Into The Dark Wilds

Chapter One-1

Chapter One

Along a row of dusty books in the archives of Gatov’s shop, I found the slim volume between a 21st century historical treatise and a book of poetry—Yeats the poet’s name on the spine of the yellowed piece. Pulling out the journal I wanted, the pages of Yeats fell like dry leaves to the bare oak floor. I stooped nervously to pick them up and shove them back into their cloth cover. Replacing the poetry, I tucked the journal under my arm and ambled into the depths of the store, keeping a furtive eye out for anyone who might have followed me. Though that prospect was unlikely, I was still wise to keep my activity a secret. I’d seen this journal once before, that time only capturing a single glance at Rowena’s illicit prose when the book had been waved in front of my curious eyes, denounced as one stepping-stone on society’s pathway to hell. To have found another copy of her journal in my brief lifetime made it seem as if I was predestined to hear her message regardless of the judgment heaped upon it. It’s as though Rowena calls to me from the past, from my grandmother’s generation. I often imagine that she speaks to me alone.

With fingers trembling, I opened the frayed pages afraid that they might turn to dust before I could read the printed words. There in the dark corner of Gatov’s shop I began to read. Sinking down in a corner window seat, where just a shard of sun struck the opening page, I read with exhilarating expectation her first words.

. . . As the 22nd century dawned, I was hawked as “good, used wares” in a Prussian storefront. Flaxen hair, unblemished skin, breasts to pour over for hours, and an ass that will take whatever abuse a master chooses to heap on it both inside and out, so the advertisement for me read.

Boheme bought me for silver, the second time I was sold as a s****l slave. Though perhaps it’s wise to recount when I was first purchased, for it might shed some light on my frame of mind as I enter into this new arrangement . . .

At that time I was bought by Charlie Hustle, when the Agreements were first allowed, when there were still protest marches against slavery, but when slaves like me were beginning to find personal liberty through the collars and chains we’d chosen to wear.

Charlie was loose with me. I was educated at the c***s of thieves and murderers, who would have murdered me if I hadn’t been such a willing slave. There were still so many women on the slave market that had been coerced, blackmailed and quite literally forced into servitude, usually for economic reasons. I suppose I was initially no different from my sister slaves. My benefactor, Ryne, picked me up in a bar, knowing I was ripe for the marketplace, a runaway with easy standards and a fresh though not virgin body. Ryne had no idea where I came from, or that he could be jailed in a heartbeat if the wrong person discovered whose daughter he’d brought into the trade. He didn’t ask questions and I didn’t give him any answers.

Ryne bought me the black dress and the string of pearls I wore when he thrust me on the stage at the auction. The only explanation he gave me was I was on my way out of poverty. “Use yourself well, you’ll be sitting on gold if you’re any good.” I knew I wasn’t poor and I didn’t care about gold. My needs for this life have a much deeper meaning, even if the meaning is still unfolding day to day.

That day, I remember how the lights blinded my eyes, a dozen fixed on me and four other women who walked along the runway, while men beyond the lights decided whether they’d make a purchase, or wait for the next auction and better flesh. I don’t know the fate of the other women since I was led to a private booth where Charlie Hustle waited to inspect me. He asked me to take off the dress. It was a size too small, and I had to struggle with the zipper on the side. There were beads of sweat running down my back, like the pearls that hung between my breasts in front. The room was hot, and Charlie’s eyes only added to that heat. I stood before him in nothing save that fake strand of beads and black ankle boots.

“You’ve had more than one man?” he asked, feeling my crotch—I assume to see if I was still a virgin, which, of course, I was not.

“Yes,” I answered, feeling embarrassed by this exploration, but not ungrateful for the rousing massage.

“Several?”

“Three,” I replied.

“Lovers or just f***s?” he asked.

“One was a lover, the others were not.”

He pressed his fingers to my bum hole. Turning me to the side he pushed me down so I was bent over. He pawed me like meat, shoving several fingers inside my tight rear channel.

“Taken here?” he asked.

“No.”

“That can be handled. How about your mouth, you suck c**k?”

“Once,” I admitted.

“You’ll get used to it. How about trussed?”

“Excuse me?”

“Tied, bound, manacled?”

“No, never.”

“Whipped?”

“Not for sex.”

“How would you feel about that?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.”

“You like pain?” Seizing a n****e between two fingers he squeezed it, then twisted it until I cried. “You’ll get used to that, too.”

I thought he’d use my ass that afternoon the way he kept probing me there. The sensation was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I realized then the personal reward that anal s*x would bring, though the opening was dry, untested and seriously tight. When he stopped I sighed my relief.

Charlie bought me as a gift for his friends and business associates, not that he didn’t use me himself. Almost every day I brought him off, often with my mouth or in my ass—he broke me in to that. But never in my cunt. All the things he’d asked me about in our interview, bondage, whipping and pain, weren’t his fantasy. He just wanted to be sure I wouldn’t decline his friends their own pleasure. It’s a good thing I liked it rough, those thugs were chilling at times. I was strung up to rafters and flogged, my p***y pelted with shots from leather straps, my limbs bound in a dozen ways, and of course I was sexually used by these men with hungry appetites for the sexually demeaning and grotesque.

My initial response was shock. My world so far was pale in its rendition of the s****l act—just open thighs and a thrusting prick and that was all there was to it. I didn’t realize until the day I was first strung up and flogged that I had a s****l response of my own. I have to give the perpetrator credit, he was incredibly astute in the art of discipline and pain, not like many of the others who followed him. He had bulging muscles, which I watched him oil so that they gleamed in the light of the dank cellar where I was tied. I don’t remember his scent. But the smell of leather and burning lamp oil permeated the stonewalled room with such a pungent aroma, I’ll always remember that combination with a s****l jolt.

He used a cat on my flesh, in-between whispered words that cast a spell of darkness about my brain. I found an empty place in me where strange and inexplicable thoughts emerge. As he spoke, speaking to me in words dripping with lust, about how he was going to love me into pleasure, he slowly drew the talons over my anxious skin, delicately. When he finished, he snapped the lashes, letting them strike so deep I cried. Then, with the handle of his tool, he prodded me between my legs, making me dance on the laced strips of leather as though I were dancing on a c**k. He shoved it against the opening, as if he expected it to be submerged by my flesh, swallowed whole. But that handle was much too big to penetrate my lady-like orifice.

Unlike the men who followed him, he took his time. I thought it hours, but had no way to judge. My flesh cried out for more as my body peaked. I didn’t want to go over the edge so quickly because there in my mindless physical bliss, I saw more than stars and fireworks. A blank darkness hit my heart. Like having opened a door to another world, I wanted to walk around in that unreality, wherever in my psyche it resided. But the climax came and died away, and there was just the dank room and the shiny-skinned master awaiting his finale. Untied afterwards and slumping to the floor, I brought his erection into my mouth and savored each drop of semen that spilled out on my lips.

He was the best in my initiation to s****l slavery. The rest who followed did much the same with ropes and whips and c***s, but none with the finesse of this man. My gratitude for his careful attention remains with me for it was the first clue that this occupation would take me to unexpected places.

With his words prompting me, I learned to receive humiliation and pain and find the physical triumph in that. I learned that I was made for this kind of life, when before it had been little more than a kid’s prank. This one dominant man made all the abuse at the hands of Charlie Hustle’s indigent accomplices something that inspired me. I’m sure I wouldn’t have known even half the satisfaction I’ve realized if I hadn’t submitted to those delicious whispers. I’d have never known the first stirrings of that otherworldly dimension floating inside my thoughts.

“Ah! My cherie, feel my heart against you and my groin. Beat with me. Let the pulse overwhelm you. Dive down. Faint. Let me inside you. Beat with me”

Even as I write those words they have the power to woo me to s*x and engage my aspirations to greater things than me alone.

Charlie Hustle used me until he used me up. Then I was out on the street; he didn’t see anything to gain by taking me to an auction. Only the fresh flesh was taken before the crowds, the rest of us were deposited in the squalid regions of the city. Though I was supposed to have a pocket full of money, mine were empty. I’d been a slave for Charlie in Paris, Brussels and Lyon, but was picked up on the street shortly after Charlie quit me and I was taken by train to the Prussian capital. So close to my native territory, I feared being recognized, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to protest. My abductor would have never believed me if I told him who I was.

I was stupid to fall for this new slave master’s lies. Probably because of the last scenario with Charlie, I was weaker than usual, my mind not functioning. Otherwise, I would have walked right out of that dangerous neighborhood and found another life. But the last flogging, the last abuse and the final f**k left me so bruised and battered that I looked good for nothing but a workhouse. If I had looked in a mirror then, I’d probably have given up on myself.

That’s how, just days ago as a new millennium dawned, I happened to be in the Prussian storefront with a dozen other used women, waiting for a savior or a demon to pluck me from that milieu and take me into the next.

I feel lucky now to have been chosen by Boheme, when he could have chosen far fairer and less used women than me. It might just be my imagination, wishful thinking perhaps, but as he carefully made his purchase—and he was very careful—I felt some connection with this man, even with his soul. Sometimes, however, I wonder if I haven’t gone a little crazy after the three years with Charlie, so crazy I’m imagining things that are simply not true.

There was no longer sunlight coming through the window shining on the corner window seat. The afternoon had withered away. Sounds of people hustling home, while heard on the street, did not reach my quiet corner of Gatov’s shop, so I remained undisturbed. I could have read until I finished the journal, but there were no lights near this cramped berth, and I was already straining my eyes to see. Besides, after what I’d read, my crotch was anxious for something I wouldn’t dare to do, even if this secluded nook seemed private.

By my watch it was nearly six. Gatov would close the shop in a few minutes, and I was afraid that I’d lose my opportunity to read the rest of Rowena’s words. On hearing the proprietor’s footsteps, I impulsively stuffed the journal into my pants. I couldn’t chance putting it in my bag where it might have been found. But I could be reasonably certain that I’d arrive at my apartment with it undetected. The huge sweater I wore over top of my pants would hide the bulky shape at my belly. Apt place it was for Rowena’s journal.

“You’ve been here a long time,” Gatov said. The aging clerk had always fascinated me. A substantial man with a virile body, he seemed such an unlikely candidate to spend hours with these old things from before the last reorganization. “What’s so fascinating about my shop?”

“Many things, from a reporter’s mentality,” I replied. “I’ve been lost in here before.”

He nodded, understanding my interest in the past considering his own.

“Can I assume your research will amount to something?” he asked.

“I’m not yet sure. I don’t know if my editor is as interested in the topic as I am. I doubt I can get anything about Rowena Dulciat and her revolution published.

“But it might be interesting to see.”

“Yes, for those of us that value who she was.”

Gatov nodded, as if saying he understood my longing for that other time. “Well, you’ll have to leave, I’m closing.”

I nodded this time, and gathering my things I exited the shop returning to the real world and the present century.

I was glad that many of the artifacts from Rowena’s time were now considered treasures even if they’d been contraband when they were new—contraband even fifty years ago. At least now, times have changed, society is a little more enlightened. These things can be admired and studied and collected for their monetary value, even though there are many who still consider Rowena’s thoughts as dangerous as they were in her time. To have the journal, the manifesto that spawned such a great uprising, in my possession would have branded me a libertine, a moniker that I was not yet ready to assume. Of course, to take the priceless work from Gatov’s store would brand me a thief as well—a fact that could draw a greater penalty to me than my lust. Though Rowena had begun to assume a favored status for the avant-garde, it was still safe to assume that singing that rebel’s praises might have an unfortunate affect on my social standing. What I planned to do with the journal, other than read it, savoring each word like a blessing from heaven, I wasn’t sure. All I was certain of was that without my knowing why, it became imperative to me that I peer into the journal and know the woman who remained in my heart a private hero.

There is such a strata in my century. Often I’ve wished it were different, like when the s****l servitude and slavery of women and men were not regulated as thoroughly as they’ve come to be. Then, it was possible to be both a libertine and an ordinary woman. Some things could be done in secret, and no one would know. Knowing that it’s necessary for women to declare themselves one way or the other, I felt caught in a duplicitous lie. To the world, I remained pure from tawdry lusts. And yet as these things bubbled to the surface, I wondered how long I’d keep the driving need in me quiet. I was afraid my journalist’s instincts to publish my thoughts would eventually get me in trouble.

Going home that night, I found my partner, Logan, reading the newspaper almost as furtively as I’d been reading the journal that remained lodged in my pants. I told him I had to pee, which was an excuse to rush to the bedroom where I could hide the journal. With the volume of lust safely hidden in my treasure chest beneath the second loose board under the bed, I threw the heavy wool rug back over the compartment. Completing my turn in the bath, I returned to the dayroom to greet Logan.

He’d been after me to make our relationship official so we could receive the benefits of a partnership contract. Giving me a hundred reasons why we should take this step, I could still not see one good enough to sway me. I was content to share his room and have s*x with him as often as I could engage him in the act. He was much steadier than I was; and I considered him a good foil from my more exotic talents and choices. We often joked that he kept me from flying away, or worse yet, going crazy.

Horny as I was at the moment, however, I planned to make him a little crazy before I returned to a more sane existence.

Straddling his lap, his newspaper crunched underneath me. I leaned in, my long dark curls, floating in front of my face, my black eyes peering out from underneath, my red lips moving closer to his lips. With a kiss to his mouth, he accepted my advance without much protest even though he was annoyed that I’d interrupted his evening ritual with the wide world of news. By evening, I’d always had enough of it. After long hours on the paper editing copy, I was too fed up with it to read the final results. I certainly never paid any attention to the stories I’d written. Even so, at least part of the message always seemed to seep into my brain cells anyway.

I did a lap dance on Logan’s thighs, one that reminded me of out-moded flicks that are posted on the telly wire, some hacker retrieving them off the old Net. They are grainy pieces, but erotic ones of women in little sequin brassieres and thin bottoms, pushing their groins into men’s. You can only assume the p*****s are hard, or becoming that way—just like Logan’s was at that moment—and they’d be getting skin to skin, erections slipping inside slippery holes. I wish public places like those hadn’t been outlawed. But they say we have a safer s****l climate with the regulations and s*x businesses strictly in private. Being a journalist, I’d hear stories of places like the ones in the pictures; they’re still considered private, but it hardly takes much to get an invitation. In my mind, while I danced on Logan’s lap, I was thinking of being in one of those s*x joints.

It took a while for Logan to respond to me, not physically, but mentally. He hated interruptions. The ruse was only good if I could short circuit his other plans with enough erotic enticement to have him sexually activated. I planned to take him off to bed, or at the very least, get a good ride on his erection right where he was, whatever happened fastest because I had such a rip-roaring need. He put up with me and my s*x-crazed behavior. Though I knew that I rode a fine line between having him as a legal partner, and having him bolt on me.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” he told me.

“Why not?” I spat like a sassy cat. I was in heat, tearing off my sweater so he could see my breasts and press his head between them. Logan particularly loved that part of my anatomy so I knew he’d get past his objections. Just in the nick of time too. I felt the first orgasmic wave when he buried his face between the bouncing mounds. When his hands squeezed hard, I jerked hard against him, my head dropping back so I felt my hair tickle my rear.

Logan shot off afterwards groaning softly. He pushed me off just after he came. I’d crumpled his paper.

“You might want to get a hold on your lust,” he said, as he looked up at my nakedness.

He was zipping his pants, zipping away all that fine meat. I might have licked it dry if he weren’t in such a hurry to get it over with.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re dabbling in dangerous territory,” he said.

“Dangerous, why? It’s between you and me.”

“It defies the regulations. Sometimes I think you’d rather play in that element than the proper one.”

“You mean, I’d rather be a s****l deviant?” I smiled naughtily at him.

“Yeah, look at you.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be a fine fix? You find out something nasty like that after you’ve signed papers linking me with you for the next five years.” I waltzed away, sashaying my bouncing ass before his eyes.