by S. J. Lewis
The women in the cage looked back at them impassively, and yet something in their eyes, something in their stances, suggested a smoldering sexuality to Kimberley. Yes, no doubt there would be lively bidding for this pair.
“Wow…” Cat murmured reverently as she looked over the two captives. “I’m sure glad I won’t be competing with those two.” At her words, the captives looked at each other and smiled faintly, as if sharing a secret. Kimberley wondered how they had gotten here. They didn’t look the type to go in for being hunted down in the wilderness. They looked too…soft, too sensual for that. They reminded her, in a way, of indoor cats, only mildly interested in the outdoors, if at all. If that was true, it meant that they had come here to sell themselves as slaves. She would have to remember to ask Cat how that worked later.
“This concludes the tour, ladies,” Mr. Brown said. “I’m afraid you’ll all have to go on to the hotel now. If you like, I can arrange to have someone bring your packs over there for you.”
“Could you?” Barbara’s thankfulness was a bit dramatic, but completely sincere. “I…” she looked quickly at her companions… “we… would just love that!”
“No problem at all, Miss.” Mr. Brown chuckled again, but his eyes strayed over each of them as if he was picturing what they would look like in one of the cages. It occurred to Kimberley that Mr. Brown was perhaps not as kindly and harmless as he appeared, but she did not look away when his eyes met hers. He smiled at her when she did that and nodded. “This way please, ladies.”
After the hushed gloom of the barn, the noontime sunlight felt almost blinding. Kimberley had to shade her eyes with her hand as they exited the building. Squinting and blinking, she almost walked right into a tall, rangy man leading a horse.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, jumping back. “Excuse me!”
“No problem, Ma’am.” He smiled, looking down at her. He doffed the stained old cowboy hat he was wearing with a flourish. “I expect you just didn’t see me coming.”
He looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s, with dark brown hair and a three days’ growth of beard. His boots, jeans and shirt were all dusty and grimy, as if he’d just returned to town after many days out on the range. He was squinting himself, now that he’d removed his hat, and she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. He looked up and past her. “Ladies,” he nodded to Barbara and Cat, who were standing behind her. Behind him, his horse neighed and tossed its head. At the noise, she looked past him at his horse and gulped. There was a body lying across the saddle, covered with a blanket so that she could only see arms sticking out on the far side and legs on the near side. They were a woman’s arms and legs, the wrists and ankles bound with rope and connected to each other by more rope running under the horse. She tried to stifle a horrified gasp.
He looked back at her and laughed at her expression. “She’s okay, Miss,” he assured her. “She’s alive and full of fight. I just put the blanket over her to keep her from gettin’ sunburned. Here, let me show you.” He turned the horse to the side and pulled the blanket off. The woman under it was naked, and she began making muffled noises of complaint. He gripped her by her light brown hair and pulled her head up. Kimberley saw that she was tightly gagged, with something packed into her mouth. Her eyes were furiously angry, glaring. Her face was reddened.
“Afternoon, Mr. Quinn,” Mr. Brown said as he ambled over towards them. “What have we here?”
“Something for auction,” Mr. Quinn replied, letting go of the woman’s hair. Her head dropped down so Kimberley couldn’t see her face any more, but she kept snarling through the gag.
“Caught her two nights ago,” Mr. Quinn continued. “She’s still pretty wild, and I got better things to do with my time than tame her.” He reached over the horse to swat her upturned rear once, hard, prompting louder snarls and a furious writhing from the woman. Kimberley took a step back, then another, and bumped into Barbara. They jumped apart, startled, exchanging glances. Cat giggled.
Mr. Brown turned at the noise. “Ladies,” he said, “I think you’d best get on to the hotel now. This business here is none of your concern. I’ll have your gear sent over directly.”
“Ah…okay…” Kimberley nodded jerkily. “Sure…” she noticed that Mr. Quinn was regarding her with some interest, and she looked away quickly. “Come on, Barbara, Cat.”
“Thanks for the tour, Mr. Brown!” Cat said cheerfully as they left. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Quinn!”
Kimberley did not look back. In fact, she looked straight ahead and still didn’t see much of anything. She just kept walking until Cat grabbed her by the arm and told her she was about to walk right past the hotel. She was so aroused by their short encounter with “Mr. Quinn” and his captive and her mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of what Mr. Quinn might have done with his prize before bringing her here, that she tingled where Cat had touched her until well after they had entered the air-conditioned hush of the Gordburg Hotel.
Chapter Three
“Well, what do you think of the place so far?” Barbara asked as she came out of the bathroom, toweling her long blonde hair. She was wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe and barefoot.
“The hotel? It’s pretty nice,” Kimberley replied absently. She was lying on one of the beds in their suite, her head propped up on a pillow, her hands clasped behind her head, ankles crossed, clad only in her sports bra and panties. Their packs had not arrived yet.
“Uh-huh.” Barbara nodded, sitting down on the bed next to her. “You know what I mean. What do you think of the whole town?”
Kimberley closed her eyes. “It’s going to take some getting used to,” she said. “It’s…more than I’d expected. How about you?”
Barbara continued toweling. “It’s more than I’d expected, too,” she replied after a moment. “More…organized. It’s funny…”
“What’s funny?” Kimberley opened her eyes and sat up. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see Mr. Quinn and his angry, angry captive, and it was distracting.
“It’s funny because…well, because it feels kind of safe. They seem to know what they’re doing here.”
“Yeah,” Kimberley agreed. “But do we know what we’re doing? I thought that after last year, I had a kind of handle on things. Now I feel just like I did back at the beginning, completely lost.”
“Maybe Mr. Quinn can help find you.” Barbara teased, nudging her lightly in her ribs. “I saw how you looked at him.”
Kimberley laughed weakly. “Did you see how he looked at me, too?” she responded. “I felt…”
“Horny?” Barbara suggested. Kimberley hit her with the pillow. Hard.
“Okay, okay…” Barbara held up a hand. “Tell me how you felt.”
“I felt small and naked and helpless,” Kimberley answered. “Just like I did last year.”
“That bothers you?”
Kimberley smiled at Barbara wryly. “That would depend on how you define ‘bothered’. It’s funny…” she went on, lying back down. “After my little adventure last year, I was pretty sure that now I knew what I wanted. I was SO sure of that, that it never occurred to me until I got back home that I had no idea how to go about getting it in the normal world.”
“‘It, as you put it, can be just a phone call away.” Barbara pointed out.
“Yes, I know…but it isn’t the same that way… not after last year, anyway…and it could get kind of expensive. But that’s beside the point I was trying to make.”
“So what is your point, then?” Barbara reached up to run her fingers through her hair once and went back to toweling. The bathroom had a hair dryer, but she would never use one. As thick as her mane was, it was also very fine, and she firmly believed that hair dryers damaged it.
“What’s my point…” Kimberley sighed. “My point is, say you meet a guy, and there’s some real chemistry between you. Say that after a couple of dates you’re both ready. You go back to his place, or he comes back to yours. Now, just how do you tell him w
hat you like without maybe scaring him off or think you’re seriously deranged?”
Barbara chuckled. “Well, gee…I usually stretch things out until he’s about ready to pop all by himself. You’d be surprised how willing a guy can be to accommodate you then.”
“Uh-huh.” Kimberley nodded. “That works for you. I can’t quite do it, myself.”
“Why not?”
“It just seems kind of unfair, is all. And…” she sighed loudly “What I’d really like, what I really want, is for him to suggest it to me. Or maybe not suggest it at all, just go ahead with it. It’s a little difficult to find a man with enough self-confidence to do that, who’s also into it, you know?”
Barbara patted her on the shoulder. “I know. And I understand, believe me.” She laughed again. “But you left out one more qualification.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s got to have the self-confidence, he has to be into it, and he’s got to be attractive too. You wouldn’t do that for just anybody now, would you?”
Kimberley laughed too. “Yeah, you’re right, but you just made it all sound a lot harder.”
Barbara smiled. “I think it won’t be all that hard here. Mr. Quinn looked like a pretty good candidate, and we hadn’t been in town for more than an hour.”
Kimberley smacked her with the pillow again, knocking her over on to her side, and left her lying on the bed. Barbara’s laughter followed her all the way into the bathroom. It wasn’t until after she’d shut the door behind her that Kimberley began giggling, then laughing, herself.
The shower felt great. It was roomy, all black tiling and chrome. There were spray nozzles on three sides of the stall, at different heights. There was also a hand-held one with an adjustable spray on the end of a metallic hose. Kimberley began to experiment with it. She was still feeling a bit…edgy…after their visit to the slave pens and the encounter with “Mr. Quinn”. She could picture herself in one of those cages or on the auction block. She could almost picture herself in the clutches of Mr. Quinn. But as she closed her eyes and let the fine, stinging spray wander up and down her torso, the face…and the body…that she pictured were Alpha’s. Was he here, somewhere? She thought it unlikely. More probably he was hunting another woman through those piney woods. She shivered as the spray brushed her nipples. Did he ever think about her? She hoped that he did. Actually, she kind of hoped that he laid awake nights, thinking of his lost Elf-Girl. She moved the spray down across her belly, across her thighs, and shivered again. She’d actually looked into the possibility of going back to those woods to be hunted just by Alpha. The woman she’d spoken to had been polite but firm. Such things were simply not done, not for anybody.
So…maybe Alpha was lost to her forever, after all. Or maybe not…she could still hope, she thought with a grin. She gave the head spray one tiny little adjustment and began running it up her inner thighs. Her free hand gripped a vertical rail that seemed to have been installed for just this sort of circumstance. She had to clench her teeth to keep from crying out.
Barbara might not use hair dryers, but Kimberley had no problems with them at all. Her own honey-blonde hair might look as fine as Barbara’s, but it was actually stiff and a little coarse and hair dryers did not damage it at all. Cut as short as it was now, it also dried quickly. She ran her fingers through it one last time. There was no point in combing it when it was this short. It would just arrange itself into a cute tangle of loose curls no matter what she did. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror one last time, turning her head to one side and then the other. She’d always been sensitive about how her ears looked. They tilted noticeably backwards, had almost no earlobes at all, and came to blunt points at the tips. But last year, because of them, Alpha had named her Elf-Girl. He had also discovered that her ears were wonderfully sensitive in their own right. He had used them as the key to unlock her. Now, she was proud of how they looked. As she inventoried the rest of herself in the mirror, she saw nothing to be any less proud of: nice legs, just enough in the way of hips, breasts…well, okay, they were a little on the small side, but they suited her frame quite well, and her slightly-upturned nipples made them look perky. She crossed her wrists behind her, as if bound. If she pulled her shoulders back a bit, they looked even perkier, she thought.
Ever since last year, she had kept her pubic tuft carefully trimmed into a cute little triangle. Now she ran a hand between her legs, feeling for any stubble along the edges. She shouldn’t need to do anything for several more days, she thought. Finally, she turned around, looked back over her shoulder, and wiggled her rump experimentally. She grinned at the result. Still nicely rounded, still nicely firm. She resisted an urge to giggle at her antics, but she couldn’t keep herself from grinning at her reflection. After that nice, long…ahem…shower, she felt wonderfully relaxed and loose and ready for another adventure. She donned a bathrobe, a twin of the one Barbara had used, and went out of the bathroom. Dinner wouldn’t be for several more hours, but maybe they could order something to eat from room service.
Barbara was sitting on her own bed, propped up by pillows between her back and the headboard. Their packs had been delivered. One sat on a folding metal frame at the foot of each bed. And there was someone else in the room, sitting on the bed near Barbara.
“Oh…hello!” Kimberley smiled at the newcomer, unconsciously tightening the cloth belt of her robe.
The woman stood, smiling. She was an older woman, maybe forty, dark-haired, tall and elegant-looking in a snug-fitting knee-length black skirt and black blazer. Beneath the blazer, she wore a blindingly white blouse, all ruffles and frills down the front. Low black heels completed her outfit. Well, no, not completely. As she came forward, hand outstretched and still smiling, Kimberley noticed that her blouse was opened halfway down the front…or was it just made to be worn that way? But through the opening, she could see that the woman was also wearing a wide, black leather collar with a large O-ring dangling from it. She couldn’t help staring as she shook the proffered hand.
“Ah…sorry!” Kimberley felt her face reddening. “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s quite all right. I’m used to it. Please call me Joanna. And you must be Miss Jacobsen…or should I call you Elf-Girl?”
Kimberley laughed. Her face still felt warm and red. “Kimberley will do…or even Kim,” she replied.
Joanna’s smile seemed to warm up a little bit from its polished professional glaze. “I am afraid I am not allowed to use first names, Miss Jacobsen…at least, not under these circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” Kimberley frowned. “What circumstances?”
“As I was explaining to Miss Kingman,” Joanna nodded towards Barbara, “As long as you are guests of the hotel, I cannot address you by your first names. I’m afraid I shouldn’t have referred to you as Elf-Girl either, but it is such a unique name, and it suits you so well. My apologies.”
Okay, this must be another one of those must-follow rules here, Kimberley thought. Still, Joanna had slipped up a little in calling her Elf-Girl. It was nice to know people here were human enough to do that occasionally. “No apologies necessary,” she said. “But I have to ask…who are you and why are you here?”
“Shall we sit?” Joanna suggested, indicating the round table and four chairs in a corner of the suite. “The hotel will be sending up a complimentary meal soon. I am here to answer any questions either of you might have, and to attend to the last little details of your registration.”
Last little details? Kimberley wondered what those could be as she followed Joanna towards the table. The mention of a meal, complimentary or otherwise, had energized Barbara, who all but leaped off of her bed in a swirl of snowy-white robe and a flash of long, trim thighs and hastened over.
“I have one question right now,” Kimberley said to Joanna’s back. “Why are you wearing that collar?”
Joanna stopped and paused a moment before turning. Her professional smile was back. “Part of my job
requires it, Miss Jacobsen,” she answered. She said nothing more, and Kimberley decided to push the issue just a little. It seemed that Joanna would answer direct questions, but wouldn’t volunteer anything. This ought to be interesting.
“Another question.” Kimberley smiled sweetly as they sat down around the table. “What part of your job requires you to wear that collar?”
“You are persistent, Miss Jacobsen,”
“Please answer the question.” Kimberly leaned forward, still smiling. “I’m dying to know.”
“Very well.” Joanna seemed to redden a little. “Put most simply, on occasion I can be…ordered…from room service. Sometimes, I am also called upon to assist in…the training of some of the women who have been captured as slaves.”
Kimberley had already suspected something along the lines of “room service”. It was easy to picture a man wanting to try out such an attractive older woman, especially if he’d noticed the collar. The second half of Joanna’s answer, though, took her aback. Maybe it would be wiser not to tease this woman, she thought. She would just as soon not have a ticked-off Joanna doing any kind of assisting in any kind of training she might come in for later.
“All right.” Kimberley held up a hand. “I’m sorry. Let’s get on to those last little details you mentioned.”
“Very well.” Joanna’s smile warmed up again.
They were only a little ways along on the details when someone knocked at the door. “That would be room service,” Joanna said.
