Chapter 2 I Am A Slave Girl
There are legends that a group of travelers from ancient Qin arrived in this land a thousand years ago bringing with them their culture and their language.
It is a small community which practices syncretized versions of the Ru school of thought, and the teachings of Zhuang Zhi and Mozi. Some of them worship a dark god who came from a land of even more ancient wisdom. They dare not speak his name for fear of offending the Seven Gods of An. How they managed to harmonize such divergent and often antagonistic philosophies is anyone's guess.
I have walked in the halls of the Qin in the Flaming Mountains, and have seen how they have preserved the architecture of my own birthplace in a form which had not been seen for over a thousand years.
The Qin exist in several small settlements across the continent but the most famous of these lies in those mountains towards the Northwest; a place the Qin of this world have named Emei though it is nothing like the original Emei of Ki. That parched inhospitable landscape has proved to be ideal for the storage of innumerable scrolls and bound paper books, the latter invention of which was first brought to this world by these Qin travelers.
The libraries of the Qin are divided by subject and author with each section separated by walls of hard stone. Only the light of fireflies is allowed in these caverns. There the Qin spend their days writing, transcribing, printing, and cataloging.
In this world, I was considered one of the hermetic Qin, a rare sight outside the capital cities of the continent.
When I awoke once more, I was chained to the wall of a small room. Someone had kicked me lightly in the side but the injuries I had sustained made me bend over in pain.
A dark haired woman in flowing robes sat a short distance from me. I was tightly leashed and was not able to reach her even if I tried.
I studied her closely. A vaccination scar at her left shoulder suggested that we had similar origins from Ki. My own scar had long since vanished with my transformation.
“Good morning and welcome to An," she said in [English], a major language of Ki.
“I am sorry for the restraints but your habitual violence left us no choice. My name is of no great importance but my organization and I would like to engage you in a great enterprise. You will be paid handsomely of course, both in kind and in gold.”
“And you thought kidnapping me and killing my friends would get us off on the right foot,” I replied.
“We had nothing to do with that,” she said apologetically. “We had asked for a spirited Qin girl with the necessary qualifications to be a serving maid and they brought us your good-self.”
I assumed this was a lie but held my tongue.
“I serve a small duchy forced to endure the whims of our much larger neighbors. The information we require - and we cannot tell you its exact shape or form - is necessary for the political stability of the continent. If I sound cold and amoral, it is because the times we live in demand it. As we speak, the signatories to that peace are arming for war. The Qin have sworn to protect small states such my own but have gone back on their promises. Do not assume their nobility simply based on the similarity of their skin to yours.
“The Qin consider themselves pacifists and adherents of universal love but what they really are is an insignificant people group with the largest spy network on the continent of An. You will be happy to know that what we need from them is simply information, primarily on the neighboring kingdom of Thamud and also on the Qin. Once you have insinuated yourself into the Qin household you will attempt to access any information profitable to our cause. In your present form, one assumes that you will find suitable employment as a maid when the time arrives. The Qin have not made slaves of their own kind for quite some time. The more's the pity. Suffice to say, we have several irons in the fire of which you are but one.
“Upon the completion of your duties and at the appropriate time, we will endeavor to extract you and return you to Ki – in your original male form if you so choose. Or not. After all, the female form can be quite addictive if you allow it to be, or so I've been told.” She covered her mouth as she chuckled.
I glanced at her witheringly.
“And will I be sold into their household as just such a serving maid?” I asked.
“Nothing quite so crude,” she replied. “As a group, the Qin are xenophobic and utterly paranoid. I say this as a compliment by the way, it is exactly the way in which the organization to which I belong is run.
“A Qin girl suddenly appearing in their midst or even being brought to their attention would not be acceptable. Accepting gifts such as yourself from traders would be anathema, which explains the pathetic price women such as yourself fetch on the auction block. And yet rumors abound that the Qin have surreptitiously brought in the odd stray into their fold, perhaps in their quest for knowledge of other worlds or out of some crude ethnocentricity. As you might have guessed, you will have to become that stray, and we will endeavor to wash you so clean that not even the Seven Gods could find fault with you.”
I was not a fool and could easily guess what this meant. Like a debased coin, I would be placed into the system, shuffled around to create distance between my body and those of my captors, and then somehow brought to the attention of the Qin.
“I agree to being bought and sold as a household maid as part of your schemes,” I replied calmly.
The nasty sight of that grown woman giggling brought a scowl to my face. It was as bad as I had assumed.
“I will not risk stating the obvious but you will be trained, prepared, and sold at the appropriate time. This will be the last time you will see me for many cycles. If you choose to forfeit our deal through your actions – and I assure you we have ways of knowing – then we will be done with you.
“Perhaps you think that death is preferable to any of this. That can be arranged. If escape seems more palatable, I assure you that a small Qin girl without means would be quickly swallowed up by this world even with your set of skills. I do not urge you to roll the dice on that. But if you decide to serve, you will not only be richly rewarded but have the firm assurance that you will be serving the cause of peace. If that does not entice you, then you should consider your own self-interest.
“Do not be afraid, my child. Many free women will find you strange and exotic I assure you. As for the men you will undoubtedly be forced to serve, this will not be a problem as you will find out yourself with time.”
With that, our interview was over.
She had provided me with scanty information and only enough to point me in the right direction.
An over-educated slave girl would be highly suspicious and I would thrown into the rough like any other abductee – completely illiterate in the ways of this world and devoid of almost all knowledge of it except that it treated human life with contempt.
Over the next few days, a servant girl would tend to me, applying balms to my body to heal me as soon as possible. It was impossible for us to communicate. Once my wounds were healed, my new life would begin.
[Scribe's Note: The imperial censors have removed the following section from the few extant copies of Lady Zhou's journal.]
My Master has a prurient interest in the lives of slave girls and has admonished me not to leave out any details of my life before I came into his possession. I have acceded to his command as is my duty and in my nature.
The life of a slave girl is not hard if she simply obeys.
I did not known this at the time, but the serum which I had been injected with was one derived from a natural slave. In my case, the blood of a Qin girl from eons past who had displayed exceptional tendencies towards submission. While my face remained uniquely my own – a lottery derived from the blood of my female ancestors – it was molded to be symmetrical and pleasing. The first time I saw myself in the mirror, I realized that no man would be able to resist me.
My dark lustrous hair reached down to below my shoulder and I would allow it grow further like other Qin girls. My breasts were firm and bounced alluringly whenever I was led around naked by my collar. My waist and hips were beautifully proportioned and seemed almost unfathomable to the men I would soon service; I had a desirable teardrop posterior; and lower lips which were utterly delightful to behold.
My training in the slave school began the moment I was physically able to.
I was the only Qin girl in the school and perhaps the first one any of my fellow slave girls had ever seen. They would touch my hair and gaze into my almond shaped-eyes and nod and smile knowingly.
The methods of breaking down a slave girl's defenses are time tested. In the mirror room specially designed for this purpose, we were first to observe ourselves naked and repeat our new status as slave girls until it became an indelible part of our being. In my dreams, I would no longer recall my days as a mercenary but my naked body and call to servitude.
It was only then that the lessons proper would begin – first with slave positions, then a smattering of dance and instruction on how we should display ourselves on the auction block. I was a quick learner and a favorite of my slave mistress. Throughout this, I was picking up the basics of Talosian, the main dialect of the largest kingdom of An. Apart from basic sustenance and needs, the first complete sentences I learned were in relation to obedience and submission.
We were expected to help each other in all aspects of grooming.
I was “born” anew with an exceptional coverage of pubic hair to be taken back as a master saw fit. We were instructed to remove all the hair on our labia and leave the rest to our new masters.
When I was man of Ki, I did not take the eroticism of pubic hair at anything more than face value. The Qin librarians, on the other hand, were avid transcribers of ephemera including the erudite thoughts of certain scholars from Ki who dwelled at length on this obsession with depilation - once the preserve of only the most elevated of women in society, now adopted by the lowest dregs of society, namely us slave girls and the pornai.
Much later, upon visiting the slave taverns, I found that the vast majority of men left their nether hairs in their natural state. Hairless pudenda in males was reserved only for the enslaved. It was only women who shaved and waxed themselves to look like prepubescent girls of little consequence in society. A free woman bares her genitals only to her husband and her female servants. When I knelt nude in front of my masters, my naked mons served to advertise my youth, weakness, and availability
In my first week, I was paired with a olive-skinned beauty with exceptionally large soft breasts and wide hips. Neela and I practiced massage techniques on each other and I certainly enjoyed the feel and touch of her body. She would giggle whenever I pinched her nipples or brushed my hand against her nub. As newly transformed girls, we were nearly the same age. She had once been a brigand and had reached her current state through ceaseless plunder and insurrections; so much so that the authorities had no choice but to put a bounty on her head. Her unconscious and natural femininity seemed inexplicable - I could not understand why our mental progressions to full slavehood had diverged so greatly.
Neela was my first friend on An and I enjoyed cuddling with her at night when we were sent back to the stables to be chained. The other girls were no exception. I enjoyed pressing myself into their backs and rubbing my firm nipples against them. Certainly this was the case after the odd baths we were allowed, but also after a full day's training and when we were drenched in perspiration. I would often place my head on my partner's soft breasts, tweaking her nipples absentmindedly, and fall asleep right there. The keepers did nothing to discourage any of this eroticism.
It was only after my first moon cycle that I finally experienced what the woman of Ki had hinted at during our interview.
The whispered gossip during training after the second week was almost exclusively of this change but it had taken me a full three weeks after this for me to reach this epiphany. I dreaded it and hoped it would never come, even if it meant being the runt of the group.
Edan was the first among us to succumb. She had once been a young nobleman and judge who had perverted the course of justice – she of course protested her innocence. I was training my new body to a constant state of alertness even at night, when I noticed her pleasuring herself when all others had long since drifted off; sometimes closing her eyes and at other times looking into the distance. The next day, I caught her looking up longingly when her knees were kicked open by one of the slave trainers.
Instead of slapping her for insolence, he lifted her chin and spoke to her with an even voice, “Congratulations, little Edan. You are the first. But you will not look up at your master without permission again - even if you are in torment.”
With that Edan bowed her head and spread her knees even wider. The rest of the girls fell one by one after that.
Each night was now filled with the stifled grunts and sighs of my fellow slave girls. At training, there was a distinct difference in the obeisance paid at morning greetings. There were the haves and the have nots.
Nixie was one of the girls upon whose breasts I used to lay my head on each night. She had merely stolen some bread and fruit and hardly deserved to have her male sex undone.
I heard her whimper in lust one night as I lay with her. I fingered her and played with her nipples to give her some relief but she would not be satisfied till the next morning when she was commanded to lick the feet of a slave master. This she did with relish and devotion. As she did this, I saw my old friend Neela licking her lips with a look of unbridled carnality on her face. I wept inwardly when I observed her engorged labia and nub; more when my eyes were led to the small drops of feminine moisture beneath her.
The serum is both pleasure and punishment but the victim is unaware of the latter. I swore that I would find and kill the alchemist who devised this evil. It was horrible to behold.
It was 2 weeks after my first moon cycle that the changes began in me.
Kai, was a boyish youth who used to serve us food each morning, a strapping lad with handsome features.
“How are we doing this morning, ladies?” He would greet us each morning at breakfast, and always with a kindly voice. Surely he was more like a farmhand feeding the livestock but he was not a cruel master.
Once, when I was a solider back on Ki, I would have addressed such a boy as I would a young inexperienced brother. That morning I no longer looked at him as I did previously.
I admired his large arms and chest as he carried the heavy food bucket to our feeding area. That little indention between his clavicle and chest seemed particularly delectable as I spied it through his half open shirt. As he passed me, I tried for a moment to move closer to him to take in his masculine scent. I half lifted my arm thinking of a way to pull aside his shirt discreetly.
I spent so long admiring him that he stopped ladling the food for a moment to look at me and asked, “Anything I can do for you, Amber?”
He had no idea that the stable was host to twenty rutting females.
I looked down and answered, “No, master.”
“If you need any extra food, don't be too shy to ask,” he said chirpily.
Neela crawled over to me and whispered, “You see it now, don't you?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Men are wonderful, are they not?”
“Yes.”
Neela reached down discreetly and touched me there. As confined slave girls, we had long since stopped being embarrassed about our new body parts. It was a natural part of a slave girl's armory. My vagina being wet was no more unusual than a man licking his lips at the sight of food in a banquet hall.
“So wet,” she giggled licking her fingers. “Naughty, Amber.”
Then more seriously she added, “The slave needs get better once you submit fully for the first time. Once the master allowed me to lick his cock, I could think clearly again.”
She soon went back to eating breakfast which was thin gruel and some vegetables.
Of course, the really strange thing at that point was that I felt no overpowering “slave needs” at all. The stable boy was indeed beautiful and I did want to suck his cock, but no more so than when I, as a man, observed an especially fetching and available woman on Ki. My desire to be penetrated by the boy was certainly greater in intensity than anything I had experienced as a man but I did not find all men attractive or desire to be taken by all of them. In essence, my female libido was set at a very high normal point. I wanted the boy that morning because by any standards he was eminently fuckable. I have only experienced the “slave needs” once, and that was in the presence of my true Master.
To be sure, the slave masters and mistresses were not entirely pleased by my lack of groveling but since I was completely obedient, they paid me little attention.
As for myself, I would exercise in private to maintain what little musculature my frame would allow. I now focused on moves that relied less on strength and more on the use of lighter hand held weapons. If a man now looked beautiful to me, it did not mean I could not find it in my heart to kill him should the situation require it.
On Ki, there is something known as the myth of menstrual synchronicity, a situation in which prolonged contact with an alpha female determines when the entire group menstruates and ovulates.
This was known to happen consistently with serum girls kept in the same stable. Edan was our alpha female and leader – and we all followed her cycles. She was not only the first to develop the slave needs, she was also the very picture of femininity in both word and deed.
It was clear in training that she was exceptional as far as block posing was concerned. She would be stern and sexually unavailable as she strode on stage purposefully, then switch in seconds to a coquette, then grimace playfully as if displeased with something in the distance, and then return to the disposition of a sweet little girl. She would raise her hands to her chin, flick her hair, and bat her eyelids completely naturally, as if this was part of her entire being.
The slave house was certainly very pleased with what a fine catch Edan presented, and she would get many treats from the masters as first girl. The price she sold for would easily dwarf mine on the day we were placed on the auction block..
The day before our sale, we were all given a liquid prophylactic and would continue to be given this once every month to prevent pregnancies which had not been assigned by our masters.
Edan was among the top five lots of the day and would be among the first to be sold. She knew I was nervous and walked over to give me some words of encouragement before it was her turn to be sold.
“I am sure you will fetch an excellent price, Amber. I hope we'll be able to meet again.”
It was rare to find a first girl with such a sweet disposition. She looked exquisite in red flowing slave silks and did in fact sell for the highest price that morning.
As with most auctions of this nature, the winning bids had been decided long before the circus of actual bidding. I knew quite early on that two slave traders were interested in acquiring me. They were the two who examined me the most thoroughly – my face, mouth, limbs, and skin naturally; and of course my genitals. We had been trained to expect this and to respond accordingly. My virginity was then attested to by an adjudicator and a chastity belt affixed to my person.
They were both interested in exotics and were intelligent enough to agree not to bid against each other in order to get the best price. The loser on this round would get free rein when the next Qin girl arrived at market. They agreed on a secret maximum bid and shook on it. The slave house was happy not to have to pay the commission to the auctioneer and agreed to sell me for an acceptable profit. I didn't even need to step on to the auction block like Edan. That evening I was shackled at the back of a cart and sent off to my new owners; thus bringing an end to the first step in my mission.
