Previously: It has been four years since Zhou Yu has written in her journal. Her friend, Eumelia, from Earth (Ki) has died in childbirth, and she has just discovered that the two women held captive with him when she was first brought to An were actually her male mercenary counterparts from Earth [see Chapters 1 and 11]. Zhou Yu has just managed to retrieve her formerly male friend (now called Aisha) who has been working as a slave girl for the past few years.

It has been seven years since Zhou Yu was first transformed into a woman and brought to An.

Chapter 12 - Aisha's Story

Anais' Surveillance Notes: Albion-04-010 [In English]

The Chinese girl (note: now named Amber) is on her way. I have assigned Marcus to keep an eye on her. My expectations are low. Infiltrating the Qin in this fashion seems doomed to failure. For the record, this is our third attempt and against my explicit written dissent; the first died within the year, and the second disappeared into the Flaming Mountains never to be heard from again. This is an utter waste of time and resources but I'm a merely cog in this big fucking machine.

My bottom line on this: Always, always use the locals.

Want to spy on Albion, then get a girl from Albion! Want to spy on Trowulan, then get a girl from Trowulan for Christ's sake. WTF is wrong with these people. You get at most 2-3 shipments per year and you choose to get this lot? Ok, I understand getting someone from China, they're in short supply here, but why not just get a real Chinese woman who can take care of herself and pump her with the serum for desired effect. Oh, tried that before? Then try it again! You think some transformed guy will have more motivation than a real life woman? My bet is that he'll kill himself within a year.

Fuck them. At least I get to earn some extra bucks with the surplus girls.

[Scribe's Note: Written in Lady Zhou's Journal]

“Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those who she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. If you recall her nature, her ways, or her deserts, you see that you never had in her, nor have lost with her, aught that was lovely.” [A fragment of Boethius found in the Library of the Qin.]

Shouldn't I be happy to have found her? To have saved her. Then why does my heart feel so heavy. Aisha's story could have been my own. Why was I chosen for this task and not my two sisters? Was it simply chance or was it because I was the only who fought back? Surely the latter would have consigned me to the worst fate of all of us. Why did the Gods choose to take Eumelia from me?

[Scribe's Note: A letter found clipped within the Journal of Lady Zhou]

My dearest friend Zhou Yu,

We have talked but you have not listened to me. I have tried to comfort you but you will not be comforted. I have heard from your servants that, since you found me, you have not been your usual self and have been quick to anger and even violent.

You would think I would be the one weeping and who would need all the comforting. I know that you feel guilty for not having found me earlier, perhaps for thinking me dead; perhaps for not realizing until now that it was Eumelia and I that you left behind in that wooden cart seven years ago.

You feel guilty for having been the only one – or so you assume - to have reached a safe harbor, to have found love on this cruel world, to find a family and to have children. That is your arrogance talking. I say this as one who has known you longer than anyone on An.

From your stories, it seems that Eumelia was the happiest of us all in her brief time in this world. But I have had some happiness myself or do you think that there is only one way for a woman to feel happy and content in this world?

I have known love even if it was quickly taken from me; I have the friendship of my sisters; I have a certain pride that I am exceptional at what I have been trained to do; not to mention my hold over the men who desire me. Having a husband and a child is not the only path which leads to happiness.

Do not be too proud of your own success – not every woman wants to be a wife and have children. Not everyone wants to be a queen or princess.

Why do you think you needed to save me?

Do you think the idle life of a pleasure slave so horrible? Do you think that seeking one's own gratification while earning one's way in this world is somehow demeaning? I never thought to escape and I never assumed anyone else had survived. That was what I was told by the woman, Anais, and I believed her. Perhaps you now think that I was at fault for this self-centeredness.

Wake up, Xiao Yu! Learn to forget and learn to live in the present.

You told me that you have sought out almost all the girls you trained with in the slave school in Albion. I understand why you did this and I might have done the same if I had been in your position. Yet did you know that the serum which induces the slave urges in “new” girls fades with time? All that remains after that moment of pure bliss is the woman that is within your soul. And I know I was always meant to be a woman, even on Ki where I dared not admit it.

Your family are waiting for you to return to them. I am waiting for you to return to me. Do not abandon us.

Yours with love,

Your sister, Aisha.

[Scribe's Note: An account written by Aisha to entertain the Third Princess, and to allow her to remember times past.]

My dear Princess,

Our long hours together talking about Eumelia has led us to this. How I wish I had known her more fully as a woman and as a sister.

As you have requested, this is my story.

I was alone when I awoke, just as I suspect she was all those years ago.

I was chained by an anklet to a pole, and an upright mirror stood a short distance from me as if my captors wanted me to know immediately what I had become. I assumed that I had gone insane or that my mind had been transposed into that of a young [Middle-Eastern] girl - there seemed little difference between the two at the time. While I had doubts about my mental state, I delighted in my appearance. I had long black hair, large brown eyes and a pair of full lips. My skin was light brown, soft and delicate; and completely unmarked.

A woman stood over me and explained my situation and my choices.

I could either be sold to a slave brothel or given to a Talosian lord as a gift. I chose the latter thinking that it would provide me with a better opportunity to escape. I was promised considerations in exchange for whatever information I could provide once ensconced in his household. Perhaps a return to my male body; perhaps a return to Ki.

But I could not be given to him directly - he had to ask for me and I had to make him want me. I had much to learn in a single month but the body I now possessed helped considerably. It was clearly derived from a female of low virtue who derived gratification from the seduction of men. My movements were always fluid and sensuous, my hips moved with unrestrained ease. My whole body seemed to be made for pleasure.

I first met my Master not as a slave but as a poor serving girl. He was a man of the South with skin the color of onyx. Tall and toned like the demi-gods of myth and legend. Perhaps even you, my Princess, might have found him attractive, though you will undoubtedly titter at the suggestion. But let me clear on this point, even as a man I would have humbled myself before such a magnificent specimen of the male sex.

I knew I had him the moment I stepped forward to dance.

I knelt and presented my naked belly to him inviting him to touch me if he was so moved. He did not hesitate for a moment and touched me gently around my jeweled belly button, before reaching down to caress my labia though my silken thong. I knew that I was already moist with desire and smiled at him to show my appreciation for his attentiveness.

By this time, all his dinner companions had the good graces to leave us alone in the room. When I heard the dining hall door close behind me, I crawled forward on all fours, my posterior seductively shifting from side to side as I did so.

As far as phalli were concerned, I had only seen the lesser specimens bandied about by the slave masters. My Master's manhood was magnificent and my two small hands would hardly suffice to take full control of it.

I pulled back his foreskin to reveal his shiny red glans, and held his muscular shaft in my dainty hands. I knew what had to be done - I had been trained to it and was eager to perform. First I inhaled his musk and licked the clear emissions that he was already producing. Then I put my delicate face flush against his manhood, kissing him and taking in all of his sublime odor. I made sure to look up at him every now and then to show him my appreciation for granting me access; played with myself to demonstrate my unbridled desire for him. I enveloped him with my mouth and tongue while massaging his organ. I had been whipped a few times while in training because of my carelessness with shielding my teeth but I made no mistakes here.

I took nearly all of him in and he was clearly shocked by my abilities and could not help but compliment me while in the throes of passion. I spent an inordinate amount of time worshiping his manhood, and my gullet was thick with his scent for the rest of the evening.

Was it an act? No, I truly loved this. It was something I had always longed to do, and now I had been given permission to do it without shame and without constraints. After all these years, my experience is that most men are constantly surprised to find a woman who enjoys intercourse as much as I do. I knew that this was now acceptable where once, back on Ki, it would have been embarrassing, at least for me. He wanted me as I was, the woman I was meant to be and dared not hope of becoming.

My vulva had become even more slick and engorged the moment I placed my lips on him. I rubbed myself against his manhood even as I licked his nipples. For some reason, he was content to lie back and let me have my way. But his forbearance soon gave way, and I felt myself lifted up and placed on my side. He held my left leg and separated my thighs, and thrust into me with a smooth sliding motion. I am ashamed to say that I let out an ugly guttural grunt at that point – it is impossible to describe what it means to be so thoroughly filled for the first time. I had imagined being taken as a woman frequently on Ki, but a man simply cannot fathom what a woman feels when she is full penetrated.

He took me several times that first night.

He slept noiselessly beside me once he was spent, his huge arm still draped across me while my head rested on his chest. I licked playfully at his nipple like a kitten even as he slept, admiring his body which seemed to be carved from stone, tracing the ridges of his musculature with fascination and barely contained lust. Yet, it was not enough that I had been filled and inseminated; I clung to him as if he was some prize for enduring so long in my old body on Ki. I only wish that the gods had granted me more time with him.

Perhaps it is hard to understand what it means to have been given this gift – to have been made to take this step which I would never have taken by myself otherwise. To be an attractive and desirable woman has always been my dream – a fantasy which I knew I had no possibility of fulfilling for lack of courage. If someone had told me then that the cost of my dreams would be two years with a man I would grow to love, and twice as long as the mere plaything of strangers, I wonder what would have been my answer. Many women on Ki have done much more than this to achieve their dreams.

My days with my husband passed uneventfully and with much joy, but I will relate a visit to a petty feudal lord of Albion which I now recall more fondly. It was here that I met my sister, Eumelia, unknowingly.

I do not know if this is the nature of this world – how it toys with us - or the hand of the Seven.

My husband had been provisioned with a blonde virgin who we joined in deflowering that night. My old friend may have been untried but was exceptionally responsive. It was I who guided my husband's cock into her cunt while playing with her nipples to tease her. She was such an innocent – so sweet and startled by her own responses. I could tell immediately that she had only recently begun to enjoy the company of men. I taught her exactly how to please my husband, how to take her own amusement from his body, and how to use her pussy to grip him at just the right moment.

When my husband had fallen asleep, I continued to kiss and caress her – she was irresistible. I remember well our tongues playing and my lips on her perfumed neck and ears. I had no idea she was my old friend of course – her blonde hair and ungrammatical Talosian marked her as a barbarian from the North. But she did reveal that she was a serum girl which made me concerned that being with a man that night would be troubling for her

She told me she had fought for days with her captors refusing to entertain any idea of servicing men or even submitting. She preferred pain and death but the slave masters would only grant her the former. For unlike Xiao Yu and myself, Eumelia has always preferred the company of women exclusively. Of course, the slave masters did not countenance any permanent damage to their own valuable merchandise but merely encouraged her to sleep with her sisters in the slave school – the better to discover the improvements and pleasures her new body offered.

What happened then was of course the slave urges – which effectively reversed all her innate preferences. She woke up one night to find that she found men even more desirable than she had women. When a few years later, she was freed from her master by Xiao Yu, she became the woman she was always meant to be – in your arms, my Princess, and deeply in love.

As for my husband, he was killed on the battlefield in the last war. Or should I say more bluntly that he died defecating blood in his tent. I am sure you remember that this was orchestrated by Xiao Yu herself. My husband was, after all, Talosian and an officer. I have not told Xiao Yu how my husband met his end for I know it will send her into another prolonged period of melancholy.

Like much of the minor nobility, my husband had debts, and these debts had to be settled upon his death. Hence my sale to the tavern where I was found.

It is not always easy servicing men. I enjoy their company and the way they look at me and treat me. I had my choice of them in later years but my early days were marked by toil and many adjustments. I always knew there was a price for being a woman in this world; now I had to make the best of it. The woman's - Anais' - promises of freedom were now all for naught. I could no longer earn my freedom through deception and eliciting information.

The slave urges had long since left me and I dealt with this as any woman of An. This was a job I could enjoy on many days and merely endure on several others. I did what I could to survive. Only when I became first girl did my troubles begin to dissipate. I had become as one of the [oiran] of my homeworld of Ki; and the tavern owner was eager to ingratiate himself to me because of the income I brought in. He knew of my former status as one of the minor nobility and all the upbringing this entailed – a sense of etiquette and [je ne sais quoi] which the most powerful men of Talos had a taste for.

I had become akin to the finest and most beautiful of Talosian women with one exception – I was available; but only at an astronomical price and at my discretion. I would not frown if propositioned by an impecunious baron or lady if there features were to my liking; and many were.

Xiao Yu doesn't realize that I am now a wealthy young woman who has chosen her profession because it is what she is most accomplished at. Of course, my choices have been limited by my circumstances and my sex; but I have considered the alternative of retiring to a nunnery and decided against that quite categorically.

Let no person pity the woman who has made her choice.

[Scribe's Note: The rest of the account has been destroyed.]