09-6-2020
Revised 09-7-2020

A Tale of Zhor

by Christopher Leeson

"What do you mean, perhaps?”

"I mean that sometimes I have supposed that I was in love. Maybe that was even so, once or twice.”

"Vokshah Caron, have you ever committee rape?”

She glowered. “No. What decent man needs to commit rape when there are so many slaves and joy girls available?”

"Have you raped enemy women?”

Caron drew her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes….but only after I, or someone else, had subjected them to battlefield enslavement.”

"Enslavement may protect a man from the scrutiny of the law, but would you suppose that legal niceties can be of any comfort to a newly-enslaved free woman?”

"No. Not all the time, I suppose. May I ask why such a question is relevant, Sire?" the girl respectfully inquired.

"Some serum girls feel guilty about their associations with women in the past. Such a type may inwardly wish to work in espionage as a form of personal punishment. Such troubled people do not make good agents. The best recruit is a patriot possessing no self-entangling regrets. So, tell me, have you ever done anything, especially things involving women, free or slave, that you greatly regret?"

Caron was quiet for a moment as she searched inside herself. The she answered, "No!."

The spymaster accepted that reply without comment. "Some slaves, especially new ones, say that pleasure slavery is cruel and degrading. Do you believe that the loyalty that you hold to our city is strong enough to stand up against the humiliating rigors that goes along with living a slave’s life?”

Her mouth set in a hard line “I will endure whatever I have to, as long as I am working for the destruction of the city that inflicted this hellish ruination on me, Sire.”

"You can say that now, but do you know that your basic training would require a full year? How confident are you that that hate alone is enough to sustain your patriotism under the conditions that you will be subjected to?”

Her mouth twisted. “The hate I feel could sustain me through anything.”

“Do you hold that the people of Gendir are in some way different from us? Why do you suppose that they are any worse than the people of Prydferth?”

She glanced to the wall. “I don’t know very many Gendirites. I haven’t wanted to. But, plainly, Prydferth elects its leaders freely. Gendirites are debased creatures. They crawl before a tyrant and it appears that they are content to do so. Their warlord carries on like a madman, but he has faced no domestic uprising. Everything he has done has been enabled by their acceptance.”

“So, it is the difference between a republic and a tyranny that frames your opinion of the enemy?”

Her forehead creased. “Yes!”

“How much do you know about the specific training that our female agents undergo?"

“Not a great deal, Sire.”

“Would you object to being briefed?”

Caron’s features set hard. “I am not afraid to acquire necessary information.”

“You would be placed into a training program that lasts a year. Most of it will consist of standard slave training, but it will last four times longer than what is usually deemed necessary for the training of a commercial pleasure slave.”

“That is a long time,” the young woman remarked, concealing any surprise she may have felt.

“A female agent of Prydferth must be trained much more thoroughly than any common slave needs to be. She must not only perform as a professionally instructed slave, it’s imperative that she be mentally strengthened and conditioned to keep herself free in spirit. To hold on to one’s inner identity under the intense conditions of slave-training is a feat beyond most people.”

Caron said nothing.

“An agent’s training is conducted in four three-month stages,” the spymaster said. “Half of our our accepted recruits wash out during the first stage.”

The girl's expression remained steady.

“During your first training segment, you will live out a scenario about being an enemy captive taken in war. At the outset, you can expect to be stripped, collared, and branded. Your trainer puts his pupil through the paces of a woman being prepared for stable slavery. No matter what unpleasantness comes at her, she is expected to hold on firmly to her real identity and purpose. If she fails too many times, she will be mustered out of the program.

Caron’s had winced at the word “branded.”

“Yes, branded,” the officer emphasized. Other ways of marking a woman as a slave, such as tattooing, commonly arouse suspicion. A new agent's branding will come very early in her training. It is best to get that unpleasantness out of the way as soon as possible. All of our enemies train agents as to infiltrate us in the guise of slaves, and they are not easy targets to deceive.”

“By the way,” the officer added, “a cadet being schooled may resign at any time. She if she doesn't have an unusually strong determination to continue, we cannot use her. In the field, a weakly motivated person will break and reveal herself”

The ex-lancer was successfully holding her face blank.

Griff hurried on. “Your instructor would insist that you learn all tasks of a trained stable slave. Wherever your conduct is rated sub-standard, you will be put to discipline – not like a soldier, but a manner of a female slave who has been displeasing.

“Discipline includes switching, strapping, and, very often, the passion-bird feather. A wide range of castigation methods are available to the trainer, but for the first six months we spare our volunteers the unpleasantness of the girl-whip. An inexperience agent may break under a full lashing. To resist the ordeal, she needs seasoning. The aim of discipline is to make the new agent stronger and more resilient. If flogging is too much for her to bear, so be it. Only a special kind of woman can stand up to the conditions that she will meet in the course of espionage work. Any questions, so far?”

Distastefully, Caron asked, “Are trainees mainly women-born or...otherwise?”

Griff steepled his fingertips. “We employ both women-born and serum girls as agents. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Serum-girls with a military background tend to stand up to their challenges better.

“The problem comes with the phenomenon of natural slavery. All serum-girl have the genetics of natural slavery installed into them by Ruk’s Serum. Science has not found away to change the original makeup of the serum. Natural slavery undermines a woman’s capacity to resist the will of a slave-trainer. Most born-women are not natural slaves, though any one of them can be made into a natural slave by receiving the serum. Such a woman is called an ‘enhanced slave.’ As a rule, enhanced slaves are easier to break than are serum girls. This seems largely due to the toughening process that is sooften a part of a male's upbringing.

“But the great weakness of any natural slave is her susceptibility to ignition. Many more of our agents are ruined through ignition than by being subject to physical discipline.”

The spy master had been watching any sign that would help him read her. He saw nothing definite, except that she was tapping one bare foot. It could have been a nervous habit.

“If an agent completes the first three months of her training with a passing grade,” Griff went on, “she is transferred to a special ‘silk house.’ What makes the institution special is the fact that it is owned and operated by our own service. The men that patronize it are our agents. It is usual for our spies to visit the various training houses for rest and relaxation. We encourage them to do so. They provide a safe audience for a female agent while she is learning to perform as a public slave.

“During the first month, the recruit is punished if she does not engage with at least eight brolling partners each day. In the second month, her quota rises to sixteen. At the start of the third month, a trainee is expected to give service to twenty-four customers daily. That number, by the way, is no more than the traditional work load for any public pleasure girl. If the rigors of a novice’s duties should become too much for her, she is disqualified.”

“Are very many mustered out, Sire?” Caron asked.

“A fair number. But, again, most of the attrition comes through ignition. Those agents who perform adequately at the pleasure house are moved to a zeta house, one which is also owned by our service. The men whom girls entertain there will mostly be high-ranking men of Prydferth, primarily military officers and officials. Have you visited zeta houses?”

“When I came of age, my father and older brothers took me over to such a house. Since then I have rarely have considered the entertainment to be worth the expense,” Caron replied.

“Rank and great wealth has its privileges,’ Griff observed. “The trainees in the zeta house learn the the zeta-girl’s arts. Unlike the lessons learned by common public slaves zeta training improves a woman's individual talents for sophisticated entertainment. Dancing, singing, acrobatic displays, or story-telling are particularly useful. Zetas are the most desirable of slaves and some of our trained agents have sported with the highest ranking military and government officials of the enemy. Some have even become intimate with actual royalty from enemy houses. The quality of information learned in that way is excellent.

“Zeta-type work will seem like a vacation after a demanding three months in a pleasure house, but it is at this stage that our trainers start to use harsher discipline methods, including, of course, the girl-whip. If a woman breaks too easily under under enhanced discipline, she is scrubbed from the program.

“The fourth level requires the trainee to live as a low-grade pleasure slave under real-world rigors. The agent goes to one of several siolat houses that our service owns and directs. She must very convincingly perform as a common whore, or else she will punished, frequently by use of the girl-whip. The tavern patrons will be ordinary men from the street. The women must scrupulously avoid giving the customers any reason to think that they are not visiting an ordinary tavern-bordello. If the pupil cannot meet the exacting standards imposed on her, she will be dismissed.

“By the way, one whip-master of the house will be assigned to each new girl as her controller. The trainee must react to her controller as if he is an ordinary whip-master. She is punished for getting out of character, even if she and her controller are together in privacy, unless she is withdrawing from the regimen or reporting on some vital matter.

“As you no doubt have anticipated, some of the other cup slaves in the house will be trainees like yourself, operating under different controllers. The majority of the women on the premises will not be agents in training, but commonplace harlots. The agents should look at these women as role models. Their speech patterns and behavior should be noted and imitated. Where they are cunning, our agents must learn to be similarly cunning. Where the harlots are ignorant, our agents need to cultivate the appearance of similar ignorance.

“But by the time that a trainee reaches the siolat tavern stage, she is placed in an environment that is almost has harsh and dangerous as conditions in the field. All trainees are charged with the task of discovering which of their sister cup girls are agents like themselves. The trainees must treat one another as enemy agents. A woman must seek to discover and betray as many of her peers as possible. If a girl should mistakenly name someone as a trainee when she is not, she will be whipped. On the other hand, if a girl is unable, or unwilling, to expose a sister trainee during the space of a month, she is also punished. Espionage is a pitiless business; each girl is on her own with no room for camaraderie. A girl learns what it is like to live with the enemy, to become used to an environment of suspicion and betrayal. This type of experience may save her life later on, if she makes the grade to cadet.

“A trainee may exit from the siolat tavern one in three ways: by completing her training with honor, by being expelled as an unpromising specimen."

"What happens if she is exposed by another agent?"

"After spending so much time in a girl's training, we are reluctant to throw it all away. The organization allows the failed girl a choice. She may resign immediately, or else she may elect to repeat her siolat tavern training. This process can continue until she graduates with honor, gives up and resigns -- or until her trainers lose all confidence in her and drum her out of the service.

“The successful graduate is promoted to full cadet and will thereafter be schooled in skills specifically needed in actual espionage. After a successful graduation she be placed into a field assignment.”

Caron’s flesh had paled somewhat.

“So, now,” concluded Ewien Griff , “are you still interested in our recruitment program? Be honest with yourself. If you have self-doubts, do not waste the time of our training personnel. When we misspend our resources by training the wrong people, the service as a whole is hobbled and people die.”

The woman’s expression hardened and she raised her chin assertively. “I am still of the opinion that I am the sort of man – or woman – that you are looking for.”

The spymaster sat back, his arms folded. He was reassessing her, not only for her physical beauty, but was even more seeking for signs of strengths and qualities that a spy needed to prosper and survive.

“Come back to your chair, soldier,” said Griff.

When Caron was seated, he said to her, “I need to ask a few more questions. Answer truthfully, even if you feel that an honest answer will not be helpful to your cause.”

“Yes, Sire,” she said with a nod.

“As a man, have you ever discovered in your female persona any quality that might be seen as an obstacle for you?”

“I’m not quite sure what you are asking, Sire.”

“For example, as a female have you ever envied branded girls? Have you ever wondered whether the pleasure they get from men is something that you are unjustly deprived of?”

The ex-officer received the question with dumbfoundment. “Never!”

“Why is that?”

“Because the lives they live are obviously degrading, heinous even to consider.”

“So you may believe. But what is the source of such certainty?”

“Common sense. Under the law they are not even human. They live like domestic animals. They must feel humiliated and mortified every day.”

Griff made no comment, but asked a different question. “Since you have been a woman, have you every found anything that you positively like about being a member of the female sex?”

She glanced to the floor and swallowed. "In a way,” she whispered.

“In what way?”

“I – I mean that I surely realize that a woman’s beauty is something powerful. To be desired is a kind of power. A woman can make one who desires her into a fool. A fool can be manipulated to serve another's ends. I have thought it ironic that by forcing this body upon me, Gendir may have given me a weapon that I can ply against it.”

Again, Griff asked an unrelated question. “Have you had daydreams – pleasant ones -- imagining yourself dressed to please a male and being looked upon as an object of pleasure?”

“I don’t recall that I ever have. Why should I – Sire?”

He pressed on. “How often have you wondered what it would be like to be placed totally into the power of a lusty man, one who expects you to be his female lover for an hour? Have you been curious about what a female experiences in sex? Have you wondered what it would be like to live as a true slave lives, being passive and obedient in the arms of one who is by instinct dominant and demanding?”

She answered stiffly. “If I had, I would be visiting a slave club, not in your office.”

“Is your answer absolutely true?”

“Yes!” she said, but her eyes seemed to lack conviction.

"If disturbing feelings should come upon you, would fight against them, even if you realized that they could improve your impersonation of a slave?"

Caron was inadvertently showing nervousness by drumming her fingers on the table. “I – I would hope that I would be wise enough not throw away any advantage that might prove of use to me.”

"Is there anything at all that you would refuse to do, even if it meant that throwing away all scruples and pleasing an enemy might allow you to wrest useful secrets from him?"

"I'I'm sure that there are things that I could not bring myself to do today. But I assume that standard service training tends to reduce inhibitions..." She trailed off.

The serum girl was looking at her own bare knees, avoiding the eyes of the spymaster. “Such thoughts have come to me," she replied in a low and reluctant voice, "They come and go outside my control. I always try to swat them away, but they buzz back like horse flies”

“I see. Do these thoughts and feelings tell you anything about yourself?”

She looked furious. “Such degrading thoughts only fill me with rage. They tell me how foully violated I have been. I want to strike back at the accursed city that has ruined my life! When they come on, the best way to blot them out is by visualizing every Gendirite lying with broken bodies on the streets of their despicable polis, writhing in agony and dying slowly.”

“Next question," said Griff. "The matter of ignition has come up more than once while we’ve been speaking. Tell me, how familiar are you with the subject of slave-ignition.”

She seemed taken aback. “Sire?”

“I’m asking, how much do know about female ignition, beyond the gutter jokes, of course?”

Caron shifted in her chair. “It's hasn't been a subject of interest to me,” she responded -- rather unconvincingly, her interviewer thought.

“Then you must be unique among men. In my school days, the boys laughed and chattered about it all the time. Caron, you have come too far to suddenly give in to squeamishness. Describe real ignition, as far as you understand it.”

The young woman gulped down a build-up of saliva. What she said next sounded like it had come from a book. “An ignited woman is one who succumbs to the genetically-induced drives that have been imposed by the injection of Ruk’s Serum.”

“Can you describe what are these drives are?”

The ex-soldier took a deep breath. “If a...s-serum girl has resisted female heterosexuality thus far, ignition changes her orientation. She starts to feel man-need, if she isn't already feeling it. Also, her slave-need becomes almost uncontrollable. An ignited girl wants the attention of men, desperately so, and she cannot resist acting in the role of their slave.”

The blonde girl glanced up. “But people say that no woman who is free in her heart and in her mind can become ignited.”

Ewien Griff eased back in his chair. “Scientists say many foolish things. If someone, for some reason or no reason, chooses to convince someone gullible of a falsehood, he can easily find a dishonest doctor willing to swear that his idea represents good science.

“The bitter truth is, alas, that none of us are fully in command of either our hearts or our minds. The observation of centuries tells us that should a woman come to think of herself as a true slave, even unconsciously, she has become an excellent candidate for ignition. Remember, if one is a natural slave, she may, a moment of emotional overload, or mental confusion, walk into the snare of her genetic programming.”

Caron frowned. “Is there no way to prevent or to cure ignition?”

The man shook his head. “None that are reliable or long-lasting. An agent's careful training can increase her resistance to ignition, but I have known female agents of long experience and the best quality that that suddenly find themselves ablaze with slave-fire. If a girl ablaze with slave-fire can get word to us, we try to bring her home. It serves our own end to. An ignited natural slave surrounded by enemies suffers from divided loyalties. She becomes a great security risk.”

“I would slay myself if such a thing happened to me,” Caron declared, her eyes flashing.

Griff glanced at her sadly. “Some of our female agents have indeed committed suicide rather than risk doing harm to Prydferth.”

Caron was posed like a beast contemplating a trap. “Why…? the nude blonde started, but broke off.

“Why what?,” her interviewer inquired.

“Why are you tempting me to withdraw my application?”

The spymaster pressed his lips together in a askew way, “I have explained why," he began sternly, but swiftly softened his tone. “The game we play is a deadly one. We do not want to send out the wrong type of people. Too many women have already met their deaths in the course of their duties. Lamentably, rescuing an ignited woman doesn't solve her real problem. She may return home in a state so mentally and emotionally transformed that she may be unrecognizable, even to her closest kin.”

“What do you to when a woman becomes so afflicted?”

“We return them to their kin with a bonus for good service,” said the spymaster. “But it is often said that one can take a woman out of slavery, but no one can take slavery out of a woman. An ignited freewoman still a natural slave by every definition. She is an addict who can't find her drug. She oftentimes will seek out a lover and offer herself to him with crossed wrists. Others have become so frenzied in their needs that they will go brazenly to some street bawd, a siolat tavern owner, or a silk house master and submit themselves likewise. In the face of such monumental disgrace, their families give them funerals and consider them to be among the dead thereafter.”

Caron’s expression was grim. “Test any weaknesses that you imagine I have, Sire,” she said. “I believe that I can endure any hardship, just so as long as I know that it is putting me on the path of revenge.”

The man remained quiet for a moment. “This is only an initial interview,” he reminded her, “but I’ve seen potential in you. I’m willing to give you a positive recommendation. But your psychological profile must examined very carefully by our soul-searchers. Do not get your hopes too high, Vokshah. Many volunteers who have made a good initial impressions upon their interviewers have not made the grade.”

The blonde frowned. “Soul-searchers?” Most people held the school of psychology to be an unsavory one. In the mind of the common man, seeking out its help was tantamount to admitting oneself to be insane.

“Their input is very necessary,” said the officer. “We do not want to send unsuitable people into the field.”

“I...I will not be found unsuitable, Sire,” Caron declared.

“I hope that is so, Vokshah. We can never find enough promising recruits”

“I absolutely refuse to let myself fail. I have no reason to live, except that I may do something useful for my city. I am even willing to do the most foul types of duty,” the girl said.

Ewien Griff rested his elbows on his desk. “I appreciate that sentiment, soldier. Now, tell me, would you prefer to take a few days to consider your final course of action? The step you are contemplating may turn out to be the most faithful decision of your entire life.”

Bherdur ob Caron’s expression came across the desk as both grave and intense.

“I do not need more time, Sire. Nothing I have learned today discourages me. I feel with all my being that I have never wanted anything more than to be an intelligence agent for the city of Prydferth.”

THE END?