Gateway To Xanadu (31 page)

“This part of the operation is mostly mine,” Alec said, coming over to the table to look down at me where I lay. “The first thing we have to do is get these electrodes and sensors attached to you.”

“What are they all for?” Greg asked, sounding friendlier as he stepped closer to stand behind Alec’s right shoulder, watching the blond man reach for something behind my head. “Don’t electrodes and sensors do the same thing?”

“Not in this equipment,” Alec answered cheerfully, pulling out thin wires from the place behind my head. “The electrodes deal with brain output, the sensors with bodily reactions-and both of them are capable of directing and controlling their respective areas as well as recording data. We rely on suggestion a good deal with our subjects, but suggestion alone doesn’t do what we want it to.”

While he spoke, he was attaching the tiny pad-endings of the thin wires to my face and head, pressing them gently into place where they clung without adhesive. I was aware of everything being done to me but none of it seemed to matter any longer, none of it had meaning that had to be thought about or worried over. The table I lay on was very soft and comfortable, I was scarcely aware of the wires being attached to me, and the fourth figure that hung back near the door we’d come through barely made me want to shiver.

“Now for the sensors,” Alec said, moving a short distance to his right along the table I lay on. “Raise your eyes to the ceiling, Jennifer, and don’t move unless you feel something that forces you to move.”

I raised my eyes to the plain, pale yellow ceiling as directed, but the first sensation that came. didn’t cause me to move. Alec-or someone-was closing thick, soft straps over my wrists where they lay on the table at my sides, and although something very faint inside me wanted to fight against being tied down that way, none of the rest of me felt the same.

“Do you expect her to try to escape?” Greg’s voice came, amused. “And do you expect the rest of us to be too weak and helpless to stop her if she does try?”

“The restraints are mainly for the situational,” Gil’s voice broke in, sounding faintly distracted. “Are you ready, Alec?”

“Starting right now,” Alec acknowledged, also sounding distracted, and then something touched my breasts. First the right nipple and then the left developed the sensation of being held between gently caressing fingers, and I couldn’t keep from moving somewhat as the fingers continued caressing.

“Good Lord, will you look at these readings,” Gil said, his voice uneven. “Sensual isn’t the word for her.

She must respond to a man with everything in her! You won’t Fee something like this in more than one woman in a hundred hundred thousand!”

“And with only two sensors in place,” Alec pointed out, still sounding distracted. “No wonder Greg is in such a hurry. A very large portion of this part of her nature must come through during her times of full consciousness.”

“Making her the next thing to Primal Woman,” Gil added with barely concealed frustration. “it would take a lot of man to hold the interest of one like her, especially once she enters her peak sexual years.

Lucky for you you’re around now instead of then, Greg; she’s still young so she tolerates you. Once she matures, though-all you’d be good for then would be to help pass some otherwise empty time.”

“As I recall it, my rating is still higher than yours, Gil,” Greg came back, his tone very carefully controlled for evenness. “And I’ve already proved I can reach her where she lives arid give her something to remember. I tend to doubt you’d be able to do half that.”

“How about leaving the cattiness to the girls, you two,” Alec put in, nevertheless sounding faintly amused. “None of us could hold the permanent attention of a female like this, and I don’t know that I’d want to be a man who could. Considering how inadequate other females would be for him, her male counterpart would be a walking mountain of frustration until he found her-if he found her. If he didn’t, he’d never have-this.”

Without leaving my breasts those caressing hands spread to stroke my neck and thighs, the touch on my neck more like feather-light kisses. My body had begun to bum with the demand born in my blood, setting me to moving on the very soft skin beneath my back, a mindless, unswallowable moan forcing its way from my throat. I needed something from a very specific someone, someone who wasn’t there.

“While continuing to keep your eyes on the ceiling, Jennifer, picture the most attractive man you’ve ever seen,” Alec said, his voice coming from right beside my ear even though I knew he stood toward the feet end of my table. “This man will be kneeling above you, and if you’re a good girl, he’ll give you what you need.”

He appeared above me just the way Alec had said, the black eyes under black hair looking down at me as I continued to stare up at the ceiling. I wanted to raise my hands to the broadness of his shoulders and lean into the caressing of his fingers on my breasts, but something held my wrists to the table and I couldn’t free them. He grinned at my helplessness and leaned down to kiss my throat, his clear intention to take his time, but he should have known better by then than to try that garbage with me.

“What happened?” Gil’s voice came, sounding puzzled. “She’s starting to turn off.”

“I must have somehow miscued her,” Alec said, his voice again coming from where he stood. “I’ll get her back to where she was, and then we’ll put her straight into the situational. Jennifer,” and his voice had shifted back to being near my ear, “there is no longer anyone above you, no longer anyone for you to picture. Close your eyes and simply feel the sensations being given your body.”

My annoyance disappeared with the figure above me, and when I closed my eyes it was to feel the caressing all over again, this time spreading to the very center of my being. Gentle, demanding fingers now moved between my thighs, and the moaning I did was louder and more deeply felt than what I’d done before. I moved against the sensations, trying to escape them, pulling at the straps holding my wrists in place, and gentle laughter sounded in my ear.

“You seem very much in need, girl, but that’s to be expected,” a voice said through the laughter. “In the place where you will soon find yourself, female slaves are kept in constant need so that they will always please the men who use them. You will have been a slave long enough to have learned how to keep yourself alive through obedience, but you have never given up the dream of finding something more in your captivity-and someone more. You are, at the current time, unaware of it, but those things you seek are just before you.”

The voice droned so insistently that I began to feel myself going away from the table and the dim room, away to a place a small part of me didn’t want to go. That small part fought to stay where I was, struggled with all the strength left to it, but that strength was useless against the voice that continued.

“Sink down deeper and deeper, and picture in your mind’s eye the hall you now traverse, the hall of the palace in which you serve as a slave,” the voice said, taking me over completely. “The columns tower above you as you walk, carrying your small burden, and the guards who stand beside the columns let their eyes touch you as you pass them . . . .”

The hall was long and cold and silent, stretching in its marble grandeur far ahead of me as well as above and all around. I walked the marble equally as silently in my bare feet, attempting to keep a shiver from touching my half-naked body, knowing a shiver might well spill the contents of the bowl I carried. The contents were nothing to anyone not a slave, merely a thick meat stew, yet if I were to spill it I would be well beaten. I had walked that hall many times in my slavery in that place, and yet its ability to cause me to wish to shiver had never abated.

Perhaps the eyes of the guardsmen had a deal to do with the way that hall affected me, I thought as I continued on, seeking to make myself as small and nearly invisible as possible. They stood before the countless, towering columns lining the hall, their red and gold trappings marking them out clearly from the milk-white and pale blue and gray of the marble, their large bodies unmoving save for the shift of their eyes. Those eyes ever shifted to me in inspection, observing the manner in which it continued to disturb me to be bare-breasted, despite the length of time I had been slave, despite the slave nectar spilled down my throat and the slave salve spread upon my private parts each morning. In some manner they knew I feared them as well as desired them, and this brought them amusement.

“Slave.” The single word brought me quickly to a halt, before a guardsman who stood no post and who was therefore free to address me. A leader of fifty he was, perhaps inspecting those of his command who stood their watches, one who had momentarily turned from his men to the inspection of a slave. I stood before him with head down, and yet was I able to feel the weight of his eyes as they touched the long red hair streaming down my back, the bare, full breasts which thrust out before me, the tiny bit of gold skirting which circled my hips and barely covered my privacy, the thin, golden bracelets which held my wrists and marked me as a slave. Despite my earlier resolve I began trembling as I stood before him, and his amusement came forth in low laughter.

“You are indeed an excellent choice for the task, slave,” he said, his left hand moving from the hilt of his sword to my chin. My face was raised so that I must look him in the eyes, and I found his gaze as sky-colored as mine. “You carry a bowl meant for the prisoner, do you not?”

“Yes, master,” I whispered, knowing that although there were many prisoners, the guard leader referred to the newest, the one who was prisoned in the palace itself rather than below it. It was rumored among the slaves that the Duke dared not harm him, yet was the reason for this unknown.

“When you offer the bowl, do not fail to offer yourself as well,” he said, continuing to hold my gaze with his. “What number of times have you given service this day?”

“Four times, master, only four,” I replied with a whimper I could not restrain, aflame from the meaningless touch of his finger to my chin. “Allow me to serve you as well, master, and I will bring you great pleasure. A slave asks only to serve you! ”

“Another use and you would claw through the bars of the prisoner’s cage,” the guard leader said with a snort of derision, releasing my chin and refusing me, all at once. “You will first deliver his bowl of stew, and then we will see what further use you will have. See that he desires you.”

“Yes, master,” I whispered in answer, backing a step before turning from him and continuing on my way. The eyes of the silent, unmoving guardsmen followed me with their usual amusement, knowing I feared their ability to refuse me as greatly as I desired their use. I was a slave and was given no choice save to fear them and desire them, and this they knew as well.

Some distance down the hall, to the left, stood a wide door with three guardsmen before it. These guardsmen held more than a merely decorative post, therefore were they more alert than amused at my approach. After a moment I was allowed within the door, yet not before they had each of them touched me and spoken of having me serve them when their duty was done. I stood just within the chamber door after it had been closed behind me, trembling from the touch of those I had been made to desire so greatly, unhearing and unseeing in my misery till what occurred in the chamber intruded itself.

The chamber itself was large and well-appointed, with polished darkwood lining its walls, torches glowing brightly in its unwindowed dimensions, expensively woven carpeting covering portions of its marble floors, silk-covered furniture arranged here and there. In the very center of the chamber stood a large metal cage, and within the cage sat the one who was called the prisoner. Large was this man, larger than any guardsman of the palace, clad in the sort of mid-thigh-length tunic worn by them, yet in a blue rather than in guardsman red. Brown of hair and eye was he, and much did it seem that he should also be clad in the golden armor and weaponry of the guardsmen, yet he was not. About his wrists were wide golden bands, much the same as those about my wrists although larger, their presence proclaiming him slave as clearly as mine proclaimed the same of me. About his throat was another band of gold, a golden chain leading from it to be bolted to the floor of his cage, and clearly had he been well-beaten at the time of his capture. At the moment I looked toward him he merely sat within the bars of confinement, yet the two slaves before his cage were not equally silent.

” . . . must say how pleasing it is to see a slave who is not female, sister,” said one, moving her body before the prisoner who stared wordlessly upon her. “And yet, what of the service he must perform?

How is he to please the guardsmen he is given to?”

“The guardsmen will take pleasure from him in the only way they might,” said the second. “Which is a great pity,” said the first, raising her arms behind her head so that her breasts might thrust out even farther. “I am hot enough to serve a dozen men, yet must look elsewhere for a man to pleasure. There are none here save a slave.”

Both then laughed in great delight at the manner in which the prisoner snarled and attempted to reach through the bars of his cage to them, for they stood well enough back that they were beyond his reach.

They stood a moment longer laughing at his futile grasping before turning from him, gathered together the cloths and other cleaning things they had used upon the chamber, then left through the door by which I had entered. When I saw the door pulled to I looked again upon the prisoner, and this time found his eyes upon me.

“Have you, too, come to torment me?” he demanded, the chain leading to his throat taut from the kneeling position he yet remained in. He crouched with one larger fist wrapped about a bar of his cage, and truly did he seem prepared to spring, as though he were some beast restrained against his bestiality.

“I have come only to bring you this stew,” I replied, pacing forward slowly till I stood where the two slaves had stood. “Unlike others, I would not torment a slave like myself with that which he may not have.”