confusing. He takes forever running traps and cooking food, and by the time he's managed to roast a half raw piece of meat for them she can barely stay awake long enough to eat, as hungry as she is. She's too tired to be self conscious as the last light fades and she shivers in the chilly air, even though Vol of Thentis is staring at her in that way he does. It's a look of curiosity and concentration, his gaze as intent as it was two hours ago when he peered close to drive his skewer into the oozing chunks, and squinted in the failing light as the sun sparked and burned and sank behind the horizon and the night overtook the still cold planet like the smothering, itching folds of a black wool blanket, with a chilly wind and the sorrowful sound of a nameless bird weeping in the near distance. He managed to both scorch the outside and leave the inside unpleasantly raw, so that the wet center breaks apart on her tongue and disentigrates in her mouth with a slimily unpleasant feel. She almost gagged, the meat so fresh and raw it tasted rotten. It's the same penetrating gaze that fixes her now, a restless dissatisfied audience that will soon grow bored if she remains paralyzed with fear, a crowd that will turn nasty if she cannot find the strength within herself to move and lose herself in her role. Her own eagerness paralyzes her with the realization of her own unseemly haste, and she sprawls headlong over her own desire and falls into a shuddering confusion of tears. Vol of Thentis lets out his breath in an angry rush, and turns away to stir the fallen fire. She feels her appetite desert her, but she forces herself to swallow even though her throat has become very dry. The more she tries to overcome her shyness, the more she realizes the massive depth of her vulnerability. The frankness of his desire both arouses her, and chokes into silence the words that long to rise in her throat. He's never really bothered giving his slave girls names, and this is something he regrets after all these years because they have a way of running together in a blur of hair and eyes and breast and legs, and only rarely will he think of this one or that one; he can bring to mind how she squeezed him with her legs until he thought she meant to hurt him, but that he let her (because the pain felt strangely good), remember how she used to squirm and cry out his name in a shrill voice until he thrust himself into her mouth just to shut her up, and how the little bitch came in a hot wet rushing flood of tears and shame when he pulled her hair until she screamed. He can remember the perfume she was wearing when he took her, and that the night had been cold with chancy stingy moonlight and the flying had been poor, but he cannot recall her smile, nor whether or not she sang, or if she scorched the clothes with the iron. What was it he called that blond creature that he snatched from those city walls so long ago? He doesn't think he ever found out what she called herself when she was free- to be honest, he didn't care, but he wishes he had some way to call her to mind. He had to beat her more often than he would have liked, and even now it troubles him; she had been a troublesome slave, so he wishes he did not feel such sorrow in recalling her. The girl is asleep in a pile of furs. One of the most annoying things about her is the way she snores; it's loud, almost male, a grating sound that intrudes on his thoughts on the rare occasions that he has an evening to himself, between hunting their food and fighting battles and staying awake when bandits are nearby, an ehn to himself to sit and think by the fire, drinking and brooding. His thoughts often make him weep, and although he could shed his tears in the company of his sword brothers, it feels unseemly to weep before a female slave. Are you afraid of what the Earth bitch thinks? His friends would mock his reticence, he knows. No use in beating her for it, it would be like shocking Thunderbolt for crapping at the wrong time. The beast can't help it. He thinks he called her Marissa, the one with golden hair, but he cannot be sure. That could have been the name of some paga girl he bedded of a drunken night; it was a hundred years and more ago. Yes, Marissa was another wench, he recalls her now. She was black of hair with a little waist and big, soft breasts that seemed to rise from her smooth olive stomach as if borne up by the very air. He had spent all but his last few coins on drink, and he needed employment for his sword before he could afford a whore, in truth, but when he walked past the dingy little paga tavern and saw her on her knees serving wine, he knew he would go hungry the next day. As it happened he had been able to get a good price for his sword in spite of his hangover, and before the morning was even spent, for the war in that city had become hot and bloody and killers were in high demand upon both sides. But that night he cursed his hard cock even as he haggled down the landlord and handed over his last copper, beckoning the girl to follow him with a curt, angry gesture. It would be easier, by the priest kings, to think back to Marissa's wet and welcoming embrace, smooth as silk and hot as black leather in the sun, to stroke away the ache he feels inside (now dulled but not stilled by drink), to lose himself and forget the rough rasp of his own sword-calloused hand on the tender skin of his cock and imagine instead Marissa's wet lips and the tears he struck from her eyes when her teeth grazed him and the gasp of pain and fear that sent him shooting down her throat in a screaming torrent of rage and triumph, if that skinny restless earthgirl could at least be silent as she slept. Lazy, he thinks her, but when he stirs to rise and take her where she lies (fallen still at last! He should be relieved that she's closed her eyes and freed him to drink and dream by his fire. He never knew such a strange creature, so full of worry) he finds he cannot bear to rouse her, even to serve his brief straightforward pleasure. How can such a little creature make such a din? They can hear you down in the cities of dust, girl! He wonders irritably, spitting in his palm and returning to his task with a renewed will. Marissa. Marissa. Her name is the soft sad whisper of the wind blowing through the dying stalks of the sa-tarna in the dying of the year. Her nipples stood hard enough to hurt if a man caught one in the eye as she knelt before him and tried her best not to shiver in the chilly air. Her skin had a soft and ashen pallor beneath the tan where the sun had kissed her khaki skin as she served her master's customers in the courtyard of the tavern by day. A walled in garden behind the inn, tables and chairs were set beneath a trellis with flowering vines whose name he did not know, and Marissa served paga while a fountain played and birds sang in the leaves and the shadows danced on the stones. A common tavern in a nameless town, Vol of Thentis had passed the place several times as he found his way about after leaving thunderbolt in the hands of the local tarn keepers. At night the moons rose in the sky and Marissa danced, ringing out a tune with little silver bells as she shook her wrists and ankles, making a song as she kept time to the gyrations of her hips and breasts and offered herself to the warriors as they swaggered by, trying to catch their eyes as they passed the little stage by the fire. No doubt the landlord would beat the girl if she were not able to bed enough men of a night, as well as pour and clean, wash dishes and change linen. Her tired face had brightened when she caught Vol of Thentis looking, and she blushed and tried to hide her face when he mouthed the words "Tal, Kajira," at her. He'd have to come in and pay for her to hold her close enough to make her look at him, and when she spun away, hair flying as she lept and leaned and twirled furiously to resume her dance, he had been decided. Marissa had blushed modestly enough when he told her to kneel, but he could see the excitement beneath her fear and loosened up his swordbelt, letting it fall to the stones and shaking his scarlet tunic loose of his skin where sweat had plastered it to his chest. The rich, sour smell of his own body greeted him, earth and rain and blood, as he pulled the half-soaked fabric past his face and flung it down; already soiled, he left it where it lay. Marissa shrank back and he caught her easily by her hair, jerking her off her feet so that she stumbled into his arms with a frightened little cry. He shut her mouth with his lips, her spit sweet and sour. In her terror she was salivating freely and Vol of Thentis let her warm spit run down his throat as he pushed her to the narrow bed alcove and kissed her atop the stained, grimy cushions. Drinking her in, he forced his hands to be precise and steady as he undid the clasp of her camisk and pulled it from her body with as gentle a motion as his impatient hands and cock would let him, not wanting to tear it as he knew he could not pay the landlord for it. A cheap nothing of a garment, but the man would want something for it just the same. The girl was bought and payed for though. Vol of Thentis took her in his arms, her body feeling light as a feather to him with the blood coursing hot through his veins, and when he thrusts himself inside her it is liquor and it is battle and it is laughter and songs beneath the stars, it is the clasp of a friend's hand and an enemy's cry of woe and despair as his men break and run before the wind of Thunderbolt's terrible wings and his snatching, rending claws and the red sorrow of Vol's sword as it makes a ragged, bloody ruin of iron and bone, muscle and sinew. He felt her breathing begin to come in short pained gasps as his body pressed the air from her lungs, and he propped himself on his elbows to allow her to inhale more easily. She caught her breath with a sob of gratitude, and her throat moved as she gulped reflexively. Vol of Thentis caught her smooth, thin skin between his teeth, biting hard enough to leave a mark that might last a week or two, no longer caring if the innkeeper blustered and whined about damage to his property. No doubt he could appease the man by collecting some debt for him, or meeting some foe in the field on his behalf. Bargains could always be struck with innkeepers. He took his money's worth from the girl that night, and she screamed her pleasure to the bare, ill lit little room as the chill set into the stone and the torches burned down low. He had not left her til she was so exhausted that he could no longer rouse her. After he had taken his pleasure of her twice in brutal succession, he saw her eyes grow heavy and her weary limbs relaxed even as the blood rushed back to her face and hands. He thought she would drift into sleep then and there, so he placed his thumbs beneath her arms and lifted her bodily from the bed, standing her on her feet facing him and then forcing her gently back down, her knees buckling a little from her rough and sudden deposit, to sit facing him upon the bed. He knelt before her. She tried to shrink back, her buttocks clenching gently as she pulled her stomach taught, struggled to contain the terrified racing of her heart as it pounded against her bosom, but Vol of Thentis's strong arm wrapped her little waist in a grip of iron and he used his left hand to roughly, impatiently, push her thighs apart. He buried his face between her legs. She tried to evade his tongue's insistent search, squirming her little bottom back on the cushions, but he wrapped his rough warm palm around the trembling silk of her left buttock, tightening his fingers until he judged the pain would be enough to dissuade her half hearted enterprise at escape. He laughs at her when she gives in almost instantly to the searing ache when the pressure of his fingers burns down in her tender flesh, and she almost throws herself into his arms now that he's given her a little taste of what he can do. He pulls her closer and rewards her with a kiss. She learns quickly. He likes that in a slut. This should wake you up, my wilting little Talender. My poor dying venumium, I'll be the rain that brings the color back to your petals. You shall have your water, my thirsty little flower, but the downpour will grind you into the earth and your small brave life be forfeit to the might of the thunder and the lightening and the dreadful winds that will sweep you before them. My sweet Marissa, my storm will tear up root and stem and scatter your frail pieces to the ends of the Earth. Awake, my thirsty little paga maid, be still my little dancer, lie still beneath your master. And she whispers in his ear as her little arms come up to clasp him as a drowning woman might, "Ma, Ja Vanashe." He pushes her down on her back, and brushes the soft curtain of her shiny black hair to one side to form an iridescent puddle on the rough cloth of the cushion. He places his hands upon her hips and feels her shyly moving in his grasp, shifting to be comfortable; her dark grave eyes beg his pardon. She fears being thought insolent. Good. He allows her fidgeting. She's only a girl, after all, she can't comprehend his passion. He buries his face in her hot lap, burrowing into the dark wire of her pelt so she won't see his tears. She falls still, cold and patient as a still pool whose placid calm he destroys with a crash; she shudders beneath him and ripples radiate from the shattered center of her, and she shakes and weeps and shudders beneath his devouring tongue. Thinking of her there on her back, those dark liquid eyes pouring over as she choked on the words "ma ja vanashe" her little nails striking soft brief sparks of pain in the skin of his back as she clawed at him in her panic, her silent struggle to be still lost before it was begun as she clings to him in terror. And chokes out "vanashe. Vanashe. Ma vanashe", as the the tempest sends her fragile form tumbling headlong through the air and she shivers and shakes trembling as she loses herself in oblivion and the silence pounding like to deafen her. When she can no longer hold herself still and his impatient hands have caught her little wrists, his arm bearing down but just enough to hold her in her place, she screams aloud and her sharp little teeth catch at his palm, a sweet little defiance like the sting of a biting insect in the moment a man crushes it into a smear of blood on his palm. When he feels himself about to climax he fumbles for his dirty tunic and wraps it around his hand, catching his spill in the soiled silk. His sweat has dampened it and it will dry stiff in any case, the girl will never notice the stain when she rinses their clothes in the water when dawn comes. He hopes. Vol of Thentis shifts his way this way and that, the ground hard beneath his back, feeling the unpleasant tingling sensation in his loins and wincing at the inevitable sinking of his spirits. He can hear his friends' jealous laughter now, the smoke and smell of memory another unwelcome intrusion, and with the blood subsiding in a rush that he hears like the melancholy music of an ice-cold waterfall, he cannot shut out the voices that clamor in his mind's ear. Oh god, he's jerking off again. Earthgirl doesn't open her eyes or make a move. She's learned to keep still if she doesn't want his attention, which is as immediate and overwhelming as the shocking plunge into cold water. She wishes she had a cigarette more than anything in the world right now. A Gorean Storean Ch. 06 She has to take a shit, and she really wishes he would just go to sleep instead of sighing and rolling around like that and then exhaling seriously like a man about to undertake a tedious chore as he begins round two. What a dick. She has to piss, too, and an itch has developed teasingly on her left thigh, but she can't do anything about it now. Why the fucker can't have the decency just to let it go after one is beyond her; but no, he has to double down. She knows the second he sees her awake, he'll just want to fuck her. All he seems to care about is sex and fighting, and everything else is just a wearisome distraction as they make their way from town to camp to wilderness. It's not like he owes her dick for consideration- she'd probably be dead without him, and she knows it. It's not like he's getting anything but pussy out of this arrangement. Having her along makes every little thing he's trying to do that much harder, and she can see that in his strained air of self-restraint. It would be nice to get one night of sleep after riding so hard and long; her ass is starting to develop a worrying blister from pressing against the saddle, and if he doesn't even want to fuck her anymore she has no idea what she'll do. She'd like to go piss, but she can't risk waking him. She lets her breath go slowly so he won't hear the change in her breathing as she rolls over. He might not even come over, but she'll feel his eyes on her anyway, and then she really won't be able to get back to sleep. She really needs more rest; it's hard to sleep in the long hours on her back, up there in the air, suspended between hard leather and empty air. She wonders what he's thinking, behind that still face in the long hours flying from here to there. She doesn't think he'd appreciate it if she tried to make conversation. She almost wishes she could speak his language so that she could ask what was on his mind, but even if she had the words he'd probably just be annoyed if she said anything. She wonders, though, if his rush to skip the idle getting-to-know-you chit chat is doing their relationship any favors. He gets angry if she doesn't look like she's listening when he talks, but he has to know that she can't really understand a word he's saying. Just smile and nod, she thinks to herself. Oh Vol of Thentis- you're so strong and brave and handsome. The first time she saw him kill a man she thought her heart would stop. Whatever they were fighting over, they seemed angrier than she's ever seen two people, although Vol of Thentis didn't seem like he even knew the other guy at first. As he drew near, the man on the silver-grey Tarn began to call a merry greeting, but he stopped short and his hail died in his throat when he saw the girl. After he laid eyes on her, he pulled his steed around with a jerk that almost cost him his seat, and his eyes narrowed as he and his steed recovered their balance. The pleasantry and banter that had been in his interrupted greeting had vanished as quickly as he had turned his leisurely flight into a rapid aboutface, and his voice was harsh and brusque, a painful jealous desire become sharp command: "Give her to me." Vol of Thentis laughed in his face then, and the wind whipped his defiant words across the air to the other. "When I lie bleeding on the grass below, dead at your hand, you may ravish her across my corpse and use my hollow bones to beat her when she fails to please you. Until then, she is mine." And Vol of Thentis has his bow unslung before the other can draw breath, his arrow singing a tense threatening song in the impossibly long moment between the second he draws back and the second he lets fly. His first shot grazes the man's hastily raised shield, but in the moment it took him to react Vol of Thentis has taken his bird higher, and while the other man struggles to lower his shield and gather up his reins, Vol of Thentis has snatched his spear in his right hand and tossed it casually to recatch it with a firmer grip. Then comes the plunge. She shuts her eyes, but she can still feel the inevitable stomach dropping wrench as motion overtakes them with never a warning. Fast and swift and sure they fall, and when the two meet, the sensation of pressure as motion meets stillness is almost gentle. She opens her eyes in time to see the spear sink through leather and catch against the man's sternum for a moment before it enters his body, seeming almost reluctant to make the journey through heart and lung and spine before it emerges, glistening, from his back.