Debra watched the women in their long dresses, raising their hands to their foreheads to shield their eyes against the setting sun. Their other hand gripped a leash that had a tethered young girl at the end, naked and kneeling by her side.
A few women came out alone, and they walked up to the men on the horses. They greeted their husbands and welcomed them home, or walked down the line of bound girls, studying them. One woman looked at Debra and spat on the ground. “Shit, Eli.” Lucy moved down the line. She was still trying to figure out a way to get the elders to let her dump her tithe and replace her with one that could be bred to her sons.
A tall woman with a long black braid walked up to Elijah. She put her hand on his knee and glanced over towards Debra. “Sarah’s girl?” Gabrielle recognized the crystal blue eyes. The men never discussed who was on the acquisition list before they left.
“Got the Tilson girl too, Gabrielle,” Eli teased. There was no way his wife was going to settle for the plain girl… not for the slave she had waited two decades to acquire. Elijah had been certain Gabrielle would be posted this year and he had been planning the surprise of Sarah’s daughter for her since spring. He was picking up Liz Clayton’s girl in August in case none of these were satisfactory. Unfortunately, in the picture the grandparents had shown him, the Clayton girl was barely more passable than the Tilson girl.
“Get her to the quarters and tell them not to mark her,” Gabrielle whispered. She turned to make sure Lucy was watching. She was there, all right; standing on the porch with an expression of envy, with Linda kneeling beside her.
The riders stopped in front of a series of small cabins at the end of the street. Women were taking laundry down and did not even bother to look up at them. Debra’s long legs scraped through the dirt as she tried to stall progress into the cabin. Samuel had a hand gripped through her bound wrists and the back of her collar, and it choked her when she balked on the way up the steps.
The inside of the room was lit by a fire in the center, and there were four empty cages standing open with clean hay on the floor. A huge man stood by the fire with a naked girl glaring at them and kneeling beside him. “Lock ’em up,” he boomed.
When Samuel passed by with Debra, she was still struggling in terror. “Gabrielle doesn’t want her marked.”
“Mara?” Caleb asked.
“You bet. Although Eli keeps joking about bidding on the Tilson girl.”
The man noted the anger in the girl’s eyes while she continued thrashing and stiffening her legs in Samuel’s grip. “They’re gonna’ have their hands full with this one.”
“Oh, I think Gabrielle’s looking forward to the challenge,” Samuel laughed. He shoved Debra forward into a cell and banged the door closed behind her.
Caleb stared down into Suzy’s cage, and he grabbed Samuel’s arm and nodded at the small young woman. “Anna’s been posted, Samuel.”
Samuel looked into the cage where the pretty little girl huddled fearfully against the wall. “I had a feeling she might be. This one’s on the weepy side, but her size is good and she has a fine shape.”
“And her hips are wide for such a little thing. She could be a good match for you,” Caleb suggested. The importance of breeders for sons was a primary consideration to the clan.
“It worries me to think of Anna trying to control someone bigger while I’m away. I think I’ll mention this one to her. Thanks, Caleb.”
Debra was crying, and she cowered against the wall while her nose filled and threatened to suffocate her. After the abductors walked out, the big man stood in front of the cages with the naked girl quickly getting into her kneeling position by his side. His eyes fixed on Debra. “There are ways to get you to pay attention that don’t leave no marks,” he warned. “Get those gags off ’em.” He kicked the girl by his side.
Debra watched Lonnie nervously lean towards the door, and the girl reached through and took the sponge out of her mouth. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Quiet,” the man roared.
Suzy’s gag was removed and she quickly shuffled back against the wall, crying softly. Sherry had not moved from her position at the back of her cage. Her leaking eyes were squeezed closed and she was trembling. The naked girl stood in front of the bars, waiting. “Get it off her,” the man thundered.
The girl reached up, unlatched the door and entered the small cell. She walked up to Sherry and the terrified young woman tried to scrunch further into the wall. The girl reached down and grabbed Sherry’s hair and she shrieked behind the gag. The girl dragged her backwards, ripping at Sherry’s hair. Debra shivered at the look of excitement in the naked girl’s eyes.
Paula loved when the new tithes arrived or when reluctant girls were brought over for punishment. It was the only time she could vent her anger over being tithed to the quarter’s jailer. The man was not even married, so Paula was his slave and she had to take care of all of his sadistic pleasures. Although she could easily reach the gag, she twisted her fist until she felt a few of Sherry’s hairs rip out.
Debra shivered, but she stood at the door when the girl approached her. While Paula reached in to remove the gag, her eyes narrowed and she whispered, “Mara, huh? You’re fucked.” She smiled wickedly, and then returned to her impassive expression.
“Eat,” the man ordered.
The girls knelt in front of the bowls that were already waiting in the corner of their cells. The stew was cold, but Debra was too terrified to disobey the huge man. After she was finished, she cowered by the back wall again.
The jailer opened Lonnie’s cell and grabbed her arm. Caleb had already determined that Hallie must have told the girl she had better behave. With her plain looks and less than arousing figure, an agreeable nature was all she could offer. Caleb was betting that Edna might bid on her. With her and Artie in their seventies and him just having had a stroke, Edna would need someone complacent to help her out. It was agreed that she could do the bidding for them, because Artie had been an elder after finishing two decades with a remarkable record as an enforcer.
Lonnie allowed herself to be led over to a wall and she felt her wrists unlatched. She stretched her arms briefly, and then the man snagged her hands and hooked the cuffs together in front of her. He pulled them over her head with one strong hand and reached behind her to turn a winch and lower a chain from the ceiling. Lonnie’s eyes widened in surprise when she felt a hook threaded through her wrist cuffs. She was stretched to her toes when he turned the crank again. Her mother had not explained this to her. In truth, her mother had told her that she would merely be a maid to one of the clan families, and after ten years of servitude she would be released to marry one of the mountain clansmen.
“Get her stripped down,” he bellowed at his girl, and he walked back to the cells to collect Suzy.
When it was Sherry’s turn, she had to be dragged across the floor, and the man raised her by her collar so that her feet were off the ground and she was choking. She kicked out at him and his hand smashed across her thighs, driving her legs into Suzy. The naked girl stepped back with the knife she was using to cut Suzy’s nightshirt away. Paula knew she would be severely punished if she marked one of the tithes.
Debra watched the blossoming red handprint across Sherry’s thighs and it reminded her of the fading bruise from the reins. What kind of nightmare is this? Debra backed against the wall when the big man approached her cell door.
Caleb could see the panic in her eyes, and his cock pulsed sadistic arousal. Shit, Gabrielle’s getting herself a looker with this one. “You don’t want me to have to come grab you.” He figured he would not get another chance with the girl after auction. Unlike Lucy, who was constantly running her slave back to him for correction, any punishment this girl earned would be seen to by Gabrielle or Elijah.
Debra began to cry, and she forced her stiff legs to move her forward. She glanced to where the girl was cutting off Sherry’s panties. Sherry was wailing and screaming at the girl to stop, and
the girl smashed her hand down on top of the already red mark. Debra was sliding into shock and she felt the cold goop of the stew in her stomach rolling.
When she felt herself being stretched beside the others, she was pleading garbled nonsense about a job serving coffee and promising to gather eggs with her grandma. Caleb was used to the ramblings. The spoiled flatland girls were willing to promise anything… except what their new owners were going to require. He rubbed his cock while Paula stripped the girl. She was lean and tall, with a golden braid that had highlights filtering through the trail dust. It hung in a thick rope to her waist, and while his girl unthreaded the twist Caleb imagined that Gabrielle would make good use of it.
Paula knelt by his side with her hands on her spread thighs and her pussy glistening and leaking onto the hay spread on the dirt floor. Her Master picked up the hose and sprayed freezing mountain water on the hanging girls. Paula’s pussy clenched while she listened to their shrieks. When the water turned off, he said, “Get them soaped up, slut.”
Paula rose, grabbed a coarse bar of soap and began scrubbing Lonnie’s short hair. She worked down the row girls, and just as her eyes narrowed and her fingers threaded through Debra’s hair, Caleb warned, “Don’t you be yanking any of hers out, slut. If I see one strand fall, I’ll have you bent over this bench so fast your eyes will pop out.”
“Yes, Master Caleb.”
Paula stared into Debra’s frightened eyes while she scrubbed, and she mouthed, “You are so fucked.” Paula already hated the pretty girl, even though she was going to Elijah and Gabrielle. Most of the tithe girls already hated Mara without even knowing who she would be. Ironically, to be tithed to Elijah was considered an honor among the stolen girls.
After scrubbing their hair, Paula walked back to Lonnie and began walking down the line, scouring the trail dirt off with a stiff soaped-up brush. It left their skin red and raw, and all of them were wailing again by the time she was through. The frigid water rinsed them off, and then the girl brushed the tangles out of their hair. They were left to sway and hang dry by the heat of the fire.
* * * * *
“Can we go see her?” Gabrielle finally asked. She had been silent through most of their dinner while she considered the girl she had waited so long to acquire. “I mean, we don’t know if there’s some scarring or horrid birthmark, or something.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Eli answered. He planned to give into her request, but the wait would make his anxious wife more excited. He looked into her worried emerald stare. “Gabrielle, she’s fine,” he repeated.
“Eli… it’s just that… well, everyone expects…” How could she explain to him that over the years everyone had built her tithe into some kind of princess slave. The girl had to be perfect, or her friends would laugh and sneer when they saw her.
Elijah could see that she really was distressed and that it was not just curiosity that led to the request. He finished the last of his dinner. “Come on, I’ll walk you over. Sarah says she’s willful, so remember, if she isn’t right we still have Liz’s kid coming up in August.”
“She’ll be big boned and short, Eli. That means I’ll have to wait until next year,” Gabrielle worried. It would not look right for her to keep passing until one suited her. The match was supposed to be almost a fateful type of arrangement. Over the years, Gabrielle’s vision of what the slave would look like never altered. She would be tall and blonde, with a good figure, shining blue eyes and full lips… exactly like the girl sitting on the saddle in front of Samuel when the men returned this afternoon.
Caleb had expected Gabrielle to show up, and he looked up from his chair across the room. He was waiting for the girls to dry, with Paula kneeling between his thighs and sucking his cock. He was deliberately holding back so that she would have to finish while Gabrielle was in the room. He knew how it humiliated the girl.
Paula heard them come in and she renewed her efforts, taking the man deep down her throat and encouraging his sack with her fingers. She looked up into his eyes with a pleading expression when she felt him tighten. Caleb smiled down at her and stroked her hair. She really was a good girl, and he knew that she wanted to watch the new tithe’s reaction to Gabrielle. “All right, slut.” He jerked into her mouth, and she quickly lapped up and sealed him behind his leather breaches, doing a half-assed job of cleaning him that she was sure to pay for later.
Debra roused from her shock when the couple walked in, and she watched the devil man and his wife approach them. The woman stared critically at the other three girls, and then she stopped in front of Debra. The woman smiled, and Debra began to cry. “Please… please let me go. I don’t belong here.”
Gabrielle reached out and ran two tapered fingers over the swell of one firm breast, letting her nails scrape up the side to a nipple that was tight in the cool air. She pinched it in a vise of pain, and said calmly, “Silence.”
“Aaaah.” The pinching agony pierced through her fright, and Debra automatically swung a long leg out to kick the woman. The green eyes narrowed and she continued to grip the nub while her free hand grabbed onto the golden curls between Debra’s thighs and pulled down.
“Aaah… god, let me go,” Debra begged, thrashing her legs while the woman continued to tug at her nipple and pussy. Debra finally hung limp and the grips loosened slightly, but the woman did not release her.
“She doesn’t seem to have much tolerance,” Gabrielle noted. “I’ve hardly got hold of her.”
Eli stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. He could feel his wife’s excitement. “She’ll be fine, Gabrielle. You know you have to build that sort of thing up in some of them. She does have McEnroe blood in her, and none of those lazy bastards have any stamina,” Eli replied. He reached out and ran a hand down Debra’s lean thigh. “She’s tall enough, and her muscles are pretty good.” Eli turned his head into Gabrielle’s neck, and whispered, “It might take a lot of work, but I think you could train her to a cart for you.”
Gabrielle began braiding the golden mane, and she imagined the blonde beauty pulling her through the hills to visit her friends. After tying off the rope with a twist of hay, she looked up at her husband. “Oh, Eli. Do you think I can? It will make the others positively green.”
“Like your eyes, my beauty.” Eli smiled down at her delight with the suggestion. “So, are you satisfied?”
Gabrielle looked back at the girl and turned her to make sure that the other side of her was also visually appealing. She had flared hips that would strengthen and tone up, but she was definitely the best of the offerings. With Sarah and Clara in her background, her only concern had been the McEnroe influence. It seemed that all she had inherited was a little extra height, but with Gabrielle standing at almost six feet, the girl was still four inches shorter. “She’s perfect, Eli.”
After the frightening couple left, the girls were put back in their cages with their wrist cuffs still bound in front of them. Even though there was no way for them to unlock the cages, Caleb spent the night in the cabin. He did not need an unfortunate accident the night before the long awaited tithe auction. “Don’t mess yourselves up,” he warned.
He stared down at Paula. “I’m sorry, Master Caleb.” Her fingers trembled, and she reached for his zipper.
Chapter II
It was soon after they were locked in their cages, quietly crying or lying in shocked silence, that the man finally walked into Sherry’s cage and gagged her again. It did little to stifle the agonizing moans, but at least she had stopped screaming and let the rest of them suffer in relative silence.
At some point, Debra had managed to drift into an uncomfortable sleep. She kept jerking awake at visions of the devil or green eyes surrounded by darkness. In the morning, Paula brushed the hay out of their hair. They were stretched on the chains again to keep them clean until time for the auction. They were also not fed, presumably also to keep them clean, but Paula would lift a cup of water up to them occasionally.
&nbs
p; Debra’s arms were cramping with the strain of the uncomfortable position. One look at Sherry’s gagged mouth and miserable expression kept her quiet. She was even too tired to tremble. Suzy whispered to ask Paula what was going to happen, and she was rewarded with a punch… aimed at her pussy. Debra winced and mewled in pain for her, and Suzy howled and tried to lift her legs.
Just past noon, as close as Debra could ascertain, the big man stood in front of them with Paula kneeling by his side again. “You will be led onto the stage to be presented. I assure you, any misbehaving will be dealt with swiftly.”
The girls were tethered together with ropes latched onto the front and back loops of their collars. Lonnie was first, then Suzy, Sherry and Debra. Paula followed behind the column and they were led to a gray weathered platform. Debra stared at the splintered planks instead of at the dozen men standing in front of the stage with their wives beside them. She had never felt such humiliation, and she wondered hopefully if perhaps her mother was trying to teach her a lesson and would be coming for her. She looked down at a man in an old wooden wheelchair up close to the stage, with a stern woman standing at his side.
Sherry was sobbing and jerking in fright, and the connecting rope pulled at Debra’s leather collar. The jailer untied Lonnie’s lead and he led her to the front of the stage. Caleb glanced quickly at Eli who shook his head, and he looked down at Edna and Artie. “She’s Hallie’s girl, Edna. She has a calm, efficient temperament, and the rest of the posts have agreed to stand down for your bid. Would you like her displayed?” Caleb asked.
Edna noted the girl’s plainness, but she also looked strong enough to help with Artie. Her eyes were red from crying, but she was not all wild-eyed like some of the others. For her part, Lonnie was not stupid. She realized that service with the old couple would be easier for her. She gulped nervously, and said softly, “I helped mama take care of my grandpa when he had a stroke.”
The Tithe That Binds Page 3
