The Sisterhood of Slaves Pt. 04

"The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness."

— Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life

From the window in the tower I could see out over all of the estate. Surrounding the big house were manicured lawns dotted with tidily trimmed shrubs and bordered by dense woodland. A gravel driveway circled in front of the porch before veering off in the direction of the highway, which was partly visible in the distance between gaps in the trees. From the rear of the building, a cobbled path meandered amongst the flower beds towards a small pavilion, where two of the Masters were sitting in the shade sipping drinks. They were casually watching a dozen slavegirls toiling nearby, pruning shrubs and tending the gardens. It was a hot, humid summer afternoon. Apart from wide-brimmed straw hats and cotton work gloves, the women were naked. Perspiration glistened on their bodies. Meanwhile, to my left, a breeze drifted across the tiers of terracotta roof tiles, carrying up from the courtyard music and men's voices and feminine shrieks mingled with laughter.

I was about to turn away and resume my chores when a movement caught my eye, at the far end of the road, where it emerged in a sweeping curve from the forest. The fuzziness gradually resolved itself into a short column of women, eight altogether. They were spaced no more than half an arm's length apart, and marching slowly towards the house. They also were nude, of course. Their arms were pinioned behind them; they were linked by a chain attached to their collars; all were gagged and blindfolded. The one in front was leading her flock with measured steps, guided on a tether by a young man; but they were being hurried along by another male who moved up and down the file tapping bare bottoms apparently at random with his cane. The two men were attired in the flamboyant uniform (black breeches, white ruffled shirt, red velvet jacket) of novitiate Masters.

The women appeared to be aged in the typical range, their twenties, with a single exception. The one at the head of the line, tall with a splendid figure and billowing ash-blonde hair, looked to be well into her thirties. It is hard, with so many slaves passing through the Château, to remember everyone; and their faces were partly covered; but these were clearly new to the sisterhood. As they followed the meandering path, I caught a glimpse of their rumps and saw that none had been branded. That was not a sure sign, since about half the girls even now choose against bearing the monogram of the Chaînerie permanently emblazoned on their skin. (It is one of the few free choices we have in the Château.) But three in the group still had pubic hair (and I felt sympathy and joy for them, because the depilation ritual is a favorite amusement for the Masters). When they had shuffled onto the circular drive, they were ordered to halt, and to bunch up until they touched.

The neophyte males were fresh-faced and wide-eyed, younger than any of the women by several years. Sir Luke and Sir Jonathan came down off the porch to greet them and inspect the new property. They were thorough in their evaluation, and as each woman in turn was probed and prodded, at first not aware, from behind her blindfold, of what was happening, she jerked and cringed, and the compact line of bodies wavered and wobbled as the squirming rippled along it.

After this welcome, the slaves were herded up the steps to commence their new life. I envied them for their innocence as they embarked upon their voyage of self-discovery. Each sensation, each pleasure, each torment was a novel experience, exquisite and excruciating, a fresh adventure, a brand new thrill. I tingled inside at the thought of what must be in their minds at that moment, of what was happening within their bodies as they contemplated their suffering and servitude.

Once they'd disappeared inside the house, I went back to scrubbing the floor. Alongside me, Sabrina clicked her tongue in disapproval.

"If one of the Masters had caught you..." she whispered.

"They didn't." I grinned as she frowned. But I felt contrite. She had good reason to fret. We would both have been punished for my transgression. And the punishments these days were refined to be terrible.

Half an hour later, Sir Steven came to fetch us. Apart from the two latest arrivals, he was the newest and youngest Master. He was wearing his ceremonial cape.

"All females are required downstairs," he said blandly.

Absent-mindedly, as I dropped to my knees I looked up, and our eyes met.

"Please forgive me, Master," I mewled.

He grunted a reply. Sabrina heaved a deep and disapproving sigh. So we were to be punished after all, for my impertinence.

He ordered me onto all fours. He crouched behind me and ran his hands along my torso, squeezing my breasts and pinching my nipples until I squealed, then down my belly to linger between my legs. He opened the tiny circular lock which pierced and joined my labia. As he spread the folds and his fingers prepared me, my whole body quaked and quivered. The Master plunged into me, mumbling something and chuckling at his witticism. He wasn't gentle; he was in a hurry; it was half-hearted and it was messy. (The Masters never use condoms. But they have strict rules of hygiene, and all women use contraceptives.)

I didn't need to prepare myself. We slaves are always ready, our vaginas lubricated and dilated. It's because, in the Château, we exist in a state of constant arousal, or if not, in anticipation. It can be exhausting, our bodies never relaxing, but it's intoxicating. It's vitalizing. It's why we are here. So while there was no pleasure in being taken so brusquely by Sir Steven on the floor in the tower, I could revel in my submission to his will.

Sir Steven refastened the little lock and stood up. The rest of my punition, and Sabrina's, would have to wait.

Sabrina and I raised ourselves and deposited our mops and buckets in a corner at the end of the corridor, near the window. I could hear more voices and noises drifting up from the courtyard. We put our hands behinds our backs. Sir Steven seized my wrists and locked the bracelets together, then clipped a leash to my collar. He tugged and shook it vigorously, trying to evoke a response; but this time I kept my eyes lowered. He thrust the phallic-shaped shaft of an oversized penis-gag between my jaws. It had recently been used. The noisome knob was glazed with dried saliva. He cuffed and gagged Sabrina as well before taking us down to the lobby. There, near the base of the stairs, a half-dozen women were standing silently and rigidly at attention, tethered in a single file, shackled, collared and gagged. We exchanged quick glances. At the front of the line was Lydia.

She and Sabrina are the oldest and the longest-serving members of the sisterhood. They have been part of it since the very beginning, or so I've heard. For although nobody has ever told the full story of how the Chaînerie got started, there is much you could learn from the murmured covert gossip of the women, also from fragments of overheard conversations from the Masters, because that is one aspect of being a slave in a mansion populated by slaves — becoming part of the furniture (sometimes literally). Things can be said that are not intended for your ears but which you catch anyway. And Lydia has been the subject of persistent and prolific speculation. She is the doyenne of the sisterhood, unquestionably, but I have a strong suspicion that she is so much more. Most of us, if not all, have owed our presence in the house to her tutelage. For it was Lydia who recruited and prepared us for service in the Château, and who selected the young men to be our Masters.

Sabrina, on the other hand, is exactly what she appears to be, a mother hen to apprehensive new slaves and nervous new Masters. She is tall and slender, breathtakingly beautiful with hair as dark as midnight and emerald-green eyes which flit about incessantly but sparkle with intelligence. Like many of us, she had left the halls of academia to enter into the thrall of the brotherhood; but she is one of just two women living permanently in the Château.

Serene and self-assured, even in shackles Sabrina moved with a feline grace and dignity. A dribble of drool from the corners of her mouth past the protuberant ball-gag did not diminish her radiant elegance. She and I joined the end of the queue. Sir Steven hitched my halter to the collar of the last girl in line, the curvaceous blonde Camille.

He ordered us to march, and as we passed he slapped us each hard on the rump, growling "Quickstep; too slow." We picked up speed, although our trot was little more than a brisk shamble. But our owners like to prod and pressure us, to see sweat flowing, hair splaying, spittle spraying, buttocks wiggling, boobs jiggling. There are rules for everything; so as we jogged we held our manacled wrists level with the small of the back, to keep the posterior clear for fondling or flogging, whichever should be a Master's pleasure. We pulled back our shoulders to push out our chests, because we are always on display. We kept our gaze fixed on the floor in front of us but were nevertheless expected to be alert to any signal or gesture from a Master who might choose not to speak his commands. Hardly anything is done in the Château, by the slaves anyway, that is not difficult or degrading; but this is, after all, the reason for our being there... indeed, for some of the women, their reason for being.

We were the last to arrive and the courtyard was crowded. The men already there stared impatiently while we were given our instructions to form a single file, shoulder-to-shoulder, in front of the west portico. Then we spread out until our tethers stretched taut between our collars. Sir Steven moved along behind us, prying the gags from our mouths. Camille beside me gratefully flexed her jaws and puckered her lips; she must have been wearing hers for some time. Lined up at an angle to us on our left were the women who'd just come in from their outdoor work. From their bodies, streaked with garden grime, wafted the faint musty odour of sweat and the metallic tang of sunscreen lotion. They were collared and leashed but not bound; their arms were behind their backs, wrists crossed.

Altogether there were forty slaves and twelve Masters gathered for the induction ritual. It was rare to have so many people in the house all at once. The males were splendidly ostentatious in flowing crimson capes, chatting and joking. The women were standing silently, our heads bowed, our naked bodies twitching in anticipation of the festivities that always followed these observances. On a signal from one of their number, the men stopped talking and turned to face us. We were arranged in a broad V shape, with the eight new girls forming a line inside our formation, and we all descended to our knees. The two novitiate Masters stepped forward and placed themselves close enough to us that the faces of the pair of women kneeling in the middle were almost in the men's crotches.

The ceremony itself was brief and simple, with no fancy rites, no elaborate pomp, no long speeches. The two new Masters recited a pledge to respect and uphold the rules and customs of the Château Chaînerie and all the rights and privileges befitting their sex. Sir Steven, who spoke because he was the most recent inductee, admonished them. "This is your birthright," he declared, pointing towards us women. "If you do not claim it, you are not just denying yourself what belongs to you, you dishonor those who offer you their submission and obedience."

The formalities ended with our oath of slavery, to serve and obey our Masters without question or hesitation, followed by the familiar creed. "I embrace what I am, I revere that which I am not." We did not say the words out loud, but rather muttered them so the men did not hear clearly. They did not need to, for what they commanded was not for us to affirm. The words were our own reminder, of what we are and what we are not.

Those of us who had been brought into the courtyard by Sir Steven stayed on to amuse the men. The others went back to their chores, except for the new eight, who remained kneeling on the spot where they had been initiated, not daring to make a move or a sound. They had been blindfolded, but from behind the black satin sashes they listened fearfully and expectantly to our moans and wails, squawks and squeals. Every so often one or more of them would be picked out to be part of the amusement, and when the Masters had finished with her she returned to her position, shaking and whimpering, happy and proud that she was passing the test of her first day of servitude in the Château.

Towards evening, there were two final sacraments to be administered. The three women with pubic hair were laid out on one of the tables and the Masters took turns to do the shaving. They performed their task conscientiously, inflicting just a few nicks and eliciting just a few groans. But two slaves had volunteered for branding. The rest of us waited outside; so we were spared the sight. But we heard the screams, one a piercing shriek, the other a guttural howl. Afterwards, they each proudly showed us the mark embedded in the red, seared flesh of her left buttock. I knew it well, I wore it, but not on my skin... not yet. It was inscribed on my collar and on the ring I wore whenever I left the Château, and on the ringlets which passed through the lips at the entrance to my body.

The § symbol is such a commonplace theme in the Chaînerie, and yet no one seems to understand its full meaning; or those who know did not speak of it. Still, I can make an educated guess. The interlocking double-S stands for sisterhood and slavery. The sisterhood of slaves. It makes perfect sense to me, though I've heard the term used only informally. It's what we are. Our emblem is displayed in many places — in the Château, in Lydia's office and apartment, on heraldic devices in the Gor tavern, etched into rings, ringlets and collars, burnt into or tattooed onto the buttocks of women.

And we are indeed a sisterhood. But there's something interesting about this. Apart from a few words, such as those spoken in the courtyard that afternoon, there is nowhere, in whatever constitutes the unwritten charter of the Château Chaînerie, any specific reference to the brotherhood of Masters.

"To master others is power. To master oneself is strength."

— Laozi, The Book of the Way

It is easy and natural to feel a good deal of pride in our obedience and humility, in our unconditional devotion to our Masters. As I have learned and relearned many times, being a slave, the property of men, to be owned willingly and joyfully, is not for those weak of body or of spirit. It takes strength and courage to submit yourself so completely to the authority of others. Being powerless, you must be strong to endure the pain and the shame, the torment and torture, the degradation and disgrace, which are the everyday condition of your servitude. You must be self-reliant, even self-centered, because, in the end, all you really have (all anyone has) is your perception of yourself, the qualities you discover within — what you are, what you are not, what you can be, what you need to be.

Indeed, the slave must be stronger than her Master. Yet for the men of the house, the lesson is not so different. It takes many of the same qualities to command obedience as to give it, for if it is simple enough to act the tyrant, it's a lot harder to be a true Master. While exercising his rights and indulging his whims, he must have full control of his passions. He must know his slave's limitations as well as he understands his own. While demanding her submission, he must be sensitive to her limitations and her boundaries. In guiding and training and restraining her, he must discipline himself.

It is, obviously, easier for the Master than for his slave, and his learning curve is her hard path; but that is the privilege of manhood in the Château, and it is each woman's duty and joy to make it so.

Although all in the Château seek a personal realization in their respective and complementary roles, while there cannot be a "top" without a "bottom", and the Master-slave relationship is in many ways a symbiotic one, it is by no means an equal partnership... nor for that matter a partnership at all. One sex has the power and the other cedes total control. For service and obedience may give fulfillment to the slave, but it is her Master who is being served and obeyed. It is the slave whose unconditional self-sacrifice, faith and trust seals the bond of ownership and obligation. She is willing to surrender and suffer for his pleasure, because her pleasure is focused solely, absolutely and unreservedly on his. Nevertheless, it is pleasure that she feels, as she derives hers from his.

So what matters is that your bondage and servitude should never be easy. It is not necessarily about passive acquiescence. The control you assert, as a slave, may only be over your own responses, both physical and emotional, and in your vulnerable position these can be manipulated; but in the end our reactions, as much as our actions, are what define who and what we are. And in that light, it is not through comfort and complacency that you challenge yourself, define and explore your limits and vulnerabilities, discern and assess your innermost desires, discover and draw upon your own resources, expose yourself to new experiences and open your mind to fresh insights. Your bonds become your liberation, your subjugation a gift (both given and received), your service a self-fulfillment and a fruition of all your hopes and dreams and fears. And it is in the most intense moments of pain and shame, which you do not choose and cannot escape, that you feel the greatest serenity, because you have met your demons head on and they have not conquered you.

This is what gives you a sense of pride.

Yet that feeling was the hardest thing to get used to after I entered the Château, something I had not experienced in Lydia's apartment. For your natural condition there, as one of the slaves, is the unending humiliation. You feel it in your willing and abject submission to the Masters, whose sole qualification for having dominion over you is that they have possessed, from birth, what you do not. You are embarrassed by what proclaims that fact, the naked display of your womanhood, debased by the chains and other symbols you wear on your body which mark you as the property of men. You cannot feel pride in any of this. But what you can be proud of was that you do feel the shame, and are strong enough to bear it. And so, each excruciating torment, each degradation, each violation of our dignity replenishes the well of your strength and spirit.

There is a feeling of accomplishment that you have given up a major part of yourself. Every moment of your existence in the Château, every action, every chore no matter how routine, every gesture no matter how trivial, is an expression of selfless devotion to your Masters. It is humiliating, exhausting, exasperating, infuriating to be so utterly subservient and obedient, subordinating your wants and needs to their desires and demands. But always it is energizing and powerfully erotic, a permanent orgasm. Everything we do, every sensation we felt, is subsumed in our servitude and defined by our womanhood.

So arrival in the Château for the first times is like entering a mysterious valley, full of shadows, haunted by ghosts, stalked by strange beasts. It is an adventure both terrifying and exhilarating.

I stole a peek at the women whose journey was only just beginning. We had once again been assembled, every female in the house, to pay homage to our two newest Masters. The men had taken their places in the dining hall; and to form a backdrop for their banquet those of us not serving (thirty altogether) were arranged with half on each side of the room. The thermostat had been turned down, as it often was, for no particular reason except that the cold air on our bare bodies raised goosebumps and nipples.