INTRODUCTION

 

The majority of the stories in this collection are continuations of the story of SLAVEWORLD and are set before the events of SLAVEWORLD INCORPORATED. They tell the story of the magician Thergo and how he established his slave-dealing empire on Earth and of some of the things that happened on his homeworld of Belas while he was away. All these stories have appeared in PLEASURE BOUND.

The last tale 'Island of Slaves' is a short novel set in another fantasy world of dominant men and submissive women and featuring a woman snatched from this world to learn her place in another. This is its first appearance anywhere.

In the letters pages of PLEASURE BOUND, there have appeared criticisms of Olympia for publishing stories in which women are abducted and treated as slaves until they begin to enjoy it. This, the critics feel, is contrary to the responsible way S&M is practised between consenting adults in the real world. As one of the 'guilty parties' I think I should repeat what I said at the end of SLAVEWORLD INCORPORATED:

The following stories are fantasies. They are not meant for imitation but for imagination. People who are into S&M/dominance and submission/call it what you will enjoy imagining themselves in the sort of situations these stories describe. I cannot conceive that anyone imaginative enough to enjoy them would be stupid enough to try to recreate them with unwilling partners, but I repeat my earlier warnings in case such people do exist. Magic does not work and there are no slave-girls for sale at Woolworth's. When you try to recreate these stories in the real world make sure you do it with consenting partners or it could end up being messy for you.

 

Best wishes,

 

Boris

 

A DINNER PARTY

 

Yamrah had been looking forward to the visit to Orthos's estate for months. Life with her husband had been intolerably dull recently. Rhogos had been chosen to marry her by the elders of her clan and though he was kind enough he was ageing, fat and very busy with his post as Governor of an outlying province. For a young and imaginative woman the duties of housekeeping were not nearly enough to occupy her mind. Other women at the outpost filled their time with gossip but Yamrah found that tedious too. As the wife of the governor she could hardly indulge in the adultery that (according to the gossip) was the other main hobby of the lonely women of the outpost. The only man Yamrah had ever slept with had been her husband and she found her 'marital duties' to be short, unexciting and messy. And infrequent, the gods be thanked. She could not understand what drove other women to such terrible, risky indiscretions. Some even indulged with the smelly, hairy locals, men of the northern barbarian tribes!

Still, this visit to the capital should make up for all that boredom. Orthos's villa, stood on a rise over the city and the spectacular view down onto Vri itself always took her breath away. And when Rhogos was busy meeting with the chiefs of his department, Yamrah could chatter with her old friend Aliciana, Orthos's wife. Aliciana could always make her laugh and Yamrah could talk intimately to her in a way she never could with the wives of her husband's subordinates. Aliciana might be a bitch but she was witty and someone you could relax with.

As the coach drew up to the gates of the estate, Yamrah peeped out of the window in excitement. Orthos was waiting there to meet them, with a servant, a slave girl, kneeling beside her. Yamrah could hardly contain her excitement and only just remembered to allow Rhogos to leave the coach first so that he could hand her down in the proper manner. She allowed Orthos to kiss her in the prescribed manner, politely on both cheeks and then she said:

"And where is dear Aliciana, I've so been looking forward to speaking to her again?"

Orthos's eyes hardened and a very peculiar expression crossed his face. And then he looked down at the slave girl where she knelt on the grass.

Yamrah had not paid much attention to the girl. Nicely brought up women didn't. One knew they were there, of course, but paid no more attention to slaves than one did to furniture. One knew too that men (some men, not her Rhogos) used them in ways, well in ways that one did not think about. That was the way things were. So the girl's face had not registered until now.

Kneeling there, her eyes submissively down, her hands resting palm upwards on her widespread thighs was Aliciana! Her beautiful gowns were gone, replaced by a simple (and very short) linen tunic. Her hair was no longer piled up in a fantastic coil that took hours to prepare but hung down her back unbound. Her face was devoid of makeup. As Orthos turned to her she looked up at him. Something in her expression made Yamrah gasp. She regarded him with awe and a kind of desperate devotion, like that of a dog who fears his master will beat him. Before Aliciana had always regarded her husband with affectionate contempt. Now all that was gone.

Orthos barked: "Show your respect, girl!"

Yamrah watched dumbstruck as Aliciana fell to all fours and crawled the short distance forward to where the guests stood. She kissed the hems of their garments and murmured: "Welcome, Master. Welcome, Mistress. I am honoured to greet you in my Master's name." As she came up to Yamrah, the light glinted off a small golden ring set through the septum of her nose. She crawled back to resume her kneeling position by Orthos.

Rhogos' laugh jerked Yamrah out of her stupor: "Well, I see there have been some changes around here."

Orthos smiled: "A few. You will want to change and wash before dinner. Come this way. Ali!" The kneeling woman looked up again. "Unload the guests' luggage and have it brought to their rooms."

"Yes, Master." And she leapt to her feet and eagerly began to lift down the heavy cases as Orthos lead his guests up the path. Yamrah kept looking over her shoulder until they were through the door of the villa and the coach was out of sight.

 

***

 

Yamrah brushed her hair for the last time in front of the mirror (as a sign of Orthos' wealth it was the silvered glass kind rather than mere polished copper such as she had been used to on the frontier) and then began to pace. She had unpacked, bathed and changed for dinner in a sort of trance. She had been unable to get the image of her friend kneeling before her and kissing the hem of her garment out of her mind. In some strange way, thinking about it made her very uneasy. When she thought of how Aliciana had looked up at Orthos, it became somehow harder to breathe and she felt sensations and urges she had no real name for. What was happening to her?

She had never thought before now where slave-girls came from, who they had been before they were enslaved. She questioned Rhogos about it be he had merely laughed patronisingly at her concern.

"It's unusual, true. But not illegal. A head of household can enslave any family member if they get into debt or commit a crime against a family member. It looks to me as if Orthos got one of his magician friends to bind her permanently. But don't worry, little girl, I'm not likely to do that to you."

Then he had patted her cheek and looked astonished as she stormed out of the room.

The door opened and she heard a discreet cough behind her. She turned and kneeling there was Aliciana.

"Mistress, I am sent to tell you that dinner is ready."

For a moment, Yamrah stood there stunned and then dropped to her knees in front of Aliciana and took her hands.

"My dear, what has he done to you?"

The other woman tried to pull back and looked embarrassed. "Please Mistress, don't. The Master and your husband are waiting ..."

"Aliciana, look at me!" At the direct command, the slavegirl turned her eyes to meet Yamrah's and the gold ring in her nose glistened in the torchlight. On the steel collar locked around her neck was written: I am Ali, household slave of Lord Orthos. "What has happened to you?"

"I have been enslaved, Mistress. I was displeasing and disobedient as a free woman. Finally, I became a thief and a liar. But my master very kindly chose to have me enslaved instead of executed as was his legal right. Please do not be alarmed. It is nothing to be concerned about."

"Nothing to ... Aliciana, how can you ..."

"Please, Mistress, I am no longer called by that name. My Master though it too grand for a mere slave. I am now just Ali, the slavegirl. Please try to forget that you knew me before and treat me as you would any other slave. I am not unhappy, now."

"Not unhappy? What do you ..." And at that moment she looked properly into the other's eyes for the first time. Instead of fear and resentment, as she'd expected to find, she saw for the first time on her friend's face real contentment and an expression of what could almost be pity. But that was absurd. How could a slave pity a free woman, the wife of an important official?

Ali smiled and removed her hands from the other woman's.

"If you will come along now, Mistress. Dinner is served."