Unfinished

Twist

You asked me if I wanted chocolate or vanilla.
So I asked you for strawberry, please.
You smiled at me
And gave me caramel

Twist.

Caramel turned out to be what I wanted all along.
I wanted to stir it up and melt it down.
I wanted it to be ooey gooey sticky slick.
You took my spoon and made me do it with my hands.

Twist.

2009 C.A. For Alex, Unfinished

House wife, no more?

Today I baked cupcakes. In actual tea cups because Gor didn't have muffin tins and what is up with that? So I baked cupcakes and frosted them with pink and yellow butter cream frosting and added pretty purple and white sprinkles. I was terribly pleased with my accomplishment. I set them out over the counter in a pretty little display and then brushed my hands on the pink and white gingham apron I was wearing.

Are you nauseous yet?

My bells tinkled lightly as I hurried though the first floor, eagerly searching for anyone to force feed a cupcake too.

"Master?!"

"..bit?"

"glory?!"

Nothing. I sighed to myself and glanced out the window to look over my wild flower garden. It was thriving, even though Agrippa hadn't watered the daises and I'd had to rush in to save them, just in time too! I had cried about that, much to my shame..I had kind of sobbed. Those silly flowers were kind of the only friend I had. They were my esme! I ran my fingers over the windowsill thoughtfully and then wandered back to the kitchen. The house was clean, my sewing caught up.. there was none to cook for and no mess to clean up.

Agrippa was probably down at the docks doing all kind of political things there, bit and glory were either with him, kneeling at his feet, touching his legs, placating his moods, having lively discussions or off with other men being alluring and making him money and whatever else. I was left behind, again.

To bake cupcakes. Hmm.

I leaned on the counter, my forearms resting there as I considered this. I was left home in the kitchen, in the garden, with a rolling pin and pigtails and an apron. I had become ... Agrippa's housewife.

"Oh, no!" I bit my lower lip and reached up to pull out my ribbons angrily. Crumpled in my hand I tossed the pink ribbons onto the counter. "Oh no, no." I mumbled to myself. The apron was the next victim, tossed to the floor in a messy pile. Where was the sultry slave who had begged to be raped over a create in Port Kar? Who had so eagerly exposed herself to merchants and thieves. Where was the girl who had teased the men on his ship with a sparkly gaze and a blown kiss.

Lola the house wife.. can you stand it? Cause I can't!

I donned the silks I had made for bit.. a dark crimson red with a deep v between my breasts, a thin gold chain draped from one side to the other and over each hip where the silk was split. I left my hair down and darkened the kohl around my pretty blue eyes. I was liberal with the gold dust I brushed over my small frame. I left all the ribbons behind and brushed my fingers over the basement door as I walked past it.

I was flushed as I walked out of the house, a little rush of adrenaline from the boldness of.. well.. me! Behind me, in that kitchen.. I left a half eaten cupcake, my ribbons, my apron and the intangible Lola the housewife. She wasn't dead.. yet.

But I.. just might want her to be.

Oh! Mr Best You're Very Bad

Oh! Mr. Best, you're very bad
And all the world shall know it;
Your base behaviour shall be sung
By me, a tunefull Poet.--
You used to go to Harrowgate
Each summer as it came,
And why I pray should you refuse
To go this year the same?--

The way's as plain, the road's as smooth,
The Posting not increased;
You're scarcely stouter than you were,
Not younger Sir at least.--

If e'er the waters were of use
Why now their use forego?
You may not live another year,
All's mortal here below.--

It is your duty Mr Best
To give your health repair.
Vain else your Richard's pills will be,
And vain your Consort's care.

But yet a nobler Duty calls
You now towards the North.
Arise ennobled--as Escort
Of Martha Lloyd stand forth.

She wants your aid--she honours you
With a distinguished call.
Stand forth to be the friend of her
Who is the friend of all.--

Take her, and wonder at your luck,
In having such a Trust.
Her converse sensible and sweet
Will banish heat and dust.--

So short she'll make the journey seem
You'll bid the Chaise stand still.
T'will be like driving at full speed
From Newb'ry to Speen hill.--

Convey her safe to Morton's wife
And I'll forget the past,
And write some verses in your praise
As finely and as fast.

But if you still refuse to go
I'll never let your rest,
Buy haunt you with reproachful song
Oh! wicked Mr. Best!--

by Jane Austen

New Horizon

Agrippa has secrets. Secrets he keeps from me. I have clues of course, a mental list of names and places all mixed up with things I heard or saw... Cos, Haven going missing, Xia leaving and becoming Ubara, The thief, Crates that did not hold dresses, labels I could not read. In Port Kar I was not allowed out alone, I never left the house or shop without Agrippa or his men. Don't misunderstand, I was not guarded.. I am not worth much. A silver, 40 coppers.. a half a dollar? Yea, I wasn't guarded. But now and then one of his men would take me out to the shops, to carry his things. No one ever used me.. not that it was not allowed. It was just that.. you don't put on another mans boxers without asking first, right? Even if we are talking about grade a silk hand woven by the gods with stars in her eyes kind of boxers.

Sometimes I ache to ask him, to tell me what’s going on, what is he protecting me from and why? I am only a slave, I want to know everything but I am only a slave. I have to wait and trust that he will tell me when he wishes me to know.. and maybe never at all and maybe that's best. Gor is a harsher world then I am used too. Perhaps he does not think I am prepared to know all his secrets, maybe he would be right.

I am sitting today, on the sun deck on Goat Hill. Another day I will tell you all about this wonderful house, today I will only tell you about the view. My view. Ok so I know it is not 'mine' but at the same time.. it is! Especially right now. I am sitting up here on the cool wood just before the sun climbs high enough to warm the roof. I can see just about all of Port Cos and the river winding gently away.

Up here everything is quiet and peaceful. I can feel the wind coming in from the water and pulling my silken waves from my face. I close my eyes and breathe it in, letting the whole world fill me up inside and settle there..And then I breathe out.. letting it all go back where it belongs. Down stairs there are a million little things waiting for me. I am first girl now and while I really don’t feel any different or feel like I have anything more to do.. I do feel like what I have been doing all along will count more now, I will be held more accountable. Thinking about that sends a shiver down my spine. Agrippa is very good to me.. but he is also a little bit harder on me then on others. My failures count for more, my success for less. Disappointing him is not an option.

But I digress. I was trying to tell you about Port Cos. I have been to several cities on Gor, some for a day or a week and some for months or nearly a year. Port Kar stands out the most, though I am largely unaffected by living there. Like I said.. I was sheltered from the filfh there.. Agrippa did not, I think, want me tainted by it.

Port Cos is .. amazing. There is such beauty here in the landscape that takes away my paltry breath. Every time I turn a new corner I am accosted by something new and delightful. Here I am allowed to go out alone though.. I am timid about it. I am nervous about serving strangers. I am frightened of being caught by other men. Not all men are honorable enough to ask permission. I fear that my reluctance to venture away from my Master is beginning to annoy him. I shall try, I suppose.. to be more like the other girls. I see how much they make him smile with their.. Confidence and attitude.

Port Cos will be a constant lesson for me, I think. I am not only sharing my master with other women now.. but with an entire city. Already the free woman flock for his attention and while I greatly.. and I do mean greatly! enjoy watching those displays and his subtle rejections they ignore.. I miss the times when it was just us in a dusty shop, before a dying fire or cleaning up bloodstains at the bottom of a stairwell. Sigh.

"Lola!" I can hear him calling me. I didn't tell anyone I had come up here. I rise, unfolding gracefully, the soft purple ribbon in my hair danced as the breeze picks up and I can see another ship approaching the docks.

"LOLA!" Closer now.. maybe he does know I am up here. I grin. I like it, in a weird way, when he shouts for me. Maybe I just like being needed.

"I'm coming!" I call down the steps as I hurry down them with the shimmer of my ankle bells.

In the end... I'd live anywhere and be happy about it to still be his girl, but I am glad he choose Port Cos because the sunsets here explode over the river every evening and it always reminds me of how lucky I am to have been chose to come here, to have been chosen...

By Him.

"..Lola." He smiles.

Wearing the big girl panties

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

I imagine he does it on purpose. It is too precise to be an accident. He does it with the tone of his voice or a brush of his hand against my back. He breaks me down when I am my strongest. He keeps me vulnerable. Agrippa shows me how strong I am.. when I am at my weakest. How much sense does that make?!

He hugged me when he let me out the sewing room. I mumbled breathless apologies into the crook of his neck. This was new to us, this tension, jealousy.. and sharing. I'd never been jealous of other slaves with him before but it was easy to figure that one out. I am only jealous of what I find threatening. Bit threatens my place in the world, she is many things that I am not... and I worry that she is more useful then I am. Agrippa likes money, a lot. Almost as much as he likes my ass. But it is Bit that brings him that happiness.

Sitting in that room had given me so much time to think and I have come to a very simple conclusion.

There is no competition among those of us on his chain. It is not for me to compete. I've already won. I wear his collar and often, his hand prints, I catch his eye when we pass each other in the house, I still excite him, inspire him. I still love him and no one is trying to take that way or, if they did try, could! His finger is perpetually on my pulse. I belong to him, I dare anyone to try and break that bond.

I do not need new things, pretty arm bands or new silks. I actually.. prefer creating my own things. I enjoy thinking about the next way to tease him. I consider the way a fabric will drape over my hips, the way a scrap of silk will hug my breast. I pay attention to the colors and the textures and the cut of things, the way a piece of jewelry will lie against me, frame parts of me. I wear hair ribbons almost every day, perfectly matching me. I wear them for him to steal from me, to crumple in his strong fingers, to bind my wrists with. Who else but Lola will ever do those things just for him?

So I apologized, breathlessly into his neck and he ran his hand over my messy hair, smoothing it. He pulled back my head and kissed me, a sweet soft kiss that licked the flame inside me. His arms squeezed me a little and I think he was trying to force all bad thoughts out of me and make me be the sweet innocent girl I used to be.

Nothing gold can stay.

My jealousy will never go away; I am a jealous territorial girl. Ribbons, colors, certain chores, these things are mine; I exert some modicum of control over them at his will. I will learn to work though those feelings. I will reinforce the need to not compete. Were all different, were all cogs in the machine, people can be different and all still needed.

He took me then to meet the newest slave. I know! Such timing, how like him! In the markets I was chattering on about fruit salads and chutney and salsa. Agrippa tended to just eat what I made though, and not care much about the fancy names or methods used to create meals. Suddenly, in the midst of my rambling, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the woman I was most likely to avoid in a public place!

Glory was climbing to her feet after being shoved from the mouth of any alley. She had the most amazing tumble of thick black hair. It surrounded her and seemed as alive as her expressive face. She bites, I can tell. She was wearing some kind of leather.. thing that I swear had to hurt! I pressed my knees together and slipped a little behind my Masters side. Suddenly Bit seemed like pussy cat.

So naturally that was when it happened. The craziest thing like.. ever!

"glory. This is lola, the one I told you about. She is in charge of you now. She will see that you get a supply of silks and cosmetics and sometimes do your face and hair. Shes first girl to you lowly slut and if I have to give her a kalana switch I will and believe me. If you don't obey her I will come after you. And not gentle like the last time. Now kiss her cheek and greet her." Said my wicked funny Master!

But he wasn't laughing. I stepped from behind him and nervously leaned down to kiss the woman’s cheek. Glory is a woman too, not a girl. I am a girl.. bit is even a girl.. Glory is too.. Scandalous to be a girl. The next hour was so surreal for me.. Bit arrived too and he told her the same. I did not know what to say or how to act.. Should I act differently? Did this mean no more stomping my feet?! And too.. how proud I was! That he trusted me this much.. Trusted me enough to delegate tasks, keep them pretty for him. He gave bit some instructions on how to deal on how to handle her complaints of me while I was measuring Glory. I take measuring very seriously, you know.. It's more work to make things look like they fit accidentally then on purpose. There is a little manipulative magic in the way a woman in dressed.

What happened next should have made me angry, should have made my blood boil. He took us home, all three of us and let the other two tend to him, but not I. I did not touch him at all. I stood by the mantle instead.

I was center stage, but that’s a story for another time.

Spoils of War

I was in the garden this morning, pulling up the dandelions that kept trying to choke the roses that grew wild along the western wall. Agrippa had walked past the doors, I had left them thrown open. He smiled at me and I straightened up, brushing a sunny tendril from my face, I left a streak of dirt there and he chuckled at me. I blushed.

"Be a good girl Lola."

Flash.

It was nearly two years ago now, I think. It is hard for me to tell time and dates on this planet, but that's close enough. I had already been on Gor for one year and I was just about to turn 19, I think. Like I said, the dates get all mixed up in my head. I was on a ship bound for some northern port, or southern.. see I wasn’t sure of that either. Part of my training was no training at all. On earth I had been a clever, educated girl. On Gor I was effectively clueless, always a step behind, always trying to puzzle out the world.

I knew very few things and they were thusly..

1. The Professor was at fault.
2. The Professor owned me.
3. I was being shipped to the Professor.
4. The Professor had gone to great lengths to do .. this.
5. The Professor was my whole world.

I had not seen him since my last night on Earth, the night he tried to tell me about dominance and submission, the night I had laughed at him and called him an impotent old man.

"Bad little girls should be spanked." he said.

"Dirty old men should be locked up." I laughed.

He poured me another glass of wine. A year later I was on a ship heading away from Ar. I was not collared, nor branded. My slavery was not yet.. mine. I was just surviving. Perhaps the Professor did this on purpose, made me desperate for affection, for the gentle touch of a man, the harsh grasp of a Master. Isolation had made me weak, vulnerable.. and ready for Gor.

There was seventeen of us on the ship, seventeen girls from Ar, each more beautiful then the next. My beauty is not like theirs, I am non traditional. I was dressed the same though, brown rep cloth tunics, slit high on each thigh. I was not to be touched but I would be teased. I would be tested. Once a day they let us on deck, for an hour we were allowed to wander and bask in the sun.. we had to dodge the sailors hands.

I remember the way I felt, leaning against the rail, watching the other ship approach us slowly. I was contented, happy.. excited for my next journey and terrified all at once. I watched the other ship, I saw a dark haired man in uniform standing at the ships bow. I saw his lips twitch and I turned away quickly. Now, today.. I sometimes wonder if that man was Agrippa, if he saw me then.. If everything that happened next might have been all because of the curve of my cheekbone or the turn of my hip. I have never asked him, I am too scared to learn how random it all really was, how accidental. I prefer the romantic notion that he wanted me then, bad enough to commit the acts that followed.

It's all so fuzzy now.. Everything that happened in the next hour is a blur... Shots were fired, the captain of my ship and Agrippa argued, threatened.. The captain of our ship was a pirate and the seventeen girls and I were being stolen. There were screams and shouting. I was knocked to the deck when the two ships collided and the men from Agrippa’s ship poured like ants onto ours. Men died that day. I fled the deck, or tried.. but every door I found, every exit, was blocked by sword fights or worse.. fallen bodies. I slipped in a pool of red blood and I cried out as I felt it splatter against my calf. I turned again, trying to run but I left hellish prints of blood with my small feet.. I felt him behind me before I turned. Blue eyes met brown.. I whimpered and pressed my hand to my naked throat. My back against cool metal. I was trapped. He was pleased.

Agrippa smiled at me. "Tal." he said as if he were just another frat boy at a Omega Phi Kegger. The kind of boy I'd never speak too, the kind of boy beneath me. He reached for me, took my elbow. I was wide eyed. "Oh wait, please!" There was a body between us and Agrippa, as gentle as could be, helped me step over it. He looked into my eyes and knew all my bad girl secrets. He knew just how to lull me into complacency. He helped me cross to his ship easily. We had barely spoken. I was terrified. We had, in that moment, already pressed our fingerprints onto each others soul.

The women were rounded up on the deck; the men were being marched below. I looked at the group of girls and inhaled deeply. I expected to be shoved in with them. The men were loud around me, cat calling and arguing over who would get which girl. We were the spoils of an international ship battle. Something I could barely comprehend.

"I want that one!" Someone called and pointed at me.

"No, she’s not up for grabs." Agrippa spoke. Instinctively I curled my body against his side. He wasn’t angry or jealous or any of things that would have made me swooney. He just... was. I felt everyone’s eyes on me and while I wanted to deny what he said.. I pressed to his side, looking for protection form the accusing looks. Agrippa had been to the buffet and picked out his meal, that’s all. No one challenged him.

I was not allowed to leave his side for the rest of the night and I barely spoke. I watched him though, how he spoke to his men, how he laughed and how he ate. I kept his battered tin cup filled, I ate from his fingers. There was laughter around me when I did that and it confused me, I did not understand the act of submission I had just committed.

There was dancing going on and a game that my friend Brenda lost.. She was gang raped right there on the deck and Agrippa made me watch. I did not know his name then and all I had said to him so far was a serious of quiet please’s. His hand was in my hair and he pressed me to his thigh as I watched. He whispered to me, things that made my pulse race, things that made me squirm. I watched my friend as she was used so completely that when they finished with her she slept.. right there on the deck.. in a slick pile of mess.

"What are you called?" He asked me, gently pulling my hair so I would look up at him.

"Lola." I whispered. My eyes on his.

He smiled at me. "Suck my cock Lola."

And I did. He hurt me that night on the deck; he was no longer gentle with the little girl between his thighs. I wept for what he took from me, stole from the professor. When he finished with me I expected to be sent away, to be dismissed and given away. I was surprised.. and a little touched when he took me with him to the nets and pulled me down beside him. My throat was sore, my jaw ached and I felt dirty and cold. He pressed my cheek to his hip and said..

“Be a good girl Lola”

And I, unable to help myself sighed against his skin, relaxed into him and slept.

Looking back now I wish I had not been so clueless then, so confused. I wish I could have allowed myself to feel pride that I was coveted by the Captain of such a ship, that I was kept apart from the other girls. I was yours; you never had to tell me. I already knew.

I was already yours.

Cry Baby

There she go talkin' her mess
All around town makin' me stress
I need to get this off my chest
Know you really don't wanna step to dis
Really don't know why you talkin' shit
You 'bout to catch one right in the lip
It's about to be a what? Girlfight!
-Brooke Valentine


I slammed the hidden door behind me and then.. I slammed it again. It was such a loud sound, the slam, the shake of window panes. A bird fled from the wild flower garden and I was struck by the symbolism of the act. I scared away the very birds I worked so hard to attract to the garden. I spent hours in the walled garden. I pulled the weeds, I watered the blossoms. I watched the butterflies and wished I knew their names. And then, in my self righteous anger.. I frightened them away.

Nice going Lola. But see the connection?

The small room I locked myself into was not a bedroom, nor a slave kennel. It was actually a sweet little room. It had a large picture window that faced the wildflower garden and the wall behind it. I could not be seen by those outside of the house and only Agrippa knew where the door to this room was. There were white wood shelves and old scrubbed cabinets. A low table, surrounded by old cushions sat in the middle of the room.. waiting for me to work. The silks I had made for bit were spread out over the center. The chains I had carefully worked into the silk glinted in the dim lamplight.

I could not look at them.

My heart hurt so badly it seemed to fill up my chest and constrict my breathing, my throat was delicately bruised from my chain sisters violence. I sank to the floor, my back to the wall, my knees hugged into my chest, I took the cheap white beads I had collected from broken strands and threw them from me.. they were not worth the trouble, were they? The string broke and spilled the beads over the worn wood floor, little round beads scattered.. like my thoughts and the remants of my broken heart.

I've never been sent away from him before, I've never heard the pang of disappointment in his voice, directed at me. I tried, desperately to recall where I had gone so badly wrong.. I had not been welcoming to Bit, of course. I felt completely upstaged by her, by the way he lured her onto the ship, fucked here while I was forced to watch, the admiration in his voice for the bred den slave. Those first few days I had been cold to her but I had spoken to her, I tried to help her please him. Bit had made it clear that she didn't need my help.. she apparently knew him just as well as I did.

I had swallowed that hurt.

He was so pleased with Bit.. with how she brought him money, how sultry she was, how alluring. I.. am not those things. I will never be the kind of slave that brings home money. I cannot even count money. He has given bit shiny new things and a thick strong collar. He doesn't require her to work like I do.

I swallowed those hurts too.

He has dismissed me to be with her, he talks about her when she is not there, he never saw the silks I made her.. he bought her something new instead.

I gulped that one down with a pretty smile and my teeth pressed to my tongue.

I think I have so many reasons to be jealous of bit, more then I can count, more then I can handle all in one sitting. I had gotten past all of that. Agrippa had, without words, assured me that I was not to complete, it wasn't meant to be a competition. I was Lola, the only Lola, no matter what. I swallowed, and chewed and digested it all. I was getting better at it by the day. Little by little, unnoticed, my efforts grew. Even when he sent me to buy her yet more new silk! As if all my work was worthless. I swallowed it then too and tried to talk to her. She wanted my pinks and blues and yellows.. she pulled my hair and then.. she actually jumped me. She wrapped her arm around my slender throat and cut off my breath while threatening to kill me. Bit was shouting at me.. I was crying like a child.

Lola the little girl! How could I ever, ever compete with Bit the come hither whore? I can't, I do not want too. I want to just be Lola. I want that to be enough.

It was burning me up inside, this feeling of not being enough. I was angry about it because I had already conquered it. I had already learned that I did not need to compete. That this chain.. was not a competition at all. But every time I have to see Bit.. she turns it back into one. No matter what I do.. she can't see past her own defenses. Defenses she doesn't need and do not become her.

I told my Master something he did not like, the reason, I think, that I was punished and Bit was not. I told him I did not wish to share him. I love him. Not as a slave loves her master, not even as a woman loves a man. I love him so completely that I do not see myself as a separate entity from him. I am me, of course, I have my own heart and thoughts and quirks.. but I am also an extension of him. I have my finger on his heart, I know there is tenderness there. I covet that tenderness.. that, exactly that, is what I cannot share. The connection between us.. I will defend it any way I can.

"I do not want to share you Master, but I know I must.. I am glad it is Bit."

I was glad.. and now I never wanted to be near that woman again. I had thought Gorean slaves understood their slavery better then I did. I thought I would be learning from her. Yet here I am.. trying to make her understand how horribly wrong she has everything.

Or.. maybe I am wrong. Maybe I have no right to protect my connection with him. Maybe it is not even mine to protect. Maybe.. I am wrong.

I cried that night, for hours I cried, curled up under the window, the door locked but the window open. The cool nights breeze soothed the hot anger in my belly, the feeling of betrayal. I felt like bit had taken all my efforts and thrown them in my face, determined to see me as a mean, spiteful girl. She doesn't know me.. not at all. And all I could do.. was hope he would allow me to keep trying to reach her.

All I can do is hope he can.. still see me under all this.. strange not like me stuff.

Reflections

Written just before we left Port Kar.
Feb/March 09

My Master calls me Lola and no one else calls me much of anything. I am just a slip of a girl. Agrippa's pretty paper doll. He likes my pretty yellow curls and my big blue eyes. He likes the flare of my hips and the slope of my breasts. He likes the smooth expanse below my belly and he likes to hold me down beneath him. He will treat me with indifference but I will work harder then for his attention. He won't tell you I am his love slave and I won't tell you that either. I will tell you I am his shop girl, his maid. I fluff his pillows, I clean his boots, I mend his clothes and fetch his beer and favorite snacks. I am just his girl. No pretty title, just my pretty smile. I belong to Agrippa and he calls me his Lola.

The story of how we met is one for the books. I am from Earth, I was a college student, an activist. I had plans to change the world. I taught Yoga and I knew how to belly dance. I was a vegan. I met a professor and we formed a strange relationship. When he told me he wanted to be my Master I called him a dirty pig and left him. A week later I woke up in a cage, on Gor. I spent a year being trained for the pleasure of the Gatherer, the Professor I had met on Earth but when I was on the ship to meet him we were attacked. I was part of the bounty.

I first met his gaze over the body of a sailor. My small feet were soaked in blood and he easily followed my footsteps. He stripped me, made me kneel and then smiled. I cried. I was herded with the other women onto his ship but was kept at his side. I was not in the pool with the other girls when they were divided up. I did not know it but I was already Agrippa's slave. It was barely a week before I was in love with him. I was helpless for him. I was his in every sense of the word and still wanted more. He is not always kind to me but I wouldn't have it any other way. The slave he had was sold and I was a little sad to be alone but I admit I was pleased to have him to myself.

That was about a year ago now. I am still the shop girl, the beer fetcher, the sex toy and the comfort of Agrippa. I am the slave of Agrippa. I am the happiest barbarian slave there ever was.